Forgotten Not Forgiven

Author's Note: Thanks to my friend Laurel for her Beta work on this story

Chapter 3 Trouble with a Capital ‘T’

Ginny sat on the edge of her bed staring at the floorboards while Draco showered. She desperately wanted to get him out of her house before Harry got home and found him there. Telling her husband that she’d been cheating on him with Draco was going to be difficult enough without the former Slytherin standing right there. The afternoon had been rushed; she’d been frantic to get her work done so that she could leave the office undisturbed. She hurried through a meeting with the editing team and even ate lunch as quickly as she could; all to prepare for her lunch date with Draco at her house.

In fact, the only thing that didn’t seem rushed was Draco.

He arrived late, which was odd for him, and when he finally entered the house he wanted to tour the Potter family home. “So this is Potter’s study?” he asked when they got to the second level of their cozy townhouse.

“Yes, but we shouldn’t go in there,” she warned. “It’s where he goes to be alone.”

Draco’s eyebrows shot up, clearly intrigued. “Does he spend a lot of time alone?” he asked.

“He spends most nights in here, yes,” she replied.

“I want to look around,” he announced before slinking into the room. Ginny sighed and leaned against the doorjamb as Draco pilfered through the bookshelves and smiled at Harry’s collection of Quidditch tomes and play manuals. Across from the bookshelves were large glass cabinets where Harry’s brooms were displayed when he wasn’t flying, though she hadn’t seen him use any of them in quite some time. Between the two cases was Harry’s desk, which was so littered with parchments and odds and ends that you couldn’t see the rich wood surface.

“Who is this?” Draco asked, picking up a tiny framed portrait from Harry’s desk. Ginny rounded the desk and leaned in to scrutinize the picture Draco was referring to. It was a tall man with sandy blonde hair that had his arm slung around Harry’s shoulders. They were grinning at the camera and Harry looked a bit sloshed as he looked from his friend’s face into that of the photographer.

“That’s Allen,” Ginny answered at last. It had taken her a moment to recognize him because she had never seen that particular picture before. “He was Harry’s partner during Auror training.”

“He wasn’t paired up with Weasley then?” Draco asked curiously as he studied the photo further.

Ginny shook her head and looked across the desk, spotting a couple of other pictures of Allen. “No, Ron was a late entry to the program and Harry had already been partnered with Allen. He seemed nice enough, but Harry never talks to him anymore. I’m actually surprised to see so many pictures of him here. I assumed they had a falling out.”

Draco didn’t respond as he scanned the other pictures, one of Allen in full Quidditch gear, holding his broom, and the other was of Harry and Allen at what appeared to be a Ministry party of some sort. There was a photo of his and Ginny’s wedding, as well as an old school photo of Ron, Harry and Hermione, and a large one of Teddy, Harry’s godson, which Draco took several moments to admire.

“I haven’t seen Theodore in a couple years,” Draco admitted.

“Teddy stays here every other weekend,” Ginny told him. “He’s a bright kid.”

“Did we already pass his room?” Draco asked, looking as if he were trying to recall a young boy’s bedroom.

Ginny laughed and shook her head. “No, you would have remembered that. His bed is in the shape of a red dragon and the boy probably has a hundred other toys in there as well. Harry spoils that boy rotten.”

With a cheeky grin, Draco pulled Ginny closer and kissed her cheek. “Show me where you and Potter sleep,” he purred.

She laughed and pulled him along further down the hall to the master suite. “This is it,” she announced, doing a little twirl before slipping her shirt over her head and lying on the bed.

“No pictures of you and the Mister in here?” he asked curiously.

Ginny frowned across at him and then nodded toward the nightstand on the other side of the bed. “Not of the two of us, but I keep one of Harry over there on my side.”

Grinning like the cat that caught the canary, Draco moved closer to the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he did. “So your husband doesn’t keep your photo by the bed, but he has so many pictures of his ex-partner lying around?”

“I assume you have a point?” she asked through pursed lips.

“It’s just that you told me Potter was sleeping around too, but you never mentioned that it was with men,” he teased, a wry grin twisting his face.

Ginny slapped his chest playfully. “Now that’s just mean. I know you don’t like him but there’s no reason to call him gay.”

Draco shrugged, but the look in his gray eyes said he wasn’t joking.

“I’m serious,” Ginny reprimanded. “Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t give you the right to badmouth my husband. I swear to Merlin, Draco, if rumors questioning Harry’s sexuality make it to the papers I’ll know who to blame,” she warned.

Draco lifted his arms in defense and stalked closer to her before pouncing and sending them both sliding across the bed.

The actual sex was a blur; Ginny couldn’t help but notice that Draco wasn’t focused on her as much. At first she contributed it to the fact that they were in a new place and perhaps he was as worried about getting caught as she was. But then she noticed that his eyes kept flicking up to the portrait she had on her nightstand and it was there, in fact, that Draco was looking when he climaxed.

“This competition between you two has got to end,” she growled, throwing Draco off of her and covering her naked body with a sheet.

“What?” he asked, clearly confused, but perfectly comfortable sitting on the edge of the bed exposed.

“I saw you looking at that photo of Harry and I know what you’re thinking,” she huffed. His metallic eyes widened slightly, but she proceeded without letting him respond. “Are you only sleeping with me because I’m married to him?”

“You’re being irrational, Ginevra. Where did this come from?” he asked calmly.

“You were always out to beat him in school, always wanting to compete and win against the Great Harry Potter. Is this just an extension of that? Do you think you’re winning now? Does fucking his wife in our bedroom make you the victor in this game?” she snarled. She was angry, furious even, and she directed it for the first time ever toward Draco. It felt good to yell at him, he was her downfall after all; always popping up just when she’d convinced herself to be a good wife. There he was, her Pale Beauty, trying to whisk her away. It was bad enough that she was cheating on Harry, but to cheat on him with a man that was simply using her to get back at Harry for some old grudge?

“My sleeping with you has absolutely nothing to do with challenging Potter,” he assured her. “How about I go take a shower and you cool off fora moment,” he offered before sliding off the bed and padding toward the open doorway.

She’d been so preoccupied with her argument that she hadn’t thought to deny him, and now there she sat, looking down at her bare feet, worrying that Harry might pop in at any moment.

“That bathroom is brilliant,” Draco said as he towel-dried his hair.

“You like that?” she asked sweetly. “Harry designed it,” she told him in a menacing tone.

Draco rolled his eyes. “If I wanted to enact some revenge on Potter by sleeping with his wife, wouldn’t it be better if he actually knew about it?”

Ginny sighed and fell back to the mattress. “Yes, I suppose so. I just-“ she began, but she didn’t have the words to explain why she felt so conflicted with Draco. He patted her on the knee before slipping into his discarded trousers and heading for the door.

“I should be off. We wouldn’t want Potter to come home and see me here,” he reasoned with a smirk. “Talk to him about the Fundraiser, okay?”

Ginny only had time to nod before Draco slipped out of the room. She listened to his footsteps all the way up the hall, down the stairs and heard the telltale click of the door as he shut it behind him. With a sigh she quickly dressed and flooed back to her office to finish out the rest of the day, wondering when she would get up enough Gryffindor courage to end her affair.

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Harry paced his office before lunch trying to decide what the best way was to tell one best friend that he knew she was cheating on his other best friend. With a sigh he decided he’d best just get it over with and he walked downstairs to meet Hermione in the lobby. Her arms were laden with books that Harry took from her, in a gentlemanly manner, as soon as he arrived. “Did you think I would be boring?” he teased.

She blushed a bit and shook her head. “Of course not. I need to return all these to the library and thought we could swing by on the way to lunch.”

“Sure thing,” he replied, not sure what else to say for the moment. He usually felt comfortable and even chatty with Hermione, but today was different. Today he had to talk with her about a serious issue and he still had no idea how to broach it.

Harry was silent for most of their walk. Hermione told him about her latest case in the legal department and how she was beginning to suspect her client of being guilty, but didn’t know what to do about it. Harry nearly laughed out lout at the irony of it and after they’d returned her vast selection of tomes to the library, he asked his question. “So how are you going to do it? How will you tell your client you think he’s guilty of killing that woman?”

“I can’t tell him,” she hissed. “He’s our client. He’s hired us to help him and I can’t just blab what I know, at least not until I take myself off of the case, which I’m doing this afternoon.”

“What’s the difference?” Harry replied, thoroughly confused.

“It would be like you telling an employee you think their wife is all wrong for them, which is totally against the rules, or you telling your friend that you don’t think his wife is right for him, which isn’t against the rules really but is still frowned upon, so it’s still hard to talk about. But –“

“Hermione,” Harry interrupted with a laugh. “You’re babbling.”

She blushed and shook her head. “Right. Do you understand what I mean though?”

“I think you’re trying to say that a friend should tell you when you’ve messed up so that you don’t do it again,” Harry told her; though it wasn’t her point at all it was certainly his.

“Er-“ she replied, looking at Harry skeptically. “That’s not really it, but-“

“Mione I know you’ve been cheating on Ron,” Harry blurted and the pair stopped short on the sidewalk, still a block away from the café.

“What?” she shouted, her eyes narrowed and angry. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Harry sighed and stared at his shoes for a moment before taking a deep breath and proceeding. “I was doing surveillance at the Baglioni hotel last week and I saw you there.”

“That’s impossible. I’ve never been to that hotel in my life,” she replied.

“I saw you, Hermione, and the bartender in the lounge identified you too, he said you’re there all the time,” Harry added, wishing he didn’t have to get into so much detail and that she would simply come clean.

“I don’t know who you saw, Harry, but I assure you it wasn’t me. Ron and I are very happy together; I have no reason to have an affair,” she explained tightly.

“Look, Mione I won’t get mad and I won’t tell Ron, it just has to stop, okay?” Harry begged. “I couldn’t stand to see you two break up.”

“Harry,” she bit out. “For the last time I’m not sleeping with anyone else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Dammit, Mione. I saw you! You were wearing Ginny’s scarf, the green and blue one I bought her. I even thought you were Ginny at first and I chased after you but you got away, and when I went back the bartender told me you came there all the time and your name was Hermione,” Harry shouted, getting angry that Hermione continued to deny it, even though she’d clearly been found out.

“So you didn’t see me,” she reasoned bitterly. “And did you think there might be more than one woman in London named Hermione?”

“Now who’s being ridiculous?!” Harry shouted. With a frustrated scream, Hermione turned to walk back to the Ministry building. “Hermione?”

“I’m not discussing this with you anymore, Harry,” she called back to him, obviously perturbed.

“Will you stop?” he called after her.

“I can’t stop what I never started!” she shouted back.

With a sigh, Harry sank against a nearby wall, ignoring the odd glances he got from people passing by. He had told her he wouldn’t tell Ron, but she had sort of left him with no choice. If she wasn’t going to stop, then Ron had to know. He would certainly want someone to tell him if Ginny were cheating on him.

With an exasperated sigh Harry Apparated within a few blocks of his house and slowly walked home. He didn’t think he could muster up the energy to go back to work. As he rounded the corner of his block he saw a streak of blonde and looked across to see none other than Draco Malfoy crossing the street.

“Malfoy!” he shouted and the man turned toward him and smiled.

“Well, well if it isn’t the famous Harry Potter,” Draco greeted and walked over to clasp Harry’s extended hand. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“I live here,” Harry replied with a smile. “How about you? Sneaking off from your latest conquest?” he asked with a wink.

Draco chuckled adjusted his belt buckle. “Something like , did you get the invitation to the Fundraiser I’m holding this year?”

Harry blushed slightly and nodded. “Er, yeah. I don’t think we can make it.”

“Why not?” Draco asked. “You were such a draw last year, people will be expecting to see you.”

“I’m not really a fan of those kinds of things,” he muttered in reply.

Draco seemed to think of ‘no’ as a poor reply and obviously wouldn’t take it as his final answer. He placed his hands squarely on both of Harry’s shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. “I’ll take it as a personal affront if you miss it. We had such a good time last year, didn’t we?”

Harry nodded dumbly, unable to say more. It was true that he had spent a surprisingly comfortable few hours in Draco’s company that night while his wife ran off trying to secure interviews with some of the other guests. It had been awkward at first, but slowly Harry realized that Malfoy was funny and adventurous and even a bit kinder than Harry had always thought.

“Alright, we’ll go,” Harry agreed at last and he knew it was the right decision when he saw Draco’s warm smile.

“Good. Well, I should be off. See you at the Fundraiser,” Draco told him and with a wave, he took off down the street.

The contentment he’d felt with Draco’s camaraderie quickly faded as he remembered what he still had to do, and as he made his way to the townhouse, Harry’s thoughts were completely distracted by it. He had no idea how he was going to tell Ron, the guy who was Best Man at his own wedding, that his own wife was sleeping with someone else. It wasn’t fair for him to be the bearer of bad news, but someone had to do it, so it might as well be him. Upon arriving home, he went straight up to his bedroom to undress only to find it in disarray. The bedding was slung haphazardly across the mattress and one of the pillows was on the floor. “I could have sworn I made the bed this morning,” Harry mused to himself before straightening it up, but eventually decided he must have forgotten.

By the time Ginny got home, Harry had worked himself into a lather about what he had to do and was in the middle of a floo call with Ron. “Honey?” she called out to him and Harry finished up quickly before pulling his head from the fire.

“I’m meeting Ron at The Admiral’s Arms tonight,” he told her after kissing her on the cheek.

“Oh? I thought we could talk a bit tonight,” she replied, looking rather anxious.

“I really need to talk to Ron about something. Could it wait until I get home?” Harry asked.

“Er, sure,” she sighed.

“Though, I might be out late,” he mused thoughtfully, “How about now, do you want to talk quickly now?” he prodded.

“No!” she replied, almost shouting. “No, it can wait until tomorrow.”

With a curious look and a shrug he kissed her on the cheek once more before headed toward the door. He paused in the doorway and turned to look at Ginny, who stood in the hall looking thoughtful. “Hey Gin, how would you tell someone you loved that you had an awful secret involving them?”

She gasped slightly and looked at Harry with wide eyes. “You’re not telling Ron are you?”

Harry bit into his bottom lip and nodded. “I’ll be late, don’t wait up,” he told her before she could protest and left to become the bearer of bad news.

Author's Note: So, will Harry tell Ron what he thinks Hermione's up to? Will Ginny fess up in time? And what the hell is Draco up to?