The holidays ended the way they always did — too fast, and with several loose threads still dangling. The Bellatrix situation had gone cold. Dumbledore had received their message and confirmed receipt, but there'd been no movement since. No sightings outside the castle, no trail to follow.
Which left exactly one lead: Voldemort's hidden manor in Little Hangleton.
Dumbledore had been clear about it on the morning they boarded the Hogwarts Express. Don't go near it. Don't act on it. Focus on Slughorn, get the real memory, and let the outside work happen at its own pace.
Kevin had noticed — not for the first time — that the Dumbledore of real life was considerably less frantic than his film counterpart. He nudged rather than pushed. He trusted rather than orchestrated. Whether that was wisdom or something more calculated, Kevin hadn't entirely decided.
"How are things going with Slughorn?" Kevin asked.
Harry glanced up from the window. The grey countryside outside had softened to white under a thin coat of fresh snow.
"Alright, I think. We talk a lot. He likes me well enough." He paused. "But it still feels like he's keeping me at arm's length whenever anything about Voldemort comes up."
Kevin leaned forward, elbows on knees, and thought about it for a moment.
"Don't push for the memory directly. Not yet." Hermione was already nodding — she'd been turning the same problem over in her head. "Desensitise him first. Just talk about Voldemort. Casually. Treat it like a subject, not a wound."
Kevin looked at Harry. "Here's the longer play. Get your parents' photo album. The one with your mum and dad in it."
"I've got it," Harry said slowly, not sure where this was going.
"Next time you're with Slughorn — make it look accidental. Let it fall open to a page with them in it. Let him see it. He knew your mother; it'll hit him. While he's emotional, that's when you talk about Voldemort — not to extract anything, just to let him hear how much it costs you personally. Say something like — if we can find the Horcruxes, I can finish this and give my parents justice. Don't mention that you know anything. Make it sound like you're still searching in the dark."
He kept going, building the shape of it. "Once he's emotionally invested, that's when you tell him you've already destroyed five. Not as a boast — as a confession. Let him understand how close you are. How much his information would actually matter."
Harry listened. Hermione was taking notes in her head; Kevin could tell by the way she went still.
"You could've done all this yourself," Harry said, when Kevin finished.
"I'm busy."
Harry gave him the look that this answer reliably produced.
"What? I am."
"I've walked into your workshop four times this week. You were sitting with Hermione every single time."
Kevin put a hand over his heart. "Research."
"You were braiding her hair."
"Therapeutic research."
Hermione, sitting beside him, reached across and twisted his waist without looking up from her book.
The train pulled into Hogsmeade in the early evening, the station lit with frost-haloed lamps. They piled out with everyone else into the cold and started toward the carriages.
A girl with dark curly hair and a pretty, self-assured face slipped past them in the crowd.
"Hey, Harry," she said, with a smile that was entirely too deliberate to be casual, and was gone into the flow of students before Harry had fully registered she'd spoken.
He blinked. "Who was that?"
Ginny was beside him in two steps, her hand sliding into his with the precision of someone laying claim to disputed territory.
"Romilda Vane," Kevin said. "Fourth year. Gryffindor."
Ginny's fingers tightened around Harry's.
"She asks me questions in Potions," Kevin continued. "Every few weeks. How to brew a love potion without being detected. How long the effect typically lasts. Whether a small dose in a drink would register on standard diagnostic charms."
Ginny's free hand moved toward her wand with the slow, deliberate motion of someone being very restrained.
Harry and Ron stepped in simultaneously, flanking her.
"She's harmless," Kevin said.
"She's not harmless," Hermione said.
"She's containable. Harry, if anyone hands you food you didn't ask for, don't eat it. That covers most of it."
Ginny had not put her hand back at her side. Harry gently moved it there for her, which did not visibly improve matters.
"Or," Hermione said, with a small smile that Kevin recognised as dangerous, "you and Ginny could simply be seen together more. That usually discourages people."
Ginny went pink. She cut her eyes sideways at Harry. Harry, who had been staring straight ahead with great concentration, went pink as well.
Their relationship had a particular quality Kevin had always found quietly entertaining — neither of them had formally announced anything, and both of them acted as though pointing that out would break some essential spell. One day between fourth and fifth year they'd simply started acting like a couple, and the rest of them had taken their cue from that and left it alone.
Kevin grabbed Hermione's hand as they reached the Thestral-drawn carriages, lacing his fingers through hers. He leaned down and murmured something in her ear.
She went red to the tips of her ears and climbed in first, refusing to look at him.
Harry watched this, then looked at Ginny, then looked at the sky. Ron and Draco were already inside, wearing the expressions of people who had seen this routine before and had stopped finding it surprising.
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comment by @Kudo2025· I don't care about spoilers. Will Snape adopt Kevin?
reply:- No spoilers here... but keep reading 😏