Heavy hintage in this chapter! Cookies to those who can figure out what I'm on.

Harry was up to his neck in snow. He craned his neck round and saw Snape sitting a way up the slope, wearing a pink hat and laughing at Harry. The snow was drowning Harry like it was sinking sand and Harry saw, behind Snape, his mother and father appear, clothes hanging off their skeletal figures, their eyeless sockets boring into him, scorching their mark in his mind.

Snape was laughing, "You will never get me now, Potter," he cackled. "Potter! Potter!"

Harry sat up straight up in bed. Thank God it had only been a dream, he thought...

"POTTER!"

No time to ponder now.

Harry got out of bed and made his way through to the sitting room, rubbing the grogginess away from his face.

"What do you want?" Harry grumbled.

"I, Potter, like most human beings must relieve myself from time to time,"

"What?"

"I need a piss, Potter," Snape snarled.

"Why did you need to wake me up for that?"

"Because you bound me to the sofa, you forgetful twit,"

Harry went back into the bedroom.

"Come back here," demanded Snape.

Harry re-entered the living room, "I was just getting my wand,"

Harry released Snape and kept his wand trained on the man.

"What are you doing Potter?" Snape half spat, half sighed.

"Making sure you don't do a runner," Harry replied simply, "I know you would do anything, you bastard," he carried on in a whisper.

"Potter, you suddenly seemed concerned, and it seems to me as if you have only recently remembered to point your wand at me all the time,"

"Yesterday, Hermione was there,"

"And in the shop and on the way up when she wasn't there?" leered Snape.

"I..." Harry hated to admit it, "…forgot," he reddened considerably.

"Fine saviour of the wizarding world, you are," Snape snarled, but he continued, "And do you not think that I would have escaped in those crucial minutes?"

Harry opened his mouth, shut it them repeated the motion with bigger movements.

"For your information, Potter, I am not going anywhere without my wand, and for another I am sick of hiding. I would do anything to come back to the real world, even risk Azkaban just for a chance to come back," Harry was amazed. Was that...an expression he saw on his old teachers face?!

But it was gone in a second and Harry was staring open mouthed at the closed toilet door.

He sat on the sofa Snape had vacated and stared out of the window. He remembered the dream and saw in his mind's eye, Inferis dragging themselves over the snow towards his apartment. Harry shook himself just as he saw Stan Shunpike climbing onto his balcony.

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The door of A2 opened and Hermione stood there grinning like a loony, which she was pretty good at doing.

She was wearing a baby blue suit, which somewhat reminded Harry of a sleeping suit he had seen Dudley wearing in an old photo at the Dursley's, only Hermione's was a lot smaller, despite the fact Dudley had only been about six at the time.

"Just wait there, we're coming now," Hermione beamed again and shut the door in their faces.

Harry and Snape stared at the door for a few minutes before it opened again.

Hermione was carrying the skis and a bag in one hand and her friend in the other.

"It's too early," Harry heard the girl grumble.

Hermione ignored her, "I brought breakfast because I figured you wouldn't have had the chance to go down to the bakery yet. We will eat on the ski lift." Hermione walked out the door past Harry and Snape. She leant her skis against the wall and let go of her friend, who immediately crumpled onto the ground. She then promptly disappeared back inside.

Harry and Snape stared at the black bundle of clothing that was Hermione's friend, which was now rising and falling, breathing as if in a deep sleep, despite the fact she had practically just been dropped onto the floor.

Hermione came back out of her apartment, carrying a snowboard. She slammed the front door and locked it.

"Come on, we're going snow boarding," she said at the black lump on the floor. The black lump immediately stood up, grabbed the snowboard and power walked towards the chair lift.

Hermione smiled fondly after her and followed. Harry and Snape just followed in her wake.

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Harry sat in one of the middle seats of a four man chair lift tucking into a pain au chocolat.

"So, Harry, how long have you been skiing?" asked Hermione's friend.

"A day," Harry replied, this caused the girl to bang her head on the bar in front of her.

"Hermione, why didn't you say?" she asked over Harry to her friend who was at the other end of the lift, "He's going to die,"

Harry was not at all comforted by this statement.

"I...I... you were the one who got on this lift!"

"I didn't know he couldn't ski!"

Hermione humphed, crossed her arms and turned the other way, looking out over the frost covered trees.

"I'm not really gong to die, am I...I never got your name?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did, and the name is Toni,"

Harry decided that this 'Toni' was far too blunt for his liking, but being in the middle he couldn't stare away, so he crossed his arms, humphed and stared straight ahead.

He heard Toni sigh, turn and start talking to Snape who was on her other side.

"Severus, what did you do before you retired early and came here?"

"I was a teacher at Potter's school,"

"That must be so weird, having a pupil hold your hand, I saw Harry grab yours yesterday,"

There was an awkward pause in which Harry could almost taste the tension and was wondering when Snape would snap under the strain.

"What did you teach?" Toni asked.

There was a longer pause.

"Cooking,"

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Harry could see the top and was fully aware they had been going up on the chair lift for at least twenty minutes. Toni pulled up the bar.

Hermione screamed and pulled it back down again, "NO TONI, IT'S TOO EARLY, WE WILL FALL AND DIE!!"

Harry was pleased that at least someone shared his view.

"Hermione, we will have to go all the way round the lift again if we don't lift it up now," Toni said tugging at the bar.

"No! It is far to early," said Hermione, leaning on the bar to stop Toni from lifting it.

Toni death-glared Hermione. Harry noticed she was almost as good as Snape – he made a mental note not to get on the receiving end of one of her stares.

Hermione sighed and lifted herself off the bar to allow Toni to pull it up.

Toni smiled at Harry. "Grab onto me, I'll help you off," Harry was thankful for her help.

He wasn't sure if he liked her or not. She was a bit odd, but she could make him laugh. Harry thought his sides would never recover from the stitch he had acquired from laughing as she had interrogated Snape all the way up the lift, 'Aren't you a bit manly and mean for cooking?'

"Stand up," she commanded, dragging Harry away from his thoughts. Harry grabbed onto Toni's shoulder, as she had had to turn in the other direction to get off the lift due to being Goofy. (A/N Don't know what Goofy is? It is when you lead with your right foot when you snowboard. Want to know whether you're friends are goofy or regular, make them stand still go behind them and give them a nice push, which ever foot they stop them selves falling with is the foot they lead with,)

He just managed to stay up, thank Squid, but in the process managed to push Toni face first into the snow. All he could hear was a low growling as Toni swore madly and made very rude gestures at Harry from the floor.

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Harry was sat in 'Le Telemark' at the top of the ski lift. He had gotten off half an hour previously – yes he was still up there.

After he had looked down at the slope that his friends and Snape had been expecting him to go down, he had refused flat out. A few minutes after that, he had slowly made his way down a few metres and then refused to move due to the gradient of the slope. At that point, Toni had lost it and screamed at him to 'go find his balls'. She had then suggested that for the first section of the morning, Harry sat in the cafe while they alternately kept him company, and the other two would ski down to the bottom, come back up again, another person would stay with Harry while the other two skied down etc...

Harry looked at Hermione's braces which she was flashing at him wildly from across the table.

"So," said Hermione who was obviously, despite her smile, searching wildly for a conversation topic.

"What are you doing in France?" Harry finished for her, before she asked him the same question...

"GAP year with Toni, we are staying here for the winter, me for my French, her for that and skiing. I must say it is really lucky that ESF pay well, or else I don't think we would have enough to go to Africa for the summer. Anyway what are you doing in France? Just a holiday?"

"Yep,"

"Where do you get the money? I mean you can't be much older than Toni and I, yet you manage to come out here for a holiday,"

"My parents left me a lot of money, and they died recently. I'm just trying to get over it," Well, it wasn't exactly a lie...

"Oh, I'm so sorry," gasped Hermione, "I won't mention it again,"

Bingo! Thought Harry.

They spent the next half hour or so in pleasant light conversation about the terrors of speed skiing.

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They had just finished their second hot chocolate when Hermione felt hands grasp her shoulders and a voice with hot breath whisper in her ear, "My turn," She turned to see Severus Snape leaning over her. She blushed quickly, jumped up, waved a quick goodbye to Harry and scuttled off.

Harry scowled at Snape.

"What put you in such a good mood." Harry resented Snape being in a good mood, it was unnatural which made it unnerving.

"On the contrary, Potter, I am in a very bad mood," Snape scowled, his face settling back into the expression Harry knew so well, "I am being forced to spend the next hour or so with you," at this point, Snape's face gained, what Harry thought, was a slightly greenish tinge, "And on the way up here, on the chair lift, Toni was rubbing it in that I am significantly older than her, and apparently my age is the reason I lost the race down the mountain,"

Snape...race? Harry was beginning to feel as if a heart attack was coming on...

"How old are you, si...Snape?" Harry caught himself before he could call his old professor 'sir', but he didn't before he had asked the man's age.

"You impertinent little sod," The conversation stopped there and they fell into an awkward silence for the next half an hour. Well, to Harry it was awkward, to Snape it was normal, after all he had spent most of his life in silence. Why stop now?

There, much fun, and a damn short chapter. I am sure you will live – I have exams so I am not sure when the next one will be up, but hang in there, it shouldn't be too long.

Remember, reviews distract me from revision, so the more reviews the faster the update. (I have no shame when it comes to blackmail)