Chapter Twenty-Nine
**Shireen Baratheon's POV**
This past year had a lot of ups and downs for Shireen Baratheon, but the best part, without any question, was her new friend Winky.
Winky visited her almost every day, whenever she was alone. The red witch kept trying to catch her, laying all manner of traps and watching spells around Shireen's room, around the castle even in her tent, but Winky was so clever and was never caught, not even once. Shireen had watched her slip through three separate detection wards in one afternoon by springing every trap at once with nothing inside, them while humming to herself, Shireen and had buried her face in her pillow to keep from laughing out loud when Winky told her about the chaos it caused.
Things had started getting worse after her father came back from the fight in King's Landing. He never visited anymore, he sat in alone in his chambers on Dragon Stone with no visitors with the exception of the red witch, even now he was in his tent with the red witch and stared at fires and listened to whispers that Shireen was not allowed to hear. Then Ser Davos came back and was arrested almost immediately, then last person in the castle who made her feel safe was also taken away.
Then Winky found her.
She had appeared at Dragon stone one evening with a soft *POP*, looked her over from head to toe with enormous careful eyes, and then done something no one had done for Shireen in longer than she could clearly remember. She sat down beside her and asked her how she was doing. Not how she was feeling about her father's campaign, not whether she had been saying her prayers to the Lord of Light, not whether she had been obedient and quiet and good. Just how she was doing.
Then she had cured her face.
It hadn't hurt. It had felt like warm water, like stepping out of the cold into a room with a fire going. Shireen had touched her own cheek afterward and cried for a long time, and Winky had sat with her the whole while and patted her hand and told her it was perfectly alright to cry when something good happened, sometimes good things made you cry even more than bad ones did.
After that Winky came every day when she could, she talked and played and told stories. She showed Shireen small careful pieces of magic when they were alone, lights that moved and changed color, tiny living creatures made of sparks that danced across the tent ceiling and made Shireen laugh. She told stories of magic castles, of people who flew on brooms, even about her Mistress as a young girl before she became the Fallen Star that everyone had been talking about. Those were Shireen's favorite stories. The Mistress had apparently once accidentally turned a teacher's wig orange during a particularly bad day, and some of her friends had considered it one of her greatest accomplishments for about a week afterward.
The red witch had claimed the healed face must have been a servant sent by the Lord of Light as a sign to keep the faith. No one listened when Shireen said it was her friend Winky, who was a servant to the Fallen Star. This made things worse. Her mother and father now believed everything the red witch said without question, without pause, without even a flicker of doubt crossing their faces. Only Ser Davos believed her.
Shireen didn't want to think too hard about what that meant about everyone else, including her mother.
When she had asked Winky to grab her and Ser Davos and help them escape, Winky had looked at her with those very large and very serious eyes and explained carefully that she couldn't just steal her away from her parents. There were rules about such things. Very important rules that even Winky had to follow even when she didn't want to. But she told Shireen that her Mistress would come up with something.
She hoped.
The months dragged on and Winky had been true to her word. She had talked to her Mistress, and her Mistress had said she would see what she could do, but that Shireen's father had done something that might have hurt his soul very badly.
This scared Shireen deeply, she asked what her father had done, but Winky refused to say, pressing her large ears back flat and shaking her head firmly. She was too young for such topics and didn't need to have nightmares on top of everything else she already had to carry.
Shireen wanted to argue, she had learned quickly however not to be rude to Winky. It was a fast way to earn a ladle to the backside, and she had learned that lesson the hard way the one time she had snuck out of the Castle alone looking for Unicorns in the forest just like in Winky's tales, but had gotten herself hurt badly enough to hug the teddy bear and bring Winky running. Winky had healed her with those absolutely terrible tasting potions her Mistress had prepared, fixed her torn dress with a snap of her fingers, and then given her exactly one firm bop on the backside with the ladle before hugging her so tightly Shireen could barely breathe.
She missed the stories now. The war camp was a dark and cold place, and the red witch sensed the Fallen Star was near. She said that if they claimed her power the great enemy could be defeated, that the Lord of Light demanded it, that her father needed to capture the Star and kill everyone around her. The fire burned every night, and people gathered around it and believed every word.
Shireen Baratheon might be a young girl, but she was not a stupid one. She knew her parents were too far gone in their delusions to be pulled back. But maybe she could convince Winky's Mistress to save at least Ser Davos. Being the last real Baratheon had to be worth something right, she just hoped it was enough.
---
**Eddison Tollett's POV**
**Castle Black — The Great Tunnel Gate**
Edd was getting irritated.
The moron on the other side of the gate inspection hatch just was not getting it through his head, and Edd had now explained it ten times at varying volumes.
"Look here mate, I'm telling ya.... YA NOT ON THE LIST!"
He looked over at Sam for support. Sam, the *fat bastard*, was standing off to the side with his hand over his mouth turning steadily redder trying not to laugh. Edd made a mental note about that for later.
"And I'm telling you, "The voice on the other side of the hatch yelled back, "that King Stannis and the Red Woman need not be on any list! They are shown the way by the Lord of Light himself on a sacred crusade, and I'm telling you to open up in their name!"
Edd flipped methodically through the neatly organized parchment, turned a page, ran his finger down the column and replied, "Look, I've got two kings, two princes, one queen, and a Goddess on my list and your bloke ain't on it. Got it, mate? So, bugger off somewhere else."
The voice on the other side did not bugger off somewhere else.
Edd listened to the response with the expression of a man trying very hard to remember a word. *Jon had been telling him he needed to be more...gods he hated this, having the word right there on the tip of his tongue and not being able to pull it...* he caught the tail end of whatever the voice was saying...*"now do you understand me, cur?"*
*(Assertive. That was the word. He needed to be more assertive.) *
Edd nodded to himself, satisfied, and looked back at the hatch. "Sorry mate, wasn't paying attention. Can you repeat that?"
Sam made a noise that was almost certainly a laugh disguised badly as a cough. Edd just frowned not understanding what was so funny.
The voice repeated itself, apparently at some length and with feeling, culminating in, "Are you listening to me, bastard?"
"No, not really mate," Edd said honestly. "Look, the point is...when a Goddess who can turn you into a goat, located near a hundred thousand hungry Wildlings, tells you to stick strictly to her list..." He turned to Sam. "Sam, help me out here."
Sam was now braced against the tunnel wall, shoulders shaking.
"Lots of help you are, fat bastard." Edd turned back to the hatch. "The point is you're not on the list, so either bugger off or wait here and I'll go ask." He slammed the hatch shut with finality.
"You know it's a half hour walk each way to go ask, right?" Sam said, smile still firmly in place.
Edd stopped walking, turned around, looked at Sam with the calm expression of a man who had just remembered something important.
"Yeah, but every time I do something right, she gives me some of that fancy chocolate." Then pointed behind him, "And telling her about yet another dammed king, at the gate seems like something she'd like to know," as he cocked his crooked smile.
Sam's smile flickered slightly, "Yeah, but only because she thinks you're dumber than a dog."
Edd simply shrugged with the comfortable peace of a man who had made his peace with things. "Yeah, but jokes on you lot, making fun of me."
"And how exactly is that?" Sam asked with a snort.
"Well, I'm the dumb puppy who gets fed fancy treats by a beautiful Goddess," Edd said pleasantly, already walking, "while you lot just stare and fancy your dreams and your right hands. Not that I'm not too, mind you, but at least I get *food*."
He walked off down the long tunnel toward the castle, boots echoing on the stone.
Sam stood there for a moment.
"I want chocolate, too" he muttered to himself, which was both entirely true and entirely beside the point.
He supposed, all things considered, the man outside could wait in the cold for another hour.
---
**Winky's POV**
**Shireen's Tent — Just Before the Battle**
Winky had a difficult job ahead of her.
She *POPPED* into the tent beside Pretty Princess and they greeted each other the way they always did, with a hug that Winky held for just a moment longer than usual. Pretty Princess noticed, she always noticed things. She was a very clever little girl and Winky was very proud of her.
Both of them knew what it meant that Winky had appeared alone.
If Winky appeared with her Mistress, there was hope for everyone. If Winky appeared alone, then nothing could be done to save Pretty Princess's parents without undue risk to people more innocent than them. The Star would try, but she couldn't promise anything. The devil that had latched itself onto Pretty Princess's father and the red witch was crafty and strong and had been feeding for a very long time.
Winky didn't say any of this out loud. Instead, she reached into her pocket and produced a pair of very soft earmuffs that she had stayed up quite late making, embroidered around the edges with tiny stars and the pattern of a book and placed them carefully over Shireen's ears.
Shireen touched the embroidery with one finger, looking down at it.
Then Winky took a breath and reached out with her mind the way her Mistress had been carefully teaching her, lessons oddly enough Hagrid had convinced Unicorns to teach her Mistress, and she began to speak directly into Shireen's thoughts.
*"Today Admiral Winky will teach Pretty Princess mind speak."*
Shireen's eyes went wide and bright all at once. She opened her mouth immediately to respond out loud, and Winky held up one small hand, then made a careful zipping motion across her lips, and pointed firmly at her own head.
*Mouths stay closed, Minds speak. *
Shireen pressed her lips together, concentration folding her brow, and tried. The thought arrived in Winky's mind like a small warm knock on a door, not even close but a good try none the less the look on her face showing she was genuinely trying, *or she was going poop, * Winky thought to herself, hoping for the trying option.
Winky beamed at her.
*"Very good,"* she sent back, after she felt the small brush back. *"Now. Today, just listen to Winky tell a story that almost no one knows, not even in the books."*
Outside, the cold wind moved through the camp and fires crackled and somewhere distant men were shouting orders at each other. But inside the tent, surrounded by the warm light of candles Winky had conjured in a careful ring around them both, things were quiet and safe.
Winky raised her hands and the inside of the tent bloomed with color.
A cascade of silent magical fireworks erupted across the canvas ceiling...golden stags and silver fish and tiny spinning stars, all moving and shifting and chasing each other in loops that made the light dance across Shireen's upturned face. The girl's eyes went wide, and she forgot entirely to maintain her serious and dignified expression and just looked at it the way of a happy child. The look of wonder making Winky happy to once again be entertaining a young child in service of a good Master.
*"This,"* Winky began, *"is the story of the final battle of Hogwarts, the parts that nobody knows."*
She told it carefully and with great love. How her Mistress had a Time Turner and used it during the final battle so she could be in two places at once. The older version of herself went with Ron and Harry while the younger one moved through the castle trying to reach the ones who needed reaching most, the younger students, the Muggleborns and half-bloods who the death eaters were hunting first and hardest and with the most enthusiasm. How she was not able to save everyone. How she saved those she could reach and had to leave behind the ones she couldn't.
How she had been one second too late for the Prank Twin named Fred and had carried that second with her every day since, one second to late killing the enemy in her hesitation.
*"Harry was the only one who knew at first,"* Winky continued, keeping her voice in Shireen's mind as steady and warm as she could manage while the sounds from outside began to change. *"He caught a glimpse of Mistress from above while he was flying, with He Who must not be Named, fighting in two places at once, and he kept her secret because she asked him to and because he loved her as his best friend and sister he never had but always wanted. And because some secrets are kept not out of shame but out of protection."*
Outside the tent the noise was growing. Commands shouted, the clash of something, the ground shaking once beneath their feet. Shireen flinched and looked toward the tent entrance and Winky gently touched her hand and drew her attention back.
*"Keep listening,"* she said simply.
She kept the fireworks going. A glowing phoenix, wings spread wide, turned slow circles above them. A tiny luminous lion chased a small silver snake around the peak of the tent roof. Shireen watched them and Winky kept talking and timed every bright display to cover the worst of the sounds from outside as best she could.
Her Mistress had placed a Fidelius Charm on the tent at great personal cost, layering it over the space where Pretty Princess sat so that even the worst of what was happening outside could not find its way fully through the canvas walls. The red witch had placed her own charm on Pretty Princess long ago...the kind of charm that kept a child tethered to her parents like a thread tied around her heart, pulling tighter the further she was taken from them. While her parents lived, the charm held. While the charm held, Pretty Princess could never truly be free.
Winky knew her Mistress understood this.
She also knew her Mistress had been trying very hard not to have to do things she didn't want to do. But she would do what she must, because she always did, because that was who she was.
The sounds outside reached a peak and then, in the way that battles sometimes do, went suddenly and completely quiet.
In the quiet, a single large firecracker spell went off above them — a great blooming flower of gold and rose and white that filled the entire tent ceiling and slowly drifted down like snow, each spark going dark softly before it could reach them. Shireen tilted her face up toward it.
*"The end,"* Winky said quietly.
Shireen lowered her eyes to Winky's face and seemed to understand, she had a sad, but firm look in her eyes, that the story had not been the only thing ending.
The tent flap opened.
Hermione stepped inside.
She looked troubled, the broken bond with the second Dragon doing only temporary harm but to those who knew her, they could see the difference. Her hair was coming loose in a few places even the super magic hands of Pretty Maid lady not able to keep the mane in place fully. There was ash on her sleeve, a slight scorch mark and slice in the dress just under the left sleeve, she was holding herself very carefully her arm now barely covered a strange scar peeking through. The magical energy surrounding her seemed to relax as the she seemed to calm a bit seeing Winky and Pretty Princess unharmed.
Shireen stood up, the earmuffs still hanging loose around her neck. She looked at Hermione's face and then at Winky, and Winky gave her the smallest nod.
Hermione crossed the tent and crouched down in front of Shireen, so they were eye to eye and told her gently and truthfully and without softening it more than it needed to be softened, what had happened. That Ser Davos was alive and unhurt and would be her personal guard from this day forward. That Lady Stark had agreed to foster her until she came of age to inherit her father's titles and name, that she would not be alone.
Shireen listened to all of it, she did not cry. She only nodded once, carefully, Mistress seeming to have difficulty keeping her composure as Pretty Princesses lip trembled slightly.
Hermione stood and looked at Winky over Shireen's head for a moment.
"Winky," she said, "please be a dear and look after your young brave friend. She will need your help, and I know of no better person to look in on her from time to time."
She gave Winky a smile that carried more in it than the words did.
Then with a quiet *POP* she was gone.
Winky looked at Pretty Princess standing in the middle of the tent. After a moment Shireen looked back at her with moistening eyes but a very steady expression as a tear started forming in the corner of her eyes and said, in a voice that was trying very hard and mostly succeeding to sound grown up, "Do you think you could do more of the fireworks? The flower one at the end was my favorite."
Winky raised her hands without a word and the tent filled with light.
---
**Daario Naharis's POV**
**The Great Pyramid, Meereen**
Daario was laughing at Lord Connington's predicament.
The queen had left Connington in charge of the city and Daario in charge of its security while they were halfway around the world having all the fun. Hermione's idea, apparently, on the grounds that being a "criminal and all," her words, delivered with that particular expression she used when she was being snotty. "He would know the most about crime prevention than most, seeing as I'm sure he has done most of it." she had said during a council meeting. But Daario knew the truth of course, he had spoken it aloud in front of the entire council without a moment's hesitation.
"I know you just want to keep me close, little Goddess, all for yourself."
She had sputtered, actually sputtered. "No! What...No, I.. I simply have my eye on you is all."
He had smiled his best smile. "So, it's acceptable for you to watch me, but I can't have a peek at you?" he raised his eyebrows at the word peak as he checked her up and down, referring to their first meeting.
The memory of her face turning approximately the color of a ripe pomegranate was one he intended to keep for a considerable time. "*That is not even close to the same thing!!!*" she had shouted and then zapped him with a small but surprisingly pointed lightning bolt from her wand, which had been entirely worth it.
That had been a very good day.
Lord Connington caught him staring off into space with a stupid smile on his face and said, with the tone of a man who had watched younger men make catastrophic decisions before, "You're playing with your very soul, kid."
Daario was opening his mouth to reply about it being worth it, when the entire pyramid shuddered and a large explosion was heard throughout the entire city.
Not gently, this was the kind of shudder that went up through the floor into your feet and kept going. Every person inside was thrown off balance and several went entirely to the ground as a sound like the world clearing its throat rolled through the stone walls.
The next few minutes were controlled chaos, as The Unsullied working with the Golden company immediately secured the area as the second sons spread out through the city to gather information to see if an attack on the Queen or the Goddess was just hatched. When she was found someone had informed him of the situation and he came running. Daario finally made his way through to where she had been sharing a royal suite with the queen. He stopped in what used to be a doorway and looked at what used to be a room no one dared approach as lightning was still sparking off of her.
There was a crater where the shared quarters had been. Open sky above it, the late afternoon light coming down in a column through the dust still settling. everything with twenty feet had been destroyed utterly, and in the center of the new crater, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, was Hermione.
Daario did not think about it. He dropped down and crossed the rubble and sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. Her skin gave a sharp electric crackle against his arm giving him only stinging burns, but he felt it like touching a live coal for but a moment, but he did not pull away and after a moment the crackling faded to warmth.
She leaned into him.
She cried into his shoulder without saying anything, without explaining anything, and he held her and did not ask for explanations because they could wait and this couldn't.
He heard the sound before he saw it. A slow rhythmic movement of enormous air, and then the golden head of Viserion came sliding through the open wall above the crater, neck arching down and around with the careful deliberate movement the dragon trying very hard to be gentle to the now unstable structure. The dragon's great eyes found Hermione and then slid to Daario and stayed there for a but a moment. *Gods they were getting Big* he thought to himself.
Daario did not move, he was not an idiot while he didn't think the dragon would attack, especially with her there in his arms, but why take the chance.
Viserion seemed to reach whatever internal conclusion an oversized flying, fire breathing lizard could reach as it lowered its great head, and then its body followed, wings spreading and curling inward until they formed a canopy over both of them, blocking the evening wind, holding the warmth of the day inside the shelter of gold scales and folded membrane. The dragon settled with the slow breathing of that seemed to calm the girl in his arms a bit more as she closed her eyes still crying.
Daario sat inside a dragon's wing with a weeping goddess leaning against his shoulder and decided just this once he would actually try being a good guy and not try to take advantage of this situation.
The sun moved lower, the light coming through the gaps in the scaled wing shifted from gold to amber to the first soft edge of rose. The beautiful Goddess in his arms having fallen asleep looked so small and gentle.
He did not know where the song came from. It had lived in him for as long as he could remember, picked up somewhere in his childhood he rarely thought about in enough detail really care where anything had come from. He had never sung it for anyone else before though. He wasn't entirely sure why he started now except that the silence needed something and this was what he had.
He hummed it quietly at first, more breath than sound, while the dragon's wing sheltered them and the sun finished setting and Hermione slowly, incrementally, stopped shaking as she seemed to find a little bit of peace in her sleep.
The bond that had been broken would leave a mark that would take time to heal. He understood that much without being told from her explanation. He didn't understand most of what she said, but he didn't really need to, she had enough people who cared about her information.
He just held her, and he hummed as she slept, as the sun set on yet another day gone by, with hopes of a better tomorrow the gaps in Viserion's golden wings above them.