Chapter 17
Chapter 17
On the wave of euphoria of actually being alive, of keeping his magic, Draco didn’t notice many things.
At least for a while.
But there was a point when even the most elated person couldn’t avoid facts.
He was a Stark.
And a Targaryen.
It was a fact.
A constant.
Reality.
Nothing could ever change that.
His questionable legitimacy was beside the point.
Blood is thicker than water after all. And just because Rhaegar Targaryen may have given a naïve Lyanna Stark his cloak without following any proper ceremonial procedures required of royalty, that doesn’t make Draco any less of a Targaryen.
It is actually amusing how that foolish Price expected a daughter. Visenya, as his mother had called him before she realised she had birthed a boy.
Rhaegar didn’t even consider statistics.
Yes, the Starks are virile. But considering the facts? Those that rarely lie? Having one girl being born for every three to four boys is completely normal in a generation of Starks.
Had Rhaegar wanted a daughter so badly, he would have been better off with a Mormont.
But no…
He couldn’t do that.
An ordinary lady, that isn’t betrothed or the daughter of a Lord Paramount is so beneath someone of his station.
Draco has a sneaking suspicion that had his father actually lived, he would have ended up in the exact same position. As a bastard. Because not only would his acknowledgment be an insult to all of Dorne, he was also not the daughter Rhaegar sought.
Legitimised, he would have been a male heir with a claim to the throne.
And that was the last thing anyone wanted.
Except for maybe the young-and-stupid Lyanna Stark.
But for all the troubles he has faced because of his birth, he will not swap his circumstances. Ever.
Because being a child of two rare magical lines in a land of pathetic muggles? It was basically a chance of one in a million.
He doesn’t even want to imagine how he could have had to wake his magic in the body of a muggle. One that not only lacks a magical core, but would deteriorate during the use of any abilities.
Manipulating the body of a near-squib to withstand magic use was difficult enough.
Having to ration and avoid using his abilities out of necessity would have been a never-ending nightmare.
But finally getting his magic back, getting it to work made him feel all-powerful. And he almost payed dearly for his arrogance.
Why had he assumed that just because ‘all magic is gone from Westeros’ according to the Septons, that that statement contains any truth? Because what is he, if not an exception?
So when he began seeing too many crows around him after he turned seven, he didn’t think too much into it. Because why should he care about the mannerisms of some birds. It’s not like Westeros is like his past world where any animal could potentially be an animagus.
He was lucky he enjoyed old Nan’s tales. Being mostly raised by Elves in his previous life, he didn’t get many of those.
But he was used to wizarding tales having a grain of truth to them. Or more than a grain. So when the old woman spun tales of wargs and greenseers and skinchangers and bloodmages and elementals, he listened. And when she told him of the ‘Bloodraven’ Brynden Rivers, the bastard Targaryen who got sent to the Wall and went ‘missing’, Draco remembered.
And so the next time he saw the strange crows, he was ready.
Bloodraven was not.