By Luna's Light

"You…this isn't a criticism, Harry! But you do…sort of…I mean…don't you think you've got a bit of a saving-people thing?"

Harry dreamed of a maid with bushy hair of soft brown and eyes to match. He dreamt of the tears in those brown eyes, he dreamt of the determination in her face, he dreamt of flying through the air with her on the back of a gryphon, while she rested her head upon his shoulder.

He dreamed of kissing her under a weirwood tree. He dreamed of watching her kiss another man with hair of fire. He dreamt of her death. He dreamt of her children, his own and sired by other men. He dreamed of her…and he dreamed of another too. A maid with silver hair but she was no Targaryen…he didn't know how he knew that but he knew it well enough. Her eyes were pale blue, and she watched him. She always watched him. No matter what he dreamt in every dream or memory there she was standing beside him. Watching.

"Wake up, Harry," the voice that called him out of the darkness was as soft as a whisper, yet like the breeze that blew through the shutters it was too insistent for him to ignore. "Wake up."

Harry winced as he opened his eyes, surprised at the sudden brightness that assailed him from the flap of the crude hide tent in which he found himself. A shadowcat pelt lay on top of him as a blanket, and he could see the rods of wood and bone that formed the tent-frame holding the deerhide canvas in its shape above him. A firepit, not burning now for obvious reasons but filled with the ashes of the night before, lay hard beside his head.

And the maid, the maid that he had dreamed of with silver hair, stood over him, looking down at him with her pale blue eyes, the slight trace of a smirk crossing her pale lips.

"Welcome back, Harry," she said. "It's been too long."

Harry groaned. "Where am I?"

"In my tent."

Harry half sat up, wincing a little at the pain in his shoulder. "Where is that, pray?"

The maid's smile broadened. "In the foothills of the mountains. Not too far from the road where you fell. I am sure that some lord claims these lands, but I know not his name."

"Past the Bloody Gate is all Arryn land until you come to the Riverlands and Lord Harroway's Town," Harry murmured.

"Then you can forgive me for trespassing on it, I suppose."

Harry snorted. "It would be ungrateful of me to do otherwise. I take it that you've saved my life?"

"I did," she said. "Again."

"Again? Have we met before?"

She laughed; it was a sound as clear as tinkling bells. "Have we met? Yes, Harry, you could say that. I suppose that you've forgotten. You always forget. I remember, but you always forget. Most things, anyway. How are your dreams?"

Harry's eyes widened. "You know about my dreams."

"I was there for all the things that you remember in your dreams. A hundred, hundred lives you've lived and I remember all of them."

Harry was silent for a while, hovering on the knife's edge of uncertainty between declaring this woman mad and asking for the answers to the impossible memories that plagued his sleeping hours. The desire to believe her, the desire to reach for answers that had never been within his grasp before was strong within his breast…but on the other hand…if she were mad, and ranting and had happened to have struck on something plausible…then who knew what she had planned for him, all alone in some secluded place in the foothills of the mountains.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Where are my men?"

The silver-haired maid stared at him for a moment. Then she began to laugh. "Oh. Oh. Oh, I see! You think that I, what? That I brought you here so that I could have my wicked way with you? You may attract the eyes of a few ladies in this world but your not worth that much trouble, Harry! Your men are all outside, and very worried about you. He's awake!"

There was the sound of a glad cry, and feet scrambling up a hillside, before Collyn poked his head in through the open flap of the tent. He had looked pleased before, but positively overjoyed once he saw Harry.

"Ser Harry! Thank the Seven you are awake. How are your wounds?"

"A bit stiff, but I barely feel them now," Harry said. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Two days," the maid said. "I had to drug Ser Collyn here to get him to leave your side."

"I am no Ser, maiden," Collyn said at once. "I am a squire, only."

She smiled. "For now, squire Collyn."

"What did I miss, Collyn?" Harry asked. "What happened?"

"We chased off the clansmen, and just in time too," Collyn said, not without a touch of well-deserved reproach. "Ronnet and some of the men pursued them as they fled, killed most, but the girl who shot you escaped from them. We…we weren't sure what to do, we were too far from the Bloody Gate to take you there, and not knowing where else to find help…and then…"

"Then I arrived," the silver-haired maiden said. "I was just in time myself."

"She said she could help you," Collyn said. "And…well, we didn't have many other places to turn to. You were dying and you needed help."

"And you got it for me," Harry said. "For that you have my thanks. They all have my thanks, make sure that they know that."

"As you wish, Ser Harry; I mean, Hal, sorry," Collyn said.

Harry nodded. "And the girl? The one on the road, the one who was in trouble?"

"Safe and sound and still here," Collyn said. "I thought it was too dangerous to let her travel the High Road alone."

"And quite right too, especially after all the trouble I went too to save her life the first time," Harry muttered. "Did she want to go?"

Collyn shrugged. "I think she was worried that we didn't want the trouble. But I told her you'd never forgive me if I let her wander off into harm's way again."

Harry chuckled. "It might seem like a stupid thing I did; it might seem as though it wasn't worth it, but if I hadn't gone, and if she had died as a result of my caution, then I wouldn't be worthy to call myself a knight."

Collyn frowned. "But you are your father's only son of Arryn. If you were to die then-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Collyn," Harry said, allowing just a touch of sternness into his voice. "My life is not worth more than hers because my name is Arryn. The Maiden has charged me to protect all women, how can I do that if I hold my blood more precious than their lives?"

Collyn looked down at the ground. "They are hard oaths, Hal. Harder than I thought."

"They would be hard, if everyone followed them," Harry said. "And now, I must ask you to leave me for a moment, this maid and I…we have much to discuss."

Collyn glanced at her.

"Not like that," Harry snapped.

Collyn's face reddened. "No, Ser, if…if you say so, no." He ducked out of the tent, and Harry heard him descending the same slope that he had climbed, presumably to the camp with the other Arryn men and the maiden who was the cause of all these things.

The silver-haired maid chuckled. "A sweet boy, and faithful. You should take care of him."

"Who are you?" Harry demanded. "What is your name?"

"My name is Luna," she said casually, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Luna," Harry murmured. "And how do you know me?"

Luna turned away, and said nothing in reply.

"I said-"

"I heard you clearly," Luna replied. She walked across the tent, to where an old chest of rotting wood and rusted iron bands sat, half falling apart. She opened it – the lid creaked and groaned and Harry was surprised that it didn't break – and fumbled at the contents within for a moment, until she pulled out a necklace, a trifling thing, a silvery charm upon a dark string. She held it out to him. "Put this on?"

Harry frowned. "Why?"

"Because I'm giving it to you, and it would be rude to say no," Luna said. "And besides, it will keep the nargles at bay."

Harry's frown deepened. "What are nargles?"

"If you put this on, you'll never have to find out."

Harry was still a little less than convinced, but he took the necklace anyway, and slipped it over his head, if only to get her talking again.

After all, the Seven Kingdoms has an entire order of knights to keep it safe from snarks and grumpkins, what is a piece of string and a charm to keep away 'nargles'?

Wait a…

"Is that a radish in your hair?"

"Yes," Luna said.

Harry waited for an explanation. None was forthcoming. "Why?"

"In case I get hungry," Luna said.

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Are you alright?"

"People used to ask me that a lot, and I was never sure why," Luna replied. "Now…in this world, people don't care so much."

Harry was left with the strange and bizarre feeling that he ought to apologise for his behaviour. "I…can you help me? Can you explain the things that I dream of?"

"The wheel of time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."

"Archmaester Rigney?" Harry murmured.

"You know of him?"

"Yes, I spent a year at the Citadel," Harry said. He had decided to go instead of touring the Free Cities, and his father had allowed it provided he returned after a year, or less. He had forged only three links of a chain: iron, copper and valyrian steel, and he had not, in the end, come much closer to understanding his dreams, but he did not feel that the time was altogether wasted. And there had become familiar with the theories of Rigney, who held that time was a wheel endlessly repeating. He had thought that it might explain his dreams, save that he dreamt of things that had never been seen in all the Seven Kingdoms. "I would ask how you heard of him, up here in the mountains."

"There is, or was, or will be a world where his books are available even to the smallfolk," Luna remarked. "Though he goes by a different name, there."

"I…I don't understand," Harry said.

"I didn't really think you would."

"But I thought you could help me."

"I could tell you what you want to know, Harry, but that isn't the same thing," Luna said.

"Tell me anyway!"

"You've lived a thousand lives, Harry, and I've lived each one with you," Luna replied.

Harry waited for more. No more came. "Is that it? There must be more than that."

"What do you want me to say, Harry?"

"I…I want you to tell me everything."

"You wouldn't believe everything," Luna said. "Not from me."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"How?"

"Because I know you, better than you know yourself." Luna smiled fondly for a moment. "Do you want to know the truth?"

"Yes!" Harry said firmly. "I think."

Luna chuckled. "Are you worried about what you'll find out?"

Harry hesitated, before he made the admission. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I am."

Luna, to her credit, did not mock him. "If you really want to know, whenever you want to know, then come with me to Qarth."

"Qarth?"

"The Warlocks of the House of the Undying drink shade of the evening," Luna explained. "If you drink it, then you will finally understand. Probably."

"Qarth?" Harry repeated. "I can't just go to Qarth, I have to go to Riverrun and marry Lysa Tully at my father's command!"

"That's why I said 'when'," Luna said, putting the emphasis on the word as though he had missed it because she hadn't spoken loudly enough. "Not now, maybe not ever, but when. I'll be waiting for you, when you're ready. And even if you're not…we'll see each other again. We're bound together, you and I."

Harry shook his head. "Qarth, Archmaester Rigney, you're an unusual woods witch aren't you? How have you survived the mountain clans for so long?"

"I heal them sometimes, as I have healed you, and they leave me alone. Their fights are not mine, but my fight is not with them either. In their quarrel with the Valemen I take no side."

"Everyone takes sides in war, even if they don't want to," Harry said.

Luna looked him in the eye. "My side is you, Harry."

Harry stood up, and walked over to her. He wasn't wearing a shirt, but that didn't seem to distract her like it might have some people. "Can't you at least tell me how it is that you can say things like that and I…I find that I believe you?"

Luna put one hand upon his chest. "Because, although we were not lovers, our hearts were bound in ways that cannot be sundered by the turning of the wheel."

And again, Harry found that for no reason that he could explain, he believed her.

Now that he was feeling better and more recovered, Harry moved out of Luna's deer-hide tent and down the hillock to where Collyn and the rest of his men made camp. They were all glad to see him, or pretended to be for the sake of their positions with House Arryn, and he praised them all on doing what they could to avenge him on the wildlings. They ate, they drank a little, he listened to their familiar stories…and then that night, when they were all aslumber, he found that he could not sleep. He sat by the still-burning fire, staring into the flickering yellow and red flames as though like some shadowbinder of Asshai he could divine the past and future from it, obtain from fire the answers that Luna would not provide.

Of course, no answers came. But still, Harry did not sleep. Part of him did not want to and, even if another part of him had…he wasn't sure that he would be able to do so.

He wasn't the only one. The maiden with the bushy hair, the one who seemed so similar to the brown-eyed maid that he had dreamed of, the one that he dreamed both of taking for himself and of watching her be claimed by other men, she sat across the flickering flames from him. She, too, was looking at the flames, though she glanced upwards when she noticed that Harry was looking at her now.

She was a pretty thing, slight and slender with a small face hidden within her tangled mass of hair. She looked uncertain, like a horse that was liable to bolt if improperly handled.

Harry remembered the dead man on the road. She's suffered much.

"You cannot sleep, my lord?" she asked quietly, a trifle nervously.

"My father is the lord," Harry replied. "I am only Ser Harry Arryn. And you are, my lady?"

"No lady, Ser, my name is Hermione."

"Hermione," Harry spoke the name experimentally, rolling his tongue over and under and around each separate syllable. It was an unusual name, but it had a pleasing sound…and one not unfamiliar to him although…although he could not remember where he had heard it before. "What, if I may ask, were you doing on the High Road all by yourself?"

"I wasn't by myself," she sniffed. "I was with my father."

"May the Father judge him justly," Harry murmured. "I am sorry, I did not mean to-"

"It's alright, Ser," Hermione replied, although she looked as though she might break out in tears at any moment. "I know you meant no offence. We…were on our way home, to Gulltown."

"Forgive me, but you don't sound like a Gulltown native," Harry said. "If I had to guess, I would place your accent as Oldtown."

Hermione nodded. "I've lived there a while. Most of my life, but…after my mother died…papa had relatives in Gulltown, he wanted to…I told him we should have taken a ship but he just had so many possessions that he couldn't bear to leave behind and…" She wiped away the tears from her cheeks. "Forgive me, Ser, I…I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," Harry said softly. "Even the gods must weep, or so I feel. So why should we mortals be begrudged our tears?"

He was a fool, your father, he thought. The High Road is no place for an old man and a maid, alone and unarmed, no matter the season. Right now the Vale was at peace, and his lord father stretched forth some effort to keep the road clear, sending the knights of the vale ranging forth to patrol the highway against raiders, but all that did was make it safe for Harry's company of twenty well-armed men to travel unmolested. It did not make it safe for a party of two, neither of whom were able to fight nor even looked as if they might be.

One might as well throw corn before a raven and be surprised when he ate it.

Of course, he could hardly say that to her, distraught as she was, but that didn't make it any the less true.

He sat awkwardly on the other side of the fire, feeling helpless as he watched her sob. He…he didn't really know what to do in situations like this. He liked women, but he wouldn't claim any great understanding of them, especially when they were crying. It left him rather…useless. There just didn't seem to be anything he could do, but of course doing nothing only made the feeling of complete uselessness even worse.

He turned his thoughts to what would become of her afterwards, and a scowl settled softly on his features. A true knight, of course, would offer to escort her safely to Gulltown…but if he did that, then he would be late – very late – to Riverrun, and by the time he arrived Jaime Lannister might well have claimed the prize already. And his father was counting on him to preserve the future of their house.

And yet to let her continue on – try to continue on, because if the Burned Men didn't do for her then the Stone Crows would, or the Moon Brothers or the Painted Dogs. Alone, there was no way she would reach Gulltown alive.

His duty as a knight was to see her safe to Gulltown, his duty as a son and as an Arryn was to go to Riverrun. So many duties were laid upon the shoulders of a man like him.

So many privileges were handed to him from the moment he was born, so it probably all evened out in the grand scale of things. Not that that was of much help to Hermione.

Hermione wiped at her face. "Thank you, Ser. You…you are not an ordinary knight."

"Have you known many?" Harry asked sardonically.

"No," Hermione replied, and she almost chuckled. "Of course not. But in Oldtown…I have heard a few lordlings and noble scions. They were none of them like you."

"Acolytes of the Citadel?"

"Yes, the Citadel," Hermione said. "So many books, and I wasn't allowed to read any of them."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "If I may say, you are not like most girls I've met."

"Should I be flattered or insulted?"

"How should I feel about my difference?"

"Flattered," Hermione said. "Only flattered."

Harry smiled. "And there you have your own answer." He looked into the flames and frowned. "I wish that I could escort you straight to Gulltown and deliver you into the protection of your father's relatives, but…I regret that I cannot. I have urgent business in the Riverlands, and if I were to even give you enough men to see you safe to Gulltown I would put my journey at risk. However, if you will be patient with me, I may have a plan."

"A plan?"

"Come with me to Lord Harroway's Town, or perhaps Saltpans," Harry said. "I know it is back the way that you have come, but we can travel together that far, and once there I will hire reliable men to take you back to Gulltown down the High Road."

Hermione looked at him. The flickering flames beneath her face lent her eyes a…beguiling appearance. "And if there are no reliable men to be found?"

"Then you can wait for me, and when I come back then I will escort you to your new home myself. I give you my word."

"Your word, to a common girl without so much as a name?" Hermione asked. "Yes, Ser, you are indeed different."

"Do you agree?" Harry asked. "Is my plan acceptable to you."

Hermione said nothing for a moment. She just stared at him over the flames. "Yes. Yes, Ser, it is. I will go with you. So far, and perhaps further still."

"I am sorry that it seems you will be detained here a little while," Harry murmured. "I apologise, but I do not think anything else would be safe."

With the benefit of hindsight, it had been rather naive of him to think that Hermione wouldn't end up stuck in an inn in Lord Harroway's Town for at least a while as he went off to Riverrun. He had spoken of finding reliable men in the Riverlands to escort her safely to her father's kin in Gulltown, but since no riverlord would lend his household to such a purpose that meant mercenaries and - bluntly, and with a few exceptions - if such men were reliable they wouldn't be mercenaries in the first place. In the whole of Lord Harroway's Town he had found a scruffy-looking hedge knight, who looked as though he had not been young since Aegon the Unlikely and not sober since Jahaerys, a group of six sellswords calling themselves the Company of the Oak as they attempted to entice strong young men of the town into their band, and a few other blades for hire none of whom seemed to possess too much in the way of honour or courage. None of them seemed likely to put their own lives at risk against the mountain clans. He wasn't even sure that he would trust any of them not to kill Hermione themselves, or worse, once out of the sight of any witnesses.

Again, he should have foreseen all of this; if they had been men of better quality they would have found service with some lord, a roof above their heads and a place at his table, instead of being force to tramp up and down the Seven Kingdoms living from stag to stag. They were little more than glorified brigands, and just as apt to turn to law-breaking in lean times.

"I will be content here, Ser Harry, for a while at least," Hermione said. She smiled as she looked around the modest room. Harry had given the innkeep a purse of golden dragons and told him to keep a tab once the purse ran out, but he didn't want to encourage the gold to run out too quickly by demanding the largest room in the Inn of the Just Man; as a consequence there was not a great deal of space between the bed and the walls, just enough for a small chair to be lodged awkwardly beside the door.

"I'm sorry it's a little cosy," Harry said.

Hermione chuckled. "Reading doesn't take up a lot of room. Ser Harry-"

"Most call me Hal," Harry said.

"Really? And you let them?"

Harry frowned. "Why wouldn't I?"

Hermione shrugged. "No reason, I just...I think that Harry sounds better, that's all."

"And many others would not agree with you," Harry said. "But you were saying?"

"Yes, are you sure it's alright, leaving a man here with me? You don't need him?"

Harry shook his head. "The Riverlands' reputation for anarchy aside, there is little enough to fear in these lands in a time of peace. For knights and armed men, anyway. One man won't make much difference to me now, but I feel better knowing that Ronnet is here to protect-"

"My virtue?" Hermione asked mischievously.

Harry snorted. "Not quite what I was going to say." He stared at her for a moment. She was...it was strange, but he found that he was drawn to her in spite of himself, or better and more accurate to say in spite of her. Her face, her eyes, her hair, the more that he looked at them the more attractive they seemed. Her body was nothing to sing of and yet...there was a part of him that wanted to sing of her, to embrace her, to kiss her, to hurl her onto that bed and love her until dawn and his departure came.

Hermione smiled. "Why, Ser, I wonder if the man whom from my virtue needs protecting is already in this room."

Harry swallowed. "I...I do not deny that I smell honey in your hair," he confessed. "But...but you are safe with me, I guarantee it."

"And what if I wish to have the honey licked from my hair?" she asked. "After all, you are even a knight."

"I am," Harry murmured. "And for that reason...I should go."

"Why?" she asked. "You are not wed yet."

"No," Harry agreed. "But you and I will never wed."

"I know that, I'm not a fool."

"And yet..." Harry took one step towards her. It felt much easier than it would have been to turn away.

"Indeed," she said. "And yet."

He took another step towards her. "Thank you, my lady."

"I am no lady."

"Tonight," he said. "You are a lady, and mine."

Author's Note: I went back and forth for a while on whether Harry and Hermione would sleep together or not before deciding that they would. After all, he isn't married yet so he isn't doing anything wrong, and she's cute.

One of the thing I was going to bring up in this chapter, but couldn't find a good way to express, is that Harry has not just lived his canon life but also a load of fanfics as well; that's why he remembers kissing Hermione. However I decided against referencing other people's works in a way that would have made it more obvious.

Next chapter Harry will reach Riverrun.