Hammering it Home

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Prologue

When she'd first heard the tales, Harriet 'Harry' Potter had felt a shiver run up her spine at the mention of the Deathly Hallows. Something had just seemed so intimately off about the idea, the very thought of ever being able to master such a thing as Death.

Death was an unstoppable eternity. There was, ultimately, no cheating it.

You could attempt to beat it back, to gain just a little bit more of that precious time, but there was no winning in the end. Many had tried, Voldemort being the most recent example of course. But no one had ever won, not really.

Which was why it was a surprise, the morning of her twenty second birthday, that she looked in the mirror to see she'd not aged.

Oh, subconsciously she'd probably noticed. The fact she'd not been able to quite leave her baby faced teenaged self behind.

Up until now, she'd been putting it off, trying to distract herself from the very idea because it was just so ludicrous. She couldn't acknowledge something like this because it was impossible. And yet, here she was, not a feature changed since she'd picked up the Elder Wand that day in Hogwarts.

She'd tried to ignore the things, not said a word to Ron and Hermione when she'd returned to Grimmauld place to see the Hallows sat upon her bed, resting innocently atop her pillow together like a pile of kittens finally come home. She'd not mentioned that in the week she'd taken off from the world, where she'd refused contact with everyone and everything, that she'd really been trying to dispose of the three artefacts that just wouldn't leave her alone. Everyday for seven days she'd thrown them away, burnt them, buried them or sent them off into the ocean. And the next morning they'd be laid beside her like a persistent lover in the morning.

And after that, Harry had ignored them. Locked them up deep in the Potter family vault -after furiously apologising to the goblins of course- and done her best to forget about them.

But now, it was too much to ignore the side effects when they were staring her right in the face. It was 2002, she should look like a young woman. The teenager staring back from the mirror seemed to disagree.

Gripping tightly at the edge of the porcelain sink, Harry sucked in a low breath, trying to ignore Kreacher's worried looks from the doorway.

"Is Mistress alright?" Okay, so he couldn't be ignored.

Straightening till she was stood as tall as her teenaged height allowed her, Harry let out a small breath.

"No Kreacher. There's something wrong with me, I think you can see that. It's only a matter of time till the press catch on, if they aren't already wondering now. Why aren't I ageing? I was sure the Master of Death thing was just a lie to add a bit more excitement to a trio of objects... But now I'm not so sure. I need answers, and I'm not going to get them sat around like I have been doing." Running a stressed hand through her hair, Harry let out a low sigh, gripping at the dark strands before wrapping it all back in a plait. The long tail of hair swished between her shoulder blades, a dark contrast against the light green of her shirt.

"I think, I need to stop ignoring the problem. Kreacher, pack all of my belongings. I'm going to the bank, and the leaving the country. Don't tell anyone until I'm gone. Magic me up so nothing can reach me."

"Yes Mistress."

Dashing back into her room, Harry snatched up her trust Phoenix Feather wand, twirling it around between her fingers before conjuring up a map of the world, followed by a dart.

"Looks like I start studying-" there was a dull thump as the dart hit the map, "-in France."

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It wouldn't be until eight years later, deep within the desert of New Mexico, that Harry would get the answers she was chasing after.

Okay, I lied in my last new story. I couldn't help but put this up too. This is my frist HPxAvengers story, and it's going to be FemHarry and Thor. I've got a lot of ideas for this one, so many that I'm actually struggling to get them all wrote down.

Sorry for telling porkies, if I do put up another story before December it'll be 'Diamond Dust' for which I have 500ish words of the prologue already. But no more after that! I promise I'll try.

Tsume
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