At the end of the second week of August FitzSimmons awoke to two owls pecking on the window of their bedroom.
Opening the window Simmons took the letter off of each of their legs, one for her and one for Fitz. Closing the window again and turning back to her husband holding out his letter for him, she said, "I'm guessing these are from Britain, as those owls looked really tired like they'd just flown across the pond and all the way to here."
Fitz opened his letter, and upon seeing the emblem said, "Well, they are from Hogwarts, so I'd guess they had to fly all the way from home."
Inside their identical letters they found a note telling them that the Hogwarts Express left Kings Cross Station from Platform 9 3/4 at 1100 on September 1, a booklist consisting of The Standard Book of Spells Grade 2 and seven alliteratively titled books by an author named Lockhart, and a list of potions supplies that they needed to make sure they were full on before they returned to school.
"I'm guessing this means we'll be making a trip to Diagon Alley today," Fitz said.
"And we should really get going as soon as we eat breakfast, because there's a significant time zone difference between here and London," Simmons said. "But we should be able to make it with enough time to shop."
"You know, could we just see if the Knight Bus conductor knows of a magical shopping place here in the States?" Fitz asked. "That way we don't have to worry about the time nearly as much, and we won't risk accidentally running into any of the adults from Hogwarts who won't want us to return here for the rest of summer until it's school time again."
Simmons grabbed his face and kissed him hard.
"I knew I married you for some reason," she teased when she let him go. "You're a genius. No reason to step foot in Britain again before we have to, where people are doubtlessly looking for us after we disappeared."
"And here I thought it was my devilishly handsome looks and cunning wit," Fitz smirked back.
Simmons slapped him lightly on the chest, before skipping out of their bedroom to the kitchen to begin making breakfast.
An hour later they walked a mile down the street from their safehouse to call the Knight Bus, not wanting it to get too close to their safehouse, in order to keep it, you know — safe. Unlike when they had called it at the Hogsmeade platform, the bus didn't immediately screech to a halt in front of them, taking about fifteen seconds before it finally did, even the Knight Bus being slightly constrained by great distances. When Mr Shunpike saw who it was, he greeted them cheerfully before asking where he could take them.
"Do you know of any place here in America where we can go to buy our school books and supplies for the upcoming year?" Simmons asked him.
Mr Shunpike started to shake his head no, but Mr Prang, the driver, cut in. "I do. My nephew moved to the States a few years back, and he took me to an all-wizard city in the middle of nowhere Montana."
"Then that's where we need to go," Simmons said. "How much?"
Mr Shunpike and Mr Prang both just looked at each other for a second, only having prices for inside of Great Britain and from country to country, before Mr Prang came to a decision and said, "Eleven sickles, and we'll drop you of first so we don't have to go to Bristol and then come all the way back here."
"Take a galleon, no need for all the extra coins," Fitz replied, handing Mr Shunpike two galleons. "Consider the extra payment for dropping us off first, and keeping our business our own from any prying noses."
As they climbed onboard, Mr Shunpike said, "Thank ye' very much. An' ye know, Dumbledore did come askin' if ye'd taken th' Knight Bus, and where ye'd gone. I told 'em ye had ridden, but kept m' promise not ter tell 'em where. Well, couldn' tell 'em where anyways with th' spell, but I wouldn' 'ave even if I could've."
"And we appreciate it greatly," Simmons said, storing away the information that Dumbledore had guessed that they'd taken the Knight Bus.
Thirty unpleasant seconds later they screeched to a halt on the main street of a quaint little mountain town and Mr Shunpike let them off, telling them just to stick their wands up again whenever they were ready to return home. FitzSimmons bid him goodbye for the time being, before heading off down the street, making their way to the bank. Entering the extravagant building, they found it ran by goblins as well, though with a different name than Gringotts.
Walking up to an available teller, Simmons said, "Hi. We were wondering if you have any connections with the bank Gringotts in London. All of our money is there, but we'd really like to not have to travel all the way there if at all possible."
"You can withdraw up to a thousand galleons from your vault in Gringotts here," the goblin answered gruffly. "How much would you like?"
Having no clue how much Harry Potter had at Gringotts — and highly doubting that Hermione would have a vault at all as a muggleborn, but really hoping that Harry did since he had to have bought his school supplies somehow the year before — Fitz asked, "Is there any way you can tell us how much I have in my vault at Gringotts? My name is Harry Potter."
"Let me see your wand to prove your identification, and then come back in fifteen minutes to give my assistant time to portkey to Gringotts to check."
So Fitz handed the goblin Harry Potter's wand, which after quickly looking over the goblin handed back to Fitz before jumping down from his stool and hurrying away, which FitzSimmons took to mean that they were dismissed.
When they returned fifteen minutes later the goblin informed them that Harry had just over sixty-two thousand galleons in his school vault at Gringotts, the only Potter vault he had access to while he was still underage. Storing all of this information away, Fitz asked for five hundred galleons, still having quite a bit in the money bag that Harry had left him, but wanting to make sure that they had plenty for everything that they could possibly need. The goblin left again before returning a few minutes later with a full money pouch, and FitzSimmons headed back out into town to do their shopping for the new year.
Entering the bookstore they walked up to the older gentleman manning the checkout, and Simmons asked, "Do you have books by an author named Gilderoy Lockhart, and also The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk?"
"If your accents weren't enough, I'm guessing you kids go to Hogwarts, over in England?" the store owner asked in a friendly tone.
"Scotland, sir, but yes — we are both British, and attend Hogwarts," Simmons answered politely.
"Well, you're just in luck. I didn't want them, but Lockhart got his books sent out everywhere, so we have several stacks of all his books I haven't even taken the time to set out. And we always keep a few books in store of all the schools' primary spell books, for any foreign students passing through needing to pick up their books. So which of Lockhart's books do you need? I'll sell them to you two-for-one since I sure as hell don't want them taking up space in my back room, or out here on the floor."
Simmons handed him her booklist, and he soon returned with not only the seven Lockhart books on the list and The Standard Book of Spells 2, but also Magical Me and Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests.
"On the house," he said as he pointed to the two sets of two extra books by Lockhart. "They may not be of any use to you, but heaven knows they certainly aren't to me. And who knows, maybe you'll find a table or two that needs leveling to stick them under. Now is there anything else I can do for you?"
"We're just going to look around a bit, see if anything strikes our fancy," Simmons answered, and she and her husband walked off to start looking at the rows of available books.
Simmons picked up several books that she thought looked interesting, but they couldn't find any books titled House Elves: What The F– Are These Strange Creatures?, or anything similar, so they soon retuned to the counter.
Setting the books that they had grabbed down next to their school books, Simmons asked, "Do you have any books on house elves? We had one visit us, but neither of us know anything about the odd little creatures."
"There's not a whole lot written," the owner answered. "It's mostly knowledge passed down from parents to their children in families that have them, which are mostly the old money families of Europe. That being said, you will find some information in Intelligent, Beasts, or Slaves: A Look at Magic-Capable Beings. Like centaurs, mermaids, and goblins, house elves have their own ways of performing magic that wizards have often feared over the years, leading to such creatures being marginalized and heavily restricted in wizarding society, especially with wand possession. But Vladimir does a pretty good job describing what these beings are naturally like, without all the political beliefs that wizards on both sides of the issues attribute to the creatures in order to try to persuade people that their beliefs are the right ones, instead of letting people just go ask the beings themselves what they think."
Five minutes later FitzSimmons were checked out with all of their school books, extra books, and house elf book, and were walking down the street to the potions supply shop to fill up on everything that they would need for the upcoming year. They spent the rest of the morning and afternoon exploring the neat little magical town, eating lunch at a quaint diner, before finally calling the Knight Bus to take them back near their safehouse as suppertime approached, happy with their day's accomplishments.
~FS~
The following day FitzSimmons received their first letter from Ron Weasley that was successfully delivered to them by owl (nearly dead pile of feathers though it be), and not stolen and then handed to them by Dobby.
Like the rest of Ron's letters that they had now been able to read since Dobby's visit, Ron wanted to know where Harry was and what he was doing, along with inviting him to come stay at the Burrow for the remainder of the summer. But this time he'd also included, 'We just got our booklists this morning, and will be going to Diagon Alley to pick up all of our books next Wednesday. Hope you can make it.'
"Does Ron actually think that there is some chance we would meet him to pick up our books even if we were back home?" Simmons asked once she had finished reading the letter. "I mean, I thought we made it pretty clear during the year that we weren't interested in hanging out with him."
"He spent pretty much the entire year forcing himself once or twice a week to study next to us in the library, usually only making it thirty minutes or an hour, so he's nothing if not determined to stay close to us," Fitz replied. "So I don't know if he actually thinks we'll come, or if he just has to throw it out there to try. Or maybe, based on how much he's asked us what I'm doing, someone is using him to try to spy on us and figure out where we are instead of where we're supposed to be."
"Do you think they can track the owls they're sending us and find out that way?" Simmons asked worriedly.
"Magically, I have no idea, but you would think something like that would be possible," Fitz answered. "Actual gps, not yet, though we're working on making that possible. But whether they can or not, I would have to guess that they aren't, because no one was waiting for us when we got back from school shopping last night, and they could have tracked the Hogwarts owls just as easily as Ron's owl. So I'd guess we're safe, even if we shouldn't be."
"And if they were tracking owls, they would have discovered Dobby stealing our letters and stopped him so that an owl could have come through," Simmons replied. "So I agree, I think we're safe."
Content that they still couldn't be found, FitzSimmons settled in to begin reading their new book on house elves and other beings that they hadn't had the chance to meet yet, along with going through all of their new school books and the other books that Simmons had bought for them. They'd arrived back at their safehouse too late to start reading the night before, having to eat first and then being too horny to focus on anything as mundane as books after that. But now they had all the time in the world, and began learning. Like the bookshop owner had warned them, there wasn't a long section on house elves, but they did learn more than they had known previously, which was nothing.
First off, house elves were servants bound to a single family until released by the presentation of clothes, or death — though certain amounts of betrayal were possible inside a limited set of circumstances usually involving warring halves of the same family. Sometimes this position merely meant that they were a servant who stuck with one family their entire lives and often held great responsibilities as a highly trusted member of the family, while other times it meant that they were in fact a slave of the cruelest of owners. Which kind Dobby was closer to they didn't know for sure, only having one short conversation with him in which he never said whether he was a slave or family member, but they were leaning toward the idea that he belonged to one of the good families, who had entrusted him with the vital mission of protecting Harry Potter from a dangerous plot of terrible things going down at Hogwarts that year.
Second, house elves had an extensive and very powerful magic of their own that did not require the use of wands, but wizards being wizards and feeling threatened by their slaves, had never investigated it to any extent worth mentioning. They had however banned house elves from possessing wands, fearing that they might be even more powerful with wands than they already were without, and rise up and overthrow their wizarding masters, despite no instance of a house elf who had somehow come into possession of a wand having ever tried to do so being known, nor the house elves of a certain family joining together without wands to overthrow the family that they majorly outnumbered.
Third, every wizarding school had a bevy of house elves to help run the place, and outside of certain tyrannical countries like China, Cuba, and much of the Middle East, along with a few others around the world, the house elves were closer to family than slaves, even if most students never learned of their existence while they were attending the school.
And finally, house elves could do almost any job that a wizard could ask of them. Much of their time was normally spent cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry for the family or school, but they could also be personal security, private property (house and land) security, perform complex spells of any number of kinds, and act as doctors when the need arose (much like Dr Simmons, not-Md did for Shield). Basically, they could do everything except stop or destroy extremely dark types of magic, and they had never been heard of performing dark magic themselves, not that their dark owners would go around blabbing to non-dark wizards about what they had just had their house elf do.
When they finished reading the house elf section of the book FitzSimmons continued on to the rest of the beings that wizards tried limiting the magical ability of mostly out of fear, before finally getting to their actual school books for the year, interrupted here and there and everywhere by sudden overwhelming needs to snog each other senseless.
~FS~
Over the next several days FitzSimmons continued reading their new books and practicing the new spells that they found in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two, until Wednesday morning right after breakfast found them curled up on their couch together trying to weed their way through the seven assigned Lockhart books that seemed absolutely nothing like school books.
In fact, despite Magical Me supposedly being the one that was his autobiography, with the exception of the household pests book (that ironically didn't include a section on him), all of his books seemed like autobiographies to FitzSimmons, except only of the incredibly great things that he had done, not everything that had happened in his life. So incredibly great, in fact, that they seemed rather suspicious. How he'd even had enough time in his life to do all of the daring escapades and heroism that he said he had done seemed questionable as well, and FitzSimmons were heroes themselves who worked for a spy organization and had done more than their fair share of daring escapades and incredible heroisms.
In fact, it all seemed so sensationalized and exaggerated that Simmons finally set Holidays With Hags down in her lap and said to Fitz, "You know, I'm beginning to think that half of these books are made up. There's just no way he actually did all of these things he said he did, and us never having heard of him even once all of last year. Everyone knew Harry Potter's name despite the fact he did nothing, just being a baby when something undetermined happened to him, and yet this guy is a Big Damn Hero if everything he says is to be believed, and nary a peep was made about him all of last year."
"Yeah, everyone knows the names Dumbledore and Voldemort, and we ran across a previous tyrant named Grindelwald in a few history books, but never once did we hear the name Lockhart, despite the fact that if you add up everything he's done in all eight of his autobiographical books, the man's practically saved the wizarding world a dozen times over all by himself," Fitz agreed. "And is it just me, or does the writing style seem rather fictionalized, and not like any normal nonfiction style of literature that we've read through in our world or this magical one?"
"It certainly seems embellished if nothing else, though completely made up certainly can't be ruled out yet," Simmons replied.
Meanwhile as FitzSimmons were questioning the legitimacy of Lockhart's books after breakfast, halfway across the world in Diagon Alley Lucious Malfoy was picking a fight with Arthur Weasley after lunch in order to slyly slip a nondescript little diary into Ginevra Weasley's school books. A fight that immediately grabbed the attention of the actual Gilderoy Lockhart where he sat signing books at the front of the store, bored by the lack of action. Sure, hundreds of adoring female fans was great and all, but why couldn't something front page of the newspaper-worthy happen? And then this fight fell right into his lap, and he jumped all over it. Waving at his photographer to get all of the photos of the fight that he could from every possible angle, the flashy man hurried over to the excitement, though making sure to stay just far enough away from all of the actual fighting so as not to accidentally get kicked, punched, or scratched in the all-out brawl going on between the two ancient families.
After Hagrid had burst into the bookstore and broke up the actual fighting, Lockhart grabbed Ron, the twins, and Draco Malfoy, all easily recognizable as Hogwarts students by their ages and school books scattered all around from where they had been dropped when the fight had started, and pulled them up to the front of the shop in front of everyone who were cheering loudly by this point, photographer clicking away like mad, his magical camera emitting puffs of purple smoke with every blinding flash. Mr Malfoy, Mr and Mrs Weasley, and Hagrid all tried stopping him, but he was having none of that nonsense, and soon had the four children up front.
"Nice big smiles, boys," he said as he showed his own gleaming teeth for everyone to see. "Today, you are going to make the front page with me!" Directing his attention to his adoring fans, he continued on to everyone in the store, "Ladies and gentlemen, what an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!
"When these young students here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, they only wanted to buy my autobiography. They had no idea that they would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. They and their schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"
The crowd let out its biggest cheer yet at this pronouncement, and clapped wildly. Several pictures later, the Weasleys and Malfoy glaring daggers at each other with Lockhart obliviously standing in between smiling like it was the greatest day of their young lives, Lockhart finally let them go and they all scurried back to their parents. After a final glare all around, the two families left the store and stalked off in opposite directions, never to see each other again — until Train Day, of course.
Every new sunrise that rose up over the mountains in front of him, Dumbledore eagerly awaited the message from Tom the Barman Landlord saying that Harry had shown up at the Leaky Caldron and headed into Diagon Alley to buy his new school books for the year.
But the school letters had gone out a week and a half earlier, and still he hadn't heard a thing. Mrs Weasley had even told him that her youngest son, Harry's best friend (though Dumbledore himself couldn't remember Harry seeming to spend all that much time with the redhead, unlike with the muggleborn he was never seen away from), had sent Harry a letter telling the Boy-Who-Lived that they were going to get their books a few days earlier on the Wednesday after the letters were delivered, and that Harry should join them there to buy their books together, but Harry hadn't shown. Dumbledore had even gone to Diagon Alley the afternoon after that and asked the Gringotts goblins if Harry had ever come to replenish his gold, but they said that he hadn't, though something about the way they answered that Harry hadn't been there made him suspicious that they were hiding something that he couldn't quite figure out. But whatever it was remained a mystery to him as the goblins were very tight-lipped about their customers, and he was left wondering what would happen come September 1, whether Harry would miraculously show up at Kings Cross Station to take the Hogwarts Express back to school.
As it would turn out the answer to that question would be 'no', but only because FitzSimmons were taking the Knight Bus directly to Hogsmeade Station instead wasting their entire day riding in a train. Not that Dumbledore knew that on the day of, of course, as there were still no adults at Platform 9 3/4, Kings Cross Station, or at Hogsmeade Station, Middle of Nowhere Scotland (except Hagrid, who was too busy bustling the first years down to the boats to notice a FitzSimmons who were doing their well-trained best to avoid being noticed) to see where FitzSimmons had and hadn't arrived at, and report that back to Dumbledore and the rest of the staff up at the castle irresponsibly just waiting around for a bunch of children to arrive on their own. But at Hogsmeade Station FitzSimmons joined the rest of the second and above years in the horseless carriages, and soon arrived up at the castle ready to start their second year of magical learning.
But no sooner had they stepped into the entrance hall than they heard Professor McGonagall shout at them.
Simmons sighed. "Well, we need to tell her about the danger here this year, anyway — let's go."
Walking over to Professor McGonagall, they quickly found themselves being led to her office.
As soon as McGonagall had the door shut behind her, she shouted at them, "Where were you all summer?! Everyone's been worried sick! Dumbledore had half the country out looking for you!"
"We had things to do that didn't involve being wherever you expected us to be, and we're here perfectly safe," Simmons answered curtly, before continuing on quickly before McGonagall could try to interrupt, "And we discovered that there may be some grave danger to the school this year."
This shut Professor McGonagall up in a hurry, making her forget all about their disappearance over the summer for the moment. "Grave danger? What on earth are you talking about, Granger? Hogwarts is the safest place in the world — Dumbledore is here."
"A house elf by the name of Dobby visited us this summer and made Harry promise not to come back to Hogwarts because Harry would be in mortal peril if he did," Simmons answered. "We promised Dobby something slightly different that he thought was Harry agreeing not to return, so we're of course back here without having ever lied to the strange little guy, but he was adamant that Harry not return. His exact words were, 'Dobby knows that Harry Potter is valiant and bold, that he has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him...Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts', and then, 'All Dobby came to say is that Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger. There is a plot, a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year. Dobby has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril. He is too important, sir!' And the poor little guy was absolutely trembling from floppy ears to knobby toes when he was telling us that."
"And we wanted to tell someone as soon as we found this out, but neither of us were never given an emergency contact number for the wizarding world, so we couldn't," Fitz added, to at the very least point out a major flaw on Hogwarts' part for all social muggleborn students attending there, and even for students from wizarding families that were abusive.
"Why didn't you send us a letter by owl?! I believe you have an owl?" Professor McGonagall asked in confusion.
"I do?" Fitz asked in surprise, before starting to correct himself, and then realizing that wouldn't help anything because then he would have to come up with some excuse for why he didn't send a letter by owl and he wouldn't learn which owl was his, so he shut up.
"Your snowy white owl Hagrid bought you the day he took you to Diagon Alley!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, staring at Fitz like he'd lost his mind, which he hadn't since dying, but Harry Potter basically had when Fitz arrived and replaced him.
"Oh — I thought that was Hagrid's owl, as the only letter we ever received from it last year was from Hagrid," Fitz replied. "Anyway, he wasn't with us. I guess he's still hanging out here or something, I don't know. Point being, we didn't know how to contact any authority about the impending threat on Hogwarts, so we made the only decision that we could, which was wait until we came back here and saw you again to tell you — which is what we're doing now. If you want students to be able to report things like this in the future, you have to do a better job of enabling means of communication for them to be able to report things to you."
McGonagall looked like she didn't know what to say for a second, before brushing off everything that Fitz had said with a terse, "Hogwarts is the safest place there is, there is no threat here," before redirecting her attention to why she'd brought them up to her office in the first place. "Now about you two disappearing all summer —"
"Shove it up your arse," Simmons interrupted. "You can't expel us and therefore can't make us do detentions, and we don't give two shits about the House Cup, so you have no way of making us tell you where we were or what we were doing. So stick any hope of finding out where we were where the sun doesn't shine, and tell whoever you report to to do the same, because we all know that you're not the one in charge here who really wants to know why we didn't do what was expected of us. Now, unless there is something else you needed to talk to us about, we're going down to the Feast."
She waited patiently for a few seconds as McGonagall stared at her in shock for the blunt summary of the situation, before finally standing up and heading out of McGonagall's office, Fitz following right behind her.
When they arrived at the Great Hall a few minutes later they found the Sorting already over and food on the table. Slipping into two open seats near the end of Gryffindor table, they joined everyone else in replenishing their bodies' nutrients and energy reserves, trying to be as unnoticeable as possible so that no one would try to come talk to them, especially about their not being on the train or what they did that summer, whether or not they knew of FitzSimmons' disappearance. A plan that fortunately worked, as they were able to eat their entire meal in peace without any interruptions.
At the end of the meal as everyone chatted and waited for everyone else to finish dessert and Dumbledore to stand up and give his announcements and dismiss them, Simmons pulled the original copy of their map of the castle out of her pocket and set to duplicating it. At the very end of the previous year FitzSimmons had gone back to the seventh years who had helped them create the map, and asked them to teach them the duplication spells to create copies of their original map. It had taken several hours of practice, but FitzSimmons had finally learned how to do the spell to perfection. And now, they wanted to have copies ready to give out to all of the new first years while everyone was still gathered in one place.
By the time she had finished making more than enough copies for all of the first years and anyone else who might want one, Dumbledore had stood up, given them the normal start of term notices (fortunately without any corridors being off-limits this year, though with no explanation as to why the third floor corridor on the right-hand side had been off limits the year before but wasn't now), dismissed them all to bed, and everyone had begun standing up and making their way out of the hall. But as everyone began moving, a long, piercing whistle by Simmons froze them all in place. When silence had completely descended upon the Great Hall as everyone turned to find the source of the unexpected noise, Simmons stepped up onto the table so that everyone could easily see and hear her.
"First years, and anyone who didn't get one last year but wants one now, or left their copy at home, we have free maps of the castle," she shouted out to the still room, holding up one of said maps and waving it around to emphasize her point. "This castle is extremely complicated and changes on a daily basis, and the professors here do absolutely nothing to help you learn it or make sure you get to their classes on time, all while punishing you when you fail to do the impossible. So last year a few of us made maps that change as the castle changes, so you don't have to wander aimlessly around trying to get to where you're expected to be, despite having been given zero instructions by the professors. So if every first year will come over here to me, along with anyone else who wants a map, I will hand them out before your prefects lead you to your common rooms."
And with that she stepped back down to the floor, turning around and grabbing half of the stack of maps that she had just made as Fitz grabbed the other half and stood next to her. Everyone in the hall just kind of stood around for several seconds looking at everyone else, the first years unsure of what they were supposed to do and if this random second year was for real, until a very small, mousy-haired boy spotted that the Harry Potter was standing next to the strange girl, and hurried over as fast as his short legs would carry him — for if Harry Potter was with her, then she must be okay. This of course set off a snowball effect of more and more first years hurrying over, until soon they were all crowding up to where FitzSimmons standing, joined by several older students as well who remembered the maps from the previous year and wanted another copy.
As the mousy-haired boy took the first map from Fitz he tried to say something to him, but the rest of the Gryffindor first years had started swarming over by that point and so he was shunted out of the way before he could actually say anything. Seeing that he wasn't going to be able to talk to his hero at the moment, he climbed up onto the bench nearby, being so short that many of the older students were still taller standing on the ground next to him than he was standing on the bench. Students who were staring at FitzSimmons in shock for daring to interrupt the Feast, even if many of them had got maps from the pair the year before because they hadn't known the castle very well before FitzSimmons had come to the school's rescue with their maps.
Meanwhile up at the staff table, all of the professors and Snape were staring at FitzSimmons in similar shock, unable to believe their eyes and ears that a student would dare interrupt the sacred ritual that was the end of the Opening Feast and the leading of the first years to their dormitories by the prefects. It mattered little that they had almost all seen or heard about Potter and Granger passing out maps to all of the first years the year before (though most of them had completely forgot about it until that very moment) — when they had done that, the two of them had at least had the respect of tradition to do it during a normal breakfast, and not during such an established tradition as now. They also still weren't pleased that their yearly hazing of the first years by taking away points and giving them detentions for not being able to make it to class on time in an impossibly confusing castle that they'd never been in before was being stopped, but there still wasn't actually anything in the school rules against it, it was just a cruel time-honored unwritten rite of passage. So other than trying to give the pair detentions that wouldn't work for 'disrupting the school', there was nothing that they could do to stop FitzSimmons from being helpful.
On the other side of the hall, however, there was one person who was pleased about the opportunity that this interruption provided. And that was one Draco Malfoy, who was more than happy to have an opportunity laid right in his lap to sneer at the pompous mudblood for doing stupid shit like helping first year students. So he strolled over to where all of the first years were passing by FitzSimmons to receive their maps, intent on making sure that everyone in the nearby vicinity heard what a stupid mudblood she was. And his sneer only increased when he saw who it was who was standing next to her helping her hand out the maps.
Harry Potter — the insufferable Boy-Who-Defeated-the-Dark-Lord, whom he'd never seen out of sight of said mudblood the entire previous year, ever since he'd first found them sitting on the floor at the back of the train together. Although, speaking of trains, he hadn't been able to find either of them earlier that day on the train ride up, or on the train back to London in June now that he thought about it, and he'd had to suffice himself with bullying the Weasel about his destitute family for a while, but now he was getting distracted.
"Look who it is, the bookworm muggleborn wanting to help all the poor little firsties," he drawled as loudly, sneeringly, and mockingly as he possibly could to reach the maximum number of people.
Simmons turned to look at him.
"Want a map?" she asked politely, holding a map in his direction though he was still a good fifteen feet away from her.
"Want one of your stupid maps?!" the blonde sneered in disbelief, like it was the most preposterous thing that he had ever heard in his short life. "I wouldn't use your map if my life depended on it. I wouldn't even touch a map filthied by your dirty hands if my life depended on it."
Simmons merely shrugged in response, turning back to the next waiting first year and handing them a map. Malfoy looked at her in slight surprise for not rising at all to his scathing wit, even if she hadn't at all the previous year either, before turning towards Fitz.
"And you, Potter, still hanging out with riffraff like her, and now doing whatever she tells you to like some house elf. I gave you a chance last year to become great, and warned you what would happen if you hung out with people like her, and now look what you've become. From wizarding hero to doing some filthy mudblood's bidding."
Fitz completely ignored Malfoy like he couldn't even hear the bully, but he was one of the only ones in the vicinity. There was an instant uproar from most of the Gryffindors around them, as several dove at Malfoy, several more shouted things like, "How dare you!", and more than a few wands were pulled. Of course, as soon as the Slytherin table saw the Gryffindors attacking one of their Slytherins, they all rushed over to defend their own, and soon there was an all-out brawl going on between the two Houses.
Having seen the impending tiff coming from the first angry outburst by the Gryffindors, FitzSimmons quickly scooted in the opposite direction pulling those first years still left with them out of harm's way, continuing to hand out maps like nothing was going on. So that by the time the professors had rushed down and finally broken up the fight that they had no clue the source of, FitzSimmons had finished passing out all of their maps to everyone who wanted one, and were calmly and innocently sitting on the Gryffindor bench watching the dust-up as one would watch a particularly good hockey fight.
All having been up at the staff table still staring cluelessly at FitzSimmons handing out maps, none of the professors or other staff members had heard what Malfoy had said that had started the fight, and really didn't care when all of the Gryffindors yelled at them that that was the source. There had been a fight and that was against school rules, regardless of the reason for the fight, and soon more people had been sent to the hospital wing and more detentions had been given out than ever before that early in a school year. However, they had only just got everyone separated and punishments handed out, when they were interrupted by the man whom Dumbledore had introduced as the new DADA teacher, Professor Lockhart, who had just strolled up to the scene now that the danger was over.
"Boys, boys, boys — fighting again! I should have known it would be you four," the wizard in aquamarine robes exclaimed jovially, large white teeth gleaming in the flickering light of the thousands of candles hanging in the air over all of the tables, as he spotted the Weasleys and Malfoy. "Well, it's all my fault really, I could kick myself. Of course, I completely understand why you've done it. Gave you a taste for publicity, didn't I? Gave you the bug. You got onto the front page of the paper with me and you couldn't wait to do it again."
As Professor Lockhart reached his arms around Ron, the twins, and Malfoy's shoulders, the four boys all attempted to make weak protests, but were really too stunned to have this happen for a second time to do much of anything. Simmons, on the other hand, could do something, and so she literally shifted to sit in Fitz's lap blocking him from view as best she could, knowing that Harry Potter was likely to be drug into any spotlight if caught anywhere nearby. And while it looked like Malfoy and the Weasleys were all the wizard was interested in, and something had obviously already occurred between the four students that the wizard had seen, she didn't want to risk her Fitzy getting drug out into whatever was going on there. But Professor Lockhart was continuing on.
"Boys, boys, boys — I understand. Natural to want a bit more once you've had that first taste — and I blame myself for giving you that, because it was bound to go to your head — but see here, young men, you can't start picking fights to try and get yourselves noticed. Just calm down, all right? Plenty of time for all that when you're older. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking! 'It's all right for him, he's an internationally famous wizard already!' But when I was twelve, I was just as much of a nobody as you are now. One day you'll have won Witch Weekly's Most Charming-Smile Award five times in a row as I have and will be in the spotlight every other day, but it's not yet — just keep that in mind, boys."
Then he gave the four of them a hearty wink and strode off back up to the staff table, like his work there was finished. Meanwhile, everyone else just stood there still in shock at the whole thing, until the rest of the professors and Snape finally managed to get them all heading towards their common rooms again, FitzSimmons standing up and following along the tail end of the Gryffindor crowd.
But they hadn't made it too many staircases and corridors when Ron dropped back through the crowd to where they were strolling along in comfortable silence.
"Where were you, Harry?! I got detention for protecting Hermione's dignity and honor!" he shouted as soon as he'd made it back to them. "Though at least Lockhart saw my bravery for what it was."
FitzSimmons highly doubted that that's what the new professor had been trying to convey, and having connected this Lockhart as being the same one as the author of their schoolbooks that they were highly questioning the truthfulness of, they doubted that any opinion of the man's was worth holding in too high of regard at the moment, but they saw no reason to say any of this to the redhead. Instead, Fitz addressed the boy's question, and apparent misconception about the whole fight and what had led up to it.
"We were busy not breaking the school rules," he said calmly. "If you were one of those fighting, you deserve the detention you got. Your life or the safety of those around you was not in danger, you could have stepped away from where the fighting was going on and not earned detention, but you choose to join the fight that was over absolutely nothing — that is entirely your fault, and you are now getting punished for it."
"He called Hermione a mudblood!" Ron shouted, forgetting in the heat of the moment that he wasn't ever supposed to say that word out loud. "It's the worst possible insult you can call a muggleborn!"
"And that was worth getting detention fighting over?" Fitz asked rhetorically. "It's a word. Just a word, nothing more. He could call us cunts or niggas and we would still ignore him. Because fighting him will do absolutely nothing about it. He will still continue calling Hermione a mudblood because he is a cunt, and will just stand back and laugh as you get detention for fighting him, while he skates free because he wasn't the one who started throwing punches or casting spells."
Not receiving the support and praise that he had expected for his heroism, or even managing to get the high road over Harry for helping the muggleborn when Harry hadn't, Ron quickly changed the topic. "Where were you on the train?! I looked all over for you, both on the way back at the beginning of summer and again today! Where were you?!"
"We took the Knight Bus, since we had better things to be doing than riding in a train from Hogsmeade to London and then from London to Hogsmeade," Fitz answered shortly.
"And that's all we're telling you, so stop asking. And if someone is telling you to ask us, tell them to shove it up their arse," Simmons added. "Also, never, ever start a fight because you think someone insulted me. Fighting is only for when there is real danger, and people's lives or safety is at stake. Self-defense, defense of those around you, defense of your country against a foreign or domestic enemy, those are appropriate times to fight. Someone calling you a mudblood, nigger, cunt, or anything else, that is not the appropriate time to fight. That is the time to pretend you can't hear them and walk away, or continue on doing whatever you're doing like they don't even exist."
Ron stared at her in shock, both for their dismissal of what they had been doing over the summer instead of coming to the Burrow like he had invited them repeatedly, and far more for Hermione (the one whom the vile, filthy insult had been said towards) telling him that he shouldn't have fought to defend her honor. But he didn't have enough time to try to formulate a response before a tentative, breathless voice spoke.
"Harry? I'm-I'm Colin Creevey," said the mousy-haired boy who had tried saying something to Fitz at the map-handing-out, before being shunted out of the way by the rest of the first years wanting maps. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. I was looking all over the train for you, I heard you were here. D'you think — would it be all right if — can I have a picture?"
He held the camera that he was holding up hopefully.
Fitz looked down at the boy distrustfully for a second, before replying shortly, "No. And if we catch you taking my or Hermione's photo without our permission, we will take you to Professor McGonagall."
The boy stared at them taken aback for several seconds, before pressing on, "I want to be able to prove I've met you. I know all about you, everyone's told me who you are. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything. It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you — maybe your friend could take it, and I could stand next to you? And then you could sign it."
"No. So don't ask again, because our answer is never going to change," Fitz answered in a hard tone. "And like I said before, we will take you straight to Professor McGonagall for stalking and harassment if we catch you trying to take pictures of us without our permission. Now go — the rest of your first years are way up at the front of this crowd."
Harry Potter being absolutely nothing like he had expected, a dispirited Colin Creevey turned and slowly began working his way through the crowd back up to the rest of his fellow first years, leaving FitzSimmons alone with Ron again.
Who as soon as Creevey was lost amongst the bodies ahead of them exclaimed, "He wanted to take your picture! And have you sign it! How could you say no?! You're famous, Harry!"
"If you want to see if he wants to take your picture and you sign it for him, you're more than welcome to," Fitz replied. "But the last thing Hermione and I want is a spotlight. We just want to be treated like any other two students, judged on our performance in school alone, not something that happened to happen to me long before I was old enough to remember, that no one has ever told us why happened, most likely because no one actually has a clue."
"But—! You're famous, Harry!" Ron exclaimed, like maybe Fitz hadn't quite understood that part of what he was saying. "The most famous person in the world!"
"Unfortunately," Fitz replied. "And I really wish that I wasn't — like really, really wish that I wasn't — but that is not for us to decide. All I have to decide is what to do with what has been given me. And I decide to live as normally as I possibly can with this curse, and go about my own business regardless of how others see or treat me, which includes any insulting names that they choose to call me."
"Well, you better hope Creevey doesn't meet my sister Ginny, or they'll be starting a Harry Potter fan club," Ron replied.
"If she harasses Harry, we'll report her to Professor McGonagall, too," Simmons said coldly. "So keep her away from us if you don't want her getting detentions and losing House Points."
Ron stared at Simmons in shock, like wanting to be left alone from obsessive fangirls was a bad thing, but fortunately by that point they had reached the fat lady's portrait and FitzSimmons were able to slip away after they had all three climbed through the hole into the Gryffindor common room, eventually making their way around to the boys' staircase and slipping unnoticed through the wall hiding their own downward staircase and dorm below from the rest of the tower and its occupants.