I don't own Hellsing or Harry Potter, and I'm not making any money from this.

Hermione Granger was a very perceptive sort of person. It was one of the reasons she was so smart. If there was something to be discovered or learned, her nose was buried in it, and when something was happening around her, she paid attention. So perhaps it wasn't surprising that when one of her friends started acting strange, she was the first to take notice.

Ever since they'd met on the train during that first journey to Hogwarts, she and Connie had become fast friends. Of all the students in Gryffindor, the two of them were the most similar. Highly intelligent, exceptionally bright, and behaving as though they were much older than they actually were. Hermione didn't want to make herself sound boastful, but it was hard to find people who could have a conversation on her level. Harry and Ron were wonderful friends of course, but it just wasn't the same. They'd run to her rescue when she'd been cornered in the bathroom on Halloween. A group of people couldn't experience something like that and not bond in some way. Each of them were different, but they could respect those differences. Constance Stryker, on the other hand, was an actual kindred spirit. She understood things others didn't and since she was a girl, she and Hermione could connect on a level that was impossible to reach with a boy. The girl was a good friend, a best friend even, so she was understandably concerned when she saw Connie wasn't acting like herself. She was quieter than usual and was going up to her room to do homework on her own rather than working on it with Hermione. So she decided to prod her about it to see what was going on.

"Are you okay?" she asked when the two of them were alone in the room they shared with Lavender and Pavarti. "You've been off lately."

Constance had been working on an essay for Transfiguration before Hermione interrupted her. The girl blinked, then glanced back down at the parchment in her lap.

"I really don't want to talk about it." she told her. "I'll be fine."

"Well, you certainly don't look fine." the bushy haired girl replied. "Has something happened? You have me worried sick!"

Connie looked thoughtful for a moment, then glanced at the door as if making sure there was no one else around. "Alright, but you have to promise not to tell anyone."

She quickly nodded. If it was something she didn't want others to know, then surely it was something important. The girl sitting in front of her took a deep breath, then told her about seeing the dying unicorn in the forbidden forest. It was no wonder Constance was acting strange. She made the sight sound horrific, and Hermione was shocked.

"It was awful, Hermione." the girl said. "She was beautiful, and there was nothing I could do... and she looked at me. I know unicorns are animals, but it seemed like she knew exactly what was happening. It... botheredme. I still don't understand how anything could have done it."

She swallowed and thought back to Harry's retelling of what he had seen during his detention with Draco.

"Harry saw something like that too." she informed her. "I don't think he got as close as you did though. Hagrid says something has been out there killing them for a while now..." she paused. "What on earth were you doing in the Forbidden Forest to begin with? You know it's dangerous out there!"

Constance suddenly became cautious. Almost like she were trying to figure out what to say without revealing too much.

"Mihnea was showing me something." she said at last.

Hermione gaped. "Showing you something? What if you had gotten caught?"

"But we didn't get caught." the girl said firmly. "And I don't lecture you about running around the castle at night with the boys, do I?"

No, she didn't, and Granger had no idea how she knew about that in the first place. When she saw the expression on her face, Connie gave her a look.

"I'm a light sleeper. I hear you when you come back late." she cocked her head to the side. "Snape isn't the one trying to steal the stone, by the way."

Her eyes went wide in astonishment. "How did you know about the stone! I just recently figured it out!"

"I've read about Nicholas Flamel before." she said simply. "And none of you asked me, so I stayed out of it."

Oh, that was just like her, Hermione thought in irritation. Letting them run around trying to figure out something she already knew instead of just telling them. She'd been researching Nicholas Flamel's name for weeks. So much time and effort could have been spared if Constance had just informed them about it when she heard they were trying to figure out who he was...

"Who do you think is trying to steal it then?" Hermione questioned, feeling extremely irritated.

Constance looked at her seriously. "Professor Quirrel."

"Professor Quirrel!" Harry exclaimed. "You think it's Professor Quirrel? Why?"

Hermione dragged Constance down to the common room so she could tell Harry and Ron what she thought of the situation. Both of them were shocked by what she had to say.

"Think about it, Harry." the girl said. "He's a new teacher, he's the one who found the troll, and he's creepy."

Ron gave her a look. "No, Snape is the creepy one."

Connie sniffed. "I happen to like Professor Snape, thank you very much. Quirrel is weird and he smells awful." she paused at the odd looks they were giving her. "And yes, I realize those aren't appropriate reasons to not like someone, but he gives me the willies and I don't trust him any further than I can spit."

Harry stared at her. "You know he smells funny because he packs his turban with garlic, right? I mean, after the vampire..."

"That is complete horseshit." Constance spat, shocking them all with her language. "If that man ever faced a vampire and lived, then I'm the Queen of England. Garlic only wards off low level vampires and ghouls. It doesn't do a damn thing to the more powerful ones."

"What, are you a vampire expert now?" Ron asked.

"I read." the girl said with a huff, dropping back against the couch. "All I'm saying is nothing about Quirrel makes any sense."

"Well, I still think it's Snape, but whoever it is trying to steal it, they'll probably go after it tonight." Harry said resolutely. "No one would try while Dumbledore's here and McGonagall said the Ministry called him away to do something."

Hermione blinked at him. "You're not seriously suggesting that we go out there and try to stop them ourselves, are you?"

"Someone has to." he replied. "The adults wont listen, so that leaves us."

The weight of that sank it slowly. From her seat on the couch, Constance took in their expressions.

"Well, if you three are going off on some grand adventure, then I'm coming too."

Ron's mouth fell open. "You are not!" he exclaimed. "We've been working on this for months, and you think you can butt in and take over? I don't think so!"

Connie gave him a hard look. "I didn't ask for permission. I'm telling you that I'm going." she said firmly. "Besides, you said the only way to get past Fluffy was to put him to sleep with music, right? Do any of you know how to play an instrument?"

The trio looked amongst each other. "She has a point." Harry said.

"See? You need me." the girl told them. "Now, if we're going to run off and find the stone before someone else does, I suggest we come up with a plan first so we all know what we're doing."

They came to the conclusion that the best way for them to get to the third floor undetected was to use Harry's invisibility cloak. It was a tight squeeze to get the four of them under it without their feet showing, but if they huddled very close together, it was possible. Connie's violin posed a problem with it taking up much needed space. Hermione found a spell that could shrink it down so it could fit into her pocket. Once they got everything prepared and were ready to go, Neville showed up. He hadn't heard exactly what they were planning on doing, but he didn't want them sneaking around the castle and getting in trouble. Hermione responded to his intrusion by petrifying him.

Connie just stared at her. "You petrified him! Do you realize how terrifying that has to be? Laying there on the floor not able to move for God knows how long?"

"Well, we can't have him running off and telling someone, can we?" the girl replied. But she did look like she felt bad about it, so as they walked past the boy laying on the floor, she told him that she was very sorry and would remove the spell the moment they got back.

When they reached the door to the room that contained the three-headed dog, they found that there was a harp enchanted to play itself sitting just inside. Fluffy was already fast asleep.

"Snape has been here already." Harry whispered.

"It's Quirrel." Constance hissed at him, eyes narrowed.

"It's Snape." Harry retorted, giving her a look of pure exasperation.

"Guys!" Hermione exclaimed as quietly as possible. "You'll wake up Fluffy!"

The reminder of the giant, potentially deadly creature in the room with them brought the argument to a screeching halt and they turned their attention back to the task at hand. They were just about to climb down the trapdoor the dog was guarding when all sound coming from the harp stopped. Constance had to quickly put her violin to her chin and start playing before Fluffy woke up enough to figure out there were intruders in his room. But it turned out there was nothing under the trapdoor to catch them. No floor, anyway. They fell right into a squirming mass of vines that immediately set to wrapping around their limbs. Connie felt her violin ripped out of her hands.

Oh God, mom is going to kill me... the girl thought.

But the situation was too serious for her to be worried about the fate of an instrument. They needed to figure out what this stuff was before it killed them. Constance and Hermione quickly identified it as Devil's Snare and relaxed so they could drop through to the floor beneath it. The boys though, had more trouble. Harry managed to calm down enough to drop down as well, but Ron freaked smooth out. They had to figure out a way to get him down before the plant strangled him to death.

"Okay, Devil's Snare is sensitive to light." Connie said, thinking it through. "Maybe we could hit it with fire?"

"Fire?" Hermione asked, wringing her hands. "How are we supposed to build one? We haven't got any wood!"

Good God in heaven, the stress of what they were doing must have melted the most important bits of her brain. Harry shot an incredulous look at her. "Are you a witch or not?"

That got through to her. Hermione realized she was being silly about the whole thing and snapped back into logical mode. She hit the Devil's Snare with a spell to conjure a bright, fiery light, and it suddenly let go of Ron. The boy dropped to the ground with a hard thud. He wasn't very happy about having to endure such a rough landing, but they not so gently reminded him that he was lucky to be alive.

The next order of business was to get past the room filled with flying keys. Harry had to do that one since he was the best flier. He whizzed around the room to catch the one key with a broken wing, and they used it to unlock the door that led to the next challenge. It looked like a massive chessboard where they would have to take the place of some of the pieces. This was Ron's arena. He was the chess master amongst them.

"Okay, Harry can be a bishop. Hermione, you'll be a rook, and I'll be a knight." he decided quickly, then looked at Constance. "I suppose that leaves the queen for you."

The selected pieces came to life and walked off the board so they could take their places. As they passed, they handed off their weapons so they could use them to attack the enemy pieces on the other side of the board. White had the first move, and it immediately became apparent that they were excellent strategists. Ron had a time moving everyone so they didn't get hurt by advancing pieces. Occasionally, they had to move into a position where they had to take down some of the white side's army. Constance found that the fencing lessons her mother insisted on her taking came in handy. She was in the position of being the most powerful piece on the board, so she wound up doing most of the defensive work. When all was said and done, Ron had to sacrifice himself so Harry would be able to checkmate the king. The white queen struck a blow that knocked the boy right off his stone horse. He fell to the ground and hit his head, knocking him unconscious. Once Harry made the final move to end the game, they all ran over to make sure he was okay.

"Oh my gosh, his head is bleeding!" Hermione exclaimed. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

Constance gently touched the wound on Ron's head. "It's just a scrape. I think he's just been knocked out."

They could only hope he would be okay until they were able to get back upstairs. They still had a ways to go, and there was no telling how much more they would have to get through before finding the stone.

The next room held a large mountain troll. There wasn't really much they had to do in there because it had already been bashed over the head with something. They walked right by it as it laid on the floor snoring. The last thing they encountered was Snape's challenge. This proved to be the most difficult of the bunch. Rather than anything involving magic, it was a shelf set up with various bottles of potion and a logic puzzle they had to solve out to determine which was which. When they stepped into the room, the opening behind them immediately burst into flame, barring any attempt to go back. The door leading on to the next room was filled with fire as well, though it looked like a different type than the one behind them. They'd have to find the potion that would allow them to walk through it.

At first, Harry had the bright idea to just try the potions until they found one that worked. The thing that stopped him from going through with the plan was the puzzle's warning that three of the bottles contained a deadly poison. Making a mistake in decoding it could potentially kill one of them. It was a serious business, and Constance and Hermione put their heads together to figure it out.

"It's that one." Granger said, pointing to a particular bottle. "That's the one that will let you go on. And this one here will let us go back."

After a bit of an argument, Harry agreed to be the one to ahead, while the girls would go back to get Ron and take him to the main part of the castle. Before he could swallow down the potion, Constance held up a hand to stop him.

"Wait." she said. "If Quirrel has already been through here, then there may not be enough potion left for you."

Harry made a face. "I'm telling you, it's Snape." he said.

Constance shot him an annoyed look. "It's Quirrel." she insisted. "And anyway, it doesn't matter who it is because if they drank too much of the potion, there wont be enough for it to work properly and you'll be burned alive trying to get through the door."

That made the boy look nervous and he studied the bottle in his hand. "Uh... you're the best at potions. How do we figure this out?"

The brown headed girl looked at the bottle and narrowed her eyes. "Damn it, I hate math..." she said, then took a deep breath to steel herself. "Does anyone have a quill or a pencil or something?"

Hermione searched through her pockets and found a small quill and a spare bit of parchment. Connie did a few calculations to determine if the potion left in the bottle would be enough to function properly for someone Harry's weight. There were no markers on the bottle to indicate how much was in there, so she had to guess. Everything seemed right and she figured the margin of error would allow for a small bit of difference without being dangerous. She gave Harry the go ahead to drink his potion and he walked right through the flames leading to the next room. The girls sincerely hoped there was nothing beyond he would need their help with, because now he was completely on his own.

"Is there enough of this one for both of us to make it back?" Hermione questioned, studying the bottle they would have to use.

Constance, thankfully, didn't have to resort to mathematics to figure that one out. "If it was brewed to allow one man to go through and Harry's bottle still left enough to him to use, then I'm pretty sure we could split it in half and it'll be fine." She paused thoughtfully. "But we need to leave enough for Harry."

That meant pulling out the parchment again. She did a quick calculation and came to the conclusion that each of them should take three small swallows. That would leave enough potion for Harry to get through the flames when he came back through. The potion he had taken to get past the first set of flames would stay in his system long enough to be useful when he came back. They drank the designated amount of potion, set the bottle on the floor so Harry would be able to tell it was the one to use, then walked through the fire filling the doorway that would take them back to the chessboard. All the pieces they destroyed during the game had somehow reformed themselves and were back in their original positions. They ran over to Ron to see if they could wake him up. He was woozy and clumsy on his feet, but with assistance, he could walk. Thank goodness, because there would have been no way for them to carry him out on their own. As tracked their way backwards, they found that nothing really stood in their way. Even the Devil's Snare untangled itself and let them through without attempting to attack. When they finally got past Fluffy for the second time and were certain they were safe, the girls checked up on Ron. He hadn't said a single word during their escape.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked him.

Ron's ginger head slumped. "I don't feel so good..."

Constance frowned and held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up, Ron?"

He squinted at them with eyes that looked glazed over. "Uh... four?"

Connie and Hermione looked at each other. Double vision meant he probably had a concussion. They needed to get to the hospital wing as quickly as possible to make sure he would be alright.