"Are you heading back to the orphanage for summer?" Harry asked.
They were walking toward the Great Hall for the end-of-year feast, the corridors full of the particular noise of several hundred people who are all simultaneously relieved about something. Kevin matched Harry's pace without hurrying.
"For a bit. Then Hermione's invited me to stay."
Harry glanced at him. "You two are — " He seemed to search for the right word. "Close."
"Yes."
"Can I write you? Over the summer?"
"Of course," Kevin said. "If you don't, I'll show up at your door." He paused. "Which would cause some difficulty for you, I imagine, given your family's attitude toward uninvited magical visitors."
Harry laughed — not the bright, performative laugh he gave when he was being polite, but the real one. "Deal."
"Think Gryffindor's taking the House Cup this year?"
"If not," Kevin said, "Ron is going to have to do something very embarrassing, and I want it on record that I told him so."
Harry blinked. "Why Ron specifically?"
"I need the threat to have a face."
"...Fair."
The feast was everything it was supposed to be. Dumbledore played the hall like a conductor, letting Slytherin settle into premature satisfaction before turning everything on its head with the late point additions. The Slytherin decorations came down. Scarlet and gold bloomed from the ceiling. The sound level from the Gryffindor table became a genuine structural concern.
Kevin ate and watched and let himself feel, for a moment, the specific satisfaction of a year that had been hard and strange and ultimately good.
Then Snape appeared beside him.
"Stay back," Snape said, and kept walking as though he'd said nothing.
Kevin glanced at the others. "Go on ahead. I'll catch up."
They went. Kevin peeled off and caught Snape in the corridor outside.
Snape held out the expandable pouch without looking at him — the same one from the lab, stuffed to capacity, bulging in a way that suggested it had been packed with aggressive efficiency.
Inside: ingredients, tools, measuring equipment, and a list.
The list was two pages, double-sided, in Snape's cramped handwriting. The bottom of the second page read: All items must be of excellent quality. A single substandard result requires you to source and replace the shortfall yourself. One bottle short — don't bother returning next term.
Kevin read it twice.
Holiday homework, he thought. Of course it is.
"Owl it back when you're finished," Snape said, already walking away. "Don't lose the equipment."
"Yes, Professor." Kevin looked at the pouch. "Thank you."
Snape stopped.
A beat.
He kept walking.
Kevin tucked the pouch into his bag and caught up with the others at the train platform, who were all being loudly confused about why Snape had swooped on him again.
"Potions assignment," Kevin said. "Over summer."
"Over summer?" Ron stared at him. "He gives you work over summer?"
"I'm his apprentice," Kevin said mildly. "Comes with the territory."
Hermione looked at him with the expression of someone who has decided that Snape's relationship with Kevin is going to remain one of the more confusing features of her year. Then she fell into step beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed, and decided to leave it.
From the window of his quarters, Snape watched the train platform until the Hogwarts Express had pulled out of sight.
Kevin walked with his group with the easy, unhurried confidence of someone who fits where they are. The girl — Granger — moved at his shoulder without thinking about it. The angle of her head said something he chose not to name.
He had been a prodigy too, once. He'd had the talent and the hunger and the absolute conviction that both things would be enough. He'd been wrong about what they were enough for.
Kevin would not be wrong about that. Kevin had, apparently, already figured out the things that took Snape decades to understand and still couldn't fully act on. The boy had made friends without trying, earned loyalty without demanding it, and walked through a dungeon confrontation with the Dark Lord and come out of it primarily concerned with whether his friends were all right.
Completely infuriating.
"You've grown rather fond of that boy," Dumbledore said, from somewhere behind him.
"He has talent," Snape said. "That's all."
"Mm." The familiar smile. "Of course."
Snape decided not to continue the conversation.
"Kevin, come to the Burrow for the holidays?" Ron said, once they were on the train and settled.
"Sure."
"Then obviously I'm adjusting my plans," Hermione said, with the serenity of someone to whom this is not a question.
"Obviously," Kevin agreed.
Ron looked at Hermione. "You're... coming to my house?"
"Kevin's going. Therefore I'm going. Is that a problem?"
"No, it's just — you've never — you're always very — " Ron appeared to lose the thread. "Fine. Mum'll be thrilled."
Harry, when asked, made the face of someone who very much wants to say yes and is doing the arithmetic on whether the Dursleys will cooperate.
"I'll come get you," Kevin said. "Week before term. We'll do Ron's together."
Harry's face changed. The arithmetic resolved itself in his favour. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm in."
Kevin nodded. He caught Hermione looking at him with an expression he'd begun to recognise — the one where she'd noticed something he'd done and was deciding how she felt about it, and the feeling was warm.
He looked back out the window. The castle was small now in the distance, grey and steady above the trees.
Second year next, he thought. Basilisk. Diary. Lucius.
He'd need better preparation than he currently had. The crowbar remained his most reliable instrument, but there were things it couldn't fix.
He'd start with the Disillusionment counter-spell. Then work forward.
At King's Cross, the Grangers were waiting — Mrs. Granger already moving toward them, Mr. Granger carrying the particular expression of a man who has decided Kevin is all right and will maintain this position barring evidence to the contrary.
Kevin said his goodbyes to Harry and Ron and let Mrs. Granger kiss his cheek, which he had quietly learned to accept as the cost of entry.
"Come stay," she said. "Don't be silly about it."
"A few days," Kevin said. "I need to sort some things."
Hermione tugged on his sleeve. He turned. She was looking at him with the particular combination of warmth and determination that meant she had decided something and was waiting to find out if he'd agree.
"Soon," he said quietly.
She nodded, which was its own kind of victory.
He waved and headed for the Leaky Cauldron.
Ollivander's door chimed. The old wandmaker looked up from behind the counter with the expression of someone who is never surprised to see anyone.
"Red sandalwood, ten and a quarter inches, phoenix feather core," he said.
"It broke," Kevin said. "I need a new one."
"Mm." Ollivander moved. The shelves rustled. He returned with a wand in cream-coloured wood, nine inches, faintly tapered at the tip. "Ginkgo wood. Unicorn hair core. Rare choice — very few of these respond to someone your age."
Kevin held it. The warmth was immediate and specific, like something slotting into the right place. He gave it a small wave. The air shimmered.
"Nine Galleons."
He left Ollivander's with a new wand, went to Gringotts, and converted enough Galleons to keep himself funded for the summer. The exchange rate was what it was. He counted the notes and thought about the Snape assignment waiting in his bag and about second year, which was coming regardless of how ready he was for it.
At least he had the summer to prepare.
---
---
My friend doubted this community from day one. Every vote, every review, every reader who stays is proof he was wrong.
Hit Powerstone. Drop a review. I am holding my end with non-stop updates.
Top 10 is the mission. We are not stopping until we get there.