This was it, the first proper day of school.
Effie got up and showered at the crack of dawn to make sure she didn't miss a thing.
Down in the great hall, the tables were filled with breakfast food, Effie still wasn't feeling one hundred percent comfortable so she just stuck to some toast, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with anyone, especially the Malfoy boy who was a few seats down laughing with his friends.
Everyone was handed a copy of their new time tables, Effie's first class was potions, and she was very much looking forward to it, out of all the books that she's read since she found out her true identity, the potions books are the ones that fascinated her the most.
She still didn't really have a clue how to get to any of the classrooms, so she silently followed the rest of the Slytherin third years to class and took a seat right up the back away from everyone, to her surprise Pansy and Daphne came and sat beside her.
"You sure your a Slytherin? Your far too quiet." Pansy joked, lightly brushing Effie's arm.
Effie giggled in response. Not knowing what to say, the truth is, she really didn't know much about making friends.
"So how are you liking Hogwarts so far?" Daphne interrupted the awkward silence.
"I'm still getting used to being in a school this big, everything's so different here than at my last school." Effie replied.
"What school did you go to before? Beauxbatons? Durmstrang? That's the only other wizarding schools I know." Pansy asked curiously.
"It wasn't a wizarding schoo—"
"So you went to a muggle school?" Daphne butted in with a shocked expression.
God— Effie hadn't thought this through. How was she going to explain why she didn't go to a school of magic for the past two years.
"Yeah, my parents are very, different. They like the muggle world, they have muggle jobs and both make a lot of money. They're very busy people." She lied frantically, but thankfully the two girls bought it.
"Ew" Pansy replied sticking out her tongue in a jokey manor.
Just then professor Snape waltzed in the classroom, his black robes swishing about behind him as he walked. He clocked Effie sitting at the back, surprisingly not alone and shot her a quick, subtle smirk.
"Now, today's lesson we're going to be making Felix Felicis. More commonly known as—"He paused, waiting for someone in the class to answer.
To her surprise, Effie actually knew this one, it was in a book that she'd read just the other day and it was one of the most intriguing potions she'd read about.
Before she even got the chance to raise her hand, a young Gryffindor girl, with long bushy hair shot her hand up at once, but for some reason Snape acted as if he couldn't see the girls hand, which gave Effie the impression that she was in fact the class know it all.
Effie slowly raised her own hand nervously.
"Ah— our new student actually knows more about our work than the rest of the class. Miss Burke, could you tell us what is Felix Felicis more commonly known as?"
"L— liquid luck sir?" She stammered.
"Ten points to Slytherin, take notes people. You should all know this already." Snape continued to speak to the class.
Effie felt quite proud, she'd already earned ten points for her house in the first lesson, of the first day, in the first five minutes.
"How did you know that?" Pansy nudged her jokingly.
"I read a bit." Effie replied with a smirk.
"Once again, ew." The three girls giggled.
The rest of the day went in very quick, Effie had certainly made two friends in Pansy and Daphne, the three of them are glued to the hip.
All was going good, except for the fact that she kept seeing that stupid Draco Malfoy boy looking at her and sniggering every five minutes. Oh, how she wanted to go up and confront him but she decided he simply wasn't worth the hassle.
She wasn't going to let a stupid little stuck up sod ruin her time at Hogwarts.
* * *
It had now been four months since Effie started at Hogwarts, and she really loved it. All the learning, the spells, the potions— everything, it was all so new and extraordinary to her.
It was coming close to the Christmas holidays and truth be told she wasn't looking forward to going back to Snape's for the holidays. She'd grown very close to him and all, but she was just going to miss her friends so much, a feeling that Effie had never actually experienced before.
Effie, Pansy and Daphne had grown very close, the three girls were like sisters, she'd even got acquainted with Crabbe, Goyle and Blaise Zabini, who were the three best friends of Effie's arch enemy, Draco Malfoy.
That boy was the only thing that was wrong with this school— he absolutely, positively loved himself and no one else. She hated every part of the boy and she made that perfectly clear, they had never been on talking terms and if they were it was a snide comment from him or a look of disgust from her.
Effie often wondered how on earth his friends could be so lovely, yet still want to associate themselves with such an arrogant git.
It was only another two days until the Christmas holidays, and Effie had a ton of homework that she had to get handed in before she left, living with a professor didn't give her any sort of advantage.
After classes she headed up to the library alone to get the rest of her work done, as she sat there soaking up the silence, she caught glimpse of a certain blonde haired boy making her eyes subconsciously roll to the back of her head. She turned back to her homework, desperately trying to avoid the boy noticing her and coming over to start annoying her.
Too late.
"Looking forward to the holidays Burke?" He asked in a sneaky tone, he knew she hated him so she always wondered why he'd even bother.
"What's it to you Malfoy, don't you have your own sad life to worry about?" She replied dryly not even making eye contact with him, her head still in the textbook in front of her.
"Well I was just thinking— Christmas in the muggle world. That must be exciting no?" He was already trying to tease her, she could see it in his stupid little smirk.
"Did you want something Malfoy, because I'm actually rather busy." Her eyes rolled again.
Judging by the look on his face, he could tell he was getting to her and it was only so long before she would blow, that was just what he wanted. Malfoy loved irritating and bullying people— but there was something about doing it to Effie that was one thousand times more entertaining to him.
"I just wanted to talk to you, since we're really good friends." He whispered in a snide little tone.
Effie let out a giggle at the word 'friends', she would never be his friend, they both knew that— he was definitely trying to be smart.
"Jog on Malfoy." She scoffed while grabbing the rest of her homework and shoving it in her bag. If he wouldn't leave her alone she'd leave him. "Have a nice Christmas."
"I know about you— you know." She heard him mutter from behind her.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, trying her hardest to hide the fact that she did actually have a secret that she needed to keep.
"I think you know." He jumped off the table he was sitting on, a delighted smirk on his face. "See you after Christmas, Burke." And with that all she could do was turn and walk away.
Effie's mind started running in overtime, he knew who she was— but how?How on earth could he possibly know?
There was only one thing she could do.
Deny deny deny.
Hopefully he would forget all about their little chat over Christmas break, but considering it was Malfoy that was highly doubtful.
* * *
Christmas at Snape's wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, Snape had actually became quite open with her, he was— after all— the closest thing she would have to a dad now.
They celebrated alone, Effie didn't wake up until about eleven in the morning, while Snape had already been up for hours and made breakfast for the day.
"I didn't realise wizards celebrated Christmas" Effie said sarcastically as she walked into the living room.
"We're still human Elizabeth." He scoffed jokingly.
"Is Betty joining us for dinner?" She already knew the answer, but Effie really didn't like how the house elves were treated.
"Betty? You mean the elf?" Snape sneered.
"Well that's the only other Betty here, is she joining us?" Effie prompted again.
"Why would she be joining us?" His eyebrows furrowed, as if this was some sort of forbidden topic.
"Well she lives here." Effie smirked.
"There are still a lot of things you need to learn about our world Effie, like the fact that house elves know their place and stay in their place—"
"But it's as if she's your, slave or something. It's not right, she's so sweet and innocent. You should treat her nicer, she does everything for you." Effie spoke so kindly of the elf that she had grown close to since they had been back.
Snape's face tensed up, you could tell that he wasn't used to having someone tell him what to do, especially a thirteen year old girl.
"Listen there are just some things that are not questioned— like the authority of house elves. Betty likes working, she'll tell you that herself. I'm sorry but she won't be joining us for dinner." He said, as if to put a stop to the conversation.
"I see." Effie muttered under her breath.
She stayed quiet most of the day, she still felt very out of place, there was still so many things that the girl didn't know about this world, the most she spoke was when she thanked Snape for the presents he got her.
He bought her a new book, the Tales of Beadle and the Bard, and gave her some money to get some clothes from Hogsmead at the weekend.
After they'd sat down to a lovely Christmas dinner, Effie became a bit more talkative, Snape was allowed to have his views it didn't mean they were right— she didn't have to treat poor little Betty like a slave.
"So the book you got me, have you read it?" Effie tried to spark conversation.
Snape's eyes at that moment started to glisten, as if he'd just seen a beautiful ghost from the past.
"My— my mother used to read it to me and my sister when we were younger. It's not just one book, it's stories. My favourite was The Wizard and The Hopping Pot, my sisters was The Tale of the Three Brothers. You can decide which one you like best though." He said sincerely from across the table.
"Thank you, I look forward to reading it." She admitted. "Can I ask you something?" Her tone became shy.
"Anything?" He nodded as he placed his knife and fork to the side of his plate, giving the girl his full attention.
"Why did you take me in? No offence but I've seen you when your teaching, you don't necessarily like teenagers—"
"That doesn't mean I'd see one without a home, and I'd heard what you'd been through, I thought you needed us." He interrupted.
Effie drew him a sincere smile before getting up to head to bed, as she walked passed his chair she placed a hand slightly on Snape's shoulder.
"Merry Christmas Severus. Goodnight." She muttered, not really knowing how to show affection.
"Goodnight Elizabeth." He smiled as she walked away.
When Effie got to her room she called for Betty, who had obviously ran as fast as she could thinking that Effie needed something from her, but when she reached the room Effie closed the door behind her.
"I have something for you." Effie whispered to Betty.
"S—something for Betty Miss Elizabeth?" The elf almost shouted with excitement.
"Shhh—", Effie stuck a finger over Betty's mouth before pulling out a napkin full of Christmas dinner that she had ran off and hidden earlier after dinner when she said she was going to the bathroom.
"Betty cannot accept this Miss." She looked scared.
"Of course you can, I'm telling you to. I live here too now, so I'm telling you." Effie pushed the food towards her. "Eat, you deserve it, you work so hard everyday."
"Thank you so much Miss Elizabeth. But why is you so nice to Betty?" She questioned, her little voice sounded so confused.
It broke Effie's heart, this tiny little creature has certainly never known love, she has never even experienced someone just giving her a simple meal.
"Well because— we're friends aren't we?" Effie asked for assurance from the elf.
"Friends?" Betty's face lit up. "Betty has never had a friend before— a real friend." Her big beady eyes looked up at Effie with love.
"You could say— neither have I." Effie admitted sincerely. "So that makes both of us Betty. You better go, before we get caught. Remember to hide that." She whispered, pointing to the napkin full of food in the elves tiny hands.