Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter or Sailor Moon. If I did, do you think I be sitting here and just writing fanfiction?

VERY IMPORTANT

Author's notes:

This is basically a teaser rather than a prologue really. I'm posting it in order to get some feedback on my story, and figure out how many people are interested in the plot. Tell me what you think and I'll post more later. Although two things must happen before I'll post more: 1.) I have to write more (this is a big qualification), 2.) I'm going to finish Dreams of the Mist before I even begin another story. So this one is third behind DOTM and Baby Mine. It may possibly tie for second on the importance scale after I see the type of response I get. But at least go and enjoy the read if nothing else.

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New Moon

by Juno

Prologue: Teaser

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Sev,

I'm coming home.

***

Severus Snape stood along the edge of the castle's ramparts, robes billowing behind him ominously as the wind swept his hair from his face. He was not a sentimental fool by any definition of the word, but standing atop the astronomy tower, watching as its many charms and spells amplified the light of the stars to their brightest gleam, he could almost understand why so many students met on this stone after hours. Even now, with clouds hanging in dense columns on the horizon, the enchantments still kept them at bay directly above its circular field of vision, and the stars appeared all the brighter for the clouds blocking the light of the moon.

Below, on the dark ground, Snape could see rectangular windows of light outlining patches of the grass, the flickering light of the flames leaping in its confined rectangle. The castle was still abuzz with activity. It was not yet past curfew, and Snape, despite his constant diatribe against children, understood well the minds of the teenager. Snogging was not enjoyable unless the threat of being caught heightened the excitement and pumping adrenaline. Students wouldn't come searching for a secluded spot here until much later, long after they were supposed to be asleep. The thrill of being so open, so exposed, attracted only the more daring of the couples.

Snape smirked, picturing the last Gryffindor couple he had caught stretched along one another in the dark of the towers ramparts. Then the image hit him fully, sound and feeling accompanying the memory, and the smirk disappeared from his face, being chased away with a dark scowl.

The chatter in the hall was dying down. The lights dancing along the dark grass becoming less intense as rooms emptied and candles were blown out. Soon only a few windows were left to spill their golden light along the ground. The darkness muted several of the lines of stress and premature age around Snape's eyes and mouth, cloaking his body like the robes that swirled around his legs in the wind.

The enchantments on the Astronomy Tower were growing stronger, drawing power from the darkness. The lights in the sky were growing brighter, stars that had been dwarfed and obscured before suddenly becoming visible. The constellations burned like a fire in the sky, and the clouds were pushed back to the very edge of the wards surrounding Hogwarts.

But Severus could see the strain in the magic. He could see the way the clouds buckled inward, towards the tower as though the spells were barely holding, their flexibility the only reason they could still keep the growing gloom at bay.

The Tower had always been able to prevent an overcast, but it could never whether a storm. The force behind that particular part of nature had always been too violent, too unpredictable to be restrained.

Snape heard the wind whistling through the eaves of the castle, the animals quiet chatter as they settled down for the approaching storm, and the controlled evenness of his breathing. The air smelled of ozone, and a few warning drops of rain splattered along the smooth contours of his face.

For the first time in a long while, Severus Snape smiled a true genuine smile. He stood now, watching with a detached calm as it approached, a storm to rival all storms. And the wind buffeted him harder at the uppermost tower of the castle than the light breeze that blew gently through the blades of grass, but in the light of the burning stars and planets, Snape held his head high, vision stretching farther at this height than it could below. Alone and tall on the tower, he watched from afar as the storm began its slow approach, building with each movement across the dark ground. He was the first to see it, and he would be the first to welcome it, with open arms.

The dry crinkle of the paper was drowned out by the roar of an approaching tempest as his grip around the letter in his hands tightened.

***

The sun was setting against the horizon, splashing colors across the sky like a painter's palette. Yet, Makoto could not force herself to find in beauty in the glaring brightness of the sun, its crimson fingers staining the ground with unnatural color. Even its last glorious dying throes were ignored.

She turned finally from the view that stretched before her, a city sprawled beneath the first visible twinkling stars. The grassy knoll overlooked Tokyo in its near entirety. And in the darkness, Makoto could not stand the view. The artificial lights blinking to life around the city suffocated the lights hanging suspended in the sky, even on the cloudless night.

Another darkened figure came to stand beside her, their backs facing the light of the city while eyes looked out beyond the horizon.

"I miss the moon." Makoto smiled wistfully at the childish admission from her friend, her tone belying the innocent words.

"It'll be back tomorrow. Though only a crescent, it will be back.."

"But you won't be."

Makoto let the night swallow her friend's words for a long second, the pause giving the figure her answer. "No. No, I won't."

"You'll visit?" Hopeful, not stupid.

"You know I will try."

"I suppose that is all I can ask." Another silence stretched before the two friends. This one far more comfortable. The shorter of the two finally turned to look upon the city once again. "They don't know how close the came... how close we were once again to death... how close this world was to desolation..."

"No. And they will never know. There are some things that people are just happier not knowing." Makoto said softly, voice speaking into the night air, but her mind not on the bright town sprawled before her.

"So we must carry that burden for them." The tone was not bitter, the words were stated too factually, with too much acceptance.

"And it will be a long while before we must ever pick up that burden again."

"Not long enough..."

"No," Makoto conceded, "It will never be long enough." She paused again, weighing her options as she turned to her friend, but knowing that she could not leave without having an answer. "Was the price too high? Have we lost too much in this final battle?"

A bitter-sweet smile was her only reply beside the quiet chirping of crickets. The figure turned her face fully towards the large city, artificial orange light clinging to the shadows of her once smooth face. Then, she answered. "That was far from our last battle. You know that as well as I. But, I suppose... it was the end of our own war."

She turned now from the city, beginning to walk down a shadow cloaked path while still speaking. "The price that *we* were forced to pay was too high... and the price they paid was not enough... but it was necessary. It could have been no other way." She turned now in the shadow, pale skin and shining hair glowing with their own light in the darkness. "Do you regret it, Mako-chan? Do you regret our sacrifice?"

Makoto stood for a long time, eyes roving over the city methodically, taking in the dilapidated neighborhoods and crumbling buildings, the hookers that lined the more filthy areas of the town where the artificial light flickered between an orange that stained the streets with an aberrant color and a shadowed realm, where trash littered the streets and their corners. She saw the skyscrapers that dotted the skyline, obscuring the stars with their fabricated light, and she watched the endless stream of cars, smelling the pollution of their exhaust even from here, where nature was threatened by the ever encroaching civilization.

"No. I do not regret a moment of it. I just wish it could have been different. I wish our future could have been different."

"Wishing will get us no where. We must change our own future, Mako-chan."

The two began to walk side by side through the shadows cast by the trees, following a worn path until it ended in a wall of thin limbs that they swept away. An asphalt road stretched in both directions before them. Two cars were pulled to the side of the road, a man lounged against one.

"This is where we must say goodbye, Mako-chan. I am sorry I couldn't be there at the farewell party today."

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad that we could talk before I left."

"So am I, Mako-chan. I suppose... I should say goodbye."

"I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you too, Mako-chan. But it's long past time that you go back. This fighting has kept you away for so long."

Makoto drew away from the hug the two had enveloped each other in, eyes distant in some unseeable memory.

"Yes, it will be nice to go back," she finally acknowledged after withdrawing from her memory.

"You'll write us every chance you get, won't you Mako-chan?"

"You don't even have to ask. You know I will." The second figure looked slighted relieved by that statement. "If... you ever need me... for anything, it doesn't have to be senshi related, just call me, and I'll come immediately."

"I know you will, Mako-chan. But it's time you go do something for yourself now. It's time we all do something for ourselves... for the future will become the present far sooner than we would like."

"You know I'll come back no matter what is happening the second you call."

"Yes," she acknowledged, her voice was weighted with age and a deep sadness, "And I will call you when the time is right, no matter how much I may regret it. No matter how much you may regret it."

"I know," and there was no condemnation in Makoto's voice, only sad acceptance. The dark figure of the man came to join them, silence their now nearly constant companion.

"I don't like new moons." The smaller woman said, finally breaking the quiet.

"Neither do I." Makoto agreed.

A car suddenly roared past their spot on the road, its headlights burning into the forest and sending up a cloud of birds into the sky. The city stretched its long claws even into nature's haven.

"We've won the battle," Makoto said, watching the car drive carelessly along the sharp curves, "That much is obvious. But have we won the war?"

"I don't know, not yet anyway. Only time will tell. Our war has already been fought, but no one knows yet who the victor is." A screech of tires echoed around the forest, and not one animal stirred for miles in the following silence.

Makoto turned now, looking deep into the murky blue eyes of her friend, golden blonde hair lining her pale face and shining in the darkness despite the lack of light. She was older now, and changed. And although Makoto loved her friend just as dearly, she longed for the innocence to return to those once vibrant eyes. She longed for things to be as they were before.

"I'm still not sure if anyone has really won." Makoto said, still staring deep into her friend's eyes.

"Was it really worth it, Mako-chan? Was what we lost really worth a few years of peace?"

Makoto remained silent, eyes drawn to clear sky so that she would not have to look at her questioning friend. Her friend that wanted an answer she could not provide, an answer that she herself longed to know as well. The stars shone weakly down on the quiet trio.

"I miss the moon." Her friend whispered, pain evident in her voice and the slump of her shoulders.

"I know, Usagi-chan. I know." She looked again at her friend, her princess, at the dull light that once shone like a beacon from her eyes, the limp hair sagging from its once carefully arranged buns, and the pale, cold skin that used to glow with health and happiness. Her friend, a beautiful girl that now looked no better than death warmed over. God, how she missed the way the moon would liven her princess, her friend. "We all do."

***

I'm finally coming home.

Love,

Mako