The last night at The Burrow, as all the Weasleys sat around watching the fireworks the twins had set off in the kitchen after the large dinner they'd had, FitzSkimmons were busy packing everything they needed to be ready to go bright and early the next morning.

Thankfully, one of the books Simmons had bought at Flourish and Blotts had a spell for widening the mouth of the bag they'd got from said store, and so once they had everything neatly packed away in their trunks, they were able to shove each of their three trunks and Harry's broom into said bag, so they would only have one small, light bag to carry between the three of them, instead of walking through muggle Kings Cross station pushing trolleys with three trunks, an owl cage, and a broom. As for the animals in their possession, Daisy was going to leave the rat that Ronna still had for some reason in Ronna and Ginevra's room, as she had no desire of ever seeing said rat again, and especially not every day all year at Hogwarts. As for Hedwig, they simply told the snowy white owl to stretch her wings and fly on up to Hogwarts, that they'd be along the following day.

And so the following morning the three of them enjoyed a leisurely breakfast watching all of the Weasleys dash about trying to do everything they should have done before the morning they were supposed to be leaving, contentedly sipping their teas and making bets on how many times Mrs Weasley was going to glare at them for just sitting there doing nothing, like being prepared was criminal or something. But eventually the Weasleys were finally ready to leave, their four trunks and owl cage were shoved into the back of the Ford Anglia, and everyone was crammed comfortably into the comically too large interior of the car that only someone completely oblivious couldn't tell was obviously smaller on the outside.

But no sooner had they finally left then they were back again, thrice, as Fred, George, and Ginevra had all forgotten things, and none of them had been able to remember they'd forgotten whatever they'd forgotten when they were back for whatever someone else had forgotten. So it was fifteen minutes until the departure of the train that they finally made it to the station, the Weasleys all in a self-caused panic. And as Mrs Weasley wouldn't let three well-prepared twelve year olds stroll on ahead by themselves and go ahead and cross through the barrier whilst all the unprepared older students dashed about trying to get themselves and all their belongings to the barrier, FitzSkimmons were stuck waiting on the Weasleys. And then once they did finally get to the barrier with only five minutes left, Mrs Weasley made the three of them wait until after she had sent everyone else including herself through in a completely random order before they were finally allowed to go through, for reasons she gave no explanation of.

But finally, it was their turn, with just one single solitary set of sixty seconds left on the clock before the train was set to leave forever.

The three of them grabbed hands and sauntered the few steps to the solid-seeming barrier and stepped through.

Except they didn't.

Because the solid-seeming barrier was a solid-in reality barrier.

"That's odd," said Simmons as they took a step back, thankful they'd just been walking and hadn't had any trolleys with them, or they really would have looked like a bunch of lunatics to all the muggles around them.

"You're the smart one — why can't we get through like last year, and like all of the Weasleys just did right before us?" Daisy asked Simmons.

"Well, technically only you two came through last year, Hermione was already on the train when we arrived, but I don't think that has anything to do with this," answered Simmons. "It appears to me as if the barrier between the muggle world and the magical one has closed for some reason — don't ask me why, I'm as clueless as you are. But with twenty seconds until the train leaves, we're already too late to make it on even if we could suddenly get through — though honestly, if we'd had trunks and trolleys and cages instead of this bag, I don't think we could have got everything onto the train before it left even if we had made it through. But that's neither here nor there."

"So what do we do now?" asked Fitz. "Because that's the real issue. Especially as coming back through this barrier is what finally sent us home last time — although I do think that was connected to the end of the school year as well, and we couldn't have just walked back out of this world right now had we made it through."

"Diagon Alley? The Leaky Cauldron has rooms to rent," suggested Daisy. "I mean, I assume Mr and Mrs Weasley will come back through this barrier some point soon, but I'd certainly rather not go back to The Burrow. If we're not going to Hogwarts, I'd rather it be us alone, and Harry's got plenty of money for us to live on until we figure out what our extraction point is this time."

FitzSimmons nodded their agreement, and so the three of them quickly headed out of Kings Cross station, and out into the great city of London. As it was only about a two mile stroll to Charing Cross Road and the Leaky Cauldron, and FitzSimmons knew their way, they set out on foot, arriving about forty-five minutes later. A few minutes after that they had rented a room for the night from the landlord Tom, and they headed out into Diagon Alley for lunch.

~FSK~

As FitzSkimmons had begun their casual midday stroll through London, Mr and Mrs Weasley were waving Percy, the twins, and Ginevra off, not noticing that FitzSkimmons had never made it through the barrier and onto the train.

Once the train was out of sight, they meandered back through the barrier and out to the parking lot, to their car. Still completely oblivious that their older daughter and Harry and Hermione hadn't got on the train and were now wandering down the streets of London all by their lonesome, they climbed in and drove home, assuming that all was right with the world.

It was the following morning before anyone noticed that Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronna Weasley weren't at school.

As there were no adults at Kings Cross making sure everyone got onto the platform and train okay, no one at Hogsmeade station checking to make sure everyone was there and got off the train okay (Hagrid leading the first years not counting), and no one checking to make sure everyone who was supposed to be there actually was there as everyone entered the school, no one noticed that they weren't there until what would have been their first class the following morning.

But as Professor Sprout asked the twenty Hufflepuff and Gryffindor second years circled around her in greenhouse three, "Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?", she was surprised to see that the only hand raised was that of Neville Longbottom. So she quickly looked around, and noticed that there were in fact only seventeen students around her, and Miss Granger, who's hand she'd expected to rise first, wasn't there at all. Nor were her two friends.

Looking at the Gryffindors that were there, she asked crisply, "Where are Potter, Weasley, and Granger?"

The seven Gryffindors all looked around them, noticing for the first time themselves that the trio was, in fact, not there.

Finally, Sally-Anne Perks spoke up. "I don't remember seeing them at all yesterday or today. And Hermione and Ronna weren't in our dorm room last night or this morning now that I think about it."

"And Harry wasn't in ours that I saw," added Neville, Dean and Seamus nodding their agreement.

Madam Sprout made a mental note to ask Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House, after class if she knew where Potter, Weasley, and Granger were, before beginning the lesson with the seventeen students who were there. But as soon as class was over, she did go find Professor McGonagall, just to find out that she hadn't realized the three of them were missing either.

Immediately going to visit Dumbledore, McGonagall told the Headmaster that Potter, the older Weasley girl, and Granger apparently hadn't arrived at the school the evening before. As soon as he heard that Harry and a Weasley weren't at school he immediately leapt up and began giving orders to the portraits in his office, before promising McGonagall that he would have them there safely in no time.

Despite knowing the panic he could have to deal with, the first place Dumbledore himself visited in his search for Harry Potter was The Burrow, to find out the last time Mrs Weasley had seen them. As expected, Mrs Weasley was of course horrified to hear that Harry hadn't made it to school like he was supposed to, but once Dumbledore had calmed her down with promises to have everything as right as rain in no time flat, he was able to pull out of her that at two minutes until eleven the day before, Harry (and the other two) had been right outside the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, but then she had gone through the barrier with Ginny, and had been too busy making sure Ginny got on the train before it rolled out of the station that she hadn't actually seen Harry come through. She had just assumed he'd come through the barrier right after her and Ginny, and got on the train when she wasn't looking. Because when she'd crossed back through the barrier with Mr Weasley after the train had left, he hadn't been anywhere between there and her husband's despicable flying Ford Anglia.

Fortunately at that moment an owl came swooping in with a message from Tom, the Leaky Cauldron landlord. One of the headmaster portraits Dumbledore had sent off went to their portrait in the Leaky Cauldron to see if Tom had seen or heard of their whereabouts, and of course he had, as he'd rented them their room the day before. So Dumbledore quickly apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, where Tom told him they had gone out into Diagon Alley a few hours earlier.

By this point of the day it was lunchtime, and as Dumbledore walked down the street of Diagon Alley, he found the three of them sitting at a little café, having just finished lunch and now chatting away as they sipped tea, and generally enjoying themselves.

"Harry! Miss Weasley! Miss Granger!" he exclaimed, walking up to their table. "I'm so glad I finally found you, and you haven't been hurt! Why weren't you on the train to Hogwarts?!"

"We couldn't get through the barrier, Sir," answered Simmons. "Mrs Weasley went through with Ginevra right before us, and the rest of the Weasleys had all made it though before that, but when the three of us tried going through, we just ran into a solid wall."

"Yeah, and by that point it was already less than a minute until the train left, so we knew we couldn't make it onto the train in time even if we could miraculously get through then when we couldn't five seconds before, so we came here, since the Leaky Cauldron has rooms we could rent, and this is a nice place to live," continued Daisy.

"But why didn't you send a letter by owl? You own an owl, if I'm not mistaken, Harry?"

"We sent Hedwig up to Hogwarts Saturday afternoon, since he's an owl who can fly, so it's stupid to put him in a cage and carry him through a muggle train platform and keep him locked up in a cage for an entire train ride," answered Fitz. "So we didn't have an owl to send a letter with."

He had zero intentions of telling the headmaster that they wouldn't have sent a letter even if they could have, as they'd intentionally escaped here instead of waiting on Mr and Mrs Weasley to return, since if they weren't going to be at Hogwarts, they wanted to be alone.

But the headmaster was unfortunately already thinking along similar lines, as he replied, "Oh. Well why didn't you wait on Mr and Mrs Weasley to return, or send a letter when you arrived here, as there is an owl post office here in Diagon Alley?"

And those were exactly the kind of questions they were hoping to avoid.

But Daisy fortunately was a quick-thinker, and put on her girliest, most innocent look, and answered, "We panicked and didn't know what to do, Sir! There weren't any adults around, and the barrier had closed on us with absolutely no explanation, and all we could think of was that the Leaky Cauldron had a place we could stay at so we wouldn't be stuck in the muggle Kings Cross station. We didn't think in our states of panic about sending a letter, or that we could from here without having Harry's owl, Hedwig!"

Amazingly, Dumbledore swallowed her cock-and-bull story hook, line, and sinker, despite its plethora of irregularities and the very observable fact that they looked anything but panicked.

"Well, I'm just thankful I was able to find you before anything bad happened to you," the headmaster replied instead. "Now if you can come with me, I'll get you back to Hogwarts."

"We just need to go back by the Leaky Caldron and check out and get our stuff," said Simmons, "and then we can come."

Fifteen minutes later, Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy stood next to Dumbledore outside the Leaky Cauldron as he raised his wand hand and called the Knight Bus. FitzSkimmons had really been hoping he had some better way to get them to Hogwarts, as their three trips on it a few weeks earlier were still fresh in their minds, but there was nothing to be done but get on it after Dumbledore, who at least had the courtesy to pay for their rides for them after his barrier had locked them out.

They rolled to a stop at the Hogwarts gates a little while and a rough, jerky ride later, before strolling up the path from the gates to the castle itself with the headmaster. Simmons spent the entire time asking him everything she could think of about running the castle, ever the one wanting to learn. Fitz and Daisy, on the other hand, hung back a little ways and spent the entire walk bumping into each other, and trying not to giggle too loudly, that Dumbledore or their wife would turn back to see what they were doing or tell them to be quiet and stop messing around.

By the time they made it up to the castle, it was too late for them to try to make it to Defense Against the Dark Arts class, so FitzSkimmons walked up to the married dorms, and got busy before supper — and not with unpacking their clothes from their trunks or reviewing their day's school lessons they'd missed. But as it turned out, even though they obviously didn't know it yet, their late arrival was actually quite fortunate for them, as the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was being overrun at that moment with a flock of pixies that their new professor had absolutely zero control over.

Eventually, however, they had to cease their fun, and return to the rest of the castle for supper in the Great Hall. As soon as they arrived they were quickly greeted by all the other Gryffindors who had heard about their absence by that point, asking all about what had happened to them and where they'd been. But eventually they were able to settle down and start eating, and for the most part return back to their own little three-person world.

However, they hadn't been eating for very long, when all three of them felt someone's eyes fixed on Fitz, and looked up simultaneously to see a very small, mousy-haired boy staring transfixed at Harry. Although as soon as their three piercing gazes fell on him at the same time, he visibly cowered. Simmons supposed they should have been a little more discrete and certainly softer, but ten years of being Shield agents didn't just instantly disappear because they were pretending to be twelve year olds.

But after a few seconds, the little boy managed to stutter out breathlessly, "All right, Harry? I'm–I'm Colin Creevey. I'm in Gryffindor, too. D'you think — would it be all right if — can I have a picture?" he asked, raising the camera he was holding hopefully.

"No!" exclaimed all three FitzSkimmonses at the same time.

And then, also in perfect sync, they gave their excuses.

"Plausible deniability," said Daisy, the least concerned about trying to make sure no one became suspicious of them.

"We don't want to draw any more attention to ourselves than we already get," said Simmons.

"I don't like having my picture taken," said Fitz.

In reality, it was a trained reaction from being Shield agents to never have their photo taken by unknown parties when they could avoid it. That usually meant security cameras, but it also included any form of press, and while this kid was probably harmless, none of them were about to risk it. And even if they weren't at all known in this world, because it existed entirely in the 0-8-4, they didn't want to become known, either (even if Fitz's Harry was admittedly already famous). But none of that was something they could explain to this nervous eleven year old, who looked severely crestfallen at their admittedly abrupt and unintentionally harsh refusal.

But props had to be given the kid, as he soldiered on bravely, "Please? I want to prove I've met you. You're really famous, and everyone's told me all about you, and I want to take a bunch of photos from here home to my milkman dad, and it'd be really good if I had one of you. Maybe I could even stand next to you, and then you could sign it?"

But at that moment, Malfoy's loud, scathing voice said right behind them, "Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?"

FitzSkimmons turned around to look at him like something unpleasant on the bottom of their shoes. He was flanked by his thugs like he had been all of the year before, though he did at least shy away slightly from Daisy, clearly remembering her knocking him out cold in Flourish and Blotts a few weeks earlier.

But he wasn't quite scared enough not to shout out to everyone within hearing distance, which was pretty much the entire hall given the fact he yelled it as loudly as he possibly could, "Everyone line up! Harry Potter's giving out signed photos!"

"Yeah — of your mum," retorted Fitz, not bothering with the fact that it didn't even make sense, just trusting that it would incense the git. Which it did.

The pureblood gaped like a fish out of water for a second, before lunging at him, fists flying. Unfortunately for him, even though he attacked slightly to Simmons' side of Fitz and not Daisy's side, FitzSimmons were a long way from the kids who had joined Coulson on the BUS, and Fitz leaned slightly out of the way to be able to grab the back of Malfoy's neck and slam him face-first into a dish of shepherd's pie, as Simmons slammed the palm of her hand as hard as she could into the side of his ribs. It was hard to tell over the sickening thud his skull made as it hit the bottom of the ceramic serving dish, but she thought she might have heard a crack or two signifying that she'd successfully broken a few of his ribs. As FitzSimmons both glanced back slightly to look at Malfoy's bodyguards to make sure they weren't suicidal enough to try attacking as well, Malfoy's unconscious body slowly slid down the table until he was laying over the bench.

But before FitzSimmons could think about what to do with his body so that they could get back to eating, they simultaneously heard, "What do you think you're doing?! Fighting is not allowed in this school!" and "Who's giving out signed photos? Ah, Harry Potter! I should have known!"

Completely ignoring who she briefly recognized as the wizard who'd been signing books in Flourish and Blotts, Simmons quickly and firmly said to Professor McGonagall, "He attacked Harry — we were just defending ourselves from getting punched, and making sure he couldn't try attacking us a second time."

"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules. Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter and Granger! And never let me catch you doing it again!"

"Did you listen to a damn word the woman just said to you?!" snapped Daisy in righteous anger. "Harry was attacked! He had every right to defend himself, and as someone nearby seeing what was going on, Hermione had every right to defend Harry from the attack as well! Hell, I would have helped out if I could have reached, and they hadn't already ended it!"

After staring at Daisy in shock for several seconds at being addressed so bluntly, McGonagall said coldly, "That's ten points apiece from Gryffindor, and detention for all three of you."

Simmons let out a long, steadying breath to try to calm herself, as Fitz reached behind him and grabbed Daisy's leg under the table to silently tell her to let Simmons, the most diplomatic of the three of them, take care of this.

Once she slightly had her anger at McGonagall's violation of basic human rights mostly under control, Simmons answered with a coldness that chilled everyone in the vicinity to their bones, "No. Take away all the points you like, write to Mrs Weasley if you think it will make you feel like you're taking the moral high-road here, but we will not do detention for exercising our God-given right to defend ourselves."

And to emphasize her point, she slowly pulled her wand out from her robes, pointing it right at McGonagall's heart. Fitz and Daisy quickly followed her lead, Fitz pointing his at the book-signing professor in case he tried anything, while Daisy pointed hers at McGonagall's heart same as Simmons.

"Don't you dare point those wands at me!" exclaimed McGonagall, as Lockhart noticeably took a few steps backwards, trying to shield himself from Fitz's wand with a few Gryffindors.

"We are not doing detention for doing nothing wrong," repeated Simmons coldly, completely ignoring what McGonagall had said. "And if you try to make this hard, we will fight you, hand-to-hand or with wands, or probably both at the same time since we can and you can't. And I'll take our chances on beating you, even with your magic undoubtedly being more advanced than ours, because our actual fighting skill is way beyond yours, and we can combine physical and magical in a way you as a witch will never have dreamed of, if you even know anything about physical combat to begin with."

"And if we're forced to fight, we fight to neutralize, not disarm," added Daisy. "And we don't stop until the threat is completely neutralized and no longer a threat to anyone, so choose wisely."

McGonagall stared at their hardened faces for several long seconds, as everyone in the Great Hall stared at the stare down wondering what was going to happen, until their Head of House finally seemed to come to a decision of self-preservation, and said crisply as if trying to take control of the situation, "Fifty points each."

Looking down at Malfoy, she realized for the first time that he was knocked out cold, and she quickly looked back up at FitzSkimmons with her eyes flashing. But upon seeing all three wands pointed at her now, as Fitz had decided the other professor was only a threat of tucking tail and running away as fast as he could, she wisely bit back whatever she was about to snap, and instead said coldly, "I need to levitate Malfoy to the hospital wing."

"Go ahead — we won't shoot if you don't look like you're about to," answered Daisy.

Professor McGonagall slowly pulled her own wand out, and pointing it at the unconscious form of Draco Malfoy, floated him up off where he lay doubled over the bench. Then she turned without a word and floated him out of the Great Hall and up towards the Hospital Wing for Madam Pomfrey to take care of. As she walked away, FitzSkimmons calmly tucked away their wands and turned back towards their plates.

Once Professor McGonagall was definitely out of earshot, Daisy looked over at her spouses and said, "Malfoy looked out of it. How good did you get him?"

"I'm pretty sure he has a concussion, and possibly even a cracked skull from how hard Harry slammed his head against this dish, which is now broken itself. And unless I misheard, I cracked a rib or two," answered Simmons. "I mean, he is still a physically developing boy, his bones aren't going to be the strongest yet. And, well — we're a bit stronger than we should be, if you know what I mean."

"Indeed," replied Daisy. "And that did not sound good when his head hit the table, even muffled as it was by the shepherd's pie."

"Speaking of which, can you reach that one over there?" asked Fitz, pointing to another dish of shepherd's pie a little bit down the table on Daisy's side. "This one's kind of ruined now."

"Of course, dear," said Daisy, reaching over and picking up the dish, before setting it back down in front of the three of them.

As she reached, though, everyone on that side of the table that she reached towards shied away slightly, clearly afraid of what she might do to them after FitzSimmons' brief encounter with Malfoy, their 'discussion' with McGonagall, and their very blasé discussion about cracking open Malfoy's skull and breaking his ribs and sending him unconscious and concussed to the hospital. And when FitzSkimmons began eating again, there was a noticeable amount of angry mutterings about them for having lost Gryffindor a hundred and fifty points and seemingly not caring half a knut about it, but no one dared actually say anything directly to the three of them, for fear of ending up like Malfoy — even if FitzSkimmons would never harm anyone who hadn't tried to harm them first.

But FitzSkimmons had barely started eating again when Professor Lockhart, who had begun edging back up to them after Professor McGonagall had left, said to Fitz, "Harry, my man, little word to the wise. Let me just say that handing out signed pictures at this stage of your career isn't sensible — looks a tad bigheaded, Harry, to be frank. There may well come a time when, like me, you'll need to keep a stack handy wherever you go, but I don't think you're quite there yet."

Fitz looked around bemused, it taking him several seconds to remember what on earth the idiot was even talking about.

When he finally did, he asked in genuine confusion, "Who are you?", actually not knowing who this idiot was, not having put together yet that it was the wizard from the bookstore, like Simmons had. But he did know better than to try to tell the guy that he hadn't been trying to hand out signed pictures, as if the guy couldn't tell from everything that had gone down that he was doing no such thing, there would be no convincing the imbecile.

"Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award — but I don't talk about that," rattled off the wizard, clearly a well-practiced speech. "And the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, of course!"

"Right. Well thanks very much, but I think I can look out for myself," replied Fitz, turning back to the table and resuming eating, still wondering why this guy thought Harry would have any interest in taking advice from him.

Fortunately, Lockhart had just enough common sense that after staring at Fitz in shock at being so bluntly dismissed, he turned and slowly walked back up to the head table, wondering where his most-charming smile and irresistible personality had failed.

Throughout the rest of supper, they continued to get nasty looks thrown their way by the rest of the Gryffindors, but everyone was either wise enough, or still too scared of them, to actually say anything, so they weren't bothered as they finished up supper. But as soon as they stood up after they'd finished eating to head back to their dorm, Creevey, the first year kid who'd started it all by not just accepting that Fitz wasn't going to allow his photo to be taken, jumped up and asked them eagerly, "Are you going back to Gryffindor Tower? Can I come with you?"

"No — we're illegally sneaking up to the top of the Astronomy Tower," replied Daisy quickly, causing the other two to turn and look at her in confusion and a slight bit of shock, as they hadn't been aware she was interested in doing any such thing. Seeing their looks, she shrugged, "What? Sounded like a good idea in my head."

Turning back to Creevey, Simmons said more politely, "Sorry, but we're not going to the Gryffindor common room. And no, you can't come with us wherever we are going. We'd like some time alone."

Creevey despondently sat back down, allowing FitzSkimmons to leave the Great Hall without him.

"So are we actually going up to the Astronomy Tower?" asked Simmons once they were walking up the Grand Staircase. "Didn't know you actually wanted to go up there."

Daisy shrugged. "Doesn't really matter to me, the idea just popped into my head so I said it. I wouldn't mind going up there, we could get some snogging in I'm sure, but we don't have to if neither of you want to."

"I'm fine with it," replied Fitz.

"Wasn't saying no, just weren't sure if you were serious," said Simmons.

"Then to the Astronomy Tower we go!" exclaimed Daisy over-cheerfully.