Young Master Draco Malfoy was riding his horse hard through the Wiltshire countryside. He cut a fine figure, handsomely dressed in his blue coat, riding his bay stallion at full speed, jumping fences as if chased by the devil himself. He was breathless from the exertion of lifting in the saddle in time with his horse's leaps and pushing them both well beyond their customary jaunts.
He was only just back from his Grand Tour the week prior, and already craved the exercise to release the tension he felt from staying under his father's roof. Or what was left of it.
One would have hoped that his removal from his family would have made one's heart grow fonder at the maternal coddling and the paternal rule. But nay, the young Master was convinced that the taste of freedom he sampled on his voyages through the beauties of European capitals had achieved the opposite effect. He could no longer abide by his father's decisions, nor could he revel in his mother's overbearing attention the same way he used to as a spoiled child.
How insulting to think that during the couple of years he was away, his father, the current Lord Malfoy, had become subservient to that upstart Thomas Riddle. How that snake had managed to ingratiate himself to his father was still unclear to Draco. When he had left for Europe, his father had mentioned in passing reconnecting at his Club with an old family friend. As it happened, he had become suspicious at the increased frequency of that man's name being mentioned in his parents' letters over the months he was away.
But to come home with that Riddle man mentioned in every other sentence uttered by his father, being so frequent a caller at the Manor one could easily assume he lived here? What thrall did that man have on his father? He had to find out, but before he could think of a plan of attack, he had to exert yet more energy to be able to think straight. Spurring his horse once more, he launched himself faster still.
The girl's petticoat was deep in mud by the time she reached the woods she knew so well. Her cheeks were reddened by the demanding pace she had set for herself, but also by the emotions that tormented her relentlessly.
The day had started well enough, her dearest guardian Lady Minerva, waking her up with tea and a lavish gooseberry fool prepared just for her on the occasion of her birthday. At least that was what they had always called that day, September 19, as it was the day she had been found as a babe, abandoned in a grange in the hamlet of Elston.
Lady Minerva McGonagall was a single woman of independent, albeit humble, means. Youngest daughter of Laird Fincastle, she had moved south from her native Scotland as a young lass, for reasons that Hermione had always ignored and had settled in the parish of Orcheston St George in Wiltshire, of which Elston depended, over forty years prior.
Lady Minerva had been approached quickly by Mr Weasley, the farmer whose grange had provided a haven to the child, to advise him on the best course of action about the foundling. Mrs Weasley was pregnant with their sixth child at the time, and while respectable, the family could scarcely provide for their five young lads already, with the next baby soon arriving they simply couldn't afford another mouth to feed.
Minerva had been ready to recommend a charitable institution she knew of for poor and orphaned girls, but everything changed the moment she set eyes on the child. The baby had soft golden skin, a full head of dark hair, although the colour would change through the years. She was surprisingly quiet for being awake and jostled around by strangers. But what really took the wise woman's breath away were the girl's eyes. While seemingly but a day old at most, they were wide open. They fixated on Minerva the moment she looked down at the bundle in Mr Weasley's arms. They appeared to see deep within her, reflecting a soul as old as the forest, of a dark blue hue but for noticeable flecks of gold in their midst.
Minerva had acknowledged a bond of kinship with the baby instantly. She had taken the quiet infant from Mr Weasley's arms, and had become her guardian henceforth. Caring for the little girl as a mother would, raising her with the genteel manners she herself possessed having been born a Lady and giving her a classical education few girls could hope for. That same love of the classics inspired Minerva to name the child Hermione.
Minerva could only afford to keep one servant, a childless widow named Mrs Sprout, who was cook, housekeeper, maid, gardener and medicine woman all in one. She had been born and lived all her life in the rolling countryside of Wiltshire. Mrs Sprout knew of all the villages, their people, their gossip - but beyond the mundane, she also knew of all the forests, woodlands, river beds and meadows. She had acquired over the years an encyclopaedic knowledge of the flora that grew around them. How to supplement their table with edible plants found in the wild, but most importantly how to use them to treat and heal.
From as early as she could walk, Hermione had accompanied Mrs Sprout on her foraging, her bright mind able to retain the wise woman's monologues about alexanders, hogweed and yarrow with seemingly little effort. The young woman had shown such a disposition to learn that she started accompanying Mrs Sprout on her rounds to care for the sick and injured of their community by the time she was but six years old. She was able to prepare poultices to alleviate pneumonia aged ten. She learnt to set bones by age fifteen, being given ample practice by her ongoing association with the Weasley boys. Their ruckus ways had provided many an opportunity for bad falls, sprained ankles and other scrap that often befall young men. By eighteen she had already been entrusted to deliver her first baby without the supervision of the aging Mrs Sprout.
Now aged one-and-twenty, Hermione was tearing through the woodlands closest to the magical site of Stonehenge on the other side of the ridge. She had absently followed the natural path of the ley lines in her dissipation. Today she had been presented upon her majority with the most peculiar heirloom from her guardian, Lady Minerva.
"Happy birthday, dearest child!" Minerva had come into her room, opening the curtains wide on this September morning.
"Lady Minerva! Oh what a delight! And what is this? Gooseberries, this late in the season? How did you find any in September?" Hermione got up quickly from her single bed. She reached for her robe, shaking away the mass of curls that had escaped from her plait overnight.
"Mrs Sprouts, while plagued with failing eyesight, still is unmatched in the county to find gooseberries this late in the season!" Lady Minerva set the bowl filled with Hermione's favourite dessert on the side table, offering her ward a steaming cup of tea. She proceeded to sit down on the bed next to the young woman.
"Come here dear child, I have a present for you on your twenty-first birthday. Something I ought to have gifted you before, but I could never quite find the opportune moment." Upon which she proceeded to extend a bundle towards her, wrapped in the finest wool shawl one could spawn, embroidered with the most delicate imagery of lions upon it.
Hermione proceeded to unwrap the cloth, revealing the most striking piece of jewellery she had ever beheld. It was light in her hands, yet sparkled like freshly buffed silver. It represented an eagle at its centre, gemstones strategically placed on both sides of its regal head to adorn its wings.
"It is stunning. But how can we afford this?" Hermione whispered, wary to voice the thought aloud.
"It wasn't bought. It has always been yours for as long as I've known you, dear child." Minerva explained kindly. "You see this diadem was nestled in your swaddling cloth when Mr Weasley found you."
Hermione turned the diadem around in her hands and noticed the engraving at the back of the eagle's head.
"Something's written in French! "Une sagesse sans fin est le plus grand bien." I'm not familiar with this motto: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." Would you know of it?" She turned back to look at the older Lady.
Minerva sighed heavily, like the final breath one took at the end of an especially trying hill climb, ready to lay one's burden at the peak. "I'm not aware of any living heirs who could claim kinship with that family today. But in their time, the Ravenclaws were seated peers of the realm, and to a lesser extent the Marquis de Serdaigle as a lower French branch before the events of 1789. All of them descended from Lady Rowena, favourite of William the Conqueror, and mother of several of his illegitimate children."
"But what does this mean? Why was it left with me as I was being abandoned?" Hermione barely dared to ask these questions.
"That my child, I'm afraid I do not have the answer to." Lady Minerva kindly said while stroking her ward's riotous morning curls. "All I know is that the last of the family died in Paris during the Terror in 1793, same year as King Louis, and his name was Charles D'Aulnais, Marquis de Serdaigle. But he died unmarried, and seemingly, without an heir."
Hermione was deep inside the woods when her harried pace led her to a clearing in the forest. The sunlight filtered through the opening in the canopy and a gentle stream pooled lazily to form a shallow pond. She was breathing hard, and was aware that her bonnet had failed to contain her thick curls as she sped through the countryside. Her dress was speckled with mud, ripped where a hawthorn shrub had attempted to slow her down. She looked as far from the Lady her guardian was raising as was possible. No matter, she thought, there is no one here to witness the state of my dress but myself.
No sooner did the thought pass through her head that she heard the panicked whinny of a horse galloping towards her. She quickly jumped aside to make way for the magnificent animal, who came to a halt at the pond, lowering his head to drink assiduously from the cool water. Hermione noticed that while saddled, the stallion was missing his rider. She picked up her skirts and started running in the direction whence the horse came to track down his owner
She found him close to the clearing, lying face down on the ground. His blond hair was dishevelled from his fall and missing its hat, presumably lost. His blue coat was torn, yet was very noticeably moving up and down with each of his laboured breaths. Hermione had assumed that he would have lost consciousness, but as she approached she heard a low moan of pain coming from him.
Hermione gingerly approached the fallen man. She first checked his neck softly for obvious injury. The unexpected brush of her cool hand on his nape jerked the rider all the way down his limbs. This involuntary reaction was telling her that he retained movement in his legs, therefore his neck was most likely safe. She moved her hand down his wide back. It allowed her to quickly assess that his left shoulder wasn't levelled with his right one anymore, that fact had been concealed until now by his wrecked garment.
"Sir? Can you hear me? Sir?" Hermione spoke clearly to ensure the rider would heed her. Only the sound of pained moans in a deep baritone, muffled by the forest floor, answered her question.
"Can you bear to roll on your back? I need to tend to your shoulder, it appears to be dislocated." She crouched next to him to assess whether a head wound was present. Seeing no blood, she added more gently this time. "You must be in a lot of pain, but I promise that it will improve once I am able to set it right."
Draco had never felt comparable agony in his entire life. As an experienced rider, he had had his fair share of falls as he trained his stallions, but to this day he had never suffered from anything worse than a few scratches and sprains. His shoulder was throbbing and reverberating throughout his entire body. He was struggling to remain conscious against the waves of pain, holding onto the female voice speaking to him like a boat to its mooring.
He took a deep breath and managed to roll on his back unaided but with another loud groan. He was momentarily blinded by a ray of sunshine peeking through the trees. Such was the exact moment he saw her. She moved in to block the light, her diaphanous beauty eclipsing the sun, a golden halo of curls flaring around her face.
"What light through yonder window breaks?" Draco mumbled.
"It is worse than I initially thought. The man is quoting Romeo & Juliet … must be fatal." Hermione smiled at him, relief and amusement shining equally in her eyes.
Here I was working on my Sixth year WIP, when I came across this prompt and was struck by the muse. Bonnet drama meets Dramione meets Florence Nightingale. What's not to like, really?
There are already quite a few hints as to what the plot will grow into from this first chapter. Can anyone venture a guess?