The Knight Bus came screeching to a halt in front of them, and FitzSimmons glanced up and down the road in both directions to make sure that there weren't any Hogwarts adults somehow lurking about to see them.
Once they were as certain as they could be that they were in the clear, they looked back to where Mr Shunpike had leapt out of the violent purple bus and was looking all around to see who had called, not seeing FitzSimmons still hiding in the shadows. But confident enough that they really were safe from teacher detection, FitzSimmons now stepped forwards onto the road, drawing Shunpike's attention to them.
"Hi Mr Shunpike, we need our annual ride to America," Simmons said. "Dumbledore or anyone hasn't told you not to accept us, have they?"
"Uh, no — why would they do that?" Shunpike asked, not even bothering to question why they were riding the Knight Bus again instead of the Hogwarts Express. "Though like I said when we took you to that little town in th' States las' summer, Dumbledore did try to get us to tell 'em where we'd taken you two, but we obviously couldn' with the vows we made wi' choo."
"Yes, well, we're going to need that again," Simmons said as they climbed onboard and the bus began rolling to take whoever was next in line to wherever they were going, dropping ten galleons into his hand for his much appreciated discretion.
Fifteen minutes later FitzSimmons stepped off of the Knight Bus and walked into the Hub, handing the guard at the front desk the badges that Fury had had made for them the previous summer so that they could come and go freely at the Hub if they ever needed to, and so that they could walk right in at the start of each summer like right now and not have to convince the guard on duty that they really did need to talk to the Director. Quickly allowed inside, FitzSimmons walked upstairs where they then walked into Fury's secretary's office.
"Fury in?" Simmons asked. "We wanted to tell him that we're back for the summer."
"Sorry, no ma'am," the lady answered. "But I can tell him when he gets back if that's okay."
"No problem," Simmons replied. "He knows where we are if he wants to talk to us."
Hopeful that nothing had changed about Romanov's safehouse in the ten months that they had been in Scotland at school, FitzSimmons headed straight from the Hub to the safehouse to get settled in, and relax and chill for a few hours until lunchtime for an escape well done, before heading out to walk through the local town in the afternoon and find a good ice cream shoppe to stop in for a while as they enjoyed their summer freedom.
Halfway around the world, however, Hagrid was not relaxing at the Hogsmeade train station. On Dumbledore's orders he was awaiting Harry's arrival with the rest of the students, but each new carriage that unloaded continued to be absent of any Harry's, increasingly reducing the likelihood that the Boy-Who-Lived was coming at all. The half-giant had no clue how he couldn't be there, as Professor McGonagall was supposed to be up at the castle making sure that Harry got into one of the carriages, and it was absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable that Harry would get out of his carriage between the castle and the train station, but by the time the last carriage had unloaded, including an odd completely empty carriage in the middle of the procession, it was clear that the Boy-Who-Lived had outright vanished off of the face of the earth.
And so once everyone had made it from the carriages to the train and boarded, and the train had rolled off towards London with still with no Harry Potter in sight, Hagrid despondently lumbered his way back up to the castle to report to Dumbledore that Harry had somehow managed to escape yet again, despite his and Minerva's watchful eyes.
Meanwhile, Ron wasn't having as good of a time as he had expected, either. As after not being allowed to ride with Harry and the muggleborn in their carriage, he hadn't been able to find them again as everyone got out and bustled their way onto the train at the platform, or on the train now that it had started rolling towards London and summer freedom. Like the year before on the train ride home, and the ride up to Hogwarts in the fall, he looked through the window of every compartment to find the Boy-Who-Lived, but all he found was several nasty looks for peaking through the glass doors, and definitely no Harry Potter.
But Dumbledore and Ron's disappointment was nothing compared to Mrs Weasley's that evening when Ron came through the barrier alone once again, and told her that he hadn't seen Harry at all since breakfast, despite searching thoroughly for him all day. Because as FitzSimmons were cheerfully leaving their summer house to go find some lunch in their new time zone, she was having her hopes, dreams, and demands of having the Boy-Who-Lived locked safely away in her home all summer constantly around her daughter, his future wife, thoroughly crushed by Fitz's very inconsiderate absence.
Despite knowing full well that it was an exercise in futility, Mrs Weasley stormed onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters against the steady stream of students exiting the platform, knocking over a first year as they tried to pass through the magical barrier at the same time in opposite directions, to search the magical platform herself to find her Harry. But no matter how high and low she looked, covering every inch of both the platform and the train next to it, even she couldn't find a Fitz who wasn't there. And like the year before, once she was done searching herself she sent Dumbledore a very angry patronus, demanding to know where her Harry was, whom he'd promised that she would be able to take straight home from Kings Cross this year.
But as that took time to deliver itself to Hogwarts, and then even more time for him to get off of his lazy, ancient arse and find her Harry for her that he'd lost yet again, she irritably returned to the muggle side of the train station and her five awaiting kids, in order to head home where hopefully Dumbledore would rectify his mistakes quickly and have Harry delivered to her before nightfall — all of course ignoring the minor fact that he hadn't been able to find Harry over the entire summer the year before, and therefore wasn't particularly likely to be able to do any better this year.
A situation that the headmaster had in common with the bobbies, who still had a bushy-haired girl and possibly a boy her same age on their long list of missing children whom they were hoping to eventually find, but were no longer actively looking for as it had been so long without any leads that there really wasn't anything for them to do. Which unlike the anger of Mrs Weasley, or the stupefaction of Ron and Hagrid, simply left a very sad Mr and Mrs Granger, as their only daughter was still missing for going on a year now, and even the world of magic that had seemed so exciting when they had learned that their daughter was a witch couldn't help them find her. Ignoring, of course, the fact that the wizarding world had in fact found Hermione again and known exactly where she was for ten months, and never bothered informing her parents that she was alive and safe and at school. But before any readers start feeling too sad for the Grangers, as 0-8-4 creations in a world that doesn't actually exist, their sadness was little more than a string of ones and zeros, and therefore not actually real — so shed no tears, ye tender-hearted audience.
However, there was another family in all of this equation who was neither particularly happy, nor sad, nor confused at the moment about Harry's lack of arriving at Kings Cross, but only because they were completely unaware that it even was Train Day. And that of course was the Dursleys. In general they were quite thrilled that Harry was still missing, or at least not expected to return to their house for the summer, but as they had received no letter from Hogwarts in early June telling them that they needed to be at Kings Cross on any specific Saturday evening to pick Harry up, they were unaware that this was that day, and so they weren't throwing a party celebrating the fact that they weren't going to be bothered by him for at least another summer. They would, however, frequently over the summer look around and see that the nuisance of a decade wasn't there messing up their perfect, distinctly non-magical lives, and thank their lucky stars that it was so.
~FS~
Like the previous summer, Dumbledore had all of his spies out searching for the missing Boy-Who-Lived, but even more so than the previous year when he had surmised that the pair had disappeared into the muggle world, he had no real hope of finding him or his muggleborn female friend.
He had of course known about Harry's disappearance long before Mrs Weasley's angry patronus from Kings Cross, as Hagrid had informed him of Harry's disappearance within fifteen minutes of the Hogwarts Express leaving Hogsmeade station, and therefore he had already started his search hours before her discovery that their carefully crafted plan had already fell all to pieces. His first place of inquiry was once again the Knight Bus, as that is what they had used the year before to travel, and therefore most likely what they had used again this year, though he had no idea how they had slipped away under the watchful eyes of Professor McGonagall and Hagrid. And exactly the same as the previous summer, Shunpike cheerfully told him that the pair had indeed caught a ride on the Knight Bus about half an hour before, but once again, they were sworn to magical secrecy and couldn't tell the headmaster where they had taken the two students. At which point Dumbledore contacted all of his people to be on the lookout for Harry Potter and a muggleborn girl with Harry, but he was pretty sure that he wouldn't see the pair again until September 1.
But that plan wasn't something that he could appease Mrs Weasley with, so after he received her angry patronus several hours later, he sent one back saying that he was already aware of the situation and had all of his best people on it, before resuming his previous year's successful strategy of ignoring all further inquiries and demands that she made about his progress. Mrs Weasley of course was far from happy with this answer, as she remembered just as well as he did what had happened the previous summer in terms of him never finding Harry to bring to her, but as there was once again nothing else that she could do, she had to just irately accept it.
Friday evening, August 6, found a large, malnourished dog slinking around outside of Number Four Privet Drive, trying to catch a glimpse of Harry Potter.
It had escaped from Azkaban a week before, and spent the last week making its way down to Little Whinging in order to catch a glimpse of its godson before starting its journey northward to Hogwarts to lie in wait for its betrayer to arrive at the school with a certain redhead. But it had been lurking for several hours now, and the only people it had caught any glimpse of was an adult couple, an exceptionally fat boy around Harry's age (who matched his presumable father very well), and an equally fat woman with a vicious bulldog — what was it with fat people in this household? The dog sure hoped that Harry wasn't like them, wherever he was. But by 0200, it decided that wherever Harry was it wasn't there, and disappointedly began its journey northward to rectify the wrongs that had been committed against it in the only way left after the complete and utter failure and betrayal of the wizarding court system.
Kill the son-of-a-bitch traitor and terrorist itself, like it'd wrongfully been imprisoned for for the past decade plus.
However, its late night wanderings outside of the prison weren't appreciated by everyone — or anyone, to be quite honest. Barty Crouch Sr had sent it to Azkaban without trial for the alleged murder of Peter Pettigrew and manslaughter of twelve muggles, and every single person in the country (including all of the supposedly 'good' and 'light' people like Albus Dumbledore — the Chief Warlock of the court that he hadn't been tried in like he had to be by human right) trusted Crouch without question, blindly believing Sirius Black to be the mass murderer that he was accused of being. So when he had escaped cruel and unusual, unjust, unlawful imprisonment a week before, the entire British wizarding world turned on its head wanting to find him and sic dementors on him for an unpleasant smooch, once again without a trial.
Amongst whom was Minister Fudge, who was also carefully monitoring the Ministry's Improper Use of Magic Department to make sure that Harry Potter still appeared to be safe at his relatives' house where Dumbledore had insisted years ago that the hero stay most of the time when not at Hogwarts. Fudge had no clue why Dumbledore was so adamant about Potter living at Number Four Privet Drive, but he knew that Dumbledore was the smart one, and the Harry Potter expert of the world on top of that, so he trusted Dumbledore on this one and asked no questions. And it was turning out to be a great thing at the moment, as it meant that the boy was safe from the ruthless mass murder who was on the loose again. Of course, the only way that Fudge could know if Harry left Privet Drive was if the boy hero performed magic in Britain at some point to aid in his escape or his life on the run, not if Harry had never even come back to Number Four Privet Drive at the beginning of summer to begin with, as the last thing that Dumbledore wanted the Ministry knowing was that he couldn't keep track of the single most important person in existence in the eyes of the Ministry, and have them sticking their nose in trying to find the boy and possibly bitching about the boy hero now permanently being at the Burrow when not in school. Even though in reality Fudge had no desire to butt heads with Dumbledore on this one, even if he would have found it odd that Dumbledore had changed Harry's location from Number Four Privet Drive to the Burrow, especially when most people would have suggested that Harry Potter grow up his whole life with a wizarding family instead of his muggle relatives.
But speaking of said Chief Warlock who had betrayed Sirius Black by not forcing Crouch Sr to take Sirius before the Wizengamot for a real trial, despite his start of the summer assumption that he would not be finding Harry any time before September when the boy returned to school on his own, Dumbledore was now more desperate than ever before to find Harry Potter, in order to keep him safe from the big bad mass murderer but-actually-not-at-all, Sirius Black, godfather of Harry Potter and the man who was supposed to have been raising Harry Potter all along according to Harry's parents, and would have been if Dumbledore hadn't sent Hagrid to kidnap Harry, and given the gamekeeper such instructions that the half-giant didn't hand Harry over to Sirius when Harry's godfather did arrive on the scene before Hagrid had left the Potter's destroyed safehouse.
Since Dumbledore hadn't expected to be able to find Harry this summer either, the headmaster had only half-heartedly been searching for Harry before Sirius's self-rectification of his illegal imprisonment, ever since Hagrid had reported that the Boy-Who-Lived-who-was-to-be-a-sacrifice-in-a-few-years hadn't boarded the train like he was supposed to and then Mrs Weasley had sent him a nasty patronus that evening when she couldn't find him at Kings Cross like she had been promised, but over the past week since Sirius had returned to where he should have been for the past decade — out in the world, instead of kidnapped and illegally locked away in Azkaban — Dumbledore had ramped his search up to levels even greater than that which he had done the previous summer, in order to find Harry before Sirius did and finished Voldemort's attempt to kill the boy.
Halfway around the world, however, at the same time that Sirius was lurking about outside of the Dursleys', FitzSimmons were receiving the first two out of three owls that were making their way across the pond and America to Romanov's safehouse. These two were handsome tawnies from Hogwarts bringing FitzSimmons' school letters, and with Harry's, a brown paper parcel. Opening their letters first, they found their new booklists, the normal letters reminding them of the train on September 1, and permission forms to go to Hogsmeade a few select Saturdays during the school year.
"Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore shouldn't have any clue what Mr Dursley or Mr Granger's handwritings look like, right?" Fitz asked as he looked at the permission slips.
"Shouldn't," Simmons replied. "What's your idea?"
"Ask Fury to sign them both for us, hopefully in two slightly different styles, or else get someone else there to sign one of them," Fitz answered. "All we need is the names Dursley and Granger, with some unintelligible scribble before it for the first names we don't know, and there's no way I can think of that whoever looks at these permission slips will know that they aren't genuinely signed. I'd say we could even do it ourselves, but all of the teachers have seen our handwriting a lot."
"Should work," Simmons replied. "We can go in tomorrow and ask him, and even if he won't, we just grab a couple of random Shield employees to do it for us, since like you said, it's only the last names that matter, not who actually signs them."
Hogwarts letters taken care of, Fitz picked up the package that according to the untidy scrawl on top was from Hagrid. But as he held it and reached for a corner of the brown paper wrapping to unwrap it, it quivered and made a snapping sound. Fitz immediately dropped it onto the table and both he and Simmons snatched their wands up off of the table and pointed them at the parcel, instinctively throwing up Shield Charms. When nothing more happened for several seconds they warily dropped their shields, and Simmons poked the package with the tip of her wand. Once again it shook for a second, before going quiet once more.
"Okay, this is Black Widow's place, there's got to be something around here for handling dangerous packages," Simmons said.
"What's the likelihood it's alive, or something of the sort?" Fitz asked.
"Certainly possible — why?" Simmons asked back.
"Stupefy it?" Fitz replied. "That should knock it out cold and make it safe enough to look at if it's living, or else tell us that it's machinery if the spell doesn't do anything."
Simmons shrugged. "Yeah, I can go with that."
So together they pointed their wands at the parcel and said, "Stupefy!"
Two beams of fiery red light burst out of the tips of their wands and soared across the short space to strike the package full on. As expected nothing visibly happened, so Simmons walked back over and poked the package again. This time, there was no shaking or growling of any kind. She picked the package up, and when nothing still happened, she very carefully picked up the corner of the wrapping and slowly began tearing it back. The package remained motionless, and soon she had a large enough scrap torn off to see that it had a green, leathery cover and looked like it was probably a book of some kind. Setting it down on the table she finished unwrapping it, to find that it was in fact a book, along with a card wrapped up with it.
Picking up the card, she read out loud, " 'Dear Harry, Happy Birthday! Think you might find this useful for next year. Won't say no more here. Tell you when I see you. All the best, Hagrid'." Looking back down at the cover of the book, she continued, " 'The Monster Book of Monsters' — that's on our booklist. Guess that's why he considers it useful. Don't know why he couldn't just tell you in his letter that it was for one of your classes, though, since it is literally on the booklist for you to see on your own."
"It's Hagrid — does anything he does make a whole lot of sense?" Fitz answered. "What I want to know is what this book does when it's not stunned. How do we figure that out?"
"Well, we need to go into the lab tomorrow anyway to get Fury to sign our permission slips, I'm sure we can convince him that we need a biohazard lab all to ourselves for the day. And then we stick it in a box, revive it, or just unwrap it if it's already awake, and see what it does," Simmons answered.
So the following morning they headed into the Hub with two permission slips and the book. The afternoon before after determining that they needed to bring it into work with them, they had wrapped the book back up in the brown paper that Hagrid had sent it in and taped it back up, assuming that if it couldn't escape thin brown paper during the flight from Scotland, it couldn't escape now either. And before they left the safehouse that morning they stupeyfied it again, preferring it not possibly quiver or snap while they were around anyone who couldn't know that magic existed.
Fury was more than happy to fake two signatures for FitzSimmons to allow them more freedom at their school-year home, and readily gave them access to one of the biohazard labs to see what their book could do. Which as it turned out, was flip on its edge to scuttle sideways like a crab, and snap shut on anything that came near it. However, it seemed like the smallest amount of restraint could keep it contained, like the thin brown wrapping paper and a little tape that Hagrid had sent it in, making it much like an alligator or crocodile being unable to open its mouth against normal hand pressure, though thankfully without the same biting power as either of those reptiles had. Also — and purely by chance — as she was handling it with the safety gloves to see what its capabilities were, Simmons accidentally discovered when her finger happened to brush against its spine, that if you rubbed the book along its spine it would fall open and lie quiet until you closed it again, at which point it resumed being vicious.
Knowing this they were able to start reading the book that afternoon when they got back home, quickly discovering that it was a book about magical creatures, making them fairly confident in assuming that it was their textbook for Care of Magical Creatures class that upcoming year. Then again, The Monster Book of Monsters only contained highly dangerous magical creatures — monsters, one might say — so perhaps it was actually just Hagrid's shopping list for new pets, and it was purely a coincidence that he'd sent it the same year that they were to start taking Care of Magical Creatures class. And it was actually on their booklist for Defense Against the Dark Arts class because they were going to be studying defending oneself against dangerous magical creatures, or History of Magic class because they were going to be covering the history of wizards dealing with dangerous creatures, instead of bloody covering Grindelwald and Voldemort for goddamn once, only the two most important wizarding tyrants of the last hundred years! But most likely it was both a very odd choice for Care of Magical Creatures class, and Hagrid's Amazon Wishlist.
It wasn't the only new schoolbook on their booklist, however, and Hagrid hadn't sent them any of the others, so the following day they flagged down the Knight Bus again and had it take them to the magical town in Montana where they had bought their books and necessities the summer before.
Standing on the sidewalk looking at the town spread out all around them, including the bank at one end, Fitz said, "We still have four hundred galleons left over from the five hundred plus what Harry already had with him last year since we only bought books and supplies here, never bought anything while we were at Hogwarts, and haven't paid the Knight Bus that much. So I don't really think we need to go there."
"My thoughts exactly," Simmons replied. "And while I'm sure I'll find a few extra books to pick up in the bookstore, I was going to try not to get too much extra since we'll have the entire library once we're back at school."
Silently questioning his wife's ability to actually only pick up a 'few' extra books, Fitz led them across the street to the awaiting bookstore, where it turned out that he was quite right, like normal. As Simmons began flipping through some of the books in the magical creatures section, she quickly came to the conclusion that The Monster Book of Monsters wasn't a very accurate picture of what Care of Magical Creatures class was probably going to be like as thirteen/fourteen year olds, and so ended up selecting four books from that section for them to better prepare themselves for what they were most likely going to actually be studying in class, before moving on to the Ancient Runes and Arithmancy sections to pick up some extra books there beyond their prescribed textbook for each class. So all said and done, in the end she ended up with a dozen books beyond the required four, but it was all for the good cause of increasing their knowledge, so Fitz wasn't actually complaining about it at all.
Finally done with the bookstore they spent the rest of the day wandering around the magical town, beebopping in and out of all of the stores, looking at all of the magical things that they never got to see at Hogwarts, it being exclusively a grade school. Eventually, however, the sun began setting and they called the Knight Bus back, returning them to their summer house to begin studying up on the three new classes that they were to begin that fall.
~FS~
The morning after their trip to pick up their new books, FitzSimmons were eating a delicious pancake and sausage breakfast that they had cooked together when they heard a dull thud against the back door.
Opening it up, they found a large grey owl lying unconscious on their back porch, having knocked itself out colliding with the door. Although to be honest, they weren't entirely sure how it had even successfully made it all the way to them from the other side of the pond and across the country, as the owl that they recognized as belonging to the Weasleys from the letters that Ron had sent them the previous summer, looked like even a medium gust of wind could blow it right out of the sky. And when they went back to check on it an hour after it had arrived, it was still lying on the porch unconscious. But an hour after that it had either flown away or a large cat that FitzSimmons didn't know Romanov kept around the place as pest control and hadn't seen yet in their two summers there had come along and ate it, so FitzSimmons didn't worry about it.
But inside of the package that it had brought them they found a present wrapped in gold wrapping paper, and an envelope. Opening the envelope first, they found a letter and a newspaper clipping, so they looked at the letter first, assuming that it would probably reference the clipping.
~.~
Dear Harry,
Happy birthday!
It's amazing here in Egypt. Bill's taken us around all the tombs and you wouldn't believe the curses those old Egyptian wizards put on them. Mum wouldn't let Ginny come in the last one. There were all these mutant skeletons in there, of Muggles who'd broken in and grown extra heads and stuff.
I couldn't believe it when Dad won the Daily Prophet Draw. Seven hundred galleons! Most of it's gone on this trip, but they're going to buy me a new wand, instead of just Charlie's hand-me-down I've had the past two years, since everyone else in the family has their own wands. We'll be back about a week before term starts and we'll be going up to London to get my wand and our new books the day before the train. Any chance of meeting you there?
Try and come to London,
Ron
P.S. Percy's Head Boy. He got the letter last week.
~.~
Then looking at the clipping, they saw that it was an article about the Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Drawing that Ron had mentioned Mr Weasley winning, telling all of wizarding Britain (potential thieves included) that they were spending an entire month in Egypt most likely leaving the Burrow completely vacant should anybody like to stop by and help themselves, and containing a magical picture of all nine Weasleys standing in front of a pyramid to prove that they weren't at home.
After looking at the article FitzSimmons moved on to the package, which contained a miniature glass spinning top and another note that said, Harry — this is a pocket sneakoscope. If someone is doing something untrustworthy nearby, it's supposed to light up and spin. Bill says it's rubbish sold for wizard tourists and isn't reliable, because it kept lighting up at dinner last night. But he didn't realize Fred and George had put beetles in his soup — Bye, Ron.
"I wonder what its range is?" Simmons mused. "And what it considers untrustworthy. And if it works on the person in possession of the sneakoscope as well."
"At least the size of a table, apparently," Fitz replied. "Guess we'll have to keep it with us around Hogwarts to learn how well it actually works and what its range is. Could come in useful, though."
"As long as it doesn't count cheating on homework as untrustworthy, because then it'll be going off nonstop," Simmons said as she picked up their empty plates and took them into the kitchen. "But we'll find out in three weeks."
~FS~
The day before the train Ronald Weasley carried his rat into the Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley to get him checked over, since he hadn't been looking well since Egypt.
But as the saleswitch was looking over Scabbers, all of a sudden a large, furry, orange missile launched itself off of the highest shelf and onto Ron's head before propelling itself at Scabbers, spitting and hissing madly. There was a mad scramble by everyone in the shop — Ron, Miss Saleswitch, Scabbers, and the orange furmissle who was a kneazle named Crookshanks — the end result of which was Scabbers successfully escaping to under a wastepaper bin outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies, where it took Ron ten minutes to find him. By this point Ron was so disgruntled that he forgot all about the rat tonic that Miss Saleswitch had suggested he buy for Scabbers, and he just stuffed the trembling rat into his pocket and headed back down the street to the Leaky Cauldron where the rest of his family would be meeting up.
Inside he found his dad already there reading the Daily Prophet, and asked, "How're we getting to King's Cross tomorrow, anyway?"
"We'll be taking the muggle Underground," Mr Weasley answered. "We'll have to be careful though with all the trunks we'll have and Percy's owl cage to not stick out too much. I'm pretty sure I know what stop to get off, though, and how to buy tickets. I exchanged some money for that funny paper muggles use for currency when we were in Gringotts this afternoon to buy tickets with tomorrow morning."
That, however, turned out to be a very loose definition of the words 'pretty sure'. But by some miracle or magic they arrived at Kings Cross station ten minutes before the train left — so exactly like both of the previous years — and they all managed to scramble through the magical barrier and onto the train before it rolled away.
Once again Ron searched high and low for Harry Potter on the train, but like every train ride after the very first one he failed to find a Fitz who wasn't there, because FitzSimmons were taking the Knight Bus straight to Hogsmeade train station the same as the previous year. But it turned out that Ron wasn't the only one looking for Potter that train ride. Ron had joined Dean, Seamus, and Neville in their compartment after he couldn't find Harry, and mid-afternoon Malfoy opened the door uninvited, having seen the Weasel sitting in there and knowing that the redhead was often seen around Potter and the mudblood.
But not seeing Potter or the bushy-haired know-it-all nerd, he focused on the Weasel instead. "Well, look who it is — the Weasel. I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley. Did your mother die of shock?"
Ron leapt up balling his fists, as the rest of the compartment squeezed back in their seats out of the way and began watching the impending showdown eagerly. Malfoy had whooped Ron's arse in their fight at the Opening Feast the previous year before the professors had stepped in and broken everyone up and Lockhart had swept in and made a big deal out of Ron and Malfoy, but maybe this year….
Ok, yeah, Ron was probably going to get his arse handed to him yet again, but hell — it was quality entertainment anyway, even if none of them liked Malfoy and some even hated the bully.
"Don't you dare talk about my mum like that!" Ron shouted.
"Or what, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered, taking another step into the compartment, squaring up with the gangly, but skinny redhead.
"You don't think I can?" Ron replied, trying to go for brave but ending up with more of a whine.
"No — I don't," Malfoy sneered, fully confident in his three on one ability, especially with Crabbe and Goyle doing all of the actual fighting for him.
"Then bring it on!" Ron shouted, flailing his fists at the blonde.
But despite being an arrogant bully who usually talked out of his arse based on things that he'd heard his father say, Malfoy did actually know a thing or two about fighting since his father had made sure that he was at least somewhat capable of taking care of himself, and so was easily able to dodge Ron's flailing and send a right hook of his own straight into Ron's left eye and nose, before stepping back to let Crabbe and Goyle tackle Ron into the seats, which had quickly cleared to the other side of the compartment as they saw the mini-trolls steamrolling in their direction.
Malfoy let his bodyguards pummel on the Weasel for a while before finally saying pompously, "That's enough, boys — I think he's learnt his lesson."
And with that he turned and walked out of the compartment followed closely by his thugs, leaving Ron behind, a whimpering puddle of bruises lying in a hurting heap on the floor. Once Malfoy and Co were gone, Dean closed the door back as Seamus and Neville helped Ron back up into his seat, Neville giving the redhead a handkerchief to try to stop the bleeding of his broken nose as none of them knew any healing magic.
"Why did none of you help me?!" Ron exclaimed angrily once he was sitting, before wincing as even exclaiming hurt.
"I'm scared of him," Neville answered honestly. "I still remember him bullying me all of first year, and some last year — I'm not about to do anything to make him do it more."
Everyone else just kind of nodded along, even if their reasons were more along the lines of not being stupid than being scared, as it was almost always better to watch a completely unnecessary fight from the side than to be a part of it — unless you were starting a fight club, but you don't talk about that.
Seeing that he was going to get no support, Ron winced further back into his seat, muttering sulkily, "I hate Malfoy."
The others nodded their heads in agreement with that statement but said nothing more about the fight or Malfoy, and the conversation soon drifted into more pleasant realms.
Nothing else exciting happened on the train ride until the train had nearly reached Hogsmeade, when it slowed to an unexpected stop and a couple of dementors boarded looking for Sirius Black. But as he wasn't on board, after terrorizing everyone for several minutes they glided back off and the train started rolling again, until it finally reached the Hogsmeade platform a few minutes late.
Where FitzSimmons were already waiting in the first horseless carriage, having no desire or reason to stand out in the pouring cold rain waiting for the train and everyone aboard to arrive. And as soon as the carriages behind them started to fill, their own carriage started off up the road to Hogwarts, the rest behind theirs falling into place and trundling along behind them.
As their carriage passed through the iron gates marking the border of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, FitzSimmons saw and then immediately afterwards felt the effects of two towering, dark, hooded things floating on either side of the stone columns that the gate was attached to. The temperature in the carriage dropped like a rock, but it wasn't just normal cold. It pierced into their very beings, and they briefly couldn't remember anything but their darkest memories as Shield agents, and for Fitz some of his memories of his father and his not being there.
But as soon as they made it through the gates all of those feelings disappeared again, though they could clearly remember what they had just felt.
Feeling normal again, Fitz looked over and asked his wife, "What were those things?"
"No idea," Simmons replied, shaking her head. "But that did not feel good. Like concentrated depression if it could be felt so acutely. And freezing cold on top of that. We can ask one of the professors when we get up to the castle."
As it would turn out, they would not have to go looking for a professor to ask when they arrived at the castle, as one would come to them first.
"Potter! Granger! I want to see you both!" came Professor McGonagall's voice from the Grand Staircase as soon as they walked into the entrance hall.
Sauntering over to her, she quickly led them up the marble staircase to her office and ushered them inside. Once they were seated she said, "As you have both chosen to take both Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures this year, you will need a Time-Turner. By turning the hourglass over one time per hour needed, it allows you to travel back in time by hour increments in order to do hours over again, so that you can attend multiple classes that overlap, which in your case is Care and Arithmancy once a week. However, I must warn you — a Time-Turner is a very dangerous piece of magic. Many witches and wizards have killed their past or future selves because they saw themselves somewhere and thought that some kind of dark magic was going on. So you absolutely must not meddle with time, try to change anything, or ever meet yourselves. And before I can give this to you, you must swear to me that you won't tell anyone you have this, and that you will never, ever use it for anything except your studies."
"We promise we will never use it for anything except studying or life-threatening emergencies," Simmons replied quickly, instantly working in a loophole should they ever need it — after all, the definition of 'studying' could be very loose, should one choose to see it that way.
But Professor McGonagall didn't seem to notice this, as she merely turned to Fitz.
"I promise the same," he said.
Professor McGonagall handed the tiny, sparkling hourglass that she was holding over to Simmons, saying, "Since you two are taking the same classes, I only have one for both of you. Now let us go join the feast."
"Actually, we have a question for you," Simmons said as she slipped the gold chain around her neck and the hourglass down the front of her blouse into the hollow between her perky breasts. "What are those — things — floating by the gates into the school, and why did we feel the way we did when we passed by them?"
Professor McGonagall sighed deeply. "Those are the dementors of Azkaban, the wizarding prison. And they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them." Then she assumed an air of fake cheerfulness and continued on, "But they are not allowed on the school grounds, so you don't have to worry about them. Now let's get down to the Feast in time for the Sorting."
Knowing a clear dismissal when they heard one, FitzSimmons stood up and let Professor McGonagall usher them out of the room and back down to the Great Hall, which was nearly full by that point. But not entirely full, as no sooner had they taken their normal seats at the end of the Gryffindor table, than Ron Weasley hobbled in through doors from the entrance hall and headed straight for Harry.
Plopping himself down across from Fitz with a wince, he asked, "Isn't that just crazy about Black?"
"Who?" Simmons asked. "And what the hell happened to you? You should really go to Madam Pomfrey after the feast is over, you look terrible."
"Sirius Black! The mass murderer who escaped Azkaban earlier this summer! It's all anyone's been talking about!" Ron exclaimed, before adding sulkily, "And Malfoy happened, but I'm fine."
"Oh — hadn't heard about that," Simmons replied. "Kind of out of the magical loop over the summer, to be honest. And as a doctor, you really don't look fine. Plus, can't Madam Pomfrey heal all of those wounds instantly? You look like you're in pain."
"I'm fine — imagine what Malfoy would say if he found out I had to go to the hospital wing on the first night," Ron muttered darkly mostly to himself, before saying aloud to FitzSimmons, "Sirius Black was put in Azkaban years ago for murdering a wizard and twelve muggles in plain daylight. No one knows how he got out of Azkaban, no one's ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner, too."
"Every prison's had its escapees, as impossible as it seems," Fitz replied with a shrug. "Even Alcatraz had people get out, even if most of them were less successful in actually getting to land. And with some very belated help I broke out of a military black site once, just to break back in to steal a flying ship. So it's nothing out of the ordinary over the course of time. Depending on how long the prison has been around, it's more of a surprise it hadn't happened sooner."
Ron seemed shock by their relative indifference to the news that such a horrible, evil person who had the wizarding world quaking in fear was on the loose again, and immediately and vociferously said as much. "How can you not be more worried about this?!"
FitzSimmons looked at each other, before turning back to Ron and listing off together, "Ward, Hydra, Daisy's dad, Daisy's mum, Hive, Aida, Kasius, Atarah, Sarge, Izel, Sibyl, Malick — both of them — and those are just the big ones, and we may have forgotten some as well."
"Not to forget the fact that Voldemort is probably still after me assuming he's still alive, which the general whispers are that he is," Fitz finished.
"So all in all, we're quite used to dealing with villains on a yearly basis," Simmons said. "Another one who isn't inside of this school doesn't really scare us that much — or at all, to be honest."
"Maybe we can catch him then, and get some kind of reward, if you two aren't afraid of him!" Ron replied, suddenly much more enthusiastic, even though he had absolutely no clue what any of the things that Harry and Hermione had just mentioned were. But that wasn't important — the only thing that mattered was that they clearly weren't afraid of Black, and that's exactly who he needed to catch Black for him while he tagged along just enough to be able to claim a third (or maybe half, since they acted like one person most of the time) of the credit and reward with them when it was finished. "It'd be good to get some more money."
So Simmons immediately squished that misconception with a sledgehammer. "No. We are here for school, not to go galavanting across the country pretending to be law enforcement officers. Anyway, we're not advanced enough in magic yet to try taking on a threat of such caliber."
"But—!"
"No," Fitz cut him off sternly. "We are not trying to catch Black, and if you're smart, you won't either."
Before Ron could try to reply to that and argue some more, Professor Flitwick led the new first years in for profiling that would stick with them for the rest of their lives, and any further discussion on the matter was thankfully stopped for the time being. And after the Sorting, Dumbledore immediately stood up and began his announcements.
"Welcome! Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast. As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business. They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds, and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises — or even Invisibility Cloaks. It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors."
He paused for a second, during which Simmons whispered to her husband, "Think the dementors have anything to do with that Black fellow Ron was talking about?"
Fitz shrugged, as Dumbledore began again much more cheerfully this time, "On a happier note, I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year. Disappointed though I know many of you will be, Professor Lockhart will not be returning this year, concentrating instead on his book tours. But in his place, I am pleased to announce Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
As there was a small and unsure scattering of polite applause from the students, Fitz nudged his wife, subtly pointing at Snape. "Looks like he hates Professor Lupin almost as much as he hates Harry Potter and Neville."
Indeed, Snape was glaring at Professor Lupin with an amount of vitriol and pure hatred and loathing that he normally reserved for Fitz and Neville.
"As to our second new appointment," Dumbledore continued on, either oblivious to or not caring about the open hostilities that one of his staff members was showing against the new professor, "I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties."
FitzSimmons looked at each other in surprise as the rest of the Gryffindor table exploded in tumultuous applause, and up at the staff table Hagrid looked like he was trying to hold back tears of joy.
"That seems odd," Fitz whispered into Simmons' ear. "We don't really know him, but does he seem like professor material to you?"
"He had an illegal dragon first year, but that didn't turn out too well," Simmons answered. "It does make the book he assigned us make sense now, instead of a more reasonable Creatures book like the couple I bought. But to answer your question, no, it's not an appointment I would have expected."
By this time the applause had ended, and Dumbledore said, "Well, I think that's everything of importance. Let the feast begin!"
FitzSimmons hadn't even finished dishing out food onto their plates when Ron said, "Have you seen the new Firebolt racing broom, Harry?! It's incredible, isn't it?!"
"Yeah, I think we saw those in a store we visited this summer," Fitz answered. "Looked like they'd be nice to fly around on."
And they had in fact seen it, as on their trip to the magical town they had gone into the broomstick store and seen that there was a new, top-of-the-line broom out. And despite having no more experience with brooms than the few weeks of flying class that they'd had first year, it did look like it would be a quite nice broom.
"Nice to fly around on?!" Ron exclaimed as if Fitz had just greatly offended and wounded him. "It's an international standard quidditch broom! It's the greatest broom money can buy, probably costs more than all of Slytherin's new brooms they got last year from the Malfoys put together! It is for winning quidditch matches at the highest level, not 'flying around on'!"
"Whatever," Fitz answered indifferently with a shrug. "It looked like it'd probably be nice to fly on for fun."
Ron just shook his head at Fitz in exasperation, before spending the next fifteen minutes expounding on every tiniest detail about the new stick of wood, and why you didn't just 'fly around on it'. All the while, FitzSimmons just tuned him out and ate, figuring it best to let him go ahead and get it out of his system now instead of trying to tell Fitz about it when they were trying to study in the library, or in class when they were practicing, or sometime important like that.
Fitz did briefly wonder if talking someone's ear off who really didn't want you talking to them in the first place counted as 'untrustworthy', but they had stored the sneakoscope that Ron had sent Fitz as a birthday present away in Fitz's trunk, so he didn't have it with him to find out. Because while FitzSimmons did want to learn its actual capabilities, they had decided that the Opening Feast would be too crowded and too full of students doing things that they really ought not while the adults were distracted by the large crowds and general rambunctiousness of the feast, to see how it behaved. They were going to have to wait until the following day to bring out, when there wouldn't be nearly as many people to possibly set it off, and they could actually look at it if it did go off.
Once supper was over a while later and Dumbledore had dismissed them all, just like the year before Simmons climbed up on her seat and gave a loud, shrill whistle to draw everyone's attention to her.
When everyone had turned to stare at her, and all of the adults at the staff table let out a collective groan that their yearly hazing, harassment, and bullying of the new students was going to be thwarted for another year, she shouted out, "First years! Since the adults of this castle are yet again not going to do their jobs, please come over here to get a map of the castle! It is completely impossible to navigate without one until you start memorizing the layout, so in order to avoid being punished for showing up late to classes like the adults really hope that you will, come get a map so that you can get everywhere you need to be on time, thwarting the adults' cruel and malicious plot to punish you for their own failings as responsible adults!"
This year, as opposed to the previous, first years actually started coming over very quickly, as second years who had greatly benefited from FitzSimmons' rectification of the adults' cruelty or stupidity the previous year told the new first years that the girl was for real, and that they should really go get a map. FitzSimmons, meanwhile, had got good enough at the duplication spell that they each just had one copy of the map, and every time a student came up to get a map they would duplicate it on the spot and hand it to the student, so that they didn't have to have an entire, bulky stack of maps.
As they only needed to hand out forty maps this year, as everyone else either still had their map from previous years or had the castle memorized already, it didn't take long for them to pass out all of the maps that they needed to, and soon they were joining the rest of the Gryffindors walking up to Gryffindor tower to turn in for the night.