Ink and Parchment ~ blood and bone

31

Once the hedges had closed behind them any sound from the crowd was blocked leaving them to stand in eerie silence. It was far too dark to be natural. The shadows were almost oppressive, even to Eliza who had spent half her life in the dark. Eliza and Tom both cast a lumos as they walked down the path until they reached the first fork in the maze. The hedges were high, stretching towards the sky and blocking out any sign of the crowd beyond them.

“See you on the other side?” Eliza asked turning to the right fork as Tom took the left.

“Not if I get there first”

And then they split, walking their separate ways.

The maze was a lot creepier without Tom by her side and she tried to stay as far away from the hedges as she could. She had the odd sensation that the leaves were reaching out to grab her. She couldn’t hear anything beyond her own footsteps, leather soles crunching the dry grass beneath her feet. Barty had told them there would be nothing too dangerous in the maze. The entire point was for Eliza to make it to the cup after all. But that didn’t exactly fill Eliza with confidence. There hadn’t meant to be anything too dangerous in the lake either and yet look at what Eliza had swam into.

Eventually she came to another fork in the maze. Whispering a quick ‘point me’ she decided to take the right fork again only to stumble back when she almost walked into Hagrid’s blast ended screwts. Cursing she edged backwards debating what spell to use to take them out. Their shells were practically impenetrable which was what made them so annoying to handle. She wasn’t saying she and Draco had actually proven that theory but there had definitely been a lesson were Hagrid had left them unsupervised. Really he should have encouraged his students curiosity.

Eliza tried a knockback jinx and then a stupefy but each jinx was easily deflected by the Screwts rock hard shells. Instead of continuing to fruitlessly curse them Eliza instead cast a quick 'alerte ascendare' and simply jumped over the damned things and continued on her way.

It was then she encountered a rather strange fog blocking her pathway down the maze. There was an intersection near her that would allow her to divert from her chosen path but the quickest way to the cup was through the strange mist. Casting a myriad of detection spells she determined it was nothing that could harm her, merely some illusion magic.

Eliza took a bracing step forward.

The world span around her for a few jarring seconds and she slammed her eyes closed. When she cracked them open again she found that the sky was beneath her. She was stood upside down on the ground.

To say it was mind boggling would be an understatement.

Eliza decided to bite the bullet and shuffled forward. She didn’t go plummeting to the floor (sky?) and so she charged forward. It was kind of like when she did a roll when she was flying, it made her feel vaguely nauseous. She was extremely relieved when she finally exited the mist and the world returned to rights.

She passed a few more minutes silently weaving through the maze continuing to head North West to the maze’s centre before encountering anything else. She had just rounded a corner when she almost stumbled head first into her room at the orphanage.

A boggart then.

The boggart stayed like that for a few moments, showing a world where Eliza was nothing but a muggle, nothing but ordinary before the image flickered. With a crack it shifted showing Daphne being held at wand point. Blonde hair matted and hands coated in blood. Crack! Draco pale and shivering on the floor, limbs contorted at awful angles, bone piercing straight through his leg. Crack! Blaise doubled over, blood running from his mouth as he choked on a poison she couldn’t save him from. Crack! Theo lying on the floor, his throat torn and shredded, eyes looking out unseeing.