The days settled into a quiet rhythm neither of them had ever known before.
Most mornings began the same way: the golden light of dawn slipping through the small glass panes of their cottage, the warmth of the hearth, and the comforting smell of fresh bread Harry had baked the night before.
When Lyanna stirred, she often found Harry already at the heavy wooden table, brow furrowed in concentration as he traced letters onto parchment with painstaking care.
"Ash," she said, leaning over his shoulder one morning. "Not 'Ans.' Like this."
She took his hand gently and guided it, reshaping the crooked rune.
He sighed. "You'd think learning another alphabet would be easier after everything else I've learned."
"You'd think," she teased, brushing her hair behind her ear. "But you have the handwriting of a drunk chicken."
His mouth twitched. "You wound me."
Lyanna hid her smile and settled in the chair beside him. "From the beginning again."
When the weather was clear and the sun hung high over the snow-laden trees, they took breaks from lessons. Harry would head out to build.
The single cottage had become just the beginning.
First, there had been the smokehouse—a squat round building lined inside with hooks for drying fish and curing meat. Then came a shed for storing tools, a small granary for the sacks of grain Harry had traded in White Harbor, and finally, something Lyanna could only describe as a miniature fortress.
It had a thick wooden outer wall, high enough to deter any prowling beasts, and four sturdy corner posts reinforced with stone. There was no gate yet—just a simple rope to lift and lower a plank across the entrance.
When she asked Harry why he was making it so strong, he simply said, "Because someday, others may come, and they'll need protection."
And when she pressed her palm to the wall, she thought: It already feels like a place meant to last.
One afternoon, as she stood in the little stockyard they'd fenced in behind the smokehouse, she found herself laughing aloud.
Three sheep had escaped through the gap Harry had forgotten to mend, and now they were trotting merrily around the clearing, their little hooves kicking up puffs of snow.
"Harry!" she called, nearly breathless. "They're out again!"
From behind the new granary, Harry poked his head around the corner. His hair was windblown, and he had a smear of clay on his cheek.
"Damn it," he muttered, setting aside his hammer. "I thought I fixed that gap."
He jogged over, grabbing a small lamb as it tried to slip past him. It bleated in protest.
Lyanna caught another one and cradled it in her arms, her cheeks flushed from cold and laughter.
"This is your fault," she said accusingly.
"My fault?"
"You said you knew how to build a fence!"
"I built a fence," he said, deadpan. "I didn't say it was a good fence."
She snorted and pressed her face into the lamb's wool to hide her grin.
After they corralled the flock back inside, Lyanna sat down on the small milking stool and sighed. One of the ewes ambled over and nudged her shoulder.
She scratched its ears absently, feeling a little glow of contentment. "I never thought I'd end up here," she murmured.
Harry glanced over, wiping his hands on a rag. "Do you regret it?"
She looked up at him—at the wind-chapped cheeks, the honest curiosity in his eyes.
"No," she said honestly. "I don't."
The evenings belonged to their books.
Harry had amassed a small library in White Harbor, and now the shelves in the main room were lined with leather spines: treatises on Westerosi history, tattered volumes of Valyrian poetry, ledgers from merchant captains, even an herbal compendium.
And in those quiet hours, Lyanna would sit beside him, one hand resting protectively over her growing belly, and help him sound out the looping letters of Valyrian.
"Vezof jin azantys," she recited one night, tapping the line with her finger.
Harry frowned. "Vezof… jin… azantys. What does that mean?"
"'He is an honorable knight.'"
He snorted. "Doubt anyone would call me that."
"You saved me from wildlings," she reminded him. "That counts for something."
He glanced at her, something unspoken in his expression. "You saved yourself, Lyanna. I only helped."
Harry's fishing expeditions became another part of their routine.
One morning, when she followed him down to the river, she watched in astonishment as he cast a simple handline into the water, then waited patiently until he felt the tug.
"You've done this before," she said skeptically.
"Never," he admitted cheerfully. "But I figured—the fish here have never met a proper fisherman either. So it balances out."
She threw her head back and laughed, startling a pair of crows from the trees.
But by midday, he had filled two baskets with fat silver fish.
That night, she cleaned them while he salted and packed the rest for smoking. When she finally tasted the fresh-roasted fillet with a sprinkle of salt and lemon, she thought no banquet in any lord's hall could compare.
Soon the little settlement had taken on a rhythm as natural as breathing.
There was always something to do: fish to clean, firewood to stack, walls to mend. And for the first time in her life, Lyanna found herself proud of her small accomplishments—learning how to milk a ewe without spilling half of it on her skirts, or baking a loaf of bread that didn't end up as hard as a stone.
In the quiet of evening, she sometimes sat on the threshold of the main hall—Harry insisted on calling it Potter Castle—and looked out at the snowy wilderness. Winter would be curled at the edge of the clearing, his massive body blending with the drifts.
And beside her, Harry would be scribbling letters, lips moving as he practiced Westerosi script under her watchful eye.
"Ash," she corrected gently.
He grimaced. "Again?"
"Again," she insisted.
He sighed, but there was a smile hidden in it.
Here, in this impossible place—far from her family, her old life, and all the expectations that had bound her—Lyanna was learning what it meant to start over.
And she was no longer afraid of it.
Snow fell in whispering drifts outside Potter Castle, the flakes gathering on the eaves and window ledges until the world beyond looked as though it had been wrapped in soft white cloth. The wind keened over the Antler River, but inside, the fire roared warm and bright.
Lyanna sat cross-legged on the floor near the hearth, absently darning a tear in one of Harry's woolen cloaks. She wasn't very skilled at mending—more often than not, her stitches looked like a drunken spider's web—but it felt good to have something to do with her hands.
Harry was across the room at the long table, poring over an old leather-bound book with yellowed pages so thin they looked ready to crumble. His brows were drawn in concentration, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. From time to time, his lips moved as he silently sounded out a word.
She watched him for a while, feeling the warmth of the fire seep into her bones. Watching him had become a quiet habit—one she tried not to think too hard about.
After a long silence, she set the mending aside.
"Harry," she said softly.
He looked up, blinking as though waking from a trance. "Yes?"
"Will you tell me?" she asked. "About you."
He frowned faintly. "I told you—I'm from the east. Across the Narrow Sea."
"You're lying."
His eyes met hers, startled.
"You're kind," she went on, voice quiet but certain. "But you're not a very good liar."
He sighed and rubbed his thumb along the book's spine. "Lyanna…"
"I've told you everything," she said, her voice tightening. "About Rhaegar. About my brothers. About what I've done and what I've lost. You know all my secrets, and I don't even know who you are."
The words hung between them, raw and honest.
For a long moment, Harry didn't move. Then he closed the book and set it aside. He drew in a slow breath, like a man gathering courage.
"All right," he said at last. "I'll tell you."
Lyanna swallowed and waited, heart beating fast.
Harry shifted in his chair, folding his hands on the table. He looked at the fire, not at her.
"I'm not from Essos," he began. "I'm not from any land you've heard of. I come from… somewhere else entirely. A different world."
She stared at him, waiting for the jest, the grin that would say he was teasing. But none came.
"A world?" she echoed.
He nodded once. "Where I come from, magic and technology exist together. We have great cities—towers of glass and steel. And magic schools, where children are taught to use their gifts. Where a woman can become a warrior, or a leader, or anything she wants."
Lyanna pressed a hand to her mouth. Her chest felt tight, like her ribs were squeezing her heart.
"And… you left it?" she whispered.
He looked up finally, his green eyes solemn in the firelight. "I didn't have a choice. I lost everything—my family, my godfather, my home. I was… trying to hunt something important. And I ended up here."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The fire crackled between them, throwing shifting shadows on the stone walls.
"It sounds like a dream," she said hoarsely.
"It wasn't always," he murmured. "There was darkness there, too."
She drew in a shaky breath. "And your… your godfather? You said that word before. What does it mean?"
Harry's mouth twitched. "A godfather is… someone chosen to watch over you. To protect you if your parents can't."
"Oh." She paused. "And you had one."
"Yes." His gaze turned distant. "His name was Sirius Black. He was… everything to me after my parents were killed."
Lyanna felt her heart ache at the quiet grief in his voice.
"He was the one who taught me what family really meant," Harry continued softly. "He… he disappeared in my world. I thought he died. But when I came here, I found proof that he'd been here before me."
Her brows drew together. "Proof?"
Harry hesitated, then reached for his pack. From it, he pulled a folded scrap of parchment, yellowed and stained with age. He opened it carefully and set it on the table. She leaned closer.
Etched in a neat hand across the top were the words:
I solemnly swear I am up to no good.
Below it were three names: Prongs, Padfoot, and Moony.
"My godfather was Padfoot," Harry said quietly. "And in your histories, you call him Brandon the Builder."
Lyanna stared at him, her mouth falling open. "No. That's not possible. Brandon Stark built Winterfell eight thousand years ago."
He looked up at her, and she knew in that instant he was telling the truth. There was no jest in his eyes. Only quiet certainty.
"I don't expect you to believe me," he said. "But it's why I decided to protect you. The family he left behind."
She pressed her hand to her belly, feeling the child stir faintly within her. "I do believe you," she whispered.
His gaze softened. "Why?"
"Because you've never lied to me," she said simply. "And because… none of this—" she gestured around at the warm house, the stacked books, the flickering fire—"none of this feels like a lie."
He looked down, his fingers brushing the edge of the parchment. "I want you to understand, Lyanna. If you stay with me, you'll be part of something bigger than either of us. I don't know what this land will ask of me yet. Or what I'll have to do."
She rose and walked to him, her hand trembling as she rested it over his. "I was never meant to be ordinary," she said softly. "Neither were you."
He looked up, and their eyes met—two strangers from different worlds, and yet no longer strangers at all.
A long moment passed. Then she drew in a steadying breath and forced a wobbly smile.
"Well," she murmured, "since you're learning our letters, I suppose I should also learn to read your letters properly."
His mouth quirked. "You don't have to, because I have only few books and they are magical books and they won't be any useful to you."
"Of course," she said, her voice catching on a laugh.
Harry reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "Thank you," he said quietly.
"For what?"
"For believing me."
And though the snow still fell and the wind still howled beyond their walls, Lyanna felt something settle in her heart—something that felt, for the first time in a long while, like hope.
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