AN: This fic is directly the result of the film Chloe with Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, and Julianne Moore, although it doesn't resemble it in the least. And also Repo! The Genetic Opera, and uni assignments and the things one will do to avoid doing them.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, who is epic. 'Nuff said. Title comes from the song VUK-R from the Repo! soundtrack.

still forcing yourself to bear your cross

It's always the same. The second and fourth Friday night of every month, come rain hail or shine, come ruin or rapture. The second and fourth Friday night of every month, their friends all know they won't be available. Ginny ever refers to it as "bonding time," commenting that it's Harry's business and that's the end of it, managing a smile as though it is the easiest thing in the world.

But in reality, she dreads the second and fourth Friday night of every month with a fierce loathing that frightens her to the core. In reality she sits separate and apart from them, a pariah, unneeded, unwanted, alone. In reality, she can hardly bear it, the second and fourth Friday night of every month when her husband makes love to his best friends.

She can't know when it started, the war, or even before then, curled up together before the fireplace in the Gryffindor Tower, that somewhere between the arguments and the tantrums and the homework someone looked at someone else and the embers that simmered between the three of them were fanned into an open flame. Or perhaps on the road, searching for Horcruxes, snuggled together for warmth in that tired old tent, braving the elements and the fear with nothing more than each other for company.

And it was enough. Enough for him, even knowing every moment they could be hurt or tortured or killed, that back home his friends were risking their lives in the hope - no, belief, that he could end it all. It was enough, because he had them.

And not her.

She knows Harry loves her, loves their children. Their marriage is as easy as it can be for two strong-willed, stubborn people who like to get their own way. Their sex life - well, she's not one to dwell on such things, but she likes it well enough. Harry was her first and he will be her last, no doubt, and he is all she's ever known. He is tender, considerate, everything she could ask for, really.

Except for this. Except for the murmurs and the moans she hears from behind the door when they forget the Silencing Charm, when the bed rocks against the wall and she thinks of all those dirty, seedy stories one inevitably hears while growing up. When her mind goes round and round in circles and all she can think of is her brother and Hermione, cataloguing methodically their flaws and their good points, asking the age old question again and again of what do they have that I don't?

It's not that she wants to be a part of it - Ron's her brother, for Merlin's sake. And Hermione is wonderful and all, but Ginny's not attracted to women, any woman, let alone her sister-in-law. But there's something about that connection, that need, that when Harry and Ron and Hermione are all together a presence seems to overtake the room, captivating their audience whether it be one person or a hundred.

Alone, they are formidable. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with.

But it's been years since that was necessary, since the war ended and they went on their way. Years. Her children are all at Hogwarts and she occasionally finds the faintest threads of grey in her hair. Harry tells her she's still beautiful as the day he married but it doesn't stop her from occasionally spending hours in front of the full length mirror, twisting this way and that, trying to see all of herself and the imperfections that must be there. She never used to do it when she was young, but it started slowly after the beginning of the second and fourth Friday night ritual, and now... Well. She's too intelligent not to notice the link between them, but she doesn't dwell on it. She can't. If she thinks too long on her husband, what he's doing, who he's doing it with, she might fall apart.

The ring on her finger mocks her, torments her. It's not betrayal if she gives consent, she's told herself - and them - a thousand times. This is something they need to do. The war put them under unimaginable pressure and they coped in the best way they had, just like everyone else did. She's well aware she's justifying it to herself, but what else can she do? It's not cheating. Harry would never cheat. In truth he had belonged to them long before he had slipped the ring on her finger, and they knew it as well as she. So when he had come to her, eyes worried, hands twisting around one another as he fumblingly explained the situation and asked her permission, what else could she do? She loved him. She couldn't deny him. So she had consented. Harry had kissed her, tasting of relief and awe and gratitude all in one, and if she'd ever wanted to take it back, the look in his eyes each time he leaves Ron and Hermione stops her.

And yet she still feels this way, deep in her secret heart of hearts, that it's not fair.

It's not fair. It's not fair that the war started and so many people died. It's not fair that the war ended and so many people died. It's not fair that Voldemort was allowed to become what he became, a twisted half-creature vomited up from some dark region of space that subsists off of nothing but hate and anger. Oh, she knows he was a boy once, and then a man, but still. He was still a monster and still a madman and it just wasn't fair. But more than anything it's not fair that her husband needs to have sex with his best friends twice a month to keep the shadows from returning to his eyes. And she has to sit here. And wait.

Of course, she doesn't have to sit here. She could wait at home instead, wondering, questioning, and that would truly destroy her. She needs to know, needs to breathe in even a shadow of this bond between them. In an odd kind of way, she feels closer to him than if she had not known of this. There are no secrets between them, no lies. Well, on his side at least. She has not told him of the sick feeling that plagues her two nights of every month, the doubt and the questions and the hurt, but that's all right. She's his wife and he saved the world. It's enough. Because she knows that if she complained, or even let on she was anything but find with this arrangement, he'd stop. And that would destroy all four of them, and then there's the children to think of... No, she can't stop it. She loves him.

But it doesn't make it any easier.

From the room she can hear soft voices, a low voice, too low to be Harry's, and a shaky moan. She wants to beat her head against the wall to get the images, the sounds, out of her brain, but she can't. She's made her bed and now she must lie in it.

She closes her eyes and resolves to wait it out.

After all, she's been here before.