The table outside Hagrid's hut was enormous and the grill beside it was even larger — Hagrid's scale, which meant it doubled as a heat source that kept the whole area comfortably warm despite the cold.
Norbert had appeared out of the tree line at some point during the evening, folded himself onto a rock nearby, and begun inspecting the cooking situation.
He was smaller than he'd been in first year. Hagrid had worked some Potion magic on his growth. But smaller was relative — he still stood taller than Kevin at the shoulder, and his appetite remained completely unchanged.
He'd stolen meat off the grill three times.
The third time, he swooped in from directly overhead and snatched a beautifully cooked piece Kevin had been preparing specifically for Hermione.
"That is the last time —"
Kevin pointed at Norbert, who was hovering thirty feet up with the meat in his jaws and the expression of a creature who had correctly assessed the situation.
Harry and Draco grabbed Kevin's arms.
"Don't," Harry said.
"He'll give it back," Draco said, simultaneously.
Neither of them believed either of those things, but they said them anyway.
Hermione rested a hand on Kevin's arm. "We'll make more. Come on."
He stood there for three seconds letting the impulse pass.
"Draco," he said finally.
"What?"
"Cook something."
Draco looked up. "Why me?"
"Because you've been sitting in that chair since we got here dangling bits of meat toward Norbert to see what he'd do, which is why he thinks this is a buffet situation." Kevin pointed. "Grill. Now."
"That redhead —" Draco pointed at Ron, who had two chicken legs in each hand and a defensive expression "— has eaten twelve pieces and not cooked a single thing."
"Twelve?" Ron said. "That is absolutely an exaggeration."
"I have been counting."
"I grilled my own — that's self-sufficiency, that's a life skill —"
"Self-sufficiency doesn't mean eating everything in sight —"
Kevin retreated to a folding chair and put his hands behind his head while Draco and Ron argued with the energy of people who needed something to argue about. Hermione sighed, tied her hair back, and took over the grill.
Harry, quietly, had been cooking since the argument started. He prepared a large slab the way Norbert liked — crispy outside, properly rare inside — and held it up.
Norbert angled downward, landed, and accepted it with surprising delicacy.
Kevin watched, waited for it, and the moment Norbert's attention shifted he reached out and flicked the dragon on the nose with the grill tongs.
Norbert reared. Made a sound that was meant to be a roar and came out as something much smaller and angrier.
He reared further, opened his mouth.
Kevin already had the snowball.
It went in.
Norbert made a sound that was definitely not dignified. The watching group lost it entirely.
Hagrid covered his face. "Oh, Kevin, go easy on him —"
"The grill's dying," Kevin said, entirely unmoved. "Norbert, you want more meat or not?"
He hauled Norbert to the grill by the scruff and positioned him in front of the dying coals. The dragon, recognising that cooperation was the shortest route to food, puffed obligingly.
"See?" Kevin pointed at Draco and Ron. "More useful than either of you."
He dusted his hands off, retrieved his chair, and waited.
Hermione, who had watched all of this, handed him a plate without a word.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me, thank Norbert," she said. "He did the work."
On the snowy hill above, a large black wolfhound sat in the dark and watched the light from Hagrid's windows, the laughter carrying faint on the cold air.
Sirius Black had been watching for ten minutes.
Harry was in the middle of it — laughing at something, gesturing with a piece of food, completely at home.
Sirius let out a long, quiet breath. After everything — Azkaban, twelve years, the cold, the Dementors, the constant fleeing — this was what he'd needed to see.
Harry had people. Good ones. He was fine.
He was going to be fine.
I should get him a broom, Sirius thought. His Nimbus is gone. He deserves a proper one.
He watched a little longer, then slipped away down the far side of the hill.
Harry glanced toward the empty white slope a moment later, drawn by something he couldn't name. A hollow feeling, briefly, in the middle of all the warmth.
He looked away.
"Harry?" Hagrid's voice, gentle. "You alright?"
"Yeah," Harry said. He looked around at the lit faces, the fire, the snow catching the orange glow. "Yeah, I'm good."
And he was.
They slept in the tents. Boys' section, girls' section.
Except Kevin woke at some point in the deep night and lay in the dark listening to Ron's sleep-commentary — which had evolved into a running narrative about spiders demanding he perform choreography — and eventually gave up entirely.
He got up quietly, crossed the central space, and looked at the girls' section.
He pushed his head through the curtain.
Ginny was gone — she'd gone back to the castle around midnight. Just Hermione, asleep on her side, hair everywhere.
She stirred. Looked up. Squinted at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Ron," Kevin said simply.
A pause. She understood.
"...Come in," she said, and reached for the spare pillow. She threw it at him.
He caught it, stepped inside, sat on the edge of her mattress.
She pushed herself up, sleep-creased and faintly grumpy. "You said you wanted to talk."
"I do." He set the pillow down. "Also I want to sleep here."
She stared at him. "You — that is — I didn't say —"
"Adjacent bed is empty." He pointed. "Nothing untoward. I'd just like to sleep somewhere that isn't being narrated at me."
She grabbed her own pillow and hit him with it.
He folded dramatically sideways onto her mattress, which she had absolutely not intended.
"Kevin —"
"I'm gravely injured," he said into the pillow.
"You are not."
"Very hard hit."
"Get up."
"Still in recovery."
He turned his head and looked at her from approximately four inches away. The wand-light he'd brought was very dim. She looked flushed and faintly furious and also like she was trying not to laugh.
"Is it working?" he asked.
"No," she said, and sounded it slightly less than she meant to.
He wriggled under the duvet.
She covered her face with both hands and made a sound he chose to interpret as acceptance.
"Move over," she said finally.
He moved over. She settled beside him, stiff with dignity, and then gradually, by degrees, relaxed.
He put his arm around her. She didn't protest.
"You're shameless," she said.
"Absolutely," he agreed.
The light went out on its own. Outside, the snow fell steadily.