November passed into December, and with it came snow and wind and dark grey clouds and even colder weather.

The second Monday of December, Professor McGonagall walked down each of the four House tables making notes of who was staying and who was leaving for Christmas. Seeing no reason to leave the castle and nowhere specific to go if they did, FitzSimmons had immediately said that they were staying. It was a decision that made them happy, but it was a decision that also made two other people very happy. One was Ron, who was staying with his three brothers because their parents were going to Romania to visit another brother for Christmas, but the other was Malfoy. Because it gave him new ammunition to try to attack 'Harry Potter' with.

New ammunition that he began using immediately, as Professor McGonagall had no sooner moved on to the next person to ask them what they were doing for Christmas than he slithered right up behind FitzSimmons and sneered, "Not wanted at home, Potter? My parents are thrilled to have me coming home for Christmas. Oh, but wait — you don't have any parents, they're dead."

"He has a mum," Simmons replied. "Wonderful lady, I've spent a lot of time with her when we visited on break from the Academy or on vacation from SciOps. I did shoot his father once, though. I mean, he attacked me first, I was just defending my life, but still — I shot and killed him."

"Anyway, your parents don't actually want you at home — they're just hoping that the Hogwarts Express will crash in transit and take your miserable existence out of their lives," Fitz quickly added in a bored tone, because he knew that he could really rile the bully up, and only wanting to give Malfoy enough time to be confused as hell by Simmons' statement, not enough time to actually think about it or try to ask questions. "Your mum wants a daughter to inherit the family fortune, fame, and power, and if she got one she'd disown you, but your father won't give her another child as long as he already has one, so she's trying to kill you so that she can finally get the daughter that she actually wanted when you popped out instead."

He very, very sincerely doubted that anything he was saying was true, except possibly the parts about Mrs Malfoy preferring a daughter and Mr Malfoy not wanting any more children than the brat whom he'd already had to put up with for eleven years, but the truth was completely irrelevant. It was nearly as unlikely that Malfoy could actually know for a fact that what Fitz had said wasn't true, which meant that the highly volatile immature bully would most likely explode in outrage.

Which he did, shouting, "How dare you, Potter! My parents love me and you're nothing but a hated orphan who should have died with his parents!"

Unfortunately for him, Professor McGonagall was still only a few students away when he shouted this, and she quickly turned towards him and said, "Five points, Malfoy, and detention! We do not speak of other students like that in this castle!"

Malfoy glared hard at Fitz but he had no choice but to walk away, muttering what was most likely threats under his breath as he went.

Once Professor McGonagall had moved on as well, Simmons sighed, "He's going to be looking to hurt you, you know."

"And I'm five seven and a half, adult, trained, aware, and magically better than him," Fitz answered dismissively. "It is very unlikely that he can physically or magically attack me without one of us spotting him first, if he does it's unlikely that it'll leave more than a bruise, and at that point we'll have every God-given right under Heaven to lay his sorry arse out. And he will never, ever threaten us again after that if that happens."

"There's still the problem of the adults who most likely won't acknowledge the right to self-defense," Simmons replied.

"We've already proven that they can't kick us out — what do they have left?" Fitz answered. "Never start with your final sanction — you've got nowhere to go but backwards. Anyway, I don't expect it to ever actually happen, he's a lot of talk but he's nothing more. I expect a lot more ridiculing, but surely he can see the size difference and complete lack of fear, even if he does think that we're also eleven year olds."

And over the next two weeks, it appeared that Fitz was correct. Every time that he saw them Malfoy yelled something scathing at Fitz about not being wanted at home, but they never spotted him trying to hide in any shadows to leap out and attack them, nor did he try to get in Fitz's face at all. But now they were in the final Potions class of the year, their final class period of the year, when he tried for the billion-and-first time to get a rise out of Fitz.

"I do feel so sorry for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home," he said loudly across the dungeon, clearly talking about Fitz.

"And I feel sorry for all those people whose family aren't right by their side every moment of every day," Fitz replied, not looking up from the potion that he was brewing, in a voice loud enough for Malfoy to hear but unlikely to make Snape sweep over and remove points when said in response to Malfoy's much louder comment.

Snape was cruel and abusive, but even he knew that he might finally have a mutiny on his hands if he took points away from Potter for talking in class when Malfoy had just spoken two seconds before to make Potter talk in the first place, and much louder at that. He would just have to look for some other opportunity to unfairly steal points from the son of his mortal enemy, the son of the woman he obsessively lusted over. Malfoy, meanwhile, was too bumfuzzled by what Fitz's comment actually meant, not having a wife of his own to be his family that was never far away from him, to try and retort anything back that Fitz would have almost certainly ignored, knowing pretty well where Snape's boundaries were for not making up complete bullshite reasons to steal points from Harry Potter.

Snape, however, in his own mind at least, was going to get his chance to punish Potter by association right after class, as everyone walked up the stairs from the dungeons to the Great Hall for lunch. For Hagrid was blocking the path with a giant Christmas tree, which made Ron ask the giant of a man, "Hi, Hagrid, want any help?"

In turn, Malfoy drawled coldly, "Would you mind moving out of the way? Are you trying to earn some extra money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose — that hut of Hagrid's must seem like a palace compared to what your family's used to."

Ron, an eleven year old with an inferiority complex compounded by a jealousy of Harry Potter that FitzSimmons knew absolutely nothing about, not spending any time that didn't involve schoolwork around him, dove at Malfoy just as Snape was coming up the stairs.

"Weasley!" he shouted, really quite gleeful inside — one of Potter's surrogate family had done something punishable.

Hagrid then tried defending the twins' younger brother, saying, "He was provoked, Professor Snape. Malfoy was insultin' his family."

"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid," Snape replied, despite never once in his life having enforced that rule against one of his own House. "Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn't more."

FitzSimmons would have agreed with the Head of Slytherin for once if it weren't for the fact that they had repeatedly seen with their own eyes that Snape only applied that rule against the other three Houses, and never to any Slytherin whom he saw fighting in the corridors — they he turned a blatantly obvious blind eye to. But Ron hadn't been defending himself from an attack by Malfoy, so he was definitely the one in the wrong here, and five points really was quite small in the Snape-iverse.

Not that Ron agreed, as they heard him mutter under his breath as he walked away, "I'll get him. One of these days, I'll get him —"

FitzSimmons sincerely doubted it, but it wasn't their fight and they had no responsibility to Shield people from their own stupid decisions, like picking a fight with another student, so they didn't care. Instead, they put all of their caring into the Christmas decorations that had magically appeared in the Great Hall since breakfast making it look like a real winter wonderland, and the fact that school was out until the new year.

~FS~

Christmas morning, Simmons awoke to the extremely pleasurable feeling of her husband licking her exactly where she liked it best.

Once he'd made her orgasm, her thighs crushing his head against her snatch as she came, Fitz leaned up and rested his chin in her belly button and said, "Merry Christmas, Jemma."

"And a very merry Christmas to you, too, Fitz," Simmons replied, before smirking, "Was that my Christmas present?"

"The first of as many as you can handle," Fitz teased back.

They had agreed not to try to get each other anything, as they didn't know of any access to anywhere to get each other anything from. But they could give each other themselves, which they planned on doing as much as they possibly could during the day — in between eating, and playing out in the snow, and whatever else they got themselves into during the day, of course.

"I look forward to it," Simmons smirked back before shuffling around, intent on rolling Fitz over to either blow him or ride him, she hadn't decided on which yet. But as she moved, something caught her eye. Pointing at the foot of the bed, she asked in confusion, "Are those presents?"

Fitz turned to look. "Looks like, but they aren't from me."

"Me either," Simmons replied, shifting down to the end of the bed to look. Then she realized what she was doing, and turned around and looked back at Fitz, smirking, "But they'll still be there later. Right now I need you inside me."

One — or more, who was counting? — rounds later, they finally made it back to the mysterious pile of presents that they certainly hadn't got each other. Looking at them, they found one present for Hermione, and five for Harry. Simmons opened Hermione's first, finding a collection of muggle books, a new diary, and a note from Hermione's parents hoping that she was doing well and wishing her a merry Christmas.

"You know, they must be quite worried not hearing from their daughter for four months," Simmons said. "I should send them a letter thanking them for the presents and telling them that I'm doing great, so they won't worry too much and know that I'm still alive, even if I obviously can't start up an actual conversation with this girl's parents who actually know her."

Next they turned to Harry Potter's presents. The first was a wooden owl flute from Hagrid, supporting their supposition that Hagrid knew Harry from before the train ride, as they had only had minimal contact with him in passing throughout that year, so it wouldn't make sense that he would get Harry a present if he didn't already know Harry well from before FitzSimmons' arrival. The second was a letter from 'Uncle Vernon' and 'Aunt Petunia' saying that they had received a message from Harry (that must have really been sent by Hogwarts, because they sure as hell didn't do it, they had no clue who those two people were) and were enclosing his Christmas 'present', a fifty-pence piece. FitzSimmons assumed that these must be the relatives that Professor McGonagall had believed that Harry wouldn't want to return to when she was trying to expel them at the end of their second week at Hogwarts, something that they still needed to figure out why, though considering a fifty-pence piece constituted a Christmas gift from them might be an indication.

Third was a quidditch book from Ron, which both surprised them, and made them curious that he got Harry something and didn't get Hermione anything, when he knew perfectly well that the two of them were literally always together. But the fourth present threw an entirely new question into the mix. For it was a package from a Mrs Molly Weasley, containing a sweater, fudge, and a note saying that it was from her, the mother of Ronald, the twins, and the rest of the redheaded children.

"Ron was surprising enough, but his mother sending Harry a package? That's just downright strange," Simmons said, looking over the package carefully.

"Did Harry know the Weasley family? Ronald's been trying to stay near Harry all year, but none of the other redheads have hardly even tried speaking to me," Fitz said. "You'd think if she knew Harry from before Hogwarts, they would have all known Harry as well. And Ron would have mentioned something they've done together before. He's never once mentioned anything before the train that I've been paying attention to anyway."

"No idea, no idea," Simmons replied shaking her head, before grabbing the last package and opening it.

Something fluid and silvery slipped out of the package and onto the floor, where it lay in gleaming folds. Reaching down to pick it up, she held it up in front of her to look at it. Which meant that when Fitz looked up at her a second later, she was gone.

"Uh, Simmons?" he said hesitantly, looking around slightly at where he knew that she should be, but wasn't.

Simmons lowered the cloth below the level of her face to look at him directly, making her head reappear.

As Fitz stared at her in shock, Simmons asked in confusion, "What is it?"

"Put it against your body and look down."

She did so and then cutely gasped herself, seeing that her body had disappeared.

"Oh!" And then, "I was wondering how I could see through it quite clearly, just slightly silver-tinged and obviously something there. It's apparently a cloaking device, see-though on one side and cloaking on the other."

"A cloaking cloak — at least it alliterates," Fitz said. "Any note on whom it's from?"

Simmons looked through the wrappings, quickly finding a handwritten note in narrow, loopy handwriting that wasn't any of the professors that they'd had that year, and therefore not a handwriting that they recognized. But all it said was that Harry's father had left the cloak in the unknown person's possession before he was murdered, and that it was time to return it to Harry, and to 'use it well'.

"Wouldn't using a cloaking device 'well' generally involve breaking school rules?" Simmons asked rhetorically when she had finished reading the note. "I mean, invisibility is usually used for sneaking around, and in the case of a school and not a spy organization, most sneaking around is done to avoid getting caught, because you're doing something catch-worthy — well, I guess that's actually exactly the same as what sneaking around is done for as a spy, but as a spy it's at least done for the purpose of national or international security, not whatever you'd sneak around for as an eleven year old in a school."

"Maybe this mysterious person was a rule-breaker themselves back when they were here, or just in general, and Harry's father was as well, and the person is trying to convince Harry to follow in their footsteps of being rule-breakers," Fitz offered as a possible explanation. "Anyway, it'll be good to have if we ever do need to do something that the professors wouldn't approve of — for the safety or betterment of the school, of course."

"Agreed — additional spy tools in our arsenal can never hurt," Simmons answered.

Once Simmons had folded up the cloak and stuck it on top of the mantle above the fireplace, now that the unexpected presents were finally taken care of FitzSimmons returned to giving each other themselves until their stomachs eventually interrupted the fun demanding to be fed, and they headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

~FS~

Dumbledore, meanwhile, was sitting in his office contemplating life, the universe, and everything else.

He had sent Hagrid to rescue Harry Potter from the Dursleys so that the two of them would form an everlasting bond of friendship in which Harry would do anything for the half-giant. And when Hagrid had reported back to him right after the successful rescue, the half-giant seemed to think that they had started forming a close bond. But now that Harry had actually arrived at the castle, that friendship seemed to have completely disappeared. Hagrid had done his part by inviting Harry down to his cabin for tea at the end of the first week to create a routine of Harry visiting him over the course of the year, and to drop the first hint that something important had been taken out of Gringotts on the day that Hagrid had taken Harry there, and to sow the seeds that Snape wasn't trustworthy so when combined with Snape's behavior towards Harry, the boy would automatically assume that the Potions teacher was up to something every time that something bad happened around the school. But Harry had not gone to said tea, and to the best of Dumbledore's very omniscient knowledge, he hadn't visited the gamekeeper a single time all year or even spoken more than a word of hello in passing since arriving at the school. Which was very problematic to his scheme of having the Boy-Who-Lived face Voldemort in a controlled environment at the end of the school year.

Because Hagrid was the key to releasing all of the 'top secret' hints that Harry would need to learn throughout the course of the year in order to feel like it was imperative that he go after the fake stone in order to stop Snape from stealing it for Voldemort at the end of the year after exams were all completed. But without Harry visiting Hagrid to learn all of the necessary pieces of information, at the moment it seemed highly unlikely that Harry would even learn that the fake philosophers stone existed, let alone that Voldemort was trying to get it in order to come back to power, and therefore needed to be stopped.

Which is what he was pondering at the moment — What to do, what to do?

On one hand, he could try to force all of the information into Harry's life and do everything that he could to get Harry down the trapdoor at the end of the year, which would mean that he would need to figure out how to do that, and to get Harry to discover the Mirror of Erised so that he could put it at the end of the maze. Or, he could give it all up as a lost cause, and trust that Harry would be able to fight Voldemort the next time that the dark wizard came around in a year or two, without this first training run.

Giving up was certainly the easier option, and at the end of the day, Harry was just a sacrifice. He could die today, and while whether he would come back or not was vague and undetermined, his role in defeating Voldemort forever would be completed. There were obviously more horcruxes that needed destroyed before Voldemort himself could be destroyed, but the living horcrux would be out of the way. It's not the way that Dumbledore wanted it to happen, he wanted Harry to stir up a resistance against Voldemort once the dark lord regained his body as he eventually indubitably would, as Harry was a celebrity that people would blindly follow if portrayed in the right light over the years. But at the end of the day, all that actually mattered was that Harry died.

So after much contemplating, careful deliberation, and a not at all merry Christmas morning of wracking his brains out, Dumbledore finally decided to give up on making Harry go down the trapdoor under Fluffy, and wait for the next opportunity to see how Harry could handle Voldemort now that he was old enough to actually do something besides sit in his crib crying and have a spell bounce off of his noggin.

Christmas passed into the new school year, and then January into February, with little other than classes, defense training, and extra studying going on for FitzSimmons.

No professors gave them any more unlawful detentions, Snape was ignoring them instead of being horrid, cruel, and abusive, and Malfoy hadn't tried exacting revenge on Fitz for saying that his parents wanted him dead so that they could have a daughter instead. But midway through February, FitzSimmons were finally presented with an incident where their Shield shielding could be put to use.

Madam Pince had just kicked them out of her library and told them to skeedadle their bums on elsewhere because it was closing time when it happened. Neville had been studying a few tables away from them when Madam Pince had passed by ordering everyone to leave, but as he only had a few books to pack up compared to FitzSimmons' miniature library that they were carrying around with them, he started walking out before them. But FitzSimmons weren't far behind him, about ten meters back when Neville stepped through the doors of the library into the hallway outside. Only the moment that he did, a flash of light hit his legs and they snapped together, causing him to lose all balance and instantly fall to the ground. And a second later, Malfoy stepped into view of the door clearly intending on gloating over his latest victim.

Whether Malfoy had been waiting to curse Neville specifically, or merely anyone who couldn't or wouldn't pound his bullying arse into the stone floor, Fitzsimmons didn't know. But either way, they were having none of it. So while Malfoy was too busy gloating down at Neville to notice anything else, Fitz blindside flying tackled the bully to the cold, hard stone floor, so that he couldn't escape while Simmons walked over to Neville and cast the countercurse so that Neville could stand up and walk again.

As Fitz heaved Malfoy onto his feet and gripped the bully's hands behind his back so that he couldn't try to escape, Simmons held out a hand to help Neville up and said to him, "Come report Malfoy's bullying to Professor McGonagall with us — as the victim, your testimony will be worth the most here."

But Neville shook his head submissively, glancing over towards Malfoy who was glaring threatening daggers of painful retribution at him, and mumbled cowardly, "I don't want more trouble."

Knowing that he meant trouble from Malfoy in retaliation for reporting the bully's assault, Simmons just sadly nodded her head slightly, sighing, "We're not going to make you come report him with us, but it really would be better, including for you, if you came with us."

For she knew that while it was very likely that Malfoy would retaliate against Neville for reporting him (retaliation against her or Fitz would likely end up with the bully receiving a concussion or death, so she wasn't worried about them), and the professors were highly unlikely to do anything to prevent it from happening, Malfoy was nearly as likely to still retaliate against Neville even if Neville didn't go with them to report Malfoy's assault, simply because it was reported at all, which FitzSimmons were definitely going to do.

But Neville shook his head again and turned and started waking off towards Gryffindor Tower, leaving FitzSimmons alone with Malfoy. Whom they immediately began leading in the opposite direction towards the staff room, Simmons picking Malfoy's wand up off of the floor where the bully had dropped it while getting body slammed into the ground by her husband, and storing it safely away in her pocket for the time being.

A few minutes later they arrived outside of the staff room and Simmons knocked, answered a minute later by Professor McGonagall.

"How can I —?" she began, before seeing the scraped and bruised shape that Malfoy was in, though unable to see that he had his hands secured behind his back by Fitz from the position she was facing them. So she quickly changed what she had been planning on saying, instead exclaiming, "What happened to Malfoy?! He needs to be taken up to the hospital wing!"

Ignoring that, and knowing that Malfoy was perfectly fine for the time being (being a doctor and all) — though a few healing spells and a check for a concussion wouldn't go amiss later — Simmons said politely, "We saw Malfoy curse Neville with the Leg-Locker Curse right outside the library doors a couple minutes ago. We brought him here to you to report his crime so you could punish him, as opposed to us doing it ourselves."

In turn ignoring everything that Simmons had just told her, instead of punishing the bully for his assault, McGonagall asked, "Why does Malfoy look like he's been beaten up? You said he was the one who cast a curse!"

"As soon as I saw him attack Neville, I tackled him to the ground so that he couldn't hurt Neville or anyone else any more, and so that he couldn't get away before we could bring him to you to report his crime," Fitz answered. "And because casting a spell in the hallways outside of a class in order to immobilize him before we could bring him to you is either stupidly or evilly expressly forbidden — you know, the whole no magic is allowed in the hallways rule that Dumbledore said at the Opening Feast."

"Where is Longbottom? If he was the one who was attacked, why isn't he the one here reporting it? Why is it you two?" McGonagall asked, once again ignoring the fact that they had brought her a bully caught in the act of his crime of harming another student.

"He's too scared of Malfoy to come report it to you, Ma'am. Which I can hardly blame him for, as you've shown absolutely no evidence in the entire six months that we've been here that you would do a single thing about it," Simmons answered bluntly. "Now, we did try to get him to come report it with us, but he's afraid that Malfoy will retaliate even harder if he reports the criminal, and like I said, that you won't do a bloody thing to stop said retaliation. Which after Malfoy stole his ball at breakfast early last year and you did jack shit — you know, what led to us not being expelled — I repeat that he is more than justified in having that belief. But regardless, we refuse to let bullying go unpunished, so we brought him here to be sentenced for his crimes, and we will be keeping a close eye on both him and you to make sure he doesn't take this out on Neville, and that you don't let him take it out on Neville. There's little we hate more than a bully, but if there is someone, it would be a bully enabler and sympathizer — someone who encourages bullying and assault by not doing anything to stop it when it's both in their power, and their literal job, to stop and punish bullying, assault, and harassment."

Remembering the previous time that she had failed to punish a student for a crime committed in FitzSimmons' presence, and the fact that she really had no power over them, McGonagall wisely kept her mouth shut instead of trying to take points away from them that they wouldn't care about, or give them detentions that they wouldn't show up for, for pointing out her repeated failings as a person of authority in the school, and instead looked at Malfoy and asked, "Did you curse Longbottom?"

Malfoy started to clam up, but a sharp, painful twist of his wrist behind his back by Fitz made him grind out, "Yes, Ma'am."

"Ten points and detention tomorrow night for cursing another student in the hallways," McGonagall said crisply, before saying to all of them, "You three had better get back to your common rooms before curfew."

Knowing that they weren't going to get anything better out of McGonagall, and knowing that Malfoy was properly scared of them at least, FitzSimmons nodded and Fitz dropped Malfoy's wrists as Simmons pulled his wand out of her pocket and held it out to him. Once Malfoy had taken it with a glare of hatred at them and quickly exited the room, FitzSimmons left the staff room as well and headed towards Gryffindor Tower like they had intended when they had started leaving the library ten minutes earlier.

~FS~

Four days later FitzSimmons were meandering from the Great Hall up to Gryffindor Tower after supper when Malfoy jumped them.

They were walking past a tapestry that had a secret passage behind it on that particular day of the week, when the Slytherin eleven year old leapt out at them, fists flying street fight style. Unfortunately for him, even though they didn't train on base anywhere near as much as Daisy or May, or have to fight very often on missions, FitzSimmons had had combat training from both May and especially from Daisy over the years, and they knew how to fight even if they rarely did. Especially against eleven year olds who only knew how to brawl. They also knew to always be listening and paying attention to their surroundings at all times, even when they weren't expecting to be attacked — after all, no one expects a surprise attack or the Spanish Inquisition. So Simmons, who happened to be the one walking closest to the tapestry that Malfoy jumped out from behind, was able to easily step out of the way and block Malfoy's assault, setting up Fitz to throw a haymaker right into his jaw, crumpling him to the ground like a rag doll. Where Simmons was immediately kneeing on his back with his arms pinned painfully behind him.

"Never, ever, attack us again, do you hear me?" she growled, bending his arm a little more, though nowhere near enough to cause any real damage, just enough to hurt quite a lot. "Because next time we may not go easy on you. Also, never attack Neville either, physically or with your wand, or we will hurt you like you've never hurt before. The two of us are well acquainted with torture, and how to get away with it with no one ever knowing or believing it if you told them. Now repeat back to me what you're never, ever going to do again."

In a pained grunt, Malfoy growled, "I will never attack you or Neville again."

Simmons let him go and stood up. "Good — glad we settled that. You have no clue who we are or what we're capable of doing if pushed. So for your own health, safety, and well-being, I suggest you follow through on that promise. Now get on up to the hospital wing, you have a broken nose Madam Pomfrey needs to heal, and there's always a chance that you got a concussion from Harry's punch as well, with your young, growing bones."

And with that she resumed their walk back up to Gryffindor Tower, Fitz step-in-step by her side as always.

And true to his word, Malfoy left them, and as best as they could tell Neville, completely alone from that moment forward.

~FS~

Despite their previous declaration that they would rather have public sex when no one was around to catch them than go to another quidditch match, the second Gryffindor match they went to anyway.

They hadn't gone to the second or third matches of the year, Ravenclaw vs Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw vs Slytherin, though their semi-risky sexcapades did have to be inside as both matches were in the blistering cold and wind of late November and January, but for some strange reason the February match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff was being held in the afternoon, and FitzSimmons had already sexed themselves out all morning, so they thought, why the hell not? They could always leave in the middle of the match if they became too bored with it, or thought of something better to do instead.

As they walked down to the pitch with everyone else, Ron and Neville came up alongside them, so when they reached the stands they took seats next to their two fellow Gryffindors, though making sure that Neville and Simmons were in between Ron and Fitz so that the redhead couldn't talk Fitz's ear off about the match.

But no sooner had Madam Hooch blown her whistle and everyone on the pitch soared up into the air, than they heard from behind them, "Oh, sorry, Weasley, didn't see you there," and saw the redhead get knocked forward a little.

Turning, FitzSimmons saw Malfoy sitting down with Crabbe and Goyle right behind Ron, clearly having just hit Ron in the back of the head on purpose. Ron meanwhile, scowled, but it wasn't enough to turn his attention from the game of quidditch going on in front of him.

But never one to leave well enough alone, a few minutes later Malfoy sneered loudly at the back of Ron's head, "You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team? It's people they feel sorry for. Like your brothers, Weasley, who've got no money, and three girls, who are incapable of doing anything useful for the wizarding world. Hey, you should be on the team, Longbottom, you've got no brains — you'd fit right in. In fact, if brains were gold you'd be poorer than Weasley here, and that's saying something."

"Malfoy — we told you," Simmons growled warningly, not bothering to even turn to look at him as she said it.

FitzSimmons' threat after he'd attacked them having apparently actually sunk into his thick skull, Malfoy clammed back up for a few minutes. But not too much time later the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff seekers went into a dive for the snitch, and he dove after a loophole in FitzSimmons' order faster than the seekers were diving after the 150 points — after all, the pair had only told him that he couldn't attack them or Neville, and physically or with a wand at that, saying nothing about words, so he should be completely in the clear to verbally attack the Weasel.

"You're in luck, Weasley," he sneered. "Gryffindor's seeker obviously spotted some gold on the ground!"

Ron, whose patience was already at the breaking point from the Slytherin bully's earlier accurate observations about the Weasleys' destitution, snapped. He turned on the bench seat with his arms flailing, successfully hitting Neville by accident. But Malfoy, who had the high ground and was already facing Ron, dove down at Ron before the redhead could land anything on him, tackling them both to the ground in front of Ron's seat.

FitzSimmons decided that this was their cue to exit scene left. So they walked across the stands to the Slytherin section, and found two empty seats between first years Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass.

"You're Harry Potter," Pansy said from where she sat on Fitz's side, as Daphne on Simmons' side said, "Gryffindors aren't allowed here."

"Really? Because Malfoy is sitting in the Gryffindor section, and no one is telling him that he can't," Simmons replied pleasantly.

And before either of the two girls could reply to that, though they both looked rather stumped as to what to say, Fitz added, "Look — can't we set aside this stupid animosity between the two Houses, and just watch the match? We came over here to get away from a fight that Ron Weasley picked against Malfoy because Malfoy was being an arsehole, and we're not going to bother you at all. You want to talk, about the match or anything else, we're more than happy to, but otherwise we just want to be left in peace as much as you do. We're not part of this whole House hatred and bigotry thing."

"But Gryffindor hates Slytherin," Pansy said, as if she couldn't believe that they were saying what they were. "That's why Malfoy went over to you guys, to stir up trouble and start a fight."

"Then don't label us as Gryffindors," Simmons answered. "We only live in their tower and attend their classes, we don't subscribe to their prejudices or bigotry. Now, it is true that we have had several run-ins with Malfoy, but only when he attacked us or another innocent student first — usually Neville, since the poor boy won't stand up for himself and just punch Malfoy in the face."

"And it all started when Malfoy insulted Hermione on the train the very first time he met us, when Hermione and I were sitting together minding our own business," Fitz explained further. "Then second week we told on him twice, but only when he walked over to Gryffindor Table to steal Neville's ball from him, and then that afternoon when he stole it again, put it in a tree so that Neville would never be able to find it or get it again, and was flying against Madam Hooch's direct orders — you were there for that part, you should remember. And then recently, Malfoy cursed Neville in the back as the boy was walking out of the library completely minding his own business heading back to Gryffindor Tower after studying, so we took Malfoy to Professor McGonagall. Then in retaliation, Malfoy tried jumping us in the hallway a few evenings later, where after Hermione avoided Malfoy's surprise attack I threw one punch into his face in her defense — I don't think he'll try attacking us again. But we have never attacked him first, or started anything."

By the end, Pansy and Daphne were just staring at FitzSimmons. It wasn't like they had ever seen Potter and his girl start anything with Malfoy, or even heard Malfoy claim that Potter had ever attacked him first, only various versions of him saying that he hated Potter's guts and Potter's girl because she was clearly smarter than himself (and everyone but maybe Potter hisself, and that they weren't sure about), but to hear them give explanations for every single major altercation between the two that pointed towards them not being the instigators was still something to hear. But Daphne suddenly thought of something.

"You skipped Christmas. You two were going at it then."

"Malfoy insulted Harry about having no family after Harry told Professor McGonagall that we were staying for Christmas, and Harry simply riposted with a better barb than Malfoy had started with," Simmons answered. "So then, since Malfoy can only throw insults, not receive them, he spent the next two weeks continuing to insult Harry every time he was within shouting distance of us. Sometimes Harry returned an even sharper insult, sometimes we ignored him entirely. But once again, we didn't pick the fight — we just did a better job once the fight had been started."

"Oh."

Both Slytherins were silent for several seconds, as FitzSimmons looked back out at the field to see if anything interesting had started happening. But finally Pansy asked, "Why? Why don't you hate us like every other Gryffindor, and pretty much everyone from every other House? And like we hate Gryffindor?"

"Because you're eleven and twelve year old children — you haven't done anything," Simmons answered. "We've heard since we arrived that most of Voldemort's supporters came out of Slytherin, but no one currently at this school was older than like seven or eight years old when Voldemort disappeared — you didn't support him, even if some of your parents did. And we're not going to condemn you for something you didn't do. Now be a bully and arsehole like Malfoy, and we won't get along. But we haven't seen or heard anything like that from you two, so we're not going to hate you because of some stupid 'principle' that exists that the professors haven't even condemned, let alone actually tried to stop. We judge people by their character, not the color of their House."

"Oh."

After that everyone's attention returned to the match, until the snitch was finally caught and FitzSimmons parted ways with the two Slytherin girls with a friendly goodbye that was half returned, the two girls still staring at FitzSimmons in confusion at their nice behavior during the match.

A few minutes later as FitzSimmons were walking back up to the castle, Ron hurried up beside them.

"I gave Malfoy a black eye," he greeted proudly without preamble, smiling brightly.

FitzSimmons glanced over at him, and Simmons had to refrain from going into doctor-mode — Malfoy had given Ron a lot more than just a black eye. In fact, it really looked like the redhead needed to go to the hospital wing, but that was his choice, not Simmons' professional-as-it-may-have-been suggestion.

So instead she said, "You really shouldn't fight if they don't attack you or someone around you first."

Ron looked shocked that someone would be suggesting not fighting a Snake, and after a second turned to Fitz and said, "Harry, you agree that I was right to beat up Malfoy, don't you?"

Fitz refrained from pointing out that Ron clearly hadn't 'beaten up' Malfoy, and instead just replied, "We had this discussion at the beginning of the year — if Hermione says something, she speaks for both of us, and vice-versa. We're not going to have differing opinions on when it's appropriate to fight and when it's not. And Malfoy insulting you or your family was definitely in the not category."

"But he's a git!" Ron exclaimed.

"Doesn't matter," Fitz replied. "It's not self-defense. Just ignore him, act like you don't care what he says about you or your family, and eventually, in several months or a few years, he'll leave you alone because you're no fun to bully. It isn't enjoyable, but in the long run it will work."

"But you two fight with him all the time!"

"Only verbally, or in self-defense against physical assault. And we aren't trying to get him to leave us alone," Simmons answered. "We don't care what he says about us or Harry's family, but he's such an easy target to throw insults right back at since he can only dish 'em, he can't take them. But that only works if his insults don't bother you, because you're only going to receive an increase in insults if you throw them back, and if you know that you'll never turn a verbal fight into a physical one. And it's still really not the best thing to do. The lines between what's okay and what isn't are very fine at points."

"So just ignore him, stay away from him as much as you possibly can, and when he does talk to you, pretend that he doesn't exist. Literally pretend like you can't hear a single thing he says," Fitz added. "It's the best way of handling someone like him, and eventually — eventually — he will find a new victim who will react the way he wants. And we're not saying it will be easy, only that it's the best option for you."

"Easy for you to say," Ron groused, sounding defeated after expecting to be praised for his bravery for starting a fight against the Slytherin git, and instead receiving a scolding of his own.

FitzSimmons weren't entirely sure what the redhead meant by that, perhaps that it was easy for them to say to ignore Malfoy when they were doing anything but, or if he didn't even know what he meant himself, it just sounded like something good to say, but as Ron didn't say anything more, they didn't care and continued walking up to the castle for supper.