The holiday passed too quickly, as holidays always do when there's nothing dreading the end of them.
The Hogwarts Express back to school was livelier than usual. First-years recognised Kevin and Harry approximately three seconds after boarding and immediately descended with parchment and quills, wanting autographs. Second-years were slightly cooler about it but no less interested. By the time they pulled out of King's Cross, Kevin had signed his name fourteen times and Harry had acquired a small, devoted escort.
Saviours of the wizarding world. The story had spread, evolved, acquired embellishments. Kevin had read one version of it in the Prophet — not inaccurate in broad strokes, wildly inaccurate in specific details, flattering in all the ways that mattered.
Nobody was complaining.
The start-of-term feast meant Kevin was at the staff table.
He'd said goodbye to the others at the entrance hall and made his way around to find his seat. Dumbledore was already there, presiding over his end of the table in a set of robes that no reasonable person would have designed — pale gold with wide burgundy cuffs, topped with an entirely unjustifiable wide-brimmed hat from which small musical chimes rang softly whenever he moved.
Kevin settled into the chair beside Professor Snape.
"Miss me?" he said.
Snape opened his eyes, looked at him, and closed them again. He said nothing. But something about the set of his mouth suggested that whatever he was thinking was not in Kevin's favour.
The Sorting proceeded. Then the welcome speech — shorter than in recent years, warmer in tone, threaded through with the particular lightness that comes from having survived something terrible and arrived on the other side. Dumbledore told a joke about a troll that got a genuine laugh from the fourth years.
Then the announcements. Professor Slughorn had resigned, with the school's deep gratitude for his years of service. His replacement as Potions professor, effective this term, would be Kevin Croft — who would be taking all years, from first through seventh.
The lower years who had already had Kevin — and believed they'd aged past him — erupted. The older students were somewhat more measured, weighing up what it actually meant to have a professor who was also, theoretically, their classmate.
Kevin sat at the staff table and felt, not unpleasantly, like he'd arrived somewhere.
His office had acquired a new name placard over the holiday. He'd found it on his door when he moved in his things. Hermione's handwriting, precise and careful:
KEVIN CROWLEY MERRICK'S OFFICE.
He'd stood there looking at it for a while.
He had a full name now. His parents' names — Croft, from his father's side; a second family name from his mother's — recovered from what Nicolas Flamel had finally shown him. Their families had been destroyed in the old wars, bloodlines ended, and Kevin was the last of both. Not uncommon in the wizarding world. Harry was the last Potter. The name was his to carry, and he intended to carry it properly.
First day of term. First lesson.
Kevin had Gryffindor and Slytherin — sixth years. All familiar faces.
He gave the door a single firm kick and it swung open.
Everyone flinched.
He walked to the front, took his time scanning the room. Thirty pairs of eyes watching him with the wariness of students who could not quite decide whether to treat him as an authority figure or a disaster waiting to happen.
"Hello, students."
"…Hello, Professor," they said, uncertain.
He nodded, satisfied.
"Now. You all know the saying — a teacher for a day is a father for life."
He paused for effect.
"From this point on, I'm your father. Come on." He looked directly at Harry. "Saviour, lead by example. Call me Dad."
The class went silent in the way that only truly unexpected statements produce.
Harry: ???
At the second bench, Hermione's brain appeared to short-circuit entirely. She put her face in her hands and slid forward until her forehead touched the desk.
"And that," Kevin continued, turning to point at her, "would be—"
He got no further. Hermione was upright, textbook in hand, covering the distance between her seat and the front of the classroom in four steps. She hit him with it twice — once across the shoulder, once firmly on the top of the head.
The classroom, which had been holding its collective breath, detonated.
Ron and Draco were standing. The Slytherins at the back had given up on dignity. The Gryffindors were howling.
Hermione straightened up and turned on them like a lighthouse beam. The noise dropped to dead silence in approximately one second.
"Books out," she said. "Page two hundred and ten. Now."
Pages turned. Heads went down. No one breathed.
She grabbed Kevin by the collar and hauled him upright with a grip that suggested extensive experience. "Class. Starts. Now."
"Right," Kevin said, smoothing his robes. "Right, yes. Potions. Today we're looking at—"
He moved into the material without ceremony, and within five minutes the class had shifted — from stiffness to attention, from wariness to genuine engagement. He knew the subject in a way that made it feel effortless, and he had no interest in performing authority. He was just someone who knew things and wanted them to as well.
He was still Kevin. Professor was just a title.