Zander was in control.
Everything was going to be fine.
Just breathe Simon. Breathe.

He took a deep breath, inhaling and then exhaling. Simon continued blasting the flying objects away from their carriage as quickly as he could. Taking a quick peek over his shoulder, he saw that Zander was really focusing this time. YES! he thought internally to himself as he became more comfortable. "Nice job! We're almost there. Let's pull through this!" he exclaimed as he began to use the Reductor Curse more with the Shield Charm.

Brrrrrrrrrr.... Too cold. Too cold. The wind was playing up more now.

He even noticed Zander shivering in his blanket.

Wait. He could fix that. He had learnt how to use the Hot Air Charm in the Herbology Workshop. Doing the complicated wand wave, he pointed his wand towards his partner's blanket, "Ventus," he said and watched as the blanket began to steam a little as it was so cold outside. "That better?" he asked as he turned around to see a GIGANTIC object coming towards them.

WAS THAT A BOULDER?!?!

Back to business, Simon. "REDUCTO! BOMBARDA! REDUCTO! INCENDIO!" he shouted, moving his wand as quickly as he could. The object burst into tiny little particles of snow all around them. YES! He squinted his eyes once again, making sure to check if there were any more objects around them. There were none that he could see.

Now. Where was this finish line!?

She hadn't really meant it, that's just the first thing that came out of her mouth. Cutty being all defensive, she concluded he had been daydreaming. About what, she didn't know. She'd ask later.

Beverly didn't notice what the boy behind her had been planning to do, she did though, see an opening between two team winged horses. This was their chance! "Hold on guys!" Such sweet adrenaline rush on such a beautiful winged horse. Maybe she should add Witch Jockey to what she wanted to be when she grows up.

Snapping the reins, she urged the Granian to push forward. Faster--

Holy Chinese Fireballs! O___O

"Incoming, you guys!" There were several snowballs shooting their way. At the same time. Mellow. COVER HER OR THEY WERE DOOMED.

Brrrrrrr. So. Cold. Next time there would be gloves, a scarf, a couple jackets, and maybe some hot cocoa. Because this was not working for him. He needed warmth. And then as if Merlin himself had heard Zander's prayers, THERE IS WARMTH. OHMYGOSH. AHhhh. Simon you are here by announced, Zander's number three most favoritest person ever. Behind his parents of course. "Woaaah, thanks. That feels amazing," Zander said more calmly, as he was no longer shivering. Simon, you are a god.

And then as if one cue, A BOULDER! AH. Why couldn't they go two minutes without being pelted by some giant objects. Please, can't they just have a break? Luckily, Simon was always on top of his game. Zander could even here Simon throwing out spells. And it immediately put him to ease. Then, with his eyes back on the path, Zander could almost see a bit of the finish. WAIT, HE COULD ALMOST SEE A BIT OF THE FINISH!!! AHHHH! CUE THE HAPPY DANCE! BEAUTIFUL DAY, JOYOUS DAY. THEY WERE ALMOST--

AHHH GIANT..... SNOW WAVE?

Was that supposed to be some kind of avalanche or something? Because it was TOTALLY gaining on them. Oh no! This is not good. Repeat, this is not good. "GO GO GO!" the boy screamed at the Abraxon. He gave he horse a softish whip and directed him to go a little faster. "Almost. There."

The smile was immediately wiped off his face when he saw what was before them. His jaw dropped and he nearly dropped his wand. Oh merlin. That was just unfair.

Houston, we have a problem... A BIG problem...

A giant snow wave!? What? How? he thought. Was this an even legal rule of the game!!?

Perhaps not, but this game seemed to have no rules. He panicked on the inside and cast his blue eyes at Zander who was screaming at the Abraxon to go faster. He joined in. "Come on, you can do it! Show them all the power you have. Show us!" he said, trying to lend his voice. With both of the boys trying the hardest to will the Abraxon further away from the giant snow wave coming after them, the winged horse began sprinting.

THEY PASSED THE FINISH LINE!

Simon let out a cheer as the Abraxon brought both Zander and he across the line and over towards the Professor. He gave both Professors a nod and then turned to his partner. "We did it! Awesome job steering. We almost could have died back there but you did it," exclaimed Simon gratefully as the horse began to slow down. He held up his hand high into the air for his partner to high five.

Yeah! Teamwork!

Cutty slid on the seat once again as Bev sped up. He was just about to marvel at the actual speed of the Granian when he heard Bev say: Incoming, you guys!

He looked up ahead and not one, two or even three snowballs headed their way. It was a family of them. He knew there was a reason he kept Professor Culloden's fire-breathing potion on hand...except for now. Now he had no such thing. Cutty steadied the grip on his wand and fired off a rapid succession of fire spells. "Incendio! Incendio! Incendio!" Three balls of fire came bursting out of the tip of the boy's wand one after the other melting the family of snowballs save one. The stray snowball had melted down and was now a whirring marble of ice heading toward the driver. With only calculation and no thought of the risk should Beverly turn her head or even move in anyway abruptly, Cutty stabbed at the iceball with his wand, skewering the thing and preventing it from making contact with their driver.

She hadn’t really expected her shot to have been quite as on target as it had been, but Lily didn’t have the time to acknowledge it. There were other obstacles she needed to be aware of, and she’d stayed in her half-standing position as Ethan had directed their horse and carriage around the remains. It was oddly helping her keep an eye on the carriage holding the professors, anyway, but she’d turned to her partner to give him a smile as he’d spoken. Compliments were nice, but it was her job to eliminate the obstacles. That and stay in the carriage, as it wouldn’t have been very fun falling out and hitting the ice at the sped they were still going in. She wasn’t about to sit down though. That would waste time, and she had a better angle in the position she was in. A better angle and she could probably see more than Ethan could still in his seat. She could see that Professor Fuller had been standing in the carriage up ahead, anyway, and she could see what was flying toward them.

“I’ve got them,” she said, as he’d seen the snowballs as well, readying her wand to cast a shield charm that got knocked a bit askew as their carriage had suddenly turned and she’d lost her balance a little. She’d regained it in a split second, but not fast enough to avoid the snowball that had collided with the side of their carriage. “Sorry,” she called, blasting away another volley as they’d kept going. “If it helped, I’d suggest summoning them, but I don’t think we have time for them to get here,” she added, already anticipating another obstacle.

“Confringo!,” she cast, exploding a pile of snow that had been lying across the path in front of Gray and cringing as it had flown in all directions. Luckily, it hadn’t seemed to slow their Granian down any. Speed was still on their side.

Angel looked at her sister as she realised her sister was very impatient, well she could wait a few more minutes, she wanted to make sure everything was perfect, she got on the winged horse and then checked to make sure the reigns were on correctly.

"Oh you'll thank me later." Angel beamed as she pulled on the reign tightly. "Ladies and Gentlement of all ages please fasten your seatbelts." Angel giggled then she shouted to her sister. "Ready?!" Okay then surely her sister was and without waiting she shouted. "Go!" And with that she used the reigns and she was off. "Happy now Sis?" Angel shouted to her sister as the started the race.

“PHBBT! Phhbbbt!” Lily and her Blasting Curse. Ethan had to spit out the snow that got in his mouth, and his face now has a thin sheet of snow on it. The Slytherin did not complain though because Gray apparently got startled with the blast, and the winged horse is now running faster.


MERLIN!

Not to worry though, Ethan tried to snowboard on a really steep slope, so the speed did not scare him. It was actually his face that bothered him. Hades’ underpants. The professors could have provided them with a mask or something. “My face is freezing! I can’t feel it anymore!” Yeah, like…Lily can do something about that now, yeah? Merlin knows how she’s doing back there looking out for obstacles and whatnot. They were halfway through now anyway, so the race is going to end real soon. With the speed that they’re going, they’ll be finished in no time! “OUT OF OUR WAY!” Ethan called out to the slow poke carriage in front of them. “Coming through!” The Slytherin managed to hide his nose and mouth under his green and silver scarf, as they dashed on. The boy could swear that if they got anymore faster, they will be flying.

Ethan had to shift to his right, left and duck in his seat as more snowballs pelted their way. Yep. Professors Fuller and Thompson’s out to kill them. Fast and cold. He's sure of it. "Avenge us, Lily!"Heh.

Could her sister be any slower? She was pretty sure by now people had already finished the race. Still not wanting to give up, the lion was pumped. AJ watched as Angel slowly but surely got herself situated. She'll thank her later? That was doubtful.

She was just about to say something smart about the question that her sister posed, but she finally took off and that meant that they could FINALLY be apart of the race. AJ held on as Angel took off. At least her sister was going pretty fast. She was glad that she wasn't going to have to yell or anything.

It seemed like as soon as they took off there was already a pile of snow in their way. "Watch out." Her wand firmly in place AJ thought it was a good time to use that Reducto spell that she had been practicing in the dueling arena. "Reducto!" A light shot out of her wand and the pile of snow blew up right in front of her very eyes. Cool. It looked like practice did make perfect after all.

Norah was having trouble keeping herself from bouncing up and down in excitement. Even though it'd probably help keep her warm, she decided bouncing wasn't quite the best course of action at this point. She didn't want to be the cause of the carriage flipping over or anything, and anyway the older students had been so generous for letting her join there group and she didn't want to make them regret their decision. Heeding Cris's warnings, she pointed her wand at barrier after barrier shouting"Reducto!" She watched with a satisfied grin as her victims were blasted away. She was on a ROLL! YEEEAH!

Bump....bump..bump the excitement of the race was beginning to wear off for Norah as her nose progressed to further levels of painful numbness. She gave Cris and Jasmine each a weak thumbs up because she was NOT going to sit here and complain about the cold to her two new and totally mature acquaintances friends. Her eyes fell to her hands which were red and freezing, but her inspection was cut short by Cris yelling for her to watch out. Scolding herself for her moment of distraction she threw herself behind Cris and stuck her wand out from behind him, yelling Reducto...reducto...reducto! She shot the spells somewhat at random, highly aware of the fact that she knew a grand total of zero other helpful spells in this situation. Pulling herself back up from behind the boy she gave him a grin and said, "Thanks." She looked over to Jasmine and saw her still holding the reigns. They were a reliable group, those two.

Hayden shook the hand he offered her and smiled. "My name's Hayden." Yay, now that she had a partner they just had to wait for the directions. They didn't sound too complicated, actually it sounded fun. Since Kace hadn't made a move to do so yet, she chose an Abraxan for them. Hopefully he wouldn't mind.

She patted the horse a few times, letting it get to know her. She didn't like animals very much, but this one looked very magnificent. Hayden took out her wand so it hovered next to the horse's ear. "Fixate." She traced down from the ear to the corner of the horse's mouth. Nothing happened. "Fixate." She tried again, but the results were similarly lacking. She took a deep breath and concentrated on what she was trying to accomplish. "Fixate." She traced down the horse's head again. At first nothing happened, but after a few seconds a bridle appeared in place. She smiled triumphantly and turned to Kace. Hopefully he didn't mind that she'd done the spell.

"Do you want to be the driver or the protector?" She was hoping that he'd let her be the protector, because she preferred spells over animals. But he was older, so he might be better at it.

Cris watched as the other students and their carriages came flying by, crossing the finishing line too. Almost all of them were done. He wondered how many felt like frozen Popsicles, because he sure as heck was

He loved the race and being out here but at the same time whether anyone had been nice enough to bring along some nice hot chocolate.

Yes...that would feel great right about now.

Norah's excitement came flooding back as they neared the finish line. ALMOST THERE! Other carriages were already awaiting their arrival, and she stopped herself from waving regally at them by instead pointing her wand at one last barrier and yelling "Reducto!" She gave in to her urge to bounce and allowed herself to let go of a little bet of her celebratory energy to go up and down a couple of times. The carriage didn't flip over or anything, so that was good. Their carriage went over the line and Norah let out a loud "WHOOP!" and held her hand up to high five her partners. Mission accomplished!

Jeez. JEEZ.

How did he land himself with the sassiest driver in all the land?

Grayson raised his eyebrows at him. Did he want to fight? Because if so, he'd better be prepared to LOSE. And anyways, they were meant to be working TOGETHER. Couldn't he leave the sass at home, right where he left most of his brains? Jeez. "Next time we're in a race, bring that turbo engine. I don't care if it's cheating or whatever, we will WIN." And that WAS much better, thank you.

.................... MERLIN. This was a little TOO fast, wasn't it? How was he meant to obstruct obstacles in their path if this one was planning on rocketing up to Mars? Jeez. This was probably his version of revenge and, if it was, Grayson was going to be severely disappointed.

"Snowbank up ahead!" he called out, holding out his wand and pointing it at the huge mound of snow not too far ahead, "BOMBARDA!"

He didn't care about shouting in Declan's ear. Not. One. Bit.

Once her team crossed the finish line, Jasmine moved the carriage out of the way of traffic and pulled it to a stop. She immediately went to hug her "protectors" and said, "You guys were awesome!" They had really done a fantastic job and they could watch her back anytime.

The adrenalin that had been flowing during the race had started to subside. The cold that she had barely been aware of was now hitting Jasmine hard. "It's freezing out here. I can't wait to get back to the castle." She was envisioning the chair right by the fireplace in the Ravenclaw Common Room. Yes, that would be nice.

Cris climbed off the carriage before assisting Jasmine and Norah to celebrate coming in second. "Well done, everyone. We did it!!," Cris joined Jasmine and Norah, giving Norah a high five before wrapping his arms around them in a group hug. He wanted to dance and jump around, whooping to celebrate them finishing the race right after Adi and Benny did, but didn't think it would be good sportsmanship. All the others too had done a great job. Finishing the race without any injuries was definitely something to celebrate about.

Leaning back, he smiled at Jasmine. "You were awesome steering Abe around those obstacles, Jasmine. And you, Norah, those Reductor spells you cast caused some major damage. Well done, well done," he laughed along with them.

When Jasmine mentioned that she was freezing, Cris wrapped one end of his warm jacket over her, including Norah in the warming hug. "Here's let me warm both of you up. Sharing body beat is one way," he told both girls.

It felt super cool to be able to blast things out of her way simply by waving her magic stick. The year had of thought of using her wand while playing baseball. How could and easy would that be? Of course it wouldn't be fair, but it was still a cool thought nevertheless.

She needed to keep her head in the game. If she managed to miss an obstacle they would be doomed. "You see anything coming for us Angel?" She would need a heads up. Four eyes were definitely better than two. Angel most likely had a better view than her as well.

They were really moving, and AJ was beginning to wonder if maybe they were lucking out with all of the obstacles when out of nowhere a GIANT snowball came straight for them. "Go right a little bit Ang." Wand in her hand she once again decided that reducto was the way to go especially since she was most comfortable with that particular spell.

"Reducto!" Once again the spell worked for her, and the snowball was blown up. Bits of snow managed to rain down on her face, but she could handle that.

He nodded, even though he hadn't gotten any of it. Ride a horse... do a charm..... something something... sounded easy enough.

Or so he thought.

"Okay!" Dima replied cheerfully, not at all bothered by how quickly his classmates were progressing with the activity. As long as they got it done, he didn't care about the extra points. AND he got to ride a flying horse! Which was good, because he didn't exactly know how to blast away snow.

"Can we work with an Aethonan?" By the descriptions the professor had given, those sounded like the nicest.

Pause. "I'm Dima, by the way. Dima Toussaint."

AHHH and before he knew it they were done! AND THAT'S CALLED TEAMWORK! Zander returned the high five with a huge smile on his face! "Haha, thanks! I couldn't have done it without your amazing spell work!" he added, "I would've been toast if you hadn't exploded all those objects!" And it definitely was true. Mhmm. Zander would probably still be at the very start if he hadn't had Simon as a partner. The pair made a pretty excellent team and despite a few bumps along the way, the ride wasn't even thaaat bad.

Zander hopped off the carriage and immediately moved towards the horse. "Thanks, pal. We couldn't have done it without you," literally. Giving the horse a nice rub on the back he looked back and smiled at Simon. "Man, I wish I had some treats or something to feed him!" Then looking back towards the professors, the third year realized that they still had some time before everyone else finished. HEY, maybe they could help throw some snowballs too!?!?!

Okay, so it sounded like this kid was on board with everything Sophie had suggested. "Dima Toussaint," she repeated. "My mom owns a shop with a Toussaint. It's called GothSaints, because it's a combination of their last names." Even though her mom was technically a Newell now and no longer a Greingoth. She'd already told him her name, so she didn't repeat it again.

"Yup, an Aethonan's cool," she said. "Besides, here's an unclaimed one right here." It was like the horse was just waiting on them or something. Heh. Sophie approached the horse and got her wand at the ready. Oh, wait. They were supposed to pat the horse first, right? Yeah, better do that. She didn't want to get kicked. She reached forward...very slowly...and gave the horse a good pat.

"Okay, I think we're safe," she said. No kicking, horse, mmkay? "Fixate!" She drew her wand over the side of the horse's face , coming up from under its ears to the corner of its mouth. As she did this, the bridle she was directing made its way to the horse then fixed itself on its back. "Cool, so I think that's your cue to hop on."

Toby supposed that Thompson was petting a thestral or something, because he couldn't actually see anything there whatsoever. He was interested in what one of those things must look like in real life, but absolutely did not want to find out at all ever ever ever. He'd settle for drawings, thanks.

But yes. The actual task. Time to get on with that. Toby turned to look at Cassia, grinned and nodded. The Granian seemed fine to him.

"Uhhh... can I drive? I reckon I'd be better at that part." Well, it was more to do with the fact that Toby preferred physical tasks, but that was also a contributing factor.

But first, they needed a bridle. Whilst Cassia pet the horse, Toby made sure he had one of the right size and also joined in the petting. Hey horsey, heyyyyy. Friend? Friend.

"Okay, I'll try putting on the bridle, and then you can check it and redo the charm if I miss a part or it's not holding, yeah?" He didn't really wait for an answer, 'cause this was technically a RACE after all (though it wasn't like he minded who won; it was just that the aim seemed to be to do this quickly AND efficiently).

The Hufflepuff drew out his wand, gave one last reassuring pat to the Granian, and started the spell.

"Fixate!" Toby traced his wand in exactly the places they'd been told to, stretching up on his tiptoes to make sure he was reaching the right areas because he was still pretty darn short for his age and it was a bit of a struggle to be exact. And then........... there was the bridle. It looked pretty well placed, but he wasn't sure about how secure it was, so he looked at Cassia to see if she wanted to check it, and began to ready himself for the actual racing bit.

Oh, he knew about GothSaints! "I think my uncle Nico's part of that," Dima nodded, following the older girl over to their selected horse. The bridle wouldn't bother it, right? Watching avidly, he relaxed a little when the charm casting was finished, seemingly not affecting their Aethonan too much.

As soon as Sophie gave word that she was done fixating the equipment on the creature, the first year hopped on. He wasn't very coordinated and ended up falling off of the animal two times out of three, but he finally sorted himself out and got comfy. "I'm ready!"

After he was sure his partner was situated too, Dima took up the reins and gave them a tiny tug. How... did one steer a horse, again?

This was going to be a long race.

"Yeah, yeah--that's the business!" she said. So, cool. They had a connection. "My mom's the Goth part of that. Her maiden name was Greingoth." Enough about that, though. Nobody was going to give them class points for standing there and talking about their relatives. Sophie was so focused on talking about GothSaints that she missed the fact Dima kept falling. "Oh, sorry," she said, when she saw him get up the second time. He was on the horse now, so all was good.

The horse was moving now, so Sophie walked alongside ready to defend Dima from whatever awaited them. They didn't have to wait long. A huge SNOWBALL came flying their way, followed a second later by another huge snowball. They were coming from everywhere! AHHHH! Sophie raised her wand and moved it in a vertical line. "Protego!" she said. A shield formed in front of them, and the snowballs began bouncing off the invisible barrier.

Casting a glance around, Cassia watched the ones who started and what they were going through. Nothing extremely hard and they looked like they were having lots of fun. She didn't stress on starting because like always she never cared much about winning. So she took her time petting the horse and it seemed her partner shared that opinion, too.

"Sure, and I can fight off those balls of snow," Good thing it wasn't something else. Because she liked riding horses and would hate for it to be ruined by the stress of being hit by a .... rock. But they wouldn't allow that in a lesson, would they?!

The seventh-year nodded and watched Toby as he cast the spell. She gave it her full attention just in case the younger Hufflepuff missed something with the movement, which he didn't. So all was good. But just for good measures, she tugged at the bridle. Perfectly placed. Two thumbs-up for the badger.

So it looked like they were all set to begin this race! "Ready?" She asked though it was rhetorical, she supposed he was since he got the bridle ready and he looked like ready. Without further ado, she pulled herself up on the carriage leaving room for Toby in front of her since he'll be the one driving. Meanwhile she drew out her wand. She supposed the snow balls would start once they started but wouldn't hurt.