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

The moment the de-petrification potion was completed and Snape declared it to be satisfactory, Connie and Mihnea took it up to the hospital wing. Someone must have given Filch a heads up because he was in there waiting for them, fully prepared to throw a fit to ensure Mrs. Norris got the very first dose. Once the cat was taken care of, they set about measuring out some for Sir Nicholas. Connie wasn't sure how it would work since ghosts tended to pass through solid objects. But surprisingly, the potion slid down his throat just like it would with a living person. The students had the hardest time with returning to their original states. The de-petrification process was a slow one. Once the potion was administered, it took about 30 minutes to fully unlock and relax all the muscles in the body. Given that each of the victims had been frozen for weeks or months on end, they had to be given accessory potions by Madam Pomfrey to help them with the pain of moving. Being laid up for that long would make anyone's joints and muscles stubborn and sore.

The moment Constance was certain Hermione was back to herself, she surged forward to wrap her arms around her in a tight hug. "Oh, I've been so worried!" she said, then pulled back. "Do you remember anything?"

The girl shook her head. "Only the eyes... Everything was black after that."

So it must have been like being in a coma or something, Connie thought. But it didn't really matter anymore. Hermione was de-petrified, and everyone was back to normal. At least, as close to normal as one could be after going through such an experience. Madam Pomfrey instructed her to return to the other side of the room. She'd have to stay out of the way while the medi-witch led the recently restored students in a series of stretching exercises to help their bodies remember how to move properly. It was as this was going on that Professor McGonagall came in, leading a very rough looking Ginny Weasley behind her. That was how Constance and Mihnea found out that all hell had broken loose while they had been locked up in the dungeons.

Another blood message had been found on a wall, claiming that a student had been taken into the Chamber and would be killed there. After conducting a thorough sweep of every house, the teachers discovered that it was Ginny who couldn't be accounted for. Lockhart, being the false braggart that he was, claimed that he had figured out the location of the Chamber ages ago. The teachers gave him the assignment of rescuing the young Weasley girl. Harry and Ron had somehow found out about it. No one knew any details beyond that, but apparently something huge had taken place inside the Chamber. The boys had brought Ginny and Lockhart back with them and the DADA professor seemed to have no memory of who he was or what had happened down there. Harry was covered in blood and bruises, as if he had been in a huge fight, and Ron was a bit roughed up himself. The two boys were up in Dumbledore's office, receiving awards for 'services to the school'. Once Madam Pomfrey finished examining Ginny, Connie and Hermione questioned her about it to figure out exactly what had happened. Mihnea stayed back out of the way, but he was still paying attention to everything that was said.

The information they gleaned from the girl was shocking. The diary – that mysterious object that gave all of them the willies - had apparently been created by Voldemort himself when he attended school. His name had been Tom Riddle back then. When Ginny first encountered it amongst her schoolbooks, she had somehow been controlled or possessed by the book. It forced her to open the Chamber and release the basilisk on the students, though she never had any full memory of the events afterwards – only vague suspicions of what may have transpired during her blackouts. Afraid of the power contained within the diary, she attempted to get rid of it, only to learn that Harry had found it. That had been why she was asking where he was that day she and Hermione had been researching in the library. It hadn't been just a girlish crush thing. She wanted to be sure he was out of the castle so she could break into their room to steal it back. After she'd opened the Chamber a final time, the diary began pulling all the life energy out of her. The weaker she became, the stronger Tom Riddle grew, until he was actually able to pull himself out of the book like a specter that had been locked within it. The girl would have died had Harry not shown up to put a stop to it. He fought the basilisk and killed it, then used one of it's fangs to destroy the diary itself. Apparently, he had been bitten by the fearsome creature during their battle, but Dumbledore's pet phoenix showed up to heal him. It then used it's ability to carry large amounts of weight to get all of them out of there.

When she was through explaining, Hermione and Constance could do nothing more than blink at her in complete shock.

"Holy hell." Constance murmured.

This whole thing had been a lot more serious than what they had gotten themselves into last year. Working their way past three headed dogs and through enchanted chess games was one thing. Slaying a basilisk was something entirely different. And Harry had done it all on his own. The girl knew he was brave to the point of being careless sometimes, but she never would have expected him to be able to do something like that. An adult could have fought a basilisk and been killed by it. For a twelve year old boy to have killed it and survived was... extremely impressive.

Mihnea's concern about missing so much time in class turned out to be unfounded. After everything the student body had endured, Dumbledore canceled final exams as a school treat. It seemed their final grades wouldn't be calculated until the students who had missed classes made up the work over the summer. Connie had finished the first set of summer essays on potions, and would have to do another set this summer to make up for skipping the second year class. The three weeks of absences would be added on top of them. Snape had a specific schedule made up for the work she turned in to him, but the other classes could be worked on as slowly or as quickly as desired so long as they were finished by the end of summer. Constance decided she would do as much work as possible to try to get everything out of the way. If she could complete the assignments quickly, she'd still have the end of summer to enjoy.

During their talk with the headmaster, Dumbledore had given Ron a set of release papers to send to Azkaban to get Hagrid out of the awful place. He was released from custody and was able to get back to Hogwarts in time for the end of term feast. It was wonderful to have him back. The entire student body wound up rising from their seats to give him a standing ovation when he walked through the doors of the Great Hall.

After all their things were packed up and brought down to the common room for the house elves to take down to the train, Connie and her friends got the shock of their lives. The house elf that had been torturing Harry all year in an attempt to get him to leave school popped up out of nowhere to talk to him. The creature looked at Harry like he was something worthy of adoration and worship.

"Dobby is so glad he was able to catch Harry Potter before he left for home!" he exclaimed. "Dobby wanted to thank him for all he did for him!"

Harry held up his hand to calm the house elf. "Um... thank you, Dobby, but I didn't really do anything..."

But the house elf wouldn't hear it. "Mr. Harry Potter is too humble, sir! He tricked Dobby's former master Malfoy into presenting Dobby with clothes! Dobby is free now, sir!"

"Malfoy!" Ron exclaimed. He glanced between the house elf and Harry. "The house elf that's been going after you all year belongs to the Malfoys?"

Harry nodded. "Lucius Malfoy was the one who put the diary into Ginny's cauldron." he told them. "You remember. That day at Diagon Alley when he and Draco showed up at the bookshop?"

So there had been some sort of confrontation between the Malfoys and the Weasleys at Diagon Alley? Connie hadn't been there to see it. But that did explain how the book had wound up in Ginny's things. If this creature had come to Hogwarts, it had probably done so against it's master's wishes. That was remarkable for a house elf. She had only seen the ones that worked at the school, but she knew from things she'd read that a house elf was always faithful and obedient to the family it served. Most would put up with being treated like garbage and wouldn't say a word about it. Dobby must have been treated horribly to inspire him to defy his master and give Harry a warning... Harry turned his attention back to the house elf staring at him in adoration.

"What are you going to do, now that you're free?" he asked.

Dobby looked taken aback at being asked such a question. "Harry Potter shows concern for Dobby?" he asked, his overly large eyes tearing up. "Mr. Harry Potter is such a wonderful wizard! A liberator and friend to the house elves!"

Harry took half a step back and had to grab hold of an armchair to keep from being knocked down when the creature wrapped itself around his legs. "Dobby, please! Calm down. I'm just asking a question..."

Dobby seemed to regain control of himself and let go of him. "Dobby had no place to go, sir. But Master Dumbledore found Dobby and said he could live and work at Hogwarts. Master Dumbledore even said he would pay Dobby! And he has given Dobby a wonderful new pillowcase, sir!"

He puffed out his chest to show off the pristine white pillowcase he was wearing with the school crest emblazoned on front at his right shoulder. It was amazing that Dumbledore actually thought to offer a house elf wages. The creatures were never paid for their services.

"Dobby wanted to return Harry Potter's sock to him." he went on, reaching behind his back to retrieve a black sock. "Mr. Harry Potter was so kind, and Dobby did not want to keep something that belongs to him..."

Harry studied the sock for a moment, then shook his head. "You keep it." he told the elf. "I have plenty of socks..."

"Harry Potter will let Dobby keep his sock!" Dobby exclaimed with wide eyes. "It is a wonderful gift! Dobby will cherish this sock always!"

"Um... okay..." the boy said, looking like he wasn't sure what to think of such a strong reaction. "You do that Dobby."

Since Dobby seemed to worship the ground Harry walked on, he took over taking his luggage down to the train to be loaded up. As a bonus, he came back and got Connie, Ron, and Hermione's trunks as well. He wouldn't be waved off or convinced otherwise. When all their belongings had disappeared from the room, Hermione looked completely befuddled.

"Why was he making such a fuss about Dumbledore paying him?" she asked. "Surely with as much work as they do, house elves are given wages..."

Ron stared at her like she'd just grown a second head. "Pay a house elf?" he questioned. "Why? The whole purpose of a house elf is for them to work. No one's ever paid one before."

"But that's slavery!" the girl said, shocked. "You can't treat them that way!"

"Try telling that to the house elves." Ron said with a shrug. He pointed over to the spot where Dobby had been when he was talking to Harry. "That's the weirdest one I've ever seen. Most get upset if you even thought about paying them something. They like what they do."

Hermione didn't like hearing that one bit. She and Ron argued about it all the way down to the carriages that would take them to the train station.

Since she had been forthright and written back home about everything that had transpired during the school year, Connie's parents weren't overly upset about what had happened. However, they were understandably concerned about the person behind it all. Given that it was the second time the dark wizard Voldemort attempted a comeback, everyone was trying to figure out the significance of it. When they got home they ate a short supper, then moved to one of the conference rooms to discuss everything they knew. Alucard and Pip were out with the soldiers on a mission, but Seras was there with them. Holding a meeting in a conference room rather than just talking about it over the dinner table meant it was a serious matter. It also meant that there were probably documents and reports they wanted the children to read which couldn't be shown in other parts of the house for security reasons. If there were written reports, then Hellsing was getting involved somehow.

"It has something to do with Potter." Mihnea said. "I heard Dumbledore telling Snape that he needed him to stay at the castle because he'd need to call upon his 'particular talents' now that Harry has returned to the magical world."

Aunt Syn gave him a look. "Are you spying on your professors now?"

"I wasn't spying." he insisted. "I was restocking Professor Snape's storeroom and I just happened to overhear them talking about something interesting."

Constance cleared her throat to bring the conversation back on subject. "Well, considering that Voldemort was defeated when he tried to kill Harry, that's not really surprising." she told them. "But how is it possible for him to keep coming back? I mean, supposedly he died when his curse backfired eleven years ago. His spirit was released from Quirrel when Harry faced him last year but if it came back in that diary, then it's been killed again. Harry destroyed it down in the chamber."

"It sounds like this Voldemort was getting into a lot of extremely dark magic." Edmund said, looking thoughtful. "There are ways to separate the soul from the body and split it into pieces to survive death. Dumbledore seems to think that's what happened."

The children exchanged a look. "I told you they were talking to Dumbledore!" Mihnea exclaimed, looking vindicated.

"I never disagreed with you." Connie pointed out with a sniff, then looked back at the collection of adults. "Why are you guys talking to Dumbledore anyway? I can understand talking to him about the stuff going on at school, but Hellsing doesn't get involved in things that happen in the magical world..."

Everyone looked at Integra. Constance's mother was the boss here, and she had final say in every decision made. The knight took a long drag of her cigar, then tapped the ashes off into an ashtray sitting on the table in front of her.

"Edmund, give them the reports we've confiscated."

Confiscated? Why would they have any need to do that? They only confiscated reports when an authority refused to cooperate with them and the Queen had to issue a royal order to have the documents handed over. The Hellsing Organization was a powerful, influential group, so it rarely occurred. Everyone knew they would get what they wanted in the end, so it was in their best interests to cooperate from the get go. Connie's dad passed a stack of documents to them. Seeing as how there were several, she took half and Mihnea took the other. As the girl read them, she saw that every single one of them detailed vampire attacks on families throughout Britain. None of the documents explicitly stated that vampires were responsible, but it was pretty obvious from the autopsy reports. But these cases were handled by local police forces rather than being turned over to Hellsing as they should have been. What the hell was going on?

"There is a reason why things have been so quiet for us lately." Integra said. "There have been an extraordinarily large number of cases which were never reported to us. Do you notice anything peculiar about the dates?"

Mihnea studied his documents. "The earliest one is from..." he paused and looked up. "This started during Connie's first year at school."

Aunt Syn pointed at him. "Precisely." she glanced at Connie. "That would have been your friend Harry's first year too, right?"

Constance went very still. Holy hell. Voldemort hadn't made any known attempts to come back before their first year at school, and vampire attacks hidden from Hellsing had begun at the same time? That was too strange to be a coincidence.

"How did you find out about this?" she asked carefully.

That was when Seras finally piped up and joined the conversation.

"We all thought something strange was going on, but didn't have any proof of it." she said. "But then, a couple of months ago there was an attack in the middle of London. The police authorities here have worked closely with us ever since the war, so they reported it. We responded to the call and were hunting down two vampires when these... people showed up. They weren't members of any police force or military group anyone knew of. Now, Pip and I were off tracking the vampire, so we didn't see this ourselves but when we got back, the soldiers told us these people intercepted them. Said they had jurisdiction and we had no right to be there. Several of our men had injuries from some sort of altercation and had their memories erased." the draculina's eyes narrowed. It was easy to tell she was pissed about it. "Completely erased. They didn't know anything about what had happened, or who they were anymore."

Constance's eyes went wide. "Do you think the Ministry of Magic sent aurors?"

"We don't think anything, Connie." her father replied. "We know it for a fact. The Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on muggle society through contacts in the Prime Minister's office. They have been taking steps to ensure that Hellsing doesn't find out about these attacks and when anyone resists or questions them about it, they obliviate them. The Prime Minister himself has had his memory erased several times. The only reason we were able to track down all these police reports was because Syn and I figured it out and diffused the spell so he could remember everything again."

Mihnea glanced down at the documents in his hands for a moment, then looked back up. "They're covering something up." he said, then frowned. "But... the Ministry doesn't get involved in dark creatures attacking muggles. That's always been our job."

Connie's mother sat back in her chair. "Which is precisely why we're so interested in what's been going on at that school of yours." she told him, then gave them both a look. "If everything we've been told is accurate, then Voldemort was at the height of power while Millennium was operating and after the war, he slowly lost his influence over the magical world until he was 'destroyed'."

Aunt Syn put her hands on the table and leaned forward slightly. "That's not the only thing." she said, then glanced at her son. "Do you remember the chocolate frog cards you brought home after your first year at school?"

The boy nodded, his brows furrowed.

"What were the list of accomplishments on Dumbledore's card?"

"He did research on Alchemy with Nicholas Flamel, discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and he defeated the dark wizard Grindlewald in..." he stopped and stared at them, his face going a shade whiter.

"1945." Constance finished for him, realizing where this was going. "The end of World War II."

"So what we have here is a pattern of dark wizards in the magical world who's power rises and falls in conjunction with the rise and fall of the Nazis." Edmund stated plainly. "Because our families have been exiled from the magical world, we didn't have this information before. There was enough of an overlap between what was happening in their world and ours that any attacks they made on muggles would have been attributed to Millennium. But the Nazis were creating artificial vampires – which was probably helped along by magic – and were using weapons we know had magical properties. They couldn't have done any of that on their own. Someone in the magical world had to be helping them. If Voldemort is attempting to come back, then there were probably members of Millennium who survived and are helping him do it."

"But I thought Millennium was completely wiped out?" Connie questioned, not liking the way this sounded.

"We killed all the members of Millennium who were involved in the attack on Britain." Seras replied. "But there were masses of them who attacked countries all over the world. We can't account for any of those that may have survived."

That was... horrifying. There were too many pieces that fit together. Too many things that made sense for it not to be true. She glanced sideways at her cousin. His expression was blank, but his eyes looked disturbed. Constance hadn't been born until after the whole thing with Millennium was over and done with, but Mihnea had lived through it. He had been an infant at the time, but there were things he remembered. Things that still bothered him to the point they gave him nightmares.

"If Voldemort ever manages to come back, there's going to be another war." he said quietly.

His mother nodded. "That goes without saying. There's going to be a war in the magical world regardless. But if he was allied with Millennium and they have agents who are helping him now, then it's going to spill over into our world as well. When that happens, we're going to be the ones who have to deal with it."

Integra cleared her throat meaningfully. "I intend to arrange a meeting with the Minister for Magic to deal with the current issue of his aurors getting in the way of our operations. We don't have enough proof to accuse them of anything more than that. For the time being, the two of you are the only ones here who can move about the magical world freely. Voldemort appears to be focusing on your school, so keep your eyes open and remain vigilant at all times. If you notice anything out of the ordinary, report it back to us. We need to be as prepared as we can possibly be for anything that may come our way in the future."

Constance and Mihnea exchanged a look. "You want us to be spies?" her cousin asked.

Constance's mother sniffed. "Considering you've been doing it since you were babies, we may as well take advantage of it now." she said. It was a serious tone, but Connie could sense the touch of playfulness hidden underneath. "The two of you are already better experts at it than most adults are."

Wow. Even though the situation was a serious one, it was... nice that they were going to be trusted with something this big. Connie was already absolutely certain that there would be more incidents of Harry and her friends getting into something they probably shouldn't be – which meant she would be involved in it one way or another. At least now she knew she wouldn't have to worry about hiding it.

Not that hiding something from her parents ever worked. They always found out in the end.