YES! I have finally put myself back to my quill (my computer, sorry), and it's been a damn long while! Hopefully I can write the end of this story better than the start, because what I've reread did NOT scream "QUALITY!!" So, here you go, there is only maybe one or two chapters left, maybe one and an epilogue if I make this one long enough, but hey, for once, I have my whole Friday evening.

I added this after a while of writing: Guess what you guys? I almost didn't finish this, because I had put them in their nice little predicament, and after a few hours of writing, I figured out that I did not know how to get them out of it! I tried many versions, and finally had to invent little loopholes to get all of them out… But I did it! (I had to use humour too, though I hadn't planned on it)

Let's get to it!

Hermione opened her eyes as she felt her feet hit the ground. The first thing she saw was that she was inside a house, probably the Riddle house, she thought. When her friends appeared alongside her, Harry voiced those thoughts:

"Wow, Voldemort really has NO imagination." He said with his eyes wide.

"I concur. At least he could have brought us to a deep grotto or something" added Ron.

Ginny shushed the two boys with a glare.

"Shut it you two, we're here to fight the bloody Dark Lord, not comment on his creativity for God's sake."

The boys grudgingly shut it, and looked at their feet, in a motion of embarrassment that pleased the youngest Weasley very much. She smiled smugly and pointed to a door.

The group grasped their wands and advanced through the door, into the semi-darkness, Pansy's lumos lighting the way. They came to a corridor, with no paintings or decorations. The eerie sounds of night and old houses reverberated on the bare white walls as they took wobbly steps forward. Harry reached for Ginny's hand and squeezed it tightly as they neared the end of the hallway. And at the end there was…

A door.

A large, wooden, open door.

And behind that door, there was pure, solid black.

Harry looked at the others. Hermione nodded to him. A confused look appeared on his face. Oh. He wasn't looking back for approval, but because he didn't know what the hell to do. Smartass, Thought Hermione. She sighed and mouthed "All together." And as a group, with one determined, and, as they would reflect later on, rather foolish step, they stepped over the threshold.

Suddenly, the world seemed to stop spinning, and in a whirl of ice-cold wind, turned on its end as they were sucked into God knows where. Each of them screamed at the top of his or her lungs, but only one scream reverberated around each bearer: his own.

Hermione opened her eyes. She was alone. In a hallway. Of mirrors.

Each member of the group was in the same situation, and though they were separated, the same thought echoed inside their head: "What the…?"

And through the heavy silence, a sinister voice rang out:

"Well, well, well…seems you underestimated the imagination of your opponent…I thought that was something Bellatrix the traitor delectably told you not to do… Let's see if your so-called powers can overcome the time-tested mind rattler. It dates back to Ancient Greece, I believe Miss Granger, or, Lestrange, as I have been sadly informed, can easily solve this…Ariadne, Theseus, Minotaur…? And Mr. Potter, I know, is somewhat experienced with this. Yes, I can see the thought forming in your little brains…a maze. But this maze is not the hedge maze with various harmless creatures, Mr. Potter. It will test not your skills, but your sanity. And you will lose. You have twelve hours, dearies…And remember, Omnia vulnerant, Ultima necat."

The first thing that Hermione did was translate the Latin uttered by the venomous voice. As the translation appeared in her brain, the only thought that followed was:

"Oh shit."

And she started running.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The incessant tic-tac of the clocks reverberated through Draco's mind as he turned each corner to be faced with more mirrors, more dead-ends, and more gaping holes. He was frantically panicking, breathing in shallow, raspy gasps. Where was Hermione? He had just gotten her back; he didn't want to lose her again. He stopped running and paced slowly through the maze, trying, through good sense and cold logic, to figure his way out of the labyrinth. There had to be a way out…Voldemort would want to kill Harry on his own.

"DRACO!!!!" the familiar voice of Hermione shrieked his name. It came from the left. He turned and ran wildly down the corridor, hoping to reach her before…before it was too late.

As he was running, he slipped on what seemed like non-melting ice, straight into a dark hole. He grabbed the side of the hole, trying to pull himself up, but it was too slippery, and he fell back, deep into the hole, letting darkness surround him.

He hit the bottom of the hole, hard and cold dirt. He groaned and rubbed his back. Slowly, he shook one arm. The other. His legs. Everything seemed fine. He looked up. The end of the hole could not be seen, because the labyrinth was as dark as the chasm itself. Draco put his head into his hands, wondering how the HELL he was going to get out of his predicament to help the others. He didn't doubt that they could get to Voldemort without his help, indeed he had grown out of his narcissistic point of view on the issue. The only problem was that all the bearers had to be together to destroy the Dark Lord.

"The fake-voice thingy got you too, didn't it." peeped a small, and quite hopeless, voice. He turned his head so suddenly that his neck cracked. He gasped from the pain, and opened his eyes to meet the fiery ones of Ginny Weasley.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Pansy Parkinson's first thought, upon being presented with the mirror maze, was, of course "What the…", but her second thought had been, characteristically of her, "Wow…wind is definitely NOT good for my hair…", and she stayed in front of the first mirror she had seen for about five minutes, fixing her hair.

The creepy Voldemort voice-over, she had taken as another proof of his small imagination and delight for histrionics: "I mean, of course, addressing us individually, pretending to be omniscient, the deep voice, the allusions to Latin and sanity and whatnot… All so Dark Lord-ish."

Pansy just casually stepped through the maze of mirrors, occasionally checking on her dress, her makeup, or her hair. When she came to a dead-end, she would laugh and exclaim that the game wasn't as easy as she thought, and that Voldemort might actually have a few tricks up his sleeve. Then, she would turn around and try again.

After a few turns, she decided that the labyrinth could use a bit more colour. So, she took it upon herself to mark every mirror she crossed with a pink heart, with her MagicallyLuscious® lipstick. She noticed that that had another perk: she could not go back from where she came from without knowing it!

Pansy smiled. She just might have this in the bag.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Harry had been running around, panicked and wild, scared out of his wits without Ron and Hermione as his mental supports. His scar throbbed. That was not because of any scary Voldemort magic, but simply because he had already smacked his forehead on mirrors five times, and hadn't learned yet not to.

Ron had been doing the same thing, only he was screaming at the same time, didn't run into mirrors, and had blanked out of his situation. He was now thinking of yesterday's shepherd's pie and how he hadn't finished it, how he had left something undone in his life, and that would haunt him if he died. By the time he and Harry had been nearing each other, he had firmly decided that, if he died, he would become a ghost and tell all the students he crossed to finish their shepherd's pie. He would probably haunt the Great Hall. He didn't think it was haunted by anyone as of yet.

SMACK.

Harry and Ron, blindely running, had managed to run into each other. Hard. Ron was on the floor, rubbing his aching forehead, but Harry had already gotten up and kept running, thinking he had just run into another mirror.

"Harry?" No response. The boy ran in circles.

"HARRY!!" He kept running.

Ron reached over and grabbed Harry's legs, thus making the running boy topple onto the red-haired one.

"Ron?" said Harry, confused.

"Well, took you long enough." Grumbled Ron.

The two boys were just sitting on the floor, when an intense pain went searing through their bodies, sending them screaming and grabbing the floor, trying to shake the pain off. The suffering lasted a whole, agonizing minute. Harry, though he did not know why, checked his muggle digital watch. The numbers blinking up at him in neon purple-white light were 11:01.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Hermione had felt the white-hot pain as well, but she had expected it. "Each one wounds, but the last one kills", usually seen above clocks and whatnot. Basically, it's a pretty wording for: you get old all your life, but at the end you die. Voldemort, the sadistic, sick…thing he was, had applied it with its original meaning: every hour wounds, the last one kills. And the last hour was…midnight. Basically, since they arrived so late, they would suffer only one wound before dying.

That is, if they could not get out of the maze in time to escape. Which they would. Because they were the bearers and all that. Right?

The brown-haired girl was depending entirely on muggle physics to find the exit of the labyrinth. She assumed that the maze would lead to a wide open room, perfect for battle, or, more Voldemort-like, a spectacular public killing. Therefore, the air would be less dense towards the end of the maze, as it would be able to space out into the room. She was therefore, with the help of her wand, testing the density of the air around her, and inching towards the more spaced-out air.

This technique was working spectacularly well, and she grinned, thinking that her smarts had never let her down, and this was not the time in which they were going to.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Draco and Ginny were stuck in the pit when the hour turned, and they felt the intense pain their friends were feeling at the same time. They had hung onto each other during that excruciating minute, hugging the pain out. When it stopped, they looked at each other, unbelieving. They had both solved the riddle at that precise point. Draco helped Ginny to her feet, and they turned towards the opening of the whole. Their eyes were resolute as they looked upward towards their salvation.

"How do we get out of here?" Asked Draco.

"No idea." Said Ginny stubbornly, "But I'm going to find out."

With a roar, she transformed into a tiger, and started to scale the walls of the hole. Draco hit his forehead with his palm. Why hadn't he thought of this before?

"Ginny!!" The tiger turned its head to Draco, yellow eyes ablaze. The boy gulped before stating: "I have a better idea."

He morphed into the medium-sized silver Dragon that was his animagus form. With a nod of his head and a sweep of his wing, he invited Ginny to climb on his back. Ginny, with still in her tiger from, jumped and landed, claws out, on the Dragon's back. The silver beast screamed in pain as it articulated: "In your human form, Gin."

The girl transformed back, and smiled sheepishly at the Dragon's head, that was turned towards her. With a growl, the silver creature extended his wings and flew out of the hole. Draco hoped he could fly over the maze, but found out upon exiting the pit that the mirrors that made up the walls of the labyrinth reached up to the ceiling.

Ironically, the ceiling was made of mirrors as well.

Draco transformed back into his human shape as Ginny hopped off of his back. The red-head called to him in a warning voice:

"Stand back, Draco. It's time to go Weasley on this little sadist."

"Weasley? As in Ron and you?" Draco asked, confused.

Ginny scoffed: "You kidding? Weasley as in a combination of: spell creativity from Bill, recklessness from Charlie, determination from Percy, mischievousness from Fred and George, logical skills from Ron, and sheer power from me. Weasley, my dear pure-blood, is the strength of the Union, of the sharing of blood, of togetherness, and of collaboration. As I mentioned, you might want to stand back."

The girl cut a bit of her hand and murmured something over the blood. Orangey-red wind started whirling around her, whipping her hair to and fro, intensifying in strength and apparent power. Just as the wind was about to turn into a tornado, Ginny relinquished it, and threw it against the mirrors in one mighty swipe.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Pansy had made her way to the end of the maze, leaving a trail of hearts behind her, and humming a sweet little melody, "A Cauldron Full Of Hot, Strong Love" by Celestina Warbeck. Smiling, she skipped towards the opening at the end of the maze, and looked into the room it led to. Just as she was about to step out of the mirrors, she felt a shooting pain rattle her body. She sank to her knees silently, taking the pain in but not letting out a sound, because she realized that it would reveal her presence to the creepy man standing inside the room.

When the pain subsided, Pansy peeped into the marble room. Yep, creepy. Voldemort, pale as death, his red eyes narrowed down to slits, and wearing deep black robes, was surrounded by an enormous assembly of Death-Eaters, all murmuring amongst themselves, and bowing skittishly to their Lord.

Said Lord seemed quite annoyed and kept checking an hourglass in the room.

"Someone doesn't like to be kept waiting, apparently." Thought Pansy.

Just as she was about to turn to find the others, she spied a curly brown head out of the corner of her eye.

"Hermione!" she whispered hastily.

"Pansy?" Hermione had already been smiling gloatingly in anticipation of being the first one to find the exit of the maze. Now Pansy had beaten her? She did not know how she would survive this blow to her ego.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Draco opened his eyes. He saw a red-haired girl, her back to him, standing in front of a smokey mess of mirror debris.

"Smoke and mirrors just took on a new meaning, eh?" He tried to joke.

Ginny looked at him sternly, and then smiled. "Lets go."

The pair headed towards the exit of the maze, any walls that should have been in their way having been eradicated by the Weasley spell.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Ron and Harry, who had been lying on the ground to try to avoid the crumbling mirrors, looked up through the mess. Ron whooped with joy as he saw his sister and Draco headed towards them.

"That girl…" He started,

"…is AWESOME!" Finished Harry.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Hermione and Pansy looked disapprovingly at the four other bearers.

"Amateurs." They muttered.

So, Here it is!! The end of this chapter might have been a little fast, but at least its there! So, we have just two more chapters to go. Final Battle and Epilogue. Too bad, I had planned this story to have only thirteen chapters.

Anyways, I have reread my story, and don't like it much much much. But I vowed to finish it before starting any of my other ideas. So I'll finish in style, trying to make it as good as it can possibly get before the end.

Questions to answer in your review:

Why do people always say Draco/Harry/Ron etc… are muscular and fit because of quidditch? I mean its not even physically demanding!

Whose child is going to be the cutest: Ron and Pansy's, Hermione and Draco's, or Harry and Ginny's? Name all three. You can describe them if you want. Who knows, I just might use your submissions! (of course, I'll give you credit for it in the chapter)

Kisses