The Paths We Take

Chapter 22- Cold Soul

AN- We had a total of 4 winners YAY! 2 who guessed correctly, Changsterfan on FF and DistinctlyMe on AO3, and 2 who were just one month off, FoxesRun on FF and Willapa on AO3! Unfortunately, Foxes has not returned my email and I have no way to contact Chang, so regrettably I will not be able to place a character for them. However, thank you to everyone who participated and congratulations those who won! I am only going to do this game one more time in the next era for certain reasons, but we have to first get through this one! So, you will have have another chance to play in 5 to 6 chapters!

"Where's your gavel? Your jury? What's my offense this time?
You're not a judge, but if you're gonna judge me
Well, sentence me to another life"

Ignorance- Paramore

Chapter 22- Cold Soul

Harry gasped loudly and quickly sat upright while everyone in the room stared at him with widened eyes. He glanced around at all the faces while the gash on his forehead began to heal before looking to Pansy, whose mouth was opening and closing rapidly in confusion.

"There was a fire..." he claimed with a heavy breath before looking to the people standing around him.

"Harry..." Pansy began gently while slowly reaching out to touch his shoulder, startling him for a second and causing her to recoil rather quickly.

"Sorry, I just...there was a fire..."

"We know..." she replied softly before reaching out once more in support.

"What?" he raised a brow as Luna vanished the remaining blood on his cheek. "How? Did you see it?"

"No, Harry..." Ron stated while rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "You were talking...during your vision...We heard almost everything..."

"I was talking? But...I didn't speak before...Did I?"

"No" Narcissa answered while taking a seat on the edge of a bench; still in shock that the ancestor her son was with, was a Confederate, someone far too similar to a Death Eater.

"What's wrong?" Harry questioned when he noticed the sadness filling the room. "Everyone's okay, they found each other and made it out of the woods."

"Woods?" Thorfinn expressed in puzzlement. "I thought everyone was in Chambersburg..."

"I don't know anything about Chambersburg. They were in the middle of the woods, that I think was on a mountain, before they were suddenly attacked. I think it was a camp."

"Maybe they were moving away from town" Luna pipped. "I mean, if you think about it, they had to be somewhere close enough to be able to walk or apparate from Gettysburg."

"They can't apparate" Rowle declared with a sigh while placing his hands in his pockets. "It's part of the amulet, I guess you could say. Apparating would mean they could, and most likely would, avoid their trials, which is the whole reason that stupid pendant is throwing them through time in the first place. If they try to leave via magic, they'll just end up back in the same place they started at."

"Wouldn't it have been better for them to just leave and land back in Gettysburg?" Theo inquired while running his fingers through his dark brown hair. "I mean, I read that that fight only lasted three days and with what Potter had described before, it seems like they landed on the second day of battle."

"Possibly, but possibly not. Whatever spells Osiris used are unpredictable yet very powerful. For all anyone knows, they try to apparate and end up back in the camp. And if they try to evade being 'tested' an invisible wall prevents them from leaving. The amulet will only allow them to go where they're supposed to, which means that if they tried to leave the camp to go somewhere safer, the magic in the amulet would stop them. They can't escape even if they wanted to. There's no tricking it."