Breakfast at Grimmauld Place was a production. A long table, too many people, too much noise, the particular organized chaos of the Weasley family being simply the Weasley family at full volume.
Mr. Weasley, Tonks, and Shacklebolt were heading out for the Ministry — keeping their cover, filing ordinary reports, listening at doors. Three people who understood exactly what the institution they worked for was currently doing to the people they cared about, and had chosen to keep going in anyway because that was where the information was.
Sirius stayed. Lupin stayed. Moody stayed, which mostly meant Moody sat in the corner looking like a man cataloguing threat vectors.
"Harry, Kevin — you're in the Prophet again."
Lupin unfolded the paper and laid it flat on the table.
A Boy Full of Lies, a Clown Begging for Attention.
Their photographs, side by side. Below them, several columns of carefully composed character assassination.
Harry had seen this before — the Ministry's preferred response to anything inconvenient, which was to discredit the messenger with enough force and consistency that the message never landed. He stared at his own photograph and said nothing.
Kevin picked up the paper, studied his own picture for a moment, and said: "When was this taken? I look as bad as Harry."
Harry stared at him. "That's your concern?"
"I have some dignity."
"You're being called a liar in the national press—"
"I know what it says. I'm saying the photograph is also unflattering." Kevin put the paper down. "Fudge will keep this up all year. We knew he would. Move on."
Moody grunted. "Something else you should know. Defense Against the Dark Arts professor next year — Ministry appointment. Dumbledore had no say in it."
He let that sit.
"And this one's not just a Ministry loyalist. She'll have genuine authority. Fudge is sending her to get eyes inside Hogwarts, and she'll have the leverage to act on what she finds."
"They already tried to strip Kevin's position," he added. "Dumbledore held it. For now."
"How dare they—" Hermione started, voice jumping several degrees.
"They haven't done it yet," Kevin said. His hand found her shoulder. "And they won't find it as easy as they think."
He looked at Moody. "Professor, you missed the entirety of last year's DADA classes. I think you owe us."
Moody's face did something complicated. "What are you suggesting."
"I'm suggesting that Barty Crouch Jr. ran the class in your skin for nine months, and his teaching was — objectively — pretty solid. I'm wondering why the version of you with an actual conscience and a functioning moral compass couldn't do at least as well."
Moody stared at him.
The table had gone quiet. Even Mrs. Weasley was listening now.
"You're talking about replacing whoever the Ministry sends," Sirius said. He leaned forward, something lit up in his expression. "Use Polyjuice, file fake reports, give Fudge what he wants to hear—"
"Yes," Kevin said. "But plan Z. Last resort, if the Ministry appointment is actively obstructing us — blocking what we need, feeding information back, endangering students. If she's merely useless or annoying, we leave it alone."
"This is wrong." Mrs. Weasley's voice was flat. "This is exactly what Death Eaters do. We can't—"
"What the enemy can do," Kevin said, "so can we."
He said it quietly. Not as a provocation — as a statement of fact.
"This is a war. Not the kind where you win by being more righteous than the other side. The kind where you win by surviving and protecting the people who matter while the other side doesn't." He looked around the table. "I'm not asking anyone to like it. I'm asking everyone to consider what happens if we don't have the option, and the Ministry's person spends a year destroying our ability to prepare."
Mrs. Weasley was silent. The word war had reached her in a way that the argument hadn't.
She had lost her brothers to the first war. Two people she had loved, gone in the kind of violence that came from being on the side that played by rules against the side that didn't. She had spent over a decade trying not to think about the specific arithmetic of that.
Kevin moved on before she could respond. "If it goes wrong, I take the fall. The Order claims no knowledge. Everything was my decision, my operation, my arrest." He met Moody's eyes. "But I'd rather it not come to that. Which is why we're asking Dumbledore first."
Moody held his gaze for a long moment. Then he pulled out parchment, wrote four words, and set a Fawkes feather to the corner.
The letter burned and was gone.
The wait was about ten minutes. Long enough that Kevin wondered if the answer would be no.
Then a small flame sparked on the table and dropped a folded note. Moody picked it up. Read it. The corner of his ruined mouth pulled sideways.
He turned it around and laid it flat.
I know nothing.
"That's a yes?" Ron said, squinting at it.
"That's a yes," Moody said. He pocketed the note. "We move only if she forces our hand. I take her place. And if it goes wrong—" he pointed at Kevin— "your plan. My collar, not yours."
Kevin started to object.
"Non-negotiable," Moody said. "You're fifteen. I'm old enough to have made this kind of choice before." He stood, picked up his tea, and moved toward the door. "Don't ring that bell again."
He left.
Kevin looked at the table. Nobody said anything for a moment.
"Right," he said. "Who wants another cup?"