Chapter 8: Meet Salazar, a very stubborn-
NOTE: Some of you told me you cant read the chaps cause of some webnovel update shit. I also publish in Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net Same story title and same user name.
***
`Those words did not come from a human being.` Doran gets up and puts his little brother on his lap, wraps his arms around him and looks at the person who entered the nursery.
She is a servant, or at least she is dressed as one. Doran does not recognize her face and knows the faces of all the servants who attend him daily. In her arms she carries a basket, Doran already knows what is inside.
The woman looks at him and her eyes widen in surprise.
"You shouldn't be here." She mutters scared, she looks at the doors of the room and then at the babies. "I have no other choice, if I take longer they will catch me." Afraid of being caught she quickly opens the basket and drops its contents into the crib and walks a few steps away from the cribs.
A dark gray snake with menacing black eyes stares at the princes. He gets up ready to pounce on his prey
"/Stop/" The sound coming from Doran's lips isn't human, it's a low, scary hiss.
The snake freezes as if by magic.
"/Come here/" He obeys the prince's command and weaves up to them, wraps around them and lays his head on Doran's shoulder, looking into his eyes.
"/Who are you? Why do you talk like a snake?/" The snake gives him a questioning look and sniffs him. "/ You smell like a snake. Like a big snake, you also smell like smoke, fire and death/" The snake runs his tongue across Doran's cheek tickling him.
"/I am prince Doran Martell/" He brushed the snake's head away with his hand to stop him from tickling his cheek.
`This is not the time to be laughing,` he thinks.
"/Prince? Oh! You're a Snake Prince/" The snake bobs his head up and down in agreement. "/Yes, I've heard that the prreys had princes but I didn't know that we also have them! Tho you are a weird looking snake/"
Doran tries to correct him, explaining that he is a human prince but the snake is stubborn and there is no changing his mind. Doran is the Snake Prince in his mind and it's over.
While the two discussed Mors slept peacefully on the lap of his older brother, that baby has a heavier sleep than a bear in winter. As for the would-be assassin, she is staring in shock at the most venomous serpent in the deserts of Dorne, apparently arguing with Prince Doran.
`T-they're hissing at each other!` She looks at them terrified `What kind of witchcraft is this?!` She shakes her head and takes out a dagger that she had hidden under her dress. "No! This is no time to gawk. I have to complete the job!" She walks over to the crib.
Unknown to her Doran didn't let her out of his sight for a second, even when he argued with his new snake friend he kept an eye on her.
"/ Salazar kills her /" The look in his eyes is hard, that woman tried to kill his little brother. `It is fitting that she should suffer the same fate that she tried to inflict on Mors`
***
Later that night when the wet nurse entered the room she got the surprise of her life. On the ground in front of the princes' cradles was the corpse of a woman with a dagger in her hand. But that was nothing to the shock when she went to the cribs to check on the princes.
Prince Doran's crib was empty but luckily the prince was only inches away, sleeping in his little brother's crib.
And what a sight that was.
In the crib Doran slept on his back with his little brother curled up around him. Lovely, nothing strange. What makes this adorable scene nightmarish is the snake wrapped around both princes with its head resting on Prince Doran's chest.
And it wasn't just any snake but a Sand Smoke, the most venomous species in Dorne. These snakes measure about two meters when they reach adulthood, they are not very big or very thick but their venom kills a man in a matter of seconds. The skin around the bite turns an ash-gray color immediately, and that color quickly spreads throughout the victim's body in a matter of minutes. Their victims are easy to spot because of that.
The most frightening thing about this species is that there is no antidote for its poison.
"AH!" The nurse screams and falls unconscious to the ground.
A few guards quickly enter the room, all pale as white as the mountains of the North at the sight of the snake.
`What's the fuss?` Doran wakes up and rubs his eyes. Salazar, his new snake, also wakes up.
"/Prince those prey bothered my sleep, can I eat them?/"
"/No Salazar, we've already talked about this. You can't eat or bite anyone without my permission/" Doran could swear the snake was pouting, he definitely heard it muttering something about mean snake princes. `Convincing him that I'm not a snake is impossible.` He rubs his forehead and looks at the frozen guards.
`Well, this promises to be interesting.`
And it was.
Sunspear hasn't seen such an uproar since the first Blackfyre rebellion. Doran had a hard time convincing his parents to let him keep his new snake, he even named him after all! Obella agreed on the condition that they remove the fangs from the snake, which led to another argument. Doran wasn't going to let anyone mutilate his snake friend!
It was a pitched battle, a war of wills. Martells are headstrong and strong-willed but Doran was once Harry James Potter, the most headstrong boy in Britain. After many battles Doran won the war and Salazar stayed.
***
And without further notable incidents the years passed, Doran and his little brother grew up sharing a powerful bond. The two Martell princes go hand in hand, Mors always follows his older brother everywhere and Doran always pampers him. He is his only brother! Lewyn was sometimes jealous of the sibling bond but Doran always made sure to include their uncle in their adventures so he wouldn't feel left out.
The three of them became a terror at Sunspear, always running around and getting into trouble.
No one was surprised when Doran began his lessons with Maester Wulfric at age three instead of five, the prince already had a reputation for being highly intelligent and cunning.
Doran soaked up all of Wulfric's lessons like a sponge but was always careful not to come across as too clever. Yes, he is recognized as a bright child but he doesn't want people to think that his intelligence is unnatural.
As for the assassination attempt, the adults took care of it. Doran was just told that he doesn't have to worry about it. The prince read between the lines: the conspirators are dead.
When he was still a young teenager he detested the very idea of murder, he did not dare to kill even the psychopath who killed his godfather. But the war and his travels changed him. Harry never became a cold-blooded killer but he did kill people, people who deserved death. So he didn't resent his family for his actions, he nodded and went on with his day.
`If it's to protect my family...`
***
But fate always liked to mess with Harry Potter, for a few moments he thought that now that he is Doran Martell he could live a quiet life but fate showed him otherwise.
In the year 250AC in the Seven Kingdoms chaos arose.
The smallfolk began to rebel against their lords.
"Your silk clothes and gold jewelry don't make you better than us!" they said, and the riots began.
Many Knights with lands and small lords found themselves slaughtered, their own Servants turned against them and handed them over to the mob.
Many lords banded together to silence the protests, but others took advantage of the chaos in the realms to increase their power.
"Chaos is a ladder," they said.
And so Lord Sam Swann of the Stormlands sent knights to the lands of Lady Wylla Wyl of Dorne.
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