The Sport of Kings

Setting: Modern-day muggle AU, posh people, polo games, royalty, aristocracy and all that.

Warnings: M-rating for language and a combination of fluff, smut and insults.

Timeline: It takes place in the modern-day with the new iPhones, technology and sexual freedom and social constraints (plus the invasive paparazzi) for the young aristocrats.

Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, an original character of Will Granger (Hermione's brother), Sirius Black, Narcissa Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, Astoria Greengrass and probably a lot more by the time I finish the story.

Inspiration: Me and my best friend's champagne-drunken laughs about how different kinds of riding techniques basically could be an excellent way to instruct people to have a great sex-life (And yes, that hilarious conversation took well more than one hour including the potential millions we could make in a self-instruction book), Pride and Prejudice and of course, the HP Universe.

I don't yet know how long the story will get, I've written the first five chapters. Currently my plan is around 20-25 chapters and I'll try to stick to my plan.
Updates will be weekly on Thursdays, as long as I write quickly enough with two children under four and a full time job.

But I really hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it!

Stay safe and keep your eyes on the sunrise on the horizon.

HBSJ

Chapter 1

"Hermione Granger! What if someone had seen you? What if the press had gotten wind of this?"

"Oh mum, relax please, nothing happened!"

"You rode that horse as if you were a man!" Jean Granger took a deep breath. "I have tried and tried to make you into a proper lady and you resist me at every turn. What am I to do with you? And what about this season?"

Hermione plopped ungracefully down onto the settee in the lounge and curled her legs under her. Her defensive body language was in direct contrast to the defiant glare she levelled at her mum. She would never want to ride that ridiculously old-fashioned (and highly impractical) side-saddle. "I always ride like that, it's polo mum, I would literally fall off the pony if I tried to play even just one chukka in a side-saddle. And I don't want to go through the season again mum, can't I just postpone it for another year?"

The Baroness Heathgate, Jean Granger didn't know what to do with her daughter. Her stubborn daughter who didn't want to conform to her mother's version of a lady and certainly didn't want to participate in the almost mandatory season in Great Britain. They were invited everywhere, yet Hermione flatly refused to join her parents to the events.

Jean sighed and narrowed her eyes. Hermione became instantly suspicious. "Alright, alright. I have a proposition for you. What if you actually learned that polo-business from someone competent?"

Hermione perked up. "Like a trainer?"

An artful shrug betrayed that her mum was deceptively cool about the outcome of this conversation. Hermione payed close attention. "Well, like a trainer but not really. Sirius' godson, Harry, has gone off to work with horses, remember?"

"It's called ponies mum." But Hermione nodded, eager for more information. Her head was always filled with ponies, mallets, fields, chukkas and all sorts of equipment but she'd never been able to actually loose herself in that world. Except for the British tournaments of course but she didn't play in them. She was just a spectator.

And she was sick and tired of just being a spectator.

The Marquess Grimauld, Sirius Black had a country estate close to theirs and she had always had a good relationship with his godson Harry as they were the same age but for some odd reason it had never turned romantic. Hermione preferred it like that, he was a great friend.

They even went to school together, a local school. There weren't many in the area and most of the local kids, high-born or normal knew each other well. Hermione was desperate to be normal.

Her mum continued, oblivious to Hermione's thoughts. "You see, Harry has gone off to work for a truly exalted family down in the south."

This was it. Her point.

Hermione's suspicions spiked and her voice was flat. "Which family mum?"

Her mum seemingly waved it off. "Oh, just the Malfoy family in Devon." She said it so casually that Hermione just blinked. Who?

Jean gave her a piercing look. "As in, the Duke and Duchess of Devon and their only son, a truly handsome man, the Marquess of Bantham." She straightened her back. "Their country seat in the Dartmoor National Park is reportedly even grander than Buckingham Palace." She sighed wistfully. "I have never seen it but I truly wish for you to go."

Hermione had lost track of the conversation by then. What did this have to do with her wishing to learn polo? "Wait, why would I go there again?"

Jean looked as though Hermione had missed a crucial step in the conversation, which she probably had. "Because that's where Harry works and lives. According to Sirius, he's right in with the young crowd always hanging around the young Marquess, he has the curtesy title of the duchy of course, and I so wish to you to make an advantageous match."

Hermione balked. "Whoa mum, I just want to ride better and play polo. So is Harry the one to teach me?" She asked hopefully but probably in vein.

It was clear that the baroness refrained from such an unladylike thing as rolling her eyes. "No of course not darling, the Marquess is a fine horseman. The polo facility is his. He is the primary instructor. I have heard rumours that he is the best of the best. He even taught the princes all of their tricks!"

Hermione rolled her eyes at her mum. "Well, if this Marquess is good at teaching me, then fine but I'm not going there to catch some unsuspecting man!"

Her mum smiled knowingly. "This is exactly the heart of my proposition darling." Hermione suddenly felt queasy, dreading what was coming as her mum continued. "You can go to this Marquess and he will teach you every trick in the book and completely at our expense. You can even take a friend if you like. However, in return you have to attend a certain number of society events this season."

Hermione blinked, not having foreseen the quiet manipulation. There was nothing for it, now that she knew about the facility, she wanted desperately to go. Especially when Harry was there. It would be good having a friend around now that her mum was essentially throwing her to the wolves of the season. "How many events?"

The baroness was looking hopeful. "Ten, of your own choice."

Hermione snorted at the suggestion. "Five."

A smirk had settled on her mum's lips. "Eight."

Hermione couldn't believe this was actually happening, even as they hackled. "Six." She was deeply reluctant to attend too many events or any for that matter.

The smirk was still there and Hermione felt her stomach drop. Her mum would make her final offer. "Make it seven and I get to choose three of them."

She released a massive breath that she didn't know she'd been holding, knowing that she had been bested by one of the three people she loved most in the world. "Fine mum, it's a deal."

Jean merely smiled. "Please do not look so put out my darling, you can never know who you meet at this place. Also, it's not even certain that you can get in."

A frown seemed to have settled permanently between Hermione's brows. This was news, especially after the hackle. "Why shouldn't I? Isn't it just exorbitantly expensive and that's it."

Her mum's condescending smile was epic in its ability to convey her patronization before she even spoke. "No darling, this is a private facility, owned and operated by one of the most illustrious people in this country. The requirements to get in are steep."

Hermione rolled her eyes, knowing full well what her mum thought of the action. "Fine then, where do I find the application form?"

Her mother laughed softly. "We can check with Sirius but as far as I know, there is no email, no phone number and no application form. You have to write the young Malfoy a letter detailing why you think you need his training."

The frown was still there. "That seems somewhat excessive mum."

Jean just shrugged, it was a very ladylike shrug. "It's private darling. They don't just let anyone show up and stay on their private grounds."

The conversation had gone round in circles after that.

Her mum had insisted that the Malfoy family had every right to do as they please on their own grounds, which was perfectly true but it still grated a bit on her.

The secrecy, the 'application' process and the very real possibility of denial.

However, she did get her mum to agree that she could bring her friend Ginny because it was all well and good that Harry was there but he wasn't female. And he had a job there too. If she needed to vent, he wouldn't be ideal.

Back in her own room, she scooped out her laptop and phone.

She immediately called Harry to hear about the place. And surprise, surprise, Harry had nothing but nice things to say about Draco, as he called him, and the Duchess. The Duke wasn't mentioned much however.

Hermione googled the family as soon as her computer was on and connected.

Her jaw dropped when the image search brought up the pictures of him.

He was not just handsome, he was unbearably bloody gorgeous. He had that desirable athleticism and yet he wasn't too bulky. His bearing was effortlessly elegant and it looked as if he'd just gotten out of bed, having done goodness knows what, in every picture due to his artfully tousled hair.

But his eyes were a different story. She saw picture after picture of him looking completely uninterested. His eyes were smoking hot, no doubt about it, but he just seemed bored. Completely bored with life really.

She was instantly intrigued by him. And she had no real idea why.

But she definitely shouldn't be.

He was so insanely out of her league that it wasn't even funny.

The people around him were the same in most pictures. There were even some with Harry too.

They all seemed very chummy and within another hour of googling, Hermione had the gist of all of them.

The women, or Ladies as they actually were, were very elegant. Very much unlike Hermione.

Hermione was short and without much to recommend her in her own opinion. Her hair was too big, her eyes were too dark and her lips, nose and cheeks were just there really. Luckily she had outgrown the buck-teeth from her youth but still, she was under no illusion that she was any kind of a catch.

Something her mum had criticised of since her early teens. Her mum consistently insisted on her having a proper season at least once since her debut and Hermione had resisted at every turn simply because she hated the judgement the season thrust at her. Both from the press, the rest of the participants of the season but most of all, from herself.

She hated standing in front of the mirror and knowing that she wasn't good enough and that she wouldn't ever be good enough. So she had shunned the season, hiding herself in their little corner of Britain, much to her mum's dismay.

And now she had been baited and hooked to show her face in public again. And her mum would even determine three of the events. Hermione groaned just at the thought.

A season in the old days included balls and morning callers in London. Now it just… didn't.

It included bleeding garden parties across the country, royalty rubbing elbows with wealthy executives and celebrities. You had to look coiffed and purrrfect. Every penny you owned were measured by some sort of insane standard that many of the 'old' aristocracies couldn't match any longer due to their vast properties and lack of actual income.

A title was all well and good but an heiress to save your properties was something you could catch during a modern London season.

Hermione was just such an heiress.

Her dad, The Right Honourable Lord Heathgate, the fifth Baron Heathgate, or just plain old George Granger, was wealthier than most of the old aristocracies and even many of those with new money pouring into Great Britain every year. 'Rich as Croesus' she'd heard more than once.

That also made her a popular mark for fortune hunters from every walk of life, which always made her wary of men showing too much of an interest in her too quickly. Once, she had literally experienced a marriage proposal on the first date and it was a blind date at that. Wanting money could make people blind and deaf but obviously not mute.

Luckily though, due to the internet, she could research pretty much everyone she came into contact with easily and determine if they would be worth her time.

When she was eighteen, Hermione had been chosen as a debutante at the newly revived Queen Charlotte's Ball. She had gone through the rigorous training in etiquette that involved protocol and diplomacy, foreign orders of precedence and the orders of precedence in the United Kingdom.

As if that wasn't enough, she had also been taught seating arrangements, invitations, gifts, titles and forms of address, flag protocol, honours and decorations, ranks of the British peerage and so on and so forth.

To say it was boring was a complete and utter understatement.

Hermione had known most of it already from the lady-lessons her mum had forced on her and she'd only done it for her parents. They had been endlessly proud. She had endured the events of that season leading up her ball and since then she had shunned everything regarding those ghastly events as soon as she could.

Much to her mother's displeasure.

The Debutante of the Year from her ball was The Lady Pansy Parkinson, daughter of The Marquess of Hertford, an infamous man with a rather meek wife. At least that was how the public viewed them. Pansy had behaved exemplary and gracefully in every situation, mastered all of their subjects and acted perfect in the eye of the public. The fact that she could be a total shrew behind closed doors didn't matter a jot to the people of the Debutante Committee who had chosen her. They knew perfectly well what she was like. An ill-bred woman in Hermione's opinion.

Hermione shuddered at the reminder of the run-ins she'd had with Pansy.

Pansy's favourite friend was The Lady Daphne Greengrass, daughter of the Duke of Hogwarts. However, she had mostly followed where Pansy led so Hermione didn't have much to say on the subject of her. She didn't really know anything about her.

During The Ordeal, as it was known between her and her brother, she had learned some skills she would never use again. Like doing the curtsy.

This was no ordinary curtsy. It was all the way down, all the way up and looking effortlessly graceful all the while. Needless to say that Hermione had botched that bit but who really cared. Despite the snickers from the other debutantes, she certainly didn't.

Hermione had always felt like she didn't really belong to that set somehow.

She had always preferred to read or be on a pony, pounding down the countryside with a grin on her face. Much to her mother's chagrin.

She'd never had many friends, mostly just Harry, Ginny and Ginny's brothers Fred and George. And Ron, another one of Ginny's brothers, though he was a bit apart from the others. Mostly because they bickered too much to be real friends.

Hermione had gone round and round in circles about this. She couldn't do it alone, despite Harry being there. Because he was working for those people and he liked them. There was nothing else for it. She needed backup.

The phone rang once before it was picked up. "Gin, please tell me you're sitting down."

Ginny sounded rushed. "Hermione? What do you want? I'm going into town with Ron."

Hermione grinned. "Jeez, someone's got their knickers in a twist this morning. I have a plan."

She could almost hear Ginny's eye roll. "Ugh, your plans tend to get me in trouble. What is it this time?"

"I'm going to a polo academy and you're coming with me. Mum and dad's treat."

"I think not. I don't want to play polo, you know that." Ginny sounded supremely bored by the conversation by then.

Hermione couldn't help feeling smug. "You will when you know where it is."

She sighed heavily. "Alright, I'll bite. Where is it?" The boredom was still there.

"Dartmoor. As in, Dartmoor Manor. Residence of the-"

Ginny sucked in a sharp breath. "The Malfoy family."

Hermione smirked. "Bingo."

A high pitched squeal was all that assaulted Hermione's ears after that single word. Hermione surmised that it meant that Ginny wanted to go with her.

Ten minutes later she hung up the phone with Ginny's intense excitement about their upcoming adventure still reverberating around her skull.

Ginny's family was the sweetest bunch of people but they had little money. Her father was an impoverished Viscount, The Right Honourable Viscount Catchpole, Arthur Weasley. The title was still there and would go to their eldest son when Arthur passed but with seven children in all, they were struggling to make ends meet.

Bill was the eldest and the heir to the title, followed by Charlie, then Percy, then the twins Fred and George, then Ron and finally Ginny.

Hermione preferred the company of Fred, George and Ginny but even though she and Ron were the same age, they'd always just rubbed each other the wrong way. She didn't not like him per say, they were just too different.

That very evening she sat down to compose a letter to the young Dartmoor heir.

It was difficult, bordering on painful. She had no guidelines, no fixtures to bind on her text. It was just an unsolicited letter to a complete stranger.

It took her no less than three hours to complete the letter. It was four pages long of tightly written computer text where she was explaining why she wanted to learn polo properly.

Before she could second-guess herself, before she even read the letter a fifth time, she printed it out, put it in an envelope with the address on it and sent it off with their butler.

Jenkins had sniffed pompously at the glorious idea that this missive would be going to a duke's household and ensured her that he would get it there as soon as possible.

She grinned at him. Despite his pompous ways, he really was a good man.

That night she dreamed of ponies, fields and handsome men as far as the eyes could see.

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HBSJ