The blinding white light stabbed straight into the eyes of the already hypersensitive, volatile baby dragon.
Draco had imagined many scenes: Potter knocking over a teacup in panic, Weasley collapsing in terror, or even that know-it-all Granger frozen in stupid shock.
That moment would be his coronation as victor, the perfect testimony he would present to Professor Snape.
But he had never calculated for the monster's reaction.
The instant the glare hit, the Norwegian Ridgeback let out a piercing screech.
Instinct overwhelmed whatever scraps of reason the newborn creature possessed.
It reared back, spine arching. A sulfur-stinking throat opened—and an orange-red fireball erupted.
The fireball struck dead-center into the open brandy cask by the hearth—the very one Hagrid used to soak rats for dragon feed.
BOOM—!
The destruction Draco had only ever pictured in his cruelest fantasies became real.
Blue alcohol flames exploded outward, swallowing Hagrid's hairy face in an instant. Fire raced across decades-old wood shavings on the floor, leaped to the beast-pelt coats hanging on the walls, and devoured the towering stacks of dry hay.
Draco stumbled back instinctively. His hand—still holding Lumos Maxima—shook; the wand-tip light winked out.
But light was no longer needed.
Red radiance painted half the night sky. The little wooden hut became a colossal torch.
"No… damn it, no!"
Draco staggered backward. His expensive dragon-hide boots sank into the mud, nearly toppling him. He heard the screams from inside—
maybe Granger's, maybe Weasley's—hoarse, choking coughs and heavy bodies slamming against a door that the heat-pressure had warped shut. The sounds came through burning wood: muffled, desperate.
In that instant, the proud Malfoy creed of calculated moves shattered.
Run.
A shrill voice screamed in his head. Run while no one's seen! This isn't your fault! They were keeping an illegal dragon! They did this to themselves! You only looked!
His heel actually turned. He took one step toward the castle's dark silhouette.
Just get back to the Slytherin dungeons. Lie in bed pretending to sleep. Tomorrow morning, maybe Potter would be nothing but a tragic obituary in the Prophet.
Then no one would steal his spotlight anymore. No one would make his perpetually disappointed father frown.
That was what he wanted… wasn't it?
But his legs refused to move.
Draco turned back. He stared at the blazing hut. He saw silhouettes at the window—frantic hands pounding on a door sealed shut by thermal pressure.
If nothing was done, they would really die.
Harry Potter would die. Not at Voldemort's hand—but roasted like a chicken in a broken shack on the forest edge.
And that Mudblood… though she was loathsome, though she always flaunted her damn perfect grades…
Terror gripped Draco's heart. He had never wanted… this. He only wanted them expelled, humiliated, their faces ground into the mud.
Murder? No. A Malfoy didn't dirty his hands with killing—certainly not in this filthy, crude, utterly tasteless way.
"Damn it! Damn you, Potter!"
Draco gritted his teeth. He stood trembling in the shadows, wand raised—only to realize he couldn't even remember a proper fire-suppression charm.
Aguamenti? He hadn't learned it yet.
Blast the door open with a Banishing Charm? What if he misjudged and sealed it permanently?
In that near-breakdown of hesitation and panic, commotion erupted from the castle.
"Merlin's beard—it's on fire!"
"That's Hagrid's hut!"
High windows flared to life one after another. The castle's countless eyes snapped open in the dark. Distant bells began to toll; Filch's hoarse shouts carried on the wind.
In Gryffindor Tower, the common room had already been wound tight by weeks of hallway hexes and counter-hexes with Slytherin.
When the massive explosion rattled the Fat Lady's frame into a shriek, Fred and George were first at the window. They'd thought it was another Slytherin sneak attack—until orange-red firelight painted their faces.
"Merlin's beard… that's Hagrid!" Fred's voice cracked.
Gryffindor windows filled with head after head. Fear fermented quickly in young lion blood—then ignited into the blind, accumulated rage of recent weeks.
"It was them! Had to be those snakes!" Lee Jordan gripped the sill. "No one else hates Hagrid that much! They're trying to burn him alive!"
No proof needed. No logic required. On this night of maximum house tension, the firelight in Gryffindor eyes was a declaration of war. Some older students were already yanking on robes, clutching wands, ready to tear the dungeons apart.
Across the castle, Slytherin common room atmosphere was entirely different.
Under the lake, they couldn't see the flames directly. But when several well-connected older students returned from the prefect bathroom corridor windows with news that the gamekeeper's hut had become ash—
Pansy Parkinson—nail file in hand—didn't even pause. She just gave a thin, cruel smile.
"Natural selection, isn't it?" Suppressed laughter rippled around her. "That brainless oaf finally got himself killed. I always said letting a wandless half-giant live on school grounds was a disgrace to Hogwarts."
"Clean slate now." Blaise Zabini turned a page lazily. "Hope it burns thoroughly. Wouldn't want the stench drifting down here."
No one worried about casualties. No one wanted to fight the fire. In Slytherin eyes, this potentially lethal blaze was nothing but after-dinner gossip—a divine punishment on the inferior side.
Two windows. Two colors.
Every person in the castle was rushing to take sides, building higher walls of prejudice.
Except Draco Malfoy—the one who should have been leading the Slytherin jeers at Hagrid's misfortune—was now alone in the mud, trapped in the crack between two mad worlds.
Too late.
The whole school knew.
Draco let his wand drop.
He stared at the inferno. At Hagrid's massive body still shielding the damned dragon egg even as flames licked his coat. At window glass exploding outward in molten rain from thermal shock.
He neither ran nor rushed forward to help.
He simply stood—on the boundary between light and dark—watching the disaster he had personally ignited spiral completely out of control.
In that instant Draco Malfoy realized, with bleak clarity, that he wasn't evil enough to walk away cold… nor good enough to step in.
He was just a spoiled child who had unleashed something enormous—and now stood helpless.
The wand in his hand felt heavier than the world.
"What… have I done?" he whispered. The crack of burning timber swallowed the words.
"Aguamenti!"
Draco's head snapped toward the caster.
Lucian.
But Lucian wasn't looking at him.
In his perception right now—
a powerful magical signature was approaching fast.
Albus Dumbledore.
Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merlin First Class, Leader of the Order of the Phoenix, true master of the Elder Wand, the most powerful white wizard in the magical world—
a starry robe was cutting through the night.