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The Granger Family
You are cordially invited to the Laurel of the Loch
Festivities include:
- Feast, greeting the families Weasley, from Foyers, and Malfoy, from Inverness
- Tournament, spread across a tenday including events in archery, melee, jousting, hammer throw, stone lifting, tree climb, lake swim
- Crowning of our next King
Love and faith,
HRH James Fleamont Potter
0-0
Nessie was spotted three days ago by a Watcher in Dores, and now the tournament for the throne is due to start.
The Laurel of the Loch is a centuries-old competition that was born from the clans surrounding Loch Ness. The story goes like this: whomever shall find favour with Nessie would become King until the beast is sighted again. Fleamont Potter won the crown seventy-five years ago, so this year’s tournament will be held in the Potter’s hometown of Drumnadrochit.
“And where was it seen?” Ginny asks in a hushed voice, leaning over the counter.
I glance around the apothecary, looking for prying eyes. Aside from the two of us, it is completely empty. My heart throbs with anxiety; to be seen with Ginny Weasley in Drumnadrochit is enough of a talking matter, never mind the sighting of Nessie. Ginny and her family live in Foyers, home to the notorious – and notoriously friendly - Weasley clan. Despite their youngest son’s friendship with Harry Potter, heir to Drumnadrochit, it is still considered a social catastrophe for Ginny to be talking to the likes of me and other non-royals.
“ She was seen at Dores in the morning, Abriachan in the afternoon,” I murmur back.
Ginny whistles. “That’s a long distance.”
“Perhaps. Which of your brothers is competing?”
Ginny scoffs, throwing back her hair. “Neither Bill nor Charlie wants to be King. Percy will compete.”
The bell on the shop door dings and a tall cloaked man walks in. I try to pay him no mind, instead focusing on the red-headed woman before me.
“Hmm,” I say, “not sure where I would place my gold. Anyway, you should be getting ready for the banquet tonight.”
Ginny groans. “I know. Listen, will you come? I can’t bear to stand around with my brothers all night and everyone telling me how I will find a wonderful suitor in the depths of Whitebridge. I don’t want a suitor. However, I do have a spare dress that’s coincidentally your colour.”
I school my face into one of great consideration. “Okay, you’ve twisted my arm.”
“Good,” Ginny says, grinning. “See you tonight.” She darts out of the shop, cloak whipping behind her as she leaves.
“Excuse me, miss, I’m looking for Essence of Dittany.”
The tall man is standing before me, with the most peculiar expression on his face – as though he is trying to smile but hasn’t quite worked out how yet. I’m stumped for a moment, caught in his storm-wrenched eyes. He coughs lightly, bringing me back around.
“Of course,” I say. “One moment. Let me – ah – are you new in town?”
I head over to the right-hand side of the shop, looking for the offending item.
“Aye,” the man says, right hand brushing his blonde hair out of his eyes. “Just passing through. I heard there was a sighting.”
“And so the tournament begins,” I reply absentmindedly, eyes rushing over every bottle in the top drawer before opening the one below it.
“Do you think they should really decide royalty like this?” the man asks. “I mean, a crotchety old cynic watching for their shift to pass. Or a wizened fanatic, searching for scales in the water. Are we sure that someone has seen Her?”
Her . It is unusual these days to hear Nessie referred to as more than an It or The Beast.
“You sound like the cynic in this scenario,” I say instead. “It’s tradition.”
The man grimaces. “Sometimes tradition is overrated.”
I spot the bottle I’m looking for and place it on the counter. “Tradition is a pleasant comfort sometimes. However, the tournament itself seems a little pointless. Whoever wins Nessie’s heart wins the crown, so why bother with the theatrics?”
“You make an interesting point,” he says, amused. “Thanks for the Dittany. See you around.”
0-0
ANNOUNCEMENT
Laurel of the Loch, Participants
Of the Potter clan of Drumnadrochit, Harry James Potter
Of the Weasley clan of Foyers, Percy Ignatius Weasley
Of the Malfoy clan of Inverness, Draco Lucius Malfoy
0-0
I head over to the Potter’s castle before nightfall and Ginny wraps me up in something satin and drapes her family tartan in a sash over my chest, adopting me into the Weasley family for the night. It is without a doubt the finest I have ever looked and will ever look. I rub the edges of the sash between my fingers before Ginny bats them away, telling me something about how valuable ancestral tartan is. She grins even wider when she shows me off to her several brothers, each who compliment me and jeer at Ginny, ruffling her hair. She tells each of them off with increasingly more personal jabs before she drags me downstairs to join the beginnings of a party.
I’ve been in the castle on several occasions. With my father’s position as court physician, I’ve met the Potters before, but this night is another level. Every inch of the ballroom is decked with bubbling drinks, laden with food, and sparkling with bejewelled party-goers.
As Ginny draws me around the room, I hear the bets – five gold on the Potters, ten on the Malfoys, five on the Weasleys, twelve on the Malfoys, ten on the Weasleys… It goes on and on, and the evening starts to drag into an overwhelming fanfare when Ginny tugs on my sleeve and points to the front door.
“The Malfoys are here,” she says conspiratorially.
I follow her eyeline and my breath hitches.
The Malfoys strike a domineering form, with their night-black tartan and white-blonde hair, pausing in the doorway and then striding into the room with an air of majesty about them. One of the taller members of the group is looking straight at me.
“Why is he –” I begin to ask, but the man from the shop is already standing before me, his face sharp and his expression nothing like the one of feigned familiarity from earlier in the day.
“Draco Malfoy,” he says, introducing himself with a deep, drawling voice.
“Ginevra Weasley,” Ginny says, curtseying. “This is Hermione.”
Draco surveys me, ignoring Ginny entirely, but I cannot move. I have been caught out, trying to blend in with royals, dressed like one, and this man… He knows that I am very much not what I appear to be. Except there is one issue. I know that he too was playing pretend earlier today.
“I think I see Harry,” Ginny says slowly, dipping away from us and dashing across the room to God knows where.
“Hermione Weasley, I take it?” Draco asks sardonically, gesturing to my sash. Then he grabs my arm and drags me away from the centre of the room and towards a set of colossal windows, as though to admire the view of the Loch.
I laugh, panic rushing through me. “You said you were just passing through. You lied about who you were!”
“You’re the one to talk about making a pretence. Look at you – you work in the apothecary – you’re not a royal,” he sneers. “And anyway, the tournament only lasts a tenday or so. I am passing through.”
“You said you didn’t like tradition. You’re a liar.” I rip my arm out from his grip and massage it gently.
Draco freezes and for a moment it looks as though he might explode. There is a chortle of scattered laughter to our right and Draco’s anger seems to dissipate.
“I hope to see you at the tournament, Miss Weasley,” he says before nodding once and turning away, stalking off into the thrum now filling the room.
I give one swift glance around the room before dashing out of the room myself. Instead of heading home for the night, I make for the Loch. The night air is frost-bitten and fresh, and the water is almost completely still. I sigh and kick my shoes off, allowing my feet to sink into the ground there.
“Well, you’ve got a heck of a decision on your hands,” I say heavily. “Harry is a great man. Percy is very intelligent. And Draco is… Well, I don’t know enough about him to say.” I sit down on the ground and curl up there, staring at the water. “But I know this. Choose the person, not the family.”
0-0
The first few days of the tournament pass in a blur. Many of the Drumnadrochit villagers are invited to watch the tournament, and there are ample spectators day in and day out. Draco Malfoy, it turns out, is a force to be reckoned with. He steals the show on the archery and the melee on the first two days, sinking the bullseye five times and then taking down every opponent he faces. His jousting game is a little different; for some reason he doesn’t seem all that fond of horses. Percy favours the jousting and melee over other events.
Harry surprises everyone with his complete lack of finesse across the board, made up by his sheer determination to keep going after every beating at the melee, and to win overall at the hammer throwing.
I do notice that Harry is often distracted. When his arrow veers off on the first day of the tournament, it appears to be owing to Ginny’s laughter at a story someone was regaling. And after the third clunk in the head on day two, it is Ginny’s encouraging shout that seems to stir him back to a win the fight.
I make it my mission to head down to the water after each night, talking with Nessie about the tournament and my thoughts on the events so far. I tell her that Percy is the diplomat, Draco is the strategist, and that Harry is brute force but frightfully innocent. Any of them would be a great king.
Sometimes, instead of talking, I just embrace the silence, sitting by the waters, letting the sound of nature lap over me as I mull over the day.
On the fifth night of the tournament, there is someone else sitting by the lakeside, lamp lit by a hand-help torch thrust into the dirt. I approach carefully and, upon closer inspection, I find that it is Draco Malfoy. He is rubbing something on his shoulder and cursing to himself.
I cough, alerting him to my presence. Draco looks up, half surprised but clearly too exhausted to care much.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. Dittany.” He holds up the tiny bottle that he had bought from me just under a week ago. “I had a nasty altercation at the melee and it’s taking a little longer to return to normal than I would like. Thought I’d test out your solution.”
I swallow, nervous. “Oh. I didn’t realise you were injured. Have you not seen the court physician?”
“My father wouldn’t want me to make a fuss. Better he doesn’t know about it altogether. The problem is – ah – I can’t reach it.” Draco looks up at me, frustrated, and then he sighs. “I know everyone in Drumnadrochit is probably supporting Potter, but… Would you? It’s on my back.”
“Uh, sure, okay,” I say, taking the bottle from him. Draco peels the shirt from his back and tosses it aside, turning away from me. The mark is the first thing I notice, a mottled bruise over his skin. The second thing I notice is a series of scars, varying in size. I trace one of them and he winces under my touch. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he murmurs.
I pour a trickle of dittany over the mark and rub it in slowly, making sure that every inch of the bruise is covered.
“Done,” I say eventually. Feeling suddenly feverish, I sit down on the ground and stare out at the water. I find myself complimenting his performance, unsure of what to say otherwise. “You’ve done well so far.”
Draco laughs dryly. “’If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles’. It’s something I read once, and I think it fits here.”
“What do you mean?”
Somewhere in the far distance, the water shifts under the pale light of the moon.
“I know who I am,” Draco says quietly, as though under confession. “I am not the hero here. I know my clan's less-than-honourable history. I’ve been training for this my entire life, but I know that even if I do win, I won’t be a winner. Villains aren’t supposed to win. All I have to do is participate. I don’t fear the competition because there is nothing to lose.”
“How very astute,” I say, almost to myself.
Draco clears his throat. “Listen, I wanted to apologise for the night of the banquet. My father is a rather tense man. When I can slip away, I do, and I was worried… I was worried that he might find out I had been in the town, talking to non-royals.”
“I was worried you were going to rat me out and I would be burned alive for impersonating a royal.”
“Okay, yours is worse,” Draco says. I laugh in response - and in my chest grows a small, fragile thing. “Tell me about yourself? Who are you, really?”
The fragile feeling in my chest grows to a series of butterflies in my stomach. “I’m Hermione Granger. My father is the court physician. My mother helps my father most days, and I recently got a job at the local apothecary to help pay any due taxes, or to fund new equipment. I’m not from Drumnadrochit.”
“Where are you from?”
“I don’t remember,” I reply honestly. “I’ve lived here as long as I can remember. My parents tell me that we migrated North when I was three, but they never really say from where.”
Draco smiles, and the butterflies explode in a symphony. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Draco Malfoy. I was born and raised in Inverness in a house too big for my family, in a village too small for my father. I have been trained in kingship since I could walk, and I have always been told to follow tradition. I have a small problem with authority.”
I laugh. “It’s good to make your acquaintance.”
“Do you come here often?” Draco asks.
“As often as I can. I like to talk to Her.”
“I get that. What would you say today?”
I sigh, laying back on the ground. “Something about how the sky is extra clear tonight, or some other inane topic that she wouldn’t care to hear about.”
There is a crunching of leaves as Draco lays down beside me. “Then tell me instead.”
“Okay.”
0-0
It’s the final day of the tournament, and the last event is about to be held. My week has been a whirlwind of star-strewn evenings with Draco by the lake, talking to Nessie about my fears for the end of the competition, making flower crowns from daisy chains with Ginny, and collecting new ingredients for the apothecary. Today is the day that Nessie will choose her champion, and that by far trumps any feelings I might have about any certain royals who are participating.
The final event of the tournament is a swim across the width of the Loch, and it takes place at break of dawn, after a round of Morning Blossom on the bagpipes.
I wait by the edge of the water, watching the three princes strip down to their undergarments and take to the lake in readiness. The moment the piper ceases the song, they are off, and I watch and cheer as Draco’s white hair disappears into the water, cresting occasionally for breath.
Suddenly he stops cresting and my heart comes to a stop.
“Looks like Malfoy’s gone under,” Ginny says, hand at her mouth, horrified.
“Serves him right,” one of her brothers says. “He’s a git.”
“Ron!”
He scoffs at her. “Ginny, who do you really want to be King? Malfoy, really? He’s a villain!”
“He’s not!” My outburst surprises even me, but I can’t stop myself, the words spilling keenly from my lips. “You don’t know who he is.”
My legs move of my own accord, and then my arms, and my breathing – I’m leaping into the loch, fully clothed and determined, heading straight for the place where Draco disappeared. It’s a death trap, surely, with all the reeds and the building wind, but the lake has a restorative quality – there is something about the water, the air, the majesty of it all, that pushes me on.
Lungs burning, I reach him at last, and I dive under the water to untangle the reeds from his ankles, and drag him upwards towards the light. We explode out of the water. Draco gasps for air, breathless, and I smile a blindingly bright smile, relieved.
“The race!” I say, looking around to see that the other two have stopped swimming on their return trip from the other side. “Why has –”
“Hermione, turn around.” Draco speaks slowly, as though terrified – or perhaps in awe. And that’s when I notice the shadow being cast over the water in front of us. “You’ve been chosen.”
Legs kicking furiously, spinning myself around, I am faced with Her. The bottomless eyes of the Loch Ness Monster are locked on mine, trying to communicate a hundred thoughts at once, peering deep into my soul.
“But I’m not a royal,” I say.
“Not according to her,” Draco whispers. “Just who are you really, Hermione?”
I swallow. “I’m not sure.”