Kevin had sent Hermione and the others on to the dormitories and cut across the castle toward his workshop — old habit, first day back — when he heard footsteps behind him and turned.
"You're back early," he said.
Dore fell into step beside him, hands in his pockets. "Didn't go home for the holidays."
"Too far?"
"Something like that."
They walked in comfortable silence for a moment. Kevin glanced at him sideways. Dore had always been like this — present without pushing, available without being obvious about it.
"Tea?" Kevin offered, as they reached the workshop door.
"Sure."
Inside, Dore moved around the perimeter of the room with the particular attention of someone seeing a space for the first time and cataloguing it properly. He paused at the corner cabinet. Behind the glass, visible between rows of potion ingredients, was a photograph of Kevin and Hermione from the previous spring — both of them grinning with the unselfconscious happiness of people who hadn't known anyone was watching when the shot was taken.
"I envy you two," Dore said.
Kevin was at the small stove, filling the kettle. "Obviously. Even the genuinely cold-blooded would find something to envy."
Dore laughed. It sounded real.
Kevin handed him a cup and took his own, and they settled — Kevin on the stool by the worktop, Dore on the worn sofa. The wind outside had picked up while they were talking; cold air crept around the window frame, and the tea cooled faster than it should have.
"The bracelet," Dore said. "You and Granger — you can sense each other's emotions through it?"
Kevin lowered his cup. "How do you know that?"
"It's part of the bracelet's nature. It was always going to develop that way, once you'd worn it long enough." Dore looked at him levelly. "Can you?"
A beat. Kevin nodded. "Not specifics. Just a general sense. Mood. Urgency."
Dore turned his cup in his hands. Something shifted behind his eyes — something private, and too brief to catch. "Keep wearing it," he said. "Both of you. It'll matter."
The silence settled again. Kevin set his cup down.
"Dore," he said. "You're not actually a student. Are you."
It wasn't really a question.
Dore didn't deny it. "What did Dumbledore tell you?"
"Nothing useful. That's why I'm asking you."
"Why were you suspicious from the start? I know my cover was solid."
Kevin thought about it. The honest answer was that there'd been no students like Dore in the version of this world he'd grown up knowing — but that wasn't something he could say. What he'd actually had was the slightly uncanny sensation of a piece that didn't belong to the puzzle he'd been given. "Intuition," he said finally.
Dore was quiet for a moment. Then, very deliberately, he set his cup down and leaned back.
Something changed. The wide-eyed guileless quality he wore like a uniform — it was still there in the lines of his face, but it had been unplugged. The eyes that looked back at Kevin now were older, and sharper, and completely calm.
"Do you trust Dumbledore?" Dore asked.
"Yes."
"Then can you extend that to me?"
"I'm working on it."
"That's not very convincing."
"No," Kevin agreed.
Dore glanced at the bracelet on Kevin's wrist. Then back at his face.
"I have a contract," he said. "I need your help to complete it. That's why I'm here — I came to Hogwarts for you." He paused. "I made a promise to Dumbledore about keeping things careful, and I've mostly kept it. But lately I've seen a way forward that requires your cooperation."
"Cooperate with my plan," he said, "and I'll help you find and destroy the last Horcrux. Finish Voldemort for good."
Kevin watched him steadily. "You're going to need to give me a lot more than that."
Dore met his eyes. For the first time, he looked like he might actually be willing to.
Down at Hagrid's hut, Harry and the others had swung by and found it empty of Kevin, as expected.
"Beelining to the workshop the second he's back on school grounds," Ron said, almost admiringly.
"He loves it," Hagrid said, from the doorway. "Turns up and starts prepping first thing every time."
"He loves making the younger years suffer," Ron said. "There's a difference."
The others were still laughing when the explosion hit.
The sound was enormous — not a crack but a boom, the kind that travelled through the ground as much as the air. They grabbed at each other's arms. Blue light flooded the sky above the castle, bright enough to bleach the snow.
BOOM.
A second one, the windows rattling in their frames.
They were outside in seconds. What they saw stopped all of them mid-step.
A dragon of blue flame — vast, fast, terrifyingly real — was cresting the top of the castle. It moved through the cold air like something alive and furious. Under it, barely visible against the fire, a figure tumbled through the air. Blasted upward and then caught, then blasted again.
Hermione knew the shape before she could consciously identify it.
"Kevin!!"