A DRAGON IS NOT A SLAVE
Summary: Betrayed and killed by her lover and the only family she had left, Daenerys Targaryen is reborn in a new world, intent on reforging a new life for herself. But the past cannot be forgotten and her old motto - 'if I look back, I'm lost' - doesn't work anymore. This new world is full of possibilities, though - albeit just as prejudiced and unjust as her old one. But Daenerys was not called the 'Breaker of Chains' for nothing. And it's not only Voldemort that keeps the Wizarding World in chains; Albus Dumbledore, the Ministry of Magic. They are *all* responsible. Perhaps she was never meant to be queen of Westeros. Perhaps her destiny is right here.
So, this is an insane idea I had and I just couldn't help myself. I don't think many people will read it but I loved the idea so much that I don't care. In a way, it's sort of like the counterpart to my story 'The Dragon Queen' (and 'Mother of Dragons') since it's Daenerys reborn as Harry Potter (not really, she will still be Daenerys Targaryen, she just will have Harry Potter's role in canon, being the 'girl-who-lived' and the 'Chosen One' destined to kill Voldemort, etc but she will still have the 'powers' that make her Daenerys – her fire immunity, her dragon dreams, her ability to bond with dragons etc – plus the magic in HP and the Parseltongue ability courtesy of Voldemort), which is the exact opposite of the Dragon Queen. And this Dany, like Harry in 'the Dragon Queen', will remember her old life. So that will impact the decisions that she will make in this 'new world', so to say.
This Dany is post-season8 Dany. Season8 is canon in this story (I would usually never say that because I don't consider that sh*t canon but it's necessary here). That means that this Dany is just the slightest bit crazy, like in season8 (not the Voldemort level of crazy though – you know: fits of rage, obsessive, foaming at the mouth crazy –, just the sort that can level a city and then not feel very bad about it because such a thing it's 'necessary' to reach her goals). But she will still be Daenerys (fighting for justice – but she will decide what is just and unjust and that can become a bit tricky, thinking she's the only one who knows 'what's right' –, brave, ambitious, cunning, a little reckless etc), but a sort of 'twisted' version of Daenerys as well. So, warning for Dark!Daenerys in this story.
I changed the endgame couple. I've decided Daenerys will end up with Snape in the end. To be honest, the more I'd think about it and the less likely it would seem for her to fall for someone like Lucius Malfoy, especially if I think about the whole Dobby situation. Dany would probably consider Lucius a slaver and there's no way she would ever fall in love with someone like that. Also, Lucius is privileged and prejudiced, both things Daenerys can't really abide, not the woman who grew up poor and abused, not the woman whose life goal was the end of slavery and that accepted people based on their actions and not on what they born as. Snape with his bravery and loyalty, his honour and his strength, seems like a much better fit. Though it won't be an easy relationship and it will be very slow build. Snape is a very difficult, very complicated person and very much obsessed with Lily (though he will not remain so for too long), and Dany is still traumatised by what happened with Jon and very determined to never fall in love ever again.
If that's not to your liking, don't read this story. Also, this story will probably have underage sex (though Dany is mentally older) and Teacher/Student relationship. Once again, if you're not okay with it, don't read this story!
One last thing, Dany is Rhaegar's daughter in this story (no Jon, in this story, or anyone else really from GOT, except for Viserys, Rhaegar, Aerys and Rhaella, but they won't really appear in the story anyway, they will just be mentioned. All other characters in this story are HP characters) and Viserys is her (squib) uncle, not her brother. Rhaella and Aerys (who was not crazy) were Rhaegar and Viserys' parents and they were first cousins, not siblings. Rhaegar basically replaces James Potter in this story.
Hope you like it. Tell me what you think!
I can hear the whispers in my sleep
The voices telling me this should be mine
You claim you trust me
You think I don't see the doubt behind your eyes
I'm gonna build me an empire
And it's lonely at the top
But madness and greatness
Can both share a face
And nobody will ever convince me to stop
It's my destiny
I was born to play this game
So fear me or love me
It's all the same
Try to find a chain that I won't break
A price I wouldn't pay for what I want
So you can call me calculating
You can say I've lost my mind
You can throw me to the wolves
I'll be alright
Just one word I'll let the world burn
I'm gonna build me an empire
And it's lonely at the top
But madness and greatness
Can both share a face
And nobody will ever convince me to stop
It's my destiny
I was born to play this game
So fear me or love me
It's all the same
Empire by Beth Crowley
Prologue
29th July 1991 - Surrey, England (UK)
Albus Dumbledore crossed the quiet suburb street in long strides, his magenta robes sweeping the asphalt under his feet but he didn't notice – like he didn't notice the weird looks he was receiving from the sparse onlookers dotting the muggle neighbour, some mowing their lawns, some watering their begonias, some soaking up the sun in their underwear, sitting on deckchairs and sipping sodas from plastic bottles.
His mind was too occupied worrying over the matter of a letter, to be more specific, the Hogwarts letter addressed to one Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen – but everyone in the wizarding world usually referred to her as 'Dany' –, daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lily Targaryen née Evans, the 'girl-who-lived'. And that was, exactly, the problem – the address. Because the back of that letter should have shown the address '4, Privet Drive – Little Whinging, Surrey', the address of the Evans family, Viserys Evans and his wife, Petunia – Viserys had taken on his wife's surname after they had married, a rare occurrence but not completely unheard of.
So, why, then, the letter was addressed to Miss D. Targaryen, St. Mary's Orphanage, London?
When Professor McGonagall had showed him the letter, Dumbledore had paled, rose from his chair in the Headmaster's office of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and then apparated directly to Privet Drive, where Dumbledore had left the little bundle of silver hair and violet eyes – a lightning bolt scar on the left side of her little chest, where the heart was located, the only physical reminder of the attack she had survived from, the same attack that had killed both her parents – that Halloween night of almost ten years ago, to her aunt and uncle's house, the only family little Daenerys had left in the world.
It had been a pristine, well-kept, mundane house. A normal muggle house, just like the people who inhabited it.
Viserys might have grown up in a magical household, but he had been born a squib – and he had resented such a thing, and by consequence, everyone born with magic, including his parents and brother, since the moment he had failed to receive his Hogwarts letter at age eleven.
From that moment on, he had been dubbed the disappointment and shame of the family – a proud, pureblooded, powerful and rich family like the Targaryens, that had never had a squib in thousands of years, the family that had once being able to bond with dragons and ride them.
Rhaegar had always been the favourite, even before then, naturally talented in magic and impossibly intelligent – only three years older than Viserys –, but he became even more so after such a revelation, because now all the hopes and expectations of House Targaryen rested on him. He had been lucky, perhaps, that neither Aerys nor Rhaella had lived long enough to see Rhaegar marrying a muggleborn of all people, because their disappointment at their children would have been complete.
And it was at this same wedding that Viserys had met and connected with Petunia Evans – the forgotten, overlooked, muggle sister of the beautiful and powerful Lily Evans. They had bonded over their share hatred of magic and magicals, their jealousy and bitterness and, in less than six months since their first encounter, they had married as well, cutting all ties with the magical world – including their siblings –, deciding to live as the most normal, muggle couple that ever was, until that fateful night in 1981, when Dumbledore had dumped their niece on the doorstep on their house, in the middle of the night – a niece they hadn't cared to meet when she had been born and that they certainly didn't want to raise like she was a daughter of theirs.
But Dumbledore ignored all of this, or perhaps he hadn't cared enough to find out – he had simply decided, thinking he knew better, that Dany would be happy, growing up with the family she still had left, but how could a magical child ever grow up happy and loved, in a household that hated magic and everything associated or connected with it? The answer was that she couldn't.
Dumbledore stopped in his tracks when he took notice of the state of the house now. He checked the number embossed on the pillar of the low wall that surrounded the property, just to make sure it was the right one – it was a four. It was the right address then.
There was very little left of it now, a skeleton of the house it once was, black and burnt, and crumbling in more than one place. It had been a two-story house once, but the roof had collapsed and, of the second floor, there was little more than bricks, the remaining of a wall, and a broken window.
Dumbledore sighed. Such a scene remained him of the house in Godric's Hollow.
He decided to ask around to find out what had happened and, though he received more than a few glares, he was still able to learn the truth. A fire, two years ago. A tragic accident – probably a gas leak or some such – that took the life of Viserys and Petunia Evans while they were sleeping but that, miraculously, spared the life of the little child that lived with them. Seeing as she had no other relatives that they knew of, she was sent to an orphanage, the poor thing, and that was all that they knew about it.
Albus thanked the man who had revealed this information to him and then he left like he had arrived. It would seem he had another stop in the muggle world to make.
He tried to ignore the feeling of dread at the idea of yet another magical child growing up in a muggle orphanage – the girl-who-lived would not turn out to be like him, Dumbledore would never allow it. She was the hope of their world. The only one with the power to defeat Voldemort once and for all, as the prophecy stated. Daenerys Targaryen was not like Lord Voldemort.
And Dumbledore would be right, of course. Daenerys Targaryen wasn't like Voldemort at all. But, perhaps, she would turn out to be a completely different kind of terrible but great.