Chapter Two

It had only been a few days but Hogwarts had already acted as a safe haven for Daenerys. There were warm meals at least three times a day, nobody was screaming at her to be grateful, and she could be out in the fresh air whenever she pleased, instead of being trapped in a room all day. She, also, was able to meet the Stark children; Sansa, Robb, Jon, and Arya. She quite liked all four of the children. Jon and Robb were both very kind. Each of the four nights that the students had been there, Jon and Robb had managed to greet her at dinner, asking how her day was, what she did. She hadn't known them long but she felt as though they were like the older brothers she never had. Sansa seemed nice when she wasn't around Arya at least. Arya was secretly her favorite. Everyday Arya seemed to find her at some point. She'd be walking out of Charms and the girl would swoop in next to her and start to ramble about her latest scheme. Dany loved that here, she wasn't the outcast. She wasn't the crazy kid with supernatural abilities.

Daenerys Stormborn was her legal name, but it couldn't be her real one. She was found outside a muggle orphanage at barely three months old. The only things she was left with were a blanket, a gold pendant necklace with a dragon on it, and a note that only read: "Daenerys." The night she was left on the doorstep of the orphanage, it was storming so hard that a tree had fallen on top of the building. This storm, paired with the fact Daenerys was left without a last name, caused the nun who ran the orphanage to nickname her "Stormborn", which eventually became her last name. At first, Daenerys was treated extremely well at the orphanage. She was always told that she was so pretty that she'd have no problem getting adopted. However, when she was around two years old, odd things started happening whenever Daenerys was around. The first strange phenomenon happened during dinner time at the orphanage when Dany's plate started to mysteriously levitate out in front of her. After that, every other week or so something of her's seemed to float in the air. The nuns of the orphanage seemed to think that Daenerys was some kind of demon child. They started to lock her in her room, trying to keep her away from the other kids. Things came to a head when some faulty wiring accidentally set the orphanage on fire. All of the children got out, except Dany who was still locked in her room. The nuns thought the girl was dead before they watched her walk through the flames unscathed. After that, the nuns were convinced that Dany was a demon child and made sure she was locked away in her room as much as possible. When Olenna Tyrell herself came to the orphanage, Dany realized that she wasn't as different as she thought. Professor Tyrell explained to Daenerys that she was a witch and offered her a place at Hogwarts, which she graciously excepted.

Today was the start to her first weekend at Hogwarts and she didn't know what to do with herself. She had always been a morning person, so she was up at five in the morning with nothing to do. She started the Saturday by unpacking the rest of her belongings. However, she had never had many things so this task only took her a few minutes. She moved on to rereading all of her notes from her classes yet, again, since it was only the beginning of the school year, there weren't very many things to go over. She, then, just sat on the floor in front of her bed, messing around with a deck of cards that Arya had given her the day before. All of a sudden, one of the cards in the deck exploded. Dany yelped, looking sheepishly around at her roommates. Three of the other girls in the dorm glared at her and covered themselves with their blankets. One girl, Dany remembered her name was Missandei, got up out of bed and sat down next to the other girl.

"Are those Exploding Snaps?" The girl asked pointing to the card deck in Daenerys's hand. Dany shrugged, shoving the cards back into their box.

Missandei picked up on Dany's embarrassment. "Do you want to come to the common room with me? I'm bored and it's too early to get breakfast." Daenerys nodded. Missandei went over to her suitcase and pulled out a bag of cookies, a box of tea, and two mugs. Dany followed the other girl into the Hufflepuff Common Room. Dany liked the Hufflepuff Common Room, the colors were bright and cheerful--much different than her room at the orphanage. The two girls sat down on a couch near the fireplace.

"Would you like any tea? Or cookies, maybe?" Missandei asked placing the carton of cookies and mugs out on the table in front of them. "Uh, tea would be nice, thank you." Missandei smiled in response and with a flick of the wand both cups were filled with hot water. Dany's eyes widened, "Oh my god! How did you do that?!"

Missandei looked at the other girl, confused. "Didn't your parents show you how to make tea?" Dany thought back to the orphanage and how the nuns would try to use scalding water on her hands to teach her lessons. Of course, this did not affect Daenerys but it was hurtful that they would even try to hurt her. Dany shook her head no. "Oh, well it's not that hard. I can show you sometime if you want."

"That'd be nice, thank you Missandei." Dany grinned sweetly at the other girl. Missandei smiled back, taking a sip of her tea. Daenerys picked up the other mug and brought it to her lips. "Be careful, Daenerys. It's probably still pretty hot." Dany paid no mind to the other girl's warning and look a full gulp of the scalding tea. She placed the mug back down of the table and turned to be met with Missandei's wide eyes, "How'd you do that?! I barely took a sip and it burned my tongue!" Dany shrugged, "I don't know. It wasn't that hot." Missandei eyed her skeptically but let it go.

For the next few hours the two girls sat with each other, laughing. Missandei learned that Daenerys loved cookies and Dany learned that Missandei spoke five languages and was learning more. It was nice for Dany to talk to Missandei because Missandei was a Hufflepuff like her. She felt like Missandei and she would be close friends once they got to know each other better. After a few hours of talking, Missandei and Dany walked to the Great Hall together to get breakfast. At breakfast, Daenerys was pleased to find that they were serving bacon, one of her favorite foods. Missandei chuckled a little bit as she watched her inhale the bacon on her plate. At breakfast, Daenerys saw Jon and Robb. They waved to her from their spot at the Gryffindor table. Dany waved back to them enthusiastically. She, also, saw Sansa walk into the Great Hall with a bunch of girls from Ravenclaw trailing behind her like puppies. Dany waved to Sansa and got a nod of the head in acknowledgment. She looked around to see if she could find Arya but the girl was nowhere to be found. A little disappointed, Daenerys turned back to her plate and shoved another handful of bacon into her mouth.

"You know the Starks?" Missandei asked, surprised. Daenerys nodded and through a mouthful of bacon said, "We met on the train."

"Y'know about their Dad, right?" Dany shook her head, a bit confused. "Ned Stark? He was one of the Aurors who killed the Mad King."

"The Mad King? Who's he?" Dany asked. Missandei choked on the juice she was drinking. "Daenerys, you're joking with me, right?" Dany shook her head. Missandei leaned in closer as her voice got quiet, "The Mad King was an evil wizard who tried to kill anyone he saw as unfit to be magical. My dad told me that he had a dragon that he used to burn people alive," Daenerys shuttered, clutching onto the gold dragon pendant around her neck," apparently, Ned Stark and Jamie Lannister somehow sneaked into the cave he was hiding. Jamie killed the Mad King and Ned captured one of his sons and took him to Azkaban. But," Missandei leaned even closer and her voice got even quieter, "it's rumored that he had more children who escaped that cave."

Daenerys's hands shook as she reached for her glass of juice. She hoped she would never run into one of the Mad King's children here. After the two girls finished breakfast, Missandei waved goodbye to Daenerys telling her that she needed to go to the library to meet up with one of her other friends. Dany decided to take a walk outside. It was a rare sunny, autumn day at Hogwarts and many of the students were taking advantage of it. As Daenerys walked along the grass, she watched as a group of older students threw a Fanged Frisbee at each other. She smiled as she watched the kids laugh and play freely in the grass. It had always been one of Daenerys’s dreams to have friends like that.

“HEY!” A voice shouted from behind her. Dany jumped a little before turning around to find Arya running towards her.

“What’re you doin’?!” Arya asked once she caught up with her. “Are you busy? If not, you wanna go do something with me?!”

“I was just taking a walk,” Daenerys stated, “what’re you going to go do?” Arya smirked and leaned in closer to the other girl. “I’m gonna go to the Forbidden Forest.”

“Arya! We’re not supposed to go in there!” Dany exclaimed Arya shrugged. “Well, I’m gonna go whether you come or not.” The smaller girl started to walk away from Daenerys.

If she had been thinking rationally, Dany probably would’ve just stayed where she was. Yet, a part of her brain told her that going with Arya would be an adventure, she had never gotten to go on one of those before. So, she ran after the Stark girl.

“So you’re not a chicken!” Arya exclaimed, grinning. Daenerys shrugged, “I’ve never seen a forest.”

“They don’t have forests in the Cadbury??” Arya gasped, feigning shock. Dany shoved her lightly but smiled to herself as they kept moving toward the forest. They carefully made sure no one was watching as they snuck through the trees. The forest was much scarier than Dany thought it would be. Weird noises were coming from every direction and the trees looked like they were watching her as she nimbly followed Arya through the woods. They came to a clear after about twenty minutes of walking. There was a lot to the side of the clearing that Arya and Daenerys decided to sit on as they rested for a bit.

“I heard a story about your dad, today.” Dany said, catching Arya’s attention. “Which story? There’s a lot of ‘em.”

“The one about him killing the Mad King. Is it true?” Arya nodded her head, a little confused. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard about the Mad King before.” Daenerys shrugged her shoulders and grinned, “There’s not much news in Cadbury.”

Both girls laughed at the joke. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment before Dany asked, “Is it true? The rumor about the children?”

Arya looked at Dany, hesitantly. “All I know is that the Mad King for sure had three children, two boys, and a girl. The oldest son is in Azkaban, his name is Rhaegar Targaryen and he has the highest amount of security in the prison. It’s a mystery what happened to the other two children and my dad has never answered my questions about them.”

Dany nodded, an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes drifted off to look at a weirdly uneven bush sitting not far from where the two girls were sitting. She stood up and walked over to the bush, kneeling next to it. Daenerys stuck her hand in the bush and felt a strange, bumpy, oval-shaped object sitting in the middle of the bush.

“Dany? What’re you looking at?” Arya called out as Dany’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion. “I’m not too sure!” She responded, using both hands to pull out the large oval shape. Arya gasped as Daenerys pulled the thing out of the bush.

“Holy Merlin, Dany! Do you know what that is?!” Dany shook her head. “It’s a dragon egg!” Daenerys’s eyes widened as she looked at the large egg in her hands. It was jet black with what looked to e scales surrounding the entirety of the thing. Dany peered over the bush again and gasped. She carefully set down the jet black egg and pulled out two more from the bush: one green, one gold. Arya’s eyes widened, cartoonishly.

“What are we gonna do with them?!”

Dany picked up the jet black egg and carefully hugged it to her chest. “I think we should keep them.”