The morning of the final day of exams, FitzSkimmons were eating breakfast in contented peace when Malfoy came swaggering over.

"Made it into the newspaper again, Potter," he smirked, looking down at the three of them.

"Let me guess — not very flattering?" Fitz replied boredly, not even looking up from the piece of bacon he was using to practice one of the spells Jemma thought they'd probably be required to perform in that afternoon's Charms final.

"What Harry means to say is, we haven't read the Daily Prophet this morning, nor has anyone else shown it to us, so if you'd like us to give a fuck about whatever you're wanting really, really badly to gloat about, you'd better either tell us what it is, or hand us the copy of this morning's Prophet that I saw you stuff in your robes before you stood up to walk over here," added Simmons, not looking up from where she was rereading their History of Magic textbook, despite Hermione already having had it memorized before Simmons had ever appropriated the bushy-haired bookworm's brain.

After staring at them in shock at their indifference for several seconds, Malfoy finally reached into his robes and pulled out the article, slapping it down on the table with a regained sneer.

~.~

HARRY POTTER

"DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS"

The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is unstable and possibly dangerous, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Alarming evidence has recently come to light about Harry Potter's strange behavior, which casts doubts upon his suitability to compete in a demanding competition like the Triwizard Tournament, or even to attend Hogwarts School.

Potter, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal, regularly has visions at school, and is often heard to complain of pain in the scar on his forehead (relic of the curse with which You-Know-Who attempted to kill him). On a recent Monday, midway through an Arithmancy lesson, your Daily Prophet reporter witnessed Potter claiming that he had just had a vision of You-Know-Who torturing someone who the Ministry can confirm has been dead for nearly fourteen years — none other than the hero Peter Pettigrew, who cornered the mass murderer Sirius Black, just to be brutally murdered by Black. And this isn't the first time Potter has claimed the still-at-large felon Sirius Black is innocent and poor Peter Pettigrew (may he rest in peace) is still alive. A very high-ranking official who wishes to remain anonymous can confirm that he himself heard Potter make this very claim at the end of last year, after having been courageously saved from certain death at the hands of several rogue dementors and a rabid werewolf by his brave Potions professor, Severus Snape.

It is possible, say top experts at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, that Potter's brain was affected by the attack inflicted upon him by You-Know-Who, and that his insistence that the scar is still hurting is an expression of his deep-seated confusion. Perhaps even, this encounter at the end of last year with the vicious werewolf and the dementors aggravated his brain injury, causing him to start having visions of You-Know-Who and the late Peter Pettigrew.

"Or he might even just be pretending," added one specialist. "This could be a plea for attention."

The Daily Prophet, however, has unearthed even more worrying facts about Harry Potter that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, has carefully concealed from the wizarding public for years.

"Potter can speak Parseltongue," reveals Draco Malfoy, a brilliant and handsome Hogwarts fourth year of the prestigious Malfoy family. "There were a lot of attacks on students a couple years ago, almost resulting in multiple students' deaths, and everyone knew that Potter was behind the attacks after they all saw him lose his already always high temper in a duel in the Great Hall, and set a snake on a boy from a different House than his. It was all hushed up, though, like everything else that might portray the great Harry Potter in a negative light. But he's made friends with werewolves and giants too, so it's obvious that he will do anything to gain power."

Parseltongue, the ability to converse with snakes, has long been considered a Dark Art. Indeed, the most famous parselmouth of our times, indeed the only other known parselmouth in our time, is none other than You-Know-Who himself. A member of the Dark Force Defense League, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that he would regard any wizard who could speak Parseltongue "as worthy of thorough investigation and probably arrest and imprisonment in Azkaban. Personally, I would be highly suspicious of anybody who could converse with snakes, as serpents are used in the worst kinds of Dark Magic, and are historically associated with evildoers." Similarly, "anyone who seeks out the company of such horrendous, vile, vicious creatures as werewolves and giants would appear to have an eagerness for violence."

Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a clearly dangerous boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Most fear that Potter will resort to the Dark Arts in his desperation to win the tournament, the third and final task of which takes place this evening at Hogwarts in front of all of the innocent students of the school.

~.~

"So 'once' is 'regularly' now? I'm having a really hard time following all the new changes in definitions of words," Fitz said dryly as soon as they had finished reading. "Why can't we go back to using what the dictionary says, and has said for centuries in most cases, that a word means? Seems a lot easier to me."

"Yeah, but you're logical, dear hubby," teased Daisy. "And sensationalism writers like Skeeter aren't. Sociopathic, sure, but less on the logical bit."

"Actually, Skeeter is probably very logical — it's the audience, including probably Malfoy who's still lurking over our shoulders stupidly expecting us to be upset by this steaming pile of shit, who believes her and this article that are the ones who aren't logical. Skeeter is just feasting off of illogical sheep that won't think for themselves, like a vampire on college girls all alone in a forest cabin on spring break," corrected Simmons. "Also, the Prophet can't exactly 'exclusively reveal' anything if they're the only media outlet in the entire country. Exclusiveness only works if there is competition, and other outlets exist that could also possibly report the same thing — which when it comes to news in the British wizarding world, there sadly, and very dangerously, isn't."

"What I want to know which one of our fellow fourth year Gryffindorks in Arithmancy we've pissed off enough somehow to report to Skeeter about Harry's vision, because she sure as hell wasn't doing multiplication tables with us that day — or any other day, for that matter," said Daisy. "I'll admit that we have nothing to do with any of them, but I didn't think any of them hated us for that enough to go rat to Skeeter."

"They all will if you start calling them 'Gryffindorks'," replied Simmons, rolling her eyes. "But Skeeter somehow knowing that Fitz said he felt a little bit of pain is bothering me far more than that is at the moment. He only said that after we'd left class, when we were most definitely walking down the hallway alone, and yet she either heard that and turned it into 'is often heard to complain of pain in the scar on his forehead', or she made it up entirely hoping it was true." She paused for a second, before adding, "Although actually, now that I think about it, it fits really well with her story and isn't something questionable by her audience, since they can't ask every single person at this school if they've ever heard Harry complain about his scar hurting before, and most can't even ask a single person, so it's a convenient for her story, easy to swallow lie that no one can challenge even if they don't know whether to believe her or not — it's the perfect crime in a world with no courts to sue for defamation in, especially if you're just a student. So maybe she didn't hear it, and did entirely make it up — which really seems a lot more likely now that I think it through."

Pointing to a later part of the article, Fitz asked, "Why did Dumbledore hush up the fact that Riddle's ghost-in-a-book was releasing a basilisk into the castle and that I killed it, though? That it was petrifying people and nearly killed Ginevra, sure, I get keeping that quiet as it might hurt the school's bottom line in terms of attendance, and they're already way down compared to what this place was clearly built for, but since no one believes Riddle still exists, why wouldn't he be trying to spread this story as far and wide as possible, and show everyone the Chamber of Secrets and the dead basilisk inside of it as proof that something sure as fuck happened?"

"Because people would just call him crazy instead of considering that he might be right? Because it could implicate Ginevra Weasley, and there seems to be something going on trying to keep the Weasley name impeccably clean?" offered Simmons. "Or maybe it's the Ministry that hushed it all up, and Dumbledore isn't willing to go against the Ministry, or at least not on this."

Having no answers, they resumed skimming the article for anything else so ridiculous that it just had to be pointed out and laughed at, which Fitz found in the very last paragraph.

"I very specifically wasn't allowed to compete, and I wish I hadn't been allowed to compete," he grumbled. "Also, you two lovely ladies weren't allowed to compete either, by age or the fact that your names didn't come out of the Goblet, and they didn't try hard to stop that, either. And who are these 'most people' that think we're trying to win at all? Have we really not shown that we don't give a shit?"

"It's the same people as all the 'they's that say things," smirked Daisy. "You know, like, 'they said it would be over quickly if we just shut down the world for fifteen days', 'they say you need to do this or that for this or that and the other to happen' — those 'they's. 'They' say Potter's going to resort to Dark Arts he hasn't been anywhere to learn, in order to win a tournament he hasn't tried yet in once."

"Ah, yes...'they'," replied Fitz sarcastically, rolling his eyes. " 'Experts'."

Meanwhile, behind them, Malfoy was still staring down at them in flabbergastation. He knew Potter, Weasel, and the mudblood had been acting strange that year compared to the previous three, but he still knew this was going to finally get a rise out of them. He'd even prepared an entire little, Monty Python-worthy skit to make fun of Potter's insanity and parseltongue gift, but that was going to be useless if they just stared at him boredly like he was a complete moron and walked off every time he performed it, even if it doubtlessly would be to sellout Great Hall crowds. But before he could decide how to try to rile them up since the article alone hadn't done it, he spotted the stern Gryffindor Head of House walking in their direction, and quickly slithered back to his nest. He didn't think he'd done anything she could unfairly punish him for, but he didn't particularly want to find out at the moment, either.

Professor McGonagall, however, had no problems with Malfoy at the moment, and was simply walking up to Potter to tell him, "Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast."

"We have exams to get to. So thanks, but — yeah, we're being entirely sarcastic about the thanks part," Daisy replied sassily. "Come on, girlfriend, boyfriend — we have school things to be doing here at this school."

She stood up, an action immediately replicated by FitzSimmons, and the three of them walked out of the Great Hall towards Binns' classroom, leaving McGonagall behind staring at them in shock.

Deciding that she didn't want to be the one to have to tell Mrs Weasley that Potter wasn't coming, Professor McGonagall steered clear of the chamber the champions' parents plus Mrs and Bill Weasley were waiting in. Which left Mrs Weasley standing all alone with Bill as the three champions came into the room and met up with their parents.

After several minutes of Harry still not appearing, she looked over at the other Hogwarts student in the room, who was closest to the door out of everyone, and said, "Tell Harry we're waiting for him in here!"

Diggory turned and gave the overbearing woman he'd never even seen before a withering look. "No. Go get him yourself, if he's still in there. They've all been still taking their exams, so he's probably gone, but the bell's already rung for everyone to head to exams, so no one else is going to be in the Great Hall right now."

Mrs Weasley stared in disbelief for several seconds at his back where he'd turned back to talk to his parents, before finally looking around to find someone else to go get her Harry for her. But everyone else had started leaving the room, and soon it was only her and her son left in the chamber. With nothing else to do, she finally trudged out into the Great Hall to get Harry herself, just to find it completely empty. With no students or teachers around to find Harry for her, but knowing that Harry would have to come back into the Great Hall for lunch, she sat down at the Gryffindor table to wait for him.

~FSK~

After the bell rang signifying the end of the History of Magic exam, FitzSkimmons slowly packed their bags as the rest of the class rushed out and Binns floated backwards through the blackboard he couldn't use as a ghost.

"Library again, like normal?" asked Fitz as they ambled out of the classroom a few minutes later.

They had been going to the library to get in some last minute studying for their next exam after each of their exams that week for the first half of lunch or supper, to allow the thickest crowds to die down in the Great Hall as people left to go get in some last minute studying of their own during the second half of lunch, or after the first thirty minutes of supper.

"Unless Daisy's got a better objection than 'I don't want to', or a better suggestion of what to do instead than 'let's go have sex'," replied Simmons, smirking over at their wife.

"Hey, I actually like Charms," defended Daisy as they headed towards the library. "Books aren't really my thing, but I do like the practical part."

They quizzed each other in the library over charms Simmons expected to come up on the exam that afternoon, until lunch was about half over, when they finally packed up their things and headed down to the Great Hall. Entering a few minutes later, they almost immediately spotted Mrs Weasley's bulk taking up several spots at the Gryffindor table.

Stopping short and pulling the other two to a stop with her, Simmons hissed to Daisy, "Got any clue why Ronna's mum is here?"

Daisy shook her head. "No clue. She sure as hell didn't tell Ronna she was coming, or y'all would obviously know about it."

Spotting Fleur eating with her parents at the Ravenclaw table, Fitz waved hi to her. When the veela waved him over, he turned to his wives and nodded his head in her direction, saying, "Want to eat lunch with Fleur today? She just waved us over, and we won't have to pretend we're people we're not — or at least not any more than we always do, and not to someone who actually knows one of our characters."

So a few seconds later they were sitting down next to the veela and her parents. They spent most of lunch chatting with Fleur about what they expected to have to face in the maze that evening, enjoying learning about spells the French girl knew from her school and homeland that they had never heard about here in Britain at Hogwarts, that she thought might be incorporated into the maze for them to overcome.

But as they were finishing up eating, knowing the bell would soon ring to send everyone scurrying towards classrooms for their final exam of the year, Mrs Weasley came waddling up to them and said cheerfully, "Thought we'd come and watch you, Harry!"

All three of FitzSkimmons turned to face the woman, but it was Simmons who actually addressed her.

"You shouldn't have. And I literally mean you shouldn't have — it's clearly against the rules of the tournament, since there are no other adults here who didn't have their child's name come out of the Goblet of Fire," she said coldly. "You should leave. Or do you want us telling Ms Skeeter to tell the entire wizarding population of Britain that you came to spectate the TriWizard Tournament despite the fact that none of them were allowed to come spectate it? Because we will tell her that, and a Weasley breaking the law is definitely front page news, maybe even a special Evening Prophet edition before the third task even starts — I'm sure we can find her wandering around here somewhere, she was at both of the first two tasks."

"Yeah, mum — don't go giving our family a worse name than we already have here," Daisy added icily. "I already have to live down the fact that we're poorer than dirt, I don't need the fact that you illegally came to watch the tournament when no one else was allowed to added to that."

Mrs Weasley stared at the muggleborn and her oldest daughter in shock at being spoken to like that, before changing tack at the speed of light and turning to Harry with a motherly smile.

"Harry — aren't you happy—?"

"That the parent of one of my girlfriends is breaking the tournament rules and making my girlfriends upset and worried? No — no I'm not happy about that," growled Fitz. "So not a good day to you, we're leaving. And leave us alone, or better yet, leave altogether."

And with that he stood up, Daisy and Simmons as well, and the three of them turned their backs on Mrs Weasley and started walking out of the Great Hall.

"But Dumbledore invited us to come, so you would have family here for the final task!" shouted Mrs Weasley. "Arthur and Charlie would have come too, but they're busy at work!"

Fitz turned around with a look of cold fury.

"I have my family here already," he growled. "Hermione and Ronna are my family."

And with that he turned around again and swept out of the Great Hall, ignoring all further protests shouted by the woman.

Once they were alone in one of the secret passages, Fitz looked over at his wives and asked, "Are we actually going to go try to find Skeeter before the task?"

"Oh, no! Or at least I wasn't actually serious about that," replied Simmons. "I would be hesitant to do it even if the years did roll over and what we did meant something for our future selves, because telling could actually harm Ronna slightly, which of course by extension harms Daisy, you, and myself. But since the years don't roll over, there's absolutely no point. I don't know what happened in the book, but it sure as hell wasn't us giving Skeeter the dirt on Mrs Weasley."

Fitz simply nodded in reply, as Daisy said, "You know we're going to have to see her again at supper, right? She's not going away — especially not after being set in her place like that."

"Yeah, I know," sighed Simmons. "But I'm not really sure what to do about it."

"Since we have our Charms final in a few minutes, I'd say charm her into a hog, but we're not that advanced yet," joked Fitz. "But seriously, could we go sit with Krum at the Slytherin table? Or just at the Slytherin table, period? I've never actually read or heard anyone say that you're not allowed to sit at a different table, and we've done it with Fleur at the Ravenclaw table before. But I have a feeling Mrs Weasley's desire to scold us would be outweighed by her brainwashed Gryffindor hatred of Slytherin."

"First off, that's Transfiguration, not Charms, but secondly, I think you're right about everything else," answered Simmons. "And I'd be happy to try to break down some of the walls between Gryffindor and Slytherin, along with infuriating Malfoy to no end."

~FSK~

So that evening, as they walked into the Great Hall for supper, they turned left instead of right.

Walking up to where Krum was sitting, Simmons asked politely, "Mind if we sit here? There's someone at the Gryffindor table we're trying to avoid."

Krum simply nodded in reply, so the three of them sat down. It was a mostly quiet meal, until about halfway through, when Malfoy suddenly spotted them from where he sat a ways down the table.

"Hey! What are you doing here?! This isn't your table! Scram!"

"We just wanted to come visit you," Daisy replied in her most teasing, girlish voice, giving him a giant fake smile. "It's just been so long since we've gotten to chat. This morning was like hours ago, and we didn't have Potions together today to tide us over!"

Malfoy stared at them for several seconds like they were completely out of their minds (when in reality they were simply in someones else's), but as he opened his mouth to reply, really hoping the words would be there when his mouth finished opening, Simmons said curtly, "There are no rules saying anyone actually has to sit at their House table, and we're sitting with our fellow champion, Viktor Krum, anyway. You ignore us, we'll ignore you, you shout insults at us when we start the third task later tonight, and everyone will be — well, happy's definitely not the right word, but you get the picture."

"Yeah, well — your clothes aren't right! You're not wearing robes like you have to! I can report you for that!" Malfoy snapped back far weaker than he would have liked, but it was the best he could manage at the moment.

And FitzSkimmons were in fact not wearing their robes. They had instead once again donned their bounty hunter/Madam Shield/catsuit outfits that they'd worn for the first two tasks. If they were going to be having to face obstacles in a dangerous maze, they wanted the best mobility they could get, and floppy, billowing robes that wasn't.

"No, we aren't — wearing robes, that is," Simmons replied politely. "Since we're going into a maze full of supposedly dangerous creatures and spells, we picked practical clothes, with mobility, over completely pointless robes that only exist because this world seems absolutely determined to keep alive all the stereotypes."

Malfoy looked like he wanted to reply scathingly, but apparently couldn't think of anything to actually contradict them with and was still too confused by the fact they were three Gryffindors voluntarily sitting at the Slytherin table to resort to his normal meaningless insults, and sulkily turned back to his food, just occasionally looking their way to glare at them during the remainder of the feast.

A while later, as the feast wound down and the enchanted sky overhead turned dusk, Dumbledore stood and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now."

FitzSkimmons and Krum rose from their seats at the Slytherin table, as Fleur and Diggory did likewise from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, and Bagman from the staff table. But as FitzSkimmons and Krum started towards the door to meet the others, FitzSkimmons noticed one more person had risen, someone from the Gryffindor table, someone who shouldn't have been there at all and certainly shouldn't have been rising at that moment. Mrs Weasley had stood up and start hurrying towards them as fast as her bulk would let her, clearly intent on 'comforting', 'mothering', or whatever the hell she thought she was doing to Harry.

As one, the three of them pulled their wands out from their pockets, and turned to point them menacingly at her when she was still twenty feet away.

Mrs Weasley pulled up in shock at having three wands pointed threateningly at her, as at the exact same moment they heard Professor McGonagall shout from the staff table, "What are you doing?! Put those wands away right this instant!"

Daisy turned and sneered contemptuously at their Head of House. "What are you going to do — disqualify us from this tournament we don't want to be in anyway? Expel us from the school? We're happy with both of those options. Anyway, Mrs Weasley over there is the one breaking the rules by coming to this tournament without being the parent of a champion."

"She was invited so Potter would have a parent here like the rest of the campions!"

"Well she isn't Harry's parent, so she has no right to be here, and certainly doesn't have any right to come interrupt our concentration before the third task," Simmons shouted back. "If anyone was to be invited for Harry, it would have had to been the Dursleys. And if you were really inviting the champions' parents, you would have either invited no one for Harry because he isn't a champion, his name came out for some possibly nonexistent fourth school, or you would have had to invite the Durlseys for him, my parents for me, and Mrs Weasley for Ronna because we're all the fourth champion together. What there is no acceptable situation for is only inviting Mrs Weasley!"

And with that she turned and stormed away out of the Great Hall.

When Fitz and Daisy caught up with her in the Entrance Hall, the champions and Bagman following as well at a slightly slower pace, and Mrs Weasley wisely not following at all, Fitz muttered quietly, "Nice storming, Jemma — your acting skills are getting really good."

"Thanks!" replied Simmons cheerfully, as she opened The Great Oak Door, and began merrily skipping down towards the quidditch pitch.

About halfway down to the pitch, Bagman caught up with FitzSkimmons and asked Fitz quietly, "Feeling all right, Harry? Confident?"

"Sure — but the cup will probably have already been reached before we even start," answered Fitz. "And even if it hasn't, all we're doing is taking a stroll through the nice-looking, but not too expensive shrubbery while the champions race for the cup. Shouldn't be anything for us to need to be confident about."

"Don't give up like that — you still have a chance!" exclaimed Bagman. "There's three of you working together, you can doubtlessly still beat the other three through all the obstacles despite starting a little behind!"

"But we aren't trying to beat them," said Simmons, wondering how many times they were going to have to explain the blatantly obvious. "We don't want to win, we don't want to be competing at all."

Bagman looked oddly disturbed by this answer, given the fact that they'd already shown through both of the previous tasks that they weren't trying, but he didn't say anything more about it, and they finished their walk down to the quidditch pitch in silence.

As they waited for the rest of the castle to begin making their way into the stands, the six of them shook hands in turn, Simmons saying with a smile to the three champions, "Best of luck to all of you."

As the stands began to fill up behind them, Hagrid, Mad-Eye, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick walked up to them, and Professor McGonagall said to them, "We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze. If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?"

When the champions had nodded their understanding, Bagman sent the patrollers off to start patrolling, before turning to address the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, with eighty-five points — Mr. Cedric Diggory, of Hogwarts School! In second place — Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute! In third place — Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy! And finally, in fourth place, the underdog of this tournament — Mr. Harry Potter! So...on my whistle, Cedric! Three — two — one —"

As they waited for the time to tick away until Bagman sent them into the maze, FitzSkimmons walked over to the outside hedge of the maze, and sat down with their backs leaning up against it.

"And yet again, another stunning task for the crowd to watch," Fitz said sarcastically after several minutes. "Last time it was watching waves crash onto the beach, this time it's literally watching grass grow — hedges, specifically."

"I would point out that biologically, grass and hedges are different, but yeah — I know what you mean," replied Simmons. "They are literally watching a plant grow, in the dark no less."

"They start the tournament out with such great ratings with dragon wrestling, and then they follow it up with two tasks like this," said Daisy. "Maybe the tournament wasn't canceled because of champions dying, maybe it was canceled because it kept getting such horrible tv ratings for the second two parts. At least have magical camera crews or drones following the champions and filming them as they tackle the obstacles, or swim about in the lake for the second task. It'd be annoying for the champions, true, but this is just an hour or so of complete and utter snoozefest for the two hundred and eighty or so students up there."

"Wifi hadn't even come into common existence back when this is set," replied Simmons. "Besides the inconsistent ability of muggle technologies to work around magic, live-streaming wifi cameras didn't even exist in the muggle world yet to even be a real possibility. And I've never seen any magic that could replicate it — they don't even have movies in the wizarding world, it doesn't seem like."

"Okay, okay, Miss Ruin-Everything-with-Facts," retorted Daisy with a roll of her eyes. "I'm just saying they need something if they want anyone out there to ever want there to be another tournament."

"That's Mrs Ruin-Everything-with-Facts to you," smirked Simmons. "But you're definitely right about these last two events being boring for everyone but the champions."