Chapter 60
Chapter 60
While Draco enjoyed his new form, the regular flights that reminded him of his days of Quidditch where he sometimes played on par with the likes of Victor Krum, he still wished for a familiar of his own. Because flying yourself and flying upon something were two very different things. And he was hardly about to harness Lucius.
But now that he knows that he could hatch and bind members of an intelligent magical race, he would hardly settle for a mindless substitute. So he only had one single option left, really. Hatching Basilisks.
Regardless of what some mudbloods preferred to believe, the actual method for hatching the Kings of Serpents was hardly a secret. Yes, old families like the Malfoys gathered more feasible rituals that resulted in bigger, faster, stronger and more intelligent beasts in the manuscripts passed over among the dowries of the brides from the serpent-speaking houses like the Slytherins and Gaunts to then eventually end up in completely unrelated families through gambling, marriage and blood wars. However, without the awakened abilities towards Parseltongue, such rituals were an absolutely useless death trap, as some idiots had learned by hatching uncontrollable Basilisks that first killed their ‘parent’ and then went on a rampage. So seemingly priceless knowledge and books written in the tongue of serpents ended up being a matter of prestige only. Just being there for the sake of showing off. Useless. Unusable. Untouched. Until Draco got his grabby little hands on them, that is.
But in his life as Draco Malfoy, he wasn’t so careless as to try to go through with what he had learnt. Even if the rituals seemed promising. After all, the times had changed and what was once acceptable and even encouraged was now a sure sign of a dark wizard and dark family that would surely be at the very top of the Ministry’s list for extermination. For the priceless family libraries and artifacts to then ‘miraculously’ end up in the Department of Mysteries or even worse, in some mudblood’s private collection.
But Planetos was a very different thing.
It wasn’t like some fools screaming ‘WITCH’ and wielding pitchforks was of any danger or hindrance. And putting it crudely, the Faith of the Seven could shove their opinion up where the sun doesn’t shine. Especially in Essos. Especially since Draco had no intention of ever stepping foot in Westeros again. They had made their bed. It was now time to lay in it. And face the consequences.
It was already obvious that the realm could truly take no more. That the people have had enough. That the smallfolk curse and spit in the privacy of their homes at the mention of the Baratheons or the Lannisters (and their allied houses). That many pray for the miraculous return of the Targaryens. Not out of some kind of sense of loyalty, no. Not in most cases. Especially since most of those truly loyal were either dead or freezing their balls off at the Wall. After all, it had been many years. Long enough for the older generation, the ones that still remembered the Silver Prince and the Mad King in all his glory before his madness, succumb to the inevitability of age.
Because the Mad King may have been mad. But his madness didn’t make him that much worse of a King. Yes, he was paranoid beyond all reason. Yes, he did demonstrate the typical Targaryen obsession with fire. Yes, he replaced any and all execution sentences with burnings. But those things only made him a tyrant. Not a bad King. Because at the end of the day, during the reign of the Mad King, the treasury was full. During the reign of the Mad King, the taxes were three times lower than what they were now. After all, during the reign of the Mad King, most of the smallfolk, even those living in the poorest of regions, still had food on their table. Because the Lords were held accountable. First to a brutal ruler and then to a madman. And the Lords obviously didn’t like that.
So that was how the rebellion truly began.
Many discontent Lords with common interests. A King that refused to abolish all the unpopular laws his own father introduced. Because while Aerys cared little about the small folk, and found giving them rights a laughable concept, he found that some laws, namely those that regulated the taxes and held the Lords accountable were justified. And of course the Lords that were used to generations of free reign in their domains with the King being a distant figurehead that held no power to hold them accountable for anything. More so with the extinction of the dragons.
But in his growing madness, Aerys didn’t see it so.
So the Lords conspired.
Two fosterings.
Three marriage alliances, one of which fell through. But only to the mutual benefit of the conspirators.
The North wanting independence.
The Stormlands wanted the crown.
The Vale – power.
And the Riverlands, political marriages together with beneficial trade contracts.
And so the Dragons fell.
With Draco refusing to associate with them, the formerly prospering house Targaryen was reduced to just one member. A member made important in the Game only though her ‘mothering’ of Dragons. And while Draco didn’t have the extent of her ambitions, he wasn’t ambitionless. Although he wanted nothing to do with the bother of being a conqueror. He was no Gryffindor. Far from it. But if he wanted to build his own empire (hopefully, being a little optimistic) from the ground, up, a concealed and well-protected territory was a good start.
So his desire to hatch some Basilisks fit in very nicely in the grand scheme of things…
Although in his enthusiasm to obtain something he previously thought unobtainable although tempting in being long-forbidden, he may have went a little overboard. Maybe he shouldn’t have done the rituals with something not being just the plain old chicken eggs. But then again, where was he supposed to find chickens in the mountains?! So eagle and even some mutated albatross ??? (that found that the Poison Sea is a lovely breeding ground) eggs he was stuck with.
So if the end result wasn’t quite what he was initially looking for, it was hardly surprising.