"Hermione — where's Kevin? Isn't he joining us?"
Morning. The Grangers' kitchen. Sunlight through the window, the smell of toast and eggs, and one conspicuously unoccupied place at the table.
Mrs. Granger had set an extra plate as a matter of course. It remained empty.
"He's still asleep," Hermione said, helping herself to the eggs with total composure.
Mr. Granger looked up. "Kevin? Still asleep? He's normally up before anyone."
"He was tired last night." A brief pause. A small flush. "I kept him up quite late."
The cutlery incident happened very quickly.
Mr. Granger's knife and fork departed his hands and hit the tile floor. He stared at his daughter as though she'd confessed to a felony. The colour arrived in his face with some urgency.
Mrs. Granger placed a hand over her mouth. Her expression was the complex mixture of parental mortification and reluctant understanding that covers a very specific situation.
Hermione noticed both of them. Noticed their faces. Did the maths.
Then replayed what she'd just said.
"It felt so good that I just couldn't stop," she continued, apparently determined to make things worse, "and I know he needed rest, but I didn't want to—"
The chair scraped. Mr. Granger was on his feet.
Hermione stopped. Looked at him. Looked at her mother's expression.
Her face went the colour of a fire alarm.
"That is not what I meant," she said, with the volume of someone who has just realised they are standing on the edge of a very steep cliff.
Her mother cleared her throat carefully. "Sweetheart. You don't need to explain—"
"I am explaining." Hermione took a breath. Squared her shoulders. Began again, carefully, from the start.
The evening, she explained, had gone as follows: Kevin had made a deeply unwise comment about her possibly having gained weight. Hermione, correctly identifying this as an act of provocation that could not go unanswered, had demanded he carry her until she fell asleep, specifically to prove that the comment was both wrong and insufficiently humble.
This had taken longer than anticipated because she had been very comfortable and had not, in fact, wanted to stop being carried.
She had fallen asleep against his chest.
She had woken up this morning to find that he had held her for the entire night rather than putting her down, had at some point retrieved a blanket and put it over both of them, and was now dead to the world with the particular expression of someone who has been doing load-bearing work for eight hours and has finally stopped.
She had felt guilty. She had gone next door for breakfast.
That, she concluded firmly, was what had happened.
The Grangers exhaled in a prolonged, joint release of accumulated tension.
Mrs. Granger pivoted smoothly into a lecture about the wisdom of leading with context.
Mr. Granger walked quietly out to the back garden, found his cigarettes on the windowsill where he kept them for emergencies, lit one, and stared at the middle distance.
Kevin, he thought, you had better actually marry this girl.
Next door, Kevin slept the deep, righteous sleep of a man who had done nothing wrong and was completely unaware of the near-catastrophe he had narrowly avoided.
Meanwhile, in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts:
"There's been a significant development among the Death Eaters, Albus." McGonagall stood with her arms folded, looking the way she looked when something had gone wrong enough to require her attention but not quite wrong enough to require her hexing anyone. "They've fractured. A significant faction appears to have lost faith in Voldemort's direction. They're not talking about joining us — but they're not talking about supporting him anymore, either."
"Some families have reportedly been cutting their Muggle business contacts," she continued. "Not because of Voldemort's ideology — it seems almost the opposite. As though someone has convinced them that association with Muggles is a liability."
Dumbledore stood at his window, hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was on the grounds, but his expression suggested he was somewhere else entirely.
"I'm aware," he said.
"You know who's responsible?"
"I have a strong suspicion."
McGonagall watched him for a moment. When it became clear that he was not going to elaborate, she pressed: "The Death Eaters causing us trouble are acting far too well-behaved for comfort. As if someone has given them a directive. Are we looking at a new leader emerging?"
"Not quite." Dumbledore's tone was precise, careful. "The situation is being managed, Minerva. Keep the standard approach — any former Voldemort loyalist is to be treated according to their actions, not their current alignment."
He was quiet for a moment. McGonagall left him to it.
He didn't understand Grindelwald's angle. Not yet. The man had spent decades in Nurmengard by choice — not imprisoned, but choosing to remain, atoning in his own private and very literal manner. He wasn't trying to start another revolution. He didn't want to rule wizards or defeat Muggles or reshape the world.
So what did he want?
Dumbledore had a theory. He wasn't ready to share it.
Not yet.
The summer settled into something warm and unhurried.
Kevin spent it potions-brewing, reading, and being thoroughly managed by Hermione, who had entered the summer with a curriculum for herself, a revised curriculum for Kevin, and strong opinions about how both should be executed.
The Grangers, for their part, had instituted an informal ban on Kevin and Hermione occupying the same room unsupervised for more than three hours, which Kevin thought was quite unnecessary and Hermione thought was probably wise. This ban was revised within two days to not applying to mealtimes, since Kevin appeared to interpret every meal as a visit and Hermione appeared to agree.
"You pity Kevin having to cook for himself?" Mr. Granger asked his daughter, watching the two of them clear the table with cheerful efficiency.
"He works so hard for me," Hermione said serenely.
"I only come because she makes me," Kevin said simultaneously, with a straight face.
Mr. Granger looked between them. He laughed despite himself, helpless.
"Right. So if I pity him, do I get a break from cooking your three meals a day?"
"Dad." Hermione's eyes lit up with the expression of someone who has spotted an opportunity. "If you feel that strongly about it, you could always take over the cooking."
Mr. Granger opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"...I walked into that."
"You really did," Kevin agreed.