Wier Wood

Title: Wier Wood
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandom: Harry Potter Series / Game of Thrones (HBO Series)
Pairing: fem!Harry/Brandon Stark
WordCount: 1.6k
Rating: PG
Prompt: For @lissataylor1 – “GOT xover obviously”

Warning(s): dimension travel, Brandon doesn’t get engaged to Catelyn, magic

Westeros was strange to Harryo Potter.  There was much she could not account for—but there was magic in the Old Wier trees that grew and whispered.  When she hit her head on a rock and found herself in this strange place, she found herself here, among the whisperings, and she understood that she had a purpose, though one she did not quite understand.

She thanked providence when on her second day in Westeros she found the cottage with animals that clearly needed tending, their master dead from what appeared to be a heart attack.  It was good work, hard work, but every day she went back to the Wier Tree and whispered to the spirits there and asked her to bring her her purpose.

One day she found that she was not alone in her whispering, but instead found a young man.

The spirits’ voices picked up in exaltation, and she looked over the young man and realized he could not be much older than she was herself, although a beard covered his young face, and he was tall like the few men she had seen.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he apologized, his voice deep with purpose, “I did not know another prayed here.”

She tried to smile at him reassuringly and replied, “I do not own this place.  Surely the gods do.”  Gods, yes, gods.  Gods owned this place.

A crooked smile was parried back at her, bold and not uncertain.  “Perhaps we can pray together, then I might escort you home.”

The whispers picked up in intensity, and so she nodded, kneeling beside him and then dutifully bowing her head.  She never prayed in the Wier wood, instead flitting about the trees, but she followed his lead and allowed the whispers to scurry about them as they knelt beside one another.

They stayed like that for nearly an hour before she grew restless and he lifted his head to hers in a smile, as if he were able to sense her.  “Where do you live, fair maiden?”

Harryo took him in for a moment, wondering at him, before murmuring, “that is not necessary. I see you have long to go yourself.”

He cocked his head to his side.

“Your leather is well-made.  You are from Winterfell, are you not?  You must go South.  I go East.”  She gave him a soft smile to soften the sting and to appease the spirits who were whispering worriedly among themselves at her words.

He nodded.  “You have a good eye.  However, it is a pleasant diversion, and your virtue is safe with me, if that is your concern.  I am Brandon of Winterfell.”

She dipped a curtsey, although the name meant nothing to her.  “Harryo Potter.  I inherited the farm just three miles east of here.”

“Well met,” he answered, leading her out of the Wier Wood and toward a horse.  “You see I can get you there quickly enough and back in time before night falls darkly.”

The horse was large and black, and Harryo held out her fingers to it, although she had no carrot or apple to offer it.  Soon, however, she found herself lifted on the back of the large beast, a smile on her face as she felt herself flying if only for an instant.  The horse was a great, monstrous, roaring thing, but it got her to the farm quickly enough so that she had time to feed the animals before sunset, not that Brandon of Winterfell was likely to let her leave so quickly.

They stood in front of her small cottage, just staring into each other’s eyes, until he murmured, “Why do I have a feeling you have the blood of the first men running through your veins?”

She laughed a little, not understanding a word he said, and suggested instead, “Perhaps you should pray on it, my lord?”

“I went to the wood,” he answered, looking aside, seeing something that was not there—a memory, a thought, perhaps—“even though there is one just outside the walls of Winterfell, searching for answers, and I found you.”

“I am your answer, then,” she whispered, not a question.  “I wonder what you were asking, Brandon of Winterfell.”  Her green eyes flitted up to his dark ones and then she turned around and walked inside, leaving him with his thoughts.

The next morning, she rose as she always did, and milked the cow and fed the chickens.  In the afternoon, she took up her cloak and opened the door and was surprised to see Brandon of Winterfell waiting for her with two men.

“These are farm hands, for your farm,” he told her.  “You should not have to work so hard.”

She looked at the two men, and then back at Brandon.  “I’m not certain the farm can support them.”

“They eat at Winterfell,” he promised her.  “They are good, honest men.  I vouch for them.  Are you to pray at the Wier Wood?”

A small smile crossed her lips.  “Every day, Brandon.”

The farmhands entered her farm and she watched them slightly mistrustfully before letting them in.  Then she allowed Brandon’s strong hands to come around her waist and lift her onto his horse.  “I can work my own farm,” she argued when it was just the two of them.  “The trees would not have given it to me if they did not think I could.”

“The old gods gave you your farm?” he asked, slightly bewildered.

“Yes.  I found the old farmer dead in his fields.  I buried the body and said a blessing.”  She turned around and looked at him.  “What else should I have done?”

“Nothing,” he agreed, the horse moving at a sedate trot toward the blessed woods.  “You did everything you could.”

They came to the trees and dismounted the horse, entering on foot—and Harryo heard the whispers pick up in excitement that they were there together.  “You don’t know who I am,” he finally stated when they were before the Hart Tree, the face etched and crying.

“No,” she admitted.  “I am new to this place.”

A smile twisted his lips and he admitted, “I know you to be one of the First Men. In Nothron law that means I am permitted to break all marriage vows and promises if you should indicate that you would marry me.”

At this, the whispers picked up again and Harry sought to take a slow and steady breath.  She was only fifteen-years-old and she turned to the grown man beside her, wondering how old he must be.  “You are to be married?” she finally asked.

“My father has entered into—but not concluded—marriage negotiations with House Tully, one of the Sothron Kingdoms.”

Taking this in, Harryo admitted, “I know this is the North.”

“And the Lord of Winterfell is Warden of the North,” Brandon promised her, “and I am his eldest son.”

At this, Harryo’s eyes widened.  “Are you telling me that you are the equivalent, in this land, of a prince?”

“Yes, Harryo,” he agreed, “and I am telling you that your blood makes you the equivalent of a princess.”

At this she paused, feeling the earth beneath her feet and the wind against her chafed cheek.  “I like, my lord, only the trees and my farm.  The wind in my hair.”  She thought of flying atop her broom, although she doubted she would ever fly again.  “I am not a great lady with pretty ways.”  She thought of her childhood in the cupboard under the stairs, of cooking Dudley his breakfast every morning, of how she was little more than a servant.

“That proves you to be one of the First Men,” he told her.  “We have our own Weir Wood,” he told her, “that you may spend every day in, from dawn till dusk.  My mother can be the hostess of Winterfell, and when she is gone, my brother Ned’s wife, whoever she may be.”

She breathed in the earth and heard the chattering of the spirits and knew that they wanted this, this dynastic marriage, but the idea haunted her.  “Do you want this blood in my veins for your sons that badly?  Or do you dislike your Sothron bride so?” she asked, turning away from him and smelling the damp earth of the woods around her.

“I want you,” he answered simply.

Startled, Harryo opened her eyes and turned to him, to see him standing tall in the wood, branches overhead as if like a throne.  His dark hair fell down his shoulders and he wore a full beard, and he looked kingly in this instance—as if it were his destiny, and she were being shown it so that she could make it come to fruition.

“You were kings, then,” she whispered, and his sharp eyes turned to her.

“Long ago,” he admitted.  “Now we bend the knee.”

She paused, the vision still firm in her eye, and a memory of Voldemort forcing her to bow before him fresh in her memory.  “I don’t like tyrants who force others to bow down,” she admitted.

“These are dangerous times,” Brandon admitted carefully, reaching out to take her hand and kiss her knuckles briefly.   “I would not wish to walk them alone.”

Harryo felt the wind whip around her in joy and she asked, quietly, “Do you mean to bring me back to your father on your horse?”

“The thought had occurred to me,” Brandon admitted, “as soon as you consented to marry me.”

“But I haven’t spoken to the trees yet, Brandon,” she reminded him carefully.

“Then let us pray,” he told her softly, “if it is agreed.  You will be my wife—and we shall be married forthwith.”

“I know nothing of marriage.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted.

—And so the future, and all that came with it, was settled.

The End.