The death of Maria shook the group up rather roughly, it is sad to say. Hermione tried to jump off the carpet and follow her friend, but Neville held her back with unusual strength, and after a while she stopped fighting and just leant on him, crying and sniffling rather pathetically. When she finally regained her senses, she turned to the map-carpet, and let out a small squeal.
"We've gone!" She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but could see no blinking dot marking their path. Everyone looked all over the carpet, thinking that they may have just swerved off course rather drastically, but there was so sign of them anywhere on the map.
"I've read about these." Pansy whispered. "Some places are so secret that they have magical force-fields around them, so that they can't be mapped. I read it in 'Hogwarts: A History'. Surely you knew that too. Hermione?" she said with a slight sneer.
"Of course I did, Pansy, it's just that I was sort of in shock after losing my best friend to a meteor driven by a short man wielding a whip!" Hermione's 'shock' had worn off by now, and she was staring daggers at the pug-faced girl.
"I can whip up a potion to find it, if you like." Interrupted Draco, as he pulled a small miniature cauldron out from inside his robes, along with a small set of basic potion ingredients and beakers that all fit inside one another.
"You carry a mini potions set with you?" said Ron questioningly.
"I'm not the best potions student at this school for nothing, Weasley. I practice, and I practice a lot. Anywhere and everywhere I can. Plus, you always have to be prepared." Draco managed to calmly reply, while removing stoppers and carefully measuring beetle eyes into the cauldron, which was simmering over a portable, waterproof blue flame.
"He sounds like a bloody boy scout," muttered Ron to Harry, as they watched the blonde-haired Slytherin continue to measure ingredients.
"No time for that now, I know the way there by road. All we have to do is find the motorway. Aha, there we are." Hermione suddenly guided the carpet into a steep dive, and the cauldron flew into the air, along with Draco's set of ingredients and beakers.
"Hey, Granger, what's the big idea? That set cost serious money, and my father will NOT be pleased with you…" Draco yelled indignantly over the roaring in everyone's ears.
"As far as I knew, he wasn't pleased with me at the moment, anyway." Hermione calmly replied, pulling the carpet up not a moment to soon, as they were in the middle of the motorway, and would have been splattered onto the ground like colouring onto a jawbreaker otherwise.
"So you've been to this Labyrinth before, eh?" Harry leant over Hermione's shoulder, watching the cars speed past the carpet, which was floating at about tyre-height off the ground and moving at the speed limit, which was about forty miles per hour less than any of the other cars on the Scottish motorway.
"Well, actually, I haven't been there as such, but I was surfing the Labyrinth website the other day, and it just so happened to have a map on how to get there. Did you know that there are over four hundred Labyrinths around the world? The first was built by Daedalus, but soon the Labyrinth franchise was bought out by Mythical Tours Ltd., and they built them all over Europe and the Middle-east, so that everyone can share a piece in the magic that is the myth!" She had started to babble, and Harry hadn't quite understood the last half of what she said.
"Umm, Hermione, you didn't swallow the brochure for this place or anything, did you?" Ron asked, having leant over Harry's shoulder without him noticing.
"No, I just found it rather interesting and I thought you might want to know, since we are going on a perilous quest which leads us right there, thank-you-very-much." She said haughtily, and returned to her 'driving'.
"Hermione, don't you think the muggles are going to get a leeetle big suspicious of a flying carpet on a motorway, with eight kids dressed in robes sitting on top? Ginny was peering worriedly at the drivers of the cars around them, looking for surprise on their faces.]
"Call yourself a kid if you want to, Weasley." Draco muttered, giving Ginny his trademark evil stare.
"Don't worry, Gin, it's fine. I put a spell on the carpet so when they look at us, all they see is a couple of businesspeople in a car. Kind of the like the charms on Hogwarts that make it look like just a ruined castle to muggles." She gave Pansy an icy glare, trying to one-up her in the 'Hogwarts: A History' trivia contest. "All I have to do is try to stay on the ground, we don't want any more muggles to see a flying car now do we?" This time she glared reprovingly at Ron and Harry, reminding them of how they had flown a car to Hogwarts in their second year, and had been seen by a few muggles on their way, despite the car's invisibility booster.
"It was only one or two of them, honestly." Ron pleaded with Hermione, but when he saw the playful look in her eyes, he melted like butter in a microwave. Ron had always had a thing for Hermione, Harry thought.
"Oh no!" screamed Neville, as they whizzed past an exit.
"Don't worry Neville, that wasn't our exit, it'll all be fine." Hermione comforted the boy.
"No, that's not it," he whispered, and raised a finger to point at the giant sign ahead of them, "that is."
Everyone turned to stare at the great sign, which told them it was only 3 miles until the next town, and also had some pictures underneath it.
"There's a giant spoon and knife up ahead, as well as a giant bed!" Screamed Neville, and tried to make another run for it, but Ginny held him back. They could all clearly see what he was looking at now, the white pictures on the sign were of a giant spoon and knife, crossed, and a giant bed. The sight of it struck fear into the hearts of Ron, Ginny, Neville, and even Draco.
"Neville, what would the muggles think if they saw you just walk out from a car into the middle of the motorway? Plus, you'd get squashed flat!" Ginny whispered to him, smoothing his hair down in an attempt to calm him.
"Wouldn't be too bad if Longbottom got squashed flat though, would it?" Draco mused, but after receiving stony-faced glares from Harry and Ron, he added, "But yes, what would the muggles think?"
Suddenly, Pansy let out a small whimper, and they turned around to see what was the matter. She had gone even whiter than usual, and her blonde hair was stuck to her face in straggly clumps with sweat. Ron edged away from her, but Ginny edged closer and hugged her, Neville lying forgotten on top of Wales.
"It's, it's just the spoon. I've always hated spoons, I don't think I could face a GIANT one." She whimpered again. "W-when I was little, my dad used to punish me all the time. He would lock me in a cupboard, it was so small, I could hardly breathe. A-and then, if he thought I wasn't being punished enough, he would open the door, and he p-poked me, he poked me with a spoon!" Pansy broke down at this, and wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them close into her body. She rocked back and forward, muttering under her breath. All Harry could hear was, "Spoons, so many spoons, not the spoons, please no more spoons, cupboard, spoons."
Without warning, Draco suddenly put a hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner. "Don't worry, I feel the same about beds. You don't want to know the story," he gave a shudder, "but whatever happens, we will get through this. We can face the giant bed, spoon and knife together." He tried to smile, but it came out more like a wonky grimace.
'At least he's trying.' Thought Harry.
"I'm more scared of the giant knife, actually." Said Ron. "I mean, I know you two have had pretty traumatic childhoods, but a giant knife can still do a serious amount of damage." He grimaced at the thought of what a giant knife could do to a group of teenagers.
"Well, that was a touching little bonding session Draco, but I have something to say. Since Harry and I are the only ones here who have actually lived in the muggle world, we know something you don't. That sign wasn't saying there was a giant spoon, knife and bed ahead, but a restaurant and a hotel/motel."
With that, all the wizard-borns in the group let out a sigh of relief, and Hermione went back to navigating their way along the motorway. Harry moved closer to the front and sat behind her, watching the scenery whoosh past in a green and brown blur.
More than just a few minutes later, Hermione pulled the carpet up outside a gigantic castle, which had been turned into a hotel and now sported neon lights and people dressed in suits of armour ready to take your bags to your room.
"This is the Labyrinth?" Said Draco, with his trademark smirk plastered all over his pale and handsomely sculpted face. "Let me guess. The horror within that we have to defeat is the evil capitalist hotel owner who makes millions of pounds a year from dodgy deals pretending that the meat he buys from the school down the road is premium steak? This is going to be easier than I thought." He swaggered towards the hotel entrance, and was almost in the door before Hermione managed to grab his arm.
"Wrong. The Labyrinth is actually underneath this castle, just like all the others. Call it a space-saving feature, if you will. We have to go around here." With that, she steered Draco forcefully around the castle to a small door in the side of the building, with the others in tow. The door was little more than a metre high, and was so encrusted with dirt and grime they could hardly pick out the words 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Crete - John O'Groats – Paris.' Which were painted onto the door in a flowing script.
Hermione pushed the door open, and walked in. "Come on, it's fine!" She called, but nobody was in a hurry to follow her.
"Granger, I am NOT going in there. Even thought it looks wonderful and all, I have allergies, and there's probably a lot of dust in there that'll aggravate them." Draco began to cough weakly, and Neville gave him a 'what are you trying to pull?' look.
"Even though the great arse Malfoy here is faking it, he does kind of have a point. Do you know how many spiders there probably are in there? Everyone knows spiders love dark, old, spooky places." Ron was looking apprehensively at the darkened doorway.
"Never mind Ron, it's perfectly clean in here, no spiders. They just use it for storage." Hermione's voice wafted out from the darkness, and Harry clambered through the small hole first, with Ginny, Neville, Pansy, Draco, and Ron following him eventually.
When they stepped through the door, the darkness enveloped them and the door swung shut with a thud.
"What was that?" Pansy squeaked, and looked around fearfully, although nobody could actually see what she looked like in the darkness.
"I shut the door, silly," came Hermione's voice, "can't have anyone see the open door and come find us, can we?" Then came some shuffling noises, and a few muttered words, and suddenly a big cloud of gold sparks rose up into the air and hovered over them, illuminating the room they were in.
"I prefer that charm to 'lumos', don't you?" Said Hermione. "It'll follow us everywhere, and it's a lot more aesthetically pleasing, isn't it?" Sure enough, the sparkling golden cloud was pretty, but the rest of the group were busy taking in their surroundings.
Near the doorway, piles of boxes had been stacked, and they were like a low wall around them. Hermione had cleared a gap between a few boxes, and they passed through it now to marvel at the place they were in.
The room was circular and quite large. Frescoes and tiled patterns adorned the walls. Scenes of exotic locations and armies battling accosted them as they turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the luxurious wall decorations. In the centre there was a fountain, low to the ground with three cherubs holding urns, which had probably spouted water when the fountain was running. Small circular benches were placed at intervals around the wall, with what probably used to be potted plants in between them.
On the far side of the room, Harry spotted a doorway, and went to investigate. It read 'Maintenance' in small, even letters, and Harry went to open it, but was distracted by a shout.
"What the arse is going on here?" Yelled Draco, who was now standing next to the fountain. Part of the golden cloud was now hovering over his head, and it illuminated the fountain a lot more than it had before. They could now see that the statues were not the traditional pale white marble that one usually saw, but were painted in garish colours. They had orange skin, purple hair, yellow yes, and held bright blue urns.
"Wonder what the painters were on when the painted this." Mumbled Ron, but he caught a glare from Hermione and Ginny and quickly shut up.
Hermione, as usual, had something to say on the subject. "The way we usually see Greek statues, all white and colourless, is actually just because the paint has been worn away. The statues were originally very brightly coloured, just like these. I told you this place was authentic, and I meant it." She then walked over to another door, which nobody had really noticed. In front of it was a ticket office, which bore a dirty, grime-covered sign reading 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Children - two knuts. Adults – Four knuts'
"Woah!" Exclaimed Ron. "Now THAT is cheap!"
"Yeah, even you could afford that, Weasley. Or, maybe not." Draco laughed evilly at his rather pathetic joke. Ginny and Ron both walked towards him menacingly, and he decided it was probably not a good time to make Weasley jokes when there were two of them and one of him.
"Okay, okay, I take it back." He said, rather unconvincingly.
"Anyway, you have to remember that this place has been closed for around fifty years." Hermione reminded them. "There's been a lot of inflation since then, and wizards earned a lot less back then. In today's money it would probably be about…" she did some rough calculations in her head, "Eight sickles an adult and four point one three recurring sickles for a child." She looked around at the amazed faces.
"Well," said Harry, breaking the silence, "what are we going to tie this magic ball of string to?"
"How about the ticket booth?" Neville suggested timidly, and Ginny beamed at him.
"Excellent idea!" Said Harry, as he tied the pearly string to a railing around the booth with a complicated knot. As soon as he dropped the ball of string onto the floor after tying the knot, it began to roll into the entrance to the maze, and they all followed it dutifully.
What seemed like hours later, they were plodding along yet another corridor with walls covered in pictures of naked people fighting each other, when Harry, who was at the front of the group, let out a loud yell.
"Stupid, bloody, crappy, string!" He was now jumping up and down on the end of the piece of string, and everyone could see that the ball had run out.
"I suppose that's what you get when the Ministry cuts funding on saving the magical world quests, you get shoddy equipment to do it with." Ron reasoned, suddenly becoming wise in politics beyond his years. Or maybe it was just that his Dad worked at the Ministry and he had to listen to him complain about budget cuts every single night of the week (except Sundays, when talk was restricted to anything but politics).
"Hey, where's Draco?" Hermione wondered out loud, but she quickly stopped wondering and concentrated on the matter at hand. "I guess we'll just have to follow it back out, and go to Dodgy Alley without the amulet. We can probably find a way to light a fire there without it." She sounded confident, but in the glowing light Harry could see she was looking worried.
"Might work, Granger." Drawled Draco, appearing out of the shadows. "You could probably conjure up some of that bluebell-coloured waterproof fire in there, and we could just chuck the wand into it."
Now it was Harry's turn to put in his two knuts. "I'm not sure, Malfoy. I mean, the council said that the only way to light a fire there was to get the amulet."
"Nonsense Potter. The Ministry isn't always right, you know. They've been wrong lots of times, especially with that Cornelius Fudge in charge. They're all blinded like horses; they can only look straight ahead. They probably never thought of lighting a magical, waterproof fire in there. Plus, what other option is there?" Draco sneered at Harry, who stalked over to Draco in a challenging manner.
"Listen, Malfoy. I think we should try to carry on. Even if we don't have the magical string, we can use the four-point spell, and probably another charm or two." Harry leant against the wall, frustrated with the cowardly attitudes of Malfoy and Hermione.
"We're not in the Triwizard tournament now, Potter. No teachers running around the outside to save us, and no idea in which direction the middle is. Do you want to get us all killed?" Malfoy had his face almost up against Harry's now, but Harry wasn't concentrating on the grey eyes and white-blonde hair of Draco Malfoy at the moment. He had felt a shift in the wall he was leaning on.
"Hey, I think I've found something." He said to the others. Harry pushed back on the wall, and a doorway appeared. Malfoy looked slightly astonished and – alarmed? But Harry brushed it off.
Through the doorway was a small room leading to a passage, and there were signs all over the walls. Buckets, mops and brooms were stacked on shelves, and one sign read 'Maintenance Cupboard, southwest corner'. There was also a map of the Labyrinth, which seemed to have secret passages marked on it. A red dot labelled 'You are here' showed that they were inside a maintenance passage, which was connected to all the passages in the Labyrinth and to the centre.
"This must be how the cleaners got through the maze. All we have to do is go up this passage and turn left, then open the secret maintenance door here," she pointed to a door marked on the map, "and we'll be in the centre. We can come back through this passage and it looks like there's another one of these little rooms right at the beginning of the maze." Hermione was busy taking charge, as usual.
They plodded along the passageway, turned left, and found the hidden door. Of course, it wasn't hidden from this side, and clearly read 'Main Labyrinth Chamber', and had a door handle. They pulled it open, and walked into a spectacular round room, which was completely covered in a fresco of some naked guy killing what looked to be a half-man half-bull. In the middle of the chamber stood a pedestal, and on it was a glass case. Except the glass case was cracked, and a large hole was in one side. Inside there was nothing but shattered glass, and there was no trace of an amulet of any kind.
"It's gone!" Screamed Hermione.
- - - - - - - - -
Author's note: Sorry about the shortness of the chapter/the fact that nothing really happens but I am going away on holiday tomorrow and wanted to post this for my friend before I go. Also, about the prices for the Labyrinth, I have no idea on the worth of the money so I just made up a price and I hope it's not too expensive/cheap. Also sorry about the constant changing from Draco to Malfoy and back again, it's just a habit.
Thanks to my reviewers limo-baum, Lucy Malfoy and laceyq, your compliments mean a lot to me :D
"We've gone!" She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but could see no blinking dot marking their path. Everyone looked all over the carpet, thinking that they may have just swerved off course rather drastically, but there was so sign of them anywhere on the map.
"I've read about these." Pansy whispered. "Some places are so secret that they have magical force-fields around them, so that they can't be mapped. I read it in 'Hogwarts: A History'. Surely you knew that too. Hermione?" she said with a slight sneer.
"Of course I did, Pansy, it's just that I was sort of in shock after losing my best friend to a meteor driven by a short man wielding a whip!" Hermione's 'shock' had worn off by now, and she was staring daggers at the pug-faced girl.
"I can whip up a potion to find it, if you like." Interrupted Draco, as he pulled a small miniature cauldron out from inside his robes, along with a small set of basic potion ingredients and beakers that all fit inside one another.
"You carry a mini potions set with you?" said Ron questioningly.
"I'm not the best potions student at this school for nothing, Weasley. I practice, and I practice a lot. Anywhere and everywhere I can. Plus, you always have to be prepared." Draco managed to calmly reply, while removing stoppers and carefully measuring beetle eyes into the cauldron, which was simmering over a portable, waterproof blue flame.
"He sounds like a bloody boy scout," muttered Ron to Harry, as they watched the blonde-haired Slytherin continue to measure ingredients.
"No time for that now, I know the way there by road. All we have to do is find the motorway. Aha, there we are." Hermione suddenly guided the carpet into a steep dive, and the cauldron flew into the air, along with Draco's set of ingredients and beakers.
"Hey, Granger, what's the big idea? That set cost serious money, and my father will NOT be pleased with you…" Draco yelled indignantly over the roaring in everyone's ears.
"As far as I knew, he wasn't pleased with me at the moment, anyway." Hermione calmly replied, pulling the carpet up not a moment to soon, as they were in the middle of the motorway, and would have been splattered onto the ground like colouring onto a jawbreaker otherwise.
"So you've been to this Labyrinth before, eh?" Harry leant over Hermione's shoulder, watching the cars speed past the carpet, which was floating at about tyre-height off the ground and moving at the speed limit, which was about forty miles per hour less than any of the other cars on the Scottish motorway.
"Well, actually, I haven't been there as such, but I was surfing the Labyrinth website the other day, and it just so happened to have a map on how to get there. Did you know that there are over four hundred Labyrinths around the world? The first was built by Daedalus, but soon the Labyrinth franchise was bought out by Mythical Tours Ltd., and they built them all over Europe and the Middle-east, so that everyone can share a piece in the magic that is the myth!" She had started to babble, and Harry hadn't quite understood the last half of what she said.
"Umm, Hermione, you didn't swallow the brochure for this place or anything, did you?" Ron asked, having leant over Harry's shoulder without him noticing.
"No, I just found it rather interesting and I thought you might want to know, since we are going on a perilous quest which leads us right there, thank-you-very-much." She said haughtily, and returned to her 'driving'.
"Hermione, don't you think the muggles are going to get a leeetle big suspicious of a flying carpet on a motorway, with eight kids dressed in robes sitting on top? Ginny was peering worriedly at the drivers of the cars around them, looking for surprise on their faces.]
"Call yourself a kid if you want to, Weasley." Draco muttered, giving Ginny his trademark evil stare.
"Don't worry, Gin, it's fine. I put a spell on the carpet so when they look at us, all they see is a couple of businesspeople in a car. Kind of the like the charms on Hogwarts that make it look like just a ruined castle to muggles." She gave Pansy an icy glare, trying to one-up her in the 'Hogwarts: A History' trivia contest. "All I have to do is try to stay on the ground, we don't want any more muggles to see a flying car now do we?" This time she glared reprovingly at Ron and Harry, reminding them of how they had flown a car to Hogwarts in their second year, and had been seen by a few muggles on their way, despite the car's invisibility booster.
"It was only one or two of them, honestly." Ron pleaded with Hermione, but when he saw the playful look in her eyes, he melted like butter in a microwave. Ron had always had a thing for Hermione, Harry thought.
"Oh no!" screamed Neville, as they whizzed past an exit.
"Don't worry Neville, that wasn't our exit, it'll all be fine." Hermione comforted the boy.
"No, that's not it," he whispered, and raised a finger to point at the giant sign ahead of them, "that is."
Everyone turned to stare at the great sign, which told them it was only 3 miles until the next town, and also had some pictures underneath it.
"There's a giant spoon and knife up ahead, as well as a giant bed!" Screamed Neville, and tried to make another run for it, but Ginny held him back. They could all clearly see what he was looking at now, the white pictures on the sign were of a giant spoon and knife, crossed, and a giant bed. The sight of it struck fear into the hearts of Ron, Ginny, Neville, and even Draco.
"Neville, what would the muggles think if they saw you just walk out from a car into the middle of the motorway? Plus, you'd get squashed flat!" Ginny whispered to him, smoothing his hair down in an attempt to calm him.
"Wouldn't be too bad if Longbottom got squashed flat though, would it?" Draco mused, but after receiving stony-faced glares from Harry and Ron, he added, "But yes, what would the muggles think?"
Suddenly, Pansy let out a small whimper, and they turned around to see what was the matter. She had gone even whiter than usual, and her blonde hair was stuck to her face in straggly clumps with sweat. Ron edged away from her, but Ginny edged closer and hugged her, Neville lying forgotten on top of Wales.
"It's, it's just the spoon. I've always hated spoons, I don't think I could face a GIANT one." She whimpered again. "W-when I was little, my dad used to punish me all the time. He would lock me in a cupboard, it was so small, I could hardly breathe. A-and then, if he thought I wasn't being punished enough, he would open the door, and he p-poked me, he poked me with a spoon!" Pansy broke down at this, and wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them close into her body. She rocked back and forward, muttering under her breath. All Harry could hear was, "Spoons, so many spoons, not the spoons, please no more spoons, cupboard, spoons."
Without warning, Draco suddenly put a hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner. "Don't worry, I feel the same about beds. You don't want to know the story," he gave a shudder, "but whatever happens, we will get through this. We can face the giant bed, spoon and knife together." He tried to smile, but it came out more like a wonky grimace.
'At least he's trying.' Thought Harry.
"I'm more scared of the giant knife, actually." Said Ron. "I mean, I know you two have had pretty traumatic childhoods, but a giant knife can still do a serious amount of damage." He grimaced at the thought of what a giant knife could do to a group of teenagers.
"Well, that was a touching little bonding session Draco, but I have something to say. Since Harry and I are the only ones here who have actually lived in the muggle world, we know something you don't. That sign wasn't saying there was a giant spoon, knife and bed ahead, but a restaurant and a hotel/motel."
With that, all the wizard-borns in the group let out a sigh of relief, and Hermione went back to navigating their way along the motorway. Harry moved closer to the front and sat behind her, watching the scenery whoosh past in a green and brown blur.
More than just a few minutes later, Hermione pulled the carpet up outside a gigantic castle, which had been turned into a hotel and now sported neon lights and people dressed in suits of armour ready to take your bags to your room.
"This is the Labyrinth?" Said Draco, with his trademark smirk plastered all over his pale and handsomely sculpted face. "Let me guess. The horror within that we have to defeat is the evil capitalist hotel owner who makes millions of pounds a year from dodgy deals pretending that the meat he buys from the school down the road is premium steak? This is going to be easier than I thought." He swaggered towards the hotel entrance, and was almost in the door before Hermione managed to grab his arm.
"Wrong. The Labyrinth is actually underneath this castle, just like all the others. Call it a space-saving feature, if you will. We have to go around here." With that, she steered Draco forcefully around the castle to a small door in the side of the building, with the others in tow. The door was little more than a metre high, and was so encrusted with dirt and grime they could hardly pick out the words 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Crete - John O'Groats – Paris.' Which were painted onto the door in a flowing script.
Hermione pushed the door open, and walked in. "Come on, it's fine!" She called, but nobody was in a hurry to follow her.
"Granger, I am NOT going in there. Even thought it looks wonderful and all, I have allergies, and there's probably a lot of dust in there that'll aggravate them." Draco began to cough weakly, and Neville gave him a 'what are you trying to pull?' look.
"Even though the great arse Malfoy here is faking it, he does kind of have a point. Do you know how many spiders there probably are in there? Everyone knows spiders love dark, old, spooky places." Ron was looking apprehensively at the darkened doorway.
"Never mind Ron, it's perfectly clean in here, no spiders. They just use it for storage." Hermione's voice wafted out from the darkness, and Harry clambered through the small hole first, with Ginny, Neville, Pansy, Draco, and Ron following him eventually.
When they stepped through the door, the darkness enveloped them and the door swung shut with a thud.
"What was that?" Pansy squeaked, and looked around fearfully, although nobody could actually see what she looked like in the darkness.
"I shut the door, silly," came Hermione's voice, "can't have anyone see the open door and come find us, can we?" Then came some shuffling noises, and a few muttered words, and suddenly a big cloud of gold sparks rose up into the air and hovered over them, illuminating the room they were in.
"I prefer that charm to 'lumos', don't you?" Said Hermione. "It'll follow us everywhere, and it's a lot more aesthetically pleasing, isn't it?" Sure enough, the sparkling golden cloud was pretty, but the rest of the group were busy taking in their surroundings.
Near the doorway, piles of boxes had been stacked, and they were like a low wall around them. Hermione had cleared a gap between a few boxes, and they passed through it now to marvel at the place they were in.
The room was circular and quite large. Frescoes and tiled patterns adorned the walls. Scenes of exotic locations and armies battling accosted them as they turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the luxurious wall decorations. In the centre there was a fountain, low to the ground with three cherubs holding urns, which had probably spouted water when the fountain was running. Small circular benches were placed at intervals around the wall, with what probably used to be potted plants in between them.
On the far side of the room, Harry spotted a doorway, and went to investigate. It read 'Maintenance' in small, even letters, and Harry went to open it, but was distracted by a shout.
"What the arse is going on here?" Yelled Draco, who was now standing next to the fountain. Part of the golden cloud was now hovering over his head, and it illuminated the fountain a lot more than it had before. They could now see that the statues were not the traditional pale white marble that one usually saw, but were painted in garish colours. They had orange skin, purple hair, yellow yes, and held bright blue urns.
"Wonder what the painters were on when the painted this." Mumbled Ron, but he caught a glare from Hermione and Ginny and quickly shut up.
Hermione, as usual, had something to say on the subject. "The way we usually see Greek statues, all white and colourless, is actually just because the paint has been worn away. The statues were originally very brightly coloured, just like these. I told you this place was authentic, and I meant it." She then walked over to another door, which nobody had really noticed. In front of it was a ticket office, which bore a dirty, grime-covered sign reading 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Children - two knuts. Adults – Four knuts'
"Woah!" Exclaimed Ron. "Now THAT is cheap!"
"Yeah, even you could afford that, Weasley. Or, maybe not." Draco laughed evilly at his rather pathetic joke. Ginny and Ron both walked towards him menacingly, and he decided it was probably not a good time to make Weasley jokes when there were two of them and one of him.
"Okay, okay, I take it back." He said, rather unconvincingly.
"Anyway, you have to remember that this place has been closed for around fifty years." Hermione reminded them. "There's been a lot of inflation since then, and wizards earned a lot less back then. In today's money it would probably be about…" she did some rough calculations in her head, "Eight sickles an adult and four point one three recurring sickles for a child." She looked around at the amazed faces.
"Well," said Harry, breaking the silence, "what are we going to tie this magic ball of string to?"
"How about the ticket booth?" Neville suggested timidly, and Ginny beamed at him.
"Excellent idea!" Said Harry, as he tied the pearly string to a railing around the booth with a complicated knot. As soon as he dropped the ball of string onto the floor after tying the knot, it began to roll into the entrance to the maze, and they all followed it dutifully.
What seemed like hours later, they were plodding along yet another corridor with walls covered in pictures of naked people fighting each other, when Harry, who was at the front of the group, let out a loud yell.
"Stupid, bloody, crappy, string!" He was now jumping up and down on the end of the piece of string, and everyone could see that the ball had run out.
"I suppose that's what you get when the Ministry cuts funding on saving the magical world quests, you get shoddy equipment to do it with." Ron reasoned, suddenly becoming wise in politics beyond his years. Or maybe it was just that his Dad worked at the Ministry and he had to listen to him complain about budget cuts every single night of the week (except Sundays, when talk was restricted to anything but politics).
"Hey, where's Draco?" Hermione wondered out loud, but she quickly stopped wondering and concentrated on the matter at hand. "I guess we'll just have to follow it back out, and go to Dodgy Alley without the amulet. We can probably find a way to light a fire there without it." She sounded confident, but in the glowing light Harry could see she was looking worried.
"Might work, Granger." Drawled Draco, appearing out of the shadows. "You could probably conjure up some of that bluebell-coloured waterproof fire in there, and we could just chuck the wand into it."
Now it was Harry's turn to put in his two knuts. "I'm not sure, Malfoy. I mean, the council said that the only way to light a fire there was to get the amulet."
"Nonsense Potter. The Ministry isn't always right, you know. They've been wrong lots of times, especially with that Cornelius Fudge in charge. They're all blinded like horses; they can only look straight ahead. They probably never thought of lighting a magical, waterproof fire in there. Plus, what other option is there?" Draco sneered at Harry, who stalked over to Draco in a challenging manner.
"Listen, Malfoy. I think we should try to carry on. Even if we don't have the magical string, we can use the four-point spell, and probably another charm or two." Harry leant against the wall, frustrated with the cowardly attitudes of Malfoy and Hermione.
"We're not in the Triwizard tournament now, Potter. No teachers running around the outside to save us, and no idea in which direction the middle is. Do you want to get us all killed?" Malfoy had his face almost up against Harry's now, but Harry wasn't concentrating on the grey eyes and white-blonde hair of Draco Malfoy at the moment. He had felt a shift in the wall he was leaning on.
"Hey, I think I've found something." He said to the others. Harry pushed back on the wall, and a doorway appeared. Malfoy looked slightly astonished and – alarmed? But Harry brushed it off.
Through the doorway was a small room leading to a passage, and there were signs all over the walls. Buckets, mops and brooms were stacked on shelves, and one sign read 'Maintenance Cupboard, southwest corner'. There was also a map of the Labyrinth, which seemed to have secret passages marked on it. A red dot labelled 'You are here' showed that they were inside a maintenance passage, which was connected to all the passages in the Labyrinth and to the centre.
"This must be how the cleaners got through the maze. All we have to do is go up this passage and turn left, then open the secret maintenance door here," she pointed to a door marked on the map, "and we'll be in the centre. We can come back through this passage and it looks like there's another one of these little rooms right at the beginning of the maze." Hermione was busy taking charge, as usual.
They plodded along the passageway, turned left, and found the hidden door. Of course, it wasn't hidden from this side, and clearly read 'Main Labyrinth Chamber', and had a door handle. They pulled it open, and walked into a spectacular round room, which was completely covered in a fresco of some naked guy killing what looked to be a half-man half-bull. In the middle of the chamber stood a pedestal, and on it was a glass case. Except the glass case was cracked, and a large hole was in one side. Inside there was nothing but shattered glass, and there was no trace of an amulet of any kind.
"It's gone!" Screamed Hermione.
- - - - - - - - -
Author's note: Sorry about the shortness of the chapter/the fact that nothing really happens but I am going away on holiday tomorrow and wanted to post this for my friend before I go. Also, about the prices for the Labyrinth, I have no idea on the worth of the money so I just made up a price and I hope it's not too expensive/cheap. Also sorry about the constant changing from Draco to Malfoy and back again, it's just a habit.
Thanks to my reviewers limo-baum, Lucy Malfoy and laceyq, your compliments mean a lot to me :D