For the first time in Weasley history, the morning of the Hogwarts Express wasn't a complete clusterfuck.

Then again, considering the fact that the only Weasley left going to Hogwarts was Ginevra, and the Weasleys weren't in charge of getting themselves to the station since the Ministry was sending cars to transport 'The-Chosen-One' Potter, there wasn't much left that they could mess up or slow down in order to make them late. And FitzSkimmons had made charm necklaces for the girls out of their trunks and Crookshanks' cage again, along with sending Hedwig and Pig to fly up to Hogwarts on their own, so the only trunk and cage were Ginevra's, which were quickly and easily stowed away in the boot by the Ministry driver.

Before they climbed into the back seat of their Ministry car, each of FitzSkimmons gave Fleur a big hug, and she gave them all pecks on their cheeks as she returned the hugs, all of which was something Mrs Weasley and Ginevra both noticeably glared hard at them all for. But as FitzSkimmons really could not care less what the two females thought about them or Fleur, they happily ignored the glares as they climbed into the backseat of one of the two cars together, and the party had soon easily and efficiently made it to Kings Cross with almost sufficient time to board without rushing.

Arriving outside the station, they found two suited aurors waiting on them, looking every bit the part of proper bodyguards. Thankful they'd chosen to wear their bounty hunter/director outfits that morning, so Simmons, looking every bit the part of Director of Shield, quickly stepped out of the car, and pointing in turn at the two suits said, "You stay with them, you come with us," before striding off into the station, Fitz and Daisy on her shoulders. They never turned back to see if the suits had obeyed her orders as they walked straight through the station and through the magical barrier, but as it turned out the two aurors had obeyed Madam Shield's orders, the one she'd assigned to themselves following a few yards behind them and stepping through the barrier not a moment after they had, while the other stayed with the Weasleys as they came through the station and barrier at a much slower pace. But the one with FitzSkimmons never said a word to them, and FitzSkimmons headed straight onto the train and to the prefects' carriage when they made it onto the magical platform, so they never knew any of this, not that they cared in the least whether Simmons had been obeyed or not so long as nobody tried to stop them from getting on the train, which no one had.

Once in the prefect carriage, after convincing the Head Boy and Girl that they really were all three in fact Gryffindor Prefects and all had the requisite badges, they sat down to wait for the remaining prefects to show up, and the train to start rolling so that the prefect meeting could begin. By the time the train did start rolling ten minutes later, everyone except Malfoy and Pansy had shown up. After waiting a few extra minutes for them to arrive, the Heads finally concluded that they simply weren't coming, and began the meeting. To FitzSkimmons' surprise, the two never showed up the entire meeting, but as it meant that they didn't have to exchange insults with the bully and the bitch, they simply took the win they were given.

Like the previous year, when everyone dissipated to their friends' carriages or to take first shift patrolling the hallways, FitzSkimmons stayed in the prefect carriage where they would be alone. But no more than ten minutes later, there was a hesitant knock on the door. Simmons walked over and opened the door to find a small, breathless third year girl standing there.

"Hi," Simmons greeted gently. "Do you need help, or are you looking for someone in particular?"

"I'm supposed to deliver this to Harry P-Potter," she stuttered, as her eyes met Fitz's and she turned scarlet.

"Okay, no reason to be nervous," Simmons said soothingly, taking the scroll the girl was holding out. "You can come in and meet him, if you like."

But the girl quickly shook her head 'no', and stumbled back out of the compartment and down the hall as quickly as she could. Shrugging, Simmons closed the door again, before walking back over to her spouses and opening Fitz's letter for them to read. It turned out to be an invitation from Professor Slughorn for lunch. Remembering that Dumbledore had told Fitz that it would be beneficial if Professor Slughorn liked Harry, they immediately got up and headed towards compartment C, where Professor Slughorn was awaiting them. Arriving, they saw that there were already five other students there, and only one remaining seat.

Upon seeing Fitz, Professor Slughorn jumped up and exclaimed, "Harry, m'boy! Good to see you, good to see you!" But upon seeing that Harry wasn't alone, he whispered in a booming voice that carried throughout the entire compartment, "I'm afraid I have to say though that the invitation was just for you, m'boy."

"We come as one, or we come as none," Fitz replied firmly.

"Normally we just let this play out as the year goes on, but the three of us are all dating each other, and we have a rule that we never leave each other's sides," added Simmons.

Professor Slughorn stared at them in surprise for a second, as did the rest of the compartment, especially at the news that they were all lovey-dovey with each other, but after a second Professor Slughorn said, "Very well then, very well. Though we're a bit cramped for space…."

"No problem," said Simmons, quickly pulling out her wand and conjuring two chairs for the end of the table, before the three of them sat down.

Professor Slughorn went on to spend lunch expounding upon everyone in the compartment's connections, and prying to see if they had any more that he'd missed, before eventually arriving at Fitz.

"And now, Harry Potter! Where to begin? I feel I barely scratched the surface when we met over the summer! 'The Chosen One,' they're calling you now!"

"This is Hermione Granger, unquestionably the smartest student at Hogwarts, and Ronna Weasley, the best combat strategist at Hogwarts — the aurors could, and honestly should, be taking notes from her on how to defeat Tom Riddle," replied Fitz, introducing the wivesies and ignoring the 'Chosen One' comment for the moment.

But Professor Slughorn was less enthusiastic about dropping the 'Chosen One' theme than Fitz was, though his eyebrows did rise slightly at hearing each of Simmons and Daisy's claims to fame, and said, watching Fitz closely as he did so, "Of course, there have been rumors for years…. I remember when — well — after that terrible night — Lily — James — and you survived — and the word was that you must have powers beyond the ordinary —"

Thankfully, Fitz was saved from having to either come up with an answer or just look at Professor Slughorn blankly because there wasn't really anything to say to a comment like that, by Zabini giving a little, amused skepticism cough, followed immediately by Ginevra Weasley saying angrily, "Yeah, Zabini, because you're so talented...at posing..."

But Slughorn merely chuckled, "Oh dear! You want to be careful, Blaise! I saw this young lady perform the most marvelous Bat-Bogey Hex as I was passing her carriage! I wouldn't cross her!", before seamlessly continuing on with Fitz, "Anyway, such rumors this summer. Of course, one doesn't know what to believe, the Prophet has been known to print inaccuracies, make mistakes — but there seems little doubt, given the number of witnesses, that there was quite a disturbance at the Ministry and that you were there in the thick of it all!"

"Neville, Ginevra, Hermione, Ronna, and myself all were," said Fitz, naming everyone in the carriage who'd been there. Luna had been there as well, of course, but as she wasn't in the carriage with them, it didn't seem useful mentioning in his attempt at a distraction away from himself.

"Oh, you all were there as well?" Slughorn asked with great interest and an encouraging smile at everyone named, but Neville and Ginevra clammed up, while Simmons and Daisy simply nodded their heads in the affirmative, so after a few seconds Slughorn continued on to Fitz, "So modest, so modest, no wonder Dumbledore is so fond. But the rest of the stories, then — so sensational, of course, one doesn't know quite what to believe — this fabled prophecy, for instance —"

"We never heard a prophecy," said Neville, turning pink for some strange reason as he said it, unless it was because he knew that there was in fact a prophecy, it's what the entire fight had been over, and it had fallen out of his pocket and been kicked by his foot to smash on the step below them as Harry had accidentally torn Neville's robes trying to drag him to safety.

"That's right," said Ginevra staunchly, like she had any actual clue. "All this 'Chosen One' rubbish is just the Prophet making things up as usual."

But Daisy said, "Riddle believes the prophecy exists, which makes it relevant whether there actually is any prophecy or not about Harry being chosen for anything. It matters to Riddle, and therefore it must matter to those trying to stop him, to understand what his most likely moves will be. It's basic combat tactics 101 — know your enemy."

"Strategist, indeed!" exclaimed Slughorn. "Maybe you really should be teaching the aurors!" Turning back to Fitz, he continued on, "It's just so hard to tell with things like these. It is true that the Prophet often exaggerates, of course, and one can never be quite sure what's true and what's just speculation. I remember dear Gwenog telling me — Gwenog Jones, I mean, of course, Captain of the Holyhead Harpies —"

For the next thirty minutes, Slughorn rambled on about Gwenog Jones and the Holyhead Harpies, and the rest of the afternoon passed in much the same way, long-winded reminiscences and anecdotes about illustrious wizards Slughorn had taught, all of whom had been delighted to join what he called the 'Slug Club' at Hogwarts, led by of course him. But eventually, as evening turned into twilight, he finally bid them all adieu, and let them return to their carriages to get ready for the impending arrival at Hogsmeade Station.

~FSK~

The Hogwarts Express finally screeched to a halt, and after waiting for everyone else to depart from the train before them, FitzSkimmons finally climbed off themselves.

They had barely stepped onto the wooden platform when they heard a cheerful, "Wotcher, Harry, Hermione, Ronna," float across the platform.

Turning, they saw the bright pink haired girl that belonged to the voice walking towards them.

"Hi, Tonks," they replied. "What are you doing here? You never told us you were going to be here."

"Just found out a week ago myself," answered Tonks. "But I'm stationed in Hogsmeade now, to give the school extra protection. Proudfoot, Savage, and Dawlish are around too."

"Does this mean we'll get to see you this year?" asked Daisy.

"Hopefully. Or at least you should on Hogsmeade weekends," answered Tonks. "But for now you should be getting to a carriage before they all decide to drive away without you. Good to see you all again, though."

FitzSkimmons bid Tonks farewell with the hopes of seeing her again soon, and climbed into the last remaining carriage. When they arrived at the castle, they found Filch searching everyone with secrecy sensors in the Entrance Hall, and warning them that all owls were now being searched, so he'd have every one of them hanging by shackles in the dungeon by the end of the year for ordering dungbombs and other illicit contraband. Apparently finally satisfied that FitzSkimmons weren't trying to sneak anything in other than their charming personalities, the intrepid, married trio were allowed to head on into the Great Hall, where everyone was eagerly awaiting the Sorting.

FitzSkimmons hadn't been at breakfast the following morning for more than fifteen minutes when Katie Bell came hurrying up to them.

"Hi, Harry, Ronna, Hermione!" she said brightly. "Guess what! I was made the quidditch captain! I really thought it would be you."

"You're the seventh year, not me," replied Fitz. "I would have expected it to be you. But congratulations, seriously — I know you'll do great. Which makes me sorry to have to tell you that neither myself nor Ronna are going to be playing this year. We've just got too much else on our plate at the moment, especially after the disaster that was the Ministry fight against Voldemort at the end of last year, and we just feel like we can't give the time we would need to towards quidditch."

Just as expected, Katie stared at them in shock and stupefaction, clearly not believing the words floating into her ears.

"Not play?!" she gasped. "But you're the best player on our team, and have always played! We need you to win!"

"Sorry, but there's more to school than just a sport," replied Fitz. "Specifically — school."

"Yeah, we're taking ten subjects apiece this year, and quite frankly we're just not going to have time to practice quidditch five or six nights a week as well," added Simmons.

"Ten subjects!" gasped Katie. "But did any of you—? Are there even ten subjects to take? How did McGonagall approve that?!"

"Hermione took ten OWLs, and we're all taking those in NEWTs," answered Fitz. "As for how — well, stick around until Professor McGonagall comes around with our class schedules, and you can see for yourself how smoothly this goes. I'll give you great odds on not at all, with a fifty percent chance she flat out doesn't approve our class schedule. But we have all the books, and we're going to the classes anyway, and by two weeks in the ten professors teaching the classes won't care whether we have the OWLs or not, because we'll clearly be the top three students in every class."

Katie just stared at him for several seconds longer, before finally shaking her head and saying, "Well, best of luck. We'll miss you on the team dearly, but if you can actually get ten NEWTs apiece, serious kudos to you. I don't know if that's ever been done before."

~FSK~

The showdown Fitz had predicted between themselves and their Head of House didn't occur until after all of the food had been eaten, and it was getting close to time for them to need to be heading towards their first class, whatever that was going to be. But finally, the stern woman descended from the head table, and approached Simmons first.

"Miss Granger, I see that you have applied to carry on with all ten subjects you OWLed in. Normally I would not suggest trying to do this, as the workload will be even harder than for OWLs, but as you got an O in all ten subjects, I will permit it so long as I see that you are keeping your grades up."

"Yes, actually we have two points we need to discuss with you about that," replied Simmons. "Firstly, is anyone else taking sixth year Care class with Hagrid? Or for that matter, has anyone taken their NEWTs since they knew that Hagrid was going to be the professor? Because we were thinking it over since we sent our applications in, and we were rather doubtful that anyone in our year would be continuing on, and we don't want to be the only three in the class with Hagrid, especially since if we are he's going to have us spend the entire year working with his stepbrother, the full giant, and that's a waste of our time and we don't want to have to go nearer to Grawp than we have to — I'm sure you'd understand if you ever met him, or met a full giant period. And you can call up Umbridge and ask her if you'd like to, she has met Grawp. But back to the point, if we would be the only three from sixth year, we'd rather study on our own for that class, and just take our NEWTs at the end of next year — we'd learn more anyway, regardless of if there's more students in the class or not. We still to this day can't figure out how Dumbledore thought, and keeps thinking apparently, that Hagrid is a professor."

Professor McGonagall was silent for several long seconds, before finally saying, "I am not at liberty to tell what classes any other student is taking, but I would suggest you study on your own Granger, and I will test you at the end of each term to make sure you are coming along well enough to be able to take your NEWTs in the subject at the end of next year."

"Sounds good," said Daisy. "And now secondly, we can either do this the easy way, and tell you that all three of us are taking the ten classes Hermione OWLed, and you agree and then just mosey on to the next person and everyone's happy; or we can do this the annoying way, which is where we eventually agree to whatever classes you tell us, and then attend all ten classes anyway because we already have the books and supplies and know we can handle it; or we can do this the semi-medium-easy-hard way, or the sorta hard with a touch of awkward-easy-difficulty-challenging way that I don't really know what actually is, it's just a really funny quote from a tv show that I don't get to use nearly enough. But all we need is two weeks, and we'll have proven to any teacher that we're the best three in their class and they're honored to have us."

Professor McGonagall stared at her in shock for several seconds, before finally looking down at her notes. Clearing her throat, she said, "I did see that you and Potter had both applied for the same subjects as Granger, despite not having the OWLs in several of them, and not even taking any of the classes for two of them."

"Yes, but I've been teaching them Runes and Arithmancy ever since Divination turned out to be completely useless," interjected Simmons before Professor McGonagall could say anything more. "I can attest for their competency in those two, and it was simply unfortunate sets of circumstances that led to poor grades in the other subjects, exacerbated by the fact that Dumbledore didn't teach Harry occlumency himself so that he could have blocked out the vision that prevented him from finishing his History of Magic OWL, along with saving Sirius's life. But I promise that they can handle the course load just as well as I can, and like Ronna said, we will be the three best in every class. We just ask you to give us two weeks to prove it. And even if you don't, we're still taking the classes and will prove it ourselves to the respective professors, which at the end of the day is all we really have to do, because you can't spend all your time following us around trying to keep us out of classrooms."

Apparently sensing that FitzSkimmons weren't bluffing, and never having faced the situation of students wanting to take more subjects than she would let them, Professor McGonagall finally just reluctantly tapped three sheets of blank parchment without a word and handed it to them, before turning to Neville to sort out his much more complex schedule. Mission accomplished, FitzSkimmons jumped up and scurried off to Ancient Runes, their first class.

~FSK~

At the start of DADA that afternoon, Snape gave them a lecture on the everchangingness of the Dark Arts that made it sound almost like he'd fought Hydra at some point, even to the point that it briefly made Daisy wonder if Hydra had ever made it into the magical world, before remembering that this magical world at least was still entirely fictional.

But even if his disposition and character still left a lot to be desired, he did nail on the head the truth about evil in any world or realm, about how it was constantly changing, mutating, getting stronger, and could never truly be defeated as long as this universe still existed, and how one must be constantly adapting to that constant change to have any chance of defeating the present evil one was faced with. In fact, he honestly had the best grasp on what evil was really like out of any of their six professors that they had had, more so even than Barty 'Constant Vigilance' Crouch Jr, aka not-actually-Mad-Eye.

But eventually he got to what he was going to start teaching them that day, and asked, "What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell?"

Immediately one each of FitzSkimmons' hands rose into the air. After looking around the entire rest of the class, hoping anyone but those three would raise their hand, he finally picked the Weasel to embarrass herself in front of the entire class.

"They never see it coming — or never hear it coming, at least, and if you're good at hiding your wand and being subtle, they never see it coming, either," answered Daisy. "And once you're already in a fight, they don't know what spell's coming next, or as mentioned before, when it's coming if you're good enough with your wand."

Snape stared at her in shock, clearly not expecting such a thorough, accurate answer. So unable to ridicule her, he said dismissively, "An answer correct in the essentials, those who progress in using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting. Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some" — his gaze turned maliciously towards Fitz for a second, for his inability or intentional failure to teach Harry occlumency the year before — "lack. You will now divide into pairs. One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence. Carry on."

FitzSkimmons immediately paired up in a triangle, and began randomly flinging silent curses at each other without warning. For during the previous year, when studying offensive spells to counteract Umbridge's Defenseless Against the Dark Arts class, they had ran across the concept of nonverbal spells, and had of course immediately begun practicing, Simmons because it was a more advanced piece of magic to learn, Daisy because it was clearly a very strategically advantageous ability, and Fitz because the other two were, and they did everything together, and Simmons told them both to anyway so it was a moot point. So now they were able to fling curses right and left at each other exactly as Snape had instructed them to, and equally throw up shields to block spells coming in randomly from two different directions.

Despite the obvious and easily punishable cheating around the entire rest of the room, Snape was so shocked by FitzSkimmons' display of magic that once he saw them, he just stood at his desk staring at them for a long time instead of his normal prowling of the room ridiculing and insulting everyone, until he finally swept up to them in clear ire that his three most hated people in the world were doing what he'd asked so perfectly that there was absolutely nothing for him to reprimand, and sneered at Fitz, "Blocking a spell from a Weasley is one thing, but can you —?"

And without warning, he flung his wand out at Fitz, his spell crackling through the air. But Fitz had been busy watching Snape's body, arm, hand, and wand instead of listening to him jabber, having expected some kind of treachery like this from the Snake who hated Harry more than anyone had ever hated anything in their life, and so was able to easily flick up a shield charm that Snape's curse bounced right off of and took a sizable chunk out of the stone wall on the far side of the room. And as soon as he felt the spell ricochet off his shield, Fitz immediately — and nonverbally, of course, as requested — tossed his own Expelliarmus back at Snape, who of course wasn't expecting any return, having expected Harry not to be able to block his surprise, and unquestionably far more powerful spell than whatever the Weasel had been casting. Completely caught off guard, and therefore unable to throw up any shield charm of his own before he was hit, Snape's wand went flying out of his hand, arcing through the air towards Fitz, who deftly caught it in his non-wand hand. The power of Fitz's Expelliarmus had also knocked Snape off-balance and caused him to stumble into the desk he was standing next to, which he just barely managed to catch in time to keep himself upright and not on his arse.

Angrily straightening himself back up, Snape snarled, "Fifty points for attacking a teacher, and be thankful I'm not giving you a month's worth of detentions!"

"Respectfully, Sir, you told us to practice both blocking and attacking nonverbally — I was simply assuming you would want me to show you both now, as well. My apologies," Fitz replied politely.

Every atom in Snape's body wanted to give Potter detention for the remaining two years the boy had at that school, but he also knew that he'd just seen the most impressive display of magic ever from a beginning sixth year, and his answer had been so respectfully given, without any anger or accusation, that despite himself Snape just couldn't bring himself to give Potter any detention for cheek or some such bullshit reason like that — and he was slightly afraid he might have a full mutiny on his hands from the entire class, but especially from the three students who could perfectly cast nonverbally, if he did. But he wasn't about to give back the fifty points he'd already taken away from Potter, and so simply turned on his heels and stormed back up to his desk, growling over his shoulder at the class, "Get back to practicing. Now!"

~FSK~

FitzSkimmons had just left Snape's classroom, when Jack Sloper, one of the replacement beaters in the book from the previous year, came hurrying up to them.

"Letter for you," he said, holding out a roll of parchment to Fitz. "Listen, I heard from Katie that you're not playing this year. Are you out of your bloody mind?!"

"I'm not. Playing, that is — the other's still up for debate. Also, Ronna's not playing, either," answered Fitz, nodding his head towards Daisy. "Best of luck making the team again this year, though."

"Why aren't you playing?!" exclaimed Sloper. "You're the best seeker in the world!"

"Because we don't want to. And that's final, so don't hound us about it," Fitz replied firmly. It was getting rather annoying having to go through this every single year.

"Oh. Well, uh...if you change your mind…" Sloper said slowly, standing in the middle of the hall awkwardly.

"Goodbye," said Simmons, before the three of them walked on past him and down the hall towards the Arithmancy classroom.

As they walked, Fitz opened the roll of parchment.

"Looks like our first lesson with Dumbledore is Saturday night," he said as he handed the letter over to his wives to read.

"Funzies," said Daisy as she read it. "Still not saying what we're actually going to be doing, though."

"Makes sense for a letter that could easily be stolen, if he's teaching us something secretive," answered Simmons.

"I wish Arithmancy could be secretive — like, so secretive that we couldn't even find the classroom," replied Daisy.

"You…didn't hate it the past three years," said Fitz, rubbing her shoulders as they walked along.

"Gee, great pick-up speech there," Daisy smirked with an eyeroll. "Don't quit your day job of saving the world and inventing shit to become a motivational speaker."

"Oh, I think I can motivate you to do your school work quite well, thank you very much," Fitz smirked back. "Although it is a method that's kind of restricted to just you two, for me anyway."

"And…we can't even make it through a class and a break before someone mentions sex," Simmons sighed mostly to herself, knowing that the other two were happy to make sex jokes from the moment they woke up.

But Fitz and Daisy kept the jokes to a minimum for the rest of break, all of Arithmancy, and most of lunch, and eventually they climbed up through the castle to the library for Care of Magical Creatures with Doctor Jemma Anne Simmons, 2xPhD, unofficial-MD, world's foremost alien biochemist, and wife of two absolutely smashing spouses — even if they did think about sex way too much in her opinion.

~FSK~

Leaving the library an hour and a half later, FitzSkimmons headed down through the castle to the dungeon.

It was their first lesson with Professor Slughorn, and while they knew that he liked Harry and was definitely interested in Simmons and Daisy after lunch on the train the day before, beyond that they knew nothing about what kind of a teacher he would be. By the time Professor Slughorn opened the door to let them all in, they were nineteen students besides themselves standing outside the Potions dungeon, making for a total of twenty-two students carrying on with their NEWTs. Clearly the notice in their Hogwarts letters that it was no longer Snape lording over the class and that E's were now accepted as well as O's had made its intended difference, as Simmons knew there was no way slightly over half of their year would have been standing there had Snape still been in charge.

Professor Slughorn opened the class by going over four potions he had prepared and had ready for them, which FitzSkimmons took in turn answering what they were.

"Veritaserum, the truth potion," answered Fitz to the perfectly clear liquid in the first cauldron.

"Polyjuice Potion. Cannot confirm or deny that someone in this room may or may not have made that on their own a few years back — but it definitely wasn't me," Daisy said next upon seeing the bubbling mud in the second cauldron.

Finally, Slughorn came to the third potion, steam rising in unique spirals from its shimmering mother-of-pearl surface.

"Amortentia, the world's most dangerous date rape drug — more commonly known in the wizarding world as the most powerful of the love potions," Simmons said coldly. "Recognizable when it's in its pure form by its mother-of-pearl sheen, unique steam spirals, and the fact that it smells like the three or four things most attractive to the person smelling it. But once added to any liquid, or sprinkled on any food, it's as odorless and tasteless as veritaserum, only detectable by advanced spells. If anything in the magical world deserves the title 'Unforgivable', it's that potion and all the rest of the so-called 'love' potions, not the three curses that the Ministry has decided to outlaw and brand the 'Unforgivable Curses'."

The only noise in the room for several long seconds was the bubbling of the four cauldrons sitting on Professor Slughorn's desk.

But after several seconds, Professor Slughorn said, "As Miss Granger here has indicated, Amortentia does not really create love. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room."

He paused for a second, looking around at the class, before noticing Malfoy and Nott smirking skeptically at him. "Oh yes," he said to them. "When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love…. But for now, it is time for us to start work."

"But Sir, you haven't told us what's in this one," said Ernie Macmillan, pointing at the one remaining cauldron Slughorn hadn't asked about yet.

Looking towards FitzSkimmons, Professor Slughorn said with a smile, "I suppose I don't even need to ask if you recognize this one as well?"

"Felix Felicis, aka liquid luck," Simmons answered promptly. "Based on the dosage taken, it makes you extremely lucky for a certain period of time. Most recognizable by its gold color and the fact that the potion itself seems to be lucky, as you can see by how large drops are leaping about the surface, and yet none of it is spilling."

"And do you know why it should only be sparingly made and used?" asked Slughorn.

Simmons turned to Fitz to give him a chance to answer this one.

"It is very difficult to make and highly poisonous if done wrong — and even highly toxic if you take too much of it," answered Fitz. "But even simply taken too often, or too much of it that isn't quite to the level of being toxic, causes giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence, because you begin to think that you're completely invincible, instead of merely lucky."

Daisy smirked over at her spouses, thinking back to when FitzSimmons had been invincible since they knew they survived long enough to have a daughter who would go on to produce a Deke. Of course, they had managed to change that timeline with Fitz's death, but for a while it had seemed like they and Yo-Yo actually were invincible.

After that, Professor Slughorn set them all to making the Draught of Living Death, with a prize of a tiny bottle of Felix Felicis to the maker of the best potion. FitzSkimmons quickly pulled out their copies of Advanced Potion Making, sure that they could make the three most perfect potions in the room — for they had a secret weapon.

Edited directions, based on Biochemist Simmons' extensive research through literally scores of Potions books that summer. Of course, Fitz and Daisy had helped her as well, Fitz more so than Daisy as he at least was a lab nerd, even if normally of a different kind, but Simmons was the one who had figured out alien biochemistry all on her own when no one else in the world had a clue because aliens had only just appeared on earth, and this part of the lab was literally her speciality. Which was also why they all expected her to end up with the bestest potion, but overall, if Simmons' understanding was correct, they would all have the three best potions in the room by a significant amount. Of course, this would be the first actual test, as this was the first potion they had been able to try actually making since fixing all of the instructions.

The first instruction for this particular concoction that had needed to be changed was that of crushing the sopophorous beans instead of cutting them as Advanced Potion Making instructed, and thus releasing more juice into the potion. To their great delights, their potions immediately turned the light shade of lilac they were supposed to — so at the very least, their new instructions hadn't seemed to have hurt anything yet.

Then they were supposed to stir the potion counterclockwise, but needing the potion to turn perfectly clear, Simmons had read in several books, especially ones from Borgin and Burkes, that a clockwise stir after every magical number of counterclockwise stirs — seven, that is — greatly aided in turning potions clear. Trying it, they saw that their potions continuously turned paler and paler, shifting slightly from lilac to pink as they did so, but definitely fading out towards complete transparency. Unfortunately, Professor Slughorn called time before even Simmons' could go completely clear, but a quick glance around the rest of the room as they sat back assured them that no one else's potion was even pale, let alone the very faint pink all three of theirs were.

Slughorn moved about the room, nodding here and there, occasionally giving a sniff or a stir to a particular potion, before finally making it to FitzSkimmons and gasping.

"Incredible! Three nearly perfect potions! I don't even know how to begin to judge between them. Harry, it's clear you've inherited your mother's talent, she was a dab hand at Potions, too, Lily was. And Hermione, you've clearly lived up to your name as the brightest student in this castle. And Ronna, apparently strategy isn't the only thing you're good at. Well done, all three of you! In fact, I believe these are too close to even judge!"

And with that he walked back up to the cauldron full of Felix Felicis, and conjuring two minuscule glass bottles filled them both up with the gold potion, before walking back over to FitzSkimmons and handing each of them a bottle, the original he'd shown them before they'd started making their potions and the two more he'd just poured.

As they walked out of the classroom a minute later, FitzSkimmons could literally feel Malfoy's glare boring into their backs, clearly less than pleased that his mortal enemies had all three got bottles of luck, and he nothing but the bitter taste of getting his arse handed to him by a mudblood, Potter, and a blood traitor Weasel.