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A Game of Thrones and related Game of Thrones characters, settings, terms, objects, and et all belong to and are the property of George R R Martin and/or his publishers. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

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-+-(To rule from an Iron Throne)-+-

-+-Chapter Two-+-

Nameday.

Harry

The mood at dinner the following afternoon remained solemn in its banter between Ser Sirius and his bastard son, and the serving wenches took that to heart, laying out plates and cutlery and only a single bottle of Longbottom Wine with not a glance above their bosoms. The guests of the day filed into the hall in falsified cheer, being Ser Petyr Pettigrew, Ser Remus Lupin, and Ser Bartemius Crouch the Younger, one of Regulus Black's retainers.

"So, Harry lad, your coming of age is near at hand!" Remus Lupin had not aged well in the years since they two were first met, though neither knew of those unspoken circumstances. All that Harry had as frame of reference was the occasional meeting at times like these, stemming back to only a year ago, and the wrinkles and gray to the knight's hair had only increased. Ser Remus was haggard from the journey, yet with wine in his belly he offered a good enough mood. "What honor it must be to begin your journey into adulthood!" He speared a sausage on the tip of his knife and set to munching at once like a starving wolf.

Harry put on a proud front for the honor of his Lord Father. "Yes, ser."

"Yes, yes, the littlest Black, in blood only of course, never by name without the King's consent, but a Black all the same!" Ser Petyr had shrunken, even from those first distant glances, developing a hump to his shoulders from all the bowing and scraping he performed on a daily basis at the high court.

His words cut to Harry's heart atop the wounds already laid by his Lord Father the evening before, bleeding weakness to the surface of his features. Familiar burning set at the backs of his eyes and, recognizing the tears for what they were, the boy blinked once and clenched his eyes shut tight instead - for here of all places and times he would not shame himself any further.

"Shall we be escorting him to King's Landing for the oaths, Siri-" Ser Petyr began to say more when there came a splash followed by a gasp, and when Harry opened his eyes again, he saw Ser Crouch leaning forward with his empty cup still held across the table toward Ser Petyr.

"To silence, if you've any measure of steel left in that stupor of spine!"

As Ser Petyr sputtered and protested, Ser Crouch positioned his seat closer to the boy. "Hold your chin high, now, that's it, we're all of a ragged sort not so besmirched as to condemn you your blood status. Save this strength for future nights and the honor for other Lords."

Harry sniffled once. He worked his mouth and on the second try his voice emerged with barely a waiver of doubt to it. "Thank you, ser," he said, unable to fully smile yet neither did he grimace any longer, "but I am confused at your meaning? What strength must I save?"

Ser Crouch stared for several moments at how quickly the young bastard had recollected himself, and then he laughed with a wild, wicked delight shaping his sallow features darkly. "Oh, now there's a talent that would serve you well on the streets of King's Landing in other circumstances, lad, gender be damned!"

Throughout that conduct, Ser Sirius ate in silence. He drank little of the fine wine and simply watched, graying-black gaze a mystery to his lone offspring when Harry dared look back.

Ser Crouch turned to Petyr. "Aye, then, my apologies for my mistake," he began, and when the other disgraced knight began to answer, he continued louder, "for that wine was much precious and I wasted it upon a rat at ease only when scampering from master to master, instead of sipping and savoring the taste." And he spread his teeth in another dark laugh when Ser Petyr turned to outraged sputtering again. "Alas! I cannot understand a word of such snivelling gibberish!"

Such were the words that passed for banter as the hours waxed on. They spoke of past affairs, incidents near and afar since last they met, but by and large the most exciting prospect remaining was reuniting again, plus one borrowed sword, for the trip into King's Landing over the week ahead. Harry's nameday cake came and went with only a few words spared in praise of the baker's skill. Harry tried to savor every bite, but it came and went with little good taste just then.

Eventually, as the hour grew late, Ser Sirius straightened in his seat. The others round the table fell silent, and despite how tired he felt, Harry sat up straighter. This is the moment, he thought to himself.

"My fine fellows," Ser Sirius began dryly, "my son has matured greatly since his lovely wench of a mother passed him into my care all those years ago and promptly died, of spreading disease, if you will." He smiled with false mirth, and the other Sers laughed in understanding. Ser Lupin muttered 'fucked one too many times, aye' beneath his breath, though not so quiet as that Harry did not hear.

Harry only frowned. His mother was not spoken of much, so he knew very little of her, but he knew the meaning behind Ser Lupin's words and he disliked it, and the man, in this instance.

"As his ninth year has come, now so too must follow his first trial of adolescence." His Lord Father rose gracefully and strode around the table until he stood at his child's back. "You have eaten the last meal of your childhood, Harry Rivers, you have drank of the last wine freely given. Now you will earn your dinners, your sup, like all men must."

Harry knew a nod would not be enough now, not any longer. A nod would be taken for spite. He swallowed yet once more, taking his brittle nerves down into his gullet, that he might expel them like bile later that night, and he answered solidly, if not a little too loudly, "I am ready to earn my keep at this table, like a man of House Black, disgraced though I be to bear the name of Rivers."

How it hurt to say that last, no matter that he knew it was required. And, faint though it was, he felt that hurt mirrored in the eyes of his Lord Father, too.

Ser Sirius clenched his hands tightly to the back of the chair before he let go and marched to the door, saying, "Then come, my child, and let us hunt in the traditional ways of my House, with a grim at our sides and nothing more save our wits."

Harry grabbed his dagger, yet Ser Crouch caught his hand and the knight shook his head once. "Nay, lad, you heard him. The dog and your head. Nothing more."

Harry almost nodded. He checked the motion just in time and instead bowed his head respectfully. "Thank you, ser," he said in decent imitation of his Lord Father's grace. He pushed back from the table without his dagger.

Then he was off, they were off, Ser Sirius and Harry Rivers, to find a new pup to be his own partner from that hour forward, and to hunt in the nightswood stretching far behind Grimmauld Vault.

Sirius

Damn him, Sirius thought as they marched, remembering the drivel Petyr had uttered on and on which had stoked the fires of his foul mood. The last thing I want is to introduce my son to Gaunt, and I've no good way to extricate Harry from the matter, for all my effort over these years.

He knew at his heart that the day would come that his son and the King must meet, not the least to reclaim the Iron Throne. Yet as they strode along, Ser Sirius swiftly, young Harry forced to hurry along lest he be left behind, the aging man wanted nothing more in the world than for his adopted child to avoid facing Marvolo Gaunt until time itself accomplished what many an assassin had failed.

The cold, almost reptilian stare of the King had been ever unnerving even in the years before his conquest over House Potter. Sirius remembered when Marvolo Gaunt had called across the kingdom a decade ago, gathering allies and troops for the war against the Potters. It had been among the most unpleasant experiences to feel Gaunt and his grandson's eyes upon his head.

It can't wait forever. It was for the best that Harry be brought before the Iron Throne soon and swear the usual oaths of fealty expected of noble's children, ensuring that they would not be half so free to wiggle out of the matter as they aged, before he began to show the distinct features of Jaime Potter's face.

Harry's hair was messier, his cheeks not yet narrow and firm, and his eyes were saddened yet still so innocent. But as he grew, unless something were to happen to disfigure the boy, it would be impossible to ignore the lineage of the Potters in his adolescence. And what matter did it make for a supposed-bastard to make oaths to a Usurper? Hadn't House Gaunt sworn loyalty to the Potters, and proven what their loyalty was worth?

The only way that Ser Sirius might ensure his child's survival going forward would be to foster him off to some distant knight, someone assigned to the most remote of lands. Someone who could claim the ravens had gone awry or been shot down as food, and be believed. If he could not find a trustworthy foster to take in Harry, then the matter would come down to he himself going afar, and that would equally endanger Sirius' brother and nephews, to say nothing of their sisters and kin.

He grimaced as they paced down the cold halls. A final option would be to travel far north, to the Wall. But while he might ensure Harry's survival in sending the boy to join the Night's Watch, what good would that be if Harry would be sworn to a life of frigid service? No, it was Harry's due to reclaim the Iron Throne, and Sirius could not take that away for good, after all that he had done that night long ago.

He found an outlet for his foul mood as they rounded the corner of the kennels and discovered his niece dozing there. Unlike those who had attended the nameday feast, the young woman sleeping on a bed of hay had drunk well from the stores of wine. Three bottles lay around her serviceable bedding, and she lay there snoring as the grims in their cages snorted and huffed in greeting to their master.

"Harry, lad, stay here a moment and observe," Ser Sirius uttered to his child. Harry answered quickly that he would. Sirius ruffled the boy's messy hair with a tight smile and then marched over.

He loved the girl well, elsewise he would not have taken her on at Andromeda's request, but just then he felt like booting her awake. He held himself back when he heard the faint yipping around her cloak, and as he crouched down at her side, under the faint light, he noticed the wiggling shape held close to her breast where her heat would keep the pup warm.

So she hasn't entirely shirked her duty tonight, he allowed. He sighed and called her name, "Nymphadora."

Pale eyes blinked open blearily and she muttered, "Who's there?" Her eyes passed over him looming there and she gave a cry of fright in the moments before she could recognize it was Sirius instead of some phantom out of her dreams. "S-ser Sirius!" she stammered and sat up, only to groan and lay back as her vision swam.

He tapped an empty bottle idly. "I take it that you have learned your lesson tonight," he said. She tried, and failed, to nod with enthusiasm, though the regret was real enough, if for more than one reason. "Here, let me get a good look at the whelp."

When she had handed the young grim forward with shaky hands, Ser Sirius held it up to his eye and stared. Tiny black stared back, and the pup had the audacity to nip at his nose, as means of informing him it was not in the least happy about being awoken after this fashion and starved besides.

"That won't do at all," he said gruffly. With one hand adjusting to hold the young male's weight, he gently pried its jaws open with his other hand and said, "It isn't too late to send you back to your mother, now." Yet over his shoulder he called, "Harry, lad. Come see if your cousin has assisted or merely hindered our progress this night."

His son hid a yawn behind his right hand and quickly hurried along without abandoning all sense of proper etiquette. When Sirius laid the grim into his hands, Harry brought it up to eye level the same way, but the grin which broke across his face as it simply yipped moodily was answer enough, and he began to pet his new companion earnestly until its complaints quieted for the moment.

"Very good." Rising, he said to his niece, "You've done well enough, Nymphadora. Get cleaned up and then to bed at the stables, I'd rather not return on the morrow to find you with one of our guests in the Vault." It would not do for her to go home to Andromeda with a child in her belly, and he knew the men who had attended the feast; his reputation would but encourage them to look at her with an undue interest, if they learned of her presence.

"As you say, milord." She managed to climb to her feet, albeit with one hand holding to the kennel cages, and Sirius watched her shamble down the darkened hall with the urge to sigh. How quickly the girl could change his mood. He had almost forgotten the frustrations owed to Petyr and the inevitable journey ahead.

When she had gone, Sirius continued in her wake to find his own proud grim alert and ready at the end of the kennel. He opened the cage and Dorea trotted out to stand at his side, staring at Harry and his unnamed pup close behind. "Are you ready?" he asked of his son.

"I am," Harry answered at once. The tiredness had not completely left the boy, but he was alert again and showing the eagerness that Sirius himself had once felt, standing in the same position beside his own father Orion close to twenty years ago.

"Let us be off, then." And Sirius lead them out into the night, Dorea trotting ahead, Harry at his side.

End of Chapter Two.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been patiently waiting for this story to update. I've had this chapter sitting half-finished for far too long, and I've finally sat down and pulled together what remained recently. If things go well, I hope to roll straight into the next update within the month, to put Sirius, Harry, and possibly Remus, Petyr, and Crouch on the road to King's Landing after the coming events in the nightswood. I hope that this chapter, though still far short of what I had intended previously, has not disappointed. One day we'll get the promised 4k+ updates.