Disclaimer: the general themes and ideas belong to J.K Rowling, but the world and characters, if based on HP characters, are original.

Not really a fanfic... I hope I'm not breaking any unwritten rules of fan fiction by posting this here as it really has nothing to do with the Harry Potter universe, but was created from it with stolen ideas and an over-active imagination.

[She slowly creeps into the Harry Potter FF world clutching a white flag, peering from behind the door. Eventually takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and jumps in, hoping for the best.]

Reviews are chocolate to my soul! Let me know what you think. So. And a one, and a two, and a three...

The rickety bed frame creaked and groaned as the young girl lying on the mattress rolled over, muttering in her sleep. The pounding of feet down the corridor outside the small room shook the walls, causing her to groan again and sit up, clutching a hand to her forehead.

"Wake up ugly!" a voice shouted and pounded on the door.

"Oh ghostyyyyyy, come out come out and playyyy" another voice chimed in, sniggering, murmurs of "pasty freak" from the other children reached her ears. Lilla sighed and turned to the door, slowly getting out bed. The adrenalin rush that accompanied these morning visits was ever-present, although the door had yet to fail her. A rattling of the knob confirmed this, and after several loud thumps as the older kids tried to knock down the thin plywood the voices receded. "we'll get you one day, don't you worry" One of them called. She recognized Maria's reedy whine as she spoke through the crack in the door. "You can't stay in there forever...and when you leave, we'll be waiting." her laugh followed her down the corridor, fading away. After a few minutes, Lilla turned to her closet, shrugging on her threadbare sweatshirt and brushing out her hair. She glanced briefly at her reflection in the small mirror by the closet, cringing at the scrawny, pale girl with white blond hair and ice blue eyes that looked out at her. No wonder the others called her ghost, she was so pale, and never tanned. Lilla put the brush down with a sigh and twisted her hair up, covering it with an old beanie. Everyone said she had strange hair, and people tended to stare when they saw it in the sun so Lilla hid it when she went out. It was long and blond - almost white, but in the light you could see silver and blue strands scattered throughout. Just one of the reasons she was such a freak. She walked to the door, laying her palm on the wood for a moment before turning the handle and stepping through, glancing around for any sign of the others. Sneaking down the dank old stairs and down the narrow corridors, she pushed open the chapel door and snuck into the small church, cutting across the dim musty room, her feet padding silently on the worn stone floor. Following the familiar route she had soon made it out of the small church and through various old and dusty rooms before, with one final glance around, she slipped through an heavy wooden door and emerged in a dinghy alley. With the nerve wracking part over her mind was free to wander as she left the alley, emerging on a familiar London street. The cold concrete walls of the institute rose behind her, and her feet led the way as she walked, musing. Lilla had never understood why the door to her room could not be opened by the others, only remembered the day it had started, when she was about seven. She had been moved from the dorm, the matron taking her away 'for the other children's safety' screaming that she was Stan's spawn, a devil, throwing her in a small concrete room. An hour earlier Maria and co. Had cornered her, hanging her up on the ceiling beam by her feet, while Lilla cried and screamed, the string cutting her ankles and feet, and when the string around her ankles eventually snapped and Lilla fell, screaming, to what she thought was her death, she bounced. She had hit the floor and risen up again, drifting slowly down on her feet. Maria and her henchmen had run screaming from the room to tell matron and that had been that. It was not long after the door had shut till the other children could be heard coming down the hall, yelling and threatening. She had been terrified, knowing what they would do to her. As she backed away from the door she heard a faint buzzing in her ears, and felt dizzy, her heart pounding. She hid behind the rusty metal bed, waiting for the inevitable, but when they couldn't open the door, pounding on it, tugging and rattling the handle, she felt her heart rate slow and slowly crept out from behind the bed, not daring to believe what was happening. They had come back every day, and Lilla stayed in her room, receiving meals beneath the door from matron accompanied by screamed commands to purge herself of the devil within her. And there she had stayed for the next six years, sneaking out every day while the other children were in lessons or prayers to explore London. She visited the library every day and made friends with the librarian, learning to read and write, but mostly she just sat in the park daydreaming, which was where she found herself heading now, wandering along the path and ending up at her favorite tree, a big old oak that stood near the lake. As she settled down under the branches she felt that same faint buzzy, tingling feeling that she had experienced early that morning. Something was going to happen. The last time she had felt it a couple of years ago, she had come to the park and found that the lake had frozen solid overnight, covered with young children and adults ice skating and mucking around. It had been the best day ever. Rolling up newspapers on the bottoms of her feet and wrapping plastic bags around them she could glide over the surface of the ice, feeling the cold wrap around her like silk and was tired but buzzing as she slipped back into the institute that night. The previous and first time she had felt it she had been about eight or nine and had wandered down an unfamiliar lane on her way home, not paying attention and eventually becoming lost. Trying to find her way back she had bumped into a man in a black coat, pale in the moonlight. As she stammered out an apology and backed away he had smiled and taken her arm, turning and walking off down the lane. She had been frightened as he guided her along, twisting and lashing out as she tried to get away, but stopped abruptly when she saw he led them up to the back entrance of the all-to-familiar institute. He had let go of her arm and held out a Popsicle, at which her eyes had grown wide, before pressing it into her hands and walking away into the night. It had been really weird, and Lila had been told not to take candy and treats from strangers by the policeman who had visited the institute, but he had seemed friendly, and somehow she knew he would not harm her. Licking at the Popsicle her heart rate slowed, the frozen treat cooling her feverish, flustered skin as she snuck back to her room in the dark. Consequently, Lilla wondered what would happen this time, if anything would. She hoped it would be nice, today was her thirteenth birthday after all.

The day passed slowly and languidly as she watched the world from under the tree, sticking to the shade that her faithful friend provided. Her pale skin burned very easily and it was almost summer, which meant more days trapped inside her room reading smuggled in library books and avoiding the sun. She had never liked summer, sticky and hot it made her lazy and fogged her brain, banning her from the park as the institute children were let out to play there, the heat and longer days seeming to invigorate them into more teasing and threatening, harsher attempts to open the door.

The day passed and as the park slowly emptied and the light faded Lilla sighed and got up, stretching her muscles and starting to walk back. It was foolish to say out after dark and she kept an eye out as she skirted the trash cans and shady figures lying in doorways, reaching the Institute soon after and only after the door to her room was shut and she had collapsed on the thin mattress did she relax, closing her eyes for a nap before heading to the showers when everyone fell asleep later. It was not until she returned in a threadbare towel and was changing into some musty, too-big sweats that she realized that nothing special had actually happened that day. Disappointed, Lila put down her hairbrush and went over to her bed, picking up the sharp stone she kept under the mattress and crossing off another day with a scratch on the wall. She did not know what she was counting for, but had always felt the compulsion to do it and the wall by her bed was filled with tallies marking the years.

"happy birthday" she whispered, again crushed that her special feeling had amounted to nothing. She rolled over, staring up at the moonlight that came in from the old barred window. She had once overheard one of the older kids saying that the institute had once been a prison before it had shut down and was later set up as an institution for troubled youths (an orphanage/foster home). "still is." she muttered, closing her eyes.

xxxxx

She was pulled from sleep by a loud rattling sound. Opening her eyes blearily, Lilla looked at the window, saw that the moonlight had moved only a little and deduced that she had only slept a few hours. It was probably around 1 in the morning. Blinking and sitting up, she was reminded of what it was that had woken her as the door creaked, the handle turning again. Her breath caught and she silently slipped out of bed, backing up against the far wall. Heart hammering, she guessed that Maria had come again to try to break in, and she thought that the door would hold, but as she pressed up against the wall she heard a crackling sound from the other side of the door and then a click. Her blood ran cold, feeling sick as the handle turned. Oh my god, this was it. She was trapped, the windows was too high to jump and Maria probably had her whole crew with her. Lilla started to panic, eyes flicking round the room as the door opened and a tall man in a cloak stood there, one eyebrow raised as he took in her panicked expression. "Hello child" he said, voice rich and velvety. Lilla stood in shock, staring at who had come through the door.

"you're not Maria" she said after a pause, dazedly.

He looked confused. "Were you expecting someone else? Dear me, they obviously weren't very welcome." His eyes looked her up and down.

"How did you get through the door?" Lila asked, relaxing her pose at his look, but still edging away from this strange man in front of her.

He smirked. "My child, you will have to do better than an unintentional and weak barrier to keep me out." he sighed suddenly and stepped closer, indicating the bed. "Perhaps you would like to sit down?"

Lila was to shocked to do anything but comply, making her way over to the edge of the bed and perching on it warily, watching the strange man across from her. He was glancing around, for a chair she presumed, and finding none he held out his hand, a look of concentration crossing his features. The air grew sharp as what looked like ice started to form in the air, expanding and crystallizing to form a chair. Lila's eyes grew wide.

"H-how?" she couldn't seem to form a coherent sentence, amazed by what she had just seen.

"Seasons" he stated simply, and the frowned, "although there's little left of their power now." he sat in the ice-chair thingie and regarded her, smiling slightly. Lilla looked at the strange man sitting in front of her. He was pale, as pale as her, with grey eyes. He had a mop of dark blonde hair which hung over his forehead he was wearing a coat, which was long and black, buttoned with a high collar. There was a silver and blue design on the front breast pocket, what looked like a crest with three different symbols she couldn't quite make out. Silver ivy twined around the crest. He cleared his throat. "My name is Tom Leagues. You must be Lillian Glass."

Lilla nodded, nervous. No-one had ever used her last name before, she only knew it herself because it was on her paperwork.

Tom sighed in relief, standing and bowing low before her, startling Lilla. "Good, I thought I would be at this all night. My locator's broken" he took what looked like a black gem out of his pocket before rubbing his hands together. "Alright then ,as we now know that you are in fact miss Glass, we can get going. First things first, welcome to the seasons. I'm a Lamaraé, and apprentice to Baen, keeper of the keys at The Ivy." at this he sat straighter. "you my dear girl have come of age, thirteenth birthday if I'm correct, hmm? And so are applicable to enroll at the Ivy, where you will, as you were raised with humans, become immersed in our culture and learn the craft of winter." He finished this speech with a smile, leaning back.

Lilla just stared. "what?" she said, finding her voice at last. This guy must be crazy. "What do you mean you're a Lama-thingie? And what is 'the Ivy'? Learn the craft of winter? You're a lunatic." She sat shaking her head, arms folded.

Tom just smiled wider and tapped the ice-chair he was sitting on, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. "A Lamaraé is a person born with an ancient kind of elemental magic within them. Each Lamaraé is 'born' to either summer or winter. you're a winter, and strong I'll wager." he looked her up and down with a thoughtful glance, then continued to answer her questions. "In the human world there are said to be four seasons, summer, winter, autumn and spring. This isn't strictly true. There are only two true seasons, summer and winter, and the transitional stages they go through when the seasons change. Lamaraé are the physical representations of summer and winter, and work with their elemental magic to ensure the continuation of the season. We bring winter and summer to the human world, and keep the balance of earth so that it remains stable." Here he paused, giving her time to absorb this barrage of information. "To your other questions, the Ivy is a college. The college. It is where all young winter Lamaraés that are born in this region can go to master their elemental magic, which can be dangerous if not controlled, and learn the skills necessary to defend and protect winter. Once you are thirteen, you become detectable as a winter, and so young Lamaraés like yourself who know nothing of our world are visited and sent to the Ivy."

Lilla's brain was working in overdrive. Impossible. Crazy. He was obviously deranged. And yet... She stared at the chair he sat on, which did not appear to even be melting.

He gave her a knowing look. "Lillian, have you ever done something you can't explain, seen something or felt something that wasn't possible?" he paused, the continued. "Do you hate the summer, become sick and dizzy in the heat?" Lilla swallowed. This couldn't be happening. She was dreaming. And yet, it was an explanation and made sense, in a fairy tale crazy kind of way. She absent-mindedly combed her hair with her fingers as she thought of all the strange things she could do, had done in the past, and her hatred for the suffocating, dizzying heat that consumed her in midsummer.

Tom's gaze fell on her hand combing through her hair and he nodded, smiling. "Interesting hair you've got there miss Glass. Not a natural color I'd say... Is that blue? Strange, I've never seen a human with hair like that..."

Lilla frowned, unnerved at his observation. She glanced up, a thought crossing her mind. "Can I refuse?"

Tom looked surprised, but quickly covered it with a frown, leaning forward. "No. This is not a choice, Miss Glass." his words stilled her hands in her hair and she felt a rising indignation, opening her mouth to protest, but Tom interrupted her.

"understand me when I tell you that it is dangerous to live as a Lamaraé and not know how to control your powers. Extremely so." he held up a finger as she again tried to speak. "furthermore, you cannot deny your birthright, your family and your race. Winter is weaker than it ever has been. It is your duty to learn, to protect our season as a member of our race. It is what you were born to do, your purpose on this earth." he frowned again, holding her eyes, and Lila wilted under the strength of his gaze. She was reminded suddenly that this was a powerful man, one who she had just watched construct an ice chair out of thin air. He continued. "You cannot deny your destiny and your heritage, Miss Glass, and you would be foolish to attempt to. The consequences may prove fatal."

Lila swallowed. After the demonstration with the chair, she believed him, this fantastical tale of power and seasons as worlds, and she hadn't really wanted to refuse, just wondered what would happen if she tried to. In all honesty, she didn't care where she went, as long as it was away from this place. Finding her voice, she nodded, and then another question struck her. "Um, how much does this college cost, exactly? I don't have any money." She felt a little sick. It was cruel, to have your wildest dreams come true and then to not be able to live them.

Tom smiled, "not to worry, Miss Glass. The Ivy has a fund for students such as yourself, in order to purchase books and pay for tuition."

He looked at the small slender girl sitting in front of him. He wondered to himself how she would fare in a different world, and felt the stirrings of worry within his chest. She was so young, to be thrust into her destiny. He discreetly studied her as she looked around the small, concrete room, and then back into his eyes, decision made. "I accept my place at the Ivy. Take me with you."

He felt a wave of relief and grinned, then stood and offered her his arm, the other waving over the chair which promptly disappeared. "Excellent. Take my arm and we'll be off."

Lilla took the offered arm and found it cool to the touch. She jolted back, unnerved. All the people she had ever met had skin that was hot sticky and unpleasant - warmth practically radiated off them. Tom noticed her reaction and grinned. "I'm a winter. You're a winter. Our skin is the same temperature, which will no doubt be a pleasant change for you." He reached out again but Lilla quickly stepped back and grabbed her hoodie, shrugging it on over her old sweats before retaking his hand and gazing behind her at what had for the last six years been her home. "let's go." Tom nodded, stepped forward, and the two winters vanished from the room. Upon their departure, the air temperature of the small space rose several degrees, melting the small crystals of ice that had formed on the windowsill.