"Found it."
Hermione slapped her palm down on the page with the satisfaction of someone who had been right all along and is savouring the confirmation. "Nicolas Flamel. The only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone."
They were in the hospital wing. Kevin was in the bed. He had told everyone he was fine. He was in the bed.
"The Stone," Hermione said, "creates gold. And it produces the Elixir of Life. Drink it, and — "
"You live forever," Harry said. "Kevin asked Snape about that in our first Potions class. Whether the Elixir needed the Stone."
All three of them turned to look at Kevin.
Kevin had been staring at the ceiling. He became aware of the looking.
"I'm ill," he said. "Have some compassion."
"You knew," Ron said.
"I read extensively over the summer. Now please stop shaking the bed."
"He knew," Harry said to the ceiling.
"Snape's after it," Ron said, with the air of someone snapping puzzle pieces together. "He wants the Elixir. For Voldemort — "
"I know what you're thinking," Hermione said, with a glance at Kevin that was half apologetic and half checking. She had been privately revising her position on Snape since the troll corridor and didn't know quite where to land. "But the evidence does point — "
"Let me sleep," Kevin said.
"Kevin — "
"Go find Hagrid. Ask him about the stone. You'll get more from him than from me right now, I promise."
They went. Kevin lay in the infirmary and thought about the shape of the plot and the particular frustration of knowing approximately what happened next without knowing the precise timing of any of it.
They came back an hour later with Hagrid's confirmation — Snape was guarding the Stone, not trying to steal it; only Snape and Dumbledore knew how to get past Fluffy; the Stone was safe and it wasn't their concern.
Harry wasn't satisfied. He was too far in now, the logic too personally threatening — Voldemort had killed his parents, the Stone could restore Voldemort, Hogwarts was the battleground.
"You're going to tell me to leave it," Harry said, looking at Kevin.
"I'm going to tell you to leave it for now." Kevin pushed himself upright against the pillow, which took more effort than he'd have liked. "There's nothing you can do tonight that Dumbledore isn't already handling. Voldemort is weak and cornered and whoever is helping him is operating under serious constraints. The Stone is protected."
"But if Snape — "
"If Snape were going to steal it he'd have done it already." Kevin paused. "Think about what you actually know, Harry. Don't theorise past it."
Harry sat back. The logic was frustrating precisely because it was sound.
"I read this once," Kevin said, more quietly. The hospital wing was still, the afternoon light going amber through the windows. "I liked it. When you're stuck, just charge forward. Life's a great adventure. Fate will show you the path when the time comes."
Hermione tilted her head.
"The point," Kevin said, "is that you can't force it. Get stronger. Get better. When it's time to act, you'll know. And you'll be ready because you used the time you had."
Silence.
"That sounds exactly like something Ron's mum would say," Ron said, after a moment.
"Does it work?"
"Annoyingly? Yeah."
The mood lifted. Not solved — nothing was solved — but lifted. They stayed for another half hour, the conversation gentling into the comfortable noise of people who have decided to stop fighting an argument for one evening.
Kevin recovered. Hagrid visited and brought something edible this time, apparently taking the lesson to heart. Snape dropped in with a potion and a threat about the consequences of future gastric incidents caused by deliberate dietary recklessness, which Kevin accepted as a form of care.
Life resumed.
He spent his evenings in Snape's office, his skills climbing in jumps rather than increments now, the gap between theory and intuition closing as practice accumulated. He was starting to develop a feel for ingredient interactions that didn't come from the textbook — a tactile knowledge, fingers and nose as much as memory.
He and Hermione had settled into a library rhythm that felt, by mid-November, as natural as breathing. She was faster on research. He was better at the lateral questions. Between them they covered ground that neither would have covered alone, and they both knew it, and neither mentioned it because mentioning it would require acknowledging how much the other's presence had become load-bearing.
One afternoon in mid-November he said: "Professor Snape, I've been wondering — is there a way to sell potions commercially? I've been developing some formulas and I'd like to know whether there's a market."
Snape set down what he was working on. Turned. His expression moved through several things before arriving at a version of consideration that, on Snape's face, looked like mild contempt but was functionally different.
"You want a commercial enterprise," Snape said.
"I want to be useful. I have skills and no funds. It seems like a logical connection."
Snape smiled. It was the kind of smile that, Kevin noted, did not reach his eyes — or rather, reached them with a specific quality of calculation rather than warmth.
"Come with me."
The private lab was below even the regular Potions dungeon — a long stone room with workbenches that ran uninterrupted down both walls, cabinets lining every surface, the air carrying the complex smell of a hundred different compounds overlapping into something that was just barely on the pleasant side of overwhelming.
Snape flicked his wand once. Ingredients streamed from cabinets and settled in piles on the central bench with the ordered precision of a man who knew his inventory exactly.
"Use whatever you need," he said. He turned to go.
"That's very generous," Kevin said.
Snape paused.
"The materials on that bench — I've done a rough valuation. Approximately two thousand Galleons." Kevin looked at the ingredients. "I'm also noting that your time in sourcing and cataloguing them would be worth something. Shall we say three thousand in total?"
Snape turned around very slowly.
"Your brews," Snape said, "I will purchase at market rate. Quality-dependent."
"Of course."
"Sales handled through my existing networks. Commission: one thousand Galleons."
Kevin waited.
"Lab and equipment usage, per batch: one thousand Galleons."
Kevin did the arithmetic. He looked at the pile of ingredients. He looked at Snape.
"So I need to produce potions worth more than five thousand Galleons to break even on this arrangement."
"I wouldn't recommend producing anything worth less." Snape turned to leave. "You wanted a market. You have access to one. What you make of it is your concern."
The door closed.
Kevin stood in the lab for a moment, looking at the ingredients. Real value: somewhere around fifteen hundred. He knew it. Snape knew it. The lesson, Kevin understood, was not about potions.
It was about negotiating.
He had not negotiated.
He filed this lesson alongside the others, pulled on his work gloves, and began.