I am ALIVE! lot of life changes, but I am back on my muse with this story so after so very very long, Enjoy the Return of Lya and some new POVs.
SHORT AND QUICK RECAP: If you don't know or forgot because it has been so long, my bad, This is going to be Canon Divergence. Lya is Lyarra Stark with a lot (e.i. 99.5%) of her memories from before her 11th b-day missing, eldest daughter of Ned and Catelyn Stark and was raised (Starting from the age of 11) by the one and only Professor McGonagall and went to Hogwarts. She has blown up part of the Sept of Baelor, interrupted Ned's execution, rescued Arya and Sansa (Whose direwolves did not go south and are alive), got North to meet the Northern Army before any Frey deal occurred, Jon has not yet Taken his vows and she has created ward stones to protect the North and scared Robb and Ned in the process of said stones creation. Catelyn does not know about the fainting that occurred when creating the stones.
I think those are the important points.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it from Canon I don't own it and this is un-beta-ed, so there might be mistakes
Jon POV
Jon's heart hurt as he went to Maester Aemon. The letter in his hand weighed as much as his heart, wishing he did not have to write it at all.
Too much was a coincidence.
The letter from Robb demanding he be sent south if he had not already taken the black had arrived in time to keep him from his vows, but it had not arrived quick enough to prevent him from going down to the Heart Tree beyond the wall. It had not prevented Ghost finding the frozen hand.
It had not prevented the dead coming to life.
It had not prevented Lyarra's drawings coming to life.
He was set to go to Winterfell tomorrow, but he needed this to reach Robb or Bran, even Maester Luwin despite his lack of belief in magics. He needed to secure Lyarra's drawings.
Three had come true as of this morning when Lord Commander Mormont had given him Longclaw with the new handle and he feared her darker images would become true the longer time goes on.
He missed her. He missed Lyarra as much now as he did when she was taken. She hadn't followed her mother's opinions on bastards the way Sansa had. She never spoke up to her mother but she would often sneak into his room, especially if she had nightmares or wanted to escape.
She'd hidden some of her more disturbing art in his room, worried about how it would be perceived, especially if Septa Mordane had found them. They would force her to draw more lady-like images. Her skill had always been exceptional, but now it had come to life.
It terrified him.
He knew how dark her drawings became. Knew how frightened she was of them, always scared to be alone at night especially before her birthday.
She had stopped sneaking into his or Robb's bed when she had nightmares two years before That Birthday at the insistence of her mother. She'd succeed occasionally, but Lady Stark had noticed the pattern of her going during the week of her birthday.
He never brought up how much he blamed Lady Stark for not allowing Lyarra to seek comfort in him or Robb after she went missing. Never brought up how angry he was that if she had even bothered to understand her eldest daughter, mayhaps she would never have gone missing.
She was a child of the North, but Lady Stark tried to turn her into a Southern Lady. Dragging her to the Sept when she wanted to be in the Godswood with him and Father.
'I can't feel them', was the only answer he had ever received from her on why she fought so hard to not go to the Sept. He tried to figure out what she meant after she went missing. Spent as many hours as he could in the Godswood wondering if maybe he felt them, he could find her through the connection she had with the Old Gods.
He never felt them. He never found her.
He could not remember the last time they had talked about Lyarra outside of trying to tell Rickon about her, or trying to help the younger ones remember. He wondered now if Robb missed her as much as he did.
He wondered if Robb had cried himself to sleep when she'd gone missing. If he still got choked up any time he tried to speak about her.
He knocked first before entering the library and nodded to Sam who was transcribing something.
"Ah, Jon", Maester Aemon began, his unfocused eyes looking in his direction. "I was just about to send for you. A letter has arrived for you."
Jon took the letter, passing the one he wanted to send to Sam who only confirmed where he wanted to send it before leaving him alone with nervous eyes.
He broke the seal, a direwolf, and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing his father and his brother's hands on two separate pages.
He sat down hard as he read. He had not expected his father to be back in Winterfell so soon. He felt his heart lighten that they were as safe as they could be with the country losing it's head.
The final line of Robb's letter is the one that echoed in his head like a drum, progressively getting louder.
Lyarra's back
Lyarra's back
Lyarra's back.
Ned POV
He could feel it building.
Catelyn would only tolerate so much disrespect to southern teachings before she said something to Lya. He worried his eldest daughter - so much like his mother, her namesake- , would be significantly louder in her disinterest than she had been as a child.
She had always been on the line of Northern and Southern Lady, the in-between of Sansa and Arya.
Her lack of memories and time elsewhere made her more Northern in the years she'd been gone. More wild.
What worried him most was not her defiant demeanor. It was battle sickness.
He had seen too many men during both rebellions fall to it after the fighting ended. Men who startled easily and hated the crowds of the camps. Men who struggled so severely with both nightmares and waking dreams, hallucinations that could be triggered by the smallest of things. There were many signs of it, he'd seen almost every variety, but there was always a number of soldiers and knights that died after the battles were over due to the things within their own mind.
Catelyn fretted over Lya's ability to be a proper lady.
Ned worried they may lose her permanently to her mind or her magic.
They knew so little about her abilities. A blessing from the gods to protect her in the strange land, she was taken to, but the price. His mind tormented him with the sight of his daughter, unconscious, blood dripping down from her nose, Athena whimpering and whining nudging at her prone form. He never realized how much Lya looked like his mother until that moment, when he was reminded of his mother's death. Lying to his wife about Lya's magic would be safer for all. He disliked how it harmed her, but the alternative, the strange condition she had spoken of.
Catelyn could not have a reason to try and stop Lya from using her magic.
He rubbed at his head. Gods, this was a mess. Lya, magic, the Lannisters, Robert's death. At least, he would have all the Stark children back under the safety of Winterfell soon enough. Another promise he would have to keep, another conflict to deal with when Jon returns. Hopefully Lya's return would distract Jon long enough to give Ned time. Looking into the darkness beyond his window, Ned froze.
The torchlight of the courtyard barely caught her outline as his eldest daughter passed in sight of his solar's window. He should have been in bed ages ago, but plans needed a second look.
Watching Lya sneak towards the Godswood had him abandoning his work. Images of men with red drenched blades in hand as they lay empty eyed before a heart tree forced themselves to the forefront of his mind, as he took passageways he had not used since he was a boy to reach the Godswood faster.
He slowed as he came to the Heart Tree.
Ned could see Athena's red fur reflecting the light of his torch. Lyarra was nowhere in sight. He tried to still his panic as he began searching.
He cursed himself for forgetting his sword as an actual wolf, fur as black as midnight with eyes the same blue as many of his children, approached with a tilted head. He held his breath as it stood to the side of the pool mere feet away from him. This beast stood between him and Lya, for where else could she have gone but deeper into the Godswood. Gods with her magic, he may have already lost her and he can't even look for her without something stopping him.
He stayed still as the wolf sat on its haunches, as though it did not even see him as a threat.
How could the beast make it past the walls of Winterfell? Guards posted at every point and guests lingering in many corners, someone should have noticed a wolf this size.
He glanced at Athena who looked completely undisturbed by the wolf, full grown yet smaller than the direwolves. If this wolf was a threat, especially to Lya, why did Athena not attack…
He stared at the wolf.
"Lya?", He called out, taking a chance to glance around in hope of spotting her somewhere the wolf hadn't noticed.
The wolf let out a soft yip, quiet as though it was conscious of how late in the evening it was.
He took another look at the wolf, of how human-like its expressions, its eyes were. So many impossible things happened recently, was it so strange to think that maybe…
What were the chances? When he thought about how much he knew about his daughter's abilities, the answer was not nearly enough. The explosion of the Sept of Baelor, The silvery shield that had stood between them and the hound, her disappearance from camp and quiet return…
"Lya?" he kept his eyes on the wolf in front of him.
If the things he had witnessed of her magic thus far was strange, this, this was the strangest to witness.
He had no words to describe the melding of wolf and girl. Fur vanishing, paws to hands, fabric of her odd outfit that reminded him so much of the women of his family and was one of Catelyn's primary complaints, ears shifting from pointed to round on the side of her head.
He had to sit down.
Lya POV
Shapeshifting was apparently the straw that broke the hippogriff's back.
In Lya's defense, he'd handled a lot of her other magic perfectly fine until he caught her unconscious. Maybe she shouldn't have been changing into her animagus form so soon after suffering magical exhaustion, but shifting felt different, less of a potential and more like a requirement. Like her skin would rip itself apart if she didn't shift.
She had more books than she should in her bag, but it wasn't endless. Werewolf books were not ones she thought necessary and most were full of so much falsified bigoted bullshit that they weren't even worth the parchment they were written on.
Could she safely say this was a side effect of Greyback attacking her? Yes.
Did that make it easier for her to expect what she would experience? No. She hadn't been close to Professor Lupin or Bill Weasley, who she'd met in passing at an order meeting that she couldn't sit on, for her to have any useful information on the condition.
Smart was not all knowing.
Accidentally giving Ned a heart attack, not something she was expecting to do. Catelyn, yes, that situation was simply one Lumos away from explosion. But Ned had seemed so capable of rolling with it, of being able to just take it in and accept it as is.
Lya may have miscalculated.
She tried calling his name multiple times, as he sat on a rock beneath the face tree- Hearttree? His eyes were on her but they were unfocused.
Well, at least his breathing was normal.
She could snap him out of it with magic, but Lya thought adding more magic when that's the cause was a bad idea.
Athena sensing her emotions, and wasn't that a curious thing, walked to where Lya kneeled in front of Ned trying to get a reaction. The direwolf had no issue licking Ned's face startling him out of his mind.
Athena sat, tail wagging along the ground, satisfied with her own success.
Prideful thing, Lya thought fondly.
"You- the wolf-" Ned managed to say before clearing his throat. "What are you doing out so late?"
"I couldn't sleep." Hard to sleep when you wanted to tear your own skin off.
It took a moment for him to respond. She almost had Athena lick him again.
"Are there any other surprises that I need to be made away of so the guards do not try to harm you without realizing it?"
Oh. She hadn't thought of the guards. There are so many direwolves, would they really attack a random wolf that wasn't causing trouble in the walls?
Best not to test that one.
"Not that I am aware of, I can only turn into a wolf."
Ned nodded slowly.
At least he didn't threaten to try and force her to stop using magic this time.
He pulled her close. Kissing the top of her head.
She had realized that where Catelyn showed affection through words, Ned showed his through actions. He'd ruffle the boys hair, place a hand on their shoulder, pull her or Arya or even Sansa into a hug.
Lya felt like there was a desperation in the contact. That it was more a reassurance for him than it is for any of them. The reason felt so close and so far from her, that if she tried to reach it, she'd stretch her mind to another headache before she could touch it.
He escorted her back to her room through passageways that bypassed all the guards, a comfortable if not melancholic silence between them.
Before letting her go into the room after Athena, he stopped her.
"If something troubles you, my door is always open."
She nodded, for what else could she say.
It was when he turned and walked away that she spoke up. "Are we letting them come to us or are we bringing the fight to them?"
"I pray that we do not have to fight at all, with the use of the ward stones. The Baratheon brothers have raised their banners against the Crown."
"The King who Burns and the King with Flowers"
"They are not Kings, Lya", Ned explained softly.
"War of the Five Kings", Lya said. Isn't that what they were in?
Ned froze, still as stone in front of her. "What do you mean?"
"The Bastard King, The King who Burns, The King with Flowers, The King at Sea and The King who never wished to be." Lya explained. She didn't know where this information was coming from. It wasn't like her missing memories, it was something different, something other. So familiar yet so haunting, as though the words, the thoughts were not her own.
Lya made sure to put up silencing charms before she went to bed that night.