Disclaimer: I own no published intellectual properties mentioned in this fic.
"You're all mad," Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, gasped. His hosts, while his soldiers were staying in Castle Hogwarts, had just finished telling their tale of how they came from different times and worlds, a delightful bedtime story for children, but they actually believed it with every fiber of their being. Monsters and fortune telling was too much. It couldn't be real.
"Does it matter if we are?" Phil Coulson shrugged, absently patting the head of the smartest and largest dog he'd ever encountered, Mouse. The two men had been talking a while watching the sun set in the Astronomy Tower. From their elevated position, they could easily see the entire grounds of the former magical school turned actual functional castle. "If we are insane, how do you explain what we have shown you? If we are insane, would you treat us any differently, knowing what is in this castle? But we are getting off topic."
"Right," Jaime nodded. "To the evidently more sane subject of rebelling against the king."
"We've never sworn fealty to your king, so we can't be rebelling against him. It is more precise to say we are in defiance of your king," Phil countered calmly. "You've been here for a week, eating our food, examining our castle, talking to our people. Most of House Hogwarts is children still learning, with maybe a score of fighters in all, barely above a hundred souls all told. But you've seen what we can do. You've sparred against our warriors. How many of your men do you think would die if your king decided we needed exterminating? You have the ear of the queen, all we ask is you treat us as a neutral third party, such as the Maesters. We've told you our history, our goals, we've been open and honest."
"And that is what concerns me," Jaime smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. His eyes remained haunted by what he had witnessed at Hogwarts. "You have been too accommodating. For months, no one could get anything about your castle, and now you are welcoming us with open arms. Welcomed me and my goldcloaks. So while I appreciate your hospitality, I just don't trust your motives."
"That's disappointing," Coulson sighed. "You not trusting us when we've been honest made me lose a bet."
"Sucker's bet," Jaime smirked. "Trust is a luxury of fools."
"There was a man I knew once, a real hero," Phil reminisced. "He always believed the best of people. I thought I could see the best in you. It's there, I know it, but too deep down inside you right now. It's buried by your entitlement and false superiority. If you don't believe our good intentions, then we'll have to use less savory methods. Sorry about this."
Jaime's hand gripped his hilt and pulled the blade out a few inches as Phil shrugged. The Queen's brother had never stopped assessing threats, not since he stepped foot on this forsaken isle, but he'd never seen nor heard anything hostile the entire time. Not until this moment. Even now, Phil Coulson of House Hogwarts didn't act threatening. No weapon, no armor, nothing but empty hands and a strange outfit of black jacket and pants with a white shirt. Jaime wondered what less savory methods Hogwarts had to offer.
"I beg your pardon," Jaime slowly spoke.
"I want you to know that we talked about this for over a week. We want to let you know that your eldest son will never be king, nor be married. If he does either, he will die within the day. Joining the Night's Watch would provide a longer life for the boy, perhaps as encouragement to other noble houses that they should send their men to guard the Wall."
Jaime Lannister unsheathed his sword and held it ready to strike down the man before him. Phil didn't even move in response, though Mouse did growl lowly. The sun caught the dog's fur and made it seem to glow. The two men looked at each other for a few moments, allowing Jaime's pulse to stop racing and for his thinking to clear.
"I have no children," he stated with more calm than he felt. "Members of the Kingsguard are forbidden from land, wives, and children."
"In that case, there should be no issue with what I said. If you have no firstborn bastard son who is in line to inherit the iron throne, no threat has been made. Please remember, what I said only applied to your hypothetical firstborn, not your daughter or second-born son. We have no issue with them. They are, by all accounts and prophecy, lovely children who are probably still naive and pliable, but distinctly lack their older brother's cruelty and unpredictability. Now, tomorrow morning we are shipping supplies to Winterfell. You are welcome to join us in our travels, or to make your own way north. I expect this will be your last chance to see Hogwarts for quite a while, so feel free to explore while you have the time. If I don't see you again, I hope you do the right thing."
Before Jaime could figure out a response to the threatening non-threat, Phil Coulson and Mouse left Jaime alone in the astronomy tower, all alone except for his thoughts.
His family had been threatened, of that there was no doubt. He just didn't know what to make of it all. Luckily, he would have time to consult with Cersei before any action was needed. It wasn't like the fat bastard was going to die anytime soon.
When the sun fully slipped behind the horizon, Jaime descended. He told his two kingsguards to prepare to travel in the morning. He had debated leaving some of his men in the castle/school, but he didn't trust them to remain loyal in this strange alien place.
As he walked the halls, Jaime heard talking coming from an open classroom door. He quietly moved closer to listen in.
"Don't you think D&D is kinda, I don't know, pointless here, Will?" a young boy asked.
"No," Will stated emphatically. "It's the normalcy that we need. We always play on Saturday night. We need to play. Please, tell him Mike."
"I don't know, Will," Mike hedged. "Lucas makes sense. I mean, we can pretend to be wizards and knights, but we're in a literal magical castle. There are a dozen kids here that can literally use magic right now. We have literal knights wandering the halls. There are probably assassins sent by evil rulers in the village outside. If we want to have a real adventure, we can ask Nova to flame us anywhere in this world in a second, or simply walk into the tavern two miles away. What do you think, Dustin?"
"I think D&D as we know it is a lost cause," Dustin announced to disappointed groans. "But I think we have something else we could replace it with."
"What do you mean?" Will asked, cautiously optimistic.
"Before, we lived in the modern world, with radios and bikes and cars and stuff. We played in a world of magic and monsters and swords. Now we live in a fantasy world with literal dragons and basilisks and phoenixes, why not create a game about the modern world?"
"What, like filing taxes and going to school?" Lucas retorted with a snort. "Boringest game ever."
"Dude, we could have a campaign with Indiana Jones, or a spy campaign like James Bond," Dustin countered. "Or with comic heroes or a future one with Star Wars or Star Trek. "
"Definitely Star Wars, so much cooler than Star Trek," Mike interjected. "Be Jedi fighting against the Empire."
"No way," Lucas objected. "There were no Jedi during the Empire, only Obi-Wan and Luke."
"And Leia," a girl spoke up for the first time. "Of course you stalkers would forget about her."
"We didn't forget about her, Max" Lucas added. "Just that she wasn't trained as a Jedi, that's all."
"Whatever," Max huffed.
"I'm just saying, there is a whole world out there, who have never had indoor plumbing or even dreamed of laser grids or walking on the moon," Dustin continued. "Imagine if we made that game, and gave it to the people of this world. We have decades of movies that have never been seen here, movies that we could write our own adventures for. They would pay a boatload of money for it."
"They're not going to fork over a boatload of money for it," Lucas said.
"How much did you pay for your Player's Handbook, Lucas?" Dustin countered.
"Fine, fine. I guess we can talk with Ivy about writing a new game book. And one of the witches or wizards can duplicate it. If that works, we could easily make a movie into a adventure every month. Get a million copies out there for a couple of bucks each, and we're sure to make a huge profit."
Jaime Lannister slunk away at that point because he heard the kids moving around, and he did not want to get caught.
These people were dangerous, more dangerous than their seemingly endless gold or magical powers or fighting skill. What he overheard, he knew was important, but he would need to talk with someone he trusted, someone smarter than him, to figure out exactly why and what to do about it.
His father once warned his sister against allowing the common folk too much education. Reading and writing was a skill only the wealthy should employ. Farmers had no need to know their letters. Books were a luxury only the wealthy should have interest in. But the amount of books these children were talking about, even if it was an exaggeration, would make them commonplace in the Seven Kingdoms. Commonplace books meant some bored peasants huddled in a hut during a short winter might want to learn how to read. He was blessed more with his blade than his mind, but he knew this needed to deal with it.
He'd need to talk with Tyrion when he got to Winterfell.