Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters. It all belongs to J.K. Rowling.

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It was a cold, dull and grey morning at St Magdalene's Orphanage with heavy rain pouring swiftly from thick clouds. Lily Sutton reluctantly concluded as she stared through the windowsill of her room- that she shared with three people- into the depressing sky, that it would probably stay like this all day.

She sighed cursing her luck that today of all days it had to rain when it hadn't rained for nearly a whole month. This was supposed to be one of the happiest days of the year for her and was going to be ruined because of the stupid weather. Today at May 25th she was supposed to be celebrating her 11th birthday at the beach in the sun.

With the added bonus that she would finally be able to rule the orphanage with the other 11 years and older. Those were the workings of St Magdalene's Orphanage. As soon as you turned 11 you were thought able to take care of yourself and others and were given your own room (since they were so few older children). Which really meant that you could bully youngsters to do stuff for you and they couldn't complain.

Lily had detested being the servant of the older children and had being looking forward to this day for as long as she could remember.

She sighed again as she was brought to another unpleasant thought. She had lived here the longest out of all the other children. The majority of the young orphans that she had grown up with had being adopted and replaced with others. Many older ones had been here for only a few years. She knew that the older she got, the unlikelier it was for her to ever get adopted.

Almost all the children at St Magdalene's knew their parents, or at least knew their parent names. Lily didn't know anything about her parents. She didn't even know her real surname. She had been found 10 years ago at May 25th on the doorstep of St Magdalene's Orphanage. The woman who ran the orphanage, Victoria Bones had named her Lily after the blanket she had been found with which had the name Lily sown on it. She had also given her the name Sutton from the make of the basketnette she had been found with.

Lily loved Victoria- as many of the children called her- like a mother but hated her parents. They had abandoned her at the doorstep of an orphanage, they hadn't even left her a surname. The only thing she had from them aside from the basketnette and blanket was a broken locket that couldn't be opened with the words 'A love worth protecting'inscribed on it. She disliked those words a lot because she knew they were just lies. If they had really loved her they wouldn't have left her.

She was broken from her bleak thoughts by a loud shout. "Lily!" It was her best friend Cassandra Lestrange calling her from downstairs. "Are you going to stay up there all day or come downstairs? It your birthday!"

"I'm coming!" Lily called back as she ran down the stairs to greet her friend. "Morning Cassie." She said dejectedly as she met Cassandra at the bottom of the staircase.

"What do you mean by 'morning Cassie'?" Cassandra asked "Today's your birthday, haven't you being talking about this day for months now?"

"It's been ruined!" Lily moaned. "It was supposed to be sunny. But if you go outside it's raining cats and dogs. How are we supposed to go to the beach when we can't even go outdoors?

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you act like such a baby."

Lily stuck her tongue out, "so what. I'm allowed to act like a baby, it's my birthday. Besides you can't call me a baby any more, I'm the same age as you."

"Yeah but I'm still two months older than you." Cassandra laughed

Lily hated it when Cassandra teased her about her age and was about to retort back when Cassandra suddenly pulled her into the direction of the dining room

"Come." She said. "I have something to show you." She opened the door to a silent room.

"What is it?" Lily began as the dining room was rarely used except for formal occasions. "Why did you bring me he-"

"SUPRISE!" many faces of the children from the orphanage popped out of nowhere and suddenly surrounded her at once.

"What is this?" Lily asked, stunned.

"It's your birthday party." Her fellow orphan friend Michael Samuel replied in the sea of faces

"Yeah, we were planning this for ages." Another voice whose face was hidden behind a swarm of people added.

"What do you mean?" Lily said. She had not moved from between the doorway.

"We all knew that it would rain today for at least a week so we all decided to plan a surprise party for you." Cassandra replied while pulling her more into the room. "You should really watch the news sometimes."

"Wait," Lily said slowly. She looked around and saw faces of her fellow orphans but also noticed that there were party decoration everywhere and the dining room table was stacked with food. "You planned this all for me?"

"Yeah!" Was the general chorus.

"Of course," added Cassandra, "it's your big double ones."

"I don't know what to say," she said with real gratitude.

"Just say thank you!" Timothy Walkers, a gruff teenager cried out. "So we can all eat cake!"

Everyone laughed.

"Thank you everybody!" Lily cried laughingly.

As soon as she said that there were movement of people and chairs as they all moved to seat around the dining table so they could get the best stuff to eat.

Soon the party was in full swing, people were either playing games (that was mostly the little kids), eating food or talking quietly to themselves. Victoria was sitting quietly in a corner of the room with a small smile on her face as she watched they children interact.

The boys of the orphanage around Lily's age group were crowding around Lily and Cassandra. They were flirting outrageously with Cassandra and blatantly ignoring Lily who looked very annoyed by it all and ready to lose her temper at any minute. She held her anger in because she knew that anyone who was around Cassandra couldn't help crowding her.

Cassandra was beautiful and tall. With her long legs and long curly dark hair that reached the small of her back and framed her face. She had even darker eyes which were framed with long lashes. Her pale ivory skin emphasized the darkness of her eyes and hair. She carried herself in an aura of maturity that was far beyond her 11 years. A lot of boys in the orphanage fancied her.

Lily knew that she could never match up to Cassandra's beauty. She thought her features were barely passable. She was just below average height and her shoulder length bright red air was very messy and flyaway. The only way to tame it just a little was to put it into a tight ponytail. The millions of freckles on her face were the bane of her existence and the only thing she liked about her features were bright green almond shaped eyes. Many people who didn't know them and saw the two girls together found it hard to believe they were friends.

Suddenly there was a shriek of excitement from four year old Courtney Barns. "Look!" she squealed, pointing at two rain drenched owls that had just come through the open window of the dining room. "Two owls!"

Several things happened at once after that. Victoria paled suddenly and swiftly caught both owls with her hands. Little Courtney after seeing this, started crying and screaming for them. Some of the children started shouting at Victoria, demanding to know why she had snatched those owls so roughly in the air. Most of the teenagers were yelling animal cruelty and the rest of the children were jumping around, shouting and generally trying to make as much noise as possible.

"Silence!" Victoria screamed over the hubble of sound. The noise died instantly. "I want you all to go to your rooms until you think you can all behave like mature adults."

Her strict orders were met with moan. "Be quiet! If I hear one more peep from any of you, you shall all be grounded for a week."

Everyone was silent and no one dared to make a sound, even the younger ones. They had never seen Victoria act like this before. She was always so cool about most things and a majority of the children thought of her as a friend.

"Well go on, what are you waiting for? Get upstairs!" everybody scampered up, eager to make sure that they weren't in the receiving end of her anger.

In all the chaos, no one had noticed how silent and pale Cassandra had become.

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