The Hungarian Horntail was released.
He had seen photographs. He had the dragon handler memories from August, which included the Horntail specifically and which he had watched four times. He had built the training simulations based on the Horntail's documented sensory profile — the heat detection, the scent range, the specific auditory sensitivity that made footstep masking not optional but essential.
None of it had fully prepared him for the scale.
The Horntail moved into the enclosure and filled it in the specific way that very large things filled spaces — not by occupying every corner but by making the available space feel smaller than it was. It settled over the nest with the deliberate quality of something that had decided this was its nest and intended to communicate this clearly. Its tail, spiked and heavy, swept a slow arc behind it. Its eyes — yellow, vertical-pupiled — moved across the enclosure with the specific continuous assessment of a predator that had not survived this long by assuming the absence of threat.
The stands were very quiet.
The enclosure entrance opened. Nothing appeared to come through it.
Ron sat forward.
He could not see Harry. That was the point — that was correct, that was the Disillusionment working, the scent masking and heat masking and footstep silencing holding simultaneously under the specific pressure of a Hungarian Horntail thirty yards away. He knew Harry was there. He could not see him. The stands around him could not see him. The Horntail could not see him.
The secondary illusion appeared on the east side of the enclosure.
It was a boy — a convincing one, the kind of illusion that worked because it moved correctly rather than looked correctly, the specific quality of something that appeared to be breathing and uncertain and present in the way that prey was present. The Horntail's head came around with the speed of something that had been waiting for exactly this and was pleased to have confirmation.
The illusion ran.
The Horntail went after it with the full commitment of a predator that had identified a target and was not interested in anything else.
On the west side of the enclosure, near the nest, the golden egg lifted from the rocks.
It rose perhaps a foot into the air, held by hands that were not visible, and then it moved — a careful, controlled movement, lateral and then back toward the enclosure entrance, the path they had planned, the route that kept maximum distance between the retrieval and the dragon's current position.
The Horntail reached the illusion and breathed fire at it and the illusion dissolved, which was correct — an illusion that survived dragonfire would have been its own signal. The Horntail paused for a fraction of a second in the specific confusion of a predator whose target had ceased to exist.
The golden egg was at the enclosure entrance.
The Horntail turned back to its nest.
The golden egg was gone.
The Horntail looked at the empty space in its nest with the expression that very large predators had when the world had behaved in a way that conflicted with their understanding of how the world worked. It moved to the nest's edge. It looked at the nest again. It looked at the enclosure.
Harry was already outside.
The stands took approximately three seconds to understand what had happened. Then the noise came — not the polite applause of people who had watched a competent performance, but the specific sound of a large crowd that had watched something they could not fully explain and was attempting to process it with volume.
Hermione had both hands over her mouth.
Ginny was on her feet.
Neville, behind him, said something that Ron didn't catch because the crowd was too loud, but had the quality of words that had been selected from a very small available set.
Ron sat back in his seat.
He was aware, in the specific detached way of someone whose preparation had just been tested and had held, that his hands were not steady. He looked at them. He made them steady. He looked at the enclosure where the Horntail was still examining its empty nest with the affronted confusion of a creature that had done everything correctly and had still somehow arrived at an outcome it had not intended.
He raised his camera.
He took the photograph: the enclosure, the Horntail at its nest, the empty space where the egg had been. Not Harry — Harry was invisible and was going to stay that way until he was clear. The absence. The thing the task had required, accomplished.
The judges scored. The marks were the highest of the three champions and it was not close.