Back at Hogwarts, Professors Moody and Flitwick had brought Fleur and Sara out of the maze and Dumbledore had ushered all of them and the other four judges to the outside of the quidditch stadium, so that he could hopefully keep the crowds from realizing that anything was wrong quite yet.
"Miss Jones, Miss Delacour, the tournament is over. Harry and Miss Granger saw Krum reach the cup first and grab it, but for reasons not yet completely clear, the portkey did not transport your fellow champion to the front of the maze like it was supposed to. At the moment we have no evidence that anything bad has happened to him, but quite honestly — we don't know much. But there was no reason to have you continue fighting your ways through the maze when there was no longer a cup to reach, so we pulled you all out."
Turning to a scowling, glaring-murderous-holes-into-Dumbledore's-brain Karkaroff, he continued on, "Professor Karkaroff, we will do everything we can to find out where Krum was taken and bring him back safely. But if you have any suggestions, or want to get your own people on it, then by all means please do so, the more looking the better."
Looking over next at the former quidditch star and current tournament announcer, he said, "Mr Bagman, please announce to the crowds that the tournament is over, the celebration will be beginning in the Great Hall immediately, and the winner will be announced there. Then get everyone moving in that direction, the house elves will make the food start appearing as soon as people start sitting down. That should hopefully buy us enough time to get a better idea of what has happened, and figure out the best thing to tell everyone to prevent mass panic."
To the champions and the remaining headmistress, he then instructed, "Miss Delacour, please go with Madame Maxime to my office until I send a patronus to you telling you that you can come down to the Great Hall so that I can give the announcement to everyone and so that you can eat as well — and Harry, Miss Granger, and Miss Jones, I will take you back to Professor McGonagall to do the same. I know this is a great inconvenience and not at all how the end of the tournament should be for you all, but we don't want the other students asking you what happened until I am able to talk to everyone, and someone went to a great deal of trouble to make this happen, so I want to make sure you all remain safe in case whoever it is tries again tonight. Krum may have been the target, but it may also have been one of you four, so I don't want to take any risks."
Finally making it to Percy Weasley, he finished with, "And Mr Weasley, please return to the Ministry and alert Minister Fudge that there is a missing champion, to get all of the appropriate departments looking for Mr Krum. And also set up a time for him to come here tomorrow and meet with me about this unfortunate incident. In the meantime, I will get the rest of our professors working on trying to find out where the portkey took Mr Krum."
Once all of the adults had moved on their way to do their assigned duties, Dumbledore turned back to Sara and FitzSimmons and said, "Come with me, please, I will take you to your Head of House."
He walked them back over to the entrance of the maze where the four patrollers were all standing, and said to Professor McGonagall, "Please take these three up to my office with Madame Maxime and Miss Delacour. I will let you know when you can come down to the Great Hall."
As FitzSimmons and Sara followed Professor McGonagall across the grounds and up to the castle with Fleur and Madame Maxime, they could hear Mr Bagman's magically amplified voice telling the crowds, "Ladies and gentlemen, the great TriWizard tournament has come to an astounding finish, the winner and places of which will be announced at the official ceremony up in the Great Hall after the feast! So if everyone could please begin making their way in that direction, we will get started very shortly!"
FitzSimmons heard no great cheer so they seriously doubted that the crowd was entirely buying what Mr Bagman was trying to sell them, but when Simmons glanced back over her shoulder at the stands behind them, she didn't turn into a pillar of salt and she did see the crowds starting to empty out of the stands in what didn't look like a panic, so it seemed like Mr Bagman had done his job of delaying the inevitable panic pretty well, which is what really mattered in the situation.
When Professor McGonagall led everyone into Dumbledore's office five minutes later — which FitzSimmons guessed they had been sent to because it was one of the few places in the castle large enough for Madame Maxime to be comfortable in — they found some snacks waiting there for them, if not quite the full feast that everyone else was sitting down to at that same time in the Great Hall. But it was enough to keep them from starving, and they'd just finished supper about an hour before, so they didn't really need food anyway, though it was quite a nice gesture by Dumbledore to think of them.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore had just finished sending off the rest of the professors to look at the area where the portkey had been when Krum had grabbed it to try to find any magical clues as to where it might have taken him, and to search the rest of the maze for anything that might could be helpful in finding the Durmstrang man who had vanished into thin air, when Snape came hurrying over to him, looking very grave.
"Headmaster, I must speak with you now!" he growled.
Dumbledore nodded and led the Potions master further off into the shadows out of earshot and eyeshot of any straggling students who might possibly still be near the stadium, where Snape yanked the sleeve of his robes up and showed the headmaster his Voldemort tattoo, glowing a vivid red.
"You know what this means," he said harshly. "The Dark Lord is back. It's been getting darker all year, but it just burned less than a minute — he summoned us to him."
Dumbledore nodded his head solemnly. "When Harry's name came out of the goblet back on Halloween I was afraid that it had something to do with Voldemort, and my suspicions have grown stronger as the year has passed. And then when the portkey did not return to the start of the maze like it was supposed to, I saw little other possibility that it could be. But this confirms that he was not only behind all of this, but like you said is back in physical form, and it would be my very strong guess that he used Krum's blood in his potion when he couldn't have Harry. But whether that is exactly true or not, the likelihood of Krum still being alive wherever the portkey sent him by whoever did it is very, very small. I still want to treat this like a missing person search, but I am afraid that if we find him at all, it will be a body.
"And Severus — you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready...if you are prepared…."
"I am," Snape answered tightly.
"Then good luck," Dumbledore said. "Whenever you think the appropriate amount of time has passed since the Mark first burned, return to him."
Snape nodded and swept away, leaving Dumbledore alone again waiting on the professors whom he had sent into the maze to return with an update of whether they had found anything of use in the maze. He didn't expect them to, portkeys didn't normally leave a magical trace of any kind and this was Voldemort orchestrating the entire thing, so it was very unlikely, but one could always hope that one would get lucky just this once. But when the professors returned thirty minutes later it would turn out that they had had no such luck, and had absolutely no clue where the portkey had taken Krum.
Now more assured of what had really happened thanks to Snape's tattoo, and been able to start thinking about how he would tell all of the students, Dumbledore decided that it was time to head back up towards the castle and deliver the bad news as delicately as he could to their young ears, while still conveying the true graveness of the situation that they now all faced and hoping that they would take that message back to their families at home, as he did not have high hopes for much if any help coming from the Ministry when he told Fudge the following day that Voldemort was alive and walking again.
Meanwhile at the exact same time that Snape had been hurrying over to Dumbledore to show him his Dark Mark, Karkaroff had also felt the burn of Voldemort's tattoo on his left arm. But he had chosen to flee instead of risking being found by the Dark Lord's Death Eaters at Durmstrang, or even worse, stoop to asking for protection from Dumbledore, and so as Dumbledore was walking back up to the castle, he was already out of the country trying to find the best place to hide.
~FS~
FitzSimmons, Sara, Fleur, Professor McGonagall, and Madame Maxime walked into the Great Hall after receiving a patronus message from Dumbledore, and found their normal seats at the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and staff tables.
Once they were all seated Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat, immediately ceasing all eating and talking in the hall, and directing all attention upon himself.
"As you all know, the final task of the TriWizard Tournament was this evening, and this feast was supposed to be a celebration of the winner and all of the champions who fought courageously through this tournament over the past nine months. However, I am afraid that this is not to be the joyous occasion that it should have been. You may have wondered why Mr Bagman did not announce the winner at the maze as soon as there was a winner, and rightfully so.
"Unfortunately, I have to tell you that there was tragedy at the tournament this evening. The champion of this tournament was Mr Krum from Durmstrang. However, the portkey on the TriWizard cup that was supposed to bring him back to the front of the maze where you would have all seen for yourself that he had won had been tampered with, and sent him into the hands of all of our's greatest enemy, and therefore I think that you have the right to know exactly what happened.
"Viktor Krum was murdered by Lord Voldemort."
Predictably, a gasp of shock went up from everyone gathered in the Great Hall, FitzSimmons and the other two champions included. They knew that Krum was missing, that the portkey had not worked as it was supposed to, but this was news to them.
"Now, the Ministry of Magic most likely will not wish me to tell you this. It is possible that some of your parents will be horrified that I have done so — either because they will not believe that Lord Voldemort has returned, or because they think I should not tell you so, young as you are. It is my belief, however, that the truth is generally preferable to lies, and that any attempt to pretend that Krum died as the result of an accident, or some sort of blunder of his own, is an insult to his memory.
"The Triwizard Tournament's aim was to further and promote magical understanding. In the light of what has happened — of Lord Voldemort's return — such ties are more important than ever before. Every guest in this Hall will be welcomed back here at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all — in the light of Lord Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.
"It is my belief — and never have I so hoped that I am mistaken — that we are all facing dark and difficult times. Some of you in this Hall have already suffered directly at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Many of your families have been torn asunder. Just an hour ago, a student was taken from our midst.
"Remember Krum. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a man who was good, and kind, and brave, simply because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Krum."
He held up his glass in toast, and there was a low murmur of "Krum" heard across the room from those not still too in shock at the news that Dumbledore had just dropped on them not to be able to speak at all. After that Dumbledore sat down again and slowly everyone began either eating again or talking to each other in hushed, urgent whispers. FitzSimmons did both, grabbing a few things to nibble on as they put their heads together to discuss this shocking new turn of events.
After about thirty minutes or so nobody was eating any more, as it still wasn't that long since they had all eaten supper before the third task had even started, and Professor McGonagall stood up and announced that it was time for everyone to be heading up to their dorms or out to their lodgings on the grounds, and off to bed. But as everyone stood up and began making their way out of the Great Hall, Mr Bagman hurried around the Great Hall to Fleur, Sara, and FitzSimmons, telling each of them to wait until everyone had left and then come into the side room, that he needed a brief moment with all of them.
So once all of the other students had exited the Great Hall and the two remaining champions had stood up and started walking over to the side room, FitzSimmons stood up as well, wondering what he could possibly want with them now that the tournament was over and they were supposed to finally be free from their enslavement.
When they were all inside, Mr Bagman pulled out three pouches and said, "As you all know, the winner of the TriWizard Tournament gets a thousand galleons. However, as Mr Krum is unfortunately no longer with us, it has been decided that the money will be split between the three remaining champions as a reward for how hard you all fought this year through the tasks that were assigned to you. Due to the great point differences you had going into the final task, the earnings are split three hundred and seventy-five each for Miss Fleur and Miss Sara, with two hundred and fifty for Harry. So here are your winnings," he finished, handing out the three pouches to each of them.
After that he dismissed them, wishing each of them the best in their future endeavors, before he himself scampered out of the country as fast as possible to get away from the dwarves whom he had made a bet with over Harry Potter winning the tournament.
As FitzSimmons walked back up to Gryffindor Tower a few minutes later, Fitz looked over at his wife and asked, "Aren't the twins trying to start a joke shop business?"
"I believe so, dearest husband of mine," Simmons answered. "Want to give our money to them for that?"
"Well, if everything that Ron's told us over the years is true, they certainly won't be getting any start-up capital from home for it, so why don't we give them ours?" Fitz replied. "We certainly don't need it, and they seem like hard-working, most likely very good small business owners, and another new small business and a few students doing that instead of going to work for the government is always a good thing."
"Absolutely — I'm all for helping out the next generation."
The following morning Minister Fudge visited the castle as requested by Dumbledore.
Once they were both settled in Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore said to the Minister, "As you know from the message I sent along with the young Mr Weasley last night, Mr Krum of Durmstrang, one of the four champions of the TriWizard Tournament, is missing. But more importantly, new information has come to light since then. And it is my expert opinion that Mr Krum's most likely death and certainly disappearance, along with the disappearances of Bertha Jorkins, Mr Crouch, and a muggle in the town that Voldemort's father was from, are all related. Lord Voldemort has been giving someone instructions, Cornelius. Those people's deaths were mere by-products of a plan to restore Voldemort to full strength again. A plan that has succeeded. Voldemort has been restored to his body."
Fudge stared at Dumbledore in shock for a long time, unwilling to believe what the headmaster was telling him, before finally managing to sputter out, "You-Know-Who...returned? Preposterous. Come now, Dumbledore…. You — you can't seriously believe that You-Know-Who — back? Come now, come now…."
"When Krum touched the Triwizard cup last night, he was transported somewhere from which he has not returned," Dumbledore said steadily. "Can you deny that?"
"Just a little mishap, I'm sure," Fudge insisted. "He is a fully capable wizard, I'm sure if we just contact the Bulgarian Minister they'll tell us that Mr Krum is back at Durmstrang or with his family or something, and just doesn't know how to contact you. Nothing to panic over. And certainly nothing to suggest that You-Know-Who has returned or that this has anything to do with Bertha Jorkins' disappearance. And as far as Mr Crouch, there is no reason to believe that he is not still at his house resting like he's been since November."
"Listen to me, Cornelius," Dumbledore said, standing up and radiating a sense of power. "These disappearances were not the random work of some lunatic or escaped supporter trying to revive old fears!"
"I see no evidence to the contrary!" Fudge shouted, leaping up as well. "There has been one confirmed disappearance and a mistake with a portkey — that's not proof of his return! That happens all the time and nobody thinks twice about it!"
Dumbledore strode from behind his desk over to the fireplace and threw in some Floo Powder, before kneeling and sticking his head in, saying, "Snape, I need you."
He pulled his head back out and stood up again, before a few seconds later Snape walked out of the fireplace and into Dumbledore's office.
"Show him," Dumbledore ordered.
Snape walked up to Fudge and pulled up the left sleeve of his robes, sticking his forearm in front of Fudge, who recoiled at the tattoo of the Dark Mark.
"There," the potions master said harshly. "The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was last night when it burned bright, but you can still see it clear as day. Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing one another, and his means of summoning us to him. When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to apparate instantly to his side. This Mark has been growing clearer all year, and Karkaroff's too. Why do you think Karkaroff fled? We both felt the Mark burn. We both knew he had returned. Karkaroff fears the Dark Lord's vengeance. He betrayed too many of his fellow Death Eaters to be sure of a welcome back into the fold."
Fudge took a step back away from the tattoo on Snape's arm as if physically repelled by it, shaking his head as he continued to stare at it in disgust. Finally, with the hint of a plea in his voice, he said, "He can't be back, Dumbledore, he just can't be…."
"Voldemort has returned," Dumbledore said firmly as Snape disappeared back through the fire. "If you accept that fact straightaway, Fudge, and take the necessary measures, we can still save the situation. The first and most essential step is to remove Azkaban from the control of the dementors. And the second step you must take — and at once — is to send envoys to the giants. Extend them the hand of friendship, now, before it is too late, or Voldemort will persuade them, as he did before, that he alone among wizards will give them their rights and their freedom."
"Preposterous! Remove the dementors? Envoys to the giants? What madness is this? I'd be kicked out of office for suggesting it!" Fudge shouted. "Half of us only feel safe in our beds at night because we know the dementors are standing guard at Azkaban! And if the magical community got wind that I had approached the giants — people hate them, Dumbledore! It would be the end of my career!"
"You are blinded by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius!" Dumbledore thundered back. "The rest of us sleep less soundly in our beds, Cornelius, knowing that you have put Lord Voldemort's most dangerous supporters in the care of creatures who will join him the instant he asks them! They will not remain loyal to you, Fudge! Voldemort can offer them much more scope for their powers and their pleasures than you can! With the dementors behind him and his old supporters returned to him, you will be hard-pressed to stop him regaining the sort of power he had thirteen years ago!
"But take the steps I have suggested, and you will be remembered, in office or out, as one of the bravest and greatest Ministers of Magic we have ever known. Fail to act, and history will remember you as the man who stepped aside and allowed Voldemort a second chance to destroy the world we have tried to rebuild!"
"It seems to me that you are just determined to start a panic that will destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!" Fudge replied stubbornly and angrily, refusing point-blank to accept the prospect of a disruption to his comfortable and ordered world, to believe in even the possibility that Voldemort could have risen again.
"If your determination to shut your eyes will carry you as far as this, Cornelius, we have reached a parting of the ways. You must act as you see fit, and I shall act as I see fit."
It was a mere statement, no hint of a threat of revolution in Dumbledore's voice, but like any tyrant, Fudge took it as an open declaration of independence.
"Now, see here, Dumbledore," he shouted, waving an honestly less-than-threatening pudgy finger at the headmaster. "I've given you free rein, always. I've had a lot of respect for you. I might not have agreed with some of your decisions, but I've kept quiet. There aren't many who'd have let you hire werewolves, or keep Hagrid, or decide what to teach your students without reference to the Ministry."
"You haven't 'given' me anything, Cornelius!" Dumbledore's voice rose, his aura of power palpable in the still room, his eyes blazing. "This is a school, not a branch of the Ministry — it is not yours to control. The board of governors alone are in charge of what happens here, not you or anyone else in the Ministry, and you would be wise to remember it."
"We'll see about that!" Fudge shrieked, quickly finding his tongue at the implication that he didn't control absolutely everything, like a proper tyrant. "And if you're going to work against me —"
"The only one against whom I intend to work is Lord Voldemort. If you are against him, then we remain, Cornelius, on the same side."
Fudge shook his head. "I don't know what you and your staff are playing at, Dumbledore, but I have heard enough. I will be in touch with you later to discuss the running of this school. I must return to the Ministry."
And with that he turned and stormed over to the fireplace, angrily threw some Floo Powder into it, and shouted out "The Minister's office!" as he stepped into the green fire, leaving behind a disappointed, but not particularly surprised headmaster.
~FS~
Now knowing for sure that the Ministry would be of no use in the upcoming war, Dumbledore began assembling his old militia from the first war against Voldemort.
First he floo'ed Mrs Weasley to prepare the Burrow to become the headquarters of the Order and to get her husband, Mr Weasley, to begin trying to subtly convince those he could at the Ministry of the truth in order to recruit new members for the Order. Then he sent Hagrid and Madame Maxime to go talk to the giants and try to win them to his side. And lastly, he floo'ed Remus Lupin in order to have the werewolf alert all of the old crowd, such as Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, and Hestia Jones, among many others.
The Order taken care of for the moment, Dumbledore turned his attention to the problem of Harry Potter's safety while he was out of the castle for the summer. The Dursleys' home was three years past useable, but where he'd intended on sending Harry, while still the only option, had its own problems. And that was of course the Burrow. Obviously Harry had to be there, as it was the headquarters of the revived Order of the Phoenix and the safest and most protected place in the world, but he wasn't unaware in the least of the minor confrontation that had gone down between Harry and Miss Granger, and several members of the Weasley family at lunch the day before. And while he had no doubt whatsoever in his mind that even after that Mrs Weasley would still want Harry in her home, persuading Harry that that is where he needed to be for his own safety was probably going to prove much more difficult. And while there was obviously the option of force (aka kidnapping), Harry and Miss Granger had more than once proven an exceptional aptitude to both powerful magic and fighting skill, and had also shown repeatedly that they had no problem fighting against authority. His only real hope of not ending up with a mess was if he could use Lord Voldemort's return to convince Harry that circumstances were urgent now, and that the boy needed to leave things up to the adults now.
So at lunch that day, he personally approached the pair where they were eating in their normal spot at the Gryffindor table and asked them up to his office.
Once they were all seated inside, he said gravely, but fatherly, "Harry, I know that you have done your own thing the past few summers — your disappearances have not gone unnoticed — but in light of Lord Voldemort's return to human form, I'm sure that you can understand how it is more important than ever to keep you safe this summer until you can return to the castle in the fall. Now, I know that you were understandably upset at us for inviting someone whom you had only once ever very briefly met before, as your 'family' to watch the final task yesterday, but we had the best intentions when we did so, not wanting you to be alone when the other three champions all had their families here with them to watch. And I mention this because staying with that family at their house, the Burrow, is the safest place you can be in these dangerous times, given all of the protections that Hogwarts can put on it to keep you protected."
"That I need to remain safe over the summer, we agree upon," Fitz replied. "Where we disagree, however, is on the best way to do that."
"We are far safer doing what we've always done than doing anything you could plan," Simmons picked up crisply. "Your enemies, Harry's enemies, Voldemort's slaves, as well as you and all of your people — you are all limited by the narrowness in thinking of every British wizard that we have ever met. Perhaps every wizard on the planet, even, we've just only interacted with and observed British ones to any extent that we can be confident in speaking about. But our point is, their attempts to capture us, and your attempts to keep us safe, are based on this mutual understanding of how you all would act in this situation. Because of that, none of you will ever comprehend how we remain hidden and safe on our own. It is the same way that we completely avoided your two dimensional maze by going in a third dimension. We will be perfectly safe doing what we always do, but only so long as none of you know what we do, so that you can't possibly — unintentionally, of course — reveal it to Voldemort's side."
"Also, if you try forcing us against our will anywhere near any Weasley, we will fight back with all of our sizable magical power and almost certainly kill at least one of them while injuring all the others, and possibly killing every single one of them and whichever of you is trying to force us with them in the first place," Fitz added. "Which will only hurt your numbers in the upcoming fight against Voldemort, and still not get us wherever you're trying to put us. So I would think very long and hard before you try that option. We've killed before, and we will do it again. And you clearly want us to return to school here next year given how much we have got by with over the years that no other student ever could, and that's clearly only going to increase with Voldemort back to his normal self. So let us do our thing, and you will have us back in the fall safe and sound. Don't — make us fight our way out from the second attempt at enslaving us this school year — and we might just decide that we don't have any reason to return to school next year. Then you're really screwed, because if we disappear for good, you will never find us if you lived to be a million years old — and of course assuming that our best friend doesn't rip the planet in half again, because then the whole million years thing kind of becomes irrelevant."
"What he's saying is, hell will freeze over and your entire army against Voldemort will be dead before we go anywhere near the Weasley house, and Voldemort will have free reign over the entire country because there will be no one left alive to stop him and his slaves," Simmons finished up.
FitzSimmons still fully intended to escape yet again during the final Hogsmeade Saturday that always took place after final exams were over — the very next day, in fact — just as they had the previous year, but it would be better if Dumbledore agreed with them for once, instead of trying to prevent them from leaving the castle in the morning, or sending an adult with them to follow them around Hogsmeade whom they would have to curse in order to make their clean get-away.
As for Dumbledore, he was beginning to get an idea of where FitzSimmons were disappearing off to every summer that they were so sure that they would never be caught. It also explained how they could return every fall so ready to use magic, like they had been practicing all summer despite still having the Trace on them. And that, of course, was that they used the Knight Bus to travel overseas. Which of course only left more than two hundred possible countries that they could go to, and an incalculable amount of land to search in all of those nation-states. How they had been surviving on their own in a foreign country as eleven to fourteen year olds even with magic he had absolutely no clue, but they had always returned in far more healthy shape than Hagrid had reported that Harry had been when the half-giant had gone to tell Harry that the magical world existed (even if somehow in a month Harry had become perfectly healthy by the time that he had actually come to the castle, which Dumbledore had long given up trying to figure out), so they clearly knew what they were doing, or had someone to stay with that he had absolutely no idea who could possibly be, maybe on Miss Granger's side.
Dumbledore stared at FitzSimmons over the tips of his fingers for the longest time, thinking everything over, as FitzSimmons sat there and let him, having said their piece and made their promises. Given how few wizards ever left the Isles, their point that British wizards were too narrow-minded to ever find where they were was probably fairly accurate, especially if they stayed in an exclusively muggle part of whatever country they went to, as very few wizards had any hope of finding muggleborns in muggle locations, himself included — the past three summers had proven that. But he had one more card that he wanted to play before admitting defeat and letting them do their thing, trusting that they somehow did know how to survive better than any adult wizard in all of Britain.
"Harry, if you and Miss Granger would stay at the Burrow, you would be in the very center of the movement to stop Voldemort. The same people who fought against Voldemort the first time — the group your parents were a part of, in fact, Harry — will be based out of the Burrow."
Never mind the minor fact that he and the other adults had absolutely zero intentions of letting any of the kids know anything that was going on — especially Mrs Weasley, who would insist that even the legally adult students amongst them were 'too young' — but it was still a completely truthful statement that Harry would be in the middle of it all, even if he wasn't allowed hear anything that he was in the middle of.
"No," Fitz answered shortly. "We are kids. This war against Voldemort isn't our fight. You do your thing, and we'll do our kids-not-fighting-in-the-wars-of-men thing. You don't want kids underfoot, anyway. And if your organization is anything like the ones we've known, what's actually going on will be highly compartmentalized, and the last people you will be telling classified information to is children, even Harry Potter. So there's not a chance in the world we're going there. Now can we go get on with our lives, or are you going to keep trying to come up with ways to convince us to go somewhere that you'll have to drag our dead bodies to get us there?"
Finally giving it up as a lost cause, Dumbledore sighed, "You are free to go."
FitzSimmons left his office happy with how things had gone, but still wary as to whether or not they would actually have such a clean escape as Dumbledore had implied that they would be allowed. So it was with a very careful eye that they went to Hogsmeade the following day, keeping a constant lookout around them to spot any adults trying to keep tabs on them. But apparently Dumbledore really was going to let them walk away this year, or else had no idea that they would make their escape then, or had invisible spies who were actually doing a very good job of following FitzSimmons through crowds and pinch points without giving away their presence, as FitzSimmons detected no one who would make their escape for the summer more difficult.
And so as most students began heading back up to the castle, FitzSimmons walked the opposite direction a piece, before flagging down the Knight Bus to take them to their summer palace in the States.