Fourth Years, Lesson Three

Gabrielle leaned against the desk, watching as the students entered and giving them a smile. "Hello, everyone," she started, once everyone had taken their seats. "We're going to have a pretty laid back class today. Kind of." She shrugged, looking at the students with her face twisting into more of a smirk. "Before we get into it though, I thought I'd briefly touch on what we started with the Labyrinth of Crete. Hopefully you'll remember who built it. Anyone?" She waited expectantly for someone to give the answer, and was somewhat relieved when they did.

"Thank you. Yes, now Daedalus didn't just build the Labyrinth. He was a very talented inventor and builder, and perhaps his most known creation is also something of a cautionary tale." Gabrielle pushed herself up to sit on the desk, casually swinging her crossed ankles. "Daedalus had a son, Icarus. When the two of them were put into the labyrinth, Daedalus built them both wings of feathers and wax in order to fly up and out. A precursor to our brooms, perhaps. But Icarus was warned not to fly too close to the sun...and he flew higher and higher, until the sun melted the wax and he fell to earth. Nowadays, we use the phrase 'don't fly too close to the sun' to mean don't get too carried away." She noted the somewhat bored looking faces and chuckled to herself.

"Alright, I'm not actually lecturing today, promise. I do have something slightly more interesting planned. I don't know if any of you know about the Triwizard Tournament? A couple of them were held here...way before any of you were born. Don't worry if you haven't, as you'll learn about it properly with Professor Borisyuk, but to summarize, it was a dangerous test of skill, where promising young witches and wizards were put into situations that would probably raise some alarm from workplace health and safety. You know, stealing things from dragons, diving into the depths of the lake, and so on. There was quite the death toll. The most famous tournament was held in 1994, when Harry Potter competed. He was a fourth year at the time, so, imagine you had to go steal an egg from a dragon tomorrow. Wouldn't be great, would it?" She raised an eyebrow at the students, before continuing. "The final test was a maze that was filled with all sorts of traps. No minotaurs, though. But here's what I want you to do for the rest of the class. I've got a few books from Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts here. As well as some history books, of course. So let's say that we were, as a group, going to build either a maze or a labyrinth for some entertainment purpose. What I would like each of you to do is to come up with one trap. It could be something you've learned about already - maybe you'd put a boggart in a dark corner of the maze. Or something you might not have, which is why I've got these books here as inspiration - maybe Devil's Snare, if any of you are keen herbologists." Gabrielle looked around with a grin. "So, grab some snacks, have a look through the books, chat amongst yourselves, and let's build a horrifically dangerous labyrinth that nobody in their right mind would want to get stuck in."

Homework
RP the lesson and come up with one trap you would put in the hypothetical labyrinth for full marks. Doesn't need to be extensive, you can just say you'd slap a dragon in there and call it a day. Bonus points for creativity! Extra credit to the first poster to answer the question.

 

[Apolline Fontaine]

Apolline had really enjoyed the halloween feast. It had been a little different because she had been taking pictures for Accio, but it had been no less enjoyable really. It had just been a bit different. It was also nice to her to begin to think about how to take pictures, what to take pictures of, what to not take pictures of. Blindly taking all pictures at all moments wasn’t the way to go about it. She had always known that, but now she knew it. Apolline had to develop a lot of the pictures, but she had plans to do that over the course of the week. The gryffindor was very excited for that and had to remind herself about her classes before getting herself ready for the day and heading to them.

Apolline walked into the history of magic class and took her usual spot in the room. Her gaze moved to the professor as the woman got started, a little surprised by the fact they were about to get a more ‘laid back’ lesson - whatever that meant. She wasn’t sure she entirely understood, but regardless she had her notes in front of her and began getting down what the professor was saying about Daedalus. Making sure that he didn’t miss any of the important things being said about it, and then the professor talked about the triwizard tournament and the traps within it. The homework seemed pretty simple, to come up with a trap or challenge for a maze. She thought about it, and then decided that maybe a fun thing to put into something like that, would be water, so where perhaps there was a pool and a door at the bottom that you have to swim to to get through, maybe with some grindylow in it. With that though the lesson was wrapped up and she was able to leave the room.

 

[Kyousuke Kurosawa]

Kyousuke was still feeling strange from the Halloween feast. His heart thudded whenever he thought about it. But now wasn't the time, he decided, as he stepped into the history of magic classroom. He wouldn't let his feelings get in the way of doing well at school. Settling in, he took out his supplies to take notes. He raised his hand to answer the question. "Daedalus," he said, pleased to get the points. He then listened carefully, taking down a few notes before he realised this was going to be more of a practical lesson. Interesting, Kyousuke thought. He settled down, trying to think of nefarious plans to put into motion in a maze. He considered this for the rest of the lesson.

Spoiler: Maze Trap

I think having shifting maze walls like the Hogwarts staircase would be a good starting point, making it almost impossible to escape, but as for the actual trap I'd have a sort of secret shortcut which could be activated by pressing a button, but if you follow that shortcut it'd be dark and eventually you'd fall into a pit of devil's snare. There'd be other perils in the maze too, but that'd be one way to deal with people who think they're smart.