Braeden was grateful when Ava Jade began to shout out spells, he really was, but… he wasn't sure what he was more scared of at that moment - the giant octopus thing kidnapping him under the dark waters of the swamp, or his Hufflepuff friend accidentally hitting him with one of her spells. All he could think about right now was: which one would be a quicker, less painful death?

But then, just as he was in the middle of these thoughts as he struggled to keep himself as far away from the swamp waters as possible, Braeden saw a flash of light hit the slimy tentacle, and he could feel its grip loosening around his wrist. This was it! If he didn't get his hand away from it now, he never would! The Gryffindor boy's brown eyes widened as he saw the creature lift up a second tentacle, as if to assure that if it couldn't take its prey with one tentacle, it would get him with the other. Oh Merlin… oh no… Braeden seemed to freeze for a moment there, just watching the hideous thing coming up from beneath the water before snapping back to his senses and pulling his arm back as far as he could. He managed to get a couple steps back on safer ground, but the stupid creature was still holding on to him. Ughhh.

At least now Braeden could reach his wand, though, so that's exactly what he did - he picked it up and pointed it at the nasty tentacle wrapped around his arm - "Alarte ascendare!" Luckily for the boy, being this close to his target gave him better aim than his friend, and he was able to hit the creature directly, causing it to release him and twitch back into the dark water. Braeden sighed as the disgusting thing disappeared back into the water and stared at the swamp with wide eyes for a moment, as if frozen.
Yeah… that… that hadn't been traumatizing at all.

"Merlin…" muttered the boy, obviously still a bit shaken from the experience.