The forest at speed was its own kind of chaos.
The trees absorbed the Death Eaters' spells and redirected their vision. Norbert moved through it like something built for exactly this — which, Kevin reflected, she essentially was. Her size, which had been a liability in the open sky, became an asset in the trees: she crashed through branches rather than navigating them, her armoured scales treating the impacts as cosmetic inconvenience, and the corridor of destruction she left made tracking her easy but following her on broomstick nearly impossible.
Draco cast the smoke screen at Kevin's signal — a billowing wall of dense black, expanding in every direction, and the Death Eaters' Wind-Dispelling Charms served mainly to spread it rather than clear it.
In the smoke, Norbert turned.
She came up through the floor of it from below, silent in the way that large predators can be when they choose to be, and the Death Eaters didn't hear her until her tail had already swept one of them sideways into a tree.
Kevin heard the screaming from the smoke's edge and found he didn't feel much about it.
These were people who had shown up in the sky above Hogwarts to try to take a dragon. They had fired Killing Curses at two teenagers on the back of that dragon. The consequences now unfolding were, in the strict sense, a natural outcome of choices made.
Norbert worked methodically, which surprised him slightly. He'd expected instinct — the pure reactive aggression of an animal in danger. What he saw instead was something more deliberate. She used the smoke. She used the trees. She used the sound of their movement to triangulate before committing.
She's smart, he thought. She's been paying attention.
By the time the smoke cleared, three Death Eaters remained.
One ran — Apparated upward, breaking through the tree canopy in a streak of black, and ran straight into Norbert, who had anticipated this. He was gone before the sound of it reached Kevin.
Two were left.
They dropped their wands in the snow.
Norbert regarded them for a long moment. Then, apparently reaching a conclusion, she opened her jaws.
"Norbert." Kevin's voice was flat and clear. "Not them."
She looked at him.
"They've surrendered. Leave them."
She held the look for three full seconds, then closed her jaws with a sound like a door shutting, and turned away.
Kevin crouched in front of the two Death Eaters on the ground. "You're going to stay here," he said, in the tone of someone explaining something to a person who has limited options and no leverage. "You're going to tell the Aurors everything you know when they arrive, which will be within the next thirty minutes. If you don't, I'll bring her back."
He didn't gesture at Norbert. He didn't need to.
Both Death Eaters nodded.
Kevin stood. Draco was already beside Norbert, one hand on her foreleg, talking to her quietly. She lowered her head slightly and let him.
"Good girl," he was saying. "Very good."
She produced a small, self-satisfied sound from somewhere in her throat.
Kevin looked at the state of the clearing. Looked at Norbert. Made a note to have a conversation with Hagrid that was going to be difficult but necessary.
She couldn't stay at Hogwarts. Not because she wasn't extraordinary — she was — but because extraordinary things needed extraordinary space. What she'd just demonstrated wasn't a danger. It was capability. It deserved room.
He filed it away and went to charm the two Death Eaters in place until the Aurors arrived.
A sound from behind him, where there shouldn't have been a sound.
Kevin turned sharply.
Norbert wheeled too, jaws opening on instinct — and three tongues of blue flame reached out, met a shield charm, and deflected into the undergrowth.
A figure stepped out from under a Disillusionment Charm, dusting ash from one sleeve with mild annoyance.
"Point taken," Dore said. "I'll announce myself next time."
Draco stared at him. Kevin stared at him. Norbert had the chain off her snout in two seconds flat, with the assistance of Kevin's wandwork, and proceeded to direct a look at Dore that communicated something between resentment and professional respect.
"Allies don't lurk in corners," Kevin said, making his way over.
"I wasn't lurking. I was observing." Dore looked at Norbert with genuine interest. "You've been keeping a dragon at school."
"She's Hagrid's."
"Of course." He looked at the chaos of the clearing. "I heard the noise from the forest edge. You were on school grounds when this started?"
"We drifted," Kevin said.
"Mm." Dore's eyes moved over the scene — the frozen Death Eaters, the scorch marks, the general evidence of what Norbert had just demonstrated. "She performed extremely well. First time under pressure?"
"Yes."
"Then she'll be better next time." He looked at Kevin directly. "Shall we head back? The Aurors on the school boundary will have seen the fire."
Kevin looked at Norbert. She settled under his hand, still watching Dore with reservations.
"Hop on," Kevin said.
Dore moved to climb. Norbert shifted. Kevin tapped her neck, and she held still, with the air of a dragon granting a significant concession.
Dore settled behind Draco. "Thank you," he said, and sounded like he meant it.
Norbert lifted.
As they rose above the treeline and Hogwarts appeared ahead, lights warm in every window, Kevin felt the bracelet on his wrist pulse.
He sent back the reassurance automatically. I'm fine. Coming home.
The pulse came again — sharper, a question in it.
He glanced down at the bracelet. It had been doing this more frequently lately — reaching, without him directing it, the two of them sensing each other's emotional states at ranges that no one had explained to him were possible.
Dore, riding behind them, had been quiet since they lifted off. Kevin heard him inhale slowly.
"Your bracelet," Dore said.
Kevin looked back.
"I've been looking for a pair of those for a long time," Dore said quietly. There was something in his voice that Kevin hadn't heard from him before — not sadness exactly, but the shape of a feeling that had been lived with long enough to smooth all its sharp edges. "Glad you found them. They should stay with you."
Kevin held his gaze.
"Tell me about them," he said.