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

There were few things in the world that Mihnea found truly intimidating. His father was one of them. Alucard could simply give him a look and he would immediately stop whatever he happened to be doing at the time. But his father wasn't home. He wouldn't be getting back until just before Connie did.

One of the other things he found intimidating was his mother when she was in a tizzy about something. The moment he walked through the doors of the manor, it became clear that she knew everything that he'd been up to for the last few weeks. The only explanation he could come up with for her knowledge was the possibility of Dumbledore catching wind of his sorcery lessons with George. But strangely enough, that wasn't what she was upset about. She said she had a sneaking suspicion it would happen eventually, now that the boy knew about them. So instead of getting a lecture about the dangerous nature of what he'd been doing with Connie's boyfriend, he got a completely different sort of talking to.

"A pet, Mihnea?" she asked him, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "You just up and decide to keep a twelve year old girl as a pet?"

Though she was physically smaller than him, there was something about her mannerisms and attitude that made her seem much bigger than she really was. Mihnea took a deep breath to calm his nerves and cleared his throat.

"Actually, she turned thirteen in November..." he began, but was quickly cut off.

Syn blew a stray lock of blood red hair of of her eyes and fixed him with a hard look. "I don't give a damn how old she is." she told him. "Mihnea, I love you with all of my heart and soul, but there are some things you have got to be careful about. A vampire choosing to keep a human as a pet is serious business. You can't just run around claiming that any girl you take a fancy to belongs to you. There are responsibilities and..."

"Mom, will you please calm down!" he said, raising his voice a bit louder than he meant to. His mother closed her mouth and folded her arms over her chest. That was her silent cue that she was going to be quiet for a while and listen to what he had to say. "Look, I know how serious it is." he told her. "And Luna isn't some random girl I've decided to pay attention to because she's hot or something. It's not like that."

"What is it like then?" she asked him.

Mihnea blew out a long stream of air and ran one of his hands through his hair. This wasn't the easiest thing to explain to anyone – much less his own mother.

"It's hard to explain." he began. "All I know is that Luna is different. Not just from other girls, but she's different than everyone. She... sees things other people can't see. When we first met, she took one look at me and knew exactly what I was. She's the first person I've ever met who has never been intimidated or scared of me. And..." he paused mid-sentence, trying to find the right combination of words to express what he thought of her. "She is... light. When Luna's around, I don't ever feel a desire to hurt her, kiss her, date her, or anything else. I just... want to protect her."

Syn's posture didn't change, but a new sort of awareness dawned in her eyes. After a long moment of quietly studying him, her expression began to soften. Mihnea couldn't help but feel relieved by the sight. Maybe if she calmed down a little, she wouldn't turn this into something it wasn't. His decision to keep Luna could probably be considered sudden, but it certainly wasn't made on a whim. The woman in front of him sighed deeply and pushed her mass of hair back out of her face with both hands. One of her arms gestured to the couch situated against one wall of her office.

"Baby, sit down." she told him.

He did as instructed and watched silently as she took a seat next to him, turning to face him head on. She took one of his hands and pulled it into her lap.

"I want you to understand something." she began. "I don't want you to think I believe that you having a human pet is a bad thing. If you wanted to keep a whole menagerie of humans, that's your business and I wouldn't care..."

Oh Jesus, she was going into awkward territory. She didn't really think he would do that, did she? "Mom..." he interrupted, his tone whining.

Syn held up a finger. "I'm not finished. I think it's wonderful that you've found someone you can be open with and who accepts you. Everyone needs someone like that. But... this is one of those vampiric ideas that most people have trouble accepting. It takes a very special sort of human to understand what it means. And most girls, especially young girls, tend to romanticize things. Now, maybe this girl hasn't reached that point yet, and maybe she'll never think of it that way. The point is that it could happen. If this... relationship you have with her isn't going to be a romantic one, you have a responsibility to make damn sure she understands that now. If she winds up falling in love with you later on, both of you will be miserable because she'll be yearning for something you cant give her and you'll have to deal with it because you're stuck with her." she paused and gave his hand a firm squeeze. "You're nearly grown, and I trust you to make your own decisions. I just don't want to see you or someone you care about get hurt because you didn't think things through before jumping into something. Make sense?"

Mihnea slowly nodded. For as uncomfortable and awkward as the conversation began, he could appreciate that she wasn't going to stand in his way. His mother just wanted to make sure he was doing things the right way. The idea of thinking of Luna in a romantic way was so incredibly weird he couldn't even begin to imagine it. But... she had a point. Maybe that was something he needed to talk to her about so both of them understood the 'rules of engagement', so to speak.

"I'll make sure she knows." he told her.

"Good." Syn said, giving him a small approving smile. She then shook her head. "Just for the record, could you give me some warning next time you decide to do something like this? A little time to process the information would be nice."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes, mother." he sighed.

"Don't you, 'yes, mother' me." she chided, giving him a small slap to the shoulder. "I mean it. It's not easy to let go of my baby."

Oh God... "Mom, I'm not a baby anymore." he said, going back to his whining tone.

Syn let out a small laugh and pulled him into a deep hug. "It doesn't matter how old or big you get. As long as I'm around, you'll always be my baby." she told him. She kept him locked in the embrace for several long moments before loosening her arms to pull back. "Now, have you gotten this 'Luna' a herald yet?"

A 'herald' was a piece of jewelry that all 'human possessions' wore to show who they belonged to. They always bore a symbol – a unique style of vampiric heraldry, sort of like a coat of arms – that only other vampires would recognize. It was a safety mechanism that warned any vampires the person encountered that that particular human was off limits. Mihnea's symbol would have to be modified based on this father's design to show what bloodline he belonged to. He'd never had a reason to use one before now, so he'd have to have one made.

"Not yet." he replied. He felt sheepish for a second. "I was sort of hoping I could get one over break..."

His mother looked up at the ceiling. "That's something you'll have to do with your father." she said, then paused to give him a look. "After you've had this little conversation with her."

She seriously wasn't going to let him forget about that, was she? "Okay!" he exclaimed, holding up his hands. "After the conversation." his thoughts then turned to the idea of working on something like this with his father. "Um... what did dad say about it?"

Syn huffed in irritation. "Oh, trust me, Mihnea. You don't have to worry about what your father thinks about it. He puffed up the second we heard about it and has been strutting around like the king of the universe ever since." Mihnea's ears picked up on the 'evil bastard' comment she muttered at the end. Given that his mother tended to call Alucard that as an endearment, it wasn't a worrisome thing to hear.

"So..." he prodded, hoping to change the subject. "Does this mean I'm still allowed to get music off of your computer?"

He blinked hopefully and his mother gaped at him. "What on earth do you need music off of my computer for?" she asked him. "You have your own!"

"Well, yeah, but you have all the best songs, and there's no point in me buying them again." he pointed out. Mihnea pushed himself up onto his knees and put on his best pouty face. That always got a reaction out of her. "Please?"

The woman crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose into the air, trying to put him off. "I'll think about it."

Undeterred, Mihnea lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Please, mom? Please, please, pleeaasseeeeee?"

Syn did her best to ignore him, but when Mihnea steadfastly refused to let her go, she slumped and moved to push him off. "Oh, for the love of God! Okay, okay!" she exclaimed. "You can get music off my computer!"

Rather than letting her go completely, he tightened his arms around her in a tight hug before jumping off the couch. "Thank you!" he said in exuberance. "You're the best mom ever."

She sniffed at him again, but it was more playful than anything. "You'd damn well better think that with all the shit I have to put up with." she said. She extended a finger toward the door. "If you're going to steal all my stuff, you'll need to bring your phone in here to do it. My laptop doesn't leave this room, do you understand me?"

That was the long-standing rule, since all the work she did for Hellsing was done on that particular computer. Anything finished would be moved to an external storage device, but all open cases would still be on the hard drive. Mihnea nodded in understanding, then rushed out to collect his phone and the connecting cords he would need to sync with her music lists. When he got back, he settled himself down in the chair at her desk to get to work. His mother had been a DJ before coming to work for Hellsing, so she had literally hundreds of thousands of songs and pieces of music to sort through. It took nearly an hour to put together a list of things he didn't have in his own collection. One he got them set apart in a separate playlist, all he had to do was sit back and wait. While he was working on his thing with her computer, his mother had pulled out some paper files to sort through. When the computer screen read that there was only five minutes left before it would be safe to disconnect his phone, Mihnea noticed Syn's head shoot upright and her hand go still over the paper she was writing on.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking over at her in concern.

His mother shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "I'm fine." she said in a faraway sounding voice. "I'm just..." she went still and cocked her head to the side. Her eyes, which had previously held a slightly glazed over look, suddenly snapped into focus. "I have a bad feeling."

That got Mihnea's full attention and he suddenly sat upright. For however weird it sounded, when Syn Newsom had a bad feeling, it always meant something. His dad told him once that her intuition had been honed by death. When she got one of her 'feelings', you paid attention to it.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Is it something with dad and aunt Integra?"

That would be the simplest explanation, since she and Alucard already had that connection between them. However, his mother shook her head.

"No." she said. "Alucard's too far away for me to get a read on and he could handle anything that happens to Integra. This is... closer..." Without finishing whatever else she was going to say, she bolted up out of her seat and strode toward the door. "I'm getting Ed. You get Pip and Seras to the conference room. I don't know what the hell is going on, but it's big."

Mihnea needed no further explanation than that. If it wasn't his dad or aunt Integra that was in trouble, that left everyone at the house, or Connie. Leaving the phone and computer untouched, he jumped up and followed her out to hunt down his sister and the captain.

Syn hated her weird feelings. Sure, it was nice to have an 'early warning system', but she never got anything more than the awful sensation that something terrible was about to happen. It would have been a hell of a lot more useful if her foreboding feelings had GPS or some kind of label attached to them. With nothing specific to work with, all she and Edmund could do was get in contact with various police forces to see if anything out of place was going on. This sort of thing had happened often enough over the years that none of Hellsing's office people batted an eye at being forced to do a full search because of her having a 'bad feeling'. They started with London, then gradually worked their way out to the surrounding areas. Finally, after a good half hour of pouring through different departments, they got a hit. There was a confirmed vampire attack in Surrey that had taken place only an hour or so ago. Within a few minutes of receiving that piece of information, they got more. Small, localized attacks following a specific route. It looked like whatever was responsible for this mess was moving. Searching for something.

"Damn it, this is fucking weird." Edmund commented, looking over the maps and reports they had managed to pull together. "What the hell are these things doing?"

Pip and Seras leaned over the table, studying the maps for themselves. "They're avoiding the London area." the police girl pointed out. "Only the attack in Surrey produced ghouls. They're killing everyone else..."

"Zhe first 'it iz still active zhough." Pip said, frowning thoughtfully. "Zhat's one 'ell of a big group of vampires. Eet looks like zhe trail zplits 'ere..."

Syn couldn't for the life of her figure it out. What was the point of attacking a certain place and leaving some vampires behind while the others continued on elsewhere? Next to her, Mihnea was looking everything over, trying to piece things together for himself. Without any warning, he grabbed her arm, looking disturbed by something.

"It's Potter." he said.

Everyone stopped to look at him. "Potter?" Edmund asked. "Connie's friend Harry, you mean?"

Mihnea nodded and extended a finger toward the map. "Potter's family lives in Surrey." he reported. "The trail going south is heading right for Brighton. That's where Granger's family is."

Syn felt an icy chill run down her spine. It made sense. If the vampires were looking for Potter and they didn't find him at his family's home, they would move on to other places he was likely to be. From what Constance told them, Harry's closest friends were herself, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley. If Grangers' house was next on the list, then the Weasleys' wouldn't be far behind. And if the trail had already split... Across from her, Syn saw Edmund's face go white. He had come to the exact same conclusion.

"Holy shit, Connie's going to be in the middle of this mess." he spat, then looked over at Mihnea. "Where's the Burrow? Do you know what city it's in?"

Mihnea shook his head, looking just as worried as everyone else felt. "It's in the countryside." he said. "I think... I've heard the twins talk about it being near a village. Ottery St. Mary. I have no idea what side it's on, but it's near there."

"That's three hours away!" Seras exclaimed, her eyes wide. "They've got too much of a head start for us to intercept them before they get there!"

Jesus fucking Christ, this situation had all sorts of bad written all over it in big, bold letters. Three attacks – two of which hadn't happened yet. If these vampires hit Brighton, Hellsing wouldn't be able to stop them completely, but they might be able to get there fast enough to keep the damage to a minimum. But Ottery St. Mary was going to be a problem. Even at full speed, it would take a while to get there and there was no telling what sort of carnage these bastards could cause in the meantime. After a quick discussion of their options, they formulated a workable plan. They would have to split up and respond to each area at once. The soldiers would be divided into three teams. Pip would take one to Surrey to handle the situation there. Mihnea would go with the second team to Brighton. The Granger girl knew him from school and they figured she would be more likely to cooperate with an evacuation if someone she recognized was there. It was fortunate that he felt ready to handle a solo mission, because they didn't have much choice in the matter. Because Potter and Constance were at the Burrow – and the vampires would make that their primary target when they didn't find the boy at the other locations – Syn and Seras would go with the third team to Ottery St. Mary. The soldiers wouldn't be able to locate a magical house, but Syn would be able to find it. Seras would provide the necessary muscle to deal with god knows how many monsters they would encounter there.

"You two should go ahead of the men." Ed told them before they left the conference room. "Syn's bike is fast enough to keep up with a vampire at full speed. The trucks wouldn't get there in time."

Syn and Seras both nodded in understanding and rushed off to get ready, leaving Edmund behind to call Constance to give her some warning about what was coming.

"This is a conspiracy!" Ron exclaimed, throwing down his playing cards in irritation. "There's no bloody way you two have won this many times in a row on pure luck! Someone is cheating!"

Connie and Ginny exchanged a mutual look of pride and satisfaction. "You don't have to be a sore loser, Ron." his sister told him. "It's not our fault you're terrible at it."

Constance nodded with a playful grin. "Is it because we're girls? I said before that we could split up to make things more fair for you guys..."

"No way!" the boy said firmly, thrusting his fingers toward the cards laying on the floor. "Shuffle those damn things and deal them out. Me and Harry will get you eventually."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest, looking just as determined to win as his partner was. "Every game gets closer." he said. "We'll do it this time."

"Right. Our luck is turning!"

Fred and George looked at each other in amusement. "Keep telling yourself that, Ronnikins." they said together.

Ron puffed up and sniffed at them both. "You two can't talk either!" he said. "You're losing too!"

"Not as bad as you though." George pointed out.

It was always funny to see a bunch of boys get so up in arms about a card game. Upon arriving at the Burrow, all the younger people in the house found that they were rested with a short nap – leaving them wide awake and eager for something to do after Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went to bed. For the sake of keeping the noise level down, they all holed up in the attic to play Rook. Constance suggested it because it was one of the muggle card games she hadn't been able to teach George yet because it required at least four people to play. Since there were six of them, they were easily divided up into pairs. Fred and George, naturally, chose to work together, while Harry and Ron formed the second team; leaving Constance and Ginny to be partners with each other. Despite the fact that Ginny had never played Rook before, she quickly took to the game and the two girls had bested both sets of boys every time so far. Ron was awful about identifying which cards gave them points, meaning that it was really just a battle between the girls and the twins. They had their gambling experience on their side – which helped with making good bets for the widow. However, Constance had years of experience playing with the soldiers back home as her secret weapon. When the boys started getting more combative, she had no qualms with pulling that out to use against them.

It was Fred's turn to deal, so he gathered all the cards up off the floor and expertly shuffled them. A new hand was dealt out and everyone took to examining their cards for the seventh time that night. Constance didn't see much in her hand, so she'd have to rely on Ginny to make an appropriate bet this round.

"I say 180." the girl announced.

Connie arched a brow. Ginny had to be pretty confident in her hand to throw that one out there. Of course, the red one was on top of the widow, so everyone was lusting after it. George then made a bet of 200. When it was Harry and Ron's turn to make a bet, the two boys studied each other for a long moment. It seemed that they thought that if they stared at each other long enough, they'd be able to read each other's minds.

"500." Ron said at last.

Constance put down her hand where the cards couldn't be seen and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ron, we're betting how many points we think we can get with the cards we have." she told him. "You do realize that if you don't reach your bet, you automatically get zero poi..."

"Miss Hellsing!"

The girl's words dropped off and she froze when those words rang out through the air. Was that Persephone? What the bloody hell did she think she was doing? The others all went still and stared around the room in shock, wondering where the sound had come from.

"What the..." Ron began, only to be cut off.

"Miss Hellsing, this is important!" Persephone's voice called out of nowhere a second time. "Life or death important!"

Life or death important? Connie wondered. What the hell was going on? It had to be something serious if her gun spirit was popping up out of nowhere when she knew she wasn't supposed to show up when her friends were around. While everyone else was still looking around wildly, fearful of what was happening, her eyes fixed on George. He was looking directly at her, his expression worried and questioning. When Persephone called out her name a third time, she knew there was no getting around it. Her identity had just be pulled out into the open. She took a deep, shuddering breath and made a decision. She had left the compact mirror she usually carried with her downstairs in her room. She'd have to use something else.

"Mirror!" she said, focusing on George and blocking everyone else out for the moment. "I need a mirror! Anything reflective."

He immediately dropped his cards and scrambled to search through the boxes stored in the attic. She did the same as well, doing her best to ignore the confused and bewildered questions of the others.

"What the hell is going on?" Ron asked, his eyes darting around at every corner of the room. "What is that?"

"What are you two doing?"

"George?"

"Connie!"

George finally found an old, antique looking hand mirror and called out to Constance. She caught it in mid air when he tossed it toward her and flipped it over to look into splotched glass surface.

"Damn it, Persephone, this had better be really fucking good." she said, not bothering to censor herself.

Persephone popped into the glass, looking more disheveled and upset than the girl had ever seen her before.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Hellsing." she apologized, genuinely upset about what she was doing. "There's no time for following rules right now. There is a group of vampires heading right for you, and they're coming to this house."

Connie's eyes went wide. "WHAT?"

"They're coming here." The girl in the mirror repeated. Her usual calm expression was tense with worry. It was striking, because every time Constance had seen Persephone, she always looked like nothing could bother her. This was bad. "You don't have long to get ready. There's going to be a whole army of ghouls with them."

A group of vampires was heading straight for the Burrow with an army of ghouls? Constance felt a tremor run through her hands, making it difficult to hold the mirror steady. No wonder her gun spirit had broken the secrecy rule. If they hit this house, they would be slaughtered. She was the only one here who knew enough about vampires to fight them off... what the hell were they supposed to do?

In that moment, something inside of her brain snapped. She was a Hellsing, and monsters were coming to attack the home of people she cared for. If something was going to be done to stop it, she would have to be the one to do it.

"Okay, okay." she said, more to herself than anyone else. "I... I have to call home. You... go back to the gun and stay there. I'm going to need your help."

Persephone nodded in understanding. "Absolutely, Miss Hellsing. Any way I can."

With that, the spirit vanished from the glass and Constance looked up to find herself confronted by the shocked and disbelieving stares of her friends. Of all the ways she thought her identity might have been revealed to them, she had never expected it to happen this way.

"Miss Hellsing?" Ginny questioned.

"Connie, what's going on?" Ron demanded.

"Why was that thing calling you, Miss Hellsing?" Fred asked, looking back and forth between her and George.

Harry swallowed. "Connie?" he asked, looking at her searchingly.

Constance squared her shoulders. If she was going to do this, she'd handle it like a Hellsing should. "I swear I'll explain everything to you guys when this is over." she promised. "Right now, we've got a bunch of vampires and ghouls heading right for us and if we don't do something, all of us will die."

A.N: Oooohhh... evil cliffhanger. I'm a terrible person, I know.

Reviews will make the next segment come online faster! ~shifty eyes~