Kurumi continued to walk beside Jonathan as they made their way further into the maze. "Do you think we should tie something to the hedges to mark where we have been before?" she asked as she tapped her wand against her bottom lip. Wait, not tie...she had a better idea. "Pingo WHITE," she commanded. A small glob of white paint splattered on the bush in front of them. A few stray sprinkles of it went in various directions, and hopefully none of them landed on Jonathan. "There, now we will know if we are going around in circles."

She turned around and looked at Jonathan with a confident smile on her face. Just then, there was a rustle and a dummy appeared out of no where and began to swing its way down towards Jonathan. "Watch out!" she chirped, slightly pushing him to the side and pointing her wand at it. "Immobulus!"

With that, the dummy froze in midair and remained there for a few moments, floating on the air itself. When she lowered her wand, it too went crashing to the ground with a soft thud.

"brilliant Jonathan smiled as he saw Kurumi colored the corner with white. Now this way, they won't get lost. Really, just brilliant. Now, why didn't Jonathan think of that?

Jonathan looked at the white colored bush and suddenly surprised when Kurumi pushed him. Of course, he fell of the ground. It was also a surprise 'tackle' from her. Jonathan didn't expect that nor have heard an incoming dummy to attack him. Good thing, they were both partners in doing this. Or else, he could have just been defeated by the second dummy in a blink of an eye.

He sat down and shook his head only to realize that yes, there was no more backing out. This is definitely an interesting game. Epic in fact. He looked at Kurumi as she stood there and he wand was dropped on the ground. It landed next to Jonathan. Jonathan's wand was still tightly gripped on his hand. "here you go" he said, giving her wand back and standing up.

"Thanks" he uttered. His heart was beating faster. No more surprise attacks. And just when he thought about attacking dummies. He saw another one pacing to their area as well.

He immediately pointed his wand "Reducto!". The dummy was now broken, or more like crumbled into pieces. He smiled at Kurumi, relieved.

They are so ready for the next one.

Simon wasn't moving too quickly, just keeping his movements steadyHe stopped in mid-step as he heard a yell, only reconizing it was his name being yelled as the sound echoed as well as the words following it.

"Stupify!!" he cast hitting the dummy, reacting as he still stood there and waiting until it was gone before responding.

"I'm fine..." the former captain yelled back not even sure she'd be able to hear him and better then he had heard her. He cringed as he heard her yell again figuring it to be at her own obstacles. Simon now really wishing he had paid better attention and kept them together. He sighed as there was no sense dwelling on trying to fix things as he could not go backwards only forwards so he needed to continue, the boy resuming his walking.

"Just something I learned during my first year in Defense Against the Dark Arts," she smiled. Headmaster Tate had been a brilliant professor and Kurumi had found herself often wondering why he wasn't teaching anymore. Maybe he would this coming term? She had heard that Lord Borr wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts- not that he had been to the school in the first place.

Now that the dummy attack was over, Kurumi found herself breathing again. Why did these things ALWAYS have to pop out of nowhere? Couldn't they ever come after they announced their arrival?

"You sure told that dummy," she giggled, pointing to the crumbly pile.

Kurumi took a few steps forward until they had reached an area that had paths leading to the left and the right.

"W-Which way do you think we should go?"

Although, Kurumi SWORE she heard someone's voice coming from the path to the right. Someone's voice she had been missing for some time now and no, not you Treyen Lockhart.

They were actually doing well as a team. Now his father got the whole Gryffindor vs Slytherin thing wrong. In the past, his father did tell him that the two houses weren't in the best relationship. Slytherins of course, tend to have a different point of view in everything. But that was such a long time ago.

Jonathan gave a high-five to Kurumi. He's just happy he's learning a lot from this actually. Lord Borr didn't do anything when he became the DADA professor last term. And speaking of which, they say they'll replace that spot AGAIN. Wonder who could be their new teacher next term?

"I don't think it'll come back to attack us again" he gave a soft laugh while looking at the crumbs on the ground.

Pacing up with Kurumi, Jonathan stopped to what happens to be the first challenge they have to face in the maze: direction. There is left and there is right. Which one? "I have no idea, Kurumi" he told her. Not a clue at all. "Where d-do you think we should go?" she looked like she knew where.

A slight nod of his head was all the acknowledgement he could manage at first. It was difficult to turn his thoughts away from the memories and to pull his hand away from the ring in his pocket. Slowly though, he became more animated and withdrew his hands to bring his wand forward.

"May as well." They didn't go through training for nothing, did they? And while this wasn't exactly what they had trained for, it was a good stepping stone. Baby steps. He had to remember to take baby steps.

Cove hugged Emily back. "I don't think that's any way to talk to paying costumers." She said to the man. "Here." She gave the man the three galleons. She glared at the man.

Selina was in the midst of taking down her third dummy that she had come across in the odd maze when she heard a faint voice yell out to her. From what she could hear it sounded like Simon, she hoped it was Simon. Very faintly, like a whisper, she could slightly make out the word fine. That was the entirety of what she could hear, though.

As she was lost in her thoughts she felt a sudden silence. This was all very odd. The maze thus far had been an on-going pattern of mahem. So why now for the sudden pause? She stopped dead in her tracks and looked up and down the pathway... nothing. What was going on?

She took another step forward and it was deafening. It was the only sound that she could hear in close proximity to herself. So she braced for something... anything to happen.

Then... it did.

The maze around her started to change. A wall went up behind her and in front of her. She was trapped in a box. NOW she knew why that Mime always looked so fretful, being in a box was terrible. She was about to call out when a wall receded to the left of her and revealed another part of the maze, "...brilliant."

"It's a BLAST!" Anna shouted as she dodged another dummy. "Bumbarden!" Anna shouted as the dummy exploded. Anna was having so much fun, dodging and hitting the dummys with spells. She could do this all day. "Nice shot!" Anna said to Elizabeth when she made a dummy flip over three times and fall back on the ground. "Expelliamous!" Anna shouted again as another scarecrow flung towards her. Anna ran down the end of the one hedge in the maze and came up to the fork in the road. "Left or right?" Anna shouted down to Elizabeth.

"Thanks." Elizabeth says to Anna. "You too."

Elizabeth looks to her left then her right breathing heavly from running through the maze.
She looks back at Anna, "Ummmm. Lets go left."

Another scarecrow pops up in front of Elizabeth Stupefy and the scarecorw flies back and she smiles to herself. Damn she thought.

Was he hearing things?

He could have sworn he heard another familiar voice but it wasn't Selina's. Or he was simply imagining things considering the walls however bushy and not solid was making sounds distorted. Focus... he told himself. The sooner you finish the sooner you'll at least one familiar face and with his skills it should be a piece of cake to complete...right?

Simon continued following the maze's twist and turns, making his way around one corner just in time to be greeted with another dummy. With a swift flick of his wand he caught it with a flash of blue, letting out a breath of air once it disappeared.

Another down however many more to go.

The former Gryffindor had to admit though, whoever had set up the maze and such had certainly done a good job. They would be a better choice for defense professor then Borr or whoever they used next term...but then anyone would be an improvement so that wasn't saying much.

Kurumi was a bit surprised when Jonathan gave her a high five. It was a pleasant surprise to be sure. She hadn't done many team activities with anyone that wasn't Selina for a long time now. Not that that was a bad thing. The two lionesses were a fantastic combination who could not only banish chocolate frogs with their eyes closed, but they completed each other. Kurumi honestly did think of the girl as the sister she wished she had had. Heck, she sometimes wished that she could trade her brothers in for her.

Casting Pingo once more on the bush next to them, Kurumi turned around to face the Slytherin.

"Hmmmm..." she said, tapping her lips with her finger. She closed her eyes and tried to allow her other senses to come over her. She heard the voice again, coming from the right, and her eyes snapped open. "Right...definately right," she said. Whether or not it lead them to the exit was another story, but she knew it would lead them to someone. Hopefully, this someone was a person and not a sphinx although she wouldn't mind meeting Lady Rosumond again.

Kurumi lead the way a bit, allowing her Gryffindor courage to overtake her for a few moments, when she saw the back of the head of a tall boy, no, a young man with dusty blonde hair. She recognized that hair. "S-S-Simon?"

"Thanks!" Anna said as her and Elizabeth headed left. The maze then lead to a dead end and the maze closed off where they came from. "This can't be good..." Anna said. "Lumos" she muttered and her wand lit up. She walked around in the square they were trapped in but there was no exit. "I deffiantly read about these kinds of mazes before!" Anna said trying not to panic. She could get a bit clusterphobic sometimes. Maze plants don't like, fire, no that's a bad idea. Water? no they might grow more. Wind? I don't know if that would help. Of course ice! Anna shouted a spell out loud and a wall of plants broke apart reveiling another path. "Through here!" she shouted to Elizabeth and took her hand before the maze came together again. They started running again when they reached another scarecrow.

The new part of the maze was no better than the first. All she had now to go on was she was on new ground that she knew nothing about. At least in her previous part of the maze she had some kind of inkling as to what was in store for her. Now, in a new territory, she could only hope that all she would find would be dummys. She highly doubted it, but one could hope.

As her feet crunched along in the grass she felt a lot more at ease. Within five minutes she had stupefied over 7 dummys. It was now becoming a nice continuous pattern of things. This should could handle until she found Simon again.

Just then a voice cried out, it sounded like it was separated from Selina by one wall. The voice was female, she knew that much... besides that though she just had a nagging in her brain that told her she knew the person. Who was that voice and why was it so familiar?

There was no time to mull over this question because another dummy had popped up, "Stupefy!"

Right?

What is that? Some kind of Gryffindor instinct? Jonathan knows they can be brave and all that but what are the odds that she could right that the correct pathway is right? Jonathan looked puzzled for a moment. He saw her closed hr eyes and was confident enough that it's right. But Jonathan was not in favor with arguing with this one. In fact half of him trusts Kurumi with this.

"Right it is" he nodded to her.

Jonathan tried to catch up with Kurumi as she lead the way. Then along the way, Jonathan heard a voice. OH. So that's why she picked right. Did she hear it too? A voice?

Jonathan has no clue to who this person were though but as the reached to where he was Kurumi uttered out his name. Simon??? The Gryffindor captain right? Jonathan barely knew any Gryffindors. But he has heard of him. After all he plays quidditch and is the captain of the team. "Simon?" he whispered.

But props to Kurumi though. She's definitely a Gryffindor indeed. Jonathan is just happy that they got there before anybody else gets hurt. The maze was quite dark and dummies keeps on popping out of nowhere.

Speaking of which, another one came attacking from behind Kurumi. With his wand ready, he flicked "Confringo" he aimed at the dummy approaching.

He looked around. "Is anybody alright?" he asked.

Reductot Elizabeth yells loudly. Then the scarecrow busrted into little tiny pieces. "Guess I was wrong about going left." Elizabeth laughs.
Elizabeth wasn't one to show any fear, and she didn't but inside she was screaming. But she knew she could get through this. Her mum and dad taught her spells young wizards her age wish they knew. Some even Elizabeth wish she didn't know. "We better keep moving Anna! You never know what can pop up in this maze." Elizabeth looks around kind of nervously with her wand at the ready.

"Stupify!!" Simon yelled catching the second dummy as it came and went on the tail of another before him, both having disappeared after his shot had hit and not before. The former Gryffindor thinking he probably should have practiced more with his fellow students rather then just watched. The young man quickly turned in place, wand still raised as he heard movement behind him only to come face to face with Kurumi just as she was saying his name with a slight studder as if uncertain it was him.

"Oh...hey Kurumi," he greeted lowering his wand to his side letting out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "Fancy meeting you here," he added with a smile glad to see her, just then registering the boy behind her. His face turned into a frown as he spotted another dummy appear behind his friend, his wand raising again to act but the unfamiliar Slytherin responded faster.

"I think so..." Simon answered lowering his arm again not wanting to appear threatening. "Though I lost Selina along the way."

Selina hated being on her own. Scratch that previous statement, she loathed being on her own. It was one thing to be brave in public, which Selina was very good at, but to be brave with no one watching was a near impossible task. Because being brave on your own entails that you are doing what you do from some deep and innate sense you have. Selina didn't think, at least not at this moment, that she had it in her to be brave. With every new dummy she could feel some impending doom lulling over her head. What else could possible happen in this place? More than just dummys had t o be here.

But she walked on because if she stopped then she would be dead in the water. Her only way out was, in fact, to keep walking in the face of her impending doom. And this whole maze had been her whole stupid idea. Although with Simon beside her at the time it did not seem so scary.

She took another step forward and a dummy came up from the ground directly in front of her knocking her off of her feet. Her back slammed hard into the ground and she felt all of the air leave her lungs. She gasped for a few moments until she stood up. When she stood up she was still quite dazed and aimed for the dummy, "Stupefy!" She missed.

Her spell continued on past the dummy and hit a pellet creating something to spray Selina, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Her scream was blood curtailing... and she felt icky.

Kurumi glanced over her shoulder to see a very confused Jonathan. "Simon graduated last term. He was the Quidditch Captain and...well, my big brother lion." It had been him and Patroclus last year, the big brother lions that she could go and talk to whenever she needed something. And she sure could have used the both of them for boy advice - if she had the guts to bring it up to them in the first place. Instead, she kept all the emotions locked away deep inside and tried to deal with it all by herself. Patroclus had been gone by the time everything with Treyen had happened, but Simon had been there. She really should have talked to him.

Maybe this was a sign?

Kurumi didn't even notice Jonathan defeated a few more dummies for all her focus was on the forever a lion boy that stood in front of her.

"Fancy meeting you here?" she repeated folding her arms across her chest. Not exactly the greeting she had been expecting, but it did bring a smile to her face. She fidgeting awkwardly. "Hi."

She was just about to run over to him for a hug, but she was startled by a scream. That voice, she knew whose voice that was.

"SELINA?! SELINA WHERE ARE YOU?!"

This was going to be like some demented version of hide-and-go-seek.

Great. 2 Gryffindors. Not that Jonathan had something against Gryffindors. No. In fact, he's practically fine with them, or with any other houses. It's just that he finds it hard to communicate more with other houses than he does with the Slytherins. Maybe it's because, he grew up in a family of Slytherins, no? Oh well, at least Gryffindors are known for their chivalry and braveness. Jonathan trusts them to do well with this maze.

"Pleasure meeting you Simon" Jonathan smiled when Kurumi introduced him. So he was right. He is the former Gryffindor quidditch captain. Jonathan did watch every quidditch game and he's really good. Come on, HE IS THE TEAM CAPTAIN after all. Of course he should be good. But then Slytherin's won the quidditch championship game. That thought put a smile on Jonathan's face.

Okay... No more day dreaming. They're here to solve this puzzle maze. And hearing Simon, the maze just got worse. He lost his partner along the way. How come? Do the maze automatically divide by itself? It is of course, a magical maze. It could happen.

Then they all got silent when they heard a voice. A shout. A cry for help. Is that Selina? Bloody hell, Jonathan doesn't even know who this Selina person is. But it would be just inconvenient to ask about her here when they're focused to find her.

What to do? What to do???
Certainly there should be a correct spell for this. "Kurumi why not tell her to cast a lumos spell? lumos maxima?" Jonathan was not quite sure which spell would be better so that they could find Selina faster.

Simon stood quietly as Kurumi introduced him to her maze companion, nodding as if confirmation of what she said. "And you as well," he echoed as Jonathan commented on their meeting. The former captain raised a slight eyebrow as the younger Gryffindor crossed her arms and repeated what he had said but couldn't dwell on it as all of a sudden they were greeted by Selina's yell.

What in Merlin's beard?!

As Kurumi yells for her best friend, Simon tried to think of their options. He was about to move forward, in the direction he had been going before the other two had come up behind him but stopped in his tracks as Jonathan asked about a spell to help. "That's it..." he mused remembering something that could help them find the third year. Resting his wand on his upturned left hand he cast a spell.

"Point me Selina!"

The former Gryffindor watching the wand as it started to move, eventually pointing in the direction of the voice. A direction blocked from the trio by one of the tall bushy walls of the maze. Okay so that didn't much help plus it occupied his wand so he couldn't help deal with the dummies. Taking hold of his wand once more Simon tried another idea. "Expecto Patronum!!" he cast thinking of his happy memory, his efforts greeted by the familiar form of a meerkat.

"Find Selina..." Simon instructed it, the spectral form bounding away along the path leaving a thin wisp behind as it moved, disappearing around the bends to look for the girl. "There...we should be able to follow it for the most part."

Selina had to resist the urge to throw up. Not only did the liquid that had sprayed her smell bad but it tasted bad as well. She had not intended it to become digestible, the problem lay in the fact that she opened her mouth to scream when she was sprayed with the substance. After that, well, it was all down hill. So now she was here- wiping her tongue and wiggling in her place trying to rid herself of the foul substance.

"Yuck!" Selina complained. Then she heard voices, or at least what sounded like voices, screaming her name. For a moment they all registered as sounds she knew but as soon as she recognized them the recognition was gone. Who were the voices and why did she know them so well?

However, she felt the urge to call out to the voices with the only word she could think of, "HELP!"

Kurumi smiled as Simon and Jonathan got acquainted. She was sure that if they had met properly at Hogwarts that they would have gotten along. Jonathan was very kind and could always bring a smile to Kurumi's face - even if it didn't always make sense - and Simon was her lion big brother. Perhaps Jonathan would have been a Slythertin boy that Simon would have approved of, unlike Connor, but that was assuming that Kurumi was thinking about Jonathan that way...which she wasn't really at the moment. Nope, Kurumi was trying NOT to think about boys like that AT ALL.

Which pleased her father VERY much.

Kurumi's eyes widened when Simon conjured a Patronus.

"Woooooooow," she whispered. She had never seen a Patronus conjured before her eyes. She had seen Professo Vindictus' appear before her at the party held by Lord Borr, but that was an already conjured one. This was...unique...amazing...unbelievable...

Kurumi better close her mouth before flies or something else came zooming into her mouth and she choked on it.

Kurumi's head snapped around again when she heard Selina scream. Selina didn't scream very often, so it really had her worried. She gripped her wand tightly and picked her brain for something else that could possibly help the situation, but how did you top a Patronus?

AHA! That's it.

Kurumi thrust her wand straight up into the air. "Periculum!" she shouted and a burst of red sparks erupted out of her wand and into the air.

"H-Hopefully Selina will see that..."

Expecto Patronum.

Now why didn't Jonathan think of that, really?! Well, the fact is, they haven't tackled that one in their DADA subject yet. Personally, he would love to conjure a patronus charm. What would his patronus be if ever he did cast such. Jonathan's eyes glittered to Simon's patronus. Oh, how he felt envious of him to have casted a spell. They say casting a patronus spell is quite hard because it requires a lot of happiness... a lot of energy. Yes, it required amount of happy feeling and memory.

Jonathan heard his uncles talked about it once, about patronus stuffs. That it can sometimes help you in situations like this but of course, mostly to warn dementors away. Lovely. Jonathan did try the spell over the summer but Ryu suggested that he needed to practice even more because it wasn't that strong as it should be. Jonathan also found it hard to find some certain happy memories when casting the spell. Not great.

If only Lord Borr taught them last term.

Then the girl, Selina, shouted for help again. She definitely needed some help. But not worry, before Jonathan could cast another spell, Kurumi took charge and casted one. That's a relief really.

"Where do you think is she?" Jonathan got closer to one end and tried to listen to Selina's voice. Who is he kidding really? How would he know whether or not it's Selina's voice?

The meerkat bounded off the direction of its target eventually coming to the area of the maze where the girl was still seated on the ground. The spectral creature waited on its hind legs for it to catch the attention from the younger Gryffindor.

Simon turned to check on his companions just in time to see Kurumi's surprised face before she relaxed it. Was it the patronus? he couldn't help musing to himself trying to remember if she was ever around the alst few times he's had to cast it. His attention was drawn back as Selina yelled again...he really was worried about her. He nodded simply as Kurumi mentioned her seeing the sparks that had been shot up into the sky from their location.

"Yeah that should do it," he agreeded before looking at Jonathan. "You're guess is as good as mine but hopefully my patronus will work in that regard. Now lets go before the trail runs cold," Simon instructed before turning back around and heading in the way the meerkat had run...its spectral trail starting to fade. He didn't mean to be bossy but he wanted to find Selin and not leave the other two behind to be separated as well.