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New World, New Problems
🕑 Added 2022-09-15 09:53:30 +0000 UTCNew World, New Problems
Winterfell – 284 AC
It took over a year for Harry to regain full consciousness.
Before that it felt as if he was constantly drifting in and out of sleep. Eventually these periods became further and further apart as time passed, until one day he found it no longer happened at all.
During these periods of lucidity he tried to figure out what was going on.
Harry will admit to himself that it took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that he had somehow been reincarnated. It took nearly a year to figure out actually. It took another three months to come to terms with that fact. This was not what he was expecting for his next great adventure.
After first coming to the realization that this was not a dream he fell into a pretty deep depression. The whole point of jumping through the Veil was to see his friends and family again. The realisation that he would be separated from them forever was a heavy pill for Harry to swallow.
The fact his new mother died giving birth to him felt like the universe was kicking him while he was down. That’s two lives where he was responsible for his mother’s death. His new mother’s voice haunts him almost as much as Lily Potters screams and the green flash did in his old life.
‘Mommy loves you, Hadrian. My little King of Winter.’
His new family were the ones to pull him from his spiral.
Harry didn’t know how to feel about the Starks at first.
Having a family that actually seemed to genuinely care about him was a new experience. In his previous life his closest family were the Dursleys and they seemed to want less than nothing to do with him.
The Starks though… the Starks were different. They weren’t perfect by any means but most of them went out of their way to make him feel like a part of the family.
His grandfather, Rickard Stark, was a stern man. He would walk around Winterfell with a face that was carved from ice. He was a man who could strike fear into the hearts of others with just a look. Rickard was not a man who showed his emotions easily. That’s not to say that he didn’t have any. Harry noticed that his grandfather would thaw around his family.
He probably spent the least amount of time with his grandfather when compared to his other family. Most of that was due to Rickard being busy with his responsibilities as the Lord Paramount of the North. A position that gave his grandfather almost unlimited power in the North. The position itself unfortunately comes with many duties that can be very time consuming if taken seriously. His grandfather would often travel for months at a time to meet with his bannermen.
As a result of this he is not very close with his grandfather compared to the rest of his family.
His new father, Brandon Stark, gave Harry the impression of a man who loves life. His father seemed to be the opposite of his grandfather in almost every way. If his grandfather was quiet then his father was loud. Where his grandfather was a planner, his father would rather leap in with both feet. Where his grandfather would try and control life for his advantage, his father would happily go along for the ride.
Brandon Stark is what Harry always imaged James Potter was like during his school years.
He may not have been the most mature man but he loved his family and was not afraid to show his love. For that Harry couldn’t help but love him back.
Lyanna Stark was the person that Harry spent the most time with. Sometimes it seemed like she would spend every free moment she had in his company. She would spend hours in his room telling stories of the Seven Kingdoms and the deeds of famous knights. She would carry him to the yard to watch the men train in sword fighting and archery. She would take him to the Godswood to pray and play in the dirt. It got slightly annoying when she would make baby sounds at him or when she would try and make him play with dolls and there were times Harry wanted nothing more than to stop acting like a toddler around her just so he could have somebody to talk to, but he persisted in acting like a child and in the end Harry couldn’t help but love his aunt like a mother in the time he got to know her.
In his previous life, his greatest wish was to have a family. In Westeros, his wish came true.
Maybe that’s why he feels as if his heart was ripped out of his chest as he watches the bones of his grandfather, aunt and father be placed in their crypts beneath Winterfell.
In all honesty it felt as if the universe was playing a cruel joke on him. It gave him a family he could only dream of as Harry Potter, a family he couldn’t help loving, then it cruelly ripped them away before he ever got to show them his real self.
Harry thinks the only thing keeping him from breaking down completely is the presence of his two uncles.
Feeling a weight settle on his shoulder Harry looks up towards his uncle Ned. He just gives a weak, hesitant smile and squeezes my shoulder before speaking. “ It’s going to be alright lad.”
The movement is more awkward than it should have been. He’s not as close with his uncle Ned as he should be, due to him growing up in the Vale. Therefore his uncle doesn’t seem to know how to act around him. The moment however is genuine and as Harry glances over towards his uncle Benjen, who also tries to give him a smile, he feels slightly better knowing that he’s not completely alone.
Giving his shoulder one more squeeze his uncle starts to guide him towards the exit of the crypt.
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Hours later finds Harry standing inside one of the warmest rooms in the castle looking down at two cribs.
This was the first time that Harry has seen his cousins. Earlier he was more focused on the bones that his uncle brought back than the two babies. Now that they have been laid to rest, Harry figured it was time to check on the family he gained.
Harry didn’t want to be bothered by his uncle’s wife while visiting them so he waited until she left to her chambers and Old Nan was watching them. Harry doesn’t hate Catelyn Tully. He just doesn’t know her. Nor does he feel like getting to know her right now. Especially with how cold she was to him when he first met her earlier. Harry knows that his father was supposed to marry her. He could only conclude her attitude has to do with the fact he married his mother instead.
“Pretty boys aren’t they?” Old Nan said from her corner where she was knitting a blanket.
Harry ignored the woman as he looked down at the two, he couldn’t help but be slightly mesmerised by the innocence in their eyes.
As Harry looked down, he realised that that he had to protect the family he had left. This world is cruel compared to Earth. Based on the histories of Westeros that he had heard so far and what he has personally experienced, the strong rule while those that are weaker than them either comply with their rule or are crushed. Most nobles seem to care more about their personal glory and about advancing their own interests than looking after the interests of their people. People here are more selfish and violent than on Earth.
The North is the largest Kingdom in Westeros. In fact, the Stark family ruled a kingdom that was larger than the rest of the six Kingdoms put together. Despite this, the North was weak when compared to some southern kingdoms. The kingdom may be massive and the warriors may be fiercer than those in the South but the population is a lot lower than many of the Kingdoms in the South. The North is poorer than almost every kingdom except for the Iron Isles and perhaps Dorne. So the South can afford better armour and weapons than what many of the warriors here have access too.
Harry realised in that moment that in order to protect his family he will need to make house Stark and the North strong enough that nobody would be able to harm them. He knows it won’t be easy, there are those that will seek to use his family for their own ends.
As Harry looked down at the smiles on the faces of his cousins, he finds that his heart is filled with new resolve. He will drag the North kicking and screaming into the future. He will make the North so strong that no Southern Kingdom will dare risk offending them.
And if the South dares to bring any harm onto his family, then he will destroy them.
There was a time where Harry would be horrified by the idea of willingly starting a war no matter the reason. That was before he watched the muggles destroy everything he cared about. Before he saw what a shitty job they did at ruling.
As Harry walks out of the chamber there’s a small voice in the back of his mind that he isn’t able to silence completely.
A voice that whispered. ‘I could do a better job. I could build a better world than the last one.’
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Harry decided that if he was going to make the North as strong as he could then he would need to start as soon as possible. After a few hours of thinking of plans that he could use he realised that the first thing he would need to do was build up a reputation of being a genius so that people would be more likely to listen to him regardless of his age.
Magic would have made it a lot easier to convince people to do what he wants. Just a single confundus charm and most would gladly listen to anything he had to say. Or he could use Legilimency to read their thoughts and see how they really think of him so that he could make plans to alter their perceptions.
Unfortunately this is where he ran into an obstacle. Or rather a wall. Magic in this new world is different than what he is used to. It’s more primal, less refined.
The first time he tried to move a small stone with magic he had a nosebleed and passed out for over a full day. When his family found him later in his room they thought he had caught a deadly disease and were worried that he was going to die as his temperature was very high and he was sweating heavily. This happened after a year in this new life.
After trying to use magic almost killed him he was a lot more wary to try it again for a long time. Harry wasn’t sure if he could die in this new world. In his old world magic put his body back together whenever he was injured or killed. The magic in this new life is so different that he isn’t sure what would happen if he were to die. He theorises that he will probably end up being reincarnated again if his body is incapable of holding his soul.
Harry quickly decided that he needed to look into how magic works in this new world and adapt to it instead of trying to force it to work the way he wants it to.
Surprisingly it didn’t take him long to get his first clue on where to begin. In fact, all he did was ask Old Nan to tell him stories about magic. That’s how he first learned of all the ancient legends of the first men and the north. Old Nan seemed to take a surprising amount of joy in trying to scare him with stories of wargs, greenseers, giants, Children of the Forest and White Walkers.
She seemed slightly disappointed that he was never scared but was happy that he took such a strong interest in the history of his people.
From there Harry discovered that several of his ancestors were supposedly wargs and greenseers. It’s also how he learned that most people in Westeros treat magic as if it were a myth. The first time he asked his grandfather if he could warg, his grandfather laughed harder than he had ever seen him. His grandfather then sat him down and told him sternly that magic was gone from the world if it ever existed in the first place.
He knew his grandfather was wrong. Magic couldn’t just die off like that. It is a primordial force of nature. It can be stronger or weaker at different times or at different places but it can never disappear completely. He could also feel the magic in the air, much much weaker than what he was used to and much more primal and uncontrolled than Earth but it was definitely there. At first he thought that maybe the magic users were just hiding away like they did in his old world and that he would need to travel around and look for them.
Then he first entered the Godswood. The moment Harry saw the ancient Weirwood with its blood red leaves and the weeping face carved onto the bone white bark he could feel it. The air was saturated with magic compared to the rest of Winterfell.
This gave Harry all the pieces of the puzzle that he needed to draw a conclusion about why the magic in this world is so weak. It only took a few months and a few pointed questions about this world’s history for him to realise that his conclusion was probably correct.
On Earth there were all types of magical creatures still roaming around such as dragons, goblins giants and of course wizards. All of these creatures gave off magic. Each of them also fed off of magic and as such required it to survive. Each had their own brand of magic that they gave off. While all of these types of magic were similar they were also completely different. So while a dragon gave off magic that goblins and giants fed off of, giants and goblins gave off magic that the dragon in turn fed off of. Like how trees release oxygen that humans use and humans release carbon dioxide that is in turn used by the trees.
The only magical creature that didn’t technically require magic to survive were wizards and witches. They only consumed magical power in order to convert it into their own form of magical power. So without all of those magical creatures all that would happen would be that wizards and witches magic would be greatly weakened. They would still have some magical power due to the fact that Earth gave off its own magical energy at the leylines.
The conclusion that Harry came to is that magic has been weakened in Westeros greatly due to the influence of man. First the first men came and killed off many of the giants and Children of the Forest. This of course had a negative impact but it wasn’t anything serious. Over time there numbers would climb again and no harm would have been done. Harry doubts that much harm would have been done even if they went extinct. Not if they give off similar amounts of magic as goblins and giants from earth. Most likely magic would have adapted and while it would have been weaker it would not be greatly so.
No, Harry believes the true problems started when the Andals came.
After Harry visited the Godswood and saw the sheer presence of the ancient Weirwood trees magic, he came to the conclusion that Weirwood trees are responsible for conducting the magic of the Leylines in the earth into the air. This means when the Andals came and they chopped down many of the Weirwood trees in the south they greatly reduced the magic in Westeros. When they started hunting giants and the children of the forest into extinction, it made magic even weaker in Westeros.
The Andals then married into Southern houses and claimed magic was an abomination. From there they killed the people who showed signs of having magic. After generations of killing off those who showed signs of magic in the south and breeding those noble houses with rich histories, that probably have magic somewhere in their ancestors, such as the Lannisters or the Martells, with Houses who are purely Andal and have not a drop of magic in their blood. They were, over generations, able to greatly reduce the number of heirs from these houses who are born with magic.
These heirs were then taught to despise magic and view it as evil by both Septons and Maesters. Magic is about belief. So if enough nobles from a certain bloodline reject it over generations then magic will eventually cease to appear in those bloodlines. This is especially true if all sources of magic are removed from these bloodlines like the Andals did when they cut down the Weirwood trees.
Harry believes all of this had a compounding effect on the availability of magic in Westeros as the only sources left of magic in the south were from the few Weirwood trees that were left and what small amount of magic made its way south from the Weirwood trees in the North.
Unfortunately Harry theorised that a not a very lot of magic made it south as most of it was used up.
He came up with this theory when he wondered why the whole of Winterfell was not as saturated with magic as the Godswood was. Surely if Winterfell was next to a Weirwood tree for thousands of years then magic would saturate the castle to a similar level to the Godswood?
Over a period of many months Harry tracked the magic coming out of the Weirwood trees and he came to a startling conclusion. While some small amount seemed to have been used up by the castle for a reason that he hasn’t been able to fathom yet, the majority of the magic made its way north.
After another few weeks contemplating why it was moving north he came to a conclusion that explained why magic is not seen in the north even though the Andals never got a foothold here.
The answer he came up with is that the Wall was using it.
A structure that large, made up entirely of ice that has stood for thousands of years without melting even in the summer can only be explained with magic.
Harry theorises that the wall uses magic to sustain itself. Back when it was first built, this drain on magic would have been seen as negligible. The Weirwood trees all over Westeros would be able to produce enough magic to easily supply the wall while having enough left over to saturate Westeros easily. Unfortunately that is no longer the case. With so many Weirwood trees being chopped down there is barely enough to saturate the wall as it is with very little if any being left over.
Some magic still came to Westeros from Essos as dragons a creatures of magic and the amount of magic they give off is much greater than any other creature, with dragons only requiring magic to hatch and when they are very young, before they start releasing their own.
When the Doom happened many dragons were killed and as such Harry theorises that this caused the magic levels in Essos to plummet. When the last dragon died the amount of magic reached its low point. This meant that the only magic left is found in blood of certain people who haven’t had it bred out of their bloodlines by the Andals yet.
Upon reaching this conclusion Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
What he did know was that he didn’t like the Faith of the Seven. At all. He was also wary of Maesters as it seemed to him like they were pretty useless. In all the years that they have been around they have done very little to advance anything.
In his mind this was incredibly suspect. If the maesters completely controlled all the knowledge then it makes it incredibly easy to manipulate people how they want. When he learned that the Hightowers were one of the first to convert to the Faith of the Seven and they did so without a fight, it started to paint a concerning picture.
The maesters claim magic is a myth that died out with the last of the dragons. The last dragon died out because it was born sickly and weak but Harry knows that it isn’t possible for dragons to get sick and that they are creatures of magic. If they hatch they should hatch healthy. The only reason he could think of that they wouldn’t is if foul play were involved. Harry isn’t one hundred percent sure that maesters killed off the dragons but when he takes everything into account too many inconsistencies appear.
First the Faith of the Seven reviles magic and seek to destroy it wherever they go. The Faith of the Seven first got a foothold in Westeros in the Reach, or more specifically at Oldtown where the lord at the time didn’t even attempt to fight for the Old Gods. The Citadel is located at Oldtown and have the most influence in the Reach. The maesters control almost all knowledge and as such they can write history without being opposed. The Citadel has done very little to advance the technology level of this world which tells Harry that they probably have different priorities than advancing knowledge.
Harry isn’t sure whether the Faith of the Seven was created by the maesters to destroy magic or if the maesters were influenced by the Faith of the Seven to try and get rid of magic and at the end of the day he doesn’t care. He trusts neither of them.
Harry determined that he would need to think of a way to get both of those institutions out of the North but first he will need a lot more power than what he has.
The first step towards that goal was to convince his uncle Ned to allow him to start lessons. Luckily this didn’t end up being too difficult. Most noble children start learning their letters and numbers at five namedays. Convincing his uncle to let him start a year early was actually fairly easy. His uncle actually seemed slightly proud of him.
The written language was completely different from what he remembers from Earth so luckily he doesn’t have to slow down the pace he learns at too much in order to not bring the wrong kind of attention to himself. The last thing he needs is to be called a demon. Especially in this society.
It was a few weeks after his lessons started that he had his first major obstacle besides trying to get his magic to work properly.
Convincing his uncle Benjen not to waste his life in a penal colony.
Here is chapter 2. Sorry it took so long but I have been moving this past month and as such had very little free time. As you can see this chapter was written in third person point of view. Please let me know if you guys prefer this over how chapter one was written which was in first person point of view. Magic in this story will not work exactly as it does in Harry potter. There is a reason for this. If Harry had access to his old magic then I believe the story would get very boring very quickly. There would be no struggle if he could just wave his wand and solve every problem. That means that the story would not be very interesting at all. So I have decided to solve this problem by instead making him use a version of magic that is more similar to what is found in a Song of Ice and Fire. Magic will be more of a primal force and it will be more about manipulating nature and what is there than creating new things or manipulating space. As such there will be elemental magic, greenseers, wargs and sacrificial magic used for more powerful effects.
I tried to explain why magic is so weak on Planetos as well as I can but I’m not sure if I did a good enough job. Please let me know if I did or didn’t and I will try and fix any problems. Criticism is welcome as long as it’s constructive.
