ATTENTION ALL READERS! DUE TO A VIRUS GETTING INTO THE LAPTOP I USE TO WRITE AND STORE CHAPTERS, UPDATES WILL BE AT A MINIMUM UNTIL IT IS FIXED. I DO HAVE ADAMANTIUM AND It's In the Blood ALREADY WRITTEN (Adamantium: up to chapter 20, It's In the Blood: up to chapter 4) so those two are the only ones likely to be updated until the computer is fixed!

Thanks to the judicious use of a time turner Hellsing had gotten years ago from a dead wizard, Harry mastered the basics of Walter's infamous wire trick. He wasn't afraid to cheat the hell out of training, and he picked things up fast. A little too fast.

Integra had been pissed that Alucard had turned the police girl, and beyond annoyed when she found out he had also picked up a stray wizard who wanted nothing more to do with his own kind.

That was tempered slightly by the fact the wizard had seen Alucard in action and was so unimpressed with him that he openly cussed him out with some rather creative swears. Though that was swept aside the second Integra got a good look at the scar on the brat's forehead.

Trust Alucard to find the missing Boy-Who-Lived in the middle of a ghoul infested village.

At least the boy showed her more respect than he did Alucard.

Harry woke up and felt rather cheerful. Upon hearing he had interest in becoming a doctor, Sir Integra decided that in between learning how to use Walter's wire techniques to kill things he would get lessons from a muggleborn healer that was employed by the Hellsing family. A healer who also took exams and was a qualified Doctor.

For the first time in his life, he had some control. Sure, he was pretty much confined to the Hellsing estates behind the wards, and he had to deal with that annoyance Alucard, but they didn't demand of him anything that he wouldn't have already given.

About the only downside was that Integra seemed rather...baffled ...about the fact he drank blood, but wasn't a vampire. At least, according to Alucard anyway.

Harry had all the regenerative abilities of a full Nosferatu, but none of the weaknesses. He could handle blessed silver, sunlight didn't bother him in the least, and wards meant to deter vampires he was able to walk right past without any trouble. Yet he drank blood almost as easily as Alucard himself and his eyes, on rare occasions, turned a blood red...and his speed was inhuman after he had 'feed' on one of his blood bags.

The only reason Integra even allowed him to live at Hellsing was because A, Harry had never attacked anyone to 'feed' directly, and B, he could still eat human food.

A vampire could only drink blood (and the occasional alcoholic beverage, provided it was laced with blood). Never had Integra heard of one that could eat human food and had none of the traditional weaknesses.

At this point they were more interested in training Harry up so he could be useful than they were about figuring out what the hell he was. For all they knew he was just a wizard with a weird attraction to blood pops.

Harry popped his shoulder. Walter was brutal, but he didn't mind. At least this time his pain was for the sake of getting stronger, and not keeping him stuck in his own private hell. He also wasn't being starved, treated like a slave, or being kept in the dark.

If they didn't want to tell him something, they told him straight up that the subject was off limits. If he asked a question he generally got an answer that he could understand.

It was better than Dumbledore's insistence at keeping him in the dark.

He went down to the kitchens, and made himself some breakfast. Despite the fact that Walter had already made breakfast for Sir Integra, Harry preferred to make his own food. This was mostly because he hated the idea of having to wait on servants when he could do something himself.

Even if he was now considered a 'ward' of the Hellsing family according to the governments. Despite not having active magic, the Hellsing family was considered a squib line that only maintained it's power with the Ministry because they kept Alucard in check. Only a magical could convinced a Master vampire like him to serve them. He didn't care about his 'noble' title before, and he wasn't going to start now.

Hearing the yawn behind him, he grinned. Seras was always good for a laugh since she still hadn't gotten used to being a fledgling vampire.

Which was why he put his sneaking skills to good use, walked up silently behind Seras and said loudly "Good morning!"

Seras jumped, and Harry snickered.

"Gave me a right fright you did! How do you do that anyway?"

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice. It helps to be really sneaky when you're trying to nick food from the back of the pantry," said Harry simply. "Why are you in the kitchens anyway? Vampires can't eat normal food."

Seras looked sheepish. She still hadn't gotten used to being a vampire, let alone feed on blood.

Harry sighed.

"Wait here while I get something from my room that might help."

"It's not a blood bag is it?"

"No. I have some candy that wizards made as a joke treat, but vampires seem to like it too. I've seen Alucard stealing some from my stash yesterday," said Harry. Which wasn't true, but he wouldn't tell her that.

He went and grabbed a few blood pops. Seras thought they were cherry, but tried them anyway.

It wasn't until after she had eaten all of them that Harry told her what they were.

Needless to say she was pissed about the trick...but at least with these suckers she could pretend they were normal candy.

Blood pops were made like normal hard candy...but at the end magic was used to make it into a sphere which they placed the blood into. Almost like a bloody Tootsie Pop.

By the time she had gotten to the bloody center, Seras didn't even notice it, because the sugar covered the copper taste.

Either way, she was finally drinking blood...sort of.

Harry heard a chuckle behind him, as Seras went off to play with the guns in the armory.

"Well played. You tricked her into feeding," said Alucard.

"What are you doing up so early?"

"I sensed Seras finally drinking blood. I take it you plan to keep making these...blood pops?"

"Once I figure out how exactly they make the hard candy take a bubble shape and pour in the blood. I bet they freeze the blood into circles and then let it thaw out inside the pop."

As Harry muttered to himself, Alucard watched him.

The wizard-child was interesting. Not only did he have an actual spine, but he was able to trick a fledgling into eating blood for the first time with ease. Though the speed which he picked things up was absurd.

A normal human would have taken months to learn a fraction of how to use the wires like Walter did. Harry took mere weeks, and that was sped up by the use of a time turner. In reality he had learned the bare bones of fighting in a week.

Likely because he refused to stop practicing until he got it down, even when his fingers bled and his body was screaming. He took pain as motivation to do it faster, better.

Most humans would have been screaming at the rate he was going.

But that wasn't what fascinated him the most.

No, what fascinated Alucard was the blood. Not the strange consumption of it or the way he healed, but the taste of the wizard's blood on his tongue.

Harry had, to shut Alucard up shortly after coming to the Hellsing manor, given the Master vampire a healthy sized vial of his own blood fresh from a nice juicy vein.

"If this is about me stinking up the outside shed with the smell of blood..." started Harry.

"No. While I dislike the smell I understand it's better to get Seras fully powered before trouble starts. You're the only one who's figured out how to get her to drink blood without causing a fuss. Also I would like to thank you for at least trying to keep the smell contained by throwing up a ward for the smell and keeping it away from the mansion. I called you in here to discuss this."

Harry looked at the papers in confusion.

"What are these?"

"Bank statements from both the mundane and the magical world. When you became my ward, I filed several papers with both ministries, and they started delivering these to me. Of course the goblins weren't too pleased when I had to send Alucard in to...persuade...them to hand them over."

"I bet," snorted Harry. He could only imagine the look on their faces being confronted by Integra and Alucard.

"I want you to go through your bank statements, and later you can go to the Potter mansion."

"You want me to see if I can find some wards to really make this place a fortress, don't you?" said Harry.

"The Potter family was renowned for being ward masters. If anyone would have some new tricks for us to us, it would be in your family archives. It's something that should have been done along with the reading of the wills the first time you visited Gringotts at eleven."

Harry frowned.

"I barely had time to shop, let alone hear the wills and I've never been to the manor. I didn't even know there was one."

"Which is why we're doing it now, before you take your OWL's. If you don't, then there's a chance a good chunk of your fortunes might default back to the Ministry."

Harry's eyes grew hard.

"No way in hell am I letting any of what's mine go to those greedy, arrogant bastards. Not after all the crap they put me through."

Integra barely hid her shudder. The way Harry spoke and the way his eyes shifted to a bloody red...it was almost like he was a younger Alucard. Just less bloodthirsty and British.

It was bizarre, seeing the Master Vampire in the boy before her, when such a thing should be impossible. After all, what were the odds that Harry was even related to that damn pest?

Harry's excursion to the Potter mansion came back with some unexpected benefits. For one thing, he was able to properly bond with the Potter family house elves, most of which had hidden rather than possibly serve a 'bad wizard/witch' such as the ones responsible for the death of the previous Heads of the Potter family. And knowing how in-bred most magicals were, there was every chance they might serve a Dark family and be abused.

Ironically enough, Dobby the house elf Harry had saved from the Malfoy family insisted on being bonded to Harry as a personal servant rather than a family one. He also brought along the drunken form of Winky, who started to sober up once she was bonded to the Hellsing family.

She wanted nothing to do with the person she believed responsible for the current state of Barty Crouch Jr., who had been Kissed. Besides, if anyone could get Winky out of her stupor, it was a hard ass like Integra.

Alucard had laughed his own off when Harry said as much within his hearing. Integra had not been amused.

However armed with new books and family tomes, Harry went to work researching, making a list and then running ward ideas with Integra.

For the next two months Harry was fully occupied casting, upgrading and just adding new protections to the Hellsing Estate. Because they were a family of squibs, it still fell under the 'family wards' clause and was therefor perfectly legal by Ministry standards. As an added bonus, it would make it near impossible for them to detect underage magic use, even if Harry got a new wand.

About the only thing he didn't add was a vampire ward. Oh, it would quite literally turn any ghoul that dared to step past the foyer into ashes, but vampires like Alucard and Seras would have a slight dampening of their powers. More of a 'courtesy' ward to warn them they were in the home of someone with magic.

To be fair, it wouldn't deter the older ones, but for some of the trashy instant vampires that they'd been hunting recently it would curtail a good chunk of their power, even if they feed on fresh blood.

Integra had been quite pleased that Harry had added that one first. It was a mere annoyance to Alucard and Seras, but it kept the vampire trash out unless some idiot invited them in.

The myth about vampires not being able to enter homes without invitation came from the original ward scheme, which was much harsher to the undead. Considering Hellsing did in fact employ vampires (Alucard and Seras), a weaker version would suffice.

When he finally finished setting up the wards, Harry slept for a full three days, and Integra let him. Considering he had upgraded her security and made it harder to attack her home, he deserved it.

And when he did wake up, he was hungry...and not just for food. Integra found at least three separate blood bags (all the same type) in the trash. And she knew it wasn't Seras because the girl was still only taking blood in small amounts (through the blood pops, which Harry had been making bigger to accommodate the problem), and Alucard would never dare drink straight from the blood bags.

Which left the only blood drinker in the mansion...Harry. She still didn't know why he drank blood if he didn't test positive as a vampire, at least according to the spell she had cast on him the second she first heard about it.

She found him eating a thick beef stew (which he had to have made, since Walter generally didn't make something considered 'common') in the kitchen. Considering Walter was currently making adjustments to some new weapons for Alucard and Seras, and she was feeling hungry herself, Integra asked "There's no human blood in this is there?"

"I never add blood to food. It always tastes off if I try. If there is any it's from the beef which would be present anyway," said Harry, still eating his bowl.

With that she made a bowl herself. One bite and she was hooked.

"I didn't know you could cook."

"My 'aunt' insisted I do all the cleaning, cooking and general upkeep of the house growing up, while their fat pig of a son laid around the house and did nothing. So naturally I had to learn how to cook. After a while I started to read cookbooks and I got really good at it."

Integra knew there was a story there, but she wasn't about to pry. It was clear from the way he spoke about the woman (who she knew to be dead along with the husband and son) that there had been some bad blood between them. She was likely one of the mundanes who either hated magic, thought it was an abomination, or felt jealous that her sister could use it and she couldn't.

Judging by the admission he had gotten in the habit of cutting himself at twelve, and this woman did nothing to stop it, she had the suspicion it was two of the three usual reasons why first-gens were thrown out once they were old enough.

Still, at least now she knew who could be the chef if anything happened to Walter.

"What exactly is in this anyway?"

"I swiped some of the higher class beef from the freezer, cut up about twenty potatoes, carrots, onions and the occasional garlic, and then added a quarter of a cup of wine for taste. The rest is just plain water," said Harry. And thanks to the use of magic, he had it done in a fraction of the time it would have normally took to make the stew as flavorful as it was. Normally he would add rice as a side, but hadn't bothered with it.

"It's good."

Harry had a smirk on his face. Where Alucard had arrogance because he was naturally the most powerful thing alive (so to speak), Harry was arrogant about his cooking.