Saturday the 17th of June, 1944. Ophelia Lockwood's seventeenth birthday. And although, she has never fully celebrated her birthday because she labels it as being 'one more step to death', her plans of having a peaceful lie in and a lazy day were not to go accordinly.
Having gotten her Slytherin friends in on the plan, Morgandy, Dove, Nicole and Starr had managed to persuade everyone to get up early on this warm Saturday morning, for the sole purpose; to wake up Ophelia and wish her a happy birthday.
The group of Hufflepuffs were making their way from their dormitories at 7am when they were stopped by a voice who turned out to be Peeves the poltergeist messing around with them.
"Ophelia-welia's birthday you say?" He giggled, "I must remember to congratulate her in person."
"Congratulate her?" Daxten asked.
"For reaching 17, after all the dangerous stuff she has done," Peeves giggled and flew off.
Daxten was the only one who hadn't shrugged it off and was left asking questions as the group continued down to the Slytherin dungeons.
The Gryffindor's and Ravenclaw's who turned up on time were impatiently waiting with Avery and Orion outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
Finally, arriving ten minutes later than they should of the Hufflepuff's finally joined the rest of their friends.
"What took you so long?" Morgandy asked.
"Peeves!" The Hufflepuff's all said at the same time.
The rest of the group rolled their eyes, some even whispering 'of course' or 'no surprise'.
Avery whispered the password which offended those who heard it, "don't blame us that half our house is pure-blooded and that's what Salazar Slytherin wanted."
The group followed behind the two Slytherins through the small corridor that led to the top of the common room steps.
"This is amazing!" Franko Andre let out in utter disbelief.
"How come our common room is up a tower and has the smallest common room known to man, but the Slytherins here get a gigantic one?" Elowen crossed her arms, mad about how small the Gryffindor common room actually was.
Tom, Malfoy, Lestrange and the twins all walked up the steps to meet them.
"You two ready?" Morgandy asked Ophelia's twin cousins as they greeted everyone.
The two nodded their heads and smiled, "everyone's gifts are down there on the sofa, so if you want to place yours there then you can!" Huw smiled and pointed at the sofa at the bottom of the steps.
Everyone followed the group down the steps and placed their gifts on the sofa, then Huw and Iolo looked each other, nodded their heads and high-fived each other as they started to climb the stairs leading to the girl's dormitories.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Nicole shook her head, "Ophelia hates it when people wake her up."
"Yeah let's be honest, the twins are going to get murdered!" Emory shrugged as he looked at Nicole.
As the group began to hesitate there were loud screams from the girl's stairwell and out came Huw and Iolo jumping down a flight of stairs followed by a very angry Ophelia.
The group watched as Ophelia dived onto the closest twin which was Iolo, who screamed as she held him in a headlock.
Huw walked up to the group and brushed himself off as he watched his brother get strangled by his cousin.
"Okay Lia, that's enough," Abner said as he walked over to Ophelia and picked her up under her arms.
Her hair was un-brushed and matted at the ends, she looked up at everyone through her hair that covered her face. No one could see but her cheeks were bright red from the laughter that escaped Nicole's mouth.
"I told you not to bother to do anything," Ophelia cleared the hair that was in her face and crossed her arm, "now, if you don't mind I'm heading back to bed."
"No you're not, you're sitting down and opening your presents!" Morgandy raised her voice.
Abner carried Ophelia over to the sofa and sat her down next to the huge pile of presents. Ophelia looked at the presents and then back to Morgandy.
"Ophelia Lockwood, you are so stubborn," Tom began to grow angry, "here, open mine first!"
Tom handed Ophelia a medium small box wrapped in brown parcel paper. Ophelia looked at Tom and realised she had no choice but to take it. She ripped the paper off and took of the lid to the box. Inside was a necklace with a blue gem in the shape of a raven.
"It's a blue alexandrite," Tom looked down Ophelia through his flattened hair that covered his eyes, "it's your birthstone."
"Tom, it's beautiful," Ophelia pulled the necklace out of the box as she looked at the raven, "who knew Tom Riddle of all people would have such good taste."
"Yeah, yeah, don't get cocky now, Lockwood. Happy birthday," Tom gave a small smile as he rolled his eyes.
Dove rushed over to look at the necklace with Ophelia, "it matches your eyes."
"It actually does," Nicole said as Dove held the necklace up to Ophelia's face.
"Birthstone and colour matching, two points to Tom," Elowen cocked an eyebrow towards Tom, "but also you all seem to forget it only matches the one eye."
"Having slight heterochromia is the best thing that's happened to me," Ophelia smiled as she held her hands to her cheeks.
"Anyhow, moving on, Lia, here's my gift for you," Dove smiled as she handed Ophelia a large box wrapped in floral paper.
Ophelia looked at Dove with a questionable look as she began to rip open the paper.
Inside the box was a jar filled with sarsaparilla sweets, Ophelia's favourite muggle confectionary.
"Dove are you trying to give me tooth decay?" Ophelia laughed.
"What the bloody hell are those?" Avery asked.
"Only the best goddamn sweets on the planet!" Archer smiled as he high fived Ophelia.
Ophelia opened the jar and put one in her mouth. She held the jar at the bottom and offered the sweets around to everyone.
By the end everyone seemed to agree when they finished their sweets.
"Right, me next!" Nicole smiled.
One by one the group gave Ophelia their gifts and each time Ophelia was overjoyed with what she was given. Nicole bought her box of stress relief toys to help her short temper, Morgandy bought her a necklace with ancient runes written on it which translated to 'unity forever', Starr bought her a dragon pendant with a lapis marble stone in the middle, Elowen and Twyla bought Ophelia a variety of coyote themed gifts.
Olivia, Emory's sister, bought Ophelia a silver bracelet that had an infinity pendant on it, at first Ophelia was confused and Emory was shocked that his sister actually bought someone something but they both shook it off.
"Right Lockwood, I know you've been dying for these since the new year, but here they are," Rune smiled as he handed over his gift, "a whole three batches of my mam's homemade Welsh cakes."
Ophelia rushed to open the gift as she had been craving Welsh cakes for what felt like forever, "thank you so much, Rune, I actually love you."
"Wow okay," Nicole folded her arms, "it's not like me or Dove are your best friends."
"Yeah, but I've known Ophelia longer than all of you," Rune smiled.
"Uh, I beg to differ, Lufkin," Iolo butted in.
"Iolo, you're literally fifteen, I've known Ophelia since she was six-months-old," Rune looked down on the slightly smaller Lockwood.
"Wait, what?" Everyone said.
"In all fairness, I did think it was Tom who's known Ophelia the longest," Abner shrugged his shoulders.
"Why'd you think that?" Rune asked.
"Well remember on the train first day back second year, we walked past their cabin and it was just them," Abner said.
"Yeah, but I opened the door and spoke to her for like a minute, asking her if she knew what house she'll be in," Rune looked back at Abner, just as confused as everyone else.
Tom looked up at the two boys bickering about how Rune knew Ophelia.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you knew her before, you were just being polite," Abner started to raise his voice.
"Okay, before this gets even more out of hand, all thanks to you, Abner," Archer butted in, "Daxten asked how Rune knew Ophelia, Rune said that their dad's worked at the Ministry together, but he didn't state how long they had known each other."
All the other seventh year friends nodded and agreed.
"Okay, whilst you're all sorting out your own problems," Avery spoke softly as his eyes widened, "here's my gift for you, Lockwood."
The group soon got back to giving their presents. The diversity of the presents ranging from food to jewellery to random fossils from the black lake. Ophelia was grateful for every single gift even if her cousins copped out by diving into the black lake.
The group of girls went in to squash Ophelia with a giant group hug as all the boys watched.
"Okay, this is weird," Malfoy scoffed as he walked back towards his dorm.
Tom let out a small chuckle.
"Yeah, agreed," Lestrange and Orion nodded as they looked at each other and quickly followed behind Malfoy.
"I'm guessing you three don't want a private trip to Hogsmeade?" Emory bit his nail.
The three Slytherin's turned around with a questionable look on their faces.
"What private trip to Hogsmeade?" Orion asked.
"Well, myself and Morgandy pulled our head boy and head girl cards and got us a private trip to Hogsmeade," Emory had a goofy smile plastered on his face.
"Yes, we're going in to get some food and treats and the we're going back to the Quidditch field and having a picnic there," Morgandy smiled.
"What's with girls and picnic's?" Avery asked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nicole cocked her eyebrow.
"Misty Reeves has been threatening poor dear, Harlen, if he doesn't take her out on a date she'll curse him," Ophelia laughed with the Slytherin boys and a few others who joined in.
"And why don't you take her out? She's a pure blood right? And you're all about blood purity," Theodore shrugged his shoulders as he wiggled his hand to explain.
"Yeah, but-" Harlen was cut off by Malfoy.
"She's a dirty pureblood," Malfoy scoffed as did Lestrange.
"There's such thing as a dirty pure blood?" Archer asked.
Malfoy nodded his head and a small smirk formed on his face as he looked over to Ophelia, "would you like to explain, Lockwood?"
Ophelia rolled her eyes, "I don't have a choice so why not?" Ophelia sighed, "a dirty pure blood is someone who is yes, considered a pure blooded witch or wizard but however, there has been relations with half-bloods, muggleborns or muggles in the past. I'm a dirty pure blood as is Nicole and Franko, Rune, Huw and Iolo, Felix and Geraldine, and Starr."
The group of 'dirty pure bloods' all nodded and gave a thin lip smile with wide eyes as Malfoy continued to give his infamous sly smirk.
"Wipe that look off your face, Malfoy," Tom smacked Malfoy around the back of his head.
"So how long does it take to become pure blooded from being a half-blood or muggleborn?" Archer asked.
"Up to approximately four generations of half-bloods having children with other half-bloods," Ophelia nodded.
"So how long has the Lockwood family been a pure blood family?" Nicole asked.
"Well the Lockwood family, if it remained completely pure, would have been one the oldest pure blooded families in the UK, however we're not, so the Black and the Malfoy family takes that place instead," Ophelia gave yet another thin lip smile, "but, with our dirty blood purity, the Lockwood family has been like it since the early 1700s and the Driscoll family was the mid-1800s."
"However, I'm a half blood so, from my birth the Dricoll family is basically a half-blood family," Tirion nodded her head as she looked over to Ophelia.
"How are you a half-blood then?"
"Okay, let's stop talking about blood status and purity, and I'll go and get dressed and we can leave," Ophelia smiled as she ran towards the girl's stairwell.