Harry and Ron had been walking all day. They had no clue where they were. Harry had a vague feeling that it was probably around eleven in the morning, but he couldn’t be sure, since there was no sun. His disorientation didn’t help. Harry couldn’t tell exactly how long he and Ron had been on foot. All that was on his mind was the execution. The sky was covered with thick gray clouds and it was snowing lightly. The ground was still covered with thick hard-packed snow, making it difficult to walk. The weather seemed to reflect Harry’s feelings and looking around, he only felt more depressed.
They had been trekking through a flat stretch of land ever since Harry and Ron had run away. They hadn’t seen a single house or even the vapors of smoke from a far-off chimney.
Since they had seen no trace of civilization, there was little need to stop and rest. Neither Harry nor Ron had thought of food as they had left Salem Village and so they were traveling on empty stomachs.
Harry could hear Ron’s teeth chattering behind him. Their sealskin coats weren’t helping to keep out the cutting wind. He continued to walk on, shielding his face against the wind as he tried to catch sight of the tell-tale wisps of smoke wafting out of a smokestack. There was nothing.
‘L-Lets stop for a w-while, Harry!’ said Ron through chattering teeth.
Harry turned around and grinned in spite of himself. Ron’s nose and cheeks were flaming red from the cold and along with his flaming hair his whole head looked like a ripe tomato.
‘Fine,’ he shouted over the whistling wind. ‘We’ll stop… but where?’
He motioned to the flat landscape before them, indicating that there was no shelter from the cold.
Ron looked around. ‘I think there are some trees or something over there!’
Harry looked to where Ron was pointing. He couldn’t see anything but white, but he supposed it was worth a try. He and Ron made their way over to where Ron had indicated.
Ron had been right. There was a small forest of trees, all of which were covered with snow. Harry and Ron stepped inside. The sound of the wind was muffled by the trees and after so much noise the quiet seemed eerie.
‘I have no clue how you managed to see these, but good one anyway,’ said Harry, whispering by instinct. The silence gave him the strange feeling that the forest was home to things that wouldn’t enjoy being disturbed. Or maybe the feeling was due to his experiences in the Forbidden Forest, back at Hogwarts.
‘Thanks,’ said Ron, looking around.
Although the small forest was sheltered from the snow and noise, it was still very cold. The forest floor was covered with thorns. Harry looked up and saw that most of the trees were evergreen, which explained why they hadn’t shed their leaves in the fall and let in the snow. The pine trees weren’t immune to the wind, however, which was why the ground was covered with needles.
Ron was examining the pine-needles. ‘These would probably make soft beds… soft compared to the ground.’
Harry nodded. ‘We should probably stay here until the storm is over. Then we might be able to find something to eat.’
‘We could always eat crickets,’ said Ron holding up a squirming insect.
‘Right…’ said Harry, staring at the cricket. ‘You can’t stand spiders but crickets are alright, are they?’
Ron threw down the insect. ‘Lots of people eat crickets!’
‘Yeah and I think those were the same people who worshipped the warthog, so thanks, but no thanks,’ replied Harry. He looked up. ‘Do people eat pine cones?’
Ron shrugged, picking up one of the pine cones that lay on the pine-needle-covered floor and tried to break it open. A few seeds rolled out but they didn’t look very appetizing.
Harry flopped down onto the pine-needle bed next to Ron.
‘Another night on an empty stomach,’ moaned Ron, playing with the wing-like seeds of the pine cone. ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’
‘You’re acting like we’ve been out here for years. The only way to get food in our stomachs is to get back to Hogwarts, and I don’t have a clue how to do that,’ responded Harry.
‘Hey!’ said Ron, his face lighting up. ‘Maybe we could apparate!’
‘Apparition for a few miles is okay,’ started Harry, ‘but I don’t think it’ll get us three hundred years into the future.’
Ron wasn’t going to be let down that easily. ‘Well, what if we traveled to the Hogwarts of today? I know it exists! We could ask whoever is there to transport us!’
‘You can’t apparate onto Hogwarts grounds,’ replied Harry, tediously. ‘Remember?’
‘Yeah…’ said Ron quietly and Harry knew his mind had wandered to Hermione. ‘Well- Well, maybe we could get to London and go on foot from there!’
‘I don’t know about you, but I have never tried to apparate three thousand plus miles. I’d probably splinch myself in an instant,’ countered Harry.
Ron finally gave up. ‘Well, if you’re planning on being that stubborn, there really is no way out of stupid wherever we are.’
‘Its plain logic,’ replied Harry.
‘Yeah… sure,’ said Ron distractedly.
Harry and Ron spent the rest of the day listening to their stomachs growl and to the sounds of the screeching wind. The forest wasn’t a perfect shelter: the bitter wind still slipped in through the trunks of the surrounding trees.
Harry’s mind kept wandering back to Hermione’s death, no matter how hard he tried to push the subject away. Unconsciously, he was blaming himself for everything that had happened. If he hadn’t seen the glittering amulet in the snow that day, they never would have been transported to 1692.
Sometime in the afternoon, after he had mulled over Hermione’s death for a few hours, his mind switched to other thoughts. For some reason, he couldn’t help thinking that maybe he had found the stupid amulet for a reason. Although he couldn’t really understand what the reason was. Maybe it was a plan of Voldemort’s: Maybe he thought Harry would have been hanged in the witchcraft trials. That obviously hadn’t worked though. Voldemort wouldn’t have tried such a backhanded maneuver either. He liked to show people he was responsible for the things he did, and he surely wouldn’t have allowed Harry to die without lording it over him that he had finally defeated The-Boy-Who-Lived.
When he questioned Ron about the theory that they had been sent to 1692 for a reason, Ron just stared at him and asked him if he had gotten snow in his ears, but Harry still couldn’t push the feeling away. Something was telling Harry that he was here for a reason. Who would have been careless enough to let the amulet drop in the snow? Especially considering what it could do. No, whichever way he looked at it, Harry was sure someone had planned this all. Whoever it was was defiantly in need of some mental help. Hermione had lost her life because of the stupid amulet, and it didn’t look like he and Ron were much better off, even if they were still… alive. If they went without food for much longer Harry was sure the results would not be pretty.