Episode 2: The Lion and the Snake

-Pentos-

Peridot green. That was Daenerys Slytherin's first thought upon seeing the dress stretched out over her bed covers when she emerged from her bath. She'd never felt fabric so soft, and it seemed to run through her fingers like sand off the beaches of Braavos, where she'd spent her earliest years.

It was green to match her eyes, her older brother Viserys had said. And the silver serpent jewelry that accompanied her dress would remind everyone of their namesake, he'd promised. You'll look like a princess tonight, he'd promised also.

Another girl in her place might have been excited, but for Daenerys, her pending adornments didn't come without some hint of worry. The dress and jewelry must have cost more together than anything she'd ever touched-and it had all been provided for free by Magister Illyrio Mopatis, the master of the expansive estate in Pentos she and Viserys had been living on for over a year. Magisters (high-born wizards of the Free Cities) were not known for their kindness. They'd managed to enslave Muggles (or as they called them, Nomajs) for several centuries and their obsession with magical blood purity came second only to their obsession with riches. Despite the slavery of the Muggles, Pentos and its surrounding areas were called the Free Cities because magical people were no longer allowed to ever be enslaved there. Even though Daenerys and her brother were pure-bloods, they came from abroad and had nothing much to show for themselves but a powerful name and the few heirlooms they'd managed to take with them when they were smuggled out of Westeros as children. And there were plenty of impoverished purebloods in Pentos, she was certain (not everyone could be a Magister after all) that she had to wonder why Magister Illyrio had taken such an interest in the Slytherin heirs-specifically, in Daenerys, herself.

When they'd arrived in Pentos from Lys, they'd almost had to sell their last truly valuable Slytherin family heirloom-a heavy gold locket with a serpentine S on the front that was inlaid with emeralds. It had belonged to their father and had been in their family for generations. And Viserys had nearly traded it for cheese. Granted, it would have been a lot of cheese (the primary export of Pentos) and would have helped to keep them fed for quite some time, but fortunately for them, the trader brought the locket to his employer Magister Illyrio, who'd recognized the symbol on the front and invited Viserys and Daenerys to move in with him right away.

Prior to his invitation, the siblings had grown used to a fairly nomadic lifetsyle. Before Lys, it was Volantis. Before that, Myr, Tyrosh, Qohor, Braavos...each time, never staying long enough to really establish any sort of identity for themselves. Viserys always told her this was because they always had to be worried the Gryffindors and their allies may find and kill them yet, but Daenerys had her suspicions it was their own reputation and ever-enduring poverty they ran from more than anything else. With each new city in which they arrived, they found the richest noblemen they could and pitched their story about being the last surviving heirs to House Slytherin and while this sometimes got them sympathy, a temporary roof over their heads, or even just a hot meal and some clean clothes-it more often than not earned them reputatons as swindlers, beggars, tricksters, thieves and rogues...

But everything changed after they moved into the magister's manse.

Magister Illyrio and his family before him had come to their fortune primarily through their dealings in spices, gemstones and...Nomaj slaves, a fact which made Dany's spine bristle even though Viserys tried to assure her over and over again it was just the way the world was meant to operate. It was through his dealings in the slave trade that Illyrio made wealthy and powerful connections across all the Nine Free Cities, Vaes Durmstrang and even beyond the Jade Sea. He didn't have a very good reputation around the city, but for whatever reason, he was kind to Viserys, and visibly doted on Daenerys. He was always making sure they were well-fed, "clothed like the high-borns they were," and tended by slaves. He'd even assigned Daenerys her own personal slaves, though she preferred to think of them more like the friends and family she didn't have outside of her brother. They chatted with her, told stories, sang songs and strolled the gardens with her...but they also made her bed, cleaned her room, washed her clothes, cooked her meals and drew her hot baths accented with colored, scented oils from plants like lavender, rose and sweet vanilla...

But it was hard not to feel like a pig being fattened up for slaughter….even though Viserys seemed to believe he'd be able to pay off the magister's support in more than full when he took back the throne and it was this that supposedly garnered the man's support of and interest in the affairs of the Slytherin siblings.

The sun that crested over the sea surrounding Pentos was orange mottled with red as it bled through the window. Daenerys leaned over the windsill, letting the salty breeze ruffle her long white-blonde hair. Though she had her apprehensions about her host's intentions, it was hard not to view the estate and Pentos as beautiful. The territory of the Magister stretched out to reach the sea, but was nestled on its sides between the sharp-edged brick buildings of urban Pentos, the silouettes of which dappled the pink sky with shadow spots that almost looked purple in the sunset. But stretched out before her was an expanse of land so lovely it could have been born from the descriptions in her earliest storybooks. Gardens blended to beaches that caressed the edges of the narrow sea, whose waters sparkled equally in sun and moonlight with the magnificance of the sapphires their host sold and traded.

As she overlooked it, she sometimes imagined what it might be like to cross that sea-not necessarily to return to Westeros and conquer it as her brother had always dreamed, but to taste the air of the western continent and first see if it was different on her tongue than the breezes of the east; and second, to see which tasted, smelled, felt more familiar. "Our land," her brother called that other, distant place. He'd always spoken about it to her in fragments-excerpts here and there throughout her childhood of a story that had never felt complete. "Because it isn't complete," Viserys told her once. "Not until we write the ending," he continued. Over the years he'd told her about green earth and densely wooded forests and mountains parted by rivers, streams, estuaries that met their source at the same narrow sea she watched now...but what might have been real memories to her brother felt like thin wisps of fireside tales to Daenerys, who'd never laid eyes on the western continent outside of a few glimpses of Dragonstone in the nights following her birth, though these of course, were ghosts to her as well.

"Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever," Viserys seemed to repeat endlessly. From her earliest memories growing up with him in Braavos, he told her these words were their mother's. From then on, he used them to justify everything.

He'd been eight and she, just an infant, when they fled Westeros, smuggled out from their nursery in Dragonstone in shipping boxes in the dead of night by Ser Willem Darry on the next ship bound out for Braavos. This was sixteen years ago now. Their mother Rhaella Slytherin died birthing Daenerys. Their father King Salazar and elder brother Rhaegal were already dead, killed by the Usurpers of House Gryffindor. When Godric Gryffindor took the throne by force, he'd ordered every last relative to Salazar Slytherin destroyed. Ser Willem had been a close associate of her father's and though he was, according to Viserys, always known to be an angry and grumpy older man who'd never shown much attachment to nor care for children, it was he who risked trial for treason by faking the deaths of the young Slytherin heirs and carving out a refuge for them in Braavos. "He did it for the realm and to repay debts owed our father, not for us," Viserys reminded her any time she made mention of the old man who'd been her first guardian, but she remembered him as tender and kind. He had plans to raise them as his own in Braavos, in a big house with a red door and its own orchard of lemon trees. But when Dany was five and Viserys thirteen, Ser Willem got sick and died suddenly. The servants stole their house and money and kicked them to the streets with only a few of their own closely guarded family heirlooms-most notably, the locket and an old Valyrian steel ring-and what little money Viserys could sneak away in the short time they had to gather their things and leave.

Thus began their migratory trek through the east that had brought them here, to Magister Illyrio, to hot baths and silk dresses of peridot green and an impending dinner of great importance.

"Viktor Krum has a thousand horses, but tonight, he looks for a different kind of mount," her brother had told her before the slaves took her to her bath. Viktor Krum. She'd heard so much about him these past few days. He was a wealthy ruler of the Durmstrang, of Vaes Durmstrang-a hot, dry, deserty sort of place or so she'd always heard...a place that bred wizards and witches as harsh and tough as the climate they called home. But Khal Viktor's palace is not like that...Magister Illyrio said when he'd first broached the topic at dinner one evening. Khal Viktor is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars...a hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Durmstrang has two hundred rooms and doors of solid gold...Prized for his wealth, his looks, his magic, his riding skills, his fighting ability...and tonight, he was coming to the manse to decide if he would take Daenerys as his wife.

"Not ready yet? I'll send the slaves back to dress you...You mustn't disappoint me tonight, you know that, right?" Viserys was leaning against the doorframe to her room, ready for the evening already in sleek black dress robes with his wand and a sword borrowed from Magister Illyrio polished and gleaming at his waist and his silvery hair pulled back in a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. She noticed he wore their family locket and ring also, with the emerald inlaid "S" symbols facing up on both.

"I shall try my best, brother, but what if Khal Viktor doesn't like me?" Daenerys asked with just a little too much fear in her voice. Her brother strode further into the room and placed a hand on her bare shoulder. She didn't know if his intention was to be comforting, threatening or possessive, but she supposed it was likely some combination of the three.

"He'll like you well enough. Why shouldn't he? You'll hold your tongue and look every bit the princess tonight," said Viserys, using that word again. Princess. And hold her tongue? Well he was one to talk. He was always going on about how they were Slytherins, serpents who held their tongues for no one. "You're slouching again." Viserys frowned and Daenerys pulled her towel more tightly around her body, as though to hide her terrible posture and any other flaw her brother might catch. She couldn't stand to be any more nervous, after all.

"Shoulders back. Stand up straight and for the love of the Lord of Light, smile. You don't want to wake the serpent, do you?" Waking the serpent was how Viserys referred to his formidable temper. Daenerys nodded, squaring her shoulders back and offering her brother a weak smile.

"At least if Khal Viktor marries me, it should secure us. No more begging from city to city or casting our lots with the Magisters," she said.

"My sister, we are already secure. When Khal Viktor marries you, it will arm us. He has the largest khalasar of Vaes Durmstrang at his disposal and allegiances throughout the Free Cities and on the Isle of Beauxbatons as well. In exchange for your hand, Khal Viktor and his armies will ride with us to take back Westeros from the Usurpers."

But how do you know he's even interested? Who lays down an army for a woman he has never even met? Especially if he's as intelligent and well-endowed as everyone says? Daenerys wanted to ask, but even she knew better than to question her brother when his mind was made up.

-Winterfell-

Harry Stark couldn't remember ever seeing this many people gathered in one place before. Everyone in Winterfell seemed to be waiting at the castle gates to welcome the King and Queen of the realm. Harry himself stood near the front of the crowd beside his siblings and their parents. They all wore dress robes, as they had for Lord Dumbledore's welcome dinner, and had fur cloaks shrouded over their shoulders for warmth. The visitors were led by a marching band of trumpeters and drummers followed by a parade of what must have been three hundred or so bannermen and knights all wielding the house Gryffindor colors of scarlet and gold and the seal of the lion. Even keeping a steady pace with each other, they seemed to charge past the watching crowd, their horses kicking up several clods of snow-mixed dirt in the process. He stood almost as though transfixed by the sheer force and power radiating off all the armor-clad men and their horses.

"Look!" exclaimed Arya suddenly. She grabbed Harry's shoulder and turned him to look to the right. "It's the Lannisters!" The House Slytherin members of the royal court wore Gryffindor badges today, too, Harry noticed, but he also knew it had to be them all the same. One of them was broad-shouldered and had long hair down his back the color of cornsilk-he had to be Ser Lucius Lannister, twin brother to the queen-and the other, equal in height to their youngest brother Rickon, had to be Tyrion Lannister, whom Harry had spent his whole life hearing called "the Imp." Behind them, on a tall white horse, rode a pale-haired and equally pale-faced boy who couldn't have been much older than Harry, yet he wore dress robes that might have been trimmed with gold.

"It's Prince Draco!" Arya whispered. "Sansa fancies him-"

"I do not!" said Sansa, but she blushed as red as her hair all the same.

After Prince Draco, rode the King of the realm himself, Robert Baratheon, on a warhorse flanked by two knights. He was larger in ways that Harry expected (after all, this was the man who'd fought alongside his father and Lord Dumbledore against Voldemort fifteen years ago)...and also in ways he hadn't. The King was a good six and a half feet tall and, it seemed, almost just as wide. Harry would have thought this a man not to cross if it wasn't for the jovial smile he wore under his beefy moustache, his gaudy robes, and double chins to suggest King Robert hadn't been much for fighting in some time.

"Ned! Good to see that frozen face of yours. You haven't changed at all." The King had paused the processional temporarily to stop and hug Harry's father

"Winterfell is yours, your grace," Ned Stark replied, with a respectful dip of his head, and the party rode on through the castle gates. Following the King, was a large, seemingly spacious and slightly rounded carriage pulled by at least a dozen horses and likely containing Queen Cersei and her younger children.

Harry had spent much of his life hearing mixed opinions about Cersei Lannister. He knew the facts, of course. That she was born into the wealthy House Slytherin family, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, at the same time as her twin brother, Lucius. Her mother Joanna died when she was fairly young. Her father Abraxas went on to support Voldemort, but after the war, he successfully convinced Lord Dumbledore and King Robert that he'd been under a spell. In a show of support to the realm, he'd evidently arranged the marriage between Cersei and the King. But not many people ever came around to trusting the Lannisters, and some even went so far as to accuse the queen of manipulating her husband with her beauty.

And she was beautiful, Harry observed, when the family exited their carriage at the entrance to the Great Keep. Her long hair was curled into soft yellow ringlets down the center of her back. She was thin, but curvy, and though her dress was Gryffindor scarlet and her tiara gold, it glittered with emeralds that matched the deep green of her eyes and were perhaps a subtle nod to her Slytherin heritage. Her children followed her-the ten-year-old princess Myrcella and prince Tommen, her brother, who was about a year her junior-both of them fresh-faced and blonde like Draco and their mother.

Harry, Arya and Sansa approached the royal children with some trepidation, unsure if it was proper for them to do so or not, but no one had said anything to the contrary.

"Take me down to your crypt, Eddard. I would pay my respects," the King was saying to their father.

"But we've only just arrived. We've been riding all day-the children are tired and I'm sure we'd all like to freshen up before dinner," said the queen. She might have sounded like she was making a request, but Harry heard a chill to her voice and saw a steeliness in her eyes that suggested Cersei Lannister was used to always getting what she wanted.

"Well, surely Lucius could escort you inside, right?" King Robert suggested and Ser Lucius took his sister's arm.

"And Lady Catelyn will be happy to show you where you'll be staying," Harry's father offered. His mother nodded and she and Lord Dumbledore followed Cersei and Lucius into the Great Keep. King Robert and Lord Stark veered off around the side of the castle to go down to the Winterfell crypts and the Imp, Lord Tyrion, walked in the other direction towards the castle gates and town.

"Harry!" He turned on his heel to see a flurry of red hair running towards him-his best friend, Ron Weasley, and Ron's little sister, Ginny.

"Did you see all the horses? We don't know where Dad's gonna put them all-It's mad! Mum's never had to cook for this many people before!" Ron exclaimed, though Harry knew he liked it when his family could be important.

"Associating with the children of servants? And I thought you were supposed to be the royals of the North." Prince Draco wandered over to them, Myrcella and Tommen in tow, all of their pale hair seeming to disappear in beams of afternoon sunlight.

"My Lord," said Sansa, dipping her head. "It's not what you think-my brother is just being polite. We're lucky to have such kind servants-just because we're decent to their children doesn't make us their friends."

"What?!" Ginny Weasley shouted. She stormed up to Sansa so that the two redheaded women were standing almost nose-to-nose. "And who was it asking me to tea with you and Jeyne Poole? You're just mad I'd rather spend my time with people whose wands aren't shoved so far up their asses!"

"C'mon Ginny, it's not worth it-" Ron laid a hand on his sister's shoulder, but she shoved him off.

"Are you just going to let this happen?" Arya asked him, but Harry felt awkward. He knew how some families, especially the old southern families, felt about people of different social classes interacting with each other. His parents didn't seem to care about his friendship with the Weasleys, as the north traditionally didn't hold with such classism, but while he wanted to defend his friend, he couldn't exactly speak out against their future King...could he?

"It is worth it. And who are you to ride in here on your father's coat-tails talking about children of servants when the only reason you've got those golden robes is because your father happened to be a war hero when he popped into your mother. What did you do to deserve anything?!" Ginny looked like she was on fire when she charged at Draco, but he merely shrugged and made a dismissive gesture.

"How dare you talk to me! Filthy little mudblood!"

"Oh now he's gone too far! Keep your foul tongue down south where it belongs!" Arya pushed Draco back and he would have fallen back into the snow had Sansa not grabbed his arm.

"What's going on?"said Bran, wandering over with Rickon.

"What's a mudblood?" asked the youngest Stark.

"Mudblood's a really horrid name for a wizard or witch who's part wildling," said Arya, who, if she wasn't being held back by Ron and Ginny, would have gone at Draco again.

"It's also used as a slur against people believed to be from the lowest classes of society," Bran put in. Harry swallowed. He was already feeling bad for not sticking up for his friends.

"Never you mind. I've just been trying to figure out where your family's loyalties lie. Your sister's the only one of you with a damn bit of sense. Come along, you lot," said Draco, gesturing to his siblings, who were waiting silently on the sidelines. "And you, too." He pointed to Sansa. "What about the rest of you? You'll be the lords of Winterfell someday. You don't want to go keeping friends with the wrong sort."

Harry looked between Arya and the Weasleys and Sansa and the Baratheons.

"I think we can tell the wrong sort for ourselves, thanks," he replied. And there was no mistaking the bitterness in Draco's (or his sister Sansa's) eyes when he joined the others in walking away from them.

-King's Landing-

Everybody always said the place smelled like shit, but to Bellatrix, there may have been nothing sweeter than the scents of King's Landing, as she rode into the city at night, taking a deep breath to fill her lungs full with the air of the place she'd spent the happiest moments of her life.

She was born at Casterly Rock, but when Salazar Slytherin sat on the Iron Throne, her father Lord Cygnus Black was named Master of Coin and served as one of the chief advisors to the King. He brought her and her youngest sister Narcissa to King's Landing with him, to live at the Red Keep, and this was where Bellatrix first meant Voldemort.

It was over twenty years ago now. She was a teenager and he was scandalously older, but still Tom Riddle then. Narcissa's arranged marriage to Lucius Lannister had been set since they were children and she was more than excited to marry him when she came of age. She desired nothing more than to be a Lady to her Lord, bear lots of children, and walk the gardens of the Red Keep in expensive silk dresses...but Bellatrix had always longed for more. She never could place what exactly she wanted. She and Narcissa often liked to watch the knights of the Kingsguard ride through the city-but whilst Narcissa talked on about how good they looked and how strong, how noble they were, how Lucius was going to be one when he came of age, Bellatrix wasn't content to set her sites on simply marrying a knight. She wanted to be a knight. Women can't be knights, Bella, you know this...her mother Druella had reminded her exhasperatedly the only time Bellatrix had ever voiced her desire aloud. But her father had approached her with a softer stance, allowing her to take combative horseback riding lessons with none other than one Lord Riddle. And from the moment she saw him, she knew.

She was fifteen and he, in his thirties, and looking like he was in the prime of his life. Naturally pale and chiseled, he was tanned from the sun and muscular around his arms. His hair was dark and wavy with a hint of curl in just the right weather, cut to just past his ears, and his eyes, black as ebony, reminded her of coals on a fire, right when they hit the heat and started to spark.

The golden pin that designated him Hand of the King stood out starkly against his black robes and his wand and favorite sword, Silverfang, were hilted at his waist when he led two gray warhorses over to meet her for their first lesson. She preserved this image of him like she'd taken a snapshot of it in her mind. She felt drawn to him, wanting to touch and know all of him, but also at the same time, feeling like she already did. She didn't know she was biting her lip until she tasted a hint of blood in her mouth, salt and iron and a bit sweet, like she still had custard on her tongue from breakfast. She remembered it now as her first feeling of lust, but maybe it was also a visceral reaction to her first glimpse of true power.

Her lessons progressed rapidly-for he saw something in her, he always said. Though he never specified what. From riding warhorses to training with swords and knives to dark kinds of mind and blood magic no maester would have ever dared to teach her, if even they knew such things themselves.

And it was said, after the assasination of Salazar Slytherin and ascension of Godric Gryffindor, the war and Tom Riddle's transformation into Lord Voldemort and subsequent rebellion, after he disappeared, and after her own trial and imprisonment, during which she refused to give him up for anything, that at best, they were good for each other other—at worst, they deserved each other. And she thought of all this when she looked longingly up at the Red Keep, only to veer away and ride in another direction at the last minute, instead along the coast of King's Landing, where, aside Blackwater Bay, rested a small house that to her then, might have been a castle.

It was a simple house, built in the style common for King's Landing and covered over with limestone-washed plaster that gave it its yellowed color and protected by a slanted red slate roof. A winding brick pathway led up to an intricate door bearing a telling stained glass design-half of it a golden lion against a red background and the other half of it a silver snake against green-the symbols of Houses Gryffindor and Slytherin, respectively. Bellatrix dismounted from her horse and approached the door with one hand clasping her wand, just in case.

The night was balmy, a far contrast from up north where the impending winter felt far more imminent, but even still, the breeze ruffled her hair slightly. The message from the raven said to meet him here, at this house, with this door.

And she'd already waited too long.

~"The things I do for love…"~Jaime Lannister, Game of Thrones