The fallout hit fast.
Within twenty-four hours of Fudge going public — confirming the Order of the Phoenix as a Ministry-sanctioned defence organisation and formally acknowledging the evidence of Voldemort's return — three senior Ministry officials issued a joint statement condemning the decision. The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement led the charge, flanked by two Wizengamot members who had been notably quiet during the Azkaban crisis.
They framed it as a constitutional crisis. Fudge bowing to Dumbledore. The Ministry compromised. A call for a confidence vote.
Fudge, to his considerable credit, didn't blink.
By the following morning, the Daily Prophet was running a front-page story on the financial improprieties of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Head — specifically, a series of undisclosed connections to a property development firm that had benefited rather extensively from certain zoning decisions. The two Wizengamot members had, it emerged, similar interests to protect.
Rita Skeeter wrote all three pieces. Her byline sat at the top of each article like a small, satisfied signature.
What an Animagus could accomplish, given the right incentive.
The Ministry spent the next week eating itself alive over the new information, which meant it spent the week not forming any coherent opposition to Fudge's position. By the time the noise settled, Fudge's support had consolidated. The quiet majority — the vast, cautious middle of wizarding society that had been waiting to see which way to fall — had made their choice.
Whether Dumbledore had engineered any of this from behind the scenes, Kevin genuinely could not determine. It was possible. It was also possible that Rita had simply done her job very well and the universe had obliged.
Either way, it was no longer Kevin's problem.
Kevin and Hermione made it back to the house next door to the Grangers' before sunset.
The street looked exactly as it always had. Neighbours walking dogs. Someone's kitchen light on. The frosted glass of the Grangers' front door showing the warm orange of the hallway lamp behind it. No scorch marks, no broken fencing, no evidence that anything extraordinary had happened here at all. The Ministry's Accidents and Catastrophes team had been thorough.
Hermione stood on the pavement for a moment, taking it in.
"Okay," she said quietly.
Kevin put a hand between her shoulder blades. She leaned back into it briefly, then squared up and knocked.
Dinner that evening was louder than usual — Mrs. Granger had apparently decided that the correct response to a Death Eater raid was an extremely large meal, and the table was covered in evidence of this theory. Hermione's father kept finding excuses to refill everyone's glasses. Nobody talked about the attack directly. They talked about other things, the comfortable, mundane things that people talk about when they are relieved to still be around to talk about anything at all.
The Aurors outside made themselves unobtrusive. The new amulets on every door and window hummed at a frequency too low to hear.
After dessert, with the washing-up handled and Hermione's parents drifting toward the stairs, Mr. Granger paused at the kitchen door and turned back.
"Kevin — that white tiger." There was something in his voice, not quite academic, not quite reverential. "Is it yours? Is it a pet of some kind?"
Hermione, still at the table, looked up with an expression of pure delight. "It's not a pet, Dad. It was a person." She let a beat of silence land precisely. "My favourite person, actually."
Kevin, who had not been expecting to be discussed in the third person by someone sitting eighteen inches away from him, felt warmth climb his neck. He found something interesting to look at on the table.
Mr. Granger pointed at himself. "Me?"
His wife grabbed him by the ear.
"You are not in competition with anyone and you know it. Upstairs."
"But I was just—"
"Upstairs."
She steered him out of the kitchen. Hermione covered her mouth, shoulders shaking, until their footsteps had faded above.
Then she slid sideways along the bench until she was pressed against Kevin's side, and tucked her head against his shoulder, and let out a long, slow breath that took about three weeks of tension with it.
"They're alright," she said.
"They're completely alright."
She turned her face into his collar. Kevin's arm came up around her without thinking, the way it always did, settling at the familiar weight and warmth of her against him.
A minute passed. The kitchen was quiet.
Then Kevin made a noise — a low, theatrical groan, accompanied by a careful shift of his shoulder.
"Ow."
Hermione lifted her head.
He was wearing an expression of deeply unconvincing suffering. One hand moved to the small of his back. He winced, artistically.
"Too much magic today. Something in my back. My whole — waist area, really. If only—"
She pinched his side.
He yelped — quietly, because her parents were directly above them.
"Fine," she said, cheeks pink, voice determinedly matter-of-fact. "We can go upstairs and I'll—"
He was already standing. She hadn't finished the sentence.
"Hey!" She kept her voice down with some effort as he scooped her up. "I can walk, Kevin, I have perfectly functional—"
"Shh. Back injury. Can't carry you and listen."
"You don't have a back injury!"
"Recovering from one. Very delicate phase."
She buried her face in his shoulder to muffle the laugh.
The following morning at Order of the Phoenix headquarters, Harry was on his third cup of tea and his second attempt at writing a letter that Kevin had not responded to.
"He hasn't written back all night," Harry said, to no one in particular.
Ron looked up from his breakfast. "Mate, he's with Hermione. At her house. For the first time in three months." He picked up his fork. "He's busy."
Harry thought about this. "He could still—"
"He could," Ron agreed, "but he's not going to, is he?"
Harry conceded the point.
Ginny came in with the Prophet and dropped it on the table.
BREAKING: DUMBLEDORE'S ORDER OF THE PHOENIX TO OPERATE UNDER MINISTERIAL AUTHORITY — FUDGE CONFIRMS VOLDEMORT'S RETURN
MINISTRY ALERT: ALL WIZARDS WARNED TO EXERCISE VIGILANCE
SHOCKING SCANDAL ROCKS DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
Harry read all three front-page headlines in order, then set the paper down.
"That's it, then," he said. "It's actually happening."
"Been happening," Ron said. "We just couldn't say it out loud before."
Harry stared at the fire.
It was real now, in the way that things only become real once everyone has agreed to call them by their name. Not just a rumour spreading among people who already believed. Not Dumbledore's unverifiable claims. The Ministry, in print, under the Minister's signature, saying: yes, he's back, be afraid, but not too afraid, because we have people.
He should have felt better. He almost did.
"What about Umbridge?" he asked.
There was a pause.
"Yeah," said Ron. "What about Umbridge?"