The first morning of classes of the new year, snow covered the ground so thickly that it took them several minutes longer to make their way down to Hagrid's hut from the greenhouses after Herbology than it normally did.
But no sooner had they arrived, than an old witch who was decidedly not Hagrid barked at them as they visibly struggled through the snow, "Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago."
"We literally just came straight from our last class as fast as we could through this stupid snow," growled Fitz. "So kindly shove —"
"Fitz!" Simmons hissed into his ear, making him cut his declaration short of exactly where the witch could place her rudeness.
Meanwhile, Daisy looked at the woman and said coolly, "You're not Hagrid."
"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank. I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."
"And…?" pressed Fitz pointedly.
"And what?" the woman snapped back.
"Where is our professor?" retorted Daisy, barely holding in, 'You idiot.'
"He is indisposed," replied Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.
Soft, sneering laughter drifted over them from behind, but Daisy ignored the snakelet — she had more important matters to deal with at the moment than whatever stick was up Malfoy's butt that morning.
Looking over at Simmons, she asked, "Hey, Mione — you can teach us everything from the book just fine, can't you? I mean, obviously besides the skrewts, since no one knows anything about them because Hagrid just made them up or something, but we're not going to be learning about them here either, so that doesn't matter."
"I should be able to teach us everything that would be on the test, and probably a lot more — yes," answered Simmons.
"Whelp — looks like this is our stand this year, and not Snape for once," said Daisy. Turning away and starting to walk back up to the castle, she threw a "Toodle-oos" over her shoulder at Grubby Planks, brushing into Malfoy and his cronies as she left.
FitzSimmons quickly followed after her, Fitz smirking at and flicking Malfoy off as they walked past. All three of them expected to hear Grubs yell at them to get back to class, that she would give them a year's worth of detention, but they never did.
So halfway back up to the castle, Simmons looked at the other two and said, "I can't believe she just let us walk away. Also, I wonder what is wrong with Hagrid."
"I can believe it a little — she really didn't seem to care about anyone," replied Daisy. "But Hagrid is a bit of a worry — because I don't remember seeing him at breakfast this morning either. Hope he's not sick or been eaten by one of his skrewts."
Making it back up to the castle, they headed to the library to study magical creatures until it was lunchtime, since they really did still want to learn, they just weren't about to put up with even more snooty, pretentious teachers around there — Snape was enough bad teachers for one school.
~FSK~
FitzSkimmons had just sat down at the Gryffindor table for lunch when Malfoy swaggered over to them like his normal cocky self.
"We miss anything in class today?" Daisy asked earnestly before the Snake could sneer a word.
Malfoy paused for a second, clearly not expecting an honest question instead of something condescending or rude like he was planning on saying, before mumbling, "Uh, don't know. It was unicorns but we weren't allowed anywhere near them, only the girls were, so I didn't pay any attention." Then he cleared his throat and said much more like his normal cocky self, "Wondering where your big ugly friend is?"
"Why yes — because we aren't so self-centered as to not wonder how people are doing when we don't see them going about their normal, daily business like usual," answered Simmons genuinely.
Once again, this answer made Malfoy pause, but he quickly regathered his charming wit, and sneered, "He hasn't been attacked, if that's what you're thinking. No, he's just too ashamed to show his big, ugly face."
"And are you just going to babble like a brook all day, or are you going to get to your point sometime before we all grow old and die?" answered Fitz boredly. "Or you grow old and die, we're immortal — ish. Maybe. Ronna at least seems like she might be, and Hermione doesn't look a day older than when I met her, she's just changed hair styles a few times."
Looking like he was about to destroy someone's life and couldn't be happier about it, Malfoy reached into his pocket and pulled out a newspaper article with flourish, before slapping it down on the table in front of them. "There you go. Hate to break it to you."
"Now why don't I believe that?" Fitz retorted dryly.
"Maybe because he literally walked all the way over to our table to break it to us?" Daisy answered the rhetorical question with a smirk. "And clearly, as much as he hated having to do it, was also fully ready and willing to make the personal sacrifice of breaking it to us during Magical Creatures class this morning, we just left before he had the chance to make that great sacrifice on his part."
Simmons, meanwhile, straightened out the article on the table in front of them so that the three of them could read it. As could have been deduced beforehand, it was about Hagrid, and also as could be expected, it wasn't exactly what one would call flattering. In fact, one might call it very unflattering, or even downright vile. The legal word for most of it was libel.
"He held up better last year with the hippogriff incident — why'd he fall to pieces because of this?" Fitz mused curiously once he'd finished reading. "That seems like more of a reason to quit than an article full of blatant lies."
"I don't think any adults outside of Malfoy's dad and presumably the school board knew about that, though," replied Simmons. "He was fine with one of his students getting scratched because they were a complete fucking moron who didn't listen to him, but this he knows the entire wizarding country read, so he tucked tail and ran — or that's my guess anyway. And more proof that he shouldn't be a professor."
"Also, you do understand the definition of 'too scared to say anything', don't you?" said Daisy directly to Malfoy. "Because it's literally the exact opposite of using your real name to tell the entire country through the only newspaper in existence. Oh, and by the way — I wish a flobberworm would bite Crabbe. He might gain a few brain cells through the flobberworm's saliva."
Malfoy had clearly been expecting a much seethinger response from FitzSkimmons than the one he got, as he just stared at them in shock for several seconds. FitzSkimmons patiently let him take his time collecting himself and coming up with his next scathing comment, which he eventually did, though with much less than his usual bite.
"Well, I think this should put an end to the oaf's teaching career. Half-giant — and there was me thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was young. None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all. They'll be worried he'll eat their kids."
"Hey, that reminds me," said Daisy, looking over at Simmons. "Did you know he was half-giant? Seems like something Hermione would know."
"Uh...yeah," answered Simmons, having to think back through Hermione's memories for a second. "I did know that, and also that he couldn't be pure giant since they're at least twenty feet tall, but I did think he must be at least some part, and certainly more than Elizabeth Warren is Native American. It just never seemed like something that needed mentioning. Sort of like how I never mentioned that Malfoy is half a dick, half a cunt, and has neither."
"So what you're telling me…" said Fitz thoughtfully and deliberately, "is that you — a mudblood — figured out entirely on your own, and knew something magical about Hagrid that Malfoy — a pureblood of the purebloods — didn't? Is that what you're saying?"
"By golly — I think it is!" replied Simmons in mock astonishment, before turning to Malfoy with a very unimpressed look and saying boredly, "Idiot. Now scamper back off to your nest that you crawled out of where anyone is scared enough of you to actually give a shit about your opinion."
Malfoy didn't want to obey the mudblood, or do anything Potter and the Blood-Traitor Weasel supported, but as he literally couldn't think of any more ways to try to insult them, rile Potter up, or otherwise cause trouble, and they were all three looking at him like he wasn't even worth their time to argue with anymore, he really had no choice but to walk back over to the Slytherin table, and try to plot a better attack next time.
Over the next two weeks, FitzSkimmons never saw the first sign of Hagrid.
So as long as Hagrid didn't show up at the staff table for meals, and they didn't see him going about his gamekeeper duties, they continued not attending Care of Magical Creatures class with Grubby-Face, instead attending Care of Magical Creatures class with Dr Simmons in the library, learning far more than they ever had under Hagrid, and more than any of them thought they probably would have under Grub-Pants had they attended her class instead of teaching themselves.
They did at the end of their next Transfiguration class after Hagrid's sudden disappearance from the world ask Professor McGonagall if Hagrid was okay, and when he would be back, but she just brushed them off to such an extent and told them to move along to their next class that they honestly weren't sure she had even checked to make sure Hagrid was okay and what was up with her fellow professor, or possibly even noticed that he was missing and wasn't teaching any more in the first place — though given his size, that seemed rather hard to believe.
Malfoy also occasionally came around sneering things like "Missing your half-breed pal?" or "Missing the elephant-man?", but as FitzSkimmons simply flicked him off, or else said, "We'd like to know that he's okay — we're not heartless like you", every time he did so, he didn't do it very often.
But they still hadn't seen or heard a peep from or about Hagrid by the time the first Hogsmeade weekend of the new year arrived in the latter half of January. They didn't have any hope that they would see him on their visit to the quaint little town, but they kept their eyes peeled anyway, just in case he came out of hiding for alcohol, though they figured if he did he wouldn't do so on a day everyone else was going to be going to be in town as well, unless he lost track of or didn't know the day, and came out by accident not expecting anyone else to be there. But as expected, they never saw him. They did, however, see someone else they weren't expecting.
They had just walked out of Honeydukes Sweet Shop a little after the normal lunch hour, still waiting on the Three Broomsticks to clear out so they could eat and drink with a little more peace and quiet than when half the school was in there, when Bagman suddenly appeared by their side, as if by magic.
"Harry! How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all right?"
"It's fine..." Fitz answered slowly, wondering what Bagman wanted.
"Wonder if I could have a quick, private word, Harry?" said Bagman eagerly, before turning to Skimmons and adding, "You two couldn't give us a moment, could you?"
"You're right — we couldn't," answered Daisy. "Though I'm not really sure why you'd want us gone, since if you're talking with Harry it's ninety-three percent likely to be about the TriWizard Tournament, and in case you forgot, the three of us together are the fourth champion of the now very inappropriately named tournament — really should be the hexa-QuadWizard Tournament if you're going for descriptive accuracy."
Bagman looked at Daisy like he hadn't understood a word out of her mouth after about the midway point, before finally saying, "Well, can we get somewhere a bit more secluded?"
"Lead on," answered Simmons.
A minute later they were at the corner of the small alleyway between Honeydukes and Zonko's Joke Shop.
"Well, I just thought I'd congratulate you again on your splendid performance against that Horntail, Harry," said Bagman. "Really superb the way you tricked her into giving you her egg."
"Unintended luck, though whether good or bad we're still undecided," replied Fitz, hoping Bagman would quickly get to whatever he was there for.
But for several seconds, Bagman seemed to be literally looking around them to find anything to talk about other than whatever he was there to talk about. Eventually, however, he seemed to realize there was nothing but slushy snow around them, and don't nobody want to talk about that, so he lowered his voice and asked conspiratorially, "What I really wanted to ask you, is how are you getting on with your golden egg?"
"Oh, we lost it months ago — we don't give two shits about it or the clue inside," Daisy replied cheerfully.
Bagman stared at them in shock for several seconds, before deciding to just ignore it entirely and plow ahead full steam with his plan like they hadn't just said they'd lost their only clue to the second task and eventually winning the tournament.
"Listen, I feel very bad about all this...you were thrown into this tournament, you didn't volunteer for it...and if…if I can help at all...a prod in the right direction...I've taken a liking to you...the way you got past that dragon!...well, just say the word."
"Unless you can prod us towards some real alcohol, something with a little — or a lot, preferably — more alcohol than butterbeer, we're all good," answered Simmons. "Gin would be nice, but at this point we'll honestly take anything with an alcohol content over ten percent."
But Bagman didn't seem to be interested in getting them any better alcohol, and let them go on their merry way to the Three Broomsticks to try to convince Madam Rosmerta to let them have firewhisky.
Which they really, really hoped she would, because as soon as they walked in they spotted Skeeter sitting at a table with her photographer, and they knew they'd need it if they had to get in a knockdown, drag-out conversation with her.
But as much as they tried to convince the landlady that they were completely responsible adult fourteen/fifteen year olds, she still refused to sell them any real alcohol. So when they heard Skeeters' voice call out across the pub, "Harry! How lovely! Why don't you come and join me?", they turned to look at her.
"Will you buy us firewhisky, and maybe some wine or gin? Madam Rosmerta won't sell us any," replied Fitz across the bar, plenty loud enough for everyone in there to hear, including Madam Rosmerta standing behind the bar right next to them. "But if you'll buy us some, we'll come sit with you all day long — or for a little while, at least. All you have to do is buy us alcohol, since we can't get any here ourselves — or at least any worth a damn."
Skeeter looked over at Madam Rosmerta with a look that could only be described as glee, and said, "A bottle of firewhisky for the table, please, and few extra glasses!" As Rosmerta glared at her for buying students real alcohol, the writer added, "It's of course just for my photographer and I, bring three butterbeers for the students," before giving FitzSkimmons a very obvious wink.
Grumbling that she knew exactly what Skeeter was actually going to do, Rosmerta went off to get the firewhisky and butterbeers, as FitzSkimmons crossed the pub to sit at Skeeter's table.
Sitting down, before Skeeter could say a word, Simmons said crisply, "Just so there's no misunderstandings here, we still don't like you, or any of your writing that we've seen so far. But between the fact you've routinely proven that you have no problem making stories up regardless of whether or not you actually talk to the people you write about or whether they actually say anything you write that they say, and the fact that we really want a drink since it's been way too long and it's pretty self-explanatorily difficult for us to get any on our own, we'll eat lunch at your table while you ask us questions you don't give two shits about our answers to since you'll just make up your own anyway. But we are in no way friends, nor do we even like you as a fellow human being — in fact, we kind of think you're scum."
"No, no, we definitely think you're scum," clarified Daisy. "But at the moment, you're useful scum."
Skeeter clearly understood, and possibly even appreciated their position, especially as she felt the same way about most other people, as she merely nodded slightly, and didn't say anything as they waited for Madam Rosmerta to bring them their drinks. When she did, FitzSkimmons quickly ordered some real food for lunch as well, before turning their attention to Skeeter once Rosmerta had left again.
"So I take it you didn't appreciate my article? And would that be the article on the TriWizard Tournament or the one on your friend, Hagrid?" Skeeter asked once they were alone again. "You will notice I never wrote anything from our interview after the first task."
"Which we found slightly odd, yes," answered Simmons. "Because supposedly the Triwizard Tournament is the biggest, most important thing since the latest gossip about whoever is currently prince or princess is sleeping with at the moment. And inside the castle it does almost stand up to the yearly school quidditch matches, but I haven't really got the impression that hardly anyone outside of the castle is giving two shits about it. Now I could be wrong, I didn't get the Daily Prophet this year since nothing outside the castle affects anything inside the castle or vice-versa, so it seemed rather pointless, but it does mean that I haven't seen every article published this year, only what's important enough for other students to gossip about. But from what I have heard, the Daily Prophet at least doesn't really seem to care a lick about the tournament, which means they're either trying to suppress the tournament or else they don't think anyone in the real world cares about it. So from that perspective, given the fact we didn't really give you good material to sell to the Prophet in our post-task one interview, perhaps it isn't so surprising that you never wrote a story on it."
"What she's saying is, you only care about money, you just say you care about truth so fewer people will think you a vile sewer rat. But at the end of the day you only actually care about a story if it'll make you money, and you have absolutely zero qualms about bold-faced lying to make your 'truth the world needs to hear' sell better," summarized Daisy quickly.
"But back to your actual question, it's mostly the article about Hagrid we're less than appreciative about," said Fitz. "We don't give two shits what you write about us, because we give an equal number to what anyone thinks about us, so you can write whatever you like about us. We've proven over and over again that we can't get chucked out of Hogwarts, and half the people there hate our guts off and on anyway and the adults do absolutely nothing about any of it, so it doesn't matter what lies you publish about us, it doesn't affect us in the least. Hagrid, however, doesn't have a backbone, and does care about other people's opinions of him far too much. And you personally attacked him, not because you actually think he's a threat to anyone — you went out drinking with him, probably to this very pub, maybe even this very table, and you weren't in the least bit afraid that he was going to eat you, since he has a longer history of being a good gamekeeper at a school full of students who have never once been eaten than you've even been alive, and it's almost guaranteed that you knew him as gamekeeper from your own seven years through Hogwarts, since you are English after all and just about had to come here when you were a wee little witchlet — but you attacked him because there was money to be made in it. And you still had to blatantly lie at times to even do that. That's why we don't 'appreciate your article' as you put it. Mostly, though, we just think that you're overall a human piece of shit."
"Alright, then — how about you three give me an interview about the Hagrid you know? The man behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. That sound like an article you'd like to see?"
"We'd hate to, but we can't. Firstly, because we really aren't — friends with him, that is. When I was eleven, he rescued me from my abusive adoptive parents who I'm forced to live with every summer, and he told me and showed me that the magical world exists, so I know him a little more than I otherwise would have had he just been the gamekeeper. But beyond that, he's just one of my professors — when he's not hiding in his cabin because someone lied their not very stunning arse off about him. You really are lucky that there's no real laws or court system in the wizarding world, or you'd've been strung up for libel a long time ago. But saying that I'm friends with Hagrid would definitely be a stretch — I wouldn't consider myself friends with Snape or Professor McGonagall, either. They're my professors."
"And you, and every other person in Britain who read your article, already knows the man behind the muscle, since they literally all attended Hogwarts while he was gamekeeper here," added Daisy. "He attended at the same time as Tom Riddle, better known to all of you as Voldemort, which is a name you at least know, even if you refuse to say it. But point being, it was a bloody long time ago, and before ninety percent of your reading audience attended. And while it's technically legal to homeschool in the British wizarding world, no one actually does it. So since Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in the Isles, and very few people can or even would want to send their kids overseas, means everyone attended Hogwarts while Hagrid's been here, and so at least saw him going about his job every day and eating in the Great Hall every day, three times a day, even if they didn't ever get to know him personally. Something he certainly seems to have forgotten himself."
Skeeter was apparently finally used to getting surprised by every answer FitzSkimmons ever gave her, as she barely even paused before continuing on to her next question. "Would you call him a father substitute, Harry?"
"Oh, no no no no — the last thing I want is anyone as a father figure. Not good memories there," Fitz replied quickly, shaking his head hard. "Hell, no. I wouldn't consider any person I like to be a father figure — that would be an insult to them. But even if I had had a good father, I certainly wouldn't consider Hagrid to be like a father — for one thing I barely know the guy. Plus, he's really quite reckless — you don't even know the half of it or you would have published it in your article. So while he's a cool enough of a guy, he's not someone I'd want to be a father for me, or probably anyone that isn't half-giant like himself."
"Do you have anyone you would consider a father substitute?" Skeeter asked quickly.
"Nope," answered Fitz shortly. "In case you forgot, I just said I don't want one."
Sensing that part of the interview was over, and she wasn't going to get anything spicy out of that line of questioning, she asked, "How do you feel about the second task ahead?"
"Couldn't give a mouse's dainty hindquarters," answered Daisy. "Didn't care about the first one, don't care about this one, and — surprise of all surprises here — aren't going to care about the third one, either."
"So yeah, we feel great about it," added Fitz. "Because we're completely stress-free. Benefits of not giving a shit."
The four of them continued to talk a little bit more as FitzSkimmons ate their lunch that Madam Rosmerta had just brought with another glare at Skeeter and the glasses of firewhisky sitting in front of FitzSkimmons, but Skeeter was clearly disappointed in the content she was getting, and once FitzSkimmons had finished eating and all the alcohol was gone, both parties went their separate ways without more than a short goodbye, and a thanks for the adult drinks from FitzSkimmons to Skeeter.
A few minutes later, as FitzSkimmons walked down the street of Hogsmeade seeing if there were any more shops they wanted to pop into and look around, Daisy looked over at the other two and asked, "Think she'll publish a story on us for this?"
"No — honestly I doubt it," answered Simmons, shaking her head. "We didn't give her anything to sell. Sure, she could throw Hagrid under the bus again with everything Fitz said, but she's already done that. She needed Fitz to passionately defend Hagrid and make him out to be the Big Damn Hero to counter the negative article about Hagrid she just published. It's all about swinging people's emotions from one extreme to the other, and Fitz's not supporting Hagrid after she just tore him down, and then our not caring about the second task after we didn't care about the first one, aren't emotion swingers. So until she gets something juicy, I don't expect Malfoy to come strolling up to us again with a new newspaper clipping any time soon."
The morning after Hogsmeade day FitzSkimmons finally spotted Hagrid at the staff table again.
And so the next morning after Herbology, instead of heading towards the library for Care of Magical Creatures class with Dr Simmons, they headed down to Hagrid's hut with the rest of the Gryffindors for official Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid. As he remained present after that, they also continued attending class, until Monday's Care class two days before the second task arrived, where Hagrid pulled Fitz, and therefore by extension Daisy and Simmons, off to the side to talk to him as everyone else went to fawn all over the pair of unicorn foals Hagrid had brought to class.
"You okay, Harry?" Hagrid muttered to Fitz.
"Like always — why wouldn't we be?" answered Fitz in confusion.
"Jus' nervous, eh?" said Hagrid.
"No. What on earth are you going on about, Hagrid?" replied Fitz.
"The second task on Wednesday!" exclaimed Hagrid still in a hushed whisper.
"Why would we be nervous about that? We don't care what happens there," answered Daisy this time.
But Hagrid seemed to take this denial simply as proof that Fitz really was quite the nervous wreck and was just too embarrassed to admit it, and attempted to clap Fitz's shoulder. Which Fitz just narrowly avoided by years of Shield training at (normally) avoiding large, heavy objects trying to fall on him and kill him, causing Hagrid's giant paw to swing widely though the air when it didn't collide with Fitz's shoulder like it had expected to.
"Harry, I'd've bin worried before I saw yeh take on tha Horntail, but I know now yeh can do anythin' yeh set yer mind ter. I'm not worried at all. Yeh're goin' ter be fine. I'm sure yeh got yer clue worked out by now, haven' yeh?"
"Nope. Never even looked at that ostentatious eyesore after the first task," answered Fitz.
At this Hagrid did finally stare at him in shock and utter disbelief.
"Yeah, chucked it in the woods somewhere, can't remember," added Daisy carelessly, to emphasize the point.
"It was probably picked up by some giant magical flying bird that thought she'd accidentally dropped one of her pre-born chicklets," finished Simmons, just so Hagrid was clear that they were all three in agreement about not giving a damn about the egg, clue, or second task.
"But yeh're goin' ter win, Harry!" Hagrid said almost petulantly. "I know it. I can feel it. Yeh're goin' ter win, Harry."
"Definitely not — one of the three champions is going to win, certainly not us," replied Fitz, shaking his head. "We're just making sure we don't lose our magic. We should have had zero points for the first task, had fully intended to have zero, but then our dragon kind of screwed that up by throwing us the egg as thanks for us making the crowd finally shut the bloody hell up."
And with that, not wanting to have to argue with Hagrid any more about the fact that they weren't trying and didn't care, Fitz walked over to the unicorn foals to play with the cute fuzzies, Simmons and Daisy quickly following along.