Harrold the Heir

Author's Note: This fan fiction is meant to examine three "What If" scenarios. I hope that changing these three things will send the Game of Thrones careening off its cannon axis into a new and enjoyable story. First: I want a story where the Vale enters the conflict and politics right from the start. The Vale, like Dorne, are barely involved until the third/fourth books, so that will change. Second: I am throwing a wizard born as Harry Potter, with his skills, abilities, and personality into a position to get the Vale involved. I may tweak HP cannon spell casting slightly and hope it works for everyone.

Harry will be a bit out of character from JK Rowling's works because his upbringing will be different. If being the B-W-L can turn Neville into an arrogant jerk as has been portrayed many times in other AU Harry Potter settings, then being raised in the Westerosi culture by a loving and supportive family will do the same to Harry. I am firm believer in characters and people being a complex soup of nature and nurture. Third: I want a story where magic, the supernatural, and gods/religion play a much larger part of the story. In cannon I think supernatural aspects of the series are a four out of ten, which may get larger in the final acts. I'm cranking it up to eight from the start. I am doing this because I think it will make for a good read. And so our protagonist wizard has some worthy adversaries instead of running roughshod over everyone and turning this story into crack fic.

I have no intention of redoing Martin's fantastic work. He brings this world alive with multiple characters gaining points of view to carry along separate storylines. This will be Harry's story and the other plot threads written by George RR Martin will be occurring just as he has written them simultaneously with mine unless stated. There will quickly be divergences as other's react to Harry's moves as well as the growing power of other magic users and followers of religion. But these changes will mostly be experienced as Harry encounters them personally or hears about them via raven, messenger, or rumor. As the story gets further from cannon I will start up other POVs to show the new situations and dynamics. Martin's world is awesome (which you probably agree with or else you wouldn't be here reading this). I'm not going to try recreate his writing style, just hopefully give you an interesting story that takes place in his world.

There are only two changes to cannon that occur prior to the start of the story. First, I'm making the Starks kids older by two years. This clashes with cannon because of the timing of Robb's birth and Robert's Rebellion, but I want them to be older. This is primarily to make Robb, Jon, and Bran's adventures and battle prowess more believable. Also to make whoever ends up getting with Sansa a little less squicky to my modern sensibilities. At the time of Tyrion's trial in the Vale Harry is barely 18, Robb and Jon 16, Sansa 15, Arya 14, Bran 12, and Rickon 10. Second, when the Starks are heading to King's Landing and Joffrey has his little hissy fit/murder spree with Mycah the butcher's boy, the dire wolves Lady and Nymeria are not killed or lost. They are instead caged and sent back to Winterfell. Why I'm doing this will become obvious as the story progresses.

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER

I do not claim to own or intend to profit from the usage of any intellectual property of the authors JK Rowling, or George RR Martin, or any corporations with current ownership of their intellectual property. This work is intended to be transformative and utilize the crossover genre to yield a new story that should hopefully not dilute, criticize, or denigrate the intellectual property of the authors it is derived from. I will of course comply with any requests to remove my story from public consumption if the authors or copyright holders make such a request. I consider this declaration to apply to all my work relating to the story Harold the Heir and hope this declaration will suffice for the entirety of the fan fiction story.

Enough mumbo jumbo, now onto the story.

Prologue: When a Wizard meddles quite a bit too much

Harry Potter-Black-Peverell was privately celebrating his seven hundred and first birthday. For the last few years he had been meditating on his life on a small tropical island that he placed under Fidelius wards back in his roaring two hundreds. He had seemingly done it all since accidentally absorbing his Peverell ancestor's highly enchanted Hallows into his person, becoming the mysterious Master of Death. Early on, after his defeat of Tom Riddle, he worked tirelessly to see all Death Eaters and their sympathizers brought to justice, using any means necessary. It hadn't been as hard as he though it would be though, since he won the Minister of Magic position two years after Voldermort's death in an unprecedented write in campaign carried out by his friends and fellow survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts.

Thirty years later he not only cleaned up and modernized Magical Britain, but snatched up a large part of it's economy with all of the businesses he provided capital for. Harry also repopulated his three hyphenated houses with three different wives. His private life had been quite the adventure in itself as he went a little overboard in his desire for a big family and then had to deal with the consequences. It certainly didn't help that he continued to look a young man while his children and wives aged without him.

So he took his show on the road, leaving his heirs and exes quite well off and became a trouble shooter for the International Confederation of Wizards, then Supreme Mugwump. When that got old he sought to learn all he could of magic and traveled the world researching and learning, aided greatly by the power to summon the dead. The culmination of his three hundreds was to create an interactive Grimoire that held all of his accumulated knowledge as well as a smattering of his personality and wisdom. It would provide information only for those he keyed in, and only what the Grimoire felt they were ready to learn.

That got old as well, so he started participating more directly in the muggle world. Learning their science, getting involved with their space exploration programs and politics. All the while experiencing every kind of romantic relationship he could conceive. In his sixth century his pursuit of new experiences even led him to fruitlessly attempting celibacy as a Tibetan monk, but his own youthful drive wouldn't cooperate for more than a month. It was after that failed life experience he realized he was quite bored with life. He spent a cool ten years figuring out a way out from his Immortal existence.

Now he was in the remembrance phase of his life, as he felt reviewing things, finding peace and learning lessons was important. It also gave him a chance to reevaluate his boredom, and figure out if there was anything else he would like to try or get involved with. He was also updating his Grimoire's overseeing personality matrix with his more advanced perspective as well as a smattering of muggle physics, dimensional physics, astronomy, and chemistry concepts that played no small part in the practice of magic. In his ruminations he was also sorting through alternate dimensions which were key in his plan to... end his life... sort-of.

Really, Harry only needed to bridge the divide between alternate universes and eat his wand or apparate into space because he had already figured out after aging for the first time in centuries during an exciting adventure in a alternate Futuristic Earth where connected alternate universes were actually fighting each other. That little conflict provided the dimension window he was using to plan out his end. But Harry, in looking back on his life, decided he would like one more adventure, and he wanted to help out an alternate self in the process.

So he found the closest alternate universe to his own as well as a separate one that was quite different in era and composition. As he well knew, Time between universes was...nothing more than a variable when Magic rather than technology provided the transportation. And with exquisite precision planned out the runic portals required to meddle with these two alternate universes for his final hurrah.

HP-aSoIaF

Two months later

On the outskirts of Godric's Hollow, intense Wizard Aversion and Notice-me-not wards were keeping his placement of pre-fabricated ritual runic arrays under wraps. When he had everything arranged to keep his arrival location and timeframe precise he dissipated the wards to prevent any unintended magical interference.

It took massive amounts of mana (the term he popularized while attempting to quantify magic scientifically in his four hundreds) that would leave most adults exhausted if not comatose or dead. To him it was little more than a quarter of his core's capacity. When it was ready the portal solidified, and he saw a very similar Godric's Hallow through the figurative Lewis Carollian looking glass. He noticed Halloween decorations and knew he had the right time of the year at the least. Taking a deep breath he stepped through the portal, taking with him his active channeling of magic, which neatly collapsed the portal behind him as the very rune carved marble plinths were sucked dry of energy and mana by the collapsing portal, leaving them to disintegrate. By design no traces of his breach of universes were left for others to follow in his footsteps.

Harry stopped a reveler to ask for the year and the time. The quite drunk elderly wizard let him know he arrived at precisely when he aimed for. Harry hustled to his alternate parents hidden sanctuary and knew that he had to hurry as it was clearly visible, the Fidelius ward shattered in Voldermort's hubris to display his work. Some might question why he did not intercede sooner and save his alternate parents, but having spoken extensively with his own parents' ghosts and viewed alternate dimensions where the Potter couple survived to raise Harry he was not concerned about their fate. He specifically chose this dimension because it progressed so closely to his own.

Harry noticed a suspicious rat on the way in and stunned it, forced it back into its human form, then slit it's throat. Brutal, but he wouldn't be staying in this world long enough to ensure this betrayer Pettigrew got the justice he deserved. The sniveling traitor was also quite the hand of fate in this timeline and without a Harry Potter around it would be best to decisively deal with one of the lead architects of his alternate self's future tragedies and suffering.

He heard a woman shout and then scream on the level above and he took the chance to Apparate quietly onto the landing outside his alternate self's nursery. Through the door he saw an alternate Lily Potter on the ground, lifeless, while the still somewhat human looking Tom Riddle pointed his wand at alternate Harry in his crib.

He had no intention of allowing the other Harry to be burdened with a Horcrux and Lily's final protection spell would linger even longer if it went untested. So he took a dueling stance and called out, "Hey Riddle! You killed my father, prepare to die you muggleborn bastard!" That got Voldermort's attention though the muggle hating bigot probably did not get the slight 'Princess Bride' reference.

As arrogant as ever, the self-proclaimed Dark Lord didn't retreat or shield when surprised by an adversary as any rational combatant would. Instead the killing curse primed for alternate Harry Potter was instead launched in his direction. But Harry was both faster and had the jump on young Riddle. So he got off a spell he devised called the Horcrux Special, effective only against those cursed beings missing pieces of their soul. It's golden bolt of light would snuff out the targeted fragment and travel along tethers of spirit through the astral plane to burn out any other soul shards still on the physical plane.

He dodged out of instinct but also had time to raise a Soul Shield against the green bolt of the killing curse. This very selective shield is a defensive charm that he hoped an Indian witch would still invent some two hundred years in this dimensions future to specifically block the Killing curse. Voldermort looked at what appeared to be James Potter in utter shock. Before screaming in pain and collapsing. Making sure he got the job done, Harry fired off a cutting curse to decapitate his downed foe. He then grabbed up Riddle's wand. A sustained Incendio charm set the body on fire, keeping it incredibly hot but contained until even the carbon soot was powder.

Harry was in a hurry so he blew out a wall and sent Voldermort's disintegrated remains swirling out into the world. He quickly conjured a lump of clay and a large fur hide and transfigured them into a nice furry homunculi which he animated into picking up the balling alternate Harry Potter. He followed that with the gentle Mother's Helper sleeping charm to spare his alternate self the jarring experience of teleportation. Harry could probably have picked up his alternate-infant self, in that dimensional war he had seen many alternates fight each other and not explode or cease to exist. But why take the chance?

He turned the now animated homunculi into a portkey, and it was soon gone in a blue shimmer followed by a spinning crack. Harry decided to further stage the scene with scorched walls and a destroyed crib. He then quickly followed his new temporary charge to the pre-ordained destination. The woods outside Boston, England in the county of Lincolnshire.

In this dimension it held little significance, but in the universes where this planet contained a versions of Westoros it corresponded to the outskirts of the feudal domain of House Waynwood. A location called Ironoaks in the Eastern Kingdom known as the Vale. Once he set the runic portal variables on the marble blocks he would soon be stealing from the local big box construction supplier, they would be traveling together to a very specific point in time. One where a well-born recent widow with black hair and green eyes was freezing to death caught in a sudden blizzard between the towns of Moon Gate and Ironoaks. In many timelines her little boy would survive the night and be raised as the Arryn's spare heir by their Waynwood liegeman. But Harry had found a dimension were this was not the case.

As the multi-hyphenated former immortal painstakingly carved runic arrays and shaped the pilfered marble blocks into the necessary constructs, as well as measuring out distances for his next portal he recalled his latest hobby: dimension window watching. Having won his wars and achieved his goals in the conflict's aftermath, he started seeking out other interesting struggles to view. He had been forged by the times he lived in, and the many achievements he accomplished afterwards were a direct result of the type of person his adversity had created.

Harry wanted his rescued alternate self to have the same challenges, although hopefully with a lot more childhood joy and adequate preparation than he'd had. His window watching led him more and more to dimensions mired in the past, places were a Wizard could really shine. Also places were the world's magics was still wild, vibrant, and powerful. Places were magical creatures as well as gods and demi-gods were empowered both by the untapped world's natural magic and the inhabitants' much less cynical or atheistic belief systems.

It was the world of Westeros and Essos he finally decided upon. In that pseudo-medieval-to-renaissance world two very powerful Demi-Gods from overlapping inter-dimensions would build up enough energy every couple thousands years or so to really let loose with their stored magical power. Their struggle reminded him a lot of a Robert Frost poem he embarrassingly first encountered taking his second wife to see a...gulp...Twilight movie.

These two beings would eventually be the mechanism of the world's apocalypse, both trying to end life on the planet but through opposite methods. One through the Long Night freezing everything in a never ending Ice Age powered by fear, the other through burning passions, all consuming war then probably quickly followed by unending fire. Both utilized versions of necromancy. Both could grant some pretty stellar powers to their minions. Both were extremely cunning and patient. But calming the flames of war and driving back monstrous undead ice zombies would be the perfect avenue for a powerful wizard to have some amazing challenges. It was why he chose this time period right on the cusp of the War of the Five Kings with the Long Night's return in the not to distant future.

He would give his alternate self a grand adventure if he wanted it. Or the kid could ride it out in the Vale, or even head off into the wider world and do his own thing. While Harry noticed a few self-serving prophecies generated by the "Lord of Light" and the "Great Other", there weren't any chosen ones like he had been. Harry had watched the whole thing play out in a number of similar alternate dimensions. In none of them did the world actually end during the time frame he was focused on, although in one very dark version the Others did kill everyone in the Seven kingdoms before the continent of Essos marshaled their forces and put a stop to their frigid conquest.

So little baby alternate Harry had options. And no opportunity to become immortal as far as Harry could discern. If his rescued self played his cards right he could have not only a very awesome life but create a legacy just as lasting his own. He was very excited for his other self, and for his own chance to finally rest. He really wanted to go on to the next great adventure, and perhaps see his parents, wives, children, lovers, and friends once again. He was so brimming with expectation he barely paused in his crafting of the dimensional portal.

By the time the greys and reds of false dawn peaked over the horizon he had finished his second to last magical work. As the portal snapped into place he could see the already cold body of Lana Hardyng nee Waynwood, daughter of an Arryn, draped around her equally frozen fifteen month old boy. His animated life-sized fluffy construct preceded him through the portal which snapped shut behind him.

He quickly removed the dead Harrold Hardyng toddler and transfigured it into a rock which he tossed into a nearby stream, shattering it with a Reducto charm right before it landed in the waters. He did say a small prayer to the native personification of Death, the Stranger, for mother and child before continuing. He cast a warming charm in the hollow the deceased toddler had recently inhabited and his homunculi gently place little alternate Harry Potter into it's place. A quick long-term transfiguration saw little Harry now dressed in the exact same clothes as the child he was replacing. When forced into a shape not their own for far too long, the Earth clothes would eventually disintegrate rather than revert, thereby protecting little Harry's otherworldly origins. He then quickly transfigured the homunculi into two thirds of a rudimentary igloo draped over little Harry which he firmed up and covered with conjured snow.

To all appearances Lana had built a hasty shelter and shielded her child with her own body to keep him warm. Why she risked the journey alone without escort or transportation was a mystery to even him. Harry line-of-sight apparated to a dense part of nearby woods and conjured a stiff gust of wind that sent flurries of snow to cover his own footsteps. Then he waited. Just as in the other dimensions he watched, Waynwood banner men on patrol happened upon the scene about an hour after dawn. They quickly checked mother and babe, distraught at the mother's death but then equally surprised and thankful to find the young toddler still alive.

A Disillusioned Harry Potter followed his alternate self back to Ironoaks and even into the Waynwood Keep to observe his attempted changeling setup. A young Lady Anya Waynwood had been fretting about her young cousin who should have arrived last evening. Having never seen her soon to be ward before, the subterfuge went off perfectly. None of the Waynwoods were aware of the original child's hair or eye color, and as Harry well knew, infants often had shifts in these two features as they became toddlers.

Confident that his alternate self was now set on his initial path, Harry slipped away to the room the Waynwood ward had occupied in all of the observed dimensions. He threw up a few charms on the single window and the door in preparation for his last act on the physical plane.

Harry had long since surpassed the need for a wand to utilize his magic. But little Harry would need one focus or another, perhaps for his entire life. The dimensional traveler had only brought with him three items, his nearly sentient Grimoire, his own Holly and Phoenix feather wand with runic enhancement, and alternate Tom Riddle's Yew and phoenix feather wand, minus that ghastly bone handle. He had now etched into both a regeneration runic array that would allow alternate Harry to repair them from most damage by channeling his mana into the rune. This setup would only really work on phoenix core wands since it heavily tapped into the eternally rebirthing nature of the highly magical creature.

He know activated a couple pre-set enchantments for the Grimoire to hold on to the two wands until it determined little alternate Harry was ready. Hopefully the two borrowed wands would be sufficient for him, if not his alternate self would be forced to learn all that Harry Potter-Black-Peverell had learned of wand or staff lore to create his own. If little Harry had some magical children then he would likely have to do so anyway.

The transplanted Potter should be safe from accidental magic. Taking a page from Dumbledore's playbook, Harry placed bindings on little alternate Harry's magical core. Unlike the hard and fast bindings the old manipulator had place on him, which he'd had to burst through with use, his enchantments were flexible and on a timer. All but one would be gone by the time alternate Harry was eleven and the last would dissipate on his thirteenth birthday. The little guy was going to be just as powerful, minus the boost he got from the Deathly Hallows, so he hoped his other self would have gotten control of magical accidents by then. If the Grimoire determined he was ready sooner it could show him how to remove the last one itself.

The Grimoire was linked by his magical signature to his core. It maintained itself by drawing miniscule fractions of his core's magic in a constant infinitesimal trickle. While that wasn't even noticeable to adult immortal Harry Potter, it would be a drag on little toddler Harry Hardyng. So in preparation, the Master of Death had designed and created a crystal mana reservoir and enchanted it to provide magic to sustain the incredible tome. By his calculations the crystal would power all of the Grimoire's functions until alternate Harry Potter was well into his fifties before the crystal needed to be recharged or connected to other magical beings to sustain it.

While he waited for the locals to arrive Potter added alternate Harry to the exclusive list of two who could access the knowledge within. For that matter they were the only two that could even see the book. There were subtle compulsion enchantments for someone with access to keep the book near and safe. The Grimoire itself had a drive to stay with it's wizard, with the amazing feature of being able to turn itself into a portkey to transport directly to any wizard that had foolishly left it behind. Or if another magical was attempting to access it despite it's invisibility. It was truly the perfect medium to teach Harry Potter, any Harry Potter, how to use magic.

And so, feeling at peace with his life, and his latest adventure, Harry Potter-Black-Peverell, former Master of Death, channeled every spec of magic in his body into the Grimoire's reservoir crystal. Even that little bit of magic even muggles have to keep the spark of life humming through their cells. In a brief flash of light brighter than any flashbang or a Lumos Maxima charm, the second Harry Potter in Westeros ceased to be, venturing to his next stage of...well you get the picture.

Down a floor, in the Waynwood's great hall an inconsolable Harry Pot...er...Hardyng cried for his missing parents while the women of Waynwood keep did their best to comfort him as they realized his poor mother hadn't even told the child his knightly father had died some months ago in Robert's Rebellion. Holding the toddler in her arms, Lady Anya Waynwood, whose last daughter was now a lively five years old, thought that maybe just one more would be okay to raise here in Ironoaks.

Author's End Notes:

First, this is currently self beta'ed so bear with the typos n grammar probelems. Tee hee. I'm still pretty novice at this writing thing so constructive criticism is welcome as are the interest of prospective beta's or advisors. As per usual, flamers and guests will likely be ignored. I'm not a huge fan of filling chapters with reviewer responses so unless something really needs to be addressed for everyone I'll probably just try to edit the chapter to fix any confusion. Also, pairings... I am not going to announce them in advance. Enjoy any relationships as they unfold. This is Westoros and rated MA so some explicit content should be expected. It will be clearly marked so it can be skipped over if such fiction isn't to your taste but you would still like to enjoy the rest of the story.

Second, I am going to define the weird seasons that occur in this world now. A "Summer" is the normal course of four seasons we are familiar with on planet Earth, with weather and growing patterns that are based on latitude and orientation of mountain ranges, rivers, and bodies of water. I'm going to use our Earth/western calendar and named months to more accurately depict the passage of time since cannon does not include it's own system. A "Winter" occurs when spring doesn't show up when it is supposed to. The winter season stretches out through the normal occurrence of spring which is then followed by a fall which stretches for the duration of summer and a normal fall. In regions that can do farming in fall, such as the Stormlands, the Reach, and Dorne a limited harvest can be accomplished.

The Westerlands and the Vale benefit from coastal/mountain range effects giving them climates and growing seasons similar to central and northern California respectively. The Riverlands and the Crownlands are subjected to harsh rainfall during a Winter and experience devastating flooding as well as erosion/mud slides during Winters. This means that they are as effectively barren as the North during a Winter, but during Summers they have huge farming yields similar to the fertile flood plains we are familiar with historically like the Nile or the Mississippi.

I'll go with astronomical interactions between planetary bodies causing this fluctuating seasonal pattern which leads to slight shifts in the planet's orbit and distance and/or orientation from the sun. There could be a millennial pattern to the shifts but poor long term record keeping prevents it from being discovered.