Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the plot. My sister wrote this and asked me to submit it.
Warning: OOC
Summary: Horace the cheese is on the loose at Hogwarts. Both the Nac Mac Feegles and Harry (+ posse) are looking for him.
Harry decided that they would have better luck finding Horace if they split up so he set off down a corridor leaving Dumbledore and Trelawny to choose other ways to go.
"Well, I'll go this way and you can go that way," Sybil said and set off in her direction.
"Wait!" Albus cried and caught up with her. , "How about we search together."
Sybil looked at him in confusion, "But we'll cover more ground apart, and the more ground we cover the faster we'll find Horace."
"We don't know that for sure," Albus said rather desperately, "The thing could be this way or even the way Potter went. Me going some other way could be pointless. In fact, Potter may have already found it." He turned on his heel and started walking swiftly back the way they had come. "We should go check." Sybil was impressed by the old headmaster's uncannily convincing impression of a child who didn't want to go to bed for fear the boogey man was in his closet.
"If the boy had found Horace we would have heard it by now; that boy has a set of lungs on him. Now, shouldn't we hurry and start looking; I thought this cheese was too dangerous to be left to his own devices." Sybil said suppressing a smile at the thought of a dangerous cheese being on the loose.
With a reluctant sigh Albus stopped and turned around, "Sybil, can I confide in you?" he asked.
"Of course." Sybil was touched. The Headmaster had never confided in her before. She'd always suspected that he was unnerved by her psychic abilities.
"The truth is," Dumbledore took a deep breath and said very quickly, "I'm afraid of the cheese."
There was a long silence, "Eh?"
"I swear it's not just any cheese," He said in a hushed voice, "It's has to be a demon summoned from my own personal hell! First of all it's a Blue Lancre. I hate blue cheese, and it's got this little kilt that it wears all the time. Why does cheese need to wear clothes at all? I've always been wary of kilt wearers; any man who shows that much leg is up to something I always say." The Headmaster was turning a distinct shade of red. "And sometimes it looks at me like it's contemplating eating me but when I mentioned this to Potter he looked at me like I was crazy and told me that was impossible because the thing doesn't even have eyes. How do you like that? He thinks I'm the one with a screw loose but who's worrying about that vile creature surviving the night on it's own?" Dumbledore stopped to catch his breath.
Sybil looked up, startled by his sudden stop. She'd spent most of his rant trying to think of a reason why the cheese would need to be clothed and hadn't heard anything after that. She scrambled to think of something to say. "Oh! Uh…. I understand completely," Trelawny said soothingly. "Alright, I see that if we search together we will be just as successful." With a sigh of relief Dumbledore cautiously followed the Professor in search of the elusive Horace.
Meanwhile the dairy product in question was having a crisis of its own. It had the unpleasant feeling of something being very wrong. Horace had the vague idea that this feeling was what is called a stomach ache. That was strange because, being cheese, Horace didn't have a stomach.
This whole trip had started out so well; the strange human child had found Horace and seemed to be able to understand it. They had become great friends and Harry had found numerous exciting things to do everyday. Then one day he brought Horace out to a field with a large box and a couple of brooms.
"Horace, today you're going to learn how to play Quiddich." Harry declared. "But first you need to learn to ride a broomstick." Horace knew what a broom was. Back home the pointy humans flew around on them and the non-pointy humans chased you out of their house with them just when you had a nice juicy mouse cornered. It had been intrigued by the pointy human's brooms but hated all other brooms with as much passion as a cheese could muster. Luckily the boy's brooms seemed to associate itself with humans of the pointy persuasion.
After two hours of trial and error Horace and Harry finally decided that, while Horace could ride a broomstick with the help of a strategically placed rope, there was no way for it to steer or give it's broom any kind of oral command. Harry had offered to let Horace ride while he flew but the cheese had a new-found appreciation for the ground and chose to decline. "Alright then, now I'll explain the rules to the game." Harry had told it determinedly. Horace listened patiently as Harry described all of the rules of Quiddich and showed it each of the balls. Then Harry took out the smallest one and Horace forgot everything else.
It was a golden ball with delicate wings. Harry had called it a stitch or a switch or something like that. Horace thought it looked like a shiny version of the flying mice that it sometimes saw flapping around just out of reach; it had always wanted to taste on of them.
"Do you want to see me chase it?" Harry asked. Horace had said yes and Harry let the little creature go. Then he mounted his broom and flew after it. Horace watched as the boy chased the stitch around and eventually lost sight of it. Horace didn't, it watched as the stitch flitted down and was now meandering near the ground oblivious to the cheese crouching just feet away. The cheese tensed as it came closer and closer to him. When it was within range Horace pounced and the little ball disappeared forever. Harry searched for it for a few more minutes but eventually tired of it and gave up figuring the thing would turn up again eventually.
Horace's "stomach ache" had started almost immediately after it had eaten that shiny flying thing. It hadn't even tasted that good. After that Horace laid on one of the beds in the Gryffindor Dormitory for a while hoping the stomach ache would go away and desperately trying to think of anything that would possibly get rid of an upset stomach.
The cheese remembered that when its adoptive family had any kind of ailment they would always drink some Special Sheep Liniment to cure them. If this liniment for the fluffy cousins of Horace's mother worked for the Feegles, then why wouldn't it work for him? Horace wasn't sure where it'd find Special Sheep Liniment around here but still, it figured, it was worth a try. With that Horace had set off.
Now it had found itself inside a small hut that looked like the ones where the humans with Sheep Liniment lived. Horace entered the dwelling and found a large man sitting at a table reading a newspaper. On the front page was the headline, INCAN CALENDAR STOLEN! Underneath was a picture of official men looking bewildered. Horace stared intently at the picture; the men were moving. Horace considered its options; its stomach ache was still there but those men looked bite size and tasting a human was something it had always wanted to do.
The large man started to turn the page when he noticed the cheese sitting on his floor. "How did you get there?" He asked it and leaned over to pick it up bringing the little men even closer. This kind of opportunity may never present itself again Horace decided and sprang.
A/N: Chapter 2 is DONE! Tell me what you think (so I can tell my sister). Please review.
