In the old Riddle House — rotting after fifty years of neglect, the same place from Harry's nightmares — Peter Pettigrew knelt on the floorboards and shook.
His arms and legs were back. Good as new. He'd made himself useful enough to earn that much.
He pressed his forehead toward the empty armchair, voice thick with fear and performed loyalty. "Please, my lord. Kill Kevin first. He'll ruin everything. And that traitor Severus — he's turned against you."
Nothing sat in the chair. Just a lumpen shape wrapped in black cloth that twitched at uneven intervals.
A cold, rasping voice slid out of it. "Wormtail. Don't think I can't see your game."
A pause.
"Kevin and Harry Potter. Both die by my hand. You will stick to the plan and see me resurrected."
"Severus? I'll handle him."
Nagini moved through the room in long, unhurried loops, climbed the arm of the chair, and settled. Her tongue flickered at the air.
A moment later: "Wormtail. After the second task — lock up old Barty. He's slipping."
"Yes, my lord." Pettigrew's forehead was still on the floor.
But beneath that bowed head, in the privacy of his own skull, his eyes burned with something that had nothing to do with loyalty.
Kevin finished his classes, locked up his workshop, and set a long-brew potion to simmer. He'd arranged to meet Hermione that afternoon — she'd promised a walk-through of the Black Lake's more aggressive inhabitants, last-minute preparation before the task tomorrow.
She didn't arrive.
He gave it an hour. Then, standing at his worktable, the potion ticking quietly, he felt the wrongness of it settle in.
He looked down at his wrist.
The silver bracelet glowed. Soft at first, then steadier, the light pulling in a specific direction — up through the castle. Second floor.
He followed it to a small study off the main corridor. Professor McGonagall's private office. He knocked.
"Come in."
She was at her desk, quill moving across parchment. She looked up when she saw him, and something shifted in her expression — not guilt, exactly. The look of someone who'd been expecting a visit.
Kevin said nothing for a moment. He followed the bracelet's pull to a stretch of blank wall. Nothing visible. But the light was pointing directly at it.
McGonagall understood. She'd spotted the glow, recognised what it was — the matching bracelet, the location link between them.
"Is Hermione in here, Professor?"
He said it the way you ask a question you've already answered.
She set her quill down. "Yes, Kevin. She's perfectly safe — helping with a small arrangement. You'll see her tomorrow after the task."
No point hiding it now. He'd found her anyway. And the champions all knew by this point: the second task involved retrieving something precious from the bottom of the Black Lake.
Kevin put the rest together in about three seconds. McGonagall and fake Moody arranging the hostages the night before. The merpeople's village at the bottom. Dumbledore negotiating with their chief personally for everyone's safety.
"I understand," he said. "Just — take care of her."
If it had been anyone else, he'd have walked in and collected Hermione himself. But McGonagall had been looking after Gryffindors for forty years, and Dumbledore had spoken with the merpeople directly. There was nobody he trusted more with this.
"I will," she said, and meant it.
He said goodnight and headed up to the Gryffindor common room alone.
Harry and Ron were there, both radiating a specific kind of barely-controlled panic. They rushed him the moment he came through the portrait hole.
"Kevin — Ginny's gone. You've seen her?"
Harry's hands were doing the thing they did when he was trying to appear calm and wasn't managing it.
Kevin ran the logic: Ron was still here. So Ginny was Harry's hostage, not Ron. The thought crossed his mind, briefly, that Ron had ended up as backup.
He swallowed a smile.
"Relax. They're both fine. McGonagall's got them. They'll be back tomorrow."
Harry and Ron exhaled in unison.
Then Ron's brain caught up. "Both of them? Who else?"
"Hermione."
"We figured she'd gone to your workshop." Harry frowned. She was always either there or in the library.
"Harry — tomorrow, focus on the Black Lake. It's dark, it's large, and it's full of things that bite. The Bubble-Head Charm alone won't be enough."
"I've got it," Harry said. And he looked it — the months of practice had settled into something steadier. Far calmer than Kevin would have been at fourteen facing a lake full of grindylows.
Good for him.
The following morning arrived grey and cold, which suited the Black Lake entirely.
Three tall reviewing towers had been erected on the water's surface. Students loaded into boats, scrambled up top, Omnioculars appearing from bags. The view from that height was, objectively, not ideal for following underwater action, but it was traditional.
The champions gathered at the base of the central tower at eleven. Harry wore a swimsuit under his robes. Kevin wore his full winter kit — heavy robes, Hermione's deep blue cloak, a thick scarf.
Harry stared at him. "Kevin. Swimsuit. That lot will waterlog in thirty seconds and you'll sink."
"I'll be fine."
"You'll sink."
"Trust me, Harry."
Kevin said it with the serenity of someone who had already solved this problem. Harry filed it under things Kevin says and moved on.
The officials collected magical items before the start — and Kevin's bracelet, which had been spotted glowing the previous afternoon, went with everything else.
Even without it, he could feel Hermione. Faint, no light, no direction — just the compass-pull of it, deep below the water. Somewhere beneath the grey surface.
He didn't try to explain it. There were questions he'd sit with until later.