Minerva finally got away from the pixies, thank goodness she just couldn't stand them. She felt like she had been going forever in this maze. Maybe there was no way out. That worried her, what if she didn't find her way out. Minerva felt her heart spike a bit thinking about not finding her way out. She couldn't just be stuck with these bushes. She couldn't believe how jumpy she felt looking around.

Heading left Minerva heard a clicking.. What was that she jumped looking in all directions. Moving her wand around, then she saw something coming closer to her.. she wasn't sure what it was "Pretego" She yelled and backed into the shrubs, which the feel of the branches made her think the vine was back and she stumbled and fell to the ground. Looking around whatever the figure was had kept going past her. She sat on the ground a few minutes not sure she wanted to move.

Still pulling herself along the path, Emmanuelle, reached yet another fork. Taking a left, she immediately felt the wind let up. Yay! She got up, taking a moment to take stock of her injuries. There was a rather long, though thankfully shallow cut on her left leg, her right knee was scraped up, as was her elbow and she had a good gash on her chin. Over all not as bad as they could have been. Which she was thankful for.

But what was that rumbling noise? The one that was causing the ground to shake beneath her feet? And then she saw it, a giant ball. Rolling right towards her. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" She took off running full pelt ahead of the thing (since that was the only way available to her), wishing that a whip wielding explorer in khakis would come save her. But no such luck. After a good bit of running, though, she did see an opening in the hedge. She dived right in, just in time too, for the ball immedately passed right on by. She leaned against a nearby hedge, sinking to the ground to catch her breath and not even noticing that she had ducked right into the end of the maze, where the bracelet sat.

It was so scary! But it could be worse. There could be a boggart in there. That would just be awful, it would. Shudder. Elise didn't even know what her boggart looked like, and she hadn't really practiced 'Ridikulus' on it either. Nope. So her plus boggart would probably equal fainting.

"Kaaat?" she asked of the fog, blinking. Oh. THERE WAS A LIGHT! That wasn't her wand. BRILLIANT. Moving towards that and making sure NOT to trip over anything on the ground, Elise came into the light! YAAAY! Light.

"Right. Keep going," Elise echoed lamely as she followed the other fourth year. "TO THE BRACELET!" Maybe that fog made her a little bit delusional? Maybe. Yep.

The boy seemed fine enough and there was no danger to be seen there. Pity. But it meant it was time to move on. The maze wouldn't get any shorter unless she got a move on.

Lex continued her walk, half wondering if she'd meet anything cooler than the terrifying acromantula. If she did it'd be awesome...but only if there was like some kind of older kid around to stun the stuff with the spells again...just saying.

Stepping around a hedge she suddenly found herself jumping back with a yelp.

The floor. Why was it burning hot!?!?!?! Who's idea was this?!?!!? If she could she would sooooo be eyeing the Arithmancy woman. It just seemed like something she would do. Mmm. Now what? Lex wasn't in the mood to get burnt again but she didn't want to stay in this maze much longer.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Taking a few steps back she ran at the floor, screaming as she did...the screaming was for emphasis...and because it was fun.

Finally catching her breath enough to look around her soundings, Emmanuelle let out a loud whooping sound. For she was staring right at the bracelet they were supposed to break the curse upon. Only, she didn't have any paper. Now, why hadn't the professor warned them that they were going to need paper?! Or maybe she just thought it was one of those 'duh' things that she figured would probably dawn on them. In which case, Em felt like an enormous idiot. Either way, she was going to have to find another way to figure it out. Sigh. It occurred to her that the floor had been changed into dirt when the maze sprang up. So, she searched around for a decent sized twig to use as a 'writing utensil'. Finding one, she held it in her right hand while holding her wand in the left, and cast the spell, wand aiming at the bracelet. "Arithmos Revelio!" Once the number appeared, she quickly copied it down in the dirt and began her work again.



Um, now that that was done, how exactly did one go about breaking a curse? Because, surely all the math was just to figure out the characteristics of the curse, not to actually break it? She figured that since they had already determined during class that the curse was the Flagrante Curse that a simple finite would do it. So, that's what she did. "Finite Incantatem!" Did it work?

Once she was clear of that death floor she took a minute to catch her breath. Running was hard work and doing it because of awful circumstances made it worse.

Her shoes were hot and making her feet get all annoyingly hot too. Merlin, what'd a girl have to do to get something to cool it?

Just then it started raining.

-____-

You had to be joking. "I never meant it like that!!!!!" She screamed at the downpour that just seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. Who took things literally anymore?! Didn't this weather ever hear about sarcasm?!--That was the word right...? Well whatever it was she was annoyed. When she came to the class she--

Oh?

The rain slowed and before she knew it, it was raining candy!!!!


"Alright! Now that's what I'm talking about!!" With a greedy grin she held out her hands to catch them and rip the first one she got open. Without hesitation she popped it in her mou--

O_____O

sdsbscfdfvcd!!

This was NOT candy. "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!--" Why Hadley?! Why trick her with candy?! That was just a new level of low. What's this? The candy actually burned! Her tongue felt as if it was on fire. "Owwww!!!!" She tried spitting it all out but it seemed most of it had already stuck to her tongue. AHHHHHHH!!! She would never trust raining candy again

Oakey had been going forward for some time now. He passed a few turns here and there but had not come across any forks or corner that forced him to turn. Things were going his way since he took care of that pesky plant that tricked him into believing Kurumi was a Dementor.

He looked ahead and finally found fork in the maze...no not two separate turns an actual fork. Who brought this into the maze? He bent down to pick it up and inspect it but froze half way before touching it. It could be cursed he thought as he backed away from it and moved forward.

a few minutes later he finally came across two separate paths he had to choose from, left or right? Out of the corner of his eye further down the right path he saw some thing small, and slender with a long snout scurry off out of sight, a Niffler! Oakey was over joyed that Niffler was probably looking for the bracelet too (he may have been what left the fork behind as well). So choosing the right path Oakey moved with a jump in his step! That step didn't last to long because by his third skip his foot pressed down on something and his legs locked themselves together. Toppling to the ground Oakey looked to his legs in surprise, he jerked his head forward to see if the Niffler wasn't to far from him.

The Niffler had stopped and was eying something that Oakley could make out to be shiny at what looked to be the end of the maze. "Get away from that!" Oakey yelled at the burrower, he rolled over onto his stomach and began to inchworm his way to the end of the maze and scare off the Niffler before it made off with the Bracelet!

"Don't worry, Laura,'' Jory said hoping to reassure her. He didn't blame her for being scared. Creepy shadows and invisible stuff would make anyone scared.

When Laura grabbed his hand and started running, Jory followed. They ran and ran so fast he was sure they were able to put some distance between themselves and whatever was behind them. They stopped after some minutes. Jory, panting hard said, "I think...we lost it...'' He looked around but saw nothing and he noticed Laura still looked apprehensive. It was then he saw something that made him feel very relieved. He grabbed Laura's arm and pointed with his other one. "Look! We've made it out!'' The bracelet was just a few feet away from them.

Of course it was Kat, Elise. Who else would you think it was?

... Unless Kat was Elise's boggart. That's nasty. Who would be scared of Kat anyway? Awkward moment.

"Let's go!" Kat said. She led the Ravenclaw and brought her around while they looked for the bracelet. They seriously should calm down, because remember two was better than one? Yeah, that could work... if Elise stops getting scared.

Then she heard a voice. "Kat..." The blonde looked to her right. What was that voice? "Katrina..." The Slytherin gritted her teeth. Nothing should stop her! But the voice... it was so familiar... like she's heard it before. Even though it was dark, Kat did her best to make a clear picture of the thing that called her name. Squinting, the girl noticed it was her dad.

GULP. "Dad... Daddy..." she said. But it felt wrong, her father was DEAD. And she accepted it already. She didn't look back to the past and pretended her father was still alive. She knew it was hard to believe but, guess what? SHE ACCEPTED IT. Now, Kat was mad at the boggart that took the shape of her father. "How DARE you?!" she snarled.

She was full of it. "NOX!" she cried. Her wand's light dimmed and they were only supported by the light from Elise's wand. WHATEVER. Elise shouldn't be a crybaby right now. Kat had to banish this boggart away. "Riddikulus!" she said. Soon, the boggart!Daddy turned into Justin Bieber a one-legged rabbit. HMMM... serves that boggart right!

"We need to go now, before the boggart takes the shape of your fear." She had to explain. And hopefully Elise wouldn't ask her what that was. Awks.

It took her what seemed like ages to get her tongue to stop burning and when she did she RAN, as far away from the raining candy as possible. Never before in her life did she expect candy to betray her like that and in fact she refused to believe it. There was just no way. That...whatever it was, couldn't POSSIBLY have been candy. It must have been something straight out of a hex factory.

Now she just felt all kinds of discouraged. Candy was sacred. Messing with it was just plain mean.

As she got into the next passage she noticed something sticking out from one of the walls. Naturally she couldn't just leave it unnoticed so she hopped over and crouched to get a better look.

...

It was so shiny....


Could she touch it...? She was going to anyway. Touch. Touch. Toooouuuuccchhhhhh--

"OW!" Whatever the thing was, it bit her! Did everything in this place fight back?!?!?!? Seriously? She had yet to see a nice old lady with a batch of cookies and a glass of milk, offering help for the weary, namely HER.

Alex was completely thrown for a loop once the giant hedges surrounded them, separating him from his peers before he even realized what was happening. EEP! No fair! He wanted a partner! EEEP EEP EEEP!

Alex hated when professors threw loops like this at them.

"Ahhhh...nobody hit me with a stunning spell!" he yelled as he started walking forward. He had no idea where he was going or how he was going to get there but this was STUPID. Why couldn't they just have to solve an equation or something first?

As he was thinking this, his foot caught on...a stick? What the heck was a giant STICK doing in the middle of a classroom maze?? Well, then again, what were hedges doing here? His foot stuck and he stumbled forward to the floor, landing heavily on his palms.

OWW.

He was so close, so so very close!

The Niffler was wrinkling it's long snout at the bracelet as Oakey picked up his pace on the floor of the maze! "I said don't touch it!" Oakey yelled to the creature once more hoping to catch it's attention. Could it activate the curse if he touched it himself. Oakey continued to push on, and moved his wand out in front of him. With a flick of his wand he cast "stupefy" the spell missed the Niffler, but was enough to scare it off for the time being.

Oakey finally reached the Bracelet, and with some difficulty because his legs were still stuck to one another he sat up and took a look at the Bracelet. He was about ready to cast Arithmos Revelio when the Niffler jumped from the Shrubbery and bit down hard on Oakey's arm!
"Agh!" Oakey yelped and shook the Niffler off. The little guy landed on his feet and glared at Oakey. "I can't let you touch that." Oakey said to the Niffler, but the creature didn't seem so transfixed on the Bracelet anymore. "What?" Oakey asked, as the Niffler inched forward and wrinkled it's nose at his chest.
"No! I'm not giving you that." Oakey turned his head to the burrower. He was not going to give up his Lucky Scarab Necklace to the damn weasel it was a gift from Mordy, and the only lucky charm he had left!
The Niffler bit down on his wrist this time. "Meerlin fine!" Oakey ripped the necklace from his neck and tossed it away.

The Niffler gave him and odd look tilting it's head and scurried over to the scarab necklace picking it up and running off somewhere else in the maze.

Alex heard yelling and started to run towards the sound...he needed to help whoever was in trouble! How that would help him with cracking runes or whatever he had no idea, but he recognized that voice as one of his housemates. He needed to help him!

"What's going on?" he cried as he turned the corner and ran in to Oakey, and a second later a Niffler ran in to him with a necklace, burrowing in to his leg for some odd reason. "Ack! GET OFF!" he cried, shaking his leg even though the niffler decided to dig it's claws in to him.

"OWWWWWW!"

Laura smiled at Jory and looked around maybe he was right, maybe the thing had gone, she had no idea, suddenly he had grabbed her arm and was pointing towards something."OMG!!" Laura suddenly did a little jig there and then they had made it to the end of the maze, "Come on lets go have a look." Laura grabbed Jory's hand and then raced off towards the Bracelet.

Alex had no idea why this Niffler wanted this necklace so bad, other than the fact that it was shiny, but it wanted it too. And Alex was determined to get it!

"Get off me!" he cried, pulling out his wand and pointing at the niffler. He didn't want to hurt him, but in his defense, it was hurting HIM with it's little nails digging in to his legs. Flinging his leg back and forth, trying to get him let go of it, he shot a spell at the niffler to try and just stun it. The niffler got hit by the stunning spell, and it felt to the floor, looking at him in confusion...wondering what had just happened.

"Gotcha!" he cried in triumph as he bent down and got the necklace. What was this thing anyways? Some bug amulet? Gross.

Wind?

WWWIIIIIIIINNNDDD

There was a part of him the was relieved it wasnt some monster he had to face, but that was quickly dispelled by the thought that it might be a TORNADO instead. There was an intense stab of panic as he tried to figure out what to do as he attempted to stand and was promptly knocked back to the ground in the process....

...There was somebody crawling passed him... and another one.... The Claw he immediately recognized as Kendall and he watched them crawl along the ground. Huh... good idea.

He crawled after them, but he knew he cant keep going on a straight line-- he needed to get out of the wind's path. It suddenly occurred to him where his wand was, and another surge of panic gripped him when he realized it was lost.

Where did his wand goooo?

Gripping Charm still on her feet and hands, Kurumi continued crawl on all fours across the ground until she reached the exit to this particular area and then suddenly the wind stopped. The seventh year collapsed flat on the ground, thankful that she could finally catch her breath. No more wind sucking the breath out of her or plastering her skin against her skull. After taking a few deep breaths, Kurumi pushed herself off the ground and eventually to standing position. Looking down at her front, Kurumi sighed and tried to brush off some of the dirt from her front.

Not much further now in this maze, right? Hopefully.

Although, judging from all the screams and sounds she was hearing she was having a much easier time than others were.

Making another few rights and a left, Kurumi eventually came to a clearing with a small stone pedestal and a bracelet sitting on it. Of course, this must be the the same sort of bracelet that Professor Hadley had spoken of before this whole maze business. Just to make sure, Kurumi waved her wand over the bracelet. "Arithmos Revelio," she said calmly as a series of numbers appeared over the bracelet. Kurumi removed the parchment from her pocket and checked out the numbers.



"Yep....safe numbers as before," she nodded. So, the spell effected physical touch. More specifically, immediate physical touch. So, if she put some sort of time stop spell on the bracelet, maybe that would do something? First things first though, Kurumi removed her wand once more and pointed it at the bracelet. "Impervius." She knew that that charm offered some shielding against the effects of the Flagrante Curse.

Now other factors that they knew of was that the spell produced heat - even if the numbers didn't specifically say so. So she could always apply a Freezing Charm as well...or maybe that was enough?

Biting her lower lip, Kurumi reached out with her delicate fingers towards the bracelet...

The crawling was starting to get boring. At least, after a while all Kendall could focus on was the stinging in her arms from the dirt getting into all the little tiny scratches from her many run-ins with the hedges already, and all she wanted was for the wind to stop and for her to be able to stand up and walk again. In short, she was dirty, scratched up and tired of everything. And all she wanted was to finish the maze so she could hopefully find her school bag again and eat the chocolate that was inside. Therefore, she needed to keep going. Either she was going to run out of time and the maze would disappear again, or she'd find the center and break the curse on the bracelet. She half-expected the latter to be easier than the former, since she imagined Professor Hadley wouldn't have given them a curse more complex than the one they'd talked about in class. Probably not the same bracelet, unless she was hiding here in the maze to re-curse it after every student tried to break it, but the same curse. If someone uses Geminio on a cursed object, all the copies are cursed too, right?, she thought. As far as she knew, that was the case. So maybe that was what the professor had done. Just copied the bracelet so everyone got the chance to try and break it.

As that thought concluded, she realized she didn't feel the wind blowing above her head anymore. Apparently she had gotten past that section without even realizing it, which was kind of awesome. At least she could get up off the ground again, and she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees to prepare to stand up. Pulling her legs in, she started to straighten them, and then felt branches get caught in her hair. Shifting to point her wandlight upward, past her hair that was now essentialy black from focus, she sighed. Somehow she must have found an even tinier pathway, as the hedges stretched over the pathway about three feet up, and she just sat down with a huff. Perfect. Either she was going to have to turn around, and probably get caught in the wind again, or keep crawling. She definitely didn't want to deal with the wind again, so after a few seconds of pouting, she shifted back to hands and knees and started forward again. The bracelet better be right at the end of this pathway.

"Blast it where is it?!?!"

Such an ill time to have lost his wand, and with the wind whipping about he was afraid its been blown away, rolling to Merlin knows where. With an almost angry fervor he crawled around in the dirt, observing dust and debris patterns trying to figure out where his wand has rolled off to....

...then as if an angel of mercy took pity on him, he spotted it. His Dogwood Firecrab shell core! Stuck between the dusty ground and the knotty stems of the hedges. Scampering on his chest he swiped the wand before it gets blown off again, then his eye caught something-- at the other side of these hedges, it looked like the path was peaceful. Should he...?

This isnt even gonna be up for debate. He pushed himself forward through the hedges and into the other side...

The two Hufflepuffs walked towards the bracelet. "You wanna have a go a it first?'' Jory asked looking at it. It seemed pretty harmless. "We just have to cast that Arithmos Revelio spell and another spell that offers protection from the curse's effects, right?'' He was just being thorough. "Any ideas what spell we could use?'' He now offered one of his own idea. "Maybe the Freezing Charm?''

There really was gonna be no old lady with cookies, was there?

SIGH.

She would have to press on without them and hope someone was standing at the end of this maze thing with not one...not two but A BAG FULL of chocolate frogs to hand to her. Yeah, ambitious wasn't she? Ahem, but back to the walking and the walking then more walking and--

What the kneazle?!

The lights?! Where'd they go?... well this wasn't good. She whipped out her wand to illuminate the area but it ended up slipping from her grasp at the last minute. Shoooooot. She couldn't see anything! How was she suppose to get it back when she couldn't even see the bloody floor.

Breath Lex.

She had to calm down because leaving it behind until the lights came back on was NOT an option. There were far too many idiots going through the maze and at least FIVE of them would step on it before leaving the maze. The 11 year old got down on all fours and began sweeping the floor with her hands. [i]Come on...come on...[/b] Where could it b--

O__O

She felt her knee about to fall on a very nice feeling piece of wood. Very nice and very familiar. Immediately she dropped back with a little 'Eeek!' knowing fully well that she nearly broke her own wand! The thought of it was enough to make her feel light headed. Lex grabbed her baby and took a extra minute sitting on the floor to cuddle and assure him that everything was alright...they would make it out together and neither of them would be broken.

Oakey heard a yell off in the distance and looked to see where it had come from. It sounded as if someone ran into the little Niffler that he gave his scarab charm necklace to. Hopefully whomever it was could return it to him later. If not he'd try Accio-ing it back at the end of this Final.
For now he'd have to beg Merlin that his Bad Luck won't effect his work he needed to do now on the Bracelet beside him.

Taking his wand he pointed it at the object and said "Arithmos Revelio"
The numbers began to come out of the Bracelet slowly and when they finally stopped Oakey took a look at them

110595959

Good it was the Flagrante curse. Now he just needed to take a look at his notes and successfully break the curse.
He stuffed his one hand into his robe pocket, but nothing was there. He set his wand down and stuffed his other hand into the second robe pocket. Still nothing. Oakey began to frantically fell up and down his body for any sign of parchment, and that's when it hit him! HE LEFT ALL HIS THINGS except his wand ON HIS DESK AT THE START OF THE MAZE!
It was that stupid screeching noise at the very start! He was so focused on getting it to stop, and moving on he completely forgot to take his notes with him!
MERLIN THIS WAS SO INFURIATING! He starred down again at the Bracelet with the floating numbers above it and started to think, where was it that the numbers separated?

He thought on this some, and finally came up with an answer picking his wand up from the ground and tapped in between the 1 and 0"Diffindo"
He said as the two separated from each other! Wow that worked, and nothing exploded in his face just yet! Now with the two 1's apart from the rest of the grouped numbers Oakey took a look at his work.

11 0595959

The paired 1's made up the Basis of the spell,what it effects. In this case a leader of some sorts, or whomever touches it first. Plus he was pleased to see that that little tap and cut trick really worked on the numbers that Hadley said would work if they knew where the numbers broke.

Now he needed to move on to the next set. Hadley had said that the next numbers. the Core usually have two to three numbers in them. So without much thinking Oakey tapped his wand again on the numbers between the first 9, and second 5 "Diffindo". They separated without incident too!

The numbers now read
11 059 5959

The last one shouldn't be too hard now. If Oakey remembered correctly Professor Hadley said that the Cline usually had a 1 or 9 at the end. One last time Oakey took his wand "Diffindo" He said as the the two sets of 59's came apart.

11 059 59 59
Was his work done then, no. He only just separated them to determine the spell. Which was indeed the Flagrante curse, now he needed to stop it.

"Okay." Laura smiled, she was so going to try and figure this out, she really wanted to do it right, Laura casted Arithmos Revelio, she looked at her things 11 059 59 59 was she suppost to do something. "Okay then." Laura smiled and that she decided to use his idea. "Immobulus." Laura really hoped that she was doing the right thing.

Minerva was still on the ground trembling from everything, she finally got mad at herself, this was stupid to be that upset. Getting to her feet and brushing off Minerva looked around and started down the path again. She was beginning to calm down and get more confident. Maybe she had seen everything that would jump out at her. Yes that was it, there would be no more coming after her. She had to be close to the end, right...

As she hit a fork she looked both ways, there seemed to be light coming from the right so Minerva moved down that way when something or someone was walking towards her. Not thinking much of it Minerva kept going and then she froze. Seeing the persons face made her step back. How.. how was he there.. She kept walking backwards holding up her wand. "Le..le..leave me alone.." She wasn't thinking clearly as she stepped back again, all the red hair, the big shoes.. How did a clown get in Hogwarts... Then it hit her trying to settle down her nerves she pointed her wand, "Riddikulus." The clown started to change, but then it was gone.. Minerva looked around.. Was she just seeing all of this, was it in her head, or did this stuff really happen. She was so confused, but she decided to just keep going.

Okay Oakey Moment of Truth.
He had to stop the curse on the Bracelet now. Looking around for any kind of hint, which obviously wasn't going to be there Oakey paused and tried to readjust his sitting, but his legs were still bound. How could he have forgotten to unbind them! Pointing his wand at his feet Oakey cast "Finite Incantatem."

He could slowly feel his legs unsticking and to make sure he spread them apart completely, then bent his knee's up, stood up and ran in place.
Perfect now he could think properly without worrying about his feet.

...

STUPID OAKEY! He thought as he pointed his wand at the Bracelet this time. "Finite Incantatem!" He couldn't see any change in the Bracelet's appearance, but it had to have worked. Moving his hand over the Bracelet he snatched it up into his fist!