Midway through October, a notice appeared on the common room notice board informing everyone that the first Hogsmeade day of the year was going to be on Halloween.

And that evening Ron hurried up to FitzSimmons as soon as they entered the common room upon returning from studying in the library. But the moment that he got within ten feet of them, Simmons felt the sneakoscope in her pocket trying to start spinning, and she and her husband heard its tinny whistle. Simmons pulled it out of her pocket and set it in the palm of her hand, where it spun freely and glowed brightly as it continued to whistle.

"Ron — what are you doing that you're not supposed to be?" she asked.

"What? Nothing!" Ron exclaimed defensively. At FitzSimmons' pointed looks, he continued, "I swear! I just came over here because they finally put out the first Hogsmeade weekend. Anyway, like I told Harry in the letter, it's just a piece of junk."

"Except something wrong was going on when you said it went off before you sent it, and it started to whistle right before Malfoy insulted Buckbeak, helping me protect him," Fitz replied. "So every time it's gone off before, it's been correct, even if it doesn't necessarily go off every time that something suspicious happens near it."

"Well, it's clearly wrong this time, because all I have is my school books and Scabbers, and I haven't done anything wrong," Ron said irritably. "So put that stupid thing away. The first Hogsmeade weekend is Halloween."

"Yeah, we saw. We're looking forward to it," Simmons replied. "And since you're from a wizarding family, do you know when we turn in our permission slips to go? Because no one asked for them the day we arrived, so do we turn them in day of, right before we leave?"

Ron stared at them cluelessly like he did pretty much every time he was asked a question about the wizarding world that he had grown up in his entire life, and shrugged, "No clue. I assume someone will tell us."

As it turned out, Ron was right and that someone was Professor McGonagall at the end of their Transfiguration class the very next day.

"As you're all in my House, you should hand your Hogsmeade permission forms in to me before Halloween. No form, no visiting the village, so don't forget!"

So FitzSimmons, who had been carrying their permission slips in their bookbags at all times all school year to be ready to give them to the proper person at a moment's notice, stopped by her desk on their way out. But when Fitz held out his to her, McGonagall didn't take it like she had Simmons' the moment before, instead adopting a very somber expression.

"Ah — Potter. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't let you go — I'm sure you understand."

FitzSimmons stared at her in shock and confusion for several seconds, before Fitz replied, "Uh, no — we bloody don't. Why exactly the hell can't I go? I have the best grades in the school behind Hermione, all of my homework is up to date, and this is my signed permission slip saying that I can go."

He and his wife both wondered if this had anything to do with standing up to the child abusing Snape, but they certainly weren't going to bring that up in case it wasn't — no reason to give McGonagall another reason not to let Harry go. But McGonagall's answer was the last thing that either of them would have ever guessed.

"Sirius Black is still loose. I don't feel that it would be safe to allow you to leave the grounds unprotected."

"What the fuck does Mr Black being loose have to do with Harry not going to Hogsmeade?!" Simmons exclaimed angrily. "You're not keeping anyone else from going because he's still loose — how is Harry any different?! Or do you just not care if any of the rest of us get attacked by Mr Black, only if your precious savior does?!"

After looking shocked herself for several seconds and for some odd reason seemingly not just at being yelled at, McGonagall changed to a contemplative look for several more longs seconds, clearly debating something in her mind, before finally saying with a graveness that they had never heard out of her before, even their first year when she had temporarily expelled them, "There is no point hiding it from you any longer, Potter. I know this will come as a shock to you, but Sirius Black is after you, Potter. So with that being the case, I think you'll understand why I don't think it's a good idea for you to go to Hogsmeade. Out in the open with only your classmates, it's very exposed, Potter."

"Why me?" Fitz asked in confusion. "Wasn't he in jail for killing thirteen people a bunch of years ago? What does that have to do with me?"

"Black was a strong supporter of You-Know-Who, and it is strongly believed that he is after revenge for you stopping You-Know-Who, Potter, and he knows that you are at Hogwarts," McGonagall answered.

"Who?" Simmons replied, just to force McGonagall to stop being a pussy and use real names. They could get back to the part about Mr Black being after Harry Potter later, it was far less important in the grand scheme of things.

"Sirius Black."

"No, whom was he a supporter of?" Simmons prodded.

"You-Know-Who."

"Who?" Simmons continued.

"You-Know-Who!" McGonagall shouted. "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named!"

"Sorry, we don't know who that is," Fitz answered calmly, the exact opposite of McGonagall's growing irateness. "Do you have a name? Because no one named their child 'You-Know-Who Smith', or has the first name 'You', middle name 'Know', and last name 'Who'. Even if there is a 'Who' with the first name 'Doctor' — just kidding, his name is just 'the Doctor', no 'Who'."

Ignoring everything that Fitz had said after 'Sorry, we don't know who. Do you have a name?', as she had no clue what he was jabbering on about after that, McGonagall shouted, "The dark wizard you stopped the night your parents were killed, Potter!"

"Who?" Simmons repeated innocently, enjoying the right state that they were whipping McGonagall into, though also deeply saddened by the unimaginable fear and cowardice that the wizarding world clearly lived in.

McGonagall screwed up her face, before finally shouting out, "Voldemort!"

"Oh, Voldemort. Mr Black was a supporter of Voldemort. Okay, now we know who you're talking about — yeah, Voldemort, we know Voldemort," Simmons replied calmly, saying the word 'Voldemort' as absolutely many times as she possibly could in one statement — four, as it turned out.

"So Mr Black supported Voldemort, and because I knocked Voldemort out of power when I was a baby, Mr Black wants to get revenge on me for removing his lord and master Voldemort," Fitz added, picking up where his wife had left off on saying the word 'Voldemort' as many times as possible.

McGonagall shuttered and winced every single time that FitzSimmons said the Dark Lord's name (well, nickname, technically, though FitzSimmons didn't know this yet and wouldn't for several more years), but she still managed to grind out in reply, "Yes."

"So that's why Malfoy was trying to peer pressure me into going after Mr Black myself when we were in Potions class," Fitz said contemplatively. "That entire conversation makes a lot more sense now — we were wondering why he thought I would give two shits about Mr Black."

"Yes, well, now I'm sure you can understand why I can't allow you to go to Hogsmeade," McGonagall said, completely ignoring the part about one of her students peer pressuring another student, or one of her fellow adults ignoring it just as thoroughly as she was now. "But you can still go, Granger."

Simmons, however, wasn't quite so understanding as McGonagall had hoped the muggleborn girl would be, and at McGonagall's record setting stupidity at thinking that Simmons was going anywhere that Fitz wasn't allowed to go, had finally had enough and snapped. Whipping out her wand she pointed it straight at McGonagall's face, a move quickly replicated by Fitz.

"Like fuck we can't go. Harry has his permission slip that was sent with his booklist letter, that said 'third years are permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade on certain weekends' if their parent or guardian signed the enclosed permission form. Which Mr Dursley did, and Harry is a third year, so give us a damn better reason he can't go than someone might be after him, and a damn good reason why we shouldn't blow your head off right here, right now! We've been practicing Bombarda, Reducto, Confringo, Expulso, Incendio, Diffindo, and a dozen other spells to kill Snape with if he ever tries to harm a hair on Neville or any other student's head again, and we're more than happy to practice right now to make sure we can stop his abuse if we need to."

"And I'm pretty sure that the Severing Charm to your carotid would make you bleed out in seconds, as well, and Hermione knows exactly where it is having studied the human body extensively in every way possible," Fitz added. "And an explosion from the Exploding Charm straight into your face would at the very least be excruciatingly painful, if not lethal."

"So let me make this plain and simple enough for your microscopic brain that still hasn't comprehended the fact that Snape is a child abuser who deserves to be thrown in jail for the rest of his miserable, pathetic life, to understand," Simmons said icily. "We are going to Hogsmeade, and there is not a damn thing you can do about, because you can't expel us and we don't care if you do, and we can rain hell down on this place if you try to stop us from leaving on Halloween morning. So take Harry's permission slip that you never should have sent him in the first place if you had no intentions of letting him go to Hogsmeade, and don't make this any harder on yourself than the bruised ego that you already have."

"We trust our own ability to keep ourselves safe far more than we trust the ability of any of you to keep us safe, anyway," Fitz finished up, setting the permission form down on McGonagall's desk. "So sayonara."

And with that he walked out of the Transfiguration classroom, his wife following right behind him.

~FS~

And on Halloween morning, FitzSimmons joined the rest of the queue in the entrance hall to leave the castle and walk down down the dirt road to the quaint little magical town of Hogsmeade.

They were a little worried that McGonagall might have told Filch not to let them through, and they would have to cause a scene by cursing adults until they were allowed to go or there was no one left willing to stop them or left at all, whichever came first, but while the grouch looked at them suspiciously, their names were apparently on his list as he let them pass through with no more than his normal scowl.

Five minutes later when they walked through the wrought iron gates of the border of the school, with two dementors still hovering above it to the sides, they felt the same bone-chilling cold and acute depression and hopelessness that they had felt on the ride in — but once again, it disappeared again as soon as they were a little ways away from the despicable creatures, and joy returned like the sun when the clouds parted. FitzSimmons wished that there was something they could do about these horrid creatures, some way to shield the students of the school from them, but there was absolutely nothing that they could do about them surrounding the school, and they were only at the gates where only third year and above students passed through one day every couple of months, so all in all the demons weren't the gravest threat that existed to the students, and there were bigger problems for FitzSimmons to worry about inside of the castle walls like Snape and all of the adults who allowed him to remain and abuse freely.

Once in Hogsmeade and well away from the dour dementors, FitzSimmons went by all of the hotspots that they had heard other students excitedly talking about in the lead-up to the weekend — Dervish and Banges, Zonko's Joke Shop, the Three Broomsticks, the owl post office, Honeydukes, the Shrieking Shack — checking everything out that there was to see since it was their first time in town, to get a feel for the best spots to return to and spend more time at on the next visit. But as the sun eventually began to make its westerly journey down the far slope of the sky towards the peaks of the Scottish mountains, they headed back towards the castle for the Halloween Feast.

As they neared the gates and the foul dementors guarding them, FitzSimmons decided to test out a theory that Simmons had thought of while they were eating a late lunch in the Three Broomsticks and trying to figure out if butterbeer actually had a single percent of alcohol in it, or if it was just the wizarding world's version of standard root beer. And that theory was to hold hands as they passed through the dementors' sphere of influence, to try to use their love for each other as a shield against the hopelessness and despair spread by the dementors.

So thinking as hard as they could back over their wedding (this Fitz's only, Simmons' second, that they had finally had after things finally settled down for five minutes), they grabbed hands and twined their fingers together, Simmons leaning her head on Fitz's shoulder and he leaning his head in turn on top of hers, and walked through the gates together. If it could make Leopold and Zombie Jemma start making out (and giving FitzSimmons a few new ideas in the process), maybe it could at least lessen if not stave off entirely the dementors' evil power. And to their great excitement as they passed through the gates and under the dementors, they felt noticeably less cold and despaired than they had the previous two times that they had crossed paths with the foul creatures. Apparently strong enough feelings — especially of something that wasn't exclusively happiness, but also love and promise — couldn't be entirely sucked out by the foul creatures. But they weren't about to test that theory multiple times right then no matter how much of a scientist Simmons was, instead hurrying on to the castle so that they wouldn't be late for the feast.

A feast that was pretty much the same as every other feast in the castle — lots of food and constant talking all around them — with the one addition of a few 'Halloween-ish' decorations hung up. But despite being actual witches and wizards — very Halloween-y beings — much less impressive and Halloween-y than any Halloween party that FitzSimmons could have gone to in the real world, and certainly much less slutty. Then again, that was a good thing considering the fact that this was a grade school, and not college or other adults who were all of age. But it did mean that it was rather boring of a Halloween party for FitzSimmons who were used to so much more, and they weren't at all sad to see the clock slowly tick its way towards curfew.

At the end when everyone was finally shooed out of the Great Hall to start heading back to their respective common rooms, FitzSimmons waited until the very end so that they could avoid the thickest parts of the crowds, and walk in peace just in sight of the last person in front of them in case Filch or Snape or any of the professors came along and wanted to try to give them detentions for not heading up to their dorms like they were supposed to be, as they would just be trailing off of the end of the crowd, not walking through the castle late at night entirely by themselves.

But as they turned the corner to the hallway that the portrait of the fat lady was located on and the Gryffindor Tower common room behind it, they found the hallway packed full, the entire House standing outside of the entrance, instead of going inside like normal. And as they walked up to the back of the crowd, they heard Percy up in the front shout out sharply, "Somebody get Professor Dumbledore! Quick!"

As was normal when no specific person was told to do whatever it was, everyone just stood around looking at everyone else expecting them to do it, until after a few seconds FitzSimmons stepped up as the only adults there, and turned around and headed back down towards the Great Hall, hoping to find Dumbledore or a professor, and not Snape or Filch.

A few floors below they got lucky and found Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall walking towards the headmaster's office together, and Simmons urgently said, "Excuse me Headmaster Dumbledore, but there's apparently some emergency at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, as no one has gone in and Percy asked for someone to get you specifically."

"Lead on," Dumbledore replied quickly, and both he and Professor McGonagall followed FitzSimmons up to the hallway outside of Gryffindor Tower.

The headmaster and deputy headmistress quickly pushed their way up through the crowds to the very front, where they must have immediately seen what was wrong, as from the back of the crowd FitzSimmons almost immediately heard Dumbledore tell Professor McGonagall, "We need to find her. Minerva, please go to Mr. Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."

But before she could even move, a voice cackled above their heads, "You'll be lucky!"

"What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore asked.

"Ashamed, your Headship, sir — doesn't want to be seen," the poltergeist answered. "She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful."

"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asked.

"Oh yes, Professorhead," Peeves answered gleefully. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see. Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

A gasp of shock went up from the crowd of Gryffindors at the proclamation that the widely talked about, most infamous escaped convict — though once again, just like with Voldemort, oddly not a single person in FitzSimmons' DADA class's greatest fear despite how much they talked like they feared both above all else — had done whatever it was that he had done that FitzSimmons still couldn't see from where they remained at the back of the crowd (happy to let the adults of the castle do their jobs), and therefore had to have been in the castle at some point during the feast in the Great Hall, after the last person had left Gryffindor Tower to head down to said feast.

Dumbledore's booming voice cut through the sudden hiss of whispered conversations, "Prefects, please lead everyone back to the Great Hall immediately! The rest of the Houses will meet you there shortly!"

As FitzSimmons began leading the procession back down to the Great Hall that they had all just left, since the back of the crowd suddenly became the front, Ron Weasley hurried up to them and burst out in a hushed whisper, "The Fat Lady's portrait was slashed all to pieces by Sirius! It's all over the floor! Do you think Black could still be in the castle somewhere, hiding waiting to attack?!"

"You know, I do wonder why he was trying to get into Gryffindor Tower at this time of night," Fitz mused thoughtfully.

"Suspecting that it's not what Professor McGonagall told us?" Simmons asked her husband.

"It certainly doesn't seem a guarantee," Fitz answered. "I suppose his sense of time could be limited being on the run, but if it is and this was any normal day, he would have been bursting into a completely full common room of fifty something odd students, including a lot of upperclassmen with legitimate magical ability, and handful of whom are even legally adults in this world. And yes, he killed thirteen people at one time, but twelve were normal people so they don't really count when it comes to fighting back against a wizard, unless one or more of them were carrying — but this in mid-90's Britain, so that would be nearly impossible, so scratch that — none of them would be worth anything in a fight against a wizard. But what I'm trying to say is, it just seems like taking on fifty plus wizards by yourself is bit of a suicidal move, unless he expected everyone to become paralyzed in fear because of his name, and still, that plan only works if everyone recognizes him. Though I guess on the complete flip side, if no one recognized him, nobody might do anything, and just idly find it odd that an unknown adult was wandering through the Gryffindor common room. Act like you belong and all that.

"But secondly, where did he enter the castle? We never found that second entrance the troll seemingly would have had to come in through on Halloween first year. Now, if Mr Black does know where that entrance is, okay then, but if he came through the main doors, the only ones we've ever found, and he is in fact after what Professor McGonagall said that he is, how did he miss the fact that there was a party going on in the Great Hall, especially if he attended here as a wizardling? And if he thought that too risky of a place to attack, why not pick a classroom on the route from there to the Gryffindor common room to hide in and watch, and then leap out and attack when his target walked by, with a much smaller crowd to deal with and multiple escape routes through the complex hallways?"

"So what was his objective after getting into the common room?" Simmons nodded in agreement. "Suicide mission is possible, if he got his time wrong. Or, he could have got his time exactly right, and his plan was to lie in wait in the common room, still being a suicide mission. Or or, he could have got his time exactly right, and merely wants something from Gryffindor Tower, not what Professor McGonagall said it is believed that he's after."

Meanwhile, Ron was staring at them like they were crazy. So turning to the redhead, Simmons politely asked him, "What about you, Ron? Why do you think Mr Black was trying to get into the Gryffindor common room, and was his timing off or exactly what he wanted?"

"They say he's mad, right?" Ron shrugged. "He was probably just trying to kill a bunch of people, and a common room seemed a good place for that."

"It is enclosed and he would have the element of surprise with no professors around to challenge him, but what about the timing?" Fitz asked. "If that was his goal, why not just burst into the Great Hall and have four Houses at once to slaughter? Because it's unlikely that he would survive attacking a common room either, with upperclassmen and alert underclassmen with wands and spells to fight back with — he would be outnumbered to such an extent that someone would more likely than not even if purely by accident take him down, at least long enough for a professor to get up there. And why Gryffindor specifically, or was that just what he randomly picked?"

"Or he could have been in Gryffindor himself years ago, and wanted to take out the House that he was most familiar with and possibly feels wronged him in some way while he was a student here," Simmons answered. "Or he was in Slytherin, and like all students here is brainwashed to hate the Houses that aren't his own, especially Slytherin versus Gryffindor, in addition to possibly being mad."

Ron, meanwhile, just stared at both of them again, not having a clue how to answer any of the questions that FitzSimmons hadn't actually expected him to be strategically mature enough to answer, simply wanting to try to stretch his thinking out by posing counterarguments to his ideas to make him think through his suggestions at a deeper level to see if they held more than just a little light dew. But by this point they had made it back down to the Great Hall, so Ron didn't have to try to answer and could not-so-subtly slip back over to Dean and Seamus who wouldn't ask him tough questions and would just agree with his wild theories and propose even wilder ones of their own, which he promptly did.

A few minutes after they had arrived back at the Great Hall, Gryffindor was joined by the other three Houses, and Dumbledore announced to everyone, "The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle. I'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and I am leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge. Any disturbance should be reported to me immediately. Send word with one of the ghosts. And finally —"

He casually waved his wand twice, and the long tables were against the edges of the hall and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.

Before he headed out and closed the door behind him, he added, "Sleep well."

Of course, the last thing that occurred was anyone trying to go to sleep, as instead everyone began talking amongst themselves as energetically as possible, the Gryffindors telling their friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff what had just happened, those two Houses sharing it amongst themselves, and enough Slytherins eavesdropping on everyone else's conversations or simply being close enough not to help but overhear, to soon start spreading the news amongst themselves as well.

After about five minutes or so Percy (the Head Boy) shouted out, "Everyone into their sleeping bags! Come on, now, no more talking! Lights out in ten minutes!", resulting in precisely the expected amount of obedience — absolutely none at all.

Except for FitzSimmons, who had somewhere south of zero interest in talking with anyone else about what had happened, and had already grabbed a sleeping bag and taken it to the furthermost corner of the hall, up behind where the staff table normally was, hoping for some privacy especially as they only took one sleeping bag for the both of them. Fortunately everyone seemed too busy with their friends to notice the odd pair sneaking away to hide in the corner, and no one tried to follow them over to engage them in any wild speculation about what classroom Mr Black was currently hiding in, how he was disguising himself, or how he'd got past the dementors and into the castle in the first place.

Which was all something that FitzSimmons were curious about themselves, but as they had no answers and didn't know the castle like any of the adults actually in charge of it and its magic did, they were already in their sleeping bag — or had it zipped completely open and were lying side by side on it like it was a blanket since they were fully dressed and the Great Hall wasn't cold — when Percy shouted out ten minutes later, "The lights are going out now! I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!"

The candles in the hall may have gone out all at once leaving the only light the slivery ghosts and the twinkling stars of the enchanted ceiling, but the talking went nowhere, merely lessening a little in volume and disappearing entirely in a moving spot that made it easy to tell exactly where Percy was stalking at any given moment. But FitzSimmons were used to falling asleep in less than ideal situations, and so were sound asleep with Fitz on his back and Simmons with her head in her spot on his chest long before the first teacher reappeared an hour later to check in and make sure that neither Sirius had joined the slumber party in the Great Hall, nor a non-slumber, very raucous party had sprung up in their absence. And Fitzsimmons continued to sleep through professors checking in every hour on the hour, and Dumbledore returning a little after 0300 to tell the Percy and the Head Girl that they hadn't found anything in their search and that a replacement had been found for the Fat Lady, and for Snape to accuse Professor Lupin of aiding and abetting Mr Black's ingress and egress of the castle.

~FS~

The following morning FitzSimmons noticed teachers and Percy Weasley following them everywhere they went.

They weren't sure if their tails were trying to be discreet about why they were there, that they just 'happened' to always be walking down the exact same hallways as FitzSimmons, and FitzSimmons only saw it for what it really was because of their decade of field work in the spy world, or if everyone was really being that obvious and just didn't care that 'Harry' and 'Hermione' knew that they were being shadowed, but it quickly became very annoying. Fortunately, however, FitzSimmons were spies, and quickly combined their spy training from the likes of Daisy and May with their extensive knowledge of the castle and its secret passageways, to lose their tails and disappear any time that they spotted an adult approaching, clearly intent on walking with Harry Potter to wherever he was going. They could tell that the professors were becoming increasingly frustrated at not being able to be by Harry Potter's side any time that he was outside of Gryffindor Tower (that right belonged only to his wife, Jemma Anne Simmons), but as they apparently didn't want Harry to actually know that they didn't want him out of their sight — possibly in a misguided attempt not to terrify him any more than Professor McGonagall having informed him that Sirius Black was after him already had? — they weren't willing to say anything to FitzSimmons about the couple constantly giving them the slip, so FitzSimmons continued doing it until someone decided to actually talk to them, instead of merely stalking them.

The one adult who fortunately wasn't trying to audition for Harry Potter's shadow though was Snape, but a week later on Friday they did have to see him outside of his dungeon. For instead of Professor Lupin showing up like normal for DADA class to teach, Snape showed up to — well, be Snape. So an abusive cunt.

"Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far. And he is hardly overtaxing you — I would expect first years to be able to deal with boggarts, red caps, kappas, and grindylows. Today we shall discuss something more challenging." Flipping to the very last chapter of their textbook, he sneered, "Werewolves. Turn to page 394. All of you! Now!"

Once everyone had, he snapped, "Which of you can tell me how we distinguish between the werewolf and the true wolf?"

Only FitzSimmons' hands rose, having read about werewolves in multiple Care of Magical Creatures books including Hagrid's monster book, in their DADA book that Professor Lupin had assigned them since they had read through the whole thing over the summer before term had even started, that Snape was now going way out of order in for some probably nefarious reason given the fact that it was Snape doing it and he hated both students and Professor Lupin, and Simmons already knew quite a bit about normal wolves from her studies in zoology over the years, despite canines being neither cuttlefish nor having any chromatophores — unless there was some as of yet undiscovered wolf out there somewhere that could change its color, which definitely needed to be named the Simmons Wolf once it was discovered.

But Snape completely ignored FitzSimmons, sneering around at the class with his normal twisted smile of superiority, "Anyone? Are you telling me that Professor Lupin hasn't even taught you the basic distinction between —"

"Sir!" Parvati exclaimed suddenly. "We haven't got as far as werewolves yet! We we're supposed to start hinkypunks —"

"Silence!" Snape snarled, spittle flying out of his mouth much like it might from a wolf or werewolf. "Well, well, well — I never thought I'd meet a third-year class who wouldn't even recognize a werewolf when they saw one. I shall make a point of informing Professor Dumbledore how very behind you all are. Now read the chapter and take notes, and I expect every single one of you to know the differences between werewolves and true wolves by the end of class."

At the end of class, after having spent all of class telling everyone except FitzSimmons (whom he couldn't find anything more wrong with here than in his own classroom a few floors below) that he would have graded their most recent homework at least fifty points less than whatever Professor Lupin had graded it, Snape sneered, "You will each write an essay, to be handed in to me, on the ways you recognize and kill werewolves. I want two rolls of parchment on the subject, and I want them by class next Thursday. It is time somebody took this class in hand."

~FS~

A week later on Thursday afternoon, the first DADA class since Snape had been in charge instead of Professor Lupin teaching, everyone in the class not named FitzSimmons burst out in complaints about Snape assigning them homework.

"It's not fair, he was only filling in, why should he give us homework?"

"We don't know anything about werewolves!"

"Two rolls of parchment!"

Professor Lupin looked back at them all in confusion.

"Why wouldn't he give you homework?" he asked. "The entire point of having a substitute professor filling in is that you still learn when the main professor can't make it. Now please turn in your essays."

But as it turned out, only FitzSimmons had done the assigned schoolwork.

"I am severely disappointed in all of you except for Harry and Miss Granger," Professor Lupin said gravely. "You had nearly a week to do your assignment, and yet none of you even tried. I expect every single one of you to turn in your homework at the beginning of tomorrow's class, or you will all be getting zero's on this homework instead of getting a maximum of fifty percent for being a day late. Harry, Miss Granger, you two will of course be able to get the full hundred percent on the assignment, which I have no doubt that you will based on all of your work so far in this class. In fact, I will add an extra five points to your grades for not thinking that you didn't have to do the homework simply because there was a different professor teaching class that day. And everyone else, I expect all of your homework to be completed and turned in on time from here on out, regardless of who is teaching class that day and assigns it. Now, today we are going to begin hinkypunks."

He lifted a glass box containing a hinkypunk onto his desk and began telling them all about hinkypunks, a very enjoyable lesson only slightly subdued by the fact that everyone in the class except for FitzSimmons were still highly disgruntled that they had to do homework assigned to them by a substitute, especially since it had been Snape, a feeling of resentment that only increased when Professor Lupin assigned them even more homework on hinkypunks.

And the following day, only about three-quarters of the class actually turned in their werewolf assignments, the remaining quarter apparently not caring enough that they got a zero for it, which admittedly probably wasn't going to affect their pass or pass grade at the end of the year, as in two years FitzSimmons had yet to hear of a single student failing a class and having to repeat it.

Disappointed but seemingly not surprised, Professor Lupin continued on with their lessons about hinkypunks, teaching them how to avoid falling into the hinkypunks' trap of luring travelers into bogs.

But before that could occur the annual opening quidditch match had to be played, the day after Snape made the class study werewolves out of order for his own malicious gains.

FitzSimmons, however, were not in attendance at said game, and lunchtime found them eating all alone in the Great Hall. None of the adults were even present, until just as FitzSimmons had begun working on dessert everyone suddenly began streaming in from the entrance hall, soaked to the bone and shaking, though seemingly from more than just the cold thunderstorm that was still raging outside. Not even the winning team's House was any more cheerful than the rest, and everyone was muttering darkly amongst themselves as they walked in and sat down and began eating their own lunches. So when FitzSimmons saw the twins walk in, they waved them over to get the scoop on what had happened out there to have everyone in such a state.

"What happened at the match?" Simmons asked them in concern. "Even for a downpour, everyone seems far more despondent than they usually are coming from a quidditch match."

"Yeah — after what felt like two hours of playing because of this infernal storm, sometime around thirty minutes ago real time, at least a hundred dementors swarmed the field and stands," Fred answered.

"But quidditch being quidditch, play continued. At least, everyone assumed it did — for all we know, Madam Hooch was blowing her whistle the whole time trying to stop the match, and simply no one heard her because of the storm," George said.

"So we were flying around for another half hour with those things flying all about us," Fred shuddered.

"But it was like the entire match suddenly switched into slow motion when they swarmed the field," George said.

"Everyone felt so terrible that everyone slowed down so much, and it just got slower the longer we were out there with them," Fred continued.

"Finally, though, our seeker somehow managed to catch the snitch," George said with a weak smile.

"Malfoy's in a right state, that's for sure," Fred added with a slightly brighter smirk, distance and time from the horrid, soul-sucking creatures finally beginning to take effect, even without chocolate.

"But once our seeker caught it, Dumbledore finally ran out onto the field, absolutely furious, you could tell, and waved his wand at the dementors and chased them all out of the stadium."

"He just let them be there until the match was over?!" Simmons exclaimed, aghast and furious herself now. "That was incredibly dangerous and stupid! What the bloody hell was he thinking?! Who gives a damn about quidditch rules, there were children's lives on the line here!"

And she would have leapt up right then and there and found Dumbledore to give him a piece of her mind if Fitz hadn't put his hand on her back and began rubbing it soothingly. While no one around them seemed to be happy about the dementors gatecrashing the quidditch party, none of them seemed to think that there was anything actually wrong with it either, and it wasn't their job to protect people from themselves. It was their job to shield children (and adults) from people who wanted to do them harm or were too negligent to be in charge of said innocents, but Dumbledore was a bit too big for them to tackle on their own at the moment — throwing Dumbledore in jail for a few years for willfully endangering the lives of an entire school would take a lot of careful planning, including finding the law enforcement and court system of the wizarding world, which they still knew absolutely nothing about, though one must exist to have convicted Mr Black (along with the rest of his fellow inmates) and sent him to the prison that he had escaped from over the summer.

The twins meanwhile stared at Simmons in shock, never having even considered the dangers of allowing over a hundred dementors to fly around a children's quidditch match, any more than they had ever considered the dangers of flying around in a thunderstorm to begin with, the highest objects in the vicinity or at least challenging the hoops for that claim, and therefore the most likely to be struck by the lightning (barring some magical shield around the quidditch pitch or even school grounds itself that blocked all lightning strikes that FitzSimmons were completely unaware of). But neither the twins nor FitzSimmons said anything more about the quidditch match or Dumbledore's negligence for the rest of the time that FitzSimmons were in there finishing up their dessert, the twins not comprehending the danger that they had actually been in and just happy to have won and not be out there anymore, Simmons still fuming at the headmaster's negligence or willful endangerment of students' lives and well-being, and Fitz trying to osmotically calm her down through his hand still soothingly rubbing her lower back.