'Seppen' means 'snowflake', and the temperatures are Fahrenheit.
Eight year old Seppen Potter was once again left out in the cold on Christmas night. This wasn't unusual, in fact-this happened annually. Every Christmas, her evil relatives would throw her out of the eighty degree house into the icy cold snow and freezing wind. They had no need to keep the house so warm, nearly everyone else on the block only kept their home at sixty. The Dursley's were just vain like that. Because the temperature difference was so high, every year it shocked Seppen's system so much that she always got sick for a few days afterwards.
So here she was, curled up in a ball under a tree, trying to keep her fingers and toes warm in the -3 degree weather. She was shivering violently, her small, malnourished form not keeping heat like it should. Seppen could feel her heart slowing down, her arms and legs were getting stiff. She looked at the clear, starry sky, and sighed. Tears started to slip down her face uncontrollably, the tracks that the tears left behind froze on her cheeks and eyelashes, shortening the time that she had left in the world. She cried for the life she didn't have, wept for the times that the Dursley's told her that she was worthless, and sobbed for all of the lies she told her teacher at school about the bruises and broken bones. She mourned for the childhood that was stolen from her.
The cold burned, but Seppen couldn't move anymore to warm herself up. The winds stopped suddenly, as if someone had just turned off a fan. Clouds filled the sky, and snow started to fall lightly; big flakes slowly soaring towards the ground in spectacular patterns, each flake swirling in invisible wind before touching the ground in the softest of touches. Seppen watched her namesake fall, and sighed in acceptance. She was going to die this time, there was no stopping it. At least I get to fall asleep in my favorite season... the perfect snowfall... on Christmas morning... what a wonderful time to go... She thought to herself as she got tired.
Seppen stretched out in the snow in the small, cramped clearing that she had found three years ago. It wasn't even five feet in length, and less than three feet wide, but there were beautiful flowers that grew here in the spring and summer, and she always found eggs here on Easter. Once or twice, when the Dursley's were especially cruel and didn't give her food for longer than usual, she found a whole basket with carrots and broccoli and other healthy things that she needed. Last year, she had seen the Easter Bunny leaving a basket there. He was quite a bit bigger than she had originally thought, but she didn't care. She had walked up to him, as quiet as a mouse, and thanked him for leaving her a basket that year. She had scared him so badly that he had jumped a full four feet in the air. They still giggled about that whenever they saw each other.
Whenever her relatives would kick her out for a few weeks, he would bring her to the Warren to help him paint eggs for Easter Sunday. He always told her that the eggs that she painted were favorites among the children who found them on Easter. She smiled again at that, she loved his complements, she saw him as a father more than a friend anyways.
The tiny girl stretched in the clearing, having up to a foot of room on all sides of the space to get comfortable. Her long black hair lay splayed around her like a cape, her oversized and baggy clothes looking like a pretty dress in the way they bunched up around her body, and the small, bare feet made her look as if she were simply taking a nap on a white bed. Seppen Potter died there, emerald eyes closed, a small smile on her lips, and a big impact on the world.
Albus Dumbledore winced as several devices in his office started emitting high pitched screeches and wails. He looked at them, thinking about why they were going off, when he realized in horror- Seppen Potter was dead. He buried his head in his hands. The daughter of some of his favorite students was dead. He had promised to look after her, and now she had died.
"Lily, James," he whispered brokenly. "I'm so sorry... I should have kept a closer eye on her... I'm so sorry..."
Professor McGonagall found him hours later with a large glass of firewhiskey, an empty bottle, and repetitively apologizing to midair.
Bunnymund dropped the egg he was painting. The other Guardians looked at him in shock. The pooka never, never ever, dropped an egg. His paintbrush then slipped out of his paw, and before it even hit the ground, he was gone through a tunnel, leaving North's workshop behind.
He morphed into his small form once he was in the tunnel. He had this form to not scare the children, because really, five-year-olds would be terrified of the Easter Bunny if they saw him in his six foot one warrior pooka form. The children liked the cute little bunny form better, it was just something that was meant to be. Children gravitate towards cute things, anyways. He had never told the other Guardians about his little angel, just because he knew she would have either been surrounded by everybody whenever she visited, or the two friends would have to stop seeing each other.
Seppen liked the warmth and quiet of the Warren more than the upside-down twittering of Tooth's residence or the booming chaos of North's workshop, he assumed. He didn't know exactly where Sandy went, but he assumed it was made entirely out of sand. He didn't think she would like it too much, but the sand sparkled and did have a nice color, so maybe.
Bunnymund charged to the place where is favorite child was. She either needed help, or she was dead. He prayed with all of his heart that she was safe and sound and not lying in the snow somewhere. When he got close a few minutes later, he grew worried. It was Christmas morning, the middle of winter, and she was in their special hiding spot. It was -4 degrees outside for crying out loud, what on Earth was she doing there? He leaped out of the ground, only to freeze. Not because of the weather, he couldn't care less if he actually tried. The frozen body of his precious one was lying in the snow, snowflakes seeming to avoid her entirely. He grew back to normal, and collapsed by her body, tears slipping down his face, almost immediately freezing on his fur.
"No..." He whispered quietly. "No, Seppen, why didn't you go to shelter... why did you have to die? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Bunnymund grasped her icy hand gently, big, inescapable tears dripping down his face.
He stayed there for an hour, not knowing what to do. He couldn't leave her here, no one would look for her. No one would know that she was dead, and her body would stay here in this place forever, never to be remembered or mourned. He couldn't tell the other Guardians about her, they would pity him, and he didn't want that. So with a heavy heart, he picked his daughter figure up, and opened a tunnel to the Warren.
The normally happy moss-covered tunnels seemed dark and dreary, and he traveled through them at not even a quarter of his normal speed. The Warren drew closer, and with great sadness, he entered the very place that Seppen loved so much. He had always found the Warren to be a gorgeously beautiful place, but without her it just seemed like the ruins of a civilization that had an unhealthy obsession with eggs.
The little unpainted egglets crowded around him, and the egg golems rose from their posts and made their way over. "She's dead." He whispered thickly. "Our little rabbit froze to death." The eggs seemed to deflate, and inexplicably turned an ashen gray color. They did that sometimes, turn gray when they were sad, that is. He felt like turning gray himself.
The tiny egglets shuffled out of the way, making a path for him to walk through, and then huddled under the small overhang that they normally slept in. Bunnymund brought her to her favorite spot, the cliff where the paint river bubbled up from. It overlooked most of the Warren, a spectacular view, if he could say so himself. It just so happened to have a cave that was just about the right size for her, the perfect place for her to rest and be remembered for eternity.
He stationed a golem outside the small opening to guard it, the golem fitting perfectly in the ragged opening of the cave, blocking anybody and anything from getting in.
Bunnymund dug around in the small pocket on his boomerang holster for the rare seeds he kept on his person, and planted a beautiful lily in the soil next to the golem. He'd only ever gathered one of the seeds from the extinct lily.
Seppen deserved nothing but one of a kind flowers, grown just for her, and only for her.
