Whether the increased security worked, Mr Black had changed his mind, or he was merely lying low planning his next attack, the innocent man did not make another appearance at the castle over the next couple of months.

But a few weeks before final exams there was finally some excitement of a different kind. It was a Monday morning, and FitzSimmons had just come from Arithmancy and were waiting on Professor McGonagall to open the Transfiguration classroom door, when Ron hurried up to them leading the line of oddly shocked-looking Gryffindor third years coming from Divination class.

"You won't believe what just happened in Divination!" the redhead exclaimed quietly as he made it up to them. "At the very end of class, right as we were all packing up to leave, Trelawney just like suddenly went all rigid, and if we're not mistaken, made a real prediction. Something about You-Know-Who's servant escaping and rejoining him tonight. It was really creepy, and as soon as it was over she didn't know that she'd even done it, and said we must have all dozed off to think that she had predicted anything to do with You-Know-Who. But you can ask any of them, they all heard it to," he finished, pointing back towards the rest of the class, the nearest of whom, who had heard the end of what Ron was saying to FitzSimmons, nodding in agreement.

"Interesting," Simmons replied. "I wonder who that servant is, and if it will actually happen."

But at that moment Professor McGonagall opened the Transfiguration classroom door and ushered them all inside, and FitzSimmons put it out of their minds as there was nothing that they could do about it anyway.

~FS~

That evening FitzSimmons were studying in the library with Ron.

A couple of weeks after Fitz had got his Firebolt back from the professors and flown it for the first time, Ron's desire to get to fly it had outweighed everything else, and he'd finally come to FitzSimmons to apologize for how he had treated Simmons after FitzSimmons had turned their broom in to Professor McGonagall on Christmas morning to make sure that it was safe to fly. But as FitzSimmons didn't immediately let him start flying the Firebolt any time he wanted for that selfless act of his, merely thanking him and telling him that he was forgiven instead of forgetting that it had ever happened and immediately giving him what he wanted, he'd slowly taken to starting to study with them again in an attempt to wear Fitz down and guilt Fitz into finally letting him fly the broomstick, something that FitzSimmons had no intent on ever doing, as they had told him right when they got the broom back that he couldn't, since he didn't apologize for his behavior while the broom was still away being looked over. And this happened to be one of those evenings when he was suffering through doing his homework in the library next to them in an ill-conceived attempt to make them and guilt them (by studying like they so desperately wanted him to) into finally letting him fly their broom.

At the moment, however, he wasn't studying so much as muttering nonstop about how his pet rat, Scabbers, was getting skinnier and skinnier and less well looking by the day, and had been ever since their trip to Egypt ten months before. Simmons had just been about to open her mouth and suggest that he go find some books on rats — they were in a library, after all — or else take the rodent down to the new Care of Magical Creatures professor, Hagrid, to check out for him, when Ron pulled the rat out of his pocket and set it down on the table between them, causing something else to redirect her attention away from Ron's grumbling and towards something slightly different but still Scabbers-related.

Because unless she was very much mistaken — and Shield Special Advisor to the Director Agent Dr Dr Jemma Anne Simmons was never very mistaken — the sneakoscope in her pocket had just got louder when Ron had moved the rat closer to her, and once and for all she wanted to figure out exactly why the sneakoscope acted like it did around Ron — because it was still sometimes going off when he was around them, unlike it did for any other specific student.

"You know, Ron, unless I'm mistaken, every time we've ever mentioned to you that the sneakoscope was going off around you, you've mentioned that you had Scabbers with you," she said, closing the book that she was reading. "Can you put him in your bag and then go stand over by that bookshelf over there? — we won't touch your rat, we promise, I just want to test something. I want to see if this sneakoscope still goes off when you don't have your rat with you."

"What difference does that make?! He's my pet! I'm allowed to have him!" Ron exclaimed. "That stupid piece of junk can't be going off for him! And it's wrong if it is!"

FitzSimmons glanced at each other. They had a guarantee card that they could play but they really didn't want to use it yet in case Simmons' theory proved to be true, and they needed it for something that Ron would be even less inclined to acquiesce to doing.

So Fitz looked back over at Ron and said, "Ron, we know you're allowed to have him, but please — he'll be completely safe in your bag, and you'll only be away from him for thirty seconds, maximum. We just want to see if that's how our sneakoscope is broken, so we'll have a better idea of how to get it fixed. And after this we'll quit bothering you about it."

Ron still didn't look happy about it, like he thought that they should just trash the orb of junk instead of trying to get it fixed, but he slowly picked his rat up off of the table anyway and carefully placed it inside his bag, before zipping up the bag and walking over to the bookshelf that Simmons had pointed to. Simmons pulled the sneakoscope out of her pocket and walked over to Ron first. As she got further away from the table and Ron's bag it's spinning, glowing, and whistling decreased, until by the time that she was at Ron it had stopped entirely. Walking back towards the table and straight up to Ron's bag, it got louder and spinnier and glowier again.

Looking over at her husband, Simmons said, "It sure seems to be the rat."

"Ron, got anything else in your bag that could be making it go off?" Fitz asked Ron.

"No! It's broken, I'm telling you! Leave me alone!" Ron yelled at them, storming back over.

FitzSimmons looked at each other, psychically discussing, before Simmons turned back to Ron. "Bring your bag with us to Professor Lupin, let him look over everything, including Scabbers, to see if he can find anything, being the DADA professor and all, and in exchange we'll let you take our Firebolt for a fly on Saturday."

Ron's mood immediately flipped like a switch and his eyes lit up in excitement. "Seriously?!"

FitzSimmons nodded.

"All right then! Let's go!"

FitzSimmons rolled their eyes at Ron's sudden change of attitude over an object designed to sweep floors with — well, not really, and they had really enjoyed flying around on it themselves on the weekends, but it did look like a stereotypical witch portrayal of one because everything in the wizarding world was stereotypical, and everyone's obsession with them still seemed a little overkill — but after packing up their own stuff they followed him out of the library to Professor Lupin's office, because now they might finally get some answers to a question that was only bothering them because of its persistence — squeaky wheel, and all that. Arriving at Professor Lupin's office a few minutes later, Simmons knocked on the door and they were soon let in.

"Hi Professor Lupin, sorry to bother you so late, but we're pretty sure our pocket sneakoscope is going off because of Ron's rat, and we're trying to figure out why — whether the sneakoscope is just very peculiarly broken, or if there actually is something suspicious about Scabbers, or what's going on," Simmons said. "And it's been doing it all year, ever since we got the sneakoscope and first had it around the rat, we just didn't realized that that's what it was until tonight."

"Well, I'm no dark detector expert by any means, but let me see the sneakoscope first," Professor Lupin replied.

So Simmons pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him, where it sat wobbling slightly in the palm of his hand, Ron's bag with Scabbers in it being just close enough to make it try to spin.

"Granger, try doing something you know you shouldn't," Professor Lupin said.

Ever a student, Simmons' first thought of something untrustworthy to do was to go around to Professor Lupin's side of his desk to find their upcoming exams and answers. Immediately the sneakoscope woke up fully, spinning rapidly in Professor Lupin's hand, glowing brightly and whistling shrilly. As soon as Simmons turned around to return to her seat, it went back to a weak wobble.

"Your sneakoscope seems to be working well enough," Professor Lupin said. "Now let's look at the rat."

Ron grudgingly and irritably reached into his bag and grabbed Scabbers, but as he began pulling the rat out it began wriggling madly, writhing with all of its might to try to break free from Ron's grasp. The sneakoscope Professor Lupin had set down on the table also began going off more and more as the rat got closer and closer to it.

"Scabbers, keep still!" Ron exclaimed. "What's the matter with you, you stupid rat?! Stay still!"

But just as he tried handing it over to Professor Lupin, Scabbers bit him hard and Ron dropped it in surprise and pain. As soon as Scabbers hit the ground he scampered away, out the door that Ron had left cracked open on their way in. Ron tore off after him, all four of them shocked at the rat's strange behavior.

As they waited for Ron to return, Simmons said to Professor Lupin, "What was that all about? It's like it knew it was about to be checked out, and didn't want to be. Like it really was doing something it shouldn't, and didn't want to be caught."

"But rats aren't that smart, are they?" Fitz asked, turning to his wife. "You would know, as much as I really wish you didn't, since you bring them into our lab all the time."

"Well, we are in a magical world — maybe rats really are that smart here, or maybe it's not really a rat," Simmons replied. Turning to Professor Lupin she asked, "Are magical rats that smart?"

"Never heard of it before," Professor Lupin answered slowly. "There are cat-like creatures called kneazles that are well-known to be very smart, that I'd say might be capable of thinking something like that, but I've never heard of a magical rat equivalent to that. The other suggestion you made, though…. I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore. If Weasley returns with his rat I will take it along as well, but — I mean, it's completely impossible, but I should have told him part of it this past summer, anyway."

Knowing from years in the spy world that Professor Lupin wasn't going to explain himself to them, FitzSimmons sat there in silence waiting for Ron to return, sure that if anything needed to be done, Dumbledore and the rest of the responsible adults in the castle would take care of it — they were just two third-year students after all, whatever was going on with Ron's rat wasn't their responsibility, beyond reporting that there seemed to be something going on like they were currently doing.

Ten minutes later Ron finally returned ratless, and very angry. Glaring at FitzSimmons with his fists balled, he shouted at them, "He's gone! Can't find a trace of him anywhere! This is all your fault, Hermione! You insisted I bring him here, and now look what you've done! You lost my rat!"

He would have gone on bellowing until his face was as red as his hair, but Professor Lupin quickly and sternly said, "Weasley! It is not Miss Granger's fault that your rat ran away. She was right both in thinking that there may be something strange about that rat, and bringing it here for me to look at as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Now, I need to go talk to Professor Dumbledore, but if you do happen to find Scabbers, bring him to me immediately. Do you understand me?"

Ron stared at their professor in shock, and then sullenness, before finally muttering, "Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now it's time you three be heading back up to your common room, and I'll go to speak to the headmaster. Goodnight."

Grumbling, Ron stalked out of the room, followed more slowly by FitzSimmons and lastly Professor Lupin.

~FS~

A few minutes later Professor Lupin walked into Dumbledore's office.

"Sir, there are a few things I need to tell you, some that I should have told you as soon as Sirius escaped last summer. Fifteen minutes ago, Harry, Granger, and Ronald Weasley brought Weasley's pet rat to me, Harry and Granger saying that their pocket sneakoscope was going off around the rat. After testing to make sure that the sneakoscope seemed to be working fairly well and wasn't obviously broken, I asked to see the rat. But before Weasley could hand it to me it bit him and fled, as if it really was doing something worthy of making a sneakoscope go off, and didn't want me looking at him to find out why. Then Granger said something that made me think.

"It is resolutely impossible, but she asked if maybe the rat wasn't actually a rat. Well, we should have told you this years ago, but there was in fact once an animagus who took the form of a rat — Petter Pettigrew. You see, towards the end of our years here, James, Peter, and Sirius successfully made themselves animagi in order to keep me company when I turned. Which is the reason that I should have told you this last summer when Sirius escaped, because he can take the form of a large dog, which has probably helped in his eluding capture, and maybe making it into the castle, I don't know. Unless the Shrieking Shack has changed since I was here, there's no way he could get in it to come in through the Whomping Willow. But that aside for the moment —

"I know Peter is dead, that Sirius killed him and that's why Sirius was in Azkaban, but he did have the animagus form of a rat. And his body was never found, that I ever heard, anyway. And now Weasley has a rat that doesn't want to be investigated, even though there's no way that I could have told whether he was an animagus or not just by looking at him, if Granger hadn't mentioned it. But I don't know. I'm definitely not saying that Peter's back from the dead, but…. Well, there's a loose rat in this castle somewhere, Peter was a rat animagus, and Sirius is a large dog animagus. Make of that what you will, Sir."

~FS~

Pettigrew, meanwhile, was fleeing the castle.

As a rat it was a long journey to get far enough away from the castle and the grounds to risk turning into his human form again, days of steady travel in fact, but he was in no particular hurry to actually find his Dark Lord, either, not expecting the most welcome of receptions after hiding for thirteen years. But those too-smart-for-their-own-good Granger and Potter were getting far too nosy, and while it was unlikely that Remus would be able to recognize an animagus without suspecting one, if he started getting passed around to all of the professors it was likely that someone would finally figure out who he was, and that simply wasn't an option. So he'd bit the Weasley who'd had him for the past few years and fled the scene again, his time of a life of ease hiding with the Weasleys unfortunately over.

And his escape from the castle and all of the adults who could potentially get him thrown into Azkaban was a complete success, but it wasn't completely unnoticed like he would have really preferred, not that he was actually at all aware of this fact. For many creatures in the Forbidden Forest had magical powers well beyond what wizards had any clue that they had, and even beyond what wizards themselves had in certain more natural areas of magic, and an unidentified animagus couldn't make it all the way through the extensive forest as a rat and none of them notice it.

And as this was the second animagus to tread their forest that year, when centaur Bane saw Mr Black wandering through the centaurs' territory again a few days later, he approached the dog and demanded, "Animagus, what are you doing in our forest? You have been here all year, and the others have tolerated your presence, but this has gone on long enough. So answer me — what are you doing in our forest?"

"I am looking for the traitor who betrayed me and the Potters," Sirius answered. "He has been hiding as an animagus rat with the Weasleys for the past thirteen years, and it's time for me to finally commit the murder that I've been accused of and locked away because of that entire time."

"A rat animagus, you say?" Bane asked.

Sirius nodded his shaggy head.

"Then perhaps it is the same rat animagus who passed through these woods a few days ago," Bane stated, unable to be quite so irritated with the dog animagus anymore if it was tracking a traitor in hiding. He didn't believe in getting involved in the affairs of wizards, but he wasn't getting involved, he was simply passing along information that he had observed that was of no use to him in reading the stars. "Heading away from the castle towards the border, at a hurried pace seeming to try to avoid detection. Could that be the rat you seek?"

Dog Sirius stared at the centaur in shock, before finally saying, "Are you sure? I can't believe he would leave his comfy life as the Weasleys pet when I haven't got close to him in months."

"That I cannot say, nor am I interested in trying," Bane answered. "I do not concern myself with the affairs of wizards. All I can say is that an animagus rat passed through these woods a few days ago. If you search around, I am sure you could still pick up his scent. I must be going, and I do not wish to see you in these woods again once you have picked up his trail. Goodbye."

Knowing a centaur's dismissal when he heard one, Sirius immediately turned and trotted off through the woods, nose to the ground smelling for any hint of the foul stench of traitor.

A few weeks later exam time finally arrived.

And on the very first day of exams FitzSimmons had use their time turner twice, as they had two exams during both time periods that day. During the morning exam period they had both Arithmancy and Transfiguration, and then during the afternoon they had Charms and Ancient Runes. But as certified geniuses four middle school exams in one day was nothing, merely a welcome challenge to an otherwise boring day of school, though they did worry for all of the other students who'd selected both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes as extra classes that year, as they would probably be stressed out beyond what was healthy for them with so many tests on one day to study and prepare for.

But the only exam that provided very much excitement for FitzSimmons that entire final exam week was their very final exam, Defense Against the Dark Arts. For in the dark creature obstacle course that Professor Lupin had set up for them to maneuver through there was a boggart, the first time that either Fitz or Simmons had ever faced one, since Professor Lupin hadn't had them face it on the very first day of classes like he had everyone else in the class.

Or, there was a boggart in Simmons' exam, anyway — because when she asked Fitz after she had finished, him having gone before her and standing there waiting for her to finish when she did, how it'd gone for him turning boggart-Leopold into Leopold-making-out-with-Night-of-the-Living-Dead-Simmons, he looked at her strangely.

"I didn't have a boggart in my test," he said. "You did?"

"Yeah — the very last obstacle," Simmons answered. "I turned it into BUS you with whipped cream all over your face like we talked about, I chuckled wryly, and after staring at me strangely for having you in a suit as my boggart, Professor Lupin waved me on out."

"Was the rest of our courses the same, then?" Fitz asked. "You can only see the first obstacle from here, and then everyone coming out once they're done, not any of the middle of the course — magic, you know, bigger on the inside and all that or something."

So they quickly went over everything that they had gone past in the quite cool and creative exam, and except for the trunk with the boggart in it at the very end everything else had been exactly the same. So when everyone in the class had finished their trip through the obstacle course, FitzSimmons approached Professor Lupin.

"Excuse me, Professor, but why did you not have Harry face the boggart?" Simmons asked.

Professor Lupin looked at them in surprise. "I would have thought that was obvious."

FitzSimmons just shook their heads in a 'No, not really — you lessened the exam for him' kind of way.

"Well," Lupin replied, frowning, "I assumed that if the boggart faced Harry, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort."

"Why?" Fitz asked in utter confusion, trying to remember everything that they had ever learned about Harry Potter to see where that could possibly make any kind of logical sense. "I defeated him, didn't I? Why would I fear him? Especially when everyone else refuses to even say his name and still doesn't have Voldemort as their boggart, while I've never had a problem saying his name because I'm not a coward. That doesn't make any logical sense that Voldemort would be my greatest fear — Voldemort should be the person I fear least in the world, if anything. I utterly kicked his arse as a crying baby with absolutely zero magical capability whatsoever — and now I'm better trained than most of this school, adults included."

"Yes, well, clearly I was mistaken in my assumption..." Lupin answered slowly. "But I didn't think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize, even in the exam when no one else was around. Like one of you two said at the beginning of the year when we studied boggarts, when it's a person they don't turn into a second version of that person, but they do take on most of the characteristics of said person, and I thought it best not to have a psychopathic murderer appear. It was the same reason I didn't have you face the boggart that first day, either, not wanting Lord Voldemort to appear in the staffroom and causing everyone to panic. But in order to make it not so obvious, I had both of you who answered questions not face it."

"Okay, I understand what you're saying and I don't disagree with your logic, but how would I even know what Voldemort looks like?" Fitz replied. "I have never seen a picture of Voldemort because books and authors are just as terrified of Voldemort as the rest of the wizarding world is so there are no photos or drawings or paintings of him in existence, and I certainly have no memories from when I was a fifteen month old baby — no one has memories from that age. But my point being, the wizarding world won't even say his name, they certainly don't have photos of him lying around for me to have ever seen, and I'm from the normal world on top of that where they've never even heard of Voldemort, or the wizarding world period. So if my greatest fear had somehow been Voldemort like you'd feared, I suppose he would have materialized as the amalgamation of everything that I've ever heard you people say about Voldemort. Which now that I'm actually saying that out loud, would probably be far worse than whatever Voldemort actually looked like — a demon of immense power, or a balrog, or something of that sort, that the real Voldemort couldn't even come close to comparing to, because of the fact that everyone here's fear of the man has turned him into a legend that he never actually was in real life, that no one could actually ever be no matter how bad they are. So now that I think about it a little more, you actually were right in not wanting the boggart to turn into Voldemort, and therefore not having anyone who you thought it might turn into Voldemort for, facing the boggart without plenty of experienced wizards around to deal with whatever the hell the boggart actually turned into if it started getting out of control. It's just your reasons for doing it that are all wrong."

"Oh."

Lupin hadn't thought of that — no one in the wizarding world had ever thought that not a single person under the age of about eighteen could have any clue what Voldemort actually looked like, or even how the Death Eaters had dressed, and therefore wouldn't actually know how to manifest him correctly. Or that the incorrect manifestation that all of the adults had created and brainwashed into their children out of their own personal fears and cowardice, was far worse than the actual tyrant himself could ever hope to be.

Simmons, however, had another question now for Professor Lupin.

"How did you know that no one else in our classes' greatest fear was who sure seems to be talked about like he's everyone's greatest fear?" she asked curiously. "Now, students not actually fearing him the most I get, he's nothing but an imaginary monster under the bed for them, something they refuse to call by name because their parents brainwashed that into them like it's a swear word or something, but they have no actual reason to fear Voldemort, as he's been gone their entire lives and really is nothing more than a word that they've been taught to shudder and wince at every time they hear it. But shouldn't every adult who refuses to say Voldemort's name have him as their boggart? How can you fear something you do name more than you fear something that you're so terrified by that you won't name? It doesn't logically make any sense."

Once again, Professor Lupin was stumped. And left wondering how two thirteen/fourteen year old kids had thought of things that no adult wizard ever had.

"I — I don't know," he answered honestly, shaking his head. "As for why I didn't fear any of your classmates' boggart being Lord Voldemort — well, to be completely honest with you, I have never heard of anyone's boggart being Lord Voldemort. I just — I guess I assumed that Harry's would be since he faced him as a child and lost his parents to him — but you've put forth a very good argument for why that would be faulty reasoning, Harry. I'm sorry I didn't let you face the boggart, and if you really want to I can let you face the one that I used today sometime later in my office, but if I may ask, what is your greatest fear, Harry? And Miss Granger, what was yours? It looked like Harry to me, only in some kind of clearly fancy muggle clothing."

FitzSimmons glanced at each other, before looking back at Professor Lupin.

"Yes, well, it was the dark side of Harry," Simmons explained. "He's both of our greatest fear for reasons we aren't going to explain, ever, not that you'd even believe us if we did — but we do know exactly why he's our greatest fear."

"The greatest thing you fear is yourself? Or the other person, for you, Miss Granger?" Lupin asked, slightly confused and more than a little worried.

"Not exactly," Fitz answered. "Our greatest fear is if only the worst parts of me came to life as an actual person. Every person is a mixture of good and bad, and normally the good outweighs the bad. In the case of someone like Voldemort, or Grindelwald, the bad far outweighs the good. In the case of the average criminal in Azkaban, at the time that they committed the crime, the bad at least temporarily outweighed the good, even if it normally didn't. Well, imagine if a person was split in half, identical bodies, but one body only got the good, and the other only got the bad. Our greatest fear is that entirely bad version of Harry. And like Hermione said, we have a very good reason for it that we're never saying. And you wouldn't believe anyway."

"Oh. Well, okay," Professor Lupin replied slightly hesitantly, like he still wasn't sure that they were completely okay. "I — well, honestly I have no clue what to say. But you handled your boggart well, Miss Granger, so I would be happy to let you face it as well later, Harry."

"We'll take you up on that offer," Simmons answered. "How about tomorrow afternoon, when there won't be any more exams for anyone?"

~FS~

So the following afternoon FitzSimmons headed to Professor Lupin's office to let Fitz try his luck against a boggart.

Professor Lupin let the boggart out of the trunk, where upon seeing Fitz it immediately turned into Leopold. So staring down his dark side not for the first time, Fitz pointed his wand at Leopold and said, "Riddikulus."

Leopold didn't change at all, except for his arms suddenly becoming wrapped around the waist of an invisible lover, and his face tilted like he was snogging her hard.

"So a boggart can only be one thing at a time," Simmons commented conversationally from the side as she watched the scene. "Zombie Jemma isn't visible — it really is like Eleven and River in his tomb."

They all stood around watching Leopold make out with an invisible Zombie Jemma until Leopold fell to his knees and then was invisibly pushed to the ground, at which point Simmons stepped forward and whistled at the boggart to draw its attention to her before the boggart became NSFW. It immediately turned into a normal standing Leopold again, who soon had pie all over his face after Simmons had cast her spell at it, before she motioned Professor Lupin forward to stuff the boggart back into the trunk that he was storing it in.

"Do I even want to know what was going on there?" Professor Lupin asked once the boggart was successfully stored away and he'd turned back to look at his two best and brightest students.

"No, Sir — you really don't," Simmons answered. "But Harry proved that he could successfully cast Riddikulus, which should be good enough."

"Yes, yes, of course," Professor Lupin replied. "I never had any doubts that he could, I just never wanted Voldemort to appear is the only reason that I never had him face it before."

~FS~

The following day was the last Hogsmeade visit of the year, a week before the train headed back to London.

But at breakfast before they could go, Malfoy swaggered up to them like he thought he was about to wreck their day. "Guess what?" he sneered at Harry.

"You failed all of your classes and won't be returning next year? — and there was much rejoicing," Fitz retorted, looking at the Snake boredly.

"Lupin's a werewolf. Professor Snape told us all this morning. None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all. They'll be worried he'll eat their kids."

As Fitz looked back at Malfoy with a slightly raised eyebrow, surprised but not about to show Malfoy any more emotion that light skepticism and distrust, Simmons exclaimed, "So that's what that silver ball Professor Lupin's most afraid of is! I wondered what that was. Also explains why Snape discussed werewolves the day he took over the class, and I bet if we looked we'd find that that day was the full moon. Odd that none of our other DADA classes for the entire rest of the year fell on the full moon again, though."

Fitz turned to look at his wife in surprise, not hiding real his emotions from her. "So it's really true, and Malfoy's not just being a cunt?"

"I can't say for sure, but it does add up," Simmons answered. "And it's been obvious that Snape hates Professor Lupin more than anyone except for you and Neville, that we've seen anyway, so it makes sense that Snape would tell his House that in order to get Professor Lupin kicked out through the court of public opinion. Guess he didn't do it before since Dumbledore hired Professor Lupin, so Dumbledore was going to protect the professor at all costs until the end of the year. But now that the school year's over, and nobody blinks an eye when a new DADA professor has to be hired, he had no qualms about ruining Professor Lupin's career forever. Once again, shame there's no court in the wizarding world to hold Snape accountable in, as this is essentially a false rape accusation case, since Professor Lupin has a year as a wonderful teacher and seven as a student worth of proof that he's perfectly harmless, and Snape's slander will destroy any chance of Professor Lupin probably ever holding a normal or maybe even legal job again, despite there being zero evidence that Professor Lupin isn't safe and can't keep teaching, or doing any normal job. It'd be a wrongful firing suit, too, if this world had any sense of justice and a court system to rule upon it — but tragically they don't, so Snape will keep abusing students and now at least one professor here, and Professor Lupin will never work again anywhere."

"Yeah — I really do hate this fucking world sometimes," Fitz sighed. Looking back over at Malfoy, he said without a trace of sarcasm, as he was at least partially sincere, "Thanks for letting us know. Shame to see him go, though, he was the best DADA professor we've ever had — even you'll have a hard time arguing against that, as Professor Quirrell really taught us very little, and Lockhart was a vain joke."

Malfoy just stared at them in shock as they turned back around to finish eating, having expected a much angrier response from them, before finally wandering back over to his own table, wondering how he could never get a rise out of those two like he could everyone else whom he bullied.

No one else came over to bother FitzSimmons before the great oak doors opened to allow everyone who had permission to head to Hogsmeade, and so thirty minutes after Malfoy had come over to try to bother them, FitzSimmons were the first ones out the door and on the road to the small magical town. The science duo spent the day much like they had all of their previous trips to the magical town, exploring the shops that they were interested in and eating lunch at the Three Broomsticks, but when it came time to be heading back up to the castle for supper, instead of taking the main road in the direction back towards the gates of Hogwarts, they headed in rather the opposite direction.

Where once out of sight of everyone, none of whom had questioned two students heading further away from the castle because quite frankly they didn't care what anyone else was doing, Simmons raised her wand hand and brought the Knight Bus screeching to a halt in front of them.

For FitzSimmons had the sneaking suspicion that with Sirius Black still on the loose, the professors were going to be even tighter about the security in trying to make Harry go back to his relatives' house — or in reality now the Burrow, since the wards around the Dursleys were broken and would no longer provide Harry Potter with any security. So given a perfect escape opportunity a week before the end of term but after all of the exams had been taken, FitzSimmons had shrunk their trunks and stuck them in their pockets that morning before they had left their dorm room, so that they could head to their summer home before anyone could try to make them go to either of the two places that they had no intentions of ever going in their lives, even if they were only aware of being sent to what was now the wrong one.

To say that Mr Shunpike was surprised to see them would have been an understatement, but twenty galleons each for him and the driver were very persuasive in convincing him that they were completely allowed to be heading to America a week early, and that once again they needed the magical oath that he and the driver wouldn't tell anyone where they had taken FitzSimmons for the summer.

It took four days before anyone first became suspicious that the most important student in the school wasn't actually in the school anymore.

With no classes none of the professors or adults immediately noticed Harry Potter's absence, and with FitzSimmons always keeping to themselves during the year none of the other students particularly noticed that they were missing even more than normal either, not that any of them really would have said anything to an adult anyway, as they were just kids — who knew what on earth was going on with the odd pair who were never out of each other's sights. But when Professor McGonagall didn't see the pair sitting at the Gryffindor table eating breakfast on the fourth day after the Hogsmeade trip, she finally decided to ask around to see if any of the other professors could remember seeing Potter over the last several days. When none of them could, she immediately alerted Dumbledore and began a subtle teacher-wide search for the Boy-Who-Lived, all to no avail.

Once again, he had slipped out of their grasp and was nowhere to be found.

Of course, Dumbledore had bigger problems than just his human sacrifice disappearing for the summer again when a definitely-probably mass murderer was still on the loose. Because a few weeks earlier, he had once again promised Mrs Weasley that Harry could stay at her house over the summer, after Mrs Weasley had promised him that she could keep Harry safe from the evil, scary Black dude by keeping him imprisoned inside the Burrow property all summer. And the Ministry he could deal with if they ever found out that Harry disappeared every summer, but Mrs Weasley — she scared him.

He was not looking forward to having to tell her yet again that Harry was nowhere to be found.