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

"It's strange to see a thestral with so much meat on their bones." Luna commented idly as she fiddled with the mass of strings and ribbons in her lap. "What do you think is causing it?"

Mihnea studied the animal in question, his head cocked to the side in consideration. It was incredibly weird to see a thestral that didn't look like a skeleton wrapped up in skin. However, the mare Luna was talking about still had thin limbs. Only the trunk of her body was more filled out than normal. There was only one thing he could think of that would do that. A double check of her scent confirmed his suspicion.

"She's pregnant."

The blonde girl immediately stopped what she was doing and looked up with wide eyes full of wonder. "Oh, that's wonderful! When will she have it, do you think?"

He shrugged. "I imagine she'll foal in the spring."

Luna made a thoughtful sounding hum, then went back to working on whatever it was she was doing.

Ever since that day they first met in Lupin's office, Mihnea had been spending a lot of his free time with the strange girl with dreamy moon-colored eyes. Luna Lovegood had to be the most fascinating person he'd ever encountered. At Hogwarts, anyway. After that first encounter with her, the boy began paying attention to what others said about her in passing. The vast majority of the student body, Ravenclaw house included, called her Looney Lovegood. A 'space cadet' as muggles would say. She was the girl with her head eternally up in the clouds and never on earth where everyone else was. Believing in unusual creatures that couldn't possibly exist and having faith in conspiracy theories that bordered on the outlandish and ridiculous. But the more time Mihnea spent with her, the more he wondered. Yes, there was her odd talk about nargles, moon frogs, crumple-horned snarkacks, and the Minister of Magic baking goblins into pies, but there was something else as well. For all of her strange beliefs, Luna actually made perfect sense most of the time - in a weird sort of way. Like there was an... underlying truth to her statements that she could see, but others couldn't. She often had a disturbing habit of coming out and saying exactly what he was thinking, as if she could tell just by looking at him. It didn't matter how odd, strange, or socially unacceptable it was. When Luna Lovegood spoke, she spoke the truth, for good or for bad and without judgment. Mihnea was beginning to get the impression that everyone thought she was crazy because her mind was too far above them to understand. Maybe that was why he was so interested in her. There were things about the girl that even he didn't fully understand, and the enigma was fascinating to no end.

Despite all of that, Luna did have a few negative qualities that he quickly picked up on. She had the sort of personality that made it easy for people to take advantage of her. The situation with her belongings constantly going missing was a prime example. It was damn near impossible to convince her that it was her fellow housemates, and not nargles, who were responsible. If anyone ever called her names or made fun of her to her face, Luna would simply shake her head and say: "Oh, it's all in good fun." Mihnea knew there was something to be said for not letting things bother you, but there were some things that a person should get upset about. Luna never got mad at people, but she never really stood up for herself either. She also had a habit of wandering off by herself without seeming to stop and think about whether she should. Which is precisely why Mihnea found himself going along with her into the Forbidden Forest so often. The girl knew her way around and never got lost, so she'd obviously been doing it on her own for a long time. But with Black having recently broken into the castle, there was no telling where he was hiding out. The idea of him encountering Luna in the woods while she was alone wasn't something he cared to think about. She needed someone with her to make sure she didn't get killed or worse.

After tiring herself out playing with the younger members of the herd of thestrals (the creatures seemed to have a thing for tug of war), the girl had settled herself down on a large stump with her ribbons and strings. Mihnea sat on the ground itself propped up against a nearby tree. He had no idea what she was doing. It looked like she was wrapping the ribbons around some sort of small hoop. Luna was a crafty person and was always making something or other. It could have been a charm against blubbering humdingers or another of her fantastical animals for all he knew.

"What are you working on now?" he asked her.

Luna glanced up. "This?" she asked, holding up her loop covered with multicolored strips of fabric. "I'm trying to teach myself how to make a dreamcatcher. There are some muggles who believe that good dreams get caught in the web, so you'll have them instead of bad ones."

One of Mihnea's brows lifted. "I always heard it was the bad dreams that got caught in the web so they couldn't get to you."

"I suppose either explanation would work." she admitted. "The muggles are wrong, of course. They don't really do anything. But I think they're very pretty to look at." she paused to peer at him curiously. "You know about dreamcatchers?"

"I collect them, actually." he told her. "I've got dozens of them hanging from the ceiling over my bed back home."

Logically, he knew that they didn't do anything to dispel nightmares, but Luna was right. They were nice to look at and he had always found that dreamcatchers had a calming effect on him. Maybe it was psychological, but he liked having them around.

"I see." she said, accepting his answer with a small nod. "Well, once I've finished this one, you can have it if you like."

Mihnea blinked in surprise. "You don't have to do that."

"I know." she replied. "But you actually collect dreamcatchers and I only like the way they look." she studied her creation for a moment. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to. I'm sure the others you have would look better than anything I could make."

She didn't sound self-depreciating. Only making an honest observation. But no one outside of his family had ever offered to give him something before, much less something they personally made. The gesture was... touching.

"No, I'll take it." Mihnea said at last. "I think I'd like it better, knowing you made it yourself. It means more."

"Do you really think so?" Luna asked. At his nod, she gave him a small smile. "Thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

She always acted so pleasantly surprised when someone was nice to her. But then, Mihnea probably did the same thing himself, in his own way. When you didn't have many friends, you couldn't help but be surprised when someone treated you with kindness. Speaking of kindness... Mihnea glanced at the socked feet Luna had stretched out in front of her.

"Don't your feet get cold?"

The girl looked down at her feet. "Sometimes." she replied. "I just put on a few extra pairs of thick socks and it's not so bad."

The boy's eyes narrowed. It might not be bad now, but the weather was starting to get colder. In a couple of weeks, the temperature might be low enough for snow. Once that happened, there would be no way for Luna to go outside for long periods of time without getting frostbite. That was unacceptable. He was going to have to do something about this.

As he was entertaining the idea of raising hell amongst the Ravenclaws until Luna's shoes reappeared, Mihnea noticed that one of the thestrals from the nearby herd was drawing closer to where they were sitting. It was smaller than the others – still a young colt – and was full of life. It trotted around in energetic circles, giving off the impression that it was dancing. There was something so... innocent and magical about it. A young thestral, a dark creature that so many saw as being an evil, horrible omen, playing around like any child would. It pranced happily over to Luna and pressed it's muzzle against the side of her head, begging for attention. A snort of air through it's nostrils blew her hair into her face.

"Well, hello there!" she said with a laugh. She brushed the hair back out of her eyes, then put down her work to pet the colt's nose. "You're very friendly, aren't you?"

When the thestral continued to whinny and blow her hair into her face, Mihnea felt the corners of his mouth turn upward. He couldn't help it. A tiny, waifish looking girl cooing at a black, skeletal creature with bat-like wings that wanted to play with her? The sight was strangely... adorable. The animal finally got it's fill of messing with Luna and decided to come over to play with him. Or at least, that's what Mihnea thought at first. When it finally reached him and leaned it's head down, it became clear that the colt was more interested in his messenger bag than him. Since his bottles of blood were in there, he imagined it thought he had brought it a treat. Had he been alone, he wouldn't have minded sharing, but he had Luna to worry about.

"Sorry buddy." he said, grabbing his bag to pull it out of the thestral's reach. "There's nothing in there for you."

The colt lifted it's head to look at him and blew out a loud snort of displeasure. Mihnea imagined that was about as close to something with a horse's face coming to making a pout. It nipped at his hands a few times, trying to get to the bag, but was finally distracted by a sharp whistle from Luna. She had pulled a thick slice of raw meat out of her own pack. Once she saw she had the creature's attention, she tossed it up into the air. The thestral made a small jump and caught it before it hit the ground. The girl smiled in amusement as the creature ate it's treat, then shook her head and glanced over at him.

"They can smell the blood, you know. He probably thought it was for him."

Mihnea immediately froze, feeling an icy chill run up his spine. "Excuse me?" he asked.

Luna's shoulders lifted in a small shrug and she went back to her dreamcatcher. "The bottles of blood you drink." She clarified. "You keep them in your bag, don't you? Thestrals love blood, so he would have smelled it in there."

He was so shocked by her statement that he actually pushed himself away from the tree and scuttled backwards a few inches to stare. There was no possible way Luna could know about that. None. He had always been so careful... and... how the hell did she figure it out?

Luna gave him an odd look when she noticed his change of expression and backwards crab-crawl. "What's wrong?"

Mihnea continued to gape at her, then carefully cleared his throat. "How... how did you...?"

"How did I know about the blood?" she asked before he could finish. "That's easy. You're half-vampire and vampires have to drink blood. That's very smart, by the way. Putting it in dark colored bottles. It's impossible to tell what it is by looking."

No fucking way. He swallowed. "How long have you known?"

"I knew when I first saw you." she said simply, then turned to look at him head on, studying the space about two inches around his head. "It's the flibbitigibbits. You have a lot of them."

"The what?" he asked, confused.

"The flibbitigibbits." Luna repeated. "No one else knows about them, but I've been working on a theory. I believe they're microscopic animals that attach themselves to the auras of dark creatures. A large amount of them gives the aura a dark halo. My dad says that once I've gotten the theory fleshed out, he'll publish it in his magazine..." she paused, as if realizing she was starting to go off track. "Anyway, you have a lot of them on yours, but your aura still looks somewhat human. You drink out of those dark colored bottles all the time and you make no sound when you walk. But you can go out in the sun and touch the silverware, so I knew you couldn't be a full vampire. I figured you had to be half."

Mihnea blinked at her in shock. She knew exactly what he was just by looking? Because of some kind of... invisible parasites? She sounded like she was talking about something that wasn't any more serious than the weather. How was he supposed to respond to that? What she was saying sounded insane, and yet...

"You can actually see auras?" he asked her incredulously.

Auras could be 'sensed' by anyone with enough training, but being able to see them was so rare that most people thought it was just a legend. Since there was no way to prove it, people who said they could do it were thought to be telling stories for the sake of getting attention. Or insane. Mihnea knew it was possible because his father could see auras. However, he'd never encountered anyone else who could do it.

Luna nodded. "I've always been able to see them. My mother could too. That's how my parents met, actually. Everyone thought my mom was crazy when she talked about it, but my dad believed her. She was working on developing a new form of magic that would allow normal people to see them, but one of her experiments went badly and killed her." she pointed toward the thestrals. "That's how I'm able to see them."

He knew Luna would have had to have seen death firsthand to have the ability to see thestrals, but hadn't expected it to be one of her parents. That would be hard on anyone. If they shared the same rare ability, the girl must have been close to her mother.

"I'm sorry." he told her.

Luna shook her head. "It's alright." she said in a reassuring tone. "I still get sad about it sometimes, but I know I'll see her again someday. That makes me feel better."

The girl decided she was done on working on her project for the day and began wrapping up the ribbons so they wouldn't get tangled. Mihnea just watched her, wondering what he was supposed to think about all of this. She knew what he was – from the beginning – and still didn't mind sharing things like that or being alone with him. It was like she didn't care about it at all. The thought was so alien, he wasn't sure how to feel about it.

He cleared his throat again. "If you've known what I am this whole time, why haven't you said anything?"

Luna blinked at him. "Why would I say anything? You've never brought it up, so I thought it wasn't something you wanted people to know." she replied. "It doesn't bother me, by the way. Professor Lupin has a lot of flibbitigibbits around him and he wasn't in class after the full moon. I know what he is. But I think he's a very nice man and a much better teacher than Professor Lockhart was." she looked thoughtful for a moment. "People tend to be afraid of things that are different. It's silly really. If you think about it, everyone is different from everyone else in some way. Some people are just more different than others. I believe it's the differences that makes someone worth knowing, not what's the same."

Mihnea just studied her silently, realizing that she had a point. He found it incredible that she was insightful enough to say such a thing at her age. Luna really did have an amazing mind. She could say something so simple and it happened to be the exact thing he needed to hear. As he was turning everything over in his mind, he noticed that Luna had slipped her project into her bag and had pushed herself up off of the stump. She walked over to where he was sitting on the ground, crouched down in front of him, then leaned forward and put her arms around him in a gentle hug.

For a moment, he felt nothing but pure shock. Very few people outside of his family dared to touch him, and it was never to give him a hug. The simple action was comforting. A kind of confirmation that she truly wasn't scared of him. The next moment brought with it a strange revelation. When his muscles relaxed and he raised his arms to return the friendly embrace, Mihnea realized that he felt no hunger. The thought was startling. Luna carried the scent of a virginal girl and was physically close enough that the smell of the blood running just beneath her skin filled his nostrils. But there was no desire to bite or attack. It was almost like there was some primal part of his mind... something he couldn't fully explain, that recognized a purity in Luna. A light and innocence that shouldn't be touched or tainted. When she finally chose to pull away, Mihnea just sat there and looked at her, trying to figure out what had just happened.

"What was that for?" he asked.

The girl lifted her shoulders in the smallest of shrugs. "It looked like you needed a hug, so I gave you one." she said simply. She rocked back on her heels a bit. "Does being touched bother you?"

If it had been anyone else, it probably would have. But Luna wasn't affecting him the way most people did, and he found that he felt completely comfortable. Mihnea shook his head.

"No, it's fine." He told her. He watched her silently for a moment longer and without having to think about it, he made a decision. "I'm keeping you."

Luna cocked her head to the side curiously. "Keeping me? What do you mean?"

"I'm going to keep you as a pet." he clarified.

The girl's eyes widened slightly, like she found the statement incredibly interesting. "A pet? Really? I've never been a pet before! Is it very difficult? Do I have to do anything special?"

Mihnea shook his head, letting out a small laugh at her enthusiasm. "You don't have to do anything. Just be yourself." he paused thoughtfully. "You know what a human pet is?"

Luna nodded. "I've heard that some vampires keep humans as pets. Most people seem to get very upset about it for some reason. There are some in the Ministry that are trying to make it illegal because they say that keeping a human being as a pet is the same as treating them like an animal or a slave. But..." she pressed a finger to her lips. "I've never really understood why they think that. Most human beings treat their pets better than people, so it can't be all that bad."

And she accepted it, just like that. Blind, trusting faith that Mihnea meant exactly what he said. It was nice, he thought, to be trusted. And if she'd known everything for this long without saying a word, then he knew he could trust her. That was something worth keeping close and protecting. Luna didn't watch out for herself nearly as much as he liked, so if she couldn't do it, he would do it on her behalf.

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