part iv

AC 296

{ Winterfell }

"You cannot honestly consider leaving!"

"I'm being left little choice in the matter." Ned sighs, knowing his next words will not be well received. "But more than that, I wish to go. Cat," he takes hold of his wife's hands when she makes to turn away, "I missed Robert's funeral. I cannot regret that, for I would have never left you alone, not while Rickon's survival was uncertain and you were sick. But you have recovered, as has our son. I wish to grieve for my friend now and offer his family what comfort I can. Robert's oldest is a year younger than Robb and his youngest is four, did you know? Far too young to lose their father."

Catelyn closes her eyes and though Ned knows by the twist of her lips that she is unhappy, she does understand his decision. "Any age is too young to lose a father," she says softly and Ned bows his head in acknowledgement.

Though he has made peace with his father's death in a way he has never achieved with Lyanna's, he knows Catelyn is also worried about her own father, whose health continues to decline.

"It's only for a few weeks, Cat. I'll be back before you know it."

"You won't be going alone though, will you?" His wife asks in that tone she uses when she already knows the answer, has already resigned herself to the answer and only mentions it at all to verbalize her protest.

Ned hates that tone. But he can't bring himself to lie. The lies he's told Catelyn over the course of their marriage may have been few in number, but the amount of hurt they caused cannot be so easily measured. "Our children are of similar ages and it's true that Robert always dreamed of uniting our houses through the bonds of marriage one day." Ned shrugs. "I won't arrange a match any of our children are unhappy with, you know I won't. But neither can I reject the possibility out of hand."

"Of course you can't." Catelyn shakes her head and musters up a soft smile. "Well, Sansa, at least, will surely love King's Landing. Arya on the other hand…"

Ned chuckles at the thought of his younger — and wilder — daughter. "She is only eight, she will grow out of it," he says, more out of habit than conviction. There is much of his late sister in Arya, that same drive, that same wolfs blood showing true. Ned can only hope it will lead his daughter to a much happier end.

Catelyn, too, isn't fooled if the knowing look she sends him is any indication. "If you say so."

"And Bran will have plenty to explore and learn."

"So long as he doesn't climb one of those towers." Catelyn scowls. "He'll break his back one of these days — or might get shot down by an overeager guard."

"I'll talk to him," Ned promises because she isn't wrong.

"I still wish I could accompany you." Catelyn squeezes his hands. "You Starks have no proper appreciation for the beauty of the South."

Ned returns the gesture, but as much as he wishes to indulge in teasing his wife as well, the matter is too serious. "You are needed here, Cat," he says lowly. "Robb is a good, strong boy, but still just a boy. My leave will give him the chance to grow into his own, but he will need your advice and support all the same. And Rickon is too young to be separated from his mother."

"So you've said," Catelyn says calmly, which is her way of disagreeing without outright stating so. "And I will do my duty."

Ned smiles, though it turns out far sadder than intended. "Of that I have no doubt."

[He loves Catelyn, he does. But he cannot help but wonder what their marriage could have been like, had it not been overshadowed by lies and betrayal.]

"Why are you so upset about this?"

"I'm not upset," Robb disagrees reflexively.

"Oh, please." Theon rolls his eyes dramatically. "You've been pouting since your father told you of his decision. Look, even your direwolf agrees with me!"

Robb turned around and indeed, there was Grey Wind, one of the little direwolf pups they'd stumbled upon out on a ride a few weeks ago. The mother had been slain by a stag, from what they'd been able to tell, but the young ones were healthy as could be. Robb and his siblings had all been given a pup of their own and Father promised they would be allowed to keep it, so long as they raised them right and trained them properly. Even Jon, their half-brother who only rarely received a gift — only ever away from Mother's eyes — had gotten one, a snow-white pup he'd aptly named Ghost.

The pups are young still, but they're growing rapidly. Already, Grey Wind's head is of a height with Robb's knees. From what they've seen of the mother's body, Robb suspects that, fully grown, Grey Wind will reach his chest, if not his shoulder.

"Hey, boy," Robb murmured and brushed through the thick, grey fur. Yellow eyes look up at him with more intelligence than Robb thinks anyone gives the wolves credit for and Grey Wind let out a soft, grumbling noise that Arya swears is his version of a cat's purring. Robb isn't convinced. He's pretty sure most of the time, Grey Wind is laughing at him.

Right now, though, he's got fresh blood on his snout and a dead rabbit between his jaws that he's presenting Robb with a wagging tail.

"You're a mighty hunter, aren't you?" Robb praises, unable to suppress a grin. Not with how hopeful and proud Grey Wind's looking at him.

"See?" Theon straightens from where he's been leaning against a tree, watching Robb pace back and forth. "He's trying to cheer you up. Bet he's getting tired of the moping routine."

He casually pats Grey Wind's flank on his way over, no sign of his initial wariness of the beasts. Those two may have had a difficult start, but now they're as thick as thieves — particularly when they're ganging up on Robb. Really, what has he done to deserve this?

"I'm not moping," Robb states. He's getting tired of repeating himself, but it needs to be said. "I'm just — worried."

Grey Wind huffs a warm breath against his hand, until Robb resumes petting him.

"Whatever for? It's hardly the first time your father leaves for a few moons. He'll be back before winter comes, you know he will."

Of course Robb knows that. No amount of politics in the South would keep Ned Stark from taking care of his people during the coming winter. As Robb has been hearing his entire life: It's been a long summer. And as the North knows better than most, on the heels of a long summer follows an even longer winter.

"He could take me with him," he points out what he hasn't dared say to his father's face, well-aware what the answer would have been. Theon doesn't disappoint.

"No," he snorts, "he couldn't. You're Heir Stark. While your father's gone, you're acting Lord of your house. Your father needs you to keep peace and order in the North, not have you lose your head over some pretty Southern girl."

"Shut up." Robb punches his friend's shoulder, which does nothing to get rid off the dirty smirk on Theon's face.

"The way I see it, you should count yourself lucky. You wouldn't know what to do with some fragile, little flower. From the way the men tell it, even the whores are softer down below the Neck. You'd be bored to death within a day."

"I think you're confusing yourself with me again." Robb carefully relieves Grey Wind of his prey. The cooks won't mind an extra piece of meat and experience has taught him that the stubborn direwolf will present him with more dead animals at far more inconvenient times if he doesn't accept the offer. Sansa certainly hadn't been amused by the feathers the last bird had left all over her room.

"Alright." Theon sobers — a little. "If it's not girls you're annoyed to miss out on then what is it?"

"I don't know." Robb shrugs, knows it won't do much to appease his friend. "I just don't like it. Father and the girls and Bran, so far away from home."

"Sansa will probably fall in love with some cocky pounce who knows more about flowers than swords. She's been dreaming of a knight her whole life."

At that statement, true as it may be, Robb can't contain a grimace. That's exactly what I'm afraid of.

As though reading his mind, Theon bumps their shoulders together. "Come on, you know your father would never agree to a match with someone less than honorable." There's something like a sneer on those last words, but right now Robb isn't in the mood of confronting Theon about them. He knows his friend struggles with the very different definitions of honor between the Starks and the Ironborn sometimes, but it's not an argument they need to rehash. "And Arya will run for the hills the first time one of those court ladies tries to put her into a gown."

"As long as she runs into the right direction," Robb says drily and shakes his hand. "But your right, shocking as that must be for you."

He ducks, laughing, when Theon makes to hit him over the head in false outrage.

"See, there's that smile that has all the village girls blushing," Theon coos mockingly. "It'll all work out, you'll see. Arya will throw mud at the prince's face and your family will be back in Winterfell before you know it. And it's not like you're alone, you know."

"I suppose I dostill have Jon," Robb says thoughtfully, then breaks into a run, only to get tackled from behind a moment later.

A few steps behind them, Grey Wind watches with an air of exasperated amusement, as though he can't quite believe that these are the people he's ended up with. Robb can sympathize.

{ On the road }

Like every night, Sansa carefully brushes Lady's fur out. Her direwolf is much calmer and more obedient than Nymeria or Summer, though that is probably as much because Arya wouldn't know the meaning of tame if it bared its teeth right in front of her face and Bran is always running around in places he isn't supposed to be in, Summer right by his side.

They're both gonna be so much trouble in King's Landing, Sansa just knows it. If they embarrass her family in front of the queen and future king, there will be hell to pay, that's for sure.

Sansa is looking forward to their stay at King's Landing. She's never been in the South, never even visited her mother's family home in the Riverlands. Mother has told her many stories of how different life is further in the South. How much warmer the air is, how different the lords and ladies dress, how beautiful the septs are. Sansa can't wait to see a city as large as King's Landing with her own eyes, to visit the Sept of Baelor and see the Iron Throne. More than that, she is excited to meet the queen, the prince and the princesses — the royal family that is at the center of so many stories both her parents have told over the years. See real knights at the tournaments, fancy titles and parties that the North has little use for, or so Ser Rodrik once told her.

[Though Sansa has heard a few maids whispering about how tournaments have only fallen out of use after the disastrous Tourney at Harrenhal, at which Prince Rhaegar Targaryen first revealed his interest in her aunt Lyanna Stark.]

The one shadow lingering over the entire journey is, of course, the murder of King Robert and disappearance of Princess Elyanna. Sansa had been horrified when she'd learned that the prisoners in the Red Keep had managed to free themselves and murdered the king in his sleep. The fate of Princess Elyanna was still unknown, but Sansa had heard many stories, each one more terrible than the last. She can't imagine what it must have been like for the prince and younger princesses, to one day wake up and find their father murdered and their sister gone.

The gods know, Sansa spends more days arguing with her sister than agreeing with her, but she would never wish her dead.

In all honesty, Sansa is grateful that Father has only now decided to travel to the South. Had he gone a few moons earlier, they would have arrived in time for the King's funeral — and that seems like a terrible place to meet anyone, let alone the family still grieving their loss.

"Well." Sansa sets the brush down with a satisfied smile. "One thing is for certain, Lady, the prince will never have seen a direwolf with fur as clean and pretty as yours. We'll show him the beautiful side of the North, won't we?"

She ends up shrieking with laughter when the direwolf promptly sits up on her hind legs to lick Sansa's face.

{ King's Landing }

"Bad news, your Grace?" the far too interested voice of Petyr Baelish breaks Joffrey out of his internal contemplations.

Joffrey lifts his gaze from where he's been staring with narrow eyes at the letter Clegane had brought him a week ago. The agreement of Lord Eddard Stark to travel to King's Landing, together with the information that he planned to bring his two daughters and second son along. Which is all nice and well, safe for the fact that Joffrey has never asked for the Starks' presence in the Red Keep. Not only would Elyanna never forgive him, if he entertained the Starks without her there to meet them in person, Joffrey has no interest to do so.

For all that Eddard Stark was a close friend of Robert Baratheon, Joffrey has never met the man. Not that he can remember, at least. And though Elyanna would undoubtedly remind him about the value of renewing and upholding alliances, Joffrey has heard much about the honorable Starks. Very much.

[He's not sure what he's supposed to do with honorable people, is the thing.]

His personal issues aside, someone has circumvented Joffrey's authority to invite the Starks to King's Landing. Considering Joffrey has yet to receive unexpected letters from any other noble families that begs the question: Who wants the Starks here and why? It doesn't improve Joffrey's mood that the only people with the power to pull such a move are currently in the same room with him.

Seriously, Joffrey is beginning to understand why Robert couldn't be bothered to attend the Small Council meetings. They are a pain.

"I don't know, Lord Baelish," he responds evenly. "As one of my most trusted and well-informed advisors, I would hope you can tell me that."

Whether he likes it or not, the Starks are coming. Joffrey will have plenty of time to deal with them. Will, in fact, have no other choice. For now, though, there are more important things to focus upon. Politics wait for no one.

"What are the news on the exiled Targaryens?" Joffrey asks when no immediate answer is forthcoming.

Varys clears his throat with a grave expression. As expected, Joffrey's day only goes downhill from there.

Fucking dragons.

{ On the road }

Harry gently trails a finger over the leaves of the blooming daffodil at his feet. He's never seen one in such a bright color. It's been a long time since he's seen a daffodil at all — he wasn't sure they could even be found in Westeros.

Footsteps, slow and steady, approach from behind. Harry doesn't bother to turn. The long weeks of traveling with Jaime have inured him to sudden appearances from the man from all directions. Harry still tenses, is still aware, but ne no longer fires first and asks questions never.

It might be slow-going, but progress is progress.

"Are we leaving then?" Harry asks out of habit, if not genuine curiosity.

"We cannot leave," a female voice speaks up right behind him, causing Harry to whirl around, hand already raised in preparation of the slashing motion of the reductor that is sure to loose someone their head, what with how strong his magic is here.

He freezes, though, when he recognizes the slight, blonde woman behind him. She is older than he remembers, but not old. Her pale skin still free of wrinkles, her silvery eyes light.

"Luna?"

The woman tilts her head. "Perhaps." She smiles. "In as much as anyone can be someone, at the very end."

"What are you doing here?" Harry blurts out. His hand is still raised as though to strike her and though the position is awkward, not to mention uncomfortable, the longer he remains in it, he cannot bring himself to relax. They'd fought Voldemort together, Luna and Harry, and they had been friends. But. They'd never been close. Never gotten the time to truly get to know each other. And there's questions, about those last few days as Harry remembers them, that leave room for many an uncomfortable answer.

Luna laughs, a soft sound of glass jingling in the wind. "I should like to ask you the same thing, Harry Potter." Her eyes are larger than Harry remembers them being, but her stare still has the power to make him feel uncomfortably exposed. "You should not be here."

"Where is here, exactly?" When Harry looks around anew, it seems impossible that he could've missed the vast emptiness of space surrounding their little speck of lush, green grass. He could swear that the fog, lingering in the far off distance, covering whatever sights might lie behind it, hadn't been there a moment before. Of course, there isn't much that Harry remembers of before, safe for the beauty of the little flowers.

"Nowhere," Luna answers promptly. Quirks another little smile. "Everywhere."

"Am I dead?" Harry asks with the nonchalance of someone who's been there before, who has crossed where the living are not meant to go. It seems like the logical conclusion, what with his habit of blinking himself awake in impossible places. Though King's Cross, at least, was familiar. This little meadow is not.

"Would you know if you were?"

Luna sounds honestly curious, which is the only reason why Harry considers the question carefully.

"I'd like to think so, but no." Harry shakes his head. "I'm not sure I would."

Luna stares at him for a very long moment. Then she takes a step towards him. Just a single one, yet somehow she's standing right in front of him, the tip of her nose brushing his own. She raises her hands and gently lays them on his cheeks, and Harry doesn't know why he lets her, but he does. Luna sighs, a cool breath of hair that ghosts over Harry's skin and makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"It's such a pity," she murmurs, something sad and lonely in her eyes before it dissipates with another blink. "Open your eyes, Harry Potter. You do not belong here."

With those words and a shove against his chest, Harry tips backwards into nothingness. He jerks awake before he ever hits the ground.

Harry drops down by the fire Jaime has built with a relieved sigh. Like promised, they had left Oldtown in the early hours of dawn and ridden hard for several hours into the general direction of King's Landing before Harry had deemed them far enough away to slow their pace. A little. Nevertheless, they'd continued on for several more hours, only taking a few short breaks to water their horses.

[Though when Jaime had found the time to organize a second horse, Harry probably doesn't want to know.]

According to Jaime, they've made great time, but although Harry trusts the older man to know these lands, he can't shake off the unsettling feeling of restlessness — of being too late. Maybe it's the weird dreams he's had the night before. [It's been a while since Luna Lovegood has haunted his subconsciousness. Harry can't say he's missed it.] Then again, maybe it's all that bullshit that happened at the Citadel that's caused those dreams in the first place.

Tangling with blood magic has consequences. Doesn't matter if you do it willingly or not, knowingly or not. There's no solace to be found in ignorance, not where it concerns the old magical arts.

All Harry has to do is close his eyes and he can recall it again — the stale smell lingering in the air, the cool draft in the corridor, the rough, cool stone underneath his palm and how little effort it had taken the material to rip and tear at his skin, almost like his blood had been drawn to it, that first second, as the connection snapped into place, before Harry forcefully tore it apart. [He can still taste ash on his tongue every time he swallows.]

What madness could've driven the Targaryens to use blood magic?

Of course, even as he ponders the question, Harry realizes that the answer is obvious. After all, there's just one madness the Targaryens known for: dragons.

As a child, Harry had loved listening to stories about the dragons. He'd dreamt of them, fierce, majestic creatures, most of which looked suspiciously like Norbert and the nesting mother from the Triwizard Tournament. Tyrion, in particular, could talk for days about the mythical beasts once you got him started.

But it's only now, that Harry looks back on the history his uncle had so often lost himself in, backed by the knowledge of dragons Hagrid and Charlie have imparted on him, as well as his own experiences, that he realizes how little sense they make.

"What's wrong?" Jaime, who is busy preparing the two small birds he'd caught a few hours before.

Harry stares at the dead birds for a few moments, thoughts a world away.

"Joffrey taught me how to shoot," is what he ends up saying out loud.

"He did?"

"The bow," Harry confirms, the memories of those stolen hours bringing a smile to his lips. "And the sword too. Although I didn't have any talent in the latter. But I was decent with the bow."

"If you say so."

There's something in the way Jaime says those words, sounding far too amused, that has Harry fixate him with a thoughtful stare. "You knew, didn't you?"

That's the only explanation for the glimmer of mischief in Jaime's eyes.

"Possibly." His uncle grins.

Harry rolls his eyes. "Of course you did. Who are we kidding? I'm pretty sure the whole Red Keep knew."

"Maybe half of it." Jaime's eyes are twinkling traitorously, though his voice remains even.

Harry shakes his head, but continues anyway. Now that the thought has come to him, he refuses to let it go again. "We kept meeting up and practicing until I was too weak to do so without hurting myself." He grimaces because those long months and years he spent barely able to function in a body that only just held on to life were some of the most painful, frustrating, hopeless times of his entire life. Harry wishes he could forget those days, but they've defined the past years far too much to escape them fully. "Do you think I could take it up again?"

"Hmm?"

"The bow," Harry spells it out. "I want to start practicing again."

Jaime, who's been distractedly maneuvering the cauldron over the fire, snaps his head up, loses his footing and almost spills the entire content onto the fire. Cursing, he hastily corrects his grip and carefully steps back before he turns around to give Harry his undivided attention.

"You want to learn the bow?" Jaime wipes his wet hands on his pants with a frown. "Is that necessary, with the whole…" he makes a sharp gesture that's a fairly close approximation of the movement Harry uses when he's practicingWingardium Leviosa.

"Depends on your definition of necessary." Harry shrugs. "It's true that I probably don't need it to defend myself, my magic should be plenty enough. But it doesn't hurt to learn. Besides a bow is something I can use that I don't have to hide and if I aim an arrow at someone's throat, they know I'm threatening them. If I just point my finger, no one's gonna take me serious until after I kill someone."

Besides there's still too much Harry doesn't understand about this magic. Why he's so much more powerful, even without a wand, for one, but also whether certain wards or power drains are more common here in Westeros than they were back in England. Relying on his ability alone is risky. Granted, chances are if Harry's magic is incapacitated, so is Harry, but still.

Jaime is still staring at her with those intelligent, green eyes that look so much like his mother's — either one's. Harry refuses to look away first. Finally, Jaime shakes his head once, twice. Not a denial, but neither is it a confirmation. "When did you grow up, Eli?" he asks and it sounds— not sad, exactly, but something close.

Harry shuffles, not sure what kind of response he can possibly offer to such a statement. To his relief, Jaime shakes his head a moment later, as though to dispel whatever thoughts are running through his head.

"Sure." His uncle's smile is almost genuine. "What I can, I'll teach you."

They pass the next half an hour in silence, before Jaime finally declares their food ready. The bird doesn't taste all that great, but Harry is too hungry to mind. By the time he's finished and licking his fingers clean, the fire has almost gone out, leaving only coal and glowing ember behind.

Harry stares at the last, blue flames, flickering stubbornly. He'd gotten distracted, earlier, but thoughts of the ritual site in Oldtown are never far from his mind.

From any and all accounts, the Targaryens had been obsessed with their need to rebirth the dragons into the world. A century and a half is a long time, surely a couple of the madder ones have dabbled in blood magic in an attempt to achieve their goal. But that doesn't account for how old the magic is. And where have the Targaryens gained knowledge of such magic in the first place?

From what Harry has seen and remembers, magic is little more than a story in the everyday life of Westeros. There are creatures and legends and curious tricks — like Thoros of Myr and his flaming sword and those priests and priestesses of the God of Fire. Maybe even the House of Black and White. With trained assassins it would be hard to tell whether a murder had been carefully orchestrated or whether there had been a little something extra at work behind the scenes. But there's no equivalent to Hogwarts that Harry knows of, no guilt that teaches its apprentices in the magical arts. No structures, no organization.

Magic has to start somewhere. It has to be utilized and the knowledge of how to do such a thing has to be collected. Which leaves the question of how it all began. How did the Targaryens stumble upon blood magic in the first place? If not in Westeros— where then?

I myself have always found the beginning a promising way to start, a voice that sounds suspiciously like his former headmaster Albus Dumbledore, echoes through Harry's mind. Disregarding the complicated swell of emotions that association awakens, it is a good point. Where did the Targaryens stem from?

"Valyria," Harry murmurs to himself and feels a shudder slide uncomfortably down his spine.

There's a lot of legends and even more horror stories tied up in the Doom of Old Valyria. What was it Sister Barba told them in their lessons? Something about Valyria being struck down by the gods for the sins the dragonlords committed by twisting the flesh of beast and men…

Granted, Harry doesn't put much faith in the Seven, but blood magic could probably explain most of those so-called crimes against nature that the dragonlords committed — and might even account for the Doom itself. Magic of that magnitude always comes at a price and men have a tendency to try and put off settling their debts.

Yes, Harry supposes. There's a lot in the dark, bloody history of Valyria that a desperate Targaryen might have resorted to, if they'd seen it as the only option to return glory to their family. One would think the ruin of an entire empire would give humanity a clue that messing with forces powerful enough to eradicate them is a bloody stupid move. But in Harry's experience, people have a tendency to think themselves above the mistakes and failings of their ancestors. Too many of life's most important lessons cannot be taught through history books — and would not be willingly received by their audience, even if it were possible.

Although why dragons appeared to be loyal to the Targaryens to the point of serving as glorified house pets, Harry would never understand. Stories and history seem to agree on that point, but it simply doesn't add up.

Hold on.

"Eli?" Jaime kneels down beside her, face shadowed in the dimming light. He's already unpacked his bedroll, though Harry knows it's more for his benefit than anything else. Jaime rarely sleeps more than a couple of hours in the early morning. "Food not to your liking?"

"It was fine." Harry continues to stare into the remains of the fire, contemplating.

"Something bothering you?"

"The dragons."

If Jaime is surprised by the switch in topics, he doesn't show it. Harry wonders how long his uncle has been waiting for him to mention magic again, then promptly discards the thought as irrelevant.

"What about them?" he asks instead and uses a long stick to push a couple pieces of coal and ash around.

"They were said to be intelligent," Harry says slowly, more thinking out loud than having a conversation. "Could tell friend from foe, or so the stories go. Smart as a human, some speculate, so probably much smarter than that. But that just makes it even more impossible."

The Targaryens might have earned the loyalty of one dragon or even a couple. Could have maybe befriended a few more that they raised themselves. But dragons aren't pets. And they most definitely aren't tame. Harry clenches his teeth. One could assume that twisting the flesh of beast and men was one crime that had been leveled against the Valerian families of old. But it could have just as well been multiple ones, separate ones.

To control a dragon, to enslavean entire species— Well. There's no question that blood magic would be involved. It's been almost three hundred years since Aegon's conquest. If what Harry suspects is true, for at least the first half of that time, the Targaryens' kept their hold on the dragons through ritualistic blood magic that would have to be performed for each newborn dragon. Possibly multiple times, if a dragon proved particularly willful.

No wonder the maesters had believed the weight of the dragon bond would drive the Targaryens' insane. It might have well done so. Dragons are powerful creatures. To bind one by force would demand a sacrifice beyond what a single human could give. And if the desire to bind, to control, to succumb is what drove the initial rituals, further twisted by the maesters' fear and desperate desire to stamp magic out of existence… Harry grimaces.

If he is right, his magic couldn't have tolerated that outlet, for it would have meant its own destruction. Its only option would have been to turn the sacrificial magic against itself, to attack the very strains it had been casting on the surrounding lands for so long. In the long run, that would likely mean that magic would return to the lands surrounding Oldtown again, would flourish and grow strong, where before it had been weakened and eventually died away. But in the short run, igniting the ritual circle would have been the equivalent of breaking a closed door open with high-level explosives. They might open the door — at the cost of leveling the entire building to the ground. Oldtown might not survive the fallout.

And that's only assuming that the history of the ritual site began with the Targaryens.

Well, shit.

On the bright side, if Harry's suspicion is correct, he has a fairly good idea of where, besides Oldtown and King's Landing, the Targaryens' would have employed such a ritual site. Which is precisely what he needs: An untouched ritual site that hasn't fed on his magic for years or received his blood. With the proper preparation he's so far been lacking, Harry should be able to dismantle the site — and maybe even channel the blood magic for his own purposes. If — and it's a big if, not that Harry plans to share that fact — it works, that should give him the power needed to break the blood magic's hold on the Red Keep as well. He could go home.

Harry ruthlessly suppresses that thought immediately. No point in getting anyone's hopes up. Not yet.

"I didn't know you were so interested in dragons," Jaime comments, which brings Harry out of his scheming and back into the present.

"I'm just setting the tone for our continued travels." Harry throws his uncle a teasing smirk.

"Is that so?" Jaime raises his eyebrows. "And where will those travels lead us?"

"Why, Dragonstone of course."

{ Oldtown }

On the ground floor of the second building of the Citadel — the Great Hall of Meera — there is a large room filled with small tables on which the acolytes painstakingly copy down every letter written to and from the Citadel, for safekeeping and preservation. In its corner furthest from the entrance door, there is a table that has remained untouched for many years.

If someone were to occupy said table, they might have heard an irritating, hissing, sizzling sound to their left. If they were to press their face against the wall to follow the origin of the noise, they might have found the stone warmer to touch than they would have grown to expect from within the Citadel's buildings.

But the Citadel has not been overrun by prospective students for many years now, and no one hears anything out of the ordinary.

end of part iv

Aaand I'm finally back here as well. Sorry for the long pause, folks. I'm afraid my thesis took up far more time in those last few months than I anticipated. But I finally handed it in at the beginning of this month and have slowly gotten back into writing for fun in the last two weeks.
More importantly, I've finally got a handle on the Starks [I hope] and a clear idea of just what will happen in the next few chapters. [Yes, I'm one of those crazy people who only has a very rough outline and just wings it 90 percent of the time...] I hope you like the insights into the various Starks. And please remember that these aren't the battle-hardened survivors we know from the later seasons (for those who made it that long). These are the fairly sheltered kids and it. will. show. I'm not intending to bash any Starks, but some of them won't always look good either. What can I say? We have to start somewhere and hopefully, they'll grow as people. If, you know, they live long enough to do so.
Btw I've messed up with the ages of everyone: I started out using the movie ages for Elyanna, Joffrey and all the Stark kids, then accidentally went back to the book ages for Myrcella and Gwyneth and didn't realize that mistake until last chapter. Since I honestly can't be bothered to rewrite the entire timeline now, I'll stick with it and assume that Elyanna's non-canon survival led to a later birth for her younger siblings - not that unbelievable, considering Myrcella and Gwyneth are trueborn Baratheons here and it seems fairly unlikely that the kids would be conceived at the exact same time, what with the very different relationship between their parents.
Alright, enough from my side. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know what you think of the Starks, Joffrey's on thoughts on their arrival and Elyanna's conclusions! {Seriously, does anyone else find it weird that the dragons just followed some random family, most of which went crazy sooner or later? I know they're supposed to be fireproof and all, and there's certainly a connection, but why should the dragons only consider one family worth bonding with? And why shouldn't that change when the Targaryens' lost their respect for the dragons?}

Limited POV: Joffrey has no clue that Cersei and Tyrion are behind the impending arrival of the Starks, Catelyn doesn't know the truth about Jon's parentage
Unreliable Narrator: Harry continues to base his knowledge on all things magic, including dragons, on his background from his initial world. He'll continue to do that until he gets proof that his knowledge doesn't apply here — not the best method, perhaps, but he doesn't have the resources to research Westerosi magic in depth at the moment.