Sunday morning, FitzSkimmons arrived early to make sure they were there when the other three champions arrived for breakfast so they could call them over for a short team meeting.
Despite their late night, all parts of FitzSkimmons were used to short nights of sleep as Shield agents, and were plenty rested and alert as they walked into the Great Hall. Fleur was the first of the champions to arrive, and quickly hurried over when she saw them waving her over.
As soon as the French girl sat down, Simmons explained, "We want to talk to all three of you before Tuesday's task, but I don't want to have to have this conversation three separate times, so I'd like to wait until everyone's here — you don't have anything urgent this morning, do you?"
"Not at all — as I told you the evening I met you, I don't really 'ave any friends amongst my schoolmates," replied Fleur. "So I'm more zan 'appy to stay wiz you."
Eventually the other two champions wandered in looking for morning sustenance, and were soon seated with Fleur and FitzSkimmons.
"Fleur, Krum, I imagine your headmasters have already told you this, wanting to give you every advantage to win, but Diggory, this will probably be completely new for you," began Simmons. "The first task has something to do with dragons. Perhaps your headmasters stuck around long enough to actually find out what, in order to tell you guys, we had somewhere we needed to be last night other than in a forest following Hagrid around looking at dragons, but we know for sure that there are four rather large, just a mite bit upset last night at least, dragons that will be used in the first task — one apiece, presumably."
Krum raised his hand. "Why tell us all this? You said Harry wasn't actually competing, but we still are."
"Because we know Madame Maxime and Karkaroff saw the dragons, and especially since Hogwarts has 'two' champions, there's no doubt they told you two. But there was no one to tell Diggory, since Dumbledore certainly wasn't going to, so that would have left Diggory at a disadvantage," answered Daisy. "And we could have just told him, but by saying everything we know to all three of you at the same time, and if you're willing, both of you sharing anything your headmasters have told you with the other two champions, you will actually all be on the same, even playing field that everyone would have been on had no one found out in the first place that there were dragons involved, and it really was the 'courage in the face of the unknown' Crouch told us the first task was supposed to be."
"And, they're, you know, dragons," added Fitz. "We don't have to have six and a quarter years of magical education to know that none of us here have the training to face a dragon without knowing going into it that we're going to have to be facing a dragon."
The three champions nodded solemnly, before Fleur said, "Maxime told me zat ze dragon trainer told 'Agrid zat 'e just thought we 'ad to get past ze dragons, not fight zem, but zat zey are nesting mothers."
"Karkaroff told me they vere four different types — don't know if that means anything, or they just vanted us each facing a different type to increase the excitement for the spectators," grunted Krum.
"So get past them like some obstacle course — get from point A to point B with the dragon in the middle — or what?" mused Fitz. "And if so, is there a time limit? Not for you guys, since you're actually going to try to get past, but how long are they going to wait on us just standing a few feet past the start line before they finally call time and say we failed, and let us go on our merry way?"
They talked on for a while longer about what exactly they thought they might have to do in regards to the dragons in the first task, before eventually going on their four separate ways to enjoy their Sunday.
~FSK~
Monday morning, as FitzSkimmons were strolling through the Entrance Hall to head out to the greenhouses and another Herbology of getting the cold shoulder from one of their professors all because someone had put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire without his permission, and Dumbledore apparently either hadn't told his staff that Fitz hadn't had anything to do with his name coming out, or else Sprout thought Dumbledore was a liar, Mad-Eye stomped over to them and growled, "Come with me, Potter. Weasley, Granger, off you go."
"We have Herbology class to get to, Sir," replied Simmons.
"Then go — tell Professor Sprout where Harry is," growled Mad-Eye.
"You seem to misunderstand — we go everywhere together," said Daisy coolly. "Which means we'll all miss the start of Herbology if we have to go with you."
Seeming to realize that Simmons and Daisy were prepared to carry through on their implicit threats, Mad-Eye merely grunted, "My office," before turning and clunking off down the hallway towards his office.
Upon arriving, FitzSimmons immediately began moving around the room looking at all of his cool gadgets, Simmons for the magic and knowledge, and Fitz for the fact they were cool feats of engineering and he wanted to see if he could find any ideas to take back to the real world, while Daisy stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher silently demanding him to tell them why they were missing Herbology.
After almost gleefully (for Mad-Eye) explaining a few of his Auror tools that FitzSimmons were looking at, Mad-Eye finally said, "So...found out about the dragons, have you?"
"Hagrid told us — or showed us, actually," answered Daisy. "Us and Madame Maxime, on what could only be described as a — shudder of all shudders — date with the Beauxbatons headmaster."
"You know in the Three Broomsticks, when we asked if it could be at eleven, and that we wouldn't all fit under the invisibility cloak? That was when Hagrid invited us to come see what turned out to be the dragons," added Fitz.
Mad-Eye merely nodded, before asking, "So...got any ideas how you're going to get past your dragon yet?"
"Run...very fast…away," Daisy answered seriously, echoing the timeless words of advice from their fearless Director when he was talking about the much more fearsome Hive.
Rolling her eyes at her wife, Simmons said, "We aren't trying to win. We just want to survive. Maybe — though unlikely — convince the school that Harry didn't put his name in the Goblet by showing them that Harry isn't even using the fact that he did get selected to try to win. And generally not have to deal with this stupid tournament any more than absolutely necessary."
Mad-Eye genuinely stared at them in shock at this, along with what Daisy could only describe as almost fear or something similar, like their not trying to win was a major problem for him somehow.
But after a few seconds, he finally said, "Well, if you change your mind, just remember — play to your strengths. Figure out what you're good at, and even if you're not allowed to bring it with you into the task, just use a nice, simple spell to get you what you need."
"Summoning charm," muttered Simmons under her breath instinctively.
"You really are as smart as they all said you were," said Mad-Eye almost proudly with his lopsided grin.
On the morning of the first task, after their final class before lunch, FitzSkimmons zipped up to their dorm to change clothes.
Knowing that robes were about the worst possible clothes ever made to fight in (excepting perhaps the armor bikinis and nothing else that many video game and comic book female warriors wore, that protected absolutely nothing vital), they decided to go with something more appropriate for fighting a giant, wild beast in. Fitz of course had his bounty hunter outfit the girls had made him wear the night the foreigners arrived, but in their shopping spree in London on Hogwarts Express Day, in addition to dresses and normal clothes, Daisy and Simmons had also picked up a black catsuit for Daisy that looked relatively close to her Shield catsuits, and a black ensemble close to what Simmons had worn as Acting Director Madame Shield, when she'd come back from the future to the pyramid they'd just defeated Izel in.
Returning to the Great Hall for lunch, they beckoned the three champions over to sit with them at the very end of the Ravenclaw table closest to the door, so they would be ready to leave whenever necessary. They sat there eating in mostly silence, the three champions nervously anxious about the upcoming task, and FitzSkimmons not wanting to break their concentration. But eventually it was time for them to head down to the dragon enclosure, and the large tent that had been set up nearby for the champions that Mr Bagman was already waiting for them in when they arrived.
With way too much excitement for someone who thought he was sending six people to face dragons they didn't know existed, Bagman explained what was going to happen, finishing with, "…and your task is to collect the golden egg!"
"So that's how we have to get past them!" exclaimed Fleur under her breath, but it was loud enough that they all heard her.
"Now I'm no expert on dragons, or nesting mothers of any kind, or quite frankly mothers of any kind, but assuming the golden egg is going to be in the middle of all the real eggs, isn't that closer to suicide than a 'task'?" asked Fitz, mostly to Simmons but loud enough that he knew they could all hear.
"Would be if it was me and either of ours child," whispered Simmons back, actually keeping her voice quiet enough for only him and Daisy to hear, since that was a bit more than anyone else there needed to know.
Diggory, meanwhile, was saying, "So much for no one finding themselves in mortal danger this tournament around. One well-placed breath of fire and the unfortunate champion will be cooked."
Krum merely scowled a little deeper than before.
Bagman looked between them all in slight shock, that they had all clearly known more or less what was coming, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a complete and total utter shocking surprise to all of them when they pulled the miniature replicas of dragons out of the sack.
Once the sounds of the crowds passing by them to wherever they were all going to be seated to spectate — FitzSkimmons hadn't seen where on their walk down — Bagman held out the sack in turn to each of them: Fleur, Krum, Diggory, and finally, Fitz.
Nodding his head towards the small, purple silk sack Bagman was holding out, Fitz said to Simmons, "You're the biologist."
So Simmons reached in and picked out the one remaining dragon, immediately beginning to study it closely, trusting Fitz and Daisy to ignore everything Bagman might still have to say to them for her — since they weren't really competing, and all.
And what Bagman said once Simmons had Fitz's dragon in hand was, "Well, there you are! You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I'm going to have to leave you in a moment, because I'm commentating. Mr. Diggory, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now...Harry...could I have a quick word? Outside?"
"Sure," replied Fitz, grabbing Jemma's arm and pulling her along with them since she wasn't paying any attention, as he and Daisy followed Bagman out of the tent.
But to Fitz and Daisy's surprises (Simmons was still preoccupied with studying the tiny dragon), Bagman didn't say anything about all three of them being there together, instead asking, "Feeling all right, Harry? Anything I can get you?"
"Couple bottles of whisky and a gin for the lady wouldn't go amiss," answered Daisy, before quickly going, "Oh! You meant for the task?! — No, we're fine there."
Ignoring her not actually sarcasm, Bagman lowered his voice conspiratorially and asked Fitz, "Got a plan? Because —"
"Leg it," interrupted Daisy dryly. "Get as far and fast away from the mother's pre-born babies as we possibly can because we're not stupid. I hear they do great scones in 1927 in the Lake District."
"We're fine," Fitz said to Bagman. "Seriously."
Bagman didn't seem to particularly believe them, but as a whistle suddenly blew from somewhere, he exclaimed in alarm, "Good lord, I've got to run!" and ran off, allowing FitzSkimmons to head back into the tent to wait their turn.
And finally the whistle blew for their turn.
FitzSkimmons strolled out of the tent and around the enclosure fence to the entrance. Pausing at the gap in the enclosure fence to peer through before they stepped into the unknown, they took stock of their surroundings. Along both sides of the enclosure they could see stands that had been magicked there since Saturday night, filled with students and teachers, many of whom they knew were eagerly awaiting for Harry to fail miserably, and hopefully die in a fiery ball of flames in the process. Their eyes continued on past the stands, finally reaching the mum on the very far end of the enclosure, crouched protectively over her pre-born babies. She looked highly agitated in Simmons' professional opinion, thrashing her spiked tail all around heaving meter-long gouge marks in the hard ground, most likely due to being trapped in a (relatively) small fence with hundreds of shouting and screaming people looming over her and her babies, and her dragon husband nowhere to be seen, for several days at that.
"Shall we?" asked Fitz. "I would say ladies first, but I think this is more the 'knight in shining armor protecting the fair maidens and damsels in distress from literally a dragon' situation."
The three of them stepped into the arena, Fitz in fact stepping through the narrow opening first, hugging the wall as closely as they could to appear the least threatening they possibly could to the mum on the far side of the enclosure.
"So, uh, what's actually our plan here?" asked Simmons. "We're inside the fence, which technically makes us trying to get the egg we're supposed to, so unless I'm completely wrong, we've covered the 'magically bound to compete' part of this task."
"Hey Fitzy — you can talk to snakes," said Daisy. "I know these are more similar to lizards — or I think they are, our cutie-pie biologist over there could probably actually tell us instead of me just making up shit like normal — but any chance your skill is actually talking to reptiles, and not just snakes, and wizards have simply never realized that because they're so obsessed with snakes?"
"No clue, but I can give it a shot — I think," replied Fitz.
He quickly thought back through Harry's memories of opening the Chamber of Secrets, telling the snake to stand down at the dueling club, and further back to talking to the snake at the zoo, and concentrated.
"Sweetie?" he hissed, hoping his voice would carry across the enclosure despite the incessant din coming down from the stands around them. "Hi. Hello. Hey there. We aren't here to hurt you, I promise — or take anything from you, either. You have a golden egg that isn't yours in your nest, that we're supposed to be trying to take from you, but we're not interested in that. You can keep it, trample it, eat it — we don't give a shit. I don't think anything will hatch out of it, but we've never actually seen the egg or what it is, so we don't know anything for sure — we only know the little the adults have told us, which isn't much to be honest."
By the end Dragonella had focused all of her attention on them, and Simmons was just about to tell Fitz to talk to her again, when the Hungarian Horntail suddenly reared back and let out an ear shattering roar, spitting flames towards the entrance hole, though all three of them noticed that it was slightly towards the opposite side of them, as if trying to make sure not to accidentally hit them while challenging a newly arrived threat at the entrance. So they turned as one to see who was interrupting their pleasant chat with the most ancient and noble winged lizard.
And standing in the middle of the gap was none other than their Head of House, Minerva McGonagall.
"Yes?" said Daisy coolly. "We were just having a moment here before you interrupted us, and angered her even further," motioning with an open, empty hand across the pen at the visibly unhappy mum.
"You two aren't allowed to be in here!" shrieked McGonagall, paying no attention to Dragonella's feelings. "You'll get Potter disqualified!"
"Please and thank you, stop threatening us with a good time," replied Simmons dryly, rolling her eyes. "But since we all know that's a load of bullshit we're not lucky enough to ever get, let's be serious. We were given only one rule for this tournament — one rule you're dangerously close to breaking — and that was, and I quote, 'The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament.' That is the only rule we've been given since Harry's name came out of the Goblet, and it's already been broken or attempted to be broken by both Hagrid and Mad-Eye."
"So either disqualify us, preferably for the rest of the tournament, or let us get back to competing our way — because there really isn't a third option here," finished Fitz.
"You'll get zero points for this task! You won't have any chance of winning the tournament!"
"We already don't, since we don't give a shit," replied Daisy.
"Now can we get back to chatting to our new friend, please?" said Fitz. "Our new friend who doesn't base their opinion of us on how many points we score in a stupid tournament we don't want to be in."
Finally realizing that Granger and Weasley weren't going to step out of the enclosure and let Potter steal his egg out from under the nose of the hideous, dangerous beast, McGonagall left the enclosure shaking her head and muttering under her breath something about disgracing Gryffindor.
At last alone again, FitzSkimmons turned back to their new winged pal.
"Is this noise bothering you?" asked Fitz. "Because it's bothering me. But I promise that they won't come down here to harm you or your children, and the adult wizards who will eventually put you to sleep will return you and your babies back to wherever you came from. But we just have to hang out here until they finally realize that we're not going to try to take the golden egg in your clutch away from you like they selfishly want us to."
The mother hunkered back down over her nest looking slightly distrustfully at them, but didn't breathe any fire in their direction, and her tail wasn't thrashing about quite as much as before.
Looking back over at his wives, Fitz asked them, "Can we make this crowd shut up? They're bothering Daisy-B — and me, for that matter."
"Daisy-B?! What the hell, man?" exclaimed Daisy-A. "I know I'm not Jemma, but I like to think I'm a little more attractive than a dragon — even when I don't have any make-up on."
"I just meant that's about how you act when someone wakes you up in the middle of the night when you were finally sleeping well," smirked Fitz in reply. "You're far more attractive than a dragon, and you know I'm not a make-up kind of guy — even make-up sex, since we never have anything to make up for, we're too perfect of a marriage. And you know I think you're most attractive right when you wake up, bed-hair going every which direction, and still to this day half the time looking around our room like you're wondering how you're there."
"When you two are done preening to each other, I have an answer to your question," sighed Simmons, rolling her eyes at her spouses. "Remember the silencing charm from the sixth year textbooks we've been working on some in our spare time when we're bored with everything else? I say we nicely ask the crowds to be quiet first, and then just start indiscriminately shooting only moderately successful silencing charms into the crowd until the judges decide that we've gone off our rockers and call the task — two birds, one stone, all that."
"I'm game — make things interesting, at least," replied Fitz.
"Let's hope I can pull this off first try," mumbled Simmons mostly to herself, before pointing her wand at her throat and saying, "Sonorus."
She then tried clearing her throat, the cough echoing loudly through the enclosure, causing everyone to immediately become silent and turn and stare at her.
Looking up at the crowds, she shouted, "Shut the bloody hell up, you lot! You're scaring her! She just wants to be left alone in peace to take care of her eggs, and you're all up there terrifying her! Can someone here do a powerful enough silencing spell to make all these idiots shut up, please!? Dumbledore? You two headmasters? Bloody nobody? — Fine! We'll do it ourselves!"
And with that the three of them whipped their wands towards the stands and began haphazardly hurling silencing charms as fast as they could into the crowd, using the tried and true spray and pray method of spellcasting, Simmons only pausing long enough to remove Sonorus before she began so no one could clearly hear what spell they were casting.
Predictably, the stands did the exact opposite as asked, and erupted into mass, very loud, panic, everyone trying to avoid the spells and rush out of the stands as quickly as possible or else hide behind the seats. It was doing nothing to keep the noise at the silence it had been after Simmons had cleared her throat, if anything increasing the volume to levels beyond what it had been before she'd ever spoken, but they knew that within minutes everyone screaming would be out of the stands entirely, and anyone who dared remain in the stands would shut the hell up so that the three crazies in the enclosure with a live dragon wouldn't curse them too, giving FitzSkimmons the silence they desired, and a relatively permanent silence at that.
FitzSkimmons payed Dragonella no heed while they removed the annoying humans from the equation, trusting that she could see that they weren't sending any spells her way, until suddenly there was a metallic clunk at Fitz's feet, and they looked down to see the golden egg they were supposed to be getting rolling to a stop right in front of him. Looking across at the dragon, they saw her still holding her front claw up, clearly having just tossed them the fake egg as thanks for scaring away all the wizards. They bowed to her slightly, before redirecting their attention back to the stands, which by this point had in fact become the deathly silent they were going for.
But the next second, as tone deaf to the situation around him as ever, Bagman just had to shout, "Look at that! Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!", and adult wizards were rushing towards the sheila.
"Poor girl," sighed Simmons as the dragon keepers stunned her. "Just when she was beginning to trust us."
"And poorer us, because now everyone thinks we completed the task since we have the egg," added Daisy.
"What do you think the judges are going to do?" asked Fitz as they walked back out of the entrance and over to where they spotted the three champions gathered at the medical tent. "We were apparently fastest according to Bagman, but we were three become one competitor, and Professor McGonagall said we were getting zero points for that."
"Guess we'll find out in a few minutes," replied Daisy as they walked up to the three champions.
"Where's your egg?" asked Fleur, looking between the three of them.
"The dragon tossed it to us, but we just left it lying out there," answered Simmons. "We don't want it, especially if it turns out to be important for the second task — you know, not trying and all that."
"You three didn't even try, and you still managed to beat all of us," smiled Diggory, before adding in explanation, "We convinced Madam Pomfrey to let us watch."
A few minutes later, all six of them returned to the enclosure together to watch the judges give FitzSkimmons their score.
From Madam Maxime, they received four points — "Must have been reluctantly impressed with our unintentional success," said Simmons.
Mr Crouch gave them zero — "Stickler for the unwritten rules."
Dumbledore's wand cast a five into the air — "Half winning, half cheating."
Bagman put up a ten — "He was trying to help us cheat anyway."
And lastly, Karkaroff gave them another zero — "Rules as an excuse for the fact he hates our guts anyway."
All in all, they'd scored nineteen points.
Looking over at Diggory, Simmons smiled, "We may have 'beat you' as you said earlier, but we still have less than half the points of any of you. Good job to all of you, by the way."
Bagman soon came by to pull them all back into the champions' tent, where he informed them that their eggs contained a clue about the second task, and handed FitzSkimmons their golden egg that they'd undoubtedly accidentally left behind in their excitement of successfully getting their egg quickest and scratch-free-est.
Once Bagman had dismissed them all, and FitzSkimmons had bid the other champions goodbye and headed for a stroll around the lake to hide the damn thing for good, Skeeter popped out from behind a stand of trees.
"Congratulations, Harry!" she said, beaming at them. "I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?"
"Does it really matter if we give you a word or not?" sighed Fitz rhetorically. "You're going to write whatever article you like regardless of whether we talk to you or not, and irrespective of what we actually say if we do partake in the interview, as you proved in the first article about this tournament."
"What he means is, yes, we'll talk to you so you can then go on to blatantly make up bullshit that fits the article you want to spoon-feed your audience," clarified Simmons.
"So ask away," finished Daisy.
"How did you feel facing the dragon, and do you feel like you had an unfair advantage because there were three of you instead of only one?" asked Skeeter, wisely remembering to use a normal quill from the start this time.
"We felt fine, because we didn't face her, in case you missed that part," answered Fitz.
"And we could have only had an advantage, unfair or not, if we were competing, which we decidedly aren't," added Daisy. "Something we told you last time you interviewed us, that you clearly didn't listen to based on your complete work of fiction you published in the Prophet."
Ignoring this slight against her completely nonexistent journalistic integrity, Skeeter continued on, "How did you make the beast toss you your egg?"
"By not calling her a beast or calling it my egg, like I had some right to it," retorted Fitz. "But all we did was make the crowd shut up so that she could have some bloody peace and quiet, and apparently as thanks she decided to throw us the egg that she didn't want anyway since it wasn't hers, or real."
"How do you feel about the fairness of the scoring? Despite being the most disadvantaged, and getting your egg the quickest and without any injuries, you received half the points of anyone else."
"Like we've said over and over — we aren't competing," said Simmons. "So we aren't trying to get any points, nor do we care how many points we did get."
"We would have preferred getting zero so that everyone might finally realize we don't give a shit about this tournament, but now that we've got any points at all, everyone's going to still think that we care," added Daisy.
"What are your thoughts going into the second task?"
"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die," deadpanned Daisy.
"Our main thoughts going into the second task are — and I feel like I can't emphasize this point enough, since you and everyone else clearly aren't getting it — We. Don't. Care." answered Fitz. "Now if you don't mind, since this conversation is clearly going the same place as the first one, which is to say, nowhere, we have places to be and things to do that don't involve wasting the rest of the afternoon talking to you just so you can go write whatever you want to anyway about us and the first task, so we're leaving. Goodbye."
And with that they walked on, leaving Skeeter behind them.
~FSK~
That evening, after having found a nice crevice in a boulder on the far side of the lake in which to stick the golden egg, in the unlikely case they ever wanted to see it again, FitzSkimmons climbed up to the Owlery to send Sirius a letter saying that they weren't dead yet.
They kept it short and sweet — 'Made it through the first task just fine, completely unharmed, and no sign of anyone looking like they're trying to kill me yet.'
Once the letter was off, they headed down to the Great Hall for a late supper, where they found the twins just leaving. Seeing their champions, the twins immediately informed them that there was going to be a party like no other (expect of course every quidditch party every year) in the Gryffindor common room to celebrate their heroic performance in the first task that afternoon, should they want to join. FitzSkimmons polity thanked them for the offer, but said that they were pretty tired from the day's ordeals, and would probably have to decline.