The celebration of the king's courting her was the most opulent feast Hermione had ever seen. Despite the incredible food, the attendees, the decadent jewels and dress she had been adorned with, she found it difficult to give herself over to the event and swoon like she knew she should. Her mind kept drifting to an earlier conversation with King Ernie. Apparently, to best serve her future kingdom, Hermione was supposed to do nothing.
Well, not nothing, she supposed. She should be holding tea with the other women of the court and be waited on hand and foot.
"You will be queen of Scotland by the end of the year," Ernie had said, "but first you have to learn how. This involves learning to be a lady, my dear." Eleven months of 'education.' The very thought dismayed her.
"I don't want to learn what you're trying to teach," she had told him stubbornly. She tried to pull her hand out of his, with no success. "I want to be Queen of Scotland, not Queen of Sitting Politely and Meeting Expectations. I want to serve the people!"
"Oh, Hermione. I know you better than you know yourself." She bridled. He'd known her personally for all of one week. "Of course you don't just want to meet expectations. You've always wanted to exceed them." He stroked her cheek, and despite herself she shivered. Perhaps he did understand… "That's why I know you'll do your duties as best as possible."
The hand gripping one of hers had tightly squeezed and her heart had sunk.
She was brought back to the present by a repeat of the same. Her hand was warm in his; he did care, she could make herself believe, he just didn't understand what she needed. Intent on not causing a scene, she spoke to him quietly.
"How is my duchy doing?" Hermione kept her expression smooth and pleasant, as though she was casually checking in and not desperate for any information at all.
"It's fine," the king said, waving her off. "You know that Zacharias has things under control. He may have had humble beginnings, but we can certainly trust him with something so important."
She wouldn't have trusted Zacharias Smith to keep a dead wolf from coming back to life. "That's lovely, but if I could just have some more details, or even be able to contact him –"
"My love –" and the way he said it, he really did seem to mean it – "if you insist on finding something to do, go meet with the comptroller. You can discuss some of the castle expenses." He said it kindly, with a tender smile and those gentle blue eyes. "Tea sourcing, your personal budget, that sort of thing. See someone who works for the comptroller," he corrected in a command. "He and I have business to attend to."
She assured herself that it was better than nothing.
Two days and two refusals to provide her information on her duchy later, Hermione gave in and decided to wander the east wing of the castle looking for an aide to the comptroller. (She had explicitly and in no uncertain terms been told not to bother the man himself.) Because the aides were so unimportant, no one seemed to know where to find them. The comptroller would know, she grumbled to herself. If only she was allowed to ask him.
Finally, Hermione found an aide - possibly the only aide? - and drew herself up into her Crown Princess Hermione Granger posture. She knocked primly three times on the wooden door. There was a shuffle inside and a call to come in.
She entered the room quietly and waited for the man to look up. When he did, he almost fell over himself jumping up from his chair to give a bow and a garbled apology.
"Your Grace, how can I help you?"
She looked him up and down. The accent of the lower class, but the clothing and manners of someone used to the castle. He was clearly above the station of servant, but not from a family of the court. Her gaze lingered on his face: quite handsome, she thought idly, if a bit pink in its current state of embarrassment. His hair was the bright shade of red so common in Scotland, and he wore it well.
"You may sit." The poor man nearly collapsed back into his chair. "I feel the urge to be helpful," she said coolly, "and the king has suggested that I may be of use here." The blood drained from his face; Heaven only knew what incompetence he was expecting of her. "I assure you I won't be in your way. What is your name, and how long have you worked for the comptroller?"
"Weasley, ma'am, and two years now."
Aide Weasley spent the better part of the afternoon teaching her the processes for dealing with the finances of such an expansive household. His visible tension slowly calmed, and she got the feeling that they were going to get along very well.
"My love," Hermione tried one morning over breakfast, "I wish that Zacharias would send me some stories about the duchy. Poor old Annabeth Creevey must miss my company terribly and hasn't been able to send a single letter."
Ernie's frustration with her grew daily, though to his credit he never let it slip into anger. "Hermione, you cannot keep up a charade of leadership there. Your place is here," he stressed. "You are the future queen of Scotland, and you have better things to do than deal with that nonsense. Let Zacharias handle it, and I don't want to hear another word about it." His tone implied a finality she didn't dare broach.
They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. When a servant arrived to clear their dishes, Hermione slunk away to her rooms.
She was learning needlepoint; apparently it was an appropriate skill for women to have, and according to Ernie it could be very helpful in decorating her spaces around the castle. Useful, he had said. Although she had yet to finish a single project, she found the repeated stabbing motions incredibly cathartic.
"Aide Weasley," she said from his office door, "what do you feel is the place of a woman in the running of a kingdom?"
He thought about it as she settled into her usual upholstered chair. "Well, I suppose that would depend on how the woman felt," he said carefully, eyeing the speed with which she began working her needle. "I'm sure I don't know," he tried.
"Weasley," she said shortly, "don't be a coward. Take a stance."
He swallowed. "Men and women are equally capable of such an activity." He might've only said it to avoid the ire of the future queen, but she enjoyed hearing it nonetheless.
She ordered the two of them tea and had the servant close the door on the way out. "Your king does not agree on the equal capabilities of the sexes." What followed was a rant letting out every minor complaint she had against Ernie, her voice quiet and her tone deadly. Weasley didn't visibly react beyond widening his eyes when she cursed (the first time). She didn't ask him to speak, and she left soon after she ran out of steam. It wouldn't do for him to be heard even passively disparaging the king.
By the end of spring, Hermione and her betrothed struggled to maintain civil conversation if the words 'leadership' or 'duchy' were involved. This dinner was different, somehow. The conversation was tense despite completely avoiding the touchy subject.
After an entire meal of Ernie treating her coldly, Hermione pulled herself together and asked if something was wrong.
King Ernie frowned. He seemed to be chewing his words as much as his meat. "There is a rumor." He took a deep breath. "There is a rumor that you and one of the comptroller's aides are involved in an affair."
It was easy to stay composed as she said, "That's ridiculous. I am involved in no such thing," she assured him.
And it was the truth, and he believed her.
Hermione had never even remotely considered an affair until Ernie had accused her of one, and now that he had, she couldn't keep Weasley out of her dreams. In her nighttime fantasies he called her Hermione and he ravished her passionately… in his office, in her bedroom, against a corridor wall where anyone could find them…
In her waking hours it was like everything he said was passed through some horrible filter. The thoughts became so persistent that it was difficult to have a normal conversation with him.
"Is the tea still hot?" Hermione asked distractedly one day, trying to focus on the book of numbers in front of her and not the overwhelming presence across the desk from her.
"I'm boiling," she heard in a sultry tone.
She practically fell out of her chair as her eyes flew up to him. "What?"
"It's boiling?" Aide Weasley sounded unsure.
"Oh, yes, thank you." Keep yourself together, Hermione.
In late June, Ernie brought her to see her future crown. It was larger than she expected, towering high on its perch. Looking at the beautiful object lined with fur and jewels, Hermione suddenly felt the crushing weight of the title of Queen.
She backed away from the crown's case and Ernie took notice of her erratic breathing. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
Her eyes screwed shut and she decided honesty was best. "I'm realizing now what exactly I'll be giving up when I become Queen."
"Your duchy?" To his credit, there was only the slightest of condescension.
"Myself." She said it without thinking and immediately regretted it.
"Yourself?" Ernie asked quietly. She cringed. "How on earth do you mean?"
"I don't –" Her back hit the cold stone wall and she took in a sob of breath. "I don't expect you to understand."
He didn't sound upset, only confused. "How will you be giving up yourself?"
"I don't want any of this," she said quietly. The already cavernous crown room seemed to grow and become colder. Silence filled the air between them until she felt like she was choking on it trying to get her next words out: "I'm sorry, Ernie, I don't know what came over me." Hermione slid the rest of the way down the wall until she was curled up on the ground in her poor, beautiful gown. Tears slid down her cheeks as she spoke through unsteady breaths: "What woman wouldn't want to become your queen?"
His tone was confused, verging on cool. "What woman, indeed?"
While Hermione and Aide Weasley's friendship had grown over the last month as she spent more time in his office learning, she sometimes picked up on something more. At the beginning she'd thought it was wishful thinking, but she was sure he felt something… untoward, toward her. She had taken to wearing increasingly flattering dresses to their meetings, hoping his eyes may be drawn to her ever dropping necklines.
Over the next weeks of summer, she noticed it working a few times. He had a lovely tell: his ears would go bright red. His resistance to temptation, however, proved much sturdier than hers. It soon became clear that Hermione needed to give up on him initiating anything and simply take a chance. She did just that one early afternoon after packing away her needlepoint into its small bag.
"Aide Weasley, please lock the door," she said imperiously. Alarmed, he did so. He hovered at the door as if in fear. "Weasley, what is your full name?"
"Percy Ignatius Weasley, Your Grace." At least his words were confident, his voice not shaking.
"Percy," she said, and it came out almost like a purr, "come sit here." He settled into the chair next to hers, only a small table with a teapot between them. "If I make you uncomfortable in any way, I demand that you tell me at once. There will be no trouble at all," she said gently. "Do not feel pressured to reciprocate."
"What is this about?" he asked nervously, rust red brows drawn together and eyes flitting around the room.
She leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss to his lips.
"Oh." She didn't lean back and away from him. At this distance, the brown of his eyes became stripes of shades of wood and amber.
"Are you uncomfortable?" Hermione asked in a whisper.
"No." His eyes were wide, but he seemed to be telling the truth.
"Would you like me to continue?"
Percy nodded helplessly. "Yes, Your Grace."
So she pressed her lips to his again, this time deepening the kiss. Her eyes slipped closed when he brought a hand to the back of her neck, and her heart soared as she realized this was the freest she'd felt since arriving at the castle.
One evening, after a visit with Percy, Hermione sat primly next to Ernie for dinner. He frowned as he pulled a single, long red hair from the shoulder of her dress. "Where did this come from?"
"Oh, I'm not sure." Hermione had never been able to lie with such ease before she came to the castle. She hated herself for it.
It wasn't entirely a lie, she supposed. She'd have expected any hair of Percy's to be lower on her dress. He spent most of their visits underneath it, after all.
"How is Northbrock getting along?" Hermione asked the next day over breakfast. "Not out of a drive to interfere," she said quickly and falsely, "just out of a sense of curiosity."
"Fairly well," the king said with a smile.
"Could I have any details, Your Majesty?" She tried not to whine, but it was difficult knowing that he had all the information she wanted and simply wouldn't give it to her.
"I've told you, you can always call me Ernie." He had, and he always said so kindly. "I'll ask for more information, some numbers, and let you know." He wouldn't. That's what he'd been telling her for months. He changed the subject quickly, and she knew he'd forget what he'd told her by lunch.
"Hello, Martin," Hermione said politely. "Aide Weasley is advising me on certain household expenses, but I find myself in need of fresh air. If anyone sends for either of us, we'll be found in the east gardens."
Once the guard's door closed behind them, she primly walked herself and Percy in the complete opposite direction. They didn't touch or even smile until they were well into the belly of the maze that was the west gardens.
"This garden is beautiful," Percy said in genuine wonder.
Hermione felt a blush rise in her cheeks. "Thank you. I've been tending to it."
"You don't have a gardener for it?"
She scowled. "You know very well I wouldn't want a servant handling the only bit of self-expression I have here."
"Of course." He smiled, revealing his comment as a joke, and a bolt of need struck down to her core.
"I wanted to show you my work, and I thought this would be a nice place to… speak in private. The bushes are quite dense," she said coyly. She grasped his arms and pulled herself tight against him. "They block a good amount of sound."
His gaze dropped briefly to her lips. "But not all?"
"Not all," she confirmed.
"Then I guess you'll just have to stay quiet, Your Grace," Percy growled, and she tried wantonly to grind herself against him through four layers of fabric. She whimpered as he kissed down her neck and across her decolletage.
He dropped to his knees, then, before lifting her dress and chemise out of the way. He pushed the folds of fabric into her hands, and she moaned softly before he even touched her. Holding her dress so that she was fully exposed, so that he could caress her with his tongue, was simultaneously a sensual act and overwhelmingly lewd.
Of course, he knew this. He knew where and how and when to touch her in so many different ways, exactly what to say and do to completely unravel her. He knew she was going to keen when he took her from behind against the bushes, and he knew she wanted him to do it anyways, to slip his hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds she couldn't help but make.
"There's a leaf in your hair, just there," Ernie said mildly at dinner. She refused to blush as she plucked it out and placed it in her napkin.
The relationship between the princess and her financial advisor grew beyond friends who sneaked touches when they could. Something changed as autumn crept slowly by; they no longer (exclusively) rutted in his office or her garden. She was sneaking him into her bedroom so they could make slow love on a proper bed.
The first time that he stayed overnight was an accident. They had crawled under her heavy blankets to rest between sessions and fell asleep that way. Hermione awoke with her back pressed against Percy, his cock hard against her. She ground herself shamelessly against him until he woke, and he flipped her around to finish what she'd started.
She was falling in love with him as quickly as she was realizing she could never love her king. Ernie was keeping secrets about her duchy from her: they were struggling. The advisor Ernie had replaced her with had no idea what he was doing, and her people were suffering for it. But her feelings for Percy, she knew, weren't a mere redirection or rebounding effect. She could forget the world around them when she was with him and pretend they were the only two people who existed.
It was dawn, now, almost time for Percy to sneak out of her bedroom. Hermione was drawing her hairbrush through mussed hair at her vanity, and Percy was rubbing her still-bare shoulders. He was always so affectionate. He kneeled and kissed down her neck and she shivered, overcome by memories of sensations only minutes ago. His hands found their way down her shoulders to her breasts and she let out a low moan, placing her hands on his to keep them there.
"Marry me," he whispered hotly in her ear. She started, but her hands didn't move. Her eyes met his in the mirror, and she blinked. His breath was still hot in her ear, her chest still heaving.
"What?" she whispered.
"You heard me." His hands left her breasts, returning to her shoulders. His gaze was serious in the mirror. "Marry me."
"You're proposing to me," she said dumbly.
"Yes." He dropped fully to his knees at her side and turned her to face him. "I don't have power, and I don't have riches, but I hope that I have your heart."
Hermione pulled him into a deep embrace. "You know that you do."
He pulled away and looked at her yearningly. "Hermione, I hope to keep your heart, as you'll forever keep mine." Percy kissed her gently on the nose and she felt a small smile pull at her lips. "Unless something changes, though, you'll be married to His Majesty by the end of the year."
Her eyes fluttered shut with a sigh. "It's dangerous enough now; I could never ask you to risk your life having an affair with the Queen."
"But I would," he said gravely.
Their secret was never going to last forever, but she thought it might've lasted longer than it did. After the comptroller came looking for Percy and interrupted a (fortunately chaste) kiss, it was only a matter of time until Ernie sent for her.
"You lied to me," he murmured as soon as his bedroom door closed behind the servant.
"I didn't." He frowned. "There was nothing between Per – between Aide Weasley and I at the time."
"You could have warned me," he said roughly, "but that would have been too kind. I thought you a kind woman, Hermione." She realized he was crying, and tears began to fall from her in earnest, too. She dropped her gaze in sorrow: this could mean Percy's head. Except… the King's anger was slight when compared to his raw confusion. "What could I possibly lack," he began weakly, "that he is giving you?" She remained silent, unable to find words. "Look at me." Her eyes rose to his, and again there was less anger than hurt and confusion. "That is not a rhetorical question."
She bit her lip for a short second. "Freedom," she decided to say, quiet but firm.
"Freedom?" Ernie was incredulous.
"When I am with him, I feel that I am me, myself, Hermione." The words started quietly but rose in confidence and volume. "I feel a spark of my old self, a woman who ran a duchy with pleasure and tended to her own garden without fighting tooth and nail for it."
"I didn't understand the importance of this… feeling, to you," Ernie murmured.
Not knowing if it was a good idea or a horrible one, she wrapped her small hands around his large ones. "With much respect, your Majesty, I don't believe that I am a good match for your kingdom."
"For me." His hurt came out like two short music notes.
"I think that if we met in another life and I didn't have to train to be your queen, we would get along very well," she admitted. "You care deeply about the people of this kingdom, and you are a loyal man and a delight to be around. More loyal than I, to be sure," she added with a bowed head.
In the end, it was neither Percy's head nor hers. Ernie was truly kinder than she could have ever dreamed. It may have cost her the crown, but she could only thank God that it hadn't cost them their lives. They were sent quietly to Northbrock; Hermione was excused as being too essential to the duchy to live so far away as the castle, and their separation was painted as tragic. She supposed that it was, to Ernie; she was sure, though, that there were many women lining up to ease his sadness. Percy was sent along with her as an aide she had the utmost trust in, a parting gift of sorts from His Majesty.
The truth was the worst-kept secret of the court, of course.
No amount of gossip could stop the people of Northbrock from celebrating Hermione's return – and some people from celebrating the departure of Zacharias Smith.
At a small feast, Percy slipped his hand into hers. All was right, and she felt truly free.
WC: 3777
