Three things happened on the same afternoon: Nearly Headless Nick was found Petrified, Justin Finch-Fletchley was found beside him, and Harry was found beside both of them by Filch, who arrived at conclusions at the speed of someone who had already formed them beforehand.
McGonagall handled the immediate crisis with the competence of someone who has had many crises and has a procedure for them. She sent Filch for the hospital wing and walked the four of them to Dumbledore's office herself.
Kevin had been to Dumbledore's office twice before. Both times he'd been struck by the specificity of it — the accumulated weight of decades in every object, the portraits that watched with genuine interest, the Sorting Hat in its case that greeted him like an acquaintance. He'd also been struck by Fawkes, who sat on his perch with the particular composure of a creature that has seen everything that was going to happen in a given situation before it began.
He was struck by Fawkes again.
There were very few things in the wizarding world that Kevin had wanted to take for entirely practical reasons and also genuinely respected. Phoenix feathers were wand cores. They were also the rarest wand cores, because phoenixes didn't volunteer them.
Fawkes looked at him.
Kevin looked at Fawkes.
He crossed the room, took hold of several tail feathers, and pulled.
Fawkes screamed. Then burst into flames.
"Kevin — you — the bird — " Ron's voice, from the doorway.
"It's a phoenix," Kevin said, without turning around. "They do this." He looked at the small egg already forming in the ash. "They burn and come back. It's their natural cycle." He tucked the feathers inside his cloak. "Harry — take these."
He crossed to Harry and pressed the feathers into his hands.
"Phoenix tears heal any wound," Kevin said. "Any wound. If something terrible happens — these matter."
He said it looking at Harry directly.
"Mr. Kevin." Dumbledore's voice floated down from the upper level.
He was descending the staircase in the measured way of someone who has been watching for a moment, deciding when to arrive.
"Fawkes will be perfectly fine," Dumbledore said, reaching the floor. "He was due for a burning this week, in fact. Still — " he looked at Kevin over his glasses " — I don't recommend manhandling him as a general rule."
"Noted," Kevin said. He turned so Dumbledore could see his face clearly. "Headmaster. Harry's been enduring two weeks of the entire school treating him as a murder suspect. You run this school. I'd like to understand what's being done about it."
The room went very still.
Hermione reached for his sleeve. He let her find it.
Dumbledore looked at Kevin for a long moment. The kindly warmth was still there, but behind it something watched with complete attention.
"You're right," Dumbledore said, simply. "I've been moving too slowly on Harry's behalf. That's a fair observation."
Kevin let out a breath.
Then the door flew open and Hagrid arrived at a run, robes still wet from outside, and everything became temporarily louder and less coherent.
Dumbledore calmed it gently and explained that he'd already concluded the four of them had no involvement. Hagrid took two minutes to accept this. Kevin used the time to collect himself.
When Hagrid finally retreated to wait outside, Dumbledore turned to Harry. "Is there anything you want to tell me, Harry? Anything you've been keeping to yourself?"
Harry looked at Kevin.
Kevin nodded once.
"I've been hearing a voice," Harry said. "In the walls. In the pipes. It sounds like it wants to kill something. Everywhere an attack has happened — I followed the voice there first."
Dumbledore listened. His expression was still, but his eyes sharpened.
"Basilisk," Kevin said.
Everyone looked at him.
He laid it out plainly — Slytherin's symbol, the Parseltongue connection, the pipes as transit routes through the castle, the roosters as the creature's natural repellent and therefore a target. The victims showed signs consistent with an indirect view — through water, through a camera lens, through ghostly semi-translucent form. Not death but Petrification. The heir was a Parselmouth who could direct the creature through the castle's plumbing without anyone hearing or seeing.
"When did you work this out?" Hermione said, with the tone of someone taking inventory.
"Hagrid's roosters made the connection. Harry's voice filled in the rest." Kevin looked at Dumbledore. "The Chamber opened fifty years ago. There was a Parselmouth at Hogwarts then."
"Yes," Dumbledore said quietly.
"Tom Riddle. Who became Voldemort."
The word landed. Harry and Ron flinched. Hermione's hand tightened on Kevin's sleeve.
Dumbledore did not flinch. "Yes."
"Then the entrance is somewhere tied to Slytherin's era of the castle. Most likely the girls' bathroom on the second floor — that's where the girl died fifty years ago. Moaning Myrtle."
Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment. "I think," he said, "that you may have just saved us a great deal of time." He paused. "Come with me."
Myrtle's bathroom had the same perpetually damp, faintly sorrowful quality as ever. Moaning Myrtle herself arrived from her trap with the excitement of someone who is visited rarely enough that any company is welcome company.
She'd been crying in her usual stall, she said, when she heard someone hissing in a strange language. She'd told him to get out. She'd looked up — and seen yellow eyes in the sink, and that had been the end of it.
Harry looked at the sink. The snake engraved on the faucet was small and precise.
"Harry," Dumbledore said. "If you would."
Harry leaned forward. The Parseltongue came out of him without effort — three syllables of something that sounded to Kevin like wind through a very small gap — and the sinks shuddered, separated, and slid aside.
The dark entrance yawned.
From somewhere below came cold air and the smell of deep stone.
Kevin looked at it. Looked at the four children standing at the edge of it. Looked at Dumbledore.
"Well," Kevin said. "Shall we?"
---
---
You already know the mission. My friend doubted this community and we are still making him regret it.
One Powerstone vote. One review. That is all it takes to keep proving him wrong.
Top 10 is non negotiable. Let's make it happen.