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 03: Royal Family
The scarred man's voice was a low growl in the stone corridor. "Prince."
Joffrey turned, expecting a comment pointing out some mistake in his attire. Having no idea how medieval people were supposed to dress for breakfast, Harry had chosen the most inconspicuous clothes he found in that dresser.
But the guard's finger, thick as a sausage, pointed not at his clothes, but down a narrow, torch-lit stairwell that spiraled into gloom. "The guard's dormitory lies that way. The hall is to the right."
'My first mistake.' He thought. 'The first of many, I suspect.'
He had walked with a false confidence, choosing a direction at random. In a castle, every wrong turn could lead to a kitchen, a barracks, or a oubliette. "Ah… of course. I knew that," Joffrey responded.
The burned man's good eye held a flicker of something. Not contempt, but closer to a watchful curiosity.
"Lead on," Joffrey commanded, layering his voice with a petulance he hoped was familiar. A prince would not wander. A prince would be led.
The guardsman gave a curt, graceless nod and turned. His plate-and-mail clinked softly with each heavy step, a sound of brute strength held in check.
Joffrey followed like a shadow dressed in fine wool, mapping the route in his mind: a right turn, down a broader corridor lined with tapestries of stags and lions locked in combat, under a soaring archway, to a pair of great oak doors studded with iron.
He did not want to make the same mistake again.
The doors were open. The din of the hall washed over him: the clatter of knives on copper plates, the murmur of voices, the faint, ever-present scent of roasted meat and woodsmoke. The room was vast, its high ceiling lost in shadow. At its heart, a long table groaned under the weight of a lord's breakfast.
He took them in with a single, sweeping glance; his scholar's mind was already cataloging everything for later usage, the survivor's mind was assessing threats.
At the far end, a mountain of a man slumped in a high-backed chair that seemed to strain under his bulk. His hair was a coarse, black nest, his beard a patchy scrub. A circlet of gold, simple and heavy, dug into his brow.
This was no doubt the King. His father...this body's father, whose name was still unknown to him, as was everyone else present.
The King's face was flushed, his eyes bleary as he tore a loaf of bread with his hands, crumbs showering his stained tunic.
Beside him, an island of cold perfection: a woman with hair like spun gold, coiled in intricate braids around a face of breathtaking, glacial beauty. Her eyes, a green to match his own, fixed on him. The Queen and his mother. Her smile was a delicate curve that did not touch her eyes.
Flanking her were two smaller copies: a plump, golden-haired boy peering shyly from behind a honeyed pastry, and a girl with the same Lannister gilt, her expression a careful blank.
And across from them, a man who seemed carved from sunlight. His armour was polished gold, his hair a brighter shade than the Queen's, his smile easy and arrogant. He was the perfect picture of a knight, as tales would usually depict them.
"Come, my love," the Queen's voice was honey poured over steel. "Your breakfast grows cold."
"What took you so long, boy? Sit!" The King's roar was half-muffled by a mouthful of food. He gestured with a haunch of meat, grease glistening on his fingers. "Your mother wouldn't let a man eat in peace."
Joffrey moved to the empty chair between the golden knight and the King. As he sat, he felt the presence of his guardsman solidify behind him, a silent, hulking shadow. Other guards stood along the walls, their eyes constantly moving. This was not a family meal. It was a court session with fewer players.
He ate slowly, savoring the salty, greasy sausages blackened at the ends, eggs swimming in butter, bacon cured to the texture of leather, filling his hungry stomach.
'Not going to live long if I eat like this every day.' His eyes moved to the King's figure for a moment. There was one thing that needed no further explanation.
The tension at the table could be tasted almost as much as the food. There was somethihg between the King's complete disregard of table manners and the Queen's icy looks in his direction.
Words were exchanged, barbs sheathed in courtesy. The King grumbled about the hunt, about the state of the realm, his complaints aimed at no one and everyone. The Queen answered in monosyllables, her attention seemingly on her children, but Joffrey felt the weight of her gaze upon him, measuring.
"Joffrey, sweetling," she said, cutting through the King's rant about a boar that got away. "You are as quiet as a mouse this morning. Are you unwell?"
'Careful there.' He reminded himself.
"I am well, Mother." The title felt foreign and strange in his tongue.
"What's this?" Robert boomed, pouring wine into his cup. "The boy hasn't whinged once! No complaints about the food, the weather, or his lessons… Seven hells, has he been struck dumb?" He laughed, a great, wheezing sound that ended in a cough.
"Is something ailing you?" Cersei pressed, her green eyes sharp as daggers. "Shall I summon the Grand Maester?"
Maester. A scholar, a healer, a keeper of knowledge. A danger. "No," Joffrey responded, too quickly. He forced a languid tone. "Merely tired. I would take my leave now, if that is okay"
"Of course, my dear," Cersei said, her smile tightening. She looked past him to the shadow at his back. "The Hound will see you to your chambers. Guard his door. I shall attend to him later."
The armored man grunted an acknowledgement.
'The Hound. More like a title than a name. A weapon with a leash.' He thought
Joffrey stood, the chair scraping on stone. He felt the eyes of the golden knight upon him, a gaze as assessing as the Queen's. He nodded once, a princely gesture he hoped was correct, and turned to leave.
<><><><><><><><><><>
Back in the relative sanctuary of his chambers, with the oak door shut against the world, he leaned against it, the cool wood a relief. "Do not disturb me," he called to the presence outside.
"Aye." The single syllable held no warmth.
Alone, the weight of the performance fell away, leaving a hollow urgency. Time. I have no time.
He drew the heavy velvet curtains, plunging the room into a murky twilight. Sitting on the edge of the vast bed, he closed his eyes, shutting out the alien world of tapestries and trophies. He sought the inner landscape, the familiar terrain of the self.
Magic.
Centuries of magical theory appeared in his mind.
According to Luna, magic was of the soul, a passenger in the fleshly carriage.
Hermione's relentless logic dictated that it was tied to biological inheritance, a heritable trait from one generation to the next, occasionally reappearing from a dormant state in the case of Muggle parents.
He had never proven either. But now, he was the experiment.
He reached inward, not with a wand's focus, but with the sheer, disciplined will of an archwizard. He sought the current that had once been an ocean within him, the power that had answered his call as easily as breath. He found… silence. A desert. A locked door.
Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at him.
Has he lost everything of value to him?.
Hermione's wisdom, Luna's light, Ginny's fire, the life they built...for this? To be a spoiled prince in a savage, mundane world? The anger came then, not the hot, childish rage of the boy whose body he wore, but the cold, vast fury of a king deposed, a god made mortal. It was a black tide, and it surged from his very core, from the place where a soul weathered by love and loss and five centuries of power resided.
And in that fury, something shifted.
A spark, deep in the void. A faint, resonant hum, like a plucked string in a forgotten chamber. His eyes flew open. In the dimness, they glowed with a faint, emerald phosphorescence. Wisps of tangible force, visible only to his enhanced sight, coiled around his fingers like smoky serpents.
Yes.
He extended a hand, palm up, his voice a whisper charged with ancient intent. "Lumos Solem."
Not the gentle guiding light of the common charm, but the full, unbridled radiance of the sun. A miniature star bloomed in his palm, a sphere of blinding, white-gold fury. It seared his vision, painting the world in agonizing white before plunging it into swimming purple blotches.
"Argh!" He clenched his fist, extinguishing the light, tears of pain streaking his cheeks. But beneath the pain was a wild, soaring elation. It was there! Clogged, rusty, but there. His magic. His power has followed all the way into this lost world.
Not all was lost. There was yet hope.
A thunderous pound shook the door. "Prince!" The Hound's voice, sharp with a tension that wasn't quite concern. The handle rattled. "Is all well?"
"Do not enter!" Joffrey barked, the command ringing with an authority that was entirely his own. "I am well."
A pause. "…Aye."
Joffrey waited, his heartbeat loud in his ears, until the guard's presence receded from the door. His sight slowly returned, the ghost of the light spell dancing in his vision.
He stood, moving to the cluttered dresser. Amidst the gaudy display, he located a jewelled dagger, a carved ivory statuette, a heavy golden pendant set with a blood-red ruby...his disdain warred with his need. "So gaudy. A true prince, I suppose."
He hovered his hand over the pendant. The connection was clearer now, a river where before there had been nothing but dust. "Wingardium Leviosa."
The pendant trembled, then rose into the air, spinning lazily. He guided it with a twist of his wrist, a slow, graceful orbit. A true smile, the first of this new life, touched his lips. It was a paltry trick next to what he had once commanded, but it was a foundation. A promise of a better future.
<><><><><><><><>
He practiced in silence, casting minor charms, mending a frayed edge of the curtain, cooling the air near the hearth, summoning a book from across the room. The magic responded, stiff and unfamiliar in this new vessel, but undeniably his. Wandless, wordless, where he could manage. A necessity in a world without wands.
But knowledge was a sharper weapon. He knew nothing of this realm, its politics, its perils. He was playing a role with a script he had never read. The boy's memories were a locked chest. But he was a master of locks, especially those of the mind.
Occlumency.
The art of mental fortification, of structuring thought and memory into an impregnable fortress. His 'Mind Palace' had once been a vast, intricate library containing the sum of his centuries. Now, it was a ruined hall, echoes in the dark. But the discipline remained.
He returned to the bed, assuming the lotus position, breath slowing. He turned his focus inward, past the surface chatter of his new mind, past the lingering ghost of the boy's petty angers and fears. He dove deeper, into the silt at the bottom of consciousness, where memories lay buried like river stones.
He did not seek to remember as the boy had. He sought to excavate.
At first, there was only formless murk. Then, images, sharp and disjointed, flashed like lightning in a storm:
A white blade, red blood on white snow. A lion's roar. The smell of wine and vomit. A girl's terrified sobs. A crossbow's satisfying weight. A look of profound disappointment in emerald eyes that mirrored his own…
Fragments. Sensations. Emotions of a cruel, shallow child. But they were a start. A map of the minefield he now walked.
He sifted through them, organizing, analyzing. The face of the girl at the table...Myrcella, his sister. A complex mix of wariness and a desperate, futile hope for kinship. The boy Tommen...fear, pure and simple.
The King, a looming shadow of violence and contempt. The Queen, a complex web of possessive pride, icy calculation, and something else… a love as fierce and twisted as ironwood roots.
And the golden knight, Jaime. Not just an uncle. A reflection. A secret. The knowledge swam up from the depths, murky and half-understood, but profound. A cornerstone of the boy's world, and his ruin.
Joffrey opened his eyes. The room was fully dark now, and the last light faded. He was no longer just a stranger in a stolen body. He was a prince of House Baratheon and Lannister, heir to the Iron Throne. He was Joffrey, a boy hated and feared. And he was Harry Potter, a wizard adrift in a world of steel and treachery.
He had his magic. He had the first, bloody clues of his new life. And outside the door, a Hound stood guard, a loyal beast waiting for its master's next command.
The game was no longer just about survival. It was about conquest. And he had learned, over five hundred long years, how to win.
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