Okay, so absolute complete darkness had unnerved her a little bit, but Rowan had dealt with that, and felt way more confident than she had done just a few moments ago, so she put her 'bring it on' hat on and carried on walking. She was taking lefts, and only lefts, because she thought it was the best way to try and get through the whole maze, so she came to a few dead ends, and nearly tripped over a root, the began to wonder if she was going the wrong way.

...

She hadn't seen anyone in a while, or heard anything, so she took a second to sit down on a stone to plan her next move. She could keep taking lefts, or she could go as straight on as possible, or she could just go ahead with no plan at all. She was considering the last one - just for the fun of it - when she heard something, and jumped to her feet. "Hello?" she squinted ahead of her, and then saw the shape... a... well... a what? Was that a dementor?

Rusty suddenly realised why they were so scary. Look at it. It was huuuge... and she was just a tiny little girl... Sorta. And it had this rasping breath and weird way of moving and... it was just terrifying! She didn't even want to THINK about what it would be like to come up against the real thing, and she took a step backwards from it, only to find that she was backed up against one of the hedge walls of the labyrinth.

........

"It. Isn't. Real." she whispered to herself, raising her wand in front of her. "You aren't real!!" she shouted, mainly to make herself feel better, since it didn't seem to be doing anything to the dementor itself. Okay. It wasn't real. Remember the memory!!

Fire... cake... family... music...

"Expt-" Rowan stumbled over the incantation, and the creature was getting closer and closer. "Exp--... st..stup.... PROTEGO!" That was the next thing to come to mind, and the shield charm formed a thin wall between her and the oncoming figure. Okay. It was there. It wasn't a particularly powerful charm, but it gave her the time she needed to think of her memory again.

This time she mentally listed all the people who she loved who were at the party, and all the smells and all the food and all the songs that had been there, building up the happy memory with each point on the list, and then... "EXPECTO PATRONUM!!" The shield charm disappeared, but it was replaced with a sudden burst of bright silvery mist, and the dementor thing recoiled and disappeared.