Dumbledore held his ground against Fudge outside the hospital wing while Kevin settled Harry in.
The crowd in the stadium had fractured — some terrified, some furious, some determined not to believe anything until a Ministry official confirmed it in an official memo on official Ministry parchment. The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang contingents huddled in uncertain clusters. McGonagall was already moving through the stands, voice low and firm, heading off the worst of the panic.
Fudge would not budge.
He'd been Minister for Magic for over a decade. He'd taken office in the aftermath of Voldemort's fall and shepherded the wizarding world through a long, cautious, deliberately unspectacular recovery. No more Dark Lords. No more wars. A functioning Ministry, a stable economy, a public that slept well at night.
He was not about to let Albus Dumbledore unravel all of it with a serum-dosed prisoner and a fifteen-year-old boy.
He had convinced himself, somewhere along the long arc of his Ministry, that Dumbledore's concerns were always at least partly political. That the man was constitutionally incapable of not accumulating influence. That every alarm Dumbledore raised had a secondary benefit for Dumbledore somewhere, and that a wise Minister looked for what that benefit was before responding to the alarm itself.
And now this. Voldemort, supposedly resurrected. On the same night as the Tournament's final task. When every important person in British wizarding society was sitting in one place, captive audience, ripe for a spectacle.
Fudge couldn't prove Dumbledore had orchestrated it. But the pieces fit the shape of something orchestrated.
He had Barty Crouch Jr. removed by Aurors before Dumbledore could object further. He promised a full Ministry inquiry. He called Kevin's public Veritaserum demonstration reckless, potentially coerced, and inadmissible by any formal standard.
He left Hogwarts two hours later still telling himself he'd done the right thing.
It took three days for the Ministry to arrange Crouch Jr.'s official Dementor's Kiss, skipping trial entirely.
There went their clearest witness.
Back in the hospital wing, once the others had cleared out and the difficult conversation was done, Kevin passed Dumbledore the last of his Veritaserum and walked Harry through everything he could.
He kept it selective. Harry could know the blood protection and the resurrection logic. He didn't yet need to know about Horcruxes — Dumbledore was still mapping those, still hadn't brought Kevin fully into that picture. He didn't need the full mechanics of what awaited him at the end of the road.
Harry listened. Asked good questions. Pushed back on the parts that didn't sit right.
Kevin respected that about him. Harry had never been particularly suited for passive trust.
The question of Karkaroff came up — the Durmstrang Headmaster had vanished from the grounds within hours of the resurrection announcement, leaving his students stranded. Kevin explained what he knew: Karkaroff had too many old debts with Death Eaters who would now come calling. He'd been running the numbers all year. When the Dark Mark burned on his arm that night in the graveyard, he had apparently decided that the math resolved firmly in favor of disappearing.
He'd probably last about a year on his own.
Kevin kept his face neutral as he said it.
Moody, steadier now after food and water, growled from his cot about next steps. Dumbledore gave them all the broad shape of it: rebuild the Order of the Phoenix, shore up the defenses, start moving before Voldemort had time to bed in.
Kevin slipped out before it turned into a strategy session. That part wasn't his yet.
In the courtyard, the foreign delegations were preparing to leave.
The Beauxbatons carriages — drawn by their enormous pale horses — wheeled slowly into position. The Durmstrang ship had already surfaced on the Black Lake, which gleamed gunmetal under a grey sky.
Kevin leaned against the courtyard wall and watched. Year done. The Tournament behind them. Voldemort no longer a rumor.
Harry had said his goodbyes to Krum and Fleur and stood now in the crowd with Ron and Hermione, looking like a person who needed about a month of uninterrupted sleep. He'd get about three weeks before the Order required him at Grimmauld Place, which was probably not enough but would have to do.
Sirius had already buttonholed Kevin on the way out. The offer stood: 12 Grimmauld Place as Order HQ for the duration. He'd move back to the apartment with Harry once Voldemort was finished.
That left the question of the Grangers.
Kevin and Hermione had already talked it through in quiet voices on the walk from the hospital wing. They'd head home first, spend some time there, then make their way to the Order under the cover of a school club event.
Technically the Order was a club. A very small club. With a very specific membership criteria.
Kevin watched the Durmstrang ship slide under the water and disappear.
[Ding! The Triwizard Tournament storyline has been completed and altered. Reward: Free Attribute Points +10. Free Talent Points +5.]
[Host has altered the fated death of Cedric Diggory. Reward: …h… the Host is now under the Gaze of Death.]
[Gaze of Death: In non-combat states, the Host is subject to persistent misfortune.]
Kevin stared at the notification for a moment.
Then a wall torch above his head came loose, fell, and hit him squarely on the skull.
"Haha!" Ron, nearby, collapsed with laughter. "What are the odds, mate?"
Kevin rubbed his head. He was already thinking through the implications.
This was going to be a problem.