"Kevin." Draco's voice had the tight, careful quality of someone trying not to sound as rattled as they were. "Are we seriously just going to leave this alone?"
They'd barely been back an hour. The rain had finally let up over London, and a few thin bars of afternoon light were finding their way through the cloud cover — not exactly cheerful, but better than nothing. Draco had followed Kevin inside with the look of a man who had spent a summer sharing a house with Gellert Grindelwald and was only now fully processing what that had meant.
"You can relax," Kevin said. "I can't say for certain, but Grindelwald doesn't read as evil the way Voldemort does. Different category entirely."
"Besides, I already sent Dumbledore another letter. We wait for his reply."
Draco had no real argument to offer. He'd spent three months at close quarters with the old man, watching him drink tea and discuss wizarding history and occasionally demolish things in a way that suggested the tea was a performance. Grindelwald had never threatened him. Never given orders. Never behaved the way Voldemort's people behaved. But the scale of power underneath that pleasant exterior — that Draco understood very well.
Still. He'd come to Kevin because Kevin was the only person he knew who seemed constitutionally incapable of panic. That had to be worth something.
Hermione had vanished upstairs the moment they'd walked in, muttering something about a book she remembered. She came back down now with A History of Magic tucked under her arm and a particular look on her face — the one that meant she'd been right about something and was giving everyone else the chance to catch up.
She laid the book open on the table and stepped back.
The entry was short. Early twentieth century, international scope, catastrophic damage. The name Gellert Grindelwald. The banner For the Greater Good. The Statute of Secrecy, the followers, the prison he'd built himself called Nurmengard. The showdown in 1945. Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts.
Dumbledore won. Grindelwald went into his own prison and stayed there.
The group stared at the page for a long moment.
"He's not a minor figure," Hermione said, unnecessarily.
Harry looked like he was recalibrating something fundamental. Ron had gone quiet, which happened rarely enough to be significant. Draco, to his credit, looked more resigned than surprised — he'd spent the summer with the man, after all.
Kevin read it twice. Closed the book. Turned it over in his mind.
The entry framed Grindelwald's old goal as exposure — bringing wizards into the open, ending the Statute. Now, in that park today, he'd argued the exact opposite: separation, permanent and total. Same rhetoric, different direction. Muggles still the threat. The conclusion flipped.
Kevin's earlier theory tightened into something sharper and colder. It wasn't just anti-Voldemort positioning. It was a long game. Poison the image, enforce the distance, let the resentment build over decades until the next spark found ready tinder.
He filed it carefully. Something to bring to Dumbledore, when Dumbledore decided to be useful.
As if on cue, a burst of flame appeared in the middle of the table.
Kevin had the envelope open before anyone else had moved.
The letter was brief:
I am aware of Grindelwald and the situation in London. Please don't worry — continue as normal.
Draco: Malfoy Manor is safe. What you saw today was a construct, not the man himself. There is no cause for alarm.
Kevin: I would ask that you avoid Grindelwald where possible. He is, for the most part, not dangerous — with one specific exception.
Harry and Kevin: I'll need you both free next week. A small favour.
Kevin read it three times. The phrasing on his line in particular.
Mostly not dangerous — with one specific exception. Meaning himself.
He looked up at the ceiling.
"He's doing it again," he said flatly.
Harry, reading over his shoulder, looked up too. "The thing where he tells you just enough to technically count as an explanation?"
"That's the one."
"Does he specify what the exception is?"
"No."
"Classic."
They looked at each other with the weary solidarity of two people who had been managed by Albus Dumbledore for six years.
"Headmaster says stand down," Kevin said, folding the letter. "So we stand down."
He had a reasonably good guess at what next week's errand involved — the Slug Club recruiting trip from the films, Horace Slughorn in someone else's house playing furniture. But his plot knowledge had been wrong enough times recently that he held it loosely.
The week passed. Kevin and Hermione arrived at Order headquarters in advance of whatever Dumbledore had planned, partly for convenience and partly because Hermione's parents had given them the gentle but unmistakable signal that a break from their presence would be appreciated.
On the appointed evening, Kevin and Harry were waiting in the sitting room at Grimmauld Place when Dumbledore arrived.
The sky outside was fully dark.
Kevin looked at him.
"Headmaster," he said pleasantly. "Anything you'd like to say?"
"About Grindelwald? I thought we'd save that for—"
"Not that."
Dumbledore paused. "Then what—"
"We've been here since dawn." Kevin gestured at Harry, who nodded vigorously. "The appointed day, as specified in your letter. The letter that did not specify a time. We've been awake for seventeen hours."
"Ah." Dumbledore had the grace to look mildly abashed. "I've been rather... occupied."
"Mm."
"Well." He cleared his throat gently. "Shall we?"
"That would be lovely, yes," Kevin said.
Harry, displaying the diplomatic instincts he usually reserved for actual emergencies, stepped forward. "Professor, where are we going?"
"A village called Budleigh Babberton. Come along — I'll explain on the way."
He held out his hands. Kevin and Harry each took one, and with a crack, the sitting room at Grimmauld Place ceased to exist.