Important Author's Note: Medieval AU for Hellsing to pull this crossover off. As for Seras' personality, I went with the demeanor she takes on post-Zorin fight. Also forget Hellsing's Alucard; he's been overwritten by Netflix Castlevania's Dracula. I own neither of these series.

-0-0-0-

Chapter One: Stranger

It was nearly daybreak by the time Seras arrived at Castle Dracula, landing neatly in the forecourt and looking up to survey the familiar motley collection of towers and bastions. An army of gears revolved around their axles and pistons pumped and hissed with every movement. Here and there, steam spilled from one turret or other and dispersed among the fading stars. It was a fortress as hideous as it was breathtaking, and a sight she could not help but admire every time she passed its way.

But tonight Seras broke from her reverie early and swept up the stairs to the great stone portal, her cloak and dress trailing behind. Her inhuman strength allowed her easy access into the gloomy keep and, once inside, she drew back her crimson cowl lined with snow-clotted, sable fur and wrinkled her nose. There was something different about the castle, she noticed with a frown. It seemed brighter. Clearer even. As if the warmth of a summer breeze had somehow traversed the threshold and breathed life back into this old ruin, and Seras could scarcely explain it.

As she brushed snow from the hem of her dress, she turned her head to the unmistakable clink of glass and the steady hum of a gas burner. Figuring her master was in the laboratory, she set off in that direction, her footfalls echoing softly in the dim hall. Between the grand double staircases she went and down the lit corridor, and still the sensation of cleanliness and light pervaded her path. Now that she thought about it, the spiders were gone. She could not see evidence of their webs on the sconces nor the suits of armor lined along the wall. The armor itself seemed to have been cleaned recently, too, and she paused to slide her finger across a pauldron, only to draw it away free of dust.

Had her master been cleaning his fortress?

She made a thoughtful sound as she continued onward to the open door of the laboratory where the light of the bright lamps filtered across the carpet. Seras opened her mouth to call out in greeting, but when she reached the doorway, she froze and stared at the figure inside. That was not Dracula. It was a woman—a human woman—tinkering with something at a desk. Seras was shocked speechless. What was a human doing in her master's castle, never mind working in his prized alchemy lab?

"Who are you?" she demanded, baring her fangs. The woman jumped and whipped around to face her, blonde hair held out of her face by a band of linen and goggles protecting her pale blue eyes. She held a Florence flask containing a clear fluid, but Seras took no notice. Had she been wearing the form of a she-wolf, her hackles would have been raised as she repeated, "Who the hell are you?"

"Dracula?" the woman called, backing into the worktable as she clutched the flask. "Dracula, there's a young lady here!"

"I heard," her master's voice drawled smoothly and Seras flinched as he appeared abruptly behind her, sweeping into the laboratory and removing her cloak in the process. "This is a surprise, my dear. Had I known you'd intended to visit, I'd have forewarned you of my guest."

Seras narrowed her eyes, but Dracula gently placed a hand on her shoulder and gestured to the interloper in the laboratory. "Seras," he said. "This woman is called Lisa. She is a new pupil of mine and has been my guest for some months now. Lisa," He took Seras' hand in his own and kissed her fingers. "This is my daughter, the Lady Seras Victoria Draculina."

"Oh!" Lisa, apparently, gasped in surprise. "I-I didn't realize you had family, or that vampires could…well, you know."

Dracula permitted an indulgent laugh, something that seemed to come naturally all of a sudden. Not contrived in the name of deception or annoyance, Seras noted, but a true and genuine laugh. "No, Lisa, our kind do not procreate in the human sense of the word. When I call Seras my daughter, I mean she is my fledgling. A former human woman turned vampire in her dying moments, and the blood bond we share makes her my child by right."

Seras bristled at such a brazen disclosure of her history and secrets to a mortal woman, but she held her peace as 'Lisa' set aside the flask and removed her goggles before approaching to hold out her hand. "Well, then, I am very pleased to meet you, Lady Seras. I hope I will be able to call you my friend during my stay here."

Seras' glare did not abate until Dracula's grip on her shoulder tightened, and she automatically lifted her hand to grasp the human's. "Pleasure," she said stiffly. What the hell is going on? What in the world was Master thinking to allow a human in the castle? Had he taken leave of his senses? Or was he planning to eat her? Yes, perhaps that was it. Otherwise, what other reason could he have? And yet why had she found the human at work in the alchemy lab? All these thoughts raced through her mind at a speed even she couldn't fathom, and she dared not look to Dracula for answers. His iron grip on her shoulder said enough.

Relief swept through her as Lisa let go of her hand, and she drew it back to her as though she'd been burned. "I-I will show myself to my chambers then. That is, if they are still mine, sir."

"Of course, my dear," Dracula said as he released her and gestured to the door. "You know I wouldn't evict you from your own home. Go on. It will be dawn soon, and if you've come all the way from Poenari this night, I imagine you must be tired."

Without another look at Lisa, Seras made her escape though the doors and fled down the hall once she was out of sight, her thoughts in disarray.

-0-0-0-

"You will have to forgive her coldness," Dracula said as soon as Lady Seras had disappeared. "I am afraid Seras has been shown little compassion from the human race and therefore harbors no love for them."

Lisa looked to him in concern. "What happened?"

The vampire turned away to organize the books at the worktable, marking pages and closing them before placing the ancient tomes neatly on the shelves. "From what she has freely admitted, I know her parents were killed when a pair of thieves broke into her childhood home. With no one to take her in, she spent her childhood wandering the Wallachian countryside until she arrived at the village of Cașcaval where she spent the rest of her human days begging and taking on backbreaking work to survive."

"You found her in such a sorry state then?" Lisa asked as she turned off the gas burner and poured the flask of freshly distilled water into a sterile container.

"No. I had been hunting another of my kind who'd insulted me, a wretched Nosferatu posing as a priest in Cașcaval. By the time I found him, he'd slaughtered the entire village in his bloodlust, all except for Seras, whom he'd intended to use for…other purposes."

Lisa shuddered.

"Seras was dealt a mortal wound in the fraudulent priest's struggle, and rather than leave her to die, I offered her the choice to join me and become a creature of the night. Thus, she became my daughter."

Such a cruel fate for one so young. Lisa lowered her eyes to her desk and began to pack her notes into her satchel. "Do you…love Seras then?"

"As much as any man loves his daughter, I suppose." Dracula smiled fondly. "I ensure her safety, I've gifted her with fine clothes and a castle of her own with servants to queen over, and I indulge her whims, whatever they may be."

Lisa wasn't sure she wished to know what those whims were, but she hung the leather bag over her shoulder and smiled up at him. "I never took you for a doting father. Do you think it possible that I could win her over? I meant what I told her about hoping to be friends."

"I am sure you did. But for now, it's time to sleep. The sun will soon rise." Dracula offered her his arm and together they departed the lab, extinguishing out the lights on the way out. "Do try not to stay up too late reading that book you pilfered from the shelves, Lisa."

"You know I won't promise that."