Hera Redcliff

Hera Redcliff
Gender	Female
Nicknames
Born	20 April 1909
Died
Family	The Redcliff Family
Bloodtype	Pureblood
Social Class	TBD
Hogwarts House	Slytherin
Graduation Year	Class of 1927
Occupation	Student
Residence	Holyhead, Wales
Wand	TBD
Patronus	TBD
Parents
Siblings
Significant Other
Children
Friends	Testing
Status	Alive

Pre-Hogwarts

Hera’s life is like a culture’s calendar in that it’s marked by eras, before and after significant births or events. As firstborn child of the Redcliffs, she was passed around by unnumbered hands of extended relatives and adored for her existence. Not a political heir in the traditional sense, a pureblood family still celebrates few things as sincerely as a new baby that shares their DNA. The child became a representation of a kind of divinity. An icon of both all the good two people have accomplished, and one of all the family’s egotism for its own blood. And, so, the family silently congratulates itself on its holiness. For what else could make something divine?

Hera Redcliff’s reign in her home’s heart went unchallenged for seven years until the birth of Maddox. A boy and proper heir.

The change was subtle but still present. Not a loss of love or assets exactly. Her parents had never promised their daughter any specific destiny. But the fact that the smaller child was immediately foreseen as having one by birthright was noticed. For Hera’s name, however, there was no future mentioned. Simply existing. To be, not to have or achieve, became the noticeable expectation. Still, to exist in a world of parlor games and sunshine was never depressing and Hera quickly became her brother’s biggest fan.

And then came the next era of the calendar.

Hera was attacked by a werewolf while the Redcliff family was camping, approximately a year and a half before her invitation to Hogwarts. As a natural wanderer, the young girl had separated herself from her family by a short distance one evening when a werewolf that was roaming through the area found her alone. The creature was soon stopped by some Aurors who had been searching for it but not before it had inflicted injuries on Hera that still remain as scars on the side of her body. Most detailed memories of the attack were seemingly lost to time; or perhaps she just refused to acknowledge them. What little she would admit to herself came from the recurring nightmares, born from what seemed to be the more vengeful memories that refused to be wholly dismissed and exaggerated themselves to be better remembered.

A halo of darkness around her, set against the light of her family that she’d wandered away from. Trees, thick and growing upwards forever, like the legs of forest gods. Silence if not for the sound of heavy breathing. Or the panting of a dog. And the wolf that stared directly at her with eyes that glowed within the dark fur of its face. A wolf with human eyes. Like eyes that knew what words were. That weren’t mistaking what they saw for a new type of wildlife. Eyes that knew what a human child was, and that’s what made them so hungry. The nightmares always made them appear dinner plate sized in Hera’s mind. At least they distracted from the fangs.

Hera’s lycanthropy was quickly registered with the Ministry and closely monitored.

While Medwyn and Thea do thoroughly love their daughter, their struggle to emotionally adapt to her permanent medical condition, along with the stress of keeping the youngest child safe from his sister’s transformations, have left the couple’s affections less overt than Hera would like. She’s acutely aware, despite receiving no blame about it, that she’s seen as a potential danger to her brother and has internalised the feeling that her lycanthropy is the lens through which people view her over anything else. One positive prospect about coming to Hogwarts is that almost nobody knows her, and that she’ll have the opportunity to create her own image of herself for every person she meets.