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
- 4
- 5
- 6
V

“But better to be hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”

― Khaled Hosseini

The lift raced along the tunnels at the speed of a Muggle bullet train. Well accustomed to the swooping feeling it gave her stomach, Hermione merely clutched onto Ron with one hand and held onto the open file she was reading with the other. It was to his credit that the flame-haired man didn’t even flinch; it was common knowledge that Hermione had the grip of a Hippogriff.

Crushed against them on all sides were other Ministry employees, all clearly suffering from the stifling heat; cooling charms were infamously useless in the Ministry’s lifts, cancelled out by the countless other charms already in place. Late summer had brought a heat wave the likes of which hadn’t been seen in years and the only thing keeping Hermione’s mind off it was the file she was currently reading on her latest project.

The lift came to an abrupt stop at the fourth floor, all its occupants lurching forward. Almost lightheaded with gratitude, Hermione rushed forward, pushing past three other employees who were also trying to step out of the lift. She took a deep breath of magically-cooled air, eyes shutting briefly in relief, as Ron shoved his way out of the metal box.

   “Fifty fucking degrees.” Ron was irritated, his freckled face deeply flushed and sweat on his brow. “Never again.”

   “Floo next time?” Hermione asked, reaching into her leather tote and handing Ron a bottle of water. He swigged then laughed, white teeth glinting in the natural lighting that graced the fourth floor.

   “Yeah.” While floo may have had its disadvantages (soot being just one of them), it was an infinitely better option than baking in those glorified ovens.

The two friends made their way through the bustling main foyer, waving every now and then to people they recognised, before turning off onto the third corridor. On the right wall was a sign pointing to the various departments of the fourth floor, including the one Hermione and Ron were headed to. Wide, long and relatively empty, the corridor had thick brown carpet that muffled the sound of their footsteps.

   “Are you sure you’re ready to come back?” Ron asked, throwing the now-empty bottle into a nearby rubbish bin. Resisting the urge to sigh heavily, Hermione gave him a long-suffering glance; it was the third time that day that he’d asked that question. An hour earlier, Ron had shown up to Grimmauld Place to pick her up for work, which she’d appreciated until he had started enquiring after her health with vigilance usually reserved for those on their death bed. At the edge of her tether, she had only just managed to prevent herself from beating him about the head with her bag. The metal hotbox that they’d travelled in for what had seemed like hours hadn’t helped, either.

   “Ron, if I have to spend one more minute in that house, I am going to go crazy and shave off all my hair.”

   “I guess.” A pause. “If only you’d thought about that back at Hogwarts.” Ron sniggered loudly as Hermione gave in and smacked him for his insolence.

   “Shut up, Ronald.” After a final slap for good measure, Hermione turned back to the file, flipping through the assorted pieces of sand-coloured parchment. Ron continued to grin, irrepressibly.

Now that Hermione had the information memorised, she’d found several discrepancies that pointed to one thing: she’d be needing Malfoy’s notes on the project in order to get the whole picture. Needless to say, Hermione wasn’t looking forward to that. While the post-July 2004 Hermione had, no doubt, shared a somewhat – ahem – different relationship with the Malfoy heir, Hermione now had a pre-July 2004 mind-set. Sure, she and Malfoy had worked on several projects since his return from abroad in January 2003, but they were hardly anything other than colleagues – at least to her current mind.

Hermione was the head of the Ministry’s finance department, Malfoy the CEO-in-waiting of Malfoy Enterprises. After the war, the Ministry had made its finance department virtually independent: allowing it to be run in virtually the same way as a Muggle banking firm. In 2002, they’d asked Hermione to run it and she had turned it into a massive success, not only doubling its substantial profits, but also taking care of tax audits, war reparation payments and partnerships with Wizarding Britain’s biggest companies. A year later, Malfoy had returned from his adjourn abroad with no explanation for his absence and taken the corporate world by storm with his incredible run at the helm of ME.

Was Malfoy a competent colleague? Yes. Could she put up with him for a couple of hours - even attend a work event in his company or eat a quick lunch? Yes. But, for reasons better left unsaid, Hermione was in no way one of Malfoy’s adoring fans. And Hermione suspected that merely ‘tolerating his presence’ wasn’t going to be enough for Malfoy.

   “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Ron’s whispered question brought Hermione back to the bright corridor and she glanced up to see that she’d reached the glass doors of her department. Beyond them, twenty odd people were in the middle of their work day: working at cubicles, conversing with colleagues and weaving between desks and chairs. She turned back to Ron who was eyeing her, clearly concerned.

   “I’m fine, Ron,” Hermione reassured him, stuffing the file into her already-full tote. But Ron wasn’t convinced.

   “I’ll just come with you to your office,” he continued, blue eyes sincere.

   “Aren’t you already late?” Hermione raised her eyebrows, lips pursing in disapproval. But his clear concern for her well-being still warmed her. Ron waved her question away, knowing that being the deputy Head Auror came with certain perks, one of them being that he could pretty much show up whenever he liked.

   “Look at them, ‘Mione.” Ron pressed his face against the glass, breath steaming up the clean surface. Amused, Hermione followed his gaze. Judging by the fact that several members of her team were still lounging around, chatting, neither she nor Ron had been spotted yet. “They’re like vipers. The minute you step in there, they’ll be all over you.”

Now, Hermione laughed. “Ron, for God’s sake. By now, I’m sure all the fuss has died down. The Prophet didn’t even have an article on me today.” The flame-haired man whipped around, face screwed up in disbelief.

   “You underestimate these people, ‘Mione,” Ron hissed jokingly, but it was clear that he meant every word. “But that is your mistake.” Without another word, he turned and took off down the corridor, black robes sweeping behind him in a manner that would have made the late Severus Snape proud. Laughter burbled up from Hermione’s throat as she watched him turn a bend in the corridor. She knew it was a bad idea to let him watch all those Muggle films.

Holding onto her good mood, Hermione gripped her tote and swung open the glass door. Sometimes, Ron could be so ridiculous.

…

Even to herself, it almost physically hurt Hermione to admit that Ron had been right. It had taken only the distance from the department’s glass doors to her corner office for her colleagues to accost her with question after question. Apparently, the Prophet and all the other rags hadn't succeeded in prising the details about her fortnight-long stay at St Mungo’s from the hospital itself, because the questions she’d been asked frankly bordered on the ridiculous.

   “My friend’s grandmother told me that Lorcan is a werewolf. Is it true that he bit you?”

   “How long were you dead for, Hermione?”

   “- Yeah! How did Harry and Ron bring you back to li-”

   “Never mind that,” shoves someone aside, “Why are you even here? Aren’t you living on borrowed time? I would be in Hawaii if I only had a month to live.”

   “Ch! You didn’t actually believe those lies, did you, Pritchett? Anyway, did you really elope with Draco and Viktor? You go, girl!”

That last one had stopped Hermione in her tracks, her heart skipping a beat. Even though it’d been over a week since she’d first heard about her trio relationship, it was startling to hear it referred to by someone outside her immediate circle. She’d brushed past Ortentia Macmillan and several of her nosiest (and noisiest) friends, trying to make her way to her office, only to followed all the way to her shimmering glass door, accompanied by even more impertinent questions.

It had taken three threats of firing and the look she had given Harry and Ron from time immemorial for the crowd to back off, returning to their desks with downcast faces. Clearly in the absence of truth (the crowd didn’t seem to know anything about her memory loss, which, not being in the mood to answer any of those questions, she was more than thankful for), speculation and rumour had run rampant; journalists had no shame. If there was one thing Hermione had learnt over the years it was that for every advantage that came with being such a prominent figure in the wizarding world, there were at least two disadvantages.

Already tired and wishing that she’d chosen to work from home instead, Hermione had collapsed into her chair and tried to rub away the headache that was tiptoeing its sneaky way to the forefront of her mind. Almost immediately, she’d spotted the new addition to her desk’s photo collection: a snapshot of her, Malfoy and Viktor laughing at the camera. Well, she and Viktor were laughing – Malfoy was looking distinctly unimpressed, though his eyes noticeably softened whenever he looked Photo Hermione’s way.

Hermione had knocked the photo onto its surface with such force that it had been a miracle that the glass hadn’t cracked.

Flustered, it had been another ten minutes before Hermione managed to bring herself to actually start working.

It was now past five o’clock and the day had improved a little. Hermione had gotten two reports done and was well into her third, paying no mind to her grumbling stomach. Unless she had plans to meet up with a friend, she rarely bothered eating lunch, choosing instead to work through the hour. You didn’t get to be the eminent expert on financial matters in the Ministry without hard work and that was something Hermione specialised in.

She signed her name at the bottom of the second report (outlining next year’s budget for the Auror Office), now, ignoring the twinge in her cramped hand. Just as she was dotting the miniscule ‘i’, there was a knock on her door. Surprised, Hermione looked up. Everyone had left about an hour ago, a few looking in to say a quick goodbye before hurrying out, and the office was now thankfully quiet. Maybe one of her colleagues had come back for something.

   “Come in!” she called, returning to the papers before her and stamping her seal onto the envelope. The door swung open but Hermione’s focus remained on her work. She scanned the report that her secretary, Drusella, had handed her just before she had hurried home to her fiancé. It was yet another outlook for the upcoming quarter, one that needed her sign off.

Hermione was so engrossed in the first paragraph that she forgot about the unidentified knocker until two Dragon-hide shoes entered her peripheral vision. None of her colleagues had been wearing Dragon-hide shoes today, and she would know - she’d spent ample time pushing said colleagues out of her way. Frowning, she traced a finger down the page, scanning quickly.

   “Can I help you?” she asked, turning to the second page of the report.

   “I should certainly hope so.” The instantly recognisable, irritatingly distinctive drawl stopped her finger in its tracks. Oh, God.

Hermione looked up to see the infamous Draco Malfoy standing in front of her desk, arms folded and clad in a black muggle suit. One of the last people she expected and one of the last people she wanted to see. This was great.

Just great.

   “Can I help you, Malfoy?” she asked, purposefully returning to her work. Hopefully, he’d get the idea that she didn’t want to see him just yet. Malfoy’s seating himself in the comfortable leather-backed chair in front of her desk indicated that he either didn’t get the idea or simply didn’t care.

Knowing Malfoy, it was the latter.

   “That little missive of yours was pathetic.” A smirk on his face, he looked annoyingly comfortable, the prat. “I do hope you’re not losing your touch.”

   “And I had hoped that my ‘little missive’, as you put it, would have made things clear.” Hermione finally looked up but kept a hold of her eagle feather quill. Malfoy’s eyes fell to it for a moment, darkening to the colour of slate, before they returned to Hermione’s.

   “The only thing it made clear, Hermione,” Malfoy drawled sneeringly, as he steepled his fingers, “is that you have become a coward in your old age.” Irritated, now, Hermione put down her quill. How dare he?

   “Oh, no, Malfoy,” she replied cuttingly. “I think cowardice is more down your alley.” Her words said one thing, but her tone and the absence of warmth in her eyes made it clear that they held a deeper meaning. The silver became storm clouds. Malfoy’s knuckles whitened and his mouth thinned into a line.

   “If you think that’s going to get you out of working with me, then you are clearly mistaken about more than just one thing,” he hissed, anger barely withheld.

   “There isn’t any need for us to have to meet up, Malfoy,” Hermione answered. “We are perfectly capable of doing the work separately and combining our efforts at the end.” She jumped as Malfoy unleashed harsh, barked laughter.

   “That isn’t why you sent that thing and you know it.” Malfoy fell silent, visibly annoyed. Hermione couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d come up with the idea of their working individually on the project earlier and had had Drusella send Malfoy’s office a missive telling him of the change in plans. Not that she’d tell him, but she knew she’d been wrong in hoping that it would work. If there was anything the last week had taught her it was that neither Malfoy nor Viktor were going to allow her just to fade out of their lives without a fight.

   “I’m not ready to see either one of you,” Hermione said quietly. “I thought you knew that.”

   “When are you going to be ready, Hermione?” Malfoy was irritated. “Because it’s become very obvious that, if you had your way, you’d never see us again and we’re not going to let that happen.” Hermione’s fidgeting with her quill was her only sign of weakness, her face steadfast.

   “You have to give me time, Malfoy. This isn’t exactly easy for me.”

   “And do you think this has been easy for us?” Malfoy’s raised voice startled Hermione, his silver eyes piercing its way through her. “Do you think you lying there, comatose, for two weeks was just a walk in the park? That we were overjoyed when the woman we love woke up without a single meaningful recollection of us? How do you think we felt?”

   “Do not shout at me, Malfoy-”

   “I understand that you’re upset and confused, Hermione.” Malfoy’s voice dropped only a few decibels, but it was his uncharacteristically sincere expression that surprised Hermione. “But no one has even thought about how Viktor and I feel about all this. You haven’t let us so much as talk to you in over a week. How can we move past this, when-”

“What makes you think I even want to move past this, Malfoy?” Hermione’s voice finally came careening back, apologising fervently for being stuck in traffic. “What I’ve been doing with you two, it isn’t – it isn’t right.” Malfoy stilled.

“Isn’t right?” Malfoy asked through gritted teeth. His features looked like they had been carved from granite, his eyes from the rock beside it. Fingers curling into themselves for protection from the now frosty temperatures, Hermione continued:

   “No, it isn’t.” She softened her voice. “A three-way relationship it isn’t – normal and-” she pushed past Malfoy’s growl, “and what we did to Penelope… I can’t be a part of that, don’t you understand?” Unbeknownst to Hermione, her brown eyes were large and pleading in her small face, which had paled considerably. Also unbeknownst to her, Draco’s heart was crumbling under almost a month’s worth of anxiety.

But Hermione didn’t know any of this because she was neither psychic nor privy to Malfoy’s thoughts, like he was to hers.

   “You should give us a chance, Hermione.” Draco’s voice was firmer, quieter now, but also bleaker. Unconsciously, something echoed in the back of Hermione’s mind. “How else do you plan to get back your memory?” Hermione was silent for a moment, contemplating his words. She’d thought the answer to this through but she had yet to admit it aloud, not even to Harry or Ron.

   “I don’t know if I want to, Malfoy,” she answered softly, eyes troubled. She looked up now to see him staring back at her, eyes now unreadable. “It would do more harm than good.”

   “All the things we’ve been through, how much you love us, the projects we’ve completed,” oddly, he sneered those last words, “You’ll never know about them, Hermione, and if there’s one thing you hate, it’s not knowing something.” And if Hermione hadn’t already suspected they’d had a deep relationship before then, that last sentence hammered it home. He knew her. Really knew her. Maybe…

No.

   “Well, if you won’t move back in with us, at least agree to do this damned project with me.” Seeing that the door had been pried slightly open, Malfoy took his chance. “We’ve only got a few weeks to go, anyway.” For the first time, Hermione was torn. Malfoy was right, she couldn’t stand not knowing and she had so many questions. How Malfoy, with all his Muggle issues, had decided to start dating her, what exactly had happened with Penelope and Viktor, how Hermione had agreed to a triad relationship in the first place. But at the same time, there were some things one was better off not knowing. Could forgetting all about Malfoy and Viktor have been a blessing in disguise?

But she’d never know unless…

   “Fine. We’ll work on that wretched project together.” Hermione reluctantly gave in. When a ghost of a smile crossed Malfoy’s lips, she rushed on, “But only for the next few weeks. After that….” Malfoy waved an aristocratic hand.

   “We’ll just see about that, Hermione.” Clearly satisfied, Malfoy was rising from his seat and adjusting his suit jacket (Hermione wondered just when he’d started wearing those), when a knock came at the door.

   “Oh, God, who is it, now?” Hermione’s head dropped into her hands. That headache from earlier was making a stealthy comeback, a pulsing starting up at the base of her skull. “Don’t tell me it’s Viktor. I just managed to get rid of one of you.” She was only half joking.

   “Truly hilarious,” Malfoy replied dryly. “But, no. He has an away match in Manchester.” Now that he mentioned it, Hermione did recall Ron mentioning something about it at breakfast. So, then who was that at the door?

The knock came again,

   “Come in!” Hermione called, reclining back in her wheelie chair. When the door remained closed, Malfoy rolled his eyes and walked over to open it himself. Standing there, hands clasped behind his back, was Ernie Macmillan. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, his gaze flickering between Hermione and a still Malfoy. There was an odd beat, before he stepped into the room. Hermione watched, confused, as he tried to edge past the platinum-haired man, only for the latter not to give an inch. Instead, Malfoy turned his head and gave Hermione an enigmatic glance.

   “Tomorrow, Hermione,” he ordered, before turning back to face the fidgeting, sweaty man before him. Hermione frowned as the two men sized one another up like two circling tigers. Well, more like one circling tiger and a helpless gazelle. Just as she was about to speak up, Ernie shifted to the side.

   “Malfoy, I didn’t know you’d-” He was cut off by the icy, sneering glance Malfoy sent his way, before the pureblood heir swept past him as if he were no longer even there. Visibly discomfited, Ernie cleared his throat a couple of times, eyes wide, the gazelle that just escaped certain death by the skin of its teeth.

Hermione Granger, meet your ex-boyfriend.

Because that was what he was. Sure, in her mind she was still dating him, but, in reality – in August 2005 -, she was now with Malfoy and Viktor. And there was no way Ernie knew that he was the last man she remembered sleeping with.

Another root left exposed to the harsh elements of Mother Nature.

   “What can I do for you, Ernie?” Hermione ignored the odd jolt she got at seeing Ernie for the first time in what felt like only weeks to her, but what must have been months to him. After all, according to Harry, he’d been working abroad for some time, now.

He’d actually done it.

Ernie jumped and turned to Hermione, as if surprised at her finding her in the room. He took another step forward, clearly gathering his composure, before answering, “I’m here to pick up Ortentia. Do you know where I can find her?” Of course, his sister. Ortentia Macmillan was one of the hardest working people in Hermione’s department, one that she would seriously have to consider promoting soon or risk losing to a private company.

   “She’s not here, Ernie.” Hermione’s eyes scanned Ernie’s damp face for any sign of regret, loss or even discomfit that didn’t have to do with Malfoy’s brush off. But she got nothing.

No surprise there.

   “She left about an hour ago,” she continued, returning to her papers, inexplicably disappointed. By now, it was irrational of her to be: she knew what Ernie was like. But her heart and mind were two different things, try as she might to make it otherwise. Having recovered sufficiently, Hermione looked up as Ernie dusted down his robes – a nervous habit that had always irritated her. “What are you doing back in London?”

   “I have a week off and thought I’d spend it with family.” Ernie’s tone was as pompous as it had been back at Hogwarts, his chest visibly inflated by self-importance. “Well, I’ll just be going then,” He looked about to say something, but, clearly deciding against it, turned and walked to the door, before pausing. “I heard you were in the hospital. I hope that you’re doing better.” He turned back to look at Hermione and now she saw regret - regret tinged with sadness. Despite her earlier irritation, her stomach dropped a few centimetres. Any hope that they’d ended things on a good note raced over to the fireplace and took the Floo.

Without waiting for an answer, Ernie nodded briefly and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Unable to hold it together any longer, Hermione collapsed against the back of her chair, reeling from what she had just had to accept.

She could no longer pretend to herself that Penelope Clearwater had been the only one hurt by she, Malfoy and Viktor’s relationship. Going by the look on Ernie’s face (and a helpful dose of the women’s intuition she had never believed in), the former Ravenclaw wasn’t the only one who had been cheated on.

…

And that’s V!

Longer than the other chapters at almost 4,000 words, this is more of what you can expect from here on out, though it will still be a slow build up. We still have a long way to go.

This chapter took quite a lot out of me! LOL! This story is a lot angstier than I expected (though it might not seem that way right now), somewhat more twisted with moral issues I never thought would come up. Still, I’m more excited for this than I have been for any of my other stories.

Well, let me know what you think. I know a lot of you were itching for some action with D&V and we finally got there. Expect Viktor to make an entrance sooner rather than later.

Thanks for all the reviews. I read and love each and every one. ^.^

Till next week,

TBOF.
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Gauntlet