Zhenya was born in Russia to Lisabel and Alexander Burton, with an older brother named Dimitri. She also has two younger siblings, now six, twins named Theodore and Ava.
Zhenya spend her life, until she was ten, living in Russia with her Babushka and Deda. It was their death, which made her return to London to be with her parents. Zhenya attended Hogwarts from first to third year, then moved suddenly back to Russia to stay with her cousin, Shura, for her fourth year of education at the Soviet School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She returned briefly to London and stayed with her cousin Sophia in her apartment at Hogsmeade, but, upon feeling neglected by her parents she moved back to Russia, and again stayed with her cousin Shura.
Whilst she was in Russia, something terrible happened. Her evil cousin, Monika, who she had grown up with believing she was quite normal, did something. Whilst Zhenya was out exploring through the forrest, as she often did, she came across a lake which had been frozen over. Zhenya decided to have some fun on it, sliding around it, trying to skate with her shoes on. She didn’t know her cousin was there with her, watching and waiting. Zhenya didn’t even know it was happening until six years later. Her cousin, current location unknown, had cursed the lake to appear to be frozen over. As soon as Zhenya walked over a certain spot, the ‘ice’ cracked and Zhenya fell through. Her cousin had somehow managed to cast a life preservation charm on the lake. Nobody knew why, they haven’t seen her cousin since, but her family can only imagine they were jealous of Zhenya, but for what, Zhenya will never know. Upon realizing Zhenya was missing from Shura’s house, the family sent a team out to search for her. They knew that she liked exploring, and they knew the general direction as to where she may have been headed, so they started there. They came across the lake and saw the crack and a hole in the ice. It didn’t take them long to rescue Zhenya from the lake. At this time, though, it had been over 24 hours since she had been submerged in the frozen, charmed water. She spent five years in the Russian Magical Hospital, frozen in her fifteen year old body. Slowly but surely, the charm had began to wear off, and she slowly thawed out and awoke. To this day, the family are unsure why the charm had worn off, or why her cousin had cursed her like this. Their only conclusion was that her cousin had died, thus breaking the charm. Once she was awake, the healers spent a long time explaining everything to her; what had happened in the past six years, building up her muscles again, and putting her through treatment to remember all of her memories.