into the hedge maze — ephraim

[Katherine Dankworth]

It was one of the few sunny days that were left in Hogwarts, as the fall was just around the corner, and Katherine hadn’t stepped outside in almost two days, running around signing up to things and trying to get ahead on her studies, visiting the library when almost had started even thinking about classes. But, as she felt herself starting to go insane, she knew it was for the best taking a little promenade around the gardens before she went back to the books, and she knew exactly who she wanted to accompany her.

Ephraim was, as usual, hanging out in the Slytherin common room when Katherine found him. The boy was one of the few people she could actually stand, and it seemed like they could actually become friends over time, so she had made a point of approaching him and trying to strengthen the relationship. Especially, because she knew that was one friendship her father would for sure approve of, maybe even be happy about, and that seemed like a marvelous scenario. She set aside a few strands of hair and smiled before standing right in front of him. “Hey, Eph. I was thinking, would you like to promenade around the gardens? Maybe we could visit the hedge maze.”

Arrogant as she was, she was very confident in the fact that she would definitely not get lost in what seemed to be a magical hedge maze. And Ephraim, seemingly matched her not only in self-confidence, but in intelligence as well —though Katherine thought there wasn’t anyone just as brilliant as she was, giving people like him or Cordelia a nice second place in her mind—.  So that seemed like the perfect walk, mostly because the hedge maze was usually free of running, annoying, little kids.

[Ephraim Prothero]

It had been easy for him to settle into the Slytherin commons. The Dungeons were as though made for him, and he liked to sit in one of the large chairs, spreading himself out on the armsrests and observing people walking in and out.

Ephraim was quite the sociable person really (even if he didn't necessarily come accross that way, he had a tendency to place himself in the middle of the action), and he liked feeling in control of what was going on.

When Kate had come and asked him if he wanted to promenade around the garden he'd considered it for a moment. His relationship with Katherine was a weird one. However, since that day on the train, their fates had somehow become entangled, and the very fact that she was pretty much the only one there as outspoken on purity issues as himself made him gravitate toward her. Although her gender was all wrong, there was a familiarity there, a reminder of his friends in Durmstrang, now far away.

And so he'd told her ok, double checking that he had his wand on him.

The Hogwarts grounds were large, and the Hedge Maze was an area that he hadn't really explored thus far. Now that they were there, he found it intriguing.

"Do you think people get lost in here a lot?" he asked, inspecting the hedges. He could think of a few people that he'd very much like to lose in here someday.

[Katherine Dankworth]

Katherine didn’t talk a lot while they walked to the hedge maze, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. She seemed as if something was brewing in her mind, kind of far away from Ephraim even when she was just by his side. So many things had started to happen since the summer, and she had to force herself to go back to reality when she heard Ephraim’s question.

She tilted her head just a little, observing the dense walls of the hedge maze with a thoughtful expression on her face, as she considered the risks. But then again, she was the most overconfident person in the whole world, so she didn’t really see a threat on what was in front of them. If anything, it was a challenge, being able to find the center and then come back unscathed. Kind of like an achievement. “They probably do. But then, if we consider the media of intelligence in this castle, it isn’t a surprise. I don’t think we’ll get lost, if that’s what you were really asking.”

She winked at him and started walking, confidently choosing the first path to follow, supposing Ephraim would go right beside her without being asked to. This was the kind of thing she actually enjoyed doing in the gardens. She thought there wasn’t anything interesting about laying in the grass like a cow, as most of her classmates did. A real challenge to the mind, another way in which she could prove herself. “Let’s go, we’ll finish this thing before it gets dark.”

[Ephraim Prothero]

The fact that they walked in silence was ok with him. He didn't see why people should be chattering their brains out through every moment of their existence. He appreciated the ability of friends to be quiet in his presence. And they were heading for the common goal of the Hedge Maze anyway, no need to go around fussing about it.

“I don’t think we’ll get lost, if that’s what you were really asking.”

"I'm not afraid of being lost," he quipped back. Of all things to be afraid of, hedges seemed among the most useless of them. But he knew the stories - of the Minotaur, and Even of Hansel and Grethel. There was always some dark morality about being cooked and eaten, and on how throwing around crumbs of bread (which was just such a stupid idea to start with) or laying out thread or whatever would never be enough.

Adults scaring their children into apathy, then submission.

“Let’s go, we’ll finish this thing before it gets dark.”

Kate didn't give him much of a choice as to where to go as she went her own stubborn way.

"Is this a regular maze, or is it laid out with traps?" he asked, figuring that her four years in this school meant she knew her way around better than he did, as a transfer. But nothing had jumped out from the hedge or otherwise exploded in their path thus far.

"This way," he said as they hit the next turn, dead set on going left.

[Katherine Dankworth]

“I think it’s a regular maze. I am not sure, though. You’ll end up learning that Hogwarts is a very, very, weird place. I don’t really like it myself, I hate unpredictable things.” She answered to Ephraim, as she walked the way he had chosen.

They were like that for a while, arguing at some points about the best way to go. The sun had started to set, and the hedge maze started to look a little intimidating. Not that Katherine didn’t like the night, if it was for her, she would sleep during the day and do everything else since dawn. But there was something about that place that made it feel like they were making a mistake. Maybe they should come back, she thought. But it was too late now, she couldn’t quite remember which way they went a mere few seconds ago.

“I don’t want to scare you, but do you know where the hell we are?” She said loudly, turning around to see all the ways the hedge maze had. “Because they suddenly seem all the same to me.”

Maybe she was a little worried. What if it really was enchanted? Or if it was some kind of trap for naive students? Hogwarts for sure seemed like it was constantly against her anyways, she couldn’t count the times she fell into the disappearing step until she memorized where to jump.

“We should go back. It’s going to be dark any second.”

[Ephraim Prothero]

It turned out to be a regular maze. He had not been attacked by pixies, nor encountered any minotaurs, and all that he'd had trouble with was, really, Katherine refusing to move in the same way as he wanted. However, it turned out that the maze was rather quite large, and Kate's prediction that they'd be out before dark was steadily starting to seem more and more unlikely.

“I don’t want to scare you, but do you know where the hell we are?”

"I'm not scared," he responded immediately. But he did stop when she did, to take a good look around, and there was really nothing else that he could disagree on for the sake of disagreeing at that point - the hedges really did look all the same.

“We should go back. It’s going to be dark any second.”

"Back where?" he asked. They'd been walking around here for an hour already, at least, and his sense of logic told him that trying to turn back now was only going to get them really lost. Besides, this was Kate's fault, it was her that had done all the wrong turns when he'd told her they should clearly be going in a different direction.

"It's down here," he said, rushing forward, still dead set on being right, and not the slightest bit worried that he might, as a matter of fact, be wrong.

"Wait, did that hedge move?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his track. Of all the magical things out here, it made complete sense to him that the hedges would move the same way as the staircases would inside the Castle.

[Katherine Dankworth]

They started walking per Ephraim’s request, supposedly towards the exit. But when she looked at the sky, it was darker than before, and she had the feeling that not only the sun was about to set, but they were farther from Hogwarts than before.

“Wait, did that hedge move?”

Katherine too stopped cold, grabbing her friend’s arm with her eyebrows raised. “I don’t think so, that would be crazy.”

But she didn’t sound convinced, at all. The hedge maze started to feel more terrifying by the minute, and thought about what she hadn’t stopped to reflect on before. “What if it’s enchanted? Like, only at night. To keep students from breaking curfew.”

Then she pulled him in following the first direction that felt adequate. Her feet hurt, she was tired, and she was convinced that the hedges were about to eat them both for breaking the rules, even if it was a damn accident.

What she didn’t know was that she was walking more and more towards the center, in the opposite direction she really wanted to go. “Let’s go, don’t be a crybaby. I think I see the castle’s lights.”

[Ephraim Prothero]

“I don’t think so, that would be crazy.”

"Of all things, how would that be crazy?" he burst out, and at that point his temperament peeked out, mixed in with a hint of actual worry that they might indeed be getting lost (a feeling that he had little experience dealing with and which therefore transmuted into anger instead). Besides, she kept insisting on going the other way, and he felt as though he was being pulled along like a ragdoll.

“What if it’s enchanted? Like, only at night. To keep students from breaking curfew.”

"Trapping people in the dark is a rich way of avoiding that people break curfew," he quipped at that, now in a state where he found himself unable to keep himself from lashing out and speaking back at every comment.

“Let’s go, don’t be a crybaby. I think I see the castle’s lights.”

"You are a freaking crybaby!" he burst out, childishly, agitated. "Those aren't lights!"

To him, everything just seemed to be getting darker and darker. And now he was getting hungry, too. Which had never, ever, had any good effect on his mood.

"Circe's teeth," he muttered, and whipped out his wand.

This was not the time for him to lose his head.

"Lumos," he said, and his wand illuminated their path going forward. The way that the light hit the leaves was giving the hedge a really weird textured appearance.

"If you want to lead, you lead," he said, and offered his hand for her to hold, if she felt the need to. He had some ideas for what they could do, but right now he needed for them both to calm down a few notches.

[Katherine Dankworth]

“You are a freaking cry baby!”
“Hey, don’t scream at me!” She shouted back. But she too seemed to realize that it was no use to start a screaming match when a matter much more pressing was over their heads, finding a way out before the hedges ate them both alive.

“Fine, you’re right.” She said slowly, like every word was difficult to pronounce. That’s how much she hated not being right. “Lumos.”

Then she noticed Ephraim’s hand and raised an eyebrow, but she took it. If anyone asked, she would say she did it because it was a practical way of not getting separated, but the truth was that she did it because she was scared.

At least she was with Ephraim. She trusted him enough.

“No, you lead.” There it was again. She implicitly admitted that maybe she had led them both deeper into the hedge maze. If it wasn’t Ephraim she was with, she would’ve probably just kept on walking until a professor rescued them or they died of hunger. "I don't think I see the lights anymore anyways."

"What we are not doing is sending sparks. I don't want to get famous in this castle from being the idiot who had to be saved from an stupid hedge maze, are we clear?"

The sky was now completely black, and if it wasn't for her glowing wand, she wouldn't see a thing. Jumping a little everytime they heard an strange sound, she squeezed Ephraim's hand strongly.

"And if anyone asks, I wasn't scared."

[Ephraim Prothero]

There was an odd change of mood. Magical, almost, as they morphed from angry, scared, desperate, into something else completely.

Ephraim had never been able to develop any sort of good relationship with a girl. He had two brothers and a sister, and although his sister was the younger of his siblings (still seven years his senior), they had never been on good terms. Even his brothers, Harmon and Cephas, were nine and twelve years older than him, and so they had never really learned to be children together.

Of course, he had cousins. And the Prothero family was well aquainted. But things just had not landed like that.

The only female with which he'd ever had a good relationship, was his mother.

In a sense, girls were a mystery to him. And he did not know whether he even liked them.

Now, some of that changed.

He had always been younger, though he'd been so much younger that he'd been forced to develop a particular sort of independence. The school transfer had, in turn, put even more pressure on him to develop that independence. But with it developed a certain interdependence, too. And Ephraim had always been a social creature, despite what the circumstances wanted for him to be.

And she trusted him.

"What we are not doing is sending sparks. I don't want to get famous in this castle from being the idiot who had to be saved from an stupid hedge maze, are we clear?"

His face broke open in a wide, and brilliantly rare, grin.

She trusted him.

"And if anyone asks, I wasn't scared."

"Never," he said, and he meant it. Of course she wasn't, none of them were.

"Do you have your wand? Because I wonder if we can blast our way straight through these hedges," he said, pointing ahead with his own, the light from his Lumos hitting a spot in the hedge right in front of them.

They would not be shooting sparks, but they might get caught after curfew vandalising school property. And it didn't matter which way they went - for all roads were leading out of here.

It was going to be worth it.

[Katherine Dankworth]

Katherine smiled widely when she saw Ephraim’s grin. She couldn’t remember any other time the boy looked genuinely happy, and the change was very welcome. She had ended up caring for him, inadvertently giving him a place in her inner circle, so of course she liked seeing him like that. She gave him a teaseful nudge. “So you do know how to smile, huh?”

“Yes, of course I have my wand.” She said, taking it out of her pocket. But when she heard Eph’s suggestion about burning their way out, she stopped on her tracks once again. “You want to damage school property? Come on, Eph. We’re not that desperate.”

The second she said that, her stomach growled. God, she was so, so hungry. The breakfast she decided to skip that morning to have half an hour more of studying crossed her mind and she never regretted anything more. “Maybe we’re a little desperate.”

She was so tired, too. Her legs felt like they weighed a hundred kilograms and her eyelids were closing. The thought of her comfy, comfy, bed was what ended up deciding what she thought about the whole vandalizing school property ordeal. “Whatever. Let’s do it. No one has to know it was us.”

She pointed her wand towards one wall, but her face changed into hesitation. What if they catched them and they wrote to her father?

[Ephraim Prothero]

It was a nice transformation for two people in a dark place, lost inside the walls of a place that neither of them appeared to really want to be. It was this that had drawn them to each other at the train ride, the refusal to keep quiet about who they were and what they thought. Having left behind all his friends in Durmstrang had been hard on Ephraim.

“So you do know how to smile, huh?”

"With the appropriate company," he told her, still smiling, and that was the truth.

“You want to damage school property? Come on, Eph. We’re not that desperate.”

He looked at her at that, grin unwavering, eyebrows slightly raised in question of this latest statement.

(And it was in moments like this that it shone through, a little bit, that their background were, in all probability, a little different. That his upbringing was less strict and he did not hold the fear of his parents, or of other authority figures, that many purebloods did.)

“Maybe we’re a little desperate. Whatever. Let’s do it. No one has to know it was us.”

And his grin widened further, although he caught her hesitation as she raised her wand.

"If we're caught, I'll take the blame for it," he promised, sending her a wink. And then, without hesitation he raised the Aspen wand and cast Diffindo, which served to slash the hedge in front of them right in half.

Fin.