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Last Stand	By : Anguifer Category: Hellsing > Crossovers Views: 3321 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any publicly recognizable characters, settings, histories, etc. belonging to Hellsing or Harry Potter and make no profit from their use.

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~Last Stand 3~

Bright sunlight streaked through the open window, casting dazzling ribbons across the floor and cascading onto the bed. Normally it would have been a peaceful sight, were it not for the light invading the closed eyelids of the occupant. Harry snarled incoherently and rolled to his stomach, shoving his head beneath the feather pillow. Someone would surely die a bloody death if they did not cease that obnoxiously powerful Lumos spell.

Several minutes later his consciousness caught on to the fact that yes, he was depressingly awake, and no, that was no spell, but actual sunlight. Brain addled from sleep, he pried open swollen and blood-shot eyes, and cursed vilely at the window. It was of course completely irrational to be yelling at a perfectly innocent inanimate object, but Harry was in no fit state to be awake let alone think. By the looks of things it was not even that far past dawn.

Despite the exceedingly foul mood he was in, and the usual confusion of waking up, the events of the past night and day came immediately to his thoughts; As well as his 'meeting' with Alucard in his dreams. He growled low in his throat at the unwelcome violation. Having had madmen invading his mind since he was fourteen, he was not all that appreciative towards the vampire despite his cordial attitude in the dreamscape. Parole or not, if he saw the vampire in reality any time soon he would not hesitate at shooting him.

This morning his moods were surprisingly lucid compared to most times. Of course it could have simply been the fact that he was so damn tired that calmed his mania. Taking a moment to meditate on this strange feeling, he concluded that today would most likely result in a depressive episode. Having been dealing with his growing insanity for a few years now, he had learned to predict the warning signs of certain mood swings.

Groaning in irritation, he rolled off the bed and landed in a wobbly crouch on the floor. He did not bother getting to his feet, simply crawled on hands and knees towards the window, eyes squinted closed against the cursed light. He grumbled to himself with every lazy totter forward, cursing the sun for rising, and Sir Integra for giving him an east-facing room. A room that apparently did not have curtains, he was severely displeased to note once he reached his destination and looked up.

Mission not accomplished, he simply lay there face down on the floor under the window for several long moments. The sun actually felt good against his skin. Having spent most of his days doing the cloak and dagger bit, he had not had much opportunity to simply sit out in the sunlight and do nothing. It was... pleasant. When not searing his eyes from his skull that was. He could very much appreciate why cats seemed to make sunbathing a sport.

That thought made him perk up slightly and he smirked. Thinking of cats made him think of his animagus form, which in turn caused him to ponder whether or not his magic worked the same in this world as it did in his old one. There was only one way to find out. Ginny would have hexed him into next week if she could see him now. Severus too for that matter. Er... Bill as well, for causing his lover to go into a rage. How strange, to think of Ginny and Bill as lovers.

Before his mind could wander down a completely irrelevant and highly confusing path, he focused once more on the matter at hand. Already he was bored with the inactivity and he needed something physical to do. Seeing as how he was unsure of how his magic would react, he took the transformation in steps, as he would if he were still in the learning stages of that branch of magic. It would do more harm than good to simply 'pop' into his form without preparation if there was an unforeseen reaction.

First, he concentrated on clearing his mind. Rather an easy task now days, as when his thoughts were not in a deafening clamor, they were disconcertingly absent. Next he imagined the familiar form in his head. Striking black and red fur stood out against glaring green eyes, long tail, and short snout. Finally, he coaxed his will into capturing the image and holding it. He watched the beast melt seamlessly back and forth between his human body. A tingling sensation swept through him and he let out a mew of triumph as his magic worked its... magic.

Climbing to his feet, he padded silently into the bathroom and effortlessly leapt the four feet up onto the counter. Staring into the mirror hanging on the wall above the sink, Harry preened. Gazing back at him from the mirror was a rust colored Caracal with black marbling, and pure black ear tufts, paws, and tail. Normally he was not vain about his appearance, but damned if he was not pleased with his animal form. It helped immensely that the animal instincts drowned out his human emotional and mental hang-ups as well.

Since taking on his animagus form, he felt that he understood Sirius all too well. The man had survived thirteen years in Azkaban with nothing but his dog form and thoughts of revenge to keep him sane. Then again, despite his charade to the contrary, Harry's godfather never was particularly well balanced after his incarceration. Never was to begin with, come to think of it. If only his 'dogfather' could see him now.

The irrelevant ponderings of course brought about that depression he had predicted. Thus having been the reason he chose to transform in the first place. Or had it been something to do with the weather? He forgot. Never the less, it also served another purpose. The humans about the compound would never suspect he could change shape at will, him being human. Now that he knew he still could, some snooping about was in order.

Never did it dawn on him that the humans would be suspicious of an over-large exotic cat wondering the grounds. While serviceable, his form was much too big to be mistaken for a regular house cat or wild mutt, though thankfully not so large as to cause a panic. Still, it bothered him not at all as he jumped from the sink and sauntered back to the window. A quick pop back into his human form to open the window and he was home free.

To the insane wizard's credit, not once did he forget his pledge to stay within the grounds. It was actually quite thrilling, sneaking across the expansive lawn while knowing he was not properly camouflaged. The familiar sound of gunfire drew him around back of the large manor. When he caught sight of the troops running drills, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. All Harry lived for was fighting, dying, and surviving. It was a pleasing thought that he would not become rusty in his combat skills while in this world.

Not wishing to become the object of target practice, he sneaked along the property fence and climbed a tree that overlooked the training field without becoming a part of it. The soldiers scurried about like insects to his view. The comparison made him lick his lips and twitch his tail. He needed a good hunt. The situation would have been perfect if his form had been that of a bigger cat. Maybe a tiger. A young woman with a head of short blonde hair had his attention most of all.

The girl carried a huge gun, bigger than her by far, yet it did not seem to hinder her movements or strain her. The others treated her with reluctant respect, despite her childish grin and sunny mannerisms. His feline instincts told him to be wary of that one, while at the same time sending confusing signals that she would be fun to hunt as prey. Had he wanted to be shot, he would have gotten closer to catch a whiff of her scent.

After about an hour of observing the combat training, Harry became bored. Hooded green eyes drifted lazily towards the manor and he gave a cattish grin. Certainly he shouldn't....

“Oh, go for it Harry, you know you want to.”

Fred, or maybe it was George, spoke up. Of course they were dead, but that did not stop them from talking to Harry on occasion. They could be likened to his shoulder angels- Or devils, rather. They usually spoke to him when things got too stressful. Good ol' Gred and Forge, always trying to cheer him up after a bloodbath. Not that he usually needed cheering up after one of those.

Confusion once again invaded his senses. The Weasley twins were dead. How could they speak to him? And why would he be cheerful at the thought of violence? After a moment of thought he shrugged. There was no use in contemplating such things. They just were. Just like he was certain Severus was always right, and Ginny was always beautiful, he knew he was insane. Why question it further. Unless this world had brain transplants or memory wipes to make him forget the torture.

The skin on his back twitched and he hissed quietly, happy thoughts suddenly dashed to pieces as a floodgate in his mind was opened. Unhappy memories and images flooded to the fore and his carefully constructed illusion of normality shattered. Fur rose on end and he leapt from the tree, sprinting towards the mansion, suddenly disturbed by the laughing soldiers on the grounds as they opened fire on life-like dummies and cardboard cut-outs.

Voices screamed in his head as he clawed frantically at the door. The people he had killed, the times he laughed through the agony, the people who had died defending Hogwarts. Fragments of long suppressed fear and doubt, countless days of endless torture at the hands of faceless Death Eaters, all loosed at once. It was all too much. Too much. A human-like howl of terror escaped him. He was back in that dungeon room, back in captivity. He had to get out.

The door to the mansion finally opened and he streaked in past a startled looking Walter, ignoring the butler’s exclamation. His instincts carried him to the dungeons, to the cells of his comrades. In his mind he was seeing himself escape the cavern from so many years ago, seeing himself whisked away by Severus and Lucius via portkey. Now he was seeing the Hogwarts dungeons, a place of refuge to him, the only safe place there had been back in his world. Only his panic did not dissipate. The door to the Slytherin common room was not opening for him, and he was alone. Had his friends finally realized what a monster he really was? Had they finally forsaken him?

Trapped inside his hallucination, he sat huddled against the cold steel of Severus' and Lucius' cell, shivering. A low, constant, cry fell from his jaws. It chilled the souls of those locked within the cells who heard. His lieutenants pounded the door and shouted words of comfort to him, but he did not hear. Footsteps approached but he did not react- Could not react. Not even as he was hoisted into strong arms and cradled against a cool chest. He merely twitched and fell silent, eyes gazing sightlessly at the wall.

Where were Gred and Forge? Where were Sirius and Remus? Molly and Arthur? Why was his mind now silent? Why was he alone? Why had they all abandoned him alone in the dungeons? Had they finally seen his black soul? His dark thoughts? Where they terrified of him? Repulsed? Angry that he liked the killing, liked the blood, and liked the fear he saw in his enemies eyes before he murdered them?

Too much. It was all too much. Harry only reacted to the new presence once a cool hand started stroking down his spine. The sensation was pleasant, and so far from everything else he was feeling at that moment that it helped snap him out of his episode. Closing his eyes for several moments, he drew the feline instincts around him like a cloak. When he opened them, he finally saw the world for how it was. Not the Slytherin dungeons, not the dungeons in the caverns. Hellsing manor was a world away from all of that. The realization had more of a calming effect on him than the petting ever could.

Looking around, he spied that he was in the manor basement. The room was expansive, but bare of furniture and decoration, save the chair he was sitting on and an end table. A chair was apparently petting him. Finally he turned his head and looked up. A red coat was the first thing to greet his sight, followed closely by red eyes and black hair. Curse his sodding luck. The vampire he had vowed to shoot upon their next meeting was the one who had pulled him out of a panic attack.

“Well, well, it seems I was wrong about you. A wolf in cat's clothing rather than a sheep. What a curiosity!”

The vampire chuckled and grinned down at the perturbed caracal. Harry was tempted to turn back into his human form, just to see if it would shock the damn vampire, but decided against it. The freak-out had been horrible while in the muted thoughts of a cat; he did not want to find out how bad it would be if he had his more complex human emotions. So he simply proceeded to thoroughly ignore the vampire while still getting petted. He let the feline instincts take over completely for once, only keeping enough control to ensure he was not lost within his own mind.

There was a reason Animagi were so rare in his world. Most people did not possess a will strong enough to not lose themselves completely to the animal. There were tales of avian animagi who got so lost in their bird instincts that they forgot they were human. There usually was not anything that could be done to bring them back. Animagi looked no different than any other animal while in their alternate forms.

The disjointed nature of his own thoughts soothed him finally. While pondering on the fact that he could conceivably get stuck in this form alarmed him, the worry was familiar. So he allowed himself to relax into the familiar nagging that was Hermione, as his lost friends' voices piped back up in the back of his mind. They were not real, he knew, simply constructs of his own demented mind, but whatever kept him from going even farther off the deep end.

The vampire seemed to know what he was thinking, as Alucard snickered and scratched him behind the ears. Blinking open green eyes, he stared at the monster. What motivated Alucard to pull him out of his episode? What did the vampire want in return for the soothing actions he was taking now? Nothing good ever came without a price tag for Harry. This was most definitely no different.

“I simply wish the pleasure of your company for a few short hours. Few humans ever appreciate my humor.”

The crafty Nosferatu inflected the correct amount of earnest sadness into his voice to be believable. Too bad for him, Harry was not buying it one wit. The soldier flicked an ear at the vampire and continued to feign disinterest. A throaty purr betrayed him. His tail thrashed in annoyance as the vampire snickered yet again. There was one disadvantage to being in feline form after all.

Thankfully, or not, depending on the situation, Walter chose to enter the room at that moment, interrupting Harry's plots to claw the red sleeve in his view to ribbons. The butler looked rather frazzled as he paused near the door to take in the sight of blood thirsty vampire petting a purring, over-large cat. After a moment, he seemed to brush the oddity away as he stepped forward, flashing a toothy grin at Alucard.

“Walter! To what do I owe this visit?”

“Well, Alucard, Sir Integra would like to know about your friend there. It seems that he put up quite a racket outside the manor, and again in the basement near our guests cells.”

The retainer shot an almost knowing glance at Harry, and the wizard tensed. He did not want his host knowing of certain abilities. Right now he could not imagine what had possessed him to go outside in his current form to begin with. The vampire ran a hand down the length of his back, and soon Harry lost his train of thought. He listened with only half an ear at the conversation going on over him. He actually found himself feeling rather fatigued. Perhaps a cat nap would suffice.

“This cat? I could not imagine what trouble you believe he may have caused. He is one of my familiars.”

“Really? Well, if that is the case, I believe I must inform Sir Integra at once. You know that any new powers you exhibit must be reported; I have never seen such a form before.”

“Really now, Walter. Do you honestly think I would use my full range of abilities on most occasions? Most of my targets are not fit for my attention, let alone that of my familiars. Freak vampires? Pitiful pissants. I shall inform Integra myself, if that will put your mind at ease.”

“Very well. I was also to inform you that you may be deployed later in the evening. Reports of unusual activity have been coming in from Northern Ireland. Possible Freak involvement, as yet unconfirmed. From the sounds of it, Mr. Potter may be given leave to accompany the troops.”

Alucard sounded far too amused as he responded, “Oh-ho! I wonder what she has in mind.” Harry could hear the brief click of heels, perhaps from Walter coming to attention. He was getting even woozier. The terror had left him feeling listless. Yes, perhaps a nap to sleep through the rest of the depression. From the sounds of it he would need to be well rested come after noon. Hunting was an exciting prospect at the moment. He could take his ire out on something deserving of death. That and of all the beings he had killed in his life, he had never before hunted a vampire.

He rumbled in satisfaction. Killing humans was hard, not that it bothered him now days. Killing a vampire would be no trouble at all. The happy, babbling, monologue from Hermione regarding vampires and their habits lulled Harry into a light doze. Every so often he would crack an eyelid to peer suspiciously at the vampire, which seemed to amuse the undead. For the most part it was a relaxing retreat from his normal habits.

Cats required substantially less sleep than humans to become refreshed. Being that he was for all intents and purposes a cat, it only took an hour and a half before he felt energetic and ready to move from the curiously comfortable spot. With a lazy, gaping, yawn that showed off his sharp teeth, Harry got up in stages. First he pushed up with his hind legs, and then he stretched out his lithe body to its full length, using his front paws as leverage to keep him in place as his front half slid down the other side of Alucard's lap. Finally he stretched, extending his claws and kneading equally as lazily at a cloth covered leg before sliding boneless to the floor.

He stared up at the amused vampire and twitched. From this angle he could see that the man was just as tall and vaguely intimidating as he had been in the dreamscape. Only “vaguely”, because Harry had gone head to head against far more intimidating beings in his time.

He pondered the wisdom of returning to his true form. While he seemed mentally stable after the respite, he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to converse with Alucard after the embarrassment of his episode, and the knowledge that Alucard knew at least some of his memories from the dreams. Talk about awkward conversation. The decision was made for him though, as Alucard spoke up.

“You should return to your rooms before suspicion is raised of your absence. We wouldn't want rumors getting around, now would we?”

The innuendo was made obvious by the toothy grin that spread across Alucard's features. Harry chose to ignore it. With an aggravated sigh, he paced back several feet before popping into his human shape. The world swam for a moment as he grew in height and his eyesight shifted back to flat, dull perception. Abruptly he startled and his hand reached instinctively for a gun that was not there. In the span of a single second, Alucard had moved from his lounging position on the chair to mere inches from Harry. Their faces were unnervingly close, Alucard having to lean down so they were eye to eye. The hair at the nape of his neck tingled at the stare.

“Can any of your comrades change their shape as well?”

Harry's spine straightened at the sudden shift in atmosphere. The vampire exuded an aura of power that was near suffocating, where before there was nothing. The faux friendly exterior was replaced with harsh, commanding lines and unwavering demand. Harry had expected such a thing, but not the suddenness of its onset. His voice was devoid of emotion, his mind automatically 'clicking' into soldier mode as he responded. He chaffed at giving away their secrets, however he knew it was necessary for their continued survival.

“To the best of my knowledge, only two others under my command can achieve the transformation.”

“Can any of you use your abilities without the aid of a wand?”

“No. However the transformation between human and animal does not require a wand. Also, Sir Integra should be advised that the children have little control over their abilities. Under certain stressful circumstances and heightened negative emotions, they may accidentally cause strange things to happen to the person or thing causing the distress. Nothing that isn't easily reversed by one of my men if requested.”

“What can you, and they, turn in to?”

“Animagi can only possess one animal form. You have seen mine. Ginny can turn into a badger and Kingsley a bear.”

“Fascinating. I should like to learn more of your abilities later. For now, my Master calls. Walter will inform you when we are ready to move out.”

In the blink of an eye, Alucard was gone. Harry didn't bat an eyelash. Though he did swear up a storm when he exited the chamber and realized he did not know where in the sub-basement he was.
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Last Stand