The following morning, FitzSkimmons set about planning how to kill Nagini and Riddle.

"We want to call him into a situation where he expects to be safe, so why not use the Death Tattoos or whatever they're called to call him straight into our trap," suggested Daisy. "If he's getting a call from one of his own, he won't expect it to be us on the other side with three wands ready to kill him."

"The problem with that is how to get him to bring his snake along for the ride," replied Simmons. "I mean, it's a great idea, but we have to kill Nagini first, or else we'll still end up with a Riddle-spirit floating around, just without any more lives left after that one. And what I remembered from the end of the book doesn't help us get him to bring Nagini, since it was all late in what would be the final battle when everyone and everyanimal was already there anyway."

"You know…has anyone ever tried owling an animal before?" asked Fitz.

"And what? Invite it over for tea, and, oh by the way, we're going to kill you as soon as you get here?" said Daisy.

"I will come over there and kick your arse," growled Fitz. "Anyway, we're British, we'd certainly give it tea before we killed it. But no, in order to track the owl to the recipient, in this case Nagini. We have four brooms, and any time we or our characters have ever watched owls fly, they certainly weren't faster than brooms. So I don't see why we couldn't literally fly twenty meters off the back of the owl we send and follow it right to wherever Nagini is hiding — and possibly Riddle, if he's not still busy looking for Gregorovitch and a new wand."

"Disillusionment charm so muggles can't see us flying — you know, that could actually work," mused Simmons. "We and our characters sent letters to Sirius, who was both dog and man, and they always reached him, so it seems like it should work on a named snake. And I'd wager to say that it's something no wizard's ever thought to try. Although that makes you wonder if you couldn't just address a letter to Riddle Soul Part Four, and the owl take you straight to his horcrux."

"You know, I never thought about that," said Fitz. "But in this case we already know it's Nagini, so we don't need to try it. But we can just get Kreacher to get hold of an owl for us that has no connection to us or the Order, and send Nagini a note that is literally just a period or dash or something to make sure it really counts as a letter, and then follow the owl. I think it's worth a try, anyway.

"And when we seem like we're getting close to the delivery point, we pull up before we can cross any wards, and see what we can see. Might take another owl once we get there if we pull up too short, and maybe Kreacher to use his magic to detect wards for us, who knows, and maybe even get us inside wards if they only work on wizards and not house elves, but it seems better than anything else we've thought of so far. And once he's dead, we can find ourselves a Death Eater, kill them, and use their mark like Daisy originally suggested."

"Good thing we've spent plenty of hours in the Framework-based broom flight simulator," said Daisy. "We should be able to fly after an owl well enough."

"We also picked it up easily enough second year when we had to play with the twins over the summer," said Simmons. "Like magical ability, flying ability seems to come with the transfer as well. But what do we need for this to actually work? Clothes to fly in, so gloves, coats, etc. An owl, which hopefully Kreacher will be able to borrow from a post office. Anything else?"

"We've got to fly us and the sword undetected across who knows what kind of lands," said Fitz.

"Has anyone ever actually seen an owl flying from the ground before it gets close to its target?" asked Daisy. "If we disillusion ourselves, how actually likely is it that we'll be near enough to the ground that three broomsticks wizzing through the air will be enough for anyone to see, and more importantly, report to the Ministry? Yes, the flying car was spotted by several muggles, but it's a flying car, they had to come down low enough to see the train, and it was a twelve year old driving who'd never driven before. We're hoping to be up in the clouds with an owl, on spindly sticks. And the sword can be wrapped in the invisibility cloak before being strapped on."

"I would suggest we fly at night, like fifth year Dursleys' to Grimmauld, but we need to be able to see the owl," said Simmons. "So I think we're going to just have to risk it, and we do have miles of countryside around the castle to see whether we think the owl's going to get high enough for us to be good."

"Seems good enough to me," said Daisy, "but where are we going to get winter clothing? It's middle of summer."

"It's Scotland — there's always winter clothes out," answered Fitz. "Especially if we apparate up further north, like near Inverness or somewhere. Clothes aren't a big deal."

"Then we just need to send Kreacher after an owl, and we're good to go, right?" said Daisy.

"I think so," answered Simmons.

"Then — Kreacher!" said Fitz. When the house elf appeared, he asked it, "Can you get a delivery owl for us and bring it here? But like one from the owl post office, not one with any kind of connection to us or the Order, so not Hedwig or any other owl belonging to any of the Order members."

"Kreacher can bring an owl from Hogwarts," answered Kreacher.

"Oh — didn't think of that," said Simmons. "Yes, that will do very nicely, just make sure none of the professors know you've done it."

"And if we're not here when you get back, just put it in Hedwig's cage — it's sitting around here somewhere," said Daisy.

Kreacher bowed, before disappearing with the normal crack. FitzSkimmons also disappeared a minute later, Fitz apparating them to just outside a small town near Inverness he'd been to once with his mum. Just as Fitz had promised, the first store they entered had a small, but present selection of winter gear, and they soon had what they hoped would suffice for what could potentially be a several hour flight at a few thousand feet.

When they returned to their castle, they found Hedwig's cage sitting in the middle of their kitchen table, a brown school owl sitting grumpily inside. Simmons quickly divvied up their new clothes, and once they were all dressed and ready to go, wrote 'Nagini' on the outside of a sheet of parchment and a dash on the inside as the body of the letter, before rolling it up and sealing it. Disillusioning themselves and attaching the Sword of Gryffindor wrapped inside Harry's Invisibility Cloak to Harry's Firebolt, they grabbed their brooms and the owl and stepped out into their backyard, and Simmons tied the letter onto the owl's leg before sending it into the wild blue yonder.

Kicking off on their brooms they followed after it, keeping enough distance that the owl hopefully wouldn't feel too crowded, but close enough to easily follow it. Thankfully the owl quickly gained altitude, and by the time they were anywhere near civilization, they were flying high enough that if anyone looked up, all they could possibly see was a brief streak of thin brown that would never make anyone think they were seeing anything other than three birds particularly high in the sky, especially with the real owl slightly in front of them.

The owl headed south, first over water, and then what FitzSimmons were pretty sure was Whales, for several hours. Their brooms weren't stressed at all by the pace, nor was Simmons or Daisy's hair messed up too much by the wind, so while Simmons wasn't an ornithologist by any stretch of the imagination, she guessed they were soaring along at a 30 mph or so clip, a reasonable pace for a migrating — or in this case delivering — owl. But eventually, after another, much shorter stretch of water, the owl began descending towards the land they'd started flying over again.

In the approaching distance, FitzSkimmons could see a small village appearing out of the countryside. As the owl began slowing down, clearly intending to deliver their letter to somewhere in this village, FitzSkimmons slowed down as well, knowing the tricky part of their mission had begun. They had to stay close enough to the owl to try to see where it went, but they also had to keep anyone from seeing three stereotypical witches broomsticks flying across the sky seemingly all on their own in an age before drones had become a reality, and they didn't want to trip the wards surrounding whatever building the snake was hiding in. But before FitzSimmons could figure out how to best reconcile these differences in objectives, Daisy did part of it for them.

"Disillusion your brooms!" she shouted over the wind. "We're flying slow enough that we should be fine flying them without being able to see them!"

So all three of them quickly pulled out their wands and cast the disillusionment charm on their brooms, making them completely invisible to sight for anyone not specifically looking for three people to be flying through the sky on broomsticks above their heads — a TARDIS perception filter kind of thing.

They continued following the owl, until it flew up to a lower-level window of a cottage, and FitzSkimmons landed on the edge of the lane across from the house. As the owl pecked on the window, FitzSkimmons huddled close together kneeling down, and Fitz unwrapped the invisibility cloak and threw it over all three of them as an extra precaution, trying his best to keep the sword hidden during the brief moment it was no longer wrapped in the invisibility cloak before the cloak fell over all of them covering it back up again, even if they couldn't see anyone walking or driving down the road they were next to.

After several minutes of the owl pecking, and FitzSimmons holding their wands under the cloak, two pointed at the window and the other at the door in case something happened, the window eventually slowly slid open. They could just make out an extremely old, slow moving woman take the letter from the owl. As the owl flew off, she started to turn back into the house, before turning to look back out the window, and straight at them. After a second, she raised a wrinkled hand and beckoned.

"That can't be good," whispered Daisy. "We're under the cloak."

As the woman beckoned again, Fitz whispered, "Avada? She's not real, and Nagini must be in that house, so take out the security, if you can call her that?"

Simmons sighed, before finally whispering back, "It's risky, but yes. On three. One. Two."

"Avada Kedavra!" cried three whispered voices.

Green flashes of light rent the quiet afternoon air, before a second later the woman collapsed out of sight, and completely unexpected, they heard a familiar long, drawn-out scream.

All three of them turning to stare at each other in shock, Daisy was the first to whisper, "She was Nagini? Because that was a horcrux's death cry."

"Let's go investigate, wands still out, Fitz carry the sword, and under the invisibility cloak until we're inside," replied Simmons.

Leaving the disillusioned broomsticks in the ditch where they'd landed, FitzSkimmons crept across the lane, though the gate, and up the path through the overgrown front yard of the cottage, until finally reaching the door. A quick Alohomora and they slipped inside, where after making sure there was no one waiting on them, they finally slipped off the cloak and were able to move freely and independently.

The house had a very stale smell, like it hadn't been properly taken care of in several years, but otherwise seemed to be a fairly standard old woman's house. Until they reached the kitchen with the window, and they saw lying on the floor the split open carcass of the ancient woman, with the head and first foot of a dead snake poking out of the neck.

"That was Nagini," Daisy said after a second. "Wonder why Riddle had her living here as an old woman? And where here even actually is."

"Don't know, don't care," answered Fitz. "All the horcruxes are gone, all that's left is to kill Riddle."

"You know, I'm probably going to miss the magical world when we return home," Simmons said slightly despondently. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm happy not to have to spend another school year here, we've added five and half years to our life with this stupid 0-8-4, but it is cool to be able to perform magic, and we've got damn good at it."

"I hadn't brought this up yet since I'm not sure if I can actually pull it off, but it might not be as gone as you think," replied Fitz. "And I don't mean this actual world, I'll be glad to see it gone for good. But remember how I built the flight simulator out of the Framework code? I've had the idea for some time now of trying to expand that to include magic — well, all the spells and such of magic, as flying broomsticks is magic. And I haven't actually spent much time trying to figure out how much work the code for that would be, and certainly haven't had time between trips here to actually work on any of it, but it's an idea."

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" exclaimed Simmons. "Just make sure to leave out horcruxes."

"Oh, don't you worry your tits, dear," replied Fitz. "I've seen six more in my lifetime than I ever wanted to, not counting the duplicates between timelines."

" 'Worry my tits'? How does that even make sense?" asked Simmons with a slight laugh, rolling her eyes at her husband.

"It doesn't — he just wanted to incorporate the word 'tits' into his sentence," smirked Daisy, before saying seriously, "Boobs aside though, we really ought to be apparating out of here, in case Riddle has wards set up or has an 'oh dear, my pet snake horcrux is dead' alarm on his iPhone."

"Of course — you're right, oh strategically smart one," replied Simmons. "And the broomsticks?"

"Ask Kreacher to retrieve them — if he can find Dung having no clue where the man is, surely he can find three disillusioned brooms that we know the rough location of, and anyway, we shouldn't need them again hopefully," answered Daisy, before holding out her hands for the others to take.

The morning after killing Nagini, FitzSkimmons pulled out the Marauder's Map to search their best known location for a Death Eater.

As expected, they quickly found Snape prowling around his dungeons, making them briefly wonder if outside of his couple of excursions to Grimmauld Place fifth book, if he had ever stepped foot outside the castle since he had entered a decade and a half before. The normal slew of professors were also there, milling about in their offices likely planning for the upcoming school year, or else wandering down the halls. But to their surprise, there were also two dots labeled 'Carrow', doubtlessly the pair of Death Eater siblings who had been on top of the tower when Snape had killed Dumbledore in the books the year before.

"Definitely one of them," said Daisy, pointing at the name of the one currently walking down a hallway on the sixth floor. "If we can avoid facing Snape, we should. He'll be more likely to expect someone to try to do something, while those two will be blissfully, willfully ignorant to the idea that anyone could possibly think about fighting back against their lord and savior Riddle."

"Unless we can just knock on Snape's door, tell him we've offed all the horcruxes, including Harry, and now we need to do Riddle," said Simmons.

"But he still hates Harry with every fiber of his being," replied Fitz. "I'm voting with Daisy on this one — we avoid the child-abusing Snake as much as we possibly can, and not risk any adult interfering in our plan."

"I was just throwing it out there as an idea," Simmons said slightly defensively, before suddenly stopping short and giving a very small gasp. "When Riddle pressed his mark to call everyone to the graveyard, the signal went out to all of them — does that work in reverse? Is every Death Eater going to descend upon us the moment we press one of the Carrow's Dark Marks?"

"They may all feel it, but I would imagine they only come running when it's Riddle's number calling," answered Daisy. "And yes, it's a risk to assume that, but we're going to be hiding anyway, so as long as they don't apparate in ten at a time, we should be able to kill them as they come. Though we would do well to figure out a way to hide the bodies."

"Also, I just remembered that we're going to be in Hogwarts," added Simmons. "Yes, rules can change now that Riddle's taken over the Ministry, and I wouldn't trust Riddle to have to follow the rules anyway, but you can't apparate inside Hogwarts. So unless that's been completely changed, that will work to our advantage as well."

"Another risk here, but let's be honest — do we really think that the dark marks were never used against Harry in the book? And yet he somehow still escapes to win," said Fitz. "Which is even less believable if twenty Death Eaters appear out of thin air the moment anyone presses the mark."

"Okay, so we're just going to have to hope it works, and deal with hell if it all breaks loose," said Simmons. "So Daisy, how exactly are we going to go about doing this?"

"Well, the way this works in my head is, we find a time when one of the Carrows is as far as possible away from every other teacher, especially Carrow number two and Snape, since they're the concerns," answered Daisy. "Kreacher house elf apparates us in, to the next corridor it looks like they're going to walk down, under the cover of the invisibility cloak, and disillusioned of course. I would say to the far end of said hall, off to the side, to give us maximum time. I cast the first killing curse when I think they're in good range, you two firing off of my spell, so we don't have to risk making more sound than saying the spells themselves."

"What about the house elf sound?" asked Fitz.

"I think that could actually be to our advantage, as if they hear it, it will increase the likelihood that they continue on the path we need them to — it'll bring them scurrying towards our trap," answered Daisy. "Yes, they might be smart enough to pull their wand out, but we're invisible, so we have the major upper hand. And if they don't hear, then they'll hopefully just amble into our trap instead of scurrying. Also, for the sake of time and combat readiness, we're crouched ready to go under the invisibility cloak when Kreacher takes us in, and one of us is holding the Marauder's Map open and on with their non-wand hand, so as long as we aren't immediately set upon, they can glance down and make sure our prey is still coming our way."

"And Kreacher?" asked Simmons.

"Apparates us in, immediately vamooses, but listening for our whispered call," answered Daisy. "And if he hears us, his immediate action is to take us out of there, back to here. In the forbidden case a Death Eater is holding onto one of us and we bring them along, this place means nothing to us anymore, and upon getting ourselves free we immediately apparate to an agreed upon point, that is also our rendezvous point if this castle is compromised in any other way. But on that point, I'd suggest Fitz hold the map, while you hold onto Fitz's shoulder, I onto yours, and Kreacher can grab my shoulder, or any of us really, to apparate us in and out."

"So we kill the Carrow — then what?" said Fitz.

"Check the map to make sure we're clear. Look for the other Carrow and Snape to see if there's movement. There shouldn't be, but we check. As soon as we have a clear window, I hurry out, press the mark, and dash back under the cloak, and we wait on tenterhooks and pray like hell that this doesn't blow up in our faces."

"What if the dark mark only responds to the owner's touch? Biometrically controlled," asked Simmons.

"Riddle pressed Pettigrew's to summon his army in the graveyard," said Fitz.

"Probably means anyone can press anyone's, but I can just grab Carrow's hand and use it to press their own mark just to make sure," said Daisy.

"And we hope Riddle apparates in all cockily and swagger-like, thinking his slaves have Harry Potter for him, not expecting a trap and three people trying to kill him, and then we do exactly that," said Simmons.

"And we hope that Riddle apparates in thinking he's finally king of the world now that Harry's in his clutches," agreed Daisy. "Which he honestly should, since I doubt anyone else has ever used a dead Death Eater's mark to call him to them. I seriously doubt anyone besides a Death Eater has ever attempted to have a meeting with him since he changed his name and started trying to conquer the world."

~FSK~

That afternoon, FitzSkimmons were crouched under the invisibility cloak with Kreacher, when Daisy pointed at a spot on the map and said, "Go."

The next moment, Kreacher had apparated them to the spot she had pointed at, before apparating away again. When no one immediately descended upon their spot, Fitz glanced down at the map to make sure that their prey was still heading in their direction, before looking back up at the corner a Carrow should soon be walking around.

They heard footsteps plodding along the stone floor several seconds before the boobed Carrow actually came around the corner. She seemed to be moving with a purpose, but they couldn't tell if she'd heard Kreacher's crack but wasn't entirely sure she'd really heard it, and so was coming to investigate without really thinking it was anything more than some odd noise in a magical castle full of countless things that could make odd noises, or if she was just intent on getting to wherever she was going, but it really didn't matter to them as she was heading right in their direction without a wand in sight.

Daisy let her get within ten meters of them, before saying, "Avada Kedavra."

Immediately FitzSimmons both cast Avadas of their own, but the sloping-shouldered woman had fallen at the first Avada. At the thud that signified their prey was no more, was pushing up the daisies and pinin' for the fjords, Fitz glanced back down at the map to see if anyone seemed to have noticed. Unless Death Eaters were charmed to alert the others when they died, like a human Dumbledore's Army galleon with it's Protean Charm, they didn't expect anyone to know that she'd fallen, but they wanted to make sure before they moved from their hiding spot — who knew what kinds of dark magic Riddle had performed on his slaves. But watching the map for several seconds, none of the dots moved from their offices or strayed from their paths they were already walking, and FitzSkimmons decided that they were as safe as they were ever going to be to execute the final stage of their plan.

So Daisy crept out from under the cloak, only visible to FitzSimmons by her wand she was holding — though if they looked very carefully they could see her clothes and body taking the exact same colors and texture as the hallway behind her — and hurried over to Alecto Carrow. Picking up her pudgy hand, Daisy took a deep breath and pressed the Death Eaters' pudgy finger to her Dark Mark, before sprinting back over to where FitzSimmons were hiding under the invisibility cloak, visible by Simmons' wand sticking up from under the cloak like a miniature, not-lit lighthouse of sorts. Daisy quickly ducked under the cloak, and the three of them took aim at their selected spots — Daisy at Alecto Carrow's body, which she silently cast the disillusionment charm on, Simmons a little more down the hallway in the direction Carrow had come from, and Fitz at the door behind them, to cover all the entrances.

Once they were all in position, Fitz occasionally glancing down at the Map to keep an eye on the other Carrow and Snape, he said, "We may have to wait a while. Harry had a brief vision of Riddle, and it looks like he's still overseas looking for a new wand or whatever the fuck he's doing. Also, the other Carrow and Snape are inbound, hurrying but clearly not apparating or at a real sprint."

"Let us know when they're close, and if you can tune in to Riddle any more," replied Daisy.

Several minutes later, Fitz whispered, "Carrow from my side."

Ten seconds later, Amycus Carrow burst into the hallway with a look of triumph on his face that his sister had captured Harry Potter for their Dark Lord. But a second later his face fell in confusion as he took in the seemingly empty hallway, before three Avadas hit him squarely in the chest, and he passed from this world to that which is to come having no idea what was going on.

It wasn't too many minutes later before Snape suffered the same result, though he had approached the hallway much more cautiously. But before he could do more than look down the seemingly empty hallway, both dead bodies disillusioned so that he couldn't immediately spot them, he was hit by three Avadas and fell to the ground lifeless, no longer able to abuse any more children ever again.

After that, they had to wait for a much longer time. Apparently even for Riddle, traveling across countries and Channels took time, though why he couldn't just apparate from wherever he was to Hogwarts, they didn't know. Or perhaps he did, but still couldn't apparate into the grounds themselves, and the Marauder's Map didn't cover the entire road leading from the gates to the castle, as the first Fitz spotted him on his periodic glances down at the map was a blur through the Entrance Hall and up the Grand Staircase, almost as if he was somehow literally flying. A thought that proved true less than a minute later, when Riddle, the actual legend himself in the flesh, literally flew into the hallway they were hiding in, a triumphant look on his face, knowing that he had finally conquered the prophecy and could never be defeated.

A look of triumph that would remain on his face forever, as before he could even recognize that the hallway was empty, three Avadas struck him center mass, and the greatest fear of British wizards the last half century was no more.

But just to make sure, FitzSkimmons cast another dozen Avada Kedavras at Riddle's lifeless body before they finally took the invisibility cloak off and stood up. Un-disillusioning themselves, they walked over to the body, where Daisy kicked it just to make sure it was really really dead.

However, before they could begin to think about what their next step was, how to alert the real professors in the castle that there was a permanently dead Tom Riddle Jr in one of their hallways upstairs, everything around them began literally dissolving. Where previously had been the stone walls of the castle, soon the modern steel, concrete, and glass walls of the Shield lab and hallway outside it appeared, and less than ten seconds after it had begun, they were standing in the doorway to the Shield lab, Fitz about to leave as Simmons and Daisy were about to enter. They stared at each other in surprise for several seconds, before the cough of a lab tech behind them brought them back to where they were, and they all quickly hurried out into the hallway so that the lab tech could get out.

Once he'd walked past them, giving the three of them a strange look, they looked at each other, before all saying at the same time, "Storage!"

They rushed down to where the 0-8-4 was being stored in high security storage, earning them several odd looks as they rushed through the various halls to get there. Punching in the code and bursting into the room, they hurried over to the pedestal that the 0-8-4 was being stored on.

The thing looked as if it had gone up in smoke, blowing every fuse it had at the exact same time, and even the bright red friendly button now charred and much less friendly looking. There was no doubt in any of their minds that it was, simply put, dead.

They all breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Well, don't have to worry about that ever going off again," said Fitz.

"Free at last," added Daisy.

"Now we just get to tell everyone on the team the adventures we've been having for the past five and half years of our time," finished Simmons. "I just hope there's enough gin in the world to convince them that we're not all completely out of our minds."

~THE END~