The entrance Kevin used was the phone booth on the side street, because the Floo connections at King's Cross had been temporarily suspended pending security review, and he had exactly zero patience for finding another route.
He punched 62442. Stated his name and purpose. Descended.
The Atrium opened around him — long, black-tiled, the golden fountain catching every scrap of light. He stepped clear of the booth and waited while the others arrived behind him in sequence, Mr. Weasley shepherding them through with the quiet efficiency of a man who navigated this building every weekday.
The reporters had been there first.
"Potter! Kevin! Over here! Were there really hundreds of Dementors—"
Ministry security moved before Kevin had to. A practised sweep, bodies redirected, the gap closing smoothly. The questions kept coming from behind the human barrier, but they were easy to ignore.
Kevin noted the Atrium itself as they crossed it: the fountain, the gold statue at its centre, the donation basin glinting with Galleons. Fudge's banner. All very official. All very solid. A government that didn't expect to be questioned presented itself like this — in marble and permanence, in the visual language of institutions that have always been here and always will be.
They took the elevator to the second floor.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was busy even at this hour — Aurors moving between desks, Wizengamot clerks carrying files, the low buzz of an organisation responding to a crisis. Everyone glanced at the group as they passed. Kevin didn't look back.
The Minister's office was guarded by two Aurors. Kevin recognised one immediately: Kingsley Shacklebolt, Order of the Phoenix, standing at the door with the expression of a man who is very good at looking like he is not thinking anything in particular.
The other Auror Kevin didn't know.
Kingsley nodded once. They went in.
The office was the visual language of power made interior. Dark wood, tall windows overlooking the Atrium from above, an enormous desk with a flag and a wall of portraits behind it. A sitting area against one side. Bookshelves.
The Grangers were on the sofa.
Hermione crossed the room in three strides. Her parents' arms came up to meet her, and for a moment all three of them simply held on. Kevin stayed back, watching, and gave a small nod to Mr. and Mrs. Granger over Hermione's shoulder. They nodded back, with the slightly dazed look of people who had had a very long day and were still integrating all of it.
Fudge was behind his desk, not looking at any of them.
He was looking at the papers in front of him. His expression was the expression of a man engaged in a private argument with himself, and he was losing.
"Minister," Mr. Weasley said quietly.
Fudge looked up. He looked at Kevin for a long moment.
Then he raised his wand, and the papers lifted from the desk and sailed into Kevin's hands.
Harry and Ron leaned in from either side. Kevin read fast.
Aurors had used Legilimency on Bellatrix during her capture. What they'd found was straightforward: she had been summoned by Voldemort, told the operation in full, and sent. Bellatrix on her knees before him. Voldemort's voice giving the orders. The Grangers as bait for Kevin and Harry. Harry as the means to retrieve the prophecy orb from the Department of Mysteries.
Kevin lowered the papers. He was smiling faintly.
"Well," he said. "That simplifies things. Don't you think, Minister?"
He'd left Bellatrix alive for this — knowing, more or less, that this was what would be found.
Fudge didn't return the smile. He stood up from his desk, slowly, and his face had the look of a man about to make a choice he finds genuinely painful.
"Mr. Kevin." His voice was flat and precise. "Be very clear on this. No one has seen Voldemort. Everything you've claimed since last year remains, officially, unsubstantiated rumour. I am not prepared to change that position on the basis of—"
"Then why show me those papers?" Kevin walked around the desk with the easy, unhurried movement of someone who has decided he's in charge of this room, and sat in Fudge's chair. "You're already starting to believe it yourself. That's why we're here privately, without a press liaison and without a record."
Fudge stood beside his own desk, looking at Kevin sitting in his seat, and went very quiet.
"Minister." Kevin's voice changed — less casual, more direct. "If Voldemort is real and you've been suppressing the evidence, everything you've done for the past year and a half looks like deliberate obstruction at best, collaboration at worst. You'll lose your position. Possibly more than that."
A pause.
"But there's another way to frame it. You were receiving incomplete intelligence. Acting on partial information. The moment credible evidence emerged, you moved immediately. You authorised the Order of the Phoenix. You brought in the right people. You led." Kevin tilted his head. "That's a story a political career can survive."
Fudge stared at him.
"And if you're wrong," he said, in a voice like ice, "if this is a fabrication, if you're somehow involved — I can charge you with impersonating the Dark Lord to manipulate Ministry policy. Breaking into Azkaban. Directing Death Eater activity." He leaned forward. "Dumbledore's vanished, by the way. No one can locate him. No alibi for either of you."
Kevin's expression didn't change.
He was quiet for a moment, looking at Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, and understanding — not for the first time, but with unusual clarity in this particular moment — that the man was not stupid. Stubborn, frightened, self-interested, yes. But not stupid.
He was terrified of what happened to him if he got this wrong in either direction.
Kevin thought about pointing this out. Then he decided that exhausting Fudge's objections one by one was going to take all night, and they were working toward the same destination anyway.
"Alright," he said. "Let's make a deal."