A/N: So, just a bit of back story to start us off here...this stands on its own pretty well, but it was written as part of another story that I haven't finished or posted yet. The necessary basics: Professor Snape trains Harry for his battle against Voldemort, and the two of them work to destroy all of the Horcruxes that the Dark Lord made out of his rock collection.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series
"The moon? Really? How the fuck are we supposed to get to the moon?" Harry demanded, his voice bordering on hysteria.
"Language, Potter," Snape drawled lazily, looking at the younger man as though he had sprouted a second head. "Magic, duh. Hold on to this strand of Mardi Gras beads," he declared, holding a strand of purple beads out to the other man. He knew what Potter was going to say seconds before the words were uttered.
"We're going to port-key to the moon?"
"What's with all of the questions Potter? Are you new?" Snape sneered. The younger man gaped at him.
"I've just never been to the moon before." Harry replied. "How will we breathe?"
Snape gasped and snapped his fingers. Standing up quickly, he rushed to his potions cupboard and after rummaging through something in the back, returned with a block of cheese. He broke off a hunk for himself and then handed the rest to Harry.
"You're going to need to eat all of that."
"What is it, sir?" Potter asked, wrinkling his nose at the stench of the striped orange cheese.
"This is moon cheese," Snape replied, biting off a large piece of his own cheese. "The moon bears make it. It will allow you to breathe and maintain gravity while we're in space."
Snape wasn't sure if it was the Moon Cheese or the Moon Bears that did it, but Potter was now staring at him with his mouth gaping open. Snape waved his hand in front of the younger man's face and received no reaction.
Assuming that he had finally broken the man's brain, Severus tossed the cheese into the gaping hole that was Potter's mouth and spelled him to chew. He placed the Mardi Gras beads into his hand an activated the Port-Key.
In hind sight, he probably should have given Potter some warning that intergalactic Port-Key travel was exponentially worse than the regular method. It felt like ones entire body was being torn apart molecule by molecule and then run through a shredder. Severus watched as he and Harry hurtled through space. Colors and lights rushed by. Severus couldn't help but laugh as he examined the jostling sensation and realized that Harry had been hit in the head with a space rock. He would have liked to have kept that rock, but they were already several light years away from it.
Severus focused on the colors. There was some pink. There was a little flash of green. There was a bit of blue. He wondered what he was seeing. He thought that maybe once the war was taken care of, perhaps he would like to do some space exploring.
They landed in a pile of limbs and it took several moments to figure out which belonged to whom.
"Okay," Harry panted as he looked around at all of the rocks on the moon, "how do we figure out which of these rocks is Voldemort's soul?"
Severus was forced to acknowledge that the boy had a good point. The one thing that the moon had more of than cheese was rocks.
"I would assume that this will take a while," he replied dryly. Potter grabbed his arm.
"I bet that's it." Severus followed the arm that Potter used to point to a large shrine several yards to their left. Severus was about to remind the younger man that the shrine must be well guarded if it was out in the open such as it was and that running towards it with reckless abandon would be dangerous when Potter surprised him. He watched as his companion lifted a moon rock that was close to his foot and flung it at the base of the shrine. The rock bounced several times on its way to its destination.
At first nothing happened.
Then there was a loud cracking noise and the ground began to shake. Suddenly a fence made of upwardly gushing columns of molten moon cheese appeared in their path and a barrage of arrows came flying towards them.
A booming voice echoed through the desolate landscape.
"Who goes there?"
Severus sensed a presence behind him. He felt a gush of wind breeze by his ear and everything went black.
When he woke up, he had no idea where he was. It appeared to be a room with walls made entirely of stone, and he was chained with his back to another person. He felt a pain in his neck that he recognized as a crick when he strained to see who was behind him. He must have passed out with his head in a strange position. Speaking of his head, it was throbbing.
"Where are we?" a weak voice groaned from behind him. "Would you please stop moving?"
"Oh God!" Severus moaned as he recognized the voice. Here he was in this strange place and he was chained to Harry Bloody Potter. He focused on his feet, tapping his heels together as he desperately wished to go home.
"What are you doing?" the voice behind him complained as his fidgeting jostled the other.
"Oh this is your fault, isn't it," Severus complained, "We're being held by the Dark Lord, aren't we?"
Before Harry could answer, a door they hadn't previously noticed opened, and a large bear walked in. Harry and Severus promptly screamed.
"Grrr!" the bear roared, swatting at them with its enormous paw.
'Oh right,' Severus realized, 'we're on the moon.'
"Moon Bears," Severus hissed to Harry as the pair did their best to work together and move themselves away from the creature.
"I'll distract it," Harry whispered, "You get the moon rock."
Severus wanted to asked more questions. It wasn't his nature to allow his students to tell him what to do. However, suddenly he felt his chains go slack as a small black Chihuahua began to yap at the Moon Bear. Severus watched for several moments as the Chihuahua danced in and out of the Moon Bear's reach. The little dog had several close calls where the bear's claws came within inches of gutting it.
The Chihuahua bounced onto Severus's knee, and growled at him. It then yapped at him and turned its attention back to the bear.
Severus chuckled. Potter always had been impatient. He stood up, shaking the chains off as he did so. He realized that the Moon Bears hadn't taken his wand. He proceeded to shrink the creature and put it into his pocket. Picking up the Chihuahua, he left the cell.
Now armed with his wand and a small dog, Severus raced towards the shrine. He conjured a pair of giant crackers and used them to create a doorway through the fence of molten cheese.
Once he was past that obstacle, he looked up in time to see an army of Moon Bears rushing at him. He set the Chihuahua down on the ground where it acted as a distraction while Severus fired shrinking spell after shrinking spell at the Moon Bears. After he had scooped all of them up and placed them into his pocket, he continued toward the Moon Rock.
When he got within spell distance, he hit it with a quick Avada Kedavra. Then for good measure, he hit it with another. The Moon Rock exploded in a brilliant flash of green light and a burst of maniacal laughter.
The Chihuahua at his side became Harry Potter again.
"That was brilliant Professor," the boy told him, grinning as he raised his palm for a high five. Severus slapped his hand obligingly.
That was when he felt something tug at the sleeve of his robe. He looked down, and one of the shrunken Moon Bears was sitting on his pocket.
"Excuse me," the bear said politely, Severus could see the other Moon Bears gazing up at him expectantly, "Would you mind putting us down?"
"Are you going to eat us?" Harry asked. Severus was about to step in and remind the boy that wording was important, when he continued, "Or maim or kill us in any other way? Or plan for another party to arrange our deaths?"
Severus smiled, that was rather thorough.
"No sir," the bear squeaked. "We only wish to serve the ones who have delivered us from the evil moon rock."
"Serve us to who?" Harry demanded. Snape swatted the boy upside the head.
"Idiot," he snarled as the Moon Bears looked confused.
Snape reached into his pocket and in five handfuls deposited all of the moon bears on to the ground. With a quick spell, they all grew to their original size.
A/N: Yep, so there's that.
As always, thank you for reading! If you liked the story please review. If you didn't like the story please review. I hope everybody had a great week!
