March 21, 2017...

Gringotts...

"Excellent workmanship, Stark. It's amazing what your metal does with our iron."

"Aye, as you've said ten thousand times, Master. Though, I do remember you being much more impressed with the Draganium sword I made for you."

"Aye! A wonderful blade it is, boy! But ruined by the fact you gave another just like it to Filius!"

"Master, you know I had to give him something. You may have passed my journeyman's marks and gave me my mastery but only because he brought me to you," I said with a grin. It had been a wild ten years since I started at Hogwarts. I was a Ravenclaw and finished top of my year - somehow… I wasn't exactly the most attentive student and magic didn't always come easily - save in sensing magics - but that didn't mean I was going to limit myself to learning just from Hogwarts. Never was a prefect, much less the head boy, but that was mostly because McGonagall didn't think I would take well to the responsibility - she was right of course. Outside of class and mealtimes, you could find me in one of three places: the Library, the tower, or the Forge - mostly the Forge. As it happens, Hogwarts had a fully equipped - if outdated - forge tucked away in the dungeons. No one used it anymore, in fact no one knew it existed up until I claimed it as my own in my fourth year.

Eragon, Marvel, and even DC all had a big role in teaching me magic. Though Eragon was the most influential - to this day, half of my spells are in the 'ancient language,' which was really just old Scandinavian paired with Eldar Futhark. Though the language wasn't the only thing I took from the books, I had tried to recreate brightsteel but failed miserably. Although, I stumbled on something even more incredible: Snow Vibranium. Due to a quirk of alchemy and the reaction between Mithril (what small amount of it the Forge had along with what I could scrounge out of my vault in the summers) and Steel, the metal took on a snow-white color and absorbed one hundred percent of vibrations that passed through it - just like Vibranium of the Marvel Universe. [1]

The problem with the metal? It is ridiculously heavy at nearly one and a half times the density of lead - but when it was tempered right the metal could be wrought to a ludicrously thin sheet and still work as a form of armor that would stop anything from arrows to axes. So, while it would never make a good sword, it made for a light, nearly perfect form of armor since any impacts were absorbed completely by the metal.

Filius had known I was interested in blades nearly the day I stepped foot in Hogwarts and knew for sure when he saw me going through a few motions with my knives. That was the day he started training me to fight with blades and armor and I was thankful for it - I hated him for the grueling workouts and magic lessons but they turned out to be a godsend. When he found me in the smithy putting the final touches on the finished Vibranium suit, he was interested in what the metal was. When I told him I made it myself he didn't believe me. He also didn't believe what it was capable of and put me through my paces while I was in full armor. To say he was impressed was an understatement. He was so thoroughly enthused that the day I graduated, he dragged me to Gringotts to meet his clan's Master Smith, Grashnog of Clan Anzin. I've been working under him ever since.

Grashnog, the old goblin, was the High Blacksmith of the Goblin Nation, meaning he had a place on the King's council with the High Warmaster, High Accountmaster, and High Coinsmith. Out of the four, Grashnog was the senior counselor and practically ran the day to day affairs of the Nation while the King ran the day to day operations across Gringotts Banks worldwide - that being said, he still found time to take an apprentice from time to time, but he wouldn't even consider someone that he thought would never take his position one day unless they were truly extraordinary. The fact that he took me on as a student was something that took everyone by surprise and enraged more than a few goblins - including the High Warmaster, Buln of Clan Shegret. Buln challenged me to single combat almost as soon as Grashnog announced I would be his apprentice, something that Flitwick never in his wildest dreams thought would happen. But to be fair, who would?

Thankfully, the half-goblin had been teaching me swordplay for nearly four years at that point, so I was at least able to hold my own - Winters Bane did the rest. Sometimes I thought the blade was almost sentient, Flitwick claimed it was my instincts but I knew how good I was and using Winter's Bane put me on a whole different level than usual. It was light, fast, and terrifyingly sharp, so sharp that the one time I tried to lay it on mom's wooden, dining room table blade down… She had a fit when she saw that her table had been cut in half like it wasn't there at all. The good news out of that awful day? I found out that I never had to sharpen the blade… Never understood why but I wasn't going to complain. None of the detection and revealing spells I knew could tell me anything about the sword.

When Buln challenged me, I faced him in a suit of Snow Vibranium, Winter's Bane in my hand, and my shield - Hoarfrost. Unfortunately for the Warmaster, his ax fared little better against Winters Bane than the table did. The worst part about that was catching three pounds of shorn off ax directly to the chest but the armor absorbed the impact perfectly and the ax didn't even leave a dent. Though that didn't exactly stop the pissed off Goblin. He just drew a sword and demanded I face him fairly. I just said I had already - that provoked him into charging me like an angry bull, and he hit like one too. He actually won the bout by diving between my legs and tripping me. Not sure why he let me live but he claimed he would be training me personally for as long as I was Grashnog's apprentice. Something about no apprentice of the High Blacksmith being such an embarrassment with a blade in hand. Blacksmiths should always know how to use a sword whether a cheap iron sword or an enchanted masterpiece like Winters Bane.

Thus began the worst, and best, three years of my life. Years I wouldn't trade for anything. Under Master Buln, I may not have been the best warrior but I could hold my own against three guards at once, which is more than most wizards could say, but I would never be considered an equal to the great heroes of old. It was my work with Master Grashnog where I truly excelled. In fact, thanks to my invention of Snow Vibranium, he started me as a Journeyman learner the day he met me. Since I met the old Goblin I've had an invention for each year I've been with him. The first year I worked specifically on refining Snow Vibranium, making it better, making it stronger. This refining led to the creation of Ice Vibranium. Denser than Snow Vibranium by a quarter, the metal was able to stay rigid even when it was two micrometers thin while retaining the properties of snow vibranium perfectly. At one micrometer it started to act a bit strange. But that didn't stop me from wearing a shirt of ice vibranium practically everywhere I went if I wasn't wearing my armor. The best thing I did with it though was shod the bottom of my boots with the metal, now I could walk without a sound and if I had to jump off something the shock was absorbed completely… From the ground. All the force I was putting on my knees was still there so it's not like I could go jumping from a plane without a parachute.

Secondly was Dragon Iron. The Goblins already had a rudimentary form of the metal but had abandoned it in favor of their silver. The iron was simply too impure and brittle no matter what was done to refine it - though it was incredibly lightweight. I found that the problem, strangely, was because of the carbon in the metal. I wasn't sure why that was because usually you would want some little amount of carbon to help in the heat treat and tempering process, it was the carbon that made a knife last. Dragon Iron apparently didn't care for that. So, with all traces of carbon removed from the ore, I tried to smelt the metal with dragon fire and no charcoal. I managed to actually succeed. But what impressed the Goblins more than if I was a once and a lifetime skilled smith was the fact I managed to tame a Dragon with nothing but my will and presence, it was actually kind of an accident.

The dragons started following me around like lost puppies, willing to do everything I asked them to do. I heard whispers of Dragonmaster or more commonly Dragon Smith follow me around like a shadow whenever I passed. To the Goblins, I was the Dragon Smith, but to master Grashnog, I was Benjamin Stark, Journeyman and now Master Smith - and for that I could never be more grateful. And to show him that appreciation, I made him a sword from my final invention: Draganium. An alloy of Snow Vibranium and Dragon Iron worked into an almost perfect mix. A sword made from this had the advantage of being light while absorbing fifty percent of any impacts or redirecting an opponent's strike back at them with the force of your strike - meaning that if two swords met with the same power, the one who had a Draganium blade would either break a steel sword or drive it away.

"Aye," the old master said with a grin, "that's true. There is little more I can teach you, boy. You know all my secrets."

"Nearly all," I jabbed good naturedly. He just leveled a deadpan look at me.

"Aye, nearly all… Come, Stark, if you're going to be a smith of the Nation then there's one last thing to teach you."

"Master… I'm no Goblin…"

"No, you're not, but you're my apprentice and always will be, regardless if you've your mastery now or not. Come, this will not take long. Today we learn the secrets of Enchanted Silver."

"Incredible," I said as I held up the dagger in the light of the forge.

"Aye, boy," the Goblin said with a grin on his lips. "Not what you thought it would be then?"

"Not at all…" I twirled the blade in my hands with a small grin playing on my lips. "I never thought that Mithril and Silver, molten and cast - no less, would be the earth shattering secret to the metal."

"Quite like your Vibranium in that regard then, boy. It's a quirk of Alchemy just like your metal. Magic works in strange ways in the forge, and-"

"I'd do best to remember that. Aye. I would… So the Mithril is the reason the metal strengthens itself, then? It doesn't act like it does in the Vibranium."

"Indeed. Mithril is a finicky beastie to work with because it acts differently with every metal, but the results are nothing short of fantastic when paired with Silver. In fact, there's not even one strengthening spell on this blade, the Mithril will repair itse-"

"Master Grashnog! Dragon Smith!" A voice called from the Forge's entrance - interrupting the High Smith. Both Grashnog and I turned to glare down the idiot who would just barge into the Forge unannounced. Strangely, it was one of the Hobgoblins - Buln's elite team of warriors, the best-trained fighters of the Goblin nation - came crashing in wearing full armor. The Goblin fell to his knees in front of the High Smith and drew his sword, offering it to Grashnog who took the blade. "I apologize, High Smith, but Warmaster Buln has asked you and the Dragon Smith to come immediately. He has discovered something in the deep catacombs," the Hobgoblin reached behind him and drew something from his belt. I held my breath as the Hobgoblin brought a circlet of beaten bronze with a very familiar wolf snarling on the face - one almost identical to the one on my shield. I snatched the crown out of his hands with a look of disbelief on my face.

"Where did you find this?"

"Master Buln found it in a room with a door, a door that felt like ice and glowed like snow… he found this tossed to the side."

"What is it, lad?" Grashnog asked carefully.

"A family legend," I muttered, not quite believing I was holding Jorah's coronet. "A legend actually, one I thought was utterly insane but now? Now, I'm not so sure… I found the story in an old scroll in my family vault, one that even a translation charm struggled to interpret correctly. It said that the founder of my house - Jorah Stark - was once something called the Prince of Winter, the Wolf in the North. The author of this scroll, Alfred Stark, claimed he was Jorah's great-great-great-great grandson and his father told him a story of Jorah fighting a people called the Andals - people who had sailed across the sea with religion and war in their sails. I thought he was talking about the Romans but now I'm not sure… He said Jorah's sword glowed with light like that of Moon and Jorah disappeared from the land which he loved. The story spoke of a Coronet that Jorah threw down when his enemies were no longer before him. The description matches this," I held up the Coronet for him to see, "perfectly."

"I'm not sure, lad… It sounds like a tale to me. Regardless, prepare yourself. We're going to find out the truth to this madness. Hobgoblin!" Grashnog snapped, tossing the warrior his sword back. "Leave us, we'll be along shortly."

"Yes, High Blacksmith," the Hobgoblin bowed and nearly sprinted from the arena-like forge as I turned to my master.

"What's the plan, Master?"

"Get your armor, get your sword. I'm not sure I believe this tale of yours or this ridiculous idea that this Jorah Stark - who we don't even truly know exists - appeared here with a glowing sword after fighting an opponent that sounds similar to the Romans. No lad, I don't buy it, but you have told me nothing but the truth since I've known you. If there's a chance there's a fight waiting for us down there, we're going to need all the help we can get."

"The emergency packs? Master, I don't think-"

"No, you don't, do you? Get your pack and your armor, lad. I'll pack up some things here. Oh! I almost forgot," the Smith said as he walked over to the armory section of the room and came back with a helmet tucked under his arm. I couldn't help but stare at the familiar T-Visor of the Blue-Grey and near Black metal of the Draganium helmet styled after a Mandalorian Barbute. "This is yours, lad," he said, handing it to me with a small grin on his face. "For your mastery gift."

"Master… This… This is amazing," I said, taking the helmet reverently.

"It's better than you know lad, I've had our glassblowers working the faceplate. They claim it has an altimeter/bathymeter, rangefinder, night and heat vision, and binos that extend up to thirty times magnification. There's also a combatant counter and ally tracker, with two final ideas that you had never been able to complete yourself."

"You're talking about the UBRA? The constellation finder? Oh! Maybe the-"

"The URBA? Yes. The constellation finder? No. The Underwater Runic Breathing Array was genius and the glassblowers didn't take long to figure it out with the help of a few independent contractors. The final feature was your mage sight theory."

"I thought mage sight was impossible," I said disbelievingly.

"Impossible? No. It's incredibly rare because it is a form of Synesthesia and nigh impossible to replicate artificially. Not completely."

"If that's the case, how did they manage to figure it out?"

"Trade secret, I'm afraid. Now, go! Our time is short as it is!"

Half an hour later saw the Hobgoblin leading Grashnog and myself - all of us armed and armored - through the veritable maze that was Gringotts' catacombs. My new helmet was almost unbelievable, I could see perfectly down the tunnel in what little light there was from the Hobgoblins torch while he and Grashnog were both enveloped in a dull green halo signifying them as allies.

"The room is near, follow me," the Hobgoblin murmured as I shifted Hoarfrost from my back to my left arm as I placed my hand on Winter's Bane pommel.

"Stay sharp, Stark. We don't know what lies ahead…"

"Yes, master," I said quietly. I had my emergency pack over my shoulder just in case this went horribly wrong but that didn't mean I wanted it to. The pack was expanded exponentially but was stuffed with rations, metals, water, and a quarter of my vault's gold and the more important books I had collected throughout my short life - including my forge journal. The book detailing every single moment I had in a forge since I was in Hogwarts.

We made it to the end of the tunnel and turned left, only to find ourselves with ten tense Goblins and a raging Buln facing a circular portal pulsing white.

"Buln! Why the bloody hell is it so cold down here!?" 'Cold?'

"Ancestors forsake me if I know, Gorshnag! There's supposed to be a magma chute behind this wall but instead, it's coated in bloody hoarfrost!" The Warmaster barked. "Ah! Dragon Smith! Maybe you can make some sense out of this mess and we can all go to our nice, warm dungeons. Or bloody boiling forges for you two hammer swingers," he said with a scowl. I couldn't help but grin as I stepped toward him and took his arm in mine.

"It's been too long, Buln. I'll be honest, I don't know what I'm looking at."

"Then why is your shield glowing, lad?" he asked dryly and I had to do a double-take when I saw he was right - the wolf's eyes on the shield were glowing with the same soft light as the portal. "And why did it get noticeably colder when you walked in?"

"I haven't even noticed the cold yet, to be honest."

"Idiot! We carved the temperature control runes into your armor ourselves or don't you remember!?" Grashnog barked and I had the good grace to flush as I took my helmet off and finally felt just how cold it was down here.

"Bloody hell!"

"Aye lad, bloody hell indeed," Buln said with a vicious grin as I donned my helmet again.

"Okay… Well, I'm going to try something," I said as I pulled the circlet from my belt and tossed it at the portal - nothing happened as the band bounced off with a sound like ringing glass. "Make that something else," I snarked as I picked up the Coronet from the dirt, hooked it back onto my belt, and drew Winters Bane. It was glowing even brighter than the portal was. I swallowed and raised my sword, "you might want to back away."

Not being as stupid as I was about to be, the Hobgoblins retreated a good ten feet behind me - but not Master Buln or Gorshnag, they stayed close as I walked to the portal with Winter's Bane extended. I held my breath as the tip of the sword brushed against the portal. Before I knew what was happening, the circlet leapt off my belt and welded itself to my helmet – a scream was ripped from my throat as the light from both the portal and Winter's Bane exploded outward, blasting me off my feet and onto my back. I could have sworn I crashed against something as I went down but I felt my vision swim as I hit the dirt. The last thing I thought as my vision faded to black was 'that certainly doesn't look like a rock roof…'

Location Unknown, Time Unknown

"Oh, bloody hell… I'm in trouble," I muttered to myself as I finally came to. The last thing I remembered was touching the portal with my sword and being thrown through the air – the problem I currently had was that I certainly wasn't in a Goblin Tunnel if the erupting Volcanoes and ruined Towers were anything to go by. "Damn… Looks like there was something to that story after all… Jorah did come from somewhere else. But where the hell am I?" So I picked up a bit of a bad habit of talking to myself in the forge, it helped me keep my mind straight – and that was one of the most important things I needed now…

Drawing my wand, I stood up and took in as much of the landscape as I could. The shoreline behind me, the crumbling walls, the ruined towers… Oh, can't forget the lava river running down what could have probably been a street of some sort. "Ruins… Damn. So it's me, lava, and ruins. Wait. Did any of the Goblins get sucked into that?" I waved my wand over my head and started casting detection wards but found nothing around me but what was there already. I sighed and laid my palm flat in my hand, casting a point-me North and watched as the wand tilted a little to my right. I looked up at the landscape and wondered how long it would be until I found civilization or how I would get myself out of this.

Oh, how little I knew. Fortunately, I always kept a broom in my bag for situations like the one I was in right now. It was just an old Firebolt II but the fact that Harry Potter himself gave it to me? Well, that was something to be proud of. Everyone thought that I was Flitwick's star student – and I was – but I was Andrew Stark's nephew and that in itself led Potter to a certain curiosity over how good I could be with a wand. At first (and for most of my first and second years), I was bad. Very bad. I couldn't land a spell on anyone to save my life – then I discovered area effect spells and wandless magic. Suddenly, my casting improved by leaps and bounds just by not having to worry about precision aiming. Of course, Uncle Andrew drilled me relentlessly when he found out I was no good with aiming spells.

And so, I got close with the professor – closer than I had any right to honestly. But with the scandal of Ginevra Weasley, formerly Potter, leaving him for Dean Thomas after Harry lost his job in the Auror corps and absence of any kids, Harry could do what he wanted. Flitwick once told me that Hermione Granger-Weasley and her husband, Harry's supposed best friend, Ron Weasley were the only two who could get in his head but with the two of them not having been seen in Britain for years (though there were rumors they moved to Canberra, Australia for some strange reason), Harry was an enigma. He could have traveled the world or done whatever he wanted but he chose to be a school teacher? It was strange but whatever he thought, he trained and taught me almost as hard as Flitwick did, and that was almost on par with what Uncle Andrew taught me in his infrequent visits to the UK.

Those lessons were keeping me alive right now as I raced over the scarred and burnt landscape of this strange land. About half an hour after taking off, something finally caught my eye – a giant, wooden boat. I felt my eyebrows fly upward at the sight because the ship itself was still in relatively good condition for being smashed on the rocks.

I landed on the shore and dropped the broom, drawing my sword and unslinging my shield, not sure what I was about to face but ready for it all the same. I walked to the beached ship carefully, trying to figure out what would be the best way to get in. I swore lightly and summoned my broom as I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get in through the hole in the front and didn't really want to get in the water – the fact that there were no ropes hanging down didn't really surprise me either, so I had to use my broom to get in. With my broom, getting on board was almost too easy.

Unfortunately, it seems that the people on the ship didn't survive the boat crashing with all the bones scattered about the deck. I frowned heavily but kept walking, moving toward the hatch I knew should lead below deck. There was little I knew about ships, even less that I knew about wooden ships like this, and I didn't have the faintest idea where the captain's quarters would be. Probably at the highest point but I figured I could go down and work my way up; that turned out to be a mistake. If I thought the bones on deck were bad, the armored forms of the skeletons down here were downright chilling. They all were wearing dull red and bronze-gold armor with ragged crimson cloaks that looked like they had been chewed on. Though it was the helmets that confused me most. They looked bronze but the centurion-esque metal crest with the swinging visor (if the various positions each skeleton was wearing them in was anything to go by) didn't appear to be the best helmet a soldier could have… But anyway, I had not found anything other than the bodies and a few crimson banners with rearing, golden lions that looked familiar – were they hanging in some castle or the other back home? If they were, things were most definitely looking up. Or they were, right until I found another armored skeleton (this time in purely golden plate mail) sitting behind a desk with a quill in his hand and an open book in front of him – a great sword hanging on his hip.

"And just who are you, Goldylocks?" I asked quietly, taking the book in front of him and opening it to the first page. I was honestly shocked to see that the words were in modern English but everything other than that was nearly gibberish. "Tommen the Second, son of Tysat, King of the Rock and West of the House Lannister, The King in Casterly Rock?" I read aloud.

'This is the account of the Roaring Lion's mission to the Doom. If you have found this journal then I have not returned to my beloved Rock.

Today we have left Lannisport and now make for the ruined land of Valyria. I have left my wife and children behind. Should I not return, and the worst of the rumors we have heard tell of be true, then my eldest son, Aidin, will take my throne. Already, half of my crew seems ready to mutiny at the drop of a sword, the other half are loyal Lannisters and keep the peace. The fleet numbers one hundred cogs. Our current food stores are high, the hardtack…

We have made it to Volantis though the prospects are grim indeed. The triarchs of Volantis welcomed us with open arms… This is worrisome. The last daughter of Valyria is not well known for their generosity - though neither are they known for their bravery. This works to our advantage. We are well supplied and ready for the voyage for the haunt of the Dragon Lords.'

I felt my eyebrows climb at the term Dragon Lords but was enthralled by the tale now. I found an intact stool in the corner and sat down in it, the journal still in my hands.

'We have arrived upon Valyria, these cursed shores and blasted spires… The Bay of Valyria's newest name, the Smoking Sea, has earned its name well. The steam and smoke make it to where you cannot see beyond the palm of your hand. I fear I will not make it back from this journey… The city of the Archons is nothing but a smoking crater that glows with a horrid light. What happened here must have been the stuff of nightmares if the hellish glow emanating from Earth and Sea is enough to pass judgment. I fear I must make for shore with my men, I will return from this. So I swear.'

Strangely, the next entry was written in a shaking scrawl instead of the neat cursive the other entries had been done in.

'Cursed is this land! Cursed are those who live among these ruins still! From Lannisport I set sail with one hundred, now I return with one and my life, a half crew at my back. The waters here are accursed and the land rebels still with fire and death. The waves rise like Mountains against us and we dare not make way yet. Reader, if this book is intact, I beg you, return my sword, Brightroar, to my family. Should my family live still, tell them to never come to this place or death will surely follow. Dragons swept from the north, carrying fire on their wings. They killed a quarter of my men, the people of this place another, the Earth ended the rest - save for my men with me… No man should walk these lands. I… I feel faint… I can't bre'

And that was where the text ended. I felt myself groan as I flipped through it again, trying to find anything else in the blasted book that could tell me where I was. I almost whooped as soon as I found a map folded in the back of the journal. The map, while rudimentary was nearly a godsend. With Westeros, Casterly Rock, King's Landing, Dorne, the Reach, and other strange names laid out on the map in the other land called Essos. "Westeros in the West, Essos in the East? Rather simple for two entire continents… So it took you over a month to get to Volantis… Volantis, Vol- Ah! There it is. Hm… That doesn't look too far from here. What's the scale on this thing?" I blinked as I finally found a reference in the little area called "the Wall." There was a note that said it was exactly 300 miles long… How convenient. That was when something clicked and I realized what I was looking at.

I swore violently as I stepped back away from the map. The North? Like Jorah, Prince of Winter, the Wolf in the North, North!? Damn it all to the fire! Well, I could make a trip to Casterly Rock after I deal with whatever the hell was going on here and in the North. My family name lived this long in my world from one man, surely there would have been more Starks here?

Growling, I pulled a ruler from my map and crunched a few numbers, finding that it was nearly, "Eight hundred bloody miles to Volantis?" I shook my head and tried to find a better route to go and found that my best bet was probably going to be to apparate up the length of Valyria with line of sight apparition so I didn't end up splinched… Merlin this was going to take hours. Well… No better time to start than right now.

I stood up and tossed the journal in my pack, about to leave when I caught sight of the blade hanging on the skeleton's hip… I sighed and took it. Might as well honor a dead man's final wish and hope his family was still alive. Who knew how long he had been here? Though I couldn't help myself when I picked up the blade and unsheathed it. The blade itself was stunning with an almost moving pattern of smoky grey ripples interspersed with brilliant crimson. I whistled lowly at the colors of the steel as I ran my finger along it, it looked almost like dragon iron but the iron didn't have the ripples in it… I smirked at the mystery and tossed it in my pack too, vowing to figure it out later as I shouldered my broom and walked out onto the deck – leaving the ghost ship behind me.

What I wasn't expecting on my journey through Valyria was to apparate straight into the jaws of a Dragon. Mind you, it was a skeleton Dragon but that didn't make it any less bloody terrifying to appear three feet away from the rows on rows of spear-like teeth. I may or may not have screamed like a bitch but I quickly regained my composure when I realized the thing was dead. I couldn't help but sigh in relief when I realized the thing was dead. That's when I took a step back and realized the damn thing was enormous.

It was easily three, maybe four, times the size of an Ironbelly. I felt my nearly give out from underneath me as I looked up at the skull of the thing. Scratch being bigger than an Ironbelly, the damn thing could probably eat a Horntail if it was alive to feel like it. I staggered backward and tried to wrap my head around what I was going to do with the damn thing. Like hell I was just going to leave it sitting here when Dragonbone was good in potions ingredients and rudimentary blades. But where there was one… I pulled my wand and laid it flat on my hand, "Point-me, Dragon Skeletons," immediately, the wand spun like a top. It whirled in my hand for a solid thirty seconds before I ended the spell as another thought hit me. "Point-me, Living Dragons." This time the wand pointed in two distinct directions instead of whirling like a fan blade. "Two living dragons and lots of skeletons… Alright then."

My decision made, I walked up to the beast and realized something rather important – this dragonbone looked entirely different from any I had seen back home. Dragonbone at home was just that, bone. This looked more like iron than anything… Actually, it looked rather familiar but from where? I felt myself freeze before I whirled to unsling my pack to summon the sword I just found. Brightroar leapt into my hands from the pack that I dropped as soon as I had the sword. I felt my jaw drop as the sheathe fell away from the blade to look at the steel by the bone; they were nearly identical.

Instantly, I was casting every detection spell I knew on the blade; measuring carbon content, magic levels, what spells were on the blade, hardness, sharpness, the works. What came back actually stunned me. While dragon iron was lighter than steel by a good margin, it required a bevy of wards to actually make sure it didn't break, crack, or fall apart while being sharper than any other metal – if I was reading the levels right here, Brightroar was just as sharp as any Dragon Iron sword while being heavier by about ten percent. Still, that was incredibly light in comparison to steel but what I wasn't finding were the spells that would usually be in dragon iron. No anti-rust, there wasn't a brittleness reducer, nothing I would usually put in there – what I did find was carbon, and a fair bit of it too. Hell, the blade was almost cast-iron in carbon content… That would explain the unbreakable and eversharp spells. Well. This suddenly got interesting. But what did they use to mel- Dragonfire. Right. Well… I had another idea. Grinning, I dropped my pack and drew my wand, ready to get to work.

An hour later saw my forge set up with my anvil, kiln, forge, crucible, and bloomery all fired and ready to get to work. I kept a full forge set up in my kit because honestly, a smith without a forge is just some dude poking metal in a bonfire. So, I set up the forge along with a bit of eternal fire in place of dragon fire (because I needed magical flames and living dragons weren't only in short supply but I didn't know where to even start looking – thankfully, we were in the middle of a highly volcanic area and I could channel the earth fire to my forge along with the eternal fire), I was going to try two methods to forge the metal - a bloomery and a cast. The cast would come first because that would be the simplest method to work. But to do that I was going to need some materials.

And so, with a grin on my face and my wand in hand, I set to desecrating a corpse. I tore bones from the dragon's skull, ribs, and teeth, each with varying iron and carbon content. The teeth should remember fire better than any other bone while the wings would remember the wind. Though while I was at the Dragon's hips, I noticed something that shouldn't be there – three medium-sized stones. No… I rushed down into the hollow of the dragon's abdomen and scooped up the three eggs with a broad grin across my face. Dragon eggs.

The eggs were all warm to the touch and about the size of a basketball each. Screw the metal, this took precedence over anything else I could do. With a wave of my hand, the fires died and the forge came rushing back into my pack. I summoned a few bits of the dragon's skeleton before deciding to shrink it and take the entire thing with me while I recreated the magical fire in a ring much bigger around than the last one.

If I remember correctly, there were a few things needed before a dragon could hatch properly and none of them I had on hand right now besides magic fire - things like food and shelter. I paused right before I went to put the black and grey dragon egg in the fire. If I waited to get to civilization, I could hatch these in secret and never have to worry about anyone finding them if Dragons were a no-no here. Besides, I would need chicken blood and brandy (or whisky of some sort) and, while I know how to get a hold of both of those, I would need to get off this continent before I could do anything really.

"Sorry little guys," I muttered as I dropped the eggs into my bag. "But it looks like you're going to have to wait just a little longer… The steel can too. Now we make for Volantis, over to this White Harbor place, and then? Onto Winterfell."

[1] Alchemy, in the context of this story, is magical chemistry. In the context it is used, Dumbledore and Flamel were masters of both muggle chemistry and magical alchemy and how it reacts to the world around them. We all know how purebloods are to anything muggle, alchemy is a bit of a lost art because Purebloods disdain muggle science and, by extension, chemistry. The Philosopher's Stone is the peak of Alchemy because it can transmute one element into a radically different one with little magical input and a by-product of an elixir that makes people immortal. If mundane science could do anything like that people would be going crazy over just the sheer impossibility.

[A] When writing this, I realized that there is no standardized calendar in Westeros so, to make things a bit easier for me and for you guys I basically took our calendar, lined it up with 2017 (the year Ben's currently in), and changed the name of the months. So it goes like:

January: Dawn. February: Sun. March: Dragon. April: Trout. May: Eagle. June: Kraken. July: Star. August: Lion. September: Harvest/Rose (will use them interchangeably because this represents the Reach). October: Stag. November: Wolf/Direwolf. December: Moon.

The current timeline will be revealed in the next chapter!

AN: Hey guys! Welcome back to chapter 2 of Of Forge and Magic! I did promise we would be in Westeros very soon didn't I? Well, while we're not quite there yet, we will be in the next chapter! But, as you can see, this story is going to be very heavy in smithing terms and terminology along with swords, magic, and a whole bevy of fantasy stuff. That being said, I have decided to make this a Game of Thrones X-over based mostly on the TV shows though I do plan on keeping a few elements of the books. May even become a mix of both! Next chapter we get to see some familiar faces and start to figure out just what the hell is going on here. See you then!