Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy followed Professor McGonagall and the rest of the students across the Entrance Hall and into a cramped room off to the side.
McGonagall explained the Houses to them all, before leaving forty eleven-year olds in there all alone while she went to see if the Sorting Ceremony was ready to commence. The three of them just stood around boredly as most everyone else was a nervous mess, until out of the blue a bevy of ghosts floated through. But the ghosts had barely been there a minute, chatting it up with the first years, when McGonagall returned. She ordered all of the students to form a line, before leading them back into the Entrance Hall and on into the Great Hall.
As they walked up the middle of the four long tables, Simmons whispered quietly to Fitz and Daisy, "The ceiling's bewitched to look like the sky outside."
"Clear night," Fitz commented back, looking up at the velvety black dotted with stars.
"Looks like a really good cloaking device, just put inside a building instead of on the outside of a ship," added Daisy.
By this point they'd arrived at the front of the Great Hall, and Professor McGonagall was placing a tattered hat on a four-legged stool. To their great surprise, even Simmons-Hermione who had read about the Sorting Hat before, the hat began singing, and not terribly off-key at that. But once it had finished, Professor McGonagall began calling the students up alphabetically by last name to be sorted. Which meant amongst the three of them, Simmons — Granger, Hermione — was the first to be called.
"Good luck — hope you get Gryffindor," whispered Fitz quietly.
"But we'll try to follow you wherever you go," added Daisy.
Simmons walked up to the stool, and placed the hat on her head as she sat down. As the hat descended over her eyes, she got yet another surprise in a day already filled with quite a few, including her very being there —
The hat spoke in her ear.
Sure, she'd just heard it sing, but she hadn't been expecting it to have a conversation with her as it sorted her. Though, she supposed if it hadn't been a magical hat (and perhaps not a hat at all, but a human school guidance councilor), it having a discussion with her before deciding where to sort her would have been rather more expected than otherwise. But given the fact it had sorted several students before her almost instantaneously, and certainly all without the lengthy interview process she'd gone through when entering universities to earn her degrees, doctorates, and entrance into the Shield Academy, it came as a surprise to her. As did the fact it could apparently see into her mind.
"Peculiar…very peculiar," it said. "You are a relatively normal, if not very ambitious and already quite well-learned for your upbringing as a muggleborn witch, but you have a soul of a completely different life, and memories and knowledge of that life far outweighing the life of the body you are in. Yes, you definitely present quite the challenge for sorting."
"My two friends — well, my husband and wife, presuming you can see that much of my real memories — and I were hoping to be in Gryffindor," thought Simmons back. "Hermione did lots of research on the four Houses, and concluded that that was the best one to be in. Fitz and Daisy — Harry Potter and Ronna Weasley to you — both have family traditions of being in Gryffindor as well."
"Potter and Weasley, you say?" asked the hat. "Yes, well, they would of course both go in Gryffindor unless they are drastically different from the rest of their families. Though Sirius Blacks are very rare, very rare indeed amongst the ancient families. As for you, my dear, you are certainly brave and daring and have a strong nerve — Maveth looks like it was hell, though I suppose that is of little surprise given that it means 'death' — and while a woman every bit accomplished in her own right, you also have the strong moral center inherent of chivalry, especially when it comes to your husband and wife. You certainly wouldn't be out of place in —
"GRYFFINDOR!" it finished loudly for the entire hall to hear.
Simmons jumped up from the stool with a smile, setting the hat back down on the stool before walking towards the Gryffindor table, intentionally passing by Fitz and Daisy on her way.
"Ask it for Gryffindor," she whispered hurriedly as she passed by, hoping it would be enough to get them to start a conversation with the hat when it was their turns, so they would end up in Gryffindor with her like they'd hoped for.
Several minutes later, Potter, Harry was called, and Fitz walked up to the hat slightly nervously. Simmons had made it into Gryffindor like planned, and now it was up to him to keep his side of the plan. He also wasn't entirely sure what Simmons had meant by 'ask it for Gryffindor'.
As he walked up to the hat, he vaguely recognized the great amount of whispering going on upon the hearing of his name, but he payed no attention to it, as he wasn't really the boy they all thought he was. But this noise was suddenly cut completely short upon sliding the hat on his head, and instead he heard a small voice in his ear that could only belong to the hat itself.
"Ah, yes — the next dual nature student I must sort."
"Um, hi?" thought Fitz slightly awkwardly. "Jemma — I mean, Hermione — told me to ask you for Gryffindor. Does that just mean I can ask you to put me in Gryffindor with her, and you will?"
"Normally, it does not," replied the hat. "That being said, though, few who ask to be in Gryffindor, few who want to be in Gryffindor, aren't placed there. For the very desire to be in such a House generally comes from having the very traits that would make one a good Gryffindor. Similarly, anyone who wants to be in Slytherin, knowing their reputation, has all the traits that would make a good Slytherin. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, on the other hand, are generally different, unless there is family tradition propelling them to one of those two houses — though there are some students who do want to be in Ravenclaw for its reputation for high intelligence. That desire, however, is not necessarily following from their actual traits, and therefore is no guarantee that anyone who wants to be in Ravenclaw will actually make it in, like there is for Gryffindor and Slytherin.
"But all of that aside, in your particular case, asking will grant you Gryffindor for two reasons. One, Harry Potter has the traits that are good for Gryffindor. And two, you most certainly do — I believe you did dive through a hole in the universe to save your now wife, after all, and what greater bravery, daring, and chivalry is there? So yes, I will place you in —
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Fitz breathed a sigh of relief, and returned the hat to the stool before heading to the open seat next to Simmons. He gave Daisy a subtle nod as he walked past, hoping to both reassure her that they could all be in Gryffindor together, and to remind her of what Jemma had told them after she'd been sorted.
There was an extreme amount of commotion going on around the room at the pronouncement of The Boy Who Lived's House, but Fitz ignored it completely, only interested in getting to Jemma. He did politely shake those around him's proffered hands, though, after of course he gave Jemma an extremely tight hug, just barely restraining himself from kissing her as well. But all in all, he payed little attention to everyone's reaction to what happened to this Harry boy he now was, and directed his attention to waiting for Daisy to be sorted.
Daisy, meanwhile, was beginning to feel quite nervous. The girl she was's family may have had a reputation for being in Gryffindor, but she personally was about as different from FitzSimmons as one could possibly be and still be happily spending the rest of her life with them. So while it made perfect sense that they would be placed in the same House, that wasn't necessarily an encouragement that she would make it into the same House with them.
But soon her named was called, and there was nothing for her to do but be sorted and see what happened.
"And finally, the third duality," said the hat in her ear as soon as she slipped it on.
Summoning up her normal demanding personality, Daisy thought firmly, "I want to be in Gryffindor."
"A strong-willed one, I see," replied the hat. "Asking — or demanding, really — what she wants. A bit more Slytherin in nature one might argue, but it also takes bravery, daring, and nerve to do so. As for your demand, I shall certainly grant it, as I would likely be shredded to pieces by all the powers that be if I put a Weasley in any House other than Gryffindor, and as for you personally, while you may have ran away from your current place a few times, you were in doing so still being loyal to your true cause at the time, or loyal to those you ran away from in an attempt — ill-conceived as it may have been — to protect them from yourself. So certainly, join your husband and wife in —
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Daisy practically bounced down to the Gryffindor table, taking the seat on Fitz's other side from Simmons. Daisy and Fitz quickly hugged each other, before Fitz leaned back for Jemma and Daisy to give each other a high-five — their hugging, and anything more for all of them, would have to wait until they weren't trying to lean all across each other in the middle of a crowded hall with a bunch of people who thought they were three completely different people from who they really were.
Throughout the following feast, FitzSkimmons mostly tried to just talk amongst themselves, as trying to remember everything the new people they were knew could still sometimes be tricky or slow, and they didn't want to arouse any more suspicions than they had to about the fact they really weren't quite who they were.
While they were eating desert, Fitz was looking up at the head table to see who their professors were. But just as he got to the end of the table, where a turbaned professor Harry remembered as being named Quirrell was talking to a greasy-haired professor with a hooked nose and sallow skin, the greasy-haired professor looked straight at him, and the echo of a sharp pain shot across Fitz's forehead.
"Um, ouch," he said in confusion, rubbing his forehead lightly.
"Fitz — what is it?" asked Simmons from one side, as Daisy said from the other, "Alright there, babe?"
"Yeah — my forehead just suddenly hurt out of the blue," answered Fitz. "But it's completely gone now."
"Couldn't be your scar that hurt, and not your forehead in general, could it?" asked Simmons as she brushed her fingertips over his forehead, and the scar in particular.
"Maybe — where is it, exactly?" replied Fitz. He'd completely forgotten about even having a scar on his forehead.
"Here," answered Simmons, pressing lightly against the center of her husband's new scar.
"Yeah, that was the spot," replied Fitz. "But that's not biologically possible, is it? Let alone just all of a sudden, with no stimuli?"
"It would definitely be a major abnormality in our world, and an indication of some kind of nerve problem, but this is a world of magic — things could be different here," answered Simmons.
"Since magical biochem isn't in your plethora of expertise, is there at least a school nurse here you could ask about it?" asked Daisy from the other side. "Surely they've got some kind of medical professional here, at a school."
"That's a really good idea," said Simmons. "And I need to see what level of medicine they do have here anyway, to see if I'm going to have to be our doctor here as well."
"We'll find someone to ask after supper," replied Fitz with a nod. "Also, I don't think that black-haired professor sitting next to the one in the turban likes Harry very much. I'd almost go so far as to say that was a look of pure loathing he gave him — well, me."
Simmons and Daisy both immediately turned to look at who Fitz was talking about, but the professor was no longer looking towards them, and never turned to look at Harry again. Eventually, however, Headmaster Dumbledore stood up again, and began giving everyone the start-of-term notices.
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."
Here he looked at Ronna's twin brothers, and Daisy leaned over and whispered to Fitz and Simmons, "Oh, yeah — Fred and George are known for getting in trouble. And have apparently visited that forest several times."
Meanwhile, Dumbledore was continuing on, "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term, so anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch as soon as possible. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
"Now that doesn't sound like a smart thing to have at a school, even a magical one," whispered Simmons to the other two.
"Think we should check it out sometime? I mean, it is our duty to shield the world against dangers," said Daisy.
"Let's actually learn a bit more about this world before we go leaping into danger," replied Fitz. "After all, being first years, we are amongst the least experienced here, even if we do have a lot of advantages over whoever's places we've taken. I don't know about you guys, but I can't actually do any magic yet, and unfortunately my night-night gun didn't make the trip with me — if it'd even work on magical beings."
"Fine, fine — we'll learn some magic, and then go find out what the great danger is," said Daisy, rolling her eyes.
"I actually do know some magic," said Simmons almost shyly, making the other two look at her in surprise. "Apparently Hermione wanted to get an early start, and has been practicing for almost a year now, as she learned she was a witch on September 19th last year, her birthday. But as someone who does know some magic, I can say that unless we go looking for weaponry spells ourselves, it's probably going to be a long time before we have a strong enough arsenal to start taking on unknown forces of death and destruction of the most painful kind."
By this point, some song the rest of the hall had been singing finished up, and the Headmaster dismissed them all to bed. So as Ronna's older brother, the prefect one, began herding up the ten new Gryffindor first years to take them up to their dormitory, Daisy walked up to him and said, "Percy, Harry here needs to go to see the nurse. His scar is hurting him, and he has a really bad headache because of it."
"Oh — um, yes, of course, of course," said Percy. "Uh, let me just get one of the other prefects to lead the rest of the first years up to Gryffindor Tower, and I'll take him to the hospital wing right away."
When he returned a minute later, he looked surprised to see three of them standing there waiting on him, and not just Harry Potter and maybe his little sister Ronna, but he merely said, "This way, this way," and led them out of the hall with the rest of the crowds.
Several minutes later, they arrived at the hospital wing, where he led them inside.
Hearing the door open, the nurse hurried over to them, muttering to herself agitatedly, "Already? Term only started an hour ago, and already something bad's happened."
"Madam Pomfrey, Harry Potter here said his scar was hurting him," explained Percy with an air of utmost importance as soon as she was close enough to hear him, motioning towards Fitz.
"Actually, Madam, it only hurt once really suddenly and sharply for no discernible reason, and then almost immediately disappeared and hasn't hurt again since, nor has it ever hurt like that before," Fitz quickly corrected. "But like Hermione told me, scars you've had for ten years don't normally just suddenly hurt for a split second and then stop."
Madam Pomfrey pulled out her wand, and it was everything Simmons could do not to slap it away when the older witch started waving it over Fitz. But she kept herself in check, trying to remember that in this world it was just like a very advanced, or alien, piece of medical equipment, and not the medieval sorcery of popular culture from their own world — more like the Doctor's screwdriver or Bones's tricorder, than blood rituals and summoning demons thought of Renaissance Earth witches.
After several seconds, Madam Pomfrey said, "Other than severe malnourishment, and far too many healed fractured and broken bones for an eleven year old — or for anyone of any age, for that matter — you seem to be perfectly alright, Mister Potter. So unless it happens again, I should not be too concerned about it."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Fitz, before looking at Simmons to see if she had any questions of her own she wanted to ask.
But apparently she was content with everything she'd seen, as she simply said, "Thank you, ma'am."
Dismissed by Madam Pomfrey, Percy quickly led them up to the seventh floor and the Gryffindor common room, where he pointed out the arches and staircases on the far side leading up to the boys and girls dormitories, before disappearing through the boys' archway himself, leaving the three of them standing alone in the middle of the common room.
"You know, I just realized we have a big problem," said Fitz. "How are we supposed to sleep together?"
"Can we all just sneak up to Jemma and I's dorm?" asked Daisy. "I mean, I'm not sure how we avoid the other first year girls if all the first years are in the same room, or other girls coming up and down the stairs every day. And more amorous activities eleven year olds usually don't even know exist, let alone would be doing, would be even more difficult still."
"Ignoring all the difficulties that plan would pose, it wouldn't work anyway," replied Simmons. "According to Hogwarts: A History that Hermione read, if a boy tries to go up the girls' stairs, they'll turn into a stone slide — the stairs, not the boy. Though the founders only did that to the girls staircase, because they thought boys were less trustworthy than girls."
"Ha!" exclaimed Daisy. "Had the founders ever met a girl? I don't even trust me, being me. And at least amongst the three of us, I'm pretty sure you and I instigate far more of the risqué sex than Fitzy does."
"Yes, well, the wizarding world has some very medieval practices they still follow even to this day, but I'm pretty sure even at their most questionable points in history, they never had trios, at least not publicly," replied Simmons.
"This still doesn't help solve our current problem, though," said Fitz, bringing them back on track.
"You're right," replied Simmons crisply. "But seventh years, and a substantial portion of sixth years at least for much of the school year, are of wizarding age, since that's seventeen instead of eighteen here. Which in the past, at least, would have meant married seventh year students."
"And they would obviously need a place where they could get busy," concluded Daisy. "So where is this place?"
Rolling her eyes at her wife, Simmons replied, "I don't know, Daisy, since I technically made it all up since it's not mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, but it is logical. And maybe one of those girls over there in the corner would know, they look about seventeen."
"Says my thirty-five year old wife who still looks exactly the same as she did when I met her at sixteen," mumbled Fitz under his breath to Daisy as they followed Simmons across the common room.
"I literally don't have a clue how that applies," Daisy muttered back to him. "Because I'm pretty much completely positive no one here besides us is over eighteen, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say."
"Uh…I don't know," replied Fitz back a shrug. "She just said they look seventeen, all while she still looks seventeen despite being twice that, so it just kind of came out."
But by this point they'd arrived at the knot of girls, and Simmons asked crisply but politely, "Excuse me, ladies — but is there some special dormitory in this castle where a guy and girl can, you know, spend the night together? Asking for a friend, of course."
"Aren't you a little young to be doing anything like that?" asked one of the girls with a raised eyebrow, buying the 'for a friend' story about as well as anyone ever did.
The three of them looked at each other, before Simmons sighed, "You wouldn't believe us if we told you."
The girl just shrugged, before saying, "The married students dormitories are empty, since seventh years never get married anymore, and for what you're talking about most couples just go to the guy's room at night, so you won't have to worry about running into anyone in there. But since I'm guessing for whatever reason you've deemed that not an option — which I'd have to agree with at your ages — let me go find someone who knows the password."
She stood up and quickly disappeared up the steps towards the girls' rooms.
As soon as she was out of sight, one of the other girls asked cautiously, "You sure you two — well, whichever two of you it is — know what you're doing?"
"We're sure — and like I said earlier, you wouldn't believe us," answered Simmons looking over at the girl.
After that, they all just stood and sat there in slightly awkward silence, until the first girl finally returned a few minutes later, with another seventh year girl in tow.
"I won't even question why you want to know the married students dorms password, just don't do anything stupid and don't get caught, and if you do certainly don't tell anyone I told you the password," said the new girl. "The password is 'Aeternum' — it's Latin for 'forever'. And the dorms are on the eighth floor on the complete opposite side of the castle, and I'm not showing you after hours. You're on your own if you want to go there tonight."
"And our trunks?" asked Fitz. "The voice on the train said they'd be taken to the castle, but we haven't heard a whisper of where they actually are since we got here."
"Currently they're in your dorms upstairs, but the house elves will have figured out where you are at least by morning if you decide to try to make it over there tonight, and they will have your trunks in your new dorms by morning."
"Thank you very much — all of you," thanked Simmons politely, before turning back to Fitz and Daisy.
"I already know your answer, Daisy. So Fitz — you willing to try it tonight?"
"Given that the alternative is sleeping on my own tonight — sure, why not," answered Fitz.
~FSK~
It was a slow journey through the castle, the seventh years having only given them a rough sketch of the corridors, stairs, secret passageways, and traps they needed to avoid to get to the other side of the castle, but apparently all the professors and staff thought none of the students would be trying to get into any kind of trouble on the very first night, as they neither saw nor heard any human being the entire trip. Unfortunately, they did run across a not-so-human being.
They were walking down a corridor they were pretty sure was on the sixth floor and they hoped was on the opposite side of the castle from Gryffindor Tower, when they came upon a short man dressed in bright colors, floating cross-legged in the air.
"Oooooooh! Ickle Firsties out of bounds late at night!" he cackled malevolently. "Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty. Should tell Filch, I should. It's for your own good, you know."
"Who is this guy, ghost Yoda?" muttered Fitz to Daisy under his breath. "What kind of sentence is 'Should tell Filch, I should'?"
"Clearly a grammatically incorrect one?" Daisy whispered back, but Simmons stepped forward confidently.
"Hello, I don't think we've had the pleasure of meeting yet. What's your name?" she asked politely.
Taken slightly aback, the strange being replied, "The name's Peeves — Peeves the Poltergeist."
"A poltergeist?" Simmons suddenly had an idea that would either work flawlessly or blow up spectacularly in their faces. "Peeves, we were just sneaking off to have sex — all three of us together. I'm sure a trickster like you can appreciate the unruliness of that, and not want to stop our little bout of definitely rule-breaking by telling a professor or staff member, now would you?"
Peeves looked at her curiously and more than a bit surprised for a long time, before finally saying, "Well…I suppose that is quite a bit of trouble in it's own right…. Okay."
And with that he floated off down the hall and around the corner, leaving them alone again. Simmons breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
"That sigh sounded overly relieved — just how much trouble did you nearly get us into?" asked Daisy as they started continuing onwards to their destination.
"I bet everything on a poltergeist thinking a threesome itself more chaos than telling the professors about three first-years having a threesome and getting them in trouble as such," replied Simmons. "So think of what the professors would have done if they'd caught us not only out of bounds, but going to have three-way sex out of bounds, and you tell me how much trouble you think we could have been in. But let's hurry along, I don't entirely trust him not to still tell on us."
Arriving three staircases, two secret passageways, and four floors later at the door to the married students dorms two floors up from where they'd met Peeves, Simmons gave the password and the door swung open with a slight creak of long disuse and small shower of dust. Walking inside, they found a circular common room with individual doors leading off into separate bedrooms. Picking the one straight ahead that engineeringly had to be hanging out over the grounds outside based on the windows on either side of said door, they found a nice sized bed, an attached bathroom, and several windows that had exactly the same view of the outside grounds as the two windows on either side of the door leading into the room had.
"I'd like to see you reverse engineer this room, Fitz," chuckled Simmons as she looked out the window onto the moon-lit grounds. "Space-traveling Zephyr One from the future will seem like a piece of cake compared to a twenty-foot deep room in the thickness of the stone walls."
"Does Hogwarts offer a magical engineering class? Because I'm pretty sure this kind of engineering can only be pulled off in Inception dream worlds and magical worlds," replied Fitz.
"As much as I love Zephyr One, no one cares about any of that right now — and by no one, I mean me, because I'm the only other person here, and by not care, I mean I want to have sex with my husband and wife because it's been a really long and weird day," interjected Daisy, before Fitz and Simmons could get into a longwinded discussion on engineering, and classes, and quite frankly anything that didn't involve them naked in their new bed.
FitzSimmons didn't need to be told twice.