title: Not Exactly Helpful

author: lisa roquin

rating: 13-15

fandom: BtVS/HP

characters/pairings: Faith/Charlie, Ron/Hermione (sorta)

disclaimer: all copyrighted characters and their "universes" belong to their respective authors, writers, creators, production companies, producers and long lists of people that are so very much not me. Quite simply, if you recognize it, it isn't mine. No profit made, no harm intended, just having fun.

summary:

warning:

author's note: and the playing with the timelines fast and loose isn't even funny. Set AU summer before 7th year for HP land. Ignoring HBP entirely for this. Set post Series finale for BtVS. Timelines? Matching up? Sure they do :)

wordcount:

 



"Look, I've got to go. Ask Faith when she gets up." Charlie said as he hurried out the door.

Ron stared after his brother. Granted it was an emergency. A stray dragon had injured a one of the reserves nesting Opal Eyes. The stray had been a particularly large and mean Norwegian ridgeback that had been terrorizing Eastern Europe so severely that there were kill on sight orders for the distinctively scarred, one eyed troublesome male dragon in half of Europe.

Evidently the Ridgeback was in the mood for some loving and tried to destroy the nest so he could get the Opal Eye to mate with him. There were three of the nine eggs from the nest that had been destroyed, and they were worried about the condition of the remaining six. Both the Opal Eye, Vera, and the stray Ridgeback were grievously, possibly mortally wounded.


Everything was insane around the reserve. That Charlie had managed the twenty minutes to come change his singed clothes and grab a sandwich Ron hastily made for him was probably the extent of time he'd see his brother today. He was going back to England tomorrow and had been trying to work up the nerve to ask Charlie how he'd gotten a girl like Faith and what Ron might do to catch Hermione's attention.

Asking Fred and George for any advice was just out of the question, those two might put an ad in the Prophet just to embarrass him now that they had money from their shop. Bill...Ron had debated but in the end didn't even attempt to ask Bill.

"Was that..."

"Yeah, changed clothes cause he got singed to almost being indecently exposed and headed back out."

"Better just been his clothes that were singed or I'm going to have dragon hide boots!" Faith grumbled. "There coffee?"

"Yeah," Ron pointed. His initial embarrassment over Charlie's girlfriend wandering into the kitchen in the mornings in tank top and panties had been horrifying. Faith had given into a bit of decency. Sort of. After that first morning she had taken to wandering into the kitchen in tank top and boxers. Not really all that much of an improvement in Ron's book but...well. She was Charlie's girlfriend. He wasn't going to put up too much a fuss no matter if the view was a bit...much in a way that would have been more appreciated if she wasn't Charlie's girlfriend. Charlie actually got himself a girlfriend and Ron wasn't going to mess that up for his brother.

Charlie was better with dragons than girls. How he got a girlfriend as pretty as Faith was hard to believe...even if she was odd. And scarily fascinated with weapons.

Hermione was Hermione though. Anything Bill might have tried to win Fleur over was pretty sure not to work on Hermione. And everything came easily for Bill. So easily it made Ron feel that much more stupid even thinking of asking his oldest brother.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Trying to decide if I want to ask you something," Ron blurted before he could think better of it, then wanted to beat his head on the table.

Faith rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee. "Ask."

"Fine. Charlie told me to ask you, he didn't have time with the Vera and eggs mess..."

"Spit it out, little man,"

"How did Charlie get you to date him? I mean...I love Charlie. He's really cool but he doesn't do girls well. Doesn't do most people all that well because he has dragons on the brain."

Faith snorted and smirked. "Trust me, your brother has at least a two track mind, not just one track with dragons."

Ron stared at her a moment. Surely she didn't mean...this was Faith, she probably did.

"So why so curious? Got yourself a hottie back in the land of Tea and Tweed? What's her name?"


"Hermione," Ron murmured as he picked at his thumbnail.

"That your buddy the brainiac with the frizzy hair who was in the picture with you and the other kid with the glasses?"

Ron sighed. Yeah, Hermione was a brain. She was way too brainy to ever look at him as anything but her friend. Though Harry described as 'the other kid with the glasses' was kind of nice. For some reason Faith really didn't know much about Harry, or Voldemort, or do more than roll her eyes when she'd been told a bit. Harry would probably like the description of 'the other kid with the glasses' even more.

"So you're already friends...you want to screw that up?" Faith asked.

Ron blinked. "No but..."

"Riiight. So you know her. Know what she likes."

"Books."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "Books?"

"Books. She'd live in the library if Harry and I didn't drag her out I think. And besides she almost more Ginny's friend than mine and Harry's anymore."

"What kind of books?"

"The older, moldier, dustier, thicker it is the better. With bonus points for runes and weird languages and the author being dead a few centuries."

Faith laughed.

"And she's Muggleborn so...sometimes she talks about stuff she does over the summer and then explains what she was rattling on about and finally gives up with a 'forget it, Ronald' Even Harry gets lost on a lot of her prattle and he was raised by Muggles even if they kept him locked in the cupboard most of the time."

Faith stared. "Raised by Muggles makes it sound like--wolves or wild animals or something."


"Well..with Harry's relatives, wild animals might be better."

Faith snorted. "Know that type. Huh. Maybe should get your girl's phone number for Giles when she gets done with school."

"WHAT!"

Faith just looked at him confused as she took another drink of coffee.

"You're supposed to be bloody well helping me not setting her up with some other bloke."

Faith choked then shook her head. "I'm not awake enough yet and I forgot I hadn't told you anything about...Giles is my boss. He's great. A moldy book loving witch who could cross back and forth between Wizard and Muggle without a hitch would be his wet dream of an employee. Sides' the gal Giles is dating these days has a couple kids my age. He's not going to be interested in your bookgirl that way."

"What do you do anyway?"

"Hunt." Faith shrugged. "Demons, vampires, things like that. Muggles can do some magics, not Wizard style. There's demonic magic too. Chaos magic. The shit demonic magic and chaos magic unleash are a bitch to deal with. Demon Sorcerer I was after, followed him here, he was trying to get dragon's blood. Morris saved me the trouble of beheading the bastard by taking a big chomp outta him. Poor Morris got a bad case of indigestion from him too."

Ron blinked. That not only explained her scary fascination with weapons it also explained her adoration for the crabby ancient Welsh Green male. Suddenly it was a bit less weird for Dragon-obsessed Charlie to have a girlfriend that looked like Faith. If she hunted Dark Creatures she probably didn't get all that fussy and fretting over dragons.

"Hermione is not hunting Dark Creatures!" Ron said decisively. "Not without me and Harry!" and that kind of sounded better than being an Auror. None of them were all that keen on working for the Ministry anymore but there wasn't a whole lot else to do and the three of them made a really good team.

"Moldy book people don't usually do the hunting, little man. They do the moldy books and tell the hunters the information they need."

Ron bit his lip. That kind of sounded like something Hermione would love. "Can I talk to you about that at Christmas?"

"If I'm alive, sure, send me an owl."

Ron blinked. "Why wouldn't you be alive?"

"I hunt."

Ron gaped. "Can't you...retire?"

Faith laughed. "I'm a Slayer, little man. It's what I am. And for a Slayer, I'm old."

Ron stared.

"Ask your honey to research it. She'll like that you're thinky and bring her something new to go digging in books over."

Ron nodded slowly. Hermione did like new things to research that didn't involve the latest way Voldemort was trying to kill Harry. "Still kind of a crummy way to get her to notice me."

"Huh. Well. You guys get town weekend right?"

"Seventh years can go every weekend."

"So take her to the bookstore and buy her a book."

"Then she'd go read it and not look at me." Ron snorted.

Faith shrugged. "If Charlie bought me a new knife, once I was done drooling over it, I'd be all over him."

"You're all over him anyway!" Ron said, feeling a blush crawl up his cheeks.

"You get your brother's mind on track 2, he's damn good." she licked her lips with a positively wicked and dirty look in her eyes.

Ron thunked his head on the table. "I really didn't need to know that."

"What about chocolate? Only woman I know that doesn't have a thing for chocolate is Trish and she's allergic as hell to it."

Ron made a face. "Do you know the lecture we got on being juveniles and needing to grow up the last time Harry and I got a bunch of chocolate frogs and shared with Hermione. One had a wicked spell on it. It and jumped--"


"Chocolate. Good chocolate. The kind that doesn't jump down your shirt!"

Ron blushed harder, because well, that's pretty much what had happened.

"Course if you wanted to fish it out I suppose jumping chocolate works. That could lead to fun things."

Ron was certain his face was on fire as he choked. It took him a few moments to find his voice and it still cracked and wavered a bit above his normal tone. "Mione'd kill me."

"You sure about that?" Faith smirked.

"You know, you're not exactly helpful."

She snorted. "Still haven't figured out how I got such a good guy like your brother." She shook her head. "I suck at relationship crap."

"Books and chocolate?"

"Nothing too over the top, but yeah, probably a good start."