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 84: Breaking the Ice
He rematerialized in the great hall of Winterfell, and he immediately felt that something had gone wrong.
He felt a sharp, searing pain that shot through his left side, demanding attention.
His sword was in his right hand, the point driven into the stone floor to keep him upright.
His armor was smoking, the crimson plates blackened in places, the runes flickering erratically, their light dimming as if they too had suffered damage during the journey.
Blood dripped from his left side, pooling on the ancient stones of the great hall.
He looked down.
His left arm was gone.
The sleeve of his crimson armor hung empty, torn and ragged at the elbow. The stump ended just below where his elbow should have been, the flesh seared black by the heat of his own arrival. Blood poured from the wound, pumping in time with his racing heart, falling on the cold stone floor of the hall.
He had apparated badly. The magic had torn him apart somewhere between the Jade Sea and the North, and he had rematerialized incomplete.
'Fuck,' he thought, the word sharp and bitter in his mind. 'I must have made a mistake somewhere.'
That much was obvious. But there was little he could do to fix it now. The pain was immense, but he had trained for this...centuries of Occlumency, of mental discipline, of learning to block out everything that might distract him from survival. He pushed the pain into a box in his mind, locked it away, and focused.
His original world had healers who could repair a splinching in no time. But Joffrey was no longer in that world.
He forced himself to move. His right hand left his sword and pressed against the wound. He whispered a word...a healing spell, crude and basic, the kind he had learned in another life and never bothered to master because it was unnecessary.
The bleeding slowed. The edges of the wound began to knit, but only just.
A thin layer of new flesh, pale and raw, covered the stump. He would need proper attention soon. A healing ointment, a poultice, something stronger than this weak magic.
But first, he had to deal with the situation.
He looked up.
The great hall of Winterfell was in chaos.
The defenders, or what remained of them, had formed loosely around the high table.
Men in Stark colors, their faces pale with exhaustion and fear, their swords stained with black blood.
Catelyn Stark stood with a dagger in her hand, her auburn hair loose and wild.
Sansa was holding onto Rickon, the little boy's face buried in her shoulder, her white dress stained with dirt.
Arya had a small sword in her hands, her small body was coiled like a spring, ready to strike.
Their direwolves, Nymeria and Lady, stood before them, hackles raised, teeth bared.
And a short distance away, huddled together on a bench near the hearth, were Tommen and Myrcella.
They were holding hands, clutching each other as if the world were ending.
The wights had stopped their advance. They stood in a semicircle around Joffrey, their dead eyes fixed on him, their heads tilted as if they were trying to understand what had appeared in their midst.
The ancient Lord Commander remained near the Corpse Queen, his rusted greatsword clutched tightly in his bony fingers. What remained of his face was locked in an expression of eternal rage, frozen in death as it had been in life.
And finally, there was the undead creature that had started this whole mess.
She was behind her king, her silver hair flowing like water despite her immense age. Her robes were black and grey, embroidered with the direwolf of Winterfell, and a silver crown rested on her brow.
Her face was pale as milk, her lips blood red, and her eyes blue like sapphires. She was both terrifying and alluring.
The dead woman did not speak. He was not sure if this thing was capable of human speech at all. She simply watched, her head tilted slightly, as if she were studying a curious insect that had wandered into her web.
Her dead blue eyes were fixed on Joffrey with an intensity that made one thing clear.
She remembered him.
She has not forgotten the one who stabbed her with the obsidian spike. The one who shattered her body into shards of ice. The one who thought her destroyed.
She had been waiting for revenge.
Joffrey rose to his feet, swaying a bit. The blood loss was making him lightheaded, but he forced himself to stand straight. His right hand found his sword. He pulled it from the stone, the steel scraping against the ancient floor.
Behind him, someone spoke.
"Joffrey?"
It was Robb. The young wolf stood near the high table, his greatsword in his hands, his face streaked with blood and sweat. He was staring at the one-armed prince as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
"Joffrey!" Another voice. Arya. She had taken a step toward him, Needle raised, her grey eyes wide. "Is that really you?"
"Tommen, look!" Myrcella's voice was high and tight, trembling with a mixture of fear and hope. "It's Joffrey! Our brother has returned!"
Tommen did not speak. He only stared, his mouth open, his eyes wide.
"Everyone, stay behind me." Joffrey's voice was cold, steady, the voice of a man who had faced worse than this and survived. "I will deal with this. I don't want you to d-"
The ancient Lord Commander charged.
It moved faster than any creature of his size should have been able to move. His rusted greatsword swept toward Joffrey's neck, the blade humming with an otherworldly power.
Joffrey raised his own sword to block. The impact drove him back, his boots skidding on the bloody stone, his right arm screaming with the effort.
He immediately realized how much more difficult it was to keep his balance with only one arm. And this undead creature seemed to have the strength of at least five men.
The dead commander pressed his advantage, swinging again and again, each blow hammering down on Joffrey's guard. The rusted blade was notched and chipped, but it carried the weight of ages and a power that did not belong to any human.
"Enough of that..." Joffrey muttered. "I am not a knight. I will not fight like one."
He thrust his left stump toward the old king. Fire erupted from the empty sleeve...green flames, wild and hungry, the color of the killing curse.
They caught the ancient warrior in the chest and sent him flying across the hall. He crashed into the far wall, his armor blackening, his crown falling from his head. The rusted sword clattered to the stone, and the old commander lay still.
Joffrey did not wait to see if he rose again. He turned to face the Night Queen.
She opened her mouth and let out a screech...a sound unlike any a human could produce. Sharp and deafening, it cut through the chaos like a blade.
The other undead seemed to react to it, as if they had received a command. They all turned their attention to Joffrey and began to run at him, a tide of grey flesh and rusted steel.
Joffrey gave his sword a swing. "Depulso!" A wave of invisible energy surged from him. All the wights were instantly hit by the force of his magic and sent tumbling across the hall, crashing into the walls and each other, joining the ancient commander who had yet to rise.
But the queen did not remain still. She raised her hand, and ice formed in her palm...crystallizing from the air itself, growing into a blade, long and thin. The sword was pale blue, almost white, and it radiated a cold so intense that Joffrey could feel it from across the room.
Then she moved.
She was fast...impossibly fast. One moment, she was across the hall, and on the next, she was before him, her ice sword swinging.
Joffrey raised his blade to block, but the crystal edge cut through his steel like a knife through silk. The tip caught his shoulder, slicing through his enchanted armor as if it were not there, opening a gash from his collarbone to his chest.
Joffrey staggered back, blood streaming down his chest, his breath coming in short gasps.
His eyes moved to her crystal sword. There was something odd about it, something that made it cut through his defenses as if they were paper.
He had to admit that his enchantments had fallen a bit short when compared to her ancient magic.
But that was fine. Enchanting had never been his strong suit.
He dropped his blade. It clattered on the stone, and the Night Queen's head tilted further. She did not smile or gloat. She simply raised her ice sword for the killing blow.
"Let's see what you think of this one..." Joffrey raised his hand and spoke a word he had never spoken in this world.
"Fiendfyre."
The temperature in the hall rose instantly.
A mass of dark crimson flames erupted from his palm, swirling and growing, taking shape.
The fire was not natural...it was alive, hungry, and aware. It twisted and coiled, and then it formed a bird. A massive owl made of dark flames now hovered at the center of Winterfell's great hall, its wings spread wide.
The tremendous heat emanating from the conjured creature was so intense that all the ice and snow in the hall melted almost immediately and began to evaporate.
The ancient stone beneath the owl started to melt into slag, glowing red and orange. The tapestries on the walls caught fire. The wooden beams above began to smoke.
Joffrey glanced at the familiar form, and for a moment, a smile almost formed on his face.
It was only a remnant of an old friend, but yet...it was good to see her again.
His glowing green eyes turned to the undead queen. "Hedwig...go kill that ice bitch."
The mass of crimson flames surged toward its target.
The Night Queen's eyes opened wide. For the first time, she showed something akin to emotion...shock, perhaps, or fear. She tried to move away using her speed, but the fire moved faster. It closed off every escape, surrounding her with a ring of hungry flames.
The fiendfyre creature hovered above her and opened its wings as if to envelop her completely. The heat was so intense that the stones beneath her cracked and melted.
The undead queen raised her sword and tried to attack, but even her crystal blade could not withstand the high temperatures. It melted and disappeared before it could even touch the construct.
The owl descended upon her. The flames consumed her.
She did not scream. She simply burned.
Her silver hair caught fire, and her crown melted, and her robes turned to ash. She fell to her knees, her blue eyes still fixed on Joffrey, still watching.
And then she crumbled into dust.
The wights collapsed as puppets with their strings cut.
Every last one of them. The ancient Starks, the old kings, the risen dead...they fell where they stood, their blue eyes going dark.
The ancient Lord Commander who had once betrayed humanity for the aluring ice beauty crumbled into a pile of rusted armor and grey ash.
Joffrey called the flames back. The fiendfyre owl wheeled in the air, then dissolved into wisps of smoke that drifted toward his palm and vanished.
The temperature in the hall began to drop, though the stones remained hot, and the tapestries continued to smolder.
The great hall fell silent.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
The defenders stood frozen, watching the destruction left behind by the cursed flames that Joffrey had brought into their world.
The Starks stared at him in silence, unsure of what they could say. The soldiers who had survived the attack looked at him with a mixture of awe and terror.
And Joffrey stood alone in the center of the room, his one hand still raised, his eyes still glowing, his body trembling with exhaustion. Between the blood loss and the heavy use of magic, his body was reaching its limits.
His vision sank, and his legs felt like they were made of water.
"Joffrey!" Tommen's voice sounded small and frightened. "Joffrey, are you—"
Joffrey felt someone catch him as he began to fall. Small hands, warm hands. Myrcella was there, at his side, her golden hair brushing against his cheek.
"I knew you would come back for us," she whispered, her voice soft and sweet. "I knew it."
Joffrey looked at his little sister and nodded. He could not speak. His throat was dry, and his head was spinning, and the world was growing dark at the edges.
It had not been an easy decision for him to make. He had taken a huge risk and lost something in the process.
But being here now, seeing the faces of those who were still alive because of it, feeling the warmth of his sister's hands on his arm.
He had to admit that it made it worth it.
'Perhaps there is still a bit of the old Harry Potter left in me,' he thought. 'Perhaps he was not as buried as I believed.'
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