Only a week;; Open

Persephone sat quietly before the fireplace and stared into the flames. Two days after the sorting ceremony and she was still shocked.
Of course her parents congratulated her for falling into the shoes of her sisters; they did not have to buy her a new school uniform either because of that. The badges were the same although the material was old and ragged now. It was a pity they could not afford new items, Persie thought. She knew her mother would buy her anything on earth if only they would have money.
But money was not an issue currently. She was still mourning the loss of the students whom she did not even know nor was she ever meant to. Their watery grave was still in her eyes as she closed them and tried to think of something else. But... like everything else, she believed that this sensation would pass. Especially now that the school has started.

Looking over, she eyed the other students and examined them quietly. Persephone was different. She knew it very well.
Both of her parents and sisters were dark and she happened to be the only one who carried out the albino gene in their family. When she was younger, she was depressed because of the fact. Other children used to tease her because of that, but in Hogwarts, she hoped, things would be better. It was a magical world and things were different there.
She ran her fingers through the white locks and pursed her lips. The first year students were still asleep. And why wouldn't they? It was a saturday morning and only some of the older ones were awake and doing something.

She sighed quietly and leaned back in the big couch.

It was Poppy's eleventh birthday. She was no longer the youngest Hufflepuff. She was still the littlest, but not the youngest. She had told no one that this was the day that she was at least old enough to really belong here.

She had been getting packages from her father--her real father--for the last three days. He had somehow managed to slip a surprise in her trunk, he'd send a box of packages yesterday, and another today. In the three larger boxes there had been a total of twelve boxes. One for every year he'd missed. and one more. She had only opened one of the boxes. She wanted to string this out as long as she could.

It was a tin that was painted to look like a stained glass piece that had dragonflies and water lilies. She opened the tin. It was filled with an assortment of candies from Honeydukes. There was a little slip of paper right on the top of the brightly wrapped candies. She opened it.

It read, "Making friends might be a little easier if you share. Love, M." It made her smile. This man she'd only known a few days, her real father, remembered her birthday with a shower of gifts while the man she'd thought was her father had been summarily tossed out of her life, hopefully forever.

Poppy looked self consciously in the mirror. The side of her forehead was black from her hairline down across her cheek. She didn't want to talk about it. She had tried to pull her hair over it, but that just looked even more weird.

"You don't need to hide it," he had told her softly. "Let it remind you that you survived, and that I will always come for you. If you need me, I will always come." She read the little note again. He was offering her, from a distance, a way to break the ice with some others who probably felt as distant and awkward as she did. She closed the lid on the tin, took it with her, and left her dormitory room to go to the Hufflepuff common room.

She saw another young girl. She had to be a first year too. The common room was still quiet at this hour of the morning. Poppy took a breath for courage and went over to the couch and sat down on it too. She paused a moment, and then opened the candy tin, and looked at the other girl.

"I like candy for breakfast sometimes," she said quietly, holding the tin out towards the other girl. "Would you like some?"

She had a nasty habit of chewing her nails when she thought of something that disturbed her or when she was anticipating something. But there was nothing to anticipate. Persie was alone there and yet her heart kept beating fast and she looked up whenever she heard a noise, perhaps in hopes of seeing a familiar face or perhaps just in hopes of being left alone. Her emotions were so contradictory she did not know what she wanted to do. It was a pity that her sisters were not here anymore; they would have known what to do or how to amuse her.

When the door opened and closed for the last time, Persie did not pay attention to it. She was simply and quietly on the couch, holding finger in her mouth and sucking off the blood that came from the small wound she had inflicted onto herself.

That was until she saw a young girl approach the couch she had to pull her finger out of her mouth and dry it against her school uniform. Thankfully nobody could see the blood there for it was black in color and she could hide her hand in it while waiting for the blood to stop flowing. Thankfully the wound itself was not even big, it only kept bleeding a lot.

Persephone was quite surprised when the girl spoke to her. Looking over, she looked at the other one with surprise in her eyes. Oh, that was the other girl who had been sorted into a house first. Poppy, wasn't she? Unfortunately Persie did not remember her last name, but currently it did not even matter.

"Oh," she said, not sure what to respond to her statement. Candy for breakfast. She did not have such luxury at home. Candy, overall, was a foreign thing to her. Her parents almost never bought it to their children for they rarely had money to spare on such joyful things. "I... Yes, thank you," she finally responded and took one out of curiosity. Then, with a small doubt in her mind, she put it into her mouth.