Harry woke to sunlight.
He lay still for a moment, cataloguing. Ceiling of the dormitory. Winter light through the curtains. Ron somewhere nearby making the kind of breathing sounds that preceded waking up but weren't quite there yet. His own body, warm and still and entirely not dead.
He let out a long breath.
Kevin's bed was made, which meant Kevin hadn't been in it. Harry looked at it for a moment, then shook his head.
"Ron." He kicked the lump on the floor. "It's nearly noon."
"I didn't — we weren't — Draco and I are completely innocent," Ron said, with great conviction, into the floorboards.
Harry looked at him.
Ron lifted his head. Blinked.
"Morning," Harry said carefully.
"...What did I say?"
"Doesn't matter. Get up."
The Great Hall was full and bright and loud in the specific way of places where people are collectively choosing to have a good time because they've recently been reminded that time is not to be taken for granted.
Kevin and Hermione were at one of the tables. Ginny waved.
"Morning," Harry said.
"Not morning anymore," Kevin said, without looking up from his food.
"What time is it?"
Kevin looked at him.
Harry sat down. "Right."
Draco appeared a few minutes later, navigating the room with the expression of someone who had recently been informed that social life would recommence whether they felt ready for it or not.
"Good morning," Harry tried again.
"Not morning," Draco said.
Harry looked at Kevin. Kevin looked at Harry. Harry pointed silently at Kevin; Kevin pointed innocently at his food.
Hermione tapped the back of Kevin's hand. He stopped smirking.
Ron sat down across from Draco. They immediately began competing for the last chicken leg with the focused competitiveness of people who have been doing this for years and have collectively decided it's more interesting than talking.
Harry looked around the table — at all of them, in the bright noise of the ordinary morning.
The battle had been yesterday.
Today there was arguing about chicken legs and Draco wearing an expression like he smelled something suspicious and Kevin murmuring something to Hermione that made her go pink around the ears.
Harry loved it. He couldn't have explained why in terms that would have made sense to anyone else, but the love of it sat warm in his chest, and he ate his lunch, and let it be enough.
The Ministry wizards arrived mid-afternoon.
They came with the International Confederation of Wizards: black trench coats, formal documentation, the quiet efficiency of institutions that have been planning for this particular contingency for several months. They crossed the bridge to Hogwarts in a column of eight.
In the middle of the column, unhurried and perfectly composed, walked Grindelwald.
Harry watched from the entrance. He glanced at Dumbledore beside him. "Professor — after everything —"
"He escaped from a prison, Harry," Dumbledore said simply. "These things have procedures."
Something in his tone made Harry look at him more carefully. The small calm at the corner of Dumbledore's mouth was not the calm of resignation.
Harry shut up.
Kevin, at his other side, watched the procession and then looked at Dumbledore with the expression of someone who has just solved a puzzle.
"Headmaster — you didn't —"
"Kevin." Dumbledore laid a hand firmly over Kevin's mouth. "Not a word."
The column moved across the bridge and out of sight.
The Grindelwald in the middle of it did not look back.
Kevin stood there for a moment after they'd gone, working through it. Then he straightened up and appeared to arrive at a decision.
Hermione pinched his side before he could speak.
"No," she said.
"I wasn't —"
"Whatever you're planning, no."
Kevin closed his mouth.
They filed into Dumbledore's office in the early evening — Harry, Kevin, Hermione, Ron, Draco, and Ginny, crowding the old familiar room with its whirring instruments and portraits of sleeping headmasters.
Dumbledore settled into his chair and mentioned, almost as an aside, that Slughorn had come to him the previous morning and told him everything. The full count, the full shape of what Voldemort had done. It changed nothing now, but it was useful to have confirmed.
Then he reached into his desk and produced a letter.
"This arrived for you," he said, passing it to Kevin. "I've been holding it for the right moment."
Kevin took it. Turned it over.
The seal was not one he recognised. The handwriting on the front was old — not shaky, but old, the kind of penmanship that had been formed in a different century.
The signature on the back:
Nicolas Flamel.