Robb Stark had been marching South to see his father after he had heard of his arrest.
He had heard some of the most queer tales regarding an event that had occurred in King's Landing.
They were saying his father was the Stranger or even the Great Other given human form.
He had not really believed it himself until he had gotten the raven from his sister, Sansa.
Robb,
Something horrible has happened to our father. He was about to be executed when he called upon some power to smite his executioner. Whatever creature is possessing him has changed him a lot. He murders people daily for use in horrific rituals, and he has the ability to do queer things. He was able to make Queen Cersei strangle her own son, Prince Joffrey. But most of all he resembles a snake and calls himself Lord Voldemort. He is not our father anymore, please remember that, I went to see him the other day, and he nearly killed me.
Sansa
Robb stared at the letter in shock.
He would definitely need to change his plans.
This Lord Voldemort figure seemed like a powerful sorceror, and he doubted if even his entire host was enough to combat him.
He was about to tell his host to retreat, even at the risk of appearing craven, when he felt a sudden chill appear in the air.
Something tickled his spine, and he felt frost crawling along his skin.
"Winter is coming..." hissed a voice that sounding like it was made of ice.
Throughout the Seven Kingdoms the strange voice hissed.
Men at swordplay stopped, septas on septons stopped praying, and women and children glanced around fearfully.
In the Citadel, the maesters stopped their studying.
Old tomes were once more opened and ancient legends once again revisited.
They all knew the phrase that was hissed was the ancestral Stark motto.
They also knew of what Ned Stark had become.
There was clearly some correlation but they needed to figure out what it was.
In the Citadel the maesters brushed aside the myth that surrounded Lord Voldemort and looked straight at the facts.
He was clearly a sorceror of great power judging by eyewitness accounts of him using mind-control, manipulation of the elements, and his ability to move objects with his mind.
They also began to study magic, but what little was known about it was thought to be myth.
Greenseers, wargs...
Some of that citadel had suggested that magic began waning after the death of the last dragon, and that hypothesis had been dismissed as ridiculous until now.
Tales of shadowbinders, priests that controlled fire, Faceless Men, children of the forest...
Magic although contrary to everything the Citadel ever stood for now seemed like a realistic possibility.
Ancient legends which had long been seen as myth now were once again considered.
The tales of a Great Winter and Others killing all in their path.
What else could the phrase "Winter is coming..." mean?
The tale of Bran the Builder, legendary founder of the Stark line.
Why was the Wall built?
Certainly not to keep out the wildlings, they were merely a nuisance at best, not really a threat for which it was necessary to construct a 700 foot tall continent spanning wall.
It was obviously the Others then.
Others who had long been seen as myth and bogeymen now seemed to be an actual threat.
The Seven Kingdoms needed to be prepared.
Lord Voldemort was not pleased
His studies into the other magic users of this world had not born much fruit, based on what Ned had told him and the scrolls he had read, the magic of this world seemed to be mostly dead.
There were dragons yet they had been dead for a hundred years. There was a similar story for most of the other things he had read such as greenseers and wargs. He had conveniently arrived in the one era in which magic was extinct.
However, it was possible that similar to his own world, the magic users here were in hiding.
There were other promising leads.
The red priests of R'hllor seemed to be able to utilize some method of fire manipulation and fire-based Divination.
In addition in the far eastern lands of Asshai, there was rumored to exist to magic even today.
Perhaps, he should plan an expedition there.
On Earth he could have just Apparated there but on this world Apparation didn't seem to exist.
His research into the nature of magic had proved more successful, however.
Whenever he used magic he could feel two conflicting powers fire and ice flowing through him.
He had researched these powers and found that on this world there were deities to represent those powers, R'hllor and the Great Other.
Perhaps, it would be in his best interests to find out more about R'hllor's religion.
His horcrux ritual seemed to work, and he wasted no time in creating new Horcruxes, but he doubted if they would be that useful considering that there would not be anyone who was magical enough to perform the resurrection ritual.
Voldemort had tried creating a new group of followers, but on this world the Imperius curse did not work and so Voldemort was stuck to dominating the minds of individual Muggles. Luckily Inferii were able to be created, so Voldemort had set about creating an army of them, but Inferii could only get you so far, so Voldemort had hired a group of sellswords as well.
In this world, wandless magic was more powerful than it had been on Earth, however Voldemort knew wanded magic was far more powerful, so he needed to make a wand.
Lord Voldemort had crafted his wand from the branch of weirwood tree and it had a core of dragonbone which he had taken from the dragon skulls found around the castle.
Strangely enough when Voldemort had gone near the weirwood tree with red eyes he could feel an intelligence emanating from it.
He used leglimency on it and he saw an ancient looking man with roots growing out of his body then he saw many more images of similar people, he saw strange creatures that looked like elves, Children of the Forest a voice whispered.
Then he felt the clash of fire and ice once more, except this time the force of ice seemed stronger. He saw a glacier shatter and from it stepped a giant man who seemed to be composed of ice. The figure spoke and the sound was similar to glaciers breaking, "Winter is coming..."
Voldemort felt his mind expelled from the tree and lay on the ground dazed,could that figure have been the Great Other?