The sun caressed her face and the sensation of warm sand under her soles sent shivers of joy down her spine. Looking down, she spotted an oddly shaped shell. Picking it up, she felt that the shell was still warm from the sand. She sauntered over to a palm tree where she sat down to enjoy the view. The ocean was calm and peaceful; the radiating turquoise of the water clashed with the vivid blue of the sky and the luxurious white of the beach. This was paradise.
Turning in her four-poster was a very bad idea, Padma mused after rubbing her head. She glanced at the clock on the wall and decided that it was time to get out of bed anyway. After dressing, she picked up her Charms book and went down to the Common Room because she didn’t want to disturb her roommates. Despite the fact that it was only six in the morning, there were already four people in the Ravenclaw Common Room. Padma even noticed that Morag, one of her own roommates, was already there, reading the Charms book as well. Padma settled down on the window sill, and opened up her book. Two hours later, she was startled by a bang”obviously someone shut the door a bit too vigorously. She looked up and saw that people were filing out of the Common Room; Padma knew that they were going to have breakfast in the Great Hall. She dashed up to her dormitory, changed her dress and then hurried after the others.
While eating her porridge, she started to recite the charms she revised in the morning hours. Suddenly a familiar laughter caught her attention and she glanced over to the Gryffindor table. Her sister and Lavender had arrived. She waited for Parvati’s greeting, but it never came”her twin sister was too occupied with chatting and giggling with Lavender. Padma felt a sting in the heart, but then returned her attention to her breakfast, deciding that she wouldn’t get upset about that again. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t even look up when the post owls soared into the hall. She awaited no letters today, so it came as a bit of a surprise when a letter landed next to her goblet of pumpkin juice. The owl looked unfamiliar, even somewhat exotic. Padma lifted up the parchment and unrolled it, not noticing that the parchment was just as strange as the owl. Her eyes shifted to the end of the letter to see who had sent it, but there was no signature.
Irresistible lure,
Custom-built prize,
Awaits the doer
Who makes it in time.
Just for you,
Was this treasure made,
Collect the clues,
And survive the maze.
If you can name it,
This thing with danger bought,
Then you can claim it,
But don’t get caught.
Outside the doors
At ten tonight
With skills yours
Your glory will shine bright.
And with that cryptic statement, the parchment burned itself. It took Padma by surprise; she recoiled involuntarily while letting out a little cry of panic. She looked around and saw that quite a few people were partly covered with dust. She glanced over to the Gryffindor table and watched her sister dusting off her robes. She tried to recall the words, but it was hard to remember, even with a memory like hers. Adrenalin was still pumping through her veins, and she felt slightly dizzy. She pulled out a spare bit of parchment out of her Charms book and rummaged for her ballpoint pen in her schoolbag. Sometimes it was good to have those Muggle things, at time likes these she didn’t have to bother with the inkpot. She scribbled down the lines she remembered, and was surprised that she was able to recall so much. She heard someone muttering on her left and noticed that Luna was holding a little pile of dust in her right hand. The younger girl’s hand looked burnt, so Padma whipped out her wand and murmured a simple spell to ease to pain.
“Thank you,” Luna said in her sing-song voice, looking at her with her blue eyes.
“No problem,” Padma said with a shrug of her shoulders, and then returned to her parchment because suddenly she remembered one more word from the riddle.
Luna’s muttering became louder and Padma could hear the words this time. Luna was chanting the riddle.
If you can name it,
This thing with danger bought,
Then you can claim it,
But don’t get caught.
Outside the doors
At ten tonight
With skills yours
Your glory will shine bright.
Padma completed the riddle and then hurried out of the Great Hall and up to the third floor. The Ravenclaws of her year were already there, most of them with an open book in the hand. But, like many other times, not every one of them was reading: Lisa and Mandy were chatting about boys, Morag and Su Li about the Potions essay they had to deliver the day after. Padma stood there pretty much alone, but she didn’t mind, she was too occupied with that strange letter anyway. Finally, the door opened up and the students entered the classroom.
Padma enjoyed Charms the most, the familiarity with her Head of House helped to allay the stress that usually went with a class. Professors seemed to demand a great deal of Ravenclaws, and Padma found this a bit unfair. They had classes with the Hufflepuffs and when any of the Hufflepuffs made a mistake no one scolded them, well, except maybe Professor McGonagall.
Padma remembered with fury how many points she lost to Ravenclaw when Professor Snape was her Potions teacher. She didn’t like Potions and was afraid of the professor, so when he caught her off-guard she usually made a foolish mistake for which he was more than happy to take points. The points were not a big problem, Padma usually remedied that within days by winning points in other lessons, but his biting remarks about ignorant Ravenclaws made her feel very bad. She was proud to be a Ravenclaw, although during heated arguments her sister always baited her with the fact that obviously she wasn’t brave enough to become a Gryffindor.
She was brought out of her reverie by her partner in the Charms class. Terry nudged her into the ribs to get her attention.
“Hey, Patil, we should make them dance, not spin,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“Oh, yes. Sorry,” she apologized and with a flick of her wand she made the spiders dance.
It was a long and tiring day and Padma was really grateful that she could return to the Common Room. She tried to forget the letter she had received in the morning; she decided at lunch that it must be a trap and that she wouldn’t be fooled into leaving the castle after curfew. After dinner, she sat down in her usual place and was about to start studying when she caught glimpse of Luna’s sandy blonde hair disappearing through the portrait hole. And then, one by one, Michael, Terry and Anthony left too. Padma, still convinced that it was a trap, stayed there, looking out of the window every now and then.
It was almost ten when she recognized a very familiar figure appearing on the lawn. It was already dark, but Parvati could tell that it was her sister”she could identify her from miles away. Her schoolbag was still heavy with her Charms book, but Padma didn’t mind. If she wanted to arrive on time, she couldn’t waste time on unpacking. To her greatest surprise, she met no one on the floors. Panting heavily, she arrived outside the doors just in time.
“Proceed that way,” an impassive voice announced and Padma detected a little path lit by fireflies.
Privet and Yew trees lined the periphery of the garden area forming a strong solid hedge, but it did not feel as caged, oppressive and close as the rest of the maze. The grass around the small brick path was of varying shapes and hues, and the odd geranium and daisy could be seen in amongst it as well. A small path branched off to the left where the clearly discernible orange of pumpkins could be seen.
The main path seemed to lead to a dead end as well. There was, however, a large stone bench at that end. As she made her way along the path she was suddenly struck with a bout of violent sneezing. The small, seemingly harmless plants swayed innocently in the wind, but she knew a sneezewort when she saw one.
Passing the ginger and valerian roots rather quickly she finally came to a stop before the stone bench. Many jars and containers of dried roots and plants lined the far end of the table and a small sack was sitting close to the Mimbulous Mimbletonia on the left, but in the middle sat a small Dragon-Leather notebook. Opening it cautiously to the first page, she read:
In my midst you’re sure to find
Plants and herbs of every kind.
Search me well and you will see
Fluxweed, Hellebore, Gillyweed.
Beware the Mandrake’s cry if you
Should ever dig for Gurdyroot.
Before you leave me you must bring
Lovage, dittany and Shrivelfig,
And in my pages you must write
The other names of aconite.
With that the door will open wide,
And you may take of what I hide.
So stop to ponder if you will,
The Mallowsweet won’t make you ill.
Padma put down the book again, resisting the temptation to write the other names of aconite into it. She didn’t know whether she should do it right away or only after she‘d brought the other plants. So she refrained from doing it, and picking up the small sack, she went to search for lovage, dittany and the Abyssinian Shrivelfig.
The Shrivelfig wasn’t hard to find; its plum-coloured fruits looked like crinkly, little figs. Padma took two pieces, stuffed them into the sack and then went on with her hunt.
She knew next to nothing about lovage, but knew that there were two plants by the name of dittany. She tried to argue that the book surely wanted the original one, named Dittany of Crete, because it had more magical properties than the white dittany which was also called false dittany. Padma found that although this reasoning seemed to be logical, it was only an assumption, so she had to look for both dittanies. She found the false dittany at the end of the stone bench. It had a fragrant smell and when Padma touched the plant she felt the oily substance that was so characteristic of this plant. She had to smile when a childhood memory resurfaced in her mind. Her mother showed her and Parvati the plant’s unusual ability of catching fire during summer. She remembered how her mother had laughed when Parvati said that it looked cool. She remembered that she wanted to know what caused the effect, because she already knew that knowing the mechanics of something could reduce her fears.
She scanned the bench again, and in one of the containers partly hidden by a pot of Hellebores, she recognized the Dittany of Crete. She pushed the Hellebores carefully aside and with a swift flick of the wand, she dissevered one of the dittany’s stems. She knew that it would be better to use a silver knife, but thought that since it wasn’t for a potion and she didn’t have a knife, it would have to suffice this way too.
The lovage was still a problem. Padma let out a tired sigh, because she knew that it meant she had to eliminate every other plant and root to identify the plant in question. A determined glint appeared in her eyes”this was more her element than cutting off branches and picking fruits. Using her analytical skills was her strongest point. She went around and inspected the plants one by one, eventually narrowing it down to three. Reason could only bring her so far, she mused, standing in front of the unidentified plants. She had to use her instincts, but Padma was afraid, because her instincts had already failed her in the past. She took a last look, smelled them a last time and decided on the one that had an extremely aromatic smell and yellowish-brown, elliptical fruits.
She hurried back to the leather-bound notebook and emptied the sack. She hesitated for one moment which dittany she should take but then chose the Dittany of Crete. Padma pasted the lovage, the dittany and the fruits of the Shrivelfig into the book, arranging them like the scrapbook Parvati was so fond of. She rummaged in her bag, and after pulling out her pen, she turned to an empty page and wrote: monkshood and wolfsbane. She barely lifted her hand; an invisible gush of wind rustled the book’s pages. They were turning at high speed and Padma saw with awe as her plants disappeared.
Holding back her breath, she waited impatiently for what would come next.
The book shut itself with a heavy thud and a small passage appeared just behind the stone bench. Padma wanted to continue her way through the maze, but at that precise moment it hit her: the book promised something it hid. She went back and opened the book again. A bezoar emerged from the book’s leaves and Padma swiftly pocketed it before venturing on.
Rounding the turn in the maze, a horrendous sight greeted her. A large and very angry looking troll was yanking on a chain which shackled him to a thick pole. Quickly assessing the situation, Padma realized that there was no way to get round the troll, so she would have to face him. She looked up into his face and saw that it was a particularly stupid-looking one. Not that Padma ever saw an intelligent troll, but this one really took the biscuit.
Padma backed away from the troll before he could spot her, and sat down for a moment to think her options over. She could try to avert the troll’s attentions with something, but with what? She looked into her school bag and realized that after deciding to use the other one, she had stuffed the false dittany into it. She shook her head, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. She had to come up with something bigger. Something bigger than a troll. Padma took her Charms book and the spare parchment. She quickly drew an elephant and then tapping the parchment with her wand, she whispered Vivesco!
The elephant came to life and then slowly waddled off the parchment. Padma looked at it with amazement; she never imagined she would be able to do this. Once she had seen her father breathe life into an inanimate object with his wand, but he was a renowned wizard. The little elephant was looking curiously around, and Padma let out a short giggle. The animal certainly didn’t look like it would be able to take on a club-brandishing troll. She flicked her wand again and placed an Engorgement Charm on the elephant. She watched in awe as the animal swelled in size and became bigger and bigger.
Taking cover behind the giant animal, she reached the other side safe and sound. She looked back and watched the troll fighting her paper monster. She realized that she should probably get rid of her creature before it could run amok in the maze. After all, her sister was here somewhere. She pulled out her wand again and murmured Aguamenti. A jet of water shot from the tip of her wand and she directed it at the elephant, but unfortunately the troll got wet as well. Padma saw that his face was contorted with fury. She quickly dashed away from the scene, and really felt sympathy for the next contender who would meet that enraged troll.
Padma looked up at the sky and wondered when she could return to the Common Room”she was getting a bit tired. Of course, she didn’t want to give up, but hadn’t she already proven that she was an apt and brave witch? After all, she didn’t do this for the prize. Maybe for the glory, but not for the prize.
She briefly wondered whether Harry and the other contenders of the Triwizard Cup ever felt the urgency to give up. She then shook her head, no, maybe never. They were all brave and besides, the magical contract bound them.
Continuing her way through the labyrinth deep in thought, Padma was quite gobsmacked when she walked into a stone birdbath, standing in front of a fork in the road. It was an ordinary looking stone basin on a Greek column-like pedestal. Upon first sight it appeared to be perfectly in harmony with the set, but on a second glace it was oddly out of place. Why place a birdbath in the middle of a maze?
Without trying to guess what it held in store for her, Padma touched the surface of the water. She smiled when a riddle became visible.
Starts at the centre of labyrinth,
Ends at the third of Corinth.
The invisible ink's bane,
Secret messages I gain.
Parvati always hated these riddles, Padma mused, while trying to determine which letter was in the centre of the word labyrinth and which was the third in Corinth. She knew at once what the invisible ink’s bane was; she just wanted to be on the safe side. She nodded when her answer was confirmed, and then using her wand, she wrote Revealer onto the water.
An arrow-shaped image materialized in front of her, showing her which turning to take.
She considered leaving a message behind for Parvati, but she knew that whoever organized this competition didn’t want the contenders help each other. Nevertheless, she felt the urgency to help her sister. She heard that trained wizards were able to communicate with each other through their Patronuses. She shook her head again; no, she surely wasn’t supposed to assist her sister. Padma knew that she was being far too obedient and law-abiding, but she couldn’t help it, it was a part of her personality she already had to learn to accept.
According to the stars above, she was heading north. Astronomy was one of her least favourite subjects in school, but Padma knew that it could be helpful sometimes. She had no idea why it was necessary to know where north was, but right now she felt safer because of knowing that particular information. She enjoyed the serenity of the maze, although she wondered why she hadn’t met someone already.
She arrived at a turning again and sighed. There were no riddles or clues left behind to help her, so she had to decide on instinct again. She chose north. Knowing where she was heading was something that gave her the feeling of security. Even if she knew that it was a false one. She had to turn again, but she kept following her chosen course until a stream blocked her way.
It bubbled and frothed across the path, ripples of water growing behind rocks and leaping across, white and foamy from the speed and effort. The rapids didn’t seem incredibly wide, but Padma couldn’t judge the depth, and the current looked strong. She knew that jumping was no option; she was never the sporty type anyways. She tried to calculate the width of the stream, and then looked around to find something that would help her across.
There were no logs or trees in the vicinity; there was nothing else but the shrub of the maze and her wand. Padma considered bending the wooden stems of the shrub, but she wasn’t sure whether they would be able to hold her. She decided to look up something in her Charms book. She lit her wand and sat down at the stream. After skimming the pages for a good five minutes, she finally found a spell which would help her to part the water. She stood up and performed the spell without further hesitation.
Looking down into the depth, Padma shrugged with unease. “So, walking through is no option either,” she mused aloud. But what should she do? Now would be a good time to give up, a little voice within suggested. Padma shooed those thoughts away and concentrated at the task ahead.
She would have to levitate herself across, she thought, coming to the only logical solution. But she had never done that before. She imagined that it would be pretty hard to perform Wingardium Leviosa or Mobilicorpus on herself. And then it hit her. She had one more option. She could Apparate. She wasn’t sure if the maze was too close to Hogwarts (where no one could Apparate) but she could attempt it at least. Now, what were those three D’s? Ah, yes! Destination, determination, and deliberation. Padma murmured these words as a personal mantra, concentrating hard on the other bank.
She opened her eyes and to her greatest relief, she was on the other side.
Slightly dizzy and intoxicated by the successful Apparition, Padma continued her way through the maze with a new spring in her step. Turnings did not cause problems anymore; she felt that she was on the right path. She was almost giddy with excitement.
Upon entering the maze, she would never have imagined that she could come so far, or that she would be able to reach the prize. But now she was sure that she would be able to do that. For the first time in her life Padma knew that she could be as successful as her sister. Not that I want to outshine Parvati, she added hastily in her thoughts. No, she just wanted to be treated as Parvati’s equal. Her sister was her best friend, even if she, Padma was only second to Lavender for Parvati. And now she had the chance to do better than Lavender. And Padma decided that she would do that. Come what may, she would do everything in her might to reach that prize.
After turning another corner in the maze, she caught glimpse of someone’s robes disappearing behind the hedge. She got excited about the unexpected meeting, even if she only saw the corner of somebody’s clothes. Quickening her pace, she almost ran into a door.
A door? Padma was puzzled. She was positive that there was no door a minute or so ago. Turning around, a new scene unfolded itself in front of her eyes. There was a large stone carving of a book at the centre, and the bushes became walls covered with pretty posing fairies. Padma’s first thoughts were about how silly they looked.
She walked forward cautiously and planted herself in front of the book.
An Augurey is trapped in a cage ahead. Using your wits, wand, and the materials at hand, lure the Augurey into the cage by the door. Only when trapped there and allowed to cry, will the door open.
The feeling of being invincible quickly vanished as Padma read the instructions over again. She inched her way towards the cage ahead and stood face to face with a mournful-looking bird. Padma was repulsed by the sight, yet she went a bit nearer. There was a blackberry bush in the cage where she saw something resembling a nest.
If only she knew something about Augureys! Care of Magical Creatures, along with Astronomy, was a subject which Padma had never liked. But while she learned for the latter, she never really prepared herself for the former. She used that time for Potions instead. During exams she always played to her strength, her memory. And of course, she didn’t go for NEWT-level Care of Magical Creatures.
She sat down in front of the cage and took a look around. The instruction said she had to use her wits and her wand. Use your logic, Padma, she told herself. Why are those fairies here, for example? Augureys either fear or eat them, came the answer. Do they look like they could intimidate that big bird? Certainly not, she answered her own question once again. So, Augureys eat fairies.
Once she came to this conclusion, Padma petrified some fairies and brought them to the cage by the door. Keeping three in her hands, she edged her way to the other cage. She unlocked the cage-door with a flick of her wand, and then held out the fairies to lure the Augurey away from its nest. Padma let out a little shriek when the greenish-black bird yanked one of the fairies out of her hand, but calmed herself. If there was one thing she learned from Hagrid during all those years, it was that you should never show an animal that you fear them. And never make them nervous, she added in thought.
The Augurey waddled into the cage, and Padma sealed the door, shouting Colloportus . And because she was really grateful, she petrified some more fairies and threw them to the bird. Now all she had to do was to make it cry.
Padma was sure that if she could make the Augurey angry, she could make it cry. She recalled how easily she enraged that stupid-looking troll by spraying water on him. If only she could do that to this ugly bird! She tried to remember what she read previously about Augureys in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but she failed. It had been a long-long time ago.
Suddenly she got fed up of sitting in front of the cage. Infuriated that the bird did nothing else but gobble down the poor fairies, she shouted at it.
“You stupid bird! You won’t hinder me to reach the prize! Aguamenti!” Standing there, Padma watched as a jet of water awakened the petrified fairies in the cage. To her horror, the water didn’t reach the Augurey.
But two moments later, the bird let out a cry and the door opened.
Padma stepped through the door and was just about to take a look around, when everything went dark. She took three steps forward, pulled out her wand, and was about to mutter Lumos, when she heard a voice behind her murmur something. Her mind went blank, and a peaceful feeling overwhelmed her.
“Don’t turn around,” the voice said, and all desire to find the source of the voice ended.
The sun caressed her face and the sensation of warm sand under her soles sent shivers of joy down her spine. Looking down, she spotted an oddly shaped shell. Picking it up, she felt that the shell was still warm from the sand. She sauntered over to a palm tree where she sat down to enjoy the view. The ocean was calm and peaceful; the radiating turquoise of the water clashed with the vivid blue of the sky and the luxurious white of the beach. This was paradise. Padma looked at the ocean and noticed how enticing it was, watching the waves crashing against a rock in the sea.
The only thing she missed was the sound of the splashing water. She looked up and saw that a bird of paradise flew over her head. Padma saw that it opened its beak to let out a cry, but the sound never came.
And then she remembered that she was about to do something important. She couldn’t quite put a finger on it what exactly that was, but she instinctively knew it was something important. She looked up at the tropical tree and noticed that a coconut was hidden up there. The next moment Padma rolled over to her side to evade the falling seed.
“Constant vigilance!” she suddenly heard Professor Moody’s voice, when she stood up, dusting off the sand.
As she remembered what she had experienced earlier in the evening, her senses were overwhelmed by sounds and smells. The smell of the little garden and the grunting of the troll filled her mind, and Padma suddenly remembered why she was here.
She wanted to win the prize and claim the glory.
The tropical paradise faded away and Padma stood there once again, engulfed by the surrounding darkness.
“Don’t turn around,” the voice repeated, and the desire to find the source of the voice vanished again.
But why not? Padma asked herself and then tried to turn around. Her limbs obeyed hesitantly. First, she noticed a twitching in her leg, and then her wand hand started to tremble. She suddenly realized that she was still holding her wand and tried to remember a spell that would end the incantation. She knew that there was a spell; she only had to stay conscious long enough to remember it. And then she started to drift back into oblivion.
She tried to concentrate harder, and as a result her body made some hesitant moves again. She was half turned, when the voice spoke up again.
“Don’t turn around!”
Padma fought the mind-numbing spell once again, and this time she remained conscious. Now, what was that spell again? Her hand gripped her wand and still halfway turned, she fired off two spells.
“Finite Incantatem! Protego!” she shouted and turned.
Now she certainly had no desire to find the source of the voice. She started running almost immediately, her mind in turmoil. Adrenalin was pumping through her veins and it made her run faster and faster. She wanted nothing else but to be as far from this place as possible. She stumbled over a branch once, but still kept running at a fast pace.
She only came to a halt when another fork in the road presented itself. On one side, there was a road that seemed to lead directly to the goal, but Padma could see nothing clearly through the thick sickly green mist. There must have been some poison at work. On the other side, the way seemed to be clear except for cries for help, which would stop for a moment only to be replaced by cries of pain or low defeated moans.
“Please, it’s just my leg; I just need some help getting it out. I think it’s broken.”
The pleading girl clearly knew there was someone there. And that seemed highly suspicious for Padma. After being Imperiused, she knew that this whole maze was by no means a game. It was deadly serious. Well, maybe not deadly, but very serious, she mused. After all, I could have been killed, she thought, but then quickly pushed those thoughts back to the far corner of her mind. All her uneasiness and initial feelings of this being a trap resurfaced, as the girl called out repeatedly.
She looked at the green mist once again and decided that she would go that way. She had a chance there; after all, she was in possession of a bezoar. She rummaged in her pocket, produced the shrivelled kidney-like stone, drew a deep breath and stepped onto the path. The mist surrounded her almost immediately, and Padma felt her head spin at once. She sprinted through the green substance at high speed. The air in her lungs was used up, so she had to draw breath again thus inhaling a lungful of the poisonous smoke.
When she reached the end, she collapsed. Before losing consciousness, she pushed the bezoar into her mouth. She lay there, waiting to be relieved of the pain.
“Hem, hem.” Padma became panic-stricken when she heard that ever so familiar voice. She stood up slowly to find herself face to face with Professor Umbridge and her famous Inquisitorial Squad. Draco Malfoy’s sneering grin and Pansy Parkinson’s belittling smile swam into view and Padma felt the urgency to heave.
“Miss Patil,” Dolores Umbridge addressed her in her high-pitched voice, “what are you doing here in the middle of the night? And do not even try to come up with some ridiculous lie; I personally put the Veritas charm on you.”
Padma looked around, perplexed. Was Umbridge not able to see the maze? Obviously not, because they were all behaving as if there were no shrubs around them and no green mist behind her. And then the professor’s words sank in. She was so fed up with people trying to manipulate her that she could have jinxed Umbridge right on the spot, if only the professor had been alone. Counting to ten to calm herself down, she decided to try something else. She may not have been able to lie, but she could twist the truth so that it would give Umbridge something to think about. And at the same time she could get revenge. She was put into this situation because of Lavender Brown. She was the one who robbed me of my sister, Padma seethed.
“Uhm, I saw Lavender Brown and my sister leaving the castle,” Padma started to confess.
“Where did they go?” Umbridge asked her impatiently.
“I think they were planning to enter the maze,” Padma said, trying to repress a laugh.
“What kind of maze?” Malfoy decided to speak up.
“A maze with shrubs and such. Everybody was talking about this today! Didn’t you notice?” she asked, trying to look perplexed.
“No, actually, we didn’t,” Professor Umbridge told her. “So you followed Miss Brown and your sister?”
“Yes, I didn’t want them to hurt themselves,” Padma admitted, and that was the truth. She wished neither Parvati nor Lavender bodily harm.
“And where is this maze supposed to be?” Professor Umbridge continued the questioning.
“We are standing right in the middle.” Padma didn’t want to say that, but the charm really worked and she simply had to say the truth.
“So it is supposed to be here?” Dolores Umbridge gestured around, looking at Padma inquisitively and Padma nodded affirmatively. “Fetch them, Mr Malfoy!” Umbridge ordered and then turned back to Padma. “You will go back to your Common Room, and 10 points will be taken from Ravenclaw. Be glad that I’m not expelling you for this!”
Padma turned and she tasted grass in her mouth. She started to spit it out frantically and then took a look around. Heaving a relieved sigh, she stood up. Fortunately, she had only been imagining Professor Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad.
There were no more forks in the road. Padma knew that this must be the end of it. She ventured on towards the end of the path. It was a sight to behold. She almost forgot everything she had been through in the past hours, the prize was so beautiful! A golden tiara encrusted with precious stones was lying on a pedestal, and Padma wanted to touch it so badly that her palms started itching.
But suddenly, her newly rediscovered distrust of everything she didn’t know properly made itself present. And after all, weren’t Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory tricked into touching the Triwizard Cup and then transported to a far away place, where one of them was brutally murdered and the other mercilessly tortured? And wasn’t it suspicious enough that she had been Imperiused? Padma shook her head, and then turned around, deciding that it would be best to head back to the Common Room.
And then she imagined Lavender Brown’s face when she would next meet her. Her belittling smile would be a no lesser humiliation to bear than Pansy’s. Padma turned back to the tiara, and not allowing herself to change her mind once again, she touched it.
What is life without taking risks? She heard her father’s voice in her mind, while she was being pulled towards a destination unknown.
“Wands at the ready!” She heard an unfamiliar deep voice’s warning when her feet slammed into the ground.
“It’s Padma.” Now, this was a familiar voice. Ginny Weasley’s.
Padma shut her eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and then slowly opened them to take in the view. She was standing in a room which resembled a library. It was a huge room, but it didn’t look like one, because almost twenty people were squeezed into it. She saw some of her housemates, and there were other people she immediately recognized.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were standing in front of the fireplace, grinning at her encouragingly. Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and a pink-haired, slightly familiar looking witch were sitting on a settee, with Professor Lupin standing next to them.
“Welcome to the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix,” greeted the deep, slow voice, which Padma recognised as belonging to the person who had warned the others when she arrived She looked over to see a dark, tall man with a gold hoop in one of his earlobes, speaking. “You have proved yourself worthy to become a member of the Order.”
“If you choose to be, that is,” Professor Lupin added hastily.
“Where is Parvati?” Padma blurted out the first question that came to her mind.
“I’m afraid she didn’t make it,” Hermione said, and then rushed to her. She draped her hand around Padma’s shoulders and then said, “No, she is okay! Really! But she had to give up. She couldn’t fight the Imperius Curse and…” she wanted to continue, but Padma felt that she had to make her point right then and there. She shook Hermione’s hand off and drew a deep breath.
“That was a cruel and sick thing to do!” she exploded.
“You see, it needed to be done…” Professor Lupin tried to explain, but Padma didn’t want to hear it. She turned to Harry, awaiting an answer from him.
“Did you approve of this?” she asked him and felt that her tone was not as accusatory as she intended to sound.
Harry’s smile disappeared, and then he nodded slightly.
“They could have been hurt!” Padma shrieked, not being able to control herself anymore.
“Alastor Moody is there to help those who need his assistance,” Professor Lupin tried to reassure her.
And strange as it seemed, it worked. Padma counted to ten again and her anger died down. She was able to think straight, but she was still worried about Parvati’s condition. Needing more reassurance, she turned to Hermione.
“Is she really okay?” she asked the bushy-haired girl.
“She is in the Hospital Wing; Madame Pomfrey is taking good care of her,” Hermione said, this time not even attempting to touch her.
“And Lavender?” Padma asked them. Her conscience not wholly at ease she wanted to know what had happened to her rival.
“She didn’t come.” This time Ginny Weasley answered her query.
“But I saw her and Parvati leaving the castle!” Padma said, feeling completely perplexed.
“She accompanied your sister to the entrance of the maze, but then returned to the Gryffindor Common Room,” the pink haired witch imparted. “What do you think? Would you like to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix? You could be a real asset,” she added with a smile.
Padma looked at the expectant faces and felt appreciated. And that was nice for a change, she decided.
“What is life without taking risks?” she asked aloud and earned a smile from the pink haired witch.
“I like this girl!” the witch exclaimed. “My name is Nymphadora Tonks.” She stood up and approached Padma, stretching out her hand. “But you can just call me Tonks.”