Chapter 8

She woke up bright and early, ready for the day. It was no surprise that she had slept like a baby that night.

She had spent the first afternoon and evening at Dartmoor chatting with Harry and unpacking. Ginny would probably have spent all night unpacking but for Hermione it took about half an hour to put everything to rights, to make it feel like a home away from home. Even her toothbrush was right by the sink.

As she had expected, she'd practically laughed all evening. Harry had put on music and they'd explored the kitchen together before making a sumptuous pasta dish. They flopped onto the sofa after dark had fallen outside. Hermione's cheeks and stomach had been sore from laughing and she felt happy and free as she collapsed on her bed.

And now, at long last, the first training session was that very day at nine a.m., sharp.

Hermione put on her favourite riding gear and ate breakfast. Fibres and fruit made the best base for riding in her opinion but it could have been sawdust for all she cared. She was so nervous and eager for the day to begin that it was endlessly difficult for her to sit still.

So she didn't, she had only half an hour to get there after all. She got up and walked as calmly as she could towards the stables. It wouldn't do to seem overly eager. Not too much anyway. She kept on muttering to herself too. "Relax Hermione. Don't walk too fast." She half-ran for a few yards before slowing down again. "You'll get there in plenty of time. Relax. Just calm down."

She sped up all the same. Again.

When she arrived, Harry was busy saddling ponies and grooms were milling about the place pulling ponies out of stalls and getting them ready. Hermione almost bounced in place, she was so excited to get on anyone of them. But then she took the scene in properly. None of the saddled ponies belonged to her. What was going on?

"Granger!" A male voice barked.

She swung around to see the vision that was Draco Malfoy standing at the end of the stables with two mallets swung over his shoulders. She straightened, ready for whatever he would throw her way. He motioned for her to follow before walking away and Hermione obediently traipsed after him. Maybe he had their ponies ready outside?

But no, that was not it.

He kept on walking away from the flurry of activity and she wondered where they were going several times. She wanted to ask but then he stopped outside an enlarged stall at the end of an empty part of the stables.

"Granger, meet Prudence and Parsley." He motioned behind him with a lazy wave of his hand.

He stepped aside and her mouth popped open extremely inelegantly. He smirked with an almost sarcastic tinge. It made her want to grind her teeth. "What is this?" She tried to keep her voice smooth and casual but it came out too high-pitched, even for her own ears.

He pointed to one of the life sized wooden horses behind him. "This is Prudence. And she will be your best friend all week."

Hermione balked. "What? No! I know how to ride!"

He gave her an impatient look, as if he had wanted to roll his eyes at her but refrained. "Yes, but do you know how to ride with one hand only on the reins and the other with a mallet in your hand, which could possibly injure your own pony if handled incorrectly?"

She didn't know how to answer that exactly. "N…no." Her voice was small and sulky. It was obvious. She had expected them to ride outside. She hadn't been hoping, she had expected it. This made her downright grumpy. She gave Prudence a dirty look.

Draco however, was completely unaware of her souring mood. "Right then. Get on."

She stood rooted to the spot, unwilling to get on that… thing.

He sighed deeply and leaned up against the stable gates with one shoulder and one boot in front of the other, looking every bit the bored aristocrat. "Granger, I am waiting. Chop-chop."

She scowled at him. "I am not a pony for you to order around."

His entire demeanour tightened in exasperation. "No, but I am the person from whom you are paying to learn polo. I cannot do that if you can't even swing a mallet the correct way."

His tone of voice was so calm and precise and it made her proud of herself that she didn't flinch at the last part. "But…"

He interrupted with obvious irritation lacing his tone. "Get on the damned horse Granger."

She ground her teeth again and got on, giving him an insolent glare. "Now what?"

He walked around her silently, watching her every move and she wanted to fidget. "Which hand is your dominant hand?"

Her brows knit, why was that important? "I'm right-handed."

He nodded once. "Good, that'll make it easier for you."

The mallets had been left outside the large stall and he went to retrieve them. He handed one to her. "This is your training-mallet. Tomorrow you will be measured and a mallet appropriate to your height will arrive within two weeks. Now, you always hold the mallet in your right hand. Always. No exceptions. Which means that you have to learn how to hold the reins with your left hand only and your knees of course."

She listened wide-eyed. She had always gripped with her knees but she had never tried to actually ride her pony without her dominant hand.

He continued unfazed. "The mallet is like a large croquet mallet but unlike in croquet, polo players do not hit the ball with the face of the mallet." He motioned to the two ends of the mallet. And then he turned it sideways. "We hit with the side of the mallet, so it forms and upside down T when lining up the shot. There is a larger surface area which is easier to utilize when you're riding at speed."

She nodded turning the mallet the right way.

He'd gotten into his stride though, so on it went. "Hand-eye coordination is an advantage when playing but it can be taught. There is one thing that Harry advised me to tell you. You cannot expect to be great within a few weeks. In polo, there is always something more to learn, for me and everyone I have ever played with or against."

She blushed. That sounded exactly like something Harry would have told her.

He didn't stop though. "Today we're going to practice swinging the mallet at the ball and I will try to hook you at random intervals. Your job is to not lose your grip on your mallet no matter how you swing it or how I try to hook you."

Hermione had forgotten all about her annoyance with him because it seemed as if he came alive when teaching her about polo, even if she was just sitting on a bloody wooden horse as if she was a child.

She was determined to do it well and so they began.

Draco was beginning to enjoy himself. She was rather fun to rile up, Prudence and Parsley had never impressed anyone. But she impressed him nonetheless.

She swung the mallet, he hooked her and she dropped it. Over and over they went and he had to admit it, she worked hard and learned faster than most. The fifteenth time she had to retrieve her mallet, he took pity on her and picked it up for her.

Her jaw was set and she glared at the mallet with a fierce determination he had only seen in one person before. Himself.

They spent the entire day at work, only broken up by tea, lunch, tea and biscuits. Their breaks were longer than what he would normally prefer but the first few days were always gruelling, especially since Granger had never really handled a mallet before. He was sure that her arms would feel like lead when she went to bed that evening.

They had spent the breaks engaging in small talk, mostly about Dartmoor and how she was settling in. She told him that she had chosen the blue room in the Dowager House and he thought it good choice for her, he was always interested in which rooms people chose for themselves. They were so distinctly different that he reckoned it said a lot about their personalities.

In the final break in the afternoon, she was visibly exhausted but he had a training plan they had to follow and every day ended at four p.m., no exceptions. He told her so and she just nodded and gritted her teeth. "I can do it."

He knew that of course. She was very determined, stubborn even. And he knew instinctively and without a doubt that she would never back down from a challenge. Even if he had only known her for a sum total of twenty-eight hours. How and why he knew the number of hours so precisely was a bit of a mystery.

She got back on Prudence and he got back into position and they didn't stop before the stroke of four. They said their goodbyes but she thought she wasn't listening. She was rubbing her hands and she walked slowly back to the Dowager House. He couldn't stop himself, he watched her as far as he could.

She was definitely remarkable. Annoying as hell but rather extraordinary.

A bath.

Then food.

Or maybe bring food into the bathroom?

No, that would be stupid. Maybe just an apple then? Or two?

First she had to get back to the house and that was a bit of a struggle. She was sore all over, especially her arms and hands were killing her.

She just needed a long soak in the overlarge spa in her room, then food and then lots of sleep. She walked in the door with a silent groan and froze.

She wasn't alone.

Someone was in the kitchen, humming an unfamiliar tune. A rather strange tune at that and Hermione frowned. It wasn't Ginny, so who could it be?

She rounded the corner and in the doorway, a petite woman with dirty-blonde hair stood smiling serenely. "Hello." Even the tone of her voice sounded serene.

Hermione didn't know what to say so she coughed once, giving the other woman a quick onceover. She was wearing a uniform of sorts with an apron bearing the Malfoy crest and it dawned on her. Of course, she was the maid that Harry had told her about. Her uniform was adorned with all sorts of badges and pins. One of the pins showed a radish. Strange.

The woman just peered at her with unsettlingly large silvery eyes and waited.

Hermione coughed again. "Uhm, hello."

She smiled a little smile at Hermione. "Hello. I'm Luna and I'll be your maid while you are staying here."

Hermione nodded. "Nice to meet you Luna, I'm Hermione."

Luna cocked her head to one side and regarded her silently for a moment before replying. "I know."

Then silence fell and for the umpteenth time that day, Hermione felt awkward. She loathed feeling that way. Luna's head cocked the other way slowly, looking at Hermione with unblinking eyes. "Wha…" She cleared her throat again, refusing to sound like a coward. "What are you doing?"

It took a while for her to answer and Hermione wanted very much to just bark at her to 'get on with it!' She didn't though and after a long pause, Luna said simply, "I like you, you know." And then she turned back to the kitchen.

She spoke with her back to Hermione in a dreamy serene voice. "I've drawn your bath in your room, there's a cup of hot chocolate with apple slices and biscuits ready on your coffee table." She paused protractedly and then, "Don't you worry about a thing, I'll get started on dinner."

Hermione blinked at the back of this strange maid. But then, Hermione couldn't not like someone who had managed everything for her when she was so knackered.

After trudging upstairs slowly she got undressed, still wondering about Luna the maid. She was quite a character but she couldn't get her mind to focus on it for long. She took off her clothes and brought her hot chocolate into the bath. After all, what was that little shelf for anyway?

She soaked for at least ten minutes before remembering that her tub had spa-jets. She fumbled around for a few minutes and then she found the perfect setting, it was a comfortable massage-stream of water and the let out a satisfied sigh while she let the water soothe her aching muscles.

She stayed in her room for what felt like hours, drinking hot chocolate and munching on the excellent snacks Luna had made for her. Feeling in a significantly better mood than when she had returned from the stables, Hermione donned a simple dress and went downstairs.

As soon as she opened the door, she heard music and laughs from the kitchen and she couldn't help herself, she went to investigate.

She was ready for Luna to be alone or maybe talking on the phone but she hadn't been prepared to see Harry's bulky frame sprawled in one of the bar chairs by the kitchen island. He was eating, of course, but at least he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt as opposed to no shirt. "'Mione! I've been waiting for you for an hour at least! How was your first day?"

She sat in the chair next to him, wincing when her forearms hit the countertop.

Harry perked up. "Want a massage?" He winked and leered with a grin and Hermione felt the corners of her mouth being tugged up.

So she nodded, she really couldn't be bothered to do anything else and the moment Harry began, she almost moaned from sheer contentment. He massaged every muscle in her arms and shoulders while Luna worked on the dinner.

It was so foreign, being here in the kitchen with these two very different people, yet it reminded her so much of home that she felt almost as if she was at home here.

Luna chattered on, a slow steady stream of conversation where she didn't have to contribute much. Within the first twenty minutes, Hermione knew that Luna had grown up a lonely child of a man with an outrageous name she couldn't remember. She'd gone to university and had been bullied frightfully due to her odd ways but she was utterly unfazed by it, which Hermione found absolutely amazing. She was highly logical, like Hermione, and she lived in a little flat behind the kitchen in the Dowager House.

Hermione's head spun with all of that information in such a short period of time. "You live where?"

Lune smiled a serene smile and went over to a blank stretch of wall next to the kitchen table. She pressed a small button concealed in the artistry of the plasterwork on the wall and a concealed door swung open.

Hermione jumped up to look closer at it, ignoring Harry's protests as he was massaging her neck. It was interesting and almost entirely undetectable when closed. She opened and closed the door several times from both sides. She just couldn't help herself, she was too fascinated by the whole thing. She stood in the doorway, "Are there more of these?"

Luna looked up from the vegetables she was stir-frying. "Hmm?"

She couldn't believe that Luna wasn't listening. "Are there more of these? These secret doors?"

"Oh yes." She said it as if it was obvious. "There are several here in the Dowager House and so many more at the Manor. And secret tunnels too. They're everywhere. You'd be surprised."

Hermione was sure her eyes were round as saucers. Secret doors. Secret tunnels. It was like out of a novel or something. And it was endlessly intriguing!

That evening, Draco was considering the fact that he might have gone too hard on the first day.

Maybe.

Probably.

Shite.

The last eight people who had been here had all been men. Strong men.

She was strong too, there was no doubt about that. But maybe he shouldn't push her quite so hard. She had never held a mallet in her hand for longer than five minutes before today.

Fuck.

Alright then. He could admit the problem, at least to himself. He would never say it out loud however. That would be far too embarrassing and unnecessary really, since he could just back off slightly tomorrow and the following days.

But she was strong. She would make an excellent polo player under his tutelage.

He had turned out more than one excellent player, however the very best of them had no contact with him anymore. Not since he lost his team. Well, his team was stolen really. He ground his teeth. That was not relevant any longer.

He refocused on the matter at hand, Hermione Granger. He had to change his approach to her, he was much too involved. Because he wanted to be involved, dammit. She was too beautiful, too stubborn and too interesting to just disregard and ignore.

But that was the one thing he could not be. Involved with Hermione Granger. He had promised his parents that he would not and he was a man of honour after all. Despite all of the white lies he had told his parents before, they seemed to pale in comparison to something as significant as this.

He gazed at himself in the mirror and said aloud to the empty room, "Do not give in. Do not let them see you struggle. Do not let them win." It didn't apply perfectly to this particular situation but it did what he needed it to do.

He pulled himself together and marched off to dinner.

And on the week went.

They kept at it day after day, and night after night she slept the deep sleep of the thoroughly exhausted.

It was the same, relentlessly. Every day she was aching but she got slowly stronger and better. There was a lot of technique in polo and she had only scratched the surface of it in her first five days at Dartmoor.

The mallet no longer felt foreign to her but more like an extension of her arm. She felt as if she could handle the mallet without injuring her ponies, just as Draco had told her.

Friday was here. The first weekend at Dartmoor. And Ginny was nowhere in sight, despite her solemn promise of only being delayed a few days.

Luna cooked for her every day, breakfast, lunch brought to the stables and dinner. And they got to know each other better. Luna loved crystals and had a lot of different stones to ward off different evils that Hermione had never even heard of along with remedies for a staggering variety of ailments.

Harry came by often and he kept on trying to get her to see his pool house. She just couldn't, she was too knackered.

Draco was an entirely different story. He was imposing and yet kind in rare instants, he was stoic and yet he possessed a diabolical sense of humour that made her cheeks ache from laughing and through it all, he was absolutely brilliant. He was able to spar with her on a wide variety of subjects, something she had never before encountered in anyone except her brother. And he had noticed her burgeoning blisters on her hands on Wednesday and given her a jar of ointment of his own making, it worked wonders overnight.

Hermione had never longed for weekend quite this much before.

She ached in placed she didn't even know had the capability to ache. Like the inside of her wrist. Or the backs of her ankles.

Everything throbbed unpleasantly and she needed sleep. And rest. To lie down for endless hours. She had practically doused her entire body in Draco's ointment and taken headache pills to get at least some proper sleep.

Harry had tried to entice her with drinks and fun at his place but she just couldn't be arsed. Sleep was much more important.

She knew that she should want to go home and spend every weekend with her family but she didn't want to leave, which meant that she was somewhat reluctant to go anywhere. Also, her family was most probably out at some event or other.

It was an excuse and she knew it.

But that was how she ended up spending the first weekend of her three-month polo apprenticeship at Dartmoor.