A Wandering Melody (HP SI, ASOIAF Crossover)

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123 AC, Dragonstone

Larys Strong had all but run away from the cursed fortress, his heart beating loudly, each breath becoming more uneven than the last. The only reason he hadn't run away was because of his clubbed feet. He needed to stay away from the monster in human skin, of this sorcerer that he had foolishly tried to slay once.

And to think that he'd been optimistic when he'd arrived at the shores of this cursed island. The King's newfound health had spread chaos across a realm that had been preparing itself for an inevitable war, which, in a way, Larys had helped arrange.

He'd mostly done it as a form of spite to his father, the man who could barely look at him, the man who had killed his wife with his birth. Larys had tried many times to make his father proud. He had trained his mind when his body failed him, studied every whisper of courtly intrigue, and memorised every line in every book his brother discarded. But it had never been enough. Harwin was the knight. Harwin was the heir. Harwin was the Strong.

Larys had only been the shadow that lingered behind.

Before they were invited to go to King's Landing, Harwin had asked his father for his blessing to join the Citadel, to become a Maester, an honourable way to rid himself of the taint of his disability, of the memory of the woman who had been his mother, whom he had robbed of life with his birth.

Alas, Lyonel Strong refused, claiming that he would only consider it when his brother had heirs of his own, that his position as the spare was too important.

Harwin Breakbones, the strongest knight of the realm, his father thought that he could do no wrong. Even as he fucked the Princess, the supposed heiress to the Iron Throne, even when he fathered bastards from her loins, not just one but many, never did his father look disappointed or think less of the man.

Larys had begged Harwin once to find a woman to marry and father a son, to set Larys free of the position he was in, to finally become someone other than the crippled son of the Hand of the King.

His brother looked him in the eye and lied. When Jacaerys Velaryon was born with his brother's pug nose, Larys knew that he would never be free.

He knew that the world would never be kind to him, that he would always be powerless until he brought power to himself.

And so, he subtly made allies in court, made himself indispensable by trading information. It was a slow process, one that took years, but it had worked. He slowly gained the trust of the queen, who was all but alone in her corner, fighting for her children's rights. He'd passed enough information to her to strengthen her position in the Small Council, and his father had noticed. No, his father had started to worry, but there was little he could do but send Larys away, fully knowing that he would simply join the Citadel regardless, leaving him with only Harwin to carry on his cursed legacy, a man who didn't seem in a hurry to father any heirs.

Larys wished to topple even his father's position, to make him feel as helpless as he did every day, overshadowed by a cripple son, and it was slowly working. Rumours started to spread regarding the parentage of the princess's children, and Harwin was sent away to Harrenhall, dismissed as Princess Rhaenyra's sworn shield. His father accompanied him, knowing that he had a hand in fanning the flames. Larys knew that his father would force Harwin to marry and finally father an heir, after which, he would rid himself of Larys.

He'd welcomed the incoming bout, calculating the outcomes.

Then his brother and father died in a fire in Harrenhall.

Larys never truly hated Harwin, despite the resentment while growing up, and what his refusal had done to him. In a way, he was thankful for the fool; if Larys had gone to the Citadel, he would have never found how much he enjoyed the games of court. After all, what was a Maester's chain before the excitement of the game of wits with kingdoms and lives at stake with every move?

He mourned his brother. He mourned the boy he had once cared for. But in his surprise, it was the loss of Larys' father that hurt him the most. He missed the game they'd played in King's Landing, the subtle battle between them, unseen by most. It was the first time Larys truly delighted in anything, the first time he felt truly alive, and it was never the same after his father's death.

Unlike what many people thought, Larys hadn't killed them, but he suspected who had, the only child of his father's that he had failed more than Larys himself, Alys Rivers, his bastard daughter.

Alys Rivers was always odd, speaking in riddles more often than not. She was a woman grown by the time Larys was born, having decided to become a Woods Witch, to his father's ire. He's always hidden her away, like an awful secret that he wished had never happened. Alys had never truly seemed affected, despite the fact that after her mother's death as a child, she'd been cared for by the midwives in the castle, with her father barely ever speaking with her. He'd left her some gold, and that was it.

Larys found some sort of kinship with her, the half-sister whose father seemed to dislike as much as him. Alys, herself, seemed somewhat disinterested until he had shown himself to be a Skinchanger. It was a skill he had found by accident in his youth, when he walked through the eyes of a rat. His sister had been excited and taught him what she knew of the skill, how to control many creatures at once, and much more. She, herself, was not born with this ability, but had confessed to Larys to being a witch herself, from what she had shown him, Larys believed her.

He had seen her curse a guard who had killed a farmer in greed and bloodlust. The man perished days later from a disease that baffled the Maester. He had seen her whisper to bones and coals and receive answers of events in return, events that the world hadn't seen yet. He had seen her speak to the wind, and it listened. It was Alys who taught him to use his gift not just for spying, but for influence. A rat in every wall, a bird in every hall, a voice in every ear. She showed him how to build a kingdom of whispers and lies.

She also taught him that there was power in blood, which was related to lineage in some way. King's Blood was best, according to her, but she was always resistant to teaching him these rituals, not that Larys would not have done the same. But that did not mean that he didn't catch a few of Alys' mutterings, enough to know the value of sacrifice and blood, enough to know what Alys could gain with the death of his father and brother.

This was also why, when the King was healed by a sorcerer, the first thing that crossed Larys' mind was what the river of blood that the man had to shed to heal a single foolish man, one that could die the very next day from another illness or poison.

In a way, Larys was glad that someone came and changed things, not for the good of the realm, of course, but because of the potential of another player, of a worthy opponent in his game. Larys had gotten bored after his father's death and Otto Hightower's return. Queen Alicent had asked her father to reward Larys by making him Master of Whisperers. Yet even the Hand was not a good player, a competent ruler, of course, but with the King's condition, he had been too preoccupied with ruling the realm and trying in vain to turn Aegon into a good future king. The Queen was so easy to play. Her paranoia and hatred of Rhaenyra, which her father cultivated, had made it easy to provoke any reaction he wished from her.

There was no excitement anymore. Chipping away whatever influence Rhaenyra had was trivial, at best. There was no game, really, not like the one he had played with his father. His only entertainment came in the form of the Lady Misery, a whore who had risen quite high in King's Landing, enough to spread some influence. The fact that she had once been Prince Daemon's paramour likely had a hand in her rise, yet Larys couldn't help but respect her grit, even if her influence was dwarfed by his own.

So, when this sorcerer appeared out of nowhere, a part of Larys relished in the fact that the game had changed. Otto would no longer be Hand, and he wondered if Rhaenys would be a good opponent to have. Would the Sea Snake?

And yet, that joy was dwarfed by the fear that he'd be fighting someone like Alys, someone who could see through him, as she did, someone who could end the game that he relished so much. And so, he made a contract with a sect of Shadowbinders in Asshai, which his baseborn sister had mentioned once. How she knew of them, Larys did not know; he had given up learning of them soon. He gave them a price that they would only dream of, the blood of Aegon Targaryen, a descendant of the Conqueror himself, and Uthor of the High Tower through his mother.

After all, in the world of magic, blood was currency, and King's blood was worth all of the gold in Casterly Rock. He expected the Shadowbinders to salivate over it, and he was proven correct when they accepted.

Of course, he did not expect that they'd try to kill the sorcerer on the exact day that Larys would come. It was akin to a bad jape from the gods, but the Shadowbinders must have been there for some time, trying to kill the man, who had some sort of protection from their sight. Of course, the man had killed the Shadowbinders in seconds and seemed mostly focused on being disappointed in their magic rather than worried about the assassination attempt.

Larys, on the other hand, was simply shocked, much like the other spectators, but not for the same reason. Seven Shadowbinders. The man had slain seven Shadowbinders who hadn't even been in the same room. He remembered the tales of them, mages who were unstoppable and undetectable once they had a target, and the man had killed them in seconds, from the sounds of it, and they had died, screaming, turning into husks with a wave of the man's fingers.

It was then that Larys realised that Harry Potter was not like Alys Rivers. He outstripped her by far.

He should have left things be. He knew that.

But he simply couldn't.

He used his Skinchanging to try to spy on the man's conversation with the Velaryons once more, and found some resistance in approaching, like fighting the rat itself into moving forward. He succeeded, only to barely catch the end of a conversation involving Winterfell.

Then the man looked directly at Larys and spoke of Skinchanging, of the magic of the First Men, before Larys felt unbearable pain and found himself being thrown away from the rat's mind.

When he tried later, Larys found himself unable to Skinchange again.

When he tried, he felt the same unbearable pain once more, as if someone was splitting his head open.

It was like he had lost a limb, an extension of himself, and for the first time in years, Larys Strong was afraid. Harry Potter knew that he was a Skinchanger. He had even taken that away from him with nothing more than a glance. He also had to deal with the fact that he had sent Shadowbinders to their deaths, and that meant that they would demand some explanation.

He needed to leave this cursed island, to find a way to restore his Skinchanging, and to stay away from that cursed sorcerer, and the first person that came to mind who could help him was Alys.

And so, Larys had paid a ship and its captain to leave in the middle of the night for Duskendale, and he would rent a Wheelhouse to Harrenhall, alongside the few knights he had brought with him to Dragonstone. He loathed moving without proper planning, but it was better than staying anywhere near that sorcerer.

He took a deep breath as the ship finally started to move, and he walked away, hoping to have some rest in the cabin he had rented, only to freeze as he saw something move in the distance, a small thing that released a faint red glow. It was only for a moment, and it disappeared afterwards.

He shook his head.

Just nerves. Just exhaustion. There had been no glow. Nothing.

He took another step forward, and there it was again, scuttling just out of view, in the corner of his eye. A rat, larger than it should've been, fur black as pitch and eyes like coals left too long in the fire. It was gone the moment he turned.

His steps quickened, his limp worsening with each stride.

Then he saw it again. Something moved by the mast. Another flicker of red eyes, low to the ground, vanishing as quickly as they appeared. The rat was too fast, faster than any creature should be. It darted from one side of the deck to the other, always just barely within his vision, always gone by the time he could turn his head. Not one. Two. Then three. Maybe more. He could hear them now, soft, frantic skittering, like claws tapping in rhythm with his own steps. They were following him.

He tried to still his breath. His grip tightened on the cane. He blinked again. His legs trembled.

Behind him, the claws scraped again. Closer.

He turned, sharply this time, eyes wide.

Nothing.

Then a voice called out, breaking the spell.

"Lord Strong?"

He flinched hard enough to almost drop his cane.

Ser Martyn, a knight in his service, stood nearby, looking at him with concern. "You look pale. Are you alright?"

Larys forced a breath through clenched teeth. "Yes," he rasped, throat dry. "I'm quite alright. Just the sea disagrees with me. I… I will go rest in my cabin."

The knight hesitated but gave a short nod.

Larys turned away, trying to keep his pace calm, but his legs were shaking. He murmured under his breath, fingers twitching at his side. "They're not real. They're not real."

He knew what this was. He had seen Alys do it to a man in Harrenhall who hadn't taken her rejection of his advances kindly. He was found yelling and screaming in the training yard later, and his face paled whenever Alys so much as looked at him.

Illusions could be powerful, and they were also quite commonly used by witches in both Westeros and Essos. The sorcerer must have cursed him somehow. He only had to resist it until Alys would help him. She would demand a price, as she always did. After all, what was magic without sacrifice?

Larys took a deep breath and centred himself. He remembered the exercises Alys had taught him to make himself calm, to give him more control over his Skinchanging.

Slowly but surely, the faint sounds of wood being scratched, the dark rats in the corner of his eyes, faded away. Yes, that was much better.

He walked up the small set of stairs to his cabin, doing his best to maintain his calmness, one stair at a time. His legs and cane made it quite a horrible experience.

By the time he reached the top of the stairs, he couldn't help but let a smile grow on his face. This was proof that the sorcerer wasn't all-powerful, that he could be circumvented. This was a limitation in his abilities, and Larys' mind had overpowered his spell.

Of course, that was when the ship shook violently.

Larys stumbled back, his cane slipping from his grasp. He cried out as his foot missed the step and he fell down the stairs, arms flailing, feeling his bones crack with the fall, before his head hit the bottom and everything turned black.

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AN: Larys is always a bit of a mysterious character, and I decided to play around with the possibility of his motivations. I thought it would be fun to make him someone who became resentful of his father and brother, hoping to become a Maester, only to fall in love in the game. He doesn't even want to win; he just wants to keep playing it and change things up to stop being bored. I'm not sure this aligns perfectly with his character in canon, but this is a bit of an AU. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.