Harry slid into place on the ski lift, grumbling to himself about the bad day he was having.
Snape had stormed out, probably to kill someone else. Harry had burnt his mouth on his coffee, cut himself shaving, stubbed his little toe and fallen down the stairs again, much to the amusement of a gaggle of French girls.
He had decided to go skiing to calm down before his lesson.
He told himself it was to calm down, but he had to admit to himself that, for him, skiing was about as calming as being chased by a female dragon on its 'time of the month'.
Harry wondered vaguely where his letter to Hermione had gone, but after all Hermione had said the owl wouldn't find them, so it probably hadn't.
How long would he be here? He would like to go home before he attacked Snape with a kitchen utensil or visa versa.
The top of the lift came into sight and Harry started to wiggle his bum a bit, getting ready to stand up. Harry was by no means as bad a skier as he had been at the beginning but any talent he possessed for the sport had still to appear.
"Hey!" Harry looked up to see a girl he had never seen before. She had a round face, blonde frizzy hair that fell to her shoulders and azure eyes. She wore a fluorescent pink bobble hat and a bright green rain coat, under which she wore mud spattered orange sallopettes. Yet the thing that stood out most from her bizarre appearance was her smile, which was like that of a Cheshire cat who had stolen all the cream.
"Hello," said Harry, trying not to reveal the fact he didn't know her. After all he was Harry Potter, and people he met on the street seemed to expect him to know them somehow.
"I saw you were on you own and I thought, you know, I'm on my own, so we could like, go skiing together, I'm no good at it either, so it will be great, not that you're useless or anything, well, you don't have to come if you don't want to come if you don't want to, but I thought you might, you know, want someone to go with, because you're on your own and I'm on my own, but now that I think about it, you're probably waiting for someone, or you wouldn't still be up here, do you want to come anyway, you know if you aren't waiting?" The girl blurted out the whole sentence in one breath very fast. After she had finished it took Harry a few seconds to catch up.
"Yeah, sure."
"Oh cool, are you here with anyone, well, like, not now, but do you have someone with you where you are staying? I know you don't have anyone with you know of course, apart from me. I was wondering because, like, it would be cool to all go skiing together some time, you know, to get to know each other, then we can be like skiing buddies. If you want to of course, you don't have-"
"I'll see what he thinks first," said Harry, cutting across her.
"I'm Frizz by the way," said the girl, holding out her hand in a fist.
Harry wondered what she was doing and stared at her fist, "I'm Harry."
"Cool. Respect." said Frizz, waggling her fist. Harry copied her and she cracked her knuckles against his, rather hard.
"God, I hate it when you do that and people just look at you like 'what the hell you doing?' or they just don't do respect and then you feel like such an idiot, like there was this one time when..."
One very one sided conversation later…..
Eventually Harry and Frizz started off. They had decided to do one run down the green slope to the bottom, then have lunch together and meet up after Harry's lesson.
They were making their way steadily down 'Marvel' (the slope). They were doing quite well, Harry had only fallen once and Frizz had only crashed into Harry once.
"Hey, Harry!" Frizz shouted from the other side of Marvel (which is about 800 yards wide if you wanted to know).
"Yeah?" Harry bellowed back from the other side.
"You seem depressed, I dunno, maybe it's because your always like this or what, but, I dunno, because this is like the first time I've meet you. Are you alright? You've been acting strange, but of course I'm not sure if it's strange for you-"
"I'm fine," Harry shouted in panic, desperate to cut her off before she went on another rant that the whole slope could hear.
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to," Harry said, lowering the volume of his voice as he got closer and closer to Frizz.
"Okay, I'll strike a deal with you."
Harry quickly went through the possible escape routes in his mind as Frizz grabbed his arm to stop him and herself.
"You don't introduce me to you friends, so there is no chance I can spill or embarrass you. While you're telling your story you can use fake names if you like. But you have to tell me what's up, because sad people can get boring. And I like to smile inanely, and I feel stupid if I do it by myself."
Harry weighed it all up in his head. On one hand it would be embarrassing. On the other he could have someone else to help him sort out whatever he was feeling, and he had to tell someone something or he would burst, and this was the only way short of starting a diary.
"Okay, but not here, in the café."
Frizz smiled, pushed him down the slope and promptly fell down after him.
She landed on top of his chest laughing vigorously, skis and poles tangled.
Harry suddenly noticed how close her face was to his.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"Hey! Hurry up!" Toni screamed at Hermione from the bottom of the slope.
"It's not my fault you're a ski instructor! It's your job to be better than me! If it bothers you that you have to keep waiting then slow down! Practice technique or something!"
"I don't need to, I am perfect," said Toni, smiling at Hermione from behind her ski poles. "Anyway, give skiing a little break, I want to talk about Operation Wine Bottle."
"Why do we have to call it that?"
"Because we are alcoholic maniacs!"
"You mean you are." Hermione grumbled, "The amount of liquor we have is shocking."
"You never know."
"What. you never know when 50 or so alcoholic giants might stop by for a binge drinking fest?"
"Shut up." Toni hit Hermione gently on the arm as she drew level with her on the slope. "We might need to get them drunk if Harry doesn't hurry up and jump on his true love while he's sober."
"Toni, we want to get them drunk, not kill them, and besides, you still haven't considered if Severus might be.."
Toni sent Hermione an evil eye, but said no more and skied to the bottom of the chair lift, eyeing up the list attendant and beckoning to Hermione at the same time.
"Show off," Hermione grumbled fondly as she followed her friend.
"Anyway," Toni continued as they waited in the queue, "The argument this morning wasn't the best thing, but it could be used to our advantage."
"How? I thought we were trying to get them together."
"We are, they have the feelings, they just need to discover them."
"You sound like a character from a cheesy movie, and isn't it better that they discover the feelings for themselves?"
"They are discovering them for themselves… we're just nudging them in the right direction."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, then sighed, "So, how is the argument helping our 'nudging'?"
"I'm glad you asked my dear friend." Hermione opened her mouth but Toni continued ignoring her, "Now our plan is fool proof, all we have to do is flirt and they will pull away because they don't want us then they will have to face their feelings!"
"But what if they rebound to someone else? And why don't we just get someone else to do it? Flirt I mean."
"Because if someone else does it they might actually have sex with them, which will make the jealousy factor so high it won't work and one of them will just end up storming out-"
"But that already happened."
"Shut up. Stop using common sense." said Toni, hitting Hermione on the top of the head. "Anyway, we can't use someone else. Back to the point, actually now I think about it I'm pretty pleased about the argument, makes it far more exciting and dramatic! Plus they will be in no mood for pissing about the point, so we won't have to dance around the word 'sex' and 'together'."
"Remind me why we aren't allowed to use those words again."
"If we say 'together' or 'partner' Severus will run away and if we say 'sex' Harry will probably turn red and explode," explained Toni as she lifted up the bar.
They slid off the chair lift together and stopped to tighten their boots.
"Anyway all we have to do now is flirt and push them together and if that doesn't work we lock them in a cupboard for a day or two."
"Wow, Toni, sometimes your initiative in these situations amazes even me."
"Me too!" said Toni, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the sarcasm, "So I flirt with Harry and you with Severus and then they go all cute 'n shit."
Hermione looked as if she was about to vomit, "but I did that already and it was hell."
"But you said you wanted to."
"No, I didn't, I said I would rather flirt with Severus than talk to Harry about sex, and I said that as a way to get out of it. I didn't think you would take me seriously!"
"Oh…. Well, now I'm going to make you do as I say! And you will flirt with Severus… it's not like you really mean it…. Come on." It could have been the fact Hermione was turning slightly greenish that made Toni give in, "Okay, you can have Harry."
"Hurray." said Hermione sarcastically "but at least he isn't twice my age."
"What are you talking about? Have you not got a nice long look at Sev's ass in those trouse-"
Hermione placed her hands over her ears and began to sing loudly.
"rs, and, oh his huge…" she continued in a louder voice.
"Stop it!" Hermione said, flapping her arms and slapping Toni's side repeatedly.
"Fine," Toni snorted. "Hey, I don't have long till my lesson with Harry, but it won't take so long if we go down Marvel. Come on."
"I'm warming to this plan you know," Hermione grinned as they began to ski. "I think it might be fun."
"Really?"
"It's growing like an unwanted fungus."
"Wow, that's attractive."
"I know… I know, so I think this plan actually might work, as long as no one interferes."
"Yep, nothing can mess it up now."
They turned a corner and stopped.
"Nothing, huh?"
For once Toni was speechless as she watched the scene unfold before her.
Hehehe! I am an evil kinevil! Sorry, it took so long hectic week, detentions and birthdays take up too much time. I promise I will not piss about so much in future.
You know if everyone who had me on their alert list reviewed me for this chapter I would have 222 reviews by now. So lets see if we can hit that (I know the stats people,) Even if you're not on the alert list, please review. Even if it's just to say 'Great Job!' Come on, that took me half a second to write. I know the phrase 'Time is money' but that wouldn't even get you a Starburst, or any other tiny pointless sugar filled item you can think of. So just let me know what you think, it really helps out.
Thanks again to my psycho editor!
(Editor- This took me four days to edit due to the VAST amount of homework my teachers have been giving me. I apologise for the wait, but there is some good that can come out of this. If this continues to be the only day I can edit, it means Jiggy and I can update regularly every week or so, as she can write in my delay. This is our goal, but please be patient as we settle into this routine.)