On the Friday morning the day before Halloween, the day the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were set to arrive in the evening, a brown owl swooped down to FitzSkimmons during owl post delivery time.

Quickly reading over it, Fitz whispered to the other two, "He-Who-Actually-Can't-Be-Named is back in town, safe and hidden, wants me to keep him posted on anything that happens here, and use a different owl each time when I do," handing Simmons the letter to read, before she passed it on to Daisy.

"You know, for once we've made it to a Halloween without having anything worth telling him," commented Daisy as she read over the letter. "It's actually been a rather boring year by our standards. Usually we've had at least one incident where we've had to tell Snape and McGonagall just how much deeper they need to shove their sticks up their butts."

"You don't think he wants to know anything as mundane as the fact that two other schools are popping by for a quick visit of seven months starting this evening, do you?" asked Fitz.

"Oh, no," answered Simmons. "In fact, I wouldn't tell him when we inevitably get in a shouting match with Snape or Professor McGonagall — although he'd probably like hearing that we stood up to his mortal archnemesis. But no, if something happens we need to tell him about, I'm pretty sure we'll know it when it happens."

But nothing that they instantly knew they needed to tell Sirius about occurred that day, and soon enough all of their classes were over and they were heading back up to their dorm to drop off their books and get ready for the arrival of the other two schools.

Deciding this to be a special occasion — welcoming their foreign guests — Simmons and Daisy pulled out a dress each, and hurriedly changed into them so they could get back downstairs before they were late. Out of the options they had bought, Simmons and Daisy had gone with casually daring, Daisy slightly more daring in the neckline than her more conservative wife. They also pulled out a bounty hunter outfit for Fitz, and soon headed back down through the castle to meet up with everyone else, looking a thousand times nicer than everyone else in the castle put together.

Arriving back downstairs a few minutes later, they found Professor McGonagall lining all the students up by year, and quickly found their spot in line.

When McGonagall got to them, and saw their non-robe attire, she stared at them in horror for a second before snapping, "Where are your robes?!"

"The announcement never specified that robes had to be worn, so we thought we would create a better first impression for our esteemed guests, and increase the appeal of the castle a little, by wearing these," answered Simmons politely.

"Boobs," Daisy supplied unhelpfully, reaching up and jiggling hers a little to highlight her cleavage and emphasize her point.

As McGonagall opened her mouth to yell at them, Simmons cut her off sternly. "Is this really a fight you want to have right now, right when our guests are about to arrive?"

"Take away your points, write to mom, do whatever it takes to get your rocks off later," added Daisy. "Right now just admit we look damn fine and move on. We will be the first thing our guests notice, and believe me, it will be all the better for it. You want them to have a good impression of your castle? — We're the best impression you could ever hope for."

McGonagall clearly did not hold the same opinion, but as something in Miss Patil's hair caught her attention at that moment, she merely glared at them one last time before turning and demanding that Patil remove the large ornamental butterfly from her hair, and then resumed sorting everyone into their proper places.

When McGonagall called her out, FitzSkimmons heard Patil grumble, "Their clothes are worse than my butterfly," and as soon as McGonagall was distracted again, they saw her stick the butterfly right back in her hair.

~FSK~

The Beauxbatonses and Durmstrangs soon arrived by flying carriage and underwater ship, respectively, and everyone was able to finally head inside for the feast.

The Beauxbatons students took seats at the Ravenclaw table and the Durmstrang students sat at the Slytherin table, while all the Hogwarts students sat at their normal House tables, and food soon appeared and everyone began eating with great gusto.

Midway through the meal, one of the Beauxbatons girls stood up from her seat and started walking straight towards them.

"Hey, the veela you tried telling after the World Cup that you'd invented a broom that could fly to Jupiter is coming over here," smirked Fitz in an undertone, nudging Daisy in the side and nodding towards the girl who was almost up to them by this point.

"When you've both put your eyes back in," sighed Simmons, rolling her eyes at her spouses, "be nice to our guest." Smiling at the veela she said, "Hi. What can we help you with?"

"I was just wondering if you are wanting ze bouillabaisse?" answered the girl, pointing at said dish on the table in front of them.

"You can have it," answered Simmons. "But — well, I know you have your friends over there, but if you would ever like to sit with us, you're more than welcome to. I couldn't help but notice that everyone seems to be staring at you, and well, the three of us know what it's like to have everyone staring, and to not know who really wants to be friends with you, and who's just looking for a spotlight. This is Harry Potter — we can't move ten feet without someone looking at him, and I don't mean to be presumptuous, but it looks like you might be the same way."

The girl briefly glanced back over her shoulder at her fellow schoolmates, before turning back to FitzSkimmons.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," replied Daisy. "But we're not trying to take you away from your friends, either."

"Friends is a bit of a stretch," said the girl as she sat down in the empty seat across from them. "Like your 'Arry Potter, most people are jealous of me and just want to be near me, and care little actually about me. My name is Fleur, by ze way."

"Hermione, that's Ronna, and of course Harry," introduced Simmons. "Sorry to hear your classmates aren't better friends. But we do understand. It's really just the three of us here, because everyone else in the castle bounces back and forth from wanting to be best mates with the Boy-Who-Lived to shunning Harry, and by extension Ronna and I since we never leave Harry's sides, all because something happened that Harry was unfortunately nearby, usually by no fault of his own."

The four of them continued talking throughout the rest of supper and dessert, getting to know each better, until eventually Fleur asked, "Will you three be entering ze tournament? You look a little young to be entering, no offense meant."

"No, we will not be — we are too young, as you guessed," answered Fitz. "We're only fourth years. Now admittedly, thanks to Hermione being the brightest student to walk though these halls in generations, if not ever, we probably know more spells than most of-age students here do, and considering the fact I've faced Riddle — Voldemort, that is — twice already since I got here, and repelled about a hundred dementors at once and survived an encounter with the Azkaban escapee Sirius Black and a werewolf at the end of last term, we're probably better suited to face this tournament than most people who can enter are, but no — we aren't eligible. And honestly, even if we were, we still wouldn't. For one thing, we do everything together, and there's no way they would let us enter as one, and for another, we generally try to avoid both the spotlight and dangerous situations themselves as best we can, which this tournament sounds like nothing but both."

"I assume you're entering, though, if you're here?" Simmons asked Fleur.

"Ah, yes, we are all entering," the veela answered. "We 'eld trials at Beauxbatons over ze last two months to see who would be ze dozen boys and dozen girls allowed to come and enter zair names in ze Goblet for consideration."

"Goblet? What goblet?" asked Daisy in confusion. "We haven't heard anything about a goblet. Dumbledore — that's our headmaster — told all of us that there was going to be a judge picking the competitors. An impartial judge, supposedly, but a judge."

"Madame Maxime told us zat zair was an ancient magical goblet, from ze very beginning of zis tournament, zat everyone enters zair name into on a sheet of parchment, and it spits out ze names of ze three contestants once it 'as decided on zem," answered Fleur.

"Maybe that's the impartial judge Dumbledore said would be choosing," said Simmons. "We thought he meant a person judge, but I suppose a magical goblet could technically be called a judge."

"And we were talking about how there should be a magical way of determining who was actually most qualified," said Fitz. "Ronna said spell or potion, but a goblet would work just as well."

But any further discussion on the topic was cut short by Dumbledore standing up to address them. As it turned out, the judge was in fact a goblet, and it was to be protected by an age line to prevent anyone not yet seventeen from entering. Once Dumbledore had fully explained the tournament like he should have at the Start-of-Term Feast, and sent them all to bed, FitzSkimmons bid Fleur goodbye, before hanging out at the Gryffindor table a while longer to let all the crowds push and shove their way out of the Great Hall first.

"Dumbledore really couldn't have told everyone that it was an age line when he introduced the tournament way back at the Opening Feast, and kept half the school from thinking they could still find a way to enter for the last two months?" sighed Simmons as they waited for the crowds to dissipate.

But a second later, a voice said, "An age line's easy! It should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn't it? And once your name's in that goblet, you're laughing — it can't tell whether you're seventeen or not!"

"Or not," Daisy smirked at Simmons as they turned to face the twins. "They would have just had two months to scheme on how to subvert the line, instead of twenty-something hours."

"Hi twins," greeted Simmons with a sigh. "You really think Dumbledore wouldn't have thought of something as simple as an aging potion? It's not particularly advanced magic, especially for someone just shy of seventeen years. And I'll admit that I don't normally credit wizards with an overabundance of common sense, but that is a magical solution to a magical problem, so I'm thinking he probably considered that one."

But the twins weren't to be deterred so easily from their daydreams.

"It's an age line — if we're older than whatever age it's set for, how could it know?" replied Fred. "You'll see, Hermione, ye of little faith."

"Still don't want to try and enter, Harry, Ronna?" asked George. "We can make some extra potion for you two, as well. And you, Hermione, if you change your mind."

"Bloody hell, no!" exclaimed Fitz. "The last thing I want to have to deal with is more attention, especially in the form of everyone saying that I cheated my way in since I'm way underage. And despite what normally happens, I generally do try to avoid danger, not run straight towards it. Anyway, we already told Fleur that we're too young to enter, so she already knows we can't legally enter."

The entirety of All Hallows' Eve, FitzSkimmons had to listen to everyone discussing who they thought was going to enter, who had entered already, and who they thought would represent each school at the end of the day.

But all FitzSkimmons were concerned about was how this tournament was indubitably going to affect Harry, because everything that happened in this world affected Harry. It almost seemed like it was the theme of the books they were in. And they couldn't see any major junctions where they had substantially changed the plot line yet this year, unlike the previous year where they'd let the adorable, grumpy Crookshanks eat evil Pettigrew before the year had even started, which meant that whatever big plot device was going to happen, was more likely than not still on the schedule to rear its ugly head — and this tournament seemed like the perfect place for it to do so.

So to get away from all the talk about the tournament, which was becoming nearly as bad as the nonstop chatter about quidditch that normally would have been building up by that point in the year, the three of them took a long walk around the Black Lake, frequently taking breaks to snog each other senseless. But eventually the dwindling light drove them back inside, and finally it was time for the feast.

Once all the food had been eaten, Dumbledore finally stood up and said, "Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision. I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber where they will be receiving their first instructions."

In order, as the Goblet of Fire spit out slips of parchment, Dumbledore called out Krum, Fleur, and Diggory.

Then, just as he was about to dismiss everyone, the Goblet decided to turn vermillion one last time, and FitzSkimmons instantly knew that the dreaded plot-twist had arrived, and that there was only one person in the world who's name Dumbledore was about to call out.

And sure enough, a second later, Dumbledore called out substantially less enthusiastically than he had the first three, "Harry Potter."

"Aaand, there goes our year," muttered Daisy as the three of them stood up to do the walk of shame into the neighboring room.

Heads held high, because they knew they had done nothing wrong even if clearly no one in the Great Hall believed that, the three of them strode from their seats at the Gryffindor table up to the head table and along into the room they were to receive their instructions in. Meanwhile, Professor McGonagall had hurried over to Dumbledore to urgently whisper what probably weren't sweet nothings in his ear, while the rest of the teachers joined in with the students in just staring at the three of them, and most specifically Fitz.

Entering the room to the side and finally leaving everyone in the Great Hall behind, it was Fleur who saw them first.

"What are you three doing in 'ere?" she asked them in confusion.

"Don't ask us how, we have no clue, but for some reason the Goblet spat out Harry's name," answered Daisy with clear irritation lacing her voice. "We sure as hell didn't want to be in this stupid tournament, besides of course not being old enough to enter it in the first place, but somehow it happened anyway, so here we bloody are."

"But don't worry, we're not trying to win — that's still completely between you three," Simmons added reassuringly. "We really don't want to be here, believe me. The school's going to hate us even more than they do every year for this blunder."

But before Fleur or either of the other two champions could reply, Mr Bagman scurried in from behind them, and they all turned to look at him, FitzSkimmons taking a few steps backwards to get closer to the champions.

"Extraordinary!" Bagman muttered, looking at Fitz nestled between Simmons and Daisy. "Absolutely extraordinary!" Looking towards the other three students as well, he added, "Gentlemen, lady...May I introduce — incredible though it may seem — the fourth Triwizard champion?"

"Can you explain to us 'ow zes 'append?" Fleur demanded at once, staring hard at the former quidditch star and taking an angry step towards the man who was slightly shorter than she was. " 'Ow did three students who didn't even enter zemselves's names come out of ze Goblet?" Then she suddenly realized what she had just said, and turned to FitzSkimmons. "Wait — 'ow many of your names came out? Didn't you just say 'Arry's?"

"Yeah, but we do everything together," replied Fitz with a shrug.

"Well...it is amazing," said Bagman, returning to Fleur's original question with a definite non-answer, smiling down at Harry. "But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as his name's come out of the goblet…I mean, I don't think there can be any ducking out at this stage…it's down in the rules, you're obliged...Harry will just have to do the best he can."

At that moment, the door to the Great Hall opened again, and the remaining four judges plus Snape and Professor McGonagall walked in. Almost immediately, the two guest headmaster's began insulting Dumbledore for Harry's name coming out of the Goblet, apparently waiting until their selected students were around to hear them insult Hogwarts' headmaster before they began.

But eventually Snape's soft sneer cut through the other arguments, "It's no one's fault but Potter's, Karkaroff. Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here —"

Fortunately, Dumbledore quickly cut off what was doubtlessly a well thought out and probably even rehearsed slander of Harry Potter's character, shutting the Snake up for the moment if not actually telling the Snake that he was wrong and to fuck off, before asking Fitz, "Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?"

But as he gave the headmaster a disdainful glare for even thinking they would do any such thing, before he could actually say the word 'no', Daisy stepped between him and the headmaster.

"Fuck you for even asking that!" she snarled viciously. "How dare you accuse us of breaking the rules for our own gain — or a bloody lynching as it'll actually be, based on the reaction when Harry's name came out of not just all of the students, but also most of the teachers and those two headmasters over there as well. The only times we have ever broken the rules is when it's necessary to save the school, because your incompetent asses let things get into a mess to begin with! Do we really need to go down the list of reasons we've broken the rules in our three years here, and how many innocent lives we've saved because of it?!"

Everyone in the room stared at them, completely frozen — even Snape's perpetual sneer had been momentarily stunned off. It took several long seconds before anyone was able to say anything.

And that was Dumbledore simply saying, "Which means you also didn't have an older student do it for you, either," the first to break the silence Daisy had plunged them all into by calling out their bullshit so bluntly, wisely saying it as a statement and not a question.

Simmons really wanted to ask if that would have been possible, and if all the underage students trying to get their names in and all the of-age students who wanted to help said students, were so stupid that none of them had even thought of trying that, or if it had been tried and none of the underage students' names had come out because none of them were the best in the Goblet's impartial magical opinion, but she could tell she wouldn't be getting any answers to any such inquisitive questions at the moment, so she restrained herself.

"Ah, but of course 'e is lying!" cried Madame Maxime — Snape was back to sneering like it was Christmas morning and Harry and Neville had both just turned in the worst Potions homeworks in the history of wizardkind.

"Madame Maxime!" exclaimed Fleur embarrassedly. "Zis isn't zair fault!"

But no one was paying any attention to her, as the adults were back to bickering amongst themselves.

Eventually the final ruling landed on Mr Crouch, who said, "We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament."

"But what actually happens if he doesn't do what he's bound to?" piped up Simmons. "So he's bound to compete, he's 'obliged to see the tournament through to the end' as Dumbledore said last night, that it's a binding magical contract, but what is actually the punishment for breaking the contract?"

"What are you two even doing in here?!" exclaimed Professor McGonagall, apparently realizing for the first time that they were there. "Your names didn't come out. You have to leave now — Out!"

"Because we're obviously happy to be disqualified — we don't want to do this stupid shit," continued Simmons to Dumbledore, ignoring their Head of House's unseemly outburst. "We're trying to avoid dying, not run headlong into it."

"How about walking? Or shuffling? Or maybe ambling into certain death?" whispered Daisy. "Those are my preferred methods."

At the exact same time, Fitz gasped aloud as if he'd just had a light bulb moment. "So that's what we've been doing wrong ever since we first went out into the field — we're supposed to go away from death, not towards it! You've been leading me wrong this whole time!"

Simmons just rolled her eyes at her spouses' antics, and waited for Dumbledore or Crouch to answer.

Which Dumbledore quickly did. "Harry would lose his magic if he didn't compete."

Turning to Fitz, Simmons gave him a half-shrug. "I would say it would be worth considering, but then they'd probably kick you out of here, and then things would get all messy with us going with you and them not wanting us to, and it sounds like it'd end up more of a bloodbath and headache than we really want to have to deal with."

"Like this tournament isn't going to be," grumbled Fitz under his breath, but Daisy took care of comforting their husband by hugging him from behind, so Simmons could turn back to the adults.

"We'll compete," she told the adults crisply.

"Well, Barty knows the rule book back to front," said Bagman with far too cheerful of a smile for the somber and/or angry vibe everyone else in the room was going for, as if the discussion was now obviously over.

But the two guest headmasters were less inclined to this opinion, and began making heated demands about their schools getting a second champion each as well.

So hoping to calm everyone down a little before somebody did something actually stupid, Simmons asked loudly, "Dumbledore, what school did the parchment say Harry was from?"

When everyone just kind of stared at her blankly, she explained patiently, "You said last night that everyone had to write their name and school on the slip of parchment. Did the school name just disappear off of all of the slips of parchment when they were spit out? Because if it didn't, then shouldn't the school name Harry was submitted under tell us something? Whether it is Hogwarts or some fourth made-up or real school, either answer would give us new information as to what really happened here."

Suddenly she was much less surprised that there seemed to be no detectives in the wizarding world — even the average muggle who'd watched way too many hours of tv crime/cop/detective shows could have thought of checking the school name for some kind of clue.

"Oh. Uh…the school names aren't on the parchment that comes out of the Goblet," answered Dumbledore, almost having the decency to sound slightly embarrassed.

"Of course it isn't," sighed Daisy, dropping her chin onto Fitz's shoulder. "Because that would make this way too simple — can't have all the bloody answers this early in the story!"

Most people in the room turned to look at her strangely for this comment, but Karkaroff said, "You know, I have half a mind to leave now!"

"Empty threat, Karkaroff," growled Mad-Eye from where he'd just entered the room. "You can't leave your champion now. He's got to compete. They've all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?"

"Convenient? The only thing that's 'convenient' is Hogwarts getting two champions," said Karkaroff. "I shall be lodging complaints with the Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards for this violation of the rules."

"If anyone's got reason to complain, it's Potter," growled Moody. "But...funny thing...I don't hear him saying a word."

"We already tried — didn't do any good," sighed Fitz, not that anyone was paying any attention to the person this actually affected the most. "The last thing we want is to be stuck in this stupid tournament that everyone's going to call us cheaters for being entered into. We'd give anything not to compete."

"Why should 'e complain?" burst out Madame Maxime, like the rest of the adults, completely ignoring Fitz. "E 'as ze chance to compete, 'asn't 'e? Everyone 'as been 'oping to be chosen for weeks and weeks! 'Onor for zair schools! A thousand Galleons in prize money — zis is a chance most would die for!"

"Maybe someone's hoping Potter is going to die for it," growled Moody.

Silence fell like a rock at this proclamation.

Mr Bagman was the first to recover, anxiously saying, "Moody, old man...what a thing to say!"

"We all know Professor Moody considers the morning wasted if he hasn't discovered six plots to murder him before lunchtime," sneered Karkaroff loudly. "Apparently he is now teaching his students to fear assassination too. An odd quality in a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore, but no doubt you had your reasons."

"No, no, Professor Moody is quite right," interrupted Simmons before any of the Hogwarts adults could reply, making everyone turn to look at her in surprise, many of the adults seemingly having entirely forgotten that she was even there. "Look at it logically. We didn't enter ourselves, therefore someone else had to enter us. If they entered us for our benefit, to give us a chance to win the money and fame, they clearly don't know us at all, because we don't care about, or want, either of those things. If they entered us to give Hogwarts two chances at winning the tournament, they'll walk away disappointed, because we won't be winning, which means it's still the three person tournament it's supposed to be.

"If they did it to give someone under seventeen a chance to win it — a silent protest of the completely pointless rule change, since the goblet picks the most qualified candidate entered, which means if it picks someone under seventeen it's because they were better and more capable than everyone over seventeen who entered — then I actually think they have a very legitimate point, and I applaud their willingness to stand up against completely bullshit, arse-covering, virtue-signaling rules that do nothing to actually protect students. And if this is the reason Harry's name came out, then I would guess that they created a fourth, 'under seventeen only' school that they entered a bunch of different younger students under, in which case I am simply disappointed that a fourth year, smart as Harry may be, is more qualified than all the fifth and sixth year students who were also entered. Which when you actually stop and think about it, is really more of a statement about the quality of the professors and the curriculum at this school, than anything about Harry. But if that is what happened, then at the end of the day, because the Goblet did pick us, instead of any other under seventeen student, it means that the tournament is still a three person tournament between the three schools like it's supposed to be, because I repeat, we won't be winning.

"But finally, there is the possibility that Professor Moody is in fact correct in what he said. That someone entered Harry Potter into this tournament, in such a way that his name was guaranteed to come out of the Goblet in a magically binding contract — one that Harry never signed and therefore should be null and void, you're just apparently all too monumentally stupid to figure out how to nullify wrongful magic like this that is tantamount to slavery — in order to try to murder Harry Potter, or at the very least injure him greatly.

"Now, I'm not saying that particular one is or isn't the case here, I am simply saying that those are the only four cases that are possible, which means it has to be one of them, regardless of whether that fact makes your hearts all warm and fuzzy — or stone cold for some of you — like you want it to. This is reality. Shit doesn't always go how you personally want it to, or in a way that makes you happy — deal with it. Unless someone can think of some other reason someone would enter Harry or underage students, those are the only four possibilities here — therefore, it by definition must be one of them."

"Also, it's good, not odd, to teach your students to be vigilant for unexpected threats, and prepared to defend themselves should they ever have to," added Daisy. "Better to be prepared for an 'assassination', as you so elegantly put it, and it never happen, than to not be prepared for someone to attack you and end up raped or dead."

As everyone just stared at Simmons and Daisy, and Fitz by extension since he was still standing between them, Mad-Eye gruffly, but what seemed for him to be rather touched, said, "Thank you, Granger, Weasley. These three understand, at least, even if you don't, Karkaroff. Or don't want students to be prepared against the threats out there."

"That's enough, Alastor," Dumbledore interrupted warningly to Mad-Eye. Turning to everyone else, he continued, "How this situation arose, we do not know. It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do."

"Ah, but Dumbly-dorr —" began Madame Maxime.

"My dear Madame Maxime, if you have an alternative, I would be delighted to hear it," Dumbledore cut her off.

Madame Maxime, along with Karkaroff and Snape, glared furiously at him, but as none of them actually did have any alternatives, only more bitching, none spoke.

Bagman, however, never the one to read a room well, did speak after a few moments, and quite excitedly at that. "Well, shall we crack on, then? Got to give our champions their instructions, haven't we? Barty, want to do the honors?"

Everyone still disgruntled, but no longer actively threatening anything, Mr Crouch gave the three champions and FitzSkimmons their instructions for the first task. Or rather, told them nothing, as the first task was to be a complete and total surprise to test their ability to bullshit their way through an unknown situation — though, those obviously weren't his exact words.

"This should be a piece of cake — we've done nothing but have 'courage in the face of the unknown' since we joined the team," Daisy smirked quietly into Fitz's ear where she was still clinging to his back like the monkey he wanted, and Coulson, Jemma, and she herself still wouldn't let him get, causing Fitz to smirk as well.

But Mr Crouch was still talking. "The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges. The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Finally, owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests."

"Well that's stupid!" exclaimed Simmons loudly, before realizing she had actually said it out loud when everyone turned to stare at her. Standing tall, she continued forcefully, "Well, it is! The purpose of school is to learn, not to do stupid tournaments like this. And how exactly are you going to know if you learned what you needed to if you don't test yourself in exams? — It's not like these tasks are going to cover even a tenth of the spells and potions and defense strategies we'll be covering in our classes during the year and be tested on at the end of the year. And those three are all seventh year students — are they not taking their NEWTs? The governing body of NEWTs isn't going to just hand them all their NEWTs because they happened to have their names regurgitated by some magical cereal bowl, and they need those test results for getting jobs in the real world as soon as they graduate right after the tournament!"

"And if we're being honest, this tournament doesn't exactly sound too demanding, and especially not time consuming, if you're not telling us what any of the tasks are," added Daisy. "I mean, there's only three tasks, how damn time consuming can three tasks really be? — Or two, actually, since the first doesn't count, as its time consumption is zero given the fact that we have to bullshit it day of."

"Yeah, we're taking our final exams," finished Fitz succinctly. "We're here to learn, not wank off in some tournament we don't want to be a part of anyway."

As they had been most of time the three Shield agents had been in the room, everyone was once again staring at the three of them like they were completely out of their minds.

Mr Crouch, however, seemed to be completely oblivious to everything except for what he needed to say about the tournament, and after a few seconds simply turned to Dumbledore and said, "I think that's all, is it, Albus?"

~FSK~

Several minutes later, after all of the adults but Bagman had politely or disdainfully declined Dumbledore's offer of alcohol, both of the guest headmasters pulled their champions swiftly out of the room and back towards their respective lodgings.

But before being pulled entirely out of the room, Fleur looked back at the trio and gave them a small wave and mouthed, 'Bye!'

When it was only Hogwartians left in the room, Dumbledore turned to Fitz and Diggory, and said with a fatherly smile, "Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go up to bed. I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise."

FitzSkimmons simply nodded at their headmaster and left, Cedric following along behind them.

"I bet the twins already started the party the moment they got back to the common room, since they know we don't live there," said Fitz quietly as they walked through the Great Hall.

"Indubitably," replied Daisy, before pausing for a second as she turned her word choice over in her mind. "Indubitably. Indubitably. Such a wonderful word. Indubitably. We should start using that more often."

"Indubitably," answered Simmons, rolling her eyes at her wife.

"Indubitably indeed," replied Daisy. "And speaking of indubitably, I indubitably believe that this is probably what You-Know-Who was talking about when he told us to write to him if anything happened," cutting her eyes over at Diggory as she said 'You-Know-Who', knowing he wasn't allowed to know who.

"You without a doubt probably believe it?" asked Fitz with a raised eyebrow. "How do you undoubtedly probably?"

"I'll undoubtedly probably you," retorted Daisy.

"And that makes even less sense," replied Fitz, rolling his eyes at her.

"Ladies, ladies, behave," sighed Simmons. "We have a guest."

As they reached the door between the Great Hall and the Entrance Hall, Diggory looked over and asked Fitz, "So are you really not trying, Harry?"

"We're not," answered Fitz, shaking his head. "And it's all three of us. We'll be doing this tournament together, just as we do everything else together."

"Congratulations to you on being picked as Hogwarts' champion, though," said Simmons. "We'll be cheering for you."

"And here I thought you would be cheering for Delacour — I saw you three schmoozing up to her last night," joked Diggory.

"She has to deal with a lot of the same fame problems of people only caring about her because she's a veela, that Harry has to deal with because he survived Riddle as a baby," answered Simmons seriously. "So we can connect with her better than most people do. But honestly, we hope all three of you do really well."

"Thanks," replied Diggory, coming to a stop at the head of a set of stairs to the right of the Grand Staircase. "This is where I have to go, but I'll see you guys around."

After bidding him goodbye, FitzSkimmons continued on upward through the castle, up to their secret dorm. But before Simmons would let the other two climb into bed, she made them stand next to her as she jotted down a quick note that they were supposed to be helping contribute to but she ended up mostly writing by herself, to send to Sirius in the morning to let him know about Harry being entered in the TriWizard Tournament:

My name came out of the Goblet of Fire last night, so I'm magically bound to compete. Someone either tricked the Goblet into picking two names for Hogwarts, or else submitted my name under a fourth school. But I'm just going to bullshit it since I don't want to be in it to begin with, and Hermione and Ronna will be with me the whole time, so we'll be fine. Just figured you'd want to know.
~Harry