Two days before they were due at the Burrow, Hermione sent Ron a letter. Ron replied by showing up the following morning.
"You didn't write me," he said to Kevin, by way of greeting, dropping into the kitchen chair with the practised ease of someone who has already decided this is comfortable.
"I asked Hermione to reply for me," Kevin said, flipping eggs.
"That's her letter."
"We're living together. Close enough."
Ron opened his mouth. Closed it. "You're such a — " He glanced at Hermione, who was eating toast and watching Ron try to figure out what Kevin was with the expression of someone enjoying a familiar process. "You know what, fine."
Kevin set a plate in front of him.
Ron took a bite. His grievance evaporated completely.
"Right," Kevin said. "Harry first, then the Burrow."
Privet Drive in summer had the specific, airless quality of a street that has decided nothing interesting should happen on it. Kevin looked up at the second-floor windows and noted: bars.
"Bars," Ron said, outraged.
"Dobby," Kevin said.
They looked at him.
"House-elf. He's been — making Harry's life complicated, for Harry's own protection." Kevin picked up a pebble. "Which is the problem with that kind of well-intentioned meddling." He threw the pebble at the window. It stopped in mid-air six inches from the glass and dropped.
"What was that?" Ron stared.
"Barrier." Kevin studied the shimmer around the house — faint, barely visible, the kind of magic that would be invisible to someone not looking for it. "House-elves are born magic users. No wand required."
"Can we break it?"
"Possibly." Kevin walked to the mailbox by the front door. He looked at it for a moment. Then he gripped it with both hands and bent the post until the whole thing came loose from its mounting, worked the box free, and compressed it slowly into a rough iron sphere in his palms.
Hermione made a sound.
"I know you can hear me," Kevin said, to the air. "Whoever put this barrier up — come out. I'm not leaving, and I'll keep breaking things until you do."
Silence.
He bounced the iron ball thoughtfully and looked at the shimmer around the house.
A small figure appeared, emerging from the shadow beside the porch with the reluctant visibility of something that has been caught.
Dobby.
Large eyes, floppy ears, the trembling specific quality of a creature that is both frightened and committed to a position it cannot fully defend. He looked at Kevin. Then at the iron ball. Then at Kevin.
"You put up the barrier," Kevin said.
"Yes, great wizard." Very quietly.
"Why."
"There is a — a conspiracy. Terrible things planned. Hogwarts is dangerous for Harry Potter. Dobby was protecting — "
"You isolated him," Kevin said. "For months. His friends couldn't reach him. He couldn't reach them. He's been sitting alone in a house where people dislike him, cut off from everyone who cares about him." He kept his voice level. Each sentence landed cleanly. "That is not protection. That is its own kind of cruelty, regardless of your intention."
Dobby flinched with each sentence. His hands went to his own ears.
"You stole letters," Kevin continued. "You made his punishment worse by drawing attention to him. And now there are bars on his window."
"Dobby only wanted — "
"I know what Dobby wanted." Kevin looked at the elf steadily. "It isn't enough. Wanting to protect someone does not exempt you from the consequences of how you protect them." He paused. "Drop the barrier. Let him out. Or I'll remove it myself, which will be noisier and involve more structural damage than is necessary."
Dobby wrestled visibly — the internal conflict of a creature whose loyalty and conscience had arrived at different conclusions and could not agree on which was primary.
Hermione, beside Kevin, started to say something. Kevin shook his head slightly.
Dobby hit his own head against the porch post twice, muttered bad Dobby with the conviction of someone who has a practised self-punishment routine, and snapped his fingers.
The shimmer around the house dissolved.
Kevin nodded. "Good decision."
He looked up at the bars on the window. Jumped, gripped two of them, and pulled.
The bolts came out of the frame with a sound like small gunshots. The bars came free in one piece.
Harry's face appeared in the gap — white, shocked, then immediately overwhelmed with relief.
"Pack your bag," Kevin said. "Everything important. Two minutes."
"Kevin — how did you — the bars — "
"Two minutes, Harry."
Harry disappeared. The sound of frantic packing followed.
Kevin dropped back to the pavement. The owl cage — Hedwig, indignant — was already being lowered through the window by hand. Kevin caught it.
Harry appeared in the gap, bag over one shoulder, and Kevin reached up, caught him under the arms, and lowered him to the ground in one clean motion.
From inside the house, there was the sound of a door opening.
"Run," Kevin said pleasantly.
They ran.
Half a street away, Harry stopped, breathing hard, and looked at the three people who had just appeared out of nowhere and dismantled a month's worth of misery in about six minutes.
"That was — " He stopped. "How long were you planning that?"
"Since the train, more or less." Kevin handed him Hedwig's cage. "Are you all right?"
"I'm — " Harry looked at Ron, who was grinning. At Hermione, who looked quietly furious on his behalf. At Kevin. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right."
"Good. We're going to an amusement park. I owe you both an apology for not writing."
Kevin's idea of an amusement park was comprehensive and mildly alarming. He paid for everything without discussion and treated the day as though its purpose was to produce the maximum amount of noise and speed and general disorder that four twelve-year-olds could sustain before collapsing.
Roller coaster first. Kevin and Ron screamed with the full commitment of people who have decided screaming is correct, and Harry and Hermione held out for about ninety seconds before joining in.
Bumper cars: Kevin drove like someone settling a personal grievance with the concept of other vehicles. He cleared the entire floor twice in fifteen minutes. Harry, Ron, and Hermione formed a brief alliance against him that lasted until Kevin spun Ron into the wall and broke it.
The spinning teacups were Hermione's limit. She had turned a colour that Kevin associated with structural concerns, and he had quietly held her hair back behind the refreshments stand while Ron pretended very hard not to have noticed.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You're green."
"I'm fine."
He gave her water and waited with her while Harry and Ron argued about whether the drop tower counted as traumatising.
By late afternoon they were all spread across a bench by the lake, the day expended, the sky burning orange and pink over the water. Ron was describing the roller coaster with the exhaustive detail of someone who is going to be talking about this for a month.
Kevin looked at Harry.
Harry was watching the light on the water with the expression of someone who has had a genuinely good day and is aware that it is ending, and is aware of what comes after.
"Hey," Kevin said.
Harry looked at him.
"Don't carry next year before it's here."
"I know."
"You keep thinking about what you can't control. You can't control the Dursleys. You can't control what happens at Hogwarts before it happens. What you can control is who you are when it does."
"That's — " Harry considered it. "That's basically exactly what my mum would probably say."
"Probably," Kevin said. "It's still true."
Harry smiled — the real one.
Kevin clapped his shoulder. "I'll come for you in a week. Have your things ready."
---
---
My friend said Webnovel readers don't care enough. You have been proving him wrong chapter after chapter.
Vote Powerstone. Drop a review. Stay with me till the end. I am drowning you in updates for a reason.
Top 10 is the goal. Let's finish what we started.