In the days that followed, Draco would head straight for Hagrid's hut every day as soon as classes ended.
Inside the castle, his relationship with Harry and Ron remained stiff, and they often bickered.
However, inside Hagrid's hut, they managed to coexist in peace.
After witnessing Norbert's hideousness, Kyle lost all interest in the dragon. He had no intention of joining them to send the dragon off next Saturday night.
Harry and the others had the Invisibility Cloak, and under his leadership, Hermione had become quite the adept little night-wanderer. Sending Norbert off secretly shouldn't be a big problem.
Kyle stopped Hannah and the others from their plan to see Norbert off.
Harry's Invisibility Cloak wasn't large. Considering they also had to carry the crate containing Norbert, fitting three young wizards underneath was already the limit. It was best to let the Gryffindor trio handle this.
Draco wanted to go too, and Kyle didn't stop him.
After all, if something went wrong, it would be Slytherin losing points. What did that have to do with him, a Hufflepuff?
However, before Saturday even arrived, they ran into trouble.
Ron was bitten by Norbert. Dragon teeth were venomous; although not virulently so, the venom successfully caused Ron's bitten hand to swell to twice its original size.
Kyle attempted to treat him using the Mystical Palm Technique, but it had no effect.
The principle behind the Mystical Palm Technique was to accelerate cellular division and regeneration; it was useless against poisoning.
If he knew the Delicate Illness Extraction Technique, it would be easily solved, but unfortunately, he didn't.
Dumbledore could likely solve it with ease, but the group wouldn't let Kyle tell Dumbledore about the matter.
"Why not go see Madam Pomfrey?" Hannah suggested.
Ron vetoed the suggestion, fearing Madam Pomfrey would recognize it as a dragon bite.
However, a few hours later, he had no choice. His wound turned a nasty shade of green, forcing him to be admitted to the hospital wing.
Originally, the Gryffindor trio was set to send Norbert off, but now Draco had the chance to take Ron's place.
On Sunday morning, Kyle, having risen early for morning training, passed by the Great Hall and saw that the hourglass representing Gryffindor's points was nearly empty.
The hourglass representing Slytherin's points had also dropped significantly.
No way, right? They had the Invisibility Cloak and an experienced guide—how could they still mess this up?
When he returned to the Great Hall for breakfast, he saw the little beaver sitting by the Gryffindor table, eyes red and tears pattering down. A small mountain of tissues had piled up beside her.
Hannah was beside her, comforting her and handing over tissues every now and then.
"What happened?" Kyle patted Harry on the shoulder.
Harry raised his gloomy face and told Kyle about the previous night's events.
Last night, escorting Norbert away went smoothly. But on their way down from the Astronomy Tower, they committed the stupidest, most elementary mistake—they forgot to put the Invisibility Cloak back on.
Kyle rubbed his temples in resignation. To make such a fatal error, they were truly...
Beyond saving.
Add to that Neville, who had woken up in the middle of the night to pee, found Harry's bed empty, and rushed out to find him. Gryffindor was docked one hundred and fifty points by a furious Professor McGonagall.
Slytherin was slightly luckier; only Draco was caught, so they only lost fifty points.
With things as they were, Hufflepuff now ranked first among the four houses of Hogwarts.
Well, even if Gryffindor and Slytherin hadn't lost points, Hufflepuff would still be first.
Because a certain Little Demon King was simply too good at farming points. Fifty points was just about two days' worth of class points for Kyle.
If he wasn't such a troublemaker, causing almost as many points to be deducted as he earned, Hufflepuff's house points would have broken through the two-thousand-point mark long ago.
Harry looked melancholy. "Professor McGonagall said we have detention tonight."
He pulled out a note that read: Your detention begins at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.
It was signed by Professor McGonagall.
"You should be glad it was Professor McGonagall who caught you." George appeared beside Harry unbeknownst to him.
Fred nodded in strong agreement. "If the Old Bat had caught you, there's a high probability he'd sentence you to his office to skin dead toads."
Harry imagined the scene: him alone in the gloomy dungeon office, accompanied by Snape and dead toads.
His face instantly went pale.
"Don't worry," George's tone was relaxed. "Professor McGonagall will at most make you clean the trophy room."
"At worst, you won't be allowed to use magic and will have to polish those trophies by hand."
Hearing this, the weight in Harry's heart lifted slightly.
"Hey, Ced!" Fred shouted at the figure at the entrance of the Great Hall. "Let's go eat barbecue tonight!"
Night draped over the earth like black velvet.
Under the effect of the Disillusionment Charm, four sneaky figures slipped out of their respective common rooms.
They skillfully dodged Filch, bypassed the patrolling professors, quickly crossed the lawn outside the castle, and headed toward the dark Forbidden Forest in the distance.
Moments later, a bonfire was lit in a clearing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Kyle skillfully took out various foods from his storage pouch.
Fish blasted out of the Black Lake, Ashwinder eggs stolen from Snape's office, chickens raised by Hagrid in the field outside his hut...
The other three also helped process the ingredients.
With a wave of Cedric's wand, the scales were instantly cleared from the fish.
Picking up a large iron skewer, Cedric skewered the fish, brushed it with seasoning, and set it over the fire.
"Sectumsempra."
An invisible blade flashed, and the chicken flapping in George's hand instantly lost its life.
"Thanks, Kyle."
After thanking Kyle, George drew his wand. With a few movements, he completed the series of operations to bleed and defeather the chicken in his hand.
Fred stuffed the chicken's belly with a pile of unidentified fungi picked from the Forbidden Forest, then George smeared a thin layer of oil over the chicken's skin.
That's right, the two were making Beggar's Chicken, a cooking method Kyle had taught them.
Since they didn't have lotus leaves, they had to use vegetable leaves picked from the patch outside Hagrid's hut as a substitute.
Who knew how Hagrid farmed his land? He actually managed to grow cabbages as tall as people.
While Cedric was busy grilling fish and the twin brothers were working together on the Beggar's Chicken, Kyle had already set up a barbecue rack nearby using Transfiguration.
Charcoal burned fiercely beneath the iron rack, and Kyle tossed a few Ashwinder eggs into the center of the coals to roast.
At this moment, Kyle was using magic to direct the food to skewer itself onto the iron rods.
Watching their practiced movements, it was obviously not their first time doing this.
Meanwhile, inside the Forbidden Forest...
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