Harry stood, looking out over the canyon they would have to cross that day. Admittedly, he did feel better after drinking some of the vile concoction, but his limbs still ached, and he wished he were able to take a quick trip to the hospital wing for something better.

He gave a look over his shoulder, and seeing the Professor wasn’t there, he frowned, and looked all around him. From the trees in front of him he appeared though, and said, “It’s a steep hill.”

Harry shrugged. He knew he could make it, he just knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

They walked for an hour without another word, and were halfway down to the valley floor. Harry used a thin tree to lower himself down the slope another foot or so, and actually found a level spot to stand. He waited a moment for Snape to catch up, and continued on. A minute or so later, Harry heard a distinctive, “Oompf,” and stopped, looking up at the Professor, who had only just caught himself from tumbling down the slope.

“Damn roots,” he said with a glare down to the half hidden tree root he had tripped on.

Harry cracked a grin, and Snape’s head snapped up to look at him, just daring him to laugh.

“What?” Harry asked him… “I saw it jump out at you,” he paused, and then added with a wry smile, “just like that tree a while back.”

Snape sneered at him, and Harry turned to continue downward, but his own foot caught on something, and he flew face first toward the dirt.

Harry cursed, and shook his head. As he pushed himself up, he looked up to see Snape standing over him, not bothering to cover his own grin or chuckling. Harry frowned, but didn’t say anything. As he picked himself up off the ground and walked off, he wondered how much easier his friends were having things right now back at school… Harry could just see Ron muttering something about Transfiguration being too hard, and Hermione complaining because she forgot to add something to her Charms homework, even though she’d gotten full marks. He shook his head, and tried to push the images from his mind. Right now the only thing that concerned him, was getting back to Hogwarts, alive, so he could be the one complaining about the difficulty of classes, or laughing with Ron about Hermione.

Had he been paying attention, Harry might have seen the big rock in front of his foot. He didn’t though, and not having been back on his feet for more than five minutes, he took a dive as his foot hit it, and went sprawling down the slope.

This time, Snape wasn’t laughing when Harry opened his eyes, cursed more loudly, and shook the hair out of his eyes. He was kneeling there, with what could have been taken as a possible worried expression. Harry glared up at him though, and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what Potter?”

Harry glowered, and said, “Laughing.”

“Potter,” Snape said, angrily now. “Your clumsiness is not a laughing matter. If you die the Dark Lord will be given free reign.”

Harry frowned a little more deeply this time, but after a second, his expression lightened and he began to laugh.

Snape was a little taken aback. What the hell was the boy laughing at?

“More like, if I die and you make it back, they’ll blame you,” Harry told him, his back still against the tree he had landed against.

“It’s not a question of, if you die, and if, I make it back,” Snape corrected him.

Harry shook his head, and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, his other hand still clutching his wand.

“No, I don’t intend on dying, and you’d better not intend on killing me… other than that, I say if we get back, because we still have no clue where we are, and this,” he held up his wand, “doesn’t give a damn either way.” Harry almost hadn’t finished his sentence though. He had gotten very quiet. Both he and Snape were looking down at Harry’s wand, which had given a little trail of sparkling magic as he’d lifted it.

“Potter?” Snape asked him quietly, not taking his eyes from the wand.

Harry’s eyes were still glued to the wand too. “Yeah?”

“Enchant that locator spell.”

Harry looked up at his Professor for a second, and tried to remember how to enchant the spell that would point them towards the nearest town or city.

“Potter,” Snape warned him.

Harry held up his other hand, “Shh!”

He placed his wand flat in the palm of his hand, and enchanted the words. To his amazement, and surprise, the wand began to spin, and the tip finally came to rest, pointing straight through Harry’s chest.

They both moved to look around the tree in that direction, and knew it was nearly in the same direction they’d been walking for three days.

Without a word, Snape stood and pulled Harry to his feet, and they moved off again, towards the bottom of the valley, and then, the massive hill that awaited them.

They were only ten feet further down the slope before Snape stopped, and Harry did too, impatiently watching him.

“What are you doing?” he asked him.

Snape frowned. “I still can’t apparate.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “What?”

Both wands were withdrawn again, and both faces fell when they discovered that they no longer worked anymore.

“Wait here,” Snape ordered, taking Harry’s wand and climbing back up to where Harry had fallen, and landed.

Harry let out a deep sigh, when he saw that the wands no longer worked there either.

“What the hell?” Snape asked quietly from his spot ten feet above Potter.

“Don’t look at me,” Harry told him when he’d come back down and given his wand back, “I didn’t do it.”

“I’m beginning to believe you less and less Potter,” he told him. It had been Potter after all, who had felt the effects of the portal first, and Potter’s wand that had eventually worked, however briefly, therefore, it was Potter’s fault, in someway that they were there.

“I don’t think you’ve ever believed me,” Harry said flatly, sliding down the slope a little on purpose like a surfer.

* * *

“Potter, stop!”

Harry stopped his climbing, and turned around in the dim light.

“What?” he asked him, annoyed.

“You need to stop,” Snape told him, out of breath.

They’d reached the bottom of the valley, and were half way up the next hill. It was getting dark however, and they were both exhausted.

“Why?” Harry asked him, wiping a little sweat from his forehead. “We might be able to get there by dark.”

Snape looked up at him, as if asking if he really believed that.

Harry sighed. He didn’t want to spend another night out there, where he didn’t have control over who heard what he was saying in his sleep.

“C’mon, I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and I want to get home,” Harry half pleaded with him.

Snape almost asked him just how hungry and tired he thought he was, and if he thought that he in any way enjoyed being stuck out there with him, but didn’t.

“Potter, the town will be there in the morning.”

“Yeah, well I thought school’d be there in the morning,” Harry said more to himself than to Snape. Of course he’d been wrong though. When he’d woken up, and finally opened his eyes, he realized that his nightmare was true, and he had no idea where school was.

With a promise that as soon as the sun rose, they would set off again, Harry conceded to defeat, and settled in for another restless night. Perhaps because of all the quick paced walking they’d done that day, Harry was too exhausted to wake up, and also didn’t dream.

“Get up Harry.”

Harry opened his eyes. It was cold out, and still dark.

“What?” he asked Snape, a little angry that he’d been woken.

“The sun will be up soon.”

Harry sat up quickly. He’d almost forgotten.

Snape shook his head. It appeared that Potter wanted to be rid of his company as much as he did of his.

Harry pulled a few of the berries they’d been eating for the past three days out of his pocket. It was only a handful, and made for a meager breakfast. There was a fresh pile in front of him though, and he ate half of the bittersweet berries not reluctantly.

After a quarter of an hour, Harry couldn’t wait anymore. He rose, and said, “You can wait until the sun comes up… I’m going up the hill.”

Snape didn’t frown in the lifting darkness. He only followed close behind, wordlessly.

Somehow, Harry was able to see where he was going, though he’d never know how. It got lighter out as they climbed the semi-steep slope though, and by the time they were nearly at the top of it, the sun was coming up in full steam now.

Harry used a large tuft of grass to pull himself up, and when he did, he found that the slope wasn’t as steep anymore. A few more feet, he told himself, just a few more feet. And he was right. A few more feet, and the ground leveled out. He stood, and a grin broke out over his face, bigger than he’d ever thought he’d be able to grin again after Sirius’ death.

Behind him, he heard rustling leaves and snapping branches, and turned in time to see the Professor coming. He too stood, but instead of looking out over the great valley, was looking at Harry oddly, wondering why he looked so happy, when mere hours before, he was sullen and sulky.

Harry interpreted the question on his face before he could ask though, and pointed out towards the rising sun.

Snape’s gaze followed where Harry pointed to, and he allowed a smile to cross his lips as well, for there, silhouetted by the spectacular sunrise, was Hogwarts, standing in all it’s glory.

“That’s it isn’t it?” Harry asked hopefully.

Snape nodded. He pointed as well, and said, “See the lake?”

Harry pulled out his wand, and said, “Home, here I come.”