The evening after Harry's birthday, FitzSkimmons were relaxing on a comfy couch of Simmons' conjuring in what they had deemed the living room of their cozy castle, when a silver patronus weasel soared in through the far wall.

In Mr Weasley's voice it said, "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. Family is safe, do not reply, we are being watched."

They were silent for several seconds, taking in what Mr Weasley had just told them, before Daisy finally sighed, "So it's finally begun — the people finally have to be at war with the government if they want to survive."

"Family safe — that sounds like something happened that put them in a position where they might not have come out safe," said Fitz. "You don't think they attacked the wedding, did they?"

"Probably — you have to remember that the Ministry knew that The Burrow was on the list of possible safehouses for Harry Potter since they were in on putting up the protections at all the places, and some of the upper management possibly even knew it was the spot, so Riddle at the very least knows that it's a spot that Harry could be at," answered Simmons. "And even if they didn't know for sure that he was supposed to be there, that was still the location where most of the Order was gathered due to Bill and Fleur's wedding, something someone at the Ministry was bound to know about, and Riddle wants the entire Order dead second only to Harry himself, so strategically it was the smart move to attack. Besides the fact that it was simply a wedding with lots of innocent wedding-goers to murder, so it was practically a feast on a silver platter for Riddle's slaves."

"Oh — you're right, as always," replied Fitz.

"It also proves that our strategy of not going to The Burrow was a smart one," said Daisy. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire indeed."

"You know, speaking of frying pans, can we have sausage and eggs for breakfast tomorrow morning?" asked Fitz. "We bought some at the grocery store this afternoon."

"Of course — I mean, we didn't buy them for table decorations," replied Simmons, causing both Fitz and Daisy to try to tackle her into the couch for her cheekiness, resulting in a lovers' kerfuffle that completely pushed The Burrow attack and the fallen government completely out of their minds.

~FSK~

The following morning, Kreacher returned.

As soon as Simmons looked over at the sound of him cracking into existence, she immediately said with her voice full of concern, "Kreacher? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Kreacher has failed again!" Kreacher wailed even more miserably than normal. "Kreacher doesn't think the thief has Master Regulus's locket any more, Kreacher looked everywhere!"

But as he lunged towards the nearest blunt object to beat himself up with, Simmons, having anticipated his move, quickly shouted, "No! No you haven't, Kreacher! Don't punish yourself!"

The house elf stopped short, as if stopped by magic — which he probably was.

Kneeling down to be eye-level with the miserable-looking house elf, Fitz asked, "I assume there's some kind of dungeon or holding cell or ominous wine cellar in Grimmauld Place, it being a Black house and all?"

Kreacher nodded, croaking out, "In the basement, only accessible by a hidden door not even Sirius Black ever knew existed."

"And I assume, like Hogwarts, you can take us and Dung straight into one of said rooms?" continued Fitz.

Kreacher nodded again.

"Then go get Dung and take him there, and bind him up just enough so that he can't escape but not hurting him, before coming back and taking us to the room," ordered Fitz. "We'll ask him ourselves where it is."

Kreacher bowed, before cracking out of existence.

Less than half an hour later he cracked back into existence, saying with about three-quarters of a bow, "The thief is secure, if Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy would like to visit him and beat some sense into his miserable head. Kreacher would gladly bring along a saucepan to help if they would like him to."

"We appreciate the enthusiasm, but that won't be necessary, Kreacher," Simmons replied gently. "We just want to talk to him, not give him a concussion."

Meanwhile, a country away, Mundungus Fletcher was struggling against the ropes the wretched house elf had bound him in, when suddenly there was a loud crack and three imposing figures were standing over him.

"Look, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have stole your stuff! This year or last! But it was going to waste, and it's not like you ever would have noticed if you hadn't caught me!" he exclaimed as soon as he saw them appear out of thin air with their wands pointed straight at him.

"Not helping yourself," said Daisy, rolling her eyes at him. "But no, that's not why you're here."

"It's just one single thing you stole that we're interested in," said Fitz. "A golden locket, large as an egg, ornate green stone 'S' inlaid in the front. Kreacher says he watched you steal it, and let's be honest here, we trust him a whole lot more than we trust you. So choose the next words out of your mouth very carefully, because Kreacher here has volunteered to acquaint your skull with an object most commonly used for cooking sausages, and I imagine at a rather rapid pace that would be rather unpleasant for your cranium."

Dung was silent for several seconds, clearly weighing his options of what to reply with, before finally just saying, "I ain't got it no more."

FitzSkimmons let out a simultaneous sigh of dejection. They had known that this was to be expected when Kreacher couldn't find the locket, but it still hurt to actually hear it confirmed.

"And who exactly does have it?" asked Daisy after a second.

"I had to bleedin' gave it away, di'n' I? No choice," muttered Dung as much to himself as to them. "I was sellin' in Diagon Alley and she come up to me and asks if I've got a license for trading in magical artifacts. Bleedin' snoop. She was gonna fine me, but she took a fancy to the locket an' told me she'd take it and let me off that time, and to fink meself lucky."

"And?" Daisy prodded impatiently.

"An' I don' know who she was — never seen 'er before," grumbled Dung. "Some Ministry hag, obviously."

"And do we need to get a police sketch artist here, or are you going to just tell us what she looked like?" Daisy retorted sarcastically.

After thinking back a second, Fletcher answered, "Little woman. Bow on top of 'er head. Looked like a toad, just in all pink — most hideous thing I' ever seen."

"Fuck."

The two girls turned to look at Fitz with slightly raised eyebrows.

"It's—"

"Umbridge, yeah, we got that part," cut off Simmons. "It was you saying 'fuck' like that that got to us."

"Oh — sorry," replied Fitz. "Our day just couldn't have got much worse without Riddle himself being involved, that's all."

"No, no, we echo the sentiment," said Daisy, before walking over to the wall and leaning back against it to think. "So we need to relieve the locket from the worst human in the history of the world besides Snape."

"Kreacher? What are your thoughts?" asked Simmons, looking down at the house elf. "You snooped on Fletcher, can you snoop on Umbridge?"

"Anything Hermione wants Kreacher can do," croaked the house elf with a twitch of a bow.

"If you can get the locket without being detected, go ahead, but anything you're unsure about, just report back to us," added Daisy. "The key is that she never have a clue who stole it from her, or have any way of tracking us down. And also of course that she never know you were spying on her to begin with."

"As you wish," replied Kreacher.

"Then take us out of here, come back and take Dung back to whatever dirty hole you drug him out of — unbound, of course — and then go tail Umbridge," said Fitz.

~FSK~

Once they were back at their castle, FitzSkimmons began working on Hufflepuff's Cup, the only remaining missing horcrux.

"So the diadem's gone and we're working on the locket, leaving only Hufflepuff's Cup — which we have no clue where is," sighed Daisy, flopping down onto the couch.

"Actually, it's right on the tip of my tongue to say," said Simmons, scrunching up her nose adorably trying to think as she sat down primly next to her wife. "I do know our characters went through a lot of pain and hurt to learn it..."

"How in earth —?!" exclaimed Daisy.

"0-8-4's decaying, remember?" answered Simmons. But after several more seconds of hard thinking, she finally huffed in annoyance, "Ugh! It's right there, just not close enough!" Looking at the other two she said, "Maybe if we start throwing out ideas, one of us will say the right one and I'll recognize it."

"Okay, so possible locations of the cup," said Daisy.

"Well, we know it's not at Hogwarts, since the diadem was there; not at his grandfather's house or either of the Hangleton's because the ring was there; not in the cave or surrounding seaside because the locket was there; not with him or anywhere he goes because that's Nagini; and not at Malfoy Manor because that was the Diary," answered Fitz. "Because he would never place more than one horcrux in the same general area."

"Which leaves Borgin and Burkes where he worked, the orphanage, Albania, one of his other Death Eaters, or some meaningful location Dumbledore never heard about," said Daisy. "I assume Hepzibah's house he stole the cup from wouldn't be a possibility?"

"It's not knowingly protected by any of his people, and it's presumably not abandoned, and certainly not condemned if not thought to be haunted as well like the Gaunt hut was, although we can try to make sure that it's actually not abandoned — but I think it's low on his list of places to hide one," answered Simmons. "And I think B&B's is out because they'd be too likely to recognize at the very least that it was seriously dark, if not necessarily recognize exactly what it was, and we don't know that B or B were ever Death Eaters themselves, especially as high up as the Malfoy's.

"Then, he was trying to escape the orphanage, so even though he had no love of the Gaunts' cottage either, it was where his Slytherin descendants had lived, so he wouldn't hate it like he did the orphanage. Also, the orphanage is where he met Dumbledore, eventually his greatest nemesis, so while it is where he learned that he was a wizard, I think his fear of Dumbledore and the fact that that connection existed would further deter him from using that as a hiding spot — not to mention the fact that it's muggle, has no protection of Death Eaters or solitude, and would have a lot of people running through it. So if he was smart, and he certainly was, he wouldn't have put it there. Of course, Albania would be smart — putting one on each of the six inhabited continents would have been the smartest thing — but I feel like he wanted to keep them all in Britain. I feel like that connection to his homeland, the only place he ever seemingly tried to rule, would be too strong for him. An incredibly stupid sentiment on his part, to be sure, but — Irene Adler. Sherlocked."

"So we're left with another it being in the hands of a Death Eater, or somewhere in the ten years even Dumbledore couldn't find out much about," said Daisy.

"Okay, so let's start with known Death Eaters, then," said Fitz. "Because unknown locations are, well — unknown. Also, he's constrained by the rules of the book, which in this case are that Harry has to eventually find all of the horcruxes and then somehow defeat Riddle, because it's a kids' book, not Game of Thrones."

"Right — it's the Matrix. He's limited by a world that is based on rules, namely his own defeat by Harry at the end of this book," said Daisy. "So known Death Eaters?"

"And I would keep it at one that's still alive, or else he probably would have moved it," said Simmons.

"What about one's that have been arrested?" asked Daisy.

"Would he be too confident that they hid it somewhere unfindable, so it didn't matter if they were thrown in jail?" asked Fitz. "Although that might bring dead Death Eaters back into the picture as well."

"Well, we assume he picked the Malfoys for the diary because they were very strong supporters," said Daisy. "So let's start with that, and the idea that Harry must be able to figure them out. So who else is in Riddle's inner circle?"

"Bellatrix," said FitzSimmons instantly, and in normal perfect sync.

"Good ol' Bella," sighed Daisy. "You know, think she's trying to get him to hide his snake in her? — if you know what I mean."

"Yes, Daisy, we knew exactly what you meant," replied Simmons with a roll of her eyes. "Now as for whether or not she was trying to have sex with him, I don't know — wasn't she married, even though we almost never hear or read about her husband?"

"Think that's relevant with a bitch like that?" replied Daisy with a raised eyebrow. "She's probably fucked Grey-hair, or whatever the werewolf's name is."

"Greyback, and while I don't know if she ever slept with the werewolf, you probably are right about her sleeping around, if there's anyone either not put off by, or very much turned on by, her clear insanity," answered Simmons. "And we're also right about her being in his inner circle, and also a very ancient family which means lots of safe hiding places. And she basically worships Riddle as a god."

"Sex god?" smirked Daisy.

"Shut up," retorted Simmons, flinging a throw pillow at her wife.

"As much as I want to see a cat fight, we're actually making progress here," said Fitz to distract Daisy from retaliating by throwing a fling pillow back at Simmons. "So our current best guess is that Bella has the cup. But where at? Her house?"

"Let's think about this from her perspective," said Simmons. "If Riddle gave you a cup, and told you to keep it safe, and you didn't make a shrine around it in your bedroom, maybe share a bed with it at night instead of your husband — where would you put it? Also, remember that she was in Azkaban from very soon after Riddle's disappearance, until fifth year break-out."

"If it's not at her house, it would have to be somewhere she has relatively quick and easy access to, in case Riddle asks for it back — so maybe Gringotts?" suggested Daisy. "Hagrid always used to tell Harry that there was nowhere safer to hide something than at the bank except for Hogwarts, and we're pretty confident she didn't sneak it into the castle even though she presumably didn't know he'd already stored something there. But as a Black or Lestrange she would have had access to the best vaults."

"So what do we do? Pop down to Gringotts, and ask the goblins real nicely if they happen to be keeping Hufflepuff's Cup, we'd like to destroy it?" said Fitz.

"Probably not in such words," said Daisy.

"Actually…" Simmons said slowly. "If you remember our years of history class, goblins don't normally side in wizarding wars. Which while it means that they aren't inclined to help the Order, they also probably haven't sided with Riddle. And I'm not sure they'd be too thrilled to know that they're holding a piece of someone's soul. Not because it's Riddle's soul, but because it's very dark magic only men — mankind — would seem likely to do. Goblins, like dwarves in LotR, may be easily corrupted by gold, but they seem much less likely to be obsessed with living forever like men are.

"And of course it's completely possible that they don't care, they probably do store heaps of dark artifacts within their caves given all of the dark wizards who have vaults there, but horcruxes are on an entirely different level from mere cursed objects. And so tell them that there's something that evil in their own house, and they might not be too thrilled. Or at least, I think it's worth a shot. And they're unlikely to rat us out to Riddle or anyone else if they won't help us."

"If we can figure out how to talk to them in private, without having to waltz down Diagon Alley in the middle of the afternoon," said Daisy. "Can't imagine Riddle's government will be like, 'Oh, you need some money? By all means, we won't arrest you if you're just trying to get some money out of your vault so you can keep on hiding from us'."

"Kreacher?" suggested Fitz. "House elf of both the House of Potter and the House of Black — rich, prominent, powerful, ancient families always get precedence in this world, maybe we can use that to our advantage."

"It's definitely worth asking Kreacher what he knows when he returns from Umbridge-tailing," said Simmons. "There's definitely a possibility that he could set up a business meeting for us with the bank, and apparate us straight there without anyone knowing. They may or may not help us, though given the fact that they apparently had no problems letting the quidditch store take money for Harry's firebolt out of a known escaped mass murderer's vault because he sent an owl via a kneazle, I do think we have a shot. But like I said earlier, either way I don't think they'll sell us out, which is the most important part. And even if they aren't willing to help us, we may still be able to glean whether we're right or not in our guess about Hufflepuff's Cup being hidden in Gringotts, be it by Bellatrix or some other Death Eater."

"Ooh, 'glean' — someone's all fancy British," smirked Daisy in a really bad British accent.

"That's not a British word, just an educated one," said Simmons, rolling her eyes.

"Once again, cat fights great, just not right now," Fitz quickly cut in as he saw Daisy open her mouth to retort something. Then he paused for a second, thinking, before saying, "Although, actually, maybe it's a fine time. Unless I'm missing something, we have to wait on Kreacher to come back before we can move forward on this plan. And of course, we could think some more about what other possibilities there are for where the cup is, but we could also head into the bedroom and let the cat fight that's been building up between you two this entire conversation commence."

"I vote cat fight!" Daisy exclaimed immediately, raising her hand and waving it in the air. At Fitz and Simmons in-sync raised eyebrows at her hand, she blushed ever so slightly and lowered it, saying, "I don't why I just raised my hand."

Simmons just shook her head in exasperation, before saying, "There is no cat fight building up, no matter how much you both seem to want it — which I get Fitzy, he gets to watch two girls fight, but I don't know about you Daisy, as you would have to actually be in the fight — but I'm up for having at least one round of sex while we wait for Kreacher to return or for it to get time for us to need to start making supper. I may just watch after one round, but you two are welcome to keep going as long as you like. But —!"

Fitz and Daisy halted their scrambling up.

"— I just want to say that I'm only not making you two think about other possibilities at the moment because the idea of it being stored in a Gringotts vault does seem rather familiar. Not jump out at me it's definitely hidden there familiar, and I have no clue one way or the other about Bella, but the idea of it being hidden in a vault does seem familiar. Though whether that's actually me remembering the book, or just the fact that I have a pretty good idea of what makes an engaging book plot, since the trio would probably go for something like trying to steal the cup out from under the goblins' long noses in the most secure bank possibly ever invented, I'm unsure. But point being, it does seem like it may be true, and yes, I'll shut up now and you two are free to go."

The sentence wasn't even completely out of her mouth before Fitz and Daisy had resumed their mad dash into the bedroom of the castle, both pushing and shoving to make it in their first, despite the fact that they needed the other for anything pleasurable to happen.

~FSK~

That evening, after the sexy times were sexed out and the supper times were suppered out, FitzSkimmons were milling about the castle living room when there was a crack and Kreacher appeared before them.

"Kreacher has discovered that the Umbridge woman is wearing Master Regulus's locket around her neck," croaked the ancient house elf. "Would Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy like Kreacher to take her to the dungeon Kreacher took Mundungus too?"

"No!" exclaimed Simmons. At Fitz and Daisy's looks, she explained, "We don't want to bring her inside the Fidelius Charm of Grimmauld. I don't know what happens if that happens, but I don't want to find out — Fletcher could already get in and out on his own. No, we need to take her somewhere nowhere near here or anywhere the Order goes. Fitz, what's the furthest away castle that you can picture clearly enough to apparate to?"

"Am I allowed to go your side of the border?" he asked her. At Simmons shrug 'sure', he continued, "I've got one in mind. Another holiday as a kid, though admittedly I didn't ever think of it as a place where you and I could have settled down together once we retired from Sci-Ops."

"I think the Perthshire cottage will be better for growing old together in than an abandoned castle," Simmons smiled fondly.

"You two'd better start inventing something you can patent, because you're going to have to buy this girl a house stateside somewhere, too," interjected Daisy. "I don't mind spending a lot of time in Perthshire, and when you two have your daughter you can raise her there while you're on your non-mobile lab-only sabbatical from active duty until she's old enough to bring to the base or Zephyr One, or Two, or Five, or whatever version we're on by then, but if we ever actually retire, I've got to have something stateside to live in some of the time. Or, since we'll probably never retire, and one day we'll all die together on a mission saving the world one last time, vacation homes on both sides of the pond."

"We'll start hounding Coulson when we get back to give us the Shield credit card so we can start looking for vacation homes," replied Simmons, rolling her eyes at the wifey, before turning back to Fitz and saying, "So you've got a castle in mind? Can you side-by apparate us there, Kreacher can follow to see the location, and then we'll figure out exactly how we want to do this?"

Fitz nodded, holding out his hands to his wives. A twist into suffocating darkness later, and they arrived in the front lawn of an abandoned castle in the northern English countryside. Kreacher elf-apparated next to them a second later, and together they walked inside.

Finding a room with no gaping holes knocked in the walls, and a doorway that only opened to the inside of the castle, Fitz looked down at Kreacher and asked, "Can you knock Umbridge out in order to bring her here, unconscious but alive? Stupefy or something?"

"When she's asleep in her bed," interjected Simmons. "That way you can return her right back there, and while she'll quickly see that her necklace is gone, and probably be able to feel that she was stunned, she'll think it all went down in her house, that someone robbed her there. She may go after Fletcher, but he's just a character, probably on the run from us anyway, and can go to the Order for help if he finds out that she's coming after him before it actually happens."

"You know," said Daisy, "need we be here at all? Kreacher, once she's a sleep, can you stun her with whatever your preferred non-harming spell is, bring her here, take the necklace yourself, apparate it to us, return here, return her to her bed, go back to Grimmauld Place to do whatever house elves do at night, and then bring us breakfast in the morning where we have another request to make of you?"

"Wait — at that point, why bring her here at all?" asked Fitz. "It's good for us to have this place if we do need it for something, but Kreacher, once you've stunned her in her bed, you should be able to take the locket away from her right then without her waking, right? Same as you would here?"

"Kreacher can do whatever Master Fitz and Mistresses Daisy and Simmons needs him to do to destroy Master Regulus's locket," replied Kreacher.

"Good — then go with that plan," said Fitz. "Now Kreacher, take us back to our castle, then get to work."

~FSK~

Delores Jane 'Evil Toad Queen' Umbridge had only been cozied up in her lily pad-like bed for fifteen minutes when she was hit by a stunning charm.

Of course, as she was already asleep at the time, she didn't know it. But Kreacher the house elf did, as he was the one who'd performed the magic. As he walked around her bed to be able to reach the necklace around her neck, a glimmer of light struck his ancient, orb-like eyes, and he saw that the hag had taken off the necklace he was supposed to be lifting, and placed it on the bedside table next to her. He quickly cast several charms at the locket to make sure that it wasn't warded to wake her up if it was attempted to be stolen, before carefully grabbing the locket and apparating to the castle his Master and Mistresses were living in.

He found his Master and Mistresses in their living room reading some of the books they had asked him to bring them from The Burrow two days earlier, and holding out the locket said, "Kreacher has the locket as requested. The woman took it off when she went to bed, and Kreacher was able to simply take it off her nightstand."

"Well done, Kreacher!" exclaimed Simmons, jumping up from the couch and hurrying over to take the locket from him. Bending down to be on eye-level with the house elf, she asked, "Would you like to watch as we destroy it? And then if you want the remains as a reminder that you did in fact finally succeed in Master Regulus's mission, even if it did require some help from a mudblood, blood-traitor, and husband of aforementioneds, you can have it."

Kreacher let out a howl and began bawling like they hadn't seen him do since the last time they'd destroyed the locket, but as once again he wasn't trying to beat himself over the head with the nearest heavy object, they assumed it was tears of something as close to joy as the house elf was still capable of feeling after that many years of ill-treatment. But eventually he calmed down, and they all went back into the kitchen, with its solid wooden table they had killed the diadem-Riddle on two days earlier.

They quickly replicated the process Dumbledore had used to destroy the locket the previous year in their version of events, and soon had a broken, soul-less locket, and one less part of Riddle left to destroy. Bidding Kreacher goodbye for the night, they headed to their own bed, thoroughly encouraged that they could be in and out of this world in record time.