Meanwhile, in the Gift, South of the Wall
The ruins of Queenscrown stood like broken teeth against the grey sky, each crumbling stone a testament to the folly of men who thought walls and towers could hold back the darkness. The ancient watchtower's crown of carved stone—worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain—gave the abandoned settlement its name, though precious few remained who remembered the queen it had supposedly honored.
Once, this had been a thriving village. Fishermen had worked the lake, farmers had tended fields that were now overgrown with gorse and thistle, and children had played in streets that were now home only to weeds and the occasional fox den. But the coming of the Long Night centuries ago had driven its inhabitants south, leaving behind only empty houses slowly being reclaimed by wind and weather and the patient persistence of growing things.
In the shelter of the ruined inn—its roof half-collapsed but its walls still sturdy enough to break the worst of the northern wind—a small group of wildlings had made their camp with the practiced efficiency of people who lived constantly on the move. Their horses were picketed in what had once been the inn's stable, their gear was organized for quick departure, and their fire was carefully banked to provide warmth without sending smoke signals to anyone who might be watching.
To any casual observer, they would have appeared to be exactly what they claimed to be—a scouting party ranging ahead of the main wildling migration, checking the lands south of the Wall for threats and opportunities. They had the right look: weather-beaten faces, practical clothing patched and re-patched, weapons that showed the kind of wear that came from regular use rather than ceremonial display.
The casual observer would have been both right and catastrophically wrong.
Mance Rayder sat with his back against a chunk of fallen masonry, sharpening his sword with the methodical precision of a man who had learned that a dull blade was often the difference between living and dying. Each stroke of the whetstone was measured, deliberate, almost meditative. His weathered face—lined by years of command and the harsh realities of life beyond the Wall—gave nothing away as he watched his companions prepare for another day of their dangerous masquerade.
At forty-seven, Mance had lived longer than most men in his position had any right to expect. As a former brother of the Night's Watch who had deserted his vows to join the very people he'd once been sworn to fight, he knew better than most how to blend in with the people south of the Wall—their customs, their speech patterns, their ways of thinking and moving and being. It was a skill that had kept him alive for years beyond the Wall, allowing him to walk among both wildlings and crows without being immediately marked as the enemy.
Now, that same skill might be the key to saving his people.
"You know," he said conversationally, never pausing in his sharpening, "there's something almost peaceful about ruins like this. Makes you think about the people who lived here, what their lives were like before... whatever happened to drive them away."
"Peaceful?" Tormund Giantsbane looked up from where he was regaling a small group of their companions with an increasingly improbable tale about wrestling a she-bear in heat. "Mance, my friend, I think all this southern air is making you soft. This place has 'haunted as shit' written all over it."
The big man's laughter boomed off the ruined walls like thunder, a sound of such pure joy and life that it seemed to chase away some of the melancholy that hung over the abandoned village. Despite his fearsome reputation—and the collection of scars across his massive frame that testified to a lifetime of violence survived—Tormund was one of the most valuable members of their group. His ability to play the part of a simple, slightly dim brigand was matched only by his lethal competence when violence became necessary.
"Har!" he continued, slapping his knee with enough force to fell a smaller man. "Just last night I could swear I heard voices whispering in that tower there. Sounded like a woman, calling for her lost love. Very romantic, if you like your romance with a side of 'probably going to murder you in your sleep.'"
"That was just the wind," said one of the younger wildlings, a lean man named Rattleshirt who wore pieces of boiled leather sewn with bone charms.
"Was it, though?" Tormund's eyes twinkled with mischief. "Because I could have sworn she was calling for someone named... what was it... ah yes, 'Harald.' Now, that's a fine northern name, don't you think? Harald the Haunted, maybe. Harald the Heartbroken."
"Harald the Dead, more likely," Ygritte interjected dryly from her position near the edge of their camp. "Along with anyone stupid enough to go chasing after voices in the dark."
She sat apart from the others—not unfriendly, but maintaining the kind of watchful distance that marked someone who took security seriously. Her bow lay across her knees, arrow nocked but not drawn, and her keen grey eyes constantly swept their surroundings with the practiced vigilance of someone who knew that survival depended on seeing trouble before it saw you.
Ygritte was sixteen, though the hard life beyond the Wall had carved lines around her eyes that made her seem older. Her red hair—the color of autumn leaves kissed by fire—was hidden beneath a woolen cap that had seen better decades, and her distinctive features were partially concealed by carefully applied dirt and the deliberate slouch of someone trying to look less competent than she actually was.
It was all theater, of course. Ygritte could put an arrow through a man's eye at a hundred paces, track a deer through rocky ground that would confound a bloodhound, and kill silently with nothing but a skinning knife when the situation called for it. She was, in many ways, the perfect scout—deadly, observant, and smart enough to know when to be subtle about both qualities.
"You know, Tormund," she continued with the kind of casual tone that suggested incoming mockery, "for a man who claims to have fought giants and fucked bears, you seem awfully nervous about a few old stones and some wind."
"Nervous?" Tormund puffed up like an offended rooster. "Woman, I've wrestled creatures that would make your shadowcats look like housecats! I've fought my way through blizzards that would freeze the balls off a brass monkey! I've—"
"We know," Ygritte interrupted, her lips quirking in what might charitably be called a smile. "You've told us. Several times. Usually with different details each telling."
"The details change because the stories are so epic that no single telling can capture their full glory," Tormund replied with wounded dignity. "It's like trying to describe the sunrise to a blind man—you need multiple attempts to properly convey the majesty."
"The majesty of your lies, you mean."
"They're not lies!" Tormund protested. "They're... enhanced truths. Improved for better storytelling."
"Enhanced horseshit is still horseshit," Ygritte observed. "It just smells stronger."
Mance smiled despite himself. The banter between his companions was as familiar as breathing, and in its own way, it was comforting. These people—this strange, violent, loyal family he'd built around himself—were counting on him to guide them through the dangers ahead. The responsibility was crushing when he let himself think about it too directly, so he tried not to.
Instead, he focused on the immediate task at hand. They were here to scout, to learn, to gather intelligence that might mean the difference between survival and slaughter for the hundred thousand wildlings currently making their way toward Hardhome. Every joke, every insult, every moment of casual conversation was a luxury they could afford only because, for now, they were safe.
That safety was an illusion, of course. It always was. But it was an illusion that let them function, and function they must.
"Speaking of enhanced truths," Mance said, sliding his sword back into its sheath with the quiet satisfaction of a job well done, "we should probably discuss our story for when we encounter the next batch of southerners. We can't keep claiming to be simple travelers if we're going to get close enough to any of the major lords to learn anything useful."
"Simple travelers has worked so far," Rattleshirt pointed out.
"So far, we've encountered farmers and village idiots," Ygritte replied. "Try that nonsense with anyone who actually knows how to think, and we'll be decorating the nearest gibbet faster than you can say 'we're just harmless travelers, m'lord, honest.'"
And then there was Val.
She sat by herself near the edge of their camp, separated from the others not by unfriendliness but by the simple reality that she needed space to think. Her snowy owl Hedwig perched on a broken beam nearby, the bird's golden eyes scanning the surrounding ruins with the same careful attention to detail that marked all of Val's companions. Her shadowcat Noir dozed in a patch of sunlight that had managed to find its way through the broken roof, looking for all the world like an oversized housecat—if housecats were the size of destriers and possessed claws that could shred armor like parchment.
To anyone who didn't know her story, Val would appear to be just another wildling woman—beautiful in the way that harsh living could make people beautiful, but marked by twenty years of surviving beyond the Wall. Her blonde hair was practical rather than ornamental, braided back in a style that wouldn't interfere with fighting. Her clothes were well-made but functional, designed for movement and warmth rather than fashion. Her weapons—a curved sword at her hip and several throwing knives distributed about her person—showed the kind of wear that came from regular use.
She was, by any objective measure, stunning. Even after years of hard living, even with the scars that marked her face and hands, even dressed in practical traveling gear rather than silk and jewelry, she possessed the kind of beauty that belonged in songs and legends. It was the sort of beauty that started wars and toppled kingdoms, though she'd learned long ago to downplay it when possible.
The scars that marked her face and hands told their own story of violence survived and prices paid. They had faded over the years from the angry red of fresh wounds to the pale silver of old memories, but they remained—reminders of the night she'd been barely fifteen and three drunken wildlings had decided they were strong enough to take what they wanted from the most beautiful woman in their camp.
They had been wrong. Spectacularly, messily, definitively wrong.
Val had killed all three of them with nothing but a skinning knife and the desperate strength of someone who would rather die than be violated. The scars she bore were from their blades—the price she'd paid for victory—but they had died that night, and she had lived. Word had spread quickly after that throughout the camps beyond the Wall. Val of the Free Folk was not prey. She was a predator, and those who forgot that fact did so at their eternal regret.
That had been two years ago. Since then, she'd built a reputation as one of the most dangerous women beyond the Wall—not just for her skill with weapons, though that was considerable, but for her intelligence, her tactical acumen, and her absolute refusal to be anyone's victim ever again.
But now, as she sat in the ruins of Queenscrown feeling magic she had thought lost forever stirring in her blood like wine warming in the sun, she remembered another life, another name, another love that had been torn from her by violence and hatred.
*Fleur Delacour.*
The memories were becoming stronger, more vivid with each passing day. She could remember the taste of chocolate croissants from the Hogwarts kitchens, the feeling of flying on a broomstick through French skies painted gold by sunset, the way her little sister Gabrielle had looked up to her with absolute adoration and hero worship. She could remember the weight of a wand in her hand, the feeling of magic flowing through her like liquid starlight, the pride of mastering spells that left older wizards shaking their heads in amazement.
Most of all, she could remember loving Harry Potter with everything she had, and the way he had looked at her like she was the most precious thing in any world—like she was worth fighting for, worth dying for, worth living for.
The transition between her memories and her current reality was always jarring. One moment she was Fleur Delacour, champion of Beauxbatons, veteran of the Wizarding War, beloved of the Boy Who Lived. The next, she was Val of the Free Folk, killer of would-be rapists, survivor of the harsh lands beyond the Wall, companion to shadowcats and owls.
Two lives, two identities, two completely different sets of experiences and skills and relationships. It should have driven her mad. Perhaps it had, a little. But she'd learned to compartmentalize, to draw on the strengths of both lives while trying not to let the grief of loss overwhelm her.
Today, however, something was different. The magic that had been dormant in her blood for seventeen years—suppressed by whatever force had brought her to this world—was stirring like a sleeping dragon finally deciding to wake up.
"Val?" Ygritte's voice cut through her reverie. "You look like you're about to be sick. Everything alright?"
"Fine," Val replied automatically, though she could feel sweat beading on her forehead despite the cool morning air. "Just thinking."
"Dangerous habit, thinking," Tormund observed cheerfully. "I've seen it get people into all sorts of trouble. Much safer to just act on instinct and sort out the consequences later."
"That explains so much about your life," Ygritte said dryly.
"Hey! My life has been very successful, thank you very much. I'm still alive, aren't I?"
"Barely, and mostly through dumb luck."
"I prefer to think of it as divine favor. The gods love a good story, and I provide them with constant entertainment."
"The gods love a good story," Mance agreed solemnly, "but they love a tragic ending even more. Try not to give them one."
Val tried to focus on the banter, tried to let the familiar rhythms of conversation ground her in the present, but the magic in her blood was growing stronger by the moment. It felt like fire and honey and lightning all mixed together, warming her from the inside out while making her skin tingle with barely contained energy.
*Not now,* she thought desperately. *Not here, not with so many people around, not when we're trying to blend in and be unremarkable.*
But magic, she remembered from her other life, had never been particularly concerned with convenience or timing.
The change hit her without warning.
One moment she was sitting quietly, keeping watch while lost in memories of another life. The next, she was convulsing on the ground as power that had been dormant for twenty years suddenly blazed to life in her veins like liquid fire, like molten gold, like the heart of a star deciding to burst free from its constraints.
Her veela heritage—suppressed and buried by whatever cosmic force had brought her to this world as a newborn—erupted through her system with the violence of a dam bursting under impossible pressure. Every cell in her body seemed to be rewriting itself, remembering what it was supposed to be, reclaiming the perfection that was her birthright.
The scars that had marked her for years began to fade as her supernatural healing ability reasserted itself, the pale silver lines disappearing like frost under the morning sun. Her features shifted subtly as the perfection of her veela nature overrode the damage of hard living—not dramatically, but enough to transform her from merely beautiful to something approaching the divine.
Her hair, already blonde, seemed to catch fire in the sunlight, each strand gleaming like spun gold. Her skin took on a luminous quality that made it seem as though she were lit from within. Her eyes, already striking, became the color of summer sky reflected in clear water.
And with the physical transformation came the allure.
The effect was immediate and devastating. Every male in the camp—from the youngest scout barely old enough to shave to the grizzled veterans who'd seen decades of war and violence—suddenly stopped what they were doing. Conversations died mid-sentence. Tasks were abandoned half-completed. Food was dropped, forgotten.
All eyes turned to Val with a hunger that had nothing to do with conscious thought and everything to do with veela magic calling to the most primal, most primitive parts of their minds. The allure bypassed reason, bypassed common sense, bypassed even basic survival instincts. It whispered to something deep in their hindbrain that this woman—this perfect, glorious, untouchable woman—was worth fighting for, worth dying for, worth killing for.
"Mine," growled one of the younger wildlings, a man called Harma's Son who'd been decent enough company right up until this moment. His hand moved toward the axe at his belt with the mechanical precision of someone no longer in full control of his actions.
"No, mine!" snarled another—Rattleshirt, his bone charms clicking as he started forward with his own weapon half-drawn. "I saw her first!"
"Fuck that," a third voice added, and suddenly there were blades being drawn all around the camp as rational thought gave way to supernatural compulsion. "She's coming with me, and anyone who has a problem with that can settle it with steel!"
Violence was a heartbeat away—the kind of bloody, senseless violence that left good men dead over causes they couldn't even properly articulate. Val tried to speak, tried to tell them to stop, but she was still convulsing on the ground as her magic rewrote itself, unable to form coherent words.
Three voices roared in unison, cutting through the growing chaos like sword blades through silk.
"STAND DOWN!"
Mance was on his feet with his sword in his hand faster than most men could blink, placing himself between Val and the affected wildlings with the kind of absolute authority that had made him King-Beyond-the-Wall. His weathered face was granite-hard, and his voice carried the promise of swift, messy death to anyone foolish enough to disobey.
"She's my goodsister," he said flatly, his blade catching the light as he held it ready in the guard position he'd learned during his years as a sworn brother of the Night's Watch. "Anyone who touches her answers to me personally. And to her sister, who happens to be even more dangerous than she is. And to her animals, who have a very simple policy about people who threaten their bonded partner."
He paused, letting that sink in, then added with the kind of cold practicality that had kept him alive for decades in one of the world's most dangerous occupations: "And considering Dalla's pregnant and feeling protective, I'd say your chances of surviving that conversation are somewhere between slim and nonexistent."
Tormund had moved to flank the group, his own massive sword drawn and ready. The blade was nearly as tall as some men and looked like it could cleave a horse in half, which it probably could. Despite his jovial personality, Tormund Giantsbane was one of the most feared warriors beyond the Wall, and right now he looked every inch the part.
"And she's like a sister to me," he added with deceptive cheer that fooled absolutely no one who knew him. His voice carried the kind of warmth that somehow made his words even more threatening than if he'd shouted them. "Been looking out for her since she was barely old enough to hold a blade. I've got a very simple policy about people who threaten my sisters—I kill them. Slowly. Creatively. While they're still screaming."
He shifted his grip on his sword, and the muscles in his massive arms rippled like cables under tension. "Now, I know what you're all thinking. 'Tormund's a big talker, but there are more of us than there are of him.' And you'd be right about the numbers. But here's the thing about numbers—they don't mean shit when you're dead. And I can kill at least six of you before the rest even realize what's happening."
Ygritte's bow was drawn with an arrow nocked, the steel point aimed directly at the heart of the nearest wildling. Her face was calm, almost serene, but her grey eyes held the cold promise of death. Unlike the men, she seemed largely unaffected by the veela allure—whether due to her gender, her iron will, or simple bloody-mindedness was unclear and ultimately irrelevant.
"Touch her and die," she said simply, her voice carrying the kind of absolute certainty that came from someone who'd killed before and would kill again without losing sleep over it. "That's not a threat, it's a statement of fact. I've got twelve arrows in this quiver, and I don't miss. Ever. So unless there are twelve of you feeling suicidal this morning, I'd suggest you all take a nice, long step back and remember how to think with your heads instead of your cocks."
But it was Val's companions that truly gave the wildlings pause.
Hedwig had launched herself from her perch with a shriek of rage that could probably be heard for miles, her wings spread wide as she dove at anyone who came too close to her bonded partner. The snowy owl was magnificent in her fury—a creature of pure predatory grace and protective instinct. Her talons, each one sharp enough to punch through leather armor, were extended and ready to shred flesh from bone.
And Noir...
Noir had gone from dozing housecat to apex predator in the space between one heartbeat and the next. The shadowcat was the size of a destrier and twice as deadly, with claws that could shred armor like parchment and teeth that could crush skulls like overripe fruit. She placed herself directly over Val's convulsing form and let out a roar that shook dust from the ruined walls, her golden eyes promising swift, brutal death to anyone foolish enough to approach.
The sound was primal, terrifying, the kind of noise that spoke directly to the deepest parts of human evolution—the parts that remembered when things like Noir hunted humans through dark forests and left nothing but gnawed bones to mark their passing.
The combination of drawn steel, protective rage, and one very large, very angry magical predator was enough to break through the veela allure's effect on even the most affected wildlings. They stumbled backward like men waking from a dream, shaking their heads as confusion and embarrassment replaced mindless lust.
"What... what the fuck was that?" stammered Harma's Son, looking around at the drawn weapons and the expressions of murderous intent on his companions' faces.
"Magic," Mance said grimly, never taking his eyes off the group while keeping his sword ready. "The kind that gets you killed if you're not careful. The kind that makes smart men do stupid things and gets everyone involved buried in shallow graves."
He gestured with his free hand toward the ruins around them. "Anyone still feeling... affected... can take themselves for a very long walk until they remember how to think with their heads instead of their cocks. Go find some privacy, sort yourselves out, and don't come back until you're sure you can control yourselves around her."
Several of the younger men took him up on that suggestion with visible relief, disappearing into the ruins with the slightly unsteady gait of people fighting off supernatural compulsion. Their faces were flushed with embarrassment and what looked like genuine shame—good men who'd been briefly turned into something they didn't want to be.
"Will she be alright?" Ygritte asked quietly, her arrow still nocked but no longer aimed at anyone specific. She kept her bow ready, though—just in case anyone decided to have a relapse of poor judgment.
"She'll be fine," Tormund said with the confidence of someone who'd seen Val survive worse things than magical awakenings. "She's tougher than old leather and twice as stubborn. Whatever's happening to her, she'll fight through it. She always does."
"The scars," Ygritte breathed, her archer's eyes catching what the others had missed in the chaos. "They're fading."
Indeed they were. The marks that had told the story of Val's survival—the proof of battles fought and prices paid, the evidence of a night when she'd chosen to fight rather than submit—were disappearing as if they had never been. Her face, already beautiful despite the harsh life she'd lived, was becoming something approaching perfection, the kind of beauty that belonged in songs and legends rather than in the ruins of abandoned villages.
"It's her heritage from her past life reasserting itself," Mance said quietly, understanding more than most what that meant. As a former member of the Night's Watch, he'd heard stories of the lands beyond the Narrow Sea, of creatures and magics that existed nowhere in Westeros. "She told us it might happen someday, if the magic that brought her here ever weakened or if something triggered her old nature to wake up."
"The veela thing," Tormund nodded, remembering the stories Val had told them during long winter nights when conversation was the only thing standing between them and the crushing isolation of the far north. "Like from her stories about that other world, but stronger."
"Much stronger, by the look of it," Ygritte observed with the practical eye of someone who'd learned to assess threats quickly and accurately. "That allure nearly had all of those cunts ready to kill each other just for the chance to touch her. If she can't control it..."
"She'll learn," Mance said with more confidence than he entirely felt. "She's done it before, in that other life she remembers. She can do it again."
"She was older then," Ygritte pointed out. "Trained from childhood to manage her heritage, surrounded by people who understood what she was and how to help her. This... this is like getting struck by lightning and being expected to conduct an orchestra immediately afterward."
"But she has us," Tormund said simply. "We don't understand magic, but we understand her. We understand loyalty, and protection, and making sure family survives no matter what gets thrown at them."
Val's convulsions finally stopped, and she lay still for several long moments, her breathing gradually returning to normal. When she finally opened her eyes, they were the same blue they'd always been, but there was something different about them now—a depth, a power, an otherworldly quality that hadn't been there before.
"*Merde*," she whispered in fluent French, the curse slipping out before she could stop it. Then she switched back to the common tongue. "How long was I out?"
"About ten minutes," Mance replied, resheathing his sword now that the immediate crisis seemed to have passed. "How do you feel?"
Val considered the question seriously as she sat up, Noir immediately pressing against her side with the devoted attention of a creature checking on its bonded partner. The shadowcat's massive head was nearly as large as Val's torso, and she began purring with a sound like distant thunder—a rumble that seemed to vibrate through the ground itself.
"Different," she said finally, running her hands through her now-gleaming hair with something approaching wonder. "Like I've been wearing clothes that were too small for years, and I finally get to stretch properly. Like I've been holding my breath for decades and can finally breathe again."
"Your scars," Ygritte said quietly.
Val looked down at her hands, then touched her face where the worst of the marks had been. The skin was smooth, perfect, unmarked by violence or hardship. "Gone," she said with a mixture of relief and sadness. "I... I know they were reminders of bad times, but they were also proof that I survived. That I fought back. That I won."
"You don't need scars to prove you're a survivor," Tormund said gruffly, his voice surprisingly gentle for such a large man. "Everyone beyond the Wall knows what you're capable of. Some pretty magic nonsense doesn't change that. If anything, it makes you more dangerous, not less."
"The allure?" Mance asked quietly, getting to the heart of their most immediate problem.
"Active," Val confirmed with a grimace, as if the word itself tasted bitter. "I can feel it radiating from my skin like heat from a forge. Every breath I take, every move I make, it's all amplified now. I'll need to work on controlling it again, or we're going to have problems every time we encounter other people."
"Problems like what just happened?" Ygritte asked.
"Problems like starting wars by accident," Val replied seriously. "In my other life, there were stories of veela who caused entire kingdoms to collapse because lords fought over them. Men who would have been allies became enemies, brothers turned on brothers, rational people became raving lunatics."
"Cheerful," Tormund observed.
"Reality," Val corrected. "The allure isn't just attraction—it's compulsion. It reaches into the most primitive parts of a man's mind and tells him that possessing me is more important than anything else in the world. More important than honor, more important than family, more important than their own lives."
"You controlled it before," Ygritte pointed out, echoing earlier sentiments.
"I did," Val agreed. "But that was different. I had proper instruction from other veela, teachers who understood what I was going through. I had time to practice in controlled environments where nobody got killed if I made a mistake. Here..." She gestured around at their makeshift camp. "Here I'll have to figure it out as I go, and hope I don't accidentally start any wars in the process."
"We'll manage," Mance said firmly. "We always do. We're the Free Folk—adapting to impossible circumstances is what we do best."
"But this does complicate our scouting mission," he continued, shifting into the practical mindset that had kept him alive through decades of warfare and leadership. "We're supposed to be blending in, learning about the strength and disposition of the northern lords without drawing attention to ourselves. Having a woman whose very presence makes men lose their minds isn't exactly conducive to subtle reconnaissance."
"Maybe we could use it," Rattleshirt suggested, having returned from his walk in the ruins looking considerably more clear-headed. "Information flows more freely around beautiful women. Men say things they shouldn't, reveal secrets they should keep."
"And then they fight duels over her and leave trails of bodies that lead straight back to us," Ygritte replied sharply. "Subtle as a war hammer to the face."
"I can control it," Val said, though her voice held less certainty than her words suggested. "It'll just take time to remember how. Like... like learning to use a sword all over again, but the sword is part of your body."
"Time we might not have," Ygritte pointed out with the blunt practicality that made her such an effective scout. "How long before the main host reaches Hardhome? Two weeks? Three?"
"About that," Mance confirmed. "Which means we need to complete our intelligence gathering quickly and get back with our report. The fate of the Free Folk might depend on what we learn about the North's readiness for war, their defenses, their lords' personalities and capabilities."
"Then we'd better figure this out fast," Val said, pushing herself to her feet with Noir's assistance. The shadowcat moved with her like a living shadow, never more than a few inches away, golden eyes constantly scanning for threats. "Because magic or no magic, allure or no allure, our people are counting on us. A hundred thousand lives hang in the balance."
As she stood, a sudden gust of wind swept through the ruins, carrying with it the scents of the south—pine and earth and distant smoke from cookfires. But underneath those familiar smells was something else, something that made her freeze in recognition.
It was faint, barely detectable even to her enhanced senses, but unmistakable to someone who had once known it as well as her own heartbeat.
Phoenix fire. The warm, clean scent of Fawkes's flames, mixed with something uniquely magical, uniquely *him*. And beneath it, a magical signature she would have recognized across worlds and through death itself—power that tasted of lightning and determination and the kind of fierce protectiveness that would burn down the world to save the people he loved.
"*Harry*," she whispered, her hand moving unconsciously to her heart as if she could feel an invisible thread connecting her to him across the miles.
"What?" Mance asked sharply, recognizing the tone of someone who had just received crucial information. His own hand moved instinctively toward his sword hilt—not in aggression, but in preparation for whatever had caused that look to appear on Val's face.
"He's here," Val said, her voice filled with a mixture of hope and disbelief that she tried desperately to keep under control. Years of surviving in a harsh world had taught her to be cautious with hope, but this... this was undeniable. "In this world. I can... I can smell his magic on the wind."
"Your Harry?" Ygritte asked quietly, her voice softer than usual. "From the other life? The one from all your stories?"
"My Harry," Val confirmed, her eyes bright with unshed tears that she refused to let fall. Strong women didn't cry, especially not in front of their companions, especially not when there was work to be done. "Somehow, some way, he's here. And he's..." She paused, concentrating on the faint traces of magic she could detect, parsing them with senses she'd forgotten she possessed. "He's south of us. Days away, but definitely there. The scent is fresh—he's been using magic recently."
"Well, shit," Tormund said eloquently. "That changes things."
"It changes everything," Val agreed, her voice growing stronger with each word as she pushed down the overwhelming emotions and focused on the tactical situation. "If Harry's in this world, if he's alive and apparently has his magic... then maybe what happened to us, what brought us here, wasn't random. Maybe there's a reason we were given second chances."
"Maybe," Mance said carefully, his tone holding the caution of a man who'd learned not to trust in destiny or fate or any grand cosmic plan. "But we still have a mission to complete. Our people are still counting on us to bring back information that could save their lives. We can't abandon a hundred thousand wildlings to chase after possibilities, no matter how much we might want to."
"I know," Val replied, her practical nature reasserting itself even as her heart raced with possibilities she'd thought lost forever. "The mission comes first. It has to. But knowing he's here... it gives me hope. For the first time since I woke up in this world as a baby, screaming in a language nobody understood, I have real hope."
"Hope's good," Tormund said with a grin that transformed his scarred face. "Hope keeps you fighting when everything else fails. Hope makes you take risks you shouldn't take and survive things that should kill you. And if your Harry is half the wizard you've described, having him in this world might be the best thing that's happened to the Free Folk in generations."
"He is," Val said with absolute certainty. "He's everything I told you and more. Brave, loyal, brilliant when he needs to be, and absolutely ruthless when it comes to protecting the people he cares about."
"Sounds like my kind of southerner," Ygritte observed with approval.
"He'll need to learn about this world," Mance pointed out practically. "Our customs, our politics, our threats. And we'll need to figure out how to make contact without compromising our mission or revealing things that could get us all killed."
"One thing at a time," Val said, her military training from her previous life asserting itself. "First, we complete our reconnaissance. We learn what we can about the North's defenses, their lords, their capabilities. Then we figure out how to approach Harry without getting ourselves executed as wildling spies."
"And if he doesn't remember you?" Ygritte asked quietly. "If whatever brought you both here changed him the way it changed you?"
Val was quiet for a long moment, considering the possibility she'd been trying not to think about. "Then I'll have to make him fall in love with me all over again," she said finally, with the kind of determined confidence that had made her a legend among the Free Folk. "I did it once. I can do it again."
"Confident," Tormund observed with approval.
"Realistic," Val corrected. "I know Harry Potter better than anyone alive, in this world or any other. I know what he values, what he fears, what makes him laugh and what makes him angry. I know how he thinks, how he fights, how he loves." Her voice grew soft with memory. "He loved me enough to follow me into death itself. I have to believe that some part of that survives, no matter what else has changed."
"Well then," Mance said, resheathing his sword now that the immediate crisis had passed, "I suppose we'd better get moving. We have information to gather, people to save, and apparently a wizard to find. Just another day in the life of the Free Folk."
As they broke camp and prepared to continue their journey south, Val found herself looking toward Winterfell—still days away, but somehow calling to her like a beacon in the darkness. Somewhere out there, the man she had loved across worlds and through death itself was beginning a new life, probably unaware that he wasn't as alone as he thought.
She would find him. She would reach him. And somehow, someway, they would be together again.
After all, some bonds were stronger than death, deeper than memory, and more persistent than magic itself.
Some loves were simply meant to last forever.
High overhead, a snowy owl circled once before heading south, carrying with her the scent of hope and the promise of reunion. And in the distance, barely audible on the wind, came the faint echo of phoenix song—a melody that spoke of new beginnings and second chances.
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