Kevin had about three seconds to take stock of his situation before the next fireball hit.
He was falling. Something had hit him from behind while he was alone in the corridor — not a spell he recognised, some kind of pressurised blast — and now he was in free air, the courtyard rising toward him, and above him on the tower was a figure he absolutely had not expected to see.
Grindelwald.
Here. Inside Hogwarts. Dumbledore let him in.
He yanked his wand out, his crowbar appearing in his other hand on reflex — and then the dragon was on him again. Blue flames swallowed his shields whole. He pushed more power into them, and then more, and the heat still pressed in from every side.
The dragon wasn't trying to kill him. It was steering him — dragging him upward, past the protective barriers that ringed the school, into open air.
"Kevin," Grindelwald's voice said, completely unhurried, carrying across the roar of the flames. "You can't refuse. The plan has already begun."
Then the castle erupted below him.
"Grindelwald!"
Dumbledore's voice — and Kevin had never heard anything like it from him. Not in the films, not across five years at this school. Raw and cracking at the edges with something that wasn't just anger.
A wave of magic hit the dragon like a wall of water hitting a bonfire. The creature buckled, shrieked with blue light, and went tumbling toward the distant mountains. Dumbledore appeared a heartbeat later on a distant peak, Fawkes wheeling above him, his wand raised.
He moved to blast the dragon apart and pull Kevin free.
The dragon split.
Three of them now — one still carrying Kevin, the other two pivoting back toward Hogwarts. Blue fire dripped from their jaws as they turned.
Dumbledore made the calculation in an instant. Two fire dragons driving straight for a castle full of students. Kevin was not going to die immediately. The students might.
He turned to the Black Lake. The water rose in twin columns — enormous, fast, slamming into the dragons and driving them off-course. They hit the lake's surface in explosions of steam and blue light that lit the valley like a second sunrise.
BOOM.
The shockwave rolled outward. Dumbledore had already pulled the water back up as a wall, absorbing the worst of it. The castle shook but held.
He spun back. The third dragon — Kevin's — was already a dwindling shape against the sky.
Dumbledore Apparated after it.
Hermione stood at the window of Hagrid's hut with her hand wrapped around the bracelet, staring at the place where the dragon had been.
"He's fine," Harry said. "He's Kevin."
She knew that. She knew it with the part of her brain that processed information clearly and objectively. Kevin was extraordinary. Grindelwald hadn't killed him. Dumbledore was pursuing.
Her heartbeat was not responding to the logical part of her brain.
"Headmaster's already gone after him," Hagrid said, his voice low and careful. "He'll not let anything happen to the boy."
Draco had gone very still in the corner. "That was Dumbledore yelling Grindelwald's name," he said. "Wasn't it."
Harry nodded.
"Which means Grindelwald was inside the school."
"Apparently."
The implications of that settled over all of them like snow.
Harry looked at the empty horizon where the dragon had gone, then turned back to the group. He straightened slightly — not performing composure, just finding it, the way he always did when other options were no longer available.
"We need to get back to the castle."
In the manor at Little Hangleton, a Death Eater knelt on cold stone and kept his eyes on the floor.
"Grindelwald has moved," he said.
"How many are ready?" Voldemort said.
"All of them, my Lord."
"Then go. Take Harry Potter. Hold him until I return."
A pause. A calculated risk.
"My Lord — Lady Bellatrix —"
Voldemort looked at him. The silence was answer enough.
"Post guards on her. She may die." His voice carried no weight on it either way. "Her body is not to be left unattended."
"At once."
The Death Eater backed out. Moments later, the sky outside the manor filled with black smoke, spiralling outward, converging on a single point on the horizon.
Voldemort watched them go.
Then he, too, vanished.