Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis (Hp x Mcu) by Enigmaris

Chapter 41: The Heart of a Dying Star

Summary:

Mjolnir likes Thor best, they always would. But Holly Potter was something special, unique.

The heart of a dying star was an interesting place to be. For you see to call a star 'dying' was to misunderstand what a star actually was, at least in the magical sense. All stars began to die the moment they formed. You could speak to scientist after scientist who could tell you all about the pressures and theorized temperatures and calculated sizes and densities of stars and it would all be very interesting, but it still wouldn't tell you anything about what it was like to witness the death of a star.

Mjolnir had been formed as a moderately sized star had begun to run out of hydrogen to smash around together to create helium. Just as the final reaction began, causing the star to balloon out, become giant and turn a fiery red, the dwarves began to collect the microscopic amounts of uru that would be used to create the wonderous hammer. Bits and pieces of stardust, gathered with magic covered hands and carefully pooled together.

It's a beautiful process to watch. The dwarves would be in a ring like station around the dying star, powerful magics protecting them from the radiation and heat, and they would glow a rainbow of colors as they stood carefully mining the metal they wanted fresh from the source. Humans viewed dwarves as beings who lived deep in the earth, who were wide and squat with dirt on their faces and the scent of coal on their breath.

But the reality was far different. Dwarves were the first space travelers. They mined out stars, atom by atom, as they began to die, gathering every element in its purest form just as it was created, fresh and radioactive. And with those materials they make the greatest weapons and tools known to the realms.

When Mjolinr had been commissioned, it had been a fortuitous time for the dwarves, they had had their eye on a newly discovered star. Studies showed that it had formed from a dense cloud of gas filed with a cocktail of trace elements. Heavy dense elements. The kind that would make Uru in large quantities when the time came. So when Odin had ordered a hammer made for his crown prince, the dwarves had gone to their newest acquisition and prepared.

The star just needed a bit of help dying after all.

The problem of course, which no one knew until much later, was that the Norns were just as interested in what this star would make as anyone else was. For reasons known only to themselves, they sent out just the gentlest nudge to the dying star and when the dwarves went out to mine and to forge, something else got caught up in their grips. That something was the thing that all stars had right in their heart, a kernel of life.

Stars are givers of life after all. When they form the send out energy to the surrounding universe offering light and gifts to all those who orbit them. When they die they release all of their newly created elements into the universe, which gather elsewhere and form the building blocks of life on every planet. Every single being is made up of stardust and they have just a bit of that life in them, a bit of soul.

That's what souls are in the end. Just a bit of starlight.

So, with a nudge from the norns, the dwarves managed to mine the rarest material of them all.

A soul.

Mjolnir became aware of themself in increments, as more and more molten uru was added to the star forge, more and more bits of soul filtered in. They had no name, no passions, no thoughts. Just the knowledge that they were and a moment before they had not been. Then they had been poured into their form and taken shape, a prism of gleaming metal. They heard and felt the vibrations from the dwarves around them.

"This one will be an excellent hammer for the prince!"

And what exactly was a hammer? What was a prince? Questions echoed in the soul of Mjolnir, still nameless. The dwarves were rough in their tutelage. They showed them what a hammer was by beating them into the proper shape with one. They carved runes into their side outlining in explicit detail what Mjolnir was meant to be. A hammer for Prince Thor, god of thunder. They were to be a weapon, a conduit for power. For Prince Thor of Asgard.