This maze started off as an idea to fill out a temple arc, since Four Swords Adventures typically has set-up levels before reaching temples. My fun little idea then stretched into a time-consuming art project that had me crafting an entire freaking level not only in the Oracle of Seasons/Ages style, but also in the OG Zelda style because why not? You can see all my hard work on the garden-eel-draws tumblr under the dungeon 3 tag! I've done some reorganizing, so looking up my "dungeon 1" and "dungeon 2" tags will now get you art specific to those levels. Searching "personal fanart" will still get you the whole collection of fic artwork, though.

Content warning for blood, a panic attack, and mild suffocation. Draco's really going through it at the end of this chapter. Also, I'm raising the rating of this fic to T just in case. As I was plotting out this temple, I took a second to re-check the FFN rating system and realized that this fic might be a little too violent for a K+ rating. I'd have to raise it anyway for the boss fight I'm planning. ;)

Harry started at Red's sudden absence, but the lack of any mental sense of loss informed him that his brother was still nearby, just unseen. Like he'd slipped under his Invisibility Cloak.

Ron's and Dog's reactions weren't as calm. Ron swore and immediately ran after Red, while Dog yelped and pranced agitatedly at Malfoy's feet. "Calm down, you idiot! If the other Potters aren't having a fit, you shouldn't be, either!" Malfoy scolded, swatting Dog on the nose. "Stop trying to knock me over!"

Indeed, Blue and Yellow hadn't panicked at all. Blue looked a bit amused, in fact. "It's always weird, seeing myself go invisible," he said. "Red, you're alright, aren't you?"

Red's head reappeared from the wall of illusion "Yeah, we're fine, Ron and me. I think sound only goes in, though, because I was talking to you and you didn't seem to hear," he said. "Hermione was right; it's a maze in here. Now hurry up and come in! We need Green or one of the nerds to tell us what the weird statues do."

Harry grinned and gave Blue's shoulder a push as he walked by. "Let's go, nerd." He laughed at the expected response of "better a nerd than a meathead!"

Crossing the boundary of the illusion was not easy as it had looked. The wall of Hylian magic slid across Harry's body like a heavy blanket of icy water, sucking at his skin. It was like walking through a ghost, but a more physical sensation. With his first breath, the alien air of the maze hit his senses. He smelled sweet flowers and woody herbs like the ones he'd grown up tending to in the garden, but the scent was edged by a bitter, electric stink that reminded him of Vaati's curse-maintaining eyes. It made the back of his neck tingle.

Harry conjured his magic lantern as he walked farther in. While he could see alright without it, there was a heavy aura of Wrong that kept kicking him right in the trap-sensing instincts. The light trickling through the twisted trees was purplish and hit the hedges in such a way that the shadowy spaces between their leaves never seemed to sit still. It looked as though something formless and malevolent was in there, waiting for the chance to reach beyond its prison.

He tore his eyes away from the hedge. Ron was right; dumb was better. He was in too dark a mood to be doing any deep thinking.

The group of eight gathered in the small, square clearing at the front of the maze. The hedges were three meters high, far too tall to see over, but trimmed so tightly that it was easy to peer around them into the next "room". A green octopus statue sat in the middle of it on a patch of gravel, its yellow eye scanning the area.

Red went up to the opening into the next area and pointed at the statue. "See, we don't know what that thing is," he said. "Ron told me not to run out there without checking to see what the statue would do first."

Harry rubbed at his chin as he tried to call up a sense of recognition. The way the statue was moving seemed familiar, though the design wasn't something he'd seen before. Rotating glowing eye on an otherwise immobile enemy, though? That sounded like a—

"Beamos," Harry and Hermione said together. Harry blinked in surprise, feeling like he'd accidentally gotten a question right in class. Then he motioned for Hermione to continue, since she always enjoyed explaining things.

"It's an ancient security robot, basically," she said. "It can't move, but if it sees you, it will fire a continuous laser beam that follows you until it makes contact. The beam is difficult to dodge, so it's better to avoid setting it off in the first place."

Red nodded. "So, move while it's not looking? I can do that." He crouched at the edge of the next space between the hedges, then paused. "Uh, just in case, how much does it hurt to get hit?"

"It feels like getting smacked with a hot iron and it'll probably knock you off your feet," Harry said. The sword could remember the pain, even if it had forgotten what this particular style of Beamos looked like. "Don't get hit, or you'll screw the rest of us up. Got it?"

His enthusiasm looking a little dampened, Red nodded. "Yeah, I'll be careful. Group One, with me!" He waved his hand for them to form up behind him. "There's two gaps in the hedges in the next room. The farther one is to the left, and that's what we're going for. Group Two has more nerds in it, so they can go to the closer exit on the right."

Malfoy crossed his arms. "Of course I had to be on the athletic team," he groused. He scratched at his neck, which he'd hidden under a Slytherin scarf. "You'd better not move too fast for me to keep up!"

"We'll wait for you if we have to. Dog would maul us if we left you on your own. Wouldn't he?" Red fondly ruffled the mutt's ears. "Okay, so we're moving in three, two, one!"

Group 1 took off running along the left side of the next clearing. Harry brought up the back of the quartet to keep an eye on Malfoy. If he got hit by the Beamos, he'd take it a lot better than the delicate aristocrat.

The speed of the Beamos's spinning was just a little too quick for all of them to get past it. Right as Red and Dog were diving out of range, the Beamos noticed Harry and fired. The laser beam sizzled across the gray-green grass with alarming speed, creating a trail of ash and red-hot dirt in its wake. Harry's run became an all-out desperate sprint. He rounded a couple of small stone blocks partially blocking the gap just as he felt searing heat bite at his heels. Red tackled him before he could barrel any farther down the next path, sending them into an elbow-scraping tumble. Dog, meanwhile, brought Malfoy to a stop with a neat nip at the back of his robes.

"Ow! What was that for?" Harry demanded, shoving his brother.

"Watch it!" Red hissed. "There's a big knife right next to us!"

Harry's heart skipped a beat. If Red hadn't caught him, he would have run straight into the path of the next hazard. And, while he knew the damage a Beamos could cause, he didn't know whether the fatal potential of a knife-trap would be dulled by whatever power had been keeping the students of Hogwarts alive so far. He could've had his legs taken off! He looked down the next corridor. There was a narrow gap in the hedges to the left, in front of which sat a small bush that was the perfect height to trip over.

"The maze set us up and almost took us down," Draco said, sounding stunned. He was still scratching at his neck. Harry wondered whether it was a new nervous tic. "The last temple didn't do anything like that."

"Vaati's probably upping the difficulty," Harry said grimly. "The more we go against him, the more he takes us seriously."

A spark of fiery enthusiasm burned in Red's eyes, visible even through his tinted glasses. "If he's throwing harder stuff at us, it just means we're getting more awesome," he declared. "Bring it on!" He set off the knife-trap by swinging his leg past the next narrow opening in the hedges. The giant bladed square shot out, sliced through the bush in front of it, and clanked against a stone block hidden in the foliage. While it sulkily retracted, Red dashed past it and waved for the rest of the group to follow.

'He's so aggressively peppy. Is this how I sound whenever I decide to do something reckless?' Harry thought. He watched Malfoy shriek and stumble his way to the other side of the hazard, then followed with the same easy kick-dodge-sprint that Red had employed. He threw the hidden trap a look over his shoulder before he continued on. There was something extremely disconcerting about knowing that he would have had no idea that was there if Red hadn't warned him, since even the Lenses of Truth wouldn't show a trap hidden in that fashion. He hoped the next temple didn't continue that theme.

Harry caught up to Red, who was peeking around the next corner. He decided to scout around all the next possible pathways to see what threats they had to choose from. Beamos to the right, knife trap to the left, possibly nothing straight ahead. Decisions, decisions…

A shriek rent the unnaturally still air, making him yelp and fall against a nearby wall of bushes to keep himself from stumbling into the path of the giant knife. Who had that been? Hermione? Ron? It hadn't come from anyone in his group.

Red, Malfoy, and Dog popped their heads around the edge of the hedges behind him in a manner reminiscent of prairie dogs. "Was that Hermione, d'you reckon?" Red asked. He was a little pale and wide-eyed.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. "Er, yeah, I think so." Suddenly his heart was pounding in his chest and all the jittery energy he'd managed to burn off was back. He wished the hedges weren't so damned tall, or that the Lenses of Truth were x-ray glasses. That had been a cry of pain, and the fact that he had no idea what kind of trap had caused it was maddening.

"Hermione's parents are kind of like doctors. If she or Malfoy got hurt, she can do first aid or something," Red reasoned. The same desperate rationale ran through Harry's mind right as his brother voiced it. "We should focus on getting out of here. Then we can freak out." He waved his hand toward the three openings in the hedges. "Where to next, Green?"

"Er…" Harry shook off his panic and mentally reoriented himself. "I think the path straight ahead is in the direction of the temple." That didn't mean it wouldn't turn out to be a dead-end or a convoluted way to go in a circle. Harry had little experience with mazes. The Dursleys hadn't given him many things to entertain himself when he'd been younger, so he'd never really played any maze games before.

Harry took the lead this time, moving forward with more paranoid caution than Red. Every gap in the hedges was a potential threat. He edged his face past the next corner and tensed at the sight of a Beamos placidly scanning the little corridor it was wedged in. When it turned away, he shot forward. He almost tripped over his feet while screeching to a stop before he ran in front of the next opening. He peeked around it, felt his breath catch in his throat, and then forced himself to exhale. A knife-trap, right past something that would cause him to run straight into it. Merlin, he really hoped the temple proper wouldn't be like this. He taunted and dashed out of the path of the knife, then stepped into the thick patch of grass beyond it.

He could tell when Malfoy had gotten past the trap, because the first thing the boy did was complain. "Ugh, look at all these weeds! They're almost knee-high!" He kicked at them with a sneer of distaste. "They're going to leave pollen all over my trousers."

"Oh my god, mate," Red said before Harry could. "You could nitpick your own shadow, I swear."

'I don't doubt that,' Harry mused as he checked the next corner. Two bushes to his left sitting in front of gaps in the hedges. Possibly knife-traps. Ahead of him was a short path that took a blind right corner after a few steps. There was a similar corner to his right. The only difference between the two was that the latter took a few more steps before disappearing around the hedges. Hmm, blind corner or blind corner? Both options were so enticing.

To decide, Harry spun in a circle with a finger pointed out. "This way," he said, waving for his team to follow him down the path on the right.

"What stunning decision-making skills," Malfoy drawled. "You truly have a knack for inspiring confidence."

Harry bowed mockingly. "I try, I really do." He sidled up to the next corner to inspect it. A few bushes, another thicket of tall grass, and…was that the exit? Wow, the temple was really right there! "Oh, hey, I got it right! In your face, Malfoy." Pleasantly surprised (and maybe a tad disappointed at how short a distraction the maze had been), he waded through the plant life and stepped beyond the outer wall of the maze.

Ahead of him, a set of polished white steps sat like an inviting crumb of cheese on a trap. They were so wide, so shallow, so easy-looking to climb, and yet he could feel the temple's many eyes silently daring him to do just that without considering the distance involved. He estimated it to be about ten meters from the bushy grass at the bottom of the stairs to the safety of the inlet containing the door. The brass eyes were an even bigger threat than the Beamoses, by the simple fact that there were three of them pointed in the same direction. If they were the same as Beamoses, three lasers to dodge would be an even bigger problem than two.

Ron's loud voice behind him drew Harry's attention away from the maze. "Oh hell, Hermione, are you okay?"

Harry's stomach sank as he turned around. Hermione had fallen to one knee, her cloth-wrapped wrist pressed against her chest. The hem of her robes was smoking, as was the edge of Blue's sleeve. Ron's robes sported a giant gash where a knife-trap had presumably cut through them, and another strip had then been torn out to bandage Hermione's hand. Harry winced, making a mental note to send some money to the Weasleys for replacements. Ron didn't have that many sets of school robes and it was Harry's fault he had gotten them ripped. He'd have to find a way to phrase the letter so they wouldn't just send the money back. Actually, now that he thought about it, he stand to buy whatever supplies Hermione decided to bring on their expeditions, too.

With an air of Madam Pomfrey-ish fussiness about him, Blue knelt down to apply his limited number of medical spells to Hermione. They talked in low voices about what kinds of spells would work best while Blue undid the improvised bandage to address the injury directly.

Harry walked over to Ron. "What happened in there?" he asked in a low voice. His group's trip through the maze, while somewhat nerve-wracking, had been pretty quick and easy compared to some of the Hylian nonsense he'd had to deal with before. He could even imagine a test like that popping up somewhere in Hogwarts once they finished this temple. Hermione's group, though, looked like they'd really been put through the grinder.

He grimaced. "We ran into twelve traps. Twelve. Some of them were so close together that we'd run from one and right into another. The Beamoses were the worst. Knives, we could dodge, but those…what did you call them? Lazies?"

"Lasers."

"Yeah, those things. Couldn't avoid them worth a damn. I tripped over some grass and almost caught a laser to the face. Can you imagine if I took a laser to the eyes all this way from the castle?" He shuddered, a feeling Harry empathized with. "This temple's going to be a nightmare, if it's anything like that maze."

Hermione dug around in her bag with her uninjured hand and produced a large, triangular blue gem. "We found this while we were wandering around. I was hoping for a new spell, but I suppose touching a learning scroll with a Beamos on either side of you isn't the best of situations."

With a grateful smile, Harry accepted the jewel and let it be absorbed into his sword. "Thanks, Hermione."

She returned his smile, though hers was more tired. "You're welcome, Harry."

A loud, shuddering gasp from Malfoy drew Harry's attention behind him. He glanced over, saw spots of slick red, and did a double-take. The blond was staring at his bloodstained fingers with a mixture of surprise and horror. Dog yipped with worry and dragged the boy over to Blue. "Boo-woof!" he barked commandingly.

"I'm alright, Blue. It isn't a second-degree burn anymore and you don't have the skill to vanish it completely yet," Hermione said. "Mysterious bleeding is a more pressing issue."

Blue nodded reluctantly and turned to Malfoy. "Alright, where were you hit?" he asked.

Malfoy, pale and shaken, opened his mouth but didn't say anything. Instead, his bloodied hand slid hesitantly under his scarf. The thick length of wool lifted up just enough for Harry to see the edge of a red stain spreading into the boy's white collar.

Harry's eyes opened wide. Malfoy had been scratching at his neck almost constantly since he had joined the adventuring group, Harry now realized. He'd assumed it was a persistent itch, not something that would cause the boy to claw through his skin! "There's blood on the right side of his neck," Harry said. "I think he scratched it too hard."

Blue frowned and stepped closer to the quivering Slytherin. "There's bleeding on the left side, too," he said, leaning in to look at the boy's neck. Malfoy stumbled back a step, his other hand moving up to clutch his throat.

"Merlin help me," Harry heard the boy murmur like a prayer. Malfoy pulled his scarf tighter around his neck and pressed his hands against it, his breaths coming quick and shadow. "What is this?" He started to run away, back toward the maze, but his trembling legs gave way before he could get far. Ron, being the closest, caught him out of reflex. He scrunched up his nose once he realized what he'd done and set Malfoy rather roughly on the ground.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, tugging at Malfoy's scarf. The blond cried out in distress and tried to slap him. Ron blocked the weak attack and kept working at unwinding the scarf. "You're as squirrelly as Ginny used to be in the bath. Hold still so Blue can get a look at it!"

"Unhand me, blood-traitor!"

"You can either sit here and have Blue do a few spells, or you can go to the castle where everyone will see you bleeding into your shirt," Ron said in no-nonsense tones. He sounded a bit like Percy did when the Head Boy was bossing his younger siblings around. "Which would you rather?"

Malfoy was so pale that it looked like he hardly had any blood under his skin. In fact, he was almost green. In a literal sense! Harry had never seen anything like it.

The boy's fingers disappeared into the heavy knit of his scarf and his breaths became wheezes. "I can't…breathe," Malfoy choked. He pressed harder against his throat. "Can't breathe!"

Harry shouldered Ron out of the way and gripped the Slytherin's upper arms firmly, but not tightly. He had enough experience with fits of panic to know that yanking the boy's hands away from their death grip on his neck would only make things worse. "You're pulling the scarf too tight and you're breathing too fast," he told him. "I'm going to count, and you need to breathe with me. One, in, out, two. Come on. One…two. One…two—"

He had to snap his fingers a couple of times to keep Malfoy's attention, but he got the Slytherin to slow his breathing within a couple of minutes. Malfoy's hands crept down from the scarf once the blind terror had left his eyes. "Let's just go," the blond said tiredly. His shoulders sagged, a vast departure from his usual stiff posture. "The bleeding isn't anything to worry about. I'm fine."

Harry couldn't believe it. Draco Malfoy, the boy who'd kicked up such a ridiculous fuss over a scratched arm only weeks before, was downplaying an injury?! A big scratch meant trying to get a hippogriff executed, but bleeding from the throat was something to shrug off, apparently. Even more about that, he didn't even want a normal amount of attention being paid to him! The boy who always wanted all of the attention wanted to be ignored!

"You don't even want a little bandage? I mean, you're staining your shirt. The inside of your scarf, too," Harry pointed out, since it was the first logical thought that came to mind. Malfoy never wore stained clothes. Rich people, as Harry vaguely understood it, staked no small part of their reputation on how they dressed.

"It's too late to save them. I have more, so I'll just throw them out when I get back to Hogwarts," Malfoy said. Harry had to suppress a gasp. Toss a shirt that both fit him and had hardly any wear? Bloodstains were stubborn, but they could be mostly scrubbed out.

Standing up, Malfoy declared, "Let's go, Group One. The sooner we find the treasure and break the eyes holding the wards, the sooner we can go to bed." He set off toward the temple with his shoulders hunched and his pet worriedly sniffing at him.

Harry exchanged a look with Red. "He was fine a few minutes ago. Y'know, for him. Why did he freak out like that over a little bleeding?" he asked. It was as though the blood had set Malfoy off like a firecracker. He'd gone off with a bang and now he was acting oddly calm after fizzling out. "You were hanging out with him earlier. Do you know anything?"

Red looked away, fiddling with his enchanted glasses. "He's going through some pureblood stuff," he said in a gruff, not-quite-nonchalant voice. "It's not everyone's business." He turned on his heel and followed Malfoy.

'Is Red closer friends with Malfoy than I thought?' Harry wondered, jogging after them. He hoped that, whatever secrets Malfoy was keeping, they wouldn't get him hurt in this next temple. The more dangerous things got, the less room there was for distrust between teammates.

Notes:

-If you check out my Forest Maze level, you'll find that Group 2 managed to run into literally every trap while coming around the maze from the right side. To be fair to them, they don't have the benefit of a top-down view. Harry's trap-sensing powers are essentially just that, which is why his group had an easier time.

-Harry's way of calming Malfoy down is slightly wrong, since he's using a self-taught method. When coaching a panicking person through their breathing, you want to have them breathe in, hold it for a count between 4-6 seconds, and then breathe out.