Ronna's birthday, it turned out, was on a Hogsmeade weekend that year.

So on March first, FitzSkimmons headed into town with everyone else to enjoy a day outside the castle. And the moment they entered the town, they found the twins, Tonks, and Lupin standing there waiting for them.

"Surprise!" shouted the twins. "Happy birthday, Ronna!"

"Thank you, thank you," said Daisy, walking over to give both of Ronna's brothers hugs. "You came all this way just to give me a birthday party?"

"Well, we were looking at buying Zonko's as a Hogsmeade branch of the shop as well, but it all worked out well that there was a Hogsmeade weekend today and we could make it up here," answered Fred.

"And I'm just here to see my three favorite people in the world," said Tonks, walking over to FitzSimmons to hug them, and then turning to give Daisy a hug when she'd walked back over. "Ronna's birthday was just a convenient excuse to make Lupin crawl out of whatever werewolf den he's been hiding in lately and come visit me." Looking at Lupin over her shoulder, she batted her eyelashes and said sweetly, "Sorry, dear, if you thought you were just coming for a birthday party."

"Are you — ?" Simmons began excitedly, before Lupin quickly cut her off.

"No — we are not anything, even if we have been on two — for lack of any better word — dates, and I came today despite knowing full well that she just wanted to get me alone again." Addressing Tonks, he said with a pointed look, "I think the four hundred hearts you doodled all over your letter telling me to get my arse up here or else, might have lost you any deception you were going for."

Tonks merely gave an innocent shrug.

FitzSkimmons meanwhile smirked at each other. He was caught hook, line, and sinker — they might as well go ahead and start making the wedding invitations.

But the twins soon drug them all into The Three Broomsticks for drinks and birthday present handing overs, both Tonks and the twins happy to buy shots of firewhisky for everyone, and everyone besides Harry (so everyone, since Harry wasn't home) actually old enough to buy firewhisky now.

After a while, Tonks and Lupin slipped out to spend the rest of the afternoon on their own, while the twins stayed on a while longer, happy for any excuse to celebrate, and having already done all their business at Zonko's in the morning when they'd first arrived. But eventually FitzSkimmons had to head back to the castle before it got too late, and the twins headed back to Diagon Alley.

Near the end of April, FitzSkimmons received a letter from Hagrid informing them that Aragog had died the night before, and that he requested their presence at its funeral that evening.

The biochemist in Simmons wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to study an acromantula up close, so that evening they donned Harry's invisibility cloak as best they could and pulled out the Marauder's Map, to sneak down to Hagrid's hut for Simmons to satisfy her scientific curiosity. They considered just walking down there openly, and if anyone stopped them, showing them the note from a professor (which Hagrid was in the eyes of the school) requesting their presence at his hut at that time, but they doubted that Filch or Snape wouldn't still try to give them detention despite having a permission slip from a professor, and they didn't really want to have to deal with the confrontation such an encounter would devolve into. And even if they were stopped by someone like Professor McGonagall, while she probably wouldn't try to give them detention once they showed her that Professor Hagrid had specifically requested their presence, she would still try to send them 'back' to Gryffindor Tower, politely saying that Hagrid was out of his half-giant mind, and once again they would be forced into a confrontation that they'd really prefer avoiding. So all in all, they thought it best to resort to their tried and true methods of sneakery to make it down to Hagrid's hut safely.

With the Marauder's Map they were easily able to make it through the hallways undetected, and the same unlocking charm that Hermione had used to get to the Philosopher's Stone first year unlocked the front doors, letting them out onto the grounds where they could breathe freely. They quickly made their way down to Hagrid's hut, knocking on the door.

"Yeh came," croaked Hagrid upon seeing them. "Hed've bin touched yeh're all here, yeh lot."

"Anything for you, Hagrid," said Fitz. "And Hermione here's never had the chance to see an acromantula before like Ronna and I have — you wouldn't mind if she went and had a look at it, would you?"

"No, no, of course not," croaked out Hagrid. "Go right ahead, Hermione, 'es jus' round the pumpkin patch. He'd appreciate someone like yeh takin' an interest in 'em."

As Simmons skittered off to study the closest thing to Ungoliant and Shelob that she would ever get to see, Hagrid continued on to Fitz and Daisy, "We can't bury 'em in the Forest like he'd've preferred. The other spiders won' let me anywhere near their webs now Aragog's gone. Turns out it was only on his orders they didn' eat me! Can yeh believe that? Never bin an area o' the forest I couldn' go before! It wasn' easy, gettin' Aragog's body out o' there, I can tell yeh — they usually eat their dead, see... But I wanted ter give 'im a nice burial...a proper send-off..."

He broke into sobs, which Fitz and Daisy patiently let him cry out, as it meant more time for their wife to study the eight-legged arachnid. But eventually they all made their way around to the pumpkin patch, where Hagrid shoved the giant carcass into the grave he'd dug for it.

Figuring he should make it look like they came for more than just to let Simmons be a biologist and study the unique creature, Fitz offered to give the eulogy.

"Gone, but certainly never forgotten, Aragog will live on in the minds and dreams of everyone who ever met him. With a larger than life personality, this incredible acromantula ruled the forest like no other creature ever has, just as he ruled in the life of his closest human friend, our dear Hagrid, who raised him from an egg to be the amazing spider he turned out to be. Farewell, Aragog."

And with that, all three of FitzSkimmons pointed their wands at the mound of dirt next to the hole and covered over the body of the giant spider forever.

"Tha' was…tha' was...beau'iful!" howled Hagrid as he collapsed to the ground next to the grave, crying harder than ever.

Eventually FitzSkimmons managed to get him back into his hut, it taking all three of them and a little good fortune to get him there without him crushing all three of them with his weight, but eventually they did. Once inside, Simmons found some bottles of gin that Hagrid had stashed away in the back of one of his cupboards, probably a long forgotten gift from someone, and poured them all healthy doses to toast farewell to Aragog.

A long time and several bottles of gin later, FitzSkimmons finally departed Hagrid's hut, feeling nice and warm inside as they snuck their way back up to the castle and through it to their dorm where they were finally safe once more.

On the very last night of June, as FitzSkimmons were enjoying naked cuddle time in their bed, Malfoy was also feeling happy for the first time in as long as he could remember that year.

He had finally just succeeded in fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and could finally lead a party of Death Eaters to eradicate the mudblood-loving Dumbledore, and earn the respect of his Master that he deserved as a Malfoy. He would finally make his father proud, and protect his mother from the Dark Lord's wrath after his father's failure against Potter in the Ministry of Magic the previous year — and all without Professor Snape's interference. And speaking of the mudblood-dating Potter, wouldn't he be in for a nasty surprise the following morning when he woke up and found out that his precious hero was dead?

Soon enough, the five Death Eaters he'd called for (plus Greyback who he hadn't) came sauntering through the Vanishing Cabinet from Borgin and Burke's, and the seven of them set off through the castle to Dumbledore's office to kill the headmaster. They snuck along quietly, but as late at night as it was, they knew they only had to worry about a professor patrolling the hallways here or there — even the prefects would have finished their rounds and been back in bed by that point, a fact he knew being a prefect himself, even if he hadn't actually performed a single duty all year long.

Rounding one corner on the fifth floor, they spotted Professor McGonagall walking away from them down their next hall. Yaxley pointed his wand at her back and thought, 'Stupefy'. McGonagall immediately crumpled to the floor. They carried her to the nearest broom cupboard and threw her inside, before continuing on to the stone gargoyle in front of the spiral staircase up to Dumbledore's office. Malfoy had set one of his house elves to tail Snape when the Head of House was visiting the headmaster, so he would know the password, which he now gave to the stone gargoyle, making it leap aside to let them pass. Up the staircase, they burst in without knocking, Malfoy immediately shouting 'Expelliarmus' at Dumbledore to disarm the old geezer. However, unbeknownst to Malfoy, Dumbledore had the staircase warded to warn him when anyone was coming up the stairs, and he had just been able to get off a patronus through the floor to Snape before being disarmed, something none of the Death Eaters saw from where he sat behind his desk.

But all Malfoy was able to make himself do was disarm his headmaster. Despite the impatient urgings of his fellow Death Eaters, and a few threats that they would do it themselves if he didn't hurry up and get on with it, he just couldn't cast the necessary killing curse. Before any of the other six could do it themselves, though, Snape burst through the door behind them.

Seeing who it was, Amycus Carrow said, "We've got a problem, Snape. The boy doesn't seem able to do it."

But Snape was only paying attention to Dumbledore.

"Severus," Dumbledore said softly.

Roughly shoving his favorite pupil out of the way, the one person closest to being someone he actually cared about, Snape stepped forward and pointed his wand directly at Dumbledore's chest.

"Severus…please…."

Without warning, Snape bitterly shouted with revulsion, "Avada Kedavra!"

Dumbledore crumpled dead in his chair. Without even looking at the Death Eaters, Snape seized Malfoy by the scruff and spun on his heels, forcing the boy out the door ahead of him, as he said, "Out of here, quickly."

With Snape knowing all the professors' patrol habits, they quickly made it back to the Room of Requirement without meeting any more professors, and disappeared from the school.

~FSK~

Meanwhile, back in their room, FitzSkimmons paused their amorous activities — the most haunting song had just started echoing across the castle grounds.

"Fawkes," Fitz said quietly. "But not like either of the previous times Harry heard him. It's always been encouraging, uplifting, strengthening — this sounds like a lament."

"A horrible, terrible, beautiful lament," said Simmons. "Who important just died?"

There was no question in any of their minds that if a phoenix was singing a haunting song of stricken lament, it was someone of utmost importance who had just died. Not necessarily someone that anyone had ever heard of, though they could have been that as well, but someone who had changed the world for good in some way.

The song continued on for longer than any of them could remember afterwards, but eventually it finally fell silent, and FitzSkimmons went to sleep, wondering if they would hear in the morning who had passed from this world to that which is to come.

~FSK~

In another part of the castle, Professor McGonagall had just woken up from where she had been stunned.

Hearing the music of the phoenix as well, it reminded her of Dumbledore, and the attack on her, and she set off to let him know that there was a student going around in the middle of the night stunning professors. But stepping into the headmaster's office a few minutes later, she received the shock of long her life.

The headmaster portraits told her what had happened and who had done it, and Professor McGonagall quickly called the other two Heads of Houses, plus Professor Slughorn to represent Slytherin, to decide what was to be done.

The following morning, once everyone was in the Great Hall for breakfast, Professor McGonagall stood up to deliver the news.

"I am afraid I have terrible news I must deliver to you all today," she began gravely. "Our esteemed headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, was murdered by Death Eaters in his office last night. In light of this, all classes and exams have been canceled. It has been decided that everyone will be allowed to remain for Dumbledore's funeral on Saturday, before taking the train back to London an hour after the end of the funeral. The Board of Governors will make the decision of whether the school will remain open next year."

"Damn," Daisy muttered quietly to her spouses once Professor McGonagall had sat back down. "That was unexpected." She paused for a second before asking, "Think Harry and them saved Dumbledore, like Mr Weasley last year?"

"No clue — but we should find out soon enough when we return to our world. Presumably the year still ends in a few days with the Hogwarts Express, even if it isn't the same day as it's supposed to be," replied Simmons.

As FitzSkimmons started to leave the Great Hall to go take a walk around the lake a little while later, Professor McGonagall came hurrying up to them.

"Potter, I need to speak to you about Dumbledore," she said.

"Lead on," answered Fitz.

As they began walking, McGonagall saw that Simmons and Daisy were following as well, and turned and said, "Weasley, Granger, I need to speak with Potter alone."

"We haven't been out of each other's sight except to use the restroom and occasionally shower, though we do that a lot of times together, too, so there's nothing you can want to talk to Harry about that we don't know equally well," answered Daisy. "And we never leave each other's side, so if you want to talk to Harry you get us as well. Now, in reality we do occasionally have to split up, quite a lot actually as we each have different skills, or at least I have to leave these two certainly more than I like, but it's the job. Point being, though, we're not leaving each other now, so your choice if you want to talk to us or not."

As expected, McGonagall was predictably shocked by this proclamation, but eventually her need to talk to Harry Potter won out so she said that they could all come, and they followed her up to the headmaster's office where she sat down in the chair previously occupied by Dumbledore.

"I know Dumbledore was doing private lessons with you this year, Potter. What were those about, and did they have to do with defeating He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?"

"Tom Riddle split his soul into six pieces separate from the one in his body, which have to be destroyed before he can be killed. We've destroyed three, and know what the other three are, but we have no clue where two of them might be and the last one is his pet snake, so it has to be destroyed right before him. They're called horcruxes, if you've ever heard the name," Daisy answered bluntly, her answer not mattering in a few days when everything reset.

"The name, yes, but never what it is," replied McGonagall. "What are they, exactly?"

"Short version, when you murder someone, your soul momentarily splits in half," answered Simmons. "And if you know the right spell, you can capture the split off half and encase it in an object, and hide it somewhere. Then, if your body dies, because part of your soul is still physically on this earth, your soul remains on the earth, and the end result being, you can't die as long as you have a horcrux. To the best of anyone's knowledge, no one has ever permanently separated their soul into more than two pieces — Riddle split his into seven because that's a magical number. Which means six horcruxes have to be found and destroyed before Riddle can be killed permanently."

"That's — That's insane!" exclaimed McGonagall after several seconds of just sitting there staring in horror at the three of them.

"Yeah, well, it's true," replied Daisy. "But I wouldn't tell anyone if I were you, even the rest of the Order, because the last thing we want is Riddle getting wind that we know he has even a single horcrux, let alone six, and go hide his remaining ones even better or make more. And we're the only three who know what the remaining two are besides the snake and we sure as hell aren't telling you, so there's nothing the Order can do to help us find them. Dumbles entrusted this to us and us alone, and it's staying that way on pain of death — yours, specifically."

"Now, Weasley, I'm sure you can understand that in light of Professor Dumbledore's death, the situation has changed somewhat —"

"This has nothing to do with Dumbledore — we're making the rules now," interrupted Fitz. "Dumbledore made the rules before, and chose not to tell any of you. With his death he passed command of this mission on to us, so we make the rules now. We changed the rules by choosing to tell you about the existence of the horcruxes, something Dumbledore would have said no to. But the rule that no one knows anything more than that but us, that rule we're keeping. So please don't waste any more of any of our times by asking questions you won't get answers to."

And in order to steer them in a safer direction, Simmons quickly asked McGonagall, "So who was it that actually killed Dumbledore?"

When McGonagall began waffling, "Oh...well…", Simmons turned to the portraits and said, "You all know everything that we did with Dumbledore to work on killing Riddle — who killed Dumbledore?"

"Severus Snape was the one who actually cast the spell," answered the portrait of Armando Dippet. "But the son of Lucius Malfoy brought six Death Eaters in here before Snape arrived, and he was supposed to be the one to kill Dumbledore by the sound of their arguments when he didn't seem capable of actually doing it."

"Figures," Fitz said darkly. "He was always bound to be a bad guy, and not just a bully."

"Malfoy or Snape?" asked Daisy.

"Malfoy. Snape's been a villain since before we ever stepped into this school, at least if his reputation is to be believed," answered Fitz. "Abusive and at least a former Death Eater, which means at the very least he used to be evil. Theoretically he could have stopped being evil, and maybe he did stop being a Death Eater like Dumbledore said, but at the very, very least he was cruel and evil for how he treated Neville the past six years in Potions and then DADA. Malfoy, on the other hand, theoretically at least, had a chance to only be a bully, and not go full evil. But really, like I said, it was honestly only a matter of time before he graduated from bully to fully evil, and now he's done it."

"I assume they all skedaddled?" Simmons asked Professor McGonagall.

"We have searched the entire castle, and they are no where to be found," answered Professor McGonagall. "And we still don't know how they got in or out, as we do not believe it was through the front door, and Dumbledore always insisted it was impossible to get into the castle."

"As expected," replied Simmons, before quickly hurrying on, "The part about them being gone, not the part about Dumbledore being wrong. That part's certainly unfortunate, and I'm sure as best as he knew the castle really was Death Eater proof — then again, he may not have expected them to have help on the inside. But what's done is done, and all we can do now is carry on with what's left. So unless you have any more questions for us that we may or may not answer, we'll be seeing ourselves out."

As expected, practically everyone turned up for Dumbledore's funeral, including the Minister.

And once the funeral was over, and everyone was starting to disperse, he came limping rapidly towards them, calling out, "I've been hoping to have a word. Do you mind if I walk a little way with you?"

"Whatevs," Daisy answered indifferently as she started walking off, knowing that it didn't matter what they said, he was going to talk to them anyway.

"Harry, this was a dreadful tragedy," Scrimgeour said as he got up to them. "I cannot tell you how appalled I was to hear of it. Dumbledore was a very great wizard. We had our disagreements, as you know, but no one knows better than I how great of a man Dumbledore truly was, and how great of a loss this is for the wizarding world. And you are, of course, devastated — I know that you were very close to Dumbledore. In fact, I think you may have been his favorite ever pupil. The bond between the two of you was something special, for sure. And loyalty to such a great man is admirable, of course, but Dumbledore is gone now. He's gone, and the world must continue on in its fight against He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named —"

"And we told you before — our loyalty isn't to Dumbledore, or this school, or anyone or anything else. We are loyal to what is right, and we stand opposed to everything that is wrong," interrupted Daisy, knowing exactly where this conversation was going to be heading once Scrim stopped trying to butter them up. "It's not a matter of the Ministry versus Dumbledore, no matter how many times you try to accuse us of that, it's a matter of right versus wrong, and to put it bluntly, you aren't good enough on that point for us to endorse you."

"The Ministry can offer you all sorts of protection, you know. I would be delighted to place a couple of my Aurors at your service as extra protection beyond what Dumbledore's Order is doubtlessly already giving you. I saw you sitting next to Nymphadora Tonks, one of my best up and coming aurors, during the funeral — she could certainly be one of them."

"All we have to do is ask Tonks to quit the aurors and the Order, and come protect us full-time instead, and she would jump at the chance without hesitation," replied Fitz.

"Like a kangaroo on sugar," supplied Daisy in questionable helpfulness, causing Simmons to roll her eyes at her younger wife.

But Fitz was continuing on to the Minister, "We can pay her more than you do, she likes us better than she likes the Ministry or the Order, and we got her boyfriend to finally start dating her — so yeah, pretty sure we'd be the ones to win this pissing contest if you really wanted to start it."

"So the request I made of you at Christmas of publicly supporting the Ministry in the fight against He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, to raise everyone's morale —" began Scrimgeour coldly.

"We just covered that — prove yourself worthy, and we'll support your efforts. Don't, and keep failing on your own," answered Daisy. "Also, pull your head out of your arse and at least start calling Riddle by his self-given nickname, if not by his actual name, assuming you're not so stupid that you don't even know it."

"Speaking of proving yourselves worthy, have you given Stan Shunpike his God-given right to a trial yet?" Simmons interrupted loudly with a cold eyebrow at the Minister, hoping to distract the Minister from trying to arrest Daisy for calling him the complete idiotic moron he obviously was, along with proving their point.

A distraction which apparently worked, as Scrimgeour turned his scowl from Daisy to Simmons for several seconds, before suddenly turning and limping away without another word.

FitzSkimmons simply shrugged, not giving two shits what the Minister did, or what he thought about them, and even more so since everything was going to reset in a few hours, and the following year they would have to deal with whatever the author had written, not the consequences of their own actions.

~FSK~

The train ride back to London was a calm affair with no Malfoy to try trespassing on their carriage, and everyone else on the train still dealing with Dumbledore's unexpected death in their own personal ways.

FitzSkimmons wondered if Crabbe and Goyle would keep up the tradition of trying to burst in on them at some point during the ride, but it seemed their hearts just weren't into it anymore without their leader there making them follow him around like obedient little lap trolls, as they never wandered by looking to pick a fight.

As they rounded the final bend into Kings Cross Station, the train gave a mighty lurch, and Daisy, who'd just stood up to stretch for a second after having been sitting in Fitz's lap for so long, lost her balance and went flying straight back into Fitz's lap.

Only once she had collected her bearings, instead of still being on the train, she was lying flat on top of him on their bed, like she'd just jumped on him like she'd done right as the 0-8-4 sent them to the wizarding world.

"Looks like we're back," said Simmons with a smile as she reached out to rub Daisy's back from where she was on the edge of the bed next to them like she'd been sitting in the seat next to Fitz on the train.

Sighing as she laid her head sideways on Fitz's chest, Daisy replied, "Just one more year to go."