𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 2008

Life's Hidden Forces (can only be discovered by living)

Title: Life's Hidden Forces (can only be discovered by living)
Team: Team Epilogue
Author: kabal42
Prompt: Strength
Wordcount: ~17,600
Rating: R (going on NC-17)
Warnings: BDSM in main pairing (not particularly explicit, but a key element of the story), polyamory, cheating/infidelity (for a while), positive view of Ginny
Summary: It is never easy to love or need - especially not when it hurts to do so.

~ ~ ~ A Sunday in 2011 in the Potter house, Fulham, London ~ ~ ~

'How could you? And with him?!?' Ginny's voice was loud and shrill in Harry's ears, not unlike a dentist's drill. 'If you needed to fuck a man, why not one of the other three billion on Earth? Why him?'

'It's not that he's a man,' Harry tried, 'it's-'

'Yes, yes, it's about what you need.' She spat the last word, making it sound like a curse. 'You and your... your sick desires!'

The last part hurt him like a kick in the gut and made him feel physically ill. In the silence that followed her words, even the warm light from the autumn sun outside seemed false and yellow.

'Ginny, I...' Harry sighed. There was nothing he could say to her after that. Nothing that would work. After all, the feeling that this was wrong was exactly why he hadn't acted on it ages ago, and why he'd kept it secret for so long when he finally did.

'It was easier because it was him,' he said. What he didn't say was another matter, but at least he was speaking the truth; or more correctly the truth of how it had been at first, before the feelings developed. The feelings he was fighting now by telling her all of this, the whole sordid tale.

'But it's over now?' She fixed a sharp stare on him, clearly expecting the answer she wanted to hear, for the first time during this conversation.

'Err...' Harry had always been a horrible liar, at least to people he cared about. And she understood without needing words, his hesitation was enough. The shock was imminent, her eyes going wide and cold with fear; a fear Harry felt in himself as well, as sharp as a stab in the heart.

'I'm trying!' he said as quickly as he could, cursing himself for not weighing those words with more care. 'That's why I'm telling you.' He looked down, unable to face her as he all but whispered the last words. 'I need help.'

'You do.' She was unforgiving and unmovable like a steep mountain-side. 'But not from me. You're even breaking Muggle law. See someone who can cure you. I'm through with your needs.'

He should have known she'd see the help thing that way, but the insistence that he was sick, almost criminal, hurt so much that Harry couldn't take any more of it.

'I'm not sick!' he shouted, raising his voice for the first time so far. The surge of anger felt like his youth, not like who he was now. 'I wanted your help! You! My wife! I want to see the alternative, that I can live without this again and still be happy. This isn't fucking helping!'

The door slammed and Harry winced at the sound. He didn't think he'd ever heard a door slam that loud, but it fit with the fact that he'd never seen Ginny that angry before either. His eye was caught by a black-brown smear on the wallpaper just behind the door. Oil from the hinges. The first thought through his mind was that Ginny would be annoyed when she saw it.