Harry Potter and the Red Temple Ch.2 (HP/GoT)

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Gradually, Harry awoke from a deep sleep, slowly becoming aware of a deep ache encompassing one side of his body. All the way from a growing throbbing in his head, down his shoulder to his hip, a soreness that, combined with the mist that clouded his mind, left him feeling faintly lost and befuddled.

At least, as he slowly pulsed his magic through his body, soothing the soreness and accelerating his body’s natural healing processes, he realized that somebody had put him in a bed, a reasonably comfortable one, even. A soft feather-filled mattress, almost too soft pillows, and light sheets of cotton and silk.

Harry felt his ears pop as his magic flushed out the lingering effects of whatever injuries he’d taken. Gradually, he came to hear the murmur of voices, neither distant nor close by enough to tell what they were discussing.

How had he come to be wherever here was? Kingsley?

Yes, the Minister had leaked information from his own intelligence department to Harry before it ever got to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, still stuffed with bunglers, fools appointed by nepotism, those who were just there to stamp themselves in at the beginning of a shift and out at the end.

No, Kingsley preferred to let him sort out things at the sharp end of the ongoing fight.

Then—The old Nott manor house? Yes, he’d caught Nott himself out in Knockturn Alley and mindfucked him with magic into transferring control of the manor’s protective spells so that he could lay siege to it.

The fire… he’d always had a fondness for it. The warmth it brought, his magic always more unrestrained after a good dose of it.

The Phoenix feather wand singing in his hand, and the war song of the Deathstick.

Dolohov—wizards—were resilient, but getting nailed through a bunch of essential organs with a transfigured spear, which would probably revert to a burning joist in short order, had a pretty good chance of killing him.

After that- the fiery tunnel? Some sort of portal, and he’d landed in some kind of… temple?

A cool sponge dabbed at his brow. As his eyes focused, he found the sponge in the grasp of a slim-fingered hand, a hand that became a smooth-skinned arm, vanishing into a loose sleeve of crimson fabric, neither fine nor poor.

He traced the robed arm to a chest, a very nice chest, as the woman leaned over him, and then, past a slim throat, clasped about with a choker of bronze and red jewels—what they were, he did not know, for neither garnets nor rubies glowed thus.

Her face was… pleasing. Of fine form, just the right balance of softness and sharpness, her dark locks glimmering with a deep redness in the flickering of an open flame burning in a brazier.

“Where… where am I?” His voice choked, throat hoarse with smoke and embers.

The woman paused, looking down at him, confused. Harry coughed as he forced himself upright, waving a hand around him, looking about the chamber as he repeated the word. “Where?”

“Where?” The woman frowned, looking around as well before some degree of realization appeared on her face. “Dārilaros, iksā isse Volantis, isse se lentor hen Āeksiot Ōño.”

Yeah. That pretty much nailed it down. This really wasn’t Kansas.

Slowly, Harry examined his surroundings more carefully. At a glance, it could have passed for Hogwarts or any building of similar age and grandeur, but this one was… different.

The stones were purposely chosen, a theme of golds, oranges, and reds forming waves of flames, but for the black stone that formed the lowest courses, no more than a foot, a foot-and-a-half high. Then, there was the very simple fact that some glaring architectural differences existed.

Harry had never studied the matter of architecture in much depth. Still, he’d traveled somewhat in his years as a hunter of dark wizards. He knew that the bulk of Hogwarts had been rebuilt after it had burned in one of the interminable wars that frequently broke out in the Scottish Highlands.

As a result, it had a strong medieval gothic theme.

This… did not. In fact, the closest he’d seen to it was a few places in Spain, left by the great dynasties of Al-Andalus, with the alternating colors of stone in the arched vault above the chamber, but there was also a fair bit of Greco-Roman about the building, with the door flanked by columns of not-unfamiliar design, except for the dragons’ heads that surmounted them.

He turned to the woman, who had allowed him a few moments to look around uninterrupted. He regarded her again, suppressing the instinct to give her his best roguish grin, the one that people had repeatedly suggested made him look a bit devil-may-care.

No, instead, he examined her again, her gaze fearless and expression inscrutable, though not unfriendly. She seemed both young and yet somewhat ageless.

She felt alien.

He’d heard Kingsley and Hermione rambling on about ‘First Contact Protocols.’ And he could hear the capitalizations after binge-watching Star Wars when he’d got Grimmauld Place fitted out with a complete home theater.

Unfortunately, he’d been more than a few glasses down a bottle of whisky that Sirius’s grandfather had hidden away, and he’d never followed up on the subject.

Still, no time like the present for learning on the go or at least making it up as he went along. He brought one hand up, tapping it on his chest.

“Harry.”

She nodded, clearly understanding the gesture, and copied it, touching her hand to her breast, a motion that Harry did his best not to allow to guide his gaze.

“Kinvara.”

Reluctantly, Harry decided, after contemplating the quandary for a moment, to reach out with a tendril of magic as their eyes met. Legilimancy, much as he detested it, was too useful a tool for a dark wizard hunter to neglect, but beyond the filthy feeling that came with diving into the mind of a fallen mage, his own experiences at the hands of Snape and his master had soured Harry to it.

Thus, he let only the lightest touch of the mind magic linger. Yet, to his surprise, he felt seen, his carer’s eyes widening as she felt the touch of magic, and, before he could withdraw, a set of silken shields parted, and a tentative connection was offered.

***

Kinvara’s eyes widened as she felt the mental touch—it wasn’t an intrusion, for it was too light, too hesitant for that. Were it such, she would have had no hesitation in charring her attacker’s mind until cinders spilled from their ears, were it not this man.

He was her lord’s chosen, after all. His magic was not… fiery. Perhaps her expectations had been misguided, or perhaps his magic was at repose, for it was warming, sensations flowing for a moment, almost becoming memories.

A hearth in a chamber strewn with soft furniture and carpets full of friendship and laughter. A mug of a thick, golden-colored drink, not a fine wine for a complex palate, but something warm and sweet.

She let a little emotion flow back to the champion, her champion. Her fealty, her worship, the sensation of allowing his magic to suffuse her form, almost bathing in it.

His response was… confusion? Why was she worshipping him?

Kinvara sank to her knees beside the bed, letting her head hang low, fearful that she had displeased the Prince Who Was Promised, a man of clear magical might and chosen by the Lord of Light.

She remained there, even as the confusion, bemusement, and a hint of worry continued to cross the connection, remaining still as the sheets of the bed shifted, the livid bruises that had accompanied his unconventional arrival already much healed and visibly fading further.

Even with just a sheet wrapped around his body, he sank to one knee in front of her, and with fingers still pulsing with restrained power, he lifted her chin up.

No fear. No anguish. No apologies. No ill done.

Then, in a single movement, he wrapped strong arms around her and lifted her up, depositing her on the edge of the bed before turning and hunting around the pieces of furniture, clad in only his underclothes.

He, Harry, Kinvara found herself gently reminded across their connection, hard as it felt to address or even think of the Lord of Light’s chosen champion so informally recovered the clothes their healers had taken from him.

Some were clearly mundane, and these he donned first, though not before Kinvara took the opportunity to appreciate what she was shown. Azor Ahai was not a man completely lacking in good looks, if not one who would have been regarded too highly by many of the Old Blood of Valyria.

Tall enough, lean, but well-defined, with a mop of messy hair atop his head and the most startling eyes she had ever seen, and that was saying something.

Emeralds, cut in the Myrish fashion, could only wish they had the depth of color and the flash of power and light that his gaze did. And, when he bent over…

The weight of a gaze on his backside.

Kinvara, inscrutable, implacable Priestess of the Lord of Light, blushed.

Amusement. A flash of memory, waking up to her face. Appreciation. A gaze directed a little lower on her.

Lots of appreciation. More amusement.

Over the mundane clothes, he shrugged on a coat, one rippling with magic that had matured over decades and decades, formed of some sort of black reptile skin, the currents of magic submitting to the champion.

If she didn’t know better, Kinvara would have suggested it was dragonskin. Of a dragon conquered.

Another brief memory. A beast of fire, black as coal and full of rage, plunged after him through the air, the champion somehow flying on his own until the beast struck what looked like an aqueduct of Valyrian design with such sickening force as to plow clean through it, before plunging into the gorge below.

She met the champion’s eyes, her own gaze startled and awestruck, even knowing that he could feel her emotions.

Then he donned the cloak.

Rippling silver, so glossy as to oft vanish in the flickering light, with its own signature, and a second signature around the broach that fastened the cloak at his throat. Kinvara had felt both, and the cloak itself was cold.

It was not of the Lord of Light nor wholly of his champion. The broach was… worse. Cold and dark, and she wholly misliked it.

Two shafts of wood, both well-worn, but one distinctly ancient, he produced from thin air, thrusting them through a carefully fashioned twist in his belt, the magic in each easily discernible, and one far more to her liking than the other, for it sang a song, warm and light and fire, while the other seethed in battle-rage barely restrained, and for how pale the wood was, it nearly wept blood.

These were clearly no mean sticks, which answered one of the questions whispered about the temple.

Where was Lightbringer, the sword of Azor Ahai? Where was their champion’s armor, his shield, his plate, and his mail?

R’hllor’s champion then examined what lay under a sheet to one side of the chamber, his mount of gleaming steel, rippled with color by heat. Strangely undamaged for having slid across the Hall of the Great Hearth on its side.

Some worthy acolyte had even worked out that it was made with a leg that, when lowered, allowed it to be stood upright without aid.

Fondness, amusement, a flash of a face, serious and aged beyond his years, yet with a flame of life undimmed, mischief tugging at lips beneath a finely-groomed beard and mustache.

Sorrow. Loneliness.

The emotions were swiftly dealt with, not crushed or disregarded, but felt and quietly absorbed, then replaced with a different one.

Hunger.

Kinvara took a moment to realize what sort of hunger when her lord’s champion looked embarrassed as his stomach let out an audible gurgle.

Send? Kinvara tried, unsure if a word would work, given that he seemingly didn’t understand Valyrian. However, it swiftly became clear that he understood the concept, her mind conveying the image of someone bringing him a meal.

He didn’t refuse but instead returned an image of her leading him to a door and opening it to reveal what was clearly a kitchen, though she took a moment to realize what it was. While there had been men of such wealth as to afford to forge a dozen stoves of such enormous size, she had never seen any such thing.

Making a low bow, Kinvara gestured that he should walk alongside her. She could not imagine walking ahead of Azor Ahai. A legend made of flesh.

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