Into the Labyrinth - Dramione/Blinny

Ch. 4

Draco and Blaise watched the girls through the large crystal ball situated in the middle of Draco's throne room, both of them silent. Blaise was quietly pacing back and forth as he watched Ginny while Draco's eyes were on Hermione, a small smirk on his face.

"They seem to be making decent time," Blaise said, breaking the silence.

"That they do," Draco agreed with a nod.

They both paused then as they saw Hermione stop and rummage through her pockets, pulling something out of her back pocket and holding it up to Ginny. Ginny seemed happy by whatever it was the other girl produced, and when Hermione knelt down to the stone ground, Draco leaned in with a furrowed brow.

"What is she doing?" Blaise asked curiously.

"I haven't the faintest idea." Draco watched her draw a symbol on the ground with the item before she stood up triumphantly, grinning to her friend. Draco, however, was focused on the symbol and he quickly realized what it was. "They're marking stones with arrows to show the path they took."

Blaise seemed impressed by this, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "That's rather ingenious."

Draco watched Hermione again as she and Ginny set off with a newfound sense of determination and energy. He didn't want to admit it, but he had a newfound pride at how she was finding ways around the largest challenge in the labyrinth: getting lost.

He straightened up then, looking out of the large window where he could see the labyrinth surrounding the castle. Blaise gave him an odd looking, raising one eyebrow as he said, "You have an idea, don't you?"

"Of course," Draco grinned. "We can't make things too easy on them."

"I quite agree," Blaise said, a matching grin on his face. "What is your idea?"

Draco was already making his way towards the window to look out upon the labyrinth, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. "I can't imagine it would be too difficult to distract them while the snatter goblins do their work."

Letting out a loud laugh at this, Blaise looked back to Ginny, grinning more as ideas quickly popped into his head.

"Fantastic idea with that sharpie, 'Mione," Ginny said happily as they walked along the stone wall towards the next opening.

"I'm just mad that I didn't think about it before," Hermione sighed as they stopped at the entrance of the latest turn. She peered in, frowning before kneeling down to draw another arrow on the ground. "Another dead end."

Ginny stepped inside the area, looking around as she nonchalantly said, "I wonder why there are so many."

"It's a labyrinth," Hermione answered as she took a few steps forward to look further down the path they were on. "There's going to be a lot of dead ends unfortunately. Come on, let's keep going."

She looked back towards the wall to see if Ginny had reemerged from the dead end but she found no entrance. Panic gripped her chest as she put her hands up to the wall, hoping that it was just another illusion. "Ginny?"

"Hermione?" Came the frantic answer from the other side of the wall. "I don't know how to get out!"

"Hang on, I'll try to climb over!" Hermione said quickly, stepping back and looking for any footholds that she could use as leverage to climb up.