Hermione looked at the pile of ashes now sitting on the table in front of her. She pondered exactly what it meant but realized the surest way to find out was to follow the instructions and go outside to find the maze at ten o’clock that night. The only kind of treasure that could have been made especially for her had to be something she would need in the upcoming war, she reasoned. Having made her decision, she quickly finished breakfast and dashed off to the library to do research on mazes and the obstacles she might find in one.
After having spent the whole day in the library looking up possible obstacles and the spells needed to get around them, Hermione furtively slipped out the doors of Hogwarts and approached the looming edge of a towering, green hedge. Unlike the maze for the Triwizard Tournament, this maze seemed to have been set up along the edge of the Forbidden Forest adjacent to the lake. The hedges were just as high as those of the maze for the Triwizard Tournament, though, and the maze exuded the same type of dangerous and mysterious air.
Hermione walked along the edge of the maze leading into the Forbidden Forest to see if she could get a feel of exactly how large it might be. Unfortunately, the edge disappeared into the Forest and she couldn’t see the end of it through the thickening trees. She walked back along that edge and around the corner until she came to the lake. It appeared that the maze disappeared into the lake, but Hermione wasn’t sure what that might mean for her journey to that priceless treasure meant only for her.
Finally, Hermione walked back along the edge of the maze until she came to the opening she had now passed twice. “Lumos,” Hermione whispered into the dark night. Immediately the tip of her wand lit up and shed light on the entrance into the maze. Peering into the opening, she tried to get a feel of what it might be like on the inside of the maze but was thwarted in her attempt as the opening led directly to another hedge, forcing anyone entering to either go right or left immediately upon entering the maze.
Knowing she was as prepared as she would ever be, Hermione gathered her courage and stepped boldly through the entrance into the maze and turned to her right.
Following the path she had chosen, Hermione came to an opening on her left and decided to go through it. She continued to walk through the maze unimpeded for several minutes, making various turns, choosing her path by whispering, “Point Me,” every time she came to a new opening in the hedge. It was that method which led her to the garden she was now standing in.
She walked through the garden amazed at the openness of it within the confines of the maze. However, after glancing around and finding no escape, Hermione considered turning back only to find the opening she had come through had disappeared. Resigning herself to figuring a way out of the garden, Hermione followed the stone path running through it until she reached the stone bench at the end. She looked at the items on the bench before opening the notebook to see if she could find the answer to her problem there; books had seldom let her down when she was in search of an answer.
Quickly reading the poem with the instructions of how to get out of the garden, Hermione set the notebook back on the bench and scanned the items on the bench to see that they matched everything but what she had to find. She turned back to the rest of the garden while scanning her mind for the descriptions of the three items she’d been instructed to bring to the stone bench.
She focused on the lovage first, remembering that it belonged to the carrot family, and looked toward the ground for the signs of it. A small patch of green which reminded her of the small carrot patch in her mother’s garden at home caught her eye off the left and she headed that way. Hermione was careful to walk only on the grass as she made her way to the lovage. Once there, she stooped down and examined the leafy part of that plant visible above ground. After the warning about the Mandrakes and Gurdyroot, she wanted to be completely sure she had the right plant before digging it up. She quickly pulled one plant up after deciding that it was indeed the right plant and took it back to the bench, placing it in the small sack next to the Mimbulus Mimbletonia.
The dittany next, she told herself. That specific herb was not hard for her to find as she had been doing some research on its magical properties last week for a paper she was writing for Professor Sprout. She spotted it a little further away from the bench than the lovage had been, but she didn’t have to examine it to make sure she had the right herb. She pulled up a little dittany, took it back to the bench, and placed it in the sack.
The last thing Hermione now had to gather was the shrivelfig. Like the dittany, she would have no problem finding it as she had been using shrivelfigs since her second year when she had brewed a Shrinking Solution. That particular Potions lesson had been rather memorable because she had whispered instructions to Neville to fix his Shrinking Solution in order to save his toad, Trevor, from an untimely and painful death. Of course, that incident had also cost her house points for ignoring Professor Snape’s insistence that she not help Neville. A small smile crossed her lips as she spotted the plant, gathered some quickly, and returned to the bench to place it in the bag with the first two plants.
Looking back at the notebook to make sure she had gathered everything she was supposed to, she scanned the next few lines of the instructions and almost laughed out loud at how simple they were. The other names of aconite were simple; she had memorized them prior to her first Potions lesson and would’ve been able to answer Snape’s question if he had just called on her. Grabbing the quill that had suddenly appeared on the bench, Hermione leaned down and wrote Monkshood and Wolfsbane in the notebook.
Before the ink could dry on parchment, Hermione felt a sudden rush of air as a door appeared to the left of the bench. Although she was still slightly wary about what she might be faced with next, the excitement of finishing a task so quickly and easily bolstered her courage and she proceeded through the door. You can handle whatever comes next, she told herself as she stepped through the opening into the passage beyond.
As Hermione began down the passage in front of her, she heard the creaking of hinges, turning back to see the opening she had just passed through close. She was shocked by the sudden darkness now pressing down on her now that the light from the opening was gone. It hadn’t really occurred to her that the maze would get this dark on the inside as the moon was almost full and had been visible prior to her entrance.
“Lumos,” whispered Hermione. The tip of her wand immediately lit up, showing her that the passage in front of her seemed to narrow a few feet ahead of where she was standing. She saw no breaks in the hedges from which to escape the narrowing passage so decided to continue forward and hope that the passage wasn’t a dead end.
Hermione continued on the path until it was barely wide enough for her to walk through without turning to the side. That was when she heard a bit of rustling in the hedge on her left and saw Professor McGonagall appear in front of her from some secret doorway she hadn’t noticed.
“I’m sorry, Miss Granger,” Professor McGonagall began, “but I thought I should tell you personally that you have failed all of your N.E.W.T.s.”
Hermione was frozen in fear. How could I have failed all of my N.E.W.T.s? Aren’t I the cleverest witch of the age? She could feel tears of panic, fear, and frustration rolling down her cheeks as she shook her head in disbelief.
“I-I can’t have failed, Professor,” she whispered, the terror of that possibility stealing her breath from her. Everything in her life had been built around the fact that she was the smartest in her year. Being best friends with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley only happened because she was the smartest. How could she face them now? Hermione glanced up as Professor McGonagall approached and pleaded, “You have to recheck the results.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Granger. All results are final. Given that you have failed everything, I have to inform you that you must leave Hogwarts at once,” Professor McGonagall said sternly.
Unable to believe what she was hearing, Hermione put her hands over her ears and kept shaking her head. Something has to be wrong, the logical part of her brain told her. Suddenly, a memory of her final exam in Defense Against the Dark Arts her third year surfaced. That experience had been very similar to this one, except it had only been end of the year exams she had failed and not her N.E.W.T.s.
Understanding about what was happening dawned on Hermione as she gazed at Professor McGonagall standing in front her. She raised her wand only to notice her arm was shaking. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Hermione looked right at Professor McGonagall and said, “Riddikulus!”
Where Professor McGonagall had been standing just a moment before was now the shocked form of Draco Malfoy in a Muggle dress. Hermione couldn’t help the roar of laughter that erupted from her. She was laughing so hard that she was bent over double and hardly heard the tiny pop that indicated the banishment of the boggart she had been facing.
Wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes, Hermione straightened and noticed that what had appeared as a dead end was really a solid wall of hedge forcing her to choose the path to her right or the path to her left. Not knowing which would take her close to her goal, she put her wand in the palm of her hand and whispered, “Point Me.”
Hermione’s wand pointed to the path on the left, so she turned that way after relighting the tip of her wand to illuminate the path. She kept walking and making turns as directed by the Four-Point Spell until she came to a path that seemed to be glowing by itself. Her wand was pointing down that path but she was slightly wary of that glow.
Deciding that she shouldn’t be afraid of a little light since she’d already passed a boggart, Hermione tentatively began along the path toward the glow. It didn’t take her long to figure out what it was. Floating there in midair were the words:
Starts at the center of labyrinth,
Ends at the third of Corinth.
The invisible ink's bane,
Secret messages I gain.
While Hermione was fairly sure she had to figure out what the message meant, she wasn’t exactly sure what she had to do once she’d done that. She looked around her to see if there was some paper or something she had to write the answer on or a fairy or something she had to give the answer to. Not seeing anything, Hermione turned back to the message with the thought that something might turn up after she read it aloud.
Hermione was correct in her assumption as the words began to glow a different color when she finished reading the message aloud. Where they had been a soft luminous blue before, the words had turned a bright, burning red color.
“So,” she muttered to herself, “I just have to actually say the answer. Well then, let’s see what this is all about. If it starts at the center of labyrinth, that means it must begin with the letter ‘r’.”
As soon as she said that, the ‘r’ from ‘labyrinth’ turned yellow as the rest of the word seemed to melt away in a small puff of smoke.
“Ah,” Hermione murmured, “so that’s what happens.” She turned to the next line of the riddle and said, “The third of Corinth is also ‘r’, so the answer must end in ‘r’ as well.”
Just as before, the ‘r’ in ‘Corinth’ turned yellow while the rest of the word melted away into the night. The new ‘r’ positioned itself to the far right of the first ‘r’ indicating that Hermione had to fill in the rest of the word. So, with the two yellow letters now floating just above the last two lines of the riddle, Hermione turned to them to solve it.
“Okay,” she said, tapping her fingers to her lips as she thought, “whatever it is, it’s something that reveals secrets in invisible ink, and begins and ends in the letter ‘r’.”
Looking intently at the last two lines of the riddle, Hermione suddenly remembered her first experience with trying to expose something written in invisible ink. It had been during her second year when Harry had found Tom Riddle’s diary. She had tried everything to discover what had been written in it, only to later learn the only way to reveal the secret was to write in it.
Thinking about that incident, a triumphant expression crossed Hermione’s face. She had figured out the answer to the riddle in front of her.
“Revealer,” Hermione said clearly, staring at the last two lines as they melted away and the rest of the word materialized between the yellow ‘r’s.
As soon as the full word formed in front of her, it began to glow a bright gold before seeming to split in half to open the transparent barrier it had been written on. Hermione, feeling very happy with herself, walked past the barrier with a slight spring in her step, not even noticing when the barrier closed behind her.
Turning a corner to enter another dark passage of the maze, Hermione took a few steps before she was overwhelmed by an alarmingly bad smell. She thrust her wand in front of her as far as she could reach to see if the light from it would show her where the stench was coming from. It only took her about another five steps to discover the source of the smell.
There, directly in front of her, was what appeared to be a pit full of wet, disgusting, smelly mud stretching the width of the path and beyond the reach of the light by her wand. The edges of the mud pit seemed to disappear under the hedges forming the path she was on, so she could not go around the mud pit unless she went back the way she had come. Hermione was loath to do that as her wand had pointed down this path and she knew that she could handle some mud after everything she’d already been through.
Staring at the hedges on either side of the path, a plan began to formulate in Hermione’s mind. She had briefly considered using a hot-air charm on the mud to dry it out so she could walk across it but discarded that possibility because she realized the mud was probably magical and the charm wouldn’t work to dry it out. However, the answer to her problem appeared just as she discarded her first notion; she would use the hedges themselves.
Turning to the hedge on her right, Hermione said, “Diffindo.” A horrible tearing sound could be heard as the hedge seemed to be pulling itself apart. Before the sound stopped, Hermione turned to the hedge on her left and repeated the spell, watching as it mirrored the actions of the previous hedge.
The severed part of the hedges now hung halfway down from the top of the hedges, bending out over the mud blocking the path. Satisfied with the results of the spell, Hermione proceeded to the next step of her plan and muttered the knitting spell she had been using for years to knit clothing for the Hogwarts house-elves. The hedges began to weave together, forming a small walkway about two feet above the mud.
Hermione was very pleased with the end result of her plan. It had turned out exactly as she thought it would and she made a note to herself to tell Harry and Ron that there were other useful purposes for that knitting charm she had tried to get them to learn. Her only problem now was figuring out how to get up onto the hedge walkway she had created.
While the walkway looked solid enough to hold her weight, Hermione didn’t want to test its strength by trying to pull herself up onto it. So, after a moment’s thought, Hermione decided to conjure a small step stool that would allow her to get onto the walkway without putting it under any additional stress that might make it collapse into the mud.
As soon as the stairs stopped spinning, Hermione positioned them at the edge of the mud so that the top met up perfectly with the hedge walkway she had created. She ascended the stairs and lightly stepped onto the walkway. Feeling it solid beneath her, she continued on to the end of the walkway where she lightly hopped down onto the ground and stared back at the muddy pathway she had just passed over.
Hermione quickly turned back to the path in front of her and continued forward, not wanting to feel too smug about using the knitting charm Harry and Ron had both considered too useless to learn. Reaching the end of the current path, she placed her wand in the palm of her hand and whispered, “Point Me.” It didn’t take long for the wand to point her to the path that would take her closer to her final destination.
Following the direction of her wand, Hermione took the path to her right. It was just as dark as the rest of the maze, making her very happy that she had her wand to light her way. She continued on that path for a while before making another right and then a quick left based on where her wand pointed her.
It was while she was moving down this newest path in the maze that she heard soft sounds of movement. Hermione slowed her pace and crept toward the sounds quietly while holding her wand out as far in front of her as she could. That was how she came across the bird perched on what looked to be a large stone book in front of the door.
Hermione immediately recognized the bird for what it was: a Fwooper. Knowing that the only thing to fear from this bird was its voice, she moved up to the perch and read:
The way ahead is sealed, and the door will only open to the Fwooper's song. Remove her silencing charm at your own risk.
When she was done reading that, she glanced up at the Fwooper. Her eyes locked with the bird’s and she got the feeling that the bird knew what she had to do and was silently challenging her to do it.
“This will take some thought,” Hermione murmured to herself, tapping her finger to her lips again and crinkling her brow.
It didn’t take her long to come up with a solution, even though she wasn’t very happy with the idea of using the only spell that came to mind. It had bothered her every time Harry and Ron had used that particular spell during their sixth year since it had come from the Potions book belonging to Professor Snape.
Oh well, she thought. Sometimes people have to do something they may not like when there’s no other way.
Just to be sure that she would suffer no ill effects from removing the Silencing Charm from the Fwooper, though, Hermione decided she had better summon the pair of earmuffs had she used when they had been repotting Mandrakes in Herbology. It’s a good thing I took care of those things. If I hadn’t needed to block out the sounds of Lavender trying to suck Ron’s face off, I might’ve forgotten they needed to be properly maintained.
Taking a step back, Hermione turned her back on the Fwooper and said, “Accio Earmuffs.” She didn’t have to wait long to see the earmuffs moving through the air toward her.
As soon as she had the earmuffs in hand, she pointed her wand at herself and said, “Muffliato.” A soft buzzing immediately replaced the quiet sounds of the night which Hermione had become accustomed to on her journey so far. Knowing that the spell was working, Hermione reached up and placed the earmuffs over her ears, checking to make sure they were on correctly and snugly covering each ear.
Now that she had done everything she could to protect herself from the song of the Fwooper, Hermione turned back to it and raised her wand. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Finite.” Or at least she was pretty sure she had said it aloud since she couldn’t hear anything over the buzzing in her ears.
It wasn’t until she saw the door opening that Hermione realized the charms and spells had worked. The Fwooper was singing but she couldn’t hear anything. She breathed a small sigh of relief and let a smile cross her face as she proceeded through the door.
Once she had gotten through, Hermione turned back to the Fwooper and said, “Silencio.” She figured the spell must have worked as the door in front of her started to close just as easily as it had swung open. Not wanting to take any risks, Hermione waited until the door was completely closed before doing anything else.
It was only after she watched a blue line streak around the edges of the door, proving that it was closed, that Hermione reached up and removed the earmuffs from her head. Once she had done that, she pointed her wand at herself again and muttered, “Finite.” The buzzing stopped and Hermione could hear the night once again. I never realized how comforting night sounds could be, she thought.
With that, she began to make her way down the path, ready for whatever she might come across next.
Hermione’s wand pointed to the right when she next checked the Four-Point Spell, so she turned in that direction and began walking down that path. She had only gone a few paces before an opening appeared in the hedge on her left. Consulting her wand again, Hermione determined that was the path that would take her closer to her goal. Turning into the passage, Hermione began walking slowly in that direction.
As she continued further down the passage, an odd feeling began to come over her. She would’ve labeled the feeling a sense of dread, but she wasn’t really dreading whatever might be down the path. In fact, she was actually looking forward to the challenge it would present. So, she kept walking forward, ignoring the lingering sense of unease. Hermione got the distinct feeling that someone else was in the passage with her, watching her closely, as she passed a particularly dark spot in the hedges. Shrugging the feeling off, she scanned the hedges and kept walking when she didn’t see anything.
It wasn’t until she heard a voice behind her that she realized she should’ve paid more attention to what her gut had been trying to tell her. Her immediate reaction was to turn around and hex whoever was behind her, but she never got the chance as she heard the voice mutter something and felt her mind go blank and a sense of peace take over.
From somewhere inside her head, she heard the voice say, “Don’t turn around.”
Hermione felt all desire to find out who was speaking to her melt away. She liked the sense of peace that had taken over and decided it wasn’t such a bad thing to not worry for once.
However, when that voice from the dark invaded her head again and told her to put her wand in the air and signal for help, a voice from the back of her mind spoke up in protest. Why should I signal for help? the second voice asked.
“Signal for help,” the first voice repeated, echoing around in her mind. Something about this triggered a memory in the back of Hermione’s mind, but she couldn’t quite grab on to it.
No, I’ve made it this far. I’m not going to signal for help now, the second voice argued. It was at this point that Hermione finally realized what had happened to her. She suddenly remembered this same sensation from her fourth year Defense Against the Dark Arts class when Barty Crouch Jr., posing as Mad-Eye Moody, had put each person in her class under the Imperius Curse. Someone, whoever it was now standing behind her, had placed her under the Imperius Curse just like in that class.
“Signal now!” the first voice yelled, anger evident in the tone and volume reverberating through her head. Knowing what was happening now, Hermione was determined to break the spell and deal with whoever had cast it before turning that person in since the Imperius Curse was one of the Unforgivable Curses.
I will not! the second voice refused, the last word actually bursting from Hermione’s mouth to break the quiet of the night as much as the spell she had been under. Realizing that she no longer felt the peaceful sensation from moments before, Hermione gathered her thoughts and raised her wand as she turned.
However, there was nobody standing behind her when she turned around and no sign that there ever had been. Hermione whipped her head around quickly, though, when she heard a soft chuckle from the direction she had just been facing, the direction she still needed to go. There was nothing there when she turned around to look. She knew there had to be a logical explanation for what had happened, like the person had Apparated into the passage and then Apparated behind her each time she turned.
It was then that she heard the voice again. “You have passed the test. You may proceed,” was all the voice said.
Realizing she would never find out who it was, because the person would just keep Apparating out of sight, Hermione began walking down the passage again. She threw one glance over her shoulder as she came to a bend in the passage, hoping for a glimpse of the person who had cast the spell, but the passage was too dark to see anything. Resigned to not knowing, she continued down the path, wondering just what she might come up against next.
Hermione followed the passage for quite a while, never seeing any breaks in the hedges to indicate a new path she might take. The reason for that became obvious after she turned yet another corner only to find a red line drawn across the path in front of her. As she didn’t quite know what to expect from a simple line on the path, Hermione tried to step over it only to be blocked by something she couldn’t see. She assumed the red line must just be the visible sign of the invisible barrier now in front of her.
Knowing that she would have to figure out what the red line stood for in order to get past it, especially since she knew she didn’t want anyone to be able to say that she had avoided a task because it was too difficult for her, she ran a quick mental check through all the spells she knew. While none really seemed to fit this particular situation, Hermione decided to try one that had worked before in various circumstances.
With her mind made up, Hermione pointed her wand at the red line and said, “Expelliarmus!”
She didn’t have to wait long for something to happen. A bubbling cauldron with purple smoke appeared between her and the red line. The smoke curled into the air and formed the words:
An hour long you’ll have to brew
The potion that will let you through
A simple, first-year worthy task
But no Professors here to ask
So quickly you must leave this cage
Or be here till you surely age
Hermione immediately set her mind to work again, but this time she was searching through her somewhat extensive knowledge of potions. It was while she was preoccupied with deciphering exactly which potion was meant by the riddle that the hedges of the maze changed their formation until it appeared that they had grown into a circle around her. She only noticed how truly she had been trapped by the bushes when her mind finally came up with a solution as she glanced back at the cauldron.
Well, she thought, glancing around her, this definitely makes the situation a little more pressing. I just have to brew the potion. I have the cauldron. All I need now are the ingredients.
Knowing that she couldn’t really transfigure anything into the ingredients she would need, Hermione concentrated on the daisy roots, shrivelfig, caterpillar, rat spleen, and leech juice she would need to brew the Shrinking Solution she was sure would help her get through the hedges now encircling her. She knew she had seen all of those ingredients in the garden she has passed through at the beginning of her journey through the maze and focused on summoning the ingredients from there as she muttered, “Accio ingredients.”
Just like when she had summoned the earmuffs to help her get past the Fwooper, she didn’t have to wait long for the ingredients to appear before her. Of course, she was slightly surprised to see a bench and a knife materialize next to the cauldron as the ingredients approached and arranged themselves there.
Hermione immediately set herself to work cutting up the daisy roots into equal portions before adding them to the cauldron and proceeding to skinning the shrivelfig to be added next. As soon as the shrivelfig had been added to the nicely bubbling cauldron, she began slicing the caterpillar as she hummed to herself. She had always enjoyed brewing potions because of how easy it was for her to clear her mind and concentrate fully on the task at hand. When she was done with the caterpillar, she added it to the cauldron and turned to the last two ingredients.
As she picked up only one rat spleen to add to the potion, a memory of brewing this same potion during her third year sprang to mind. Poor Neville had been so nervous that he had botched his Shrinking Solution at this very crucial step only to have Snape walk past him and threaten to use the poisonous mess on his toad, Trevor. Luckily enough, Snape had continued on his journey through the classroom, allowing Hermione to whisper instructions to Neville in order to put his potion to rights and prevent the untimely and painful death of the unwitting toad. She added the dash of leech juice just as a smile flitted across her face at the memory of how well that whole incident had turned out, aside from the fact that Snape ended up taking points from Gryffindor because she had ignored his order not to help Neville.
She knew she had a little time before the Shrinking Solution would be ready, so Hermione began to pace around the confines of the hedges surrounding her. The nervous energy she had been running on since her entrance into the maze would not slacken as she watched the surface of the potion turn the bright, acid green she knew it would. Knowing it was almost ready, Hermione cleaned the bench of the remnants of the ingredients by whispering, “Evanesco.”
Once the bench was clean, it disappeared as simply as it had appeared, seeming to know that it was no longer needed. It was also at that point that Hermione transfigured a small twig from one of the hedges into a small flask and dipped it into the potion to scoop some up for use on the hedge now directly behind the red line.
Pulling the partially full flask out of the cooling cauldron, Hermione moved around it and approached the red line. Although she was practically positive that the Shrinking Solution was the one the riddle indicated, Hermione mentally crossed her fingers as she reached out and emptied the flask by throwing the contents past the red line onto the hedge behind it.
The parts of the hedge that were hit by the Shrinking Solution immediately began to shrink back into the earth as if growing backwards from a large, imposing hedge into a tiny little seed. It didn’t take long for enough of the hedge to be reduced to the size of a seed for Hermione to squeeze through it to the passage beyond, which was exactly what she did after stepping across the red line that had not disappeared but only dimmed, fading into the darkness of the path.
Straightening her now mussed uniform, Hermione glanced back through the opening in the hedge to see the cauldron disappear and the hedges that had closed in behind her reform into the straight lines they had been when she approached the red line. Not wanting to dwell too much on that experience, as she wasn’t all that fond of small spaces, she consulted her wand for directions by saying, “Point Me.”
Hermione wended her way around corners and through openings in the hedges along the passages, consulting her wand each time to make sure she was heading in the right direction. The corners and openings seemed to be coming up faster than before, indicating that she was getting closer and closer to the center of the maze.
I must be getting close to the goal, she thought as she turned through an opening in the hedge on her left. The distance between turns and new passages seems shorter than before.
Feeling her excitement grow, Hermione hoped that she might actually make it through the rest of the maze without coming up against any more challenges. She realized that wasn’t to be the case, though, as she rounded a corner and found herself facing the over-large body of a lion with the head of a woman. Even if she had never read about creatures like that in The Monster Book of Monsters for Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class during her third year, she would have recognized the creature for what it was, a sphinx.
“The quickest path to that which you seek is past me,” the sphinx said in a deep, husky voice.
Hermione felt a quick jolt at the knowledge that she had been right about getting close to her goal. However, she knew, from the description of sphinxes in The Monster Book of Monsters, that it would not be easy to get past the sphinx blocking the path. Sphinxes were known to be very clever creatures who loved puzzles and riddles but could turn violent very quickly.
“I don’t suppose you’ll just let me pass if I ask you to, will you?” Hermione asked, knowing that the answer would be no but needing to ask just the same.
“No,” replied the sphinx, remaining where she was in the middle of the path, eying the girl before her. “You have proven that you are a clever witch by getting this far. The only way to get past me is to prove that you are cleverer than I.”
“And how is it that I am to prove that?” Hermione asked, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She was rather vexed at the idea that any creature would question her cleverness, even if that creature was renowned for its own high level of intelligence.
“We shall have a battle of the wits. Should you win, I will let you pass. But should you lose, I will attack. I will let you turn back now if you do not think you are capable of the challenge,” the sphinx said with a hint of superiority in her tone, as if she was sure that no human could get the best of her.
“Is that all?” Hermione challenged, not willing to concede that she wasn’t clever enough to outsmart a sphinx. I know that all I have to do to win this little battle is to confuse her, Hermione thought. While she knew that the easiest way to confuse any person was to use the Confundus Charm, she also knew that it would not work on the sphinx because she was a magical creature. Staring at the sphinx, she said, “Well then, let the battle begin.”
“Then begin it shall,” the sphinx responded with a patronizing smile. “You may go first.”
Racking her brain for ideas on things that might confuse the sphinx, Hermione remembered a favorite bedtime story of hers when she was little, the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Figuring that the sphinx would know a little about King Arthur, as much of Merlin’s story was tied to him, Hermione hoped to use that to her advantage.
“Okay then. Who was King Arthur?” Hermione asked the sphinx.
It appeared as if the sphinx was trying to hold back a chuckle as she replied, “King Arthur was a mythical king of England during Merlin’s time.”
“How do you know that he was mythical?” Hermione shot back without allowing the sphinx a chance to ask her anything.
“What do you mean how do I know that? There was never any evidence that he actually existed.” The sphinx seemed slightly taken aback by Hermione’s quick question and had gone on the defensive.
“No, there is no conclusive evidence that he existed, but there is also no conclusive evidence that he didn’t,” Hermione said, trying to keep her voice calm to mask the excitement now coursing through her body at the changing expression on the sphinx’s face. Where the sphinx had appeared relaxed with a superior air before, a bit of self-doubt and confusion seemed to be slipping over her face. Deciding to press her advantage, Hermione asked, “If you believe that King Arthur is simply a mythical king, do you also believe that Merlin never used his powers to help Arthur?”
It appeared that Hermione had completely baffled the sphinx as she could not form an answer to that question. Merlin’s part of King Arthur’s story had never been questioned in the wizarding community, so the sphinx was trying to come up with a suitable answer without seeming to doubt the existence of the most powerful wizard in history.
Hermione, noting the sphinx’s confusion, took that moment to slip past her without notice. The sphinx was so busy contemplating the puzzle she had put before her that she wasn’t even aware of the young witch walking right past her and down the dark path behind her. Not wanting to find out what the sphinx’s reaction would be when she noticed she was no longer standing in front of her, Hermione raced to the end of the passage and only slowed down once she had turned the corner at the end of it.
Hermione proceeded down the new passage until she came to an opening in the hedge on her left. She didn’t have to consult her wand, though, to know it was the right way to go because she could actually see what appeared to be a treasure chest on a raised dais.
Passing through the opening, Hermione walked down the path for a short time before emerging back into the open night on the far side of the maze. She turned back to gaze along the outside of the hedges, still not able to see the ends of them, and marveled at the journey she had just taken. It was exhilarating to know that she had gotten through it all by herself when all of her other adventures had always included Ron and Harry.
Not wanting to pause too long before claiming her prize for making it through the maze, Hermione turned and approached the treasure chest in front of her. There was a note attached to the outside of it, hanging over the latch. She picked it up and read:
That which you sought
Is held within me.
With courage you bought
What you will see.
Now my lid will rise
To reveal your prize.
As soon as she finished the last line, she saw the lid of the chest lift. She moved closer to it so she would be able to see it when it became visible. However, she was a little puzzled when all she saw was another piece of parchment lying at the bottom of the chest. Her curiosity led her to pick it up and read the words scrawled on it.
The prize you have gained
Cannot be visibly measured
But look within your brain
And you will find your treasure.
The journey you have taken
Was not for the faint of heart
But something it did waken
Within you from the start.
The lessons you have learned
Are the reward you have earned.
It did not take long for Hermione to realize what the somewhat cryptic message was telling her. Getting through the maze was the prize she was searching for. Although some people would not consider it much of a prize, she knew that her journey had taught her exactly what she was capable of. She was no longer wary of facing Voldemort or his Death Eaters. She knew that, after the challenges she faced, she was now as prepared as she would ever be for the battle she knew was coming. The knowledge that the maze itself had been constructed to teach her, that she could face any situation and come out on top, pleased Hermione.
While she had known there was nothing she couldn’t do where her classes were concerned, she had begun to doubt her ability when it came to actually fighting. Both of the last two times she had been called upon to fight, something had happened to her, preventing her from being of much use to Harry. She had been hit by a spell while in the Department of Mysteries and fallen into Snape’s trap of caring for Flitwick when Death Eaters had invaded Hogwarts. Those two events had made her question herself.
Now that she had made it through the maze on her own, using not only her book knowledge but the knowledge she had gained from being part of the DA, Hermione knew she could face anything. She had been right in thinking that the prize at the end of the maze would be something she would need in the upcoming war; the self-knowledge and courage she had called upon would be essential during the fight.
Smiling to herself, Hermione lifted her gaze from the parchment in her hands and turned back to the maze, concerned now with how she was going to get back to the Gryffindor common room with the mass of hedges blocking her path to the castle. She needn’t have worried, though, as there was no longer any trace of the maze when she turned around. It seemed that the hedges had vanished as soon as she collected her prize.
As there was no longer anything between her and the castle, Hermione made her way up to her dormitory and into bed, all the while reflecting back on everything she had done and learned that night. What a way to learn I’m ready for what is to come, she thought as she tucked her prize into her nightstand and closed her eyes.