A week after school was over, Dumbledore strolled into Minister Fudge's office.

"Minister, I have information that I believe can help you catch Sirius Black, but I will only tell you under two conditions."

"Dumbledore!" Fudge exclaimed. "That is not how this works! It is your civic duty to tell the Ministry everything you know!"

Dumbledore completely ignored him, continuing on, "One, the dementors are to be removed from my school and the nearby town of Hogsmeade since they have proven completely useless this past year, and I possibly know why. And two, you and several other relevant senior members of the Ministry must swear an Unbreakable Vow that when you do capture Sirius Black, he will be given a fair trial — not the mockery of a trial that was given Barty Crouch Jr, and not the no trial at all that was given to Sirius Black the first time."

As Fudge looked at him in surprise, Dumbledore added, "I hardly think that either demand is unreasonable, nor should I need to have information on Sirius in order to demand either of them. I never should have let you put dementors around children in the first place, and I certainly shouldn't have to give you anything in order to guarantee Sirius Black's trial that you denied him the first time around. This Ministry has never had the right to confiscate wands until charges have been successfully proven, something that in the Ministry's admirable haste to ensure that the law was upheld and a mass murderer sentenced, they appeared, inadvertently I am sure, to have overlooked."

"Where is this coming from?" Fudge demanded angrily. "Everyone knows that he's guilty! What difference is a trial going to make other than wasting time and Ministry money, and still end up having the kiss performed on him all the same?!"

"The difference, is that the law will be upheld," Dumbledore answered gravely. "Any completely normal citizen of the British Isles should be able to come into your office and demand that you hold a trial for him, or anyone else arrested, and as Minister you should be all over it — Sirius Black is still a British citizen, in case you have forgotten. The law must apply to him the same as it would to your next door neighbor if they were arrested for petty theft."

Minister Fudge looked like he highly disagreed, or perhaps it was that he would be more than happy to sentence his next door neighbor without a trial, but he was smart enough to know that Dumbledore was extremely powerful and far smarter than himself, and could very likely undermine his reign if the not-unlawful demands were not met.

So he growled, "And who exactly do you want to swear your Unbreakable Vow?"

"You, Scrimgeour, Madam Amelia Bones, and of course myself as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the court that would be presiding over his trial."

"Myself, the Head of the Auror Office, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and like you said, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot."

"Indeed — the four people in charge of every possible aspect of Sirius Black's arrest and trial, instead of the immediate kiss that you gave the dementors permission to perform earlier this year without any kind of due process," Dumbledore answered.

Fudge huffed, and puffed, and sulked, and tried to blow Dumbledore's house down, but eventually relented to ask the other two what they thought of taking an Unbreakable Vow to do everything in their power to make sure that Sirius Black had a fair trial when he was eventually caught. And when he did ask them, it was something that the other two agreed to with much less complaint than Fudge, as they were much less inclined to want to break the law and basic human rights in order to keep and strengthen their political power and grasp on the Ministry, and therefore the entire nation, much like someone who shall not be named.

So once the vows were made and Fudge had written a new piece of legislation saying that there could no longer be any dementors around Hogwarts or in Hogsmeade, Dumbledore told all three Ministry officials, "Sirius Black has the animagus form of a large dog, likely as rough looking as he doubtlessly is right now. This may be how he managed to get past the dementors of Azkaban when he escaped last summer — I'm pretty sure none of the four of us are enough dementor experts to know how animagi handle dementors, and I do not know if there is anyone who would know that kind of information. But Black is likely doing most of his traveling in dog form to avoid being detected, and to be able to get to or even live in places that a human could not. So Scrimgeour, Madam Bones, I would suggest telling your people to be on the lookout for a scruffy dog, as well as the human Sirius Black."

"And Harry Potter?" Fudge asked.

"Safe," Dumbledore answered shortly, having no intention of telling any of them that he actually had no clue where Harry Potter was or whether he was safe or not, though Harry and Miss Granger had seemed to have survived on their own just fine for the past two summers, so he wasn't exactly lying, he was just telling them what he assumed was the truth to the best of his knowledge, and not the facts that he knew that didn't actually answer the question.

But Fudge and everyone else took this to be a satisfactory answer and the four of them quickly departed back to their jobs, Mr Black's basic human right of a trial guaranteed for the first time since Voldemort's demise.

~FS~

As for Mr Black, he had quickly found Pettigrew's rat stench in the Forbidden Forest.

But several days behind the rat, Pettigrew had made it out of the grounds and to where he could safely transform into a human at night before Sirius even started tracking him, making Sirius's attempts to find him much more difficult and slow. Sirius wasn't about to give up on finding the traitor, though, no matter how widely he had to search to pick up the trail again as Pettigrew alternated between human and rat forms, and between ground where scents lasted and ground where it was almost impossible to pick up any kind of scent, or heavily traveled roads where there were simply too many scents to distinguish Pettigrew out from amongst them all. Additionally, while dog Sirius did of course have a very good nose, it wasn't as good as any pure dog's, and he didn't turn into the best tracking dog to begin with.

So while he made progress as the summer wore on it was far from fast, and certainly slower than Pettigrew himself was traveling most of the time by this point, and by the time he made it to the Albanian forests Sirius had completely lost the trail and was just searching for anything that could hint at where Pettigrew or possibly even Voldemort himself was hiding out.

~FS~

Meanwhile, even though Sirius's progress was slow he was at least making some kind of progress, something that couldn't be said for Mrs Weasley.

For the third straight summer Harry Potter wasn't at her house, and for the third straight summer all she could do was hope that Dumbledore would finally find him this year despite never having done so before, and of course curse the name of the dratted headmaster when no one was around to hear her, for his inability to deliver her property to her like he promised every year. Because ranting and raving at the headmaster didn't work, and nor did ordering him around like she did all of her family — she knew, she had tried it repeatedly both this summer and the two previous ones, all to no avail.

Sure, Ron had informed her each first Monday of September that while not seeing the Boy-Who-Lived on the train at all, Harry Potter had been there at the Opening Feast doing perfectly fine, but that wasn't the point — he wasn't under her control like he was supposed to be, where she could protect and mother him from the big, bad world out there that he wasn't old enough for yet. However, no matter how mad and angry she became at everything (except Harry of course, who was doubtlessly out there somewhere scared and alone having been kidnapped by that muggleborn her son was always mentioning in his letters), it did nothing to make the Boy-Who-Lived suddenly appear in her home and before she knew it, it was already nearing the end of summer once more.

The next to last Monday of August the finals of the 1994 Quidditch World Cup was held.

The Weasleys had got tickets in the top box in exchange for Mr Weasley having once not enforced the law on Ludo Bagman's brother when the man magically tampered with a lawnmower and having swept everything under the rug instead, a box that also included the unofficial head of the Ministry's unofficial Bribery Department, Lucious Malfoy and his wife and son, along with the Bulgarian and British Ministers, Ludo Bagman, Winky the house elf, and many other important or invisible-and-thought-to-be-dead people.

Upon the Malfoys' arrival tension in the box rose drastically, only increased by Lucius sneering, "Good lord, Arthur. What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?" But any actual conflict was avoided by Ludo Bagman starting the introductions for the match.

The match itself didn't last very long, and soon everyone had returned to their tents to celebrate for the night before portkeying back to wherever they had come from the following morning. But a group of Death Eaters at the match, led by one Lucius Malfoy, had no intention of letting such a mass of easily terrifiable people go unterrified when they had the chance. So in the middle of the night they donned their old uniforms and began rampaging through the camping grounds, floating the guy who rented out the campsite that they were all staying in and his family high above them in the air.

In the increasing panic and rioting the Weasley children were ordered by Mr Weasley to hide in the nearby woods, where deep in the thick of the trees they heard an unknown voice say in the dark, "Morsmordre!"

A colossal, emerald green star skull with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue lit up the sky above them, and the woods all around them erupted in screams. A little less than thirty seconds later twenty adult wizards popped into existence out of thin air, surrounding the Weasley children. And as they landed, they all shouted "Stupefy!"

By the time the blinding circle of flashes had cleared and spells had stopped bouncing off of the trees and rebounding off into the forest, all but one Weasley student was lying on the ground unconscious — the lone survivor having been missed by the initial spells just long enough to dive to the ground as the spells were being shot at them — and five adults were also unconscious because they were all shooting at each other, such being the nature of the shape we call a circle.

And there only weren't more 'casualties' because in the light of the spells one of the wizards had recognized whom it was that they were all shooting at, and had yelled, "Stop! STOP! That's my children!" Otherwise, they all probably would have kept on shooting each other until only a few of them on one side of the circle remained standing.

Once the metaphorical dust had settled Mr. Weasley strode towards the pile of bodies in the middle, looking terrified. But before he could do more than stare down at all but one of his kids lying there stupefied (and the other lying there terrified), Mr Crouch pushed past him saying coldly, "Out of the way, Arthur!"

Quickly casting the countercharm on all of them, as soon as they were conscious and looking at him he snapped angrily at them with unveiled rage, "Which of you did it?! Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?!"

"We didn't do anything!" Ron shouted, looking indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?!"

"Do not lie, sir!" Mr. Crouch shouted right back, his wand now pointed directly at Ron, and his eyes popping as if he were mad. "You four have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"

But one of the witches of the group very reasonably pointed out that it was highly unlikely that any student would be capable of casting the Dark Mark, and Mr Weasley asked his kids if they had seen where the spell had come from.

One of the twins pointed out the direction and said, "Over there. Someone shouted some word, and there was a streak of green up into the air."

"Oh, stood over there, did they?" Mr. Crouch shouted, clearly beyond all reason now as he turned on the twin savagely. "Said a spell, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned."

"That's how every spell is cast, you idiot!" the other twin exclaimed, defending his brother against this lunatic.

None of the adult wizards called Mr Crouch out on his maniacal bullshite or defended either of the twins against Mr Crouch, but they also didn't believe for a second that any of the students had cast the mark and Mr Diggory disappeared off in the direction that the twin had pointed in. Returning a few minutes later, he was carrying Mr Crouch's house elf and the wand that he had found her holding — or at least he said that she had been holding it when he found her, as he was the one who was holding it when he returned with her stunned body, and no one else had been with him to see it for themselves, so it was just his word that he hadn't planted the wand on her for some scheme of his own. Mr Crouch, the owner of said house elf, of course didn't accept Mr Diggory's search and went to search for himself for a while, though if he wasn't planning on believing what anyone else found, it was odd that he hadn't gone and searched for himself with Mr Diggory to start. Or that anyone hadn't gone and searched with Mr Diggory to lend credence to the investigation as a second, third, etc witness to the evidence found for when it went to trial — except, oh wait, the wizarding world sentenced people based on the political mood of the time, not pesky little details like facts or evidence.

But eventually Mr Crouch returned right after Ludo Bagman had apparated very late into the scene, as out of touch with the present situation as he always was. With Mr Crouch returned, Mr Diggory soon reawoke Winky to question her about her supposed possession of a wand, and what she had to do with the Dark Mark.

But as Mr Diggory waved the wand in question menacingly and intimidatingly in front of the clearly terrified elf, Ron caught sight of the stick of wood in the light of the spell still hanging in the sky above them, and exclaimed, "Hey — that's mine!"

Everyone turned to stare at him as the redhead began frantically patting down his pockets.

"Is this a confession? You gave it to this house elf after you conjured the Mark?" Mr Diggory demanded.

"Amos, think who you're talking to!" Mr. Weasley exclaimed very angrily. "Is my son likely to conjure the Dark Mark?"

"Er — of course not," Mr. Diggory mumbled in a tone that almost sounded apologetic, blindly believing that because Ronald had the surname 'Weasley' that it was impossible for him to do anything positive for Voldemort, before any evidence or testimony had been presented for or against the case of Ron casting the Dark Mark. "Sorry...carried away." Looking at Ron, he asked, "Where did you lose your wand?"

"I didn't know I had until I just saw you waving it around," Ron answered. "I don't know when the last time I saw my wand was — maybe this morning when I stuck it in my pocket after waking up."

Turning back to Winky, Mr Diggory accused coldly, "So you found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you'd have some fun with it, did you?"

Winky admitted to having picked it up, but denied having ever used it, making the Dark Mark with it, or even knowing how to make the Dark Mark. Clearly not believing her, Diggory performed Priori Incantatem on the wand, despite the fact that that would only prove whether the wand had cast the spell in question, not whether it had been cast before or after Winky had found it and picked it up. As it turned out Ron's wand was the guilty wand, and Mr Diggory considered that circumstantial evidence all the evidence needed to send Winky to Azkaban or wherever forever without a trial to prove whether or not she had actually cast the spell. But Mr Crouch of course then quickly stepped in and used his own reputation as being anti-You-Know-Who (because of course no one could possibly change sides in thirteen years, that was ludicrous!) to claim that accusing his house elf of having cast the spell was accusing him of having taught the elf how to cast it, and Mr Diggory finally backed down from accusing every new person his eyes fell on.

After that they learned from Winky that she had found the wand in the woods nearby, right under where the Mark had been conjured from, the suspect having most likely dropped it before apparating away, the wizarding world never having heard of fingerprints on the law enforcement or criminal side of the equation. When asking Winky if she had seen who had cast the spell, since she had to have been nearby, apparently everyone was either too expecting of house elves to act extremely nervous, or else had never heard of any of the over 212 micro-expressions that can betray a lie — most prominently in this case eyes darting all around and most frequently to her master — that they couldn't tell that she was clearly lying her little house elf arse off.

But they didn't notice that, or at least didn't find it unusual, and shortly thereafter Mr Crouch fired his house elf, and Mr Weasley led his children back to their tent once Ron had finally been given his wand back.

~FS~

Five days after the excitement of the Quidditch World Cup had taken place, halfway around the world FitzSimmons received a letter from Ron inviting them to said sporting event.

It certainly wasn't the first time that he had mentioned that such a thing was being held. The first time he'd mentioned that the tournament was going on and that they should come was in his birthday letter to Harry, that had arrived about a week after Harry Potter's actual birthday on the still almost dead, and definitely shouldn't be sent across oceans and continents Errol — could they really not tell based on how long it took the bird to fly to Harry Potter and back, and how bad it had to look when it did finally return, that they should really stop making it fly to Harry Potter during the summer? But in his birthday card, Ron had written Harry that Mr Weasley could normally get tickets to the event, and that Harry and Hermione should come join them going to it, something that he had been planning on telling them the morning of the train ride back to London, only he never could find them in the Great Hall or on the train.

But this new letter was an actual official invite, with tickets already purchased, and an invitation to spend the rest of the summer at the Burrow afterwards as well.

~.~

Harry,

DAD GOT TICKETS — Ireland versus Bulgaria, Monday night. You absolutely can't miss the World Cup, it's the greatest thing ever. Send Errol back with your answer pronto. And if you need us to pick you up and bring you to the Burrow, just let us know. We can come get you.

Percy's started work — the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Don't mention anything about Abroad while you're here unless you want the pants bored off you.

Hopefully see you soon — Ron

~.~

"I wonder which Monday night this is," Simmons said after they had finished reading it. "A very rough-looking owl flying all the way across the Atlantic and the States, when if Ron is still like most British wizards whom we've met he can't comprehend the idea of leaving the country for the entire summer, he probably assumed when he wrote this letter that the owl would be going somewhere inside of Britain, a few days shorter flight at least, if not closer to a week, depending on magical owl flight speeds, and especially of this particular owl."

"Who knows. And more importantly, who cares," Fitz replied. "We're not going to get trapped at Ron's house for the remaining week of summer, and we don't care about quidditch to want to go in the first place."

"True, I just wonder if it was this past Monday, or the upcoming one," Simmons said. "It could be useful in our defense of why we didn't even try to go, should he ask when we get back to school in a week."

"Except that might reveal to him how far away we are, which though unlikely, could get back to one of the adults," Fitz countered. "Better to just honestly tell him that we ignored him, or at least let him think that, and just maybe keep him off our tails some this year — since for some reason he seems to have forgotten all about hating us for causing his rat to escape a mere two or three months ago."

"Okay, you've got a point," Simmons relented to her husband. "But we can just tell him that we don't care anything about quidditch, and we won't look like quite such arses as completely ignoring him, just arses for never replying."

"Have we ever replied to him during the summer, though?" Fitz asked rhetorically, as they both already knew the answer. "Or even during the school year, for that matter, during the stretches when he's actually talking to us?"

"We try to be polite most of the time," Simmons replied slightly scoldingly. "Unless he's being really overbearing, or Snape's been unusually abusive that day and we haven't been able to deliver justice to him for it, so we're in a bit of a mood. But regardless, we'll find out what his reaction to us not replying is in a week."

~FS~

A week later as FitzSimmons peacefully slept due to the time zone difference, Malfoy and his cronies were bullying Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus on the Hogwarts Express.

The four Gryffindors were happily talking in their own compartment about the Quidditch World Cup, which only Neville hadn't been at, and Ron had just got out the miniature figurine of Viktor Krum that he had bought at the match, when Malfoy and his two bodyguards stopped by uninvited.

"Look at this, Neville…" Ron was saying as he held out the figurine. "We saw him right up close, as well. We were in the Top Box —"

"For the first and last time in your life, Weasley," Malfoy sneered, making his presence known where he stood in the compartment door that Dean and Seamus had left ajar when they had entered a while before.

"What are you doing here?" Ron replied irritably.

But Malfoy ignored him, instead pointing at Ron's open trunk where a sleeve of the dress robes that Ron's mum had bought for him while he was enjoying the Quidditch World Cup was hanging out of the trunk, the moldy lace cuff visible to anyone looking.

"Weasley...what is that?"

There was a mad dash for the offending article of clothing, Ron to stuff it out of sight and Malfoy to drag it kicking and screaming into the light of day, a brief struggle easily won by Malfoy.

"Look at this!" he said in ecstasy as he held up Ron's eighteenth century robes for Crabbe and Goyle and everyone else in the compartment to see. "Weasley, you weren't thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean — they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety…."

"Eat dung, Malfoy!" Ron shouted, his face going the same color as the honestly excruciatingly embarrassing dress robes that very nearly could be considered child abuse to force a kid to wear, as he yanked them out of Malfoy's grip.

Though unfortunately for himself not ripping them in half, so that he would have a very good excuse not to have to wear them — besides not wearing them because they were psychological abuse given how much everyone else in the castle was going to laugh at him and make fun of him and ridicule him and bully him if they ever saw him wearing them.

After getting a head start on that and howling in derisive laughter at Ron and his dress robes — or really at Ron's mother, though Ron wasn't thinking clearly enough to realize this, not that it would have made it any better in his opinion — Malfoy asked, "So...going to enter, Weasley? Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There's money involved as well, you know...you'd be able to afford some decent robes if you won."

"What are you talking about?" Ron snapped irritably.

"Are...you...going...to...enter?" Malfoy repeated slowly, because saying the exact same thing a second time, just slower, always made people suddenly understand when they hadn't the first time.

"Enter what?" Ron snapped again.

Malfoy's pale face broke out into a gleeful smirk.

"Don't tell me you don't know?" he laughed delightedly. "You've got a father and brother at the Ministry, and you don't even know? My god, my father told me about it ages ago. Heard it directly from Cornelius Fudge, the Minister. But then again, Father's always associated with the top people at the Ministry. Maybe your father and brother are too junior to know about it, Weasley. Yes, they probably don't talk about important stuff in front of them."

Still laughing, Malfoy waved Crabbe and Goyle out of the compartment with him before Ron could overcome his fury enough to try attacking him. After the Slytherins had disappeared, Ron leapt to his feet and slammed the sliding compartment door shut so hard that the glass shattered, just making things even worse for them when it came to uninvited guests — though in truth, Malfoy was the only big enough bully in their year to trespass into compartments, so unless he came back it didn't really matter much.

Stalking back over to his seat, Ron snarled, "Making it look like he knows everything and we don't. 'Father's always associated with the top people at the Ministry' — Dad could've got a promotion any time he wants, he just likes it where he is…."

Picking up one of the Cauldron Cakes that he had bought for lunch several hours earlier, he squashed it into a pulp in his hand. His bad mood remained for the rest of the train ride, and he was still glowering as he climbed off of the Hogwarts Express and stepped onto the Hogsmeade train station platform, where the sky was trying to empty itself in the form of buckets of ice-water onto everyone to the symphony of rumbling thunder.

Meanwhile fifteen minutes earlier, FitzSimmons had Knight Bussed to the platform and immediately ran to the nearest horseless carriage just like the year before, to be warm and dry as they waited on the train to arrive and the carriages to begin trundling them up to the castle. Eventually their carriage did begin moving as all of those in front of them were filled (having ran to the nearest carriage to where the Knight Bus had stopped, not the one first in line closest to the castle), and they started up towards the castle. As they rode under the Hogwarts gates, FitzSimmons noticed that they didn't feel the foul presence of the dementors floating about like they had the year before.

"I wonder if Mr Black was captured," Simmons idly wondered out loud.

But Fitz just shook his head in reply, having no way of knowing yet as they didn't have any contact with the magical world over the summer — they would have to wait until supper when they could ask someone.

When they dashed out of their carriage and into the entrance hall a few minutes later, the first thing they noticed was Peeves throwing water balloons at everyone as they entered the castle. Slipping into the corner out of his main target zone, they pulled out their wands and pointed them at him.

Then Fitz shouted, "Hey, Peeves!"

The trickster-god looked down at the voice, before visibly recoiling where he sat floating in the air as he took in who exactly it was talking to him, and whose wands it were pointed at him.

"Yeah — scram."

The poltergeist zoomed off in flurry, not even daring to drop his remaining water bombs in fear that the pair would chase him down or attack him the next time that they saw him. The situation taken care of themselves, since none of the adults in the castle ever did their job of protecting students from any and all threats around the castle, FitzSimmons continued on into the Great Hall.

Soon after they had seated themselves at their normal spot at the back of the Gryffindor table, Ron plopped himself down across from them. "I can't believe you didn't come to the Quidditch World Cup with us!"

"We're not interested in quidditch, never have been," Simmons replied honestly, before quickly asking in both an attempt to change the topic and to gain new information about what had happened over the summer in the wizarding world, "Has Mr Black been caught? We noticed that there weren't any dementors at the gates anymore like there was all of last year."

"What? Uh, no, not that I've heard," Ron answered, before continuing on much more excitedly, "It was absolutely amazing! The Irish won, of course, but the real star was Krum. He caught the snitch, and even came up to the top box we were in. But the biggest excitement by far was after the match, when a bunch of Death Eaters were out, and someone used my wand to cast the Dark Mark!"

He went on to rattle their ears off about everything from the match to the riot afterwards, of which only the Death Eaters and the Dark Mark part FitzSimmons were at all interested in. Because in order to try to get some idea as to Voldemort and Harry's relationship, since the ruggeder half of FitzSimmons had assumed Harry Potter's identity in this world, FitzSimmons had read all that they could find about the deposed tyrant. Therefore they knew as much as anyone possibly could know from the very limited number of books that had been written about Voldemort and his followers, and they knew that when the Dark Mark had been cast into the sky during Voldemort's reign it almost always meant that they had just murdered someone, and so they were curious who had been murdered this time, or if no one had been, why the Death Eaters had changed their MO since Voldemort's disappearance after meeting baby Harry. But when pressed for those kinds of details Ron could tell them very little about what had actually been going on, and at least as far as he knew, no one had died and no one had been arrested for any of it.

By the time Ron had finished with his account of the Quidditch World Cup and FitzSimmons had asked their own questions about the Death Eaters in return, the meal was over and Dumbledore was standing up to make his announcements for the year.

His first announcement was that quidditch wasn't occurring that year, but before he could say what was replacing it, the latest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor made his grand entrance and Dumbledore paused to introduce Professor Moody. Once that was done, Dumbledore resumed telling them all that the long-abandoned TriWizard Tournament was making its return at Hogwarts that year.

However, in the biggest woke virtue signaling move of the century, the impartial judge was going to be restricted to picking from only the adult students, and would not be allowed to actually pick the most worthy entrant from each school, only the most worthy entrant out of the new severely limited entry pool. Now admittedly, it was true that it should be an adult student who was the most worthy from each of the three schools, as they should have learnt the most spells having been in school the longest, but it still opened the possibility that none of the actually most worthy students would be competing in the tournament all, since none of them would have been allowed to enter. The excuse that Dumbledore used when announcing the change from the past, when the most worthy candidates were picked out of all of the students, was that it was for 'safety', which was obviously complete bullshite — if the most worthy candidate of a school was under-age, but unable to cope with the tasks of the tournament, then all of the less worthy adult students would be even less able to cope with the tasks despite being older, by the very definition of the word 'most worthy'. Therefore the tournament was actually less safe because of the new rule, not safer as claimed by Dumbledore and whatever other adults had been a part of writing and approving of this change.

But FitzSimmons knew that no one was going to listen to them or logic or the basic structure that held together English language and made it mean anything at all, so they kept quiet as there was no purpose in pointing out to the adults whose minds were already set in stone and then the stone bronzed over, that they were just being virtue-signaling morons instead of actually protecting anyone. And it didn't affect FitzSimmons anyway, as they certainly had no desire to enter the tournament, preferring to keep their death-defying (and sometimes obeying) activities to their day jobs of saving the world, if and when they ever made it back to their world.

But the twins did not share this opinion, and as soon as Dumbledore dismissed them all to bed, they hurried over to where FitzSimmons and their younger brother Ron were still sitting across from each other.

"They're not stopping us from entering," Fred declared as he sat down next to Fitz.

"The champions'll get to do all sorts of stuff you'd never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!" George added from the other side of Fred.

"Yeah," Ron replied dreamily. "A thousand Galleons…."

"It's just the impartial judge we have to fool," Fred said. "I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George."

"Dumbledore knows you're not of age, though," Ron said.

"Yeah, but he's not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?" Fred answered.

"Sounds to me like once this judge has the list of entrants, he'll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. It's Dumbledore who's trying to stop us giving our names," George continued.

FitzSimmons doubted that it would be quite that simple, figuring that Dumbledore would use some kind of magic to make sure that anyone he and the Ministry didn't want entering couldn't give their names to the judge, or else requiring their ages on the application form with some kind of magic to prevent lying so that the judge would know which applications to immediately throw out or would never reach him in the first place, but as they agreed with the twins and every other under-age student who wanted to try entering, they didn't say any of this out loud.

"Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get 'round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?" Fred asked.

"What d'you reckon?" Ron asked Fitz. "Be cool to enter, wouldn't it? But I s'pose they might want someone older... Dunno if we've learned enough…."

"We're not entering, but we entirely support all of your attempts if you want to," Fitz answered. "We're strongly against the new age rule because it's completely useless and stupid on top of that, so we would love to see an under-age student enter their name and get selected, just to prove that the rule's bad. But it's not going to be us, because we prefer staying away from dangerous situations whenever we can, and the last thing we want is even more fame than we already have to have to suffer through just because of my name."

"Seriously, though, absolutely best of luck to all three of you, and any other under-age students who try to enter," Simmons added with all sincerity. "We hope one of you is selected for Hogwarts."

"Yeah, you know what, I might go in for it," Ron said to his brothers. "If you two find out how to. The tournament, money, fame...you never know, do you?"

The following morning after Herbology class FitzSimmons had Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid, who was starting his second year of teaching a class.

If they had thought that starting out his first ever class the year before with hippogriffs hadn't exactly been the wisest decision ever made, he topped himself this year by starting out with a creature that wasn't even in any magical creature book that FitzSimmons had ever bought or looked at in the library, and they had gone through more than a few. Also, by the end of the year these new creatures were to turn out to be far more dangerous than hippogriffs could ever strive to be on their most ferocious day, something that FitzSimmons obviously had no way of knowing at this point but something that Hagrid should have at least had an inkling about, given the fact that he was supposed to be an expert on magical creatures and all, teaching a class about them.

But at the moment they were just newly hatched blast-ended skrewts, and in great supply at over a hundred per box, with multiple boxes sitting in front of Hagrid's hut. They were hideous, repulsive, disgusting-looking creatures that spat fire and had stingers, and even Dr Simmons the biochemist didn't want to go near them without a lot more safety equipment than the wizarding world had ever heard of, and a carefully controlled environment that she didn't have — the absolutely perfect thing for a bunch of half-the-time-not-paying-attention fourteen year olds who could barely be considered to have even a single year of magical creature study under their belts considering how the previous year had gone.

But Hagrid was extremely proud of himself for having these things for his class, telling them all, "On'y jus' hatched, so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

To which Malfoy asked the reasonable question that FitzSimmons, and everyone else there as well, had been thinking but were too polite, too scared, or just too shocked to actually ask. "And why would we want to raise them?"

His cold tone certainly left a lot to be desired, but as the things weren't magical creatures recognized by any published textbook on magical creatures, it was quite the reasonable question to be asked, if only he had asked it out of curiosity and a desire to learn instead of a desire to ridicule Hagrid and generally make everyone who wasn't a Slytherin's day worse. And a question that as the teacher Hagrid should have had an immediate answer for, instead of looking completely stumped.

"I mean, what do they do?" Malfoy continued on when Hagrid didn't answer. "What is the point of them?"

"And what are they?" Simmons piped up, making Malfoy turn and look at her in surprise.

Wasn't Hagrid's know-it-all mudblood friend supposed to be defending the oaf, not in a sense agreeing with him about the pointlessness of raising these things?

Hagrid meanwhile stared back and forth between the two of them, before finally grunting to Malfoy, "Tha's next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus' feedin' 'em today," and then turning to Simmons and continuing on, "They're a cross 'tween manticores and fire-crabs. Bred 'em meself."

"Um — isn't that illegal, Hagrid?" Simmons asked in confusion. "I thought there were restrictions on crossbreeding magical creatures, and on normally breeding more dangerous creatures like manticores."

"Yeah, well, I's jus' havin' some fun," Hagrid answered shiftily, before quickly changing the subject and saying, "Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things. I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer. I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake — just try 'em out with a bit of each."

They spent the rest of the class period tossing various foods into the boxes to see if the skrewts ate anything and trying not to get stung or burnt, while Malfoy occasionally threw out insults about Hagrid and his probably illegal creatures. But soon enough the bell rang signifying the end of class and they had all headed up to the Great Hall for lunch, where FitzSimmons approached the staff table where Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were sitting next to each other eating their own lunches.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall," Simmons greeted them politely.

"Granger, Potter, how can we help you?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"We would like to report Hagrid for what we believe is a violation of the restrictions on creating new magical creatures through crossbreeding. Now, it is completely possible that he went through the appropriate channels at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but he noticeably brushed me off when I asked if his crossbreeds between manticores and fire-crabs were illegal, and well...let's be frank, here, Sirs — Hagrid had an illegal dragon burn his hut down three years and thought it was a good idea to bring a hippogriff into a class of thirteen year olds in his very first class of teaching and then not supervise anyone, only barely avoiding a major incident because Harry was there to save one of the students from their own stupidity and hubris. My point being, can we really safely make the assumption that Hagrid legally bred these things that he is calling blast-ended skrewts, and not check them out to make sure that they pose no danger to the student population here, especially the fourth year class whom he expects to help raise them, into whatever it is that they're going to become, which we personally have our doubts that even Hagrid knows what is?"

Professor McGonagall looked shocked, while FitzSimmons noticed Dumbledore looking particularly shifty, almost as shifty as Hagrid had looked when being asked questions about his creations.

But as Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, Dumbledore hurriedly said, "I'm sure Hagrid knew what he was doing, but I will visit him later. Now you best get on to eating, I'm sure you have classes this afternoon."

Knowing a clear dismissal when they heard one, FitzSimmons headed down to the Gryffindor table to eat, now even more suspicious than before that the creatures weren't legal and that the Ministry would have an absolute hissy fit if they found out about them, and also that Dumbledore was in on the whole conspiracy, probably keeping the Ministry from finding out and throwing Hagrid in Azkaban for illegal breeding — just as Dumbledore had for Hagrid's illegal possession of a dragon egg and then a hatched dragon during their first year at the school. But as it honestly wasn't any of their problems, and if the creatures became too dangerous they would protect their classmates from the creatures and Hagrid during class, they pushed it out of their minds for the time being, knowing way too well how politics worked to think that they could do anything about it at the legal level. Maybe they could have tried to find out if Harry Potter really did have an owl and use it or a school owl to send a letter to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but they didn't know for sure if the creatures actually were illegal or not, had reported their suspicions to the two highest ranking adults of the castle, and really preferred not getting the government involved when they absolutely didn't have to.

~FS~

After Arithmancy that afternoon, FitzSimmons were walking through the entrance hall when Malfoy swept over to his latest favorite punching bag, Ronald Weasley, who was also walking through the entrance hall a little ways in front of the Shield power couple.

"Weasley! Hey, Weasley!"

FitzSimmons paused in the shadows to watch the show, and see what dirt Malfoy had on Ron or the Weasleys to be approaching the redhead instead of 'Harry Potter'.

Said dirt turned out to be a Daily Prophet article by a writer named Rita Skeeter, which Malfoy proceeded to read out loud as loudly as he could for the entire entrance hall and the nearer parts of Northern Ireland and England to hear, and maybe even the coasts of Denmark and Norway — most of Australia and New Zealand probably couldn't hear him, though. As FitzSimmons listened, they gathered that there was a missing Ministry witch; Mr Weasley (and therefore by extension the entire Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office that he was the head of) was so unimportant in the eyes of at least this writer and their editor that they couldn't even be bothered to spell Mr Weasley's name right; a trained spy believed that he had been attacked the day that he'd come to take the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching post; the Daily Prophet had a photo of Mr and Mrs Weasley at their house that the Prophet highly unlikely had permission to publish, certainly with a story like this; and Mrs Weasley was apparently very fat.

Like most mainstream media outlets, the Daily Prophet had immediately assumed that Professor Moody's defense of his property against believed threats was completely unnecessary and the acts of a highly dangerous madman, and that suspicion that people might want to kill you as a high level spy/law enforcement officer was completely ludicrous and deserved being fired for. FitzSimmons, on the other hand, not having any actual details as of course the Daily Prophet had provided none if they even knew any, automatically took the opposite assumption that Professor Moody had probably had reasonable reason to believe that he was being attacked, and that it probably had nothing to do with the 'high aggressive' dustbins that the Daily Prophet had said it was — unless Professor Moody had enchanted the dustbins to run off the attacker(s) and then continue protecting his property from further attack, which was what the bobbies had stumbled upon when the normal neighbors reported to the police that they had heard a disturbance at their neighbor's house. Given the article alone, however, it was completely impossible to have any clue what had actually happened at Professor Moody's residence that night, because absolutely no details were presented, only opinions and propaganda.

But oddly enough, the article had actually focused on Mr Weasley as much as it had on Professor Moody, for a rather unspecified 'crime' — Taking care of the bobbies instead of Professor Moody doing it himself? Doing it himself as the head of the MMAO instead of letting the DMLE come and do it for Professor Moody, and launch an investigation into who might have attacked Professor Moody, as was probably the correct handling of the situation? That Professor Moody and everyone was supposed to not do a single bloody thing and risk the muggle police discovering hints of magic and possibly arresting Professor Moody for self-defense? The article didn't say, simply saying that Mr Weasley had 'involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene', despite the fact that if the DMLE had come like FitzSimmons assumed that they probably should have, the Ministry would have been involved even more than just brushing it under the rug and making all of the normal people around completely forget that it had ever happened.

Ron, however, was thinking along none of those lines, instead shaking with fury at Malfoy pointing out a Daily Prophet article that portrayed his family in a negative light — and furious at Malfoy instead of at the Daily Prophet who had been the ones to publish the article, or at Rita Skeeter who had written the article, or at his father for 'breaking the law' (if in fact he actually had) and landing himself in the situation that he was now in.

And so as Malfoy asked a moment later, "So tell me, is your mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?", Ron launched himself at Malfoy.

But as he was scrawny and knew absolutely nothing about fighting, especially against someone who had been taught how to fight, he was easily blocked and shoved away by a laughing Malfoy, as Crabbe and Goyle cracked their knuckles threateningly.

"What? You're going to try to fight me?" Malfoy sneered. "Please — don't embarrass yourself. Don't you remember what happened every time you tried doing that two years ago? Lockhart had to swoop in and save your pathetic arse from getting whooped."

Ron plunged his hand into his robes for his wand, but not having touched his wand for two and a half months until on the train the day before, not being allowed to practice any magic at his magical and therefore un-Trace-able home over the summer because of his mum, Malfoy had his wand pointed at Ron's face before the redhead had even wrapped his fingers around his wand in his robe pocket. In a rare show of almost mercy from the bully Malfoy didn't immediately curse the redhead, perhaps finding no challenge in cursing someone who couldn't even try to run away from him or fight back. But whyever Malfoy didn't immediately curse him in his face, it gave Ron a chance to walk away without getting hurt, and wisely he just stuffed his hand further into his pocket and his other hand into the other pocket to look less awkward, and turned and sulked off into the Great Hall to eat supper.

Sneering greatly, Malfoy followed along gloating quietly to his two bodyguards, as FitzSimmons came along last of all, mulling over everything that they had sort of but not really learned about Professor Moody, wondering what had really happened on that night several days earlier when he had most likely been attacked by someone, and if that attack had been an attempt to prevent the retired auror from coming to Hogwarts to teach the next generation how to defend themselves.

Thursday afternoon was FitzSimmons' first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Moody, and their first chance to see how this professor was going to be for the subject.

After roll call Professor Moody told them all to put their books away, that like with Professor Lupin much of the previous year they wouldn't be needing them that day. Then he informed them that while they were well-educated on dark creatures thanks to Professor Lupin the previous year, they were woefully behind on dealing with curses, so he was going to fix that during the upcoming year, the only year that he would be teaching them. Because he was secretly a Death Eater trying to bring Voldemort back to a body and power, and probably wouldn't be invited back to teach again the following year after helping murder Harry Potter — not that he actually told them any of this, of course, it being a secret and all.

And to start out the new year, he showed them and then proceeded to talk about the three curses that the Ministry had legislated as illegal, all of which had good, legitimate uses when used in appropriate situations, especially Avada Kedavra, which was just a really efficient concealed carry firearm. Overall, FitzSimmons thought that Professor Moody could have done quite well in Shield, any other law enforcement agency, or as a civilian self-defense instructor — which made sense considering the fact that he had been an auror, which was one of the law enforcement agencies of wizarding Britain. But all in all, it looked to be another useful year in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, which was good after two completely wasted years the first two years that they had been at the castle.

As soon as class was over and everyone was walking down to the Great Hall for supper, Ron sidled up to FitzSimmons and said to Fitz, "Some lesson, eh? Fred and George were right — he really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right then and there."

"Killing a spider is one thing, killing a human being is something entirely different," Simmons answered seriously. "But yes, we were pleased with Professor Moody's first day. He seems like he knows what he's talking about, and will teach everyone some pretty useful self-defense tactics and spells."

Ron stared at Simmons in surprise for sounding like she was judging their teacher like she knew more than the teacher, which actually was exactly what she was doing — she was judging their teacher because as a veteran spy of the real world she knew as much as him, and possibly more.

But after a second the redhead brushed her off and eagerly asked Harry, "What about you, Harry? Moody was cool, wasn't he?"

"I agree with Hermione," Fitz answered. "He seems to know what he's talking about, and you'll learn a lot if you listen to him. Just remember that defending your life or safety, or the lives and safety of those around you, against another human who is trying to do you harm, is very different from killing a defenseless spider, or whatever he'll give us to practice on."

Ron stared at Fitz too for not agreeing with him that Professor Moody was 'cool', and didn't say another word for the rest of the walk down to the Great Hall and went to sit with Dean and Seamus when he and FitzSimmons made it to the Gryffindor table.

But Ron was probably thinking Professor Moody significantly less cool a week later when the former auror announced that he was going to be performing the Imperious Spell on all of them to give them an opportunity to feel what it was like, and to try to teach them how to throw it off. In turn Professor Moody cast the spell on each of them, making FitzSimmons' classmates do (mostly embarrassing) things that they wouldn't have been inclined to do on their own in front of a classroom full of their fellow students. But eventually he got to Fitz.

When Professor Moody cast "Imperio" at Fitz, Fitz felt a relaxing feeling sweep over him, like Jemma was giving him a massage — but his wife was on the other side of the classroom with everyone else. He was therefore immediately on high alert, as such pleasant feelings that weren't with Jemma were extremely few and far between in his rough life.

Then he suddenly heard Professor Moody's voice echoing as if the man was really far away, instead of standing right there in front of him like the professor visibly was, ordering, 'Jump onto the desk...jump onto the desk….'

But jumping onto a desk made no sense to Fitz. This wasn't Potions class where a potion that only dissolved shoes and skin and not desk or chair legs was leaking across the floor, he wasn't in a duel where the higher ground could be advantageous, he had no rousing patriotic speech to give the class about the right to self-defense or any of the other God-given and government-trampled human rights — rather, he was in the middle of class, one of the least correct times and places to be jumping up onto desks (Potions lab disaster not included) that he could think of. It just didn't make any sense.

Not that he wasn't used to hearing voices and even having hallucinations, both Jemma and Leopold making appearances for different reasons, but Jemma was his conscious, and Leopold at least told him to do things that really did need to be done — what possible use could Professor Moody-voice telling him to jump up onto the table serve? It was true that there might have been a better way to remove Daisy's inhibitor from her neck, and obviously he should have asked her about it first and come to an agreement for him to remove it, and also possibly had Simmons do the actual removing as she was the real sort-of medical doctor on the team, not him, but the inhibitor did need to be removed in order to compress the gravitonium to close the rift before the fear dimension consumed the entire town and eventually the world, so what Leopold had told him to do was in fact necessary, since it was still Fitz's mind after all. But jumping up onto a table? — that served no purpose for saving the world or protecting anyone around him whatsoever that he could think of.

So he looked over at his most trusted source when in doubt, his wife, and asked, "Jemma, can you hear Professor Moody telling me to jump up onto this desk, or is it just me? And if it is just me, is there any reason for me to jump up onto the desk? Doesn't seem to me like it could help save the world or protect this class in any way."

"It's just you, Harry," his wife answered, emphasizing the 'Harry' part to remind him that there were others around and they needed to keep their covers intact. "And no, it's just him trying to Imperious you, there's no reason for you to do it."

"Okay," Fitz said with a nod, before turning back to look at Professor Moody.

He wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to do now, if he was supposed to say something to Professor Moody or not, but as Professor Moody was staring at him in disbelief he decided to remain silent for the time being.

A few seconds later he heard, 'Bark like a dog' echo through his mind in Professor Moody's voice. But as echo-Moody had already proven himself untrustworthy once, Fitz wasn't inclined to even consider anything that he said ever again, and so he looked over at Simmons and mouthed, "He's at it again."

Apparently finally coming to the conclusion that he had no power over Fitz, Professor Moody growled out to the class at large, "Now, that's more like it!", as Fitz felt the calm, blankness in his mind be replaced by the normal internal chaos inherent of being a genius.

"Look at that, you lot...Potter beat it! I hope the rest of you payed attention to his eyes, that's where you see it. Very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!" Then he turned to Simmons, his other best student, and said, "Now Granger, let's see if you can do as well as Potter."

So Simmons stepped forward and took her turn. Like Fitz before her, she felt an eerie, unnatural calm descend upon her mind, before Professor Moody's voice echoed, 'Sing the Hogwarts Theme Song'. While not having her husband's experience in hearing voices or seeing hallucinations, she was too logical to just blindly follow unverified commands ordering her to sing like a canary, as she thought to herself, 'This isn't Director Coulson, my husband, my work-wife Daisy, or any other senior agent of Shield. And more importantly, it doesn't make any sense to sing right now — I'm in the middle of a class that isn't music, singing is highly inappropriate right now.'

So looking at Professor Moody, she asked out loud, "Why? What could singing possibly have to do with defending myself against an attack? This isn't Xandar, you aren't Ronan, and I'm not Star Lord. And I'm pretty sure that no one has ever defeated a dark wizard with a dance off anyway, as entertaining as that admittedly would be."

Just like with Fitz, Professor Moody stared at her in shock and dropped the spell. Finally, he asked, "Have you two experienced this curse before?"

"No, Sir — just experience with hearing voices, and thinking for ourselves and not blindly following anyone," Simmons answered. "But really, we're just different. Just be glad that we can do what we can, and focus on the rest of the class. There's no secret techniques or anything that we can pass on to help anyone else, besides think for yourself and don't blindly follow anyone — voices in your head or people of power in the real world. Question everything that you read and hear, especially if someone in power is benefiting from it somehow, namely making money or gaining more power. It might not help protecting yourself from being controlled by the Imperious spell, but it will protect you in general, so it's important to learn."

For the rest of the class period before the bell rang letting them all out Professor Moody continued testing everyone on the spell including FitzSimmons one more time each, but no one besides FitzSimmons was ever able to ignore the curse, or even show any signs of fighting back against it. And so when the bell did ring everyone besides FitzSimmons rushed out as quickly as they could so the Professor Moody couldn't curse them any more. However, Ron Weasley hung out in the hallway right outside of the classroom waiting on FitzSimmons to come out at their normal pace, so that he could bitch about the lesson to them as soon as they did come out.

"Talk about paranoid, you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second," he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder to make sure that Moody was definitely out of earshot, as he continued skipping every other step from what Professor Moody had Imperiused him to do during the lesson. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?"

"Sneaking up behind someone who's armed and trained is a really stupid thing to do, and that witch deserved what she got for doing it," Fitz replied. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I mean, it's essentially what I did to Lockhart on the first day of school last year, only he grabbed my shoulder instead of shouting 'boo'. And regardless of who the person is, whether they're armed or not, you still shouldn't scare them — at the very least that's how you get kicked in the balls or punched in the throat, at most that's how you die. 'Here lies an idiot, who thought it was a good idea to sneak up behind someone and scare them'."

"And how much time a week do you spend playing wizards chess and talking about quidditch that you could be using to study, instead?" Simmons added. "It's all about priorities. And I'm not telling you how you should arrange yours, I'm simply saying that if put your schoolwork at a higher level, you would have more time for it and would be less stressed out about it — if 'stressed' is the correct word, as stressed seems to have been about the least thing that you've ever been in the past three years, despite always rushing through your homework at the last minute."

Ron stared at them in shock, clearly having expected them to at least partially agree with him on some of if not most of what he was bitching about, not disagree on every single point and defend their at least half-mad professor — he was called 'Mad-Eye' Moody for a reason — along with lecturing him on studying more and spending less time around quidditch, only the most important thing in the world, and wizarding chess, the most important pastime in the world.

So he quickly changed subjects and asked irritably, "How did you two throw off Mad-Eye's curses so easily when no one else could?"

FitzSimmons sighed in sync, really not wanting to have to go through this. So Simmons answered as succinctly as she could, "While it is completely true that we had never experienced this spell before today, Harry has heard voices in his head before like you heard Professor Moody's voice when he had the spell on you, and obeyed those voices once to great detriment, while I've experienced far too much in my life to blindly trust anyone but a few very specific people whose trust has been repeatedly earned, and therefore question absolutely every command given to me — that's how we could ignore the spell. But like we told Professor Moody, it's not something that we can teach anyone else how to do, so you're just going to have to learn from him how to throw it off yourself."

But by this point they had reached the split for Gryffindor Tower and the library, and so FitzSimmons were able to escape any more questions from the redhead as they went to study for a couple of hours before supper, while Ron probably went to spend said time playing wizards chess or talking about quidditch, and not use the time to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse as assigned.