As Aurora entered the third challenge, the brisk cold hit her so hard, it almost knocked the air out of her lungs. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself, and her bottom jaw began to quiver as her teeth chattered loudly in her head. Seriously - they were so loud it was hard to think. What WAS this place?! Had they been transported back to the Ice Age?? She half expected a woolly mammoth to walk right past her at any moment. Aurora cursed the fact that they were not able to bring anything with them besides their wand into this challenge, otherwise she would immediately have created a fire out of something - ANYTHING - to keep her warm. At least three different ideas popped in to her head on how to create some source of warmth - and unfortunately, she had nothing to use as kindling for the fire, so they were completely useless. She didn't even have a container for any sort of bluebell flames...

There didn't happen to be a random marmalade jar hiding in the snow, right?

She looked down at her feet and was glad she had worn her trusty combat boots again - although snow was already creeping over the tops and into her shoes, but she was so cold that she hardly registered the icy sensation engulfing her socks. "Impervius!" she muttered softly, pointing her wand at her shoes and socks and charming them to be waterproof. She wasn't big on nature - not at ALL - but she knew enough about survival to know that you had to keep your feet warm and dry if possible. Otherwise they shriveled up and got gross and then you could lose your feet. So help the British Ministry if Aurora lost a foot - she would SUE sooooo hard. It did nothing to help her feet get warmer, but at least they weren't getting any soggier either. The only way she was going to get any warmer was to move forward - which was precisely what she started to do.

One step. Two steps. She tried to focus on how many steps she was taking, trying to keep her mind off of the cold. It was hard, especially as her eyes began to water down her face, likely RUINING her carefully crafted makeup. She'd done her hair in a braid again today, but she reached up and pulled it loose, fingers quickly running through her dark hair to undo all the little twists and turns she'd done so perfectly this morning. It was small, but the added hair over the tips of her ears helped keep them just a BIT warmer. Her nose was running now, and she rolled her sleeves up over her hands to try and keep them warm - and to use as a makeshift handkerchief. Gross.

You had to do what you had to do when scholarships were on the line, though!

Teeth still chattering incessantly, she kept moving forward. With each step, she scanned the area beneath her feet as she pushed snow out of the way with her boots, looking for branches or anything she could possibly use to fashion into a torch. If she had to go total caveman style here, she definitely would. It was so deep, though, that if there was anything hiding under there, she doubted she would see it. She kept her fingers crossed (mentally of course, as they were too frozen to do anything at the moment) and kept going forward, hoping against hope that she would trip over a random tree branch or something that she could use to create a portable fire.

She felt like she had been walking forever, her legs already burning from trudging through the knee deep snow. She looked back in dismay, however, and saw she had barely gone more than a couple dozen yards. Alright, this was taking too long. She might not be able to use her wand as a makeshift caveman torch, but a new idea was forming in her brain, which would hopefully speed this process up - AND keep her from turning into a Horned Serpent popsicle.

She pulled out her wand and pointed at the area in front of her. "Incendio!" she exclaimed loudly, using all her concentration to try and create the largest jet of fire possible from her wand. It was hard to try and block out the screaming voice in her head that was only focused on how cold she was, but as soon as she said the incantation, she felt a small bit of warmth blowing back from the fire, and her determination was renewed. A large stream of fire came from the tip of her wand, melting a few feet of snow from the area in front of her. It didn't reach TOO far, only a couple of feet, and didn't completely melt the wall of snow down to the ground (she hadn't expected it to), but she would take it. The makeshift path was better than the knee high snow she'd been working through up until now. The warmed snow was much easier to trudge through, squishing with an odd sort of satisfaction under her boot as she moved forward to her newly melted path, which helped her go just a bit faster. The small rush of hot air she'd gotten from the initial blast of fire had helped her numb hands for...a good two seconds before the fire had disappeared, taking it's blessed warmth with it.

Yes, it wasn't much at all, but something was better than nothing.

She waved her wand, nonverbally casting the spell this time. It wasn't as strong as screaming it at the top of her lungs, but it was getting the job done, and she needed to save her energy. She took it slowly, a few feet at a time, with her wand working like a blow torch to make her path just slightly easier.

Hopefully, she wouldn't have to go TOOOOO far before it became obvious what she was supposed to do with this challenge...