Chapter Text
On the train that September 1, no one quite knows what to say to her. Everybody’s lost someone — it’s not been so many years since the war that they’ve forgotten — but to lose her father and her brother in the span of one summer feels particularly unlucky. It feels like a remnant of a different time.
Margaery, at least, comes to find her, hugging her tight and inviting her to join her in the compartment she shares with her brother Loras and his boyfriend Renly, but Sansa declines. Joffrey doesn’t exactly run in that circle, but she’d rather not risk it. And in some strange way, she does not mind the silence or the solitude. Margaery’s unfailing kindness, her bright laughter and Slytherin-sly smiles, they almost hurt after a summer spent feeling nothing but sorrow.
Anyway, she’s not completely alone. Bran is with her — though he may as well be back home at Winterfell for all he says to her. She watches him watch the scenery blur past the window; she wonders if he is really seeing anything at all. She misses him, the bright little boy he’d been only months ago, all gentleness and warm laughter.
Father’s death was a blow to them all, but Bran had weathered it, better even than Sansa or Arya had. Bran, barely thirteen and wanting to be strong for his family, for Rickon especially, who was so little. But then Robb died too, and Bran went numb. While Arya raged and Mother screamed and Sansa wept, while Rickon threw tantrums and the dogs went wild, Bran did nothing. He simply stopped.
Maybe it’s protective. Maybe he can’t feel it yet or it will destroy him, the way it’s destroyed everyone else. Sansa certainly wishes she could turn it off: the sadness, bottomless in a way she hadn’t known sadness could be, and her sinking deeper and deeper every day. She wishes that when she closed her eyes, she didn’t still see her father’s body crumpled at the gates outside Gringotts Bank, struck down by the Killing Curse while he spent a summer day in town with his daughters. Sansa wishes she couldn’t still hear her own scream, or feel the press of bodies as the street erupted into chaos — danger after so much peace — and then Professor Baelish, ushering her into a quiet alcove and letting her sob on his shoulder.
Arya disappeared for four days after that, and no one knew if she’d run away or if she was dead too. Mother nearly went mad with terror, but then one evening Jon Snow dragged Arya home, dirty and sullen but alive, and Sansa couldn’t even be angry with her, she looked so small and wrecked. Sansa noticed that Catelyn didn’t thank Jon, merely snatched Arya away from him, but Robb threw his arms around his friend. “Thank you, Snow.”
“It was the only thing I could … ” Jon choked a little, and Sansa remembers now that she’d felt a flicker of irritation. Ned Stark had raised Jon, it was true, after Jon’s mother’s death in the last war, but he was not Jon’s father.
And when Jon turned up one day in August with Robb’s cloak in his hands, she’d hated him. She was the one who answered the door, and she knew at once, even before he said, “I don’t know how it happened, Sansa.” He sounded like he was pleading. “I don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.”
“You’re Aurors,” she’d snapped. Jon looked stricken, his face white. “Of course it’s bloody dangerous.”
She’s ashamed now, how she swayed on her feet. Even after Father, she wasn’t strong enough. Not for this.
Robb. He was her first memory, her beloved brother. When he left for Hogwarts, she’d cried for days, and when, three years later, she joined him at school, he was the only thing that helped to ease the homesickness that overwhelmed her.
She wished that Jon would take it all back, tell her he was lying, but she knew better. Life is not a song, someone once told her, and she knew it to be true. Life’s not a song, there are no happy endings — and Jon Snow does not lie. So instead she tore the cloak from his hands, hissing That’s ours, but Jon didn’t resist; he let the cloak slip through his fingers and into her arms. He said her name, very softly.
When the first sob escaped her, her knees gave out and Jon pulled her into his chest, murmuring soothing sounds in her hair. She kept the cloak balled in her arms; it was thick, good-quality, like her father’s sleeve had felt when she’d clung desperately to it as he lay unmoving on the cobblestones of Diagon Alley.
She can’t remember the last time Jon touched her — not since they were small children, certainly — but she will never forget that embrace, so terrible and so necessary. Even as she stood there hating him, hating that Robb was dead and Jon Snow was here, he held her until she no longer shook.
Jon told the rest of the family, but Sansa told her mother. She wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from him.
At lunchtime Sansa cajoles Bran into eating a spinach pie and a chocolate frog. “Thank you, Sansa,” he says, not really looking at her.
Arya vanished the moment she set foot on the Hogwarts Express, gone in search of her friends in Gryffindor, that boy with black hair, and the fat one, and Professor Tarth’s nephew Podrick. She hadn’t even spared a glance for her siblings and felt no qualms, it seems, leaving Bran’s care in Sansa’s hands. In all honesty, it’s probably for the best. Sansa and Arya, never the best of friends, have been at each other’s throats since Father died, Arya full of loud fury and certain that no one can understand how she’s suffering, and Sansa, well, after all the weeping she thinks she doesn’t have any tears left, and the best she knows how to do now is pretend that things are normal. Pretend that she is fine. For her mother, at least, who has aged a decade in a matter of months.
So Sansa sits in silence beside her brother, staring with heavy eyes at the book she’s laid open in her lap. Every so often she remembers to turn a page.
She must fall asleep eventually, because she startles awake at the sound of her compartment door slamming open.
“My dear Sansa,” sneers a voice she has come to loathe. “And her cripple brother.”
“Joffrey.”
She sounds steadier than she feels, but Joffrey only smirks. She should’ve known he’d come looking for her. He’s never been one to pass up gloating over someone else’s misery.
She hates his ugly wormlips, his golden hair, his cruel eyes. She can’t believe she ever cared for him, but she’d been more naive back then, and he’d been better at pretending he had a heart. That was before he killed Lady, before he split Sansa’s lip. Starting their fourth year, he even used the Cruciatus Curse on her, for which they could expel him, even arrest him, but of course she couldn’t tell anyone. They would only wonder why she let him do it. They would only call her a stupid girl. Joffrey’s father had been the Minister of Magic, for Merlin’s sake, and his uncle Tyrion was Sansa’s own Head of House. Joffrey's mother, a Lannister, had no formal role in the government then, but she scared Sansa more than any of them. Joffrey was the son of the two most powerful families in the Ministry, maybe in the whole British wizarding world, and Sansa wouldn’t risk her father’s job as Head Auror by angering them. She wouldn’t let anyone else suffer for her own bad choices.
In the end it was Margaery who saw something was wrong and helped her get out. It didn’t matter to her that Joffrey was Margaery’s fellow prefect, or that Sansa wouldn’t tell her any of the details. It didn’t matter that she and Sansa weren’t even friends then, not really. They’d crossed paths in classes, and chatted amiably when Joffrey took Sansa back to the Slytherin common room with him, but that was it, until one day Margaery caught Sansa crying in the bathroom between classes and saw straight through Sansa’s well-rehearsed lies.
Sansa’s not sure how it was all managed. Margaery talked to her grandmother, who’s on the school’s board of governors, and then Olenna Tyrell must’ve spoken to someone at Hogwarts, because Petyr Baelish, Head of Slytherin, called Sansa into his office one evening after dinner. She knew him, a little, because he taught Transfiguration and he’d been her mother’s friend when they were at Hogwarts together, but this was her first time alone with him, and she didn't relish the thought of talking about Joffrey. But his kindness calmed her, as he spoke fondly of her mother and even offered her a cup of wine. Finally he told her that Joffrey had been dealt with. “Mr. Baratheon is well-aware that it will be best if he keeps his distance from you, or there will be consequences.”
“Consequences?” The cup in her hand shook.
“I can’t expel him, I’m afraid.” He patted her knee consolingly, his voice raspy and sympathetic. “Cersei Lannister is not a woman whose enmity I aspire to earn. But I’ve spoken with Professor Lannister and he’s sworn to keep an eye on his nephew. From what I understand he’s never much liked the boy, so he was more than willing to step in. And Joffrey now understands that Olenna Tyrell has taken a particular interest in you, and it would not do to anger her. I know he doesn’t care about alienating the Tyrells, but I do not believe his mother is so foolish, not if she truly wants to be Minister, and I know his grandfather is not. Yes,” he said confidently, “Tywin Lannister will rein Joffrey in should the need arise. All you need to do is say the word.”
But Cersei Lannister has been Minister of Magic for more than a year now, and they say her pride grows with every passing day. And Tywin Lannister died last spring.
There is nothing left to hold him back, so here is Joffrey, come to laugh at her pain.
She won’t give it to him.
“The Starks really are coming down in the world,” he says, and she betrays no expression, though she feels her knees trembling beneath the book that is still open on her lap. Her wand is within reach, if she needs it. Joffrey’s always had a quick draw, but when she can keep her head on straight she’s by far the better spellcaster. She doesn’t have to be afraid of him.
“Ned Stark was an incompetent oaf, so it’s no surprise he died like he did. I wish I’d been there that day.” His smile sharpens. “I can just picture it. Your coward father laid flat with his face in the dirt. You screaming your lungs out — oh, I’d know that sound anywhere.”
Her voice barely shakes. “Get out.”
Rage flashes in his eyes, but he doesn’t pull his wand and he doesn’t lift a hand.
“Get out,” she says. “You’re a monster.”
With effort, he smirks, pretending at a casualness that her long practice in reading Joffrey allows her to see through instantly. “Oh, Sansa. If I had been there, I wouldn’t have let anyone drag you away. I would’ve made you look at him, just a slab of meat on the ground. I would’ve made you give him a goodbye kiss.” He laughs, and laughs harder when he sees her shudder.
“As for your brother,” Joffrey continues, and she could kill him, she could, if only she could make herself move. “He was even stupider than your father. My mother told me all about how he died. Did they let you see the body before they buried him? Or were you just left to imagine it, the way they transfigured his head just to taunt him before they blasted it from his shoulders?” Sansa’s stomach lurches dangerously, bile rising through her throat. “Did you think he looked handsome when you saw him? Did you even notice the difference? A wolf’s head — it’s fitting. I always thought Robb Stark was a mangy dog anyway.”
If he wants to see a wolf, Sansa thinks, and she’s finally got her fingers on her wand, I’ll show him a wolf. I’ll tear his throat out.
Before she can utter a syllable, however, there’s movement beside her: Bran, with one almost careless wave of his hand, sends Joffrey flying out of the compartment, the door slamming shut behind him. A moment passes and Sansa holds her breath — then, the door rattles on its hinges, Joffrey shouting obscenities and banging his fists against the door so hard it makes her flinch. Hours seem to pass before the hall grows silent once more.
“He must’ve gotten bored,” Bran says finally.
Sansa slowly turns to meet her brother’s eyes. He’s impassive, at first. Then he nods, a not-quite smile twitching at his lips.
Merlin. Her brother is powerful, everyone knows this, one of the strongest wizards the Stark family has ever seen — and the Starks have a long history of powerful magic. But he is only in his third year and already performing wandless magic. Her heart nearly bursts with pride and amazement.
“Bran,” she says. “That was ... ”
“I don’t like to hear him talk to you like that,” he says. His cheeks flush pinkish, and Sansa thinks it might be the most emotion she’s seen from him in months. “Father wouldn’t like it. Neither would Robb. They wouldn’t like me letting him get away with it.”
Hurriedly, Sansa wipes the tears from her eyes. “You don’t have to protect me,” she manages to get out in a somewhat firm tone. She’s the big sister, she wills him to understand; she is of age now, in her final year at Hogwarts, and she is supposed to protect him. However powerful Bran may be, antagonizing Joffrey will only put a target on his back — and even if Joffrey can’t hurt Bran with magic, he’s shown no qualms about fighting dirty. Besides that, the Lannisters have reach far beyond the halls of Hogwarts or the Ministry. Sansa will not allow Bran’s future to be curtailed just because Joffrey knows how to get a rise out of her. Sansa will never let a Lannister touch a hair on her baby brother’s head.
Still, she can’t help but hug him and plant a kiss on his cheek. “But thank you for trying.”
That night, as Sansa settles into her dormitory, unpacking her trunk and hanging her decorations, she lingers over a photograph. It’s Christmas, two years ago. The whole family stands crowded together in front of Winterfell, bundled up in heavy coats and scarves. Her mother and father wrap their arms around each other, Catelyn’s smile a soft, serene thing, and Ned’s shining more in his eyes more than on his lips. Robb has the cocky swagger of a handsome eighteen year old who knows that he’s handsome; he slings an arm around Rickon, who’d just had his first growth spurt, and every now and then he waves and laughs and Sansa’s heart will throb like a wound. Bran, at Sansa’s side, keeps levitating snowballs to hurl at Robb, even though he certainly knew that he was not allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts. His hair was still long then, nearly to his collar. At thirteen Arya hated having pictures of herself taken, and in every photograph from that entire year she pulls a series of ridiculous faces that make her almost unrecognizable. As Sansa watches, she sticks her tongue out and covers her eyes with her hands. Sansa surprises herself by missing this Arya, the one who had no time for Sansa’s foolishness but whose happiness came as easily and as certainly as the rising sun.
Jon’s there too, of course, sulky and subdued, wedged in between Arya and Father. He keeps glancing down and then up again, nervously brushing the black curls out of his eyes. Sansa remembers that it wasn’t long after this photograph was taken that he and Robb completed their training to become Aurors, and Jon began tying his hair back, away from his face.
It’s strange to realize how familiar he is. He isn’t family, not really, and yet — she’s known his face almost her whole life. He’s always been there, Robb’s shadow, Arya’s favorite, and Sansa can’t think when she ever really looked at him, but she thinks she could paint him from memory if she tried: his dark eyes, thoughtful and sad, and the scar that runs across the left one, and the full lips of his serious mouth.
She draws her finger across his face, touches his furrowed brow, and then, shaking herself, pulls away. What is she doing?
She stares at the picture a moment longer and then packs it away again. Seeing it every day would only make her sad.