Chapter Text
“Dudley stop! You’re running right at them!”
Dudley didn’t listen, continuing to barrel straight towards the dementors. Harry desperately groped around on the ground for his wand, but all he felt was pavement and fear. He could already hear his mother’s screams… and a rattling breath right behind him. Long, spindly fingers grasped his arm, so cold that they burned. He could hear his father now, telling his mother, “It’s him, Lily! Take Harry and run! I’ll hold him off!”
His head pounded, and his vision swam. He toppled onto the ground and was turned onto his back by the Dementor’s unrelenting grip on his arm. Gazing up, he glimpsed what was under the hood of a dementor for the first time. He had expected a gaping mouth in a skeletal black face, but instead there was just… nothing. Where its face should have been was a swirling void, like a black hole swallowing everything in its vicinity. Devouring happiness, sanity, and souls until there was nothing left.
There was no clear explanation for what happened next, for it had never happened before. As the dementor’s ‘face’ grew closer to Harry’s, his body arched as his soul began to be sucked towards the void. But suddenly, his head snapped back, his eyes turned pure white, and his soul vanished. Not into the void, but somewhere else. The dementor drifted away, disinterested in the now soulless body.
One moment he was seeing the horrible truth of what lay beneath a dementor’s hood, and the next, he was flying. He felt the air between his feathers as he soared high above the trees. His eyes narrowed in on a mouse on the ground. He swooped down and snatched it in his beak with a satisfying crunch. He continued to fly towards the feeling of home. Soon enough, he found himself looking down at a neighborhood of identical houses. He swooped through an open window and into his cage, feasting upon his freshly caught meal. The room had newspapers piled in a trash can, dirty clothes scattered on the floor, and a wardrobe with a door hanging off its hinges. On the nightstand was a moving picture of a redheaded woman and a dark-haired man with round glasses.
His parents! The world came crashing back, and he came to the startling realization that he was not an owl. He was Harry Potter, a wizard. He was the son of Lily and James Potter, the boy-who-lived, and a Hogwarts student. He was a warg, the former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and the King of the Andals, Rhoynar, and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. He was Jon Targaryen, formerly Jon Snow.
His soul snapped back into his body, and he blinked rapidly at the pitch black sky. Not truly expecting anything to happen, he desperately shouted “Lumos!”
His wand tip miraculously lit up a few feet away from his hand, and he snatched it up and scrambled to his feet. Pointing it towards the two dementors surrounding his cousin, he thought of Ron and Hermione, his wife Daenerys, and his children Lyanaera, Aemon, and Jaehaerys.
“EXPECTOOOO PATRONUMMMM!”
Instead of Prongs, a wolf larger than a pony sprouted from the end of his wand. It leapt towards the dementors with a silent snarl. Instead of chasing them away, the patronus bit off the head of the first dementor and swallowed it. Its robes fluttered to the ground, and the robe of the second one soon followed. Once it completed its task, the wolf walked up to Harry and bowed its head. It was so tall that it reached his shoulder. Their eyes met, and Harry gasped. Whereas a patronus was usually entirely silvery white in color, this one had red eyes.
“Ghost,” he whispered, eyes welling with tears. It had been several years since he last saw his faithful companion. He placed his hand on the direwolf’s head, and it vanished into silvery wisps. He blinked, and a tear slipped down his cheek.
Quickly wiping his face, he heard a low groan from his cousin, “Whaaa…”
Fantastic, seems like he still has his soul.
“Seven hells,” he cursed with a dawning realization, “His parents are going to kill me.”
Tucking his wand into his belt at his right hip, he was just about to try to hoist Dudley up when a voice interrupted him, “Don’t put that away, you silly boy!”
“Mrs. Figg?” He looked at the woman incredulously as she shuffled to him as quickly as she could, laden with grocery bags full of cat food.
“Get your wand back out, boy! They could come back,” she snapped.
“I don’t think so… my patronus actually kind of… ate them?” Harry said numbly. Too much had happened in the past several hours. Hell, the past several months. First, Voldemort uses his blood in a ritual to regain a body (an ugly one, in Harry’s opinion). Next, he almost gets killed by Voldemort’s spy, who was a supposed-to-be-dead guy disguised as retired Auror Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody. Then, he gets sent back to the Dursleys, and his friends and godfather send him nothing but vague and infuriating letters. Finally, he gets attacked by dementors, almost gets his soul sucked out, and wargs into his owl. And that’s not even mentioning the fifty plus years of memories as Jon Snow that suddenly appeared in his brain as if they’d always been there. And his patronus changing into an animal that is extinct in this world and somehow managing to eat dementors.
Mrs. Figg either didn’t hear him or decided to ignore him, “Well? We can’t just stand here all day!”
Harry was getting rather tired of people ignoring him, but it was at least marginally better than being labelled as a nut-job. He hadn’t had much to do at the Dursleys except do his homework and read the newspapers cover to cover, so it was kind of hard to miss the Ministry (full of adults) slandering him (a teenager). At least the crosswords were mildly entertaining. Already done with the night’s bullshit, Harry simply sighed and hoisted Dudley up, slinging his cousin’s arm over his shoulders. He quickly regretted the action as his shoulder was almost dislocated.
He stumbled along with Mrs. Figg towards number four, barely registering her threatening some guy named Dung Fletcher. He managed to discern from her rambling that she was a squib that Dumbledore planted in Privet Drive to spy on—ahem, watch over— Harry. And that there were apparently several other people secretly spying on him for the past month. Lovely.
Later on, after a copious amount of yelling, letters, and yelling letters, he laid awake staring at the ceiling. Physically, he was exhausted, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the events of the day. How did he, Jon Targaryen, come to be in this foreign world? The last thing he remembered of his former life was waking up in his bed at the Red Keep to a knife at his throat. Thirty-four years into his rule, he was well-liked by the majority of his people, but he still had an abundance of enemies hiding in the shadows. He suspected one of the traditionalist members of the Citadel had hired yet another assassin. But if he was dead, how was he living and breathing in this new world? Somehow, he felt equally like 15-year-old Harry Potter and 52-year-old Jon Targaryen.
He remembered coming home with a perfect score on his first math test, hoping that it would make his Aunt Tuney love him, but all he got was a slap and a locked cupboard door. He remembered going to Lady Catelyn for comfort during a storm, only for her to scowl and send him away. He remembered running from Dudley and his goons, inexplicably ending up on the school roof. He remembered scaring Arya in the crypts of Winterfell by covering himself in flour and pretending to be a ghost. He remembered holding a wand for the first time at age eleven. He remembered picking up a training sword at age six, under the watchful eyes of Ser Rodrick Cassel.
He remembered finding an albino direwolf in the snow, feeling an instant kinship with the small animal. Taking his vows and becoming a man of the Night's Watch. Saving Lord Commander Mormont from a wight, earning a burn on his hand that ached for weeks. Mormont gifting him Longclaw, his Valyrian steel sword. Killing the Halfhand, spying on the free folk, and forsaking his vows for a girl blessed by fire. Ygritte dying in his arms with an arrow through her heart. Being stabbed by his own brothers. Waking up in Ghost’s body right before his heart stopped. Witnessing his body be healed by the Red Witch through the eyes of Ghost.
He remembered taking back Winterfell with the aid of the free folk, the mountain clans, and the Vale. Being crowned King in the North. The bannermen kneeling to him and hailing him the ‘White Wolf,’ a dream come true but at too high a cost. Reuniting with his siblings. Meeting Daenerys Targaryen and slowly falling in love with her. Asking for her aid against the Night King. Sam telling him of his true heritage as the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. Marrying Daenerys in the godswood. Riding Rhaegal into the clouds, Daenerys at his side on Drogon’s back. The Night King shattering under Longclaw as the sun rose after two days of darkness.
He remembered him and Dany being crowned King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms—the first in Westerosi history to rule as equals. He remembered the birth of their first daughter, Lyanaera, who had his dark brown curls and Dany’s violet eyes. The birth of their first son Aemon, Targaryen in name but all Stark in appearance. And their final son, Jaehaerys, the only child to inherit Dany’s silver hair and violet eyes. His heart longed for his family, even as a part of him was relieved that he would no longer bear the burdens of kingship (and the burdens of living in King’s Landing, a city he passionately hated). He just needed to bear the burdens of yet another war, fought with a weapon that a part of him still feared: magic.
Determination filled him. In another world, another life, Jon had trained with the sword until he could best even Robb, and later on, even more worthy opponents. In this world, wars were not fought with blades, but with magic. Which meant that he must become as proficient with a wand as he was with a blade. Although… it couldn’t hurt to have a sword. The last thing a wizard expected was to get stabbed or beheaded, and he could use that to his advantage. Perhaps he could take back Gryffindor’s sword from Dumbledore… a thought for later.
Not expecting to get any more sleep that night, he started reading his old school books. He took diligent notes and practiced wand movements with a pencil. By morning light, he was halfway through the second year books and starting to nod off at his desk.
“Kill the spare!” a raspy voice hissed. There was a flash of green light, and Daenerys’s unseeing violet eyes stared up at him. He tried to reach for her, but he was tied to a tombstone, the grave of Tom Riddle Sr. A knife dug into his arm, and blood dripped down slowly. Harry tracked its progress and watched it sizzle where it met the earth. The dirt turned into obsidian everywhere his blood landed.
“Your blood will wake them,” said Wormtail. But it was not his voice. It was a hundred voices, young, old, man, and woman, echoing from all directions. Wormtail gathered some of his blood in a vial and poured it into the giant cauldron at his feet. A figure began to rise, emanating a chill that rattled Harry’s bones. The figure stepped out of the cauldron and turned around slowly to face Harry.
Before he could see its face, Harry woke with a gasp, clutching his scar in agony.