Azura was working on the spell, "Lumos Livens! She said as she moved her wand in a circle, added a little flourish and then.. Bam!! Blue light shot out of her wand! A pleased smiled moved across her face. Light. It cut through all the darkness and it made her heart feel so much better in this dim room. She would remember this spell.

She heard someone asking for a partner and Azura turned around to see an older girl standing there.. The small Ravenclaw made her way over to her and smiled a little bit.

"I'll team up with you, if you want." It was up to her! Azura wasn't going to be hurt if she said no!

Now this was why Fiyero loved Defense Against the Dark Arts! He practically jumped up from his cushion, eager to try the new spell. He'd had loads if practice with Lumos, so how much harder could this one be? Just in case, he practiced the wand movements a couple if times before adding the spell. "Loo-mos Lee-vens!"

Whoops... that wasn't it. The S was supposed to be silent. He tried again. "Loo-mos Lee-ven," he said again, making another clockwise circle with his wand. Still nothing happened; Fiyero was starting to get frustrated. What was he doing wrong? Did he forget the wand flick at the end?

Professor Hirsch's voice startled him suddenly. They only had fifteen minutes left, and Fiyero still hadn't been able to cast the spell correctly. What if he didn't get it right before time ran out? He didn't want to sit out the next activity!

He didn't understand why this spell was so much harder than he thought, but he decided to give it one more try. Here's hoping the third time's the charm... "Lumos Livens!" Fiyero exclaimed, taking extra care to flick his wand as he finished the clockwise circle. Blue light shot out if the tip if his wand, but it didn't brighten the place where he was standing. It lit up the whole room. Whoa... that was awesome! Probably not what the spell was supposed to fi, but still pretty cool...

While the class continued practicing and getting into their small groups, the man wandered between them, occasionally stopping to give a few tips here and there. Luckily, most of the class didn't seem to have a problem with the spell. Good. That was a very good sign. It meant that they probably wouldn't have a lot of trouble with the activity, right?

Speaking of, he quickly checked his watch and decided to go ahead with the plan. "Okay, class!" he called, clapping his hands, "There's no use practising the spell just standing there without putting it into proper practice." Was he right or was he right? "So! Let's add a bit of a scenario to make sure you've properly grasped the spell and can produce it when you really need it to." Or, at least, get very close to a situation like that.

"Just do me a favour and anyone near the wall, step away, okay?" The last thing he needed were parents biting his head off about potentially hurting their precious. With a wide smile and a spark in his eyes, Hirsch made sure that there was nobody standing too close to the wall before tapping a few times on the black wall he'd been leaning on earlier. The wall started to break and crumble into nothing but dust, which eventually spread out amongst the students' legs and disappeared. Don't worry, it's only dust.

Because of this, a larger area was revealed. An area that consisted of some large bushes that stretched up and over even Hirsch's head. The man stepped over the area where the wall had been and made the short walk towards the entrance before turning on his heel. "This, is your task. You have here a maze with several entrances on all sides. Pick whichever one you like. Your task is simple: navigate through the maze and retrieve the golden flag in the middle. You can either work alone or in groups, whichever one you prefer."

"But!" And this was probably the part that excited him the most. "There are going to be creatures in there stopping your path. Gytrashes, in fact. You'll be more likely to face them the closer you are to the middle. But don't worry! They're just dummies animated to act like Gytrashes. They won't attack you, but they will bark incessantly." But surely, they were a good enough match for them, right?

"To add in a twist, I have animated some white stuffed toy dogs as well that'll throw you off. You do NOT attack them, okay?" Just don't ask him how he managed to get so many of them. And maybe he could let them keep them. Maybe.

"If there aren't any questions, you may start!"


OOC: EEEEEE MAIN ACTIVITY TIME

Okay so he's said it all, really. You have a maze that you have to get through and there'll be some Gytrash!dummies in there. You can use Lumos Livens or any other variation of Lumos, I don't mind ^^ Just don't attack the animated stuffed toys, okay?

I don't mind you guys making up whatever for this. Want your charrie to be mortally terrified and ask for help? Go for it! What your charrie to be chased down the wrong path by the Gytrash!dumnies? Sure thing! Let your creativity flow! Just make sure nobody gets hurt, okay? Kita Skeeter says no.

If you have any questions, please do let me know! You'll have until Thursday 2nd June until 23:59pm GMT+1/BST and that's when the class closes as well. There are NO post number requirements because this is based off of creativity and effort. Thanks so much for sticking with me through this. I appreciate it SO much!

And with that, HAVE FUN! ^^

"great! the names Echo" she wasnt 100 percent sure if they have met or not. but as soon as she said her name the Professor had started talking again and Echo had to move away from the wall, it was starting to crumble but thanks to her lovely teacher for the heads up she wasnt too concerned.

Seeing the dust come after them was a different issue, she hated dirt. coughing she started to swipe the dust off her robes. "I'm okay, you okay?" she asked her new partner.

"well this shall be interesting, no attacking the dogs, but the creatures we can" she said out loud.

Taking out her wand Echo moved closer to her partner. "Hadley, what area do you want to enter?" plus they should have like a game plan. "slow and steady as well right? i think there might be bonus points for not harming the dogs?" didnt want to have a trigger happy wander, he he he.

So heat did have something to do with fire not working on Gytrashes.........in a roundabout sort of way. After the professor's explanation, Janelle understood the whole blue light thing. She was still creeped out by the idea of a Gytrash, but at least they were learning how to keep them at bay. So blue light was the key, but a simple Lumos would do the trick too. For now though, it was time to add a new spell to her repertoire. Janelle wrote down the incantation, the pronunciation and the wand movement. Now it was showtime.

Janelle especially wanted to get this spell right. Merlin forbid she ever had to use it........but if she did, it had better work on the first try. Incantation first as always, Janelle practiced pronouncing it clearly. "LOO-mos Lee-VEN, LOO-mos Lee-VEN, Lumos Livens." It was pretty easy once you had been warned about the silent S and where to place the accent. Then Janelle tackled the wand movement. She made a clockwise circle and flicked her wand as the circle was completed. Now all she had to do was combine the two parts and make that pretty blue light.

Janelle was confident that she could do this. A variation on Lumos, yeah? No problem. Concentrating on the end result, she repeated her clockwise circle with a flick. "Lumos Livens", she said simultaneously. This must have been her lucky day because she made the blue light happen on the first try. Making sure that it was not a fluke, Janelle tried the spell a second time and it worked again. She was two for two. This was good. Just then, the professor explained what they would be doing for their main activity. This did not particularly please Janelle. They would have to perform the spell under pressure. Even though there wouldn't be any real Gytrashes, it would seem that way.......and they had to navigate a maze to boot. They could do the task in a group or alone and Janelle wasn't quite sure which way would be better. She'd have to think about it and get her mind prepared to face the creatures.

Okay, Esme was pretty sure that she could understand exactly what Professor Hirsch was getting at because it wasn't TOO far off from her guess. On top of light being pure, fire FED Gytrash. Basically one alternative method was very effective and the other made things A LOT worse. She would definitely make a mental note of this for the off chance that she did end up walking through the woods alone at night. She wasn't suicidal but stranger things have happened...

Given the choice between learning a new spell and using an old one, Esme would gladly go with the first option. Added bonus in the fact that it would be the most effective way to deal with the threat. This Hufflepuff was not going to become someone's lunch if she could help it and she would blast a million of these dogs into non-existence if need be.

Standing, she went about loosening her muscles until she felt ready to begin practicing. First she worked on the incantation which didn't seem to be all that difficult seeing as it was based off of a spell that she had used several times since learning. "LOO-mos, Lee-VEN... LOO-mos, Lee-VEN... LOO-mos, Lee-VEN..." Satisfied with that, she set about forming clockwise circular movements with her wand, each one ended with a flick. She was planning to do this activity on her own and see how many of these beasts she could take on by herself. Who cared if they weren't real? She would still wipe the floor with them.

It looked like her father and sister were getting to Esme because she had been steadily loving Defence Against the Dark Arts more and more as time went on.

Ummm, yeah, she was going to sit here and practice this spell a little more before she tried going into that dark scary maze, okay?

"LOO-mos Lee-VEN." It wasn't a very difficult spell to pronounce, but Rula was going to make sure she said it perfectly. No way did she want to mess up or stumble over her words once she was in there. Even if there was no real danger, failing would NOT be fun.

"Lumos Lee-VEN. Lumos Lee-ven. Lee-ven. Livens. Lumos Liven." She continued to repeat it over and over until it felt like it flowed naturally out of her mouth.

And now for the wand movement. Clockwise circle and then flick. She did this with her wand slowly at first, trying to get a good feel for it. Ciiiircle...flick. Circle.....flick.

After a few minutes, it was time to try them together. Circle... "Lumos Livens." Flick!

The tip of her wand lit up, which was entirely unimpressive right now. That looked more like a normal Lumos than a blinding blue light.

So she went through several more tries until finally it worked. But that wasn't enough to convince her to start the maze part - she needed to make sure she could do it pretty consistently before she went in.

After quite a few more attempts, she successfully cast it each of the last three times. Which was both good and bad because it meant no more stalling on going into the maze. Ugh.

Rula had to keep reminding herself that the gytrashes weren't actually real. She wasn't in any actual danger. There wasn't anything actually scary hiding in the darkness. If she just faced her fears, it would be fine.

Deep breath. Okay. Here goes nothing.

Vivian took about five attempts for her Lumos Livens spell to work. Yeah, she did take longer than the rest... but at least it worked for her in the end. Also, she wasn't exactly the best in these stuff and she was determined to try anyway. It was just in time for the main activity/practical portion of the class, so all the timing was good.

The blonde listened attentively as Professor Pretty Hirsch explained the aim of the activity. So, avoid the animated stuffed puppies and just use the spell on the actual Gytrash dummies. That didn't seem as complicated as Vivi expected so yay. Once the activity begun, Vivi didn't even take a moment to carefully choose which entrance to take. She took the one closest to her and then skipped her way inside the maze.

Uh... it was starting to get kinda cold here. Professor Pretty could've required a coat for this lesson, to be honest. But it wasn't THAT dark for her at least. Her blue eyes could still navigate through the darkness that surrounded her. She felt like an owl for a moment. "Hoot! Hoot!" Because why not act like one? She giggled and continued skipping through the maze. She made alternate patterns. Left, left, right, right, left, right... so on. She didn't really know she was going. That was the point though, right? She was bound to get lost anyway, but she knew Professor Pretty was going to save her if she suddenly bumped in a hedge.

But, speaking of the devil, she did bump into a wall. Ouch. Rubbing her forehead, Vivi wibbled. "Mean wall." But she had no time for crying! She wasn't a crybaby maybe sometimes and she was going to find that golden flag. She just had to keep herself together.

AND THEN SHE HEARD AND SAW SOMETHING MOVE AT THE CORNER.

... Like, three different things in front of her. Vivi raised her wand, but before she could actually cast the spell, she realised that it was just three animated stuffed puppies. Phew. Cuties! Look it! Somehow forgetting the entire point of finding the golden flag, the Slytherin went towards the three puppies. AWWWWWW. IT REMINDED HER OF PRANCER. Oh Merlin, how she missed Prancer. "WHY ARE YOU SO ADORABLE???" :3

And with that said, Vivian Iona Fairfield spent a good five minutes playing and being attacked with cuddles by stuffed toy dog. No big deal. Such a furry distraction. Well, at least she didn't attack them like what Professor Hirsch had said... right? GIGGLE GIGGLE.

PUPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! <3

"It's nice to meet you Echo, I'm Azura." She said with a nod as she managed to get out that much right before the wall next to her started to crumble! She was as close as she could be to Professor Hirsch due to.. reasons.

Yes reasons.

She coughed a little as the dust moved around them and she nodded. "Yes, I'm fine." She brushed off her robes and her face, clearing them of the dust before she bit her lip a little as she looked up at the Maze..

Oh.. Perfect, a dark maze with ghost dogs running around it? Truthfully.. Azura didn't want to step one foot in that maze! It reminded her too much of a forest! A Forest with scary things inside!

No.. No.. Nuh uh.. not happening.. Azura felt her heart start to pound in her chest as she looked up at it and she bit her lip.. Her breath was coming in short gasps. Her purple eyes wide with fear as she started to back up ever so slightly.

She barely heard her partner speak a she put a hand to her chest, it was already growing tighter and she really didn't want to have a breakdown here. Not here! Not in class!

The little Ravenclaw set her mouth.. "Let's just go in straight ahead.. And yes.. slow and steady." If she didn't die of fear first! What didn't kill her made her stronger right? And still.. her feet weren't moving.

Fiyero watched intently as the wall beside Professor Hirsch crumbled, showering the class in a cloud of dust. Whoa... breakaway wall. Cool!He'd been wondering what was behind that wall since the class started. His hand tightened around his wand as he peered into the darkness, half-expecting a gytrash to jump out and attack him. Nothing happened. He was a little disappointed to learn that they wouldn't be fighting actual gytrashes today, but he understood. He wouldn't want Professor Hirsch to get in trouble!

Fiyero surveyed the maze for a minute, trying to decide which entrance he should use. If the gold flag was in the middle, it stood to reason that the middle entrance would get him there quicker. He started down the middle path, drawing his wand. Bring it on, "gytrashes"!

After walking a short distance, he came to a fork in the path. Which way should he go, left or right? He turn left and quickly hit a dead end. Great... now he'd have to waste time retracing his steps.

A faint rustle caused Fiyero's blond head to whip around suddenly. Merlin's beard! What was that? "Lumos Liv-" he began, tracing a clockwise circle with his wand, but his voice trailed off as a small white dog jumped out of the hedge. Was this one of the "gytrashes"? How did Professor Hirsch say they were supposed to tell them apart? Oh yeah... the "gytrashes" bark, and this thing was definitely not barking.

"Well, you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he said, scratching the stuffed animal behind the ear; it jumped up in reply. Fiyero shook his head. He couldn't believe he'd almost blasted a harmless toy. Get ahold of yourself, Fiy! he told himself sternly. He was acting jumpy for no reason...

They were fire resistant? Not in the way Olly had originally been thinking, but if Hirsch said it was a good way to think about it then he was going to go ahead and keep thinking about it that way. The actual answer was because of wavelengths or something like that, but Olly didn’t fully understand it. But he did know that light worked against them but fire did not, and that was what was important. He did know how to do lumos, but apparently that was not strong enough. And not blue. The light worked best if it was blue.

Time to practice. He focused on the incantation on the parchment, and listened carefully to Hirsch’s pronunciation. It sounded easy enough, and the wand movement was just a circle with a flick. So far so good. Time to practice. Olly made a clean clockwise circle with his wand and then flicked. “Lumos Livens.” Nothing happened. Fine then. Maybe he had not been focused enough. Olly was about to try again when it was time to move on to the main activity.

The fact that he had not been able to get the hang of the spell during practice did make him a bit nervous based on what the main activity consisted of. But Hirsch wouldn't let him die in that maze, right? Probably. Still, he stuck close to an older student because they would certainly know what they were doing. Olly held up his wand and stepped into the maze.

Vivian was absolutely having a blast because she enjoyed all the animated dog toy cuddles waaaay too much. She was laying on the ground, being attacked by three of these cutie things. She didn't seem to mind it... until she realised she was actually in class and they had a goal.

... Oops. LOL.

"Sorry, guys, I actually have to go," the Slytherin said as she picked herself up and dusted the dirt off her clothes. Meh, she wasn't exactly a big fan of cleaning up after having fun... but she really had to go, sadly. "You can follow me if you want? Or you can go bother other students too." Just reserve the puppy cuddles for Vivi, yeah? Only her, please. Also, if they were going to find her again, they'd know it was her anyway. She smelled so strongly of marshmallows. Always did... or maybe that was her hidden stash of marshies hidden in her pockets. But, yeah, they'd know where to find her if these animated toy dogs could smell, at least.

With a heavy heart, Vivi went back to focusing herself on the maze ahead. She once again followed her usual pattern, and made small tweaks when she reached a dead end. She didn't really encounter anything yet, except maybe trip a couple of times on unseen objects. No injuries, though. She had gotten pretty used to all this tripping-but-not-falling-to-the-ground thing.

Then, it struck her. Something at the end of one of the paths. She was hoping to encounter another animated toy dog... but she was wrong. This time, she faced a Gytrash dummy. Meh, it didn't look good. Were gytrashes naturally ugly or was it only the dummies? Vivi actually froze for a moment, hoping the dummy didn't notice or sense her presence if she didn't make a move. She was wrong, though, it had seen her.

Well, here goes nothing. Vivi raised her wand and gulped for dear life. SHE WAS GONNA SURVIVE OKAY? "L... Lu..." She was starting to jitter in place. "GAHHHHHH!!!" She can do it. Oh my Merlin, where was her MUM? She needed a marshmallow right now, but she was too frozen and nervous and panicked, for Merlin's sake.

WIBBLE WIBBLE. She was gonna wibble in her place right now. Mhm.

Being able to cast the tougher light charm on her second try and made Hady feel a bit better about having had so much trouble back in their last Astronomy lesson. She knew not everything was always easy and had no trouble at all putting some hard work into learning things but lately she wasn't doing nearly as good as she always had. Which in turn put a huge damper on whether or not she deemed continuing to try worth it. Luckily for her she gave the charm ago today.

Having effectively shone the bright blue beam from her wand Hady cancelled it shifting her eyes onto the professor. He was talking again. A lot. Something about the larger task for today. And what? Step away fr-

The black wall which she had been rather close to suddenly crumbled away before her eyes turning into dust. Wrinkling her nose and turning her head away, covering her face as she sneezed. Ugh. Stupid dust in the face. Sneezing again and then once more Hadleigh missed some of what had just been said. SIGH.

It was something about going inside the maze of way to tall bushes and uh...had he said something about a flag? Was she supposed to get a flag and bring it back? Letting out a breath the semi still smallish brunette gripped her wand firmly in her hand and walked through the closest opening of the maze like structure. Instantly her head tilted back to try to get some sort of idea just how high these bushes were... and very much well over her head was a good guess.

Slowly moving forward she raised her free hand up to hold it out in front of herself in an attempt to keep herself from getting hurt. She could hear what sounded like barking far off in the distance and shuffling around. Was that the Gytrash or was that other students running away? The light from the blue bell flames back in the classroom really wasn't helping much.

What if she ran into something much worse then the Gytrash...like...like a spider?!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then the Professor went and killed it by saying they were gonna have to use magic. Lumos Livens. A wand lighting charm. Admittedly, it could have been a spell Blaise was capable of casting but alas, he didn't have his wand on him and didn't think the man would appreciate the request to go get it. The boy could see it now, stern looks and 'why don't you have your wand? A Wizard must always have his wand on him. Blah blah blah'. Yeah....he could do without another of those lectures thanks. By now the boy could recite it verbatim.

He'd also caught the looks of the Slytherin Prefect and knew he'd only get more.

What was a guy to do in a situation like this? EASY.

LOO-mos Lee-VEN.....Lumos Livens.....Lumos Livens." The Gryffindor reached into his bag for a piece of parchment and rolled it into a slender figure. In the dim light, it could pass for a wand. Pay no attention to him, just a kid practising his spell like everyone else.

"Lumos Livens." Yup. Hard at work. Hard at work. That was him, busy busy glumbumble. Perfectly legit. Ahem.

If there was one thing Blaise had learned in his three years at Hogwarts, it was that blending in was surprisingly easy. There was no need to panic, no need for nervous fidgeting. All he had to do was play it cool and everything would work in his favour--especially true when Professor Dakest had been the Professor. The man was usually impressed by his innovative ways of skirting the need for magic.

"Azura???" she might have heard that name around, it was very orginal. Just like her own name. Giving the little girl a nod she was glad that she was okay..... but she didnt seem okay with the maze.. Neither did Echo but she was going to be the big kid here and help her out as much as she could.

"since im older, lets say i go in front and you off to the back side of me, that way if i stop can stop. and you can still use the spell and it wont hurt me.? deal?" there was no way she wanted this kid to freak out. "hey... come on now!" she gave the girl a little smile, hopefully their plan would help her move from her spot.

Sticking out her free hand to the girl. "im not going to let anything happen, your completely safe!" well she hoped that she could keep her promise, and ewwwww shes starting to sound like a Gryffindor. someone save her from her kindness!!!! ahhhhhhhhhh.

So there he was, minding his own business and pretending to practise spells, when out of nowhere the Professor dropped the big bomb. A maze--one with Gytrashes and stuffed toy dogs! Who did that?? Why do that? When did he have the time to set this all up and why didn't he use his time more constructively by making a class that wouldn't potentially get him killed???

Oh wait. The Gytrashes weren't gonna attack? The stuffed toys were just to make them...lose their way? Get confused? Something? Was that all?

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

Step aside maze, Blaise Bellaire had a class to get through. With big, bold and confident steps, the boy marched himself into the maze. No fear in the heart of this Gryffindor. He had a game plan. His trusty quill and notepad in tow, the boy was prepared to have an epic adventure written about him. See, this is why he didn't sweat it too much when his non magic classes introduced the magic element. Always a way around it.

Just watch him do this like a boss.

Fiyero.started back the way he came after hitting a wall, grumbling to himself about all the time he lost. He wanted to be the first one to reach that flag! Hmm... maybe Professor Hirsch would give the winner a prize. If that was true, he hoped it was a pack of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans!

While lost in thought, he arrives back at the fork in the path where he made the wrong turn. Wow, was he here already? That was fast! Since going left hadn't worked before, he went right this time. He continued straight ahead for a while, hoping he wouldn't run into any more dead ends. After all, he had a flag to find!

So far so good... now he was back on track. He hadn't taken any wrong turns in a while, so he figured he must be getting close to the middle. He wondered why he hadn't run into any "gytrashes" yet... he was sure he was going the right way. Then he heard it: loud barking followed by a scream.

Fiyero sprinted down the path to his left in search of the voice. He'd forgotten all about the flag; somebody was in trouble! A litle farther down.the path, he spotted a Slytherin girl about his age (Vivian) frozen in fear as a grytash dummy wiggled creepily in front of her. Man, that thing was weird-looking!

As he got closer, he recognized the girl from a trip to Diagon Alley before the start to the term. Fiyero pointed his wand at the dummy, but he was worried that his spell might rebound and hit Vivian instead. "Vivian, get down!" he warned, but it was no use. She couldn't move; in fact she looked like she was about to cry.

Fiyero stood between Vivian and the creepy gytrash dummy, the Gryffindor side of him taking over. Please let me get this spell right, he prayed, aiming his wand at the beast. "Lumos Livens!" Wand in a clockwise circle? Check. Flick at the end? Check. No S at the end of the spell? Check.

A blinding flash of blue light shot out from the tip of Fiyero's wand. The dummy stopped barking and vanished with a small doglike whimper. Whoa, he actually did it... but he could congratulate himself later. Now he had a frightened classmate to attend to. "Are you alright?" he asked turning to Vivian. "I think it's gone now..."

Hadley leapt to her feet excitedly. The Labyrinth! Only with spectral dogs instead a minotaur. Which disappointed the girl as much as the Labyrinth excited her. She didn't need to be told twice. The golden fleece...er, flag, was hers!!

The Knight had barely stopped talking before Hadley raced into the maze at a full sprint. She weaved right, then left, right, right, left, straight, left again, and hit a dead-end. The teen spun on her heels, and sprinted back to the last junction. This time she went left, straight, left, left, right, left, right, right, right and, N'ahhhhhh! A blur jumped out at her as she rounded the corner. Instinctively, Hadley swung her fist at it and missed by a mile. It was a fuzzy little stuffed dog. Suddenly, she was grateful for her poor aim.

When Hasley's heart stopped jackhammering, she knelt down and petted the toy pooch. "Sorry about that...er," she examined the stuffed toy dog, "Winter." It was as good a name as any. "Come on, you're coming with me." Hads patted her leg as she started to walk away, and the plushy pooch started follow. The girl smiled. She had a companion.

The first couple steps were easy...in fact there was a whole lot of walking for very little payoff. Where were the gytrashes? Who was holding the toy dogs hostage? Was he just on the wrong side of the maze? The Professor did say stuff would happen as you got closer to the centre but...Merlin, just how far was that centre??

Maybe he was lost...

Blaise doubled back, figuring he must have just taken the wrong turn back after that...that other turn that...went in that direction place. Mazes were confusing. Even more confusing when you were expecting something and it didn't happen. In the real world, he supposed one didn't go LOOKING for trouble but this was meant to be a piece of cake--one his quill could spin to make him sound absolutely magnificent.

In the distance, he could hear a bark. Logic dictated he go in the opposite direction but he'd pumped himself up FAR too much and so he took off at a run. He would find one and he would impress the Professor with embellished stories after.

Azura was seconds away from having a panic attack. Yes, there weren't vampires in there.. and no this wasn't a forest! But a tight closed in leafy place was PRACTICALLY a Forest Professor Hirsch.. She was trying to breathe, she couldn't have one of her attacks right here! Not in class and not in front of an older student whom she was supposed to be helping! Azura bit her lip a little and took a deep breath.. Trying to focus on the task at hand and not her imminent anxiety attack.

She looked up at Echo as she spoke and she slowly nodded. That did sound a bit safer. "That sounds like a plan." She said softly as she slowly forced her feet to move forward. She could do this.. no big deal. "Right.. Let's go!" Despite her confident words, she was still shaking a bit and she bit her lip as the older girl extended a hand to her.

The tiny near 13 year old grabbed onto it and gave her a grateful smile.

C'mon Azura, you can do this! It's no big thing! It's not a Forest, and nothing is going to hurt you. Yup, she had to keep telling herself this. Over and over in her head..

"Thanks.. I'm.. just.. scared." How was the older girl supposed to know what happened to her mother? She wasn't.. And so Azura lifted her wand and took another deep albeit shaky deep breath and started to walk forward. She held her wand up.. "All right.. I'm ready." She said with a nod..

Kitty listened to the professor explain the real reason why light affected the Gytrash's but fire didn't. It was an interesting answer and not one that Kitty would have guessed. When the class was over she was going to research miggle lightbulbs more to see why her theory hadn't held up.

In the meantime though it was time for spell practice. Kitty was starting to truly enjoy learning new spells, even if she would never be in a situation that would require using them. "LOO-mUus LEE-vins. LOO-mOS Levens. Lumos Livens!"

After she had memorized the pronunciation, she added in the clockwise circle and then the flick. "Lumos Livens!"

A small flicker of light came out of her wand. It probably wouldn't be any help if she were attacked by a real Gytrash. But this was Kitty's first attempt so all in all she was rather pleased with herself.


And then the maze appeared and they were told that they had to go in. Kitty's stomach plummeted. She may have loved dressing in black and reading about vampires, but activities like this still scared her - perhaps more than it did to some of the other students. But she couldn't let that show."We can go in together if you want," said Kitty to Esme, trying to sound confident and unafraid. "I'll go whatever direction you want."

Knowing full well that Azura was very hesitant Echo gave her the time to set things straight with her own head. "don't you worry" she started to walk and noticed that the younger girl was slowly starting to follow. "i know.... theres nothing to be scared of" now knowing that she ready, Echo was just about to tell her to have her wand out but she had already taken it out.

"right for the middle yeah?" she said while holding the girls hand with her free one leading her into the maze. "be strong Echo! you got this.. don't worry about the dirt." she thought. whisper to her new team mate she said "remember the spell is "Lumos Livens"

Rounding their first corner Echo made sure that the girl was behind her and a little off to the side. Echo slowly started to slow down, she heard a little bit of noise. "shhhhhh" she said while raising her wand.. they turned another corner and a ghost dog thing ran out in front of them

"LU------" she stopped while looking back at Azura.. "its okay its just one of those ghost dog things... lets catch our breath and keep going" no need to give the little girl a heart attack.

Awww come oooon! Vivian couldn't move a muscle right now, except her fingers were twitching and clasping her wand on her wand hand... and she was breathing heavily like a dog during a very hot weather. Other than that, she couldn't seem the move anything.

Well, this looked like the end for her. The gytrash dummy was inching towards her slowly, like it was being dramatic in devouring an innocent eleven year old. Please. If it was going to eat her alive any moment, could that thing just do it faster? But then again, that ugly creature was just a dummy. Still, Vivian was preparing for her end. Could someone just bid her farewell and love to her mum, dad, Aunt, Uncle, sister, and cousins, please? Dramatic Vivian was dramatic.

"What? Get down?" For a moment, Vivian managed to blink her eyes and then look behind her. Finally, someone to save her from her doom! The Slytherin did as instructed and stayed close to the hedge behind her, the bright blue light missing her for a couple of centimeters. PHEW! At least she didn't get gytrash-ed in class! Such a relief, to not have died in a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Definitely one for the books!

Now, she was supposed to thank her saviour. Well, she wasn't one who let a kind act go unacknowledged. "Thanks so much! That dummy was about to devour me and..." Hooooold it. Vivi squinted at the boy. "Oh! You're the guy from Flourish and Blotts! Foro... Zorro... Ferrero... oh, Fiyero! I can recall!" She remembered him. He was with his cousin too, but the name she forgot. Heh.

She looked back at the path to double check if the gytrash dummy was gone. Scene is safe! Coast is clear! "Yeah, it's gone. Thank you a bajillion times!" Vanya Fairfield would barge in at Hogwarts if she found out her daughter was somehow eaten by a creature dummy... or maybe just shake her head at her daughter for getting all scared.

"May I stick close to you for a bit until I can get the hang of casting the spell?" She was no Ravenclaw, sorry mum. "I'll try to do it the next time we encounter a dummy." And that was the best she can promise: to try. Did not include panicking and freezing in place and ultimately failing.

Approaching the maze, Esme tried to determine which entrance was the best for her to go through. Maybe it didn't matter and it wasn't as if she could work out the correct route right off the bat, but that didn't mean that she couldn't approach this activity with a level head. In fact, it was important to deal with such situations in such a way because even though the Gytrashes weren't real they DID exist. This was good practice for the off chance that she ever faced creatures like this in real life.

Finally making up her mind as to where she wanted to start, Esme was about to step inside when she heard Kitty. "Of course we can go in together." Even though she had planned on doing everything by herself to show the Gytrashes who was boss she would obviously be there for her friend. That was more important and it really DID seem that Kitty didn't want to do this alone despite the brave face that she was putting on. "I thought it would be good to start here," she added as she pointed to the entrance right ahead of them. Made sense as that was where she had been headed anyway.

This was going to be a lot of fun.

She could do this! She could totally do this! Nothing to be worried about! Nothing at all! Nope, nope!

Azura was slowly creeping after Echo into the maze and trying to take deep calm even breaths, the last thing she needed was a panic attack! She hated them and they seemed to come on so suddenly lately!

Azura nodded. "Mmm, right for the middle. " Her hand was still in Echo's as they entered the maze. Azura felt like the air instantly got stuffy, and already a light sweat was breaking out on her forehead, she wiped the palms of her hands on her robes as she attempted to keep breathing!

They rounded the first corner and Azura looked back to see the classroom was out of sight now! She bit her lip and tried to hold back a whimper as she faced straight ahead only to nearly shriek as a doggie like thing raced in front of them!

Her wand was up! But thankfully it didn't seem to notice them and she nodded! "Yeah, let's keep going! "