The Mirror Within
The forest was quiet. Too quiet.
Not the silence of peace, but of reverence. As though the trees themselves knew something sacred had returned. The wind had died, the birds stilled. Even the river trickled with careful, respectful slowness, as if the water itself feared to disturb the entity walking its banks. The mist coiled like serpents around his ankles, alive and watchful, parting only where his bare feet pressed into the damp earth. He moved soundlessly, the Cloak of Invisibility draped over his shoulders like a second skin, its edges blending with the shadows. His body—their body—was a machine of perfect rhythm, muscles coiled with a predator’s grace. But his mind hummed with voices that were both his and not, two souls knotted together by forces older than prophecy.
“You carry my face.”
The voice was soft, melodic, tinged with melancholy. It resonated not in his ears but in the hollows of his bones—a prince’s lament, a dirge for a dynasty drowned in blood.
“And you carry mine,” Harry replied aloud, his tone rougher, edged with the grit of a survivor who had long outlived his war. “Though I suppose neither of us owns it now.”
“No.” A pause. The wind stirred, carrying the faint scent of iron and rot from the river. “But you are the one walking. Why?”
Harry stopped. The mist thickened, clinging to his silver-gold hair like a crown of frost. “Because someone has to. You stopped. At the Trident, you let the river take you. Let Robert’s hammer end it all.”
“I had no choice. My song was over.”
“There’s always a choice.” Harry flexed his fingers, watching moonlight glint off the wand clutched in his palm. The Elder Wand thrummed, its power a dark current beneath his skin. “I chose to die once too. Walked into the forest, let the Killing Curse take me. But even then, it wasn’t the end. Now here we are. Why?”
“You ask questions I cannot answer.”
“Then tell me what you can.” Harry resumed walking, the trees parting before him as if compelled. Roots slithered away from his path, and the undergrowth withered where his shadow fell. “Why did you chase that prophecy? Why tear the realm apart for a dream? Why leave your family to the mercy of your enemies?”
“You think me a fool.” Rhaegar’s voice sharpened, a harp string plucked too hard. “You, who let the world carve its hope into your flesh until there was nothing left. At least I fought for something greater than survival.”
Harry’s jaw tightened. He could taste ash on his tongue—the residue of Fiendfyre, the stench of burning stone at Hogwarts. “I fought for the people I loved. You fought for symbols. For a prince that was promised. And what did it cost you? Your wife? Your children? Lyanna? Thousands of lives?”
The air thickened. Somewhere deep in their shared consciousness, a memory flickered—a tower in Dorne, the scent of winter roses. Rhaegar’s grief surged like a tidal wave, and Harry staggered, bracing a hand against a tree. Bark crumbled to dust beneath his touch.
“You speak of costs,” Rhaegar hissed, “as if your hands are clean. How many friends buried themselves in your war? How many lives did your ‘love’ demand?”
Hermione’s face flashed in Harry’s mind—exhausted, bleeding, clutching her wand in the ruins of the Great Hall. Ron’s laughter, stifled by a grave. Sirius falling through the veil. Gone. All gone. The Resurrection Stone in his palm pulsed, warm and mocking.
“They chose to fight,” Harry said quietly, his voice raw. “Just as I chose to die so they could live. You didn’t give your family a choice. You sacrificed them for the Prince. Elia. Lyanna. Rhaenys. Rhaella. Even your unborn child—pawns in your game of prophecy.”
“And you think your sacrifice absolves you?” Rhaegar’s voice trembled, not with anger but grief. “You let your pain fester until you welcomed death. You abandoned the world that needed you.”
“The world didn’t need me. Not anymore. I gave it peace.”
“Peace?” A bitter laugh. “You think peace is a static thing? A trophy to be won and shelved? It is a flame, Harry. It must be fed. Guarded. And when the winds come, you cannot simply… walk away.”
Harry halted at the edge of a moonlit clearing. The ground here was scorched, the grass blackened in a perfect circle. He knelt, brushing his fingers over the charred earth. The memory of a dragon’s roar echoed in his skull—Rhaegar’s memory, not his.
“Is that why we’re here? To feed the flame again?”
“No.” Rhaegar’s presence receded, weary. “I have no flame left to give. My fire died at the Trident. With my dreams. I am ash.”
Harry closed his fist around a handful of burnt soil. It crumbled like bone. “Then why merge with me? Why not fade?”
“Because death is not a mercy granted to creatures like us. Not anymore.”
The Watchers
The House of Black and White
The candles guttered.
In the temple where death was a sacrament, a hundred faces watched from the walls—kings, beggars, children, warriors. Their stone eyes wept wax as the flame of the central brazier flickered, then changed.
A priestess knelt in prayer, her own face a shifting mask of youth and decay. She stilled as the flames turned black, then white, then a color that had no name. The pool at the center of the chamber rippled, though no hand disturbed it.
“A gift,” the Many-Faced God had always whispered. “All men must serve. All men must die.”
But this... this was no mortal passing.
A reflection shimmered in the dark water: a man with silver hair and a cloak of nothingness, walking through a forest that bent to his will.
The priestess tilted her head. A rare frown creased her borrowed face.
“No,” she murmured. “Not a man. A claimant.”
The flames roared suddenly, swallowing the vision. When they subsided, the brazier was cold.
In the silence, the faces on the walls began to scream.
The Cave of the Three-Eyed Raven
Blood dripped from the roots.
Brynden Rivers—once a man, now a creature of bark and bone—jerked awake, his single red eye snapping open. The weirwood throne held him fast, its tendrils buried deep in his flesh. Around him, the children of the forest stirred, their obsidian eyes wide with alarm.
“What is it?” one hissed. “What does the greenseer see?”
Bloodraven did not answer. The visions came in shards:
—A dragon with a phoenix’s wings, its cry splitting the sky.
—A wand of elder wood piercing a wall of ice.
—A crown of rubies, shattered, reforged into a blade.
And beneath it all, a whisper: “Only one.”
The ravens in the cave erupted into chaos, their feathers slicing the air like daggers. Bloodraven’s mouth twisted, his lips cracking like dried parchment.
“The song is broken,” he rasped. “A new player has taken the board. Not ice. Not fire. Death’s own.”
The children recoiled. One, bolder than the rest, stepped forward. “Can he be controlled?”
Bloodraven closed his eye. The weirwood’s sap ran black where it met his veins.
“No,” he said. “But he may yet choose wisely. Watch him. Guide him, if you must.”
The Tower of the Undying
The Warlocks of Qarth drank shade-of-the-evening and choked.
In the indigo gloom of their sanctum, the Undying Ones thrashed in their silk biers, their withered limbs clawing at the air. The blue flames of their eternal braziers writhed, twisting into shapes that hurt the mind:
—A three-headed dragon devouring a stag.
—A lightning-bolt scar splitting the sky.
—A cloak that drank the light, worn by a king with a beggar’s eyes.
“Impossible,” croaked the eldest warlock, his lips stained cobalt. “The threads of fate are cut! The loom is broken!”
Another warlock, her eyes pools of liquid night, clutched her chest. “He walks unbound. The Hallows... they answer to him, not the gods. Not even the Great Other—”
“Silence!” The word echoed through the tower, shaking dust from the ancient stones. The Undying Ones stilled, their collective breath rattling like dead leaves.
The eldest raised a trembling hand. In his palm, a vision swirled: the man with silver hair standing at the edge of a frozen shore, the waves turning to ash at his feet.
“He will shatter the balance,” one whispered. “We must align with the old powers. The King Beyond Death… the Drowned One...”
A younger warlock spoke, trembling: “Euron Greyjoy already listens to them. Already walks the bridge between sky and sea. He is the vessel. Let him strike.”
“Then the pact is sealed,” the eldest hissed. “The Night King will rise again. With the Drowned God and the Eye of the Storm. This claimant must fall.”
The Red Temple of Volantis
Melisandre of Asshai stared into the flames and saw nothing.
The great fire in the temple’s heart had burned ceaselessly for a thousand years, fed by the prayers of slaves and highborn alike. But now, as she knelt before it, the flames dimmed. Not in submission—in recoil.
“Show me Azor Ahai!” she demanded, her voice sharp with fear. “Show me the prince that was promised!”
The fire hissed. For a moment, a figure emerged—a tall man with violet eyes, his hand clasping a wand of blackthorn. Behind him, shadows writhed into shapes no mortal could name: a stag with a crown of antlers, a serpent with a lion’s mane, a phoenix wreathed in green flame.
Then the vision split.
The man’s face fractured. Half became Rhaegar Targaryen, noble and doomed. Half became a boy with a lightning scar, old beyond his years.
“There are two,” the flames whispered. “There is only one.”
Melisandre staggered back, her red robes pooling around her. The ruby at her throat pulsed, hot enough to blister.
“Heresy,” she breathed. “A trick of the Great Other…”
But deep in her heart, where the fire’s truth could not lie, she knew.
The Lord of Light had shown her a heresy of his own.
Harry—Rhaegar?—paused mid-step, the hair on his arms rising. The forest had changed. The air tasted of static, of eyes pressing against his skin from every shadow.
“They’re watching,” Rhaegar’s voice murmured, faint but tense. “The gods. The mages. The hungry things.”
Harry gripped the Elder Wand. Power surged, sharp and eager. “Let them watch.”
A raven cawed overhead. He glanced up, meeting its three-eyed gaze. For a heartbeat, the bird froze, caught between fear and fascination. Then it burst into flames, its ashes scattering like black snow.
Harry smiled.
The cloak billowed. The stone sang. The wand ached.
They stood in silence. Not the silence of emptiness, but the deep quiet of two minds unraveling each other. Slowly, gently, like surgeons peeling back bandages that had long since fused to the wound.
“You loved her,” Harry said. “I did,” Rhaegar replied softly. “Fiercely. Recklessly. Desperately. But love… It wasn't enough.
“I loved Hermione. I think… Maybe I still do. But I don’t know what that means anymore.”
“It means you remember.”
“And you?”
“I remember too much.”
Harry sighed. “So what do we do?”
Rhaegar was quite a long time before answering. “You walk forward. I will remain behind.”
“You’re giving me control?”
“Yes. I am a song that ended. You… you might still write one worth singing.”
Harry looked to the North. The horizon was still dark, but a line of light glimmered faintly.
“The Others,” he said at last.
“Yes,” Rhaegar confirmed. “They are the storm behind the silence. The cold beneath the prophecy. I saw them in my dreams.”
“Then that’s our purpose.”
“No. That is your purpose. I am done. But I will not stop you.”
Harry stood tall. Power rippled beneath his skin. The Hallows hummed their approval. The forest bowed.
“I’ll do it my way. No crowns. No songs. No destiny. Just survival.”
And the journey began.