Chapter 2: 279AC 1/3

Last Time

Harry took his own horse, a beautiful, well-bred palfrey that he'd had for years, and he rode out of Kings Landing and he knew that he would not be back for years to come. The hardest part about riding off was leaving his beautiful Rhaegar behind, but out of the two of them, Rhaegar was like to survive the madness of the King. He, with his hair as dark as a moonless night and his eyes like summer grass, was more likely to be cut down or burned alive by the mad King's cruelty and shattered sanity. The hints were coming thicker and faster, the barbs crueller and more hostile and Harry had been living in fear of his life, that fear was only growing with each new morning. He couldn't live like that any longer, so he was leaving for Oldtown. With any luck, and the will of the Seven, his Father would be dead by the time that he was ready to return.

Chapter Two – 279AC

Ser Barristan Selmy had taken the disappearance of Prince Haradarian very hard. With the disappearance of the second Prince, the laughter had gone, the smiles had gone, all joy had been stripped from the Red Keep and Prince Rhaegar had been so filled with wroth at his brother's disappearance that he had sailed immediately for Dragonstone and he rarely came back to the mainland to visit. Instead he sulked on Dragonstone and allegedly he prayed in the Sept every morn before he broke his fast that his brother returned soon and he begged for the Seven to protect the young Prince, who had vanished, with none of his armour or weapons and only his horse. He had gone in the twilit dusk before the gates to the city had been closed for the night, slipping unnoticed past the gold cloaks on duty, just a week after his uncelebrated thirteenth name day. He had been found missing the next morning, after he didn't show to break his fast.

They had panicked, the Kingsguard that was, and the seven of them had been determined to ride out and track down the missing Prince, insistent that he couldn't have gone far in just a single night, but they had been forbidden from any action by King Aerys. That had angered Barristan more than anything else, that this mad man, this King, had driven away his own newly turned thirteen year old son, who was now out in the Seven Kingdoms alone and undefended. Haradarian the Heart. The sweetest boy that Barristan had yet met, with his soft smiles and sweet songs, his easy giggles and high laughs.

The mad King had oppressed the boy so much in the last few weeks since the end of the Defiance of Duskendale, had tried to crush him so thoroughly, that those smiles and giggles had all but vanished and Prince Haradarian had become miserable, turning as melancholic as Rhaegar had been in his youth, yet Rhaegar had become so full of wroth that he was all but unapproachable, yet his protectiveness of his two brothers had grown tenfold.

The pinnacle moment had been Harry's thirteenth name day, the day that no one had been allowed to celebrate. He had seen how upset it had made the young boy and it had almost killed him inside to follow that order, to ignore the boy stood in front of him, trying to talk to him and to his sworn brothers, but they had been forbidden to acknowledge him and all of them, all seven of them, had followed that order and it had broken all of their hearts to do so. They had kept to their oaths and had instead followed their orders and they had ignored the small boy in front of them, who had been almost beseeching them to please just speak with him, to please just look at him, but they had carried on looking ahead, over Haradarian's head as they'd been ordered to do and it had hurt the boy very deeply. The boy who was just very lonely, lost and distressed as he had been forbidden from being near his own family on his own name day and thus he had turned to them, as the only other constant in his life. Haradarian had almost been driven to tears by their actions of ignoring him and acting as if they couldn't see or hear him and it had taken all of his strength of will to stop himself from falling to his knees and embracing the small boy before him.

Just a week later, a week in which everyone in the Red Keep, even the servants, had been forbidden from talking or being near Haradarian, which included ignoring all of his orders and requests, even those for food, and the Prince was discovered missing the morning after being told cruelly by the King that he wasn't allowed to eat from the table with his silent family and that he had to eat leftover scraps from the floor in the kitchens. The boy had run from the solar in much distress, crying floods of tears from those beautiful green eyes and he had left behind broken hearts and bitter regrets within all of them for choosing to follow the order to ignore him as if he weren't there. Perhaps if they had broken that order then the Prince would still be safe within the Red Keep and under their protection, for though they had been ordered to leave him to his death if such a situation arose, Barristan knew that he himself would never have been able to live with himself if ever he had been forced to stand and watch his boy being killed in front of him. He knew that he would never have followed that particular order and he'd like to think that his sworn brothers wouldn't have been able to watch such an act or follow such an order either.

Perhaps he should never have offered to steal into Duskendale to save the King in the first place, but his honour had had him speaking out. He was sworn to protect his King, to obey his commands and to keep his secrets. He was sworn into the Kingsguard for the rest of his life and if he could have saved his King, he had had to try and now, because of that action on his part, he had lost another member of the royal family. His favourite member if he were brutally honest with himself.

Haradarian had become like a son to him, a son he had sworn to never father. He was always easy to smile, he always toddled over to say good morning to them when he had been a boy, though in his younger years they did not realise that 'morning' was what the young Prince had believed Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had been named. He remembered fondly the day that they had finally realised that their Prince did actually know the phases of the day and that he believed that Ser Arthur was actually named Morning.

'Morning!' The young Prince called out, hurrying over on unsteady feet that had more than a few of them loosening their arms to catch him if he fell onto the hard stone floor.

'It is the afternoon, my Prince.' Ser Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander, had told the tiny boy kindly.

Prince Haradarian had blinked huge, confused eyes at them. He looked down with a wide grin before he held out a small bug that was crawling over his hand with that smile. The smile that he would never forget.

'Look, Morning!' The Prince had exclaimed again, thrusting the bug at Ser Arthur.

It had been Prince Lewyn who had laughed and nudged his younger sworn brother. 'Our Prince thinks that your name is Morning!' He chuckled happily.

'He does not.' Ser Arthur had denied.

'My Prince, what is my name?' He remembered asking the young Prince with amusement.

'Bastan.'

'And mine, my Prince?' Lewyn had asked with a chuckle.

'Lewyn.' The Prince nodded.

'What is my name, my Prince?' Arthur had asked kindly.

'Morning.' The Prince had replied confidently, much to the amusement of all of them.

'See! He does think that your name is Morning!' Lewyn had laughed.

It had taken three turns to convince the young Prince that 'Morning' was actually part of a title used by Ser Arthur and they'd needed the help of Prince Rhaegar to finally convince him to start saying Ser Arthur, though he had still slipped for a while afterwards, particularly when excited.

Barristan smiled sadly at his nostalgic thoughts and he sighed. The thirteen year old Prince was gone, the boy he had known was gone, he would be fifteen now wherever he was, almost a man grown. None of them knew where he was and there had been no whisper of him in the last two years, nothing to hint at his whereabouts or wellbeing, only harsh tales and nasty gossip that he certainly didn't believe in the least, and if Prince Rhaegar knew where his brother was then he said nothing on the rare occasions that he came to visit Kings Landing from Dragonstone. The longest he had stayed away from his little island was for the tourney at Storm's End in honour of the late Lord Steffon Baratheon's death.

Barristan had won that tourney, despite his advancing age and being pitted against much younger knights. He had won the last tilt against Prince Rhaegar, who had trained and practiced fiercely to defeat Ser Arthur Dayne to compensate for his loss at the tourney of Lannisport, he had not counted on Barristan unhorsing him in the final tilt. It was a fond memory for him.

It had been two years since the young Prince had vanished and there was no word, not even a hint of him throughout the Seven Kingdoms and many had given him up for dead, killed by a bandit or an outlaw for his horse and clothes most like. Barristan didn't like thinking of such things, not of the boy he saw as close to his son as he was ever going to get.

The King liked to sit in Haradarian's bed chamber, in a chair by his bed, silently, and it made Barristan, and his sworn brothers, very angry, though they wisely held their tongues. King Aerys had been the very reason that the Prince had run, he was the reason that Haradarian was not safely here in the Red Keep, he was the reason that Haradarian was lost in the Seven Kingdoms, exposed to numerous dangers that he was too young to deal with and he was the reason that Rhaegar had stole away to Dragonstone in isolation and now he was despairing their loss as if they had done him some great personal disservice. The mad King was the cause of the Princes running away and he acted as if they had been taken from him.

He was becoming more erratic and his obsession with fire was a telling sign of all the foolish and mad Targaryens before him, much like Aerion Targaryen who had drunk a cup of wildfire believing that it would make him a real dragon. No good ever came of a Targaryen's obsessive fascination with fire in any form.

But then, late in the year 279 after Aegon's Conquering, the Prince Haradarian stole back into the Red Keep, into Maegor's Holdfast, as stealthy and as silently as he had left it two years before. One day they had still been despairing of his loss, two and a half years since he had left, wondering where he was and praying to the Seven that he was still alive and well. The very next morn, he was sat there, in the royal solar, his younger brother Viserys perched on his lap as he sung his sweet songs, a new note of steel to his voice that hadn't been there two years previous. He was no longer a little boy, he was growing into a man at five-and-ten. Once he had finished his song and King Aerys had clapped along with Viserys, he had turned to face them and those huge green eyes looked back at him, that smile on his face, the smile that he had feared had been lost forever or permanently stamped out. Haradarian had come back home and he had brought his smiles and his laughter with him. That beautiful, wonderful, special boy.

279AC

Two and a half years of study at the Citadel in Oldtown had led to Prince Haradarian the Heart Targaryen to forging his own Maester's chain. It was not wrapped around his throat like a choker, how the Maester's wore their chains, as he had taken no oaths and he was no Maester. He had gone to Oldtown purely to learn and his links had been forged and they had been chained together in a continuous loop that hung almost down to his waist. Among them were a half dozen silver links for his prowess with medicine and healing, almost a half dozen of platinum links for herblore, one golden link for economics, (which had been the most boring study he'd taken up, testament to the fact was that he only had the one yellow gold link and he'd barely earned that), and a single lead link for poisons. He had three of iron for Warcraft and four of Valyrian steel, for magic. He had a few others, from when he had been very bored and had picked a new subject to study almost at random. But his main focus had been healing and medicine and Warcraft, of which he had excelled at both due to his passion and dedication to learning the arts, after he'd earned his first links, the subsequent links in each subject had come easier to him until he'd been earning a link every few turns as he'd done little else other than study and work towards his links in his two and a half years at the Citadel.

He was fifteen now, eight full turns from his sixteenth name day, and he had declared it time to go back to Kings Landing as he had learned all that he had wanted to from the Maesters at the Citadel. He had been corresponding with Rhaegar as often as he could since he'd left so suddenly. Rhaegar had written to him that he had sailed for Dragonstone the day after Harry had left and he rarely returned to Kings Landing.

He'd written to Rhaegar to tell him that he was coming home and Rhaegar had written back to him and sworn to meet him as soon as he arrived. The smallfolk were still clinging to his return, Rhaegar told him. The people still loved Haradarian the Heart, the Prince who had listened attentively and had ruled them justly, even for a mere half year while King Aerys had been imprisoned at Duskendale. Rhaegar told him that the smallfolk missed him and that he was a very attractive ruler in the face of King Aerys, the mad tyrant who had progressed to burning people alive on a whim, but no one knew where he'd gone. Even the Kingsguard had been panicked, or so Rhaegar told him, most particularly Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Barristan Selmy and Prince Lewyn Martell. The Kingsguard had wanted to come looking for him, Rhaegar told him, they took it as a personal slight that they had lost a member of the royal family while on duty, but the King had forbade it. Harry had been expecting no different.

He rode alone along the Roseroad on his beloved palfrey. He had been hiding himself on the ride down to Oldtown, as he hadn't wanted anyone to know who he was or where he was going, just in case he was dragged back to Kings Landing before he was ready to go back, but on the way back, he allowed his Princely demeanour to show through, though as he had on the journey down, he did not wear his house sigil or any noticeable jewellery as it was too dangerous and it would have been a beacon to every outlaw and cutthroat along the road, not to mention that his family had quite a few enemies, more now than they had had when he'd rode down this way two years previous.

He stopped at every town and major city on his way back, letting the smallfolk and nobles alike see him and know that he wasn't dead and rotting in a ditch or hedge along the road. The most prestigious of his stops was, of course, Highgarden, the seat of house Tyrell, where upon he was welcomed like a long lost son.

Lord Mace Tyrell treated him like a brother, Alerie, his wife, could barely string a sentence together in his presence, much to the contempt of her good-mother, Olenna Tyrell of house Redwyne. Harry really liked the Lady Redwyne as she preferred to be called and he spent most of his time sitting with her and laughing over her 'oaf' of a son. Her own words, not Harry's. He tried to be more diplomatic than name calling, but it was hard to hide his amusement at times. He was still rather young.

Though of course, he was surrounded by boys as he did speak with her as a four year old Willas sat right beside him, chatting at a mile a minute as Harry sat the newest Tyrell boy, Garlan, on his lap. Garlan was only two, but he was the sweetest little thing that Harry had ever seen. Even sweeter than Viserys and that had been quite hard for him to believe as no one had been sweeter than Viserys in his opinion two years ago.

He stayed at Highgarden for a week, finding himself unable to leave as he played with Willas, a tiny Garlan toddling after them both. But on the day that he had announced that he was leaving, Lord Mace insisted on sending an honour guard with him down the Roseroad. Harry refused graciously.

"I travelled to Oldtown alone, I will arrive back alone." He said with a smile. "Though I thank you for the honour. You must come and see me soon. I would be delighted."

Lord Tyrell puffed himself up and Harry heard Lady Olenna snort and Harry had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing as he handed little Garlan back to his Mother and patted Willas on the head.

"We will come and visit you at Kings Landing." Alerie managed to say, her cheeks a bright red.

"Once it's safer." Lady Olenna cut in.

"Mother!" Alerie chastised.

"I am not your Mother!" Lady Olenna sniffed. "If I'd given birth to you, I'm sure I would remember it."

"I agree with Lady Olenna, my Lady." Harry said. "Come only when it's safe."

"Surely we'll be safe with your protection." Alerie Tyrell told him with big, doe eyes. Harry despaired that anyone could be her age of two-and-twenty and still be so naïve.

Harry shook his head, his fingers finding his Maester's chain and he playing with it in a nervous habit that he'd picked up in Oldtown. "When I left two years ago King Aerys was threatening to burn me alive, my Lady. I have no idea of the reception that I'll receive when I go back. I'm not going to be safe, so I can't offer any protection to others. It's better to wait until it's assuredly safe."

"You could stay here." Lady Olenna offered. "No one knows where you are and you could stay hidden here until it is safer for you. We would love for you to stay until it's safe for you in Kings Landing."

Harry was already shaking his head. "Thank you very much for the offer, my Lady Olenna, but I couldn't accept. I have been away for too long already. I do not fear for myself, I am but one person after all, not even a man yet. I fear for the realm and the Seven Kingdoms, having to live through this oppression, this tyranny and instability. I ran to Oldtown, Rhaegar to Dragonstone. What is the realm to do when its two Princes are running away when most do not have the means to escape? The time for running is over. The time for hiding is over. Rhaegar and I have to do our duty to the realm because the King will not."

Harry left Highgarden alone, with a very well fed, fattened palfrey under him. He was sad to say goodbye to Highgarden, and to his friends, the Tyrells. He'd very much enjoyed the week that he had spent here, but he was missing Rhaegar more and more, his heart was aching under the pain and sadness of being separated from him for so long and he needed to see him and touch that beautiful face again.

Harry travelled as long as he could during the day and then he stayed at the closest inn at night. He made no secret of who he was and most of the smallfolk he met were overjoyed to see him and to know that he was in actual fact safe and well. One tavern owner even tried to give him his food and board for free, but Harry had steadfastly refused as he paid his tab happily with the small amount of coin he'd earned for himself while at the Citadel, drinking and laughing with several strangers as he bought them meat and mead. He did the same all the way up the Roseroad.

He was slightly afraid of running into an outlaw group or any brigands, but he wouldn't let that fear rule him, the Roseroad was one of the most heavily travelled roads in Westeros because of its link to Oldtown and the Citadel, thus it was one of the safest roads to travel by, but one could never be too careful when travelling alone. He was five-and-ten now and he'd only been three-and-ten when he'd come down this road two and half years previous. He'd looked after himself then, he could do better now that he was older.

Of course he made sure to make friends along the way. He helped some young boys to track down an errant sibling who had fallen asleep in a bush, he'd helped an elderly woman patch up a cut hand and he'd even stopped to help a farmer and his little sons to replace the axle on his cart when it had snapped after he'd hit a pothole. The man had been struck speechless when he had asked for his name to thank him properly and Harry had responded with Haradarian Targaryen. Harry had left the farmer and his two young sons with a newly replaced cart axle and a wave as he rode off on his palfrey towards Kings Landing.

His arrival in Kings Landing was the same as his departure, quiet and stealthy. He had ridden long into the night, bedded down just off of the Kingswood road, hidden by the trees as he slept under his cloak for only a few hours and he'd woken up very early, before dawn, to finish off the last part of his journey. He had arrived back home just as day was breaking.

The bridge into Maegor's Holdfast was empty and the doors were open. The King was already up and about and he had the whole of the Kingsguard with him, if Harry had to guess then he would say that his Father was praying in the Sept before he broke his fast, but taking every member of the Kingsguard with him was new, he hadn't even left one member behind to patrol the drawbridge into Maegor's Holdfast. He hadn't left even one member to protect his wife or son. It seemed to Harry that the King was even more paranoid than when he'd left two years before. It wasn't a good sign and he was very nervous about what sort of reception he would receive, but he couldn't let that fear rule him. Not anymore. He couldn't remain an outcast from his own home until his Father died, it just wasn't feasible and he couldn't stay away any longer, he missed Rhaegar far too much and he needed for the smallfolk to remember him, if he was out of sight and out of mind, that couldn't happen.

Harry found his three year old brother Viserys breaking his fast with a servant watching over him. A servant who pulled out a dagger as soon as he walked into the room in a clear, wordless threat to do him harm if he came any closer. Harry's hand flexed towards his own dagger in automatic reflex, but he ignored the urge to draw the blade. Violence would get him nowhere here.

"Hello, Viserys. Do you remember me?" He asked softly, ignoring the servant with the dagger as much as was wise.

Viserys looked up at the sound of his voice, his big purple eyes scrutinising him. The boy shook his head.

"I'm Haradarian. Your brother."

"Oh!" Viserys exclaimed, leaping up and he ran to him, the servant was stunned stupid as she finally recognised him and Harry picked up Viserys and held him close, inhaling deeply the smell of his baby brother.

"Oh, how I've missed you." Harry exclaimed.

"Where did you go?" Viserys asked. "Mother and Rhaegar tell me about you."

"I was in Oldtown, Viserys, at the Citadel. Look, I've got a Maester's chain." Harry told him, plucking out the links from under his plain jerkin.

Viserys took them and played them over in his little hands.

"Are you a Maester now?" Viserys asked curiously. "Like Pycelle?"

Harry laughed. "No, little dragon. I never swore any oaths, I just went there to learn."

Harry sat down smoothly and put Viserys on his knee, holding him tightly in his lap, much like he'd done to Garlan Tyrell a week before and he happily helped Viserys to eat, tearing up bread and bits of fruit for him and eating bits and pieces himself. He was missing Rhaegar so much now that he was here. He just wanted Rhaegar, he wanted to know what his strong, beautiful brother looked like now that he was twenty years old.

"You used to sing to me." Viserys said suddenly. "I remember Mother saying."

Harry smiled and kissed Viserys' silver crown of hair. "I did. I would sing you to sleep on most nights while Rhaegar played a tune on his harp for you."

"Sing to me now." Viserys demanded.

Harry laughed. "Well you are certainly used to getting your own way. My voice has changed now, I can't do all those soft voices I used to, my voice is deeper and harder, but I have some new songs that fit my new voice better, would you like to hear them?"

"Sing. Sing!" Viserys told him excitedly and Harry grinned.

He started singing. He could still sing softly, but not as soft as his eleven or twelve year old voice had been able to accomplish. His voice had a hint of steel to it now as he got older and he could make it deeper more than he could make it higher as he'd been able to do in his youth.

He didn't notice that anyone had walked in on them until he'd finished his last song and Viserys had clapped his hands, joined in by someone else.

Harry snapped his head around with a smile to look behind him and he almost recoiled in horror at the sight of King Aerys, his Father, he managed to just hold his smile in place by sheer force of will. The King was sunken and saggy, his nails were very, very overgrown, thick and yellow like the talons on a hawk, his hair and beard were down to his waist and were both matted, tangled, unwashed and uncombed.

He was surrounded by the surprised Kingsguard and Harry was happy to see them unchanged, even if Ser Harlan Grandison was looking more ancient than the withered King.

"My son, you have come home." King Aerys said happily and Harry was confused to see tears in the old man's eyes. The last he'd heard his Father was going to burn him on public display, but then the old man was crazed and ruled by madness, such men were not the most reasonable or rational.

King Aerys hobbled over to embrace him and Harry's eyes widened and his gorge rose immediately as he gagged visibly at the smell that Viserys, sat on his lap, seemed to not smell. Harry controlled himself as his Father embraced him, though the suppressed dry heaving caused tears to well in his own eyes and the entire Kingsguard could see him fighting not to vomit, but he didn't care as he patted his Father gently and shivered in revulsion as he was finally released from such a torturous embrace.

"Where have you been, Haradarian? I have had no word of you for two years, or is it three?"

"Two and a half, Father." Harry said, trying not to breathe through his nose, but his Father's unwashed body and hair made such a smell that it actually had a taste behind it. "I've been in Oldtown, as I had planned a year in advance before I finally left."

"Haradarian's a Maester!" Viserys pipped up, tugging at Harry's chain of many metals.

Harry laughed. "Not exactly. I've forged over twenty links, but I swore no oaths. I went to learn. Not to become a Maester."

"There are so many links of silver and iron." The King said, stroking his chain with his gnarled hands.

"Half a dozen of silver for medicine and healing, three of iron for Warcraft. There are several odd links at the back from when I got bored and picked something at random to study. Economics was particularly tedious." Harry laughed, pulling his chain around to show the single yellow gold link and several other odd metals, such as the single bronze link for Astronomy and the single link of pale steel for smithing. "But herblore was almost too easy, I earned five platinum links before I decided to switch my studies to something else."

"This is Valyrian steel." His Father said, touching the four links grouped together. "You studied magics."

"I did. It was entirely ridiculous, but I stuck to it as it was my hope at the time that I could get enough links to melt them down and forge a Valyrian steel blade. The subject got much too boring and far too illogical for me to continue. Though I'd considered stealing the ring, rod and mask of Archmaester Marwyn to melt those down too, but ultimately decided that it was a very bad decision and gave up the hope of bringing a Valyrian steel sword back to the Targaryen family. I earned all four links at the same time that I earned this one for smithing and this one for astronomy." He said, pointing out the pale steel link and the bronze one. "I studied for most of my links at the same time, and at one time I was studying four different subjects simultaneously. I don't think I ate or slept right for those four turns.

"No matter. I'm happy to have you home. Now if only Rhaegar would come home too."

"I am home." A strong voice said from the doorway and Harry looked up quickly to see that devastatingly handsome face, the long silver hair in a small braid, some shorter strands were free and Harry was pleased to see that Rhaegar had a bit of a fringe that was swept back over the top of his head, held in place, no doubt, by the salt spray from the ocean.

"When did you arrive?" King Aerys asked, looking at his tall, strong oldest son with yet more tears that completely confused Harry.

"Not half an hour ago. I came straight from Blackwater Bay when my ship docked." Rhaegar said as he moved closer. He allowed their Father to embrace him, as Harry had, but he controlled his expression a lot better than Harry had, but then Rhaegar was twenty now, his twenty-first name day was in another six turns.

When King Aerys let him go, Rhaegar came to Harry and embraced him tightly, Viserys with them as Harry was still holding the three year old.

"I missed you so much." Rhaegar whispered to him.

"I missed you more." Harry insisted.

"I missed you both." Viserys pipped up and Rhaegar took their little brother from Harry and kissed his cheek, settling him in his own large, muscular arms.

Harry appreciated Rhaegar's hard work and musculature. He shivered, much more tuned in to such sexual feelings at fifteen than he had been when he was younger. He licked his lips and took a deep breath.

"I'm back for good. I've studied all I want to."

"I am glad that you're back." Rhaegar told him.

"It's good to be back, we have a lot to catch up on."

"Of course. Do you want to spar first?" His older brother asked him.

Harry pulled a face and he bit his lip, looking at Rhaegar guiltily.

"I left my sword here when I went to the Citadel and I haven't touched one since. I'm going to be a little…rusty."

"We can't have that." Ser Arthur Dayne said firmly. "Have you eaten?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, Ser."

"Then in the courtyard, now."

Harry sighed, almost groaned.

"Are you coming to watch, Viserys?" Rhaegar asked him, still in his arms.

The three year old nodded happily and Harry went to get dressed properly, travelling the familiar path to his rooms. They were untouched, but he could tell that someone had been sitting in his chair as the fabric had been worn down and the padding was less plump that it had been before he'd left. Someone had been sitting in it a lot.

He changed into the bits of padded armour that still fit him. He left off all of his old breeches as they were too short in the leg, but most of his doublets and tunics still fit him as he had not gotten much broader in the shoulder or any thicker in the chest or stomach. He would still need some new clothes made for him though.

He picked up his sword and shield, both untouched. He came back down the stairs and through the corridor. He hurried his steps when he saw a woman with two septas beside her walking in front of him, and knowing who it was from the long, curled silver hair, he passed his sword into the hand holding his shield and then grabbed her around the waist with his free hand and then he laughed as she screamed.

She turned and Harry saw her beautiful purple eyes widen, before they filled with tears of delight.

"Oh, my son. My sweet Haradarian, you're home! You're safe!" She cried as she all but fell onto him to hug him.

"Hello, Mother."

"Where have you been?!" She raged at him. "No letters, no raven! I thought that you were dead." She sobbed.

"I've been in Oldtown, look." He said proudly, holding out his Maester's chain.

"Oh, you wonderful, clever boy. I'm so proud of you." She said as she played with the chain, much like Viserys had. "Medicine and healing? I'd had no idea that you had such a passion for it."

Harry nodded. "It was very important to me to learn medicine and healing. I just have a feeling that I'll have need of it one day, I didn't question the feeling as I got it in the Sept, I'm sure that the Seven themselves willed it of me. I have five links for herblore too, to supplement my silver links."