"Professor Dumbledore — I'd like to request a spare room for my own use."
Kevin had come to the headmaster's office on a bright, cold January morning and made the ask directly, the way he did most things.
Dumbledore folded his hands. "What for?"
"A private potions workshop. Some brews take ten days or two weeks from start to finish. Booking time in Professor Snape's lab around his schedule and mine is inefficient." Kevin paused. "I've also taken on commissioned work. Bottles and equipment are more sensibly kept in one dedicated space than moved in and out of an enchanted bag daily."
This was all true. Since Snape had introduced him to several merchant contacts the previous year, he'd been receiving regular orders — healing potions, enhancement draughts, a few specialist preparations. He'd been managing it around his school schedule, but the logistics were getting unwieldy.
Dumbledore nodded. The reasoning was sound. "You mentioned staying overnight?"
"During long brews, yes. I'd want the option to sleep there rather than break work at curfew time." He added, without being asked: "I'd expect to pay rent to the school. And I recognise there's a practical concern — a student living independently raises questions. I was thinking: official role, official accommodation. Teaching assistant to Professor Snape would cover both."
Dumbledore looked at him with an expression that Kevin had learned to read as I already thought of this and was wondering if you would.
"I can assist with the first through third-year syllabi. I have my provisional potions licence. It's a recognised qualification — it should be sufficient for teaching under supervision."
Dumbledore was quiet for a moment. Not hesitating, exactly. Considering.
The concern wasn't Kevin's competence. It was responsibility — if a student was harmed in a class Kevin was overseeing, the liability chain was messy. Kevin was still legally a student. The situation required careful framing.
Kevin waited, and didn't rush it, which was itself a kind of argument.
"Very well," Dumbledore said. "I'll have it arranged within a few days. A room on the upper floors — better light than the dungeons." He folded his hands. "I'll also need you to understand that the privileges of this arrangement come with genuine obligations. An official role, even an assistant one, is not simply a convenience."
"Understood."
"There's one more thing." Dumbledore's eyes held that particular warmth that always seemed to be thinking three things simultaneously. "Don't bring students to the room for reasons unrelated to academics. Your friends can visit during daylight. But this is a workspace, not a social arrangement."
"...Of course."
He had, briefly and only theoretically, considered whether Hermione might find it a useful study space.
Dumbledore nodded. "Good. Stop by Professor Snape's office this afternoon."
Kevin updated him on Harry's nightmares while he had the chance — same recurring scenes, growing more specific. Dumbledore listened carefully and didn't seem surprised. He was aware Polyjuice ingredients had gone missing from Snape's stores. The infiltrator was inside the school. The situation was developing on its own timeline, and the best anyone could do was be ready.
He asked Kevin to continue supporting Harry as best he could.
Kevin nodded, said nothing about having basically been doing this for three years already, and left.
He went to the library first.
Hermione was at her usual table, surrounded by materials she'd gathered on Black Lake inhabitants — mermaid communities, kelpie behaviour, grindylow threat patterns — everything relevant to the second task that she could pull from the shelves.
Kevin stood at the end of the aisle and watched her for a moment before she noticed him. She was focused in the way she got with genuinely interesting research, not the performative concentration of someone sitting with books. Her quill was moving steadily. She looked, he thought, very much herself.
She felt someone watching and looked up.
He raised an eyebrow. Found you.
"You're staring," she said.
"I was about to come over."
"You were staring."
"For approximately one second." He walked over and sat across from her. "I have news."
She put her quill down. Then she looked at his expression more carefully. "Is this actually news? Or is this a setup for something strange?"
"It's real news." He paused. "Though I should warn you — the lead-up might sound a certain way before it resolves."
She pressed her lips together. She had been wrong before about where Kevin's sentences were going. "Go on."
"How do you feel about a teacher-student dynamic?"
She stared at him.
He watched the sequence of thoughts cross her face — the initial interpretation, the extremely quick reassessment, the flood of mortification, the second reassessment, the attempt to determine whether this was a joke, the realisation that his face was entirely neutral and therefore possibly not a joke—
"What," she said.
"Between us." He leaned forward slightly. "Me as teacher. You as student. On a formal basis."
"Kevin—"
"Potions teaching assistant. I'd be your instructor for the next two years. You'd be my student." He watched her. "That's the whole sentence. Does that change how it sounds?"
Hermione pressed both hands flat on the table and stared at the middle distance for approximately three seconds.
Then she looked at him, and her cheeks were scarlet, and her voice came out very carefully controlled: "You could have led with potions."
"I started at the beginning."
"You started at the part that—" She stopped. Breathed. "You are doing this on purpose."
"Is it working?"
"Kevin—"
He was grinning. She launched a rolled-up piece of parchment at him.
He caught it.
"The answer," she said, still pink, still trying to reassemble her dignity, "to your question as actually meant, is yes. Obviously."
She picked up her quill and went back to her notes with great concentration.
Kevin leaned back in his chair and said nothing, which was somehow the most annoying response available to him.
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