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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
ASOIAF and all of its characters belong to GRRM
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 13: The Secret of the Crypt
"You do not belong here."
Joffrey sighed without turning. "Not this again. Just leave me be—"
"Who are you?" The voice was different. Clearer. Sharper.
He looked. A spectral figure, more defined than the misty echoes above, stood watching him. It was another Stark in ancient armor, but its eyes held a flicker of intelligence, of self.
"Why don't you tell me first?" Joffrey replied, crossing his arms. "You Starks all look the same after a few centuries."
"Dorren Stark."
Joffrey started. "Wait… you actually answered." He studied the apparition. The edges shimmered, but the form held. "You're not a memory-echo. You're a true ghost."
"Echoes…" the ghost of Dorren Stark frowned, the expression eerily lifelike. "Those are the shades of my kin, bound to the stones. Who are you to defile this sacred place?"
"Sacred?" Joffrey snorted. "It's a fancy basement. I'm Joffrey Baratheon. Don't get too proud because some ancestor learned a few charms."
"Baratheon? I know not that name. Are you an Andal?"
"Been down here a long time, haven't you?" Joffrey mused. The Andal invasion was ancient history. This ghost was old. Very old.
"What lies beyond there?" Joffrey pointed at the wall of collapsed stone.
"You must leave this crypt, young Andal. There are no treasures for you to ransack. This is the resting place of House Stark."
"Ghosts can't lie," Joffrey muttered, more to himself. "But they don't have to tell the whole truth either."
He wouldn't get answers from this sentinel. Turning back to the obstruction, he examined it. There was a spell for this. A good one.
He raised both hands, feeling the well of his magic, deep and ready. He shaped it with intent, visualizing the stones not as rubble, but as pieces of a puzzle yearning to be whole. "Fundamentum Restituo!"
The chamber roared. A deep, grinding shudder ran through the floor, up the walls. Stones trembled, then lifted into the air, shedding dirt like dogs shaking off water. They flew, turning and sliding, clicking back into place with the sound of a giant's bones settling. In moments, the passageway was clear, the archway pristine as the day it was cut.
"Excellent!" Joffrey grinned, dusting his hands.
"What have you done?!" Dorren Stark's ghost wailed, its form rippling with distress. "No! You should not have done that!"
"Hey, quiet. I'm concentrating." Joffrey sent more spheres of light bobbing down the newly revealed corridor. The darkness beyond was profound.
"You… you will let her out!" the ghost shrieked, its composure shattered. "You damned Andal Sorcerer!"
"Okay, that's enough of you." Annoyance flared. Joffrey flicked his wrist. Chains of shimmering, silver-blue light erupted from the floor, wrapping around the spectral form with a sound like freezing water. They pinned the ghost against the wall. "Stay there. Be quiet."
The ghost struggled, a silent scream on its lips, but the chains held fast. They were not of this world, designed to bind essence, not flesh. It was a spell he'd theorized long ago, never needing it until now. First try. His control was improving.
It feels right, he thought, a nagging suspicion at the edge of his mind. Wandless magic had always been a struggle before, a brute-force hack. Here, it flowed like a second language. Was it this body? Or this world's raw, untamed magic?
"No matter," he whispered. "Good news for now."
He turned his attention back to the cleared path. The ghost's fear was palpable. 'Let her out.' Who was 'her'?
The corridor stretched on, lined with fewer, older tombs. Their statues were crude, their faces worn smooth by time and the strange, cold energy that saturated the air. At the far end, another staircase spiraled down.
But this one was different. It made a sharp, tight turn. He sent a light orb down. It revealed not another corridor, but a vast chamber below. And it was barred. Not with stone, but with thick, black bars that drank the light.
He descended carefully. The cold intensified with each step, biting through the warming charm he maintained. He reached the bars. They were not iron. The material was glassy, utterly black, and so cold it seemed to burn.
"Obsidian?" he wondered aloud, tapping one. It rang with a faint, crystalline chime. "Dragonglass. Why make a cage from brittle stone?"
"Only one way to find out." He took a step back, focused his will into a single, destructive point. "Reducto."
The blast was concussive in the confined space. The dragonglass bars shattered into a thousand razor-sharp shards, scattering across the floor of the chamber beyond with a sound like falling ice.
The cold that washed out was a physical blow. His warming charm strained, flickering. He pushed more power into it, stepping into the final chamber. Had it not been for his magic, he would be a block of ice by now.
It was a tomb and a prison. Twelve sarcophagi stood in silent rows. The air hummed with a power so old it felt geological, a glacier's heart. In the far corner, set apart, were two larger tombs. Unlike all the others in Winterfell, these had no statues. No plaques. They were anonymous. Forgotten. Or feared.
He approached them, curiosity warring with a primal sense of warning.
Thump.
The sound was muffled, deep, and came from the right-hand tomb.
Thump. Thump.
The heavy stone lid shifted. A hairline crack appeared. Dust sifted down.
Joffrey stopped, watching intently. "Let's see what they were so afraid of."
With a grating scrape of stone on stone, the lid was pushed aside. A hand emerged—pale as milk, long-fingered, elegant—and gripped the edge of the coffin. A low, guttural sound, devoid of language, filled the chamber.
"Come on then," Joffrey said softly, standing his ground. "Show yourself."
The figure sat up. A woman. Her skin was the white of a winter moon, her hair a cascade of silver. A slender circlet of pale metal sat upon her brow. Her eyes opened. They were a blue so bright it was almost white, pupil-less, and filled with a hollow, ancient hunger. She was beautiful in the way a glacier is beautiful—perfect, pristine, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"Not a zombie or an inferius. So what are you?." He asked.
She climbed from the tomb, movements stiff yet fluid, like cracking ice. She stared at him, her mouth moving, producing only those raw, hungry sounds.
"Can't talk? Pity." Joffrey felt a thrill, not of fear, but of discovery. This was no simple wight. This was something else. Something ancient.
She growled, a sound that started in the depths of the earth, and charged. Her speed was shocking.
"Sorry, love. You're not my type." Joffrey brought his hands together and then thrust them forward. "Incendio!"
A jet of roaring flame engulfed her. She ran through it without slowing, her silken robes blackening, her pale skin glowing red-hot for an instant before cooling. She lunged, mouth gaping wide, needle-sharp teeth aiming for his throat.
He sidestepped, the Fulmina charm still thrumming in his veins, making him a blur. "Hmm. Fire-resistant." He conjured another ball of flame, but denser, hotter. "Incendium!"
The spell hit her chest and splashed like liquid fire, clinging, burning. Her robes dissolved into ash. Beneath, her body was unmarked, pale, and perfect as marble. Unnervingly so.
"Fine. No fire then." He had a moment to appreciate the cruel, frozen beauty of her naked form before she snarled and came again at him.
He raised a finger, drawing on the chamber's own latent, icy power. "Petra… Spica." A spear of solid granite, sharp as a needle, materialized and shot forward.
It took her in the forehead with a wet thunk. She staggered back, fell. Then, slowly, she pushed herself up. Her hand rose, gripped the spear, and pulled it from her skull with a sickening crunch. The wound sealed instantly, leaving only smooth, white skin.
"Annoying," Joffrey muttered, running through his mental arsenal.
She charged again, her bare feet silent on the stone. Then she stepped on a shard of the shattered dragonglass bar.
The scream was unlike any sound she had made before. It was a shriek of pure, elemental agony, so loud Joffrey clapped his hands over his ears. She recoiled, clutching her foot, which smoked where the black glass had touched.
"Ah, you didn't like that," Joffrey said, understanding dawning. "That explains the cage."
He stretched out his hand. "Accio." A large, spike-like fragment of dragonglass flew from the floor to his grip. It was cold, so cold it numbed his fingers even through his magic.
She looked up, her blue eyes wide with a new emotion: fear.
He was on her in an instant. Before she could rise, he drove the obsidian spike down with all his strength, through the crown of her head.
The scream died in her throat. Her body didn't bleed. It shattered. It exploded into a million fragments of glittering, blue-white ice that rained down across the chamber, melting almost instantly into nothing but frigid water.
Joffrey stood amidst the fading mist, breathing hard. He brushed ice crystals from his shoulders. "No treasures," he said to the empty chamber, a touch of disappointment in his voice. "Just a very cold, very angry popsicle."
A final check revealed nothing else of interest. The other tomb remained sealed, and he felt no urge to open it. One mystery was enough for today.
He turned and began the long climb back to the world of the living.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
When he emerged from the crypt mouth, the world was in chaos.
Winterfell's yard was a storm of shouting men, running servants, and clanking armor. Lannister crimson and Stark grey swirled together in frantic patterns. Torches flared in the deepening twilight.
It took him only a second to understand. They were searching. Desperately.
For me.
"Oh," Joffrey murmured. "I might be in some trouble."
He had only taken a few steps into the courtyard when a pair of young Stark squires spotted him.
"Prince Joffrey!"
"The Prince! He's here!"
The cry went up. In moments, he was the still center of a rushing tide of people.
"Your Grace!"
"Prince Joffrey, are you hurt?" Soldiers stared at his dirt-stained clothes, his disheveled hair.
"Move! Out of my way!" The roar cut through the babble. The crowd parted like wheat before a scythe. Sandor Clegane stormed through, his face a mask of fury beneath the scars.
Joffrey managed a weak, relieved smile. "Sandor! There you are. I've been looking for—"
"Don't you fucking give me that!" The Hound's roar was raw, barely contained. He seized Joffrey by the arm, his grip iron. "You…!" He choked on the rest, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out like cords. He wanted to say more. To shake him. To scream. But he was a guard, and this was his prince.
"Come on," the Hound growled, dragging him forward. "Your mother—"
"You found him." Lord Eddard Stark appeared before them, his face grim in the torchlight.
"Aye," Sandor rasped. "I'm taking him to the Queen."
"Take him to the King. He waits in the Great Hall." Ned's voice brooked no argument. He gestured to the massive doors behind him.
The Hound glared, a silent battle of wills, but he nodded curtly. He changed direction, his stride furious.
Joffrey glanced at the darkening sky. He'd been down there for hours. It hadn't felt that long in the timeless dark.
"Well," he said, trying for a light tone as he was hauled along. "You heard Lord Stark. To the hall. I'm actually quite hungry."
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