As you have probably guessed, our man in red in none less than the famous deamonhunter himself: Dante. Voldie is in deep trouble now. ( snigger snigger). Now, for something completely different :

Chapter 2: A rainy day

It was raining outside … again. Ron looked out the window from the kitchen and sighed. This summer had been the most depressing he had ever since he came to Hogwarts.

Was it the weather, that had been gloomy all summer, the fact that Voldemort was back and active, Dumbledore's untimely demise, the fact that Harry was yet to be heard of, or even maybe the fact that these dementors were breeding fast?

Ron couldn't tell, and really didn't feel like thinking about that.

This summer hadn't been without joy he recalled. Bill and Fleur's wedding, Hermione staying over as always, much to his delight. Hadn't it been for her, Ron wouldn't have even bothered getting up in the morning. But now, more than ever, he was glad to have her by his side. She could be as comforting as she could be annoying, witch was something. Speaking of the devil, it was her coming down the stairs.

« Morning Ron. »

Well at least, the first person he heard wasn't his hysterical mother telling every' one to move on.

« Morning pet. »

He greeted her arrival with a small kiss before serving her some cereal. It was all that was left for breakfast anyway. She pored some milk and started eating through. He noticed that was the first time she wasn't enthusiastic about going back to Hogwarts. Normally she would be triple checking her supplies, reading all her books in advance and even trying out new spells. But not this time, she was probably as down as him.

Hogwarts, when Dumbledore had got murdered by Snape, they had thought for a period, that they were going to shut down for good the place. But then, Fudge, the minister of magic, had done something which had really baffled him. He had showed he had guts and publicly challenged Him by maintaining the school open as a « proof » that wizards would not let themselves live under fear. Ron of course, realised it was probably a propaganda operation, but he, in a way, admired Fudge's effort to repent himself for denying Voldemort's return. He was, however, quite curious on whom was going to take Dumbledore's job.

« Hey, who do you recon is going to be our next principal ? »

Hermione raised her head, thinking about that.

« Well, one thing for sure, I hope it isn't Umbridge again. That woman, and when I say women, I mean at the largest sense of the word, is really not welcome in my mind.

After the fiasco she had, I think the chances of having her back are the same of Fred and George choosing to finish studies. »

Hermione laughed at his joke, almost knocking down the cereal packet on the table.

« What so funny? »

It was his younger sister, Ginny, the youngest Weasley around. Well, at least until Bill and Fleur decided to have one that is. She was even downer than them. Last year, her and Harry's relation had gone to a rather different level. Him choosing to leave was a real blow for her, and during the whole summer, she was almost expecting him to come back at some point. Thing of course he hadn't done so far. Hermione decided to answer:

« We were discussing on the identity of our next headmaster.

- My bet is on them promoting McGonagall. She has rank seniority, and she knows how to handle things.

- Good point. Didn't think about that.

Ginny continued.

« What I wonder however is who's becoming our Defence against the dark arts teacher.

- Or more importantly, is he gonna turn out renegade or plain incompetent..

- Maybe both, like Quirrel.

This time, even Ginny snorted at this one. It was better to start the year with some laughs…. While they still had something to laugh about.

Meanwhile, somewhere in London, a young boy was reading the news in a pub. The headlines read:

30 MUGGLES SLAUGHTERED IN TUBE BY MAD DEATHEATER .

Under the title could be seen the picture where muggle policemen were examining the crime scene for clues. He could even see the coroner's examining the dead bodies, looking for an explanation to their death. He knew they wouldn't find out. They were killed by the Aveda Kedabra curse, the deadly one. He had seen it happen to many good people. His mother, for a start, although he was too young to remember. He was the only knowne one to have survived it. His name was Harry Potter. These sorts of articles were becoming far too common. Since last year, Deatheaters were acting for overtly, going on killing rampages on both wizard and muggle. It was so bad, the ministry was having the greatest trouble covering all that up, as the nation was going through the psychosis of a terrorist threat. In a way, they were right. That bastard Voldemort was nothing more than a terrorist, preying on innocent people to rise to power. But where they were wrong was that he was far more dangerous than that. For one thing, he was a very powerful wizard. For a second, he was invincible for all practical purposes. The Horcruxes. These cursed artefacts created by doing a great evil, that made their creator invincible, at least, until they were destroyed.

That was Harry's plan. Find the Horcruxes, destroy them, kill Voldemort. Of course that was easier said than done. He had hid them well and didn't confess to all his servants where he had hidden them. So Harry was pretty much in a stalemate so far. But he had to go on, his soul was screaming for it. He wanted revenge: for his parents, for Dumbledore, for all the innocent victims he ever made, and for himself. Hadn't it been for him, Harry would have had a happy childhood, he would have lived with his parents, he would have visited Sirius every summer, and he would have never lived at the Dursley's. He would have had a normal wizard childhood.

But his thoughts were interrupted by a cloaked man sitting at the same table as him. Harry couldn't make up his face, and that worried him deeply. He got his wand out of his inside pocket, ready just in case.

" Greetings young man. Are you Harry Potter, the son of James and Lilly Potter ?

Depends.. Who's asking ?

Do not fear, young one. I wish only that to assist you in your quest.

OK, there Harry was really spooked. The man knew about him and his mission. What was he to do. Think fast Harry.

- The objects you are looking for are very well concealed. You will not be able to find them alone. He is a very careful … man, Harry. And, as in the first place you explored, they are well guarded.

How did he know about he and Dumbledore's expedition? What if it were a trap?

- That is why I decided to call help. All that I ask of you is to accept it when it comes young man.

At these words, and before Harry could react, the man raised and prepared to leave the place.

- One last piece of advice, use the back door when you leave.

Harry wasn't sure what these sinister words meant and when about to ask noticed the man wasn't anywhere to be seen anymore. Oh boy, that was creepy. What kind of help was he talking about ? Harry didn't know but he decided it was time to leave. Considering this man found him, and what he said, who knows what else is on the way?

Hermione looked out of the window as Mr Weasley's car parked at London Kings Cross station. The weather was just as bad here as it was back there. London looked dull and grey from their car. Was this a side effect of the uncontrolled breeding of the dementors ? She didn't think so. It this was the case, ice would also be forming. Temperature tended to go low when they were around. She guessed it was just bad luck. Well at least life goes on for some of us, she thought.

Arthur got out of the car and started unloading their personal items while every one else got out. Hermione looked around, there were the usual load of people, as well as some armed police patrolling around, the place almost looked like an airport. They occasionally checked people out. The suspicious sort, like this odd man dressed in red. Boy, what a way to stick out of the crowd. She almost wandered if he was a wizard of some sort for a second. That red trenchcoat with some sort of black front vest. That wasn't the strangest part of his look. The strangest was the totally white hair he had, despite Hermione not giving him more than thirty tears old. He was maybe an albino of some kind. Whatever, she had more urgent to think about. She took her bags and put them on a trolley Mrs Weasley had found while she was contemplating the strange man.

- Hey Herm, I'm here..

It was Ron, giving her a suspicious look.

- See anything you like.

- No no, I just thought that guy was pretty odd looking. Was wandering if he was the next one.

- We'll see that soon. Let's go to 9 ¾ before the train goes without us.

Thank goodness I left E and I in the bike, or else I would of been fried. London cops were even more paranoid than the post 9/ 11 NY ones. And that was saying. In that county they outlawed having weapon, which, on one hand meant not every loony got to own one, but on the other hand, made daemon hunting a far more difficult job. It was a good thing he had those two side compartments in his bike. They were very practical when it came to transporting weapons around. Dante had a charm put on them that made what was stored inside stealth to X ray and weapon detectors. He only had it recently although it would of been damn useful during that thing in Tokyo. He had only being able to take E and I, as well as Rebellion there, despite the fact that this was probably the mission in which a lot of devil arms would of been the most useful. Oh well, he had survived the conception, and brought back Earth to normal. Well helped doing that last thing. The recreating Earth thing was the doing of that Japanese kid, with of course his help.

But that was the past. Today's mission was on a smaller scale: help that Harry Potter kid snuff some psycho called Voldemort. Now that guy was an asshole. Dante knew about the reclusive wizard community. How they hid their powers, and even whole society from the rest of the world. They lived in a world of their own, almost literally. Different schools, different governments, even their own sport events. It was them, Dante had come to realise, over the years of work, that the covering up all the supernatural stuff: daemons, werewolves, dragons, vamps, even their own renegades. Well, part of it anyway. The regular humans, or muggle as wizards called them, government were active in this too. Back in the USA, it used to be the STARS unit, until the Racoon City tragedy where they were disbanded, and replaced by what the called First Encounter Assault Recon or FEAR. Here, it was more vampire orientated with the Hellsing foundation and the now gone Council. Wizards were kind of arrogant in thinking that humans couldn't see what was going on. Some of them did, and acted about it, occasionally calling him or normal daemonhunters such as Lady to do the cleaning up. He wandered how Hellsing was taking the current events. He knew they were critically understrengh since the artificial vamps business. He was very impressed in the way they had, somehow manage to cover up the fight between Alucard, their main hitman, or hitvamp more accurately, and that Incognito one. He heard it had been one hell of a party. Pity Dante hadn't been there at the time, could of been fun.

Dante looked around, he knew the wizard kids used a secret train to go to their school, the 9 3/4 . He was waiting here, just in the unlikely case the kid decided to go back to school rather than pursuing his vendetta. He had already seen a few people go through , like this redhead family for example. He continued waiting for the official departure time for the train, and still seeing no 4 eyed kid with a lightning scar on his forehead, decided to go back on his bike and look elsewhere.

" OK Adam, you brief everyone here about the situation.

That was Pierce, MI-5 director saying that. Danny figured it was most probably about the recent serial killings that were going on all over the country and, if Danny had heard true, in other countries as well.

- Yes everyone. We've recently had a call on the tip line. We couldn't identify the caller, but his info was most… interesting. He seems to point out a cult lead by guru naming himself Voldemort.

- Sounds like a Star Wars badie's name to me.

That was a snide comment from Zoë, who didn't seem to take that lead very seriously. She was in a almost permanent bad mood since her row with her fiancée.

- Yes Zoë, he might have a pathetic name, but this is our only lead.

- Are we thinking about some sort of apocalypse cult like they had in Japan with the Tokyo metro sarin gas attack.

- Seems like it at first glance. But the responsibles of the attack are doing a good job in staying hidden. We don't even know how some of them are dead yet.

- What do you mean, we don't know how they died ? Aren't the medics able to find out ?

- That's the odd thing. No wounds, no poison, no bio weapon. The doctors say they just ceased to live for no apparent reason.

People were baffled. Unless they somehow all got a heart attack at the same time, they couldn't see what did it. Their thoughts were interrupted by Ruth, MI-5 official nerd, tapping on the conference's room's window, holding papers in her hand. Harry Pierce signed her to come in.

- Anything interesting you've got ?

- Well yes actually. I've being looking at the arrivals over the last few day's in England and one person stands up.

- Who's that ?

- It's a detective named .. Dante Sparda. An American person.

- Sorry Ruth, but what does that have to do with us ?

Zoë was a bit curious on the man .

- He specialises in weird stuff. Cults, haunted castles, that sort of thing.

- Let me guess, he's here to look onto that cult.

- Likely, he was spotted at London King's Cross earlier this morning. He seemed to be on a observing mission, was waiting for someone.

- Who ?

- Whoever it was he didn't show up. He just took his bike and left.

Pierce sighed loudly.

- Great, just what we need. A gun blazing cowboy to add a spark to the explosive cocktail.

Adam was staying silent thinking about the events.

- What about if we had him followed ?

Adam caught instantly everyone's attention there. Danny wondered what the transferred MI-6 agent had in mind.

- Seems to me that he's not come here just by some rumours. I think someone hired his services and he's got something specific in mind when coming here. Which means, he must have some inside info on the current events.

- So what do you suggest ? CCTV ?

- That, followers. Ruth, does he have a place to stay here ?

- Not as far as I've seen. He hasn't stopped to rest so far. I'll have him bugged as soon as.

Harry rise up.

- So let's do that. I'd appreciate it if we made some progress in the next days. A round table has been called for in 3 days, and it would look good if we had something to show them.

The round table. That was something. The leaders must be thinking things are bad to call it. As most people in MI-5, Danny only knew it by name. What happened there was pure speculation, even for MI-5 agents. He knew simply it involved all Britain's security leaders and was united only in the most grievous situations. The last time had been after the unsuccessful attempt by one of theirs to infiltrate a weird cult. The guy had been found the next day floating on river Thames impaled on a British flag. He simply knew that last one had had some sort of an attack.

So, things are slowly building up, hey? Don't worry, next chapter will offer it's deal of action and of Dante kicking evil's ass (both literally and not, thanks to Beowulf). As you can see, there are multiple references to many things: Buffy, FEAR, Hellsing ( the anime, not the mangas that I have never read sorry.) and even Resident Evil. I like multiple crossovers, I really do. So what does next chapter promise ? As Dante would say:

"LOOKS LIKE IT'S GONNA BE ONE HELL OF A PARTY ! "