The snow was falling gently over Narnia when the portkey flared to life in the old granite hall that served as the village's temporary teleportation chamber. A swirl of pale light burst forth in silence—and then, in a single breath, thirty-seven souls arrived.
They stumbled in, some kneeling, others clinging to bags of tools, and a few simply standing in stunned silence. They were no longer slaves. Not here.
Lyanna stood watching from the staircase above, her son in her arms, while Harry Gryffindor stepped forward with calm authority. His presence radiated power, cloaked in a long fur-lined robe, the Gryffindor sigil stitched across his chest—a golden lion wreathed in flame.
The new arrivals looked around, wary, as if unsure whether they'd truly been freed.
Harry raised his voice, his words echoing through the hall. "You are no longer slaves."
Many heads turned toward him, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You were brought here under my command," he said, stepping slowly down the stairs, "not to serve, but to build. To create. To live. You have skills, knowledge, artistry—gifts that this land needs. And you are no longer bound by chains."
He stopped before a tall woman with silver-flecked braids and calloused hands, who clutched a stonecarver's hammer.
"What is your name?" he asked gently.
"Serina," she replied hoarsely. "Of Lys."
Harry smiled. "Serina of Lys, from today you are a free woman of Narnia. And we welcome you as our sister."
A murmur rippled through the gathered freedmen. Some wept silently. Others looked at one another, hesitant hope dawning in their eyes. Lyanna descended the stairs and handed a satchel to one of the wildling stewards.
"These are your names and trades," she told him. "Make sure they are placed near those who can help them find homes, help them adjust."
Harry turned to the gathered people.
"There are families here—wildlings, Essosi settlers, and those who once lived as you did. They will help you settle. And if you choose, you may help us build something greater. A city. A home by the sea. A future."
The snow was thick underfoot, muffling the sound of hundreds of trudging boots. Breath steamed from cold-bitten lips, but no one complained. They walked with purpose—stonecutters and carpenters, hunters and farmers, sailors and mothers. All were headed to the same place.
Harry stood at the front of the long procession, hood down despite the wind, eyes fixed on the white-blue horizon ahead. His gloved hand rested on the smooth, carved horn handle of the staff strapped to his back. Behind him, his shadow stretched long and dark.
The great river—the Antler—shimmered in the winter sun as they reached the harbor, where its wide waters met the endless expanse of the Shivering Sea. Ice clung to the river's edge like jagged teeth, but the current moved strong and deep, a lifeline untouched by the cold.
"This is it," Harry said, halting atop a slope that overlooked the junction of river and sea. "Here, we'll raise the heart of Narnia."
The people gathered behind him, forming a wide semicircle. Some carried sacks of stone, others tools. A few had nothing but their hands, but even they stood with pride.
"This will be a city unlike anything the world has ever known," Harry called out, his voice carrying on the wind. "We're not just building homes. We're building a legacy."
He turned and unfurled a great scroll of parchment. It was pinned to a wide oak board, etched in fine charcoal and drawn with precision—an aerial map of the entire harbor region.
"I've flown over the land," Harry explained, tapping the parchment. "I studied every hill, every bend of the river. We have the space. We have the protection. We have the vision."
He moved his hand to another mark on the map. "Here—a great hall for council meetings. Here—school, not for children. Teaching reading, healing, arithmetic, tradecrafts. And here—public bathhouses.
"You're mad," a mason from the Essosi group whispered in awe. "You want to build a city from the future."
Harry smiled. "No. We'll build a city for our children."
He stepped back and let the map speak for itself.
Silence held for a breath—and then cheers rose like thunder.
"For Narnia!" someone shouted.
"For Gryffindor!"
That afternoon, the first shovels struck earth.
The old builders—mostly Essosi freedmen with years of experience in stonework and carpentry—led the way. But they were quickly joined by farmers, young wildlings, even old crones who carried buckets of snow or helped sort stone.
At one corner of the planned city square, a boy no older than eight stood beside his mother, passing bricks one by one to a builder.
"What's your name, lad?" the mason asked.
"Torren," the boy answered proudly. "I'm helping build my own house."
The mason grinned. "Well then, Torren, let's make it the strongest one on the block."
At the mouth of the Antler River, the land groaned with new life. Wooden stakes hammered into the frozen ground. Stone markers measured distance and alignment. Rope lines stretched in careful grids across the snowy banks. Hammers echoed. Axes rang. Plans were coming to life.
Harry stood atop a tall stone ridge overlooking the soon-to-be capital of Narnia. His cloak flapped in the sea breeze, and his eyes were full of fire and purpose. The vision was no longer just parchment and sketches. Now it had shape, breath, and momentum.
He walked among the people—architects from Lys, stonemasons from Braavos, wildling hunters, Essosi carpenters, former slaves and free folk alike—all working as one. Unity in motion. Progress forged in frost and sweat.
"Every house," Harry explained to the group gathered at the city's center, "will be built to last. Thick stone walls, timber-beamed roofs, insulated against snow and summer heat alike. Each home will have three to four bedrooms—space for families to grow."
He unrolled another scroll and pinned it to a timber post. A sketch of a long row of neat houses, each with chimneys, windows, and garden plots behind.
"There will be proper backyards—every family should be able to raise chickens, pigs, even sheep if they wish," he continued. "You'll grow your own vegetables, smoke your own meat, store your own grain. No more hunger."
He tapped the roads marked between the rows. "Streets will be wide, paved with stone, and sloped slightly. A drainage system will run beneath every road. Wastewater and storm runoff will flow out of the city, far from homes, into purification trenches and the sea beyond."
A young wildling named Ivar scratched his head. "You're saying the shite just disappears?"
Harry smiled. "No. It flows—away from the city, into treated zones outside the harbor. That way, Narnia will remain clean. Healthy. Dignified."
Another voice, older and gruffer, chimed in. "And the bathhouses?"
"Yes," Harry replied. "With natural heat stones and magical cores. One for men, one for women. Eventually more."
The men and women nodded, some with awe, others with barely-contained excitement. They had lived in tents and rough cottages most of their lives—this was a promise of dignity.
Once all had been instructed, Harry gathered the foremen, the lead masons and architects, and gave them final guidelines. Builders were appointed, materials distributed, work zones outlined.
"I won't be staying to oversee it," Harry said, nodding to the crowd. "You don't need me here. You have the skill. You have the heart. Now build."
He left them with that, disappearing into the snowfall with only Winter's shadow soaring overhead.
Back at the Potter Castle, nestled at the edge of the snow-covered pinewood hills, Lyanna sat beside the hearth with their son in her arms. The baby's small fingers curled around the edge of a woolen blanket, his hair already growing dark like his father's. The great white dragon curled around the mountain above them, guarding in silence.
When Harry returned, Lyanna rose and embraced him, careful not to wake the child.
"Everything's moving faster than I imagined," she whispered. "It's becoming real, isn't it?"
Harry smiled and kissed her forehead. "The people are ready. The city will rise like a heartbeat in the snow."
That night, as Narnia slept under the stars, Harry descended into the hidden chamber beneath the castle. There, deep underground, lit by magical orbs and inscribed with ancient runes, he spread out a map not of roads—but of resources.
Days passed. Then weeks.
In hidden valleys guarded by illusion spells, groups of Narnians toiled in secret. They felled towering ironwood trees, each trunk as thick as a house and strong as steel. They split and shaped black granite, smooth building stones, and sandstone from frostfang mountains.
Harry, using his mastery over magical transportation, created a seamless system: as soon as a log was cut, it vanished with a pulse of light and reappeared at the Narnian harbor. As soon as a stone block was carved and shaped, and placed on an enchanted platform, it shimmered into existence near a building site.
"No horses. No wagons. No time wasted," one builder marveled. "It's as if the mountains themselves are building with us."
The city grew faster than anyone expected.
Stone foundations spread like spiderwebs along the harbor. Pillars rose. Archways took shape. Streets were paved in diamond-patterned stone. The people marveled at the backyards, the planned bathhouses, and the lanterns were placed on every new road.
The first quarry was opened at the base of a black rock hill five leagues east of the Antler River. It started with ten men with pickaxes. The men carved stone from the mountain's side like surgeons, extracting clean blocks of granite, basalt, and slate. But soon word spread—there was food, cloth, and protection for those who worked the quarries.
That was all it took.
By the end of the week, a hundred wildlings had arrived. By the end of the month, there were thousands.
They came from icy passes and hidden valleys, from snow-swept hollows and ruined camps, bearing only furs and the sharp desperation of winter survival. What greeted them was something unimaginable: hot food served in steaming bowls, tents made out of thick furs to stave off frostbite, boots that didn't leak, cloaks that didn't rot. And purpose—something many of them had never truly known.
Narnians had spread far now. And so had Harry's vision.
The quarries, once hidden, became industrial veins across the land beyond the Wall. Not just one, but many—dozens, each growing with steady rhythm. They cut the mountains, pulled stone from the earth, shaped them under the guidance of Braavosi masons and Lyseni architects. The wildlings learned quickly, eager to earn their place in this new world. They sang while they worked, drank by firelight, and began to take pride in the stone under their nails.
It was during the excavation of a particularly deep quarry near the Frozen Lake that they struck the first ore—pale yellow streaks shining under torchlight.
A miner named Gorik held up a lump of dull metal to the foreman. "Stone's bleeding."
The foreman, a freed Essosi slave turned Narnian teacher, examined it carefully.
"That's not blood," he murmured. "That's gold."
Word reached Harry within the hour.
He arrived by dragonback, Winter's great white wings scattering snow as he descended near the edge of the pit. His boots crunched against the frost-hardened earth as he approached the foreman and took the glittering stone in hand.
Gold. Not fools' gold. Not tarnished copper.
Real, malleable, gleaming gold.
And they found more.
Not just in that quarry, but in others. Silver veined in soft stone tunnels. Iron glinting in blackened ridges. Zinc, copper, tin—all elements of civilization's rise.
Harry stared into the golden gleam, eyes calculating.
"This changes everything," he said.
The next morning, in the Council Hall of Potter Castle, a meeting was called.
The hall, though humble, echoed with the voices of Narnia's leaders. Seated around the great fire were builders, quartermasters, educators, wildling elders, and Essosi advisors.
Harry stood at the head, the lump of gold in his hand.
"We've found gold," he said plainly. "And silver. And iron. The wildlings once ignored it. But we will not."
He tossed the nugget onto the table. It thudded heavily against the oak.
"Stone may build walls. But metal builds kingdoms."
Murmurs rose.
"We need to establish a system of trade," Harry continued. "A currency. So that labor can be valued. So that services can be rewarded. And so that Narnia will not remain just a settlement—but a nation."
An older wildling, his beard thick with frost, raised a brow. "You mean coins? We never needed coins before."
Harry nodded. "And you also never had schools. Or hospitals. Or bathhouses. Or towers made of marble. If we are to build a civilization, we must move beyond barter. The miners, the masons, the healers, the teachers—they all must be paid."
"But what is gold to a hungry man?" another asked.
"Gold is power when it is trusted," Harry answered. "And trust is something we will build together."
A few weeks later, the first Narnian mint was founded—deep within a warded cave in the hills. Harry enchanted the press with runes of duplication and regulation. Every gold coin bore the same weight, the same design: a weirwood tree on one side, and a roaring dragon on the other.
The coin had a name too: "Sunmark." Because gold, like the sun, gave life warmth and strength.
Silver coins were minted next—smaller, lighter, called "Moondrops."
A thousand Sunmarks. Ten thousand Moondrops. Then more.
When Harry introduced the currency to the people, he didn't explain the deeper strategy. He didn't need to. The Narnians understood that trust came slowly. So instead of immediate replacement of barter, the coins were used to reward work beyond duty: teachers received them for taking on extra students, builders for finishing early, farmers for surplus livestock.
Gold and Silver, once ignored, now became the bloodline of progress.
Even the wildlings began to treasure it—not for its shine, but for what it represented.
A place in a kingdom that was no longer a dream.
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Beuwulf