May 2003

The day for Harry's portkey had arrived. Andromeda and Teddy came with him to the Ministry to say goodbye and with a sickening tug in his gut he was gone. He arrived in a rundown town that seemed both familiar and strange. The sky around him seemed to stretch forever and it took him a minute to stop staring at the horizon. All Andromeda had told him was the name of the town and the name of the ranch. He was stuck in the very muggle town of Florence, Montana for the next several weeks and didn't know a soul.

With a sigh, he lifted his duffel bag, bought new because he'd previously had nothing like it and Andromeda insisted, and walked to the general store to ask directions.

The man in the store had told him to walk straight out of town and turn up the drive once he saw all the white cows. Harry thought to himself, 'as opposed to brown cows? How many cows could there be?'. But he did as the man said and soon found himself in front of a sprawling brick home with several outbuildings. 'Barns?' he thought.

He saw a group of men standing around a pen, looking at several cows inside, and walked up to them.

They noticed him and turned.

THe oldest man, with a greying beard and short cut hair, smiled at him. " You must be the young man from Britain. Heard you'd be joining us for a few months. We're getting ready to go on a cattle run. Hey Prince! Looks like you won't be the only Brit any more. How about that."

Harry turned to look at the Prince fellow the rancher mentioned and had to stare.

He was thinner somehow, making his face and hand bones more pronounced. His hair was shorter and he was wearing more color, but that was definitely Severus Snape. The man was returning his stare with unbridled horror.

Harry shook it off as he realized the old rancher was talking to him.

"As you're new we'll put you with Mr. Prince and he can show you how we do things. But if he does anything you don't like, feel free to speak up. He's a damn fine cattleman but he's a bit…queer, if you read me."

Harry blinked. Was he trying to say Snape was gay? "Well I don't think all that will be necessary. I'm sure we'll both mind our manners."

The rancher nodded and sent a teenager, his son perhaps, to help get Harry settled for the trip. He was told it would be an early start and they'd be gone into the mountains for at least a month. All he could think was 'Great, a whole month to feel awkward around my former professor who might have saved my life. No big deal there.'

The next day, Snape showed up to his cabin door and after waiting on Harry to dress and gather his things, led the shorter man to a barn where two horses were saddled.

"Have you any experience at riding?" He asked in a low soft tone, almost a whisper but rougher and more hoarse. Obviously the snake bite had left lingering damage.

Harry immediately thought back to Buckbeak and the thestrals. " Some, with a different sort of horse I guess."

Snape nodded. "We'll go slower than I normally would. There will be three teams of two riders, all splitting 200 cattle. We are responsible for a mere 75 cows. I've not lost a single cow or visitor to the ranch so far in my time here and I won't start now. So if you had ideas about roaming the countryside without a care, it stops now."

The side of Harry's mouth quirked up. "No, I'll be good for once."

Snape looked down his nose at the other man, somehow still intimidating despite the visual changes since Potions lessons at school.

"Alright, we're setting out. Keep close. I'll show you what to do as soon as we get the cattle out on the fields."

They climbed on the horses after stowing their few necessary things in the saddlebags and Snape guided his horse out of the barn with ease. Harry tried to follow with as much grace. The other riders, some experienced some new like Harry, guided the cattle out of the paddock and on the sweet smelling, dewy grass of the field, before setting a slow measured pace toward the arching mountains in the distance.

From the ranch to where they rode now, the countryside was beautiful. Growing up as he had, Harry hadn't experienced much nature in his life beyond what grew at Hogwarts and his aunt's garden. The Montana hillside was breathtaking and wild in a way the groomed lawns of Hogwarts and Surrey could never be. He saw flowers and tall scrub brush bushes that he had no hopes of identifying. Snape probably knew all of them.

They stopped after a few hours to stretch and have some fruit that had been hiding in a separate saddlebag. Harry looked inside and, although he couldn't see the bottom of the bag, he found several more apples, a few oranges, and a supply of beef jerky that looked to be homemade. This made him wonder, if they were going to be gone for a month, was the bag magical? An extension charm perhaps? Maybe different bags had different supplies? He'd ask Snape about it when they stopped for the night.

After they had rested the horses for about an hour, Snape and what looked like the other more experienced riders talked in a circle away from the rest and reached an agreement of some sort. Harry was petting his horse, trying to bond, when Snape walked up beside him.

"We're going to be splitting up now. Ride as slow as you need to and make sure that none of the cows split off from the group. Think you can manage?"

Harry scowled and nodded. Snape gave a brief bob of his neck and headed back to his horse.

They split the cows into three fairly even groups and with a raised hand between groups, they split into different directions. Harry kept a close eye on Snape and looked over the cattle as often as he could, not wanting to ruin his first trip out with lost cows. Not a good look.

After a few hours of traveling he started to get bored. Then he had the bright idea to talk to the only other person around.

"Hey Snape, what made you decide to come out here? If you don't mind me asking."

He saw the other man visibly sigh from his horse a few yards away.

"I needed a new start where I'm not a criminal. Does that answer your question?"

Harry was silent for a few minutes.

"I cleared your name. After the war I mean. You were tried in absentia and found to be acting under duress. They cleared you of all charges."

Snape was silent for a while.

"Potter, why are you here? Why now?"

"Andromeda thought I needed a break…You know about the twin towers a few years ago?" Snape nodded. "Well, I got very concerned about the statute of secrecy the last few years after that. I've been campaigning in the Wizengamot for stricter secrecy laws what with the way muggle technology has been advancing and I've hit a roadblock. I wasn't getting anywhere and was just getting stressed out so Andy decided to force me to do something else."

Snape looked thoughtful, or at least that's how it looked to Harry. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a clearing with a few sparse trees.

"We'll camp here tonight. As you may have figured out, I work for a wizarding ranch so we are allowed to set wards on the cattle and our campsites." This was news to Harry, having assumed since nobody at the ranch had recognized him it was a muggle farm.

He swung off his horse before deftly tying the reins to a tree branch. Harry tried to copy, but found that riding a thestral for a few hours to London is nothing at all to half a day on the back of a horse. His legs felt like jelly and managed to get his horse sorted out before almost falling onto a fallen log. He rubbed at his legs.

Snape meanwhile went about starting a fire with his wand and pulled out cooking supplies from one of the saddlebags, including a large iron skillet.

He dropped a bag by Harry's feet. "Think you can get our tent set up?"

Harry took in a deep breath, steeling himself for pressure on his legs, and managed to stand. He looked in the bag and saw a tent much like the one he, Ron, and Hermione had used during the war. He got it set up in a few minutes using his wand and some half forgotten muscle memory. He looked back to see what Snape was up to, and saw some chicken frying in the skillet and foil wrapped potatoes buried near the fire.

He sat back down to wait. Meanwhile he saw Snape go to one of his personal saddlebags and pull out a container of muggle pills, and take two pills, dry swallowing them. He wanted to ask, but figured it wasn't his business what medications Snape took. He was surprised that the Potions' Master would take muggle pills.

They ate and cleaned up, settling for a few hours of relaxing before dark. Snape pulled out a book littered with page markers. Somehow, Harry was surprised when he got a closer look at it. It was a muggle book by all appearances. Wizards never really got into the practice of paperback novels. He let Snape read in peace while massaging his legs. If he was still sore in the morning, he'd see if the other man had a potion or something that could help.