Author's Note: This isn't a happy story about happy little girls who go on to save the world. Officially, this is an Alternate Universe fic about a female Harry. One of the big initial points of divergence is that Lily's mother is still alive when Lily dies, saving Hartley from having to live with the Dursleys. I intend to do all seven books and a bit beyond in this one story. This style is very different from my usual fair, but I intend to try writing Hartley in the first person perspective in coming chapters. She's just so young for most of this chapter that I can't get into her head. Please read and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Hartley Potter and the Secret of Forever

Chapter One: The Death of Innocence

Hartley Potter grew up knowing that she was different from other children.

Whereas the other kids in her class had a mother and father, she had a grandmother who loved her very much, and never let slip by an opportunity to remind Hartley how much her parents had loved her, and that it wasn't their fault that they couldn't be with her now.

Other kids her age didn't have nightmares full of screaming and cruel laughter. And Hartley would wake up and run into her Grandma Holly's room, who would make them both a cup of hot chocolate, and they would sit together, silently or speaking as Hartley wished, until she was ready to go back to sleep.

Other kids her age didn't have a destiny.

Holly Evans had been a widow already when her younger daughter, Lily, and her husband were murdered, leaving Holly to raise the girl.

Dumbledore had tried to insist the girl live with Petunia, which was frankly an awful idea. Holly loved both of her daughters equally, and it had pained her that they would never have the opportunity to settle their differences. Petunia would look at the girl, and she would only be able to see Lily, and that wouldn't be good for anyone. No, no, Hartley needed to be seen as herself, not Lily's miniature. It didn't help that she had inherited Lily's eyes.

So, she had taken the girl in, and tried to love her fiercely enough to make up for two parents. Some days were better than others. For months Hartley had screamed out in her sleep, for her mother, her father, Padfoot, Moony. Holly hadn't the slightest idea what had happened to Hartley's surrogate uncles, James' best friends, but they were nowhere to be see. She could only hope that they were slowly dealing with the loss on their own.

Time certainly didn't heal all wounds, but Hartley was young, and slowly, ever so slowly, she started to forget the tragedy that had struck her little family. After a year, she had stopped screaming for people who would never come, and had instead developed the habit of coming to shake Holly awake, almost as if she had to be sure Holly was still breathing.

By the time she was five, Hartley noticed that other children still had parents, and that she didn't. Holly considered lying, but that would only make the betrayal worse later, so Holly sat her down and told her that a very bad man had tried to hurt her, and that her parents had died to save her. But she didn't stop there. Holly believed in preparation more than anything, that nothing good came of hiding things from your loved ones. They would always find out, as she had learned far too many times.

After struggling for a time with how to make a five-year-old understand, she decided to tell Hartley the story of Arthur, and the knights of the round table. A prophesied child, destined to destroy a great evil, mentored by a wise old wizard with a long white beard.

"You've a power in you, Little One," Holly whispered to Hartley, stroking her hair with her hand. "Your momma had it, and your poppa had it, and it's why you survived."

"I have a power?" Hartley said, confused, tilting her head to the side, trying to understand.

"There are others, like you and your parents. People like you push, and the world moves. But more than that, you are loved, and that's the strongest power there ever will be."

Hartley thought on that for a long moment. "Is that why the Bad Man came?"

"Sweetheart, the bad man came because he knew you would be the one to beat him. That's your destiny. You're going to save the world when you're older," and then Holly pulled Hartley into a tight hug. If she had her way, Hartley would never know war or pain or battle. But the world wasn't likely to give her her way, and Lord Voldemort would rise again, more powerful than ever, and thirsting for the blood of her granddaughter. Hartley had to be ready.

Pushing down her own hesitance to talk about this, Holly continued: "The bad man has name, and we need to use it."

"Why?"

"Because," Holly drew a deep breath for strength. "If we're too afraid of him to say his name, then he's already won. The bad man is called Lord Voldemort."

"That doesn't sound like a real one," Hartley said.

"It's probably not," Holly admitted. "But it's the closest thing we've got."

Hartley sat quietly, looking down at her hands and looking more troubled and thoughtful than a child should ever have to.

Holly realized that maybe this was a bit soon to put this on her shoulders, but she had to know. She had to be ready when the time came, and if anything happened to Holly, she knew Petunia wouldn't tell Hartley a thing. She couldn't go in blind, she had to know that this was her destiny, that she was capable of succeeding. She needed hope.

"Don't you worry about it now," Holly advised, mussing up Hartley's hair. "With any luck, you won't have to deal with any of this for a very long time."

"How long?"

"Hopefully never," Holly sighed, looking out her front window. The world was a big, dangerous place, and she couldn't protect Hartley from it forever. Pulling her granddaughter close, Holly sang to her a lullaby she had read once in a book.

"I wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one,

And treetops for you to soar past.

I wish to you innocence, my child, my child,

I pray you don't grow up too fast.

Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one,

Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow.

Never know war, my child, my child,

Remember your hope for tomorrow."

-Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Hawksong

Hartley's magic appeared slowly at first, small, easy to dismiss things. Things Holly was certain she had put on a high shelf seemed to find their way into Hartley's hands inexplicably. The spinach at dinner was suddenly broccoli. Locks no longer deterred Hartley in the slightest, and they all seemed to spring open at her need.

It all seemed to escalate towards a moment when Holly could no longer ignore what was right in front of her eyes.

It had been raining outside, so Holly distracted Hartley with old photo albums.

"And there," Holly said, pointing to a photo. "That's what Lily looked like at your age."

It was one of the few color photos Holly had of Lily, taken on her first day of primary school. She wore a green dress, with a white ribbon in her hair, and her smile was a mile wide. Hartley stared down at the photo of her mother, grasping a lock of her dark hair contemplatively. Suddenly, Hartley sneezed, and shook her head, and her hair turned a bright, flaming red.

Holly took this in stride. "Lily's hair was a little darker, like mine," Holly said, pulling her hair down out of its bun, handing a slightly graying lock to Hartley, who examined it carefully before shaking her head again, and the color matched more closely.

"Yes, Little One," Holly smiled down at her granddaughter. "Just like that."

By the next day, Hartley's hair had faded back to black.

A few weeks ago at a neighbor's birthday, Hartley had set the drapes on fire when a boy had tugged on her pigtails. Of course, no one had blamed Hartley. She had been on the other side of the room, but Holly had known.

As soon as they were home, Holly had pulled out the phone-book and found a local yoga studio, willing to take both of them on as new students in their meditation class. Hartley needed to learn to rule her emotions, before they started to rule her.

At seven, Hartley had decided that she didn't care for her name anymore. For a month now, she had been insisting that everyone call her by her middle name, Euphemia. On this, Holly had decided to indulge her granddaughter. Everyone went thought phases where they hated their name. This current fit had been set off by a new child in her class, a boy who had also been named Hartley. Holly had no doubt that there had been teasing the teacher was unaware of. Children could be carelessly cruel.

Of course, Holly wasn't going to sound out four syllables every time she needed Hartley for something. They had compromised, and "Effie" had been chosen as an appropriate nickname.

Like right now. "Effie!"

The little girl came running down the stairs, curls all over the place.

"We're going out into the woods today, put on some play-clothes," Holly instructed.

"Yay!" Effie shot off like a rocket, back up the stairs, laughing gleefully.

Digging their hiking shoes out of the hall closet, Holly shook her head at her granddaughter. Sometimes that little girl could be so excitable. A deep, familiar ache in her chest surfaced as she remembered that Lily had been much the same at that age, with an unquenchable thirst for adventure and whatever danger she could find.

More than a few times she had almost called Hartley by Lily's name. The resemblance was just too strong in the way she reacted to things. But Hartley had quiet, serious moments in a way Lily never had, shadows in her mind. The weight of losing her parents so early stilled sat on her small shoulders, as did her destiny as savior of the world. Sometimes she would play as a knight-errant, rushing off to defeat dragons, or anything else her imagination could conjure up, and then sometimes… sometimes it was almost as if she understood that her parents had died trying to do the same thing she had to attempt. Almost as if she understood how terrified Holly was that Hartley would die in the same way. No, Lily hadn't had that burden as a child.

Checking her backpack, Holly made sure she had everything they would need. Today wasn't just a fun jaunt in the woods, today was about training.

Once Effie was ready, the two of them set off into the forest behind their house at a calm, leisurely pace, hands joined, and listening to the sounds of the birds.

About half an hour later, they made it to a suitable clearing that Holly had located on a map earlier. Using some string, Holly hung a series of glass bottles from various tree branches around them. The bottles were full of water and blue food coloring.

"Effie," Holly called her to attention. The little girl came closer. "Today we're going to try something different, Little One. Do you remember starting the fire in the Mason's living room?"

Effie nodded, a somber expression. "I didn't mean to-" She protested.

"I know you didn't," Holly agreed. "But if you keep having accidents, you hurt yourself or someone else. You need to get a handle on it."

"But I don't know how!"

"That's why we're here." Holly told her. "I've set up these bottles. I want you to try to magic them."

"But it just happens!" Hartley said. "I don't make it happen!"

"We both know that's not always true," Holly smiled at her. "Search yourself, inside, just like in meditation class. Try to find that bit of you that can make things happen. Take your time. And when you're ready, you can give the bottles a shot."

Grandmother and granddaughter sat together on the cool, slightly damp grass, listening to the wind in the trees and breathing deeply.

At first, Hartley wasn't sure where to look. Those times she had been angry enough to make something happen, it had come over her in a rush, and she hadn't really been sure where it came from, or where it went. The power. The magic.

Closing her eyes, she looked deep down inside herself.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Hartley became aware of a bit of herself, right next to her heart. It was bright blue, and cold as an icy river. Focusing on that part of herself, she opened her eyes and found one of the bottles. With a little push of her mind, it exploded brilliantly.

Holly clapped furiously at Effie's success. "Well done, dearest! Well done!"

Feeling like she was standing in a light snow fall, Effie turned to the next bottle and froze the water inside of it. Laughing joyously, high on the feeling, Effie destroyed all of the bottle in turn, before a sudden exhaustion came over her, and she collapsed onto the ground.

"Oh, sweetheart!" Holly exclaimed, pulling Hartley into her lap. "Are you alright?"

"I think I overdid it a bit," Effie breathed out, feeling the magic pounding in her chest.

"We'll take it more slowly," Holly promised.

They stayed like that for a long moment, holding each other in the warm summer light of the forest, just enjoying being together.

That summer and fall they took many more trips to that clearing, taking it slow and steadily building up Hartley's magic strength. She started to use the magic more around the house, stirring her cocoa handlessly and if a book she wanted was out of reach it would float gently towards her. Holly couldn't have been more proud of her granddaughter.

And then one night, everything changed.

There was the sound of shattering glass and Hartley sat up in her bed, afraid. Her thoughts went immediately to Grandma Holly. Quietly, Hartley crept down the hall towards her grandmother's bedroom, and found it empty.

Shouting rose up through the floor boards.

"TELL ME WHERE YOU KEEP THE MONEY!"

"There's nothing here-" the crack of a hand on flesh cut off Holly's voice.

Hartley ran for the phone on her grandma's bedside, dialing the emergency number. "You have to come, quickly!" She whisper-shouted into the phone. The operator tried to calm her down. "There's no time! There are people in the house! They've got my grandma!" Hanging up the phone, Hartley rushed down the stairs.

There they were, a woman in dark clothing hitting her grandmother.

Hartley had never felt so angry in her entire life. Pure fury flowed through her veins, and she waved her hand at the women, pinning her against the wall with magic. She choked, gasping like a fish, and Hartley closed her hand into a tighter fist, blocking the woman's airway entirely.

With a gesture Hartley threw her through the front window into the yard, running to her grandmother. It was worse than she could have imagined. A bloody knife lay on the ground, and Grandma Holly was bleeding out everywhere.

Pulling her grandmother into her arms as much as possible, Hartley sobbed as the ambulance arrived with the police, too late. Far too late.

And so Hartley Potter lost another mother, and learned the danger in letting yourself love another person. People were fragile, and could only too easily be taken away.

Author's Note: Like I said, not a happy story. At the end, Hartley has just turned eight, I believe. Three more years until Hogwarts. I intend this to be a long one, so strap in for the ride. Until recently my user's name was Dustfinger's Cheering Section, so if you don't remember following me, that would be why. I haven't made any shipping decisions yet, and I'm open to suggestions, provided you give reasoning for your preference. This is going to be a heavy AU. Don't assume you know who is going to live and die.

Please Review.

HRHPrincessTricia