The following morning, Fitz was the first to awaken from slumber.
Looking around him, he sighed softly — any hopes that this 0-8-4 thing would end with the new day and they'd wake up in their bed or in the lab on the Shield base were quickly ended as he took in the stone walls of what could only be a castle. But Jemma and Daisy were both curled into his sides, so at least they were all still together. And speaking of his wives, they were waking as well.
After Daisy's token grumbling that they were still stuck at Hogwarts, and Simmons' not particularly hopeful reminder that there was still the possibility that it was a twenty-four, or forty-eight, or etc length time-based thing, the older girl exclaimed suddenly, "Look! Our trunks!"
"And a damn good thing," grumbled Daisy as she got out of bed and walked over to hers.
"Or what? You'd have to wear the same thing you wore yesterday that no one saw yesterday and couldn't see today either because we're all wearing identical robes over them?" teased Fitz.
"Oh, shut up," groused Daisy, throwing at him the first thing she grabbed out of her old clothes that she'd picked up off the floor on her way over to her trunk.
Easily catching it, it did make Fitz think, though.
"Um, girls?" he asked, looking over at Daisy, and Simmons who'd climbed out of bed and walked over to her trunk as well. Holding up Daisy's bra, which is what she'd thrown at him, he continued, "Are your clothes yours, or the girls you're replacing? Because that could have a very major impact considering you've replaced eleven year olds."
Simmons and Daisy both looked up and stared at each other for a second, before diving into their trunks. A second later, they both pulled back, each holding up a bra.
"This definitely isn't an eleven year old," commented Daisy.
"This is exactly my bra from yesterday, just in a different color," said Simmons, actually taking a second to look at hers. "And um, Daisy? That's yours from yesterday as well."
"Oh — yeah, I guess it is," said Daisy after a second, once she finally actually looked at it. Looking over at Fitz, she added, "Okay, genius, what's your explanation for this?"
"I'm pretty sure Jemma has as much of a likelihood of understanding anything that's going on here as I do," grumbled Fitz, before saying normally, "but apparently the 0-8-4 somehow scanned all of our clothes before transporting us here, and just duplicated them — after all, no one can actually tell we're any different from the people we're supposed to be, remember? I mean, I am assuming that all your other clothes are duplicates of what you were wearing yesterday, too, right?"
Simmons nodded, having already thought of that as he was explaining his theory. "Sure are."
"Just great," groused Daisy. "That means I don't have any sports bras for training in — not that that affects either of you two, since you never train anyway."
"Fitz and I went on a run last year when we visited his mum in Scotland," replied Simmons in mock defensiveness, that only earned her a friendly glare from Daisy.
"You ran three miles, Fitz got tired right at the point where you happened to come across an ice cream shop, and you walked the three miles back home eating ice cream — I do follow you both on the Shield training log system, you know, despite the fact that for all intents and purposes it's completely pointless as that's your only workout since I created it back in the BUS days."
Simmons merely shrugged. "What do we need to train for when we always have you to protect us? — Anyway, we've made it through Maveth twice, the future, space, and everything else we've been through without any training or passing our field exams. But as for your problem, I'm sure we can figure out some way to get you some sports bras somehow. There has to be some way for students to order clothes from here if they need them."
Daisy just nodded in response as she said, "You better figure something out."
~FSK~
Once they were all showered and dressed, Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast, and their first day of classes.
Not dorming in one of the four normal housing sections of the castle, they didn't run across anyone until they were nearly down to the Great Hall, but as soon as they did start being around other people, everywhere they went their fellow students were constantly pointing at Fitz and muttering behind his back. But having earned doctorates before he'd even turned sixteen, being the (second) youngest student to ever attend the Academy, and generally having always stood out from the crowd for one reason or another, Fitz was used to having people always staring at him, and was able to easily ignore it.
Because all Fitz really cared about (other than finding a way back to their own world) was surviving in this new world they had found themselves in, something all three of them had far too much experience at for being two thirty-five year olds and a thirty year old. And also like normal, Simmons was there to save the day for them. Thanks to Hermione's extensive reading the year before coming to Kings Cross, she was able to effortlessly lead them through the tricks and traps of the castle, and to their classes on time and without getting lost, something neither he nor Daisy would have been able to do on their lonesome, or even together — coming from a pureblood family with five older siblings and two parents who had all attended Hogwarts for a combined thirty-six years, Ronna knew surprisingly nothing about Hogwarts, or really even about magic period.
But Daisy was nothing if not determined, so with Simmons' help once again, she was able to quickly pick up what they were learning in class. She didn't have FitzSimmons' incredible memories, but she could listen to Simmons and Fitz tell her what she needed to do differently, and Simmons had no hesitation making them all practice everything over and over and over again until they all had it down perfectly before the sexy times could begin — Daisy had never known how much of an incentive to finish boring homework sex could be before then.
~FSK~
But that was all still to come, as at the moment they were just sitting down for their first breakfast in the Great Hall, on their first morning of classes.
They hadn't been eating for long when the two seventh year girls who had told them about the married students dorms and gave them the password sat down across from them.
"You're still here, so I assume you didn't get caught and tossed out," said the first girl they'd talked to. "I'm Elizabeth, by the way, but you can call me Lil." Nodding over at the girl sitting next to her, who'd been the one to actually tell them the password, she continued, "And this is Chloe."
"Hermione Granger, and this is Harry Potter and Ronna Weasley," replied Simmons. "And we nearly had some trouble with Peeves, but turns out he likes scandalous behavior more than he likes getting students in trouble, so we made it through safely."
"Glad to hear it, even if I still think you're a little young to be doing — well, whatever it is you're doing," said Chloe.
"I did have another question I wanted to ask you two, though," said Simmons. "We accidentally forgot to pack a few clothes we wanted to bring in our trunks, and so I was wondering if there is some way we can order clothes from here. Is there some way to do that? And preferably muggle clothes if that's at all possible."
"Of course! I'll get you some owl catalogues, and give them to you tomorrow morning. There's only one I know of that specializes in muggle clothing, but I'll give you some magical ones as well that might have something that could work, too."
"Thank you so much," replied Simmons. "We really appreciate it, and telling us about the married dorms."
They had only been eating again for a few minutes when Fitz suddenly grabbed Simmons and Daisy's arms tightly, staring up towards the ceiling above them with a look of complete shock on his face. Simmons and Daisy both looked up as well, just to have their own jaws drop open.
For silently gliding through the air above them was nearly a hundred owls, circling around and landing in front of various students, holding out letters tied to their legs, or holding onto packages with their talons. Across from them, FitzSkimmons heard Lil and Chloe chuckling lightly.
"I'm guessing none of you were aware of the morning owl post delivery."
Simmons managed to stop gaping long enough to get out, "I read about it, but it's completely different to actually see."
They continued watching the owls soar down to the four tables delivering their parcels, before taking back to the skies again, and disappearing out into the real sky through the large window behind the head table, up near the enchanted ceiling. A large eagle owl alight in front of Malfoy, and the Slytherin gloatingly opened a package full of sweets, looking around haughtily at everyone who hadn't received an owl, with an extra long sneer at Harry — though Fitz was too busy watching all the owls to see him, and Daisy likewise, so only Simmons actually saw the insufferable git's sneer.
But eventually breakfast was over, and the bell rung to send them all scurrying off to their first classes of the day. Which for FitzSkimmons, was Charms with tiny Professor Flitwick. To all three of their great disappointments, the entire class period was spent taking notes, and not actually trying to cast any charms. In fact, pretty much the only halfway interesting thing that occurred in that class was Professor Flitwick falling off his stack of books when he called out the name Harry Potter while taking roll call.
In fact, it was nearly the most exciting thing to occur in any of their classes during the first four days of the new school year, surpassed only by Transfiguration class, where they were actually allowed to transfigure a match into a needle near the end of class. The beginning of class was as boring for FitzSimmons as the rest of their classes had been so far, Professor McGonagall having them all just take a lot of complicated notes on how to do it, something Fitz and Simmons were mostly doing just to help Daisy with, as both of them could just remember, but eventually Professor McGonagall actually let them try the spell for themselves.
As soon as they were given their matches, FitzSimmons pooled their knowledge together to teach Daisy everything they knew, and review it themselves as they explained the parts to Daisy that she hadn't caught on her own. So by the end of class, working together they had all managed to turn their matches pointy and silver, even if only Simmons', the one who had finished top of their class at the Academy after all, was completely a needle, and not just a pointy, silver match. But even Fitz and Daisy's needles were still magnitudes better than anyone else's in the class, as no one else had even managed to make any difference to their match at all.
Astronomy on Wednesday night wasn't too bad either, though, as they were given access to telescopes, where all three of them were easily able to find Simmons' favorite triple-star system, Theta Serpentis, and the biggest star in said system — Alya.
But all in all, it had been a pretty boring week up until that point when they went to bed Thursday night, for three people used to an extinction level event every other Tuesday.
Friday morning, Fitz was looking over their class schedule to see what their classes that day were going to be, when Daisy leaned across him to grab the plate of bacon on the other side of him instead of the one on her side, just so she would have an almost publicly acceptable excuse to be leaning into him.
But as she did so, she happened to look down at the schedule Fitz was holding, and recognized the name of their one professor for the day.
Pointing at his name, she said, "Snape's the Head of Slytherin, and apparently has a reputation for favoring them over everyone else. It's like the one thing Ronna knows about Hogwarts, which honestly, is really saying something about how bad he must be."
"Just follow his instructions, do well, and I'm sure we'll be just fine," said Simmons reassuringly. "We've made it so far, and this is the last class on our schedule that we haven't had yet."
But any further discussion of their Potions professor was interrupted by the morning owl post delivery. And for the fist time since they'd arrived, Harry's owl Hedwig flew down to them with mail.
"Hey, look! Your owl's actually bringing you a letter, instead of just scrounging for food," said Daisy as it landed in front of them.
Taking the letter off the owl's leg, Fitz playfully retorted, "Isn't that how we got together — you constantly coming into Jemma and I's room scrounging for food?"
"Play nice, husband and wife," admonished Simmons. "Now what's in the letter?"
"Hagrid, the gamekeeper, wants me to come by and visit him for tea this afternoon since we don't have class," answered Fitz, reading over the letter.
"Ooh, tea, right up your alley," replied Daisy sarcastically. "Let me know when he wants us to come by for beer."
"Just for that, we're going, and you're definitely coming with us," said Simmons, grabbing the note out of Fitz's hand and scribbling down a quick reply, before tying the note back onto Hedwig's leg and sending him off into the wild blue yonder again, or Hagrid's hut just across the lawn — whichever was closer.
"Oh, no, I have to spend the entire afternoon with my husband and wife — how terrible," deadpanned Daisy, stealing the last piece of toast off of Simmons' plate and eating it in petty mock revenge.
But their friendly domestic squabble was unfortunately cut short at that moment by a more annoying than evil drawl from behind them.
"Oh, look — someone finally sent you a letter. I would ask if it's sweets from your parents like all of my packages this week have been, but I think we all know the answer to that."
They all turned to give the Snake bored and disinterested looks.
"If you're interested in hating my father, you'll have to get in line behind Hermione, Ronna, and a dude named Mack who isn't here. Oh, and also Coulson, May, Yo-Yo, Hunter, Bobbi, and probably some more, since, long, convoluted story about an evil robot I helped build creating a real life Matrix with technology I invented, where it kept my father in my life and prevented me from ever meeting Hermione here when I went to top secret college, and causing everyone lots of trouble. Point being, there's a waiting list on hating my father, and no matter how rich you are you can't cut in line," said Fitz.
"And those sweets from your mom are probably the only package you have," smirked Daisy, causing Simmons to slap her hand against her own forehead and sigh in defeat at her wife's completely age inappropriate (for either of her ages) innuendo.
Malfoy, meanwhile, was staring at the three of them like they were completely out of their minds — which of course wasn't entirely inaccurate, though he obviously had no clue. But what he could tell was that who he had hoped could become his favorite punching bag after snubbing him on the train, wasn't going to act like the poor helpless victim and easy target the Boy-Who-Lived was supposed to be, growing up without parents in the muggle world — he was clearly going to have to up his bullying game somehow to get the fun he wanted. But in the meantime, it was time to tactically retreat, leaving the insufferable celebrity with a false sense of security and victory, so he gave Fitz one last sneer before beating a very suave and not at all confused retreat back to the Slytherin table.
Once he was gone and they were alone again, Simmons said, "Normally I'd strongly discourage telling anyone anything about our real lives, but in this case, it kind of actually worked. And Daisy, seriously, get your mind out of the gutter — you're a thirty year old woman, for crying out loud."
"With the mind of someone far less mature, and normally with superpowers," replied Daisy. "Although I suppose that's probably better than an everything made out of alien robot parts, and only the memories, and to some indeterminate extent the mind, of the human he also is — was — is — whatever."
"If you two are done, that was the bell," said Fitz, shaking his head at his wives as he stood up.
As the girls stood up with him, Daisy asked, "Speaking of AC, does he have a soul, or is he really just a really advanced AI using Coulson's memories? I mean, he seems like the same AC we've known all these years."
"After Aida, I'm really not sure anymore," answered Fitz with a shake of his head. "But he definitely seems to be himself, just in an LMD body, with a more powerful computer-like brain, and with the occasional computer glitch — though those are just about all worked out, I think, after, what is it, almost three years now?"
"So if you want to ask him out on date, you have your husband and wife's blessing," added Simmons with a smirk.
Daisy glared at her, but said anyway, "If I get in trouble with you guys, I'm blaming it entirely on you guys — you're the ones who said it was okay."
"You'll actually do it when we get back?" asked Fitz, surprised.
"I never said that," grumbled Daisy.
"You've always had a soft spot for him," said Simmons softly, but by that point they'd made it down to the dungeons, so Daisy was saved from any more discussion on the topic for the time being.
They joined the queue waiting outside the door into the first dungeon, but when the door swung open with an ominous creek, they got quite the surprise.
"Isn't that — ?!" Daisy whispered harshly.
"It's the professor — !" Simmons exclaimed in a whisper at exactly the same time.
"— who was looking at me when my scar hurt and loathes Harry," finished Fitz in a hushed whisper of his own.
The three of them stared at each other warily, remembering what Daisy had said about this professor being unfair and wondering how that was going to combine with him apparently already hating Harry for some unknown reason, along with whether Fitz's scar was going to hurt again like it had at the Start-of-Term Feast.
They followed the rest of the Gryffindor and Slytherin students into the dungeon, Simmons staring eagerly at all of the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. Fitz had no doubt that she would have been walking around looking at each of them in fascination if Professor Snape's icy cold scowl hadn't told them all that they needed to be in their seats yesterday if not sooner, while he personally still hadn't forgot the cat liver she'd left next to his lunch years before. Daisy, meanwhile, was happy enough looking at the jars from a distance in a kind of gross fascination.
Once everyone was seated, Professor Snape began calling roll, pausing when he got to Fitz's name.
"Ah, yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new — celebrity."
The way he said it sent chills down each of FitzSkimmons' spines, an introduction not seeming to any of them to bode well for any hopes of fairness towards Fitz.
Across the room they could hear Malfoy and several of the other Slytherins sniggering, but Snape resumed calling out names, saying nothing more about Harry Potter at the moment. Once he had finished calling out roll, he proceeded to soliloquize about how his subject was far better, more important, and harder than any other, and how they were all idiots who would fail — not exactly the most encouraging opening speech for a bunch of eleven year olds to hear, or even thirty-something year olds starting a completely new subject.
But in the dead silence that followed his little soliloquy of evil, Snape suddenly snapped, "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Fitz tried to quickly think back over everything Harry had read before coming to Kings Cross and being replaced by him, but nothing about asphodel came to his mind, and the only wormwood he could remember was Screwtape's nephew demon. Unlike himself, Harry didn't have near eidetic memory, so even though Fitz could remember perfectly everything Harry remembered, better than Harry could have remembered his own memories even, Fitz couldn't remember anything Harry had completely forgotten about or never read at all. But to Fitz's surprise, Hermione apparently had read and remembered something about those two ingredients, because Simmons almost immediately said to him in an undertone, "It makes the Draught of Living Death."
"The what?" said Fitz in an undertone of his own, looking over at her in confusion. He couldn't remember Harry reading anything about whatever the 'Draught of Living Death' was any more than he could about asphodel and wormwood, nor did he suddenly remember what the two ingredients were based on that.
Looking up at Snape, Simmons answered politely, "Powdered root of asphodel and wormwood are both used in making the potion the Draught of Living Death, a very powerful sleeping potion, Sir."
It never even crossed her mind that Snape wanted Fitz to answer the question without any help — it had been fifteen years since the last time she'd been in a position where they'd had to have independent answers. Their non-lab classes at Shield Academy, and especially her schooling before then, were such distant memories that such a possibility never even entered her mind. For so long now they had been a team, sharing everything, because the safety of the world often quite literally depended on them solving the problem, and quickly. So if one of them didn't know the answer to a question posed to them, and the other one did, the one who knew the answer just automatically said it, since it was only the answer that mattered when trying to save the world, not who said it — so that's exactly what she did for Snape's question.
Snape stared at her in shock for several seconds, completely taken aback that someone other than the questionee would try to answer a question in his class, or that a questionee would ask a fellow student the answer, or — and far more importantly than either of those — that any first year would even know the answer to that sixth year question to begin with.
But finally collecting himself, he said, "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Fitz immediately turned to Simmons — he'd certainly never heard of this 'bezoar' thingy, but he figured she might have since she knew the answer to the first question.
"Goat's stomach," she immediately said in their normal back and forth undertone they used when talking to just each other with an awaiting team around them.
"In a goat's stomach," Fitz repeated aloud to Snape.
"Five points will be taken from Gryffindor for not answering yourself, Potter," snapped Snape, scowling.
Simmons gave Fitz an apologetic look, but Fitz shrugged back indifferently. What did they care about house points? This wasn't really their life. And what did points actually matter, anyway? So there was a 'House Cup', but what did that matter?
But Snape apparently wasn't done with Harry yet, as he proceeded to ask, "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane? And no asking Granger."
Unfortunately their psychic link didn't extend to being able to pass complete answers to each another, so as Fitz couldn't remember Harry reading anything about monkshood or wolfsbane, he replied politely, "I don't know, Sir."
"Tut, tut — fame clearly isn't everything," scoffed Snape. "Thought you could just get by without opening a book before you came, did you? Well for your information, Potter, monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite."
Fitz merely raised an eyebrow at their professor, wondering whether his problem was with Harry specifically, or simply fame in general, as he clearly had it out for at least one of the two, though possibly both.
But Snape was too busy glaring around the room at where everyone was patiently looking at him to notice Fitz's look, and suddenly snapped, "Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
The Slytherin Head of House didn't get any better as class went on, scowling at all of the Gryffindors' potions, while highly praising the Slytherins' potions, regardless of how good or bad their respective potions actually were. But midway through class, just as Snape was expounding upon the glory of Malfoy's stewed horned slugs, a cloud of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon.
Knowledgable in the potential dangers of lab disasters — which potions was really nothing more than a rather primitive lab class — Fitz and Simmons immediately jumped up from their chairs and leapt away from the source of the smoking and hissing, Simmons also automatically looking around for the emergency lockdown button, before remembering that they were in a completely different world that didn't have such safety standards as she was used to. Daisy had also leapt up and away from the danger, because while she may not have known much about labs herself, she knew that her husband and wife did, and if they were scrambling away from something in a hurry, it was probably something worth scrambling away from rather more rapidly than otherwise.
The rest of the class, however, had apparently not ever been instructed in proper lab procedures, as most of them just sat there until the potion that was flowing across the floor started burning holes in their shoes, at which point they finally started jumping up onto their stools. Which oddly enough didn't seem to be getting any holes burnt in them — it apparently only burnt through shoe material, and not wood or stone.
After Snape vanished the potion with his wand and sent Neville up to the hospital wing with another Gryffindor named Seamus, he rounded maliciously on Fitz.
"You — Potter — why didn't you tell him not to add the quills?" he snarled. "Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another five points you've lost for Gryffindor."
Fitz's jaw dropped open.
"Excuse me?!" he exclaimed in utter disbelief. "How the bloody hell am I to blame for what he did while I was woking on my own bloody potion, at a completely different table?! I wasn't even his lab partner, that other kid you sent up to the hospital wing with him was! If it was anyone's, it was his job to tell his partner not to do whatever he did, not mine! I wasn't watching what they were doing to know if they were doing it right or wrong, nor do I have any responsibility to be paying attention to what anyone else is doing beside my own lab partners!"
Once again, Snape stared at him in shock for several long seconds, as Daisy literally clapped her hands together, excitedly cheering her husband's speech until Simmons glared her into stopping. But it didn't take long for Snape's face to twist in pure fury, and for him to snarl, "That's fifty points and a weeks' detention!"
But Fitz wasn't a naive eleven year old, accepting any punishment handed to him by anyone who claimed a position of authority. He was a Shield Agent who'd been though more shit than most of the world combined, and he wasn't having any of it.
"No," he replied calmly, but firmly. "I did nothing wrong defending myself against blatantly false accusations of intentionally making someone else mess up. Nor am I in the wrong for expressing such so bluntly, given the way I was accused. So while I can't, and don't care enough to try to, stop you from taking away from me however many points it takes for you to get off, I will not be doing any detentions for refusing to stand here silently while you slander me."
Snape's face resumed its former look of shock for several more seconds, before he suddenly swept over to where Fitz was standing with impressive speed, and grabbed the collar of Fitz's robes and drug him out of the room.
Or tried to.
Having been a Shield field agent for nearing a decade by that point (travels through time, space, and foreign planets not included in said calculations of time), Fitz had far too much experience to allow a more or less complete stranger grab him without his permission, and so quickly and easily sidestepped Snape's attempted grab. Simmons and Daisy immediately stepped up beside him in ready combat positions, though Simmons did have to whisper a harsh, "You're not inhuman here," to Daisy as she saw the younger girl assuming a quaking-style position of fighting instead of a standard hand-to-hand combat position, which Daisy immediately switched over to upon the reminder. Fitz and Simmons knew they weren't much for physical combat, that normally Daisy would have to do the majority of the fighting in any fight they might unfortunately find themselves in, but after having spent a week in the wizarding world, they'd observed that none of the adults seemed to do any kind of physical training whatsoever, and so despite their own lack of combat skills or strength, they were fairly confident they could at the very least hold their own against any adult wizard.
When his attempt to grab Fitz failed because the boy had ducked out of the way, Snape immediately turned towards him again and snarled, "That's a hundred points and a month of detention," apparently completely forgetting that it was Fitz's refusal to accept detention in the first place that had put them in their current positions.
"Still no, and if you try touching me again, the three of us will lay you out unconscious on the ground before you know what's happened," growled Fitz.
From the moment Fitz had first said no, the entire rest of the class had been watching in rapt silence, unable to believe that a student (or now students) would so boldly stand up against a teacher, whether they supported Harry (the Gryffindors) or not (the Slytherins). But when Snape suddenly remembered he was a wizard and had a wand, and whipped all nine inches of it out, they immediately scrambled to press themselves up against the walls of the dungeon, to get out of the way.
But at exactly the same time as Snape was plunging his hand into his robes, Simmons had already started pulling hers out, and had it leveled directly at the man's chest by the time his had cleared his robes.
Wise enough not to challenge a girl scorn even if she was only a first year who theoretically shouldn't know too many particularly dangerous spells, Snape didn't bring his up to point directly at Fitz, leaving it pointed towards Fitz's feet instead, and snarled, "I'll only say this once — come with me."
Fitz could feel Simmons beside him tensing up to cast a curse at Snape if the man made any ill-advised sudden movements, but Fitz put out his hand to silently tell her to stand down, before replying to Snape in a tone of utmost politeness, "Of course, Sir — all you had to do was ask."
With one last growl at no one or everyone or the universe itself, Snape turned and stalked out of the dungeon, FitzSkimmons following behind him. He led them up through the castle, until they eventually arrived outside a door on the ground floor that he proceeded to knock on. A few seconds later, it was opened by Professor McGonagall.
"Potter is refusing to do his detentions," said Snape without preamble.
"And the other two?" asked Professor McGonagall, looking at where Simmons and Daisy stood resolutely on either side of Fitz.
"They followed Potter up here," sulked Snape, refusing to actually admit that they hadn't done anything wrong themselves.
Professor McGonagall nodded sternly, and said, "I will take care of it, Severus. In here, Potter."
FitzSkimmons immediately stepped into Professor McGonagall's office, while Snape turned on his heels and stalked back off to his dungeon lair.
Seeing that the Weasley girl and the muggleborn girl who'd known all the answers to her questions in Transfiguration earlier in the week had followed Potter into her office, she said shortly, "You two can go. This only involves Potter."
"Anything that involves Harry involves us," replied Simmons curtly, standing her ground.
"Yeah, we're not going anywhere," added Daisy bluntly.
"If you want to talk to me, you talk to them as well, or we all three turn around and walk right back out that door," said Fitz.
Sensing that it would be more effort than it was worth to remove the two girls, and since she didn't exactly see any reason they couldn't be there for her talk to Potter except for the fact they really ought to still be in class, Professor McGonagall closed the door and walked back over to her desk, sitting down.
Then looking up at Fitz, she said, "So, Potter — Professor Snape says you are unwilling to do the detention he gave you."
"Because I did nothing wrong," replied Fitz unwaveringly, moving to stand in front of their Head of House's desk.
Feeling like the situation might be resolved a little quicker if the entire story was told, Simmons quickly jumped in. "Snape accused Harry of not telling Neville, who wasn't Harry's lab partner, not to add the porcupine quills, in order to make himself — Harry, that is — look better by comparison, which is completely preposterous — and slander. And so when Snape said he was taking five points from Harry, Harry stood his ground and pointed out the obvious fact that that was complete bullshite, which is when Snape took another fifty points away and said that Harry had to do a week of detentions, simply for pointing out the obvious fact that Snape blaming him for something that obviously wasn't his fault is borderline criminal."
Not wanting to be left out, Daisy quickly picked up when Simmons paused to take a breath, "And then after Harry politely said he wasn't doing any detentions for not doing anything wrong, Snape tried to physically assault Harry, for the purpose of what I would now guess was to drag him by force up here to your office. And then when Harry ducked out of the way to avoid being captured by a hostile threat —"
"— a completely natural and reasonable reaction for anyone with common sense, but especially someone who's grown up under his adoptive parents expecting a beating or being locked in a closet under the stairs for weeks on end practically being starved every time someone assaults him —" interjected Simmons, quickly turning their Shield training and experience that were the actual reasons Fitz had duked out of the way, into something that fit for Harry Potter.
"— Snape took away another hundred points and said that Harry had to do a month's worth of detentions. At which point Hermione and I stepped up next to Harry to defend him should Snape try to assault him again, and Snape finally came to his senses and politely asked Harry to follow him up here, which Harry immediately agreed to do, and Hermione and I came with to make sure Snape didn't try assaulting Harry again once he was out of our sight," finished Daisy.
Professor McGonagall just stared back at the three of them for a long time, though FitzSkimmons didn't know what particular part of everything they'd just said that she was having the most trouble with, or if it had nothing to do with what they'd said, and was simply the fact that they were defending themselves against a teacher, and doing it so thoroughly.
The truth was, McGonagall had got completely lost on the second half of their blathering that had covered the month's worth of detentions, and certainly wasn't about to have any of them repeat it. Especially when references of abuse from Potter's relatives had been mentioned as part of it, as she wanted as much plausible deniability as she could get on the subject. It didn't matter what was going on at his famlies' house, Dumbledore was insistent that Potter stay there, so she would prefer if she could pretend everything was perfect rainbows and unicorns for him there should anyone ask her, since nothing was going to change anyway.
Also, the reason for Potter getting a month of detentions, whatever Professor Snape actually meant by that, didn't really matter to her. There was zero chance of Potter, or any other student, serving thirty some odd detentions for a single rule break, and Professor Snape knew it, regardless of how many times he gave out month long detentions. So all she needed to do was make Potter serve one detention that she could say what was, and that would be enough to pacify Severus, which was all that really mattered in this situation.
But as McGonagall finally began collecting herself to reply, Fitz said just to make sure they were all on the same page, "I'm not doing any detentions for anything I didn't do wrong, whether Snape gave it to me then, or you try giving it to me now."
After this added pronouncement, it took McGonagall another second to reply, but when she finally did she said, "So Professor Snape gave you detention for talking back to him in class, is what you're saying."
FitzSkimmons rolled three pairs of eyes in perfect sync.
"No, he's saying Snape gave him detention because he refused to stand there silently like a slave while Snape accosted him mercilessly of intentionally sending what's-his-face to the hospital wing," retorted Daisy, who had more than enough experience recognizing when an adult wasn't listening to anything someone they considered inferior to themselves was saying, and therefore embellishing the story slightly since it wasn't going to matter anyway, McGonagall clearly wasn't listening to them.
"You talked back to a professor," repeated McGonagall.
"Only because he wrongly attacked my character, accusing me of intentionally sabotaging another student's work," replied Fitz, barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes yet again at her complete unwillingness to listen — he thought he'd finally escaped that after proving that an algae bio-fuel hydrogen cell could power a Quinjet by blowing one up with Simmons. "I would have accepted the loss of points without complaint, I don't care about those, but attack my character, especially when it comes to scientific integrity, and I have no choice but to defend myself. Science is my first love. I would never mess up anyone else's lab work, no matter how competitive the lab was, so I refuse to be accused of doing so without an opportunity to clear my name of all wrong doing, which Snape clearly wasn't going to give me."
Turning back to where Simmons was standing half a step off his shoulder, he added in an undertone, "And giving you Daisy's old human results was trying to protect Daisy from what I thought your reaction would be, so that doesn't count."
"Didn't say anything," replied Simmons in an undertone of her own, holding her hands up slightly in defense. "And never have since all of that occurred and we worked out our problems."
McGonagall, meanwhile, completely ignored this clearly private discussion, along with assuming 'lab' was some muggle similarity to Potions, as Granger was a muggleborn and Potter had grown up with muggles, and instead focused entirely on his more or less admittance of talking back to a professor. After all, she had to force him to do one detention that Professor Snape had given him, or who knew what hell would break loose.
So she said crisply, "Talking back to a professor is worthy of detention at this school. A month's worth, however, is a bit excessive, so let's say one detention with Hagrid, fifteen total points taken away, and your promise not to talk back to any more professors."
"Apparently you didn't hear anything Harry just said to you — or Ronna and I said to you, for that matter," replied Simmons coldly, unamused at their Head of House's complete refusal to listen to anything they were saying. "Harry is not doing any detentions, as he did nothing wrong. And you'll have to come through us to try to make him."
"Yeah, and kick us out of this stupid school if you like, we don't care," added Daisy. "We can survive perfectly fine on our own without this school."
It was a bluff in the sense that Daisy (and the other two) had little fear that they (or at the moment, just Harry) would actually be kicked out of Hogwarts just for refusing to do a detention, but not in the sense that she was pretty sure they really could survive on their own at least until the 0-8-4 took them back home. After all, Harry — and therefore now Fitz — was incredibly rich based on what Harry had seen in his bank vault at Gringotts and what they could all remember about the prices of various goods and services in the wizarding world. Plus, they were Shield Agents — they'd survived in far more hostile environments. So even if by some extremely small chance they were expelled, she knew they could survive just fine.
But like she had thought, the truth was that there was absolutely zero chance of Harry Potter getting kicked out of Hogwarts, regardless of how many rules he broke. Dumbledore had made that perfectly clear to Professor McGonagall and the rest of the Hogwarts staff that summer before the boy had started attending. They were allowed to scare him, and threaten to send him back to his relatives that he clearly didn't want to have to go back to, but any actual expulsion was off limits. Which left McGonagall without any actual ground to stand on, which she was suddenly very acutely realizing, now that the Weasley of all people was daring her to expel them. So she did the only thing she had left, and tried to call the girl's bluff.
"I will, you know. As the Head of your House, I have the authority to expel you from this school."
Deciding it was time to call a little bluff of her own, Simmons nodded politely and said, "We'll go pack our trunks then," and turned and started walking towards the door out of Professor McGonagall's office.
As Fitz and Daisy turned and started following Simmons, McGonagall had no other choice than to hurriedly exclaim, "Wait! No! You're not actually being expelled! I'm just warning you that if you continue to misbehave and refuse to obey your professors, I have that authority. Since you're clearly sorry for what you did, I will let you off this one time without serving detention, but be warned, I will not be so lenient on you the next time."
Fitz paused very briefly to look back over his shoulder to give their Head of House a look that said exactly how much he believed any of her threats, and exactly how much he appreciated her attempt to still make them look like the bad guys and herself the benevolent teacher, before continuing out of her office and into the hallway outside. The three of them continued walking until they were outside in the courtyard, at which point he finally asked, "So what should we do for the rest of the morning until lunch? We've got like forty-five minutes before classes let out, and I for one am not heading back into that dungeon before next week."
"You always know my suggestion for when we have any amount of spare time at all," smirked Daisy.
"How about we head up to the library? We are supposed to be in a class right now after all, and that's pretty close," said Simmons. As Daisy opened her mouth, she continued, "To look up more defensive spells — we all know trying to have sex in the library is risky, which is why we aren't going to try to do it, ever!"
"Stealing all my fun," grumbled Daisy. "And it's cute when you two finish each others' sentences, but it's annoying when you just straight-up say mine, especially with a 'no' in front of it."
"The library to study is a great idea," said Fitz, grabbing Daisy's arm and pulling her along with them back inside and up towards the school library.
In preparation for investigating the terror of the right-hand third-floor corridor, the three of them had been spending most of their spare time in the library looking up defensive spells to practice back in their dorm, and even more so after their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class had turned out to be more of a joke than a preparation for defending themselves against anything other than someone or something that was extremely allergic to garlic and turbans. They had already learned Locomotor Mortis and it's countercurse, Petrificus Totalus, and Wingardium Leviosa (who knew when they might need to levitate something out of their way, or something into their enemy), and today they were working on Expelliarmus, which Simmons was really wondering why she hadn't thought of learning first, except for the fact that she'd only read about it the night before since for some even less explainable reason the author of the book had placed it after the other three.
Meanwhile, as the three of them studied and practiced the spell, Professor McGonagall was in her office sighing deeply to herself — she somehow had to figure out how to explain to Severus why Potter wasn't serving any detentions at all, and that wasn't going to go over very well with the Snake.
But one thing she did realize she could do was go to the one person who's will was never questioned, Mrs Weasley herself. It might not be a direct way to keep Potter and the muggleborn in line, but with Ronna Weasley's mother keeping Weasley in line, with any luck the other two would fall in line as well. So she quickly pulled out a parchment and a quill, and set to penning a letter.
After lunch that afternoon, FitzSkimmons meandered across the Hogwarts lawns to Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Once inside and no longer being licked to death by Hagrid's giant boarhound, Fitz introduced Simmons and Daisy to Hagrid. "This is Hermione Granger and Ronna Weasley, my new friends."
"I heard th' Weasleys finally had a couple girls," Hagrid said. "I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest — I hope I'm not goin' to have ter do the same with you."
"Haven't they only been here two years?" asked Ronna, but Hagrid either didn't hear her or didn't pay attention.
Instead, he asked Fitz, "So how was your firs' week o' classes?"
"Pretty boring, honestly," answered Simmons. "It was all just introductory stuff, and no real material — I've never liked the first week of classes."
"Today was kind of interesting, though," said Daisy. "You've got to admit that."
"Yeah, but it had nothing to do with school," replied Simmons. "Although we were at least making a potion in Potions today, instead of just talking and reading about it. I mean, yes, I get that there must be a certain amount of preliminary knowledge on any subject before you can begin actually doing anything fun with it, but —"
"Speaking of Potions — Hagrid, do you know why Snape loathes me so much?" asked Fitz, cutting off his wife's monologue. "He's clearly got something against me, but I've never met him before today, and while I get that he might not be too pleased with me after this morning, he clearly had it out for me before then."
"Rubbish! Why should he?" said Hagrid shiftily, before quickly asking Ronna, "So how's yer brother Charlie? I liked him a lot — great with animals."
"Oh, Charlie's doing whenever Snape looked at Harry at the Start-of-Term Feast Sunday night, Harry's scar hurt for the first time in his life, and then after sarcastically calling Harry 'our new celebrity' when he read Harry's name on roll call this morning, he asked Harry — and just Harry — three I'm assuming really difficult questions," answered Daisy, refusing to let Hagrid change the subject since he so clearly wanted to, meaning he had to know something and didn't want to tell them.
"Questions that aren't even first year based," added Simmons. "For instance, he asked about the Draught of Living Death, which is in sixth year books I read before coming here, and certainly not in our first year potion book — I would know, I've read through the entire thing."
"And when Neville accidentally added an ingredient in the wrong order, and nearly started a catastrophe, Snape blamed it on me. Seriously, what the hell was that about?" finished Fitz.
But Hagrid continued brushing them off, and continued refusing to look completely at them as he did so, saying gruffly, "I'm sure yeh're jus' imaginin' it all — he's a professor, after all."
"Which from everything I've heard from my five older brothers over the years, is debatable whether it should be the case," said Daisy. "I can't remember them saying a single thing about any other teacher here, and yet I specifically remember all of them mentioning Snape, and never once in a positive light. Now, I know enough to know that just because a lot of people don't like someone doesn't necessarily mean that person is actually the one in the wrong, but it does seem like there's enough circumstantial evidence to at least warrant taking a closer look at him, especially when children are involved."
"Professor Snape hardly likes any o' the students — it's not jus' Harry he doesn' like," replied Hagrid gruffly, unknowingly proving Daisy's point precisely.
"Exactly!" exclaimed Simmons. "A professor who hates all their students shouldn't be a professor at all! Go be a genius in a lab or library by yourself, but don't try to teach others as your profession, and especially not children! Children need a positive influence and encouragement as much as they need the actual knowledge itself."
Hagrid clearly didn't know what to say to this, as his beetle eyes just kind of stared at her out of his hairy face.
Sensing that they weren't going to get anything useful out of Hagrid, Fitz started glancing around the room they were in, his eyes eventually falling on a nearby newspaper. At first glance he didn't pay any real attention to the fact that Gringotts had apparently been robbed, as what did they care, but then he saw that the robbery had taken place on Harry's birthday, and remembered that Harry had gone to Diagon Alley and Gringotts with Hagrid on his birthday.
"Hey girls, look at this," he said, picking up the paper. "Gringotts was robbed when Hagrid took me there — and for once, I'd say it actually was a coincidence. Since, you know, Harry, not…. Plus, we shouldn't have any enemies here — well, Voldemort not included, of course, and Malfoy doesn't seem to like us, either, and of course Snape hates my guts for some reason. But outside of that, we shouldn't have any enemies."
"Maybe your 'universe has cursed you' theory extends all the way to other universes before you even get there," smirked Daisy.
"I said that one time, to her — you two are never going to let me live that down, are you?" grumbled Fitz.
"Never," replied Simmons with a smirk of her own. "But what about the robbery?"
Fitz quickly scanned over the entire article, before replying, "They only went after one vault, and it had already been emptied earlier in the day."
At that moment, Daisy noticed Hagrid looking even shiftier than before when they'd been talking about Snape hating Harry's guts. So she asked him, "Do you know something about this break-in, or what they were after?"
Hagrid merely grunted and offered them some more inedible rock cakes.
As they were walking back up to the castle a little while later, Fitz said, "You know, the more I think about it, the more I think there may be something more to Hagrid avoiding talking about the robbery so much than just not wanting to talk about a robbery that took place when he took Harry there. I didn't think of it when we were at his hut, but Hagrid did remove the only thing in a vault when he took Harry there. Now, I'm sure there are lots of vaults with only one thing in them at Gringotts, any number of which could have their one content removed on any given day, but with as shifty as Hagrid was acting, it makes you wonder if that was the vault that was robbed, and he knows he got whatever it was out right before the thief tried to steal it."
"That would all be one hell of a coincidence that he would get it exactly the day it was to be robbed, and that you would be there as well," said Simmons.
"Harry being there definitely seems like a strange coincidence, but removing whatever it was the day it was robbed might not be so much," replied Daisy. "If the owner of the vault — did Hagrid say who he was getting it out for if not himself? — knew someone was after it, and knew who was after it, it is possible coming from a spy world that whoever owns the vault could have known that it was going to be stolen that day, and therefore removed it that day before it could be stolen. And not any earlier, because spy games Coulson, Fury, and Nat know a lot better than me, but wanting the would-be thief to still make their pass at it."
"Hagrid told the goblin that he was there on a special mission for Dumbledore — who doesn't exactly strike me as the spy type, though I guess to be honest I don't know enough about him to actually make that claim," said Fitz.
"Did you see what Hagrid removed for him?" asked Simmons.
"It was just a small package wrapped up in brown paper, and lying on the dirty stone floor of the vault," answered Fitz. "I think it was supposed to be a more secure vault than mine, though I could have just been making that up, because there was nothing really actually indicating that other than the fact the vault didn't have a keyhole like mine does, but whatever the parcel actually was, it would fit in your hand all wrapped up."
"Odd," said Simmons, shrugging. "Well, who knows — maybe they were after whatever Hagrid took out, maybe they weren't."
And that was the last they thought of it having arrived at the Great Hall and plates full of food, whether Hagrid's package had been the one attempted to be stolen or not having no effect on their lives, or their attempt to find a way back to their own world.
~FSK~
Saturday morning, FitzSkimmons were walking out of the Great Hall having already finished eating and wanting to go explore the Black Lake, when the owl mail arrived.
So as FitzSkimmons were crossing the Entrance Hall, a large, grey, bedraggled owl splatted in a milk jug on the Gryffindor table in front of the twins, unconscious. Fred pulled the owl out of the milk, shaking his head sadly at the state of their family owl Errol, until George suddenly exclaimed, "Fred! Howler!"
Fred immediately dropped the owl, staring in horror at the red envelope tied to the owl's leg, wondering what their mum could possibly think they had done in the week they'd been back at school, to be sending them a howler. It wasn't that they didn't often receive them, right or wrong, but they had yet to even lose Gryffindor half a point that week, so he had no idea what she could be yelling at them for now.
George, however, was noticing something different. Howlers very quickly began to smoke once they arrived at their intended recipient, and yet this one was still decidedly nonsmoking. So he carefully leaned forward, and looked at the name on the outside — Ronna Weasley.
"Um, Fred?" he said, poking his brother. "This is for our sister. Errol just sucks so badly he crash landed here, instead of actually going and finding Ronna, wherever she and her friends have got off to."
"What could she have possibly done?" asked Fred in reply. "I certainly haven't heard of anything."
"No clue — want to go ask?" replied George. "And if whatever she did was good enough, we can always save her the trouble of hearing the howler by never giving it to her."
"Sounds good to me."
Three hours later, Fred and George spotted Ronna walking towards them from the path around the lake, with Harry Potter and the other girl she was always with. So George hurried over to them, leaving Fred behind with the letter in his robes so as not to get the letter too close to Ronna to set it off.
"Hey, Ronna and friends," greeted George. "So, mum sent you a Howler, Ronna, and Fred and I were wondering why. Because if whatever it's for doesn't seem bad enough to us, we're willing to leave it somewhere where it'll never get activated by you getting close to it, since Errol made the mistake of delivering it to us, instead of you."
Fitz looked at George in confusion, Harry never having heard of a 'Howler' before; Daisy looked at him in surprise, knowing what a Howler was but not why she'd been sent one by Ronna's mother; but Simmons had a dark look of resigned understanding, knowing both what a Howler was from Hermione's readings, and why Daisy had most likely been sent one.
So she answered, "Due to some inappropriate actions taken by Snape in our first Potions class yesterday morning, the three of us ended up in Professor McGonagall's office. Long story short, we refused for Harry to serve detention for not doing anything wrong. My guess is, McGonagall wrote to Mrs Weasley using Snape's side of the story, since she couldn't write to my or Harry's parents because my parents know better than to believe any story claiming I directly went against a professor without hearing my side of the story first, and Harry's adoptive parents don't give a shit, but she could write to Mrs Weasley about it, and the Howler is Mrs Weasley yelling at Ronna about something Harry did or did not do, probably in an attempt by Mcgonagall to try and control Harry and I through Ronna. Or something like that."
"So what you're saying is, whatever you did or didn't do, you don't deserve getting your ears yelled off for it, and especially not in front of the entire school, which is what Howlers are designed to do?"
"I certainly don't think we were wrong," answered Simmons with a shrug.
"And we can tell you the whole story and you can judge for yourself if you like, but none of us particularly cares what Mrs Weasley has to say, or what anyone else in the school thinks about us, either," added Fitz.
"No, no, I don't think that will be necessary," replied George. "We'll take care of this for you."
After bidding them goodbye, George walked back over to Fred and said, "It's just mum being a nosey busybody again. I told them we'd take care of it for them — so any good ideas?"
"Tie it to a rock and chunk it in the Black Lake," answered Fred. "I don't know if Howlers ever deteriorate, even in water, but tie it on with absolute overkill, and it'll still be sitting at the bottom of the lake when we're all dead and gone."
"Sounds good to me," replied George. "Only one suggestion — we get our brooms and drop it in the middle of the lake, so there's no way anyone ever finds it."