Lupin's departure left a quiet that Hogwarts absorbed without drama, the way it absorbed most things — because the castle had seen enough departures to know that life continued regardless.
The last stretch before summer had its own particular quality. Loose schedules. Long afternoon light through the corridor windows. The pleasant unreality of being almost done.
Kevin and Hermione gave the books a rest. They walked the castle instead, talking about everything and nothing, letting the weeks unspool.
They turned a corner and found Ron and Draco ahead of them, moving with the exaggerated care of people attempting invisibility.
Kevin and Hermione exchanged a glance.
They followed.
Ron and Draco were following Harry.
Harry had been slipping off at odd moments for the past week — disappearing after dinner, reappearing before curfew, volunteering nothing. Ron had recruited Draco as a fellow investigator, which said something about how much his curiosity outweighed his dignity.
Ahead, Harry stopped at a junction near the library and waited.
Ginny appeared sixty seconds later.
They fell into step immediately, talking and laughing with the ease of people who had been doing this for a while.
"Scarface is absolutely chatting up your sister," Draco said, in the hiss of someone who believed they were being quiet.
"I can see that," Ron said.
He did not sound pleased.
They followed. Kevin and Hermione followed them, Kevin running a quiet Disillusionment Charm over the two of them the moment he'd clocked the situation.
Harry, ahead of all of them, developed the persistent, prickling sense of being watched. He glanced back twice. Nothing.
Am I paranoid? he thought, and turned back to Ginny.
"Your holidays," she was saying. "You'll love Sirius's new place, I'd imagine."
Harry's face changed the way faces do when someone brings up something that has unexpectedly become good in your life. "A hundred times better than the Dursleys. Even the building."
He looked at her sideways.
"Ginny. Would you want to come over? Sirius said to invite whoever I wanted."
"Yes," she said. Immediately.
They both realised simultaneously how fast that had been and developed matching problems with their shoes.
Behind the corner, Ron was grinding his teeth.
"That is my sister," he said, in a specific tone.
"Scarface beat you to a girlfriend," Draco said, entirely unhelpfully. He was also vaguely annoyed, for entirely separate reasons.
Kevin and Hermione came around the corner.
"Ron," Kevin said. "Harry is going to be your brother-in-law. You should be celebrating."
"She is twelve —"
"She's your age."
"That's not — the point is —"
"The point is you know him," Kevin said. "You trust him. This is the best possible outcome. It would be worse if it were a stranger."
Draco, reluctantly, nodded.
"You have no case," Kevin said. "Come on."
He herded them back toward the main corridor. Ron went, grumbling, which was different from refusing and would eventually become acceptance.
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