After the debriefing wrapped up, Dumbledore sent Kevin and Harry back to the common room. The Great Hall was empty — everyone had already gone up.
"Kevin. What do you actually think is happening?"
Harry walked beside him, the unease he'd been carrying all summer fully crystallised now.
"Exactly what I said in there. Someone wants you dead."
"Who wants you gone the most?"
"Voldemort," Harry said slowly. "But he's already—"
"He's not dead. He lost his body and fled. He's been latching onto hosts and creatures in the meantime — the same way he used Quirrell. Buying time, building strength."
"Those nightmares you've been having. They're not random."
Harry went quiet. He wasn't afraid of Voldemort the concept. He was afraid of what Voldemort's return would cost — the life he'd built, the people he had.
"Write to Sirius. Tell him to come to Hogwarts. Someone needs eyes on what's happening here."
Harry nodded.
They returned to find the Gryffindor common room had become a spontaneous party. The Gryffindors had claimed both of them — Harry, despite the confusion over how he'd been entered, was being celebrated alongside Kevin rather than treated with suspicion. They were Gryffindors. One of their own in the tournament was one of their own in the tournament.
Kevin could take on a thousand wizards single-handed. Harry had broken through what everyone called an unbeatable barrier. Win or lose, it would be Gryffindor doing the work.
Hermione wasn't swept up in the celebration. She'd pieced it together. No student could have cracked Kevin's barrier. That meant someone else had submitted Harry's name — someone with access that students didn't have. Which meant the threat was already inside Hogwarts.
Ron drifted over to Kevin, expression slightly off. He'd had his moment of reflected glory thanks to Kevin, and he wasn't exactly bitter — but something was nagging at him.
"Kevin, did you teach Harry the counter-spell too?"
He was eyeing Harry across the room, looking unconvinced by the innocence claim.
"No. When would I have done that?"
Ron's face suggested he'd been working through alternate explanations. "Then how did he get through the wall?"
"Ron. Harry didn't get through the wall. Someone targeted the Goblet with a Confundus Charm powerful enough to create a fake fourth school. Harry was put in. He had nothing to do with it."
Ron mulled that over. It tracked. He'd picked up bits of counter-theory himself, showed off with them, dragged Harry along to practice sessions — and Harry had never quite managed it. So if Harry hadn't cracked the barrier...
"The only person who had both the access and the motive is someone who wanted Harry inside this tournament for their own reasons. Someone who needed him there."
Hermione arrived in time to catch the end of that. She looked at Kevin.
"You're saying someone wants Harry dead during the tasks."
Kevin patted the top of her head. "You're too smart for your own good."
Ron had gone from annoyed to worried somewhere in the middle of that explanation. He'd been building a case for Harry being sneaky and selfish, and now it had collapsed entirely into concern.
Kevin made him sit through the full Voldemort theory. Ron and Hermione both looked shaken by the end of it.
"Relax," Kevin said. "What exactly is there to worry about? A weakened wraith, one desperate rat, and whatever scheme they've been able to pull together in the last few months. I've handled worse."
"Have you talked to Dumbledore?" Ron pressed.
"He knows. He knows about the nightmares, he knows it's a setup, and he's still letting Harry compete — which tells you he's using Harry as bait to draw out whoever's been pulling strings." Kevin shrugged. "Can't find an enemy who's hiding. You wait for them to show themselves."
"That means Harry's genuinely in danger," Ron said, voice quiet.
"Only if we're not watching. Which we are."
They both fell silent. Kevin had a way of making this sound manageable that wasn't exactly reassuring and wasn't exactly alarming and left you feeling, somehow, like the situation was under control.
"Don't make those faces," Kevin added. "You're stressing Harry out."
They schooled their expressions. Hermione trusted Kevin's read on it. Ron had other calculations running — after a moment, he looked across the room at Harry with a speculative expression.
"Harry—" Ron called, loudly enough to be heard over the celebration. "Why do you look like someone just told you bad news?"
Harry turned, caught the genuine-looking concern on Ron's face, and his shoulders dropped slightly. "Because someone did."
"Right, well. You're doing homework with me for the rest of the year."
"...What?"
"Full year. All of it. Non-negotiable."
"That's not — how does that follow from—"
"You're the one always saying we should support each other." Ron gave him a beatific smile. "I'm going to need a lot of support. With my homework specifically."
Harry stared at him. Then he laughed, reluctantly, the tension breaking.
"Fine," he said. "You're the worst."
"I'm your best mate. It's the same thing."
The other houses weren't as generous as Gryffindor. There'd been mutterings — sympathy for Kevin, mostly, who'd guarded the Goblet only for Harry to appear anyway — until they'd seen the two of them walking back arm-in-arm like nothing had changed. Hard to maintain outrage in the face of that.
The Daily Prophet arrived the following day, along with a reporter who had not aged well and wore a great deal of green eyeshadow.
"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet. Absolute pleasure to meet you all."
Four champions, group photograph, house robes. Rita manoeuvred toward Harry and Kevin with the specific hunger of someone who had already written half the article in their head. A fourth champion was unprecedented. A boy who had forced his way into the competition over Dumbledore's own barriers was a story she had been circling since Thursday night.
"Who wants a private interview first? We'll start with the youngest."
She ushered Harry away to a broom cupboard, smiling at Kevin over her shoulder.
Kevin backed away from the remaining group, disappeared around a corner, and was gone.
No reporter in a broom cupboard. No made-up quotes. No manufactured drama. McGonagall would probably have words with him later, but McGonagall had his back.
He went to find Hermione.
Library. Of course.
He came up behind her, poked her left shoulder. She turned left. Nothing.
"Hmm?"
She looked right. Kevin, sitting beside her, was grinning.
"Found her."
"Kevin, not again—" She poked him back, laughing despite herself, and settled into his arm without making a production of it.
The Ravenclaw students working nearby exchanged long-suffering looks.
Why, they had been asking themselves for three years, hadn't these two fallen apart yet? Most couples at Hogwarts burned bright for a term and faded. These two seemed completely incapable of getting tired of each other. Every day in the library. Every study session. And — this was the part that really got under people's skin — they clearly still genuinely liked each other.
It was, by common consensus, deeply unfair to the rest of the student population.
They managed to endure it, just barely. The Gryffindors at least kept things tasteful. Quiet laughter and the occasional muffled exchange.
Then Krum arrived, trailed by a dense cloud of admirers who could not be convinced to lower their voices in a library for anything.
Madam Pince descended like a force of nature.
Krum retreated, fan club in tow. His expression as he left, catching a last glimpse of Kevin and Hermione deep in a shared book, settled into something resigned and slightly grim.
That should be me.
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