The weeks between attacks had the specific quality of a held breath. Classes continued. People looked at Harry in corridors. Harry endured it with the particular quiet of someone who has decided that reaction will only make it worse.
Kevin endured the watching on Harry's behalf with considerably less patience.
McGonagall's Transfiguration lesson that Thursday was the most effective thing anyone had done to relieve the tension, which was not intentional.
"Today," McGonagall said, "we practice animal to goblet. The incantation is Vera Verto. Watch the technique — it's precise."
She demonstrated on a starling. The bird became a goblet of obvious quality, polished and smooth, while McGonagall's expression communicated that this was the expected standard and not something to find impressive.
Ron's attempt produced something that was approximately forty per cent goblet and sixty per cent Scabbers, with the rat's tail still visible curling from the base and a persistent smell of small mammal.
Kevin was called up.
He took Scabbers, held him up briefly to assess, and cast Vera Verto.
The goblet was clean and well-made. Kevin had also, with a small additional charm, attached two small bells to the base.
McGonagall opened her mouth.
The class laughed. Kevin hit the bells with a flick. The goblet emitted the high, startled squeak of a rat being put in an unexpected situation.
Ron grabbed Scabbers before Kevin could add anything further.
McGonagall's hand fell on Kevin's shoulder. Not hard — just present, with the weight of someone who is choosing not to be annoyed and would like this to be acknowledged. Kevin had been working on keeping his face neutral and mostly managed it.
"Miss Granger," McGonagall said, redirecting with the efficiency of long practice.
Hermione raised her hand. "Professor — could you tell us about the Chamber of Secrets?"
The laughing stopped. The whole room went attentive in the unified way of people who had all been thinking about the same thing and are relieved someone asked it aloud.
McGonagall considered this for three seconds. Then: "Fine."
She laid it out without drama — the founding, the schism, Slytherin's departure, the legend of the hidden chamber and the creature within it. The thousand-year history of a school looking for a room nobody could find.
The Gryffindors left with quiet faces. Even the ones who'd been treating the whole thing as someone else's problem looked newly thoughtful.
Kevin found Draco outside after the next lesson, in the spot they'd established months ago as reliably private — around the corner from the greenhouses, facing the empty paddock, unlikely to be observed from any window.
"Chamber of Secrets," Kevin said.
Draco looked at him. Then at the others behind him, Harry specifically.
"Your family's been Slytherin for generations," Kevin said. "Not asking about your personal involvement. I'm asking what you know from before."
Draco weighed it. Not long — he'd gotten better at the calculation, this year, faster at arriving at the thing underneath the habitual performance. "It was opened fifty years ago. My father mentioned it once — said the person responsible was expelled. Never said who." He paused. "A student died. A Muggle-born girl."
He didn't look at Hermione when he said it. He didn't look away either.
"That's all," Draco said. "I'm serious. That's genuinely all I have."
Kevin nodded.
Draco left without looking back.
"Good news," Kevin said, "we confirmed it's real. Bad news, we already knew that." He caught three flat looks. "That was an attempt at levity."
"It was a bad attempt," Ron said.
"Noted." He accepted Hermione's consolatory pat on the head with dignity.
The Quidditch match against Slytherin arrived under grey skies with the specific atmosphere of a crowd that has decided something important is happening and would like it to justify the cold.
Kevin had positioned himself near the pitch entrance with his potions ready. He watched Harry climb and took up station in the stands with Hermione, who was watching through Omnioculars with the analytical focus of someone who would be producing a written assessment of the match's strategic decisions later.
A Bludger went wrong in the second period. Not the random-wrong of a badly hit ball, but the directed, purposeful wrong of something that has been given instructions. Kevin watched it follow Harry through three manoeuvres and felt the cold recognition of deliberate interference.
Dobby. Somewhere out there, visible only to himself.
He filed this and watched.
Harry spotted the Snitch and went. Draco followed. The Bludger followed Harry. The three-way chase compressed into a narrow window of intent — Draco pulled out to avoid the Goalpost at the last second, Harry took the hit on his right arm and caught the Snitch anyway, which Kevin thought was the most Harry thing he'd ever seen.
Gryffindor won. Harry landed wrong.
Kevin was through the crowd and at his side before Lockhart could raise his wand, which was the relevant intervention.
He blocked Lockhart with one arm and crouched to Harry. "Don't let him near your arm. Don't."
Harry, holding his suddenly rubbery right arm, looked at Kevin with the expression of someone who trusts this judgement completely.
Kevin got the potions out. Bone-regenerating, restoration, healing. "These will hold until Pomfrey sees it. Drink them in that order."
Meanwhile, the Bludger was still circling with hostile intent. Kevin stood up and grabbed it one-handed out of its arc. It thrashed. He held it.
Dobby, watching from behind the team changing rooms, stared.
Kevin looked directly at the point three metres past the shed where nothing visible stood, with the look of someone who knows someone is there.
He carried the Bludger to Harry's side and held it until it went limp and settled, which took longer than it should have and was telling in its own right.
Madam Pomfrey took Harry to the hospital wing. Kevin sent him with another look that said don't let Lockhart near you and watched them go.
In the wing, Draco was already there, his collision with the goalpost having been more dramatic than Kevin had initially assessed. Kevin stopped by his bed on the way out and left a Restoration Potion without comment.
"You didn't have to," Draco said.
"You're right," Kevin said. "I wanted to."
Draco looked at the vial.
"Get some sleep," Kevin said.