Two weeks before Christmas, at the end of Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall made an announcement to the class — Christmas night, there was going to be a Ball as part of the TriWizard Tournament.

When she got to the part about dress robes having to be worn, Daisy looked beside her at FitzSimmons and smirked slightly, knowing this was the event they'd been told to buy dress robes for, and where she and Jemma would wear their nicest dresses, the formal and appropriately revealing ones, while Fitz wore the formalist, fanciest bounty hunter outfit they'd bought for him.

But when the bell rang and FitzSkimmons started packing up their bags, Professor McGonagall called out over the noise of everyone packing up, "Potter — a word, if you please."

So FitzSkimmons walked up to her desk.

"This only concerns Potter, Weasley and Granger," said McGonagall strictly when she saw Simmons and Daisy standing there with Fitz. "Move on, Potter will be along shortly."

"Like hell we will," replied Daisy coolly. "Anything that concerns Harry concerns us equally — you really should have figured that out by now. I mean, we did the first bloody task together for Heaven's sake — how much clearer can we make this for you?"

By this point everyone else had left the classroom, and Simmons and Daisy were firmly planted on either side of Fitz, so Professor McGonagall either realized this was a fight she had no chance of winning, or else had somewhere she needed to be soon, as she simply said, "Potter, the champions and their partners open the Ball."

"Oh, joy," Fitz replied sarcastically. "Just what I was hoping for. Anything else?"

Professor McGonagall looked at him suspiciously. "You must bring a partner to the Yule Ball to open the dance with — it's traditional. And as a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter."

"Heard you the first time," Fitz replied boredly. "Now can we go yet? It's lunch."

McGonagall still didn't look like she trusted him, but let them go anyway without saying anything more.

Once outside in the hall, away from Professor McGonagall's prying ears, Fitz looked over at his wives and asked with exaggerated flourish, "Would you two do me the honors of going to the Ball with me, m'ladies?"

But Simmons replied patiently, "Fitz…we're not at Shield. I don't think you showing up with two girls will be well received."

"Yeah, sorry Fitzy, but I'm going to have to agree with Jemma here — I don't think that would be a good idea," agreed Daisy. "So I think you should take Jemma — because obviously — while I go stag, and when we get there I'll of course sit with you two and dance with you after the opening dance and we'll spend all night together and all that, but you'll officially just be taking Jemma and make everyone happy."

They walked on for several more hallways, the girls not saying anything more as Fitz was clearly thinking about something, until Fitz finally turned to them and said, "What if we don't? — Make them happy, that is.

"And I don't mean all three going together," he added quickly. "I mean, I go alone, and you two go together. Doing everything they don't want, what with me not going with anyone, and two girls going together, because you know that's clearly not what they have in their minds when they say bring a partner, even if it's just bringing a friend, not a girlfriend. And then for the opening dance, I'll just pick up Jemma then — maybe you could even switch out mid-dance or something if it works out."

"And here I thought we were generally trying to keep them happy to reduce suspicion," said Simmons, rolling her eyes.

"When have we ever done that since we figured out they're all fictional book characters?" replied Daisy.

"You're the one who suggested Fitz and I go together and you go alone to make them happy!" exclaimed Simmons.

"And when have I ever listened to my own advice?" smirked Daisy.

So before a hair-pulling tiff (though whether that was Jemma pulling her own hair in exasperation, both of them pulling each other's hair, or both, Fitz wasn't sure) could break out between his wives, Fitz interrupted with, "So what do you two say to the idea of the two champions whose names didn't come out of the Goblet going together, while the one whose name did come out and was told under no uncertain circumstances to not come without a partner, comes without a partner? I'll be the rebellious champion who didn't want to be a champion in the first place, and you'll just be married friends who go to fancy balls together — platonically, of course."

"Yeah, we'll make sure to tell that to anyone who asks us why we're going together," replied Simmons, rolling her eyes. "Although admittedly, we've probably said things that sounded crazier to them when referencing our real lives."

"You know I'm game for anything that stirs up trouble," smirked Daisy.

~FSK~

To make sure no one tried to ask the Boy-Who-Lived to the Yule Ball between then and Christmas, Fitz made sure to remain planted firmly between Daisy and Simmons any time they were out in public over the next two weeks.

A few girls seemed to look Fitz's way, but either upon seeing Simmons and Daisy practically (and sometimes literally) hanging off of him, or upon seeing the glares at them from either or both of his wives, none of them actually approached Fitz in a misguided, futile attempt to ask him to go to the Yule Ball with them. Not that FitzSkimmons wouldn't have been very polite to anyone who did ask the husband of their motley crew to go to the Yule Ball, but they still preferred not having to turn anyone down if they could help it, for everyone's sake.

The following Monday, Professor McGonagall made her yearly trip as Deputy Headmistress down the House tables to make a list of everyone staying and everyone leaving for Christmas break. When she got to Simmons and Daisy and asked them if they were staying or going, to prove a point Fitz answered, "I'm going home to the Dursleys this year."

Predictably, McGonagall nearly lost her head.

"You are absolutely not, Potter!" she shouted, turning most of the heads in the nearby vicinity. "You will have a partner and you will open the Yule Ball dance and you will absolutely not embarrass this school!"

"Not being able to dance because the Dursleys never taught me would probably embarrass you more than not coming or coming alone would," muttered Fitz under his breath, referencing the fact that he knew Harry Potter didn't have a clue how to dance, but he said it quietly enough that only Daisy and Simmons heard him.

A Daisy and Simmons who stared impassively at McGonagall without making a sound, until she finally got the picture that they couldn't do anything Harry wasn't allowed to do, and she moved on to the next clump of students.

Once McGonagall was definitely out of earshot, Daisy looked at the other two and said quietly, "Fitz definitely has to go alone now."

~FSK~

As FitzSkimmons were cutting up dragon livers with the rest of the fourth year Gryffindors and Slytherins to feed the skrewts with in the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the year, Daisy suddenly remembered that Hagrid had gone on an interview with Skeeter at the local pub since the last Care class they'd had.

So looking over at their teacher, she asked teasingly, "How was our dear old friend Skeeter on your dinner at the pub? Ask a lot of loaded questions and then ignore all your answers in favor of what she wanted you to say?"

Hagrid appeared to entirely miss both her subtle teasing that it had been a date that he'd gone on, and her less than subtle slight on the 'journalist' herself, as he simply replied, "She didn' seem very int'rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth. She jus' wanted me ter talk about you, Harry. Well, I told her we'd been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. 'Never had to tell him off in four years?' she said. 'Never played you up in lessons, has he?' I told her no, an she didn' seem happy at all. Yeh'd think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Harry."

"Yeah, we're poor subjects to interview, so it's no wonder that she'd like to try to cancel us despite talking Harry up right after his name came out," said Simmons. "And just repeating that Harry's amazing and the greatest thing since sliced bread won't sell papers, so she needs something new and flashy and attention grabbing to sell, and what better than the hero she set up suddenly crashing to the ground as a complete disgrace — everyone loves a scandal and fallen star, almost as much as a 'twelve child actors you won't recognize anymore — the fifth will shock you' clickbait advertisement."

"Well, yeh might've bent a few rules, Harry, bu' yeh're all righ' really, aren' you?" replied Hagrid.

FitzSkimmons all barely held in smirks at the salamander eggs they were now shelling, thinking back on all of the rules over their personal three and a half years at the school that they hadn't bent — trampled on, snapped in half, and threw into a live volcano on an alien planet, but not bent.

After several seconds of silence, Hagrid said, "You'll be openin the dancin', won yeh, Harry?"

"As embarrassingly as possible," answered Fitz with a completely straight face.

Hagrid really didn't seem to know what to say to this, and Simmons and Daisy were too busy trying not to snort into their bowls of de-shelled salamander eggs to say anything, so nothing was said again for several seconds, until Hagrid finally asked Fitz, "You know who yer takin' yet?"

"Still weighing my options on that," answered Fitz intentionally vaguely. "Got some ideas, multiple girls I'm nearly positive will say yes if I ask them to go with me as just friends, but I haven't decided a hundred percent for sure what I'm doing yet for the Yule Ball."

Hagrid seemed to think this was an acceptable enough answer, unlike Professor McGonagall undoubtedly would have had she heard that answer, and didn't ask anything more about the Ball for the rest of the class period.

But as they walked from class up to the Great Hall for lunch, Simmons slowed Fitz and Daisy down slightly so everyone else would quickly disappear out of earshot in their haste to find sustenance for their growling stomachs.

"You're not actually going to try to embarrass them on the opening dance are you?" she asked quietly and slightly worriedly. "Because that would mean I have to be part of your embarrassing dancing. And as much as I like standing up to their rules we disagree with, I'd kind of rather actually have a nice dance this time — we don't get to formally dance very often in the real world."

"Oh, no no no!" exclaimed Fitz hurriedly. "No. Assuming the opening dance is formal, I'll dance it properly. Though if you two can switch halfway though like we mentioned, that would still probably embarrass them without embarrassing either of you, but no — I'll dance the opening one for real. After that I may resort back to the only style of dancing I was half-way capable of back at the Academy, and look like a complete fool, since once everyone's dancing it doesn't matter any more how badly I embarrass you two, and I know Daisy would absolutely love to see me flail around like a puppet starfish high on sugar — don't try to deny it — but I would never do that for the first one, when everyone's eyes are on you or both of youse. I just said that to Hagrid to point out the professors' very erroneous assumption that Harry Potter has a bloody clue how to dance — because he doesn't. Now, I wasn't trying to be clear enough for Hagrid to actually understand that Harry doesn't know how to dance and go inform any of the professors in charge of that fact, because it would obviously be a complete waste as he wouldn't go tell any of the professors and they wouldn't do anything about it even if he did, but I still felt like it needed to be put out there once."

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure," Simmons said softly. "Else I was about to have to pull out the wife card if you weren't going give me my slow dance."

"Speaking of wifey cards," said Daisy, nudging Fitz playfully in the side, "Going back to what you said to Hagrid about who you were taking, I don't know if I'd say 'yes' if you asked me to this as just a friend. Because last time I checked the high school prom social rulebook, friends didn't get to make out in empty classrooms and closets during the party and have sex in their bedroom after the party."

"Then I suppose the multiple girls I could ask would have to be Jemma and Fleur — I bet she'd go with me as a friend if I asked and she hadn't already asked someone herself, given how much of a celebrity she is like Harry being a veela, so everyone just wants to go with her because of that," answered Fitz with a smirk. "Though, she'd probably at least still hope for a goodnight kiss on the cheek at the end of the night — or give me one, she seems the ambitious type."

"Better than trying to bring back Aida," mumbled Simmons mostly to herself, but loudly enough that Fitz would definitely hear her.

"I thought we were over this, and you know I only said that to make you turn back into your adult, half-fiancé/half-married/half-widowed self from the seven and a half year old you were at the moment," retorted Fitz, rolling his eyes.

"Love you, babe," teased Simmons, swinging on his arm.

"You know, if you're done FitzSimmonsing about things this girl wasn't a part of, we're at the castle," sighed Daisy without any actual irritation, poking just Fitz in the side since she couldn't reach Simmons as well where she was swinging on his arm on the other side of Fitz.

Christmas evening, forty-five minutes before the Yule Ball was to start, FitzSkimmons walked into their dorm to start getting ready to have a Ball.

The girls quickly put on their nicest dresses they'd bought when they were supposed to be riding the Hogwarts Express back in September, Fitz put on his fanciest Bounty Hunter outfit, and Simmons wrapped her hair up like she'd had it when she'd temporarily been the Director of Shield since it'd only been her and Fitz left, and she'd had to go back to the temple to save Daisy, May, Mack, Yo-Yo, and Deke. Daisy left her long, wavy locks down.

Walking down the Grand Staircase into the Entrance Hall fifteen minutes before eight, they found everyone milling about the Entrance Hall, the doors to the Great Hall firmly shut. People's heads soon started turning towards FitzSkimmons, as the first people looked up and saw them in real dresses, the likes of which three-quarters of the crowd had never even seen before, growing up almost exclusively in the wizarding community, and then those people began whispering to everyone around them, until soon the entire Entrance Hall was staring at the three of them — or at least at Simmons and Daisy.

There were a few looks of unflattering disbelief, deepest loathing, and jealous envy for having been completely outshone in their mundane dress robes, that were thrown at Simmons and Daisy by some of the overly jealous girls, but most of the crowd was simply gawking at them shock. Even Malfoy gawked at them, unable to say a single negative word, or any word at all, when he came up the stairs from the dungeons a minute after FitzSkimmons had arrived, with a Pansy on his arm who was suddenly very envious upon seeing the actual evening dresses Daisy and Simmons had on, instead of the frilly pink dress robes that she had arrogantly been proud of up until that very moment.

FitzSkimmons hung in the corner of the Entrance Hall, trying to avoid any questions about why there were two girls and one guy standing together without a second guy, until they heard Professor McGonagall shout out over the hall, "Champions over here, please!"

"See you on the other side, m' lovely ladies — I'll save you seats," Fitz said quietly, before walking over to where Professor McGonagall was standing next to the doors leading into the Great Hall.

Along the way he met Fleur and her partner, giving them both polite nods and a 'hi'. The three of them arrived at Professor McGonagall at the same time as Krum came up with his date from one side, and Cedric with his date from the other.

"You're going to wait over here until—" began Professor McGonagall once they were all standing before her, before suddenly cutting off what she'd been saying, and demanding angrily, "Potter, where is your partner?!"

Had Fitz been a weaker man, and hadn't already faced Ward, Hydra, Jemma when she was upset with him, Ward a few more times including as Hydra, Hydra as Will, Aida, some Chronicoms, Izel, some more Chronicoms, and he couldn't even remember what else in the moment, he might have actually been slightly scared of the glare on her face. But he wasn't a weaker man, and he had seen all of those things, and unfortunately occasionally had to sleep next to one of them at night (Jemma being upset with him for working too late in the lab and forgetting what time it was, not any of the other people or evil entities), he wasn't phased in the least.

So he answered indifferently, "Oh, yeah — don't have one."

"I told you —!"

"And I ignored you, since I didn't choose to be a champion in the first place," replied Fitz firmly, cutting off her tirade before it could really begin. "I don't want to be in the spotlight opening this stupid supper, and I even tried to go back home to my family, the Dursleys, for Christmas, but you once again held me here against my will — so I ignored yours, since I don't have Stockholm syndrome yet."

But even though she had no clue what this 'stock home syndrome' Potter had mentioned was, McGonagall wasn't about to let this drift dangerously into the territory of her or any of the other adults in the castle being held responsible for anything, so she quickly snapped, "You have to open the dance, it's traditional. Now let's see, who can we get for you to —"

Fitz let out a loud, piercing whistle, interrupting the woman once again and making every head in the Entrance Hall turn towards him again. A few seconds later, Simmons and Daisy sauntered up.

"You called?" said Daisy.

"Apparently I have to have a partner for this stupid thing," answered Fitz. "So I thought, what would make the professors even happier than me having one partner? — Me having two partners, of course! Now, I know you two were going to this together as friends, but any chance I could tempt you two into going together with me, as well?"

Simmons was so proud at how far her best friend (and now husband)'s impromptu acting skills had come since she'd first met his achingly shy sixteen year old self at the Academy, that her eyes actually became slightly glassy. Not trusting her voice, she just nodded slightly shakily, letting Daisy answer with actual words.

Which she did with utmost solemnity. "We would be more than honored to, Lord Potter."

And with that she and Simmons stepped to either side of Fitz and looped their arms in his, before all three of them turned to stare pointedly at McGonagall, daring her to challenge them again. But as 'Challenge Them' was apparently her middle name, she unwisely did so.

"You can't go with two partners! And you two can't go with each other! Potter, pick either Weasley or Granger to be your partner, and if the other wants a partner, I'm sure we can find someone for you here — Crabbe and Goyle both seem to be alone."

Daisy literally couldn't keep herself from derisively laughing out loud at that, and quite loudly, turning most of the crowd's heads, which had just recently turned away from them, back towards them again.

Fitz, meanwhile, simply replied coolly, "I go with both, I go with neither, or all three of us walk out of here right now and you don't your precious fourth champions entirely. And we're more than happy to fight you — we all have our wands, even if you can't see any places the girls could possibly be hiding them right now. But that would be a very unwise bluff to call, because they can both get to their wands quicker than you can get to yours in your cumbersome robes, if you even thought to bring your wand at all to a formal party — and we've been practicing three very specific spells Mad-Eye showed us in our first class, way back at the very beginning of school, months and months ago. We think we're pretty good at them, but we haven't had a chance to test our skill out on any people yet, though, so who knows how that would go in a crowded hall."

At the hard, cold looks on FitzSkimmons' faces, McGonagall apparently did get the general idea that they weren't bluffing, about any of it, but she still couldn't leave well enough alone, even if she did have to change her approach, and so demanded, "What do you two think you're wearing? And you as well, Potter?"

"Actual fancy clothes, instead of the same old shit robes you idiots wear every day for no other conceivable reason than to remain stereotypical medieval age witches and wizards," answered Daisy coldly. "Harry would have been wearing a suit, if you've ever even heard of one of those, because that is the more traditional matching clothing to our evening gowns, but we have history with suits. Well, we also have history with what he's wearing now, but that's good history, and it's bad history with suits — so we went with that."

"Like we said before on going together — we're wearing this, or we're leaving," said Simmons firmly, speaking up for the first time since Fitz had called them over. "Your choice, but as you have an entire Entrance Hall full of students wanting to eat and then party, and it's already" — here she paused to look at her watch — "two minutes past eight o'clock when the Ball was supposed to start, I'd suggest hurrying unless you want a riot on your hands in a few more minutes."

Apparently having Harry in the Yule Ball was more important to McGonagall than him going with two girls, or what clothes they were all wearing, or anything else for that matter, as after a second she looked away from FitzSkimmons and looked towards the other three champions and their dates and said curtly, "You are going to wait here against the wall until everyone else has gone inside and been seated. Then you will enter with your partners, in procession, and walk up to the table at the very front where the headmasters and judges are already seated."

She paused for a long second, before grinding out, "And Dumbledore will have to conjure an extra chair."

Once the meal was over, the band walked up onto a stage Dumbledore conjured along the right wall.

As the three champions stood, Fitz stood as well, holding his hand out to Jemma. The slow song they'd hoped for, Simmons beamed up at Fitz as they waltzed across the dance floor, in as perfect sync there as in everything else in their lives. Halfway through the song, Fitz caught Daisy's eye, and swung him and Simmons to the side of the dance floor closest to his younger wife, and spun Jemma off so Daisy could smoothly pick up her place.

Eventually the opening song ended, and as the band picked up a faster beat that didn't require formal dance steps, everyone else began making their way onto the dance floor, so he and Daisy swung by and picked up Simmons again. The three of them took turns dancing in pairs, while the third danced solo slightly off to the side of the other two, ready to be picked up mid-dance when the pair spun one of them off. They also tried mixing in a few of their three-person dance moves that they'd invented for themselves, but had had little opportunity to try out before then. Of course, no matter how odd they got, or how badly Fitz or sluttily Daisy danced when left to their own devices, the twins had them far outshone, people actually backing away from their exuberant dancing with their dates in fear of actual bodily injury from flying limbs.

After more than an hour of dancing, swaying, and otherwise moving their sexy bodies to the musical rhythm, FitzSkimmons stumbled exhaustedly and giddily to the bar to grab some butterbeers, before heading outside into the heated rose garden the courtyard had been transformed into for the night.

"We fight supervillains all day long without breaking a sweat, and we can barely dance for an hour without feeling like we just finished a mile sprint," said Simmons still slightly out of breath as they walked down one of the winding paths.

"That's because your version of fighting villains involves standing in a lab all day — I could have kept dancing till midnight," Daisy retorted playfully, though her claim was slightly brought into question by her own labored breathing.

"I'm quite happy with myself tonight, to be honest," said Fitz. "I couldn't make it fifteen minutes without being twice as out of breath as I am right now back the last time I danced at the Academy, and I made it over an hour today. And you can ask Jemma to confirm — she was there to get to experience my gloriously manly wheezing."

"It was thirty minutes, you just thought it could have only been fifteen because you thought you would hate dancing so much that there was no way thirty minutes could have possibly passed, but yeah — you were way more out of breath then than now," answered Simmons. "Although, there was a lot more flailing and a lot less relatively formal dance moves that time as well. And I personally couldn't breathe when we finally stumbled off the dance floor, because I was laughing so hard at Fitz's attempts at dancing that looked like he'd been taking dance lessons from one of those monkeys he wants so badly."

"Hey! I clearly impressed the only girl there that mattered with my fabulous dance moves!"

"I'm not sure laughing my head off at you exactly counts as impressing me," Simmons smirked back. "But you didn't need to impress me with your questionable dance moves — and by that I mean questionable as to whether they could really be called dance moves — because you had already won my heart with your genius brain, and pasty, well-formed, symmetrical body, even if it sadly took me another decade to realize and acknowledge it. And I did take you back to my dorm room to study for a while when we left the party."

"You know, sometimes I'm really glad it only took me knowing you like five or six years to fall in love with you guys, instead of taking the better part of a decade," said Daisy with a smile. "I may not have your psychic link, but I also didn't have to wait as long — and patience isn't my strongest suit."

They spent the next hour wandering around the garden exploring, and more specifically exploring all the best spots to snog in without getting caught, before finally heading back inside for a few more dances before the party ended at midnight. But as they walked towards the dance floor, Cedric approached them.

"Are you three still not caring about the tournament?" he asked quietly. "Because I feel like I owe you something for the dragon, and I've figured out the egg clue, so I wouldn't mind pointing you in the right direction if you were interested."

"Thanks for the offer, but we're still not trying," answered Simmons with a kind smile. "And you owe us nothing, we were happy to help."

"Yeah, it's kind of our job," added Daisy with a smirk. "And as for the egg, it's been lost to the annals of time — and a crevice in a rock on the other side of the lake."

"Okay, just wanted to check. And if there is anything I can do for you, even unrelated to the tournament, just ask," said Cedric, before bidding them goodbye and walking back to his date, allowing FitzSkimmons to continue their journey to the dance floor.