Things settled into a surface-level quiet. The first task was weeks away. Everyone returned, outwardly, to their normal routines — classes, meals, the Quidditch pitch increasingly empty now that it was tournament season.
On Monday, Professor McGonagall pulled Kevin aside before Transfiguration for a quiet conversation about his unexplained disappearance from the interview process.
Kevin told her he'd been feeling unwell.
She looked at him for three full seconds.
Then she let it go.
In the second Defence Against the Dark Arts class, Moody had Neville at the front of the room, pushing him through attempt after attempt to shake off the Imperius Curse. Neville kept trying, kept failing. Moody kept needling. Then he mentioned Neville's parents — a calculated thing, or possibly not, impossible to tell with him — and the expression on Neville's face changed completely.
It wasn't fear. It was something older.
Hermione cut in. She'd had enough. She stepped between Neville and Moody and said, with complete precision, exactly what she thought of using a student's family tragedy as a training aid.
After class, Moody kept Neville back. Kevin waited outside with the others.
When Neville emerged, he seemed lighter. He was carrying a book — The Magical Aquatic Plants of the Highland Lakes — tucked under one arm. A gift from Moody, apparently. The professor had noticed his aptitude for Herbology and compensated for the unpleasantness.
Kevin studied the cover for a moment.
Gillyweed was in there. He was fairly certain of it. Fake Moody planting a hint for Harry — that had been the sequence in the original story. But the first task hadn't even happened yet. For Moody to be dropping hints about the second, he would have needed advance knowledge of all three tasks.
Which meant the professors knew ahead of time.
He filed that away and kept walking.
Harry had asked Kevin for intensive spell preparation, and Kevin had said yes without hesitation. So beyond their normal coursework, every spare hour went to drilling Harry in the training rotation they'd established near the Black Lake.
Hermione supervised from a flat rock nearby, nose in a book, occasionally looking up to assess Harry's form or offer corrections that Kevin quietly agreed with and pretended to have already thought of.
"Harry. Focus. You're almost there."
Harry had been at it for three solid hours. His wand hand was shaking slightly from the sustained concentration.
He shook it out, reset his grip, raised the wand.
"Water Shield!"
A twisting stream launched from the tip and formed cleanly into a curved, solid barrier — Kevin's own design, built specifically to handle elemental attacks. Dragon fire in particular. The water would redirect the heat along the surface and absorb the rest.
"Yes—"
"Blazing Fire."
Kevin didn't wait. He hit the shield immediately with a dragon-breath-class fire spell — no warning, full intensity.
Harry yelled and ducked on reflex. The shield caught everything. The flames split and roared along its surface without touching him. He sidestepped. The shield tracked him. He went the other way. Still tracking.
Kevin held it for a full minute. When he cut the fire off, the shield was still perfect.
"Good. You've got it."
"Thanks." Harry let out a long breath. "Would it kill you to announce it first?"
"Best test is when you're not expecting it."
"..."
He'd nearly died. He knew he hadn't. He took Hermione's offered water bottle and drank deeply.
"Tomorrow — Smoke of Despair. Blinds opponents, sows confusion, gives you an exit window."
"Why not Hephaestus's Command?" Harry had watched that spell demolish a fire attack wall. He was not subtle about wanting it.
"You want to learn it? I'll teach you. But you need Fireball basics first. Hephaestus's Command is built on the same theory — it's all about taking control of existing fire rather than generating new flame. Start there."
Harry remembered Kevin's casual demonstration: a fist-sized fireball that had reduced a boulder to gravel. Basic, Kevin had called it.
"Smoke trick first," Harry decided. "Then we revisit."
Hermione wandered over with water for both of them. "Hogsmeade on Saturday? Everyone's strung too tight. A break would help."
Harry and Kevin looked at each other. Nodded. Permission slips were sorted, and they hadn't been in months.
They were mid-discussion when Ron arrived at a sprint, face drained of colour.
He didn't sit. He grabbed Harry's shoulder with both hands.
"Harry. Kevin. I know what the first task is."
He'd gone to look for his brother Charlie earlier in the day — Charlie was at Hogwarts, no clear reason given — and found him near the Forbidden Forest. Charlie had pulled him aside. Inside an adjacent clearing, partially screened by trees: four enormous cages. Inside the cages—
"Dragons."
"Ron—"
"Four of them. Brought from Romania. Charlie helped transport them, knew you were in the tournament, told me on the quiet." Ron's hands were still on Harry's shoulders. "Harry. They are massive. Nothing like Norbert. These are full-grown, and they are angry, and there are four of them—"
Harry had gone very still.
Kevin said, "Harry."
Harry looked at him.
"The school would not enter you in a task that requires you to kill a dragon with no preparation. There'll be an objective — retrieve something, reach a point, get past it. Not slay it."
Hermione had both hands on Harry's arms now, grounding him. "Kevin's right. They wouldn't do that."
"But one breath—" Harry started.
"Water Shield blocks dragon fire. We've just proven that. And the dragons will be restrained somehow — the Ministry will have conditions. Their primary attack is fire." Kevin's voice was calm, not reassuring-for-the-sake-of-it, but genuinely analytical. "Fire you can handle now."
"He might swat you a couple of—"
Hermione pinched him. Hard.
"We have time," she said firmly. "We'll figure it out. Dragons aren't invincible."
Ron had a sudden thought. "We could practise on Norbert. Test the spells."
Harry's posture changed slightly. Practical focus was better than spiralling — always.
They started back toward the castle, the plan taking shape. Tomorrow: Norbert. See what held.
Deep in Hagrid's hut, Norbert was dozing. She twitched in her sleep, looked around at nothing, and shivered.
Something felt wrong. She couldn't say what.