MIT: Magic Incorporating Technology

A/N: Sorry for delay everyone, between new house, running a new game, new toys (including new boyfriend), being sick and planning for NaNoWriMo, I haven\'t had much time/inspiration for writing. Hopefully this will change.



There was meant to be another chapter before this, but the muse ran away half-way through a smut scene. So I\'ll finish it up later and post it as a one-shot... possibly a two-shot, cause Ash pisses off Harry at first, so Harry must get his revenge later.



Oh, and for those who didn\'t know, She Who Cannot Be Named/Atropos has posted "All Business Up Front, Party In The Back" here too! That was the fic that inspired this one - I asked if I could write a prequel-fic, and Ate (who is made of awesome-sauce) said I could.



So don\'t tell her that it\'s similar to this one, tell her how awesome she is. Then go read her other fics, all of which are also awesome. Especially Asmodeus, which is my favourite.



Anyway, on with the plot!



Chapter Twelve: Getting To the Roadhouse



Ash hummed in contentment as he lay with his head in Harry\'s lap. The smaller man was stroking his hair and letting out a small laugh now and then. Ash didn\'t care about the laugh, as long as Harry kept with the stroking.



"Having fun?" Harry murmured.



"Ayup," Ash grinned and nuzzled the leg under his cheek. "Magic fingers."



Harry laughed and leaned back against the wall, feeling at peace with the world.



The pair were currently sitting outside of a building called "Harvelle\'s Roadhouse", the owner of which was an old family friend of Ash. Ellen Harvelle was a gruff woman, raising her teen daughter and running a bar for hunters by herself. Harry admired her for how she was keeping herself going after her husband\'s death, even if he did sometimes unnerve her.



-MIT-



"Hey, Ellen!" Ash called out a greeting as he entered the bar, grinning widely and nodding to a couple of Hunters he recognised.



"Ash, where the Hell have you been?" Ellen glared a little at him, even as she accepted the hug and a kiss to the cheek.



"Here and there," Ash shrugged. "Took a detour through Nevada."



Ellen gave him a flat stare.



"Nevada. Ash, you do not go through Nevada when going from Massachusetts to Nebraska."



"You do when Harry\'s navigating." At the semi-introduction, Harry stepped out from behind Ash with a sheepish grin.



"In all fairness," he glanced up at Ellen with wide, innocent eyes, "I\'ve never had to navigate America before. I\'m used to a country you can spit across." To his surprise, the combination of eyes and accent seemed to melt the stern facade from McGonnagal-esque to Molly Weasley faced with an ill child.



"That\'s okay Sugar," the older woman smiled at him. "It\'ll take a while before you get used to our huge country."



Harry smiled back as Ash went to put their bags in the room Ellen always let him have. He liked this woman already.



"So, you\'re Ellen? The Ellen Harvelle?" He asked, grinning a little. The older woman narrowed her eyes slightly, suddenly uncomfortable.



-MIT-



Harry had discovered that asking people like that made them wonder what he knew, and more likely to give things away. So he\'d taken to doing it as often as he could, seeing what sort of reaction he would get out of the Hunters that frequented the bar. He hadn\'t been shot or stabbed yet, which qualified in his mind as a huge success.



Despite how much he liked Ellen and Jo, however, Harry was still more than a little uncomfortable inside the bar with all the Hunters. These were people whose first instinct would be to kill him, and he was at a distinct disadvantage. While Ash had been teaching him to fight, he wasn\'t good enough to take on a fully trained Hunter.



Hence why he and Ash were currently sitting outside. There was something about the expanse of nothing around the bar that was soothing to the Englishman. It was completely foreign, yet it made him feel comfortable. He supposed that it had something to do with being able to see anyone coming before they were in range to attack.



Sometimes his battle-instincts annoyed him, but most of the time Harry just accepted that this was how he was. And as long as Ash accepted it too, things were fine.



-MIT-



"So, do you think it\'s possible?" Harry asked as he finished explaining.



Ash tilted his head to one side, staring at the screen of the notebook. They were seated inside the bar this time, going over their plans for the next year of college. Harry was excited about starting a long-term project which he\'d be disguising as something else, but in essence he was working on a cure for lycanthropy.



"I think... it might..." Ash nodded slowly. "Assuming you can get people to test it on, of course."



"Oh, I\'m sure I can find people," Harry smiled fondly, thinking of Remus. It was mostly for his sake that Harry was doing it. Otherwise, he might have been more tempted to look into a way for men to bear children. But that would have to wait.



"There\'d be plenty of Hunters who\'d want to keep up with this," Ash thought out loud. "After all, most werewolves aren\'t bad people. They just..."



"Turn into vicious killing machines once a month?" Harry smiled. "Unless they\'re on Wolfsbane, of course. Which reminds me, we need to find an American werewolf so I can take some blood and try to figure out why the virus works so differently here. I mean, pretty much every creature is different on this side of the world to what I\'m used to back in Europe."



"What\'s that?" A Hunter Ash vaguely recognised spoke up as he took a seat near them. "You wanna study werewolves?"



"Well, yeah," Harry shrugged, shifting closer to Ash as he turned to look at the newcomer. "I\'m working on a cure for lycanthropy. Haven\'t gotten very far yet, but I\'ve only just started on the theory. I need to get hold of some biologicals to study properly."



The Hunter blinked a little.



"I\'m pretty sure I understood the words," he said slowly, "but the meaning isn\'t

clicking."



Ash grinned as he draped an arm around his shorter lover.



"He\'s workin\' on a way to turn werewolves back into people. Only started this mornin\', so it\'s a fair way off, and we need to look at some bits of \'em before we can really do much."



"Ah," the Hunter nodded. "That I understood. Name\'s Jordan," he reached out a hand to shake, which Harry and Ash took in turn. "Been a Hunter for about five years. Don\'t often come across werewolves, but if I do, I\'ll call here. Sound good?"



"Thanks," Harry beamed at him. "There\'s a potion that works on European werewolves to make them docile during the full moon, but as far as I can tell it doesn\'t work on Americans. If I can just get a hold of a werewolf to study, maybe I can adapt the potion to work here."



"He always this chatty?" Jordan grinned at Ash, who smirked back.



"Oh, there\'s ways to shut him up."



"Don\'t you dare," Harry said flatly without looking at him. "It\'s bad enough what you try to get away with in front of my friends, I\'m not letting you try anything in front of strangers."



"Hmph," Ash pretended to glare at Harry, who continued to not look at him.



Jordan chuckled and turned back to his own newspaper, scanning for the next Hunt. It was amazing, the people one met at the Roadhouse.