King's Cross platform. End-of-term noise and heat and the particular chaos of five hundred students, trunks, and owls all trying to occupy the same space.
Harry stepped through the barrier expecting, as he always expected, either no one or the Dursleys' pinched faces.
He got Sirius instead — leaning against the pillar in a dark coat, face relaxed, scanning the crowd.
"Sirius!"
He crossed the platform in four steps. Sirius caught him with one arm and pulled him in properly.
"Good to see you, kid. Good year?"
"Better than any I've had."
Sirius looked over Harry's head at the others coming through the barrier. "Kevin. Hermione. I was starting to think you'd missed the train."
"No such luck," Kevin said, shaking his hand. "Fair warning — I am not sharing a room with Ron."
Ron arrived through the barrier and processed this in real time. "What?"
"Nothing personal. You talk in your sleep."
"I do not —"
"Spider choreography," Kevin said. "You choreographed it extensively and in great detail."
Ron turned to Harry for support. Harry, who had endured it, nodded once.
Sirius looked at Kevin with bright eyes. "Your own room, then? Or —" he glanced at Hermione "— one you share?"
"If Hermione's agreeable," Kevin said, without a flicker of hesitation, "I'd prefer to share."
Hermione's face went from entirely normal to deeply pink in approximately one second. She kicked his shin, pivoted away, and walked toward her parents with the determined stride of someone who was absolutely fine and didn't need to discuss anything.
Neither of them had argued with the implication.
Sirius watched her go. "Tough crowd."
"She's just shy," Kevin said, rubbing his leg.
The Grangers were waiting with the patience of parents accustomed to delays they couldn't explain. Mrs. Granger saw Hermione first and opened her arms. Hermione walked straight into the hug with the unguarded relief of someone who'd been away too long.
"We missed you," Mrs. Granger said, into her hair.
"I missed you too."
Kevin stayed a step back.
Mrs. Granger looked up. The composed face, the self-possession, and somewhere underneath it — barely visible, but there — the specific uncertainty of someone who had never entirely learned to step forward into warmth that was freely offered.
She waved him over.
Kevin crossed the distance. The Grangers pulled him into the same embrace without ceremony, the way you do with someone who belongs there.
He went still for half a second — old reflex.
Then he relaxed.
Beside him, Hermione's bracelet caught the platform light. She'd felt something through it — a thread of whatever he was carrying. She pressed her arm against his, her hand finding his in the middle of the group.
The drive back. Dinner. Stories about the year, the ones that could be told to dentists.
Afterward, Kevin handed an envelope to Mr. Granger — the deposit, counted carefully, more than he'd disclosed.
Mr. Granger accepted it with the steadiness of a man who had already made his peace with this particular inevitability.
Hermione walked from room to room in the new house, touching doorframes, checking the window angles, doing quiet calculations about furniture. Then she sat on the floor of the empty front room and grinned at nothing for nearly thirty seconds.
Kevin stood in the doorway and watched her.
This, he thought, is worth protecting.
Elsewhere, at Malfoy Manor:
Draco came home taller and different in ways that Narcissa noticed immediately and Lucius observed more slowly.
"Outstanding in Charms and Potions," Draco said, at dinner. "Exceeds Expectations across the rest."
"Severus tutoring you?" Lucius set down his fork.
"Kevin."
A pause.
"That Muggle-born," Lucius said, "has no business earning Severus's respect."
"Father." Draco's voice was even. "Kevin is my friend."
Lucius looked at his son. Narcissa, directly behind Draco, had her arms folded and wore an expression her husband had been married to long enough to read accurately.
Lucius said nothing further on the subject.
He took Draco to the back garden instead — a test, he called it. An assessment.
He was not entirely prepared for the results.