A MAZE? .___.

What? They had to go through a maze? That sounded dangerous. Like it could seriously damage her. Mazes were scary. Had no one told the Professor that? NO? Humph. She'd just have to suck it up.

Slowly she crept into the maze, inching forward slowly, not wanting any surprises. She'd probably scream. Or something. MELLOW. Holding her wand out infront of her, Bliss decided to be a brave girl and go faster and with each step she increased her speed until she was almost jogging through the maze.

LA LA LA. Nothing to worry about at allllllllllllll.

CRUNCH-SQUELCH-CRUNCH.

Bliss stopped aprumptly. Was this..mud, or grass or soil she thought, looking down at the ground. But she found that she couldn't actually see it. She'd been focusing on jogging and just moving along the maze, she hadn't noticed how dark it was. "Lumos," she muttered quietly and looked around again at the lit up space. It...wasn't very lit up at all.

=|

Dylan didn't need to hear Kinsley's words...because he was more than aware of what was coming towards them. The water, dripping from his hair and robes, seemed to ice over as the black, cloaked figured loomed near. And that was nothing compared to the vice-like grip around his heart.

He needed to cast a Patronus, Dylan was realizing...but he'd missed that lesson due to his sick father. He had read Patronus-theory...but that was so much different than actually casting.

Things were flashing behind his eyelids when he blinked...His parents, the divorce...His grandfather's death....He was going to throw up...but then he heard Kinsley say "Captain." and something seemed to snap into place. He couldn't crumble like this. He needed to protect his Chaser...and they needed to get rid of this thing.

It started with a happy thought...He needed a good one..........

There were things with his parents...and friends...and Bee...but nothing matched the feeling of being made Captain. That had been a turning point in his short life. Responsibility. Respect. Accomplishment...His team...The feeling filled him up..."Expecto....pa...patronum." A white whisp of something poured from his wand but then quickly evaporated.

FOCUS, Dylan.

Mind set, he tried again, pointing his wand out in front of him and focused on the memory. "Expecto...patronum.".........The white whisp returned...but vanished just as quickly. Sweet Merlin...he HAD to get this right now. Time for something spectacular, Captain. Come on!

Focusing again, this time on the game they won with only THREE days to prepare, an odd feeling filled his chest...and he knew he'd be successful this time. Something told him as much...and the Dementor was closing in. He HAD to get it NOW. Breathing in and out steadily, eyeing the dementor with fierce determination, Dylan raised his wand again. "Expecto PATRONUM!"

Suddenly, light was everywhere, sourced from the silvery-white Raven? bursting from his wand tip. The Dementor was forcibly pushed back...and Dylan dropped to his knees.

Holy Merlin, he'd done it.

His heart was about to beat out of his chest. "Kinsley?" His tone was shaky. "You okay?"

Hmm....

Right...Straight...Left...

Yup. The sound was definitely getting closer. It sounded a lot like a bird's song. Hmm...a familiar birds song...where had Ella heard that before? She continued to ponder this as she got closer and closer to the source. Hmm... it was actually quite nice, this song...

O__O

Fwooper's song. MEEP! Not again!

Ella had already started to giggle as she held out her wand and pointed it at the brightly colored orange bird. "Silencio!" Hehehe...that was a funny word!

And the song had stopped? GIGGGLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ella was SOOOOO good at spells! Mwahahahehehehe! She should be teaching here! Professor Bishop!

Gigggleeeeeeeeeeeeeee

What WAS this beast?

Theo had never in his life ever seen it before, not even in any books or anything. Maybe it was cos he was an incredibly slow reader and never usually bothered? MINOR DETAILS.

He was soon back in his fetal position, giving Dylan plenty of room to do his business and be a grown up.

Merlin, it was cold. SO cold. And now he was crying.

Over nothing in particular, he just felt HORRID. Like how he felt when they were the first team to be kicked out of the championship. That stuff hurt DEEP, man... deep. Theo was kinda glad he was with the one person that'd probably understand that feeling along with him. His captain.

The second year looked up at just the right time, when a silver Raven erupted from Dylan's wand and fought the monster away.

"W-oaaaah.." Flabbergasted, he was.

When the place went dark again, Theo was still slumped on the floor in shock, but he soon managed to get to his feet. It was all a little overwhelming, wasn't it? "Wh-what WAS that?" And what was that SPELL?! That magical, silvery, awesomeness spell?! Dylan would have to teach him that one. "And yeah... I'm... fine... are you?" He asked, just as concerned-like.

Yes, he quickly wiped his tears away but SHUSH. No one saw that. At least Dylan had gotten rid of the thing before his tears were turned into icicles.....

GULP.

Okay, Ryans, it doesn't matter that you can't see much. Seriously. You needs sight anyway, Bliss thought to herself in encouragment. She took several deep breaths and kept on walking quickly forward while thinking positive things to herself. HUUUUUUM. Awkwardly she hummed 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' to herself.

ALLWASGOOD.ALLWASGOOD.ALLWASGOOD.

RUSTLE.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, IT WASN'T.

Bliss panicked and went to run forward, falling flat on her face in the process. Something...something had hold of her leg and she didn't like it at all. It was slimy and weird and just...WIMPER. Bliss kicked and struggled, trying to break free of this..thing.

It was no good. She raised her wand over her leg, trying to see what it was and then she saw it..a vine. Just a vine? No. A KILLER VINE. Bliss struggled more, but nothing happened, it just slithered further up her leg, and tightened it's grip.

WHIMPER.

Taking a deep breath, she stayed still and carefully aimed her wand at the vine that was steadily moving up her leg. "R-Relashio," she muttered, but nothing happened. This time, in a more confident voice, she said, "Relashio," and just like that, the vine released her.

Jumping up faster than she ever had in her life, she got to her feet and ran and ran and ran..until...

SMACK.

So he was just mindlessly walking... getting more and more used to the dark. And things were okay after that trip he had back then. And... no one could see him so-

WHAT WAS THAT?!

His now-grey eyes widened until they were as round as Galleons and he STARED at the spot in front of him. Something... was there. Something that seemed to have appeared in a whisp of smoke. Something that was hopping its tiny frame around on one foot. And it was staring at him as if it wanted him. But not to eat... but... it wanted him to follow?

Alec blinked. The creature. It had a lantern. And Alec felt this strong urge to follow it... somewhere. It couldn't lead him astray, right? Yeah... yeah, that's right. After all... it was TINY. How much harm could this tiny creature do?

And so the Hufflepuff hesitantly followed, entranced slightly by the lantern. Truthfully, he was fairly glad that the creature was letting him take a long time. But then the grunting noises came and Alec... frowned. That wasn't nice, little creature! But... they must have been close, yeah? Because the creature had stopped and was just motioning to him.

... And then Alec stopped. And he didn't know why. The creature grunted some more and... Alec stood there, shaking his head. He was going to go ANYWHERE if this creature was being MEAN. ... Maybe that was mean of him. No! Little creature was being mean and-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Yelling, Alec fell on the earthy ground below in an attempt to duck the... wait... FIREBALLS?! WHAT. WHAT WAS THIS, A POKEMON CREATURE?! NOT COOL DUDE.

But something about falling on the ground seemed to have knocked some sense into him. Alec BLINKED HARD and looked at the creature again. It was hopping on one foot... and it had a lantern... and it seemed to be made of some sort of whispy smoke. ... Didn't he... face this creature in Defence once?

YES, DEFENCE SUMMERS. DEFEND YOURSELF.

"L-Lumos Duo!" And... Frozen. Thank Superman.

... Could he leave now?

Dylan was still sitting there, shakily trying to wrap his head around the fact that he'd FINALLY produced a patronus...and the other fact that he'd just faced down a dementor. Merlin, he was going to be sick...Cold and sick. Yep. Wasn't one supposed to eat chocolate after facing down one of those? Hadn't he read that somewhere?

...but Kinsley was just fine and safe!...Getting to his feet slowly, Dylan pointed his wand at himself, drying his clothes and hair. Walking around this maze was going to be uncomfortable soaking wet. "Dementor..."...Of course, the Slytherin figured it was probably a boggart shifted into the dementor...What would those horrifying things be doing in the school? "...and that was a Patronus..." His voice seemed to level out as he talked out his nerves. "It's the only thing that can drive a dementor away."

That spell was probably a fluke...Dylan guaranteed he'd have trouble casting it again.

"Come on. Let's keep moving. Stay with me."...because the Captain wasn't leaving Kinsley behind. Not by himself in this stupid maze. "Let's just continue to push forward, yea?" Yep, no thinking about what had just happened.

Minerva looked at the numbers... She could figure this out... couldn't she. Taking her wand "Diffindo." to start splitting up the numbers. Now she knew she touched the bracelet she would get burned or hurt, but what if she did stuff with her wand, what would it do to her. She had to figure out the correct spell. Which was it. Looking at the numbers she tried to think of everything she had learned, there had to be something in her memory.. What was it though.

She walked around the numbers trying to think. She wondered if she could feel the heat if she got to close to the bracelet. Looking at it, she was coming to a blank.. What was the spell she needed. Minerva then thought of a spell, what was it exactly.. She pointed her wand at the bracelet.. "Impliosess" No.. no that wasn't it. She dodged for cover not knowing what her mess up would do to the bracelet.

"Come back, Fooser...fwopper...erm...heheh..fwooper!" Ella called out to the bright orange bird, wiggling a finger at it sternly. Giggggggleeee! Professor Bishop demands you return! Heh!

Speaking of birds, which were quite nice, Ella couldn't help but think of hair. YES, hair. Because birds needed nests and wouldn't the perfect nest for a fwooper be in someone's hair? Gigggggle! But only someone with nice hair because fwoopers needed cozy nests! Mhm! Beam.

Ella stewed on this as she mindlessly wandered through the maze, wand held out in front of her. Gigggggleeeeeeeeee!

Theodore had lots of hair! O__O And one time lots of nose hair! Imagine a nose hair nest?! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH! Ella giggled more as tears streamed down her face. Yup! She was laughing that hard. MEEP! But the fwoopers couldn't live in Theo's nose hair cause he liked to whip it! THAT COULD HURT THE INNOCENT FWOOPERS! >.< Nooo....his hair wouldn't do!

Harvey's hair...too short.

Landon's hair...too much product.

Alec's hair...too much ruffling.

Mordred's hair....


GIGGGLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe!

It was a perfect fwooper nest! BEAM. BEAM. HEEHEHEHEHEH

"I've never heard of them..."

And he was glad that he hadn't! That thing was likely to plague his nightmares tonight! What sort of lesson WAS this? Patronus, though... those were cool. "Can you teach me it? One day?" Cos he looked up to Dylan enough as it is, but now, the guy was just pure awesome.

Theodore nodded and kept his wand out as they moved. It was all going swimmingly, until he tripped on something.

"I'm good." But he got up, and tripped on it AGAIN.

"A-A-A-AGUAMENTI!" sPLaaaaaaaashhhhhh. He got up to look at what it was, and it was a plant shaped like a rope, sort of thing. And it was wrapped around his leg, freezing him into one position.

And the spell he'd used seemed to have only replenished it's health further.

Darn. "IT'S GOT MY FOOT!"

HELP?

OUCHIE.

Bliss had hit the wall hard. Why did she always run into things? WHY? Once again, she regained her balance and set off again. Just keep calm, she repeated to herself. Nothing can really hurt you, you're safe. Cos obviously the Professor wouldn't want any seriously dead injured kids.

........

The Second Year stopped dead when she heard a noise up ahead. It..sounded vaugely like wings? Sort of? Bliss didn't dare move another inch. If there was a evil vine thing at the start, then this was bound to be worse. It had to be. BUT, she could do this. She had to do this.

Taking a deep breath, Bliss creeped forward slowly, keeping her arm extended in front of her and eyes watching everything. Then she saw it. What WAS it? A...extremely large...DOXY?

o_____O

They bit, right? Bliss thought, taking a cautious step backwards, away from the threat. But it seemed like the threat had other ideas. It swooped down towards her and she narrowly dodged it. She straightened herself up, just as it came as her again. She jumped out of the way and scrambled through her brain for a plan.

RUN. RETREAT. GO!

Bliss sprant off, turning corners, not daring to look behind her. Suddenly a spell popped into her head and she stopped. Quickly she spun around and pointed her wand directly at the incoming doxy and cried, "STUPEFY!" She watched the doxy fall to the ground and realised that her heart was beating so very fast in her chest.

BLINK.

Wibble. He didn't like Hinkypunks anymore. No... ducks, yes. Hinkypunks, no.

DUCKS. What if he found a DUCK in here? How awesome would that be? ALEC GRINNED WIDELY at the very thought. But... if he met a duck... he'd probably forget all about that bracelet he was meant to find and sit there, feeding ducks.

Erm... he should probably move AWAY from the Hinkypunk first. And not towards the left where, as he peeked his head around the corner... yeah. There it was. A bog. Which... he wasn't going to go near because... well... Hinkypunk.

Shaking his head, Alec moved away and headed towards the right path instead. His mind started whirring into action and thinking of the kind of creatures he could face soon. Or... other things? But after a Hinkypunk and that... weird... tripping incident, this really couldn't get any worse, could it?

And then...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

It felt as if someone or someTHING had decided to TORTURE him. And in one of the worst ways possible, actually. This thing... whatever it was... had decided to grab his HAIR. HIS PRECIOUS HAIR. NOT. COOL. AT ALL. Why would anything do that to him?!

OH RIGHT. WAND. He held it up towards a spot where he thought the THING was. Whatever the thing was seemed to have sensed this and yanked on his hair harder, making him scream and force the side of his face to come into contact with the wall of the maze. ... No. No no no! "R-R-RELASHIO!"

... Did it work? Yes? No?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!

That was HARD. And all the pulling was starting to make his eyes water. He didn't like this. His hair... he took too much care into the thing! Again again! "Relashio? Relashio! RELASHIO!" ... Please work, please work, please work...

He felt something pull backwards. Heart still thumping, he held up a hand towards the side of his head and BLINKED as a vine flew backwards into the wall of the maze. Weren't... vines supposed to be NICE?

Wibble. Poor hair.

Bliss was frozen in place, just staring at the immobile doxy. WHAT WAS SHE DOING? She needed to run, before it woke up again. What was she doing just staring at it? Then sense kicked in and Bliss started moving again, running forward.

RUNRUNRUN.

Turning around corners and brushing against bushed, she didn't stop until she saw something up ahead that...didn't look right. It was...it was...her. MELLOW. What? She rubbed her eyes, surely she was going crazy or something. She inched closer, looking over herself. Maybe this was a mirror? She raised her hand, but the Bliss two didn't raised her hand. NOPE. Not a mirror.

She took a step back and sighed. She had no idea what this WAS. Carefully she looked over herself and winced. Is that..is that what she looked like. Is this how everyone saw her? She looked horrible. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Her facial feature, they were so unattractive. Just like the rest of her. She couldn't understand how ANYONE liked her. She was an utter failure.

She may as well be dead.

Then it clicked in her brain and she was shocked. The thing that she feared most...was herself? Did that even make sense? BLINK. Bliss shook her head of all the negative thoughts, and raised her wand. She still...she couldn't believe...URGH.

"Riddikulus," she muttered, tears still in her eyes, and watched as the other version of her turned into frogs, a million frogs hopping everywhere. A small smile spread across her face and she GIGGLED loudly. Slowly, still giggling, she tiptoed around the boggarts and ran.

Ran as if her life depended on it.

The pair carried on through the twists and turns of the maze, finding some dead ends and having to backtrack. All that was certain was that this was mentally and physically exhausting. There were several times when Dylan wondered if he could just burn down the hedges. Or he could go all Edward Scissorhands up in here...

Meh..."Yea, I'll show you sometime." Once again, Dylan was convinced he'd never be able to cast it, again.

They had to be nearing something important...because the darkness seemed almost impenetrable now...and then he heard Kinsley.

WHAT was he splashing water on now?

"Lumos maxima!" More light poured into the area...throwing Kinsley and his foot into sharp relief. What was that wrapped around his foot? A plant?! There were MORE of them...? Dylan had had ENOUGH of these stupid things...and them wanting to eat people...and carrying them away. Just...GAH.

Snatching Theodore's wand out of his hand, Dylan pointed it fiercely at the slithering plant, which seemed to be scared? of the light, and said, "Diffindo!" The Slytherin could feel the wand resisting him...but the spell was enough to cut the tendril that was wrapping more tightly by the second around his ankle. "Incendio," came next and the plant was moving as quickly as it could away from it's flames, which died seconds later. "Devil Snare," he was convinced. "Stupid plants."

Holding the wand back off, he pushed forward, motioning for Theodore to follow. "I think we're close...."

Alec was started to reach a point where he wanted to leave. But he was in the middle of a maze... and he really wanted to find that bracelet. Yeah... it sounded pretty interesting, actually.

Finding... a bracelet. He needed to find a bracelet. You know... FIND it. And guess what? Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders.

The very thought brought a small grin to the young boy's face. So... that meant that he could find it... yeah? AWESOME. The Hufflepuff patted the side of his head that still hurt but marched onwards. He was not going to give up! No no no-

...

WAIT WHAT.

... That was... weird.

Alec blinked down at his wand. The light that had so conveniently shone from the tip of his wand just moments before was now... gone. And he was engulfed in darkness once again. Great. Simply... great. And... well... that was a bit weird, yeah? That the light had just... disappeared. Was this... another trick of the maze? ... It really wasn't funny.

"Lumos!" ... Nothing. "LUMOS!" Again, nothing. "Lumos Maxima!" ... Nothing.

Yeah... he was really scared now. Wibble. Superman? Now would be a good time to come and save him.

So...the fwooper had done a number on Ella's brain but she slowly seemed to be coming out of the trance...feeling a bit like she'd just woke up from a really long nap. She was still a bit giggly and even a little groggy but not as bad as before...and hair was no longer on her mind.

Blink.Blink.

The blonde rubbed at her eyes and tried to figure out what exactly had happened to her and why she had tears streaming down her face. She wiped at them with the back of her hand, giggling the tiniest bit as she did so. Odd. Why was she giggling?

It was then that she recalled the bright orange bird...ohhh. FWOOPER.

Continuing to her walk, it seemed that her senses were slowly coming back to her. She felt the nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach again and the overwhelming quiet washing over the maze. It was eerily quiet and it made her uncomfortable. Hmm...maybe being all fwoopered was better than feeling like this.

As she turned yet another corner, the blonde badger spotted something off a ways down the path.


...It was a bracelet.

THE PLAAAAAAANT.

It was suffocating his poor foot. It would need to be amputated. He'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. How could he EVER play Quidditch again? WAHHHHHHHH...

And then, without even warning him, Dylan was shooting all kinds of spells at the plant.

Or HIM - more precicely. "WATCH IT." The boy bellowed, then remembered that this was his captain, but also his elder, so he had to be kind, right? "I-I mean good shot, capt!" Finally, after the fire breathing spell, the plant died down and released his foot. It ached only a little bit, but enough to get sympathy off of Ella later when he told her. Yup.

"Thanks." And on they went. Theo was quiet for a bit, but only because he was trying to figure out if Dylan had said 'stupid plants' or 'stupid pants'....

......................

*MELLOW*

He agreed on both. The stupid plant was a stupid pants.

Okay...now that she'd spotted the bracelet Ella was sure she must be near the end of the maze. She had to be, yeah? She approached the thing as carefully as she could, expecting something else to jump out at her any moment now. ...Nothing did, though.

The third year stopped in front of the bracelet and eyed it curiously, crouching down a bit and pointing her wand at it. Right....she could do this. What was the incantation again?

...

Revelio something...erm...Arithmos! Yeah! Arithmos Revelio! That was totally it. Ella repeated the incantation quietly to herself several times to get a feel for it before trying it out on the bracelet. 1, 2, 3..."Arithmos Revelio!"

She waited only seconds before numbers started to appear. Hmm.

110595959

Bliss eventually slowed down, her breathing deep and raggedy. She couldn't believe what had just happened. That...that...boggart had made her think those horrible things. No one should ever have to think like that...ever.

BLINKS.

No. She wouldn't cry.

She sat down up the soft ground and let her still glowing wand land on the floor beside her. DEEP BREATHS. She closed her eyes and although she was trying to be happy, she could feel all of the happiness leaving her body. What? Sad thoughts filled her head. She tried to shake them away, put they just wouldn't leave.

It was like all the happiness was being sucked from the world. AND BLISS WAS ALWAYS HAPPY, FOR MELINS SAKE!

A shiver ran down her spine and she opened her eyes to she a dementor looking at her. A DEMENTOR? Bliss thought those things were meant to be locked up? Not here in a maze! Bliss paniced, grabbing her wand and scooting backwards. But the dementor kept advancing on her.

.___________.

Bliss raised her wand with all the might that she could conjure up, she yelled, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" She thought of the happiest memory she had. Meeting Blue. She remembered the words said and feeling shared and watched as an
otter emerged from her wand and sent the dementor away. Far away.

Boy was she glad that she'd got her sister her to teach a bunch of defensive spells now.

SIIIGH.

Walking. In the darkness.

Whimper.

Alec didn't like the darkness anymore. Nope. It was scary and creepy and... and... he wanted to get away! Somewhere where there was LIGHT and where he could SEE what he was doing. Because... well... fumbling around in the dark made him feel powerless. As if he was about to be defeated in something that might have been resolved if he could just SEE.

... Maybe the maze was doing weird things to him.

Shaking his head, Alec shuffled forwards. Nothing seemed to happen for a while and... he was kind of happy about that. Except for this darkness. Checking his wand every couple of seconds only seemed to make him whimper some more because of the lack of light.

WAIT. WAIT WAIT. HOLD THE SNITCH.

Something... was touching his leg. BLINK. WHAT.

... Oh, it was his other leg. Phew. Except... maybe he should have known that it would be-

NO NO NO. SOMETHING WAS DEFINITELY TOUCHING HIM THIS TIME!

Alec froze and blinked down in shock. The darkness, though, wasn't making things better. "Lumos!" ... No. COME ON! "LUMOS! LUMOS! LUMOS!" As he screamed these words, something seemed to pass over him and a small beam of light flickered on at the end of his wand. Phew! He had some light to see what-

...

A CHIZPURFLE?! Yeah! Or...a crab. No, a chizpurfle! Those weird crab-like creatures he had seen in a textbook. Wait, they didn't bite people, right? That's what that book had said. They usually went after...

"NOOOOOOOOOO! You're... you're not getting my wand!" A licorice wand, maybe. Not HIS wand.

And he needed a SPELL for this. Something... something... IT WAS EYEING HIS WAND! And it had somehow found his way towards his HAND! "AAARGH!" Alec switched the wand to his left hand and the Chizpurfle looked on in surprised before making its way over. Couldn't he just... shake... it off? Shake shake shake...

...

Nothing.

Switch hand again! And... "Petrificus Totalus!" he cried, his wand directed at the tiny creature. The Hufflepuff breathed a sigh of relief and flicked the frozen creature off.

... Even that was scary.

Bliss felt like crying. She'd been through tough things before. Like Quidditch, that was pretty tough. Oh, and when her cat had died in her First Year. That stuff was tough and she'd expected it to be tough, so somehow, she was able to cope with it a little better. But this, she had though that this would be a piece of cake, but evidently not.

Nevertheless, Bliss pulled herself around the maze. Turning back on herself on some occasions, when she'd fine herself at a dead end. She felt completely lifeless. Honestly, she couldn't wait for this whole thing to be over.

SIIIIIIIIGH.

Then something caught Bliss' eye and she perked up a little.

It was...a bracelet?

Whut.

Hmph. "No problem. Stay close."

They were nearing the cursed bracelet...Dylan could feel the magic shifting in the space around him...It felt like something was close, anyway. Whatever it was, they were ready. Ready to complete the task and be out of here.

...As they turned the corner, it opened up into a small clearing with a equally small pedestal. Laying on top of it was the bracelet they'd been challenged to find. One thing about it, though...It looked completely ordinary. Nothing special about it.

"Come on. Let's get to work." Dylan jogged up to it, eyeing the set up for a moment, before leveling his wand on the piece of jewelry. "Arithmos Revelio!" In an instant, several numbers appeared over the bracelet...and it suddenly made sense. So, THAT's what Professor Hadley meant by numbers...

Hmph.

There had been some break down with the numbers earlier in the lesson...Dylan vaguely remembered....11...059...59...59? After "Diffindo!ing," them apart in that sequel...He carried on, fully focused...Flagrante Curse, right? Snort.

First things, first..."Impervious." The Slytherin Captain waved his wand, felling more confident in spell-casting after that Patronus. This spell was the only one he could think to use on something hot...Ooooh. Unless they used the freezing charm?...OR...maybe "Protego."

What next?

Those numbers...Ella recognized them from earlier. Those were the numbers for the Flagrante Curse, yeah? She bit her lip, wondering what spell she might use to break the curse.

The Flagrante Curse burned things that touched an objeced cursed by it, right? ...Right. So Ella just needed to think of a way to stop the object from burning her hand when she touched it. She could totally do that.

The third year paced back in forth in front of the bracelet, looking down at it every now and then. What spell would allow her to pick the thing up? First thought was Aguamenti but she knew that wouldn't work. The Flagrante Curse was too strong for that. Next she thought maybe she could freeze the bracelet...though she wasn't sure that would work, either. It'd be hard to pick up something extremely cold just as it would be to touch something very hot. Hmm...What about the Impervius charm? That...was meant to help kind of protect an object, yeah? Or erm...shield it? Something like that. So maybe it'd stop the heat from getting to Ella?

She was going to give it a go. Homegirl seriously needed to get out of this maze. Pointing her wand at the bracelet...the third year tapped the object with her wand and then said, "Impervius!"

Stare.

Please work...please work....please work...

And then Ella slowly and hesitantly reached down...and with her index finger she rested it gingerly on the bracelet.

...and it didn't burn her.

Without really thinking about what might happen the second she moved, Sierra dashed across the floor and straight up to the bracelet. She half expected the floor to fall out from underneath her or the walls to come tumbling down...something, anything.

Nothing, though.

Nothing except Sierra and the bracelet. Oh, and a curse and her wand, too. She already had her wand withdrawn, so all she did was raise it above the bracelet. She moved her wand down...and then up...and then flicked it toward the bracelet. She held her breath while she waited, until finally, a set of numbers appeared above the bracelet.

SCORE!

She grinned as she tapped her wand in a few places and broke the numbers up into parts.

...and now to try and break the curse.

Alec walked forwards, smiling slightly because of the light that was shining from the tip of his wand. He was RELIEVED to have this light back. No way was he going to get ATTACKED by another creature or... well... anything else, really. No... He just wanted to find that bracelet and solve the curse and get OUT of the place. Yeah... that's all he wanted to do.

...

Wait, did they have a specific time to get all of this done by? Because... well... something had told him that he was taking a little too long with all of this. Yeah... And some people could have already been done with their curse breaking by now so... yeah... he needed to hurry up.

Sigh. If only this was as simple as catching a Snitch. Which was hard and challenging... but a simple concept, yeah?

With this new thought about time in his mind, the fourteen year old decided to start running, letting his instinct take his onwards towards the place where the bracelet was. It... had never let him down before so... well... it could work right now, yeah? Yeah.

GULP.

He was close... he was really close... he could just FEEL it inside of him. His heart started thumping even more and then he stopped. The instinct thing? Yeah, that had worked so far, probably, but now... right or left?

... Right.

Ruuuuuuuuuun... and... was that a bracelet?

GRIN GRIN GRIN!