If It's True What They Say

“A motorcycle?”

Rhaenys sounded amused, and Sirius spun around. The young woman was wearing an absurdly soft grey sweater that he’d known her to own forever and a pair of black pants she’d patched with bright red bits of heavy fabric. She’d managed to walk through the grass without stumbling on any other the mechanical bits they were studying. She looked like a modern fairy wandering the nearly winter shore, hair tumbling to her knees and lips a bit too red for comfort. (Arianne had given her the damn lipstick, and she wore it when she was nervous. Something about a lady’s armor, that was all he knew.)

“It’s legal. Mostly. Mostly legal,” James said, pushing up his glasses. “We’re mostly experimenting with the petrol tank.”

And by the raised eyebrow, the Ravenclaw he was mad enough to live with caught James’ silent ‘for now’.

“Of course. Dreadfully inconvenient, fuel. Prone to running out at horrible times, from what I’ve heard,” she said. She held up the Daily Prophet. “Have you read this, yet?”

“I wanted to save the soul-crushing despair for after I managed the impossible, thanks.” Sirius stretched, working out a burning feeling in his shoulders.

She nodded before flopping on the grass. “Soul-crushing hits the description pretty well- the Darrys were raided last night. Clegane sent men to do it.” Her smile was vicious. “Apparently Sansa’s cursework from two years ago is still ailing him.”

“Yes, well, burning someone’s eyes tends to do that,” James reflected.

“And the Braxes,” she added. “Andros Brax- the one who handled underage magic cases? He accidentally taught Willas how to get ‘round most of the detection spells. Mostly from overhearing the trouble others go into, but still. Two of the sons- and his brother. All three involved in the DMLE.”

“Any survivors?” Sirius asked. He’d met Brax and his sons- the eldest had been suggested as a match for Andromeda, before she’d run away. He’d been a staunch traditionalist, but more out of habit than actual malice.

“His youngest son and wife were visiting her family,” Rhaenys said after a moment. “At the Twins. She’s Walder Frey’s eldest daughter.”

“And he now inherits everything?” Sirius asked dubiously. Murdering a very elderly relative, he had been taught, was almost acceptable if you didn’t get caught. Murdering and disowning relatives that didn’t agree with you about who qualified as human was a Black Family Tradition, right along with chopping off House Elf heads and everything else.

Arranging for your line to risk extinction for money? Was generally not regarded as acceptable.

“Wonder if one of her brothers arranged it?” she mused. “The Freys have supporters on both sides of the fence.” She rubbed her leg, which Sirius knew was healed from Edwyn Frey and friends’ attack. That didn’t mean that the memory of her face lined with pain and leg oozing would go away soon.

“Why not assume Walder Frey did it?” Sirius asked.

“Because that would assume he sees women as something other than things he can fuck?” Rhaenys asked, voice even and light. But her lip twitched a bit, and something in the set of her eyebrows suggested amusment.

James turned his laugh into a cough.

Sirius shrugged. “Raises prestige, though, doesn’t it? And that’s all he gives a damn about.”

James nodded. “Look at the girls who tried to flirt with Padfoot.”

Sirius blinked. “I don’t remember that.” He didn’t either- girls being a bit annoying, yes, because asking questions about class was fine, but asking when he was trying to lay the groundwork for pranks was irritating.

Rhaenys gave a wicked grin. “Yes, that’s because you were too busy showing off to see the effect you had on people.”

“Anyway, most of them stopped after Rhaenys beat Brienne in the dueling club,” James added. “It wasn’t exactly a proper fight…”

“The words proper and fight should never go together,” Rhaenys said wryly, sitting herself in the grass just outside the debris field. “And Brienne is too sweet and honorable for her own good.” She looked at the sea, a faint scowl on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Sirius asked.

“Madam Whent has officially gone missing, and Harrenhall is supposedly deserted,” she said after a moment.

“Well, it’s cursed, isn’t it? With the war on, no one wants to be in a target and cursed, do they?” James said, tapping the tailpipe with his wand. It glowed a cold blue for a moment before vanishing.

Rhaenys shook her head. “While you have a point… something is just bothering me about it. Not quite sure what, though.”

Something was bothering Sirius about that as well, too. There were stories about Harrenhal, and most stories, no matter how mad, had something real in them.

~

Harrenhal in winter was grey and gloomy.

Harrenhal in summer was also grey and gloomy, but winter gave it that extra air of menace, with cold winds that bit and whistled between buildings and the threat of early night.

“This isn’t half creepy,” Lyanna said, opening one cottage door. She flicked her wand, sending three bright white lights to illuminate the main entrance, spilling into the living area.

There was a pair of boy’s dress shoes, shiny and still new. The boy who lived here- Jaime saw the portrait on the wall, a couple and their son- must have been breaking them in for the holidays.

Tommen and Robin both did that, he remembered, Lysa laughing as they followed Myrcella’s tap dancing instructions. He had a photo of that somewhere.

Brienne’s lumos charm lingered on the shoes, the white light seeming cold and stark. “How are they planning on telling people what happened?”

“They aren’t,” Daeron Singer said shortly. The normally cheerful unspeakable had greeted them with a curt phrase and a map of the area they needed to clear.

“Can you imagine the panic it would cause? There are people calling for evacuation or forced adoptions of muggleborns already,” Jaime added. Cersei had been furious, green eyes seeming to flash in her mood. “If this was told…”

Between murder and flight, there was a decline in Hogwarts attendance already. He’d heard rants from Tyrion and Cersei both on the subject. Lysa had spoken of sending the boys to Beauxbatons, which had made both stomp their feet and plead to stay with their friends.

“If the Department had done the responsible thing, this wouldn’t have happened,” Lyanna snapped, fists hidden by the ends of her sleeves. “They’ve known for months this could happen.”

Jaime chose to enter the kitchen. The family, whoever they had been, had been in the middle of making dinner. There was a turkey in solid fat, and congealed potatoes and butter. There were shards of metal and a stone handle on the tiled floor, and a spray of blood.

“And we hoped it could be contained,” Singer snapped. “That was what the damn patrols were for. How did those fail?”

Lyanna opened her mouth before her eyes sharpened and her head tilted slightly up the stairs. “Brienne?”

“Auror Stark?” Brienne was holding her wand steady, casting a pattern on the wall, showing the hint of legs in shadow. Jaime raised his wand.

“Fire spells,” Daeron said quietly. “Burn the bones, if you value our lives.”

Jaime decided that the white of the corpse had to be a trick of the light. He’d seen bodies that had been left to rot for days. He’d seen inferi. Neither hit the shade of blue-white this had. The eyes were a sharp blue, cold and glowing like a spell.

“Fiendfyre,” Lyanna said swiftly, hitting the dead woman with a spell Jaime hated. The roar of the flames, like the shapes in the curse…

It lasted a few minutes before Lyanna let up.

The wight hadn’t screamed, and Jaime had been so distracted by the contortions that she had been making and the wolves and chimeras that he hadn’t noticed the slide of metal and the long, pale form behind him.

Brienne had, lashing out with the bluebell flames that were taught to seemingly every girl at Hogwarts, hitting it in the sword arm. It steamed a bit, but otherwise had no effect on the reflective, mirror-like armor.

Jaime turned enough to use a narrow fire spell, aiming for the complicated knee portions of the armor.

This made it scream, a high thin cry that seemed to pierce their eardrums and wanted to make them suffer.

Jaime grinned and lashed out again, wrapping the fire around the creature’s throat and watching it scream more.

It dropped the sword, a crystal-like thing as delicate and spindly as the armor. Hoping that dragonhide gloves were enough to prevent any damage, he scooped it up.

He’d been taught to use a sword from a young age, when Cersei had been taking rhetoric lessons. Part of it was family tradition- it didn’t matter if wands were more efficient, swords were more imposing, and killed what some spells couldn’t.

Part of it was his father’s ambition on getting a Valaryian steel blade in Lannister hands. After Brightroar had vanished in the company of some roving wizard years ago, all they had left was the display case.

Jaime had been very good with the sword. And the dragonhide protected him from the waves of cold the creature was giving off.

The sword cut through the crystalline armor, through flesh and bone, taking off the creature’s arm at the elbow.

The wound didn’t bleed, much. There was a sluggish flow of ichor, sizzling on the stiff red robes.

It was still standing, head tilted as if studying them.

“Well, fuck,” Jaime said as Daeron apparated away. “Ideas?”

Lyanna closed her eyes and flicked her wand, a silver wolf harrying the creature. Summoning thoughts of golden curls and wildfire eyes, Jaime’s lion flanked it, the armour making shrieking sounds whenever a Patronous got too close. Brienne was aiming her wand up the stairs, where there were more footsteps.

Eventually the armor cracked, and Jaime had a moment’s glimpse of dead-white skin and shocking blue eyes before the creature started melting.

“Accio!”

Nothing happened for one wild moment, except the creature making a lightening quick move that seized the blade and twisted.

The ice seemed to shatter and reform, leaving Jaime with a broken stump of a blade and the creature with a blade that was shorter and less elegant, with a jagged barb tipping it.

How dangerous could something missing half a thigh, and arm, and a foot be?

Then there was a blade coming down, and Jaime’s wand was on the floor, fingers still locked around it.

His patronus vanished, the lion seeming to give a mournful cry.

~

“Come on, stupid,” came a familiar cry. Danaerys sighed and wondered if she should interfere. Arya was willful and proud, and someone had taught her magic well above her year.

One day she would strangle Jon. Or perhaps curse him, turn him into something that wouldn’t teach Arya new ways of “defending herself”.

She walked slowly into the large empty classroom that Renly and his lot had turned into a private sanctuary, seven years ago. Various people had put their own stamp on it- Dany had asked the house elves for cushions to sit on, Tyrion and Sarella had gathered most of the spare books on the shelves Willas had transfigured. Jeyne Westerling had found the curtains, slightly motheaten and most likely red at one point, they had faded to a dusty pink and blocked out the windows, as well as making a small private chamber for someone who could not stay in their dormitory. (Roslin had spent the past few nights in there, after having a fight with some of her relatives. Sirius had spent a week in there two years ago.)

Someone had taken ruined scraps of parchment and stuck them to the stone wall- probably Sam, who was looking up from his homework every few seconds.

There were scorch marks on the wall. Arya, Egg, Shireen, and Ned Dayne- most of the Little Crowd- were standing in the perfect position to have caused them.

“What is going on?” she asked. There was Gendry and Myrcella, a pile of potions texts around them. Bran was perched on one of the bookcases, a book in hand. Meera and the Lannister boys were nowhere to be found. Sansa was reading her charms book, a slightly miserable expression on her face.

“We’re practicing fire spells,” Shireen said gravely. She looked at the scorch marks guiltily. “Father said we should learn, and so did Jon’s mother.”

“Did they say why?” she asked. She wasn’t entirely certain they should be doing this- it was probably against a few dozen school rules.

But Stannis Baratheon was a stickler for the rules, and she had no doubt he told his daughter to practice dangerous spells for a reason.

“Something about an Auror mission gone wrong,” Sansa said, looking up. The Ravenclaw had circles under her eyes, and her bright curls were drooping out of their bun. Someone had left a tray of lemon cakes near the older girl, but they looked untouched. “Mum wouldn’t say, but there were six aurors in the hospital.” She bit her lip, and Dany waited patiently.

Arya looked between the older girls. “What happened, Sansa?” Her hands were on her hips, wand sticking out. Something about it made Sansa shake her head and laugh.

“It’s probably nothing, but Rhaenys sent me an odd letter through Elia,” Sansa said finally. “Sirius was there- apparently James Potter managed to do some stupid stunt and broke his leg- and he said Jaime Lannister lost his hand. And someone- he wasn’t sure- was talking about monsters.”

“He did,” Myrcella frowned. “Mother told me in a letter that he was badly injured, but she didn’t say why. Which is odd- she always tells me stories about Uncle Jaime, since I want to be an Auror.”

“Maybe it was Dementors?” Gendry started- then shook his head. “No…”

“They wouldn’t take his hand, just his soul, stupid” Arya snapped. Myrcella turned white, the third-year looking like she was trying not to imagine her favorite uncle being Kissed.

Sansa sighed. “Arya, apologize to Myrcella.”

Arya’s expression turned mulish and stricken at once, which was par for the course when she said something rash when Sansa was around. “Sorry, ‘cella.”

“It’s alright,” Myrcella said unconvincingly. “Arya has a point, and it wasn’t Dementors that did it- besides, if we’re right and it had something to do with Father insisting on us learning fire spells, then it can’t be. Dementors are only driven away by the patronus charm.”

Dany wondered how long it would be before the study room was filled with silvery wisps. She knew how to cast a weak patronus, because Rhaegar insisted. Rhaenys could do it, and Dany had teased her endlessly over the hound form it took.

Gendry thought this over. “Because fire spells don’t work through the effect dementors have on you?” The boy, who had already picked up the nickname of “Bull”, was clearly trying to get at something.

Egg nodded. “A lot of the stronger ones need you to concentrate on them until you finish dispelling all the flames. If you don’t, they get out of control or fizzle out.” Dany and Egg had spent all their lives knowing that there were two sections of charred ruins he was never to go near- the old Summerhall cottage and the Alchemy lab Dany’s father had destroyed.

“What about muggle weapons? My grandda was talking about some of the weapons he tested in the army- grenades, flamethrowers and stuff. Could be worth a shot,” he shrugged. “You need to aim, not focus.”

Dany thought about this. “I’ll mention it to my brother, perhaps. I don’t think that the Ministry would be happy to lose their feared guards of Azkaban, but I do not think...”

“They can’t be trusted,” Sarella said, entering the study room. Her not-niece was watching the world with her usual detached amusement, gaze aimed at the top of the bookshelf. “I quite agree. Brandon, don’t you?”

Bran jerked at that, glaring at Sarella. “Don’t do that.”

Sarella waited patiently. Dany was almost certain that she only did it because so many of her sisters were loud, and the silence was unnerving by contrast.

“No,” Bran said. “They eat souls, and they stay on Azkaban because they get food brought to them. If they decide they want more…” The boy frowned. “Has it happened before?”

“Sam will know,” Arya said, bounding out the door. Ned followed, looking ruffled and slightly scorched about the sleeves. He was probably hoping that he could keep Arya from shouting her question in front of a crowd. The Ministry had grown fearful of late, and prone to seeing rebellion everywhere.

Well, Dany thought wryly, they really did bring it upon themselves. They helped create the circumstances that brought the Death Eaters and their so-called Lord to power, and were doing very little of use while their people grew frightened and restless.

“This is going to end horribly, and I claim no responsibility for it,” Sansa said as they looked at each other.

Egg snorted.

~

Tyrion reminded himself that he did not want to go to Azkaban. He was far too fond of his comforts, and he was far too fond of Tysha to leave her unprotected.

(Though Willas was a good lad, and would make sure that the Lannister paterfamilias would not kill his younger son’s not-yet-fiancee.)

“Jaime wants you to come,” he told his sister again. Cersei had seen Jaime once while he was unconscious, seen the stump, and promptly walked off.

While it wasn’t entirely unexpected, Jaime actually enjoyed Cersei’s company. After spending so many years as the only person Cersei could stand (who hadn’t come from between her legs), he was having trouble adjusting.  And Tyrion was hoping he could help his big brother in this.

Clearly, he had managed to underestimate Cersei’s cold-bloodedness. Again.

“Father wants a show a support from all the family,” he added. He was stretching the truth- he’d said that he hoped to use this to “realign and strengthen the family interests.” Which probably meant that he wanted Jaime out of the Aurors and into politics.

Which in turn meant that he’d quietly asked Asha Greyjoy about magical prosthetics. She had, surprisingly, agreed to try and get a few good names from her extended family and friends, who tended to work in dangerous fields. She’d promised to have a list before she had to leave for Egypt and the next phase of her curse-breaking training.

“I am busy and will talk to Father later,” Cersei said, gathering up a pile of parchment. “There is a Wizenmagot proposal that is on the table, and no one is entirely sure what the fool is trying to ban.”

“May I try? I have a good deal of experience with fools with wandering wits,” Tyrion said as peaceably as he could.

Cersei tossed the top bit of parchment at it. “You can’t possibly be any worse,” she said with a scowl.

Tyrion looked at the suggestion. “He’s proposing to steal children.”

“I noticed that,” Cersei said, mouth quirked bitterly. “While I agree with some of the proposed actions, and I certainly agree with many of his ideas…” His sister looked almost human. “Could taking away a mother’s child truly be for the best?”

Tyrion raised his eyebrows. “Some would say the wizarding world does that already.” Lily hadn’t been able to see her parents’ funerals, he remembered, and Tysha…

She’d taken him to meet her parents, who had been kind and sweet and who had known so very little of the world their daughter had grown up in. It had been a very odd dinner, as a result.

“All children leave the nest,” Cersei said, not actually agreeing with Tyrion. “But while they are still infants?”

Tyrion thought about that. “They would make it seem as if the child had died?”

“A quick, clean cut,” Cersei said with bitterness. “I can see flaws in it, aside from the obvious. The integrity of the people who place the infants, not to mention the foster parents…”

“It would go badly if the little brats they fought so hard to claim all died,” Tyrion agreed. “What idiocy is Joff planning now?”

Cersei looked at him in surprise and annoyance, and Tyrion wondered why his sister refused to admit that Tyrion knew her moods at all, particularly when she was indulging in her rare bouts of self-pity. He’d learned them young, because Cersei was a fey and unpredictable bitch who was fond of curses.

And he was determined to cut this off at the knees. Cersei’s self-pity could easily turn into something more dangerous.

“I am… not content with the choices he is making,” Cersei allowed. Cersei, normally seeming to be sculpted from ivory and gold, looked wary and weary, swirling her wine absently. He actually thought he saw a hair or two out of place. “I do believe he will see the youthful folly of his ways, though, before this goes too far.”

Seven hells. If she meant what he thought she meant… seven hells, he knew Joff was a mean bastard in all senses of the phrase, but this was taking it to new levels. Joff wasn’t out of school for another year, even.

“Voldemort is not the sort to excuse youthful follies,” Tyrion pointed out. Nor would he be ignorant of the uses that he have for Stannis Baratheon’s supposed son. He’d either end up Bellatrix Lestrange’s protégé or a prominent corpse in a month.

Getting thrown out was worth it, to see the bloodless look of wrath on Cersei’s face.