I really have no excuse for how long this took. I'm sorry! All I can say is I had difficultly writing this chapter! Well, that and I just started learning to play the ocarina.

Chapter Twenty-One

Professor Severus Snape observed the mass of students over his soup sourly, struck again, as he often was, by the lack of a certain blond pig-tailed head. His grip on his spoon tightened. He knew that the white-haired stranger he'd found out about in her first year was responsible for her absence, and yet he could not help but blame himself. He should have pushed her harder for the man's identity and intentions. He should have kept a closer eye on her, should have trusted her not to get underfoot while he worked. He should have. . .

Snape's head shot up as glass flew and students screamed.

A blur of two forms hurtled through a high window in the Great Hall. They overshot the Gryffindor table and crashed down in the middle of the Hufflepuff table, sending food and silverware flying. One wide-eyed Hufflepuff sat covered in mashed potatoes and carrots, blinking in confusion until the monster rose with its purple face twisted in a sadistic grin. The youma was wounded already, battered by Jupiter and by its plunge through both an office building and an enchanted castle. Despite this, it was still a fearsome sight as it towered over Sailor Moon.

The youma snarled and the Hufflepuff screamed, all but tripping over herself in her haste to escape. Roaring triumphantly it held out its right arm, summoning a purple sword inlaid with silver. It raised the blade high above its head, bringing it swiftly down towards the Sailor's form as she struggled to sit up.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted the disarming spell and the sword flew from the youma's hand. It was Umbridge who screamed as the sword flew close to her head, chopping off the top of her hair. The other professors had recovered from their shock and were firing spells already, but the High Inquisitor had yet to move from her seat. She moved then, dropping to the floor in a dead faint.

The youma roared in anger and leaped towards Harry Potter. Spells flew at it, but the monster seemed unaffected, dodging the magic with ease. That was, until Severus Snape raised his wand and cast a stunner. By a lucky shot his spell finally collided with the monster's back, felling it as Sailor Moon managed to struggle to her feet for her final, purifying attack.

"Moon...Tiara...Action!" The flying tiara sliced into the monster, effectively chopping it in half. It gave one final scream of rage as it disappeared in a shower of pinkish sparks.

Sailor Moon dropped to the floor in a dead faint as the witches and wizards stood, stunned into silence by the youma's demise. One wizard moved forward then, soon followed by another, and then several professors converged on the fallen Scout. A startled gasp was heard, and Snape broke from the ring of teachers, running from the hall with the limp girl in his arms.

Ron turned to Harry. "What was that about, mate?"

Harry Potter, who out of all of them had gotten the best look at the Sailor Scout, shook his head. "Bugger if I know."

Mercury offered a strained smile to the young American Naval officer who offered her a blanket. Luckily, one of the men on board the ship had spotted her in the water and sounded an alert, quickly organizing a team to fetch her. One of the men on board recognized her as a Sailor Scout, and arrangements were soon made to help her get home.

Her communicator beeped, and she held her breath as she opened it, giving a disappointed sigh when Venus' face appeared.

"Well, hello to you too." Venus brushed sweaty bangs back from her forehead. "Any word from Sailor Moon?"

"Nothing." Answered Mercury forlornly. "I can't seem to track her either. It's like something is blocking her communicator's signal, or overloading it so badly that it just can't operate." She stared up at the clear sky, her eyes on the bright nearly-full moon.

"How much further?" Venus interrupted her musings.

"Oh!" Mercury turned her attention back to her computer. "You should reach a small town in about five miles." Venus groaned, and her face was replaced by Mars'.

"I ran into some hikers out here, a family. They're camping for the night and said they'd take me back to civilization in the morning." She reported, her voice quiet so as not to wake her companions.

"Alright. Get some rest Mars. I'll let you know if I hear from Moon or Jupiter." Replied Mercury as she closed her communicator. Jupiter had reported in briefly to tell them that she was still in Tokyo, and would handle the situation with their families.

The moon set over the Pacific, and still no one had heard from its princess.

"The Ministry is quite clear on this issue! According to Section Four, Article Sixty-Three of the Foreign Magics Law of 1533, the girl's non-standard foreign magics must be reported to the Ministry immediately! They have jurisdiction! The Minister has the right to know that a witch has entered the country illegally!"

Snape's fingers twitched he glared at the gap in the curtain. The woman's shrill voice was grating on his nerves, and he was was trying to concentrate. What he wouldn't give to be able to hex her.

Thankfully, Dumbledore intervened before he could act on his impulse. "According to Ms. Chang, our foreign witch is none other than Sailor Moon, who is quite famous in many Asian countries. If that is the case, it is likely she will not want her identity known, Dolores." He said kindly.

The woman puffed up like an angry frog. "Sailor Moon? Sailor Moon! A moon person, according to the Japanese Ministry! Our Ministry has policies concerning these. . . moon people. They're not natural. They're not even human!"

Madam Pomfrey emerged from her office, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. "Professors if you cannot be quiet in my Hospital Wing I will have to ask you to leave!" She scolded them. "I have sick patients who need their rest!"

"So sorry Poppy." Dumbledore gave a small, apologetic bow before escorting Umbridge out. "We could perhaps discuss this over tea in my office?"

Finally granted the silence he needed, Snape stared down at the still form on the bed. When he'd brought her to the Hospital Wing, he'd chosen this bed because of the window, and the moonlight that streamed in from above. Serenity always did better in the moonlight.

He'd known who she was when he'd seen her laying there on the floor of the Great Hall, b ut it had taken him time to convince himself of the truth of it. The magic within her was different, the strength of the Lunarian power confusing him, though he knew it could only be her.

And yet. . .

When he looked into her mind, the memories he saw were all relatively new, and none included Hogwarts, or Harry Potter, or him, or even magic as he knew it. When he tried to press further back he hit a barrier of some kind, a tight weave of purple and black that resisted even his most determined advances, and often reacted violently to his attempts to breach it.

If she woke and did not know him Snape was not certain how he would handle it. He'd lost her once, gotten her back, lost her again, and now here she was once more. He was being given more chances than he ever deserved, and he would not fail her again.

Gently he reached out, taking her small white-gloved hand into his larger one, calloused from years of toiling over his potions. Using this connection he reached again into her mind, sifting past surface thoughts of her friends and a boy called Mamo-chan (whom he instantly disliked), down to the barrier once more. He poked and prodded at it, but still the many dark threads would not yield to him.

So focused was he on his efforts, that he only just caught the flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly, but saw no one. He did, however, spot something that he hadn't seen before. Seizing upon it, he grasped a thread of red encased in silver and golden light. He followed this thread through the writhing mass of hidden thoughts, untangling and untying it. He followed it around and around such that it seemed it would never come unraveled, never reveal its secrets to his probing mind. One end of the thread vanished into the dark mass beyond his reach. Here, the light was almost completely silver, with only the smallest shoots of gold running through it.

As he traveled back along the red thread retracing his metaphysical steps, he noticed that the silver light grew weaker, and the gold stronger as he moved away from the buried end. The thread seemed never ending; no matter how much he delved, this thread, different from the others, seemed always just a step ahead of him. He followed its twists and turns, carefully picking loose other dark threads as he did, watching them separate under his skilled guidance.

He pulled loose a particularly stubborn thread, managing to just expose the memory trapped beneath. The red thread ran under his fingers, encased in a light of almost pure gold now. He pushed his mind into the small gap he'd created, away from the path of the red, only to feel the barrier suddenly push back, sending him hurtling back into his own mind and physically throwing him to the floor.

As he lay there dazed and confused, it occurred to him why he was not able to find the end of the red thread. The thread was a part him, and so he was the end.

"Professor, who's this?" She was sitting cross-legged on the rug before the fire in his office, well within his light of sight. Without him noticing, she'd opened the nearly forgotten cupboard holding those things which were most dear to him.

She was staring at a photograph of a a younger Snape sitting in a rocking chair, cradling a baby girl. The child was asleep just then, wrapped up snugly in picture-Snape's cloak. The very way picture-Snape held her so gently spoke wonders of his love for her.

The real Snape stood and made his way around the desk, a soft smile on his face. "That's you, Serenity. I have a few others, here." He reached into the closet, lifting the blanket to pull out a small book.

It made sense, in that way that dreams do, that the book contained pictures of her throughout her life. She flipped lovingly through every page, smiling and laughing when she saw herself and Draco, playing as infants, her at age eight or so with her prince, age ten with Harry Potter, experiencing the wonder of Diagon Alley for the first time. . .

And then she frowned, an uneasy feeling of wrongness creeping up on her. When she turned the pages back, most of them were blank. Only a few of those containing the professor remained. The others had vanished, as though they had never existed at all.

SMACK!

"Ow!" Prince Diamond scowled and rubbed his head. Apparently, existing outside of time meant that the guardian of the Gates of Time could still hit him if she wanted to, even though he was already dead.

"What did I tell you? Stay out of her head! It's better that the time line be allowed to fix itself!" Pluto scolded him angrily, swinging her staff to knock him upside the head again.

Diamond ducked and glared at her. "You said you moved her to keep her from me. Well it worked because I'm dead! Now you're only hurting her. She deserves to know! She deserves to remember her own life!" This was a common argument; where neither was willing to concede on what was best for the princess.

"She remembers the life she was meant to have. Now leave her be, and stop trying to break the barrier of her false memories!" Pluto hissed. "If I catch you doing it again I'll send you so deep into the Fourth Dimension you'll never find your way out!"

Diamond did a very unprincely thing then, rolling his eyes at her. "You tried that already." He reminded her dryly. Indeed she had, but somehow he'd ended up back at the Time Gate anyway.

Pluto huffed, unable to argue the point.

His head still reeling, Snape forced himself to his feet when he heard the quick approach of footsteps. To his great surprise it was morning already, as evidenced by the early sunrise he could see out the window over her bed.

Professor McGonagall flung open the curtains around Serenity's bed. "Dolores has alerted the Ministry that Sailor Moon is here. The Minister and a few escorts are on their way. You know what will happen if she is recognized." Her voice was quiet and measured, but with an underlying sense of urgency that bespoke of hidden fear.

"Severus," she continued softly when he failed to answer, "She has to be hidden, and quickly."

Snape's gaze snapped to hers. "You mean there?"

"She does indeed, my boy." Dumbledore joined them then, a broken quill held in his hand. When Snape had settled Sailor Moon comfortably in his arms and held the quill between their clasped hands, Dumbledore bent close to the sleeping Serenity and murmured into her ear, "the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place."

The portkey activated, taking Snape and Sailor Moon away from Hogwarts. Breathing a sigh of relief as they saw the Minister arrive at the castle gates with Lucius Malfoy in tow, the pair left to greet them.

I'm sorry! I really hope this chapter was worth the wait! Part of the reason this took so long was me trying to write decent imagery. If you all haven't given up on me for taking so long, I'd like to hear what you think I was trying to say.

Thank you to the Chapter Twenty reviewers cloverski9114, Empress-Hermione-Malfoy, Lawliet's Bride, Chicwa88 (just a filler? Sadness. . .), Tenshi-Chikyuu, SailorBoo, Lily Marie Wolfe, Alycee Lanet, Shara2007 (Thanks! I figured he couldn't be completely emotionless, hm? He wasn't where Lily was concerned, after all), and amaramichelle.