388FYI: Chapter 20 is up for free members on patré ón / PanGalacticBard.
Chapter Synopsis:
With their time in Winterfell drawing to a close, and Harry focused on stealing... copying the Winterfell library, Sirius and Dobby find themselves at a loose end.
Last Time: ..."Uh, Gorm, what's that trader fella up to?" Alik queried his friend as they stood atop the town wall taking in an afternoon ale and shooting the breeze. Alik was looking sceptically at the well-dressed but mud-covered man, who was running up and down outside the walls yelling "up, up" with a stick between his legs. Actually, looking closer, it looked more like a crudely built broom.
"Best not to ask Alik" Gorm concluded, after watching these antics for a bit. "I reckon the fellow's not all-there in the head."
Chapter 19: Hobbyist
Sirius stretched out a yawn, and wrapped his hands around the warm coffee mug. Despite these Northerner's insisting that it was a balmy spring day, Sirius was not convinced. The mornings were still too chilly for his liking.
The curtains were drawn open on their upper floor room at the Inn, letting in the early rays of the sun. He liked to watch the morning hustle and bustle of the town square, as people got ready for the day. Sirius, on the other hand, had very little to do. He'd closed up their market stall a week ago, feeling they'd supplied enough food to see the town through to the first harvest. People would get suspicious if they keep seeming to have more fresh produce and uncountable volumes of tools to sell despite their single cart load.
He and Harry had already cast a selective ward over the market to reduce suspicion and encourage those in the vicinity to not notice the discrepancy. It was known from the long history of Wizarding experience that stretching the disbelief of residents too far, even under these wards, would eventually cause the magic to fail as the residents' minds rebelled against the impossible.
With the market stall closed up, Sirius had taken on the task of getting a series of minor ward stones hidden or buried around the town, the castle, and the surrounding farmlands. These would serve several purposes. One of the most important being the focusing of the Marauder's Map.
Of course, the magics of the map had captured the lands they observed and passed through as they ventured through the North. But that was only in a more general sense, showing the roads and shape of the geography. When it came to cities, or castles for that matter, a much more focused set of wards would allow the map to fully penetrate the buildings, and to track all movements in the area, down to the room a person was standing in.
Harry had mentioned a longer-term plan to leverage the existing weirwood wardstone network they now suspected to exist, to capture the whole of the North, without the two of them having to first observe those areas in their flights or ramblings. But that would require more research from Harry, and he was busy finishing his projects with Lord Edwyle and Maester Gerrick.
Following the kerfuffle of uncovering the spy network, Sirius had actually dug-up an additional ward from the Black Family Grimoire, which he tied to the map in this specific area. It was a friend or foe ward. Its purpose was to brush the minds of those entering the ward for the first time, and test them for loyalty to the Wizarding family occupying those lands.
In this case he'd tied it to the Stark line, using a bit of Harry's Peverell blood, and some hair from Lord Stark, which Dobby had happily acquired. The Peverell blood would represent the 'wizarding family' while the hair was a standard practice to tie a ward on behalf of a squib line of the family. Thus, wizarding blood alongside the specific genetics of the Starks would comfortably tie the ward to the right people.
This would then show up on the Marauders map, with those marked as foes highlighted in red. Sirius was satisfied with the result, and somewhat chuffed with his own ingenuity, having never thought to do this before, and never having heard of something similar in the Wizarding world. , The ward would just ping in the mind of the head of the house. Which is why most chose not to have the ward, because they were known to be iffy at best.
The issue being that even a political ally would ping as a foe if their ultimate goals were more for their own benefit than yours. Even your servants would ping as a foe if you'd pissed them off that day. It was known to be a maddening experience. He'd imagine only the likes of Mad-eye Moody would have such wards active. It might also explain some of the paranoia among Blacks of old.
For the likes of Lord Stark, even a close vassal family might ping as a foe if that family were interested in encouraging a political decision to enrich themselves.
Sirius chuckled at the thought that his never-ending intention to prank members of his family in his youth would have pinged every time he visited his grandparents. He had no doubt a curmudgeonly head of house like Arcturus Black would have had such a ward active.
Thankfully, linking the ward to the map meant that it wouldn't then ping in Lord Stark's mind, as the Head of the squib line tied into the ward. Sending Edwyle mad before his time, was not his intention.
Nonetheless, the Map was now fully functioning in the areas around Wintertown and Winterfell. Something nicely demonstrated by Sirius managing to pick up one more spy in the Castle itself.
Sirius had informed Ser Cassel of the spy and excused the new information by claiming that he'd reviewed the list of traitors from the original interrogation, and spotted a name they'd overlooked. It was likely this spy was part of an entirely separate ring, since they had been rather thorough with their original veritaserum interrogation, but Sirus' excuse should be taken easily enough.
All the remaining red dots were in the town, and were too disconnected from the ruling family to warrant the effort of investigating, they could just be some of the few foreign merchants now trickling into town, who owed their loyalty to other rulers, or to their coin purse for that matter.
Harry and Sirius would check the map on occasion, but this was not a tool they intended to share. They'd be setting this up in all the towns they pass from now on. Though in all future cases they'd set the foe ward to themselves, unless there was another family they wanted to look out for.
Sirius was pretty sure it would just be the Starks for now, since the Starks were apparently the last of the direct male Peverell line here in Westeros, thus retaining some link to the family magics in the same way the Harry was the last of the direct male Peverell line in their world. A connection that brought them closer together, even if it was just their magic acting through them unconsciously to preserve the family line.
Obviously there were relations through so many other lines it would be uncountable, but family magics tended to only pass down the direct male line ever since the family edicts were set in place by Merlin himself.
Thankfully, Sirius didn't think he had any long-lost distant relations running around Westeros, though he'd be checking out the Blackwood family he'd heard of from Lord Stark, whose mother was a Blackwood.
After all, the Black line was just as ancient as the Peverells, and had some fairly powerful sorcerers in their time. Who knows, maybe some errant Black went dimension hopping in the distant past.
He didn't know of any such stories, but then again, no-one knew that Ignotus had ended up here either. They'd instead heard some tripe about him 'meeting death as an old friend'.
Not that Sirius would necessarily want to meet any long-lost relatives on this side of the veil. He barely wanted to meet any back on earth. Almost every single one of them had been afflicted with the hereditary black madness to some extent, and an entirely unseemly thirst for power in all its forms. Not the best lot to have around for a reunion, and he was glad to be shot of them.
Keeping that in mind though, he would keep an eye out for power hungry families, with hereditary madness and a habit of inbreeding. That would be a clear sign of a Black connection. He certainly hoped he'd not stumble across any such families in their travels here in Westeros.
Though now that he'd thought of it, he'd have to keep an eye out for anyone matching those descriptions, if only so he could run in the other direction.
Musings on long lost family aside, the map of the area was now finished and it still left Sirius bereft of a task. He knew they'd be dusting off their travelling cloaks in the near future, with Harry nearly finished on his end in the initial efforts to set the Starks and their people up for greater success.
Nevermind, something would come along.
Sirius groaned, lying flat on his face in a melting drift of spring snow.
He should have tested his broom first. He didn't realise that some of the magics hadn't settled into his DIY broom, and had dissipated in the time it had been stored away. This would be more work than he thought.
The morning coffee had taken a while to kick in, but once his mind was actually operating again, he'd realised he had a crucial project he could be getting on with. That being the building of a proper, fully functioning broom so he could travel at speed alongside Harry, instead of cramming onto the one broom.
He was quickly coming to the conclusion that he'd have to follow Harry's studious lead and actually find instructions on the subject of broom building, but in his stubborn nature he had been convinced that he could do it on his own. He'd now have to drag his mud covered ass back to the tent to wash-up and go over that book, that Harry had found for him, which he'd completely neglected to read.
"Bwahahaha!" ... "It worked! It worked!" ..."bwahahahaha"... "I'm king of the world!"... "Oh... oh shit!"... "aahhhhhh"
CRACK
Tom looked to Jared with a questioning look.
"Well don't ask me!" Jared exclaimed in consternation, looking up from his cards, "I have no clue where those yells are coming from. We're to guard the gate, and I see nothing at the gate, so either play your next hand, or swap out" he groused.
Tom was used to the complete disinterest that came with gate duty. Patrols were much more interesting, and those stuck on gate duty usually knew they were being punished. So it also came with a certain apathy to the surrounding world.
For both of them, this week's punishment was for a failure to regularly sharpen and polish their swords, which would usually go unnoticed, but was picked up by Lord Stark himself during that midnight emergency drill. Boy was that a shock to the system after about two years of winter peace and quiet.
He was, however, impressed with the forethought of Lord Stark to run such a drill, and to not even warn the commanders of the guard, to make sure they themselves were sharp. A smart man, their Lord Stark.
Tom was pretty sure the yells were coming from that merchant lord fellow who'd exited the gate an hour ago with a broad grin and a broom across his shoulders. But the man had disappeared into the distant forest and couldn't be seen from here, so he wasn't sure.
That cracking sound he'd heard couldn't be healthy for whoever was involved, but he was just as displeased to be on gate duty, so he decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and got back to deciding how many coppers to put down on his current hand.
Sirius groaned, lying flat on his face in a melting drift of spring snow... again. His broom was partly embedded in a nearby tree, which had split the tree in an almighty crack. Sirius himself had bailed in enough time to meet the relatively softer earth, hopefully with no more than a few bruises to show for it.
He was, however, so much happier than his mud covered visage would suggest.
"YES!" Sirius exclaimed, rolling over and pumping his fist in the air. He'd finally figured out his broom, and while this one would need some repair, he was over the moon that it worked so well. It had taken him a few days of hard work, including a few days holed up in the study with Harry. Begrudgingly reading through the detailed descriptions in the book. Harry had stuck a post-it-note over the title, which now read 'How to Make Brooms for Dummies'. Harry had handed him the book with a shit-eating grin, clearly amused with his joke at Sirius's expense. Despite Harry's smugness, the effort had finally paid off.
The broom's current state of being embedded in a tree was simply a misunderstanding. He'd started to fly it like a quidditch broom, which it most certainly was not, and had been completely unable to turn at the speed he expected after his poorly executed attempt at a Wronski feint.
Quidditch brooms were a step above the rest. They were built to turn on a dime at full speed, very much contrary to the laws of physics. His newly built DIY broom, on the other hand, was more of a casual long distance rider. It had more comfort charms, and managed a reasonable speed, but definitely didn't have the handling of a sports model.
Thankfully he'd managed to work out his difficulty with the broom build after reading the book. It hadn't held all the answers, since professional broom makers held their secrets in a manner similar to wandmakers, but it was enough.
It turns out he was making two crucial errors in his previous attempts.
Firstly, he'd not tied the charms to the broom core, and simply spelled them on. The core also needed some form of coagulant to seep into the wood and link the core with the wood itself. This was also thought to be one of the secrets of wandmakers, or so the book suggested, and was naturally a tightly held secret. Sirius didn't know where Harry found this book, but he was glad for it, he never would have guessed at this step.
The primary magical core for his broom was the hippogriff feather Harry had given him, but he needed a magical material that would seep into the wood to link the wood and the core together.
He'd briefly considered trawling through the potion ingredients they had in stock, searching for something that would work well with the somewhat more wild magic in this world. But just as he was getting up to start his search, his eyes landed on the small collection of weirwood branches Harry had dragged in to study at one of their stops along the way to Winterfell. At the sight of the beautiful white, and according to Harry, magical wood, his mind came to an obvious conclusion.
In no time, he'd managed to gather and work with sap from the weirwood, splitting a dried-out raw weirwood branch he'd chosen for his new broom, and spreading a thick layer of fresh sap along the very centre all the way from top to tail. The sap would remain under preserving charms which just required ambient energy to sustain themselves, as did most of the charms on the broom. A quick reparo rejoined the two pieces, leaving the branch whole again, without even a seam to show where it had been split in two.
A bit of skilled transfiguration, from a man who was good enough to learn the Animagus transformation as a teenager, soon saw the branch re-form into a sportier, smooth broom handle.
He went for a look similar in style to Harry's firebolt, but obviously in the ash white shade of the weirwood. Transfiguration of this sort was permanent because a skilled practitioner could ensure that the materials themselves were unchanged, with nothing added or removed, it simply reshaped what was already there.
Once the core was in-place, it was a case of casting the charms with the intent of anchoring them to the magical core.
The second issue he addressed was one of runes. He'd forgotten a few of the control runes on his original broom, which was the reason he'd failed to rise higher than five feet on his earlier attempts.
More importantly, he'd neglected the anti-friction rune cluster, which was a basic requirement on all brooms. This was why he couldn't pick up any speed. In the absence of these runes, the flight used more magic just to keep moving forward. More magic than the broom could sustain from the user and the ambient magic in the surrounds.
With less friction to deal with, the innate magic of the broom would be able to channel more power into speed. As simple as that.
Though, describing it as simple would be an understatement. Sirius acknowledged that his years of practice in spell creations and rune work with the Marauders had been good training for self-sufficiently working with unfamiliar magics. Most Wizards would have utterly failed to handle every part necessary in building a broom from scratch.
"Huh, I guess I'm not as much of a waste of space as my mother used to claim" Sirius mumbled to himself as he levered himself off the ground, more than a little pleased with his success. He summoned the broom from the tree, and repaired the damage with a reparo and some minor re-transfiguration.
He figured he was done for the day. He'd been flying under disillusionment the whole time to avoid being seen in the air, but the sun was setting, so it was probably time to head back and check on Harry and Dobby.
His book thief of a godson, and their chaos magnet of a House elf required some oversight after-all. It just boggled the mind that somehow he was the grown-up in this situation, he thought amusedly. "HAH" he guffawed, that's probably his best joke yet. He grinned from ear to ear, hiking the broom onto his shoulder; life was good to him these days.
He decided not to clean the mud off as he headed back to the gate. Let them see a lordling covered in mud, it would probably lift the spirits of those guardsmen, the poor fellas looked too agonizingly bored last time he saw them.
Dobby was at a loose end. He had nothing in particular to do, and that was not a comfortable feeling for a house elf.
Harry had told him not to go out cleaning and fixing things around town too often as people could start to get suspicious, especially since they'd been here so long, if he was fixing something everyday, the town would have been inexplicably sparkling. Though Harry didn't tell Dobby how well he was allowed to clean things, so Dobby would just have to clean twice as hard when he could. Dobby was good with instructions like that. That did leave Dobby wondering what to do with his time now though.
Sirius had closed down the market stall days ago now, so didn't need any more help from Dobby to run things on that end. Right now, Sirius was working on his broom building hobby. Dobby would help, but would have no idea where to begin.
Meanwhile. Harry was busy in the library, supposedly helping Maester Garrick on the implementation of their development plans. Though Dobby suspected that was just a poorly veiled excuse for indulging in his hobby of 'stealing' books. Dobby was just happy that Harry was happy, even if he did think it was a very strange hobby for a wizard. He'd let Harry have his fun and find something else to take his time.
That left Dobby in this relatively new situation of having nothing to do. Though the thought had occurred to Dobby that maybe he should pick up a hobby of his own, like Sirius and Harry.
He'd raised the idea with both of them at dinner last night, and they had seemed supportive. Or at least they had both seemed supportive after Harry took the time to exclaim that "stealing books was not his hobby".
Dobby and Sirius had shared a sceptical look at that, but just let Harry grumble about books and saving knowledge, and "poor medieval archiving techniques with damp creeping through the walls", or something like that. He thought he caught the words "largest library the world has ever seen!" interspersed in the grumblings. They'd learnt from experience that it was best just to let Harry get it out of his system when he started his book rants.
In the end, neither of his companions had any particular thoughts on what Dobby should do as a hobby. They had only said he should try to think of something he'd done before that he'd enjoyed doing.
So here Dobby was, wandering the streets of Wintertown, looking for somewhere he could buy some paints and something to pass as a canvas.
Dobby had always enjoyed touching up the many portraits that lined the walls at Malfoy manor. There wasn't much he enjoyed in that place, but the Malfoys had allowed Dobby to learn magical painting techniques from another elf, and it turns out he was quite good at it. Of course, the Malfoys weren't being altruistic in any way, they just didn't want to spend the money on a professional painter when they could have a free one on hand.
Dobby smiled softly as he recalled the extra charms his trainer had shown him to use on paintings of particularly nasty masters. It slowly turned the animated portrait insane, enough that they would shout insults at anyone passing by. He'd convinced one to blow raspberry's at the Minister's wife whenever she visited. Narcissa was mortified. Dobby chuckled to himself, causing a few passers-by to look at him strangely.
Needless to say, good old Lucy's own portrait had developed quite a mouth on it over time. Harry and Sirius had laughed themselves hoarse when he'd relayed that particular piece of subtle retribution.
Dobby liked painting though. It helped that he had noticed Winterfell, and many of the other castles or keeps they'd passed through were quite drab compared to the wizarding manors of their old world, which were usually packed full of paintings.
The few paintings they did have in the castles here looked weirdly flat and distorted, like the person they painted had been flattened out first. Dobby figured they just had bad painters. Though Harry had said something about linear perspective and depth only being used in paintings from the renaissance onwards. Whatever that meant.
Dobby wasn't sure how you could 'forget' that people weren't flat when you were painting them, but Dobby supposed humans were just weird sometimes. Either way, Dobby knew he could do better.
He'd be happy to help add some colour to the castle, and he felt it would make a nice gift to their new Stark friends as thanks for hosting them over the past couple of moons.
Dobby would start with portraits of the Starks and his travelling companions, to get back in the swing of things. But he had always wanted to try his hand at something bigger. A grand statement piece for the great hall or one of the walls in the larger rooms. He'd never had a chance at the Malfoy manor, but no-one was stopping him now.
When he had told Harry of this plan, he had taken on a thoughtful look and told Dobby he had just the right picture for him to use. Pulling over a book he had 'copied' from the Starks, Harry flipped to a double page spread in the middle.
"Here, I think this would look great on the walls of Winterfell" Harry had said with a satisfied nod "and it might give them all something to think about."
Leaning over the book, Dobby smiled at the grand scene laid out on the pages. It was an epic depiction of the Northern army in pitched battle against the Night King and his horde of undead, with the army spilling down from their position on a hill in the background housing a weirwood tree larger than any Dobby had yet seen. Giants and Children of the Forrest were mixed in to the armies on both sides.
Right in the center of the piece were two armoured swordsmen in a furious duel with the Night King himself, one wielding a dark sword with rippling metal, and one a sword of blazing silver. Flames licked, seemingly harmlessly, at the feet of the two men, pushing back at the circle of frost that seemed to be creeping out from the feet of the Night King. A battle of both man and nature. Probably also of magic, Dobby thought.
A close inspection of the armour showed sigils of the Stark Direwolf and the Peverell hallows emblazoned on each of their chests respectively. This singular fight was highlighted in a beam of light breaking through the heavy clouds. The Night King was clearly on the back foot against these two opponents.
"Wow," Dobby squeaked, stunned by the piece. He could already imagine what it would look like as a grand painting.
"Dobby be thanking the Great Harry P..." Dobby paused for a moment and cleared his throat, having momentarily slipped back into old habits in his excitement. He'd made great strides in normalising his speech pattern, and he knew Harry was quite proud of him for it. He tried not to slip if he could avoid it. This was also crucial in his guise as Harry's brother Doberic, which allowed him greater freedom to explore this world in public.
"This is perfect Harry!" he corrected himself, seeing the pleased gleam in Harry's eyes, "This'll be by far the grandest masterpiece we've seen anywhere in the North.."
Harry was grinning at this point. "Think you can pull it off Dobby?" He asked, somewhat curious and surprised at his friends apparent hidden talent.
"Oh easily" Dobby assured. Knowing that he was actually quite skilled, and revelling in being allowed to acknowledge it.
Taking another moment to consider the picture in more detail, Dobby noted "The detail is so realistic. I thought you said the painters of this era probably couldn't produce anything realistic with paints. All the paintings we've seen so far have been weirdly flat. How have you found a picture like this, especially one in a book from this world?"
Harry just smiled and reached out to flip the book back to its title page. "I found this in the crypts with the other documents that were hidden away. It was heavily deteriorated, to the point it was almost unreadable, but a reparo backed up by quite a lot of power managed to sort that problem."
He pointed to the name engraved into the leather bound cover "Lo and behold, it turns out it was a book written by Iolanthe Peverell herself, covering the 'Long Night and the Battle for the Dawn' from the perspectives of her father and husband."
Turning back to the striking image in the center of the book he answered Dobby "my best guess is that Iolanthe used a charm to extract the actual memory of this battle and the duel, somehow managing to impress it onto the page. The image is so perfectly detailed and there are no brush strokes to be seen. It could only be magic."
Sirius, who had been happily listening to the two while reclining by the fire, chipped in with his own thoughts. "Painting that picture large enough to cover the back wall of the great hall would certainly leave a striking impression"
Sirius gave a crooked smile and a knowing look to Harry "I'm also sure it will go a long way to embedding the Peverell name into the psyche of the North, and it won't do any harm to bolster the legends of magic in these parts."
"I'll even pull out the Black book on how to link wizarding portraits so they can give you updates and keep tabs on the castle if you want. I'm pretty sure the Blacks made the 'muggle' painting in the prime minister's office back in Britain, so they will have the right charms."
Harry rubbed his head a bit sheepishly "yes, well, I was thinking something along those lines. I've been a bit concerned that the people seem to have largely forgotten magic, and most seem to think the Long Night was merely a myth."
"At least if Dobby is as good at painting as he claims, it won't be hard to convince the Starks to hang it up. And at the size we're planning, there will be no other place to put it but in the hall to be seen by all visitors. They certainly won't have seen a painting like this before." He concluded, looking pleased with the intended outcome.
Dobby gave Harry a narrowed look, of course he was good at painting, the Malfoys wouldn't have hung just anything on their walls for their 'friends' to judge. Nevermind, the proof would be in the pudding. It might take a few days to get back into practice, but Dobby would show them what a real master painter could do.
Harry turned to Dobby, "I'll ask Lord Stark if he minds having their portraits done tomorrow" he finished. Dobby nodded at that, pleased with this new concept of having a hobby, and that it would actually fulfill a useful purpose.
Chapter 20 Teaser:
..."We'll head east to White Harbour first," Harry said "and from there, we'll likely take a boat south to explore some of the other kingdoms of Westeros".
Yes, thought Lord Stark, a boat would probably be the best way to get around for these men who seemed anathema to horses. Though a moment later he almost choked on his own wine when it occurred to him that they had presumably arrived in Westeros on a boat, and done it so poorly they ended up north of the wall. Maybe some people just weren't meant to travel."