The Hogwarts Express left on time, which Kevin had not fully expected given that Dobby might have tried something and Hermione had gripped his hand through the barrier at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with the preemptive strength of someone who had decided she was not going to arrive at school by accident.
They didn't arrive by accident.
Kevin had spotted the small figure in the crowd — tucked behind a pillar, enormous eyes tracking Harry with the single-minded dedication of something that had a plan — and made the judgement call in about two seconds.
He scooped Harry onto his shoulder and ran.
The others, left behind for exactly three seconds, blinked in unison.
"Kevin!"
Hermione's voice. Sharp. He heard her come through the barrier and they were all through — Hermione, Ron, Mrs. Weasley, everyone — and on the platform before Dobby had fully processed that his window had closed.
"Put me down," Harry said, from Kevin's shoulder.
Kevin set him down.
Hermione rounded on him with the full force of someone who has two seconds of adrenaline to discharge.
"Why did you grab Harry and not me?"
Kevin looked at her. Then at Harry.
"Because Dobby was watching Harry," he said. "The barrier was for Harry specifically. Getting through fast with Harry was the point."
"So you just grabbed him — "
"In under three seconds, yes." He held her gaze. "If I'd stopped to grab you as well, we'd have been through in five seconds, which is three seconds too many."
Hermione processed this.
"You could have warned me," she said.
"There wasn't time."
"You could have — " She stopped. Took a breath. "Fine," she said. "Fine. You're right." She paused. "But you're explaining yourself on the train."
He explained himself on the train. She listened with the careful, cross-referenced attention of someone working out where the logic was and where it had gaps. She found two gaps and told him about both of them. He acknowledged both.
"Right," she said, satisfied, and opened her book.
Kevin watched her for a moment. The pink bracelet was on her wrist, visible below her sleeve.
He turned to the window and watched England move past.
Hogwarts appeared at dusk, rising above the treeline with the specific quality it always had — the stone catching the last light, the lake flat and silver below it, the towers distinct against the sky. Kevin looked at it through the window and felt the particular thing he always felt when he saw it: not quite nostalgia, not quite pride, but something adjacent to both.
Home, he thought. More than one kind.
The carriages were pulled by Thestrals, which Kevin could see — had been able to see since Quirrell, which he'd expected — and which Harry couldn't, and which Ron couldn't, and which he chose not to mention.
The Sorting was long in the way Sorting ceremonies are long when you're waiting for the feast. Colin Creevey got Gryffindor — arrived at the house table with a camera and immediately located Harry with the accuracy of someone who had done reconnaissance.
"Harry! I'm Colin — I got Gryffindor — can your friend take a photo? My dad's a milkman, he won't believe it without proof — "
Harry handled it with the patient grace of someone who has decided that fame is a thing that happens to him and he can be decent about it. Kevin took the photo. He genuinely wanted to get a camera — the idea of a photographic record of the year appealed to him, and a moving photo was better than a still one.
"Colin," Kevin said, handing the camera back. "Can you take one of us?"
He sat back down beside Hermione and moved without thinking — close, the easy proximity of people who don't calculate distance anymore. Hermione startled slightly and then went the particular warm colour she went when something had been made visible that she'd been considering internal.
Colin aimed. Clicked.
In the developed photo, moving as wizarding photos moved, Kevin would be looking at the camera and Hermione would be looking at Kevin.
Kevin didn't see the photo for two days. When he did, he didn't say anything about it.
He had it framed by the end of the week and put it on the mantelpiece in the house next door.
After the feast, Kevin found Snape's dungeon by the route he'd walked a hundred times, knocked, and entered.
The lab was unchanged. Potions in progress, low candlelight, the smell of something sulphurous with overtones of something astringent. Snape didn't look up.
"You returned," Snape said. "I notice you're wearing a different cloak."
"Gift," Kevin said. "The summer list is done. I'll owl the results tomorrow."
"Quality?"
"All acceptable. Three exceptional."
"Acceptable," Snape repeated, with the tone of a man who has higher standards than the word suggests.
"By your standards. Which means excellent by anyone else's."
A pause. Snape's stirring didn't change rhythm.
"The Disillusionment counter-spell," Kevin said. "I'd like to learn it."
"You should have asked last term."
"I know. I forgot. I'd like to learn it now."
Snape said nothing for a moment. Kevin waited, knowing the process — the calculation of whether to refuse on principle versus whether the request was reasonable, which it demonstrably was, and Snape's principles did not extend to being unreasonable when he could identify that he was being unreasonable.
"Come back Thursday," Snape said.
"Thank you, Professor."
Kevin started to leave.
"Mr. Kevin."
He turned.
Snape was still not looking at him. His eyes were on the cauldron. "The list of Lockhart's deficiencies as an educator is extensive," he said. "If you find yourself requiring supplementary instruction in Defence this year, you know where the dungeons are."
Kevin considered this for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
He walked back through the castle, through corridors that smelled of old stone and wax and magic, toward the dormitory where Hermione was probably already asleep.
Second year had begun.
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