Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Gauntlet	By : BirdofFire Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 10159 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I am responsible for all that you have read and enjoyed in... Oh, wait, wrong disclaimer. Ahem. All rights for the creation of the Harry Potter series are property of JK Rowling. I do not make any profit from them or this work of fiction.

Chapter List
- 1-I
- 2-II
- 3-III
- 4-IV
- 5-V
- 6-VI
- 7-VII
- 8-VIII
- 2
- 3
- 4
III

“Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.”

― Henry Rollins

  “What have you got in here, Hermione? Bricks?”

Hermione dumped her heavy duffel bag on the side table, not even bothering to glance at the raven-haired man struggling behind her. “Oh, ha ha, Harry. It’s almost as if you don’t know a levitating charm.”

She almost heard the sound of Harry’s eyes rolling to the ceiling as she shrugged off her peacoat. A moment later, several large boxes floated past her, down the corridor and up the stairs.

“I’ll just take these on up for you, then?” Harry was sarcastic as he walked past, a smaller box labelled ‘toiletries’ under one arm.

   “Please and thank you!” Hermione called after him, choosing to ignore his tone.

Having told the hospital staff in no uncertain terms that she would not be leaving with the two men who had slept in the waiting room and, no, she would not remove the order she had issued barring their admittance to her room, Hermione had let Dr Besette know that she would, in fact, be going home with one of her boys. When Harry and Ron had turned up just over an hour later, she had had her bag packed and ready to go. After being told that one of them would have to put her up indefinitely, they had fruitlessly tried to convince her to move back in with her former paramours, only to be sternly rebuffed. Harry, living alone, had then agreed that he’d clean out her old room at 12 Grimmauld Place and had been unceremoniously sent to the townhouse she shared with Viktor and Malfoy to pack up some of her belongings.

Three and a half hours later, here Hermione and Harry were: boxes and bags in tow. Hermione had almost forgotten how much she hated moving. She had no idea how she’d put up with doing it just a few months ago, and moving back into the apartment she’d lived in before shacking up with Viktor and Malfoy just wasn’t an option.

For obvious reasons.

   “Hermione!” a muffled call came from upstairs. “Where do you want me to put these?” Pitying Harry for the first time in hours (he’d spent the night apprehending a suspect and had then had to shift nine large boxes from the townhouse to Grimmauld Place, poor thing), Hermione hurried down the dark corridor and bounded up the stairs. Harry was in the first bedroom on the right, surrounded by floating boxes. He looked dusty, tired and irritable, and anyone who knew the Man Who Triumphed, knew that that was a bad combination.

   “Just put them down over there in the corner,” Hermione gestured to the far right corner of the room beside the bay window. Light streamed in through the freshly-washed panes, reflecting off the white sheet-covered furniture. Walking around the large, octagon-shaped room and pulling off the sheets, Hermione was once again grateful for the renovations the house had undergone in the last few years. After all the fuss around she, Harry and Ron had died down after the war and some semblance of normality had been re-established, the three of them had (despite Harry’s protests that the contents of just one of his Gringotts’ vaults could more than cover the cost) combined the money that had come with their Orders of Merlin (First Class) and had renovations done on the house at Grimmauld Place. The faulty plumbing had been gutted, the carpets pulled up and replaced by pine floorboards, the old chairs and sofas reupholstered and every room in the house had been re-painted and extensively re-decorated: with cream, wine and warm chocolate being the primary colour scheme. The result was the brighter, cleaner and comfortably furnished house the three had co-inhabited for over three years, and Hermione had loved returning from her replacement year at Hogwarts to this very room.

An immense stone fireplace roared on the wall opposite a large, damask-covered queen-size bed. Against a smaller wall was a wide oak desk, Hermione whisking a white sheet off it, now, to reveal the familiar polished surface. Heavy, burgundy velvet curtains that hung on either side of the window fell to the floor, and the view thus afforded was that of the narrow but well-kept garden and setting sun. Late summer and the onset of autumn ensured that the trees’ leaves weren’t as green, but the air was still heavy and thick.

Something under the giant oak at the foot of the garden caught her eye.

Hermione turned just as Harry wiped his sweaty brow, the light picking up the brown highlights in his hair that the August sun was responsible for.

   “So, you finally put in that swing?” she asked him. Harry froze, eyes flickering to the garden below.

   “What?”

   “The swing,” Hermione turned back to point out of the window to the carved, homemade swing hanging from one of the oak’s biggest boughs. It swayed in the soft breeze, its creaks reaching their ears. “You finally put it in.”

   “Hermione…” Harry’s failure to finish his sentence brought Hermione’s focus back from the swing to her best friend, who had a look of suspicion on his face.

   “What, Harry?” she asked, wondering what he was up to. Harry paused and scratched his head for a moment, eyeing her.

   “Are you sure you’ve lost your memory, or is there something else going on here?” he asked, carefully. “Because if there is, you know you can always tell me. Whatever it is.” Hermione was confused. What on earth was Harry talking about, now? With the events of the last few days, maybe she should prepare to batten down the hatches.

   “Of course I’ve lost my memory, Harry,” she replied, curtly, hands coming to her jeans-covered hips. “How else could I have forgotten all about my little affair with the ‘Bulgarian bon-bon’ and Witch Weekly’s Bachelor of the Year?”

   “Well, he came in at second place, actually-“

   “Harry!”

    “Well, it’s just that… I didn’t even start thinking about installing a swing until you mentioned it… and that was in May.” Harry explained, hesitantly, as he watched Hermione. For the second time in a week, Hermione’s stomach hit the floor and kept going.

   “I don’t understand.” Her tone was careful, distant, her mind far away from Grimmauld Place and currently dancing around the possibility that she may just have granted the late Bellatrix Lestrange’s wish; to see Hermione run completely mad.

   “Well, you mentioned it and then Ron, Viktor, Malfoy and I built the thing for Teddy in June,” he continued. Noticing that Hermione had yet to move anything than her lips, Harry stepped closer, concern shining in his emerald eyes. Outside, a robin called to its mate, piercing the eerie silence.

   “I... I…” Hermione could barely comprehend what was going on, let alone attempt to finish a sentence. Large hands grasped her arms, seeping much needed warmth into her frozen system.

   “How can you remember that, but not the whole Viktor and Malfoy thing?” The raven-haired man was gentle. Hermione was shaking her head before she even realised it. How did she remember something that small? How was that possible when even Dr Bassette had said she’d suffered almost total memory loss? It just didn’t make sense.

   “I don’t know.” Her voice was small and defeated even to her own ears. She took hold of Harry’s hands, hoping to absorb even a little of his strength. Strength she’d seemed to have lost over the last few days.

   “Well, what else do you remember?” Harry asked, stooping down from his 6”3 height to make eye contact with her. Hermione shrugged, habitually, before actually taking register and, almost immediately, snapshots and lines from odd conversations flooded her mind.

Reeling, she sat, heavily, on the window-seat. Harry, lovely man that he was, instantly rushed forward.

   “What is it? What’s wrong?” His words fell over one another, ringing with concern. “If it’s too much, you don’t have to answer.” Hermione’s hand came up to his arm, reassuringly.

   “No, no, it’s okay,” she answered, eyes unseeing, focussing on the memories still pouring in. And the overwhelming relief that was making her lightheaded. “We – we had lunch together last Friday – well, not last Friday,” she corrected herself. “But the Friday before it happened. We were talking about Ron moving in with Luna…”

   “Yes!” Harry seized onto her words. “Yes, we were! But how do you know that?” Looking up at her best friend for the first time in a while, Hermione shrugged.

   “No idea…” She paused, searching again for any memories concerning Viktor and Malfoy, but there was no response. Blank spaces - gaping holes where she knew memories should be. “And there’s still nothing about Viktor and Malfoy. In fact, the last time I remember seeing them was…” Here she trailed off, rooting through her mind for any recollection of the two men, until, at last one, came to her. “Penelope had just moved in with Viktor. He and Malfoy came to my office for lunch and he told me, but that was last July! I… I don’t – how could this have happened?” she asked, bewildered, large brown eyes fixed on the wooden floorboards. Seeking to comfort Hermione, Harry took a seat beside her.

   “Do you remember anything about them since then?”

Hermione shook her head.

   “Nothing?”

Another shake of the head. “This just doesn’t make any sense!” Hermione stood up in frustration, starting to pace. There was nothing she hated more than being kept in the dark, and to have such a huge part of her life just ripped from her, leaving only roots were there had once been full-grown redwoods, was weighing on her, heavily. “Some events that I know must have happened since, I have absolutely no recollection of!” She swivelled on her heel, Harry watching her progress like a Labrador gazing out of a car window. “Like George and Angelina’s wedding, for example. Did that go ahead?” Harry nodded

   “Yep, in January. That was your first event as a ‘tripling’, or whatever it was that Fred called it.”

Hermione threw her hands into the air, irritated.

   “Exactly! And I can’t remember it! Just like I can’t remember anything about actually building that damn swing or where I’ve been living for the last few months or how I ever agreed to being involved in something like – like that in the first place.” Because that was the real issue here. Hermione couldn’t stand the fact that she had been an active, willing participant in something like a ménage à trois, let alone handle her inability to remember just what had led to it in the first place.

As Harry continued to watch her pace around the room, Hermione struggled to think of how this could have happened. How could she remember so much about work, friends, parties, outings – but, when it came to anything that contained so much as a mention about either Viktor or Malfoy after last July (more than a year earlier), her mind was blank. A blackboard wiped clean, leaving no trace of what had been inscribed upon it beforehand. It was frustrating, irritating and more than a little tiring.

   “What do you want to do, Hermione?” Harry asked, finally, having grown tired of Hermione tracing the same path back and forth across the room. By this time, the shadows in it had grown longer and he still hadn’t had any sleep in almost thirty-six hours. But, being occupied with her own considerable problems and not being a legilimens by any stretch of the imagination, Hermione paid Harry and his sleepless state no mind. “We could always go back to St. Mungo’s for a second opinion? Tell them what’s going on?”

Those words brought Hermione crashing back to earth. The thought of spending just one hour at St. Mungo’s was more than she could bear.

   “No, Harry,” she replied, curtly. “We will not be going back to St. Mungo’s.” Harry looked about to interrupt her so Hermione cut in, “I think we’ve spent more than enough time in hospitals to last us a lifetime.” Harry fell silent at the heavy meaning in her words and the two friends shared an understanding look of those who had seen more in their lifetime than anyone should have to. “I think I’ll just get some sleep,” she took up again, her tone gentler. The raven-haired man frowned, the bags under his eyes grouping up into luggage.

   “But it’s only nine o’clock,” he said, confused, glancing at the dusty clock on the wall for confirmation.

   “And I just spent a fortnight at St. Mungo’s, lost my memory and found out I’ve been shacking up with Viktor Krum and Draco Malfoy for the last six months.” Harry contemplated Hermione’s words for only a moment, before acknowledging their validity and waving a hand in surrender. The green-eyed man propelled himself from the cushy window-seat and crossed over to his female best friend, pulling her into a forceful hug.

   “Get some rest, Hermione,” he murmured. “You really scared us this time.” Tears pricking her eyes at the slight tremble in his voice, Hermione hugged him back just as fiercely. Where finding out she was a glorified whore hadn’t brought her to tears, Harry’s quietly expressed worry did. They had survived seven years of fighting the worst evil the Wizarding world had ever seen, emerged still – mostly – standing, and now to have to suffer this? Surely they’d been through enough? In Hermione’s opinion, there should be a limit on how many life-threatening experiences one should be subject to during their lifetime, one she had undoubtedly reached over a decade earlier.

Seeming to sense her melancholy, Harry drew back, eyes narrowed in concern.

   “You okay?” he asked, softly. Hermione tried to brush away his worries with a slight smile and shake of her head.

   “I’m fine, Harry,” she reassured him. “Just tired.” Reinforcing her smile, she was careful to hide her words’ double meaning. He eyed her for a moment longer but, when she continued to smile firmly at him, he let it go.

   “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning, then.” With another quick squeeze of her upper arms, the raven-haired man hurried out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Undoubtedly, he wanted to catch a few hours of sleep before heading back to the Ministry to wrap up the case he had declined to provide details of. At the thought, Hermione’s forced smile twisted into a smaller but more genuine, affectionate one. It wasn’t like Harry to be so secretive about his work unless it was for a good reason, so she knew that he would also tell her all about it in time. Or if he needed her help, as he was still wont to.

It was a shame he couldn’t help her, though.

A relationship with two men that she couldn’t remember and huge chunks of her life over the past year missing and all because someone didn’t agree with her involvement in ridding the world of an evil it had never witnessed before. Torture, murder and all the other atrocities she had witnessed or suffered over seven years ago, they all made at least some sense because they were during the war. But this was peacetime. How could she be expected to understand it now?

And, after everything the war had taken from her – physically, emotionally, mentally -, how could Hermione get past something like this when she didn’t think she had it in her anymore?

Outside in the garden, a colder breeze picked up.

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