Whoops! I forgot to put a disclaimer but I have updated the story so here it is! I do not own any characters you recognize. I wish I did, but unfortunately, I will only own the magical universe of Harry Potter when pigs learn to fly and the Llama that lives in my backyard is nice to the chickens. Here we go!

It all started with a pink floral plate. At this point in time, most families had them. Pink floral plates were something any respectable, normal family had so of course, the Dursleys had three sets of floral plates. It was something Petunia Dursley prided herself on. The plates were always spotless and sitting on a shelf built especially for them. To Petunia, this meant she lived in a perfect world. The only catch to this seemingly perfect world was one small five-year-old child.

Hera Potter. She had arrived on the doorstep of #4 private drive late one October night. Petunia Dursley had always wanted a female child to pamper, so taking in her niece was not a burden.

At first.

Then the magic started. At first it was simple things, the teddy bear was a little closer to Hera's crib than Petunia remembered. Petunia noticed, but refused to believe this perfect child could be anything like her sister or her sister's husband.

It was a shame really when Dudley tried to steal all of Hera's toys. It caused one overweight, sobbing toddler to be silenced and stuck to the ceiling. When Hera's aunt arrived to check on the two young children, she found two fast asleep children. One on the floor and one in a crib. She woke Hera up and began explaining to her that pushing Dudley onto the floor was not allowed. When Hera looked up with Lily's eyes, waved her hand and all the toys in the room lifted up and away from Dudley, Petunia accepted the truth.

The Girl was a Freak.

The girl was quickly put into the cupboard under the stairs. Hera stopped getting the same amount of love as 'Precious Dudders'. When
Hera began to cry at night due to either lack of food or a dirty diaper, Petunia would get her out of the Cupboard do the very minimum to get the almost-two-year-old to stop crying and quickly push her back into the cupboard.

When Hera turned three years old, she was given her first chore. The three-year-old was given a broom and told to get all the leaves off of the porch. When she completed that for a week, Petunia gave her a rag and told her to dist the house. It took Hera almost five hours to dust just the downstairs. As Hera got better at cleaning and sped up, Petunia gave her more and more chores.

Back to the pink plate. It was the first time Hera was allowed to wash the good dishes. She was five years old and wary of the world in a way most would expect of war veterans. Hera had been beaten for mistakes like not flushing the toilet after cleaning it so she was terrified just thinking about breaking one of the pink plates. She washed them ever so carefully, treating them as most would treat a child. She was on the last plate when a rock crashed through the large kitchen window.

A second rock flew through moments later. It smacked directly into the last of the pink plates, destroying it. Hera watched as shards of pink sailed through the air, a soft tinkling filling her ears as shards of ceramic fell onto the gleaming floor.

At that moment, Petunia stormed into the kitchen, likely summoned by the breaking window. When Petunia saw her prised possession shattered on the floor with two rocks lying near it, the anger began.

"You ungrateful child," she growled, "we raised you and treated you like we would our own child and you repay us with this? Breaking things that are worth more than your entire life! You deserve to be killed for this!" Hera, who had fallen to the floor, trying to pick up the pieces of broken plate, began scooting away from her furious aunt.

Hera's eyes shot wide in fear as her aunt reached for a frying pan. The first strike was almost in slow motion for Hera. A still-warm frying pan hurtling towards her left arm. It had never before occurred to Hera her relatives could kill her. She had always assumed they would stay behind a line. They could kill her.

Kill.

She could die and nobody would know or care.

The pan crashed down on Hera's arm and with a sharp crack pain flared over her entire left side. She had to run. She had to get out of the neighborhood. The Dursleys were going to kill her and the only way she could live was by running.

Hera rolled onto her right side and pushed herself up. Tears were streaming down her face as she stumbled to the back door. Hera's theory in running out the back door instead of the front was that the Dursleys would care less because the neighbors would not see anything.

If she ran out the front with a broken arm and gash marks covering her face, the neighbors would talk. If they talked, the authorities could be brought into the whole mess and discover there was a child with no documentation living with the Dursley's. That was not normal.

So Hera stumbled out the back door and as she grew to understand how much her arm hurt, she began to run into the woods behind the house. If she could go into the woods and get out the other side, she might be able to find a family to take her in to cook, clean and garden.

Hera ran through the woods for what felt like hours. It was exhausting. Every branch that craked or twig that snaped made hera panic, and run faster. Tripping over roots and piles of leaves, Hera made her way through the forest. It did not take as long as she had expected to reach the other side. This looked like what aunt Petunia called the 'Bad part of town' Hera did not want to stop in the bad part of town.

If Hera had been paying attention to the run-down homes around her as she scuttled forward on her path to a better part of town, she would have seen the houses morph into nicer versions of themselves. As she continued the houses became nicer and newer looking before turning into humble cottages with large vegetable gardens.

Hera was still in the 'bad part' when she caught a glimpse of a large building, kind of what a hospital looked like on the TV. She decided that because hospitals were supposed to help people, she would go in.

Wincing in the pain that was her left arm, Hera went up to the front door and knocked. Hoping someone would be able to hear and help her, she waited.

The intimidating black door creaked open and a short, thin woman poked her head out. There was a moment of clattering and then a softly spoken,

"Oh you poor dear, why don't you come on in?"

Hera glanced at the woman in confusion before realizing she was the one being spoken to. She nodded and took a few tentative steps into the lobby of the hospital. Although she knew talking was not allowed, Hera began to speak,

"Excuse me, ma'am, I think I have a broken arm," Hera paused for a moment and took a deep breath, willing away the pain, "This looks like a hospital, I think, and Aunt Petunia told Dudley to go to a hospital if he was hurt,"

Hera paused again and looked up at the woman who let her in. the woman began to speak, looking vaguely angry,

"This is not a hospital darling, it is what most call an orphanage. I might be able to help you find your family if you can-" she crouched to the flood looking up at Hera with wide eyes, "oh darling, what is wrong? I did not mean to scare you,"

Hera looked up at her and with the widest eyes she could muster, she said, "My parents are dead and my aunt and uncle don't want me," she held her arm up, grimacing at the pain, "look, they broke my arm,"

Many long hours later, Hera Potter had a dark green cast on her arm and a room to call her own. Room D1. It was in the attic and the matron apologized profusely for the inconvenience, but it looked amazing. The room had (peeling) dark grey wallpaper and almost all of the space was taken up by books and piles of paper. Hera was content.

~~~The Heirlings~~~

This is the first fanfiction I will have posted online. I have never truly shared my writing with anyone else so this will be a new experience. I would love it if anyone reading this could give me constructive criticism. if you hate it, let me know why. if you love it, let me know why. I have a plan laid out for this story but I would expect an update once every two weeks with occasional sporadic updates in between that. Tom Riddle and Hera Potter will most likely be in a romantic relationship. If I get enough people telling me they don't want that I will change it.