As soon as the words left his mouth, Dumbledore pulled his wand from his pocket and gave it a casual flick toward the center of the arena.
A faint silver beam shot from the tip, landing silently on the ground right next to the golden egg.
None of the spectators had a clue what it did—only the headmasters up in the judges' box knew.
The next second, every invisible Impediment Curse in the arena suddenly lit up.
They glowed with a soft red shimmer, perfectly uniform, like giant bricks carved by a master mason—each one about chest-high, three feet wide, edges razor-sharp and straight.
These red bricks weren't just on the ground. They floated at every height imaginable.
Down low, a dozen or so locked together into small half-square-meter platforms—just big enough for one person to stand on.
Higher up, more bricks stood upright in rows, forming translucent barriers. Some blocked the dragons' claw strikes; others sat right in the path of their whipping tails.
The crowd finally saw why Dylan had been dodging so effortlessly.
Those bricks were his stepping stones and his natural shields against dragon attacks.
"So that's how it works! He's basically built an invisible cage!" someone in the stands yelled.
Everyone realized—if the dragons had waited even a second longer to try flying, those red bricks would've kept multiplying until the whole arena was sealed, trapping both beasts on the ground.
Dylan had seen it coming.
He'd used Impediment Curses to pin their wings the moment they tried to lift off, locking them in mid-air.
Wings that should've given the dragons total air superiority were now just dead weight.
The curses clamped right onto the wing joints. The harder the dragons flapped, the tighter the grip got. They hung there, stuck halfway up, barely able to twist their bodies.
"ROOOAAAR—! ROOOAAAR—!" The dragons bellowed, but it wasn't their usual terrifying roar. It sounded… frustrated. Like they were throwing a tantrum.
They thrashed uselessly, claws swiping at thin air, never touching a single red brick.
Dragon fire blasted out, only to smash into the barriers and fizzle into sparks—none of it reaching Dylan.
Over at the edge of the arena, the dragon handlers' faces were a mixed bag of emotions.
An older handler shook his head, half-amused, half-awed. "Thirty years wrangling dragons, and I've never heard a roar like that. That's not a beast's battle cry—that's the sound of something tied up and pissed about it."
Charlie Weasley nodded, eyes wide. "Other breeds—like common Welsh Greens—sometimes make that whiny noise when they lose a territory fight. But these are a Hungarian Horntail and a Norwegian Ridgeback. Mother dragons. The meanest of the mean. They get meaner when hurt. Making them sound this pathetic? That's harder than getting a dragon to tap out."
The old handler sighed, sounding relieved. "Well, at least their scales are mostly intact. I was worried those rock spears would shred them. Dylan's curses locked them down without extra damage—makes our healing job a whole lot easier."
The students in the stands picked up on the dragons' weird roars too.
Ravenclaw's Terry Boot pushed up his glasses, stroking his chin as he watched the dragons squirm. "I read that dragons are the proudest magical creatures alive. Even cornered, they fight to the death—never show weakness. Guess that book was understating things. Run into someone like Dylan who can pin them perfectly? Even the proudest dragon ends up looking like a sulky toddler."
His friends nodded like crazy.
Everyone had expected a bloody, brutal slugfest—one guy versus two dragons.
Instead, Dylan used a bunch of layered Impediment Curses to trap two raging beasts without hurting them. It was almost… gentle.
Winning without fighting? Way more impressive than just beating them up.
By now, Dylan was hopping from red-brick platform to platform, closing in on the golden egg in the center.
The hovering dragons kept roaring, but they couldn't touch him.
The nundu near the egg was distracted, staring up at the dragons, completely ignoring Dylan sneaking closer.
The perfect moment to grab the egg had arrived.
"Magic can combine like that…?" Ravenclaw's Chris Moon watched the red-brick platforms, already pulling out his wand and running his fingers along it, itching to try. "No wonder it's Dylan—he's turning basic spells into art!"
"Don't even think about it," Anthony Goldstein grabbed his arm and jerked his chin toward the Gryffindor stands. "Look over there. Someone already tried it for us."
Chris followed his gaze. Gryffindor's section was chaos—chairs flipped, students sprawled on the ground, a few clutching bruised arms and muttering.
Right then, an orange tabby cat leaped from the crowd, landed, and morphed back into Professor McGonagall—arms crossed, glare sharp enough to cut glass.
"Anyone else casts spells in the stands, Gryffindor loses fifty points!" she barked.
"See?" Anthony shrugged, smug. "A few Gryffindors thought Dylan's trick looked cool and tried building platforms with Impediment Curses. Lost control, fell, knocked over half their row—and summoned McGonagall."
Chris quickly tucked his wand away, coughing awkwardly. "Yeah… let's not give Flitwick a heart attack. Ravenclaw can't afford the deduction."
Their conversation got drowned out by the arena.
The dragons finally gave up on flying. Wings pinned, they thrashed harder, claws flailing—still never touching the red bricks. The "visible but untouchable" cage was driving them nuts.
Then, like they'd planned it, both dragons switched tactics. Claws and tails weren't working—time for the big guns.
They opened their jaws wide. Sparks poured from their nostrils, throats rumbling. Two blazing streams of dragon fire shot out.
One deep blue, one bright orange—like twin fire serpents racing toward Dylan.
"Oh! With their wings locked, the dragons are forced to—" Ludo Bagman started commentating, then froze. Forced? That word was for champions, not dragons.
A champion might be forced to abandon the task if overwhelmed.
But using "forced" for the dragons? That flipped the whole "champion vs. dragon" script upside down.
The dragons didn't wait for Ludo to finish his crisis.
The two fire streams collided mid-air, temperature spiking. Red bricks along the path glowed hotter. In a blink, the fire was right in Dylan's face.
This time, he didn't block with another Impediment Curse or dodge with a Repelling Charm.
He planted his feet on the red platform, raised his wand, and stabbed it straight into the oncoming inferno.
The dragon fire exploded into blinding light. Spectators squinted and winced.
Even knowing Dylan was tough, people clenched fists, hearts in their throats.
He was tanking dragon fire head-on.
BOOM—! A blast like a cannon echoed over the arena.
Then—whoosh—thick white steam erupted from Dylan's spot, spreading fast like dense fog, swallowing his silhouette.
The steam kept rising, blanketing the upper half of the arena. You could barely see flickers of fire and vague shadows inside.
Ludo finally snapped out of it, pointing at the white cloud, voice cracking with disbelief. "Merlin's beard! Dylan Hockwood is using Aguamenti against dragon fire?! Water versus fire—direct clash! He's actually risking it like this—!!"
His brows knotted, eyes narrowed, trying to peer through the steam. No luck—the fog was a total wall.
"That's insanely dangerous! If the water spell can't match the fire's heat, it'll evaporate instantly and leave Dylan exposed!"
As Ludo fretted, Dumbledore spoke up from the judges' box, calm but pointed. "Mr. Bagman, mind the surroundings. The steam is spreading fast—and the arena floor is already pooling with water."
Ludo glanced down. Sure enough, a thin layer of water glistened at the arena's edge, steam still creeping toward the stands.
He grabbed his wand and shouted into the microphone: "Front-row spectators! The steam's hot and the ground's wet—step back to avoid slips or burns!"
Back in the center, steam and fire still battled. No one knew who was winning—was Dylan's water holding, or had the fire broken through?
Everyone held their breath, eyes glued to the white haze, waiting.
Ludo caught Dumbledore's hint and scanned the arena.
His eyes widened. "Look! The red Impediment 'bricks'—they're moving!"
Sure enough, the floating barriers were shifting.
Scattered bricks drifted together—some closing in on the dragons' wings, others linking up below, forming a tighter ring.
"What's Dylan planning? What's he doing?" Ludo muttered, frustrated. "This blasted steam's blocking everything!"
But right then, the steam started acting weird.
The fog swirling in mid-air got sucked eastward, condensing into thick gray storm clouds that blotted out the sun.
Then—pitter-patter, splash—fat raindrops poured down, drumming the ground and pooling in the center within seconds.
The red barriers finished moving.
They locked into a perfect cylinder around the dragons, glowing bright red under the rain.
The dragons were trapped dead center—wings pinned, claws useless. They couldn't even turn their heads properly. The top of the cage had sealed shut; no fire could escape.
Ludo blinked, then noticed something.
The red glow was darker now—deep crimson instead of pale pink.
"I get it!" He slapped his thigh. "The dragon fire heated the barriers, turning them red-hot—but it can't break the spell! The dragons are completely locked in a cage of their own making!"
He glanced at the now-silent dragons, voice lighter. "Look! They've gone quiet! All Dylan has to do now is slip past the nundu by the egg and he's done! Easiest finish I've ever seen!"
Dumbledore just smiled and shook his head, saying nothing.
Ludo missed it, but the dragons felt it.
The barriers radiated steady heat. The redder they got, the hotter. If it kept rising, they'd be cooked alive. This wasn't "calm"—they were forced to shut up.
Then Ludo's eyes caught something else.
Dylan had used the cage walls to climb down and land smoothly on the ground.
The storm cloud shifted again.
The downpour stopped. In its place, fat snowflakes drifted down, blanketing the arena in frost within moments.
"Good grief! What spell is that?" Ludo's voice cracked with awe. "From torrential rain to blizzard in under thirty seconds! Dylan Hockwood just showed textbook-perfect weather control!"
"Even Ministry Meteorologists couldn't pull that off!"
He looked to the edge of the arena and got it.
The nundu, curled behind a rock near the egg, was shivering—fur puffed up, tail clamped tight, teeth chattering.
Dylan walked straight toward the egg. The nundu just glared, too cold to move.
"There it is! That's the real play!" Ludo waved his arms, grinning. "He conjured a blizzard to drop the temperature and freeze out the nundu! Those things hate cold—it's a two-for-one masterstroke!"
The crowd erupted in cheers.
No one expected "one guy vs. two dragons" to end with brain over brawn.
No blood, no near-death dodges—just a few spells stacked like Lego, and every threat was gone.
Magic… you can play it like this?
This kid's still in school?
Half the professors in the wizarding world couldn't touch this.
Every eye in the stadium locked on Dylan as he strolled up to the golden egg, waiting for the final win.