The following morning, FitzSkimmons awoke at their normal early Shield-life hour.
Quickly changing into some of the clothes they'd bought the afternoon before, they strolled down to the kitchen with their shrunken trunk necklaces around Simmons and Daisy's necks — Daisy had agreed to carry Fitz's for him so that he wouldn't have to wear a necklace — for breakfast before the rest of the house's mad dash to pack, eat, and get ready all right before it was time to leave the house for the train station. Walking into the kitchen, they found Mrs Weasley already bustling around cooking breakfast, but when she looked up at the sound of their footsteps, she was clearly surprised to see them up that early. FitzSkimmons simply walked over to the vacant kitchen table, knowing from Harry, Hermione, and Ronna's memories that it was useless to offer helping, even in just getting their own drinks out of the fridge. By the time Mrs Weasley had served them and they had finished eating, Lupin and Sirius had both traipsed in, still looking half-asleep.
"What time are we leaving?" Simmons asked politely when the two adults had sat down.
"Whenever Mad-Eye says we're ready," answered Lupin. "Harry has to go to King's Cross with a guard, so once all of the guard is here we can leave. But I would assume between 10:15 and 10:30, since it's a twenty minute walk to King's Cross from here."
"Then shouldn't we be leaving at 09:40?" Daisy asked in confusion, wondering not for the first time why the Weasleys waited so late to leave for the train station every year.
But it was Mrs Weasley who answered as she brought over two plates of food for Sirius and Lupin. "It only takes twenty minutes to walk there, dear, and just a few to get your trunks on to the train. Why on earth would you need to be there an hour early? Anyway, we've never left that early before."
'We know!' exclaimed all three halves of FitzSkimmons in their minds at the same time, but knowing that it would be useless trying to explain the value of arriving somewhere not just in the nick of time to her, none of them said anything out loud about it.
Instead, they stood up to return to Harry's room for a minute before heading to the library to finish reading Defensive Magical Theory, Simmons saying shortly, "We'll be in the library when you're finally ready to leave."
As they started walking out, they heard Mrs Weasley briskly say from behind them, "Do you have your trunks packed yet? Go finish packing them, and put them in the hall, Alastor's going to take care of all the luggage."
FitzSkimmons didn't bother turning around to inform her that they already had their trunks taken care of the night before like sane people, and that they didn't need anyone to carry them for them since they were wizards with magic after all, knowing from years of memories that Mrs Weasley would disapprove of their underage, out-of-school use of magic to shrink and lighten their trunks and make them into necklace charms, more than she would approve of their efficiency, resourcefulness, and smart thinking — the woman was completely incapable of thinking beyond rules she agreed with. So they simply walked out without looking back and without saying a word, and headed up through the house to the second floor.
Stepping into Harry's room quickly, Simmons plucked Crookshanks up off their bed and dropped the kneazle into his wickerwork basket, while Daisy walked over to their bedside table to grab their three copies of Defensive Magical Theory. Fitz called Hedwig and Pig down to his shoulders, and refained from trying to drag the girls back into bed for a few rounds before they had to head downstairs to walk to the train station. Then they headed to the library, carrying the basket and the books, the owls perched on Fitz's shoulders.
~FSK~
A couple hours later, a little after nine, Sirius came strolling into the library.
"So I was thinking I might come with you guys to the train station — as a dog, of course."
He said it casually, but FitzSkimmons could tell he was fishing for approval. So Simmons very quickly gave him her opinion on the matter.
"Sirius! No! That is a really stupid thing to do! Look — I know you want to get out of this house, believe me, we all do, but we're just walking to the train station — nothing worthwhile is going to happen. And also, you have to remember, as soon as everyone's gone back to their normal lives, since Harry isn't here anymore — i.e, as soon as Mrs Weasley skedaddles back to The Burrow where she belongs and gets out of your hair and house — you can go out all you want and do whatever you want, because there won't be people constantly around telling you not to. But coming with us is a completely unnecessary risk that gains you absolutely nothing. We can say goodbye just as well here, and you not be around a bunch of wizarding parents who could be observant enough to realize that you're actually an animagus, and not just a dog."
"Also, you have to remember that Pettigrew will have told Riddle that you're an animagus dog, and he will have shared that with all his Death Eater slaves, many of whom, like the Malfoys, will be taking their children to the Hogwarts Express this morning, and could instantly recognize or at least suspect you," added Daisy, remembering that in Sirius's timeline (the book timeline they were currently in), Pettigrew and Riddle were alive, and a lot of bad shit had happened in the graveyard.
"The girls are right, Sirius. It's a too risky of a move without any real reward," added Fitz, since Sirius was looking at him clearly wanting his take on the matter, not realizing that they all spoke for each other.
"All right, all right, I've got the point," replied Sirius. He looked most displeased, and there was a definite coolness in his voice. "It was just an idea — I thought you might want me to join you on your walk to the train. You're less like your father than I thought. The risk would've been what made it fun for James."
"Yeah, well, I'm not any Harry you've ever known before, so get used to it," replied Fitz. "Anyway, there's a difference between risking getting caught transforming with Lupin once a month, or doing something risky at Hogwarts, where you know Dumbledore won't kick you out because he's Dumbledore, he doesn't kick anyone out ever, and doing something like this that has no reward and every possibility of getting you sent to Azkaban again or even kissed, of course with no trial, because the Ministry only holds full Wizengamot trials for underage use of magic, and just sends everyone who they think has committed any real crime straight to Azkaban without any kind of trial at all. And just so you know, if we're going to be completely honest here, I don't think my father, who had a child to think about, would be nearly as willing to do stupid shit just for the sake of doing stupid shit as school-age James Potter, not a father, was. Being responsible for someone else changes your perspective on a lot of things."
Sirius stared at Fitz in surprise for several seconds, before Simmons remembered something and decided to quickly change the subject before Sirius could try to argue his way into justifying his still coming despite their insistences that he not.
"Hey, Sirius? Can you keep Hedwig and Pig for us, and release them to fly up to Hogwarts once we've all left to walk to the station, so we don't have to worry about cages and muggles wondering why we're carrying owls through the train station? Please."
Sirius turned his surprise towards Simmons, apparently like the rest of the wizarding world never having considered letting a flying bird just fly its way up to the school instead of trapping it in a cage and sticking it on a train, before finally saying, "Uh, yeah. I mean, I can go do it now assuming you don't still need them for anything. I assume you're not planning on having them fly Crookshanks in his basket up there."
"No, I don't reckon he would appreciate that," chuckled Fitz. Reaching up and plucking both birds off his shoulders, he held them out to Sirius and continued, "So, yes, please, you can take them now. Thank you."
~FSK~
A little under an hour later, at 10:00, the house finally sprung violently awake all at once.
Everyone seemed to have woken up at exactly the same time, and was rushing to get everything ready to leave in under half an hour, resulting in everyone constantly crashing into each other — literally in the case of the twins' trunks and Ginevra, as one tried ascending the stairs at the exact time as the others were descending the stairs. Needless to say, it wasn't Ginevra who won that meeting. The portrait of Sirius's mum was shouting her head off as well with all the noise and people stampeding through the entrance hallway, but it was far enough away from the library that FitzSkimmons weren't distracted by the noise.
At 10:15, Simmons finally said, "We should head down there. We'll probably still have to wait a while, clearly no one's ready yet, but it's only fifteen minutes to kill before we absolutely have to leave whether they're ready or not."
Standing up from the couch they were crowded on, Simmons cast a sticking charm on the lid of Crookshanks' basket so it would stay put, before casting the shrinking and lightening charms on the basket. Once it was necklace charm-sized, she looped the chain of her necklace through the basket's now-tiny handle, and refastened the necklace around her neck, before stuffing the charms back down her cleavage. Finally, they walked out of the library and headed downstairs.
Between a class-five hurricane/tornado combo and the entrance hall of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, FitzSkimmons would have picked the hurricane. Everyone was moving everywhere, several people seemingly in multiple directions at once, stumbling through an entrance hall scattered with trunks because apparently no one knew how to line luggage up against the wall out of the way, all while Sirius's mum and Mrs Weasley competed to see who could shout the loudest and most obnoxiously.
Spotting FitzSkimmons, specifically without any more luggage and cages to add to the mess, the living of the two shouting mums vociferously demanded, "Where are your trunks and owls?! I told you to finish packing them and bring them down here for Alastor to carry to the train station!"
Simmons calmly pulled her necklace out from inside her shirt, and held the charms up. "My trunk and Crookshanks' basket, both shrunk, lightened, easy to carry, and impossible to lose. Ronna has hers and Harry's the same way, and Sirius already set Hedwig and Pig to fly up to Hogwarts."
"Yeah, because they're, you know — birds. They can fly," Daisy added sassily. "Who's genius idea was it to lug cages around and carry owls that can fly on their own, and are literally owned by wizards for the sole purpose of flying? Sure seems to make a whole lot more sense to let them just fly up their on their ownsome, instead of cooping them up in cages all day and risk the 'International Statue of Secretive Whats-Its-Tits or Whatever' by letting muggles see us carrying owls around in cages, something no muggle ever does."
Mrs Weasley was clearly not pleased by who she assumed was her daughter's back talking, and even less pleased by the fact that FitzSkimmons had clearly used magic outside of school, but at that moment the twins came sprinting through the entrance hall carrying pieces of toast each, which went flying through the air as Fred clipped his toe on one of the trunks laying sprawled about and George then tripped over him as he fell, all sufficiently redirecting Mrs Weasley's yelling to them instead of FitzSkimmons, allowing FitzSkimmons to disappear off to the side, out of the way of everyone.
But several minutes later, Mrs Weasley finally shouted over the noise, "Harry, you're to come with me and Tonks!"
FitzSkimmons of course came over as one, because there was obviously not a snowflake's chance in hell that they weren't walking to King's Cross together.
As soon as she saw Simmons and Daisy standing there next to Fitz, she said briskly, "Just Harry — you two are going with Arthur."
"Like fuck we are — we go together, or we don't go at all. Did we not drill that into your thick skull yesterday?" growled Daisy, pulling out her wand, a move mirrored by her two spouses.
"We don't give a shit about safety, we don't give a shit about you, we're more effective than any three of you anyway because we're actually willing to use spells none of you are, and we're far more aware of our surroundings than any of you, even the Aurors," Fitz added coldly. "We'll fight you if that's the route you want to go, and then just Knight Bus up to Hogwarts if we have to, but we never leave each other's sides anymore, and we sure as fuck aren't about to start now."
"And you didn't have anywhere near this amount of security taking Harry to his trial, which doubtlessly plenty of Death Eaters embedded in the Ministry knew all about, and could have attacked him walking there or back then, but didn't," continued Simmons.
"And why the hell are you going with us and Tonks the Auror, instead of Mad-Eye or even Lupin? What fighting or even Defense teaching have you ever done?" finished up Daisy, all three of them standing there planted with their arms crossed over their chests, wands in their hands.
Mrs Weasley looked like she wanted to argue back, but at that moment Mad-Eye came clomping through, and growled, "Why aren't you two out yet? We're never going to get there on time."
"Harry refuses to go without Ronna and Hermione. I told them—"
"Then just go — stop wasting time. We're late enough as it is with Podmore not showing up," interrupted Mad-Eye with another growl, before clomping off to take care of other business, leaving Mrs Weasley standing there gawking at his back.
"Welp — like he said, let's go," said Daisy crisply after a few seconds, pulling Mrs Weasley's attention back to them.
While she glared at FitzSkimmons like they'd just insulted her cooking, Mrs Weasley apparently wasn't willing to disobey a direct order from Mad-Eye, as she walked over to the front door and wrenched it open with more force than strictly necessary, stepping out into the late-morning sunshine.
At the corner, an old woman with tightly curled grey hair and a purple hat greeted them with a wink. "Wotcher, Harry, Hermione, Ronna. Better hurry, hadn't we?"
"Yeah, let's get moving. We would have left at 09:40 and been at the station by 10:00 if it'd been up to us," replied Daisy, before setting off at a quick stride that had Mrs Weasley huffing and puffing like a freight train two minutes in.
"Slow down! We don't need to hurry that much!" the fat woman gasped from several meters behind them.
"Keep up or don't, we don't care," Simmons tossed over her shoulder as they continued on at their same pace. "This is a completely fine walking pace for us — you're the only one out of breath, and also the completely useless one if it comes to a fight, so take as long as you like to get there."
But absolutely nothing actually happened along the way after they left Mrs Weasley in their dust, except Fitz convincing Tonks to change her looks to that of a fellow twenty year old-looking mid-thirty year old (so twenty-looking year old), and her hair to a brilliant electric blue color and breast-length like Simmons and Daisy's.
"Fitz — we're capping it at a threesome, we're not adding a fourth," hissed Simmons to her husband after Tonks had changed her looks, but loudly enough for Tonks to be able to hear her, to see what the younger girl's reaction would be.
But Tonks merely gave them a raised, questioning eyebrow, waiting for them to explain if they wanted to. Which Daisy of course promptly did.
"An alien artifact that sorta works like magic, except those two will insist that it's actually science, transports the three of us into Ronna, Harry, and Hermione's bodies once a year right before Hogwarts starts, and usually returns us at the end of the train ride back at the end of the school year. We're actually thirty-one years old for me, thirty-five for both of them, though he's about to turn thirty-six, and she's twenty-three days younger, a point she likes to bring up repeatedly, and we are a married trio back home — or a trouple, as a play on the word 'couple', that I invented last year when we were here. My real name is Daisy Johnson, or Daisy Skye Johnson FitzSkimmons possibly if we ever stopped being wanted fugitives in half the world and officially got married. And then that's of course Fitz, officially Leopold James Fitz, but like you only goes by his last name, and just add FitzSkimmons onto that to make his married name. And finally my lovely wife, Jemma Anne Simmons, who does go by Jemma for Fitz and I, and same as always would be FitzSkimmons, married. Except she did want to hyphenate their name, instead of one word with two capitol letters, and Fitz from that suggested Simmons-Fitz with a hyphen, so if they were allowed to pick, who knows what our combined last name would end up as. But since they're not allowed to pick, it's FitzSkimmons, capitol 'F', capitol 'S', lowercase 'k'. Because the 'k' that signifies my part of our name is just thrown into the middle of their name that they had for ten years before meeting me and fifteen something years before they started dating my sorry ass, just like I'm just thrown into the middle of their married relationship they already had by the time they invited me along for the ride. Also, everything resets each year to be like Harry, Hermione, and Ronna actually lived in all the previous years, so that's why no one has a clue we're not really who everyone thinks we are — if that makes any sense."
"Because we actually did officially start dating as a threesome here last year at the Yule Ball, which we went to together, but everyone here remembers all three of us going with completely different people," Fitz clarified very slightly.
"And if I were to tell anyone any of this, they would all think I'm out of mind, right?" said Tonks. "So you're at no risk telling me."
"We've very specifically never told anyone before, and we weren't supposed to be telling anyone this year, either," Simmons replied, briefly giving Daisy a stern, pointed look, "but everything Daisy said is completely true. You may or may not believe us, your choice, but we don't feel any worry about you telling anyone, since yeah — they'd think you're crazier than your gorgeous hair. Though you would think someone would have been at least slightly curious about the fact that we suddenly grew spines and pair of balls or ovaries on the very last day of summer and train day. But if they are, they haven't mentioned it to us."
By this point they had reached Kings Cross station, and slipped through the barrier from muggle to magical. Quickly giving Tonks a hug each and bidding her goodbye, FitzSkimmons climbed aboard the train, and headed down to the prefect car hoping that they weren't too late compared to the rest of the prefects who'd gotten there more than fifteen minutes before the train departed. But opening the door to the prefect car, FitzSkimmons found that only a few of the other twenty-two prefects were there yet, mostly sixth and seventh years, with the exception of Padma Patil who they knew was in their year.
When the door opened, one of the seventh years stood up and said, "Hi, I'm the Head Boy this year, and this is the Head Girl." Giving an odd glance at their three prefect badges, he continued to Simmons and Daisy, "You're both Gryffindor prefects?"
"Yes, sir," answered Simmons. "Guess whoever makes those decisions could see that we're all three always together anyway, so it'd be a waste of everyone's time to try to make only two of us prefects, and not all three."
The Head Boy simply nodded slightly unsurely, before saying, "Well, sit down, and we'll start the meeting as soon as everyone gets here and the train starts moving."
Over the next fifteen minutes, the rest of the prefects made their way to the prefect carriage, Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson being the last two to enter.
Upon seeing all three FitzSkimmonses sitting there, he sneered at Daisy, "Prefects only allowed in here. And there's no way anyone picked you over the bookworm."
"I've got a badge pinned right here on my boob that says otherwise," Daisy smirked right back. "Whoever picks out the prefects apparently knew that you were going to be completely useless, so they had to pick three Gryffindors to make up for the fact that Slytherin only has one real prefect, because your dad bribed someone to give you the male spot instead of giving it to a deserving candidate who would actually do the job."
Malfoy's pale face definitely started turning red, but before he could do more than gawk at Daisy's brashness and ass-whooping of him, the Head Boy leapt up and exclaimed, "Please! Let's just all settle down! There's no need for this."
Malfoy looked like he wanted to very much object to that claim, and by object, leap at Daisy's throat and try to throttle her, but in a rare turn of events he either acknowledged the Head Boy's authority, or more likely knew that in a one-on-three fight he probably wasn't coming out on top, as all three FitzSkimmonses were staring him down hard begging him to pick a fight with them, and he turned and found a seat as far away from FitzSkimmons as he could, glaring at them for the remainder of the meeting.
The only things of real interest that they learned in the meeting were that each team was supposed to patrol the corridors of the train once every three hours, resulting in one team patrolling every fifteen minutes; after the Opening Feast that evening, they were supposed to lead their House's first years up to their common room; every fourth night they were to stroll about the halls of the castle for an hour after curfew to make sure no one else was out of bed, with three teams taking different sections of the castle each night; and lastly, though FitzSkimmons could only recall Percy ever having actually done this in their eight combined years at the school between their own experience and the books, they were allowed to give out punishments and take away points if people were misbehaving.
But eventually the meeting was over, and the first pair of seventh year prefects left to take the first patrol of the hallways. In fact, everyone but FitzSkimmons left the carriage to head back to their friends in other compartments throughout the train. But as FitzSkimmons had all their belongings with them on Daisy and Simmons' necklaces, and didn't have a compartment already claimed or actually know anyone else there, they remained in the spacious prefect carriage, which they now had entirely to themselves. Simmons quickly unshrunk all of their trunks and Crookshanks' basket, letting the kneazle out to stretch his legs, and so she could grab her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Year 5 for Fitz to hold in the middle, as she and Daisy sat on each side of him and read with him.
Of course, this well-intentioned plan only lasted for about thirty minutes, before she somehow found herself lying on top of Fitz across the seats, with Daisy lying on top of her, everyone kissing everyone in an uncoordinated mess of lips and limbs. But they hadn't been snogging for too long before they heard the carriage door open, and Simmons glanced towards the door to see if they were about to get in trouble. But it was just the Ravenclaw girl Harry had asked to the Yule Ball in the book the year before, and definitely not a prefect who could get them in trouble.
"Oh...hello, Harry," the girl said in a nervous voice. "Um...bad time?"
"Depends on what you need," replied Fitz, detaching his lips from Daisy's long enough to look backwards at an upside-down Ravenclaw.
Well, upside down from his perspective, anyway — she was probably quite right side up if you asked her.
Chang had grown noticeably pinker in the face from when Simmons had first seen her when she'd opened the door, and stuttered out, "Um…well...just thought I'd say hello...bye then," before quickly closing the door and scurrying away.
"That was weird," Fitz commented boredly, before attacking Daisy's lips again with renewed vigor.
"Will you two stop it with the snogging for two seconds?" Simmons scolded exasperatedly, literally placing a hand on each of their faces and pushing them apart. "I know exactly why she acted like that, and probably why she came to find Harry in the first place, if you two will listen for just one second."
Once they had stopped smooching and were both looking at her (or at least she assumed Daisy was looking at her as well, as Daisy was lying on Simmons' back as she lay on Fitz's stomach looking down at him, so she couldn't actually see Daisy's face to know for sure), Simmons continued on, "If you remember from the books, Harry asked her to go to the Yule Ball with him, but she had already agreed to go with Diggory. However, she did seem like had she still been available, she would have said yes to Harry. Which means last year, she at least a little bit liked Harry, even if she liked Diggory enough to start dating him after they went to the Ball together.
"Well, Diggory is now dead, while Harry is alive and could possibly still like her, so unless I'm completely wrong, she came here to talk to Harry to see if he might still be interested in her. And then she opened the door, and found Harry with his two female best friends that he's known and always hung around with since first coming to the school, lying on top of him snogging him. So she very quickly realized her shot was long gone, and in trying to save herself more embarrassment than she already was feeling, awkwardly got out as quickly as she could."
"Okay, I suppose that makes sense," said Fitz, as Daisy asked, "But how did she even find us?"
"Asked around? Asked another prefect? That I don't know the answer to, but it wouldn't be all that hard to find out, if nothing else by process of elimination," answered Simmons. "Or perhaps she was just coming in here to find a prefect to ask if they knew where Harry was, and found Harry in a compromising position instead."
"Compromising?" asked Fitz with a raised eyebrow.
"Compromising for her hopes of ever fucking you," smirked Simmons, causing Fitz to groan before leaning up and kissing the smirk right off of her face.
They remained uninterrupted for the next several hours, eventually returning to reading their book they'd started out reading before being mildly interrupted by a case of the snoggies, until eventually Malfoy opened the door to the prefect carriage, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle this time instead of the much more attractive Parkinson.
"Didn't get enough of our lovely faces in the prefect meeting this morning?" Fitz asked boredly before Malfoy could say whatever nasty thing he'd come to sneer at them. "Well, their lovely faces — my face is just scruffy."
"We think it's lovely, dear," said Simmons, patting him lovingly on the arm.
Not knowing how to actually respond to any of that, Malfoy simply ignored it and sneered, "Tell me — how does it feel being equal to a Weasel, Potter?"
"I wish I could say I was equal to this one. But no, she's way better than me," Fitz replied sincerely. "They're both way better than me, and I certainly don't deserve to be prefect next to them, let alone be with them." He paused for a second, before adding, "But then again, you don't deserve to be prefect next to them either, so go screw yourself — or see if Parkinson will stoop to your level and let you screw her."
"Watch yourself, Potter!" snarled Malfoy. "I'll be dogging your footsteps all year waiting for the moment you step out of line."
"Ah, yes, because dear old daddy told you that Sirius is a dog animagus, because Peter Pettigrew, went and ratted him out to Riddle — Pettigrew's a rat animagus, in case you missed that bit — and Riddle of course went on to inform all of his Death Eaters of the news, amongst whom is all three of your daddy dearests," retorted Daisy. "So bravo, bravo — you happen to know that Sirius can take on the form of a fucking dog. Really prefect-like of you, bringing that up — I hope your mom's proud of you."
Malfoy sputtered for several seconds, eyes bugged out in shock that FitzSkimmons would openly admit that Sirius was a dog (even if it was only the six of them in the carriage), and face red in anger at being arse-whooped so thoroughly by who was supposed to be his easy prey like every year before.
"Don't you dare talk about my mum! I can—!" he finally began angrily, before Fitz cut him off.
"Yeah, yeah, you can give us punishments. We know, we were in that exact same bloody meeting with you. Which also means we can give you punishment for instigating a fight, which is a real offense at this school, not just your feelings getting hurt. So how about we don't give each other an endless cycle of punishments, that probably none of us will actually serve anyway because you'll get Snape to nullify any punishment we give you, and we aren't going to do any bullshit punishments no matter who gives them to us, and instead you just fuck off?"
Once again, Malfoy stared at them for several seconds, wondering what in the rat's sphincter had happened to the easy pushover, highly emotional, extremely jealous, extremely sensitive Harry, Ronna, and Hermione he'd had to bully the previous four years, until Simmons finally politely but firmly said, "That's your cue to leave, good sir."
Giving the three of them one last obligatory malicious glare, Malfoy did so, slamming the door behind him, Crabbe and Goyle lumbering away with their master.
~FSK~
As the sun began winding its way down the far slope of the sky to the mountain peaks below, FitzSkimmons made their second patrol round of the day through the train.
Just like the first time, nothing of note occurred, as everyone was in their compartments causing trouble, not wandering the halls of the train causing trouble. In fact, the second trip was even more boring than the first, as several people who knew Harry, Hermione, and Ronna had stopped them to chat for a few minutes, or waved to them from inside their compartments, to the point that they'd met the next team of prefects halfway through that team's rounds as they had walked back up the train to the prefect carriage to resume reading and enjoying each other's company in the splendid privacy of their own entire carriage. But this round they only had a few waves from people who hadn't seen them the first time, and in under ten minutes had made it all the way through the train and back to their carriage.
Not long after they made it back, clouds and a scattering of rain moved in for good, eviscerating their hopes of getting to see a nice sunset, and lighting the lamps inside the train earlier than normal. But sunshine wasn't necessary for making out, and the lamps provided plenty of light for them to read by, so other than missing a sunset, they didn't really care.
Eventually, however, they heard the disembodied voice echo through the train, "We will be reaching Hogwarts in fifteen minutes' time. Please change into your robes if you have not done so already, and leave your luggage and pet cages on the train, they will be taken to the school separately."
Grabbing out the sets of robes they'd placed on the top layer of their trunks when packing the day before, since they knew they would have to throw them on before arriving at the Hogsmeade train station, FitzSkimmons quickly tossed on their robes, looking all spiffy. Finally, Simmons called Crookshanks back to his basket, and fastened the top.
When the train finally halted, they let the majority of the train scramble off ahead of them, knowing there were plenty of carriages to take them all up to the castle, and not having any interest in getting trampled to death by the stampeding crowds. Finally stepping out onto the platform and into the night air once everyone else was already off, they found all the first years gathered around Hagrid's replacement the year before when Hagrid had been hiding in his hut because someone had called him a bad word and a few idiots had sent him negative letters about it.
"Looks like we'll have one class free for a while at least," said Daisy, nodding over towards the witch.
"I wonder where Hagrid is?" mused Simmons as they followed everyone towards the stagecoaches. "Malfoy apparently doesn't know about it yet, or he would have been all over it either of the times he saw us on the train."
"We can ask Professor McGonagall at some point if he doesn't show up soon," replied Fitz. "But at the end of the last book, didn't he tell Harry et al that he was gong on some mission for Dumbledore and the Order over the summer? Maybe he's still on that."
"Oh yeah, that does sound familiar," replied Simmons. "Which if true, means Professor McGonagall probably won't tell us anything, since we're on a don't-need-to-know-anything-because-we're-'just'-kids basis."
A few minutes later they had finally made it to the stagecoaches that would take them up to the castle.
"Where'd the weird creatures pulling the carriages go?" Daisy asked in confusion, looking at all the horseless carriages. "They weren't here for three and a half years, then they were for going back last time, and now they're gone again."
"Can you really not see them? Because I can," replied Fitz, staring at the strange creature pulling the carriage they had walked up to.
"Can you? Because I'm with Daisy — I can't see them, either," said Simmons. "It's back to horseless carriages for me."
"I'm seeing the same thing we all saw last year on the trip back," replied Fitz as he helped push Daisy and Simmons up into the carriage by their bums, before climbing in himself.
Once they were inside and the carriage had started rolling, Simmons said, "Okay, let's think about this logically. Fitz can see them in both timelines, while you and I could only see them in the previous. But none of us could see them before last spring. But Fitz can still see them while we can't, which makes it possible, if not even probable, that they've been here this entire time, and something changed for us last spring, that was then erased by the reset for us two but not for Fitz. Or actually, given that, probably for Harry and our characters, respectively, because nothing's changed for us that I can think of, especially in regards to a reset."
"Well, lots of things were different, that's for sure," replied Fitz. "Um…only Harry won the TriWizard Cup in the books, whereas we shared it."
"True, but an unlikely criterion for seeing or not seeing an animal," said Simmons. "Then again, any criterion is probably going to be odd. The TriWizard Cup just seems extremely unlikely given the fact it stopped being held for a few centuries in there, and would mean only one person every four years could see the creatures even when the TriWizard Cup was going on. Also, the TriWizard Cup's a wizarding invention, not a natural phenomenon, which makes it further unlikely — like, did no one ever see the animal until the first TriWizard Tournament was held?"
"True, but Fitz is also right — it is definitely the biggest difference between our story and the books, outside of the fact that we had Harry, Hermione, and Ronna dating by the end of last year, and they're not now," replied Daisy. "So did something else, something natural, occur to Harry in the tournament that didn't occur to Hermione and Ronna, but did to all three of us when we did the tournament? Or, is it relationship based? That could be a possibility — only dating people, or people having sex can see them."
"I think with the relationship, we would have seen them before now," answered Simmons. "And certainly sex, as we've had sex in this world before going to school, and then every year at school, and we only saw the creatures last spring. And the only relationship change is that we told people last year, something we hadn't done before — otherwise we've been in a relationship every year, every trip."
"I would point out that we haven't come by carriage every year, first, second and fourth we didn't, and I can't remember what years we've had sex before coming, but it's of course all still nullified by the fact we haven't seen them in the spring, so it doesn't matter," said Fitz. "Which seems to leave the TriWizard tourney, but not the tourney itself."
"It can't be traveling by portkey, as we all did that to the World Cup," said Daisy. "You faced several creatures and spells in the maze we didn't, but most at least one of us has seen or faced before as well. All I can specifically think of is the turn-the-world-upside-down charm and the sphinx, but we only played riddles with the sphinx for a while before turning around for fun and finding another way, we didn't go through the mist charm, and I've never heard about seeing a sphinx making you capable of seeing other creatures."
"Definitely seems unlikely," said Simmons, "which leaves the graveyard and facing Riddle. Short summary, Diggory died, Pettigrew stabbed Harry and made a potion Snape would probably actually be proud of, Riddle returned, Death Eaters came, Harry and Riddle dueled, Priori Incantatem, and Harry skedaddled — or something like that."
"I'll agree with the 'something' part," smirked Daisy. "Now which of those did we also do? Because that's what should be what determines whether you can see those horses or not, right?"
"We didn't do any of them, except the skedaddle part, which I'm pretty sure is not it," replied Fitz. "No Diggory, we killed Pettigrew and Riddle before anything happened, so no stabbing, potion, Death Eaters, duels, anything."
"Okay, then what occurred both times, maybe not by us or to us, but both still occurred?" asked Simmons. "Maybe it's not whether we and Harry did it, maybe it's something that occurred around us."
"Pettigrew killed Diggory, we killed Pettigrew, Riddle, and Nagini. No stabbing of any kind on our end. Same with potions and Death Eaters. And I'm not sure aim-botting those three could count as a duel," listed Daisy. "So, uh, killing — that's all I got that's the same, assuming it's not the graveyard itself, but then no one could see the creatures."
"Killing — you have to kill someone, or see someone killed, to see the horses? I guess that is a possibility," replied Simmons.
"Expand that a little — it's simply seeing someone die, not necessarily homicide," suggested Fitz. "A creature you can only see if you've seen death. It's one of the four horsemen's horses — Death's horse!"
Simmons couldn't help but roll her eyes a little. "I know we live in a magical world, but I'm pretty sure this is still not Supernatural, and we're not going to find an elderly gentleman in an impeccable suit, eating pizza, rounding up his horses after they pull us up to the castle. But the idea that they can only be seen by people who have seen some kind of death could be viable. Have either Hermione or Ronna ever seen someone die, and had Harry ever seen anyone die before Diggory? And it definitely has to be our characters, as we've all killed people, and seen more than our fair share of death."
"I can't remember Ron ever seeing anyone die, and he definitely hasn't killed anyone," said Daisy.
"Same with Harry," said Fitz. "Plenty of people he wouldn't have minded dying, mind you, but none ever did. Well, actually, he might have seen one or both of his parents die, most likely his mum, but maybe you have to remember seeing them die, and simply hearing her voice when dementors are near isn't enough."
"And Hermione hasn't either," said Simmons. "Which means we have fairly compelling evidence that these creatures can only be seen by people who have seen death. Which now that we've said that out loud several times, almost sounds familiar, like I've read it before. But I don't know if Hermione actually has, or we've just said it so many times that it sounds familiar when it actually isn't, or possibly that I'm faintly remembering a ghosting of the fifth book."
"So what books might have Hermione read about them in?" asked Daisy.
"Care of Magical Creatures books...they're at Hogwarts, so maybe Hogwarts: A History," offered Simmons. "Maybe Hogwarts: A History. She's only read a couple of Creature books, since we haven't been assigned many and she's concentrated more on spells and runes and arithmancy, same as I have, so she hasn't read as many extras about creatures, so I remember them all pretty well. But Hogwarts: A History is pretty long and detailed, and I might not specifically remember every single point in it."
"Then I guess I know what you'll be skimming through as soon as we get our trunks, so probably tomorrow morning since we don't live in Gryffindor," smirked Daisy. "Maybe during Care class if we have one tomorrow, and Hagrid isn't back."
"So who's the noob?" asked Daisy in an undertone as they sat down at the Gryffindor table and turned as one to scan the head table for the latest in the long line of one-year Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.
"Woman in all pink — her name is Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. And she could have legitimately made that title an official part of her name, she's enough of a bitch to do it," replied Fitz in an undertone of his own, his eyes unnaturally quickly drawn to the even more unnatural blob of pink sitting next to Dumbledore. "She was at Harry's trial, and she has a high-pitched, very girlish, simpering laugh that's what really ought to be criminal instead of underage magic, and though she said very little at the trial, she clearly thinks herself superior to everyone, everybody, everything, and every other every there is or could ever possibly be. Like I said, Class A bitch — which isn't the friendly kind."
"Friendly kind?" asked Simmons.
"You know, like a girl seeing a bunch of her female best friends and going, 'What up, bitches!', or a guy doing the same with his guy friends. Maybe a girl saying it to her best guy friends — bitch in that context," answered Daisy.
"Oh, okay." Looking back at Fitz, Simmons smirked, "Umbridge isn't amongst Harry's closest pals?"
Fitz shuttered. "I'd rather be locked up in a room with Aida again, and have to tell I have not one, but two girls now, and neither of them are her."
"Ooh — real pleasant bitch, then," replied Daisy with a smirk of her own.
But before they could say anything more about the bitch in pink, the doors from the Entrance Hall opened again, and the new first years marched in behind Professor McGonagall.
From there the Feast went about as always, until the feasting was over and Dumbledore stood up to make his start of term announcements. Hagrid, it seemed, was going to be gone for the entire year, as he introduced the return of Grubby-Head for Care of Magical Creatures, before introducing Umbridge as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
"Well, at least she has a fifty percent chance of meeting a grizzly end at the end of this year," Daisy said quietly as Dumbledore attempted to continue on about quidditch tryouts.
But he was interrupted by an instantaneously spine-tingling, nerve-grating, hair-raising, fingernails-on-a-blackboard, cutlery-on-a-plate little cough from Umbridge, who seemed reluctant to let the subject of discussion move away from her quite yet.
The spotlight back on herself where she clearly liked it, the woman began giving a clearly rote speech.
FitzSkimmons of course listened intently, well-trained to listen to the enemy when they were subtly giving away all their secrets, but other than the professors, they were the only ones.
"Well, that didn't sound ominous at all," whispered Simmons sarcastically to the other two when Umbridge had finally shut up and sat back down. "The government clearly isn't trying to take over Hogwarts and turn it into a government training ground/brainwashing camp."
"Reminded me a little of Mace. 'A team that trusts is a team that triumphs', and all that bullshit," Fitz grumbled back. "Only I don't think she's going to bow to Dumbledore's wisdom and experience when things get real, like Mace sort of did with Coulson, at least at times."
"Yeah, she clearly needs to be just straight up avoided at all costs this year," said Daisy. "Especially given our propensity for standing up for ourselves. With her being at Harry's trial like Fitz said, she's clearly a Ministry spy, and will officially or unofficially have the entire weight of the government behind her. And with the government clearly trying to cancel Harry Potter and Dumbledore and everyone who believes them about Riddle, she's more likely than not their lead operative on that mission. She'll be looking for every opportunity she can to silence and discredit Harry, and she'll use the full force of the government to do it, nullifying our normal method of simply refusing to do unfair shit. So we're going to have to make sure she has no opportunity to try to do anything."
"You sound like you're laying out a battle strategy," replied Simmons. "But I do agree with you. Slide under the radar with her, look as non-threatening as possible, especially Fitz, and hope she's too busy going after Dumbledore to actively go after Harry."
While they were talking, apparently Dumbledore had dismissed everyone, as all around them they heard the scramble of everyone trying to be the first up from their table and out the door to the Entrance Hall.
"Time to lead the first years to somewhere we ourselves aren't going," sighed Fitz as they looked around them.
"Look on the bright side — other than patrolling the hallways for an hour a couple times a week, it's the only prefect duty we have all year," replied Daisy with a cheerful smile.
Ten minutes later they had led the ten new first years up to the portrait of the Fat Lady, pointing out all the obstacles and secret passageways they could think of along the way, and given them the password to get in. Slipping away unnoticed by the rest of the throngs of Gryffindors entering Gryffindor Tower as well, they quickly headed across the top floors of the castle to their own secret dorm, where they could relax for a few minutes before heading to bed themselves.