Exams were over and the free week between said tests and the end of school had started, when FitzSimmons received their first summons from Dumbledore since the early fall.
When they entered Dumbledore's office at the requested time, the headmaster said to them, "Well, Harry, Hermione, I promised that you could come with me."
"You think you found another horcrux?" Simmons asked excitedly.
"I believe so," Dumbledore answered.
"Cool — where at?" Simmons replied.
"You shall see soon enough if you still want to come with me, but remember in the memory of Voldemort's orphanage, how the matron mentioned him terrorizing some of the other children in a cave on a summer holiday to the ocean?" Dumbledore answered. "Well, I believe I have found that cave."
"Return to the scene of one of his earliest crimes — sounds about like a criminal," Fitz nodded. "Any idea which horcrux might be hidden there?"
"I do not know, though I think we can safely rule out the snake," Dumbledore answered. "Now, I promised you that you could come with me, and I stand by that promise, but it would be very wrong of me not to warn you that this will be exceedingly dangerous."
"We've done more dangerous, on a yearly basis," Simmons replied matter-of-factly. "Barren alien planets, what actually was not barren alien planets like first thought, multiple robots trying to kill us, including a second group trying to take over the entire planet to make it their new homeworld, blue aliens on an earth that our bestie quaked in half seventy-four — wait, no, ninety-four, I believe — years into the future…. My point is, we've faced worse, and we will face worse again. We aren't underestimating this situation or going into it overly cockily, we're just saying that we've been in dangerous situations before and came out fine — well, most of the time, anyway. But that still eventually turned out okay."
Dumbledore just stared at her for several long seconds, before finally deciding that it was best just to ignore everything that she had said that he didn't understand, and instead say, "I take you with me on one condition — that you obey any command I might give you at once, and without question. Be sure to understand me, both of you. I mean that you must follow even such orders as 'run', 'hide' or 'go back'. Do I have your word?"
"Yes, Sir," FitzSimmons said together, secretly knowing that if things got really bad they would make the best decisions instead, having committed actual treason before of which disobeying Dumbledore was not. But they seriously doubted that it would get anywhere near the point of having to decide whether to obey or do the right thing, since they would be there to guide Dumbledore in the right direction the entire time.
"If I tell you to hide, you will do so?" Dumbledore pressed.
"Yes."
"If I tell you to flee, you will obey?"
"Yes."
"If I tell you to leave me, and save yourself, you will do as I tell you?"
"Yes, sir."
That one was very unlikely to actually be obeyed, Fitz had already given his life once to change the future, but Dumbledore wanted the answer 'yes', so that's what they gave him — any highly unlikely disobedience to that could be argued that Dumbledore was no longer in his right mind when he gave them the order that they had to disobey, and therefore no longer legally applied.
"Very good," Dumbledore finally said. "Then I wish you to go and fetch your Invisibility Cloak and meet me in the entrance hall in ten minutes' time."
Ten minutes later, FitzSimmons met up with Dumbledore in the entrance hall. He had them throw the cloak over themselves before they headed outside, walking towards the gates and Hogsmeade. Once in Hogsmeade, Dumbledore told a no longer Imperiused Madam Rosmerta that he was going to the Hogs Head Inn that evening instead of the Three Broomsticks, before side-by apparating away with FitzSimmons as soon as they actually were outside of the Hogs Head Inn. A moment later, FitzSimmons were taking in deep breaths of salty night air.
Looking around them, they found that they were now standing on a nearly inaccessible rocky outcrop in the sea, with a steep cliff a little ways behind them.
"What do you think?" Dumbledore asked in a tone that sounded as if he was asking their opinion on whether it was a good site for a picnic.
"It's not Perthshire, but I'd take a house on top of that cliff behind us," Simmons answered. "The view would be phenomenal. You know, Harry, maybe we should talk Coulson into getting us a second home in a place like this — don't you think our future daughter would like it here?"
"Maybe, don't know — haven't met her yet," Fitz answered, though without any of the bite that he'd had the last time he'd said it in their argument about the ability to change the future half a decade before in the Lighthouse after Simmons had broken him out of his cell when Daisy refused to release him. "And I'd have to see it during the day to decide if I like it or not."
"It's great I'm sure, no need to ever question anything that I try to drag you into," Simmons answered her husband teasingly, referencing back to a decade earlier when she had drug him out of their safe, non-mobile lab onto the BUS, before turning to Dumbledore. "So where is this cave Riddle took the other kiddos to?"
"This way," Dumbledore answered, before leading them over to the very edge of the rock closest to the cliffs, and down a treacherous descent of jagged niches that barely made footholds, to some slippery boulders right at water level. Pulling out and lighting his wand, he held it up towards the cliff, illuminating a fissure in the wall of the cliff just at water height.
"You will not object to getting a little wet?" he asked, looking back at FitzSimmons.
"Wait!" Simmons exclaimed sharply before the headmaster could do anything stupid like dive into the frigid, swirling water, which it looked to her like he intended on doing. "Can't we do this a little smarter? There isn't room to use the levitation charm even though it does work on clothing, as we used when we proved that there were ways around the age line back before the TriWizard Tournament. But there's still the Impervious Charm, and do any of the levitation charm variants work for actual floating, as in floating in water and not just hovering in mid-air? I feel like we can do better than jumping into ice water."
Dumbledore stared at her in surprise for a second, before finally answering slowly, "Well, I suppose a combination of charms could keep us mostly dry if done right. But I can also just use a warming and drying spell on us when we get out in the cave inside the cliff."
"I'm with Hermione — let's not get wet if we don't have to, regardless of what we can do after," Fitz replied. "Us and cold oceans have a history, and it's not exactly a good one. In fact, it was still haunting us four and five years later, in combination with another incident we went through."
"Okay, then," Dumbledore nodded. "The Impervious Charm as you mentioned, combined with the floating charm will work, but you will have to re-cast the floating charm on yourself every so often as we go so that it does not wear off, and we will still be swimming of a sort, just not getting wet."
"That is completely fine," Simmons answered. "Now what exactly do we need to do?"
A minute later they were all three water proof and buoyant, and slipped down into the dark, swirling water. Comfortably paddling their way through the fissure and the tunnel behind, they made their way deep into the cliff, eventually arriving at a large cave with steps out of the water onto dry land. Dumbledore worked his way over one of the walls of the cave until he finally found the hidden entrance into the secret cave beyond (that unlike Dr Doofenshmirtz's secret entrances did not have large neon signs alerting inquisitive platypuses to it and the definitely no traps set behind it), eventually coming to the realization that it required a blood-payment to open. Taking out his knife he quickly cut his arm to splatter blood on the rock, which disappeared to create an entrance into a much larger cave with a giant black lake in it.
Once he had waved his wand over his arm to heal it back up, the three of them walked through the black door-sized hole in the cave wall, Dumbledore leading the way. They carefully walked along the narrow rim of rock around the outside of this lake for a long while, careful not to touch the water, until Dumbledore eventually came to a stop. Then he ran his hands though the air over the lake, until he grasped an invisible chain. Tapping it with his wand it became visible, and then he used magic to pull the rest of it out of the depths of the water until a tiny boat came to the surface.
"Small boat," Fitz commented. "Unless it's bigger on the inside or something."
"Voldemort will not have cared about the weight, but about the amount of magical power that crossed his lake. I rather think an enchantment will have been placed upon this boat so that only one wizard at a time will be able to sail in it," Dumbledore replied.
"Once you get over to the island, you should just be able to levitate us across to you, right?" Simmons asked. "Or will there be some kind of anti-levitation charm, or a barrier like surrounds Hogwarts to prevent anyone from flying brooms in or out of the school grounds?"
"I do not think you two will count for this enchantment," Dumbledore answered. "Harry, you are underage and un-qualified, and while you are of age Hermione, you are still a student, so I do not imagine that it will be a problem. Voldemort would never have expected a sixteen or seventeen year old to reach this place — I think it unlikely that your powers will register compared to mine."
He paused for a second, before quickly adding, "Voldemort's mistake, of course. Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth."
"Oh, don't worry about our egos," Simmons waved off. "We were the two youngest ever into the Academy, we know better than anyone that young people can be the smartest in the world. Had to blow up a flying ship together to prove it one time when age underestimated our ideas, but we aren't offended by Riddle underestimating us."
After that they all three carefully clambered into the boat, Simmons having to sit in Fitz's lap in order for them to all fit in, and still not comfortably at that. Once Dumbledore was seated the boat began moving by itself, silently carrying them across the water to the island out in the middle. As they went, FitzSimmons looked over the edge of the boat down into the water, aided by their lit wands, until suddenly they saw a corpse floating inches below the surface of the water.
"Hey look, it's the Dead Marshes," Fitz said, pointing at the dead body with his wand. "Only a lake instead of marshes, but otherwise exactly the same."
"Yes, exactly the same except one gigantic difference," Simmons retorted with a roll of her eyes. "Also the fact that this isn't southeast of the Emyn Muil, or in Middle Earth at all, and I'm pretty sure these bodies are completely real, whereas Gollum said that the bodies in the marsh were just visions left over from the battle to ensnare anyone who dared travel through there."
"Hermione, you're messing up my fantasy here," Fitz whined.
Dumbledore, meanwhile, only feeling like he vaguely remembered some of the words that they were saying from when he was much younger and had time to read muggle books, simply said to them, "We do not need to worry about them at the moment."
"So you think they'll attack once we get the horcrux?" Simmons asked.
"Indeed," Dumbledore answered. "I am sure that once we take the horcrux, we shall find them less peaceable. However, like many creatures that dwell in cold and darkness, they fear light and warmth, which we shall therefore call to our aid should the need arise."
"Fire," Simmons nodded understandingly. "All we've got for that though is Incendio, although I guess Confringo generally come with fire and might blow corpses up which could be efficient — but will those two be good enough, assuming that there's a bunch of these corpses? Inferi, if my reading has served me right."
"They are in fact inferi," Dumbledore answered. "And with your two's skill, combined with my own, I believe we should be perfectly fine."
By this point they had reached the island, and they carefully climbed out of the boat onto dry land. In the center of the small island they found a stone pedestal and basin that contained some kind of liquid that was giving off the green glow that had been visible since they'd first stepped into the lake cave. Dumbledore cast his magic over the liquid, finding that it couldn't be penetrated, until finally coming to the conclusion that it had to be drunk in order to get the horcrux that he was sure was inside, out.
"This potion cannot be penetrated by hand, vanished, parted, scooped up, or siphoned away, nor can it be transfigured, charmed, or otherwise made to change its nature," he informed them. Twirling his wand in the air to conjure a crystal goblet, he continued, "I can only conclude that this potion is supposed to be drunk."
But before he could actually start drinking it, Simmons asked, "Can you scoop the horcrux out with your goblet? It's a long shot, but wizards aren't always the smartest."
To her surprise, Dumbledore handed her the goblet and said, "Why don't you do it?"
Simmons took the goblet, and while it would penetrate the water unlike Dumbledore's hand or wand, as much as she tried to feel for and scoop out something from the bottom of the basin, after a minute she finally had to give up.
"Worth a shot," she said, handing him back his drinking vessel.
Taking the goblet back from her, Dumbledore said gravely, "Undoubtedly, this potion must act in a way that will prevent me taking the horcrux. It might paralyze me, cause me to forget what I am here for, create so much pain I am distracted, or render me incapable in some other way. This being the case, Harry, Hermione, it will be your job to make sure I keep drinking, even if you have to tip the potion into my protesting mouth. You understand?"
"Of course," Fitz answered immediately, as Simmons nodded her agreement as well. "And Hermione will be ready with her medical expertise, and what magical medical knowledge she's learned from the library, as soon as you finish drinking it and we've got the horcrux."
Slightly surprised that they were so willing to do as he said without question, when this was what he was asking of them, he said, "You understand what I am ordering you to do? You may have to —"
"Yes, we're going to poison you on your orders," Simmons interrupted. "You're going to be in pain, or burst into flames, or throw up, or whatever, and we're going to keep force-feeding your corpse until you've drunk it all and we can get the horcrux out of there — it'll be about like trying to make Daisy eat vegetables instead of chocolate pop tarts and fermented grapes for supper. We've got it, we'll do it, drink up already."
Dumbledore looked at her still in surprise for a few more seconds, before finally dipping his goblet down into the potion. And as he lifted the full goblet to his mouth, he said, "Your good healths, Harry, Hermione."
"Wait!" Simmons interrupted sharply before he could actually take a drink. "What happens if you now just dump it out? How can it tell if you actually drank it or not? I mean, I get it, 'magic', but doesn't that seem awfully arbitrary and made up that a spell can do exactly that?"
This time Dumbledore didn't hand her the glass to try pouring out herself, but he did pour it out onto the ground himself. Instantly, by some magic that seemed very made up for plot reasons and didn't follow any basic rules of how magic did and didn't work, the liquid inside the basin rose all the way back up to the top.
"Okay — just had to try," Simmons said. "Go ahead, you can drink it now — I can't think of any other ways around wizard logic."
So Dumbledore refilled the goblet and began drinking. Halfway through his fourth glass of the evening he staggered and fell against the basin, FitzSimmons catching him so that he didn't hurt himself. After that they had to pour the liquid into his mouth themselves and cajole him into drinking it, as the headmaster tried to make them stop. By the seventh glass he was clearly having visions of some kind, begging unseen forces to stop hurting someone, but FitzSimmons kept on making him drink as he had ordered them to. Finally after the twelfth glass, the basin was empty.
As soon as he had drunk it Dumbledore let out a rattling gasp and collapsed face-first to the ground unconscious, Simmons instantly checking his pulse and airways to make sure that he was still alive and breathing. Meanwhile, Fitz returned to the basin to look for the locket that he knew should have appeared now that the last of the poison had been drunk, and sure enough, there in the bottom of the basin was Slytherin's locket from one of the memories that Dumbledore had shown them nine months prior, which Fitz quickly grabbed and stuffed in his pocket.
Returning to Simmons, he found that she had rolled the headmaster onto his side so that if he threw up while unconscious he wouldn't drown in his own vomit.
"Got the horcrux," he said to her. "How's the headmaster?"
"Unconscious, but breathing fine," Simmons answered calmly.
"Rennervate?"
"I wouldn't suggest it," Simmons answered, shaking her head lightly. "While not induced, he's essentially in a medical coma right now, not in pain. In fact, if I knew magic to put him into a medically-induced coma I would do that, so that he doesn't have to deal with whatever pain he was going through until we can get him back to Madam Pomfrey and the hospital wing and the castle with experts, or maybe even St Mungo's. Unless of course we needed him for getting out, but I don't see why we would — I'd assume the traps on the way out are the same as on the way in, seems very wizardy."
"Don't we have a medical coma, though?" Fitz replied. "Stupefy. Knocks people unconscious for a limited amount of time — and I've never heard a limit on how many times you can use it in a row, though we probably never would have even if there is a known number before the receiver sprouts green antlers or something."
"Oh — you're right," Simmons said. "Yeah, okay — that's my suggestion if he wakes up. So long as we don't need him, he doesn't need to be awake for any of this."
But at that very moment Dumbledore's eyelids flickered back open and he croaked out, "Water!"
Glancing at each other for a second, FitzSimmons turned and pointed their wands at him as one, and simultaneously thought, 'Stupefy.'
Dumbledore was instantly unconscious again.
"Should we risk trying to apparate straight out of here, or assume that Riddle was smart enough to make it apparation-proof like Hogwarts and probably put some curse on trying that turns your insides out or something equally pleasant?" Fitz asked his wife.
"Hadn't thought about the curse part, but I was going to say no anyway," Simmons answered. "Riddle did seem to cover most of his bases, and I'd hate to see what could happen if apparating didn't work — forced splinching seems like a very wizard-curse kind of thing to happen now that you mention it. Getting back out seems pretty simple and straightforward, so let's just levitate Dumbledore and do that."
But no sooner had they climbed into the boat and levitated Dumbledore's robes with him in them back into the boat and the boat had started moving back to the shore now that it had a powerful wizard in it once more (unconscious though he might have been), than Dumbledore woke up again, begging for water once more as soon as he did.
"Okay, this is going to be annoying," Fitz said as he flicked his wand at the headmaster, silently stunning him again.
"Well, let's just hurry and get out of here as quickly as we can, and keep stunning him once a minute to try to keep him from waking up on us," Simmons answered. "There is clearly something in that potion he drank that's trying to wake him up and keep him in agony, and I'd imagine make us doing something that would get us attacked, probably by the inferi, which I for one would rather not deal with if we don't actually have to."
And so that's exactly what Fitz did, stunning the unconscious body of the headmaster every sixty seconds or so as Simmons watched around them as the boat sailed back to shore. But nothing tried attacking them, and soon they had made it back to the narrow ridge of rock that comprised the shore. Once they landed and Simmons and Fitz had stepped out first so that the boat wouldn't sink with them still in it thinking that no one was in there any more since they were too young for Riddle to think about, Simmons levitated Dumbledore (or his clothes, technically) out in front of them as they carefully but as quickly as possible walked back around the edge of the shore, Fitz still stunning the floating body of the headmaster as they went.
Eventually they reached where the secret archway had opened with blood payment, to find that it had closed behind them when they had entered and needed another toll. So despite not being an LMD this time, Fitz pulled out his knife and slit his wrist, making sure not to cut the radial artery this time, letting the small amount of blood freed dribble out onto the rock, opening the hole again. Once through and wrist magically healed, Fitz cast the water-proofing and floating charms on all three of them again and they headed down into the water, Fitz still stunning Dumbledore every minute or so, so that he would not have to go through any of this. Through the water they swam until finally they made it back to the craggy rock that Dumbledore had originally apparated them to, and climbed up to dryness where Simmons set Dumbledore on the ground.
Looking at his wife, Fitz said, "You should apparate us back to the Hogwarts gates, you're the better apparater."
"You're just saying that because I married you," Simmons lightly teased, but she still stored her wand away and grabbed both Fitz and Dumbledore's arms, and after one more stunning charm by Fitz she spun them into darkness and just outside the Hogwarts gates. Where they immediately realized that they couldn't get in without Dumbledore.
"Let him wake, or do you have some other idea?" Fitz asked, looking at the firmly locked gates.
"I assume if aurors are guarding the school by living in Hogsmeade, they're protecting the school day and night, right?" Simmons answered rhetorically, or at least so she hoped. "Let's apparate back there, one of us ask Madam Rosmerta where the nearest auror is without letting her see Dumbledore, and go from there."
So at Fitz's nod, Simmons apparated them all to an alleyway near the Three Broomsticks and she quickly headed off to find them an auror to get back into the school with. Lucky for her she didn't even have to ask Madam Rosmerta where one was and then try to explain why they needed one or how they were out of the school in the first place, for as soon as she stepped inside the pub she saw Tonks sitting at the bar chatting with the barmaid.
"Hey, Tonks — we need you," she said to the purple-haired woman.
"Hermione?! What are you doing in Hogsmeade this late?!" Tonks exclaimed in shock as she leapt up from her stool and hurried over to the biochemist.
"Not now, follow me," Simmons answered, leading the young auror outside and to where Fitz was keeping Dumbledore in a 'medical coma'. Once there, she quickly explained, "We were out with Dumbledore, he drank some poison, and we're keeping him stunned until we can get him to Madam Pomfrey so that he doesn't have to go through any of the pain he would otherwise be in. But we can't get through the Hogwarts gates."
"Yeah, of course!" Tonks nodded vigorously. "Apparate after me."
They apparated back to the Hogwarts gates, where Tonks flicked her wand at the wrought iron causing them to instantly swing open. Once inside the grounds and the gates had shut back behind them, FitzSimmons and Tonks ran up the road to the castle with Simmons floating the headmaster along in front of them and Fitz still periodically stupefy-ing him, soon enough arriving at the courtyard and the great oak doors into the castle. Another flick of Tonks' wand and these doors unlocked and swung open as well, and they hurried on up through the castle, thankful that they didn't see Filch anywhere to try to give them detention for being out of their common room past curfew, even being with an auror (or possible trying to give Tonks detention herself if he still remembered her as a student not many years before).
Bursting into the hospital wing, Simmons levitated Dumbledore onto the nearest bed as Tonks hurried to the back of the room to knock on the door of Madam Pomfrey's office/entrance to her living quarters, in case the matron's wards to alert her whenever the hospital wing door opened weren't enough. Madam Pomfrey soon bustled into the room in a dressing gown, staring in shock at all of them as soon as she recognized that it was the headmaster whom they had with them and needed her expertise for.
So before she could even say a word, as Fitz continued to keep Dumbledore in the coma, Simmons explained, "We're keeping him unconscious because every time he wakes up he's in great pain. We were out dealing with some Death Eater problems and working to end this ongoing war, and in order to get something of importance Dumbledore had to drink a basin of glowing green poison of some indeterminate kind. He was in agony while drinking it, and had to be force-fed it on his prior orders to us, and was having some kind of hallucinations by about halfway through. And then when he finished drinking the whole basin he collapsed face-first onto the ground, unconscious. But a minute later he woke back up demanding water, and every few minutes the potion breaks through the stunning charm if you don't keep it on him consistently. And I think that's about it. So figure out a plan of action, including something for the pain that he's going to be in when we do let him wake, and then we'll stop stunning him and you can get to work."
"Why didn't you just get him some water like he asked?!" Madam Pomfrey demanded in a shocked but also scolding tone, like FitzSimmons had been acting like idiots.
"Because it wouldn't have worked," Simmons answered bluntly, not about to take anyone's armchair managering on her medical expertise when they hadn't even been there. "Everything there was a trap, so there would have been something to make any conjured water kill him or cause even more pain, or my best guess, the only way to quench the thirst was with the water from the lake infested with inferi, which would then presumably attack. We figured you and St Mungo's could find a cure that didn't involve us dying to a bunch of new zombies that still have all of their skin and body parts."
After that Madam Pomfrey shut up and got to work, preparing all of the potions and magic that she could think of to help Dumbledore through this unknown poison, short of calling in reinforcements from St Mungo's to help her, sensing from Simmons' description or lack thereof of how exactly Dumbledore had been poisoned, that this was best kept away from anyone outside of the castle if at all possible. Soon she was ready and had Fitz stop stunning the headmaster, as she forced an extra-strong calming draught down his throat.
When he woke up Dumbledore was still out of his mind in pain, begging for water that when Madam Pomfrey gave him some did nothing to quench his magical thirst, it not being the magical lake water counter-potion infested with inferi that was needed to do the job. Then she began working magic as quickly as she possibly could trying to bring him relief until she could figure out what needed to be done to heal him for real.
As soon as Dumbledore was mostly back in his right mind and could start giving his own help having been the one to actually go through the poison, he croaked out, "Get Snape. Get Snape!"
"We'll go get him," Simmons said with a sigh, knowing that despite all of the reasons the potioneer should have been executed for child abuse years before then, that as an expert potioneer, dark arts fanatic and possibly practitioner (though she only had his obsession with the DADA position to base that theory on), and former Riddle slave, he was likely to be of help in this particular situation.
And so she and her husband left the hospital wing and headed down towards the dungeons, arriving five minutes later at his office door and pounding insistently, assuming that either his bedroom was attached to his office or he lived in his office, not having been told to try to find him elsewhere. And a few minutes later Snape did appear, scowling at the late night intrusion upon whatever he had been doing.
"Your boyfriend's demanding to see you," Simmons sneered sarcastically. "Apparently Madam Pomfrey isn't good enough for him, he wants you. They're up in the hospital wing."
With nothing more than a glare at the boy he hated and loathed more than any other living human on the planet, and said boy's too smart mudblood girlfriend, Snape swept off towards the hospital wing, leaving FitzSimmons alone outside of Snape's office.
"Should we —?" Fitz began, when Simmons quickly cut him off.
"No. There's nothing we can do for them now. It would have been nice to tell Dumbledore that we got it, but there's no chance now, and he'll just have to trust that we can do our part of the job until we can tell him tomorrow, and give it to him then. Right now we go back to our room and celebrate survival and success, trusting that the adults can actually adult."
Fitz didn't need to be told twice to go have sex with his beautiful wife, and they scampered hand in hand back up to their private flat where they could celebrate as they liked before falling into a well-deserved sleep.
FitzSimmons didn't see Dumbledore at breakfast when they walked in and started eating the following morning, but when Professor McGonagall walked in fifteen minutes after them she headed straight up to them.
"The headmaster wishes to see you in the hospital wing," she said quietly, even though there was no one around to overhear her since classes were over so everyone was sleeping in late.
"Will do," Simmons answered with a nod. "As soon as we're finished eating."
Professor McGonagall looked like she wanted to argue with the 'finished eating' part, but apparently decided it wisest not to, and instead turned and walked stiffly up to the staff table to eat her own breakfast.
Fifteen minutes later FitzSimmons wandered into the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey quickly escorted them over to the bed that Dumbledore was lying in, the curtain up to prevent anyone who came into the hospital wing with their own injuries from seeing that the headmaster was in the hospital.
"Doing okay?" Simmons asked before he could say anything, before adding, "And yes, the excursion was a success."
"Ah, good," Dumbledore sighed deeply, visibly relaxing back into his pillow. "And I am alive and recovering, and will be up and moving around again by this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest."
"Glad to hear it," Simmons replied. "Just let us know like normal when you're ready, and we'll stop by to give it to you."
Which when he was ready turned out to be the following evening.
Entering his office Simmons set the locket down on his desk, saying, "Here it is, but it doesn't feel right. It seems smaller than what we saw in the memory, and doesn't have the ornate emerald 'S' of that one either. I think this is a fake."
Dumbledore looked at her in surprise, before picking up the locket and carefully looking over the outside for a minute. Then he quite easily popped it open with his fingers, and sighed as he pulled out a scrap of folded parchment from inside of it.
"You're definitely right about this not being a horcrux," he said as he opened the note, which he proceeded to read out loud. "To the Dark Lord. I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more. R.A.B."
"So we're not the only one hunting horcruxes, or at least this one," Fitz said once the headmaster had finished.
"RAB, RAB…" Dumbledore muttered to himself as he took his seat again. "That sounds so familiar. Who have I taught with those initials?"
He was silent for several minutes thinking hard, until he suddenly exclaimed, "Regulus! Regulus Arcturus Black! Sirius Black's younger brother! It was well known that he joined the Death Eaters, and then it was believed that he had a change of heart and was murdered for it. However, now I wonder if he was actually murdered in connection with stealing the real horcrux and replacing it with this one."
"So where would he have stored it whether he successfully destroyed it or not?" Simmons asked.
"I can't say for sure," Dumbledore answered slowly, "but I would start at Grimmauld Place, the family home of the Blacks in London."
And with that he strode over to his fireplace and threw in some Floo powder. But he didn't call Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, instead he called the name of a cottage in the middle of nowhere England where Sirius had magically built a little place far away from the house that he hated with a passion. And a minute later, Sirius's head was in the fireplace.
"Hello, Sirius," Dumbledore greeted him. "I was hoping you would give me permission to look for something that I believe your brother may have taken from Voldemort and stored in your family house in London while attempting to destroy it. And perhaps you would be willing to join us in order to make Kreacher answer our questions."
"You're more than welcome to look around all you like," Sirius answered. "Stay the night if you're so inclined. But if I order that foul little beast to answer all of your questions truthfully and fully, can I not have to step foot in that miserable dump again?"
Dumbledore agreed, and ten minutes later he and FitzSimmons stepped through the Floo into Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, former city home of the Blacks. The place looked like it hadn't been lived in for over a decade and a half, which for all intents and purposes it hadn't been. It's only occupant in over a decade had been Sirius, when he had lived there for as short of a period of time as he possibly could after being declared not guilty after his arrest, while he was building a cheap little place out in the countryside to live in permanently. And he had only done any serious (or Sirius) cleaning to his old bedroom and the kitchen, the two places that he needed to be not actively trying to kill him while he had to reside there until his own house was completed and he could move there.
FitzSimmons and Dumbledore split into two groups, wandering through the house trying to find the real locket. FitzSimmons were looking through the bedrooms on the third floor when they heard Dumbledore shout out from the sitting room, and by the time they made it down to him found him holding the real horcrux as he stood next to a glass-fronted cabinet with the doors open.
"So our trip to the cave isn't going to have been a complete waste," Fitz said, looking down at the real locket.
"Indeed not," Dumbledore replied. "We have found the real locket, and will be able to destroy it as soon as we return to my office, even if it wasn't where I thought it was anymore. But before we go, I know that Kreacher liked Regulus better than Sirius, and vice versa, so I would like to ask Kreacher if he knows anything about this locket and how Regulus came by it. Kreacher!"
A moment later an ancient house elf cracked into existence before them, obviously the same species as Dobby but looking about as different from him as possible. Highly emotionally, Kreacher told them the story of how Riddle had asked Regulus to borrow a house elf, and how Riddle had then used Kreacher to test the efficiency of the poison before placing the horcrux inside the basin. And how upon returning to Regulus, Regulus had been very disturbed by what Kreacher had to tell him, and soon had Kreacher take him to the cave, and switch the lockets as he sacrificed his life to help stop Riddle. Finally, Kreacher broke down in inconsolable wailing at his failure to have ever destroyed the locket as ordered by Regulus.
Now knowing the full story of the locket, or as best as he possibly could, Dumbledore returned with FitzSimmons to his office to destroy the locket. Once again he tried to say that Fitz should be the one to destroy it, and once again FitzSimmons refused point blank, determined to prove that people (including Dumbledore) couldn't use prophecy as an excuse to be cowards instead of doing the right thing. After which Dumbledore easily destroyed the horcrux, using his extensive magic to replicate parseltongue in order to open the locket and then smashing the sword of Gryffindor down on it to shatter the glass windows inside and destroy another piece of Riddle's soul forever.
As Dumbledore put the sword of Gryffindor and Slytherin's locket in the glass display case, both being surviving relics of the founders, Fitz decided that it was the best time to voice something that he and Simmons had been talking about for several weeks.
"Dumbledore, Sir, since Snape is gone next year as the one good thing to come out of Riddle's curse on the DADA position, could you get Tonks to teach it next year? She's an auror — if she's got any teaching skill at all, she's definitely got the knowledge to teach the class. And we know better than most that not every expert is cut out for teaching, but she seems like she's outgoing enough that she would do well."
"She likes being an auror, but I'm pretty sure she would love to come back to this castle as well for a year," Simmons added. "She's come visited us numerous times in the castle during the year, and I'm pretty sure she's living here vicariously through us every time we talk to her on Hogsmeade weekends. She always wants to know what we've got up to, and I'm almost positive that if you offered her the job, she would accept. And I'm sure her finally-boyfriend Lupin as of last week when we saw her in Hogsmeade, would be glad she's out of the dangers of being an auror for a year, along with being able to give her help on teaching since he held the job three years ago."
Dumbledore looked at them in surprise for several seconds, before finally saying slowly, "Well, while there is no reason yet that Professor Snape cannot continue teaching, if the curse does hold up and something happens, we will need a new DADA professor — but Nymphadora is much younger than I would normally hire a professor at. I recommend against Professor Dippet hiring Voldemort at eighteen, which is only six years younger than Nymphadora's age."
"True, but this is Tonks we're talking about," Simmons replied. "While she may be more experienced in five to ten years, she's not going to be any more mature. She's as adult as she will ever be, and like I said before, she'll have Lupin to help her. Maybe he can come back into the school and literally help her with some classes, maybe he can only do it from the outside, but if finding a new candidate is as hard as we've heard, she's a perfect choice who won't be afraid of the curse like everyone else is, if for no other reason than because we'll be taking her class. Just think about it — we're not the one's you'd actually be hiring, after all. She is."
And with that she gave the headmaster a curt nod and started towards the door, their part of this horcrux hunt finished and done with, and their suggestion for bettering the school the next year put forth.
But as Fitz went to close the heavy oak door behind them before they descended down the spiraling staircase, he felt that he need to clear up the air on one last thing.
"Oh — and just so you're aware — we're revolting if you get rid of the actual Potions professor, the best thing to happen to Potions class in this school and country by default of this being the only school for the entire country, in the past sixty-five years, and replace him with the child abusing Snape again. We will rain down hellfire on him, and you'd better pray that he only flees the castle in well-deserved terror and doesn't end up like the last child abuser in this castle, who had to be permanently replaced by the Weasley traitor."
And with that, before Dumbledore could even think to respond, he closed the door behind him with a resounding, ominous clang.
The weather continued to be beautiful for the remaining two days of the week up to the Hogwarts Express and FitzSimmons' own Knight Bus ride to their summer safehouse.
Malfoy still wasn't anywhere to be seen, especially outside on the grounds where FitzSimmons spent all of their time on these last two days enjoying the last of Scotland that they would see for two months, and by this point FitzSimmons had become very suspicious about persisting absence. And while they wanted to be able to shield the school from whoever had murdered two people during the year, they had zero concrete evidence that he was behind either of the attacks during the year, only the circumstantial evidence of why would he have left the school in the middle of the year if he wasn't behind the attacks? They had occasionally thought about asking Professor McGonagall where he was, but still highly doubted that she would tell them anything that she knew, and anyway, since they didn't have any evidence that he was the murderer, it was the adults' responsibility to make sure that he was okay not theirs, and on a personal level they had no liking of the bully and weren't losing any sleep over the fact that he no longer seemed to be at the school, and certainly wasn't abusing anyone there anymore.
But while they decided against ever approaching Professor McGonagall, Ronald Weasley had no hesitation in walking up to them on the day before the Hogwarts Express where they lay stretched out by the Black Lake working on their tans, and saying to them, "You two are absolutely going to have to come round my mum's house this summer — Bill and Fleur's wedding is happening August first."
Simmons rolled over on her side to give him a pointed look. "Ronald, we have never been to your house, our one interaction with your mother resulted in her being petrificused for harassment, our one interaction with Bill was telling him to stand down before he got himself hurt in that same incident, and while we like Fleur, we are not going to a wedding where we literally only care about and hardly even know one person, even if it is the bride. So no — we will not come round your mum's house this summer, and tell her that when you get back, and tell her yet again to leave us alone. Now leave us alone yourself."
As Ron stared at her in shock she stared back coldly at him, daring him to try asking Fitz now like he had for so long any time that she had given him an answer he didn't like. And he did dare, but Fitz had been watching Ron out of the corner of his eye since the boy had first walked up, and so as soon as the redhead turned towards him he pointed his wand at Ron without saying a word, just giving him a hard glare. For once in his life Ron took the hint, and left them alone to enjoy the rest of their day.
Everyone else also left them alone for the rest of the day and the following morning, and FitzSimmons rode the thestral carriages to Hogsmeade Station like everyone else. But when they arrived they took their trunks and strolled off down the road away from the platform, until they were far enough away to call the Knight Bus without any of the other students seeing, so that they could begin their own summer.
