Author's Note: Gift fic for Slytherin Buttercat! This is probably not at all what you were expecting and this was the oddest thing that I feel like I've written. And it's short. But I hope you like it!
The Third Man
Three's company, but Harry always felt comfortable around Ron and Hermione- except when they were having their spats. They seemed to be having them constantly as of late, and he knew that it was because of the last thing that they fought. Djinn were tricky, fickle creatures, and Harry had to side with Ron in this newest conflict.
He hadn't outright stated that he wanted to give up the life of hunting, but it had been implied. Ron had explained what he had seen with a bit of reluctance, likely knowing that he would end up on the receiving end of a Hermione lecture.
He had seen himself living in a mansion with Hermione and his family, all his brothers still alive. They had sat down for a family dinner before he had even registered that something was different, but Ron had just moved on. He had lived his imaginary life and was wasting away when Hermione and Harry found the lair.
The problem with his life was that they weren't hunting, and Hermione couldn't stand that. Hermione, who insisted that they saved the creatures that could be saved, was upset that Ron had dreamed they had a normal life.
Harry was done with it. They had been arguing for three days (and an entire poltergeist case) and Harry wanted them to stop. It was just a djinn. It was just a dream. Ron's only fault was going off on his own to beat the damn thing. But Harry couldn't complain that much- he did it constantly. They just had bravado to spare.
He was getting tired of the whining, though. He could stand it when they weren't trying to fight anything, because he could plug in his music and tune them out. But when they were staking out a demon… He needed them to stop talking.
He really needed them to stop talking.
"Hermione, I didn't choose to have those thoughts planted in my head!" Ron insisted. He slammed his hand against the leather of the van's seats. They were sitting in the back of Hermione's old Volkswagen, trying to get some sleep before they drove off again.
She was twisting her unruly curls into a messy bun, and even though Harry couldn't see her face (he had promptly turned around the moment they started arguing) he knew that it was screwed into annoyance. "But that's what you want, damn it! You want us to stop hunting! You don't want to save people anymore."
"I didn't mean that," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't have any choice. He chose that, not me."
Harry snorted. That wasn't true.
Hermione agreed. "He tapped into your upmost desires, Ronald. That's what you want. Stop lying to me, to Harry, to yourself!"
Ron started to say something else, but Harry didn't want to hear it. He just didn't want to be involved at this point. He ran a hand through his hair, pulled it back into his own bun, and then sat up straight. While Ron got out his next few words, he rolled out of his seat and pulled open the door to the van.
It only took twelve minutes for him to get to the nearest bar. It was sleazy and cheap, but he remembered going through the night before and talking to a few people about the strange electrical storms they had been having.
Now, he wanted a beer- or even something stronger.
He wanted to forget what he was doing. He wanted… Something. Anything.
He ended up getting whiskey, because it was that kind of night. Whiskey and some time to himself, that was what Harry needed. Well, what he really needed was to talk to Sirius, but he was gone, and Lupin was out making sure the rehabilitated werewolves were safe during the full moon.
He didn't have anybody, not really.
And then she walked in.
Harry knew that Ron had a little sister. He had seen pictures of her before, he had heard stories about her. Molly and Arthur's most ruthless child, the one who had went postal after her two eldest brothers had died. She didn't react like the twins did, or even Percy. She didn't get a government job or turn to acting.
She was the first one of them to be a hunter.
She was the one who figured out how to kill vampires, the one who had gotten to the Wendigo the fastest when she and Luna were up at the cabin… Harry had met Luna, too. She was a genius kid and a great psychic, but she had gotten out of the game long ago.
He had wondered what had happened to Ginny, but Ron didn't say. Apparently she had gotten worse over the years, angered easily and hated being around her parents. She wanted to save everyone, and Harry had been fascinated.
That hadn't meant that they had interacted before.
He knew her by her undercut and the scars on her cheeks. She knew him by the scar on his forehead, and her eyes lit up in recognition as she sat herself at the end of her seat.
"Happy hunting?" she asked, grinning crookedly. He knew she was off from four months as a meat suit for a demon. There were a lot of things strange about Ginny, things that he only knew from Ron's mouth.
He threw back his drink with a small smile. "Always. Your brother and his girlfriend, though… They're something."
She laughed and toyed with the glass of her own drink. "They are," she said, picking through her back pocket to drop a twenty on the counter. "You wanna drink? Another one, that is."
"Yeah. What have you been up to?" He liked how they were talking like they were old friends, like this wasn't the first time that they had met each other. "Anything fun?"
She crinkled her nose. "Got a lamia up in North Dakota. Don't know why the hell it's all the way up there, but hey. That and some fucking pagan god."
"They always cause a lot of problems," Harry said, reaching for the drink that the bartender had graciously offered up. It was another whiskey, the same as before. "Know what you're up against?"
She looked back at him. "Do you?"