Summary: Harry Potter is well-known to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros as the child of Robert Baratheon and the late Lynna Stark. With the title of firstborn Crown Prince, Hadrian Eddard Baratheon, he changes the rules of the game and the world. He has to, because Winter Is Coming and his enemies know it.

Chapter 1: Hadrian "Wolfsblood" Baratheon

"If you listened to my counsel as well as you huntedHadrian "Wolf Blood" Baratheon, my prince," came the very calm drawl from behind the crown prince of the Seven Kingdoms, "then perhaps your father would have seen fit to give you his Iron Throne by now."

"Ser Dayne," the prince retorted with a snort and an easy smile, "don't insult my father. He's as stubborn as this buck was to kill. Nearly lost the bloody beast with how slow you lot are. Seven arrows, and still it was going on like they were fleas biting it…"

Four armored individuals and a squire boy walked into the clearing with the knight closest to the prince taking his hunting bow and quiver of arrows. The other three attended to the stag.

"An excellent shot, Your Highness." The squire boy said as he collected the hunting bow and arrows from Ser Dayne, who knocked him in the chest with them all the while giving the boy a severe look.

"He'll learn better, just as you will, my prince. He'll keep up with our lot yet." Ser Dayne said in a tone that brokered no arguments. The boy nodded vigorously, but the prince only shook his head with a chuckle.

"You're much too hard on Gendry, just as you were with Edric, and even before then with me." The prince said, emerald green eyes looking upon young Gendry with nothing but kindness.

"The Seven know I do it out of necessity. The world wouldn't show them half the kindness you do if you hadn't taken them in."

"Well they are my brothers."

"Half-brothers."

Edric and Gendry were his brothers. True, they were bastard-born, but he loved them all the same. And truer still, he didn't express the same level of affection for all his siblings, but he didn't have to explain his favoritism to anyone. His father certainly did not, nor would he. The only difference between Edric and Gendry was that Edric was an acknowledged bastard son of the king, while Gendry was only viewed upon by the realm as the son of a whore. Even still, the prince allowed both to become squires under Ser Dayne as he himself had until a few years ago when he had reached of the appropriate age.

His father and good-uncle had been insistent, and the prince was thankful for that in hindsight.

"Brothers all the same. They share my blood. And even without, they are family as ties of blood mean nothing when comradery is as strong as we."

Another of the four knights approached after the deer was secure and taken care of.

"You're quite smooth, Prince Hadrian. What with all your honeyed words about the love you afford your bastard brothers. Yet, you don't show half the love for your highborn brother, Prince Joffrey. It's a shame, really." The only female of the group, the lady knight Brienne of Tarth said, almost as though it was more than could bear.

"If my little brother weren't half the vile little monster he proves himself to be time and time again, then perhaps I wouldn't show only half the love. I love the side of him that is my brother, a prince as strong as he is cunning. What I don't love, Brienne, is the side of Joffrey that gets cock-hard for every person that bows low to his shits and all the whipping boys he's allowed to beat upon. He revels in the suffering of others too much for my liking, as if he were a beast in human form." The prince's emerald eyes flared then, seeming like frozen jewels as they glared off into the distance. "It disgusts me to think my father's blood runs through his veins… if even that is true with how much he looks like Ser Jamie each passing day…"

"Ser Darry! Ser Martell! Secure my horse, and the game! We ride on to Winterfell!" the prince announced, turning as his crimson and gold armor gleamed in the sparse daylight of the North.

"Your Highness, we're already a month's ride ahead of your king father. Would it not be wise to wait at least a week's time for the royal entourage to catch up some to our haste?" Ser Martell yelled from where he was securing the deer in the back of an open carriage with the other killings they had made along the way through the North.

"If not for that blasted wheelhouse, they'd be here with me…" the prince muttered, disgusted with the contraption that his queen-mother loved so much. He then shook his head to clear his thoughts, "Besides, our riding ahead is with purpose. My good-uncle should hear the news from my mouth, or that of my father's. Not from some blasted raven, or my Aunt Catelyn who never knew Jon Arryn as we all did. The man was too good to have his death told to his foster son by some note attached to a bird. He should grieve as we did with us with him."

"If you ride on, my prince," Ser Dayne said, scratching the beard on his chin, "Then we follow. The Griffguard are with you."

"Well, four-tenths of the Griffguard at any rate… Nonetheless, let us be off with our game. We will reach Winterfell by evening, and tomorrow greet my Stark family with a feast in mourning of Jon Arryn."

"Aye, Prince Harry!" everyone, even Gendry, chorused as they knew the lengths their prince went through for honor and integrity.

As Harry mounted his steed, so did the others. Gendry was given a new horse since they had left King's Landing. Ser Darry mounted his grey mare. Brienne of Tarth whipped her mount into riding off after the prince. Ser Dayne rolled his eyes as he bid Gendry to keep up with them this time. Ser Martell stretched his back, bones creaking and popping before he swiftly mounted his stead, and set off on a trail blazing after Prince Hadrian. Gendry watched these legendary figures as he always did, seeing them race off into the distance after his royal-born brother.

"Boy! I said keep up!" Ser Dayne yelled, and Gendry started into action as he urged his stallion to follow the others.

It took a little over seven hours of hard horseback riding to reach Winterfell. It had been a few years since Prince Harry had seen the castle of his good-family, the Starks. He had fostered under his uncle Eddard "Ned" Stark for a few years when he reached his tenth nameday, but upon reaching one-and-three, he had been given to Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Barristan Selmy to be trained as a knight and fighter of the realm. It wasn't until a year ago that he had been deemed a knight of the land, and left Edric to finish his squireship with Ser Selmy while making Ser Dayne take Gendry on the same. The boy would make a great blacksmith, of that his brother Harry had little doubt, but Harry wanted him to be as fierce with crushing skulls as he was with slamming his hammer to an anvil.

As he entered the courtyard, Harry sent his sworn knights headed off to do their duties in arranging their lodgings for their stay with the castle staff and seeing that their game reached the kitchens for the evening's supper. Gendry followed behind Harry as he normally would unless commanded different by either Harry or Ser Dayne. He kept a mind about him to allows remain three steps behind his true-born brother.

Hadrian Eddard Baratheon, the First of His Name, Crown Prince to the Seven Kingdoms and Dragonstone. "Harry" he was called by those he allowed the privilege; those that knew and loved him well enough, but never anything less. He had their father's temper sometimes, this Gendry knew when he had seen Harry set upon a group of highborn little lords that thought to call him bastard in front of Harry.

"If my brother's a bastard, then I'll be the one to remind him of that!" Harry had thundered like a powerful storm of ice and lightning, punching the nearest boy— the son of a knight, if Gendry remembered correctly— before moving onto the others, "Unless you've got our blood in your veins, don't you dare think to insult him! The blood of your king and I, your prince, is in him. It means my little shit of a bastard brother still worth ten of all you lot! Now go, before I honor you all again with my sword instead of my fists!"

Gendry had never been so surprised as that day to be Harry's brother. Every day saw him grow as a better blacksmith at the smith, and better squire to Ser Dayne. Every day saw Harry and him grow closer as brothers. Every day saw him love his half-brother more dearly than anyone else in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms.

And yet… even with all the love he afforded his brother, Gendry held no love for the North. He had been born in King's Landing far to the south of this barren wasteland. He also kept to the Faith of the Seven, even if he wasn't exactly a High Sparrow about it.

And while everything in the south was bright and airy, like walking through a fresh garden, everything in the North was the exact opposite as it was all dark and primal with trees untouched for tens of thousands of years. And the Stark family's gloomy castle, Winterfell, rose up around it. It smelled of moist earth and decay. It was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names.

But all the same, his good-brother loved this gloomy abysmal place as though it were his home as much as King's Landing was.

Still, Gendry could at least admit that Winterfell smelt lots better than the Red Keep, and better yet than Flea Bottom…

"My beloved lord uncle," Harry said, his voice light with an air of familiarity as he spread his arms wide.

Gendry blinked. Apparently while in his thoughts, he hadn't even notice them end up in the godswood of the castle. He shivered. He hated this wood even more than the North's barren lands and the gloom of Winterfell castle. Gendry hated their nameless ways and odd faces. His gods had names, and their faces were as familiar as the faces of Ser Dayne and his brother Harry.

But Gendry clamped down on such thoughts. The blood of the First Men still flowed in the veins of Harry just as much as the Starks who were Hadrian's family. And Harry prayed to the gods, the named and the nameless, the old and the new.

Lord Stark lifted his head to look at them. "Harry?" His voice was distant and formal.

That was always Lord Stark, Gendry found, distant and formal. With all but Harry and the king. The last Gendry had seen of Lord Stark was when he rode from Winterfell to see Harry knighted at King's Landing last year. The man looked very much the same since then; long brown hair stirring in the wind as it had been that day. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes. All the time Gendry found it hard to believe this was the man Harry said would sit before the fire in the evening telling him and Robb Stark and Jon Snow stories of the age of heroes and the children of the forest.

But then again, he was Gendry the bastard child of the king, while Hadrian was the true-born one. Despite how well Harry treated him, and all the love he was afforded by his brother, all he would be to others was a bastard.

The king's bastard, but a bastard all the same.

"Aye," Harry said, moving through the wood as though it were natural. For Gendry it was anything but. "I've rode from King's Landing to greet you most swiftly. And I've brought a feast of game for your kitchen staff to prepare! I will speak my business, and later tonight we will sup well."

"Where are the children?" Gendry wanted to roll his eyes. No matter how many times he and Harry rode to Winterfell, if the Starks weren't assembled as a unit upon greeting them, then the Lord of the family thought something terrible must have happened.

"I've no idea, good-uncle. I think I glimpsed Robb trying to find my aunt, but can't be sure." The smirk on Harry's face told them both that he was actually quite sure he had sent the stoic Starks into a tizzy. And he was probably enjoying it too.

There! The wink. Yes, Gendry grinned despite himself and laughed silently as Lord Stark cast a disparaging look their way. Yes, Harry was indeed loving the fact that he had gotten the drop on the ever vigilant Starks.

Of course, they didn't look the part of anything royal. Harry had even abandoned his royal circlet to his horse's pouch almost as soon as they had taken to the Kingsroad.

Hadrian removed his cloak with a flourish that Gendry never seemed to understand before sitting down beside the pool with his back to the weirwood. Gendry refused to look up at the trees, feeling the eyes watching him, but he did his best to ignore them.

"My dear good-uncle, I have heavy news for your heart." Harry started, his voice cracking a little in contrast to the heartiness and cheek he had displayed earlier.

"Then out with it, nephew." Lord Stark bid him, "You're not seven anymore, so there will be no stumbling or mincing of words. I'm a Northern man, and through our veins run the blood of the First Men. You will speak plainly."

"For winter is coming…" Harry finished in place of Lord Stark, his voice hard and strange like in the few times he had to speak seriously with Lord Eddard Stark. It always surprised Gendry just how stern and cold Harry could look when next to his uncle. It always surprised Gendry how easily Harry could become Hadrian, blood of both Stark and Baratheon.

And those words…

Winter is Coming…

Ugh, they gave Gendry the chills, as they always did.

The Stark words.

He knew for as far back as he could remember that every noble house had its words.

Ours is the Fury… Hadrian had been the one to teach him that one. The words of their father's house… of Harry's house… of the royal family's house…

But never his house…

Winter is coming, said the Stark words. Not for the first time, Gendry tried to digest what a strange people the northerners were.

"I am sorry, Uncle Ned, but Jon Arryn is dead." There was no way to soften the blow, so Hadrian told his uncle straight.

Lord Stark's eyes found Hadrian's, then Gendry's own, and for once Gendry had no clue how to feel about the Warden of the North. Even Gendry— with Lord Stark's distant treatment of him and unsympathetic attitude to boot— could tell how hard the brunt of their ill news hit him. In his youth, Lord Stark had fostered at the Eyrie, and the childless Lord Jon Arryn had become a second father to him and his fellow ward, Robert Baratheon— Gendry's own father.

Jon Arryn was practically Gendry's grandfather in all but blood. The man had treated him fairly if a little distant because of his work schedule. When the Mad King Aerys Targaryen had demanded the Lord Stark and their father's heads, the Lord of the Eyrie had raised his moon-and-falcon banners in revolt rather than give up the fostered sons he had pledged to protect.

And one day fifteen years ago, Lord Stark's second father had become a brother as well, as he and Jon Arryn stood together in the sept at Riverrun to wed two sisters, the daughters of Lord Hoster Tully.

"Did he suffer?" Lord Stark's voice sounded dry and a little tight.

"No," Harry assured, "One day he was fit as a fiddle— old, but still very much spry— and the next he was overtaken with illness."

Harry's expression held a dark edge to it, almost as if he suspected something he did not want to tell Lord Stark, but for the life of him, Gendry did not know what.

Or why his half-brother looked at him so quickly before looking away.

"My good-grandfather in all but blood was taken quickly. Pycelle was useless, always has been, yet even Maester Dreary couldn't do a blasted thing. Eventually… they brought the milk of the poppy, so Grandfather Arryn did not linger long in pain."

"That is some small mercy, I suppose," Lord Stark said, sighing heavily as Gendry's eyes could see the grief mounting on his face.

"What of Lysa?" Lord Stark asked suddenly. "And Jon's boy, young Robert. What word of them?"

Hadrian gave a great sigh himself, "The woman went mad with grief. She fled all the way to the Eyrie up in the Vale just after his funeral, only baby Robyn and a small guard in tow. My father and his royal party ride here to Winterfell to seek you out. I rode here as hard as I could to tell you all this in person, even though the others wanted to send a raven before riding themselves. I shot it from the skies as soon as I caught up to it."

"Of course you did," Lord Stark smirked lightly, but it did nothing to hide the sorrow in his eyes. "The Eyrie is high and lonely, and it was ever her husband's place, not hers. Lord Jon's memory will haunt each stone. The woman needs the comfort of family and friends around her."

"I sent a raven to the Vale, asking the lords to keep an eye on her and little Robyn. Ser Brynden waits in the Vale, too. Lord Jon named him Knight of the Gate."

Eddard nodded, remembering hearing as much. "Brynden will do what he can for her, and for the boy. That is some comfort at least."

"Then after all business is done, you may ride to her." Harry urged. "Take my good cousins and fill her halls with noise and shouts and laughter. That boy of hers needs other children about him, and the woman should not be alone in her grief."

There was that look again, Gendry noticed. The look as if Harry had swallowed something foul. He had only ever seen that look on Hadrian's face when Harry was talking to the queen on a particularly vexing day.

"Would that I could," Lord Stark said, wiping his hand down his face to hide tears Gendry had already observed. "But I was paying attention to your earlier words, nephew. The king is riding to Winterfell to seek me out."

And for the first time since they had arrived, a smile broke across Lord Eddard Stark's face. Gendry wished he could share his joy. But his father held little love for him outside of his talents with a forge and hammer; war-hammer or anvil-striker, it was all the same to the king.

Strength in the Baratheon blood, and all that…

"I thought that might please you." Harry said, giving his own little smile. "Send word to Uncle Benjen. Let him know that my father has gained another stone in weight, at least."

"That makes four stone since ruling the Seven Kingdom, nephew. Has he tired of trying to bash your thick skull in with his war-hammer in reenactments of the Battle of the Trident?"

"No, but he has grown annoyed that his queen-wife won't let him do the same with her precious Joffrey."

"Of course the Lannister woman wouldn't want a hair touched on the boy's golden head." Only here, in the vastness of the North and the stone safety of Winterfell, had Gendry ever heard Lord Stark utter such treacherous words.

But even still, Gendry would never betray Harry's trust by telling anyone anything that was said in front of him between anyone. They could plan to murder his father, and he would pretend an insect had taken his full interest in the meantime.

"Nonetheless, Ben will want to be here." Eddard agreed with his good-nephew. "I shall tell Maester Luwin to send his swiftest bird. How many in Robert's party?"

"I left before they did, so it is probably the standard of a hundred knights, at the least, with all their retainers, and half again as many free-riders. My father's queen-wife and my siblings travel with him, as well as her Lannister brothers."

Gendry watched Lord Stark grimace at that. It was as well-known as the Battle of the Trident and the Sacking of King's Landing that there was small love between the Warden of the North and the queen's family. The Lannisters of Casterly Rock had come late to his king-father's cause, when victory was almost certain, and Lord Stark had never forgiven them for it.

"Well, if the price for Robert's company is an infestation of Lannisters, so be it. It sounds as though Robert is bringing half his court."

"Aye, that it does. Where the king goes, the realm follows. Yet, I don't think you'll be seeing Baelish or Varys anytime soon."

"Hopefully, no. I could do well without Littlefinger and the Spider to also sour my castle in addition to the Lannisters."

"Good, because I want them to take the Black as soon as I'm king."

"Easy said. Harder still to accomplish, Your Highness."

"My father will keep an easy pace for the sake of the others," Hadrian said as he got up and dusted off his trousers.

"It is just as well. That will give us more time to prepare."

"While I cannot speak for Joffrey, the little shit that he is, I can say that Mrycella and Tommen would be happy to see their Stark cousins again after a whole year."

Eddard "Ned" Stark nodded before he and Hadrian "Harry" Baratheon walked alongside each other with Gendry three respectful steps behind.

"There must be a feast, of course, with singers, and Robert will want to hunt." Eddard went on as Harry smiled. "And when is the day of my good-nephew's wedding?"

"When the royal party rides back to King's Landing." Harry smiled, and Lord Stark looked proud.

"Then we shall toast many things when your father arrives. Some sad, but more of good fortune. I shall send Jory south with an honor guard to meet Robert on the Kingsroad and escort them back. Gods, how are we going to feed them all and your expanding father? On his way already, you said? Damn the man. Damn his royal hide."

Harry only laughed and gave countenance to his uncle.

And Gendry remained as he was. Bastard, brother, squire, and listener. He guarded his brother from harm, and was loved as dearly. It showed when Harry wrapped an arm around his shoulders and had him join their merry banter. For once, even Lord Stark didn't seem to mind as they caught Jon Snow— the honorable Lord Stark's own bastard son— passing them by.

And it was this side of Hadrian "Harry" Eddard Baratheon that Gendry Waters liked best. The side of him that didn't have anything to be serious about. The side of his half-brother that loved him openly and wholly without question.

The side of his brother that would not have to kill in the years to come only to keep a throne that was rightfully his to sit upon…

So let me know what you all think. Leave a review, and tell me something! Do you love it? Do you hate it? What would you like to see in the next chapter? Leave a review, and let me know!

-Traban16