Over the next few weeks, it became common place for the students to stop before dinner and see any more challenges had been conquered. Some days there were. The day after Opal had turned in their piece, there were three different ones, a piece each of the Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin shields.

The challenges hadn't quite been what Frisk said she had been hoping for. While they certainly were cheering for people to succeed, rather than one to succeed and others to fail, like in the tournament, there still wasn't the cooperation she would have liked to seen. Maybe challenges like that would come, Asriel wasn't sure.

In the meantime, there was still homework to do and classes to attend. Classes were mostly going well, though Asriel and his sister both had their favorites. Asriel was good in Charms, where Chara somewhat struggled. On the other hand, Chara was at her best at Transfiguration, which was something Asriel was not comfortable with, probably for obvious reasons. Neither of them liked History of Magic, nor did they really like Professor Moody, though he was a good enough teacher. Their favorite class, by far, was flying, and Potions was challenging.

With that said, Potions wasn't as bad as Asriel had thought it was going to be. Professor Snape had a reputation of coddling the Slytherin members and being mean, and even cruel, to the members of the other houses, especially Gryffindor. But Asriel just hadn't seen it. Snape was frequently grumpy, but he hadn't seen the professor really take it out on anyone.

In that particular January potions class, Asriel had managed to convince Malcolm Baddock to join him in potions again. He was a first year Slytherin, a bit brash, but generally a perfectly reasonable individual. Back in September, he'd been initially shocked, but a little flattered, that Asriel had asked to be his potions partner. He'd noticed the reactions of the Gryffindor table to his sorting. There'd been a split since Harry's name had come out of the goblet, but winter break had calmed tempers.

This meant Chara was paired again with Mafalda Prewitt. There were only two things Asriel knew for sure about Mafalda: One, she had bright red hair; Two, she was extremely talkative. She was the only Slytherin that Snape ever had to single out in class, because she wasn't always capable of keeping her voice down. She wasn't as bad as Papyrus, for sure, she had an indoor voice, she just forgot to use it occasionally. Still, Chara said she really knew her stuff, especially in potions.

They filed in through the dungeon door, under a green and silver shield with a golden badger on it. That afternoon they were working on a 'Cure For Boils' that Madam Pomfrey had requested. Snape prowled around the class as they worked, he said nearly nothing, if not questioned directly. And asking Snape questions was something one tried to avoid doing. He may not have been as cruel as people said, but he still intimidated the class. He stopped at both Asriel and Chara's tables, as they were working. It only was there a moment, but Asriel was sure he'd spotted him sporting a very brief smile. It might have been the monster's imagination, but he thought he saw Snape's eyes flick to a point just above the dungeon door.

The potion making went efficiently, and more or less quietly. Snape regarded them with a nondescript expression. And, after examining their line up of potion bottles, he proclaimed their homework fate. "Before next lesson, I expect a half roll of parchment on the uses of dragon's blood." The bell rang. "You may go."

Dennis Creevey had charged up to Asriel's desk as the packed away their potion kits. "Do you want to look for a challenge, Asriel? Maybe with my brother and your sisters?"

Asriel had actually gotten an invitation to visit to Hagrid for tea that afternoon. It hadn't taken a Ravenclaw to read between the lines and know what this actually meant. "Sorry, Dennis, I'm actually busy this afternoon." But he felt bad in declining. This wasn't the first time Dennis had asked him. He'd been putting it off for weeks. "It's Friday tomorrow. We'll have extra time then. Would that be okay?"

"I can make it," Chara promised from the next table. "I'm mostly caught up on my homework." She looked over at Mafalda, who was putting the last of her ingredients back in her kit."Would you like to join us?"

"Or you, Malcolm?" Asriel asked.

Malcolm looked surprised at the offer. He looked at Dennis cautiously, with the small Gryffindor giving him an anxious, overly eager, smile. "But he's a..." he started, only to be interrupted by a loud cough. They all turned and saw the rather unnerving sight of Professor Snape staring at Malcolm with narrowed eyes. The Slytherin aborted whatever he'd been about to say.

"Sure," Mafalda said, averting her eyes from Snape. She shrugged, "I don't have anything better to do."

"I guess I will too," Malcom said, wilting under Snape's stare.

"Awesome!" Dennis exclaimed. "After class tomorrow, in the great hall? Great! See you, Asriel, everyone!" He ran off, presumably to tell his brother.

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" Chara asked.

Asriel blinked after the disappearing Creevey, and squelched his misgivings. "It'll be fine!" He looked around at his sister. "But if we're going to make to Hagrid's, we better get going." Bidding their classmates goodbye, Asriel and Chara climbed the long seven flights up the main stairwell toward the common room. They split up to go to their dorms, drop off their books, and collect both a game box and their heavy cloaks.

They met up with Frisk on the way back down to the great hall, and together they headed out through the entrance hall into the snowy January air. Their shoes crunched across the grounds through the snow, and the wind rustled their cloaks. Outside the gameskeeper's hut, beyond the vegetable garden, was a paddock containing about a dozen of some kind of scorpiod creature. It was about six feet long, and had a raised tail that was taller than any of them.

"That must be the blast ended skrewt that Neville was complaining about," Chara said. "He said they're not really social, and they don't see very well, or possibly at all. There also used to be more of them."

Asriel didn't say anything, he pushed his way to the door, knocking on it. He was rewarded with the barking of Fang, and only a moment later, by Hagrid's echoing, "Come in!" Asriel pushed the door open. As they expected, Firenze and Dubran were waiting for them. "Asriel, Frisk, and Chara! Hi!" Dubran said, attempting to restrain his enthusiasm.

"Howdy!" Asriel said. He slung his bag onto Hagrid's large table, and took a seat in front of a cup of steaming tea. His sisters said their greetings, and followed suit.

"How was your holiday?" Dubran asked politely.

"It went well," Asriel said, picking up the tea and sipping it. "How were things here?"

"Cold," Dubran said, grinning at him. "Snowy. But that's normal for this time of year."

"We brought a few things," Frisk said, opening her own bag. "Mom made some more of the cookies we shared with you when you had us over to your home." She pulled out a tin from her bag, and put it in the center of the table.

"Oh, biscuits?" Hagrid said. "I made some as well," he said, placing a large tray of unappetizing looking pastries on the table. Asriel politely picked one up to nibble on, and immediately regretted it. Seeing his face, Frisk slowly changed directions to one of their mother's cookies instead. "That reminds me," Hagrid said. "I need to send yer mother and father a nice thank you note. They wrote a long letter encouraging Dumbledore to keep me on, and for me to stay on, despite my, er, heritage."

Asriel had heard something about that, and Frisk nodded encouragingly. "You're a good person, Mr. Hagrid. That's all that matters."

They made small talk for a while, but when it petered out, Chara spoke up to fill the gap. "Did you have anything you wanted to do this afternoon?"

Dubran faltered slightly. "I thought we could try the bows again, but it's so windy." He sported a brief smile. "Even my father has a hard time hitting the bullseye when it's like this."

"That's okay," said Frisk. "We come prepared!" From their bags, they brought out three large boxes, two of them still wrapped in plastic. Hagrid, Firenze, and Dubran all looked a little startled. "This is a non-wizard strategy game called a 'Deckbuilder'." Frisk said, opening the first box. She got out the cards recommended for the first game, arranging stacks around the table.

"This looks complicated," said Dubran.

"I thought so, too," Asriel said quickly. "But once you get the hang of it, it actually makes a lot of sense." Chara had finished sorting out four initial decks, and passed one out to each of them. "Shuffle them, and then draw five."

Dubran stared at the face down cards that had been placed in front of him. "What do you mean by 'shuffle them'?"

"Playing cards are something that centaurs haven't seen a lot of," Firenze told the group, quietly.

"I apologize," said Asriel, after a moment of surprise. He picked up his small deck, rotating around the table "Here, watch me. Take about half of them in one hand..." Asriel began, and walked him through the steps. The first time Dubran tried, they dropped in a single clump. The second time, cards went flying around the hut, much to Fang's delight. Once they had the cards picked up, and cleaned off, he tried a third time, and a fourth time. He got it eventually, managing to randomize his deck.

"I hope you don't take this wrong way," Asriel said cautiously. "But you can read, right?"

"Yes, I can read. Firenze taught me. But you're right, a lot of centaurs can't." He took five cards off the top.

Frisk began explaining how the game was played. "You start with five cards that really aren't very good, but use them to get better cards. Eventually, the goal is to buy these victory point cards, which don't do anything themselves, so be careful how early you buy them."

"Is there anything we do to other players?" Dubran asked, looking dubiously at the five cards in front of him.

"Not in the setup we have, though there are some that do," Frisk said, "Dad describes it as a race. We race to see who's strategy is more efficient. Shall we try a round?"

"Alright. But maybe someone else should go first. They played through the hand, describing some of the common strategies and card combinations as they went. The problem was that the three Dreemurrs had played this particular set up a few times, and even with Asriel holding himself back a bit, Dubran still finished tied for third. "I think I'm getting it," he said, though he didn't sound particularly encouraged. "Can we try again?"

"Sure," Asriel told them. "If we have time?" he looked up at Firenze, and the larger centaur nodded. "But let's try a different set up. He took the randomizer cards, shuffled them, and picked ten. There was some discussion about certain cards that had come up. Frisk vetoed the witch outright, She didn't like messing with other people. Asriel wanted to make sure there was at least one two coin card available, so people didn't get frustrated on the first turn

Eventually, they had their set up, and they studied the list of ten cards. "The goal is to get to eight coins to buy the provinces," Chara reminded them. When they each agreed they were ready, they started going around again. Dubran did better this time, but Asriel's plan never really got off the ground. Frisk won, with Dubran just edging out Asriel's other sister for second. And Asriel could tell, now that the centaur 'got it', he was having fun with the strategy of it all.

"If you're done, we probably should go," Firenze said, glancing out a window at the setting sun. "We need to return before your father realizes where you've gone off to."

"That's okay," Frisk said, though her voice was suddenly tense. "We'll pick up."

Dubran bent his knees, which was probably the closest he could get to a bow. "Frisk, Chara, Asriel? Thank you. Dad says a lot of thing about humans, that they hate centaurs and push us back into the forests. That they would tame us like common mules if they could."

Firenze cleared his throat, and looked out the window.

"...and that monsters were no better. They'd take the bones they were given like... well, it isn't very nice."

"When the barrier was broken," Frisk said quietly. "I didn't know how monsters and humans would get along. And I know not everyone feels the same way. But, you know? Not all humans really get along with each other. There are humans in my house that hate the fact that I'm friends with Slytherin. But most humans are pretty reasonable." She looked at Dubran with her half lidded eyes. But how can you convince anyone to be a friend, if you're not willing to be a friend first?"

"That's good advice, Ms. Frisk," Firenze told her. "But we really must be going. Have a good evening, children," and they left into rapidly approaching night, the setting sun reflecting off the snow.


"I wish he'd stop calling on me in class," Chara said as they left Defense against the Dark Arts.

"He gives points to Gryffindor each time," Asriel said, grinning back at his sister. "What's the human saying? Something about a gift pony?"

"Gift horse," Chara said. "In the mouth. I just," she stopped searching for the word. "He's been a bit more... I don't know. Cheerful? Something. Whatever, it's just felt a bit different these last few weeks. But we made a..."

"Asriel! Chara!" Dennis called from behind them. "Come on! Let's go find my brother and we can go look for an adventure!"

"...promise," Chara said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, come on," Asriel said, as they headed for the grand stairwell. "It'll be fun. Dennis!" he called. "Remember we were going to go with the Slytherins?" He waved his acceptance and took off up the stairs ahead of them.

"Sickle says we find him in a trick step," Chara bet.

They didn't, but Asriel hadn't taken the bet anyway. They found him again up in the common room, chatting eagerly with his brother, who wasn't much taller than Dennis was. "Be right back," Asriel said, as they headed up to their dormitory to put their books way.

"Really? Slytherins?" Colin asked his brother as Asriel came back down the stairs. He looked around the common room, but it was still pretty empty. He lowered his voice, but Asriel could still hear him. "You know what Cormac would say if he found out."

"You're going to let someone else tell you who can you be friends with?" Asriel demanded angrily. The few other Gryffindors looked around at them, curiously.

"He's scared, Azzy," Chara said quietly, but Asriel could see the anger flashing in her eyes. His sister didn't like Cormac, not one bit. "You've been hearing what our house says about theirs. Especially Cormac. Colin doesn't want to make himself and his brother targets the way Frisk did."

"Oh." Asriel said, feeling his anger deflate. They stared at each other for a moment.

"We're Gryffindors, aren't we?" Chara asked in that same quiet tone. "We're supposed to be brave, right? What would be braver than befriending someone who's supposed to be our enemy?"

"Yeah!" cheered Dennis, on his way to the portrait hole already.

"Yeah," agreed Colin, following after his brother.

Asriel looked at Chara. "Frisk is going to be proud of you."

His sister stared down the stairwell at the Creevey brothers as her face very quickly turned scarlet. "She was a very good teacher."

They met up with Malcolm and Mafalda down in the Great Hall, and quickly introduced Colin. "Where should we start?" Dennis asked, almost bouncing in place. "How about the hospital wing? It's right over there!"

"Frisk would have said something if there was anything actually in the hospital wing," Asriel told them. "But it's as good as place as any, and it's better than outside." It's was funny. Asriel would have suspected every piece of the castle had been searched from top to bottom already. But Malcolm had the idea of asking portraits if they knew of any challenges that they might be able to attempt. This actually worked, and Asriel wished he'd thought of it.

The door they were led to was on the third floor, and marked with a star labeled "1-3". "Oh, well, we meet that, don't we?" Chara observed. Dennis was already opening the door, and disappearing inside. The rest of them followed suit. The room that lay before them stood in stark contrast to anything they'd seen before. In fact, the aesthetics more resembled Alphys lab than anything else. The walls were all white, except for a single portrait, and so was the floor.

The most obvious thing about this not quite quidditch pitch sized room is that had a slightly smaller enclosed room in it. This inner room was completely made out of a green glass that made it easy to see inside. On the far side of the room, there was even a stairwell leading up to a ladder, to go above it and look down into it.

Which was what Dennis had already done. "It's a maze! There's doors and everything, but a maze! Look, there's the entrance over there, someone go in!"

"You were the one that thought of asking the portrait," Colin said, nodding to Malcolm. "Why don't you try it?" This seemed pretty sensible to the others. They had to circle the middle room to get there. Along the way, they found levers all around the outside.

"Those open the doors on the inside," Dennis reported.

There was also a longer piece that Frisk wasn't sure what it was. They tried pulling it, too, but it didn't move.

Colin reached the door, on the only solid wall of the entire maze. He was about to open it, when the portrait spoke up. "Once in the maze itself, you have five minutes to reach the prize at the far end. If time runs out, or you touch a wall or an obstacle, the alarm will sound and it will be locked away until the maze is clear again."

"Got it," Malcolm said. He opened the door on the outside, but it led only to an inner room they hadn't seen. There was a tan helmet with a pair of white horns sitting on a ledge, and a door leading to the inner maze. He opened the inner door as the outer door clicked shut behind him, but not before they saw the blazing white light coming from the maze. It was enough to momentarily blind those on the outside, and poor Malcolm got the full blast. He stumbled out again, rubbing his eyes.

"You alright?" Asriel asked, as Mafalda and Chara hurried forward to catch him.

"Oh, wow." Malcolm said. He blinked for another couple of seconds. "That's what the helmet must be for. He opened the door again, put on the helmet. "Well. That's not any better. Now I can't see anything, except my feet.

Mafalda's eyes went wide. "I know how this works!" She ran to the opposite side of the maze, where the longer stick stood. "Malcolm?" she called into it. "Can you hear me?"

Malcolm stumbled a second time. "Yes! Too well!"

"Oh," Mafalda said, more quietly. "Sorry. Is that better?"

"Wait," Asriel said. "We have to guide him, blindfolded, around the maze, activate the doors, avoid any traps, and do it all within five minutes?"

"This," Dennis said. "This is going to be fun!"