Kevin ended the silence himself, because he'd built the plan and he was going to be the one who carried it without flinching.
"Let's go," he said. That was all.
The others moved. Harry and Hermione last, still watching the spot where Draco had been. Then they let it go, and the group moved toward the carriages.
They found Cedric Diggory at the next line, Cho Chang close beside him — they'd made it official over the summer, and both of them looked comfortable with it in the way people did when something they'd been circling for a while finally landed right.
Cedric spotted Harry and Kevin and his expression opened up. He'd spent the summer believing their account of the graveyard when almost no one else would, and his first instinct when he saw them was simple, genuine warmth. He pulled Harry into a brief, firm handshake — told him he was looking forward to the Quidditch season, that they had unfinished business on the pitch — and then glanced at Kevin with a nod that carried more weight than the words.
He believed them. He was ready, if it came to that.
Kevin watched their carriage pull away and let out a slow breath.
Worth it, he thought. The Death curse, the bad luck, the months of uncertainty. Every bit of it.
Their own carriage had company. A blonde girl sat in the far corner, holding a copy of The Quibbler turned completely upside down, reading it with the serene concentration of someone for whom this was entirely normal.
She lowered the magazine when they climbed in.
"Good evening, Mr. Kevin."
"Good evening, Lovegood."
Kevin settled and nodded to Harry and Ron — a look that said manners, both of you, she's in my Potions class and she's sharper than she looks.
Harry and Ron interpreted this as be polite, don't stare, which was close enough. They climbed in with varying degrees of awkwardness.
Luna Lovegood watched them sort themselves out with her large, calm eyes and the faint expression of someone who found other people generally interesting without requiring them to be explicable.
"You don't seem frightened," she said, once they were settled. "About Voldemort coming back."
The matter-of-fact delivery landed the name without any of the flinching that usually accompanied it.
"My father and I believe you," she added, before anyone could respond. "The Ministry and the Daily Prophet are working very hard to prevent people from knowing the truth. That's usually what happens when the truth is inconvenient."
Ron, who had been carefully avoiding eye contact since they sat down, looked at her.
He'd heard things about Luna Lovegood over the years. Strange, people said. Odd. Talks about creatures that don't exist, believes in conspiracies, lives somewhere a few degrees removed from consensus reality.
He was finding it difficult to reconcile that description with a girl who had just assessed Fudge's entire media strategy in two sentences.
"You're not really what—" he started, then stopped.
Luna looked at him pleasantly.
"Not really what?" she asked. She didn't seem braced for anything unkind. She seemed genuinely curious.
Ron went pink to the ears and very carefully looked out the window.
Luna returned to her magazine.
The carriage rolled toward the castle in a silence that was, after a moment, unexpectedly comfortable.
Before the feast, Dumbledore caught Kevin at the bottom of the staff corridor and asked him to sit at the staff table for the evening — for the student introductions, and to be formally introduced to the incoming first-years.
Kevin turned back to find Hermione already three steps ahead of him on this, straightening his robes, smoothing his collar, fixing the precise position of his tie with the focus of a woman who had opinions about his presentation in professional contexts.
"No slouching," she said.
"I never—"
"You slouch when you think no one important is watching."
"I'm fifteen. Slouching is structurally appropriate."
"You're a Professor." She stepped back and examined him. "Act like one." She gave one final adjustment to his lapel, met his eyes, and nodded once. "There."
Dumbledore, at a discreet distance, watched the exchange with the warm amusement of a man who had lived a very long time and recognized certain patterns in people.
Youth, he thought, and went to take his seat.
The feast settled. The candles lit. The first-years came in wide-eyed and tried not to trip over the threshold.
Dumbledore rose.
"Good evening, children."
Staff changes. Grubbly-Plank for Care of Magical Creatures — Hagrid was briefly away. Polite applause.
"Professor Snape will teach Potions for years five through seven."
He paused.
"Assistant Professor Kevin Croft will teach years one through four."
Kevin stood. His blue teaching robes sat well on him — Hermione had made sure of it. He was fifteen years old and looked, in that moment, rather more comfortable with the weight of the room than a fifteen-year-old had any right to. He smiled and sat back down.
The applause from the returning students was genuine and loud. Hermione and the Gryffindors made the most noise. The students who'd been in his classes last year joined in readily. Even some of the upper-year students, who'd heard about his lessons secondhand, clapped with honest curiosity.
"And finally," Dumbledore said, with the smooth delivery of a man who had spent decades managing difficult transitions gracefully, "we welcome our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Dolores Umbridge."
She was at the far end of the staff table.
Stout. Very pink. Features arranged in an expression of practiced sweetness that did not reach her eyes. She wore robes in a shade of pink that appeared to have been chosen specifically to suggest harmlessness, and she smiled at the students with the smile of something that had learned to mimic warmth.
The polite applause that followed was the kind given to a gift that the recipient is not sure they wanted.
Dumbledore moved to close the announcements.
Umbridge cleared her throat.
It was a small sound. A soft, girlish clearing — hem hem — delivered in the particular register of someone who expected it to be sufficient.
Dumbledore paused. Turned.
The Great Hall looked at the woman who had just interrupted the Headmaster of Hogwarts at the opening feast.
Umbridge folded her hands. She stood with the composed authority of someone who had prepared this moment and intended to use it. She tottered to the podium — there was no other word for how she moved, a careful self-presentation that suggested modest grace while actually displacing everyone in her path — and beamed down at the student body.
"Thank you, Headmaster." She turned the words into a dismissal with the skill of long practice. "And thank you all so much for the welcome."
Her voice was high and breathy and cloying in the way that very sweet things turned cloying — fine in small doses, nauseating when extended. It hit the Great Hall like something poured into the air.
"I'm just so pleased to see all these little faces, so full of life and potential. I know we're going to be the very best of friends."
Several of the first-years exchanged uncertain glances.
"The Ministry of Magic believes that the education of young witches and wizards is of absolutely paramount importance—"
She went on.
The point, wrapped in considerable sweetness, was this: she was here to ensure proper teaching. To oversee the kind of structured, Ministry-approved education that prepared students for a safe and peaceful wizarding world. To correct any — well, recent tendencies toward certain alarmist perspectives that might have disrupted the educational environment.
She never said Kevin's name. She never said Harry's. She never mentioned the Tournament or the graveyard or the resurrection.
She didn't need to. Every student above third year had read the newspapers.
Kevin watched her from the staff table with his hands folded and his expression professionally neutral.
He gave it three weeks before the first direct confrontation.
He was, as it turned out, being optimistic.
---
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