## *Harion's Tent — Noon*
Harion woke to pain and *memory*.
His head was splitting. His hands were numb. Blood had dried on his upper lip. The gauntlets lay beside him—cold now, dormant—and his arms were covered in frost-like burns from wrist to elbow.
But worse than the physical pain were the *flashes*.
They came unbidden, as they always did after he pushed too hard. Fragments of a life that wasn't his. Couldn't be his. Yet felt more real than memory should.
*A cupboard under stairs. Darkness. The smell of dust and spiders.*
*"You're a wizard, Harry."*
*Green light. Screaming. A woman's voice: "Not Harry, please—"*
Harion's eyes snapped open, gasping.
"Not real," he whispered to the empty tent. "Not real. Not real. Not—"
But it *felt* real. The memories—visions? dreams?—had started three years ago, the night he'd bonded with Frost. The night he'd touched the Ice Dragon's mind and felt something vast and *ancient* look back. Something that whispered of other worlds, other lives, other versions of *him*.
*A boy with a lightning scar.*
*Wands and magic.*
*A name: Harry Potter.*
"Madness," Harion muttered, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Just madness. Side effects of too much warging. Nothing more."
But the visions never lied. They'd shown him things—tactics, strategies, ways of thinking about magic—that had kept him alive beyond the Wall. They'd shown him how to *bond* with beasts, how to see through multiple eyes, how to become something *more*.
Sometimes he wondered if Harry Potter was real. A past life. A parallel soul. A warning.
Sometimes he wondered if he was going mad.
*Both can be true*, something whispered.
Padfoot's head appeared in his vision—the direwolf had nosed open the tent flap and was watching him with concern that felt entirely too human.
"I'm fine," Harion croaked.
The wolf didn't believe him.
And then he felt *her*.
---
The presence hit like a wave of frozen ocean.
Distant. Vast. *Hungry*.
***Frost.***
The Ice Dragon was awake. And restless.
Harion's breath misted in the summer heat. The temperature in the tent plummeted. Frost spread across the canvas walls in delicate, crystalline patterns.
*BROTHER-MINE*, the voice rumbled through his mind. Not words. Concepts. Emotions deeper than language. *TOO LONG. TOO STILL. HUNGRY.*
"Not yet," Harion whispered. His hand went to his chest—over his heart—where the bond lived. A thread of ice and starlight connecting him to the creature sleeping in the glacial deeps, thousands of miles north. "Not yet, Frost. Soon."
*WANT. HUNT. FLY. KILL.*
"I know." Harion's voice was gentle. The same tone he used with Padfoot when the wolf was hurt. "I know you're restless. I know you want to *move*. But we have to wait. The reveal has to be *perfect*."
The presence pressed against his mind—not hostile, but insistent. Like a child pulling at a parent's sleeve.
*WHY WAIT? STRONG NOW. CAN COME. CAN SHOW THEM.*
"Because legends aren't born from strength alone." Harion's eyes were distant, seeing not the tent but the strategies forming in his mind. "They're born from *timing*. From *impact*. The Stepstones need to *bleed* first. They need to be desperate. Broken. Terrified."
He could feel Frost considering this. The dragon's intelligence was alien—vast and cold and utterly inhuman—but she *understood* patience. She'd slept in ice for centuries before Harion found her.
*WHEN?*
"Soon." Harion's hand tightened over his heart. "When we hit Torturer's Deep. When the Crabfeeder thinks he's won. When Daemon's forces are pinned and bleeding. That's when you come. That's when they see what winter *truly* means."
Another flash—unbidden, unwanted:
*A boy flying on a broomstick. The rush of wind. The thrill of height.*
*"Catch the Snitch, Harry!"*
Harion shook his head violently. "Stop. Stop showing me this. I'm not him. I'm not—"
*BUT YOU COULD BE*, something whispered. Not Frost. Not the dragon. Something else. Something that lived in the space between his visions and reality. *YOU WERE. YOU ARE. YOU WILL BE.*
"I'm *Harion Stark*," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm from Winterfell. I'm—"
*You're the boy who lived.*
*You're the one who mastered death.*
*You're the bridge between worlds.*
"I'm *losing my mind*," Harion whispered.
Padfoot whined and pressed closer. The wolf's warmth—*real* warmth, *present* warmth—anchored him. Brought him back.
Harion's hand found the direwolf's fur. Held tight.
"Two more nights," he said. To Padfoot. To Frost. To the ghost of Harry Potter that haunted his dreams. To *himself*. "Two more nights of hunting. Then we rest. Then we plan. Then we show them what it means when winter comes south."
*PROMISE?* Frost's presence had softened. Quieted. Like a great cat being stroked.
"Promise." Harion's voice was firmer now. "Torturer's Deep. When the moment is perfect. When Daemon and Corlys and every man in the Stepstones is watching. When the Crabfeeder thinks he's safe in his deepest cave. That's when you come. That's when we *end* this."
He could feel Frost's satisfaction—a rumble of contentment that manifested as ice crystals forming in the air around him.
*GOOD. WILL WAIT. WILL BE READY.*
*WILL MAKE THEM REMEMBER.*
"Yes," Harion whispered. A smile touched his lips—cold, sharp, not entirely human. "We'll make them remember. We'll write our names in ice and blood across these islands. We'll become the story they tell their children to keep them afraid of the dark."
Another flash:
*A basilisk in a chamber.*
*"Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."*
*Pulling a sword from a hat.*
Harion's eyes opened. Fully. Clearly.
The visions weren't madness. Weren't hallucinations. They were *memory*. Real memory from a life that had been. From a boy who'd faced impossible odds and won. From a soul that had touched death and returned.
*I was Harry Potter*, he thought with sudden, terrible clarity. *In another life. Another world. And somehow—through magic or gods or the space between stars—I'm here now. I'm Harion. And I remember BOTH.*
The knowledge should have broken him.
Instead, it *settled* him.
He wasn't going mad. He was *awakening*. Becoming something the world had never seen—a fusion of two lives, two magics, two destinies.
"The boy who lived," he murmured. "Twice."
Padfoot's ears flicked forward. A question.
"Nothing." Harion reached for the gauntlets. His hands were steadier now. "Just understanding something I should have understood years ago."
He slipped the gauntlets on. The runes flared to life—blue-white light that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Ice spread across the metal, beautiful and terrible.
*YOU UNDERSTAND NOW*, Frost rumbled. Not a question. A statement. *YOU REMEMBER.*
"I remember," Harion confirmed. "I remember dying for my friends. I remember facing death as an old companion. I remember—" His voice caught. "I remember being brave when I wanted to be terrified. I remember choosing to walk into the forest."
*AND NOW?*
"Now I choose this." He stood, swaying only slightly. The burns on his arms pulsed with cold. "I choose to be Harion Stark. I choose to be the North's monster. I choose to protect those who can't protect themselves."
He looked at Padfoot. At the tent around him. At the gauntlets pulsing with ancient power.
"Harry Potter fought Voldemort with wands and spells and hope. Harion Stark fights with ice and teeth and *inevitability*. Different weapons. Same war."
*GOOD WAR*, Frost approved. *WORTHY WAR.*
"Two more nights," Harion said again. But this time, he was speaking to all of them—to Padfoot, to Frost, to the ghost of Harry Potter, to himself. "Two more nights of hunting. Then we rest. Then we plan the final strike."
He paused at the tent flap.
"And then we show them what happens when you give a dead boy a second chance at life."
Outside, Midnight screamed—hunting cry, victory cry, *alive*.
Harion smiled.
It was not entirely a Stark smile. Not entirely a Potter smile.
Something *between*. Something *new*.
"Two more nights," he told the darkness.
And from thousands of miles north, buried in glacial ice, Frost rumbled her agreement.
The darkness, hungry and patient, smiled back.
And deep in his mind—in the space where Harry Potter's memories lived alongside Harion Stark's reality—a lightning scar that didn't exist *burned*.
---
## *Daemon's Command Tent — Sunset of the Second Day*
The summons came at dusk.
A Velaryon runner, nervous and respectful, appearing at Harion's tent with a message: *Prince Daemon and Lord Corlys request your presence. Now.*
Harion had been oiling Winter's Fang—the blade required constant maintenance after battle, the meteoric steel seeming to *absorb* blood and had to be meticulously cleaned. He looked up, meeting the runner's eyes.
The boy flinched.
"Tell them I'm coming," Harion said quietly.
The runner fled.
Padfoot rose from where he'd been sleeping, shaking out his black fur. Midnight materialized from the shadows at the tent's edge—she'd been hunting rats in the camp supply tents, keeping herself sharp. Fury was somewhere outside, probably terrifying soldiers just by existing.
"Not you," Harion told them. "Not this time. They're already afraid. Let's not push them into panic."
Padfoot's ears flattened. He didn't like being separated.
"I'll be fine." Harion sheathed Winter's Fang, the blade sliding home with that familiar wind-through-ice sound. "Stay. Guard the tent. If I'm not back by midnight—"
The wolf's eyes met his. Understanding passed between them.
*If you're not back by midnight, we come hunting.*
"Good boy."
---
The command tent was lit by braziers and torches, maps spread across the table like fallen kingdoms. Daemon stood at one end, Corlys at the other. Both turned when Harion entered.
The temperature dropped five degrees.
It always did now. Harion had stopped noticing, but others felt it immediately—the creeping cold that followed him like a faithful hound.
"Stark." Daemon's voice was neutral. His eyes were not. They tracked Harion with the focused intensity of a man watching a lit fuse approach powder. "You've been busy."
"You gave me three days." Harion stopped at the table's edge, hands clasped behind his back. Military bearing. Northern restraint. "It's been two."
"Two days," Corlys said slowly, "in which you've hit five supply positions, killed nearly eighty men, and carved your little messages into half the caves on this godsforsaken island."
"Eighty-three men," Harion corrected. "And they weren't little messages. They were *statements*."
"'Winter walked here,'" Daemon quoted. His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "'The North remembers.' 'Ice and blood.' You're quite the poet, wolf."
"I'm a *tactician*. Fear is a weapon. I'm using it."
"You're using it *well*." Daemon moved around the table, wine cup in hand. He'd been drinking—not drunk, but loose around the edges. Daemon Targaryen was always more dangerous when he'd been drinking. "The Crabfeeder's men are deserting. We intercepted three boats trying to flee east. The sellswords are talking about *ghosts*. About monsters that hunt in the dark. About—" He paused. "About a Northern demon with a sword made of frozen starlight."
Harion said nothing.
"They're saying," Corlys added, "that you can't be killed. That arrows freeze in mid-air. That you see through walls. That you—" He stopped. "Are the rumors true? About the eastern cliff position?"
Harion thought back. Yesterday. A fortified position overlooking the sea. Thirty men. He'd sent Kira in first—the snow falcon diving, distracting, drawing eyes upward. While they watched the sky, Midnight had come from below, scaling the cliff face like water flowing upward. Then Padfoot from the land approach. Then him.
It had been over in five minutes.
"What are they saying happened?" Harion asked.
"That you threw a man off a cliff. That he screamed for help. That when his comrades ran to save him, you and your beasts were waiting. That you killed them all while they watched their friend fall."
"That's mostly accurate," Harion said. "Though I didn't throw him. Fury did. I just gave the order."
Silence.
Daemon laughed. It was a short, sharp sound—half amusement, half disbelief.
"You *gave the order*. To a *bear*."
"She understands more than you'd think."
"Gods." Daemon drained his cup. "You know what the men are calling you? Ours and theirs?"
"I've heard several names."
"The Shadow-Wolf. The Ice-Bringer. The Warg of Winterfell." Daemon's purple eyes glittered. "My personal favorite: *Daemon's Monster*. As if I fucking *created* you."
"You gave me permission to hunt," Harion said mildly. "What did you expect?"
"Not *this*." Corlys gestured at the map. Red markers—Harion's kills—dotted the island like a pox. "We expected raids. Hit-and-run tactics. Maybe a few supply disruptions. Not..." He struggled for words. "Not *systematic extermination*. Not messages carved in stone. Not frozen corpses arranged in patterns."
"I didn't arrange any corpses."
"The eastern beach. Six bodies. Positioned in a circle. All frozen solid. All facing *outward*."
"Oh." Harion's expression didn't change. "That was Frost being... artistic."
"Frost?"
Harion's jaw tightened. He hadn't meant to say that name. Not yet. Not until the reveal.
But Daemon was sharp. Daemon noticed *everything*.
"Frost," the prince repeated slowly. "Another animal? A white wolf perhaps? A—"
"Something else," Harion interrupted. "Something I haven't shown you yet. Something that waits."
The temperature in the tent dropped another degree.
Corlys and Daemon exchanged glances.
"Define 'something,'" Corlys said carefully.
Harion considered. How much to tell them? How much to hold back? The Ice Dragon was his final card, his trump, his *legend*. But these men needed to trust him. Needed to understand that he wasn't just a mad boy with a direwolf and delusions of glory.
"I have seven bonded creatures," he said finally. "You've seen five. The wolf. The shadowcat. The bear. The owl. The falcon." He paused. "There are two more. One is Winter—a snow-eagle ranging farther north, scouting Crabfeeder movements you don't even know about yet."
"And the seventh?" Daemon's voice was soft. Dangerous.
"Frost." Harion met his eyes. "She's... distant. Waiting. She doesn't come unless I call. And I won't call her unless absolutely necessary."
"Why?"
"Because when Frost arrives, the war doesn't just end. It becomes *legend*. It becomes the story they tell for a thousand years. And legends require the right moment."
Daemon stared at him. Through him. Weighing. Calculating.
"You're not talking about another wolf," he said quietly. "Or another cat. You're talking about something that changes the *game*."
Harion said nothing.
Which was answer enough.
Daemon's smile was slow. Terrible. The smile of a man who'd just realized his weapon was sharper than he'd imagined.
"You magnificent, terrifying Northern *bastard*."
---
"Show us," Corlys said suddenly. "Your intelligence. You said Winter's been scouting. What has she seen?"
Harion moved to the map. His gauntlets pulsed faintly—blue light reflecting off carved wood and painted cloth.
"The Crabfeeder's consolidating. Just as you thought." His finger traced routes, positions, supply lines. "But he's not consolidating to defend. He's consolidating to *evacuate*."
Daemon's cup stopped halfway to his mouth. "Evacuate?"
"Aye. Winter's been watching the eastern harbors for three days. Triarchy ships have been arriving in pairs, loading supplies, loading *men*. Not reinforcements coming in. Soldiers going *out*. Small numbers. Quiet. Careful."
"He's abandoning the Stepstones," Corlys breathed.
"Not entirely. He's pulling out the Triarchy soldiers—the professionals, the ones worth keeping. Leaving the sellswords to hold as long as they can." Harion's voice was cold. Clinical. "He's cutting his losses. He knows he can't win. Not against Caraxes. Not against the blockade. And certainly not against..." He gestured vaguely at himself. "Whatever I am."
"How long?" Daemon's voice was sharp. "How long before he's gone?"
"Week. Maybe less. Torturer's Deep is his final stronghold. He'll make his stand there—or make it *look* like a stand—while the real evacuation happens from the eastern caves."
Harion's finger stabbed down on the map.
"Here. The Serpent's Mouth. Hidden harbor. Natural cave system. Perfect for loading ships unseen. He's been moving supplies there for two days. By the time you assault Torturer's Deep, he'll be gone."
Silence.
Daemon turned and *threw* his wine cup. It shattered against the tent wall. Wine ran down canvas like blood.
"THREE YEARS!" he roared. "Three years of bleeding and dying and grinding through these shit-stained rocks, and the coward's going to *run*?!"
"He's smart," Harion said quietly. "Survival is smarter than pride."
"I don't want him to *survive*. I want his head on a spike. I want him screaming. I want—"
"You want legend," Harion interrupted. His voice cut through Daemon's rage like a blade through silk. "You want the story to end properly. You want the songs to sing of your victory, not his escape."
Daemon stopped. Turned. Stared.
"You understand," he said slowly.
"I told you. I want the same thing." Harion moved closer. "So we give it to them. We give them the perfect ending."
"How?"
Harion's gauntlets flared brighter.
"We let him consolidate at Torturer's Deep. We let him think he's safe. We let him think he's winning." His eyes—grey now, fully human, but somehow *colder* than when they'd been black—met Daemon's. "And then we hit both positions at once. You take Caraxes and burn Torturer's Deep to ash. Make it *spectacle*. Make it *theater*."
"And you?"
"I take Serpent's Mouth. I take my pack. And I make sure the Crabfeeder never reaches his ships." Harion's voice dropped. "I make sure he dies screaming in the dark, torn apart by beasts, frozen by winter, knowing that running was pointless."
"You'll be outnumbered. He'll have hundreds of men at Serpent's Mouth."
"I have Frost."
The name hung in the air like a blade.
"This seventh creature," Corlys said carefully. "Whatever she is. You're certain she can—"
"I'm certain," Harion interrupted, "that when Frost arrives, numbers stop mattering. Geography stops mattering. *Reality* stops mattering." He looked at both of them. "Trust me. One more time. Let me finish this."
Daemon was silent for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It was a terrible smile. A smile that had preceded the burning of cities and the ending of bloodlines.
"You want legend, wolf? You want songs? You want your name whispered with fear for a thousand years?"
"Yes."
"Then you have three days. Three days to kill the Crabfeeder. Three days to show me what winter means." He leaned close. "But if you fail—if he escapes, if he *lives*—I will personally feed you to Caraxes. Understood?"
"Understood."
"And this Frost creature. Whatever she is." Daemon's eyes narrowed. "When you call her, I want to *see* her. I want to know what kind of monster the North breeds."
Harion's expression flickered. Something passed behind his eyes—memory, pain, vision.
*A boy flying on a dragon made of bones and devotion.*
*"You're a wizard, Harry."*
*Green light. Always green light.*
He blinked. The vision passed.
"You'll see her," he promised. "When the moment is right. When the legend is ready to be born. You'll see what winter truly is."
"Good." Daemon turned back to the map. "Now show me everything. Every position. Every route. Every weakness. We have three days to plan the perfect ending to a three-year war."
Harion moved to the table. His gauntlets cast blue light across painted islands and wooden markers. Outside, night was falling. Somewhere in the darkness, Padfoot waited. Midnight hunted. Fury prowled.
And thousands of miles north, buried in glacial ice, Frost stirred in her sleep.
*Soon*, Harion sent through the bond. *Soon, my beautiful nightmare. Soon the world remembers what it means to fear winter.*
The Ice Dragon's response was wordless. Eager. Hungry.
*SOON.*
---
They planned for four hours.
Maps were marked. Routes were drawn. Timing was calculated. Daemon's assault on Torturer's Deep would come at dawn—dragon fire and steel, spectacle and slaughter. Harion's strike on Serpent's Mouth would come simultaneously—silent, deadly, *final*.
As the night deepened, Daemon poured more wine. Corlys grew quieter. Harion remained still, focused, cold.
Finally, as midnight approached, Corlys spoke.
"One question, Stark."
Harion looked up.
"Why?" The Sea Snake's voice was soft. Almost kind. "You're eighteen. Cadet branch. No inheritance. No throne. You could have stayed in Winterfell. Married some northern girl. Lived quietly. Why *this*? Why sail across the world to become a monster?"
Harion was quiet for a long moment.
When he spoke, his voice was distant. Haunted.
"Because I remember what it means to be powerless. I remember watching people die because I wasn't strong enough. Wasn't *ready* enough." He touched his chest—over his heart, where the bond with Frost lived. "I won't be powerless again. Ever. Even if it costs me everything."
"You're not talking about this war," Daemon said slowly.
"No." Harion's eyes were unfocused. Seeing something else. Somewhere else. *Somewhen* else. "I'm talking about a different war. A different life. A different..." He stopped. Blinked. "Nothing. Old nightmares."
But Daemon was watching him with new eyes. Calculating eyes.
"You said you see through your creatures' eyes. That you *become* them." The prince tilted his head. "What if it works the other way? What if something looks through *your* eyes? Sees through your *life*?"
Harion's hands clenched.
"That's not possible."
"You warg seven creatures simultaneously. You freeze men solid with a sword made of fallen stars. You carved threats into stone that glow with cold magic." Daemon's voice was soft. "What's impossible anymore?"
Silence.
"Get some rest," Corlys said finally, breaking the tension. "Three days. Then we end this."
Harion nodded. Turned to leave.
"Stark," Daemon called.
Harion stopped.
"When you call Frost. When you show us what she is." The prince's voice was soft. Almost gentle. "Make sure we're on the same side. Because whatever she is, I don't think the world has seen her like in a very, very long time."
Harion's lips twitched.
"The world has never seen her like at all, my prince. Frost is..." He searched for words. "She is the space between breaths. The silence before the storm. The moment when hope dies and winter begins."
He walked out into the darkness.
Behind him, Daemon and Corlys stood in silence.
"He's mad," Corlys said finally.
"Yes."
"Completely, utterly mad."
"Yes."
"But gods help me, I think he can do it."
Daemon didn't answer. He was staring at the map, at the red markers, at the careful plans they'd laid.
"The boy who lived," he murmured.
"What?"
"Nothing." Daemon poured more wine. His hand was shaking. Just slightly. "Just a feeling. Like we're about to witness something that will echo for a thousand years."
Outside, a wolf howled.
And from thousands of miles north, an Ice Dragon dreamed of blood and glory.
---
## *The Final Stand — Three Days Later*
**Dawn — Torturer's Deep**
Daemon Targaryen sat astride Caraxes, five hundred feet above the Stepstones, and smiled.
Below, Torturer's Deep was a festering wound in the black stone—a maze of caves and fortifications where the Crabfeeder had made his final stand. Thousands of men. Scorpions on every ridge. Siege weapons. Three years of preparation and paranoia made manifest.
It didn't matter.
"Dracarys," Daemon whispered.
The Blood Wyrm screamed and dove.
Fire painted the dawn red.
---
**Simultaneously — Serpent's Mouth, Eastern Caves**
Harion Stark stood in the darkness and *listened*.
Not with his ears. With seven sets of senses stretched across miles of rock and sea and sky.
*Hedwig*, circling three hundred feet up, saw the cave mouth—hidden, camouflaged, exactly where Winter had reported it. Ships inside. Three of them. Men loading supplies in organized chaos. The Crabfeeder himself directing operations, thinking himself clever, thinking himself *safe*.
*Kira*, lower and faster, counted the guards. Forty outside. Perhaps two hundred inside. Professional soldiers, not sellswords. The Triarchy's best.
*Winter*, ranging farther east, saw the escape route—open sea, clear skies, freedom just a mile of rowing away.
*Padfoot*, at Harion's side, smelled fear-sweat and oil and the coppery tang of weapons ready for violence.
*Midnight*, pressed low in the shadows thirty yards ahead, felt the vibrations of booted feet on stone, counted heartbeats, calculated killing strikes.
*Fury*, behind him in the narrow passage, radiated patient hunger. The bear was too large for subtlety. She would be the hammer. The *finale*.
And *Frost*—
Frost was *awake*.
The bond sang like a frozen harp string pulled to breaking. She was close now. Not physically—she was still hours away, flying south at speeds that would shatter a normal dragon. But *present*. Aware. *Eager*.
*BROTHER-MINE*, her voice rumbled through dimensions. *TIME?*
"Soon," Harion breathed. "Very soon."
Behind him, his two hundred Northerners waited in absolute silence. They knew the plan. They knew their role. Hold the perimeter. Let nothing escape. Let the wolf hunt.
Harion's gauntlets pulsed—all seven runes glowing now, brighter than they ever had. The light was almost blinding. Ice spread across the cave walls around him, frost patterns like crystallized lightning.
He drew Winter's Fang.
The blade *sang*—that high, cold note that made men's teeth ache and their courage fail.
"Seven bonded," he whispered to the darkness. To himself. To the ghost of Harry Potter who watched through his eyes. "Seven sets of teeth. Seven kinds of death."
He touched the scar on his temple—the weirwood-leaf mark that had appeared after his first time warging Frost. It burned cold.
*For those who can't protect themselves*, he thought. *For the North. For the legend. For the boy who died and the man who remembers.*
"Midnight," he said softly. "Begin."
The shadowcat *moved*.
---
The first guard died without a sound.
Midnight took him from behind—jaws on the back of the neck, a twist, silence. She dragged the body into shadows and was gone before it hit the ground.
The second guard turned to ask his companion a question and found a corpse.
He opened his mouth to scream.
Padfoot's jaws closed on his throat.
The scream became a wet gurgle, then nothing.
Two down. Thirty-eight to go.
Harion walked forward, Winter's Fang loose in his grip, eyes gone completely black. He was *everywhere* now—seeing through Hedwig's eyes as she circled, through Kira's as she dove, through Midnight's as she killed, through Padfoot's as he dragged another body into darkness.
The guards were professionals. They noticed the silence. They noticed their missing comrades.
"ALARM!" someone shouted. "NORTH SIDE! WE'RE UNDER—"
Fury came around the corner like an avalanche given fur.
The bear rose to her full height—nine feet of muscle and rage and *mass*—and *roared*.
The sound was apocalyptic. It echoed off cave walls, multiplied, became something primal and terrifying. Men screamed. Some ran. Some froze.
Those who froze died first.
Fury dropped to all fours and *charged*. Eight hundred pounds traveling at twenty miles per hour. She hit the defensive line like a boulder through parchment. Men went flying. Bones snapped. Shields crumpled.
And then Harion was *there*.
---
He moved like water. Like winter wind. Like inevitability.
Winter's Fang rose and fell in perfect economy. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Each strike calculated through seven sets of eyes, seven different angles, seeing every opening before it appeared.
A man thrust with a spear. Harion sidestepped—Kira's eyes showing him the angle—and took the man's arm at the elbow. Frost spread from the wound. The man's scream froze in his throat.
Another charged with an axe. Padfoot hit him from the side, bore him down, tearing.
A crossbow bolt flew from the darkness. Hedwig's warning gave Harion a half-second. He twisted. The bolt passed so close it cut his cloak. His return strike took the crossbowman's head.
The cave entrance was chaos now. Men screaming. Fighting. Dying. The Northern line had advanced, holding the perimeter, preventing escape. But the real killing was happening in the center, where Harion and his pack moved like a single organism of teeth and claws and frozen steel.
"FORM UP!" someone was bellowing. "SHIELD WALL! SPEARS FORWARD! IT'S JUST ONE MAN AND SOME FUCKING ANIMALS!"
They formed up. Perhaps eighty men, professional discipline overcoming terror. Shields overlapping. Spears bristling. A proper formation that should have been impenetrable.
Harion stopped twenty feet away.
His eyes were black pits. Blood ran freely from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes. The gauntlets were blazing now—blue-white light so bright it cast shadows. Frost spread across the ground where he stood.
"Just one man," he said softly. His voice echoed strangely, as if seven voices spoke at once. "And some animals."
He raised his left hand.
The runes flared.
"And winter."
He *called*.
---
The temperature dropped thirty degrees in three seconds.
Frost formed on shields. Breath misted. Men started shivering despite their armor.
"What—" someone started.
The cave mouth *exploded* inward.
Not with fire. With *ice*.
A wall of frozen wind and crystallized air and absolute cold came roaring in from the sea, so powerful it knocked men flat, froze water in canteens, turned breath to ice in lungs.
And *she* came with it.
**Frost.**
---
The Ice Dragon was not beautiful.
She was *terrible*.
Forty feet long from nose to tail. Wings of translucent ice that caught light and shattered it into a thousand colors. Scales like frozen starlight—white and blue and silver, shifting, impossible to focus on. Eyes like glacial pools—ancient, cold, *aware*.
She landed on the cave roof—*on the roof*, gripping stone with claws made of ice and will—and looked down at the men below.
Her presence was *crushing*. Not physical weight but *existential* weight. The weight of winter given form. The weight of inevitability. The weight of knowing, with absolute certainty, that you were going to die and there was nothing—*nothing*—you could do to stop it.
Men broke.
Training failed. Discipline failed. Courage failed. They *ran*.
Some ran deeper into the caves. Some ran toward the ships. Some simply ran in circles, minds shattered by the impossibility perched above them.
Frost opened her mouth and *breathed*.
It wasn't fire.
It was the *absence* of fire. The opposite of fire. The negation of warmth and life and hope.
A cone of absolute cold—air so frigid it was visible, a wave of crystallized atmosphere—swept across the shield wall.
Men froze solid. Not slowly. *Instantly*. Mid-scream. Mid-step. Mid-breath. They became statues of ice and flesh and terror, locked in their final moments forever.
The cone passed. Twenty men stood frozen. Twenty ice sculptures wearing expressions of absolute horror.
Silence.
Harion walked forward. His boots crunched on frost. His breath no longer misted—he was colder than the air now.
"Run," he said softly. His voice carried, somehow, over the chaos. "Run and tell your friends. Tell your families. Tell anyone who will listen."
He gestured at Frost, perched impossibly on the cave ceiling, wings spread, eyes glowing.
"Winter has come south. And winter *hunts*."
The remaining men fled.
---
**Deeper in the Caves — The Crabfeeder's Position**
Craghas Drahar—the Crabfeeder—was not a coward.
He'd survived Volantis's slave pits. He'd built an empire from blood and cruelty. He'd held the Stepstones against Daemon fucking Targaryen for three years.
But when his men came screaming about *dragons made of ice* and *Northern demons* and *the temperature dropping thirty degrees in seconds*, he felt something he hadn't felt in twenty years.
Fear.
"FORM ON ME!" he bellowed. His face—ruined by greyscale, hidden behind a mask—twisted with rage. "STAND AND FIGHT! THERE'S TWO HUNDRED OF US AND ONE OF—"
The cave wall exploded.
Fury came *through* the wall.
Not around it. Not over it. *Through* it. Eight hundred pounds of enraged mountain bear hitting limestone like a siege weapon. Stone shattered. Dust filled the air. Men screamed.
The bear rose on hind legs, roared, and began killing.
From another direction came Midnight—the shadowcat moving like liquid death through the chaos, taking throats and hamstrings and eyes.
From above came Padfoot—the direwolf had found a high passage and launched himself into the center of the formation, scattering men like bowling pins.
And from the main passage came *him*.
---
Harion Stark walked through the carnage like a king through his court.
Winter's Fang rose and fell. Rose and fell. Each strike accompanied by that terrible singing sound. Each cut left frost. Each death added to the legend.
Behind him, ice spread across the cave floor. Before him, men died screaming or frozen or torn apart.
He was bleeding heavily now—from nose, ears, eyes, even the corners of his mouth. Seven bonds. Seven creatures. Seven pieces of his soul stretched across miles of violence. The cost was catastrophic.
He didn't care.
*This is what I chose*, he thought. *This is what I am.*
*Not Harion. Not Harry. Something between. Something new.*
*The Ice-Bringer.*
The Crabfeeder was backing toward the ships, his personal guard—twenty of the Triarchy's finest—forming a desperate last stand.
"You," Craghas snarled through his mask. "You're the Northern *dog* they've been whispering about. The warg. The monster."
Harion stopped ten feet away. His eyes were still black. Blood painted his face like war paint.
"I'm the reason," he said softly, "the North still remembers how to be terrifying."
"You're a *child* playing with magic you don't understand."
"I'm a child who died once already." Harion's voice was strange now—layered, as if multiple people spoke through one throat. "I came back. I came back *wrong*. And now I'm everyone's problem."
He raised his hand.
Frost *dove*.
---
The Ice Dragon came through the cave ceiling like a spear thrown by gods.
Stone exploded. Ice rained down. She landed between Harion and the Crabfeeder, wings spread, eyes blazing, mouth open in a roar that was somehow *silent*—a sound so deep it bypassed ears and resonated in bones.
The Crabfeeder's guards broke.
All of them. Every single one. Professional soldiers, elite warriors, men who'd faced death a hundred times.
They *ran*.
Craghas stood alone.
To his credit, he didn't run. He raised his sword—and Harion's breath caught.
*Valyrian steel.*
The blade was ancient, magnificent—rippled steel that seemed to hold smoke and shadow within its folds. The hilt was wrapped in black leather, the pommel carved into the shape of a crab's claw. It was easily four hundred years old, a relic from before the Doom.
*A second blade*, something whispered in Harion's mind. Harry Potter's voice, or perhaps his own. *Two hands. Two weapons. Ice and fire. Balance.*
The Crabfeeder charged.
It was brave. Futile. Beautiful in its way.
Frost's tail swept sideways.
The impact launched Craghas thirty feet into the cave wall. He hit with a sound like breaking pottery. The Valyrian steel blade flew from his grip, clattering on stone twenty feet away. He slumped, wheezing, trying to rise.
Harion walked forward. Slowly. Deliberately.
He did not sheath Winter's Fang.
Instead, he walked past the dying Crabfeeder to where the Valyrian blade had fallen.
He knelt. Extended his left hand—the gauntlet still blazing with cold light—and touched the sword.
The blade *thrummed*.
It recognized magic. Recognized *power*. Four centuries it had waited for a wielder worthy of its edge. Four centuries of passing through hands that could use it but never *understand* it.
Now it felt something else.
Something *other*.
Harion's fingers closed around the hilt.
The moment he lifted it, he *knew*.
The blade had a name. Carved in microscopic Valyrian glyphs along the fuller, visible only when light hit at certain angles:
***Crimson Fang*** — *Keligon Drākys*
"Hello, beautiful," Harion whispered.
The sword seemed to *purr* in his grip. Lighter than Winter's Fang. Faster. Where his meteoric blade was winter made steel, this was *fury* made manifest. Fire and blood and ancient Valyrian sorcery.
He stood, turning to face the Crabfeeder.
Now he held both.
Winter's Fang in his right hand—dark, cold, singing its frozen song.
Crimson Fang in his left—rippled steel, warm to the touch despite the cold around him, humming with barely contained violence.
Ice and fire.
North and South.
Death by freezing and death by cutting.
*Perfect*, Harry Potter's ghost whispered. *Like the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone. Like mastering death itself.*
Craghas was trying to speak, blood bubbling from his lips. "My... my blade... four hundred... years..."
"It's mine now." Harion's voice was gentle. Almost kind. "You held it well. Held these islands well. That's worth something. That's worth *respect*."
He knelt beside the dying man, both swords held loose in his hands.
"Three years," Harion said softly. "Three years you made Daemon Targaryen bleed. That's worth remembering."
The Crabfeeder's mask had cracked. One eye—ruined by greyscale—stared up at him. The other—still human—held defiance.
"You're... a monster," Craghas wheezed.
"Yes."
"Daemon... Daemon is worse."
"Probably." Harion shifted Winter's Fang to his left hand, holding both blades in one grip for a moment. His right hand—gauntlet blazing—went to the man's throat. Not choking. Just resting there. "But he burns. I *freeze*. There's a difference."
"What... difference?"
Harion's eyes cleared. Just for a moment. Grey instead of black. Human instead of other.
"Fire consumes. Ice *preserves*. You'll be remembered, Crabfeeder. Not as a villain. As the man who held the Stepstones longer than anyone thought possible. As the man who made dragons bleed. As the man who—"
His hand tightened.
Ice spread from his palm. Across the Crabfeeder's throat. Up his neck. Across his ruined face.
"—died to winter."
The Crabfeeder froze solid.
Harion stood. Released him. The body remained standing for a heartbeat—a statue of ice and flesh and defiance—then toppled and shattered.
Silence.
Harion looked at the blades in his hands.
Winter's Fang—his bond, his covenant with the Old Gods, the sword that had been forged specifically for him from sky-iron and sacrifice.
Crimson Fang—ancient, Valyrian, warm despite the cold, thrumming with barely contained eagerness to *cut*.
"Two hands," he murmured. "Two blades. Ice and fire. Balance and destruction."
He spun them experimentally. Winter's Fang sang its frozen song. Crimson Fang whispered promises of blood.
Together, they created a harmony that was somehow *perfect*.
*Like conducting an orchestra of death*, Harry's voice whispered. *Like the Patronus and the Killing Curse existing in the same moment.*
Frost lowered her head, nuzzling against Harion's shoulder. The touch was gentle. Almost loving.
*BROTHER-MINE STRONGER NOW*, she observed. *TWO FANGS BETTER THAN ONE.*
"Much better," Harion agreed. His voice was barely a whisper. Blood was flowing freely from his nose again, the strain of seven bonds catching up with him. "We're done here. It's finished."
Around him, his creatures gathered. Padfoot, panting and bloody. Midnight, cleaning her claws. Fury, sitting heavily, exhausted. Above, Hedwig and Kira circled, crying victory.
Seven creatures. Seven bonds. Seven pieces of his soul.
And now, two legendary blades to match his legend.
Harion crossed the swords in front of him—Winter's Fang and Crimson Fang forming an X of rippled Valyrian steel and dark meteoric iron. Ice and fire. North and Valyria. Old Gods and dragon lords.
*I am the bridge*, he thought distantly. *Between worlds. Between lives. Between magic systems that were never meant to touch.*
*Harry Potter wielded the Deathly Hallows.*
*Harion Stark wields winter itself.*
*And now... now I have the tools to protect everyone I couldn't save before.*
His legs gave out.
He collapsed. Padfoot was there immediately, catching him, lowering him gently to the blood-slicked stone. Both swords remained in his death-grip, crossed over his chest like a corpse prepared for burial.
"M'fine," Harion slurred. "Just... just need a minute..."
*BROTHER-MINE*, Frost's voice was worried. *HURT. BLEEDING. TOO MUCH.*
"Worth it," Harion whispered. "Two blades. Seven bonds. Legend. We made... legend..."
His eyes rolled back.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was Frost's face—ancient, terrible, beautiful—looking down at him with something that might have been love.
And in his hands, crossed over his heart, Winter's Fang and Crimson Fang sang their duet of ice and fire.
---
**Epilogue — Three Hours Later**
Daemon Targaryen arrived to find a massacre.
Bodies everywhere. Some torn apart. Some frozen solid. Some *both*. The caves painted in blood and ice. And at the center, perched on the cave ceiling like some impossible nightmare, was *her*.
The Ice Dragon.
She watched him approach with eyes that had seen millennia. Did not move. Did not threaten. Simply *observed*.
Daemon stopped fifty feet away.
Corlys, beside him, had gone pale.
"Seven hells," the Sea Snake breathed.
Daemon said nothing. He was staring at the dragon—at this impossible creature that shouldn't exist, that *couldn't* exist according to every history, every legend, every—
"She's beautiful," he whispered finally.
At the center of the carnage, surrounded by his creatures, Harion Stark lay unconscious. His Northern soldiers had formed a protective ring, but they hadn't moved him. Hadn't touched him.
They were *afraid* to.
And across his chest, crossed in the traditional burial pose, were *two swords*.
Daemon walked forward slowly. Frost tracked him with those glacial eyes but didn't move.
He knelt beside Harion.
The boy—the *man*—was barely breathing. Blood crusted his face. His skin was grey-pale, cold to the touch. The gauntlets on his hands had gone dark, the runes dormant.
But his grip on the swords was iron.
Daemon's breath caught when he saw the left-hand blade.
"That's..." Corlys had followed. "Gods above, that's *Valyrian steel*. That's—"
"The Crabfeeder's blade," Daemon finished. He recognized it now. Ancient. Four hundred years old at least. Rippled steel that held smoke and shadow. "The bastard took it as a trophy."
"He *earned* it as a trophy," Corlys corrected softly.
Daemon studied the crossed swords. Dark meteoric iron in the right hand—Winter's Fang, the blade that sang like frozen wind. Valyrian steel in the left—older than the Conquest, a relic of dragon lords and blood magic.
"Two blades," Daemon murmured. "Ice and fire. North and Valyria. He's made himself into a walking contradiction."
"He's made himself into a *legend*," Corlys said.
As if in response, Harion's eyes snapped open.
Still black. Still *other*.
"Did we win?" he rasped.
Daemon laughed. It was a broken sound, half awe, half horror.
"Win? You didn't *win*, wolf. You created *legend*. You—" He gestured helplessly at the carnage, at the Ice Dragon, at the frozen corpses, at the two legendary blades crossed over Harion's chest. "You became the story they'll tell for a thousand years. And you took the Crabfeeder's sword as proof."
Harion's lips twitched. Might have been a smile.
"Two hands," he breathed. "Two blades. Twice the teeth. Good... that's good..."
His eyes started to close.
"Stark," Daemon said sharply. "The Valyrian blade. Does it have a name?"
Harion's eyes opened a crack. Grey now, barely visible through the black.
"Crimson... Fang..." he whispered. "*Keligon Drākys*... Means... 'Blood Tooth' in... in High Valyrian..."
"Crimson Fang and Winter's Fang," Daemon repeated. "Blood and ice. Fire and winter."
"Balance," Harion murmured. His grip on both swords tightened, even as consciousness faded. "Need... balance... to protect... everyone..."
His eyes closed.
This time, they stayed closed.
But he never released the swords.
Daemon tried—gently—to pry one free. Harion's grip was absolute. Frozen. As if the blades had become part of him.
"Let him keep them," Corlys said softly. "I don't think they're his anymore. I think *he's* theirs."
Daemon stood. Looked at Frost. The Ice Dragon looked back.
For a long moment, dragon and prince regarded each other. Two apex predators. Two legends. Two impossibilities acknowledging each other's existence.
Then Frost spread her wings—crystalline, beautiful, *terrible*—and *launched* herself through the cave mouth.
She flew north. Toward home. Toward ice. Toward the places where dragons like her still slept in glacial tombs.
Gone.
Like she'd never been.
Except for the bodies. The frost. The shattered reality of men who'd seen impossible things. And the unconscious boy who held two legendary blades like they were the only real things in the world.
"Get him to the healers," Daemon said quietly. "Gently. Carefully. Like he's made of glass. And whatever you do, don't try to take those swords. I don't think he'll wake up without them."
"My prince," Corlys asked softly. "What do we tell people? About... about *her*? About the swords? About all of this?"
Daemon smiled.
It was a terrible smile.
A smile that would launch a thousand songs.
"We tell them the truth. We tell them that winter came south. That the North remembered how to be terrifying. That a boy named Harion Stark sailed to the Stepstones with seven bonded beasts and a sword made of fallen stars." He paused. "And that when he left, he carried two legendary blades—one from the North, one from Old Valyria—and wielded them like death had given him a second chance."
He turned to face his men—soldiers, sailors, warriors who'd seen three years of grinding war ended in one impossible day.
"We tell them," Daemon said, his voice carrying, *commanding*, "that the Ice-Bringer walked these islands. That he hunts with winter itself. That he took the Crabfeeder's ancient blade as a trophy and now wields ice and fire as if he was born to balance them."
He gestured at Harion—unconscious, bleeding, but gripping both swords with a strength that defied his condition.
"We tell them the world has changed. That legends aren't dead. That magic still walks. And that Harion Stark—the Ice-Bringer, the Shadow-Wolf, the Warg of Winterfell—has become something the world hasn't seen since the Age of Heroes."
In the distance, Caraxes roared.
Somewhere farther still, flying north through impossible skies, Frost answered.
And in the space between, unconscious and bleeding and utterly spent, Harion Stark—who had been Harry Potter, who had died and lived and died and lived again—smiled.
Two swords crossed over his heart.
Ice and fire.
North and Valyria.
Balance and destruction.
The legend was born.
Winter had come south.
And nothing would ever be the same.
---
*From "A History of the Dance of Dragons" by Archmaester Gyldayn:*
*"It was in the Stepstones that men first spoke the name Ice-Bringer with reverence and terror. Harion Stark, cadet branch of the ancient house, arrived with two hundred men and seven bonded creatures—including, witnesses swear, a dragon made of living ice. In three days, he broke the Crabfeeder's final defense. In three days, he painted the caves red and white. In three days, he became legend.*
*But it was his claiming of the Crabfeeder's blade—the ancient Valyrian steel sword Crimson Fang—that elevated him from warrior to myth. Witnesses report he never released either sword, even unconscious. Winter's Fang in his right hand, dark as a moonless night. Crimson Fang in his left, rippled steel that seemed to hold fire within its folds.*
*Prince Daemon would later write: 'I have ridden Caraxes into battle a hundred times. I have burned cities and broken armies. But I have never—NEVER—witnessed anything as terrifying as watching that Northern boy walk through carnage with seven sets of eyes and TWO legendary blades singing their songs of death. One blade is a warrior. Two blades is a statement. He didn't fight the war. He ENDED it. And when his Ice Dragon flew north, when I saw him lying there with ice and fire crossed over his heart, I understood for the first time why the Starks still whisper about the Long Night. Because they remember. The North always remembers. And sometimes, they forge new legends from old magic and stolen Valyrian steel.'*
*The war ended that day. But the legend of the Ice-Bringer—the man who wielded winter in one hand and dragon-forged death in the other—that legend was only beginning."*
---
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