Greenhouse Three smelled of damp earth and something faintly sulphurous, which Kevin had come to associate with Professor Sprout's particular enthusiasm for plants that did not want to be handled. She stood at the front in her dragon-hide gloves, broadly cheerful, and waved them in.
"Welcome back, second-years! Today we're repotting Mandrakes. Someone tell me what the roots are used for."
Hermione's hand went up before the sentence finished.
"A Mandrake Restorative Draught reverses the effects of Petrification. Mature Mandrakes produce a cry potent enough to be fatal — immature ones cause unconsciousness."
"Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger. Excellent." Sprout beamed. "Earmuffs on, everyone — these aren't mature, but let's not test that."
Hermione adjusted her earmuffs and flicked a pointed look at Kevin that said, clearly, try and beat that.
Kevin gave her a thumbs-up.
The practical work was straightforward once you understood what the Mandrake wanted — not to be yanked, but to be eased out, turned, and set into the new soil in one smooth motion. Kevin did it in about twelve seconds. The Mandrake screamed once, went quiet, and sat in its new pot with what he could only describe as grudging acceptance.
"Excellent technique, Mr. Kevin. Five points to Gryffindor."
He planted his hands on his hips and raised his chin at Hermione.
She rolled her eyes. The roll was fond. He'd catalogued the difference months ago.
Neville fainted three repottings in. Harry and Ron, watching from the next bench, caught him before he hit the floor and exchanged the look of people who have decided the universe is specifically targeting their friend group.
At lunch, they were halfway across the courtyard when Draco fell into step behind them from the direction of the castle doors, moving fast and looking at nothing in particular.
"Kevin." His voice was pitched for them only. "My father's not the type to let things go. Just — heads up. This term might run hot."
He didn't slow down. He was past them in three seconds, robes cutting away toward the Slytherin table.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched him go.
"He came to warn us," Harry said, as though testing the words.
"He's been coming to Hagrid's all autumn," Kevin said. "People aren't only one thing." He started walking again. "Norbert bit his fingers twice and he keeps showing up. That tells you something."
Ron, who had spent most of last year finding Draco unbearable, appeared to be doing a slow internal revision. "I mean... the dragon thing was pretty — "
"It was," Kevin said. "Come on. Food."
Defense Against the Dark Arts with Lockhart was the afternoon's main event.
Kevin had formed his opinion of Gilderoy Lockhart within approximately forty seconds of their first lesson and had not revised it since. The man had presence, genuine charisma, and the kind of smile that worked on crowds in the way that crowds are always slightly more credulous than individuals. The classroom was full of second-year girls who had read his books and second-year boys who had not and were paying the price for it in ambient embarrassment.
Hermione, to her credit, had stepped back from the pure fangirl response she'd had at the signing — partly time, partly Kevin's dry commentary over the course of the term, partly the growing realisation that his lesson plans seemed to consist primarily of revisiting his own anecdotes.
She still thought the books were interesting.
Kevin sat at the front, which he'd taken to doing because Lockhart was marginally more bearable up close, where you could watch him work, than from a distance, where you had to listen to the full performance unmediated.
Lockhart circulated the quiz. Kevin looked at it.
What is my favourite colour?
What do I consider my finest hour?
How might you best celebrate my birthday?
Kevin looked at Hermione's answers — precise, comprehensive, accurate in the way that things are accurate when the person answering genuinely enjoyed the source material. He moved his parchment to copy the answers and stopped.
He thought for a moment.
He wrote: favourite colour — dark purple (Hermione had written lilac). Finest hour — Supreme Wizard Overlord, naturally. Birthday celebration — body wash.
He handed it in.
Lockhart graded them at the front. Hermione's came back perfect, glowing. Kevin's came back with Lockhart's smile slightly frozen around the edges, as though he was working very hard at something.
"Inventive, Mr. Kevin," Lockhart said, setting it on the desk face-down.
"Thank you, Professor."
Lockhart produced the cage. Kevin registered what was in it — small, electric-blue, irritable, about thirty of them — and mentally noted the exits.
"Now! A chance to observe genuine Dark Creatures in their natural — well, in a somewhat natural — "
He popped the latch.
The room became, within eight seconds, a fully committed disaster. Pixies went everywhere simultaneously. Windows shattered. Books flew. Neville was lifted by the chandelier with a look of pure resignation, as though this was simply one in a series of events that had been happening to him since birth and he had decided to simply experience them.
Lockhart cast his counter-spell. A pixie took his wand. He retreated to his office with the undignified speed of a man who has made a very specific cost-benefit analysis.
Kevin sat where he was.
One pixie made a run at Hermione's hair. Kevin plucked it out of the air mid-flight and set it down on the desk with light pressure, which apparently communicated something to it, because it sat there looking confused rather than biting him.
He looked at the room. Thirty pixies, various elevations, all moving.
"Chain Lightning."
The bolt came off his wand tip, hit the nearest pixie, jumped. Then the next. Then the next. The chain moved through the room in a crackling yellow arc, jumping from target to target until the last one dropped, stunned and smoking faintly, its wings still.
Twelve seconds.
The class stood in the wreckage and stared.
Kevin levitated the pixies back into the cage, sealed it, repaired the windows, lowered Neville from the chandelier with a controlled descent.
Harry was looking at him with the expression he always wore when Kevin did something he'd decided to process later. "What was that spell?"
"I modified the Spark Charm," Kevin said. "Standard Spark produces a single discharge. I adjusted the targeting logic so it chains between proximate conductive sources — living things conduct marginally better than air — with a brief stun trigger at each contact point."
"You just modified a spell."
"It took a few weeks." Kevin looked at the still-smoking pixies. "The chain logic was the fiddly part."
Harry continued staring.
"You'll get there," Kevin said. "Eat your vegetables."
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Extremely sorry for the delay.
I know you have been waiting, so thank you for sticking with me. The wait is over—you can enjoy the chapters now!