As soon as the door shut behind her Freddie was plunged into darkness. She couldn't see anything, it was completely black. She waited a minute to see if a source of light would appear, like the torches along the last passage, but nothing happened. She couldn't hear anything either but she could smell the earthy scent of herbs. She found her wand in her pocket and drew it.
"Lumos," she said and the tip of her wand lit up, but it was dimmer than it should be. It only cast a two foot radius of light before stopping in an abrupt and unnatural way. The air around her felt heavy with magic and Freddie determined there was some sort of dampening spell that kept her light from reaching more.
What's the point of that? She wondered as she began to explore her surroundings with the dim light. The walls and ceiling were stone but the floor underfoot was dirt. Herbs were growing along both walls. Freddie walked along the passage but found she could only go about 12 feet before she found a darkness that her wand light couldn't penetrate at all. There was no way she could move forward in the pitch black so she stepped back into the part of the passage where she wasn't totally blind. She walked along the 12 foot stretch of one wall and then the other, mentally cataloging the herbs that were growing on either side – wormwood, bilberry, coleus, euphrasia...which was also known as the eyebright herb. This confirmed what she had already suspected – she was supposed to brew an Eyebright Potion before she could continue.
The Eyebright Potion was a brew that gave the drinker the ability to see in the dark for up to an hour with every sip. Freddie had never brewed this particular potion before and it hadn't been on Snape's flashcards, but she had read about it and recently. The recipe was in one of her books.
She checked Budge's book first, holding the tip of her wand close to the pages in order to see them, but it wasn't in there. She found it in Moste Potente Potions and quickly scanned the list of ingredients. All of the herbs she'd just seen were listed along with powdered unicorn horn and salamander blood – both of those were in her potion kit, though she had used a good deal of the salamander blood in the Wiggenweld Potion. Blind-worm's stings were also listed in the ingredients and although she hadn't noticed any blind-worms Freddie thought it was safe to assume they were in the tunnel somewhere.
The only other ingredient was something called bentonite clay. She had never even heard of bentonite clay, but she remembered seeing a discolored patch of ground right before the dark tunnel she couldn't go down. She went back to investigate it. She squatted down and scratched it with her finger. It was definitely clay. When she opened her potion kit to get a jar to collect it, she noticed the vial of salamander blood was full, despite her having used over half of it. She checked and found that all of the ingredients she had used in the last potion were full again. They must have refilled magically when she passed through the door.
Well good, she thought as she began to dig up the bentonite clay. That makes things much easier.
It only took her ten minutes to collect everything she would need for the Eyebright Potion. She found the blind-worms crawling in the soil beneath the wormwood and she cut the stings off the ends of them with the silver dagger from her kit. Once she had everything together Freddie sat cross-legged in the middle of the tunnel and set up her cauldron. When she lit a fire beneath the cauldron with her wand the flames came out blue and didn't give off as much light as regular fire. Part of the enchantment, she thought as she re-lit her wand tip. Designed to make it harder to see... and to be super annoying.
The Eyebright Potion only took half an hour to brew but she kept having to stop and re-light her wand. The Lumos spell only lasted for a few minutes if her wand wasn't in her hand and she needed both hands to brew. When the potion was done she took the cauldron off the fire and the flames automatically extinguished. While she waited for it to cool off enough to drink, Freddie wondered if she'd gotten it right. It looked like it was the same shade of green described in the book, but it was hard to tell with just the light of her wand to see by.
Snape's not here to tell me if I brewed it correctly. No one is, she thought. Of course she knew they were all watching her somewhere, somehow. Surely they would come out and stop her if she was about to poison herself?
Don't be ridiculous, she admonished herself. You brewed it perfectly. It wasn't even that difficult. You've brewed way harder potions for the first time without messing up.
Reassured, Freddie checked the temperature of the cauldron. It was still a little warm, but it was cool enough to drink. She lifted a spoonful to her lips and blew on it to cool it further before taking a sip. Her eyes started to itch and water and she dropped the ladle back into the cauldron so she could rub them. After a minute she was able to open her eyes again and she found that she could see again. It wasn't as bright as the night vision she had when she was a kneazle, but she could see the full 12 foot stretch of the passage clearly.
She cleaned her cauldron then put all of her supplies back in her bag before she started down the passage. When she passed into the part of the tunnel that she couldn't go down before her wand light extinguished, but she could still see. The Eyebright Potion let her see everything in a green tint.
There were thick moving vines growing along the walls of this passage. Flitterblooms, she identified when she inspected them. They were harmless, Professor Sprout had them growing in Greenhouse 1 where she taught the first years.
Freddie had been walking down the passage for about 10 minutes, expecting that at any moment she would find a door to go through to the next challenge, when all of a sudden some of the vines reached out and grabbed her.
"Son of a bitch!" she yelped as the vines pulled her against the wall. They were wrapped around her arms, legs, and neck and the more she moved to free herself the tighter they squeezed her. When they tightened around her throat, she froze. She realized it was Devil's Snare and she knew if she kept struggling she'd be dead in seconds so she forced herself to be still. As it was she still couldn't take a full breath, the thick tendril of plant around her neck was compressing her windpipe, but it wasn't squeezing any tighter. For now.
She tried to use her Occlumency to push away the fear and panic she felt at being restrained by the plant, tried to think clearly so she could remember what she knew about Devil's Snare. She couldn't fully get rid of the panic though and her heart was beating wildly in her chest, knowing that she was moments from suffocating if she moved her head at all.
Think, idiot! She told herself. Don't move, just think. What did Professor Sprout tell us about Devil's Snare? That was years ago, but she had a little rhyme... Devil's Snare... Then she remembered, hearing Professor Sprout's voice in her head 'It's deadly fun, but will sulk in the sun'. Devil's Snare hated all forms of light or fire. Well that's a fat lot of help! It's pitch black in here still. My wand is in my pocket, if I could just reach it...
She tried to reach into the pocket of her robes, moving just her left hand, but the vine had a tight grip on her wrist. She tried to break free but it just squeezed tighter, snaking even more tendrils of vine around her wrist and up her arm. There was no way she could get to her wand, she couldn't move an inch now and if she kept trying the vines would break her arm.
No! She thought, feeling white-hot anger bubbling up. No, no, no freaking way have I come this far just to be taken out by a STUPID VINE!
The moment she thought the last two words she felt her magic surge violently. At the same time Snape and the other judges had appeared out of nowhere in the passageway, but it was too late for her to stop it. The burst of magic came out on all sides of her, traveled through the Devil's Snare, and blasted a hole in the ceiling. Chunks of stone rained down on her and bright sunlight poured through the opening. The Devil's Snare loosened its grip on her immediately and withdrew, shrinking away from the light until it quivered in the shadows of the wall. Freddie fell forward as it withdrew and she quickly got to her feet to find the judges staring at her, looking shocked. Snape's face was a mix of surprise and concern and she smiled quickly at him to let him know she was okay.
"Well," Monsieur Benoit said finally. "We were coming to get you out-"
"Please don't make me quit!" Freddie pleaded desperately. "I'm fine, I got myself out. I still have one more challenge. I want to go on, I have to go on! Please!"
Benoit thought for a moment. Karkaroff muttered something she couldn't hear and Snape shot him an annoyed look. Lady Karen was standing beside Snape and she had a small, smug smile on her lips.
"We did not have to do anything, Monsieur Benoit. She got herself out," Snape said, coming to her defense. "Her method may have been...unorthodox, but she did get herself out of it without our assistance."
"That is true," Benoit said thoughtfully. "Very well, Miss Gray. If you do not need medical attention-"
"I don't, I'm fine," she said quickly, even though her wrist and neck hurt.
"Then you may continue your challenge."
"Thank you sir!" Freddie said, so relieved she could almost cry.
"Monsieur Benoit," Karkaroff began in his best suck-up voice. "Surely-"
"Now, now Karkaroff. Let us get out of Miss Gray's way so she can continue her challenge. You can voice your opinion when we make our final evaluation."
Karkaroff looked briefly annoyed, but then he cleared his expression and nodded. Then all of the judges disappeared, almost like they had Apparated and maybe they had. Freddie let out a sigh of relief and, with one last dirty look at the Devil's Snare, she continued on her way.
She kept her wand out this time and avoided walking too close to the walls. She was more alert now, keeping a watchful eye on the plants creeping along the wall. Had it been Devil's Snare all along? Or was some of it Flitterblooms like she had first thought? Either way she wasn't getting near it again.
She catalouged her injuries as she walked. Her left wrist was killing her. She thought it might be sprained, but she could still grip her wand with it. Her neck hurt too and her throat was sore from the vine choking her, but she could deal with that too. There was a sharp pain in her temple and when she touched it her fingers came away wet with blood. It must be where the ceiling fell on me, she thought. It wasn't pouring blood so she wasn't too worried about that either. She could deal with pain, she could block it out with her Occlumency like she had learned to do. She had finally reached the door at the end of the passage. It was time to focus on her final task.