Chapter Text
Harry awoke with a neck that felt as though a Hungarian Horntail had trampled over it. A sharp, throbbing ache pulled from his shoulders up into his skull, the unmistakable result of a night spent sleeping on a rock.
Which, judging by the feeling, was exactly what had happened.
He lay still for a moment longer with his eyes closed. The ground beneath him was hard and damp with the morning dew; blades of grass poked shamelessly against his cheek. In the distance he heard the cheerful chatter of birds and the soothing murmur of running water.
That was strange. Grimmauld Place had no birds. And the only river anywhere near the headquarters was the Thames, and that usually sounded more like an industrial sewer than this idyllic splashing.
Harry laboriously opened one eye.
Above him green leaves swayed in the sunlight. Branches stretched against a cloudless blue sky that looked far too optimistic for someone with this sort of headache. He blinked. Then again.
“…okay,” he muttered.
His voice sounded wrong. Too high, too clear, like the chiming of a bell instead of his usual morning rasp.
He sat up, but the world promptly decided to turn a cartwheel. Harry reached out to steady his forehead with his hand and froze halfway. His hand was… different. Slender. The fingers were longer, the skin smooth as silk, and the knuckles lacked the scars and calluses of years spent playing Quidditch and duelling.
He slowly turned his hand over, as though it were some cursed object. “…that is not my hand.”
He squeezed it. It felt like his hand. But it most certainly was not his. With a growing sense of unease he looked down.
That was a strategic mistake.
His chest was suddenly in the way. Harry went rigid. With extreme care, as though inspecting a ticking bomb, he tapped two fingers against the curve beneath his tunic. It gave slightly. He snatched his hand back as though he had burned himself.
“…oh.”
He looked again. Two distinct curves showed beneath the rough brown linen tunic. Harry drew a trembling breath. “Okay,” he whispered to the trees. “This is… a new development.”
His hands moved further down with hesitation, along a waist that was suddenly far narrower, toward his groin. He felt. Then again. More thoroughly this time, with a panic rising faster than a Firebolt. His eyes flew wide open.
“…no.”
He felt again. The emptiness was deafening. Harry sprang to his feet, ignoring all the elegance of his new body.
“Where is my dick?!” he shouted into the forest.
A flock of birds burst from the trees along the river in alarm. Harry stood there for several seconds, breathing hard while his brain desperately tried to process the data. He looked at his legs: the tunic fell halfway down his thighs, and beneath it he wore simple trousers held up by a leather belt. Everything felt strangely light, differently balanced… and alarmingly feminine.
He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. “George,” he said darkly to an innocent oak tree. “If this is a joke, then I swear I will feed your entire stock of Skiving Snackboxes to Mrs. Norris.”
But deep down he already knew. George Weasley was a genius, but even he could not rewrite the fundamental laws of biology and space-time this thoroughly. This felt larger. Older.
Harry looked around. He stood on the bank of a broad, slow-moving river. The grass here and there was trampled flat, as though heavy horses had stood there. And in the distance, glimmering in the morning sun, he saw them.
Tents. Hundreds of tents. Great silk pavilions in screaming red, deep blue, and gleaming gold. Banners fluttered lazily in the wind. The metallic clatter of swords striking shields carried across the water, together with the distant calls of men.
Harry narrowed his eyes and touched his new, long black hair.
“…that looks suspiciously like a tourney.”
“Ser Duncan,” said a clear young voice somewhere behind him. “I swear there is someone standing there. Among the ferns.”
Harry turned abruptly, his new long locks whipping awkwardly across his face. In a small clearing between the trees stood two figures who seemed to have stepped straight out of a history book about the Middle Ages.
The first was gigantic. He towered easily two heads above Harry, broad-shouldered as a grown troll. His clothing consisted of coarse, homespun wool that looked worn and dusty, as though he had spent far more time upon dusty roads than in the halls of knights. Around his waist was a simple length of rope serving as a belt, the only thing keeping his tunic and trousers together.
His brown hair sat in a tangled mess and his great hands hung somewhat awkwardly at his sides. There was nothing about him that suggested a proud knight—rather a large and somewhat shabby traveler. Yet he looked at Harry with wide, astonished eyes, as though he himself did not quite know how he had come to be here.
Beside him stood a boy of perhaps ten years. His head was shaved smooth and shone in the sun, and his gaze was far too serious and sharp for a child of his age.
They both stared at Harry. Harry stared back with equal disbelief.
The large man cleared his throat, a sound like gravel grinding together. “Er,” he said uncertainly. “My lady?”
Harry instinctively looked over his shoulder. No one. Only a startled squirrel. He looked back at the giant before him. “Who?”
The boy with the shaved head frowned. “You,” he said curtly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Harry pointed a slender finger at his own chest. “…Me?”
“Yes, my lady,” the great knight said hastily, a blush spreading across his cheeks. “Forgive us if we startled you. We saw you lying there beneath the tree and feared for a moment that you were injured. Or… worse.”
Harry glanced at the tree where he had apparently taken his nap, and then back at the pair. My lady. The words felt like a cold shower. He looked down at the curves beneath his tunic.
“…Oh,” he muttered. The realization was truly beginning to sink in now: the world did not see Harry Potter, the boy who lived. The world saw a girl in a tunic that was far too tight.
The knight seemed to grow even more uncomfortable because of Harry’s silence. He took a cautious step forward, a movement that made him seem even more impressively large. Yet he appeared to have absolutely no idea what to do with his hands.
“Er,” he said. “Dunk.”
Harry blinked with his long lashes. “…Dunk?”
“Yes.”
An awkward silence fell, broken only by the soft rush of the river. Harry tilted his head slightly, his green eyes studying him. “Is that a first name, a surname, or some sort of warning that I ought to duck?”
The boy beside the giant visibly struggled to suppress a grin. His serious mask showed cracks. The big man blinked several times, clearly thrown off by the direct tone of this “lady.”
“Just… Dunk,” he said at last, almost apologetically.
Harry nodded thoughtfully. “Convenient. Saves a great deal of paperwork.”
The boy now actually snorted softly. Dunk turned even redder; the color of his face was beginning to match the banners in the distance rather nicely. “Ser—” he suddenly began again, straightening his back in an attempt to appear knightly and imposing. “Ser Duncan.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second, as though he still had to try the title on for size. “…the Tall.”
Harry let his gaze travel slowly upward. And upward. And a little farther upward. “Yes,” he said dryly. “That seems a fairly accurate description.”
The boy gave up and grinned broadly, his whole face lighting up. “And I am Egg,” he added. He made a short, astonishingly proper bow. “My lady.”
His eyes glittered with pure curiosity as he appraised Harry. He was clearly far less unsettled by the situation than his large companion. Dunk, on the other hand, still looked at Harry as though she were some rare and fragile creature—which probably had everything to do with the fact that Harry, to his own considerable irritation, had apparently turned into a stunningly beautiful girl.
That was something he would have to think about later. Much later. When he recognized his own anatomy again, for instance.
Harry stared at them. Dunk. Egg. Ashford. Those names… they stirred a memory somewhere deep in his mind. A dusty book from the Black library, filled with family trees and stories about a royal house with the blood of the dragon. The Targaryens—but… that was fiction.
He looked past them to the fluttering banners in the camp. Then back to the knight. Then to the boy. “…Wait a moment,” Harry said slowly, as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place with a painful click.
Egg looked at him questioningly. “Are you lost, my lady? You look as though you do not come from these parts.”
Harry drew a deep breath and felt the unfamiliar restriction of his new body. “That,” he said, “is an excellent question.”
He looked again at his hands, at his lack of… well, everything that made him Harry. “But I think,” he continued carefully, “that I may be rather farther gone than merely lost.”
Dunk nodded slowly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that a beautiful woman should materialize out of nowhere in the grass. Egg, however, studied Harry with the razor-sharp gaze of someone who had found a puzzle and was determined to hammer the final piece into place.
Harry ignored them for a moment and felt at himself again. No vanity, merely inventory. Chest? Still present. Dick? Still missing.
“Brilliant,” he muttered bitterly. His voice sounded far too melodious for the curse he was composing in his head.
His hand slid to his hip and suddenly caught on something. Beneath the rough cloth of the tunic he felt something familiar. His heart performed an acrobatic leap. With trembling fingers he felt beneath his belt and fished out a small, weathered pouch of mokeskin.
“Ah,” he breathed, a sigh of pure relief escaping him.
Dunk immediately looked away, suddenly very interested in the top of a distant tree, as though he feared he might be witnessing something improper. Egg, on the other hand, possessed no such shame and leaned forward boldly.
Harry loosened the cord and slipped his fingers inside. The cool, familiar wood of his wand closed into his palm. The relief was so overwhelming that he closed his eyes for a moment. Magic tingled at his fingertips, a warm beacon in this strange, cold world.
“Thank Merlin,” he whispered.
“Is that—” Egg began, his eyes wide with curiosity.
Harry immediately slid the wand back into the pouch. “A piece of wood,” he said faster than a Seeker snatching a Snitch.
Egg raised an eyebrow that spoke volumes, but Harry ignored him. He quickly rummaged through the contents of the pouch: a few golden galleons, a small bottle with only the last drops of potion left in it, a crumpled scrap of parchment, and a solitary Chocolate Frog card.
He knew there was more inside, hidden deeper away: the Marauder’s Map, the Snitch with the Resurrection Stone within it, a letter from his mother to Sirius with a small photograph, and his invisibility cloak. It was all still there.
With a relieved breath he tied the pouch securely shut and tucked it safely back beneath his belt.
Only then did he look up again at the pair. Dunk still stood there like a gigantic, bashful sentinel, while Egg, arms folded, assessed the situation.
“…May I ask something?” Harry broke the silence.
“Certainly, my lady,” Dunk replied at once, with a courtesy that was almost comical given his appearance.
Harry gestured vaguely toward the colorful tents. “Where… exactly are we?”
Dunk opened his mouth, closed it again, and began scratching furiously behind his ear. “Er,” he managed, before looking helplessly at Egg.
The boy sighed deeply—the sort of sigh from someone accustomed to doing the thinking for two. “We are at Ashford Meadow, my lady,” he said patiently. “Upon the banks of the Cockleswent.”
Harry blinked. That meant absolutely nothing to him. “And—” he continued carefully, “in what… year are we living?”
Dunk looked at him as though he had asked for the square root of an abstract number. But Egg answered promptly. “In the ninetieth year after Aegon’s Conquest. During the great tourney of Lord Ashford.”
Harry nodded slowly, as though that were a perfectly reasonable answer. Inside his head, however, panic was racing in top gear.
Option one: A very elaborate Muggle stage play.
Option two: Time travel.
Option three: He was somewhere that made Knockturn Alley look like a normal holiday destination.
He fervently hoped for the stage play. Stage plays eventually had a curtain call and you could go home.
Egg now regarded Harry with renewed interest, his gaze lingering on Harry’s unusual green eyes. “My lady,” he said suddenly. “You have not yet told us your name.”
Harry opened his mouth to say Harry, but caught himself just in time. In this body that would probably cause even more confusion than he had already created.
“Har—”
He abruptly held his breath and glanced feverishly around, searching for inspiration in the mud of the riverbank. A tree. A cart. A pile of brushwood.
“—low,” he forced out.
Egg blinked his owl-like eyes. “Harlow?”
Harry nodded bravely, as though he had borne that name since his christening. “Harlow. Yes.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and glanced at the wooden cart half-hidden in the bushes. “Black—” he murmured, thinking of his godfather. His gaze flicked to the edge of the forest. “—wood. Harlow Blackwood. But… you may call me Harry.”
Dunk immediately turned dark red, a shade that came dangerously close to the banners of the Targaryens. “My— er— mylady— I mean— Lady Harlow—” The great knight visibly struggled with the etiquette, as though he were trying to wield a sword three sizes too large.
Egg, on the other hand, gave a short, sharp bow, but his gaze remained razor keen. “Blackwood?” he repeated, and an unexpected weight entered his voice. “Of Raventree Hall?”
Harry had absolutely no idea whether Raventree Hall was a castle or an inn for retired owls, but he nodded with the bluff confidence of a Gryffindor chasing a Snitch. “Precisely that one.”
Egg began an inspection that would have impressed even Madame Pince. He walked a slow circle around Harry, his eyes sharp and critical. He paused briefly at Harry’s face, so close that Harry could feel the sun-warmth from the boy’s skin.
“The hair fits,” Egg muttered half to himself.
Harry blinked in surprise with his long lashes. “Pardon?”
Egg tapped thoughtfully at his chin with one finger. “The Blackwoods are known for their raven-black hair. And they are usually tall and slender. Descendants of the First Men.” He nodded slowly, as though he had classified a botanical specimen. “That fits.”
Harry had no idea who the First Men were—and whether there were also Second or Third Men—but he arranged his best I-belong-here expression. “Family traits,” he said lightly, brushing a lock of hair from his eyes that felt far too soft.
Egg was now studying Harry’s eyes with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. He frowned slightly and tilted his head. “Only… your eyes.”
Harry held his breath. It felt as though he were taking an exam in a subject whose textbook he had never even opened. “What about my eyes?”
“Green,” Egg said shortly. “More Lannister than Blackwood.”
Harry had no idea what a Lannister was, but it sounded like something you needed an ointment from the infirmary for. “…That happens,” he improvised quickly, “with distant relatives. Genetic… er, surprises.”
Egg studied him intently for another second, as though he smelled a lie, but then he shrugged. Dunk, who had long since lost track of the political and genealogical fencing match, attempted to salvage the atmosphere.
“Er,” said the giant helpfully, “green is a very beautiful color, my lady. Like moss on a sunny day.”
Egg snorted softly and his nose tilted upward a little. “Interesting,” said the boy, pointing a finger at Harry’s rough, muddy tunic. “Because usually the daughters of Raventree Hall do not dress as though they have just fallen out of a tree.”
Harry looked down at his battered outfit and then back at the boy with the shaved head. “That,” he said with his best Hermione-like dryness, “is because I have just fallen out of a tree.”
Egg stood perfectly still for a moment, his large eyes wide. Then a broad grin broke across his serious face and he began to laugh. It was an honest sound that drove the tension from the air.
Dunk immediately pulled a face as though he personally bore responsibility for every scratch on her body. “Are you injured, my— er— Lady Harlow?”
Harry let out a deep sigh and felt the unfamiliar weight of his new form.
“Only existentially,” he muttered.
Egg continued to look at Harry for several moments without blinking, his head tilted slightly as though he were trying to solve a complicated sum whose numbers the rest of the world had never seen. “Blackwood,” he said at last thoughtfully. “Then you must be here for the tourney.”
Harry shrugged, a gesture that felt strangely elegant in this body. “That… sounds plausible.”
Egg nodded slowly, and his voice took on the monotone cadence of a maester reciting a chronicle. “Several Blackwoods have come. Four, I believe. Ser Bennifer, Ser Robert, Ser Roland, and Ser Roger.” His eyes gleamed faintly as he listed the names. “Ser Bennifer is the heir to Raventree Hall.”
Harry nodded bravely along. In the Wizarding world you learned quickly: if you did not know the answers, act as though the question was beneath your dignity.
“Their camp stands at the far western end of the field,” Egg continued. “As far away as possible from Ser Otho Bracken.”
Harry sensed that a reaction was expected. He searched his memory for lessons from History of Magic, but they were of no use here. “…And that is good because?”
Egg made a face full of contempt for Harry’s apparent ignorance. “Because of the feud.”
Harry waited. Egg waited as well, savoring his superior knowledge.
Then the boy sighed deeply. “Three years ago,” he began patiently, “Ser Otho Bracken killed Lord Quentyn Blackwood during a tourney. By accident, some say. The Blackwoods call it murder.”
Harry made a sound somewhere between sympathy and pure discomfort. “Ah. Family disputes.” He nodded understandingly. “Sounds cozy.”
“With lances,” Egg added dryly.
Harry pulled a crooked face. “Yes, that sort of family conversation I generally try to avoid. In my family they usually end with broken crockery, not wooden poles through your chest.”
Dunk suddenly seemed to awaken from a dream. “Oh! Yes! The Blackwoods!” He pointed with a gigantic hand toward the field where the tents had sprung up like colorful mushrooms. “I saw their banner when we arrived this morning. A dead white tree with ravens upon a red field.”
Harry nodded as though he had personally approved the design. “Precisely that one.”
Egg, however, kept his gaze fixed firmly on Harry. “You knew that already, my lady?”
Harry conjured up her most innocent smile. “Well,” she said lightly, plucking an imaginary bit of lint from her tunic, “I do not normally involve myself with… all that blood, death, and destruction. Those are subjects for knights and other armed men, are they not?”
Dunk nodded at once, his knightly instincts stirred. “Yes, my lady. It is no sight for a lady.”
Egg raised one eyebrow so high it nearly reached the back of his head, but wisely held his tongue. Dunk meanwhile looked back toward the busy tourney field. “I can take you there,” he offered. “It is a large camp. You could easily lose your way.”
Harry felt a sharp stab of panic. The last thing he wanted was to be delivered by a gigantic knight to a family he had never met, who would certainly notice that “Harlow” did not exist.
“That is incredibly kind,” Harry said quickly, her voice an octave higher. “But that truly will not be necessary. Truly.”
Dunk looked uncertain. “It is no trouble—”
“I know the way!” Harry called a little too loudly. She gestured vaguely toward the camp. “Western side. Raven tree. Impossible to miss. Even for me.”
Egg suddenly smiled a little crookedly, an expression Harry did not like at all. “Perhaps,” the boy said casually, “Lady Harlow is not on her way to her family at all.”
Harry froze. “Pardon?”
“Perhaps,” Egg continued, pointing a finger at Harry’s muddy clothing, “she has simply run away. Disguised as a man to escape the feud.”
Harry looked down at her tunic, then back at the razor-sharp boy. “If that were the case,” she said in her best Professor McGonagall voice, “I would certainly never admit it honestly.”
Egg now grinned broadly. Dunk, on the other hand, immediately looked horrified. “You have not run away, my lady? Your father will be beside himself!”
Harry placed a reassuring hand upon the knight’s enormous arm. “I assure you, Ser Duncan… everything is entirely under control.”
That was the greatest lie she had ever told, and she had fought Voldemort. But it sounded convincing enough for Dunk. Egg seemed less impressed, yet eventually he pointed toward the field. “The Blackwood tents are that way. At the far western side. You cannot miss the ravens.”
Harry nodded gratefully. “Thank you. Both of you. For everything.”
She turned and began walking briskly toward the camp, trying to ignore how strangely her hips moved. After a few steps Dunk’s deep voice sounded behind her again.
“Lady Harlow!”
Harry turned around. The giant stood there awkwardly, his great hands pressed uncertainly against his chest as though he did not quite know where to put them. “Er… I only wished to say… tomorrow the jousts begin. The champions will ride.”
Harry remembered the tales of knights and kings. “Yes?”
Dunk looked down at his own large feet and then back at Harry. “Perhaps… we might see each other there again?”
Harry felt an unexpected surge of sympathy for the awkward man. “Of course,” she said with a genuine smile. “I should like that, Ser Duncan.”
Dunk beamed as though he had just won a tournament. Egg looked from one to the other with an expression that predicted this would lead to something very interesting indeed. Harry turned away for good and walked into the bustle of Ashford Meadow, on her way to a family she did not know, in a world she did not understand, with a body that constantly got in her way.
Once Harry was out of sight of Dunk and Egg, she let her polite smile drop like a burden that had grown too heavy. Her gaze drifted across the colossal sea of tents, horses, and fluttering banners that claimed Ashford Meadow.
There were thousands of people here. Thousands of witnesses, thousands of strangers, and hopefully thousands of ways to become invisible. Harry drew a deep breath. If everything goes well, she thought with a flash of her old stubbornness, I will be gone from here by tomorrow.
She walked into the camp as though she had accidentally stepped into a painting—a canvas of battle and mud that was far too alive. The smell was overwhelming: wet grass, the sharp stink of horse manure, biting wood smoke, and the fat of roasting meat hissing above open fires.
To her left she saw a row of squires polishing lances longer than she was tall. A little farther on a knight in full armor attempted to mount his horse. He became stuck halfway, one leg hopelessly in the air, while three sweating boys tried to shove him upward with brute force.
Harry paused to watch for a moment, her head tilted. “…that does not seem very practical,” she muttered to herself.
A few steps farther she passed a noisy tent where a man with a wooden board shouted above the din: “Wagers on the joust! Who dares wager against the Laughing Storm?” Beside the man someone struggled to restrain a hawk; the bird shrieked indignantly and spread its wings like a furious fan.
This was big. But, Harry decided, not quite as big as he had expected.
His gaze settled on the castle that rose above the field. Ashford Castle. At least, that was what passed for a fortress. Harry narrowed his eyes while studying the walls. It had battlements. A few towers. But honestly… he shrugged.
“…a little disappointing.”
“I do not often hear that said of Ashford.”
The voice came from right beside him, calm and carrying an authority that required no volume. Harry turned abruptly.
The man standing there was clearly someone for whom people instinctively made space. He wore no gleaming armor, only a simple dark tunic beneath a heavy black cloak that hung loosely from his broad shoulders. No gold embroidery, no unnecessary finery, yet the way he stood suggested that he moved as easily among the highest kings as among the roughest knights.
His hair was almost black, streaked with silver at the temples that lent him a stately air. A short, well-kept beard framed a strong face. But what struck Harry first were his eyes.
They were not the same.
One was a deep, earthy brown; the other a bright, icy blue. Together they gave him a gaze that was both sharp and watchful, as though he perceived the world in two different layers at once. He was looking at Harry now with a mixture of curiosity and mild amusement.
“What is disappointing?” he asked mildly.
Harry pointed shamelessly toward the castle. “That.”
The man followed his finger to the horizon.
“It is not particularly tall,” Harry explained, suppressing his surprise at his own new, feminine voice. “And there are no truly impressive towers. And I hardly see a moat.”
The man looked back at him—or rather, at her. He began to laugh. It was not a mocking laugh, but the sound of someone who found genuine pleasure in an unexpected remark.
“You set high standards for castles, my lady.”
Harry shrugged, a gesture that looked far more graceful in this body than he intended. “If you go to the trouble of building one, you may as well do it properly. Where are the dizzying staircases? And honestly—” he narrowed his eyes “—I strongly doubt it has even a single secret passage.”
The man regarded him silently for a moment, the two-colored eyes gleaming. “Secret passages?”
“That is really the most important measure,” Harry said with perfect seriousness.
The man grinned broadly. “Then I must disappoint you. I have yet to discover a single one.”
Harry met his gaze directly, green eyes studying him. “You have searched?”
“A little,” the man admitted.
Harry nodded approvingly. “Good start.”
The man leaned lightly against a wooden pole of a nearby tent. “But I must confess,” he said, “I am not the lord of this castle. I am merely a traveler here, much like yourself.”
“Pity,” Harry said. Then he suddenly realized he was once again discussing architecture and espionage with a complete stranger. “By the way… you do not even know my name.”
The man looked down expectantly at the young woman before him. Harry felt the words almost roll from his lips automatically now, a new identity he wrapped around himself like an invisible cloak.
“Harlow Blackwood,” he said.
The man grinned broadly, an expression that softened the severity of his face. “Not all houses can rival the age of Raventree Hall. A Blackwood recognizes quality at the roots, not in the novelty of the stones.”
Harry looked back toward the castle and snorted softly. “No. But still.” He pointed with a slender finger toward the nearest tower. “That thing is hardly impressive. I have seen owl houses with more character.”
The man laughed again, a rich and warm sound. Harry now looked straight at him, his green eyes bright in the sunlight. “You know my name,” he said challengingly. “But I have no idea with whom I am speaking, except that you apparently possess a great deal of patience with critics.”
The man straightened slightly. The simple black cloak suddenly seemed to hang heavier, the authority he radiated becoming almost tangible.
“Baelor Targaryen.”
Harry stared at him. His mouth fell open a little.
“Wait—”
He stepped closer, completely forgetting etiquette.
“The Targaryens have dragons, right?”
Baelor nodded slowly, a trace of melancholy in his mismatched gaze. “Had.”
Harry’s face visibly fell. The disappointment was so sincere that he forgot for a moment he was playing a role.
“None left?”
“None.”
Harry sighed deeply, as though someone had just informed him that Christmas had been cancelled and the presents burned. “That is truly disappointing.”
Baelor looked down with amusement at the “lady” who spoke so fearlessly of the monsters in the history of his house. “You seem to know much about dragons, Lady Harlow.”
“Oh yes,” Harry said at once, his thoughts flashing to the arena. “I have met a Hungarian Horntail.”
Baelor blinked with his brown and blue eye. The name sounded to him like pure poetry—or madness.
Meanwhile Harry began counting enthusiastically on his fingers. “And a Ukrainian Ironbelly. And a Norwegian Ridgeback.”
Baelor now regarded him with undisguised interest. “Those are… remarkable names. We do not truly speak of species as you describe them.”
Harry frowned. “How do you then?”
Baelor considered for a moment, his gaze drifting over the horizon as though searching for the shadows of his ancestors. “More… forms,” he said. “Build. The largest dragons in our history were massive. Broad in the chest, heavy skulls, powerful hind legs. Like Balerion, the Black Dread.”
Harry nodded slowly while trying to visualize the anatomy. “A sort of… tyrannosaurus,” he muttered to himself.
Baelor let the strange term pass and continued. “Then there are the more slender dragons. With long necks and winding bodies. More agile. Caraxes was built so. Almost serpentine.”
Harry raised his eyebrows, thinking of the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. “That sounds dangerous.”
“They all are,” Baelor said mildly. “Some had narrower snouts. Longer skulls. More… horse-like.”
Harry blinked. “…A horse dragon.”
Baelor chuckled softly. “You might call it that.”
“And which was the largest?” Harry asked at once, his curiosity that of a first-year student.
“Vhagar,” Baelor said without hesitation. “During the Dance of the Dragons.”
Harry nodded as though he could simply look that up in a textbook. “And how do you hatch the eggs?”
Baelor studied him for a moment, the amusement in his gaze giving way to a sharper watchfulness. “Why do you ask that?”
Harry shrugged, a movement that appeared unexpectedly graceful in his new body. “Just curious.” He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “The most important thing with dragon eggs is heat. You must keep them in fire. That imitates how dragon mothers breathe upon them to keep them warm.”
Baelor listened attentively. “That sounds… plausible.”
“And when the egg hatches,” Harry continued, his passion for magical creatures taking over, “you must feed it every thirty minutes.”
Baelor raised an eyebrow. “So often?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Brandy and chicken blood,” Harry said firmly.
Baelor fell silent. He studied the young woman—her black hair, her bright green eyes, and the utterly absurd yet detailed knowledge she was sharing. Then he began to laugh softly.
“That sounds as though you have tried it yourself.”
Harry shrugged and thought of Hagrid’s hut and clouds of smoke. “Not personally. But someone I know has. A… very large friend of mine.”
Baelor still watched him with that calm, curious gaze that made Harry feel the prince saw more than merely his appearance.
“You sound as though you would have wished to be a dragonrider yourself.”
Harry thought of the wind in his face, the power of wings beneath him, and the feeling of absolute freedom. He smiled crookedly, an expression that suddenly seemed very old and very wise.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I was one in a previous life.”
Baelor studied Harry silently for a few seconds. His mismatched eyes—one brown, the other blue—seemed each to weigh a different thought, as though trying to judge from what strange wood this “Lady Blackwood” had been carved.
Then he smiled faintly.
“If that is so,” he said calmly, “then I hope your dragon was kinder than most in our history.”
Harry pulled a crooked face. Not because he found Baelor’s remark rude, but because he suddenly felt again the scorching heat of a Hungarian Horntail upon his neck. He remembered the claws that had scraped mere inches past his broomstick above a ravine.
“Kinder?” he repeated with a bitter note.
He shook his head firmly, his black locks swaying along his shoulders.
“Dragons are not kind. They are dangerous. And frankly, they are not exactly pets.”
He folded his arms loosely across his chest, a posture that in his new body looked unconsciously graceful yet defensive.
“They are not creatures you truly own. You may ride them, perhaps make them listen—sometimes—but in the end they do what they wish. They are too intelligent to truly be confined.”
Baelor studied him attentively, fascinated by the sober passion in the young woman’s voice.
“That is a remarkable view,” he said slowly. “Many people in Westeros would say that dragons are precisely power. Weapons with which kingdoms are forged.”
Harry snorted with contempt. “That sounds like an excellent way to get burned. You cannot legislate a firestorm.”
Baelor laughed. Not loudly, but with genuine amusement. He clearly enjoyed that someone spoke so casually about the ancient glory of his house, as though dragons were merely an inconvenient natural phenomenon. Harry looked again toward the castle and the fields beyond it, where the first knights were preparing themselves.
“Do you think they will return?” Harry asked suddenly.
Baelor was silent for a moment. It was not an awkward silence, but the sort in which a man considers a question seriously before speaking. “Dragons,” he said slowly, “have always been bound to my house. But the world changes, Lady Harlow.”
Harry tilted his head. “So do dragons.”
Baelor looked at him again, his gaze sharp. “Do you think they still exist somewhere?”
Harry thought briefly of the reserves in Romania, far from the Muggle world. He shrugged. “If they are clever, they do.”
“And why would they hide?” the prince asked curiously.
Harry looked at the thousands of people on Ashford Meadow. The sweating horses, the gleaming lances, the sharp swords and the egos even larger than the pavilions. He looked back at Baelor.
“If I were a dragon,” he said dryly, “I would not willingly live among this sort of people either.”
Baelor laughed again. It was a warm, human laugh; the laugh of a man who simply enjoyed, for a moment, a conversation that was not about politics or succession. For a few seconds they stood there simply as equals.
Then Baelor’s gaze drifted briefly over Harry’s appearance again—the muddy tunic, the trousers, the way “she” moved.
“And where are your kin to be found,” he asked at last calmly, “Lady Blackwood?”
Harry pointed toward the far side of the camp. “Western end. As far from Ser Otho Bracken as possible.”
Baelor nodded. “That is correct. A wise choice for your family.” Yet he kept his gaze on Harry’s clothing. “And your… attire?”
Harry shrugged. “Tree.”
Baelor raised an eyebrow. “Tree?”
“I fell out of it.”
Baelor smiled faintly, but something sharper glinted in his eyes. “Interesting. Many people take another name or role for a time to escape,” he said calmly. “From expectations. From family. From the weight of their birth.”
Harry said nothing, but he felt his heartbeat quicken.
Baelor continued, his voice softer now. “But in the end it is usually easier to face the truth. Whoever you try to be, Harlow… the world has a habit of catching up with you.”
A brief, charged silence followed. Harry met his gaze directly, his green eyes bright against the prince’s mismatched pair.
“That sounds like a life lesson, Your Grace.”
“Perhaps,” Baelor said mysteriously. “But knights require lessons as well. Even those who think they are merely watching.”
Baelor studied Harry a moment longer with that penetrating, mismatched gaze. Then, with effortless calm, he lifted his hand and brushed a rebellious black curl behind Harry’s ear.
The gesture was gentle, almost fatherly, yet it completely unsettled Harry. The touch felt strangely familiar and at the same time reminded him painfully that to the outside world he looked like a vulnerable young woman.
“You would be wise, Lady Blackwood,” Baelor said softly, “to dress again as befits a lady.”
Harry blinked, still processing the words. Baelor let his gaze wander over the restless field, where knights, squires, cunning merchants and noisy camp followers moved in all directions.
“There are many honorable men here,” the prince continued calmly, “but honor is a thin varnish in a place like this. Not every man who carries a sword carries a conscience.”
Harry recovered and shrugged with the nonchalance of someone accustomed to dark forests and murderous wizards. “I will manage.”
Baelor looked at him again, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Will you?”
Harry gave a crooked grin, an expression that lent a mischievous glint to his new face. “Let us say I can defend myself fairly well. I am not as fragile as I may appear.”
Baelor studied him for a moment, as though trying to discover an invisible shield. “With words?”
Harry thought of the mokeskin pouch at his hip. Of the wand burning within it. Of paralysis spells and the savage power of a Horntail. He shrugged again.
“Among other things.”
Baelor smiled, yet the shadow of concern did not entirely leave his gaze. “Even the most capable people can find themselves in situations where caution is a greater virtue than courage, Lady Harlow.”
Baelor fell silent for a moment, his gaze resting where he had just touched Harry’s hair. The fatherly softness in his eyes gave way to something more compact, something that burned deeper. He took half a step forward, closing almost all the distance between them.
Harry felt the unmistakable warmth radiating from the prince—the infamous heat of dragonblood, mingled with the sultry, almost tangible intensity of his southern heritage.
“If you seek company that will not trouble you,” Baelor repeated, his voice now lower, edged with a roughness that made the hairs on Harry’s neck rise, “you would be welcome among my retinue. No man there would hinder you.”
He leaned slightly closer, his face so near that Harry could no longer escape the two-colored focus of his eyes.
“But make no mistake, my lady. The men in this camp hunt deer and boar, but I see prey far rarer. And I have the habit of keeping what I value very close to me.”
Harry sighed softly. He had the uneasy feeling that he had just lost a verbal duel to a man who had not even drawn his sword—a man whose dominance was not loud, but immovable as the walls of a fortress.
“You have made your point, Your Grace,” Harry said, surprised at how hoarse his own voice sounded. He forced himself to take a step back, away from the prince’s magnetic circle. “And I shall certainly remember the offer. But for now… I have matters to attend to alone. A Blackwood does not like to find the road on another’s arm, no matter how strong that arm may be.”
Baelor slowly lowered his hand, though his gaze lingered briefly on Harry’s lips before meeting his eyes again. A knowing, almost predatory smile curved the corners of his mouth.
“Pride,” he observed approvingly. “That is not often encountered. They say I possess too much patience.”
“Then I am honored to be the exception,” Harry replied with an awkward curtsey.
He turned to disappear into the anonymity of the crowd, his thoughts a whirlwind. There was a gravity to Baelor Targaryen that reminded Harry of Dumbledore—only without the riddles and with a far more dangerous sort of fire.
He resolutely took a path between two rows of brightly colored pavilions to go his own way.
“Lady Blackwood!”
Harry froze and turned around.
Baelor still stood exactly where Harry had left him, his black cloak moving softly in the wind. He cleared his throat discreetly and pointed with two fingers toward the path far to the left.
“Your family lies that way,” the prince said, unmistakable amusement in his voice.
Harry looked at the muddy path he had just confidently taken—which quite clearly led toward the stables.
“…Right.”
He turned on his heel, his cheeks coloring unintentionally beneath the amused gaze of the crown prince. “Thank you.”
Baelor smiled broadly, the dominance of a moment ago once again hidden behind a mask of courtesy.
“I hope to see you tomorrow at the joust. The Targaryens and the Blackwoods have always shared close ties. It would be a pity if that tradition ended here because of a… tree.”
Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw the prince incline his head once more.
“Then I shall do my best not to fall again.”
Baelor saluted him with a slow, meaningful gesture, and Harry walked on—this time resolutely in the correct direction.
Within a few minutes the slender figure of “Harlow” was swallowed by the lively bustle of Ashford Meadow, while he tried to shake the heat of Baelor’s gaze from his skin.
Knights in half armor thundered past, squires lugged awkward bundles of lances, and merchants shouted themselves hoarse. Everywhere around him rose a cacophony of laughter and the rhythmic metallic ringing of steel.
Slowly the sun began to sink behind the horizon, turning the sky above Ashford Meadow into a molten sea of gold and deep red.
Harry felt his stomach protest loudly.
“…okay,” he muttered to a passing donkey. Food was priority number one, but as he pushed his way through the crowd, a second problem began to press itself upon him: he stood out. Not like a flying broomstick in a suburban street, but enough to catch the attention of knights who lingered just a little too long with their staring.
His gaze drifted over the ladies strolling between the tents. Silk gowns rustled across the grass, long heavy skirts, elegant cloaks. Some wore intricate braids that must have taken an hour to arrange; others wore simple, practical traveling dresses.
Harry looked down at his own outfit.
Tunic. Trousers. Sturdy boots.
“…right.” He let out a heavy sigh. If he wanted to walk around here without every passerby assuming he was a runaway stable boy with an inconveniently pretty face, he would have to adapt. He slowed his pace and began studying the dresses of passing ladies with the concentration of a Seeker locking onto the Snitch.
“How hard can it be to find a dress?” he muttered.
The answer turned out to be: alarmingly difficult.
The first tent sold only chainmail heavier than Harry himself. The second had lances, the third smoked fish.
The fishmonger looked at him questioningly. “My lady?”
Harry blinked. “…No, thank you. I have already seen… enough scales.”
The evening air had begun to grow noticeably cooler. Torches and oil lamps were being lit one by one, turning the camp into a flickering sea of orange light. Just as Harry was considering whether a horse blanket with a belt around it might pass as fashion, he saw it: a long stall piled with rolls of linen, silk, and heavy wool.
The woman behind the stall looked up from her counting frame. “Good evening, my lady. Are you looking for something in particular?”
Harry picked up a roll of dark blue fabric and rubbed the linen between his fingers. It felt sturdy and honest.
“Is this suitable for a dress?”
The woman nodded expertly. “That depends on how much dress you have in mind.”
Harry looked at the roll, then at his new hips. “An… average amount of dress?”
The woman suppressed a smile. “That can be arranged.”
Harry nodded in satisfaction and pulled out his mokeskin pouch. The woman watched with undisguised curiosity as Harry’s entire forearm disappeared into the tiny pouch. He fished out a shining golden Galleon and placed it on the wooden table with a clear clink.
The woman picked up the coin as though it were a rare insect. She turned it over, held it up to the torchlight, and finally tested it carefully with her teeth.
“What sort of coin is this?” she asked suspiciously.
“Foreign currency,” Harry said with his best bluff. “Very foreign.”
The woman shrugged; gold, after all, was the only language everyone in Westeros spoke.
“Gold is gold.” She slid three rolls of fabric toward him. “You can have a beautiful dress made from this.”
Harry took the heavy stack. “…Have it made?”
The woman blinked. “You are not going to sew it yourself, my lady? Your hands do not look accustomed to the needle.”
Harry looked at the rolls of cloth in his arms, then at the hundreds of people around him, then back at the cloth. In his mind flashed Hermione’s repair spells.
“That… was sort of the plan.”
The woman stared at him in disbelief for several seconds, then burst into laughter. “Good luck with that, my lady. You will need it.”
“This is going to be a disaster,” Harry muttered as he staggered away with meters of cloth in his arms. He had a wand, but he had absolutely no idea how to turn a piece of linen into something that did not resemble a failed mummy.
Harry maneuvered through the crowd with the rolls of cloth clutched in his arms, an awkward burden that constantly threw him off balance. All around him the camp prepared for the night: knights creaked out of their armor, squires hauled buckets of water, and somewhere a group of noblewomen laughed at a joke Harry could not hear.
This was not a place for wizardry. One wrong movement and he would end up on a pyre before he could say “Quidditch.”
“Okay,” he muttered to the back of a passing ox. “Quiet place. A very quiet place.”
After what felt like an endless search he found refuge behind a heavy wooden supply wagon, tucked between two enormous tents that smelled of salted meat. Barrels, crates, and neglected coils of rope lay scattered about.
No one was looking this way.
Perfect.
Harry dropped the cloth onto a crate and glanced nervously around. When his fingers closed around the familiar grip of his wand, the tension finally flowed from his shoulders.
“Right,” he whispered. “Magic. At least that is a language I speak.”
But as he stared at the shapeless sheets of linen, doubt struck. He had no idea how to construct a dress. He cautiously leaned around the wagon to spy on passing fashion.
An older lady walked past in a gown so stiff she looked like a walking cupboard.
No, Harry thought. Absolutely not.
Then he saw a younger woman in a flowing, lighter cut that moved with every step. There was a slit in the skirt that allowed her to move freely.
Harry nodded decisively. “That’s it. Practical, but… well, dress-like.”
He spread the deep blue linen across the crates. In the fading evening light the color had the depth of the sky just before a storm. He thought of his own bright green eyes. Hermione had once claimed blue and green complemented one another.
He hoped she was right.
He raised his wand.
“Think dresses,” he told himself firmly.
Under the spell the fabric began to ripple and dance. The material gathered itself, folding with surgical precision and forming a slender A-line silhouette that flowed smoothly to the ground. Harry flicked his wand again; the bodice shaped itself to his new contours, with a subtle square neckline that suggested elegance without drawing too much attention.
The sleeves appeared next: fitted at the shoulders but widening toward the wrists, just as he had seen on the court ladies. Harry stepped back and examined the result critically.
“Not bad for a first attempt.”
He tapped the skirt with his wand. The fabric divided into panels for ease of movement, with a strategic slit reaching just above the knee.
For walking, he told himself.
Or for running very fast.
As a final detail he pointed his wand at the neckline. Thin silver threads began weaving through the blue. Graceful patterns curled along the edges.
Harry squinted.
Were those… dragons?
Small silver dragons chased one another along the hem.
He smiled despite himself. “Baelor will probably appreciate that.”
With one last tap a narrow leather belt appeared with silver ornaments, and a light cape pinned to the shoulders. The result was breathtaking: royal blue with silver details, the perfect balance between noble dignity and practical necessity.
“This is probably the first time in history someone has transfigured a dress,” he muttered as he stepped into the garment.
The fabric fell surprisingly comfortably, and the slit made walking far less awkward than he had feared. He looked down at his dark leather boots protruding beneath the hem.
That actually worked quite well.
Harry took a deep breath, straightened his back, and felt the heavy cape trailing behind him. He was ready.
He stepped out from behind the wagon and returned to the bustle of Ashford Meadow.
No longer a lost boy in a borrowed tunic, but the mysterious, breathtaking Lady Harlow Blackwood.
Now he only had to hope no one asked about his family tree.
Harry moved through the crowd with renewed confidence, the heavy hem of his deep-blue gown whispering across the trampled grass. His transfiguration held steady, but his stomach had by now begun a full rebellion.
The first stall where he stopped made his stomach turn immediately. On the spit rotated an entire pig’s head, teeth bared toward the flames, eyes glazed white.
“…No,” Harry gagged softly. “Even Dudley never ate his bacon quite that fresh.”
The next stop was a kettle filled with a thick brown mass that reminded Harry suspiciously of a failed batch of Wartcap Powder. The cook ladled the sludge with an enthusiasm Harry did not share. He decided not to risk it; he had already swallowed enough dubious liquids in the Hogwarts infirmary.
But then the wind shifted.
A scent so rich and savory that his mouth immediately filled with saliva drifted across the field. Roasted game, freshly baked bread, warm herbs, and the heavy sweetness of wine. Harry followed his nose like a bloodhound.
It led him to a colossal golden-yellow tent.
The entrance was flanked by enormous antlers that arched over the opening like a triumphal gate. Above them fluttered a banner that breathed authority: a crowned black stag upon a field of gold.
Harry did not know the politics of Westeros, but he did know the laws of the stomach: the bigger the tent, the better the buffet.
Inside was an organized chaos that immediately reminded Harry of the Gryffindor common room after a Quidditch victory. It was warm, thick with torch smoke, and filled with the thunder of laughing men and clattering cups. Two knights were locked in a half-serious wrestling match between the tables while their companions cheered them on with chunks of bread.
No one looked up when “Lady Harlow” slipped inside.
Harry snatched a piece of warm bread and a generous slab of meat from a platter and dropped onto the end of a bench beside a few men who had already looked far too deeply into their mugs to notice an intruder.
The meat was heavenly. The bread was soft and steaming. Harry began eating with a vigor that would probably have horrified a proper lady, but hunger easily defeated etiquette.
After a few minutes, when the sharpest edge of his hunger had faded, he finally dared to look around.
His gaze was immediately drawn to the high table.
A man sat there who seemed to dominate the entire room by sheer presence alone. He was a force of nature sitting on an oak chair. His dark curly hair and full beard were streaked with silver, yet his eyes sparkled with a youthful, almost dangerous mischief. His clothing was shockingly informal for a nobleman: a half-open shirt that revealed a broad, hairy chest.
But the most absurd thing was his headpiece.
A crown adorned with enormous branching stag antlers.
The man laughed so loudly the flames in the torches seemed to tremble. He slammed his fist on the table, threw his head back, and took a massive swallow from a silver goblet. When he lowered the cup again, his gaze swept through the tent.
And caught on Harry.
Harry froze with a piece of bread halfway to his mouth.
For a moment their eyes met — the bright green eyes of the wizard against the roaring, cheerful dominance of the lord of the stag. It felt as though he had been noticed by a particularly large, particularly good-humored predator.
The man narrowed his eyes for a fraction of a second, assessing, as though he had spotted a rare breed of hunting hound. Then a wide white grin broke through his beard.
He lifted a hand and beckoned with two fingers.
It was not a request.
It was a command wrapped in an invitation.
Come here.
Harry looked around nervously.
To the left, where a squire was demolishing a chunk of cheese; to the right, where two knights were loudly throwing dice. He even looked behind himself, hoping that perhaps a stunning court lady stood there who was the true recipient of the invitation.
No one.
Harry cautiously pointed at his own chest, eyebrows raised in question. With his lips he silently formed the word: Me?
The man nodded with a broad grin and beckoned again with the same two fingers.
The gesture was commanding and cheerful at once.
Yes, you. Come here.
Harry let out a quiet sigh. He rose from the bench, straightened the folds of his royal-blue dress, and—just in case—took his cup of wine with him. The smell rising from the earthenware was sharp and vaguely vinegary, but he decided a little liquid courage would not hurt for whatever came next.
Slowly he walked toward the raised table at the front of the tent.
The closer he came, the more overwhelming the man became. He was a giant of a fellow, with wild dark hair streaked with silver like lightning through a thundercloud. His beard was a forest of the same color, and his shirt hung so far open it was nearly an insult to the tailor.
One ear bore a single, striking earring—bold and unmistakable. It glinted in the torchlight whenever he moved, the sort of flamboyant little detail that somehow suited him perfectly. Harry had the odd impression that the thing had probably inspired as many tavern stories as the man himself.
And then there were the antlers—massive, branching, and utterly absurd atop his head.
Harry stopped before the table.
At the last moment he remembered his new form and made a small curtsey. He had once seen it done on television during a royal funeral; he only hoped it worked here as well and would not be taken as an insult.
He looked the man straight in his sparkling eyes.
“You wished to see me, my lord?”
The man remained silent for several seconds, observing Harry with a look that reminded him of a cat that had found a particularly interesting mouse.
He leaned slowly back in his heavy oak chair.
His eyes slid from Harry’s face to the silver dragons embroidered on his dress, and then back to his green eyes.
“Well,” he said at last, his voice a deep, rough baritone that resonated through the bones, “that depends.”
Harry tilted his head, his Gryffindor boldness winning over caution.
“On what?”
The man took a deep swallow from his cup without taking his eyes off Harry.
“On what a young woman with raven-black hair and eyes as green as wildfire is doing in my tent.”
Muted chuckles rose from the knights seated around the table.
Harry shrugged, a movement that made the silver details on his shoulders glimmer.
“Eating.”
The man looked at the sour wine in Harry’s hand, then at the chunk of bread he still gripped firmly.
His grin widened until his teeth shone white through his beard.
“An honest answer. I like that.” He pointed his cup toward Harry. “But most people start with a name before they begin eating my bread.”
Harry kept his face perfectly composed.
“Harlow Blackwood.”
The man repeated the name softly, almost tasting it.
“Blackwood.”
His eyes glittered with amusement.
“Raventree Hall?”
Harry nodded briefly.
The man glanced at the dress—with its silver embroidery that looked far too expensive for wandering through a camp—and then back at Harry’s face.
“Interesting.”
Harry took a small sip of the wine. He had to fight the urge to spit it out immediately; it tasted like old socks and regret. He managed to control himself just in time.
“What exactly is so interesting?”
The man drummed his fingers on the tabletop, a rhythm that seemed to set the heartbeat of the tent.
“Blackwoods are not known for wandering alone through tournament camps,” he said thoughtfully. “Especially not when they look as though they stepped straight out of a minstrel’s song.”
Harry looked down at his dress, then back at the man with the antlers.
“I was hungry. The minstrel apparently forgot to cook.”
The man burst into laughter.
It was not a polite chuckle but a thunderous roar that made the torches flicker and forced the entire table to join in.
“That,” he bellowed as he slammed his cup down on the table, “is the best reason I have heard all evening!”
He leaned forward, his presence filling the space between them completely.
His eyes—dark, lively, and unmistakably dangerous—rested heavily on Harry.
“But tell me, Lady Blackwood…” His smile turned playful, almost challenging. “…have you ever punched someone in the face?”
Harry blinked, completely thrown by the question.
“…What?”
The man tapped a thick finger against his own jaw.
“In the face. A fist. Knuckles on bone.”
Harry thought for a moment. He thought of Dudley’s greasy nose, of Draco Malfoy’s arrogant grin in third year, of the countless duels where spells landed harder than fists.
“Yes,” Harry finally said dryly, while the memory of the satisfying crack of Draco Malfoy’s nose briefly flashed through his mind. “More often than you would probably expect.”
Lyonel Baratheon did not laugh immediately. Instead, his eyes narrowed to slits, as though he were studying a newly discovered and fascinating species of animal. A slow, broad grin broke through his beard—a white flash in the half-dark of the tent.
“Good,” he rumbled in a voice like distant thunder. He raised a heavy hand and pointed with a commanding gesture to the empty chair directly beside him. “Come closer, Blackwood. A woman who prefers striking to begging does not belong at the edge of the table. She deserves a place in the eye of the storm.”
Harry hesitated. His instincts, sharpened by years of danger and betrayal, screamed at him to turn around and walk out. But there was something in the raw, unfiltered energy of this man that drew him in—a danger like a roaring fire you wanted to warm your hands beside.
He took one step closer. Then another. Until he stood beside the massive shoulder of the Baratheon. He did not sit immediately but remained standing, his fingers unconsciously fiddling with the silk of his royal-blue dress.
It was a strange contrast: the graceful, transfigured “lady” and the brutal, half-dressed warrior crowned with antlers.
Lyonel took a deep swallow of wine and wiped his lips with the back of his rough hand while openly studying Harry with unmistakable amusement. The heat of the torches was suffocating, but the presence of the man beside him was even more intense. Harry felt uneasy, exposed in this unfamiliar body, yet curiosity won out over fear.
“Tell me, Lady Blackwood,” Lyonel said, his voice now low and dangerously playful. “What are you truly doing in my tent? And do not lie, because I smell trouble faster than a wet dog.”
Harry shrugged with the indifference of a wizard who had stood face to face with Dementors.
“Adventure,” he said simply.
Lyonel paused with his goblet halfway to his mouth. He stared at Harry for several seconds, searching for the slightest hint of doubt.
Then he burst into another thunderous laugh that made the wooden cups on the table dance.
“I bloody well hope so!”
He slammed his free hand onto the table.
“Because if you only came for the food…” He tapped his goblet against the wood. “…then I must urgently improve my reputation. The Stormlands are known for many things, but our hospitality is usually… more violent.”
He leaned a little closer to Harry, so near that the sharp smell of wine and old leather filled Harry’s senses. The enormous antlers upon his head cast wild shadows across the tent canvas.
“My name is Lyonel,” he said almost casually, lifting his goblet in a mocking toast. He took a deep swallow, his eyes glittering with pure mischief above the rim of silver. “…but most people call me The Laughing Storm. And believe me, Harlow, that name refers to more than my mood.”
He slammed the goblet down again, making the table tremble, and pushed a platter of steaming meat toward Harry.
“Eat. Drink. And tell me—if you came here for adventure, do you plan to break the hearts of my opponents tomorrow, or will you begin here at my table with mine?”
Harry remained standing, his fingers still awkwardly tangled in the silk of his skirts. He glanced at the chair, then at the man who was observing him with the intensity of an approaching storm.
Lyonel Baratheon grinned broadly, a look that hovered somewhere between a royal welcome and the challenge of a street brawler.
“Why are you standing there fidgeting?” he boomed, looking Harlow up and down. “You look as though you are afraid you might trip over your own skirts. Are Blackwoods afraid of a little cloth these days?”
Harlow straightened her shoulders, the silver dragons on them glinting sharply in the flickering torchlight. She still felt like an intruder in her own body, a stranger trapped in silk and the countless little ties of a dress that restricted his movement.
“I am used to… a bit more freedom of movement,” she shot back, her green eyes flashing.
“Freedom?” Lyonel leaned forward, his eyes sparkling with friendly mockery. “The Seven gave you that face to drive knights mad and that height to look down on them. So stop staring at your feet. Look at me. Or shall I call you a heretic and have you burned? Drowned? Thrown from a high wall… I forget. What do they do with heretics again?”
“Burn them, my lord,” one of his squires supplied helpfully while setting down a platter of roasted game.
“Exactly,” said Lyonel, swinging a muscular leg over the arm of his chair while the antlers on his head wobbled dangerously. “So what have you brought me, girl? Lord Cafferen—that puffed-up sack in red—brought me a family heirloom from his cellars to buy my favor. He understands that knights either want your help or your head. Have you come to claim mine?”
Harlow smiled, a crooked, challenging grin that did not fit the pious etiquette of Ashford in the slightest—but Lyonel clearly liked it.
“I have no interest in your head, Ser Lyonel. I fear it would be far too heavy to carry away. And those antlers would constantly be hitting the doorframes.”
The tent fell silent.
The knights froze with their cups halfway to their mouths.
Then Lyonel burst into a booming laugh that made the torch flames dance.
“By the Storm God, she did not lose her tongue in the mud of the Riverlands! Then why are you in my tent, Harlow Blackwood? Only for supper?”
“For the company,” she said, stepping closer to the table, her green eyes locking onto his. “And perhaps to see whether the Laughing Storm is truly as impressive as the songs claim—or merely a great deal of noise in a yellow tent.”
Lyonel raised a heavy eyebrow and let his gaze roam shamelessly over her—from her black hair to the slit in her dress.
“Dangerous,” he murmured with a grin that resembled a predator more than a host. “You are playing with lightning, Harlow. And I am just beginning to feel hungry.”
He beckoned her with a thick finger toward the chair beside him.
“Sit. Tell me your name again—but this time as though you mean it.”
He gestured toward a wooden cup placed before Harlow on the table.
She picked it up, took a cautious sip—
—and immediately pulled a face as though she had swallowed liquid garbage.
With pure disgust she stared into the murky, sour liquid.
“Do you not care for it?” Lyonel asked with a mocking grin. “It is the best wine my men could fish out of the mud of the Reach.”
Harlow set the cup down with a hard knock. “It tastes as though a horse has been soaking in it, my lord. Is this how your knights celebrate their victories? With regret in a cup?”
Lyonel laughed and leaned sideways, producing from beneath the table a crystal decanter filled with a deep red, almost purple liquid that gleamed like a ruby.
“This,” he said, inhaling its scent deeply, “is Arbor Gold. I keep this for myself. For men who know how to handle a sword—and women who know how to… converse.”
Harlow’s green eyes followed the decanter with hungry interest. “Then I am curious about your definition of conversation, Ser Lyonel. Because that wine looks as though it might be worth the sin.”
Lyonel placed the decanter just out of her reach and crossed his heavy arms over his chest.
“Nothing is free in this tent, Blackwood. If you wish to drink my gold, you must work for it. I am bored. The knights here are dull, the princes are arrogant, and the wine is nearly gone.”
He looked at her with a challenging gleam.
“Surprise me. Warm my blood. Tell me something… scandalous. Something that will make my ears ring. If your words heat me more than that fire there, the wine is yours.”
Harlow felt warmth creep up the back of her neck that had nothing to do with the flames. He thought briefly of the Restricted Section of the library, of the darker secrets of the Black family, and of the brutal power of the magic resting in his pouch.
He stepped closer.
Close enough to smell leather, steel, and strong drink on the man before him.
Harlow leaned over the table, her black hair falling like a curtain between them, shielding them from the rest of the noisy tent. When she spoke, her voice was low—a rough whisper meant only for his ears.
She did not speak of spells or wands, but of forbidden desires whispered in the cold halls of castles; of what happened in the shadows when candles were extinguished; of the dangerous heat of skin against skin beneath the weight of cold armor.
She used words he barely knew he possessed—words that placed a dangerous, mischievous glint in his green eyes. It was a power he had never held in his former life, a weapon sharper than steel.
As he spoke, he saw Lyonel’s confident grin slowly change. His breathing grew heavier, and the laughter in his eyes was replaced by a darker, deeper fire. The mockery drained from his face; the grip he had on his fork loosened as he drank in every word from Harlow’s lips.
Harlow ended his tale with a bold look, his lips slightly parted in open challenge.
“Are the Stormlands warm enough yet, my lord? Or must I continue until the tent canvas catches fire?”
Without a word, Lyonel seized the crystal decanter and filled her cup until wine spilled over the rim and splashed across the wooden table.
He held the cup out to her—but the moment her fingers touched the silver, he caught her hand and pulled her sharply toward him.
Her chest struck the edge of the table. His face was suddenly very close.
He leaned forward and whispered into her ear, his rough beard brushing against her sensitive skin. The scent of strong wine and male dominance was dizzying.
“Drink, Harlow Blackwood,” he growled hoarsely. “But next time you need not try so hard with scandalous talk.”
He drew back slightly, his gaze lingering on her mouth before lifting again to her green eyes, which glowed in the torchlight.
“You could have simply looked at me with those large eyes and pouted with those full lips… and the Laughing Storm would already have been defeated.”
He released her, though his gaze remained fixed upon her as she took the first sip.
The Arbor Gold slid down his throat like liquid fire—sweet and merciless. Harry—now Harlow—realized that in this world he had discovered a very different kind of magic, one that required no wand to bring a man to his knees.
Lyonel pushed his chair a little closer, his heavy arm resting along the back behind her, filling the air with the scent of leather and Arbor Gold.
“Tell me, Harlow… what will a woman like you do when the tourney begins tomorrow? Will you watch as we smash each other’s skulls, or are you here to claim the victor as your prize?”
Harlow took another sip of the costly wine. It flowed over her tongue like liquid silk—dangerously good and treacherously smooth. She could feel the stares of the knights at the table burning into her, but her focus remained on the man crowned with antlers.
“That depends,” she said coolly.
Lyonel narrowed his eyes, the cheer in his expression sharpening into something more focused.
“On what?”
“On who wins.”
A few knights at the table burst into loud laughter, but Lyonel remained perfectly still. He studied her with a look that was both curious and faintly predatory, as though deciding whether she was challenging him—or simply telling the truth.
“And if I win?” he asked slowly, his voice a low growl.
Harlow rotated her cup casually between her fingers, the flickering torchlight reflecting in her green eyes.
“Then I imagine you will boast loudly enough that I cannot possibly miss it.”
The table exploded into laughter again.
Lyonel grinned broadly, his teeth flashing white against his dark beard.
“Boast? Woman, I am the boasting!”
He slammed his fist on the table with a crash that rattled the platters.
“Very well!”
The tent grew quieter at once; the knights sensed the Laughing Storm had found a quarry.
Lyonel leaned so close that Harlow could feel the heat of his body.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice commanding. “At the joust.”
He tapped two fingers against the table between them, sealing the wager with a steady rhythm.
“If I win…” His gaze drifted slowly over the deep blue fabric of her dress and the silver dragons along her shoulders. “…then I get a dance.”
Harlow raised an eyebrow.
“A dance?”
“Not that polite shuffling nobles do when their feet grow tired,” Lyonel said dismissively. “A real dance. Storm-style.”
He half rose and made an exaggerated sweeping motion with his hand as though already spinning her across a floor.
“One dance. With me.”
The knights around the table began shouting and pounding the benches.
“Do it, Blackwood!”
“Let her dance with the Storm!”
Harlow took another measured sip of wine. The alcohol filled him with a reckless sort of confidence.
“And if you lose?”
Lyonel snorted loudly.
“That does not happen.”
“Imagine it,” Harlow said dryly, his gaze unwavering.
The grin on Lyonel’s face only widened—more dangerous now.
“Then you shall have…” He glanced around the tent thoughtfully. “…a chest.”
He tapped the crystal decanter of Arbor Gold.
“Filled with this.”
A knight across the table nearly choked on his drink.
“My lord! A whole chest?”
Lyonel shrugged his broad shoulders.
“What? If I am to lose, I might as well do it spectacularly.”
He looked Harlow straight in the eyes, his dark gaze gleaming with mischief and a challenge that made Harry’s Gryffindor heart beat faster.
“So.”
He extended his large, calloused hand across the table.
“A dance for me… or a chest of Arbor Gold for you. What say you, Blackwood? Do you dare take the wager, or are you brave only with words?”
Harlow looked at the giant’s outstretched hand—a hand accustomed to shattering lances and breaking shields.
Her gaze slowly traveled upward from his fingers, along his powerful arm, to the laughing, arrogant eyes beneath the stag antlers.
Instead of taking his hand, she leaned slowly forward.
So close she could feel the heat of his breath against her lips and the sharp scent of leather and Arbor Gold filling her senses.
The tent seemed to fall suddenly silent. Even the wrestling knights held their breath.
“A whole chest, Ser Lyonel?” she whispered, her voice a soft and dangerous challenge. “You wager rather low for the honor of the Stormlands.”
Lyonel’s grin faltered for the briefest instant, his eyes narrowing.
“Low? That gold is worth more than the ransom of many a lord in this camp, Blackwood.”
Harlow let her fingers brush lightly across the back of his hand—not quite a touch, more the promise of a scratch.
“Then I hope you sit stronger in your saddle tomorrow than you do in your words,” she said with a small, vicious smile. “Because if you lose, I do not only want the wine. I want you to carry that chest yourself to the camp of the Blackwoods. On your shoulder. While singing about how a woman of Raventree Hall tamed the Storm.”
A collective “Ooooh” rose from the knights around the table.
Lyonel stared at her, his breathing heavier now. The challenge was public, brazen, and utterly improper.
He lifted his goblet, his eyes blazing with wild delight.
“By the Storm God… you are no Blackwood. You are a natural disaster.”
He slammed his hand down on the table with a thunderous crash, sealing the wager without touching her.
“Done! I shall carry the chest singing through the mud if I fall. But if I win, Harlow…”
He leaned one last inch closer, his voice a hoarse murmur meant only for her.
“…then we shall not dance in a ballroom. We shall dance in the rain, until you forget you ever wished to wear a dress.”
He released her with a challenging wink and threw his head back in a roaring laugh.
Harlow took one final triumphant sip of her wine, rose from the bench, and turned away without another word.
As she left the tent, she could feel Lyonel’s gaze like a brand between her shoulder blades.
Outside, the night air of Ashford Meadow was cool and fresh.
Harry drew a deep breath, his heart still pounding in the chest of his borrowed body.
He had defied a crown prince.
And challenged a Baratheon.
“…okay,” he muttered to the starry sky as he lifted the hem of his deep-blue skirts to avoid the mud. “Now I just have to find a way not to die tomorrow.”