I've been re-writing the past few chapters.
Just a heads up. There will be 13 months/moons in the Westeros calendar because a single full moon comes approximately every 28 days and 365/28 = 13, hence 13 moons. Of course, this is simply for my own story and does not apply to another's story.
Chapter 2: Pueritia De Terra Incognita
270 A.C, 3rd Moon, 17th day - Highgarden, Westeros
Bright light rays, littered across the vast yellow plains of wheat growing along Highgarden. Outside were the hardworking people of Highgarden, toiling at another fresh and beautiful harvest. The Reach was, after all, the most fertile land in Westeros.
It was on this day that Hariloas Tyrell woke up to dawn shining through his coloured glass panes. His 4-year-old body stretching under the emerald-tinted light. It had been a full 4 years since his birth, and only a single year, since he had been able to gain full control of his past-life and memories. They seemed murky for the first two years of his life, and thankfully non-existent at his birth.
He had so much excitement, so much thrill to look out into this new world.
Harry slowly slid out of the velvet covers, embroidered with golden roses above a mossy background. A single silver-lined mirror was plastered against white marble walls.
As Harry walked up to the glass, he could only gaze in detachment. He remembered how strange his coming into Planetos had been.
Why was he here? What was the purpose of his coming here? He didn't know what Magic did to remove him from Death's hold.
Shoulder length red hair fell into straight bangs around his heart-shaped face, both reminded him dearly of his old mother Lily Evans, and coincidentally they were traditional Redwyne features he'd inherited from his new mother as well.
Olenna Redwyne was a beautiful woman with hazel eyes and puckered lips. Translucent skin that displayed her youthful visage and blossoming young figure. He wasn't as pretty as her, though.
She was a seductress, and Harry knew that from the small stories she would tell him as a child. Olenna would not expect his young brain to remember or understand her words, but his body and mind were of two different ages. He had 50 years of experience and age with him already. Far older than Olenna was.
She was a bit of a... whore, but he could fully understand her. Who would want to marry into a family of incestuous brothers and sisters? Using her looks to ensnare another man to take her before a Targaryen did. It was ingenious.
It was also an interesting way to think about her marriage, to say the least.
Olenna Redwyne did not fancy her Targaryen betrothed, instead absolutely loathing her engagement with Daeron. In the dark of the night (Rasputin? Harry could see some similarities in her storytelling), she had seduced Luthor Tyrell, to bed her instead of his betrothed, her sister. Daeron was found to have broken their betrothal when they were both 18, on 246 A.C. but little had the Maesters known, she had already broken it at the age of 15, 3 years prior.
Harry's eyes were something that neither parent had produced, and for that reason, Olenna felt unsure of her standing in the household. It would not do to have others believe her to have strayed from her husband and grown with another man's seed in her womb. A scandal.
Luthor's and her own family had no such eye colour. They were a beautiful murky green, like seaweed underwater, where light refracted off into the depths of the ocean floor. It had caused some confusion amongst the family, however, Luthor Tyrell was far more concerned about power. Harry's two sisters and brother, all took after the basic Tyrell features of dark brown hair, and hazel eyes. Olenna was sure that Luthor suspected that something was going on, but what would it really matter to him.
Mace was comical with the attempts he made to play with Harry. Sometimes he would act as if Harry was as fragile as china, and at other times he would seem so disinterested in him and treat him with either indifference or with fear of being reprimanded by Olenna for doing something wrong.
Both Hariloas and Olenna, however, had agreed that he was a bit dim. Mace was failing his lessons with Maester Arrel, in topics surrounding economics and history, had attempted sword fighting but vowed to never return after he sprained his wrist while swinging his wooden sword callously.
Seriously! What did he think was going to happen if he was using a heavy wooden tool and acting like a flailing hippo? He absolutely abhorred the arts and refused to take up any brush or instrument. However, Mace was quite ingenious regarding strategy. At times he could make a good clown in terms of making a fool of himself. But at other times, he was able to make intuitive and insightful discoveries that would be beneficial to war or battle.
What a strange boy.
270 A.C, 3rd Moon, 27th day - Highgarden, Westeros
Harry had troubles during sleep, with nightmares surrounding dark purple and deathly green lights shooting around him.
Sometimes Olenna would sing a hymn of the Mother for him during those dark nights when shadows seemed to eat up the pale moonlight;
"Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
save our sons from war, we pray,
stay the swords…."
It was trauma from Auror training and the many battles he had to fight as a soldier for the ministry. When he first joined the Auror department, he was a young hopeful, who thought that the Aurors may be the only citizens of magical Britain who weren't tainted by the Ministry's corruptness.
He was wrong.
The Aurors were a subsection of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who frankly, had no power to fight against the Minister whatsoever. Laws were set in place by the Wizengamot to stop an uprising from within the Ministry's security force.
Harry was too idealistic to recognize those before and even shortly after he joined the forces.
He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to see death anymore. It was interesting how he never once felt this way. After Voldemort's defeat and the bloodshed by his friends and the people of Hogwarts, he wanted to go on a killing spree. Ending evil by death, ending corruption by death. Every sentence of every Death Eater, he wanted it to be death. Not anymore.
He felt this pain now - in his new life.
He had so much anger. So much misery and doubt that would cloud his mind.
As an Auror, Harry learned that civilian casualties will always happen. They panicked, you panicked, spells could hit anyone if they were deflected by the shield charm. It was feasible to see innocents die during infights or conflicts.
Harry didn't want to see them die. He even dared to say that he became a pacifist. What would he do, however, as a second son? What, if not a general in his brother's army? What would be his worldly path?
270 A.C, 4th Moon, 8th Day - Highgarden, Westeros
It was only until Harry roamed the great hallways of Highgarden with delicately sculpted statues and chiselled stone walls, that he found a huge library. One that was filled with the knowledge gained by both the Tyrell rulers after Aegon's Conquest, and the Gardner rulers since Garth the Greenhand's time.
In the magical world, he had learned that magic was powerful but intelligence was one power that reigned above all. It was information that allowed him to master his spells, to find new spells, learn court politics, and to learn battle strategy in the DMLE.
Powerful repertoires of knowledge that made his tiny 4-year old stomach, but 54-year old mind, quiver in delight.
He saw one book on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Finding a small stool with slight decaying legs, on the side, allowed him to prop himself up and view the book's title.
"Grand Repertoire and History of the Tyrell House."
He supposed the book was, in fact, ongoing, as the many yellowing parchment sheets at the back were empty and awaiting new stories.
He flipped to the front again and started from the top of the first page.
The book first outlined how the Garth the Greenhand was a gardener king. Apparently Garth had mystical powers that were connected to nature. Through the descriptions of him making the land around him bloom with flowers and wheat, Harry could believe that Garth was something related to a druid. Druids were magical beings or magicians who didn't control but rather flowed with nature, sometimes using their powers to guide nature into doing something for them.
He encountered tales of his family's stewardship of the Reach and interesting tidbits about their early forming. On one page it outlined their high stewardship as regents of the young King Garland VI Gardener. After his father passed away in a battle against Dornish forces, Osmund Tyrell would become a high steward and rule the Reach until he came of age. During this time, Houses Manderly and Peake would fight to put their wives, who were Garland's older sisters, on the throne as the Queen of the Reach.
The infighting would lead to an overhaul of the two houses after Osmund the Steward brought up the banners of the Reach to stop the conflict. House Peake was annihilated and their daughters and wives executed. House Manderly, on the other hand, would flee from the Reach to the North, suffering from their wounds. They would plead with the Stark-Winter King, and take up a lordship on the eastern coast.
But most interesting was the passage of the Tyrell's betrayal of the Gardeners. "Following the defeat and death of King Mern IX Gardener and his other kin at the Field of Fire during Aegon's Conquest, Harlen Tyrell, hereditary high steward of the Reach, surrendered Highgarden to Aegon the Conqueror. As a reward, Harlen was granted the castle along with the dominion of the Reach as Lord Paramount of the Mander. As Wardens of the South, they frequently warred with the Dornishmen, who remained independent. Harlen disappeared in the Dornish sands during the First Dornish War…"
His house was one of cunning and fortitude even in the early days. Knowledge was power and it was the Tyrell's knowledge of Targaryen dragons and the house's strength that would allow them to surrender and rise once more. From steward to Lord Paramount.
How interesting, he found, that individuals who would stay well in the shadows, could hold so much power.
Harry himself, was never able to stay in the shadows, but this was a life that could possibly allow that.
Who were those holding power in the shadows?
Assassins would, as they could contort the shadows, take the faces, and maneuver death to kill their targets. That wasn't what Harry wanted. He didn't want to kill or maim, or follow another human's bidding for coin. That would go against his moral code. In a game of thrones, however, he noticed that moral code would be quite useless.
Stewards like his own family were another option. He didn't want to stay in Highgarden and hadn't done anything truly worthy to be placed as a steward in another keep. That option would be a no-go.
Most of his thoughts went to the Citadel. From there, his options would expand. If he would become renowned, he would be able to not only enter another lordship, but he might also be able to receive the title of an Archmaester or even a Grandmaester. If he would take on economics, there could be a chance of gaining the position of Master of Coin, on the small council.
If he didn't do anything, he would still be placed in a household. Most of the south disliked the North for its emptiness or economic disparity, but he could enter into a maestership there. It would be amazing to find out the secrets of the weirwoods, or northern magic. As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Perhaps the Citadel was where he needed to go.
As he was reading, one Maester Arrel, silently watched a 4-year old child read through the enormous Tyrell encyclopedia. He was already known as an intelligent toddler, throughout the household, and it terrified him? No, it was simply strange how a child could read such advanced literature.
As he put that to the back of his mind - he didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth - Harry had read the passage of Aegon's Conquest and Arrel thought it would be fitting to bring him down from the stool.
He knew exactly what Harry could become, even if Hariloas himself, didn't. As Harry read through the passages, he saw exactly how fascinated the child was at their history, at their cunning. He could not steer the child any other way than the way he learned himself. Intelligence sticks to the intelligent.
Harry would become a Maester.
AN: Mace will not be a total oaf. Hope you enjoy this story.