Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
ASOIAF and all of its characters belong to GRRM
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 05: The Changed Prince
A week is a long time in the viper's nest of the Red Keep. Long enough for whispers to slither from mouth to ear, for assumptions to harden into wary certainties, for a prince's changed habits to become a courtly obsession.
The Queen's temper was a cold, sharp thing in the morning air of the Small Hall. "Where is my son?" Cersei Lannister's voice was a silk-wrapped blade. The serving girl before her trembled, a leaf in a winter wind.
"My Queen… he… the Prince was not in his chambers." The girl's eyes were fixed on the rugs displayed across the flagstones, as if they held the secret to her survival.
Cersei's perfect lips thinned. "He knows we break our fast together on the seventh day. Where has he gone?" The unspoken question hung heavier: Who has he become?
Tommen and Myrcella exchanged a glance across the table, a silent conversation of shared confusion. Their brother's absence was strange. His new demeanor was stranger still.
King Robert let out a grunt that shook his massive frame, setting his cup of strongwine down with a thud that echoed. "I hear the boy's taken to the yard at dawn. Is that truth, or just another mummer's tale?" His bloodshot gaze swung toward his brother-by-law, a man who wore white silk but sat at the table like a golden lion.
Jaime Lannister, his plate barely touched, met the King's look. The light from the high windows caught the gilt of his hair and armor. "I have heard the same whispers, Your Grace. Though my own eyes have not yet witnessed this… diligence."
"If I may, Your Grace." The voice was old, but firm as castle-forged steel. Ser Barristan Selmy stood behind the King's chair, a white shadow with a face carved from dignity and duty.
Robert waved a meaty hand. "Speak, Ser Barristan. You've seen more sunrises than any of us. What's this new madness?"
"I observed the Prince at his drills two days past. He was sparring with his sworn shield, Sandor Clegane." Barristan's words were measured, a general reporting from a strange new front.
"Sparring?" Robert's bushy eyebrows crept up his forehead. "Joffrey? And how did the little brat fare?"
"His form is… raw. Untrained. But he does not quit. He listens. And for one so green, he shows a surprising instinct. A knack for anticipating the next blow, even if he lacks the skill to properly counter it."
Cersei's horror was a palpable chill. "My son is grunting in the dirt like a common sellsword before dawn?"
"There is no shame in a prince learning the arts of war," Jaime interjected smoothly, though his eyes held a flicker of the same unease as his sister's. "It is the duty of his station."
"Your notion of duty has always begun and ended with a sword in your hand," Cersei snapped, her composure fraying.
"Enough," Robert rumbled, a hint of something that might have been pride colouring his voice. "If the boy wants to learn something that doesn't involve torturing cats or terrorizing servants, I say let him. Gods know it's a better use of his time than his previous… entertainments."
The barb struck true. Cersei flinched, the memory of Joffrey's old cruelties...cruelties she had often excused or overlooked, were now rising like bile. Compared to the boy who had once proudly presented her with a dove whose wings he'd pulled off, a son sweating in the yard was a relief, however bizarre.
"Very well," she conceded, her voice tight. "So long as he does not neglect his lessons with the Grand Maester."
"Pycelle has made no complaint of the Prince's absence," Jaime offered, a subtle reminder that the old man's silence was its own form of approval.
"I will still speak with him," Cersei said, her gaze drifting toward the doors as if she could see through stone and distance to the courtyard where her firstborn son was being remade into a stranger.
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The yard was a world of grunting effort and the clean, hard sound of wood on wood. At this hour, it belonged to them alone. The Hound was a mountain of controlled violence, his practice greatsword a blur of oppressive force. Joffrey—Harry...moved within that storm, a slimmer, quicker shadow.
Thwack! He managed to deflect a savage overhead chop, the impact shuddering up his arms. But the momentum left him open. The Hound's boot caught him squarely in the chest. The air left Harry's lungs in a pained whoosh, but his feet scrabbled for purchase, and he stayed upright, skidding back two paces on the gritty ground.
A grunt, almost approving, came from behind the Hound's snarling-dog helm. "Better. You're not eating dirt this time."
Harry gasped, the taste of iron and effort in his mouth. He was drenched, his linen shirt plastered to his skin, every muscle singing a chorus of protest. But the pain was a focus. A reminder. He was not here to become a legendary swordsman. He was here to forge a vessel.
His failure was a ghost that walked with him in the dawn light.
The ritual. The blinding, annihilating power. His body...his powerful, magically-enhanced, centuries-old body had been a thimble trying to hold a tidal wave. It had vaporized him. The cosmic energy had been there, in abundance, just as he'd calculated. The vessel had been too weak.
'I will not make that mistake again.' He vowed, the thought as heavy as the iron blade in his hand.
Magic was the goal, the ultimate prize. But magic needed a conduit, a crucible strong enough to contain its fire. This soft, spoiled flesh would not do. He would temper it in sweat and strain, make it hard, make it resilient. This was the first, brutal step on a much longer road.
"Well?" the Hound rasped. "Had your fill? The Queen's table awaits. She won't take kindly to an empty chair."
"She is rarely pleased, regardless of what I do or say," Harry replied, shifting his grip on the sword-hilt. The calluses on his palms, new and tender, were a badge of progress. He saw the people in this castle not as family, but as pieces on a board, obstacles or assets. The only family he'd ever known was dust in another universe.
He lunged, a simple, direct thrust aimed at the Hound's center mass. In his mind, he was calculating angles, footwork, and the distribution of weight. But a flicker of distraction...a memory of Ginny' fierce grin, of Luna's far-seeing eyes was enough to make his focus waver. Instinctively, a thread of magic, fine as spider-silk and just as strong, reinforced the muscles of his arm and shoulder for a fraction of a second.
The Hound moved to parry as he had a hundred times before. But the sword came faster, harder than it should have. The blunted edge slammed into the juncture of his shoulder and breastplate with a solid, meaty thump that echoed in the empty yard.
"Ugh!" The Hound staggered back a half-step, a shock of genuine pain flashing in his dark eyes. He stared at the prince, then down at his own shoulder, as if the practice sword had suddenly grown teeth.
"Apologies," Harry said, hastily reining in the stray magic. "A lucky angle."
"Lucky?" The Hound's voice dropped to a dangerous growl. The surprise curdled into something darker, more competitive. He'd been holding back, playing a careful game of not harming his charge. Now, a spark of real challenge ignited. "Let's see how lucky you are."
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The library of the Red Keep was a cavernous, dusty place, smelling of old parchment, dry rot, and forgotten ambitions. Harry sat at a heavy oak table, a massive tome open before him: The Conquest of Aegon Targaryen, as Recorded by Maester Gyles. The text was dry, the prose pedantic, but the subject was fire and blood.
Dragons. Not the whimsical, intelligent creatures of some fairy tales, but engines of annihilation. Aegon and his sisters had not conquered through diplomacy or divine right, but through the sheer, terrifying application of superior force. It was a brutal, pragmatic lesson. And it confirmed a suspicion: magic, or something like it, had once walked this world. It had just worn scales and breathed flame.
He felt the presence before he heard it. A whisper of soft-soled shoes on stone, a ghost of lilac and something faintly chemical. He looked up, his green eyes meeting the placid, curious gaze of the man who had entered as silently as a thought.
Lord Varys. The Master of Whisperers. The Spider. The memories Harry had archived provided a dossier: a eunuch, clever, seemingly servile, with a web of informants that spanned kingdoms. A man who traded in secrets the way merchants traded in spice.
"Your Grace," Varys murmured, dipping into a shallow bow. His smile was a practiced curve, empty of warmth. "Forgive the intrusion. I did not expect to find the Prince so… studiously engaged." His eyes, sharp as needles, darted to the book's title. "A stirring tale of fire and blood. Though perhaps not the most politic reading material for one of your House. The Targaryens are not fondly remembered by the Baratheons. Particularly, your dear father."
"Merely satisfying a curiosity, Lord Varys," Harry replied, his voice neutral. He closed the book with a soft thud. The man set off every instinct honed by dealing with Albus Dumbledore at his most inscrutable. "To what do I owe the… pleasure?"
"Oh, no pleasure, Your Grace. A humble servant merely pays his respects upon passing by. One does not ignore a prince, even one immersed in history." The lie was as smooth as oiled marble.
"Of course." Harry waited. Spiders did not approach without purpose.
"It is only…" Varys let the pause hang, ripe with implication. "The court is a garden of gossip, and the most intriguing bloom of late concerns you, my prince. They say you have undergone a remarkable… transformation. Dawn drills in the yard, and now, solitude amongst the scrolls. It is a fascinating departure."
"People have little else to do but talk," Harry said, shrugging. "It is the price of being heir to the throne."
"A heavy price indeed," Varys agreed, his head tilting like a bird's. "And it does make one curious as to the cause. A sudden realization of princely duty? The counsel of a wise mentor?" His eyes grew impossibly mild. "Or perhaps something… stranger? The influence of a foreign art? There are still those in the east who speak of sorcerers and their subtle ways."
Sorcerers. The word hung in the dusty air. Harry had tossed out the comment about being brainwashed as a test, a piece of bait. Varys had not just taken it; he had examined it with the intensity of a maester with a strange new plague.
"Let us hope it is not the latter," Varys continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "Magic is a sword without a hilt, my prince. There is no safe way to grasp it."
So it does exist here, Harry thought, the scholar in him stirring. Not just as dead history in dragon-lore, but as a living, feared possibility. He filed the knowledge away. Maester Pycelle would have to endure some new, pointed questions.
"I shall take my leave," Varys said, beginning to turn. Then he paused, as if struck by an afterthought. "Though, for disturbing your peace, perhaps I can offer a small token. A piece of news not yet common in the halls."
"Another rumor?"
"It is my currency. The Hand of the King, Lord Jon Arryn… has taken ill."
Harry frowned. "Men fall ill all the time."
"The Grand Maester wore a grave face when he left Lord Arryn's chambers last night. It is more than a passing fever, I fear." Varys's expression was one of profound, practiced sorrow. "Lord Arryn has been a pillar of the realm. A terrible loss, should the Stranger take him. Your father relies on him heavily."
He rules, Harry thought, while Robert drinks and whores. The implications began to unfold. An ailing Hand meant instability. A power vacuum. The comfortable stagnation of the realm he currently inhabited was under threat.
"Is he dying?" Harry asked bluntly.
"We must pray to the Seven he is not," Varys said, his tone suggesting prayers were of limited use. With another shallow bow, he glided away, making no move toward any of the thousand shelves. His mission, it seemed, had been observation and the planting of seeds, not the borrowing of books.
Alone again, Harry stared at the closed tome. The Hand was dying. The realm would shudder. Knowledge was power, and he was starved for it. The library loomed around him, a labyrinth of unread histories, genealogies, and treatises on law and warfare. Years of work ahead of him.
A slow, determined smile touched his lips. He was not Hermione, to delight in the slow, careful conquest of each volume. He was Harry Potter, who had once sought to cheat death itself. There were always shortcuts.
For him, gaining knowledge was just a means to an end.
'Hold on… didn't I know a spell that could greatly shorten this task?' He began to ponder.