The Battle of the Highest (Dramione)

Chapter 7: The First Challenge

*HERMIONE*

I stare at the maze: a huge labyrinth made out of green hedges, stretching far beyond where the eye could see. In the front there is four entrances, each with one of the house crests above it. To the right are bleachers that stand about two stories tall so they can have a better view of what's happening out in the maze, one bleacher for each house. I follow McGonagall, who is leading us to the entrances of the maze. I'm in the far left, Zacharias in the next, Cho on his right, and Draco all the way to the far right. I look up at the bleachers: each of them are chanting the name of the student from their house, and I look at Gryffindor. I catch Ron, Harry, and Ginny's eyes and I read Harry's lips:

Good luck.

I turn back to look into the maze; layers and layers of fog fall from the leafy walls, the cobblestone walkways seeming uneven.

"Attention!" McGonagall yells into a blow horn. "The first challenge is about to begin. They will enter the maze and they must recover a sacred object that is very dear to their hearts, none of our competitors having any idea what it is, but prefects," she says, turning to us, "you will know when you find it."

She turns back to the bleachers. "As for you all! Wish your fellow students good luck; one of them won't come back alive."

I swallow. I can't do this. I feel my forehead bead up with sweat and my palms feel clammy, my legs feel like jelly. A horn goes off and McGonagall insists us stepping into the maze. I look at Draco one last time, and he looks at me, before we both step into the maze.

I walk several feet into the maze, then hear a screech and I turn in the direction of it. I then turn forward and start running lightly. Each corridor of the maze is the same: leafy walls, cobblestone ground, clouds of fog. But I keep moving forward.

I hear a twig crack and I snap my neck around just to see a blur of shadow pass through the corridor a few yards away from me. I start running. My footfalls echo on the ground. But I don't stop running.

I stop after a couple minutes I stop to catch my breath, and I see something fly around my head, but each time I turn to see what it is it moves. I feel a tickle in my ears, like something sprayed something at the sides of my head, and suddenly my vision goes blurry and everything becomes bright colors. I look ahead curiously and walk a little farther, and flowers of all colors start to bloom from the walls. I laugh I bend over to smell one, and something curls around my ankle. I look down to see a thick vine pulling me inward. I scream, my voice echoing through every corridor. I pull out my wand but suddenly I forget the spell. My mind goes blank, my brain and memory foggy.

I unexpectedly yell, "Reducto!" to see if that does anything, and the vine tears and folds itself back into the hedge. I pant heavily, my delirium gone, and I run ahead at full speed.

I have no idea how long I was running, but it felt like an eternity. My mouth is dry and my stomach growls. But just up ahead I see a shimmer and glow. I keep running to get to it, but the walls of the maze start closing in on me, but I squeeze my way through and make it to what I saw.

I now stand under a transparent pavilion: a clear dome is over my head several feet into the air, supported by white columns. Directly under it is four small tables. I walk around looking at each one. One has a necklace with a white pearl in it, one has a vial of some green liquid, one has nothing on it so I don't know if someone already got something for if there just isn't anything there, but the fourth table's item catches my eye. There sits a ring, encrusted with small diamonds along the band. I gape at it, not daring to touch it: it's the ring my parents gave me for my birthday one year. I had never taken it off because I loved it so much, and then I lost it in my third year here at Hogwarts. I pick it up, thankful that I now have it after all these years. I look up, and see a ring shimmering around me, and then it disappears. I ignore it and hold on to the ring then walk forward, but I'm stuck. I'm surrounded. I look around and see that I'm now surrounded with a box. I slam against the side with my shoulder but it won't budge. I'm trapped. I scream for help. I scream for him.

*DRACO*

I had been running from several creatures, thank you. I was almost consumed by a black fog, more like a shadow, then charmed by pixies and almost became part of the hedge walls.

And then I heard a scream.

It was no doubt from either Cho or Hermione. At first they had screamed "HELP ME, PLEASE!" and then after the second scream I knew who it was. "DRACO, HELP ME!"

I start running forward towards the location the scream echoed from. I see a light up ahead, and I run faster. I enter a little clearing, under a pavilion. And I see her.

"Draco help me, please, help me!" she cries. Her voice doesn't seem normal, more like an echo. I see tears stream down her face and her palms are pressed against the glass of her prison. I run up to her.

"I'm here Hermione, I'm here." I press my hands to the glass to meet hers, except they don't touch. "I'm going to get you out, Hermione."

She nods, her hands still pressed against the glass. I look around.

"What is this?" I ask.

"It's the precious things that's we're supposed to collect," Hermione explains. "One table for each of us."

I see two tables, each one to my sides. One has a necklace and one has a vial with glowing green liquid. Neither of them I recognize.

"Where are the other two?" I ask.

"There's those and mine is right here," she says, pointing to the table to her right.

"What did you find on yours?" I ask.

She holds up a ring. "My parents gave it to me," she says.

"Then... Where's mine?"

She looks around outside of her box, then looks in her box. She and I both notice the table to her left.

"That one had nothing on it when I got here," Hermione says. She leans against the left wall of the box, then taps my table. She cries out, twisting in pain, and stops touching the table, and she drops the ring. She falls to the ground.

"Hermione!" I run up to the glass, pressing my palms to it and look down at her. She's leaning over, sitting on her knees and supporting herself with her hands pressed to the ground. She grabs her ring and tries to stand, leaning on the walls of the box for support.

"What just happened?" I demanded.

"I...I don't know."

"Wait, touch your table." She does as I tell her. "Is anything happening?"

After a couple seconds she drops the ring suddenly and yelps. "Ow," she shouts. She shows me her hand, and it's blistered, red, and bleeding slightly.

"What happened to the ring?" I ask.

"When I touched the table, the ring started to get hot and then it burned my hand."

Suddenly I realize what's been happening. There was nothing at my table, Hermione gets trapped, she contorts in pain from touching my table, and when she touches her table the ring burns. I look at Hermione.

"Draco?" she asks cautiously.

"I figured it out," I say.

"You figured what out?"

"What I'm supposed to collect."

"What?! Please, tell me!"

I look into her sparkling brown eyes. "You," I say.

She looks at me oddly, then her eyes grow wide. "That's why-"

"Yes, Hermione. Now I've got to figure out how to break this glass." I look at her. "Any ideas?"

She shrugs, then leans against the back wall of her box and slides down to the ground.

"Maybe continuously cast 'reducto'?" she suggests.

I stand up and walk back several feet "take cover," I warn Hermione. "Reducto!" I hit the box, but it doesn't seem to have done anything.

"Try again," Hermione insists. I do as she says, casting 'reducto' again. Again, not even a scratch. I keep throwing spells at the box, none of them working. Hermione's sigh echoes through the little clearing.

"We need to think of something fast," she says quickly. "I'm running out of air."

"Oh, umm, okay," I say, starting to panic. I pace the ground in front of the glass, trying to think of the proper spell. Eventually I give up and start throwing heavy rocks at the glass. One time I hit it and cracked the glass, but it fixed itself.

"Draco, it's no use," Hermione says after five minutes. "I'll just stay here until..."

She stops talking and hangs her head.

"Hermione?"

She doesn't respond.

"Hermione!"

No response.

I pick up a very large rock that's sort of hard for me to carry. I swing my arms back and forth to gain power before I throw it.
"Granger....you....reply to me....right now...."

I let go of the rock after having the hardest grip on it and it flies into the glass, and it shatters around Hermione's figure. I run up to her as she breathes in deep, half conscious. Her eyes look cloudy and far away, empty. I pick her up bridal style and run as fast as I can back to the front of the maze. I find one of the openings and run through and I hear a horn go off, and people cheering. I look down at Hermione; she's staring off into the sky and her breathing is raspy. I hear the crowd gasp and I look up. People are standing up trying to see what had happened to Hermione.

McGonagall gasps and hurries over to us.

"What-?" she starts, but she's interrupted by Madame Pomfrey.

"My goodness!" she exclaims. "Lie her down here in the grass."

I set her down in front of me and she breathing becomes more raspy as she lies down flat. Madame Pomfrey performs a spell (I didn't catch what it was) and suddenly Hermione inhales deeply and starts coughing. I fall on my knees beside her and she wraps her shaky arms around me.

"I thought I lost you," I barely whisper to her. She doesn't say anything, just holds on to me. I tell her to lay down and I turn to Madame Pomfrey.

"She'll have to stay in the hospital wing tonight," she says as if reading my thoughts. I nod reluctantly.

The first challenge had ended about ten minutes after Hermione and I got out, and turns out Cho was the one who died in this task.