3 - Fleur
She walks – the rustling of the hedges is savage, following her, she's sure of it, but she will not let that stop her.
She hears her own breathing, a bit ragged. She concentrates on slowing it, remembering that panic is the first step to defeat; a Beauxbatons étudiante must always be calm and in control of herself.
But as she slows in her pace, she hears something else. Like…breathing. Someone else's deep and slow breaths, menacing and – and getting closer.
She turns quickly, glancing all around. But she is alone. Alone in the mist that swirls and twines around her feet.
Suddenly, the hedge walls seem to shudder, to shiver as if they will close around her. The air, the space between the walls of the labyrinth, everything seems tighter and more confined.
Quickening her pace, she comes to a fork. Left? Or right? Right. Le droit c'est droit. Right is right.
And the breathing…it remains, on the edge of her hearing, but still there. There is no one there, she tells herself. Personne est là.
She turns. A dead end, shocking in its dark and rustling bulk.
And there are footsteps. Behind her. She whirls around, the mist echoing her movement.
No one.
She starts to run now, feeling the beating of her heart grow louder, the panic rising beyond her control…
A shout, and something – a spell strikes her with a flash. She falls, immobilized, into the faint fog.
She can see but not blink, feel but not touch the crawling tendrils that even now wrap around her. The panic wheels into terror.
A figure advances and comes into focus.
Krum! He – but something's different about him. The words of Dumbledore come back to her: "People change in the maze."
Krum's eyes are glazed over somehow. Everything in her body screams for her to get away, get away from him, but she cannot move.
Krum crouches over her, light glowing from his wand. There is a blank and hungry look in his eyes…she cannot get away, and he bends closer…the terror clutches at her…
And that is all she remembers before falling, falling into the blackness of unconsciousness and the endless snaking vines of the labyrinth.