They reached the office before Dumbledore — he and Fudge were still wrapping up downstairs. He'd told them to go up.
Kevin went directly to Fawkes's perch. Fawkes looked at him, made a sound like a considered judgment, and vanished in a small burst of flame.
Kevin stared at the empty perch. "We used to get along."
"The feathers, Kevin," Harry said.
"They grew back."
Harry watched Kevin move around the office with the ease of someone who had been in it enough times to have opinions about the furniture. He went directly to a particular cabinet, knocked on it until it opened, and looked at what was inside.
The Pensieve sat in a bed of soft light, silver strands of stored memory swirling just below its surface. Something was active in it — a shape forming and dissolving in the glow.
"What is it?" Harry crossed over to look.
"Memory storage. You can go inside and experience it directly." Kevin studied the surface. "Something's already running in there. Come look."
They both leaned in.
The Pensieve pulled.
A circular courtroom. Tiered benches packed with witches and wizards in official robes. At the centre, a spiked cylindrical cage hanging on a chain. At the head table: Bartemius Crouch Senior — ten years younger, spine straight, eyes like polished stone.
Kevin recognised Dumbledore in the gallery, younger, expression carefully controlled. Beside him, Moody — the real one — slumped in his seat with the look of someone who'd seen worse.
The cage cranked upward from the floor. Inside: Igor Karkaroff, in prison robes, hair matted, with the eyes of a man who had been calculating his survival options for months.
The trial proceeded. Crouch offered a deal — give them useful names, and Azkaban became a question rather than a certainty. Karkaroff gave names.
Evan Rosier. Dead already. No use.
Augustus Rookwood, spy in the Department of Mysteries. That held.
Severus Snape.
Dumbledore rose, smooth and unhurried. "Snape was working as our agent before the Dark Lord's fall. He has been cleared in full."
Karkaroff pushed. Dumbledore didn't move.
Then: Bartemius Crouch Junior.
Harry went very still. In the gallery — suited, composed, the face from his nightmares. Aurors appeared at his elbows and he stood without protest, and the memory ejected them both.
They stumbled backward and blinked at Dumbledore, who had arrived quietly while they were inside.
He looked at Kevin with a patience that had clearly been tested before.
"Kevin. Fawkes says you've been in the cabinet again."
"Harry found the basin first," Kevin said.
"Kevin," Harry said.
Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose. "A Pensieve. Memories stored and experienced directly. What you saw was Karkaroff's trial, from thirteen years ago." He looked at Harry. "What did you make of it?"
"Barty Crouch Junior," Harry said carefully. "He was in that trial. And he was in my nightmare — kneeling in front of Voldemort with Pettigrew. Planning something." He paused. "You said he died in Azkaban a year after this."
"That's what the records show." Dumbledore's attention had sharpened. "Why? Are you certain it was him?"
"It felt certain. Not like an ordinary dream."
Dumbledore was quiet for a moment. "As for what your nightmares mean, Harry — do you remember what I told you in your first year? About why Voldemort couldn't touch you?"