Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC.
Enjoy :)

CHAPTER ONE
Prologue

There was once a girl named Elizabeth Cotton.

At first, one may assume that she was quite ordinary. She was the sort that would deliver your eggs at sunrise, or help you carry your groceries. She would say "good morning" every day but never actually initiate a full conversation.

Perhaps you would consider the child polite but shy; friendly but lonely. You would be correct in saying that she was polite and friendly. But shy and lonely she most certainly was not. I have never heard anyone spout so many words within the space of two minutes, and she has more 'friends' than you could possibly imagine. You just have to catch her at the right moment.

But what defines the 'right moment' as such? Well, that is simple: go to the most concealed place possible, and Elizabeth will be there. She'll be lying in the forest talking to the trees, or on the docks admiring the magnificence of the ocean. If such places are unavailable to her, that is not a problem. She will always manage to find a hidden room or a secret passageway to hide in.

You may ask what this quiet girl was hiding from. If you enquired, she may reply "everything" or "anything", depending on her mood. You see, this Elizabeth Cotton has some – shall we say – 'unique' circumstances one must take into account. That is why people simply nod and carry on their way when they see Elizabeth on the side of the road, muttering to herself.

"I wonder if Grindylows can survive on anything but fish and algae..."she may say under her breath, and if you were ever to be in the rather uncomfortable situation of passing her by at this moment, you would simply leave her murmured musings unanswered. "It's what she wants" the villagers would say.

There are many things which differ this girl from other such children surrounding her. Elizabeth Cotton can do things you can't. You see, Elizabeth Cotton is a witch.

You may be laughing at such a thing existing, but I shall have you know that there is a whole realm separate to yours and mine dedicated to the magical folk. Elizabeth Cotton belongs to that world. At least from the age of eleven, when an owl delivered her a letter.

"An owl?" the villagers had said, incredulously.

"I kid you not, my friends," Billy Codger had said to the locals in the pub that night, "...with a letter clutched in its beak, no less!"

"Aye, impossible! You're losing your marbles, old man." The plump barmaid had replied, sloshing a great tankard of beer on the man's table.

"I knows what I saw! Me eyes aint haggard just yet, woman!" Mr Codger had replied with the utmost certainty, "That family's different, just you watch"

"Poppycock!" the locals had cried, laughing at the old man's peculiar sense of a good joke.

But Billy Codger was not jesting that night. No, there was something different about the Cotton family. Firstly, they lived well away from the little hamlet where the Fox Trotter Inn was situated. One had to row a boat through the murky waters in order to get to their little run-down cottage. It was the only building on that tiny island. The patch of land was only just big enough for their house, a vegetable patch, and a pen of hens. "The finest eggs in Scotland" the villagers would say.

However, their isolated way of living was not what made the Cotton family different. No, it was their daughter, Elizabeth – also known as Effie by those who spoke to her long enough as to enquire her preferred alias (which was rather rare. Effie usually spoke to the trees as opposed to actual people). Anyway, it's rather difficult to ignore an inanimate object springing to life at the touch of Effie; Or a newspaper bursting into flame if she were to be angry. No, it could not be denied much longer: that girl was strange.

It all started a few days after Billy Codger's revelations. The barmaid of the Fox Trotter Inn herself had witnessed Effie doing magic. "Aye, me eyes don't deceive me. Them dead flowers blossomed at her touch, they did." She had told her regulars, always one for gossip. "That Billy Codger's onto somethin'."

So from then on, the locals had simply acknowledged that Effie Cotton was different. They merely ignored her bizarre murmurings of strange words and let her be. Of course, they could have sent her to the madhouse... but Effie was just such a darling girl. None of the locals disliked her, and couldn't deny she had a delightfully pleasant aura about her. Who would want to send her to an asylum?

Well, I shall tell you the answer to that question: Yvonne Cotton, Elizabeth's mother. Yes, Effie's own flesh and blood had wanted to banish the magic out of her. But the clinics and counsellors never worked. Soon, Yvonne realised that she was only worsening the situation by notifying others of it. Rumours spread thick and fast, that's for sure. There was no denying it: Elizabeth was a witch.

"I've always known" she had whispered to her husband one night, "I've always known there's something different about her."

"But what do you suggest we do, dear?" Gregory had replied, defeated.

"There's nothing we can do. We'll just have to...I don't know, embrace it" she sighed.

It had been an awful shock for Yvonne and Gregory, to have a child with magical blood. You may be wondering why? Well, because neither Yvonne nor Greg was magical in the slightest. They were completely and utterly 'muggle', as the wizarding world would say. In other words, there was not an ounce of magic in their veins. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

So it was even more of a shock when they received the letter from Hogwarts.

"Hogwarts? Is that some kind of mental asylum?" Effie had asked, inspecting the blood red wax sealing the letter.

Her mother frowned, "but I haven't applied for a madhouse in months."

Effie was not taken aback by her mother's casual use of the word 'madhouse'. "If it makes you happy" she had always said. If going to a clinic would make her mother contented, then that's exactly what she would do. As little girl, all Effie craved was acceptance and love. Especially after...Well, we needn't talk of that.

Elizabeth carefully opened the mouth of the envelope and pulled out the creamy parchment inside. After reading the first line, she gasped "Hogwarts is a school!" she had cried. "There are other people! Other people like me!" she nearly jumped with glee. She was no longer alone!

Her parents were even more shocked than she was, although their expressions were also mixed with dread (christ, there are more of them?!) "Can I go? Can I go mother?" she had asked, eyes awash with happiness, and thrusting the letter under her mother's nose (for she was the one who made the decisions in the house)

Yvonne could not help but utter a shocked "yes," hypnotized by how purely happy her daughter was. Who even cared if the letter was a hoax? Nothing could ever create such a look on Effie's features.

"I have never seen her look so joyful" she had said later that week to Gregory.

"Indeed, especially not since-"

Yvonne hissed, "Shhh!", a look of sheer desperation in her eyes. That was not a topic to be bought to the surface. Never. Never ever.

The mother of two took a deep breath then said "never mind." She quickly came back to the subject, "we'll let her go to this school," for they had discovered the letter was no joke(I shan't bother explaining how, except for one name: Hagrid). "Like I said, all we can do is embrace what she is."

So that's how Elizabeth Cotton was admitted to Hogwarts. No, not a mental asylum...But close enough.

~Ched.~