Chapter 1: The Shadow of the Mad King, The Hunger of the Serpent
The raven had arrived under a bruised sky, its black feathers mirroring the grim tidings it bore. Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, had been in the godswood, the ancient heart of his ancestral home, seeking solace beneath the solemn face of the heart tree. The air, usually crisp with the scent of pine and snow, felt heavy, suffocating, even before the maester's trembling hands had unrolled the damning scroll.
He'd read the words, each a hammer blow against the fragile shield of hope he'd clung to. Rickard Stark, his father, Warden of the North, summoned to King's Landing to answer for the alleged treason of his eldest son, Brandon. Brandon, his wild, beloved brother, whose only crime had been a fiery, youthful rage, a demand for justice for their sister Lyanna, spirited away by the Targaryen prince.
The ink on the parchment swam before his eyes. "...found guilty of conspiring against the Iron Throne... executed by order of His Grace, King Aerys II Targaryen... Brandon Stark, for his part in the treasonous plot and for threatening the life of the Crown Prince, also met the King's justice..."
Justice. The word was a vile mockery. His father, a man of unwavering honor, burned alive in his own armor while Brandon, forced to watch, strangled himself with a Tyroshi device, desperately trying to reach a sword placed just beyond his grasp to save his father. The sheer, calculated cruelty of it stole the breath from Eddard's lungs.
A wave of nausea, cold and cloying, rose from the pit of his stomach. The faces in the godswood – the stern, carved visage of the heart tree, the concerned blur of Maester Walyskan's features, the distant, anxious expressions of his household guards – began to distort, to melt like wax figures too close to a flame. The ground, solid and familiar beneath his leather boots, seemed to tilt, to rush upwards to meet him.
He heard a cry, distant and muffled, perhaps his own. The world narrowed to a pinpoint of agonizing light, then winked out into an abyss of suffocating darkness. Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, a man renowned for his stoic resolve, pitched forward, unconscious before he even struck the snow-dusted earth.
It was in this precise moment of absolute vulnerability, as Eddard's soul teetered on the precipice between the living world and the terrifying unknown, that another presence, ancient and infinitely malevolent, sensed an unparalleled opportunity.
Lord Voldemort, or what remained of him, was a wraith of pure, unadulterated darkness, a shadow clinging to the tattered edges of existence. Decades had passed since his corporeal form had been shattered by the rebounding Killing Curse meant for the infant Harry Potter. He had endured, a parasitic spirit, flitting from host to host, each possession a degrading, weakening experience. His Horcruxes, the anchors of his fractured soul, were scattered, their security an ever-present anxiety. He craved a return to power, a permanent vessel, a way to transcend the pathetic state to which he had been reduced.
For years, he had drifted, drawn by whispers of potent magic, of ancient rituals, of places where the veil between worlds thinned. He had felt the echoes of great, terrible events, the psychic screams of dying civilizations, the faint but alluring scent of potent souls. The execution of Rickard and Brandon Stark, the sheer despair and outrage rippling outwards from Westeros, had been a beacon in the otherwise murky expanse of his non-existence. He had been drawn, a moth to a uniquely volatile flame.
He had observed, unseen, the unfolding tragedy in King's Landing. The Mad King's paranoia, the fear, the brutal displays of power – these were familiar, almost comforting, to a being like Voldemort. But it wasn't Aerys who interested him. It was the raw, unadulterated grief, the potent life force, the inherent, ancient magic he sensed clinging to the Stark lineage.
When Eddard Stark collapsed, his spirit momentarily untethered, Voldemort struck.
He was not aiming for mere possession; that was a temporary, flawed solution. He sought something far more profound, a ritual he had only dared to theorize about from fragments of forbidden lore – the complete devouring and assimilation of a soul, not just its suppression. He needed not a puppet, but the very essence of another, to be woven into his own, to bolster his diminished power, to grant him access to abilities and strengths he did not inherently possess.
The process was an agony beyond mortal comprehension, both for the devoured and the devourer.
As Eddard's consciousness drowned, Voldemort, a tendril of living shadow, pierced the fragile barrier of the young Lord's mind. It was not a physical intrusion, but a spiritual one, a violation on the most fundamental level of being. Eddard's soul, reeling from the shock and grief, found itself ensnared by a cold, coiling hunger that radiated an ancient, terrifying intelligence.
Memories, raw and vivid, were the first to be torn away. The biting winds of the North, the stern but loving gaze of his father, the boisterous laughter of Brandon, the gentle smile of Lyanna, the quiet strength of his mother Lyarra. Winterfell, its grey stones a testament to centuries of Stark rule, the rustle of leaves in the godswood, the weight of Ice, the ancestral Valyrian steel greatsword, in his hands. His fostering in the Vale under Jon Arryn, the cautious friendship with Robert Baratheon, their shared grief and burgeoning anger. Each memory was ripped from Eddard's essence, examined with cold curiosity by Voldemort, and then absorbed, becoming a part of his own vast, dark repository of knowledge.
Voldemort experienced the fierce loyalty of the Northmen, the deep-seated honor that was as much a part of Eddard as his own blood. He felt the profound love for family, the sting of betrayal, the crushing weight of responsibility. These were alien concepts, yet fascinating in their intensity. He tasted Eddard's courage, his resilience, his quiet determination – qualities he could twist, could utilize.
Then came the inherent abilities. The Starks were an ancient line, touched by the magic of the First Men. Latent within Eddard's soul, barely awakened but undeniably present, was the greensight – the ability to perceive past, present, and future events through prophetic dreams and visions. It was a flicker, a mere spark compared to the infernos of power Voldemort had once wielded, but it was different. It was a magic tied to the earth, to blood, to the old gods of this strange new world. Voldemort, a master of the arcane arts of his own world, recognized its potential immediately. This was not the structured, wand-dependent magic he knew. This was primal, intuitive.
As Eddard's memories and abilities were siphoned, Voldemort felt a surge, a hideous, exhilarating influx of power. It was not merely the addition of another soul fragment; it was a qualitative change. Eddard's life force, his inherent magical potential, however nascent, acted as a potent catalyst, reigniting dormant embers within Voldemort's own ravaged spirit. His connection to his distant Horcruxes seemed to thrum with renewed vigor. The shadowy form he inhabited felt less tenuous, gaining a horrifying substance.
But the assimilation was not a one-way street. While Voldemort was the predator, the act of devouring such a distinct and honorable soul had an unforeseen consequence. Fragments of Eddard Stark – his ingrained sense of duty, his stubborn adherence to principle, the echoes of his love and grief – began to bleed into Voldemort's own consciousness. It was like swallowing ice and fire simultaneously. The cold, calculating ambition of Salazar Slytherin's heir found itself uncomfortably juxtaposed with the unwavering integrity of a Stark.
The Maester and the guards rushed towards their fallen lord, their faces etched with alarm. Maester Walyskan knelt, his old hands checking for a pulse, for breath. "My lord! Lord Eddard!"
But the eyes that fluttered open were not entirely Eddard Stark's.
A maelstrom of conflicting thoughts and sensations raged within the newly occupied mind. Voldemort, now looking out through Eddard's eyes, saw the concerned faces, the snowy ground, the ancient, watching heart tree. He felt the chill of the Northern air on skin that was now his. He felt the thudding of a heart that was now his.
This body… young, strong… untainted by dark rituals… yet.
He also felt the phantom ache of Eddard's grief, a raw, gaping wound in his newly acquired psyche. It was an irritating, distracting sensation, yet it was accompanied by a fierce, burning anger that resonated with Voldemort's own capacity for hatred. The Mad King. Aerys Targaryen. The name echoed with Eddard's fury and Voldemort's contempt for foolish, unstable tyrants who were not him.
The executions… my father… my brother… The thought, undeniably Eddard's, surfaced with painful clarity. Voldemort suppressed a sneer. Attachments. Weaknesses. Yet, the injustice of it, the sheer barbarity, provided a convenient, pre-packaged casus belli.
As the maester helped him to a sitting position, murmuring anxieties, Voldemort accessed the fresh flood of Eddard's knowledge. He understood the political landscape of Westeros, the grievances of the great houses, the simmering resentment against the Targaryen dynasty. He saw the path ahead, not as Eddard would have seen it – a path of grim duty and painful retribution – but as a landscape of unparalleled opportunity.
These primitive fools and their squabbles for a metal chair… he thought, a familiar arrogance stirring. But this world… it has its own magic, its own power sources… and I am uniquely positioned to exploit them.
And then, a truly astonishing realization dawned, not from Eddard's memories, but from a deeper, more intrinsic understanding that had accompanied the soul-merging. It was as if the act of consuming Eddard's Northern magic had unlocked a hidden compartment within his own dark knowledge.
The Philosopher's Stone.
Not his Philosopher's Stone, the one Flamel had created, the one he had so desperately sought. But a Philosopher's Stone. Or rather, the immediate, intuitive knowledge of how one might be… acquired… or even created in this new reality, perhaps through a perversion of the Old Gods' magic, or some Valyrian sorcery Eddard's ancestors had brushed against. The certainty of its attainability settled into his mind, a cold, hard gem of understanding. With Eddard's robust health and his own mastery over life and death, longevity, true immortality, felt closer than ever.
And then, another layer of awareness, far more staggering.
The Deathly Hallows.
The words resonated not from Eddard's knowledge of Stark legends or Northern myths, but from a profound, soul-deep recognition that transcended worlds. As if the violent fusion of two souls from different realities, one steeped in the magic of the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone (even if he had not fully mastered them), had created a unique resonance. He didn't see the Hallows physically before him, but he felt their conceptual blueprint, their echoes in the magical fabric of this new universe. The Elder Wand's power, the Resurrection Stone's call, the Cloak's elusiveness – they were not just objects, but principles of power, and he sensed their equivalents, or the means to forge them, within this realm. Perhaps the Valyrian steel of Ice held a whisper of the Elder Wand's supremacy. Perhaps the necromantic whispers of the barrows near Winterfell held a key to a different kind of Resurrection Stone. Perhaps the silent, watchful nature of the weirwoods could inspire a Cloak of unparalleled stealth.
His magic, already bolstered by Eddard's life force, felt… amplified, twisted into new, potent configurations. The raw, earthy magic of the greensight was now intertwined with his sophisticated, destructive dark arts. He could feel the nascent stirrings of visions, not just the vague premonitions Eddard might have experienced, but something sharper, clearer, tinged with his own ambition. He saw glimpses: a crown of ice, a throne of bones, a world cloaked in a long, unending night, with him at its frozen heart.
"My lord, you are unwell. We must get you inside," Maester Walyskan urged, his voice pulling Voldemort from his internal revelations.
Voldemort focused on the maester. He needed to play the part of Eddard Stark, at least for now. The grief, so alien yet so potent, was a useful mask. He allowed a flicker of Eddard's pain to surface in his expression, a haunted look to enter his new eyes.
"The news… my father… Brandon…" he murmured, his voice raspy, a perfect imitation of Eddard's tone, yet underscored by a chilling emptiness only he was aware of.
"A monstrous crime, my lord. An outrage," Walyskan agreed, his own eyes filled with sorrow and anger.
Voldemort allowed himself to be helped to his feet. The body felt strong, capable. Younger than his last true form, unmarred by the serpentine degradation his dark magic had inflicted. He looked down at his hands – Eddard's hands – broad, calloused, the hands of a warrior and a lord. They felt… good.
This Stark… he was well-regarded. Honorable. Trustworthy. Voldemort almost laughed. The irony was exquisite. He, Lord Voldemort, the most feared Dark Lord of his age, now wore the guise of a paragon of virtue. It was a disguise more perfect than any Polyjuice Potion.
His mind, a terrifying fusion of his own ruthless intellect and Eddard's intimate knowledge of this world, began to work with lightning speed. Robert Baratheon. Jon Arryn. A rebellion was inevitable. Eddard Stark would have been a key figure, a reluctant leader driven by duty and grief. Voldemort would be a leader too, but his motives would be far grander, far darker.
He would play the grieving son, the avenging brother. He would rally the North, call the banners. He would forge alliances, manipulate emotions, and when the time was right, he would seize not just a kingdom, but the very soul of this world. The Deathly Hallows, the Philosopher's Stone, the unique magic of this realm – they would all be his.
The greensight offered a tantalizing glimpse: dragons, fire, ice, and a darkness that would make the Long Night seem like a summer dawn. And he, Voldemort, formerly of a world with quaint notions of good and evil, now with the honorable shell of Eddard Stark and the ancient power of the North stirring within him, would be its master.
"Maester," Voldemort said, his voice now firmer, laced with a cold resolve that would be mistaken for grim determination. "Summon my bannermen. There are arrangements to be made. Aerys Targaryen will answer for this. He will learn what it means to rouse the fury of the North."
But as he spoke Eddard's words, felt Eddard's simmering rage, within him, the ancient, cold serpent that was Lord Voldemort smiled. The fury of the North would be nothing compared to the horrors he was about to unleash upon this unsuspecting world. The game had changed. The players were new. But the ultimate prize remained the same: power. Absolute and eternal.
He was no longer just a wraith. He was Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, a man with a destiny. And he was Lord Voldemort, a being poised to conquer a new reality. The fusion was complete. The monster wore a hero's face.
The first, chilling snowflakes of a long, unnatural winter began to fall as he strode towards the great keep of Winterfell, his mind already light-years beyond the petty squabbles of men, envisioning empires built on shadow and fear, sustained by magic both ancient and terrifyingly new. The warnings of the greensight, once Eddard's burden, were now Voldemort's tools. He saw the path, littered with both peril and immense power. The game for Westeros was about to begin, but the true game, Voldemort's game, spanned worlds and lifetimes, and he had just made his most audacious move yet.
This body, this name, this destiny – they were his now. And the world would tremble.