First thing Sunday morning, FitzSkimmons got up early to go send Sirius the short letter they had written the night before letting him know that Harry was in the tournament.

Once the letter was on its merry way, after having patiently explained to Hedwig that she would be too conspicuous to continue using now that Sirius was in a single location, they headed down to the grounds, hoping to catch Fleur before she headed into the Great Hall for breakfast. They knew that the castle was going to have a strong reaction to Fitz being in the tournament, whether they supported him, or hated his guts yet again, or a mixture of both from the various Houses, and they hoped everyone seeing that the three of them were on great terms with the three champions would lessen that slightly. They knew that it was probably a hopeless exercise in futility, but one worth trying anyway, and it would allow them to get to know two foreign students and a seventh year they'd never talked to before a little better.

When Fleur saw them walking down towards her on her way from the Beauxbatons Carriage up to the castle, she immediately ran up to them.

"I'm so sorry for leaving you like zat last night! But you saw 'ow well Maxime took ze news zat your name 'ad been entered into ze Goblet. 'Ow did ze ozzer 'Ogwarts champion take it zat you're in ze tournament as well, or 'ave you 'ad a chance to talk to 'im?"

"We did briefly after leaving the room," answered Simmons. "And I'm pretty sure he believes both that we're not going to be trying to win, and that Harry didn't enter himself. But I'm hoping we can see him again and talk some more, make sure there's no hard feelings. I assume you haven't talked to Krum at all?"

"No, sorry. But 'e's just going to be dark and brooding no matter what, and I seriously doubt 'e's really going to be interacting much wiz any of us, so I don't zink 'e'll be much of a problem for you before seeing zat you're not trying at ze first task," answered Fleur.

A few minutes later they walked into the Great Hall, which was still nearly empty except for about half a dozen other early risers scattered across the four tables. The ones at the Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff tables glared at them, while the two at the Gryffindor table both cheered at Fitz's arrival. But FitzSkimmons and Fleur ignored all of them, and took seats at the Gryffindor table well away from those two already sitting there, so they could eat and talk in peace.

Unfortunately, this didn't stop every Gryffindor who walked in after that from cheering when they spotted Fitz, or many of them from sitting right next to the quartet and trying to talk to them. It also didn't stop many of the Slytherins who walked in to breakfast from yelling out insults at them either, but nothing short of a silencing spell was going to do that, even if it had only been one of the of-age Gryffindors the Goblet had selected instead of Diggory, and Harry hadn't been selected at all — there was no way the Slytherins weren't going to throw insults at any and every tournament participant from Gryffindor. However, FitzSkimmons completely ignored everyone as if they couldn't even hear or see them, and eventually the Gryffindors seemed to get the message that trying to sit next to them and talk to them wasn't going to work, and finally started leaving them alone.

Thirty minutes later, when Diggory walked in with several Hufflepuff hangers-on, the four of them waved him over to sit and eat with them. He readily obliged, and the five of them spent the rest of breakfast talking about the tournament, what they might have to do in the first task, who might have entered Harry's name into the Goblet and how and why, and how all the professors and judges were going to react when FitzSkimmons did the first task together.

Meanwhile, all around them, a House War was beginning to escalate between Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw. The Gryffindors were all claiming Fitz as their champion; the Ravenclaws were siding with Hufflepuff that Diggory was the Hogwarts Champion; and Slytherin was low-key hating on both of them, because while they obviously hated a Gryffindor being in the tournament, they weren't really much happier that a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw instead of a Slytherin was representing Hogwarts, either. So while they were slightly less openly hostile to Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaw students supporting Hufflepuff, they weren't supporting Hufflepuff, either. In fact, if anything, they seemed to be siding with Krum and the Durmstrangs when they finally made their way in for breakfast as FitzSkimmons, Fleur, and Diggory were standing up to leave.

"Just ignore them all. They'll all realize it doesn't matter when we bullshit the first task, and it's only you three who actually try and are still in contention for winning," said Daisy to Fleur and Diggory as they were leaving and the biggest mix of cheers, glares, and insults yet were thrown their way.

~FSK~

Despite seeing Diggory hanging out with Fitz on Sunday morning at breakfast, the entire fourth year Hufflepuff class, plus the supposed teacher, Sprout, were as cold as ice towards Fitz the following morning during Herbology.

But as FitzSkimmons were busy ignoring them all like normal, and now no longer had to even exchange pleasantries with them, FitzSkimmons didn't give a shit. What they were looking forward to was the firework show that was going to be having a class with the Slytherins for the first time since they'd been forced into the tournament against their will.

And just as expected, as soon as he saw them, Malfoy's mouth took leave of his brain and began flapping on its own.

"Ah, look boys — it's the champion," he sneered maliciously. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer. Half the Triwizard champions have died...how long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task is my bet."

"Alright — how much? I have no problems taking you to the cleaners," Fitz answered calmly, stepping up to meet Malfoy. "How much gold do you want to bet me that I won't last more than ten minutes?"

But as it turned out, Malfoy clearly didn't actually reckon Fitz was only going to last ten minutes in the first task, as he just stood there glaring back at Fitz sulkily without saying anything, until Hagrid came around the side of his hut a few minutes later, unknowingly breaking the awkward and unpleasant situation Malfoy had suddenly found himself in when his taunts were turned back on him and he was asked to put his money where his mouth was, but couldn't because there wasn't any room around his foot that was already occupying it.

Malfoy didn't try bothering them again for the rest of the lesson, but unfortunately Hagrid almost immediately did. Under the pretense of wanting Fitz to help him with a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt, the gamekeeper called him over to one side. Knowing they couldn't avoid this conversation forever, they walked over.

"So — yer competin', Harry. In the tournament. School champion," said Hagrid.

"So they tell me," replied Fitz boredly, keeping as far away from the skrewt as he possibly could.

"No idea who put yeh in fer it, Harry?"

"Nope. And if any of the adults have a clue — well first, that's news to us — but secondly, they haven't decided it worth enough to share with us, the people it matters most to," answered Daisy.

Hagrid lapsed into silence for a while, before suddenly sighing and saying, "Ah, I don' know, Harry. School champion...everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn' it?"

"Yeah," sighed Fitz. "And we have a suspicion about why, but it's just a suspicion."

Of course they knew why everything happened to them, they were the titular character, the titular character's best friend, and the abusive, jealous, unrepentant boy from the shady family that the author really wanted to be relevant, of a book series. But obviously they couldn't actually tell Hagrid this, so they didn't, and Hagrid thankfully didn't ask anything more about it.

Thursday after lunch, FitzSkimmons headed down to the dungeons for Potions class, arriving first like they did for almost every class they had.

But they hadn't been waiting outside the door for long when Malfoy and his gang came strolling up like they owned the place, all wearing gaudy badges on the front of their robes. A quick glance showed that they all spelt 'SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY — THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!'

"You seemed to have left caps-lock on, there, Malfoy," commented Fitz dryly, pointing at Malfoy's badge, before the Snake could speak. "And I don't particularly like being yelled at."

Next to him, Simmons rolled her eyes, hissing, "They've never even heard of computers, let alone all-caps being internet yelling."

"Or, um, you know, the internet itself," replied Daisy, rolling her own eyes.

"Oh, yeah — that too."

Like normal, Malfoy stared at them for several seconds not comprehending half of what was coming out of their mouths, before finally managing to get out, "This isn't all they do, Potter — look."

Pressing his badge, the message was replaced by, 'POTTER STINKS!'

There were a few minor chuckles, but most of the Slytherins were still staring at FitzSkimmons like they were from some other world with all their strange words they had said.

"No, no — you're supposed to turn to Pansy and press hers, as an excuse to feel her boobs — or at least how soft they are," said Daisy as she turned and pressed Simmons' noticeably badgeless boob as an example for them, earning her a slap and a hissed reproval from the older girl.

"They're fourteen!"

Fitz, meanwhile, simply pointed at the badge and said, "They're factually inaccurate — I took a shower this morning." Wrapping his arms around both of his wives' shoulders, he added with a smirk, "You can ask these two."

Once again, Malfoy could do nothing but stare at Fitz. Here he had come up with the most ingenious, mind-blowing insult ever, the perfect way to rile up an always highly emotional Harry Potter, a petty low-blow that would have had the Potter of any of the past three years seething in anger and whipping out his wand, telling him to keep his filthy pureblood trap shut, and yet here Potter was, making a joke out of it. Completely ignoring the fact that he, Potter's worst enemy and nightmare, was insulting Potter in a bigger way than he ever had before. It was inconceivable — absolutely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable.

But before his mind could try to come up with any new and improved, now containing thirty percent more vitriol, insult to hurl at Potter to rile him up and get him in trouble, instead of looking so smug with his arms wrapped around the two girls who'd always been mostly friends with Potter but had been absolutely hanging onto him this year, the door to the Potions dungeon opened and Lord Supreme Benevolent God's-Gift-To-Wizardkind Potions-Master Severus Snape ushered them all in, merely giving Potter his normal glare, since the Boy-Who-Hadn't-Died-Instead-Of-His-Mother had quickly dropped his arms from around his girls' shoulders upon hearing the door start to open, so there was nothing for Snape to see by the time he looked out at everyone.

A few minutes into class, when Snape told everyone that he was going to be poisoning one of them with impunity at the end of the period, FitzSkimmons knew without even having to think about it that he was going to poison either Fitz or Neville, but most likely Fitz because most of Snape's abuse of the two had shifted towards Fitz since Harry's name had come out of the fiery goblet a week and half before. FitzSimmons both felt Daisy tense up where she was sitting between them, and her hand drop to her wand, but Fitz and Simmons both laid a hand each on her thighs, silently telling her to stand down for the moment. At the end of class, when Snape actually tried to murder someone in the class would be the time to be a shield, but it wasn't quite the time just yet when there was still the possibility that the Snake was merely psychologically torturing them all with a bluff, and wasn't actually intending on going through with it. Still evil, and still should have been grounds for firing him if there had been any responsible adults in the castle to report it to, but sadly also just another day in the dungeon, and nothing worth the inevitable fallout if they stood up to him at that moment instead of waiting until the end of class.

But Daisy had just untensed and FitzSimmons had just removed their hands from her thighs when a completely unexpected distraction to Snape's scheme knocked on the dungeon door. At Snape's reluctant beckoning, Creevey entered, beaming at Fitz despite the fact that FitzSkimmons had completely ignored him the entire year.

When the third year had walked up to Snape's desk, the potioneer demanded coldly, "Yes?"

"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs," answered Creevey with far too much of a smile to be in the same room as Snape.

"We're in class — we'll come when class lets out," Simmons' curt voice carried across the still classroom before Snape could even begin to open his mouth, causing both Creevey and Snape, along with the rest of the class, to turn and stare at her in surprise.

It was a well known fact that every Gryffindor hated Potions class under Snape, especially Harry Potter, and that any of them would have leapt, jumped, and bounded out the door at the opportunity to get out of Potions class before it had even begun. And yet here, with the perfect excuse to skip out of class, Harry was saying no — or technically the muggleborn, know-it-all, bookworm girl he always hung out with was saying no, but Harry wasn't disagreeing or rapidly packing his bag and sprinting out the door as fast as he could like any other Gryffindor would have done given the same opportunity.

But after a second, Creevey managed to nervously squeak out, "Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him. All the champions have got to go. I think they want to take photographs."

"Oh, bloody hell," grumbled Fitz under his breath.

"If Bagman wants us to come now, he can come get us himself, or send another adult who's part of this tournament," Daisy said crisply to Creevey, through it was really more to Snape, once again speaking before the Snake could even open his mouth. "We're not taking it on the word of a student that we have permission to be out of class. And no offense to you, specifically, kid — we wouldn't do it if it was the Head Boy and Girl telling us to, either. If the adults want us, the adults can drag their butts down here themselves to get us — they clearly don't have anything better to be doing right now anyway, if they're trying to take pictures."

Once again, silence reigned supreme in the dungeon for several seconds, before Snape practically snarled at Creevey, "Yes — do that. Now get out of my classroom!"

Creevey scampered out of the room with his metaphorical tail tucked between his very real legs, as Snape briefly glanced at FitzSkimmons with not what could be called respect, but at least was slightly less blatant vile hatred.

Not ten minutes passed though, before the door was knocked on again, and Mr Bagman himself entered.

Clearly never having met Snape before, with a bright smile he cheerfully said to the Snake, "My dear man, I really must insist that Harry comes with me! It's the Wand Weighing Ceremony, and of course we have to make sure all the champions' wands are in tip-top shape before they compete in the first task of the tournament! Can't have any faulty wands!"

Snape looked like he really wanted to say something along the lines of how based on his experience, the Potter brat's wand was completely useless, but he apparently wasn't willing to directly talk back to a judge, and so simply snapped at Bagman, "Very well, very well. Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote."

"My dear good sir, I really must insist —"

Snape could clearly see where this was leading just as easily as everyone else, as he cut Bagman off practically snarling, "Very well! Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!"

FitzSkimmons immediately began packing up their bags from where they had just started working on their antidote potions, but Snape quickly caught sight of them all packing up, and snarled, "Just Potter! You other two stay!"

"We go as one, or we go as none," replied Fitz coolly. "I'm perfectly fine with us staying here and making our antidotes. I didn't want us to be in this stupid tournament to begin with, so I'm more than happy making the wand weighers wait until class is over to see whether our wands, that have clearly been working well enough for us to do our school work with, will work equally as well for the tournament. But we're doing this tournament together, which means we all have to have our wands weighed — that or disqualify us so we don't have to compete, except I've got a vague suspicion that there literally is nothing that can disqualify a competitor, no matter how much they break the rules, written or unwritten."

After several seconds, during which FitzSkimmons resumed packing up their bags, pretty sure that Bagman's need to take Fitz to the Wand Weighing Ceremony would overrule everything else in the end, Bagman finally confirmed their assumptions and said with much less than his normal chipperness, "Well, then, I suppose we're all going."

Once again, Snape looked like he wanted to snap necks — Bagman's, FitzSkimmons', and probably Neville's just because, being the most likely victims — but also once again, he was apparently unwilling to actually tell a judge to fuck off, as he merely glared holes into all of their heads, but didn't say anything, and so a minute later FitzSkimmons walked out of the dungeon with Bagman.

"So what actually is the Wand Weighing Ceremony?" asked Simmons once they were out of the dungeon and Snape's earshot, and walking upstairs. "Because like Harry said, our wands have to work or else we couldn't be doing school — with the minor exception of Ronna's wand snapping in half second year and having to go through the entire year with a spellotaped wand, which the professors really shouldn't have allowed, as it was genuinely a danger to both herself and anyone around her when she was using it."

"The Wand Weighing Ceremony is a traditional part of the tournament to make sure everyone's wands are fully functional, and don't have any hidden problems, since as you know, your wands are your most important tools in the tasks ahead. Also, we need a few photos for the Daily Prophet, as Rita Skeeter will be doing a small piece on the tournament," answered Bagman.

"Isn't that that witch Mrs W and Percy were arguing about, who wrote that article about Mr W, before we arrived here?" whispered Daisy in an undertone to the other two.

"Yeah, I think so," answered Simmons quietly. "And the one who wrote the article Malfoy shoved in our faces first week."

"Oh, great — nothing like a bad reporter to stir up even more dislike of us by publishing the fact we're in the tournament all over the front page of the only newspaper in the country," grumbled Fitz, already dreading this ceremony more and more.

Walking into a small classroom on the second floor they found the three champions already there, along with the remainder of the judges, Ollivander, a bedazzled, pretentious-looking witch in magenta robes who they assumed must be Skeeter, and a photographer with her. Seeing only one additional chair next to the three champions, Fitz and Daisy walked over to the desks pushed out of the way to the edge of the room and grabbed a chair for each of them, dragging them back to the formerly empty chair that now had their wife sitting primly in it.

Once they were all seated, Dumbledore introduced Ollivander, who one by one looked over everyone's wands, carefully examining each one as he described it in detail before preforming a small bit of magic with it and handing it back. He spent extra time gushing over Harry's wand, and seemed slightly puzzled that he was having to inspect six wands instead of only four, three of which belonged to students who certainly weren't of age, but he said nothing about it and soon had all the wands declared acceptable.

The wand weighing now over, it was time for photographs. As photos always do, they took forever, Skeeter constantly trying to get Fitz in the very center, and Simmons and Daisy refusing to be anywhere but tucked into his sides, but eventually Skeeter seemed to have all the photos she wanted. But as Dumbledore finally told them they could all go down to supper, Skeeter said, "I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before he leaves? The youngest champion, you know...to add a bit of color?"

"Certainly!" exclaimed Bagman, knowing he would certainly want to be interviewed if he was in Fitz's position. "That is — if Harry has no objection?"

"We do, but we'll allow you to interview us anyway," replied Simmons curtly, hoping that they would be able dictate the direction of the article Skeeter was going to publish regardless, if they talked to her instead of her just making up whatever she wanted.

"Oh, I just want to interview Harry," said Skeeter with a curving smile.

"We're competing together, so you interview us together," replied Fitz. "Or you don't interview us at all."

Merely raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow at them, Skeeter curtly nodded and waited until everyone else had left the room before pulling a long, acid-green quill and a roll of parchment out of her crocodile-skin purse.

"You won't mind if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally."

"If you're really a reporter, why can't you write and talk normally at the same time?" sassed Daisy, but Skeeter ignored her and sucked on her quill for a few seconds, rolling her tongue around the tip, before balancing it on its tip on the parchment.

"Testing…My name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."

The three of them looked down where the quill was scribbling away furiously, and read, 'Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, who's savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations'.

Daisy snatched the parchment and quill off the desk. "Nope — that you're not doing. Take notes on what we actually say, or else we're leaving and you can bullshit your entire article on us without anything actually from us."

Scowling slightly, Skeeter pulled out a regular quill and another sheet of parchment, apparently too determined to get an exclusive interview with the Boy-Who-Lived to give up when her normal note-taking methodology wasn't to be allowed.

"So, Harry...what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament? Also, why are all three of you here, when only Harry's name came out?"

"I didn't enter — the best the adults can figure out, or have at least told us, is that someone entered my name for still hotly debated reasons — and we're competing together because we do everything that isn't homework together, and schoolwork and homework that we are allowed to do together, we obviously do those together as well," answered Fitz.

"Come now, Harry, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble," said Skeeter, completely ignoring Fitz's statement that he hadn't entered himself. "We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all, but don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."

"If your readers truly loved a rebel, they would be rebels themselves and find another newspaper to read besides the Daily Prophet," retorted Daisy. "Your readers aren't rebels, they're sheep."

"Harry honestly didn't enter himself, or have anyone enter him, and we really don't know who put his name in the Goblet," said Simmons. "As for how it came out when it was entered, our best guess is that he was entered under a fourth school, in which case the Goblet simply picked the best entrant from each school, which meant as the only entrant of the fake fourth school — or possibly real fourth school, no reason they couldn't have entered Harry under an actual school that really does exist and just isn't part of the tournament — the Goblet picked him by default."

Scribbling at an impressive speed for normally using an automated quill, Skeeter asked on, "How do you feel about the tasks ahead? Excited? Nervous?"

"Indifferent — we're not trying to win, just survive," answered Fitz. "We don't want to be in this tournament at all. We're leaving the actual competition up to the three champions — Diggory, Fleur, and Krum."

"Champions have died in the past, haven't they? Have you thought about that at all?"

"No, but we're not going to be able to think about anything but that now," retorted Daisy sarcastically. "Of course we've thought about that. But life and death situations are more of an average Tuesday for us than otherwise, so we'll be fine. It's Death who should be worried about us kicking his immortal, pizza-loving ass."

"How would you say looking death in the face before has affected you?"

"What doesn't kill you gives you a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a really dark sense of humor," replied Daisy, only half-joking. "Funnily enough, actually dying pretty much does the same."

"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because of that?"

"That's slander," answered Simmons shortly. "And libel if you publish it. You want to know how Harry's name got in the Goblet in order to come out of it, then go ask Dumbledore. Maybe you'll get a better answer than we have yet."

"Can you remember your parents at all? How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"

"They'd probably be telling me not to talk to sketchy reporters," answered Fitz, rolling his eyes.

But Daisy decided to be a little less poetic about it. "Okay, I think that's enough. We all already know you're going to write whatever the fuck you think will sell best, or whatever angle you've already decided you want your readers to believe when you spoon-feed them your article, so we're out of here, since it's supper time and I for one am hungry," she said, standing up and walking out, FitzSimmons following close behind her.