Halfway through October, FitzSkimmons finally had their first chance to see Tonks since the day of the train.

It was Hogsmeade weekend, and the peppy girl had sent them an owl two days before saying that she would meet them at the Hogwarts gates if they were still agreeable to hang out with her. Of course they were, and so after breakfast they walked down the road to meet the today electric blue, breast-length haired girl.

"Lupin agreed to come visit me next weekend!" she exclaimed excitedly without greeting or preamble as soon as they were near enough to hear her without her having to shout too loudly. "I'm sure he'll try to make it out to be entirely business, auror and Order related talk, but he at least finally agreed to stop by in person. I think I'm finally starting to get to him."

"Congrats!" said Simmons with a bright smile of her own. "You'll convince him he deserves you yet — or at least to go out on a date with you, despite thinking that he still doesn't deserve you." Nodding at Fitz and Daisy, she said, "I'm hitched to these two, and they still don't think they deserve me half the time, especially Harry. Ronna goes back and forth between thinking she's God's gift to mankind, and being so insecure she thinks no one ever should, or could, love her — but she's a darling anyway, and she's my insecure girl forever."

It was bitterly cold that day, and as they walked down the road to Hogsmeade together, Tonks kept giving them all, but especially Fitz who was walking in the middle, envious glances at how tightly together they were walking helping keep each other warm, until Daisy finally exclaimed, "Get over here, Tonks! You can walk with us as well," and threw out her arm for Tonks to duck under and nestle into her side, where they proceeded to walk four wide — though only taking up the space of about 2.5 normal walkers — the rest of the way to Hogsmeade.

They hit all the normal shops in town once they arrived, until finally hurrying to The Three Broomsticks for lunch. But just outside the doors, they found Mundungus Fletcher having just finished a conversation with a man who was walking away from them, Fletcher looking every bit like a man eager to be gone.

"Dung!" Fitz called out, causing the Order member to jump and drop his ancient suitcase, which burst open upon its untimely meeting with the frozen ground, puking out its guts onto the road.

Ronna bent down to pick one of the objects up. Straightening back up, she silently pointed out the crest to Fitz. Before Fletcher had a clue what was going on, or anyone else for that matter, Fitz had whipped out his wand and petrificused the short man.

Turning to the two non-Daisy ladies present, he explained, "Black family crest — he stole all this stuff from Grimmauld Place, I'm guessing before we told Kreacher to start taking care of it. Because I don't think Kreacher would have been too accepting of someone nicking his house's belongings."

Leaving Dung petrificused for the moment, he said, "Kreacher."

A second later there was a crack, and the ancient house elf was standing before them.

"You know better than I would — is all of this stuff from Grimmauld Place?" Fitz asked the house elf.

Kreacher quickly looked over all the items, before looking back up and Fitz and croaking, "Yes, Harry."

"And I assume Sirius never sold or gave these items away to anyone?"

"Not that I am aware, Harry."

Casting the countercurse on Fletcher but keeping his wand pointed at him, he raised his eyebrow at the thief. Fletcher remained silent.

"Very well then," said Fitz. "Kreacher, take all of these items back home. Dung, skedaddle before I ask auror Tonks here to arrest you for theft, and don't try stealing anything more from Grimmauld Place. Now scram."

Mundungus didn't need to be told twice, practically running a few dozen feet away from them before turning on the spot and disapparating into thin air. Once Kreacher had cracked away as well with all the family heirlooms, FitzSkimmons and Tonks headed into The Three Broomsticks.

They hadn't been in there long, just one bottle of butterbeer apiece, and hadn't even touched the shots of firewhisky they'd convinced Tonks to get them as thanks for helping her convince Lupin that he wasn't too old, dangerous, poor, etc for her, when they saw Katie Bell, Gryffindor quidditch captain and carrier of a grubby, poorly wrapped package for some reason, start to leave with a friend of hers. But curious as to how Katie was handling being captain in her NEWT year, and wanting an actual answer, not the 'it's great' she knew they'd get from Katie herself, Simmons called the friend over to ask.

Before she walked over, they overheard her tell Katie, "Go ahead, I'll catch up with you on the way, or meet you in the common room."

When the blonde friend had made it over to them, Simmons said, "Hi, I'm Hermione, this Harry, Ronna, and auror Tonks. I was just wondering how Katie's handling the stress of being quidditch captain, especially with this being her NEWT year. I'm sure you know Harry and Ronna played in the past, but even though this is just our sixth year, they decided the workload was going to be too heavy to try to do all the classes we're doing and play quidditch as well, so I was just wondering how Katie's handling it."

"She's definitely stressed out at times, and really stressed right now with the first match against Slytherin too few weeks away, but she's enjoying it as well," answered the girl. "My name's Leanne, by the way, and I definitely know Harry and Ronna — I was shocked when Katie told me that you two weren't playing this year. And Katie was in a right snit, I'll tell you. But she's got used to the team she has, and from what she tells me, your sister Ronna, Ginny, isn't a half-bad seeker. Nothing like you, Harry, which she still mentions every other sentence when she's talking about the team, which is most of the time, but good enough to compete with the other Houses if we can't have you. McLaggen, the keeper, though — don't tell anyone, but I think she's pretty close to kicking him off the team for his arrogance, temper, and constant attempts to take over her practices and tell everyone how to do their positions better, while completely ignoring his own job. If he doesn't play well in the first match, he's honestly probably gone. May be anyway if he keeps getting on her nerves, and everyone else on the team's nerves from what I've heard."

"Oh, sorry to hear it," said Fitz. "We know he can be annoying from Professor Slughorn's suppers that he's made it to when he didn't have practice, and he and Ginevra seem to constantly be at odds at those dinners, so I definitely understand how Katie could be getting fed up. But I hope Gryffindor wins anyway in the upcoming match, and best of luck to Katie handling quidditch and NEWTs this year."

"Thanks. She's really wanting this first win, I think as much as anything to convince herself that she actually deserves the captain's badge, instead of it being yours — even though you're not even playing. Don't ask me why, but she still thinks she needs to compare herself to you even though you can't possibly have the badge, as you're not on the team," replied Leanne, shaking her head at the end in slight exasperation at her friend.

"You know, that's actually a really interesting thought," said Daisy. "What if you did have a quidditch captain who wasn't actually a player themselves? Like I'm sure most of the professional teams are — at least, I imagine they aren't player-captains anymore these days. Of course, it's probably not often that you would have someone like Harry who's played the game before but doesn't want to play anymore, and Harry wouldn't do it in this case anyway, but it could actually be a good thing for a team on the odd occasion that it could be done successfully."

"Huh — I don't know, I've never thought about that before," replied Leanne. "Of course, while I'm somewhat of a quidditch fan if nothing else from being friends with Katie, I'm certainly no expert, so I really don't know enough to say. I think you two would be a better judge of that than me."

"It definitely has it's advantages," said Fitz. "Though in a small school setting like this, there's also something to be said about the player-captain. And it's not like you'd ever find anyone to do it very often anyway."

They talked with Leanne for a while longer, before she finally bid them adieu, and FitzSkimmons and Tonks went back to drinking and chatting with each other, until finally in late afternoon they headed out as well. Tonks walked them as far as the Hogwarts gates, where they all hugged goodbye and FitzSkimmons hurried the rest of the way to the castle freezing their two bums and one butt off before they could make it back into the warmth of the castle.

Two evenings later, FitzSkimmons knocked on the door of Dumbledore's office for the second time that year.

Once they were all settled in, Dumbledore began, "You will remember, I am sure, that we left the tale of Lord Voldemort's beginnings at the point where the handsome Muggle, Tom Riddle, had abandoned his witch wife, Merope, and returned to his family home in Little Hangleton. Merope was left alone in London, expecting the baby who would one day become Lord Voldemort."

"You mean he refused to be raped anymore now that he had a choice," muttered Simmons.

Dumbledore ignored her correction and continued on, "We also know that, near the end of her pregnancy, Merope was in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her one and only valuable possession, the locket that was one of Marvolo's treasured family heirlooms."

"Why did she need gold then, when she hadn't for all the time before that?" asked Daisy. "She survived on her own well enough after her dad and brother were arrested, well enough in fact to brew a rape potion. So what happened between then, and the end of her pregnancy?"

"It is my belief— and I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right — that when her husband left, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen. In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life."

"Wait — so did she refuse to raise her wand, or did she lose her powers? If she lost all her powers from despair, then she couldn't refuse to use magic to save herself, because she no longer had any magic," said Fitz.

Dumbledore looked taken aback for a second at such a question, before answering, "Yes, well, I suppose that we will really never know for sure. Now, if you will stand and enter tonight's memory with me…."

One memory of Dumbledore's visit to meet Riddle at the orphanage he was living at later, and they were back in Dumbledore's office.

"So he was a psychopath from the time he was a child," said Fitz before Dumbledore could say anything.

"Yeah...I kind of feel like all the warning signs were there that he might turn out slightly unpleasant," Daisy added dryly. "Like, gigantic flashing neon signs of doom just slightly hinting that he was a psychopath in all caps kind of signs. Dr Doofenshmirtz 'Do Not Enter Here' kind of obvious signs."

"Once again, though, you do have to wonder what he might have turned out like had his father, or father's family, taken him in and raised him, instead of going to an orphanage, where by this one snippet at least, he had no parent figures," said Simmons. "The tiniest changes in your life — even just meeting one new person, not meeting another, and having a third stay in your life instead of leaving — can have huge and catastrophic impacts, which almost no one ever gets the chance to see how both situations would play out and compare them."

FitzSkimmons all fell silent, thinking back to the Framework, and specifically Leopold. But after several seconds, Dumbledore, who was not thinking about Aida, Fitz's father, or the Doctor, spoke.

"Yes, well, I certainly had no idea at the time that he was to grow up to be what he is today. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his own.

"His powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and — most interestingly and ominously of all — he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously. And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards; he was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control. The little stories of the strangled rabbit and the young boy and girl he lured into a cave were most suggestive... 'I can make them hurt if I want to'."

"You can save someone from themselves if you get to them early enough — but looks like you were unfortunately way too late for Riddle," sighed Daisy.

"You know, this would actually be a really good argument for meeting muggleborn wizards at a younger age than their eleventh birthday, to make sure their power hasn't already corrupted them by the time they're old enough for school," added Simmons. "And just so they're not going through life wondering what the hell is wrong with them in general. And by muggleborn, I mean any wizard, regardless of true blood status, who is for all intents and purposes a muggleborn. A social muggleborn, if you will — like both Harry and Riddle."

Once again, Dumbledore seemed to have no clue what to say to FitzSkimmons' astute observations, so silence reigned for several seconds until he finally cleared his throat and said, "Before we part, I want to draw your attention to certain features of the scene we have just witnessed, for they have a great bearing on the matters we shall be discussing in future meetings. Firstly, I hope you noticed Riddle's reaction when I mentioned that another shared his first name, 'Tom'."

"He didn't like being normal," Fitz answered succinctly.

"Indeed. There he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious," replied Dumbledore. "He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of 'Lord Voldemort' behind which he has been hidden for so long.

"Secondly, I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless. He did not want help or companionship on his trip to Diagon Alley. He preferred to operate alone. The adult Voldemort is the same. You will hear many of his Death Eaters claiming that they are in his confidence, that they alone are close to him, even understand him. They are deluded. Lord Voldemort has never had a friend, nor do I believe that he has ever wanted one.

"And lastly, the young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies. You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behavior, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later. But now, it really is time for bed."

FitzSkimmons nodded, and stood up and headed towards the door. But on their way out, they passed by a small table with an ornate necklace lying on it, where Marvolo Gaunt's ring, Dumbledore's new bling the night he'd picked up Harry, had been lying during their previous trip to Dumbledore's office.

"That's a pretty necklace," commented Simmons, stopping to look at it. "Where did you get it?"

"It was a cursed gift that was attempted to be delivered to me to try to kill me," Dumbledore answered lightly. "But Filch caught it with his secrecy sensor when it was brought into the school, and it is safe now."

"Oh, yeah!" exclaimed Fitz, suddenly remembering. "It was in Borgin and Burke's summer before second year when I went through the wrong floo. Pretty necklace, though."

"You know...I assume you're not going to wear it, Sir," Daisy began slowly. "So mind if we borrow it for the next feast or something? Hermione would look stunning in an evening dress and that opal necklace."

Dumbledore stared at her in surprise for several seconds, before finally saying, "Well, I suppose it's doing no good just sitting on my table…and I'm afraid I might look rather silly wearing it myself, or so Minerva would tell me, anyway. So yes, you may take it."

"Thank you, Sir!" Simmons exclaimed in surprise, before gently lifting it up.

After studying it for a few more seconds, she carefully placed it in her pocket, and the three of them left.

~FSK~

As they were walking back to their dorm a few minutes later, Simmons looked over at her wife and began hesitantly, "Was yours—?"

"Better than that, and I was with a lot of different families over the years as well," answered Daisy, knowing exactly what she was asking. "But it was certainly no picnic."

Even after a decade of friendship, and several years of marriage, Daisy still rarely talked about her childhood growing up in and out of orphanages, and FitzSimmons always respected her desire for privacy on the issue. They listened when Daisy did want to talk, and were always supportive, but never pushed her. But after seeing the orphanage Riddle had grown up in, Simmons just had to ask that one question.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"It is was it is, and it eventually got me to Shield and you guys," Daisy replied with a shrug. "And we've been through a lot more shit as Shield agents than a crappy childhood. I know I don't talk about it a lot, and it probably seems like I try to avoid the subject when it does come up from time to time, but really I'm just too thankful for where I am now to dwell on a less than ideal past. And as the Framework proved with Fitz, a 'better' childhood doesn't always end you up in the best place as an adult. But you're always more than welcome to ask me questions about it, I'm just not going to ever bring it up myself. Okay, dear?"

Simmons just smiled softly and nodded, before wrapping an arm around Daisy's waist and leaning her head against her shoulder as best she could with them still walking.

Simmons' opportunity to wear the opal necklace arrived sooner than they had expected.

Throughout the fall and early winter, Professor Slughorn had been holding dinners every couple of weeks, all of which FitzSkimmons had dutifully attended, just as Dumbledore had indirectly implied that he wanted them to. And now, the night before they headed to The Burrow for Christmas, he was hosting a more formal Christmas party with extra special guests, and the ability for all of his regulars to bring a guest should they so choose.

And for FitzSkimmons, it was the perfect opportunity to shed the boring old school robes for evening dresses, an opal necklace, and a fancy bounty hunter outfit for the non-dress-wearing of their motley marriage.

Like every wizarding gathering they had ever worn actual nice clothes to, every head turned to stare at them when they walked in, and everyone who arrived after them stared whenever they walked in and saw the Shield trio for the first time. Of course, Professor Slughorn could not have cared less whether Harry was wearing officially sanctioned wizard drabbery or not, and immediately began leading Fitz — and therefore by extension, as they were practically glued to his sides, Daisy and Simmons — around the room introducing him to all the other famous people there.

Amongst whom were an author named Eldred Worple, who tried to convince Fitz to sell his soul to him in the form of a biography, to whom Fitz merely replied, "If you really knew my life story and everything I've been through, you'd be offering me continents, not measly vaults of gold."

Then there was Worple's vampire friend Sanguini, who spent the entire party trying to slip out of Worple's sight to snack of a few fresh female necks.

They also ran across Professor Trelawney, who used the brief opportunity to be all aghast that Harry Potter wasn't taking Divination anymore. "The rumors! The stories! 'The Chosen One'! Of course, I have known for a very long time...The omens were never good, Harry...but why have you not returned to Divination? For you, of all people, the subject is of the utmost importance!"

But Professor Slughorn happened to be of the opinion that — surprise, surprise — Potions was of the utmost importance for Harry, due to his prodigious skill in the subject, even to the point of somehow grabbing Snape out of the shadows like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, and saying, "Severus! Stop skulking and come and join us! I was just talking about Harry's exceptional potion-making! And Weasley and Granger, as well, of course. You should have seen what they gave me, first lesson, Draught of Living Death — never had a student produce finer on a first attempt, I don't think even you, Severus, and they all three produced nearly perfect potions — too close to judge, in fact. Some credit must go to you, of course, you taught them for five years!"

As could be expected, instead of congratulating the trio on such an impressive compliment from the Potions professor, Snape instead said coldly, "Funny — I never had the impression that I managed to teach Potter or Weasley anything at all."

Unable to help herself, Daisy sneered right back, "Oh, look what happens when we have a competent teacher, instead of you."

FitzSimmons weren't sure whether Daisy was actually referring to Slughorn or Simmons, but they knew Snape would take it to mean Professor Slughorn, and they knew that's exactly what Daisy intended by it. But Simmons was sure that if she didn't say something to distract Snape at least a little bit, they would be faced with another stand-off refusing to do detentions for committing no wrong (other than stating the blunt truth about Snape, which was nothing less than unforgivable in Snape's better-than-thou, I'm-not-an-abusive-bully opinion).

"You know, I actually have to agree with you, Snape," she said politely, but leaving no room for Snape to make the incorrect assumption that she wasn't completely positive of what she was about to say. "As it turns out, all of the instructions you put up on the board the past five years had minor flaws in them. I bought over ten dozen potions books from Flourish and Blott's, and Borgin and Burke's this past summer, and spent over a month studying them and comparing them to figure out what the best instructions actually are for every potion. Give me the ingredients and instructions for any potion, and I can give you a slightly better way of brewing it straight off the top of my head — give me an hour to look through a few potions books, make some comparisons, and I can give you the best instructions short of someone who has spent months or years studying the potion and experimenting with different techniques, ingredients, and methods. Try me."

But Snape apparently could feel the assuredness emanating off of her in waves, and not wanting to embarrass himself by having a student in fact correct his potions instructions off the top of their head, he merely scowled at her, clearly itching to take points away from her and give her lifetimes worth of detentions, but as it was Professor Slughorn's party and Slughorn clearly was more of a fan of the mudblood than otherwise, he didn't, instead turning on his heel and stalking away into the shadows from whence he'd been pulled.

However, his absence was to be shorter-lived than they would have preferred, as a few moments later Filch pulled Malfoy by the ear up to Professor Slughorn, wheezing, "Professor Slughorn, I discovered this boy lurking up on the seventh floor. He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed in setting out. Did you issue him an invitation?"

But what struck FitzSkimmons as even more interesting than the fact Malfoy was trying to delude Filch into believing that he'd been trying to get to Slughorn's office on the fourth floor by way of the seventh floor, when the Slytherin common room was in the dungeons, and no shortcut led from the dungeons to the seventh floor to the fourth floor, was the fact that Malfoy was staring at Simmons' necklace with a look of disbelieving shock. And sure, it was a very fine string of nice looking rocks laying against smooth, pale, freckled, bare skin just above a sizable, but still appropriate for the occasion amount of cleavage, but the Snake wasn't staring at her cleavage, or at the necklace with a look of shock at how beautiful it was and the fact that she had such a necklace. No, he was staring at it like he was shocked to see it there, around her neck, like he knew for a fact that there was no possible way she could have it. And while they knew it had been in Borgin and Burke's second year when Malfoy had visited with daddy dearest, his shocked staring didn't seem to merely be at the fact that she was wearing a cursed necklace, but more like he knew first hand that she couldn't have just bought it over the summer from Borgin and had it decursed so that she could wear it to fancy parties like this one. He looked like he was seeing something he personally knew she couldn't be in possession of, because he knew exactly who was supposed to be in possession of it.

But before they could really stop to think about it, Snape had reappeared out of thin air to save his prize student. Only once again, things didn't appear the way one would have expected them most likely to. In fact, rather than swooping in to save his prized student, Snape looked as peeved that Malfoy had been nighttime prowling as Malfoy had looked at having been caught nighttime prowling, before he'd spotted Simmons' jewelry and his anger had been replaced by a look of utter shock. And when Professor Slughorn magnanimously invited Malfoy to stay at the party he'd claimed he was trying to gate crash, instead of taking the gift that was Professor Slughorn not trying to punish Malfoy like Professor McGonagall certainly would have had she been the one to catch Malfoy out of bounds after curfew, Snape drug Malfoy away and out of the party to have 'a word with him', and they never saw either of the infamous, nefarious, duo of evil again for the rest of the evening.

As FitzSkimmons were walking back to their dorm after the party was over, keeping a careful eye out for Filch and Mrs Norris, Daisy said, "So what was up with Malfoy being so shocked you had that necklace? I mean, sure, he's probably been in Burke's enough to recognize that it used to be cursed, but his shock sure seemed like more than that."

"I was thinking the same thing," replied Simmons. "But remember what Dumbledore said when we asked about it, though — he said that it was a cursed gift to him that Filch had caught coming in."

"But he didn't say who from," picked up Fitz. "I assumed at the time he didn't know, only that by whatever means he was fairly confident that it had been intended for him. But based on Malfoy's look when he saw your necklace, it sure seems like he may have been fully aware that it was supposed to go kill Dumbledore, not end up around the know-it-all bookworm mudblood's neck at a fancy party."

"It is still possible though that Dumbledore didn't know who it was from," said Daisy. "Of course, if he does know, it's not like he'd tell us that Malfoy had tried to kill him, especially with our book characters' animosity towards each other, and it would serve him no purpose to tell us even if that hatred didn't exist, but it's also possible that Dumbledore doesn't know. That Malfoy — if he is in fact behind this — was smart enough to have someone else try to bring it into the castle and deliver it to Dumbledore for him, to keep his hands clean. And Dumbledore knows whoever delivered it isn't the guilty party, but doesn't know who the actual culprit is."

"It's also possible though that Malfoy only knows who's actually behind the necklace, or heard from his father that someone was going to try to use the necklace to kill Dumbledore, but doesn't actually know who that is — before we too hastily accuse Malfoy of trying to murder Dumbledore," said Simmons.

"Okay, so what do we do now?" asked Fitz.

"Well..." Simmons answered slowly, thinking hard. "The necklace was caught by Dumbledore's security. And while that probably won't be the only attempt on Dumbledore by the assailant — one, his security measures have held up so far, and two, it's Christmas, which means that if this is a student, they likely won't be here to try again for the next couple weeks. So while it's slightly risky, and certainly not something I'd suggest doing in the real world, I suggest that unless something changes, we wait until our next meeting with Dumbledore after Christmas to tell him our suspicions, and in the meantime enjoy our break."

Unlike the previous year when they had been offered the opportunity to go skiing, there was no readymade excuse for FitzSkimmons to avoid The Burrow for Christmas this year.

Fleur was of course ecstatic to have them around for a few weeks and not be stuck all alone with Mrs Weasley most of the time, and Tonks also came by as often as she could to visit, which was most days as there was less need for extra security around Hogwarts when almost everyone was gone, especially Harry Potter, who was the real reason that the Ministry was giving Hogwarts protection that year after trying to destroy the school the previous year. The twins were there for Christmas as well, and Order members wandered in from time to time for a meal, so all in all, it really wasn't shaping up to be too bad of a Christmas, even if Mrs Weasley was still glaring her eyeballs out of her head at the three of them every time they were closer than six feet apart, which was of course almost always.

But nothing particularly exciting happened until Christmas Day at lunch, when the Minister of Magic stopped by for a 'visit'.

Under the pretense that Fitz was finished eating already, and wasn't one of the Weasleys who would want to catch up with a Percy who looked like he would rather be anywhere but there, Scrimgeour asked Fitz to take a stroll with him and show him the gardens. As always, FitzSkimmons stood as one.

"Well now, I wouldn't want to take all of you away from your meals —" began the Minister, but Daisy cut him off.

"All or none — that's the deal. We don't care if you're the Minister of the bloody moon, we come together or we don't come at all. You clearly came here with the sole intent of speaking with Harry Potter, so you can either do what you came here to do and talk to Harry with all three of us, or you can bebop back to wherever you apparated here from — your choice. You need us, we don't need you. Also, just to point it out before you try weaving it into your story, Percy doesn't even look like he wants to be here, let alone was the one who convinced you to stop by, like you just pulled out of your ass."

The Minister stared at her in shock for a second, before finally saying shortly, "Very well."

So FitzSkimmons followed him outside, where after walking over to a fence and pretend-casually leaning against it, Scrimgeour eventually said, "I've wanted to meet you for a very long time. Did you know that?"

"Could've sent me an owl. Asked to meet up for tea sometime this past summer. Even asked if we could meet up in The Three Broomsticks for shots of firewhiskey and gin on a Hogsmeade weekend," Fitz replied dryly. "We might have even said yes."

"I have actually tried to set up an occasion to talk to you since I gained office, but Dumbledore has — most understandably, of course — prevented this. He has been very protective of you. Natural, of course, natural, after what you've been through…especially what happened at the Ministry…. The rumors that have flown around. Well, of course, we both know how these stories get distorted...all these whispers of a prophecy...of you being 'The Chosen One'…. I assume that Dumbledore has discussed these matters with you?"

"Something about it might have come up once or twice, mostly warning me that people might start thinking I'm some hero or something who's going to swoop in and save them while they sit on their arses waiting for a hero, instead of saving themselves by standing up for themselves and not letting the Death Eaters just run all over them because they're too cowardly to kill or seriously injure any Death Eaters who threaten them or theirs," answered Fitz.

There hadn't been any such discussions in actuality, of course, but he figured it was as good of a time as any to remind the Minister that it wasn't the Minister, or the Ministry's job to keep people safe, only to provide a free country where their rights to keep themselves safe were protected. Plus, he figured it would be an answer the Minister would be least likely expecting, and if he'd learned anything from his younger wife, it was that it was always good to throw people off balance when you didn't know what their end goal was yet. Made them more likely to slip up and accidentally reveal what they were really after.

And just as intended, this answer did in fact throw the Minister for a loop for several seconds, but eventually Scrimgeour said, "But it can be good for the people to have someone to look up to — a strong leader if you will. Is it not?"

"Isn't that supposed to be your job?" asked Simmons. "When it comes to a foreign threat, a foreign nation, which Riddle essentially is in this case, even if he is a Briton, isn't the leadership figure who inspires the country supposed to be the president, the commander-in-chief, the prime minister or minister, and not a sixteen year old boy who's just trying to get through school?"

She, for one, had quickly guessed that the Minister was there to try to talk Harry into becoming some sort of mascot or puppet for the Ministry, and wanted to put an end to that tomfoolery posthaste, if not a little quicker.

"Ah, but people believe Harry is 'The Chosen One,' you see, and that alone means more than I can ever provide. They think you quite the hero, Harry — which, of course, you are, chosen or not! How many times have you faced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named now? But anyway, my point is, you are a symbol of hope for many, Harry, whether you want to be or not. The idea that there is somebody out there who might be able, who might even be destined, to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named — well, naturally, it gives people a lift. And I can't help but feel that, once you realize this, you might consider it, well, almost a duty, to stand alongside the Ministry, and give everyone a boost."

"Anyone can stop Riddle and his army, simply by saying no and backing it up with their wand," replied Fitz. "Stand up and condemn everything evil that Riddle stands for, and everyone who supports the evil and darkness he strives to cover the land in. Teach themselves, their family, and all their neighbors how to fight for their lives, how to incapacitate and when necessary kill anyone who threatens them, be it Death Eater or run of the mill mugger or rapist in a dark alley in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. If evil is to ever be stamped out — as much as it ever can be, anyway — of which Riddle is just the current biggest threat, not the only evil that has ever been, ever will be, or even is at the present moment — it has to occur at the individual level. Not at the Ministry level, not at some superhero level — at the individual citizen level."

Silence reigned for several seconds, until Daisy finally whispered quietly, "Um...we kind of actually are heroes who save the world on at least a yearly basis from threats that there's no way they could save themselves from."

"Yeah, but we fight with and against alien gods against threats that most people are still blissfully unaware exist, even after New York — hard to fight against the future destruction of the earth by a very cute and pretty but powerful inhuman unless you've actually been to the future and seen what you have to change," answered Fitz in an equal undertone. "Ancient alien parasites and the cults that worship them and use the name to gain world domination, multiple times; a magical book that gave a robot anger management issues; and different annoying robots, from space this time — we deal with threats like that."

"Ok — fair enough," replied Daisy. "Not a mere Riddle, or I guess Hitler, Chavez, Fauci, Mao, Castro, etc in our world."

Silence returned as Scrimgeour changed from staring at them in surprise, to staring at them in confusion, before finally apparently deciding it was best just to ignore everything they'd said in their whispered conversation and go back to what he'd come there for, and say, "You know, Harry, if you were simply to be seen popping in and out of the Ministry from time to time, that would give a good impression to all the people you're saying should be standing up themselves against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And of course, while you were there, you would have ample opportunity to speak to Gawain Robards, my successor as Head of the Auror office. Dolores Umbridge has told me that you cherish an ambition to become an auror. Well, that could be arranged very easily."

"Ah, yes, the woman who gave me this," Fitz replied sarcastically, holding up his hand that had the 'I shall not tell lies' scar on it — apparently really major scars like the one on Harry's forehead and this one on the back of his hand made it over to him in the 0-8-4 transfer, though it rather made sense if he was supposed to pass as Harry Potter and everyone knew that he had this scar as well as the lightning one on his forehead. "Just who I want recommending me. Oh, wait, no — I want her locked in Azkaban for child abuse, or maybe even the death penalty. After she and Fudge tried to overthrow Hogwarts and turn it into a Ministry camp for brainwashing everyone last year, I'm not particular."

"What he's saying is, we're not overly fond of the government at the moment," clarified Daisy. "We kind of think they're a bunch of overly powerful bureaucrat cunts who are more interested in staying in power than protecting individual freedom and liberty and choice, which at the moment means eliminating the evil that is trying to overthrow the government and enslave all the inhabitants of the British Isles under their evil regime. Also, we're planning on opening an ice cream shoppe, not becoming aurors."

"And speaking of individual liberty, when is Stan Shunpike's trial?" added Simmons. "I still have yet to read a date in the Daily Prophet, and he was arrested over three months ago. Or did you just throw him in jail to rot, without ever giving him his God-given right to an impartial and public trial? Because you've certainly already violated the 'speedy' part."

Scrimgeour's expression hardened immediately. "I would not expect you to understand. These are dangerous times, and certain measures need to be taken. You are sixteen year olds —"

"Who can read the fucking Constitution!" interrupted Daisy loudly. "We don't need to be adults to be able to read and understand God-given rights that the government can't infringe upon. Now I know that you're not on American soil, and therefore aren't limited by the Constitution, but it doesn't change the fact that you should still obey it as a decent human being. And like your former citizens on the other side of the pond did in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the British wizards can and should remove you from power when you don't. So go stick your ideas of what we can and can't understand where the sun don't shine."

"I see. You prefer — like your hero, Dumbledore — to disassociate yourself from the Ministry," Scrimgeour said coldly, all pretense of warmth completely vanished.

"He's not our hero. We prefer to be independent patriots fighting against every evil in the world," Daisy answered equally coldly. "You see, we don't really play well with cunts, and we certainly don't like being burdened by or held back by big government oversight, red tape, and politics. You were told that Riddle was back a year before you acknowledged it. And while it's completely true that it wasn't necessarily the most reliable source of information, you still could have dutifully investigated it, instead of stubbornly refusing to believe even the possibility that it could be true. You gave Riddle an entire year to begin building an army completely uninterrupted, simply because you liked your power too much, and couldn't even possibly consider the fact that you might be wrong about something, and that someone else — someone young — could be right. And you still wouldn't be acknowledging it today if he hadn't literally been seen inside your sacred halls by the Minister himself. The entire Ministry fight against all the Death Eaters wouldn't have made any difference to the Ministry's official position on the subject if Fudge himself hadn't seen Riddle with his own two eyes that night. So it's not that Dumbledore is our hero, or that we're trying to disassociate ourselves from the government, or anyone else for that matter, it's that we feel like none of you are doing things right enough for us to endorse, and we can do more and better as our own third party separate from both the government and the Order. We may have been forced to live with the Order two summers ago, I may have blood relatives who are members of the Order, but we are not."

"Some would say it's your duty to support your Ministry!" Scrimgeour practically shouted.

"Not if they don't deserve it — then it's our duty to overthrow it," Daisy replied with deathly calm. " 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.' That is our duty."

Once again there was dead silence, until Scrimgeour said brusquely, "What is Dumbledore up to? Where does he go when he is absent from Hogwarts?"

"No fucking clue. I'm a student — he doesn't tell me what he's up to," answered Fitz, completely truthfully. While they'd idly noticed that Dumbledore didn't seem to be in the Great Hall as often as in previous years, they had no clue where he was instead — for all they knew, he was at the same all-you-can eat ice cream buffet that fake-Mad-Eye hadn't invited them to when he ran away after the third task a year and a half earlier. "Do you think he just goes around chatting up students all day long?"

"Well, then, I shall have to see whether I can't find out by other means," said Scrimgeour.

"I would ask if you have a warrant, but we all know you don't, that they don't even seem to exist in the wizarding world in the first place, and also depending on exactly how you're going about trying to find out, you wouldn't necessarily actually need one," Fitz answered indifferently. "So go do whatever the fuck you want, you're going to anyway, regardless of what the three of us say."

Scrimgeour stared at them long, cold, and hard for several more seconds, before finally turning and stalking back towards the house without another word.