Chapter:

First Impressions

Part 1 of 10

Warnings/Tags: Regency AU, Pride and Prejudice AU, Cousin-cest, Arthur Dayne/Hermione Granger, Aurane Waters/Ginny Weasley, No Magic AU, Extreme AU, Eventual Smut,

Rhaegar Targaryen & Haraella Targaryen

I

The imposing chateau sprawling across the green hills of Fairmarket was coming to life for the first time in decades. Maids scampered about the house like church mice pulling dust sheets from furniture as servants in full dress swung open shutters to arching windows, and scullery boys carted barrels and caskets and wheels of cheese into the cellar out back. Sunshine spilled into grand rooms of the mansion, gold wine on rich, warm wood, and outside, a sliding glimpse of rolling rivers carving through the parkland.

There was a whirlwind in the house that morning, retainers bustling about, sweeping and polishing and sneezing out the dust swept up into the air, readying the house for its new occupants. Gardeners hustled out back, slaking sweat from their brows in the impressive rose gardens, pruning what they could in the little time they had.

Up the gravelled drive rolled a coach, gilt and delicate, headed by the finest of chestnut stallions. The wheels rolled to a stop. The door opened. A young man stepped out into the open air, the crunch of stone biting under boot, no older than seven-and-twenty, the picture of respectability, the type of man plucked straight from the Renaissance masters brush strokes. As honourable as he was handsome. From behind him came another man, towering and broad and dimpled in his smile.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. The seven know you're not getting any younger. Lady Rhaella wishes for grandsons and granddaughters to dote on, does she not?"

The first man scoffed heartily.

"Do not start, Arthur. I hear enough of this talk with my father, and, I fear, all one would find here in the Riverland's is fish and weeds and mud. Nothing one wants stuck between their sheets."

Arthur Dayne sighed heavily.

"Must you always be so sullen, Rhaegar?"

A white sheet pulled from a spinet obscured the two men, a melancholic voice drifting through the wind.

"'Tis the only way I know how to be."

II

Haraella Targaryen, a girl of ten and nine summers old, orphan thrice over, ambled through the field of tall meadow grass. She was like a river reed under the pale morning light, bare feet covered in mud, silver curls wild and untamed and loose in the breeze, and, most of all, she was nobody's fool. Within her hand was clasped a book simply embossed with two words.

First Impressions.

Through the pitch she made her winding way to the Burrow in Oldstones, a ramshackle, askew edifice of startling proportions, often filled to the chimney spout with red-haired Weasleys.

Her home for the last seven summers and, hopefully, her home for many more if tragedy did not strike anew.

The Weasley's had taken her in since the death of her dear godfather, Sirius, who in turn had taken her in after her adopted parents' deaths, Lady Lily and Lord James Potter of Stinchcombe, who, in turn, had been granted wardenship over her after the deaths of her birth parents, Duncan and Jenny of Oldstones in a strange fire that saw half of Oldstones scorched to the blackened ground.

If Haraella Targaryen knew of one thing since birth, it was to be dispossessed by devastation.

Her father's estrangement from his family, family Haraella had never met much less heard anything about, considerably discussed about in circles Haraella did not fit within, and her mother Jenny's own low background meant she had no where else to turn to. And then Molly Weasley, in all her motherly affection, opened her hearth and home to the young woman, regardless of having considerably more mouths to feed, and Haraella had not looked back since despite the sadness painting her past in blues and blacks like bruises.

Jumping up onto the wall around the home, Haraella crossed the narrow moat by walking across the wooden plank duck board, a reckless trick learnt in early childhood. Skirting around the back of the house, she heard Molly through the open window to the library.

"My dear Arthur, have you heard that Fairmarket is let at last? Do you not want to know who has taken it?"

Haraella smiled as she continued on, laughing briskly as Arthur Weasley's groaned reply came drifting out the open window following her footsteps through the muck.

"As you wish to tell me, I doubt I have any choice in the matter, Molly."

III

Piano scales plodded through the afternoon as Haraella made her way deeper into the house, freshly washed and dressed for the day, edging through the corridors that made the Burrow a maze in all but name. Down the entrance hall she found the cause of the music that lacked emotion but made up for in skill.

Percy, the bluestocking of the Weasley family, sat primly at the old pianoforte, practising his scores on a stained sheet of music. Down the way, by the door of the library, Ron stood crouched and listening by the entrance, Ginny, the precocious baby of the Weasley family, huddled at his side.

Mr and Mrs Weasley must still be inside, bickering away.

Ron spotted her first, her silver hair hard to hide even in the shadows of the home, and lifted a single finger to his lips. Ginny giggled and pressed in closer to the crack, ears pricked and primed, pale blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

Haraella joined them as Ron slunk his chin close to her shoulder, whispering into the shell of her ear.

"Have you heard? A Mr Dayne, a young Lord from the Crownlands, has come to our wet little part of the country just this Monday."

Ginny nodded at her brother's assertion; voice lofty like a wisp of smoke, not quite dampening her voice low enough for privacy.

"With five thousand silver dragons a year!"

Hermione Granger, only child to the Grangers who lived but a stone's throw over the bank of the river and could, most often than not, be found within the Burrow, came tottering around the corner, joining the trio at the door.

"Goodness? Five thousand? Some men have more money than sense to be sure."

Ginny, however, was well into her excitement, and neglected her need for hushed tones.

"And he's single to boot!"

From behind the warped wood of the library door, Molly's voice lifted high and keen like the squawk of a hawk sweeping in for the kill.

"What a fine thing for our family, Arthur! A fine thing indeed! We must make sure we cross paths."

What sounded like wind could be mistaken for a tired sigh from a beleaguered husband simply trying to read his morning paper. Merlin knew how long Molly had kept the poor man trapped in the room.

"But how does this affect our girls?"

A scuffle, and Haraella pictured Molly flinging her arms out at her hips in irritation.

"My love, how can you be so dense! I hear from Miss Parkinson that the Dayne heir is in need of a wife. Our girls are beyond consideration! No finer a woman has ever been raised than our girls. He simply must marry one. And, I heard, his sister is as fair and just as he. Perfect for our youngest son. Oh, Arthur… Do something!"

A squeak of chair legs against bare timber peppered with footsteps. Perhaps Arthur standing from his desk, Haraella supposed.

"Oh, so that is his design in settling here then? A venture into the marital market?"

Before the group of siblings and friends could scarper and scatter in the wind, the door to the library flung open, Arthur, Molly following not far behind, though neither reacted to finding the eavesdrops drooped at their feet, flooded into the hall.

"So you must go and visit Mr Dayne at once. I will have nothing less, Arthur."

Arthur lumbered into the parlour, trailed by a sea of red and gold and silver hair.

"Oh, yes father! You must! Think of the parties we could attend! The people we could meet!"

Ginny punctuated her plea with a shake to her brother's shoulder, urging him to voice his request too. Nevertheless, Ron shrugged. Maybe not quite the enthusiasm Ginny had wished for.

"I suppose the balls do sound like fun."

Arthur sagged into a tattered chair.

"There is no need, for I already have."

The piano stopped. A frozen silence. A blink of periwinkle eyes fluttering like the wings of butterflies.

Haraella, who had only followed as far as the door, standing outside looking in, grinned. As chaotic as the Weasley's were, there was never a dull moment to be had with them.

"You have?"

Molly queried, the fire she had been speaking with doused to spluttering embers. Yet, never one to be left speechless, Molly shook her head violently and glared at her husband hotly, embers back to blazing fire.

"How you tease me, Mr Weasley. Have you no compassion for my poor nerves?"

Arthur merely grinned back.

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for them; they are my constant companions these last twenty years."

It was too late, however. By closing one door, Arthur had opened several others, each echoing a question from an excited red head. Only Circe would know when or how Fred and George and Charlie came to be in the room.

"Is he amiable?"

"Is he handsome?"

"He's sure to be handsome, Ginny."

"What about the sister? Pretty, do you think?"

"I heard the Dayne's are a severe sort of beautiful."

"Tits are tits, I imagine."

"Fred! No such language in this house!"

"It's George, mother."

"No, I'm George, he's Fred."

IV

Haraella rolled to Hermione at her side, cocking a sleek brow, chaos blooming just alongside the pair in the parlour.

"With five thousand a year, I doubt it would matter if he had a big, pink face or a potbelly that could rest a flagon on top to Molly or Ginny. Poor sod… Do you think Mr Dayne suspects what he's gotten himself into?"

Hermione chuckled, caramel curls bouncing at her freckled shoulders curled beneath a travelling shawl.

"I'm sure his coin purse would sooth any aches or pains us mere mortals would cause him and his kin. I suppose he'll be at the annual ball at Fairmarket hall tomorrow, then?"

Haraella shrugged.

"It would appear so."

Hermione's face softened.

"Oh, do not look so down dear friend. I doubt the Dayne's are in any way cohorts with the crowned family. Even if they are, what would it matter?"

Haraella shuffled uneasily.

"I do not like how people look at me when they realize…"

When they realize Haraella was the product of the scandal of the century, the gossip of the Crowned Prince running off with a commoner to marry in secret, only to then be struck from the line of succession for his folly, left nothing, not a silver knut to his name, ostracized from 'civil' society for his perceived blunder.

A man of standing marry a women of low birth for such a silly thing as love? Outrageous.

Not once had the Targaryen's tried to contact her about her father. Haraella doubted they even knew he was dead. Her mother too. Perhaps even her own existence they were ignorant of.

Better for it she was, Haraella thought. Nothing good ever came from a Targaryen's attention. The long list of lost loves in poetry throughout their near thousand years of reign spoke as much. No. Love and Targaryen's did not mix, and Haraella, headstrong, wild, mud stained Haraella swore she would never partake in the whole sordid affair known as love.

Love only ever put you in a too early grave.

Slinking out the folds of her shawl, Hermione clasped Haraella by the shoulders, eyes wide and honest.

"And if it is a point of indignation to this brilliant Mr Dayne, I shall break his nose as I did Lord Malfoy. Remember?"

Haraella's sullen mood lifted like clouds after a good downpour, clearing for blue skies and sunny smiles.

"Oh, I remember alright. How can I forget his weeping for his father, or how he and those bumbling cronies of his fled like the devil was nipping at their heels. By the end of the night he had painted you out to be a six-foot, missing toothed, heavily scarred thug."

Hermione slipped an arm around her own, linking at the elbow, as the two went for the gardens.

"I also recall Lord McLaggen's squeal when you kicked his legs out from under him for grabbing at me too tightly at the dance."

Both girls broke out into a peal of laughter.

"That kilt did not help matters when he fell over. He must have flashed all of Oldstones his bare arse, 'Mione. Do you think this Mr Dayne will be as unfortunate?"

The two stepped out into the sunshine, and Hermione winked at her friend.

"If you have anything to do with it, Haraella, I dare say some madness will befall this town."

A.N: First Impressions was actually the working title of Pride and Prejudice before the title was, clearly, changed. The more you know!