Back on shore, Bartemius Crouch Senior was waiting.
He pulled Harry aside first, which Kevin had expected — Harry was the famous one, the name on everyone's lips since he was a year old. Crouch was warm, more personal than his usual register, asking about the task, about Harry's preparation, about whether he felt ready for whatever came next.
Kevin stood a few metres back and watched the exchange.
Something was off.
Crouch Senior was going to be found dead in the Forbidden Forest. Kevin had known that since he'd read about it. The mechanism had never been entirely clear to him — the films hadn't lingered on the details — but Barty Crouch Junior was the obvious candidate. The motive was messier: killing his father risked blowing his cover at a moment when the tournament still needed fake Moody present. But it wasn't impossible.
He scanned the treeline.
There — Moody. Standing behind a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, watching the group with his magical eye. Still. Patient.
Moody's real eye found Kevin's. Held it for a beat, then looked deliberately away.
Crouch was still talking. The same themes cycling — loss, persistence, the importance of continuing forward. He spoke with the conviction of a man who had paid for his beliefs at high personal cost. Kevin listened to the shape of the words without hearing them.
Then Crouch stopped mid-sentence.
Something had surfaced behind his eyes — a memory, an instruction, something triggered. He said a brief and slightly disjointed goodbye and walked away quickly, already somewhere else before he'd even turned.
"What's his deal?" Ron said, watching him go.
"Where's Kevin?"
Hermione's voice. The group turned.
Kevin was gone.
Her bracelet glowed softly in the direction Crouch had walked. Through it she felt him — alert, focused, the particular quality of his attention that meant he was tracking something.
She went after him without discussion. Harry and Ron followed.
Kevin had the Disillusionment Charm up before Crouch cleared twenty metres. He tailed the man at a careful distance, watching his gait, his hands, the set of his shoulders.
Nothing happened. Crouch walked with purpose and didn't deviate. The moment he crossed the boundary of Hogwarts' grounds, there was the sharp crack of Disapparation and he was gone.
Kevin stood at the edge of the grounds, thinking.
Footsteps behind him — deliberate, rhythmic, accompanied by the tap of a cane.
He dropped the charm and turned.
Moody limped toward him, magical eye fixed unerringly on the spot Kevin had been standing. It had been tracking him through the Disillusionment the entire way.
"Assistant Kevin. Hogwarts champion." Moody's voice was flat. "Party's back that way. Lesson plans waiting. What's brought you out here past the grounds?"
"Saw someone behaving strangely. Followed to investigate." Kevin met the magical eye without flinching. "Lost him when he Apparated."
"Funny." Moody closed the distance slowly, cane thumping the earth. "Because the only one behaving strangely out here is you. Invisible. Following people. Champion who should be celebrating."
"And you, Professor?" Kevin kept his voice light. "You've been following me since I left the platform. Always at the edges of things. Always watching." He let it sit for a moment. "Most people would find that suspicious."
Moody's good eye narrowed. "Dumbledore asked me to keep watch on you and Harry. Make sure nobody gets the jump on either of you before you understand what you're walking into."
"Makes sense." Kevin nodded, as if filing this away. "You look rough, Professor. Tired."
Moody's face twitched. His hand went to his coat.
Out came the flask. He drank, looking slightly away while he did it — old habit, or deliberate misdirection — and when he looked back his expression had resettled.
Kevin breathed in.
He'd brewed enough Polyjuice Potion to know the base-note compounds on contact. Lacewing flies. Boomslang skin. The specific under-smell of a brew that had been kept warm.
"That smell," Kevin said, conversationally. "Like some potion. Something familiar. What've you got in that flask, Professor?"
"Guess you brew enough potions that everything starts smelling like one," Moody said.
"Could be." Kevin smiled pleasantly. "Lacewing flies. Boomslang skin. Polyjuice, if I had to name it."
Moody's eye fixed on him. Manic energy crept into his voice. "Mr. Kevin — you're once-in-a-generation talented. But you've no idea what's out there. Real threats. I've killed more Death Eaters than you've sat through classes. Infiltrated cells across Europe. Impersonated them, spent months as them. Polyjuice isn't a trick — it's a survival tool. The smell means nothing."
"War stories as an explanation," Kevin said. "Makes complete sense."
He moved — quick, no warning — and his hand came away with a lock of Moody's grey hair.
Moody recoiled, furious, a curse already forming on his lips.
Kevin caught his shoulder. Firm. "Simple question. If an enemy Polyjuiced into you, and I took your hair to brew more — do I turn into you? Or into whoever was wearing your face when I pulled the hair?"
Moody went very still.
His magical eye stopped moving. The grip on his cane went white-knuckled. Something worked behind his expression — a struggle, brief but visible — before it locked back down.
"Answer's obvious," Moody said, controlled. "You'd turn into me. Enemy wears my face, his hair becomes mine. Source determines product."
"Right. Helpful. Shame about Snape's ingredient stores — nothing available to run a test."
Kevin fake-sighed, turned the grey lock of hair over in his fingers, tucked it into his pocket. Patted it. Smiled.
"Thanks, Professor."
He walked back toward the castle, unhurried.
Moody stood at the treeline and watched him go. Then, slowly, he reached into his own pocket and drew out the hair he'd taken from Kevin — lifted during the shoulder grab, clean and undetected.
He held it up against the pale sky.
The grey strand caught the light.
And turned yellow.
Kevin, halfway up the slope, was picking thin yellow hairs from under his fingernails and examining them with quiet satisfaction.
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