A/N: If this book randomly turns more Australian than British at points, it's because I binge-watched 'How Ridiculous' on the u-tubes while writing parts of this. Just fyi. And go give them a look if you like seeing things dropped from really high, or things dropped on from really high, or combinations of both. Fun stuff, and otherwise completely unrelated to this story.
When Fitz awoke, he didn't feel the normal press of feminine bodies on both sides of him, or at the very least on one side.
He knew it was possible that they'd been called for an emergency his expertise weren't needed in, but it was incredibly unlikely that he wouldn't have woken up at all as both of his wives got up and changed and everything before leaving, so he slowly opened his eyes to see what was going on. The very first thing he noticed was that he clearly wasn't in his normal bed, followed immediately by noticing that he was in a room he had never been in before. Then a rush of memories flooded his mind, and he realized he was back in the wizarding world, specifically in a place called Grimmauld Place — apparently the 0-8-4 had gone off while they were sleeping.
Fitz quickly got up, threw on his clothes, grabbed his wand, and hurried down to the kitchen where he assumed it most likely that Jemma and Daisy would meet him, and so he didn't have to go knock on the door of the bedroom a floor below that his wives were having to share with Ginevra Weasley.
~FSK~
As Daisy slowly resumed consciousness, she lazily stretched out her arm over her husband and wife, sleeping next to her.
Only instead of first landing on Fitz's stomach and then Jemma's side where the English wife slept curled in her spot on his shoulder, her arm hit nothing until landing on a very familiar breast, but one clothed differently than normal, and feeling like the girl belonging to it was laying in a different position than normal. None of which immediately screamed on its own that something was wrong, but all combined with a nagging in the back of her mind that she wasn't awake enough yet to think about, made her quickly open her eyes to see what was going on.
She found herself lying on a cot with a gap between her and the cot Jemma was lying sideways on, slightly tenser than normal, staring straight at her, clearly already awake and much more fully aware of their situation than she was. Daisy quickly moved her head to scan over the rest of the room, and the memories that had been trying to break through the back of her mind since she'd resumed consciousness flooded in.
Her eyes falling on the sleeping form of a redhead nearby, she whispered, "0-8-4?"
Simmons nodded, before sitting up fully and climbing out of bed. They both quickly and quietly dressed so as not to awaken Ginevra Weasley, before slipping out of the room and heading down to the kitchen, where they assumed it most likely Fitz would head as well once he woke up. They were walking down the long, dark, dreary, musty, dead hallway to the kitchen when they heard the sound of quick, familiar footsteps behind them, and turned to find Fitz hurrying up towards them.
"We're back," Fitz muttered once he caught up with them.
The two girls nodded as they continued into the kitchen, where they found Mrs Weasley cooking.
"Well, you two are up early this morning!" Mrs Weasley said cheerfully when she heard them walking in and looked up. "And Hermione, dear, I thought you normally read in the library before coming down to breakfast."
"Wanted to do something different this morning," Simmons replied slightly shortly, having no intention of explaining that what had really happened was that she urgently needed to meet up with her husband Fitz, and that the kitchen seemed the most likely rendezvous point for that.
But Mrs Weaey apparently didn't really care why they were down for breakfast earlier than normal, as she simply ushered them over to the table and told them that she'd have food ready in just a moment. As they waited, they very quietly talked.
"Train's tomorrow, and we still haven't received our letters, have we?" said Simmons.
Fitz and Daisy shook their heads.
"Which means it has to come today — right?" said Daisy.
Simmons gave her a look that clearly said, 'It should, but no guarantees in this world'.
"How does mail come here?" asked Fitz. "Because I never got anything after arriving."
"An adult hands it to you," answered Daisy. "All the letters of yours I remember getting, which are the only letters I got since coming here, someone gave to me. So unless Hermione knows, I don't have a clue how the owls actually get in here."
"Always got Harry's letters from her," answered Simmons, nodding towards Mrs Weasley, who was still banging around in the kitchen. "Which means if our letters do come today, they'll probably come from her or one of the other adults."
At that point they had to stop talking, as they saw Mrs Weasley headed in their direction with three plates full of food.
After breakfast, thankful that Mrs Weasley had apparently decided to give everyone the day off from being slaves and cleaning the magical house muggley (presumably since it was the day before the train back to Hogwarts) — something that would have resulted in a standoff and potentially fight between the three of them and her — FitzSkimmons headed up to the library to discuss everything that had happened to their characters over the summer, and everything that had happened differently in the previous book, while they waited for the letters to arrive, or anything remotely interesting to happen in house arrest.
And about midmorning, something did in the form of Sirius Black strolling into the library and over to where they were reading together on the couch, having finished their collective knowledge dump, sitting perhaps a bit closer than appropriate since everything had reset but nothing too egregious, and handing them three letters.
"Hogwarts letters finally arrived," he said with a nod, before heading back out to let them read their letters alone.
Taking their letters, FitzSkimmons quickly opened them to see what they needed for the new year. As it turned out, the booklist seemed almost not worth even sending out with just two books on it, and certainly a waste of paper that could have been combined with the reminder of when and where the train was. But for Harry and Ronna, their envelops also contained a third sheet of paper that said they were prefects this year.
As soon as she saw that Ronna had been made prefect, Daisy immediately looked across Fitz to Simmons and asked, "Did they give me your prefect, Jemma? Because book-Ron certainly didn't deserve it, and Ronna is normally just a female Ron — you know, boobs and a pussy, instead of a dick."
"Yes, we're all more than well aware of what a female is, and the difference between them and males," said Fitz, rolling his eyes.
But Simmons actually answered Daisy's question. "Well, they didn't give me prefect, that's for sure." Looking at Fitz she asked, "Did you get it?"
Fitz nodded, holding out the badge.
"Well, in the books, Harry and Ron are both males, while Hermione is the only female. So she almost certainly would have got it there. But Ronna getting it now as the female is making me strongly think Ron got it in the book instead of Harry. Which could just be me transferring this situation onto the books, but I also think I may be remembering just a ghosting of the book we're in, up to the point we've reached so far. Which definitely indicates that the 0-8-4 is weakening or breaking down or becoming unstable or ending or whatever, just as we thought at the beginning of last year."
"But if that's true, we're faced with the even bigger question of why Ron over Harry," replied Daisy. "Everything in the first four books logically dictates Harry getting the badge, not Ron. He's a lazy, sometimes abusive, often an ass — basically the exact opposite of a leader, which is theoretically what a prefect is supposed to be — unless I'm completely mistaken, never having been anywhere with prefects, and certainly not the kind of person who ever would have been chosen as one."
"Prefects are supposed to be leaders," replied Fitz. "Which leaves us with politically motivated, or either whoever gives out the badges was bribed by Mrs Weasley to make her son prefect, or else owes a debt to the Weasleys or something. That's what we're thinking?"
"Ron certainly didn't earn the position in the first four books," answered Simmons. "But regardless of why, something we can't answer at the moment, or probably this year at all, we're obviously not prefecting with just two of us, rules be damned like usual. Now, I'm not entirely sure it's a good idea that any of us be prefects since we don't actually live in Gryffindor, but since the only prefect I can name from four years and four books is Percy Weasley, I honestly don't think it matters."
Looking across the room at where a beetle was scurrying across the library carpet, she casually pulled out her wand and muttered, "Petrificus Totalus."
Standing up and walking over to the frozen bug, she picked it up and laid it in her hand, before performing the beetle-into-a-button transfiguration on it. A second later, she was holding a perfect third prefect badge. Walking back over to her spouses, she sat back down again, before grabbing Daisy's prefect letter. Casting the Doubling Charm on it, and a quick editing of the name, and she had a third prefect letter as well.
"There — we're all prefects now."
But before any of them could say anything more, the twins apparated into the middle of the room.
"There you guys are," said Fred.
"We looked in both Harry's room and the girls' room," added George.
"But we couldn't find you in either," continued Fred.
"Until we remembered that Hermione might have drug you both to the library with her," finished George.
"Yep — just opening our Hogwarts letters," said Daisy, waving the letter she was still holding, to emphasize her point.
"Yeah, we were just wondering who set the Slinkhard book," said Fred.
"Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," added George.
"And about time too," finished Fred.
"Is that what the delay on sending out the letters has been?" asked Simmons. "He was waiting until he hired the next professor? Seems to me like it would have made more sense to send the letters out normal time, whenever that is since it's been different literally every single year, and then send out a second letter with just the DADA books on it whenever he hired the new professor, or else if it was this late, tell everyone when they arrived at school and have the bookshop come to Hogwarts and let everyone buy the extra book then."
"You know, we overheard Mum and Dad talking on the Extendable Ears a few weeks back, and from what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year," said Fred.
"Not surprising, is it, when you look at what's happened to the last four?" said George.
"Have you two ever had a Defense teacher for more than one year?" asked Daisy. "Or ever heard of one who lasted more than one year from older students? Or are we going on at least eight consecutive years of a different teacher?"
The twins thought for a second, before replying in their own FitzSimmonsing way, "I can't think of any — this will be our seventh — I know for sure the two before we arrived were both different — which makes at least nine years."
"Has that really not struck anyone as slightly odd? — and by slightly, I mean statistically impossible," said Daisy. "Well, outside of margins of error and three standard deviations and all that stuff Harry would know better than me — probably Hermione, too."
"Actually, that was a little more my area," answered Simmons. "Harry obviously knows it all, it does come up in engineering, but it's more frequently used in biochem. But yeah, it's beyond statistically improbable."
"Well…uh…" said George, addressing Daisy's question.
"Oh, she wasn't referring to you, or students in general," interrupted Fitz. "She was referring to adults, and I'm pretty sure most specifically to the other professors at Hogwarts. Although if Dumbledore had a hard time finding anyone, it looks like the unhired DADA teaching population is finally figuring it out."
"Oh — okay," said George.
Looking at FitzSimmons sitting next to each other, Fred asked, "So did you two get your prefects?"
"We all three did, actually," Simmons answered smoothly. "I guess they figured we spend all our time together anyway, and that they weren't going to get rid of one of us just because we didn't get a badge, so they made us all prefects."
"Wow! Cool!" exclaimed George. "We certainly weren't made prefects, since Gryffindor unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, isn't most known for playing pranks and jokes, so our particular brand of leadership wasn't highly valued by McGonagall, or whoever picks out Gryffindor's prefects."
"But it was obvious that the Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger, brightest witch of the age, were going to get prefect," said Fred. "And Ronna — looks like you found the right people to hang out with to get prefect-by-association."
"Hey! I've totally earned…the right to call myself friends with two people who deserve prefectship," replied Daisy starting with mock offense, before finishing in a teasing tone.
All five of them laughed, but no one had time to say anything more before Mrs Weasley's head popped in through the doorway.
Spotting that they were actually all in there, she said, "Ginny said the booklists had come at last. If you give them to me I'll take them over to Diagon Alley this afternoon and get your books while you're packing. Ronna, I'll have to get you more bras, these are at least a size too small, I can't believe how fast you're growing...what color would you like?"
If she was at all conscious that there were three males in the room, and that that normally wasn't a topic of conversation discussed in front of guys one wasn't dating or married to, she didn't show it. But FitzSkimmons glanced at each other for another reason. Up until that point, FitzSkimmons' clothes had always been their correct sizes, just limited to the three required black robes, and a bunch of exactly identical clothes to the ones they had on in Shield when they transported in, just in different colors. A flash in Simmons' eyes told the other two that she had an idea, but would have to explain it later.
So addressing Mrs Weasley, Daisy replied, "I can get them myself when we go to Diagon Alley this afternoon. We need to get some other stuff, anyway, besides our new books and supplies."
"Oh, no! You kids can stay here and pack so we'll be ready to go in the morning, and I'll go get everyone's stuff for you!" Mrs Weasley replied chipperly, but a little too quickly and carefully worded to be natural. FitzSkimmons immediately wondered why she wasn't allowing any of the students to go to Diagon Alley that year, and how much of a fight they were going to have to go through in order to go — because going or not going wasn't up for debate.
"Oh, no. We're going, and that's final," answered Daisy in a hard tone. "We sure as hell aren't giving you our booklists, and we have no problem petrifying you and every other adult who walks through this place until you take us with you. If we don't go, no one goes."
"Ronna Weasley!" exclaimed Mrs Weasley, fulling intending on scolding her older daughter, but she never made it any further than that before first Fitz, and then Simmons cut her off.
"We're all three going, and that's final."
"We have no qualms about petrifying and disarming every adult in here until we get what we want. We're not the pushovers we were in the past, so like Ronna said, we go or no one goes."
"It's too dangerous!" Mrs Weasley shouted back. "You're too young to go! You-Know-Who is out there trying to kill Harry! Don't you care about your friend?!"
Rather than bother with words, which they knew would be ineffectual to the point of lunacy to even try using, the three of them pulled out their wands and pointed them at the woman. Then Simmons, playing the part of Hermione Granger, the most stringent rule follower and adult obeyer of the three of them, and therefore most likely considered by Mrs Weasley to be the least likely amongst them to do anything, muttered, "Petrificus Totalus."
Knowing petrified people could still hear loud and clear, Fitz strode over to where Mrs Weasley had collapsed on the ground, frozen.
"We're better at protecting ourselves than you are at protecting yourself if anything we've learned in the past four years and this last summer is anything to go by," growled Fitz, standing over her, still pointing his wand down at her. "We're going — I'm going — and that's final."
Walking back over to his wives, Fitz turned back around to face the woman and casually flicked the countercurse at her, unpetrifying her.
Mrs Weasley sat up, glaring at them as she straightened herself out. But she'd apparently got the message that simply yelling loud nothings at them wasn't going to work, as when she did finally speak again after she'd hefted herself back onto her feet, she snapped, "You physically cannot come. You're not old enough to travel like I'm going to and haven't passed your exam."
"Ah, so you're apparating," Simmons said knowingly. "Well, I have yet to see or hear of a single person apparating from inside this house, which means you have to go outside, where we can catch the Knight Bus while you travel however you like. So we're more than capable of physically coming, and we will be coming."
"We'll be following you around from this moment henceforth, and will know if you tell anyone to go for you," added Daisy. "So you might as well just let us come, and preferably soon so you have time to get everyone else everything they need while we get our stuff."
"I'll tell Sirius," growled Mrs Weasley, like she still thought she might be able to regain control over the situation she'd long since lost.
"We just petrified you — do you really think we give a shit?" retorted Daisy. "We'll petrify him as well, and not undo it until we get back from Diagon Alley or it wears off on its own. Hell, we'll petrify Dumbledore himself if you try telling him. So stop stalling, and just take us already."
Mrs Weasley turned and stalked out of the room without a word, but based on her slight jump a few seconds later when she heard three sets of footsteps right behind her, she hadn't believed that they were actually going to shadow her for the entire rest of the day until they got what they wanted. She simply returned to the empty kitchen at first, but after fifteen minutes of FitzSkimmons simply sitting at the kitchen table staring at her, she finally exploded, "Alright! Fine! I'll go!"
Then she hurriedly sprinted across the kitchen towards the front door.
FitzSkimmons had the distinct impression that she was trying to get there and out the door before they could catch up with her, but as she weighed more than all three of them combined, and had done less running in her entire life than any one of them had on any mission they'd ever been on, they were immediately on her tail barely a moment after she made it out of the kitchen. Once she realized that her plan had failed she slowed to a normal waddle, and as they walked to the front door to go outside for what would have been Hermione and Ron's first fresh air in two months had they been the ones there, FitzSkimmons had the feeling Mrs Weasley was looking hard for any adult at all to try to use to prevent them from coming with her. But fortunately for any said adults they ran across none, as it meant none of them had to either stand up to Mrs Weasley or be frozen for the next couple hours by FitzSkimmons.
As soon as they got to the door, Daisy positioned herself right in front of where the door would open, so Mrs Weasley couldn't try to squeeze her bulk through and close the door quickly behind her to keep them from coming. Once they were all outside, Simmons leapt down to the sidewalk and threw up her wand hand, bringing the giant purple bus screeching to a halt in front of them. Unsurprisingly, Mrs Weasley clamored onto the bus behind FitzSkimmons, clearly unwilling to let them out of her sight even if it meant having to take the much slower, highly unpleasant Knight Bus over simply apparating to Diagon Alley like she otherwise would have.
A few minutes into their ride, as they watched the countryside flash by in great chunks, Mrs Weasley turned to Fitz and said in what she doubtlessly thought was a motherly voice, not an ingratiating one, "So, Harry, since I assume you were named prefect, it's customary when a student is made prefect that their family buys them a present. But since your family isn't going to do it for you, I thought we would. So what would you like? You already have an owl, and dress robes from last year…."
"Are you going to get Hermione something as well? — Her family isn't going to get her anything either, since they don't know about this custom any more than the Dursleys do," Fitz replied coolly, unappreciative of the way Mrs Weasley always singled Harry out while completely ignoring Hermione and her own son, Ron. "And what are you getting Ronna?"
"Oh, Ronna doesn't — it's only for prefects, Harry —" Mrs Weasley began explaining gently.
"I know. That's why I asked," growled Fitz, cutting her off. "If you're going to get presents for any prefect that's 'part of your family', you have to get a present for every prefect that's part of your family, and that means all three of us."
It still took Mrs Weasley several seconds to work out what Fitz was saying, but when she did she turned and exclaimed very loudly at Daisy, "I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh, Ronna, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!"
"Excuse me?!" exclaimed Simmons, not caring how many people on the bus around them heard — in fact, the more the better, perhaps. "Everyone in the family?! And what exactly do you call Fred and George?! They're not prefects — how dare you say they're not part of your family! You should be ashamed of yourself, and you should proud of the sons you have, not the ones you want!"
For several long seconds Mrs Weasley looked properly abashed as everyone in the nearby vicinity stared at the four of them, but then instead of apologizing and changing the error of her ways, she tried defending herself instead, stuttering out, "Yes, well, I meant everyone that I thought had a chance of being selected as prefect, and, well, we all knew they aren't dedicated enough and spend too much time goofing off instead of studying to ever have a chance of one of them being selected as prefect."
"They are geniuses," growled Simmons. "They are two of the smartest wizards I have ever met, with a creativity worlds beyond what I see out of anyone else in your world, and the skill to make what they dream up a reality. Just because you don't support their idea of opening their own business creating and selling magic of a more jocular variety doesn't mean that it's not the best idea anyone in your family has ever had. And when they succeed, they will make more money every single year than the rest of your family will probably make over their entire lifetimes."
As Mrs Weasley's face turned hard, clearly about to tell Shield Agent and Special Advisor to the Director Jemma Anne Simmons, PhD (x2) how she was too young and didn't understand how the real world worked, Daisy quickly cut in with, "Also, just because I feel like we might still have a misunderstanding here and we want absolutely no misconceptions about the truth, all three of us were made prefects. Harry, Hermione, and myself, are all three the Gryffindor prefects."
Mrs Weasley's hardness immediately turned to shock, and she stared at them for several seconds, clearly unable to comprehend what they were telling her.
"But— There's only two— That can't be!" she finally managed to get out.
"Yeah, well, we have the parchments and badges that say otherwise," Fitz replied coolly.
For a few seconds it looked like Mrs Weasley had so many different things she wanted to say about how that couldn't be, how they were somehow mistaken, etc, that she couldn't get any of them out, but eventually she collected herself and simply said, "Well, Ronna, you've got to have a reward for this. How about a nice new set of dress robes? Or a new cauldron, Charlie's old one's rusting through, or a new rat, you always liked Scabbers —"
"The rat that murdered Harry's parents in cold blood?!" exclaimed Daisy in disbelief, not bothering to keep her voice down, though there weren't all that many people around them on the bus that afternoon to actually hear her. "You want to replace that rat?! Are you a psychopath?!"
"Shhh!" exclaimed Mrs Weasley in a hushed whisper. "Don't say that!"
"And why the bloody hell not, actually?" retorted Daisy. "No one has a clue who Scabbers is, no one has a clue what Harry we're talking about — for all they know, Harry is the name of my pet beetle, and my pet rat ate my other pet beetles that I call beetle-Harry's parents. It would never even enter the mind of anyone on this bus that we're talking about Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed Harry Potter's parents, Sirius Black, and Dumbledore, and gave the crucial information to have Harry Potter's parents murdered in cold blood, before turning around a day later and murdering twelve muggles and framing Sirius Black for that and the murder of Pettigrew, faking his own death to go into hiding under your very roof. No one would ever think that's what we are talking about."
Predictably, Mrs Weasley just stared at Daisy, literally shocked speechless that her daughter would talk about secret, classified things like Pettigrew betraying the Boy-Who-Lived's parents and Sirius, and still being alive, out in public where anyone could hear.
Long before Mrs Weasley could think of anything to say, Daisy continued on, "And you want to replace him! With who? The beetle that wrote nasty lies about everyone you supposedly care about all of last year? Some other animagus that murdered a bunch of nice people and was never caught? A parasite taking on the face of —"
"Okay Daiz, that's a bit far," Simmons quietly cut off her wife's rant. "It was in very poor taste for her to suggest replacing a murderer, but they didn't know he was Pettigrew when they got him."
Mrs Weasley's shock at this accusation quickly disappeared, replaced by a look of fury at being called out, but fortunately at that very moment the Knight Bus screeched to a halt in front of the Leaky Cauldron, and any potential fights were avoided for the time being.
Once they had made it through the archway into Diagon Alley, Daisy said to Mrs Weasley, "See you back at Grimmauld Place at supper," before setting off at a quick speed walk down Diagon Alley with her spouses.
For an impressive distance, Mrs Weasley did actually try running to keep up with their brisk walk, but eventually she was huffing and wheezing too hard to continue any longer, and had to slow down to her normal walk to catch her breath, and they quickly left her in their dust.
They supposed that she must have arrived at the wizarding bank sometime while they were down at Harry's vault loading up on gold, and went down to her own vault before they returned to the surface, as they didn't see her in the lobby of Gringotts when they were exchanging some of the gold they had gotten for pounds, nor did they see her when they popped by Flourish's real quick to pick up the two new books they needed plus a few dozen more for a little bedtime reading.
Done with Diagon Alley, and in possession of both pounds and a magical bag from Blott's that was smaller on the outside, FitzSkimmons headed out into London to do their real shopping.
"So what about clothes? It seemed like you had an idea," asked Daisy as they walked down the street.
"I have an idea on why clothing is at least partially different this year, but I'm not completely sure on everything. So I think we should just go ahead and buy a full wardrobe like normal, since we have plenty of money for it, and it won't matter next year anyway," answered Simmons. "And if we end up with too much, well who cares, we don't have to pack it all, or we can magically shrink it all, or better yet enlarge our trunks, to fit it all in."
So FitzSkimmons spent the rest of the afternoon shopping across London, Simmons and Daisy dragging Fitz into every store they could find. But eventually they had more than enough clothes for at least like a couple of weeks, and caught the Knight Bus back to Grimmauld Place. Rapping on the door they were quickly let in by Sirius, but it wasn't quite quick enough, as before they could disappear up the stairs to Harry's room, Mrs Weasley came storming up the hall from the kitchen.
Apparently forgetting about the presence of Mrs Black hidden behind her curtains, Mrs Weasley shouted at them as they started up the first steps, "Where were you all afternoon?! I was worried sick! I searched everywhere in Diagon Alley for you!"
"In London — you know, where no wizard, good or bad, would ever even think to look for us in, a point which you just proved perfectly for us," answered Simmons, her voice nearly drowned out by the screams of Mum Black, who no one bothered trying to shut up just yet, everyone expecting more screaming from Mrs Weasley that would just wake her back up.
"And we told you we were going to meet you back here for supper," continued Fitz. "So I'm really not sure what you're bitching about."
"Bit— How dare you!" yelled Mrs Weasley. "I was trying to keep you safe! I knew I shouldn't have let you come with me! Wait till your father hears about this, young woman!"
FitzSkimmons assumed she was talking to Ronna with that last bit, not that they actually cared.
"You didn't let us come, we literally held you at wand-point, thank you very much," retorted Daisy, rolling her eyes. "In fact, at more than wand-point — Hermione here actually had to curse you once, and even then you were still reticent with our going, and tried numerous ways to keep us from going. There was no 'letting' us go on your part whatsoever — don't try that with us."
"Don't speak to me like that, young woman!" shouted Mrs Weasley.
But before she could go on any further, Simmons turned to her spouses and said, "I think this conversation is over," before turning and heading up the stairs.
Even though they could hear (and feel) Mrs Weasley pounding up the stairs behind them, even at a casual walk they easily made it up to Harry's room and inside with numerous locking charms and sound-protection charms thrown up before she made it to their door. Of course, that didn't stop her from pounding on the door for a good five minutes, yelling remonstrations through the door that were thankfully unintelligible thanks to Simmons' masterful spellcasting.
But FitzSkimmons had more important things to be doing than paying attention to Mrs Weasley's hammering and shouting.
"So what's your idea on the clothes, favorite wifey?" asked Daisy.
"Wait — your favorite, or Fitz's favorite? Because you only have one wife, which means I have to be your favorite by default. Or do you mean people in general's favorite, because I'm pretty sure that's definitely you," said Simmons. "I'm too sciency for most people, whereas you're a very peoply person."
"Peoply? Just because you have doctorates, plural, and are a doctor in your spare time on top of that, doesn't mean you can just make up words," replied Daisy. "And I didn't mean anything by it, I was just being nice — although now I think I'm going to start calling you overanalyzingest wifey, and you'll win hands down by any meaning of that. Now what about the clothes?"
After scrunching up her nose adorably at her wife, Simmons answered, "Well, on the clothes — or specifically the part about Mrs Weasley saying that Daisy needed new unmentionables, new lingerie — my best guess is that the book specifically has Mrs Weasley coming in to wherever we're opening our letters, and saying that something amongst Ron's clothes are too small. And since we haven't really changed anything yet, that still had to happen. Only since Ronna's of the better sex now, and Daisy's significantly larger than a fifteen year old female Ron would probably be, the 0-8-4 translated that into breast size instead of whatever it was before. Honestly, I am kind of just guessing as I go here, except perhaps that most fifteen year old girls are close to finished growing in height, so boobs were the one reasonable thing that could still fit the 'having grown significantly over the summer' plot device, since 'grown a few inches to need new robes' or something like that doesn't really work. Or maybe the 0-8-4 can read our minds some, and knows you two never think about anything but boobs and sex, and sex involving boobs."
"Hardy, har," said Fitz, rolling his eyes. "But what about the rest of our clothes? What's in our trunks, where our identical clothes would normally be?"
"You know, we could just look and see, instead of guessing," said Daisy, walking over to Fitz's trunk and opening it. "These are exactly the cookie-cutter clothes the Weasleys have worn while we're here when we've seen them out of robes," she said, picking out a drab, boring shirt and holding it up. "Which now that I'm forced to think about it, the 0-8-4 did have to make up clothes for them, since the book doesn't describe any and they didn't have their clothes transported in like us."
"They are Fitz's size, though, which means the 0-8-4 acted like normal in that sense," said Simmons, looking at the shirt Daisy was holding. "But since it didn't have our clothes to replicate like normal this time, it had to revert back to the default settings. Like a computer or something — that's your area, not ours. And now that I think about our pajamas we woke up in, I'd say they were probably the same way, correct size but something the Weasleys, and I presume everyone else in the wizarding world would wear, instead of what we actually wear."
"Okay, but why didn't our clothes come with us like all the previous years?" asked Fitz.
"Why the 0-8-4 didn't replicate our clothing exactly I don't know, but I'm really glad it didn't," Simmons smirked. "In case you forgot, we fell asleep rather late last night, after a rather busy, uh, time."
"We fell asleep naked," said Daisy, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, it's a good thing the 0-8-4 adjusted for that."
"But I'm guessing the 0-8-4 thought there had to be something in our trunks as far as clothing went, and couldn't just go with the nothing we actually had on, so it filled it with these boring things that it uses for everyone it populates this world with," finished Simmons.
"Which I say we just dump on the floor and leave, as we certainly don't want to wear them," said Daisy.
"I'm not sure we should dump them in the floor, but yes, I agree with leaving them behind," replied Simmons, rolling her eyes at her wife. "But that does remind me, you and I still need to get our trunks out of Ginevra's room."
"Well, Mrs Weasely's stopped trying to beat and yell the door down," said Fitz. "Shame the Marauder's Map isn't location based, and could show us if she's still lurking right outside the door."
"Ronna's educated guess would be that she isn't," replied Daisy. "She can't stand to be away from the kitchen very long, and with suppertime basically here, I highly doubt she hasn't returned to finish cooking. We still need to be careful obviously, but we should be able to get down a floor and back up here without her knowing, with your shrinking magic, Jemma, so we can just carry our trunks."
Five minutes later, Daisy and Simmons had snuck down to Ginevra's room and returned safely to Harry's room, the only incident being Sirius telling them as they passed on the stairs, "Supper's ready. Come down whenever you like, it's just a little party instead of the normal sit-down since there's so many people."
But before they headed down to supper, FitzSkimmons packed away all their new clothes in their trunks, leaving the 0-8-4 clothes in a neat pile in the corner for someone else to deal with after they had left.
Once everything was neat and orderly and ready to leave at a moments notice in the morning after a shrinking and lightening charm were thrown on them, Simmons said, "You know, instead of trying to carry square trunks in our pockets, we should just get some necklace chains and attach them to them like charms. We can do Crookshanks' wicker basket like that too, with him inside."
"Why don't we just throw them all in the magic bag like normal?" asked Daisy.
Simmons looked sheepish, answering quietly, "Because I stuffed it full of mine and Hermione's books and put it on the bottom of my trunk."
Daisy burst out laughing. "Okay, okay, good reason to come up with a new plan. And yeah, I'm all for the necklace trunks — only where are we going to get necklace chains?"
"Ginevra has a bunch of jewelry boxes in her room, and she had a bunch of bling on last year at the Yule Ball when she went with Neville — along with what looked like an inch thick of make-up. But I'm getting off topic," answered Simmons. "And while I'm obviously against stealing even when everything resets, and briefly borrowing with permission isn't any better — well, I figured we'd nick a couple of her chains that she'd be unlikely to notice, and then when we get to Hogwarts give them to the twins to give back to her." Then she added defensively, "It's the only thing I could think of, and no one here's real, anyway!"
"Chillax, Jemma — no one's complaining," said Daisy, gently resting her hand on her wife's arm. "And I'll go get them, so you're only complicit in the theft, and didn't do it yourself."
"Yeah, and what are you complaining about anyway?" Fitz asked teasingly. "It's not like you haven't committed actual treason several times."
"But those were all very important!" exclaimed Simmons.
"And getting to the train on time is in this world as well," said Daisy. "Now be back in a jiffy."
Once she had returned, and Simmons had tested out their idea to make sure it would work in the morning, FitzSkimmons finally headed down for supper. But the moment they stepped into the kitchen, they knew that they wouldn't be there for long. For over the kitchen table, Mrs Weasley had hung a gaudy banner that read: CONGRATULATIONS, HARRY, RONNA, AND HERMIONE, NEW PREFECTS.
As soon as they saw it, Daisy immediately whispered, "Grab a plate each and get the hell out of here?"
FitzSimmons both nodded, Fitz muttering, "It's the TriWizard Cup ceremony all over again. Do these people actually like being put on a pedestal and praised all day?"
FitzSkimmons quickly and efficiently moved through the room filling their plates and grabbing several bottles of butterbeer and a bottle of firewhisky not very well hidden in the very back of the fridge, everyone so busy talking to each other and milling about that other than a few 'hi's and few nods, they were left alone. Slipping back out again, they returned to Harry's room to eat and drink, followed by a rousing game of spin the bottle with one of the empty butterbeers that was significantly less scandalous than normal considering everyone playing was married to each other — so basically they just spun the bottle around to see who was going to kiss each other next.
But eventually Simmons had to stop their fun, and insist that they peruse their two new school books, so they would have an idea of what they would be getting into during the upcoming year. Of course, just because she was having to read didn't mean Daisy couldn't still find excuses to occasionally (or not so occasionally) kiss her spouses, especially Fitz who was much less opposed to being interrupted by smooches, and so they passed the rest of the night until bedtime reading, discussing what they had read, and mushing lips together pleasantly.
When Simmons did finally say they could go to bed, she pulled out her wand to enlarge it like she normally had to, only to realize that it was actually reasonably large already. Being an original bed of an old, expensive house, it was a solid queen size, not the little cots and beds they were used to having to enlarge in The Burrow, or even the Leaky Cauldron third year. And while they had a king size on base just so they had more room to romp about on, they could still fit quite comfortable on a queen size if they snuggled up close.