A/N - Alright, I've got a new story here. I've always wanted to do a crossover and here it is. Please let me know what you think! I don't think there are enough good Harry Potter x Game of Thrones crossovers and this is my attempt to remedy that. This is planned to be quite long, a full length novel, unlike my other fanfic The Prisoner's Cipher which is more of a novella. That, btw, will be finished very soon.
A big shout out of course to the reviewers at DLP for their invaluable help and critiques.
Summary: A Harry Potter x Game of Thrones (Song of Fire and Ice) crossover story. Harry is neither a bastard, princeling, or anything in between – just Harry. Possessing nothing but a past he doesn't remember and a future yet to be written, Harry begins anew from beyond the Wall with nothing but his name.
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The forest was deathly silent, doing nothing to blanket his ragged breathing. He desperately leaned against a tree trunk, his fingers scraping across the frozen bark, only just barely preventing himself from collapsing in exhaustion.
He had never – ever – ran so much.
Or at least he thought so.
The fog from his breath panted out in an absurd fashion, coming out in little puffs of contradictory warmth that were quickly eviscerated by the stifling cold.
He leaned his back upon the tree trunk and closed his eyes in temporary relief. He could hear nothing but his own breathing intermixed somewhat rhythmically with his heartbeat.
He opened his eyes and steeled himself for his next move – the seemingly perpetual routine of looking back.
He bit his lip, gathering his nerves once again and whipped his head around the tree to direct his fiery gaze behind him - his eyes darted frantically as they scanned the forest.
He saw nothing but the wintry landscape around him.
Nothing.
It wasn't the true test, though.
A sudden inhumanly cold blast of air caught him bluntly across the face, and his entire body clammed and began to shiver uncontrollably as he twisted away to divert the gust.
He used his involuntary intake of breath as a chance to listen, but the whipping winds were the only sounds to be heard.
Then again, he thought, they were all that was ever to be heard.
It was when the lulls in between the shrieks and shrills of the wintry wind became heavier, thicker, colder - that they came. Listening, or rather, feeling was the true test of whether they were there.
Whatever they were.
He'd caught only glimpses of them – white as the snow, always walking with a fey, shimmering grace. Piercingly light blue eyes that always sought him out while their icy hands gripped various forms of medieval weaponry. They were tracking him, and if he had to hazard a guess – were curious.
At first, they had merely observed him. But then something changed. Several times now, they had made to surround him, but he had spotted them and escaped their grasp. And now, it had become a – he had lost track of how many days long – chase that had become a terrible pattern.
And yet, as he stood stooped amidst the wintry landscape, feeling deep for the dark lulls and gaps that these creatures traveled, he sensed nothing.
His neck arched skyward in a silent homage of relief, eyes still closed.
He slowly raised his hands up and on the back of his head and the adrenaline seeped out of his body, leaving only raw exhaustion.
It would be morning soon - and with it, temporary salvation.
Alive.
It was the same each day - search for food for a couple hours during the day, and then sleep the rest – he would desperately need the sleep as he would be running all night. He had long ago given up the hope of finding some form of civilization.
He was on such survival mode he barely had time to think – only feel and react. He had yet to still find or procure fire, and the food he managed to find was anything but nourishing.
He was not going to last much longer.
So dire his circumstances he was unable to put attention to what was increasingly moving further and further to forefront of his mind –
He had absolutely no idea who he was.
This race from death he was running had effectively blocked his mind from addressing this in the way it begged to be – but the longer he simply ran and hid for no apparent reason but to not die, the more he searched for meaning – for answers, for a reason.
And absolutely none were forthcoming.
He literally knew nothing.
He had woken up several days ago with absolutely no recollection or memory. He had been lying strewn amidst what looked to be a completely untouched snowdrift banked upon a somewhat symmetrical rock outcropping.
The whipping winds had long covered up any clues that might have been imprinted upon the snow by the time he had woken up.
He had only the clothes he woke up in - a long, riddled and shredded black robe that wrapped loosely about his shoulders to his feet, fitting around a pair of now scratched and torn pants and sweatshirt.
He had woken just before daylight disappeared – probably from the steep temperature drop – and just in time as well. Soon after the sun had dissipated… the first of the things had approached him. And then the routine he was currently caught up in had begun in earnest.
That had been a while ago. Two weeks? Three? Days? He had no idea, but he knew he had traveled a very long distance from where he had originally found himself.
He shook his head in dismay.
It truly did not matter.
He bent down and began to shape the snow to block the wind as best he could and laid down right where he had been standing.
After a few futile minutes desperately searching his memory for any remnant of his past, he acknowledged failure, and fell asleep.
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He woke with a sharp intake of freezing cold air and was immediately paralyzed with fear.
Fuck.
He'd slept much too long.
He hadn't even scavenged for food or water, let alone prepared for what he knew was coming.
Whipping off the ground into a feral, crouching position he closed his eyes and felt his heart clench in dread as the highly viscous feeling of eerie otherness crept across the grounds he now stood in.
They were coming. And they were very, very close. Of that he had no doubt.
He wasted no time and immediately started sprinting. He headed towards a large clearing he had spotted earlier the previous day, as it was his only manner of hope.
The Others, as he had named them, for all their strange wraith-like qualities, were not as fast as he. The unfairness came in that they never tired – their smooth, athletic – essentially floating – movements came clean and effortlessly. He had no doubt in his mind they were uncommonly quick, but top speed was the only advantage he had and he used it.
He used it by sprinting in large fields – that way he could see them coming and outpace them and/or simply keep a distance. Their slightly fluorescent white color heralded their coming to his trained eyes. Furthermore, there were always less of them in fields, and their mystical qualities of silence and seamlessness less potent.
He had tried hiding before - it had never worked. They always found him, and had nearly gotten him caputred multiple times as a result. But still, he needed to find at least several resting spots, and hiding in coves or thick forestry provided that. The trick was not overstaying, for they always found him, not once had he escaped their vigilant searches. It was simply a matter of time.
And so he learned, always placing himself at sunset near an area gratuitous to his one – and just barely – advantage, running. From there he would put as much distance as possible between him and his pursuers before entering the forest and finding temporary respite, and repeating the process over and over.
But tonight his admittingly frail survival plan was void – it required some sort of forethought and planning. Tonight he would have to rely purely on luck and grit - for he had no idea how large exactly this opening would be and where it would continue to.
He continued running.
It was only after a minute or two he completely keyed into his surroundings.
Something was different about this night.
There was energy in this air and an indescribable vibe that lent him an edginess that his invigorated feet were thankful for and his pulsating heart fearful of.
Was the moon brighter? The wind stronger? Nights in this forsaken forest had a habit of lending wings to his imagination but something told him this rawness he felt was very real.
Gone was the silence of yesterday, tonight the forest was alive.
The punishing wind was making the frozen forest sway and creak dangerously. The sounds of cracking trees split the night's air as exploding wood and snow burst into the sky like dark-lit fireworks, surrounded by a temporary but extraordinary halo – for the moonlight was caught within the prisms of the snow's crystalline structures.
He dodged to the best of his abilities the fragments and pieces soaring through the air, not quite able to escape them or the awe that had possessed him of the frightening show this night was putting on.
Something - something inexplicably epic - was going to happen tonight. This energy crackling through air was not just sourcing from this winter storm, but through all that it surrounded – it possessed a symbiotic quality – what passed through one thing came out into another with equal intensity and power. The storm, the trees, the snow, the wights – and him.
Him as well.
What would be his expression of dazzlingly caught moonlight within millions of snowflakes sent exploding into the air? Trees sitting dormant for hundreds of years, now sitting in frozen chips upon the ground?
Tonight was a night for powerful displays of the spectacular and energy is always – always - conserved.
It dawned upon him that the moon was undeniably brighter – as though in anticipation.
His breath hitched in barely contained anxiety as the truth of his thoughts and observations washed over him and it instilled a fierceness within his chest.
And so he sprinted into the frozen night wind towards the forest clearing, moonlight bequeathing silver linings to the structures all around him. He no longer thought of himself as an outsider, but a part of this wintry landscape, and things became easier because of it.
The wind whipped through his unruly hair as the steady cadence of his falling strides crunched upon the frozen snow. Trees whipped by him in a dark blur and tiny tears fell from his eyes as the frigid air bit into him and froze them in place.
It was frighteningly simple, almost beautiful. Running, here in the middle of somewhere nowhere in this frozen land, knowing nothing, and caring about nothing but wanting to live. The fire of determination and the heat of the run – for once – kept him at a hauntingly perfect stasis between cold and hot. He was a dark shadow amongst an enormous, silent forest, and it was without fanfare or acknowledgement that his striding form burst into the open land.
Not but seconds later, dim, fluorescent figures began to clear the forest as well.
One by one they breached the forest line and strode with their silent and elegant strides towards the fleeting dark human in front of them. There was urgency about their step, their situation, and their focus on their prey.
He turned his head to look back, as he felt their presence acutely and he cursed as he saw the numbers that approached him.
Their numbers approached the dozens.
Most nights only a few tracked him, and he was allowed to rest in a temporary hiding spot as he lost them - or at least catch his breath while keeping a wary eye on the distance between him and them.
Tonight would not be one of those nights, he knew. There were far too many – dozens! The forest was sparse enough to run as fast as he wanted but not dense enough to hold any spot of temporary respite.
They only thing he had was running – and he would undoubtedly tire and be taken by these creatures if he did not find at least several places to rest.
What did they want from him? What made them so relentless? His eyes scanned his surroundings with a hint of panic.
He noticed the field in which he now ran on opened up into a much, much vaster one. What he was currently in was a tiny little inlet of the main one. His heart leapt and he tried to run even faster, even as he saw more of the Others come out of the forest ahead of him to his right and left in this peninsula-esque field he had placed himself in.
They were looking to cut him off and he knew with dread that it was going to be painfully close.
He tried to not pay attention to their ever-clearer visages, or the frighteningly solid looking weaponry standing in stark contrast with their ethereal bodies. The fact he could not hear them running was probably the most eerie and unnerving aspect of it all – there was an other-worldly presence about them that was distinctly inhuman.
With a final air of desperation and determination he made his final push. The wights noticed and also picked up their pace as they closed in from three sides like a partially formed noose.
His breathing was ragged as he forced his strides to be harder, longer, to have some sort of palpable feeling of difference. With steely motivation he refused to look the wights in the eyes, fearing it would slow him down, unnerve him.
A silent minute of only the sounds of his running – not theirs – passed by and the moment of truth came to fruition. The wights at the most far edges to his upper right and left, which had previously had been running at an angle towards him slightly in the opposite direction he was, slowly, inexorably, began to run at angle towards him that was in the same direction as he was. He was pulling ahead, inch by inch.
His peripheral vision now told him that was indeed the case.
He'd made it.
He had escaped their closing noose, and as he burst into the much larger expanse he screamed in victory even as he knew there was no immediate rest in sight. Hope filled his heart when he realized that the dark woods had literally ended at the forest line behind him.
He could be free from this endless chase. The wights always skirted from open fields – the less dense the forest, the better for him – and now no forest remained.
He spun and skidded to a stop with blind conviction, nearly falling over in his hurry to confirm his realizations. With a whoop of joy he saw that the wights had stopped at the edge, gathering in a pooling crowd of sorts – their frustration and consternation clear. They paced – seemingly nervously – on the forest line.
A very full and latent silence settled down except for his ragged but energetic breathing as a sudden wrath took him.
The fire of his desire to survive bellowed out as he screamed in defiance and victory at these magical creatures. He – a mere human – escaping their powers and numbers in a place he knew nothing about it – their home, their fort. He had evaded the impossible.
He felt empowered, invincible for the moment and relished in it – soaking in the brighter moonlight that the now nonexistent trees failed to block.
It was still unbearably cold, frigid even, but it was drier and clearer.
Life could live here. The presence of those dreaded creatures was less potent here, he could tell. There was a calmness here that was never present before.
He put his hands on his head and arched his neck, catching his breath. He wanted more than anything to simply lie down and sleep – rest – and wake up during the day and walk with an air of leisure he could barely even begin to imagine.
But as beautiful as this situation was, he did not fully trust it. Survival instincts long since honed told him to not trust the situation and keep running. If he stopped now he would be sore, tight, and susceptible and that would not do if he did need to resume his fleeing.
It was still night. And they were still there. This was the first chance he had to put some literal distance between them and he would be a fool not to take it.
He would take the advantage that was given to him. With grim resolution he began jogging at a brisk pace, the stars above him, previously unseen, beginning to shine out behind whatever haze had blocked them before.
He had run maybe ten minutes when he realized with dread that that silence was back. His head spun around and he saw that which he feared the most – fanned out in a near "V" formation, were the shimmering white creatures running with what seemed to be new determination and new speed.
Something about him was inexplicably important to them. This was no longer a case of bloodlust, there was a distinct interest and need here. He kept his legs moving as he looked back with despair. He was tired. Really tired. And they were gaining. His advantage had now turned to a disadvantage, as he had nowhere to hide.
He scanned the landscape.
Nothing.
The sky was foggy, so it didn't necessarily mean there wasn't anything close, but it still revealed nothing.
Minutes went by in his endless, mindless running when he suddenly espied a rocky outcropping. With new vigor he made off towards it.
The wights seemingly noticed it as well and they picked up their pace with sudden urgency.
The closer he got the more he realized it was not just a rocky outcropping, it had been made – shaped – by men. His heart rose. As he neared it he realized it had indeed been made by men, but had not been inhabited for a long, long time. It did not discourage him; merely being in the presence where people once resided was enough to give him some sort of comfort.
He continued running.
As he came to the foot of the habitation that comfort turned to acute loneliness as he saw the crumbled ruins. It hadn't been merely deserted – it had been defeated.
He gave it no more thought as he began to scale the ruins, as the wights were fast gaining on him.
The crumbled ruins proved difficult to tread, but he wound himself through the broken roads and steadily made his way up, glancing back periodically with increasing anxiety. He was halfway up when the Others reached the base.
Once again they hesitated, swinging their weapons in consternation. Harry paused his ascent and watched.
Minutes passed. His breathing grew steadier.
It was then he noticed that the ruins he now stood on once was a fort.
Was.
The crumbled stone he had passed had once been a wall that encircled the entire outcropping. Barracks, guardhouses, and a few half-standing towers could be made out. Weapons, long discarded or fallen from dying hands, laid strewn about. The end of this place had been… tragic. Ransacked by the look of it.
It was then an overwhelming wave of nostalgia came upon him. The blankness of his memory created a painful hole in his chest. The fact he now stood in a place where his kind had once tread… it was too much. Would he be able to talk to them? Know what they said? He couldn't even remember talking to a human before… and yet knew what one was? Was he human? Of course he was…
He was losing his mind. Which was funny, because he'd seemingly already lost it. He needed food. He needed sleep. He needed… he needed a lot of things.
His eyes snapped back to the Others, who had now encircled the crumbled fort. A particularly lithe, tall, and fearsome one strode out from the others and crossed the crumbled stone and crouched, sword held parallel to the grown in a menacing, athletic manner. His human like features as though set in grim concentration. The others followed suit.
And yet his needs would have to wait. He pushed down the utter despair that threatened his sanity and began at once running up the ruined fort.
The sounds of his feet struggling to gain purchase on the frigid, broken remains of the habitation highlighted the futileness of his run.
There was an increasing amount of broken weaponry as he neared the keep. The Others were fast gaining. When he did reach the keep, an enormous stone arch carved from the mountain itself greeted him. The heavy wooden door – made from the same wood as the forest he had just left - had long been battered down, and laid splintered and split outside of the entryway. The cold preserved everything.
He gazed around, pausing before entering. He could make out the sounds of the Others rapidly approaching, and considered his options.
He didn't have many.
A wanton gaze from the fort told him that this was the only structure between the forest he had just left and the mountain range and a couple valleys he could make out on the other side of the frozen plains he had just been crossing. Sudden intuition told him that the fort he now stood on had once been an outpost. Whatever people or civilization had lived here, had lived in the mountain valleys, and had built this fort as means to keep watch over whatever came through the wintry forest.
To no avail, apparently.
Either way it told him he was right to choose this place to pick what increasingly apparent was becoming his last stand. He would have been taken before he reached them. He no longer had the endurance or strength that was required to reach the mountain valleys.
The morning would not come for a couple hours either.
A calm took over him that told him that his end was near. He methodically searched for the least broken sword that he could lift with acceptable dexterity and stepped into the keep.
It was littered with skeletons still adorning their armor. Scorch marks could be seen all across the small, but impressive hall. Charred remains could also be seen to be littering the floor.
He felt as though he had reached a sacred, banned place. It had literally been untouched since the fort's demise. The stone was as old as the mountain, and hewed from it as well, just as the door. The long hall stretched back to a raised dais that a solid, black, marbled throne sat upon imperiously. Strength was evident there, as well as iron resolve.
It was the place he'd take his last stand. He would die as the protectors of this fort had. Stepping onto the dais and in front of the throne, he crouched, gathering his strength and his wits.
The hall was dark. Only the dim moonlight shown through the entryway about one hundred feet away and a skylight that brought the moonlight – seemingly brighter than the light that came through the entryway – to shine directly upon the dais he now stood on. An odd sense of deja vue came across him.
He could hear the scratching of the impending Others upon the frozen ground, as he donned a shield and a helmet that had been lying by the throne, and discarded his sword for the one that he found at his feet, which felt much better in his hands.
He crouched much as he had seen the lithe Other do earlier, his sword pointed directly at the doorway.
The tall Other he had just been thinking about stepped through the entryway, flanked by six others. They hissed in anger as they saw him standing upon the dais in front of the throne, and momentarily slowed their sure steps.
He gulped and hardened his resolve, raising his circular shield closer to his face. He had never felt as lonely as he did now, his only human allies having died some hundreds of years ago at his feet. He couldn't even remember seeing another human. Ever.
He pushed the rising despair down within his chest, as the leader had now stepped in front of the group and was now climbing the raised platform that he stood on. He had absolutely no idea how to wield his sword, although he had yet another odd sense of déjà vu he couldn't quite explain, but he was not going to let this creature dictate his own death.
The frustration of not knowing who he was, the chase from these strange creatures, and the seemingly pointlessness of it all screamed out at him and became embodied a strangely comforting feeling of acceptance. Acceptance of his own death, his fate.
The fierceness that had been instilled within his chest in the field now blossomed with surprising intensity.
With a yell he charged the creature, thrusting his shield where he thought the tall assailant's would swing its sword, and thrust his sword straight towards his enemy's intestines.
The Other parried his thrust, battered his shield back with its sword, and bashed his helm with its own shield in a few quick and powerful motions.
He was sent sprawling back, nearly thrown against the throne. He was outrageously outmatched but it did not stop him from fighting the pain and whipping up and throwing his shield and striking out with his sword, catching his enemy on the upper right arm as it raised its sword to slash away his flying shield, causing it to hiss in pain.
He vaguely realized that the other six were beginning to circle him. The tall one quickly lashed out but he evaded him, spinning and once again gaining purchase with a slight lash on his enemy's side. He had underestimated his enemy's quickness during his first strike and he was not making the same mistake if he could help it.
What he did not count on was being battered from the side from one of the six, and he cried out in pain from the blow and the shock of being heaved against the solid throne.
A powerful blow came down upon his head and he spun frantically to avoid it. He lunged up and swung his sword in a swath catching one of the Others in the leg slicing clean through it. He then looked to stand up to get a better position but felt his legs tighten – a wire mesh three-pronged rope contraption had been thrown and wrapped around his legs, effectively taking out the use of his legs.
Another bash to the head that knocked his helm off interrupted his sudden realization that they were not trying to kill him, but capture him.
His vision was blurry and his head swimming. All the aches and pains of the long run and chase became painfully apparent that he had previously been suppressed. He could see the cold creatures standing tall, regally above him.
He felt his fingers still gripping on his sword, however, and raised it feebly to do something, anything.
Another bash on the head had him nearly out of consciousness and his sword out of his hands for good.
Panic over took him as he felt the – so cold – fingers grab his body and he began to flail pathetically – anything – when he felt the cold fingers gain purchase around his throat and bodily lift him.
With astonishing clarity the fell face of the tall leader came to view, the piercingly blue eyes showing nothing but raw light when everything else was pale and cold as the wind, and stared into his own green ones.
He could feel his feet dangling and was acutely aware of how much smaller and weaker he was than these creatures.
Suddenly he gasped and felt a cold hard knife being thrust and twisted into his lower abdomen and he screamed in pain and shock. His blood came out and dripped upon the frozen marble, heat rising from the pool it created. The leader and the other six looked at it with silent confirmation and he found himself dropped on the cold hard floor. He immediately used his hands to cradle his wound, wincing in pain and shock.
The other six made to pick him up to bring him to his demise as a thousand thoughts flew through his mind but was pushed away violently by blind anger. He had no idea who he was, his past, where he was, why he had just spend endless nights running away from these god forsaken creatures that were now carrying his wounded, physically drained body to yet another unknown.
Something snapped violently inside of him and he screamed. So emotional and shocking was his scream he was dropped and all seven turned around and stared at him. He was beyond rational thought – a man gone crazy – without consideration or logical governance – and he began to crawl with his tied legs even, his side spewing blood from the sudden and erratic movements.
When one of the Others raised his sword to knock him out he spun and thrust out his hand, screaming even louder before, and fire, deep blue, purple, red and then yellow brilliant fire burst out - completely incinerating the Other.
He didn't stop and he turned around and put forth not one, but two hands and completely eviscerated the fast approaching others, including the leader whose features could be seen to be taut and surprised - fearful.
The fire extended much farther than where the Others once stood, bellowing out towards the door and out of the opening of the moon roof, blasting a fiery flare, temporarily lighting up the ruined fort as its beacons had proudly done centuries ago.
His consciousness was completely fading, he was no longer aware of anything – of the dozens of the Others now fleeing the fort, of the uncanny similarity the charcoaled dust his enemies had turned into with the charcoal that had laid there from before, and of the fact his hands were unscathed and unburned.
Or that he had just performed magic.
There was only one thing he was aware of before blackness overtook him. He remembered one thing. One singular thing.
His name.
Harry.
Harry Potter.
And with it, hope blossomed within his heart, as his consciousness faded to blackness.