Thursday arrived.
Not one Hogwarts student had cracked Kevin's lava wall. Most of the older students had stopped trying. The students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had tested it out of curiosity, found themselves unable to budge it, and moved on. Nobody was particularly bitter — the wall hadn't affected them.
This had been the plan from the start: stand where Cedric would have stood and take the Hogwarts champion slot for himself.
The Age Line around the Goblet was the only remaining obstacle, and Kevin had spent half his summer holiday researching isolation spells with exactly this in mind.
He could out-innovate Dumbledore's defensive magic. That wasn't arrogance — it was calculation. And the calculation was sound.
After the last class of Thursday afternoon, the Great Hall filled again, students pressing in to watch. The Gryffindors arrived in a pack, led by the twins with the enthusiastic volume of people who have made their friend's victory into a personal investment. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff drifted in behind them.
They were all Hogwarts students. Having someone their age perform at this level in front of the foreign visitors had built into something that felt like collective pride.
Harry and Ron stood near the front, both utterly certain he would do it.
Hermione stood a little apart, calm. She knew his methods better than any of them, excepting perhaps Snape.
Kevin raised his wand. The lava wall that had burned for three days drew itself together, condensed into a single massive fireball — a dragon's shape for just a moment — and launched itself through a window in one smooth eruption of light and heat. A few seconds later, the window repaired itself without a sound.
The stunned silence that followed was profound.
He turned back to the Age Line and focused.
In his office, Dumbledore set down his sherbet lemon and glanced toward the Hall. He felt his spell the moment Kevin's began working against it — a careful, methodical dismantling, piece by piece. Precisely targeted. Not brute force.
Severus did help him.
The Age Line around the Goblet trembled. Then it shattered into a brief cascade of silver sparks and went dark.
The hall erupted.
Kevin dropped his name into the Goblet. No resistance. The flame accepted it without a flicker.
He turned to Hermione and raised two fingers in a lazy peace sign. She responded with the most affectionate scowl he'd ever seen.
The twins descended on him immediately, hoisting him up by his legs with the energy of people who had been waiting for this moment all week.
"Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!"
Harry and Ron piled in. Kevin, riding high on the twins' shoulders, responded with a burst of magical fireworks that turned the hall into something between a celebration and a small natural disaster.
He kept pulling ridiculous faces at Hermione between the explosions. She cracked up repeatedly despite clear intentions not to.
Dumbledore watched from the corridor, unobserved.
This is youth.
He smiled, and disappeared.
The party was still warm when Krum arrived with the Durmstrang students for their own submissions. He walked straight to Kevin.
"You got through?"
Kevin nodded.
Krum studied him for a moment. He respected the power. He wanted to beat it in a fair contest, not have it handed to him on a technicality.
"If I'm selected, I look forward to it."
Kevin nodded again. Genuine respect on both sides.
Karkaroff hovered behind Krum and said nothing, but his eyes on Kevin were calculating and cold.
Krum submitted his name. On his way out, he glanced at Hermione.
Kevin placed himself casually between the two of them.
Dream on.
Sunset. Submissions closed. The professors arrived to find the Age Line gone, and most of them — McGonagall gave Kevin a small, private thumbs-up; Snape offered a satisfied nod — had expected no different.
Dumbledore gathered the hall.
"The moment you've been waiting for."
He touched the Goblet. The blue-white flames shifted to red. A scorched strip of parchment fluttered out.
"Durmstrang champion — Viktor Krum."
The Durmstrang contingent roared. Even composed, professional Krum allowed himself one raised fist. The applause was genuine — this was the real beginning. Krum shook Dumbledore's hand and was directed to the adjoining trophy room.
The Goblet flared again. A second parchment, lighter this time, drifting like a leaf.
"Beauxbatons champion — Fleur Delacour."
More applause. Fleur moved forward with perfect composure, shook hands, and followed the path to the trophy room.
One more parchment.
Everyone knew, but everyone held their breath anyway.
"Hogwarts champion — Kevin Croft."
The roof nearly came off the castle.
Ron and Harry were both grinning so hard it looked painful. Kevin wove through the crowd, accepting the slaps on the back with the easy grace of someone who had already assumed this outcome. He winked at Hermione. She beamed back — all the warmth she usually kept behind the exasperation — and he walked up to the staff table.
Dumbledore shook his hand. "Satisfied?"
"Not bad. Ha."
Kevin headed for the trophy room.
Inside, Krum stood by the fire, thinking. Fleur examined a display case of old tournament memorabilia with what appeared to be mild professional interest. Kevin walked in, waved to both, and dropped onto the sofa.
Then the doors opened again, and Harry stumbled in.
Krum and Fleur looked at each other. Wasn't Kevin the only Hogwarts submission?
They looked at Kevin. He looked back, face carefully blank.
Harry reached him, confused, parchment in hand, mouth opening to say something —
And then the doors burst open again: headmasters, Crouch, professors, all at once.
"Kevin." Dumbledore went straight to him, voice low and serious. "Did Harry break through your barrier?"
"Not without you here, Professor. No Hogwarts student touched my spell. Not Harry."
"Harry's been picked as well?"
Kevin let the surprise show on his face. Convincingly.
Dumbledore turned to Harry. "Harry — you didn't ask an older student to submit your name?"
"No! Professor, I didn't enter!"
"I blocked every Hogwarts student," Kevin said. "Who would Harry have asked from another school?" His gaze swept the room. "Impossible. And if Harry had entered himself, only one of us would have been selected — the Goblet doesn't pick two champions from the same school."
He put an arm around Harry's shoulders, solid and unmistakable.
"Someone outside the student body entered Harry's name. Used a Confundus Charm powerful enough to fool the Goblet into recognising a fourth school. Harry's innocent. Someone set him up to compete in a tournament where people die. That's what we should be discussing."
From the back of the room, Moody's magical eye tracked Kevin's face.
Dumbledore had already reached the same conclusion. The others, murmuring, were coming around to it. Harry Potter — the boy who had survived Voldemort as an infant — had enemies with long memories and longer patience.
Harry blinked. Being framed was somehow worse than being accused of cheating.
McGonagall stepped forward. "Harry can't compete."
"He has to." Crouch's voice cut through everything.
"The rules are bound by magic. The Goblet's choice is final. Potter did not submit his own name — but he was selected. As of tonight, he is the fourth Triwizard champion."
Every eye in the room landed on Harry.
Kevin let out a cheer.
"Brilliant! Harry, I'm the champion, you're the runner-up. I'll let you hold the trophy too. Briefly."
He elbowed Harry in the ribs.
Harry rolled his eyes. But the tension in his shoulders had eased, just slightly.
With Kevin there, it was impossible to believe things would go entirely wrong.