The Gauntlet

II

“Reality continues to ruin my life.” 

-      Bill Watterson.

It hadn’t been a joke.

That’s what had become painfully clear to Hermione over the days following her return to consciousness. The unmoving block of ice that lay where her stomach used to refused to melt, having taken up residence the moment Viktor and Malfoy had left her room on Saturday afternoon.

She’d laid there for three and a half hours in vain hope that she would fall victim to her fatigue, only to be kept awake by the adrenaline pumping relentlessly through her system. How could she – Hermione Granger, former princess of Gryffindor, pride of the Ministry’s finance department and the so-called ‘Greatest Witch of the Age’ – be involved in a three-way relationship with her famous ex-boyfriend and not-so-former nemesis? In what mind must she have been in to allow such a… thing to happen? It was wrong in every possible sense, morally base and reprehensible.

She had only felt worse when Harry and Ron had shown up the next morning, Pansy Parkinson in tow. Having been made partners for several projects at work, she and the former Slytherin had found that they had more things in common than they had previously thought. With the two years Pansy had spent abroad after the war (in self-imposed exile, though she denied it whenever asked), the dark-haired girl had gained a maturity and softness that appealed to Hermione, though the general public still mostly seemed unable to see it. The two women had become closer than even they would have thought possible, something that none of their friends appreciated or understood.

So, she was understandably surprised when her two boys had brought the former Slytherin to her bedside. It had turned out, however, that they had only done it in an attempt to divert her anger away from them. They’d had Pansy confirm what Hermione had come to realise was the truth: she, Viktor and Malfoy were indeed in a three-way relationship, and had been for the last eleven and a half months. A roiling feeling setting up shop besides that block of ice, barely registering the fact that she had forgotten almost a year’s worth of her life, Hermione had asked about Viktor’s ex and what had happened there. Pansy’s silence had said more than words ever could.

Hermione had thrown up all over the duvet.

She hadn’t noticed the nurse enter and Scourgify it clean. Nor had she paid any heed to Harry and Ron’s departure of the room and subsequent return with a doctor. When the blonde, white lab coat-wearing woman had explained just what had happened to her, she had barely paid attention and Pansy had later had to recount the events that had led to her hospital stay. Two weeks prior, Hermione had been on her way back to the Ministry, when she had been attacked by a still-angry death eater sympathiser. She had suffered a serious head injury, resulting in a concussion and the temporary memory loss she was currently experiencing.

Hermione hadn’t known whether to be disappointed or relieved that it was only ‘temporary’.

Then the blonde doctor had dropped the Hiroshima of all bombs, one that still laid waste to Hermione’s innards whenever it so much as crossed her mind. She claimed that, in order for Hermione’s memory to return fully and as fast as possible, it would be best for her to move back in with Viktor and Malfoy. Apparently, as the two men had been a comparatively new addition and had become such a huge part of her life over a relatively short period of time (the period of time that she had lost), she would be most likely to recover if she were in their company.

Turning over, Hermione had rudely requested that she be left alone.

When she was the sole occupant of the room once more, Hermione had crumpled into herself. Seemingly, it wasn’t enough that she was currently standing in second place to the Whore of Babylon. Now, she had to move in with them, too. She had never thought that she would ever be The Other Woman, either: call it a lesson from Ron and Lavender’s ill-fated but soul-crushing fling back in sixth year. She knew what it was like to feel like you had been abandoned for another, was well acquainted with the insecurities that left you crippled for years after.

That’s what had had her react so violently. Having been in a similar situation herself, how could she have brought herself to inflict that pain on someone else?

And Malfoy? Draco Malfoy, someone who she could barely stand to be in the same room as? Someone who showed little remorse for his past actions, who had stood by as…

No.

It was now Wednesday and, after growing more and more restless, she couldn’t be happier that she was to be discharged the following day. But there was no way she was moving back in with them and she would flay herself alive before she allowed them to touch her again.

Tomorrow, when Harry and Ron came to pick her up, she’d let them know that one of them would have to clean out a spare room. Hermione would be moving in. 

Just over 880 words, but as I said in ‘I’, most of the chapters will be at least 3,000 words in length and that it all depends on where I think certain parts are best left off. If you’d like, you can think of this as an addendum to ‘I’.  

Anyway, feel free to review the above if you’d like.  And expect ‘III’ to be out by Monday at the latest, maybe even by Saturday. The chapters are just flowing out at the moment, so let’s continue in this vein.

Xo

TBOF…