"Kevin."
Hermione's hand found his arm. Her grip said: don't.
He was a Hogwarts professor. She disagreed with everything about this class, but there were lines.
Professor Trelawney had gone pale at the flat menace in Kevin's voice.
Kevin wasn't actually going to do anything. He'd ignored Lockhart for an entire year without incident — he wasn't going to waste energy on a Divination teacher who had, at least, clearly put genuine effort into her craft. He just wanted her rattled.
He'd succeeded.
"My apologies, Professor." Kevin picked the crowbar up and slid it back into his bag. His smile returned, easy as if nothing had happened. "I got carried away. That was rude of me."
"What I meant was — whether a prediction is good or bad, acting on it changes nothing. The only reliable way to improve your odds is to improve yourself."
He held up a fist.
"Real skill. Real preparation. That's what changes outcomes. Not luck charms."
The room had been holding its breath. It exhaled.
Trelawney stared at him for a long moment, processing the whiplash from threat to philosophy in approximately four seconds. She decided, privately, that this was one of those students who would give her persistent headaches, and moved on.
"Harry," Kevin said, elbowing him quietly. "Show the professor your cup. It's very dark in there. Looks ominous."
Harry gave him a look. Why me?
But he passed his cup over anyway.
Trelawney looked into it and went rigid.
"A Grim," she said, voice dropping. "A great shadowy dog. The Grim — omen of death."
Kevin and Hermione exchanged a glance. There it was.
Harry sat with it for a moment. Kevin's voice was still in his head — make your own luck, take charge of your own fate. And Sirius might not even be an enemy. The dog might just be a man he needed to find.
He decided the Grim was probably nonsense.
After class, the others headed down to Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures. Kevin was detoured first to Dumbledore's office — a mild reprimand for threatening a professor with a crowbar, which Dumbledore delivered with the expression of a man struggling to keep his face appropriately serious.
"You understand why that was inappropriate," Dumbledore said.
"Completely, sir. It won't happen again."
Kevin was sincere, direct, contrite. No fidgeting. No smirking.
Dumbledore paused, mildly wrong-footed. He'd prepared for pushback.
"A light consequence, then — apologise to Professor Trelawney at your convenience."
Kevin went directly to Trelawney's tower, delivered the apology with warmth and eye contact, and left her standing in the doorway trying to reconcile the boy who'd quietly threatened her two hours ago with the one who'd just expressed genuine remorse.
She filed it away as complicated student and let it go.
By the time Kevin made it to the grounds, class was well underway.
Students clustered around two hippogriffs near Hagrid's paddock.
The white one turned her head and found Kevin the moment he appeared.
Snowdrift broke into a trot, scattering students who scrambled out of the way with yelps.
"Snowdrift, easy —"
Kevin stepped in front and steadied her, one hand on her neck, heading off the chaos. Around them, students who had been nervous about the enormous creature watched Kevin pat her like she was a large dog.
"Right," Hagrid boomed. "Kevin, wanna introduce your friend to the class?"
Hermione came over and bowed. Snowdrift bowed back immediately, and Hermione stroked her neck with familiar ease.
The students saw it. The jealousy was immediate. They wanted to try.
"Hippogriffs are proud creatures," Hagrid told them, at full volume. "They take offence easily. No sudden movements, no rude staring. You want to approach one, you bow first. Wait for the bow back. Understood?"
"Understood!" Chorus from the class.
"Harry, Draco — you're first. Harry to Buckbeak, Draco to Snowdrift."
Both boys bowed. Both hippogriffs bowed back. They stepped forward and stroked silver and grey feathers respectively.
One by one the class cycled through. Everyone petted one. Harry took a short flight on Buckbeak's back, holding on tightly and grinning. Hagrid beamed like it was Christmas.
No drama. No injury. No Ministry involvement.
Kevin stood near Snowdrift and let his mind wander.
"You've grown this year," he said to Hermione, who had drifted to his side. "Last year the top of your head barely cleared Snowdrift's shoulder. Now look."
Hermione glanced up at the hippogriff, then at Kevin. "You've grown too. You were always taller, even though you're younger."
"Superior build," Kevin said, without a trace of doubt.
He looked at her properly then — the way you sometimes couldn't when you saw someone every day. First year she'd been all wide eyes and tidy plaits. Now there was something sharpened about her. She carried herself differently.
He pulled a hair tie from his pocket and gathered her hair into a high ponytail before she could object.
Hermione blinked. "What are you —"
"There." He stepped back. "Much better."
The ponytail pulled everything forward, made the lines of her face cleaner. She was wearing her light autumn uniform — white shirt, black skirt, dark stockings — and without the cloud of hair obscuring it all, the effect was striking.
"You look excellent," Kevin said, with the complete sincerity of someone rendering an objective assessment.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Who says excellent about someone's hair? Idiot.
But she kept the ponytail in for the rest of the day. Convenience, obviously.
Two days later, the Great Hall during evening study.
Kevin was working through Hermione's third-year Potions textbook — making notes in the margins, rewriting the denser passages into language that actually made sense, adding cross-references where the author had clearly assumed knowledge the reader didn't have. It was useful review for him and would save her hours of confusion later. He found it quietly satisfying.
Hermione was beside him, grinding through a Transfiguration essay.
"Sirius sighted!"
A boy three tables over was waving a copy of the Daily Prophet, eyes wide.
The hall shifted. Harry was on his feet before anyone else.
"Dufftown," Kevin said, scanning the paper over someone's shoulder. "That's close."
He sat back down. Right on schedule — Sirius was drawing nearer to Hogwarts. He wouldn't actually appear until after Christmas. No urgency yet.
He picked up his quill and went back to the Potions notes.
Harry stared at him. "That's all? You're just — going back to work?"
"There's nothing to do tonight, Harry." Kevin didn't look up. "When he gets here, he'll get here. Panicking now doesn't help."
Harry sat down slowly, jaw tight, and picked up his own book.
Kevin wrote a margin note. Crossed it out. Rewrote it more precisely.
The hall slowly settled back to normal.
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