Even though the Forbidden Forest was especially quiet at night, the Ministry of Magic staff responsible for patrols still failed to notice Vincent's arrival.
He flew around the maze three full times and roughly estimated that its total surface area was close to one and a half football fields, around 12,000 square meters.
But that was only its apparent footprint. Its true internal space had undoubtedly been expanded with an Extension Charm.
Taking advantage of a patrol shift change, Vincent quietly disabled the detection magic around the maze's perimeter, then used backend access to erase himself from the surveillance footage before landing atop one of the hedges that served as walls.
The hedges were tall and thick, their surfaces giving off a faint pink glow. There was no need to guess whose work it was—Umbridge's.
Judging by their height and thickness, it would probably be difficult to hear anything from the other side.
As time passed, they would slowly shift and rearrange themselves into new paths.
Standing above the maze, Vincent looked down at the pink-glowing hedges beneath him with considerable speechlessness.
Suppressing his disgust, he kept walking forward while examining the obstacles below.
Magical vines, Devil's Snare, colonies of bouncing mushroom fungi, giant Blast-Ended Skrewts, Acromantulas...
There were plenty of traps as well. They carried a certain degree of danger, but none were truly lethal.
What surprised Vincent most was that there was actually a Sphinx here, a creature native to Egypt.
It had a human face and a lion's body. It could speak human languages and enjoyed difficult questions, riddles, and word puzzles.
The Ministry of Magic classified Sphinxes as beasts when categorizing magical creatures because they became violent when someone answered incorrectly.
For centuries, wizards had used Sphinxes to guard their precious possessions and secret places, and