On the next to last day of October the entrants of the other two schools competing in the TriWizard Cup arrived at Hogwarts.

Beauxbatons school arrived first in their flying carriage, all of the French students quickly bustling inside the castle as their fancier robes that they were wearing for the Welcoming Feast weren't designed for the unseasonably cold weather that Scotland was having at the moment that year. And as they passed by where FitzSimmons were standing, Simmons couldn't help but comment on the girl leading the pack, a tall, skinny, gorgeous girl with what looked like silvery-blonde hair wrapped up in her scarf.

"She's pretty," Simmons said with a nod towards the girl in question. And before Fitz could even open his mouth next to her, she added with a roll of her eyes, "And don't give me some line about preferring classical beauty, or that I'm prettier than her, or whatever I know you're thinking right now. I'm not threatened because there happens to be another objectively beautiful woman in the vicinity — I mean, we are best friends with Daisy, after all, who is a very pretty woman as well. I know you think I'm pretty, you married me after all, you can think other women pretty too, and this one at least isn't a psychopathic robot."

"Hey — I was manipulated into liking Aida," Fitz defended. "But yeah, that girl did look pretty. Kind of hidden a bit by her scarf, though, we'll have to wait until we're inside and she's taken it off to see if you're really going to have any competition for the 'prettiest female in the castle' portion of this tournament."

"Pretty sure that's not really a thing," Simmons chuckled at her husband's teasing. "And if it was, who knows what kind of beauty Durmstrang might have."

But any more discussion of pretty women was interrupted by Ron Weasley worming his way up next to FitzSimmons at that very moment, as everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of said second of the two foreign schools coming for an extended visit that year.

And so after the Durmstrang ship arrived in the Black Lake a few minutes later, when the first Bulgarian student came hurrying past, he was able to hiss into Fitz's ear, "Harry — it's Krum! I don't believe it! Krum, Harry! Viktor Krum!"

"Didn't you say you already met him at the World Cup?" Fitz asked in confusion.

"I didn't actually get to meet him," Ron answered, like Fitz was somehow being very thick. "He was just up there when Bagman gave Ireland the Cup. But how are you not more excited about him being here?! — He's one of the best Seekers in the world! I had no idea he was still at school!"

"Because we still don't care about quidditch," Simmons answered. "Our definition of excitement and hero is different from yours, and from most of the other people in the wizarding world — or normal world, for that matter. And this isn't it."

Meanwhile all around them girls were frantically searching their pockets and muttering things like, "Oh I don't believe it, I haven't got a single quill on me" and "D'you think he'd sign my hat in lipstick?"

Not to be left out of the fangirling, Ron said to Fitz, "I'm getting his autograph if I can. You haven't got a quill, have you, Harry?"

"Even if one of us does, we wouldn't give it to you to go bother him with on the night he arrived," Fitz answered coolly. "You've got eight months to get to know him, and then ask him if he'll let you have his autograph."

As he said this everyone else around them started following the visitors inside to get the Welcoming Feast started, and so FitzSimmons and Ron fell in line, slowly shuffling their way through the entrance hall to the Great Hall with the rest of the crowds. And when they made it into the Great Hall and over to the Gryffindor table, FitzSimmons took their normal seats at the back while Ron continued on a little ways down the table, apparently hoping that Dean, Seamus, Neville, and some of the others down there would be more in agreement with his starstruckedness than FitzSimmons were.

He also tried hissing at the Durmstrangs to come over and sit with him when they paused at the entrance to the Great Hall, looking around trying to figure out what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to sit.

Of course, as soon as they chose the Slytherin table and Krum ended up near Malfoy, instead of choosing the Gryffindor table and Krum ending up near Ron, FitzSimmons heard Ron mutter scathingly, "Yeah, that's right, smarm up to him, Malfoy. I bet Krum can see right through him, though...bet he gets people fawning over him all the time"

Like he himself hadn't been fawning over Krum ever since the moment that he had spotted the seeker, and been hoping just a few moments before to smarm up to him if Krum had sat at the Gryffindor table instead of the Slytherin table.

They also heard him ask those around him, "Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer Krum a space in our dormitory — Harry doesn't use his bed, we could give it to him," and after that FitzSimmons tuned the redhead out entirely.

But they did eventually have an interaction of their own with one of the guest students that evening, as midway through the feast the Beauxbatons girl whom FitzSimmons had been discussing the beauty of earlier walked over to where FitzSimmons were sitting, from where she and the rest of the Beauxbatons students had chosen to sit at the Ravenclaw table.

"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?" she asked them.

"Not at all, go right ahead," Simmons answered. "But if you don't mind me asking, why are most of the guys and half of the girls in this hall practically drooling when you walk by, and the other half of the girls are glaring at you and all of said guys who are drooling over you? I mean, you're pretty and all, don't get me wrong, Harry and I were talking about that when we saw you walk past us on your way into the castle, but there's plenty of pretty girls in this school that no one acts like that over, and you've got pretty classmates as well that they don't seem to be acting like that for."

For as the girl — who with her long, silvery-blonde hair, deep blue eyes, tall, skinny stature, and medium-sized breasts filling out her much thinner powder-blue robes far better than any sized breasts could fill out Hogwarts' thick, bulky, all-black robes that flattened everything, was even more gorgeous without her scarf on than they had originally thought when she had first walked past them on her way inside upon arriving — had walked over to them, FitzSimmons had watched most of the guys and plenty of the girls who were watching her, stare at her with open mouths while making faint gurgling sounds, goggling at the girl like they had never seen a female human before in their lives. And this wasn't the first time that they had seen behavior like this towards the girl since she had first arrived with all of the other Beauxbatons.

The girl looked at Simmons in surprise for a second, before curiously looking back and forth between the Shield couple for several more seconds as they patiently looked back at her waiting, before finally saying, "You're really not affected, are you?"

"Affected by what?" Fitz asked.

"My allure — my veela allure," the girl answered. "Eet affects everyone who 'asn't found zeir true love yet, making zem lust after ze veela 'o is passing by. Everyone 'o is not a veela thinks it is a blessing, but it's really more of a curse for zose of us 'o actually 'ave to live wiz it."

"Oh, that would explain it then," Simmons replied with a nod. "We're certainly each other's true loves, so that makes sense that we wouldn't be affected. Never heard of veelas, or veela allure before, though."

"To ze best of my knowledge zere are no veelas living in Britain, and 'aven't been for centuries — so I suppose zat might be why we're not taught about," the girl answered. "My name's Fleur, by ze way."

"Hermione, and that's Harry," Simmons answered. "And sorry about all the undesired staring that you have to put up with. We have to put up with everyone fangirling over Harry Potter here, so we kind of understand what you have to go through, even if ruggedly handsome isn't quite the same thing as this 'veela allure' you have."

"Oh! You're 'Arry Potter?!" Fleur exclaimed, before quickly adding apologetically, "Sorry, zat's exactly what you were just complaining about."

"No, no, it's fine," Simmons laughed. "But yes, this is the Harry Potter, who somehow survived Voldemort when he was baby, and is now considered some Big Damn Hero for it. But to us, that is some completely other person whom no one has actually ever met, since this Harry, the one who can conscientiously perform spells that he learned himself, has never faced Voldemort. The Harry that everyone in Britain worships as a god is a baby that happened to be in the right place at the right time and got really lucky or something, not an actual, living boy thirteen years later — exactly one day short of, actually, now that I think about it."

Fleur nodded understandingly, before asking hesitantly, "You know — it wouldn't be too much to ask to sit wiz you two, would eet? You're ze first people I've met since arriving 'ere who aren't treating me like a veela, and it's razzer nice."

"Of course, of course, please!" Simmons replied, motioning to the empty seats across from them. "Sorry for not inviting you to sit down."

Once Fleur had sat down across from them, she and FitzSimmons continued chatting through the rest of supper, mostly about the differences between Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, and were still going when everyone had finished dessert and Dumbledore stood up to officially begin the TriWizard Tournament, making them stop for the time being.

As it turned out, there were to be three tasks spread throughout the remainder of the school year; each champion's performance in each task was to be graded by five judges, with the highest combined score after the third task winning the tournament (not really, but that's what Dumbledore lied to everyone); the champion for each school was going to be selected by an ancient magical wooden bowl of flames that Dumbledore was going to draw an age-line around in order to enforce their virtue-signaling that actually only served to make the tournament more dangerous, not safer; and you were magically bound to compete if your name came out of said chalice the following night.

As FitzSimmons and Fleur waited for most of the crowds to rush out of the Great Hall before they themselves left, Fleur asked, "Are you two entering?"

"No, we're too young — just fourth years," Simmons answered. "But we wouldn't enter even if we could, as throwing ourselves into danger for money or fame isn't our idea of a good time. I assume you will be though, or you wouldn't have come here?"

"Indeed," Fleur answered. "All of us 'o came over from France are old enough and entering, and I assume eet is probably ze same wiz Durmstrang."

"Then best of luck to you, both at being selected and then in the tournament if you are picked," Fitz said.

By this point the crowds had thinned out enough that FitzSimmons and Fleur stood up and headed out to the entrance hall, parting ways with a cheerful goodbye, Fleur heading out onto the grounds to the Beauxbatons carriage, and FitzSimmons up to Gryffindor Tower.

~FS~

The following morning after breakfast, FitzSimmons walked back out into the entrance hall where the Goblet of Fire stood, a thin, gold circle on the ground ten feet around it that they assumed was Dumbledore's age-line.

"You know, I'm curious — is this an age-circle, or an age-cylinder?" Fitz said as they paused to look at it.

"What do you mean, dear?" Simmons asked.

"Is it three dimensional, or just two? Could we use Wingardium Leviosa to float us up over the ground and enter our names without ever touching the ground?" Fitz answered.

But before Simmons had time to do any more than start to contemplate her husband's idea, Ron walked up asking, "Anyone put their name in yet?"

Simmons answered, "A few before we went into breakfast, none since we just came back out from breakfast. We were just discussing some potential flaws in Dumbledore's age-line that Harry noticed."

But before Ron could reply or ask what those were so that he could try to use them, the twins and Lee Jordan bounded down the grand staircase and up to them, laughing and looking extremely excited.

"Done it," Fred said in a triumphant whisper to FitzSimmons and Ron. "Just taken it."

"What?" Ron asked, having no clue what his brother was talking about. FitzSimmons wondered as well.

"The Aging Potion, dung brains," Fred answered, though FitzSimmons had no clue how Ron was supposed to know that, unless the two of them had talked with Ron about making an aging potion to get over the age-line at some point, which was a possibility as they hadn't been around Ron at all since Dumbledore had announced the previous evening that that was going to be his method of limiting the Goblet's pick to only the most worthy adult, not the most worthy student, of each school.

"One drop each," George added gleefully. "We only need to be a few months older."

"Why would you only do a few months' worth, though?" Fitz asked in confusion. "Why not play it safe and age yourselves to at least your mid-twenties just to be on the safe side in case the line doesn't act exactly like you expect it to?"

The twins and Lee stared at him in surprise, while Ron looked at him suspiciously.

"Is that what you did?" the youngest redhead demanded.

"No, because we don't want to be in this tournament," Simmons answered, rolling her eyes at the redhead's immediate assumption that Harry was sneaking around behind his back entering himself without telling the redhead — whom he was at most acquaintances with — how he was doing it, just barely restraining herself from throwing an 'idiot' in there somewhere. Turning to the twins and Lee, she asked, "Is that really how age-lines or aging potions work, though? It's a fairly simple sounding way around Dumbledore's line, and while I'm normally of the 'the more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain' line of thought, this seems like one that even an adult wizard would have thought of."

But the twins and Lee ignored her as Lee said that the three of them were going to split the winnings if one of them won, and Fred pulled out his slip of parchment that had his name and school on it. Stepping over the line, he was able to enter the magical circle, and George quickly hurried after him. But before either of them actually made a move towards the goblet in the center, there was a sizzle and the twins were hurled out of the circle again, suddenly sporting long white beards. As most of those in the entrance hall burst out laughing, Dumbledore walked out of the Great Hall, amiably telling the twins "I did warn you", before telling them to follow in Miss Fawcett and Mr Summers' footsteps up to the hospital wing to have their beards removed by Madam Pomfrey, as the twins weren't the first to try that particular way of getting around the age-line.

A few minutes later, once Ron had headed into the Great Hall to eat and the others who had been in the entrance hall had disappeared off into the castle or outside, Simmons looked over at her husband and said, "Well, it's certainly a circle and not stepping on the line, but we still don't know if it's the ground or the full three dimensions. But perhaps an even more interesting question than that is, what if you didn't cross the line yourself at all?"

"Like if you could use one of the dwarves to fly your name in and drop it into the Goblet!" Fitz said excitedly.

Simmons rolled her eyes at her husband's overthinking of the situation. "You don't need a drone, silly. Just a really long stick. Or even just tie your parchment to a rock and toss it in. Although, actually now that I think about that, they do have owls here — the drone option isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility either."

"Oh." Fitz paused for a second, before saying, "You know, we should really try it. Whether to prove that the age-line can be beaten, or in civil protest of the pointless, virtue-signaling rule that not all students can enter, or to show all of the underage students who actually want to enter how they can in an even bigger show of protest, I don't know and really don't care — but we should totally try it. But who, because we certainly don't want to be chosen if we do succeed."

"Just make up names that don't exist," Simmons answered. "Or rather, real names of people who aren't wizards. I for one would have no problem with Grant Ward being bound to a magical contract that he can't possibly fulfill. But going a step beyond that, I think we should try two things for each method we try. A made up student from Hogwarts who doesn't actually exist and therefore can't be chosen as their skill level must logically be zero, in order to test if a real underage student can physically put their name in the Goblet, plus a made up student from a made up school, as they should be selected as the only representative of their 'school' even with their skill level being zero, in order to show later tonight that you can be selected underaged. Test all possibilities separately to get a full picture of what can and can't happen — scientific thoroughness."

Fitz agreeing wholeheartedly, FitzSimmons immediately hurried outside to procure a stick that was over ten feet long, deciding to test the stone tossing theory afterwards if they hadn't already got caught by that point. Retuning to the entrance hall fifteen minutes later with a long stick from the edge of the Forbidden Forest in hand, they quickly wrote Aida Ophelia — Hogwarts, and Grant Ward — Magikal Schoole of Evile on two slips of parchment, before loosely stabbing them onto the end of their stick. Then Fitz carefully maneuvered the stick into the circle and over the goblet, taking care to make sure that none of his body crossed the three-dimensional plane of the age-line/cylinder, before using the rim of the goblet to pull the two slips of parchment off of the stick so that they could drop into the blue-white flames. When they did the fire briefly turned red and emitted sparks, and FitzSimmons assumed that the goblet had accepted the new entrants, as the goblet had done the exact same thing when they had seen some actual of-age competitors enter their names before FitzSimmons had walked into the Great Hall for breakfast earlier in the morning.

Theory proven, Simmons turned to the crowd of students who was watching FitzSimmons' experimentation and said to them, "For all of you underage students who want to enter, the stick method seems to work. Just make sure you don't let any part of your body cross the line, to be on the safe side."

More than a dozen students immediately rushed over, and Fitz handed off the stick to the first one.

As he and Simmons scooted out of the way to give them space, he asked, "Time to go get some rocks?"

"Actually, I had another idea," Simmons replied. "We've basically proven the concept that the rocks should work as well, they just aren't as reliable as a stick because you have to throw right. But we still haven't tested whether the age-line is a two dimensional circle on the floor, or a three dimensional cylinder going up either to the ceiling or a certain height. So I say we test that, with Wingardium Leviosa. Because the spell may not work on people, but it certainly works on clothes, especially tight-fitting jeans."

"You want me to float you up over the Goblet to try to drop your name into it?" Fitz clarified in surprise.

"I trust you, and your spellcasting," Simmons shrugged.

"Okay — once everyone here who wants to enter their name has, so we're not trying to fly you over them," Fitz answered.

So they waited fifteen minutes until everyone already there, and everyone who came into the entrance hall after Fitz showed how to enter oneself underaged and saw what was going on, had had the opportunity to enter their name for consideration by the impartial Goblet, instead of the highly partial Dumbledore, British Ministry, and presumably Beauxbatons and Durmstrang headmasters and respective country governments. But once everyone around who wanted to enter their name finally had, Simmons wrote two more names down on slips of parchment — Enoch Chroni - Hogwarts, and Atarah Chronicom - Chronyca School of Magic — and Fitz pulled out his wand.

Pointing it at his wife he muttered, "Wingardium Leviosa," and carefully floated her up into the air twenty feet, and then slowly over the age line. He paused for a second once she was just inside of the ring to see if she was chucked out with a very fashionable beard, but when she wasn't like the twins had been touching the ground, he continued floating her over to the goblet.

Simmons had just dropped the two tightly folded up slips of parchment into the Goblet and the fire had sparked like normal, and Fitz was about to float her back out, when they suddenly heard Professor McGonagall shriek from the top of the grand staircase, "What are you doing!?"

If Fitz had been less than a Shield agent he might have lost his concentration and dropped his wife, but he wasn't, and didn't. Instead, he more quickly floated his wife outside of the line and back down to the ground, before they both turned to face the irate deputy headmistress, who by that point had ran down the staircase and over to them.

"We are testing various methods for underage students who wish to enter the TriWizard Tournament to circumnavigate Dumbledore's age-line and the Ministry's completely pointless, virtue-signaling new rule," Fitz answered calmly.

"We've already proven that a long stick — that one right over there, to be specific — with the parchment on the end works, and we just proved that as long as you avoid touching the ground, and are floating at least twenty feet above the age-circle, you can get past Dumbledore's age-line," Simmons continued. "We also assume, based on the stick, that if you tied your name to a rock and tossed it in, that that would work as well, though what would become of the rock we don't know. And our last idea was using an owl to fly over and drop one's name in, but we don't have a good way of testing that."

"That's not—! The age restriction is there for a reason!" Professor McGonagall shouted.

"Yes, but not a useful one," Simmons explained patiently, as much to the stone walls and floor of the entrance hall as to McGonagall herself, as they were more likely to change their opinion and do something about it than the deputy headmistress was. "The most worthy entrant is still the most worthy entrant regardless of their age. If under-age students can't handle the tasks, then they won't be selected as the champion. And if one of them is selected as the champion despite not being qualified, then that by the very definition of the English language means that none of the adult students were qualified either, and were less qualified in fact, so the entire 'able to cope with the tasks' argument becomes pointless and the tournament is actually less safe than it would be if all students were allowed to enter, because the of-age student is more likely to get hurt than the underage student would have been. So yes, the age restriction is in fact there for a reason, but not the one Dumbledore claimed about being a safety measure — except for the safety of the Ministry's arse should someone get hurt. It's a liability, virtue-signaling reason, not a safety of the champions reason. So we were simply voiding that stupid rule, and giving everyone their fair shot like it should be."

"And what are you going to do? Expel us?" Fitz added contemptuously. "We've been through this already — we're untouchable."

McGonagall clearly did not agree with Simmons' statement of the facts about the reasons for, or the pointlessness of, the age restriction, but she did grudgingly have to acknowledge to herself the truth of Fitz's statement that the pair was unexpellable, and so in the end she simply turned on her heels towards the stick and vanished it with a wave of her wand, before savagely turning back on FitzSimmons.

"Get out of here! And don't let me catch you trying to enter your names again!"

Having no reason to stick around, or even point out that they hadn't entered their names, and if they had been trying they would have already successfully done so, FitzSimmons headed outside to enjoy the rest of their Saturday. But for the remainder of the day, every time they did pass through the entrance hall to eat or zip up to Gryffindor Tower for something, until the Goblet had disappeared entirely as they came through the entrance hall on their way to the Halloween Feast that night, they saw that there was always a professor standing near the age-circle, they assumed to make sure that no more underaged students used any of FitzSimmons' methods to enter themselves, now that the teachers realized that the age-line by itself wasn't enough.

~FS~

At the end of the feast that night, Dumbledore stood up to receive the names of the three champions from the Goblet of Fire.

Out first came Viktor Krum for Durmstrang, followed by Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons, neither surprises. But when the third slip of parchment flew out from the goblet and Dumbledore read aloud, "The Hogwarts champion is Sara Jones," the cheering in the Great Hall was much more subdued, as many of the Hogwarts students sat there in shocked anger instead of celebrating, which was then quickly succeeded by angry buzzing. For though Dumbledore and the professors didn't seem to realize it yet, much of the student body was very aware that Sara was only a sixth year and certainly not seventeen yet, even if she did have a reputation as being the sixth year version of Potter and Granger when it came to smarts and magical skill.

Head held high ignoring this stirring hornets nest, and silently thanking FitzSimmons in her mind for enabling her to enter in order to have this opportunity to prove all of the adults virtue-signaling morons, Sara followed the path taken by the first two champions up to the staff table. But as she began walking towards the room to the side that she was supposed to enter, one of the Slytherin sixth years who had multiple classes with her shouted out angrily from the Slytherin table, "She's not seventeen!"

This got the professors' attentions in a hurry, but as they didn't want to make a big scene out of this clear rule violation by the host castle right there in the middle of the Great Hall where everyone was watching, they didn't move to intercept her and soon she had disappeared into the adjoining room like the other two champions.

But as Dumbledore opened his mouth to dismiss everyone now that the three champions had been selected, the fire in the goblet — which hadn't gone out yet like it should have, something that the professors should have noticed had they been paying enough attention — turned red once again, and another slip of parchment shot out of it. Unlike the previous three times, Dumbledore did not immediately read off this name. But after staring at the parchment in his hands for several seconds, he finally did read it out, though in a much less cheerful tone than he had for the first three champions.

"Harry Potter."

FitzSimmons turned to stare at each other in shock. Did entering the wrong name automatically revert to the name of the person who had written it down? Or entered the name? Would Simmons' name come out next for entering by flying? Or was it whoever wrote the name on the slip of parchment, in which case who had even written down which names for their experiment?

Meanwhile all around them, the hall started out in silent frozen shock, before an even more angry muttering started up than had for Sara a few minutes before. And up at the staff table, Professor McGonagall had quickly stood up and hurried over to whisper urgently into Dumbledore's ear.

After several seconds, Dumbledore straightened back up with a nod from where he had been listening to her, and called out loudly again, "Harry Potter! Harry! Up here, if you please!"

But not a second later, the still flaming fire in the goblet turned red for a fifth time, and a fifth piece of parchment flew out. Now very confused, Dumbledore grabbed it out of the air before staring at it for an even longer than he had Harry Potter's.

Finally, though, he said as more of a question than a statement, "Grant Ward?"

FitzSimmons looked at each other again — that one was definitely theirs, and seemed to disprove all theories that any of their four entries could have been the one where Harry Potter's name came out. Did one of the underagers that they had shown how to enter themselves enter Harry instead in thanks? But shouldn't they have assumed that FitzSimmons had been entering themselves, not made up names, during their testing? And no one should think that multiple entries would increase a person's chance of being selected, as the Goblet was supposed to simply pick the most worthy entrant, and perseverance did not equal worthiness.

They had little time to think about any of this, though, as Dumbledore had taken so long to read out Ward's name that the goblet had already turned red again and shot out one final piece of parchment, before the fire in the goblet went out completely.

Staring at the parchment in bewilderment, Dumbledore read out, "Atarah Chronicom."

FitzSimmons instinctively leaned together and Fitz whispered into his wife's ear, "Those are our two that we expected to come out. My name almost certainly had to be entered by someone else."

"And Sara proved that an underage could win for their school, because she had to be Hogwarts' champion," Simmons whispered back. "Unless someone entered you for Hogwarts, you're the most worthy since you're Fitz, not Harry, and Sara took the risk of entering herself under a different school. But that doesn't seem likely."

Dumbledore, meanwhile, was calling out again, "Harry Potter, please come up here! And if there is a Grant Ward and Atarah Chronicom here, please come forward as well!"

Fitz raised an eyebrow at his wife, who subtly shook her head. So he didn't stand up and walk forward, and neither did Grant Ward or Atarah the Chronicom, one of whom was somewhere on earth probably killing puppies or something but definitely wasn't there, and the other of whom was presumably relaxing on a beach on a still-existing Chronyca-2, a planet near a star in the constellation known as Cygnus, prior to being set ablaze, heated to the melting point, and then the magma turning to stone.

Knowing very well who Harry Potter was, but having no clue who Ward or Chronicom were, up at the staff table Dumbledore decided to focus on Fitz first, and worry about the other two people once he had the one student who he knew was in the Great Hall, over in the side room like he was supposed to be already.

So for the third time he called out, "Harry! Harry Potter! Come up here!", while looking down the Gryffindor table until he spotted Fitz sitting with the muggleborn Granger girl whom he was always with.

Seeing Fitz make no motion to come forward, he looked over at Professor McGonagall and told her to go get Harry and bring him forward. Angry both at one of her House members embarrassing the school by entering their name when they had explicitly been told that they couldn't, and then not obeying Dumbledore's order to come forward when their name had come out, McGonagall stormed down to where FitzSimmons were sitting, every head in the hall turned towards her to watch the impending showdown.

As McGonagall got down to them, before the older woman could get a word in, Fitz said in a tone that left no room for argument, "It can't be me, I didn't enter myself. It must be some other Harry Potter."

"I saw you enter! And you told me that you entered multiple times!" McGonagall shouted.

"We said no such thing, and we did no such thing," Simmons replied coldly. "Those were not our names that we entered during our experimentation this morning. Ward and Atarah, that Dumbledore just called out — those are ours, to test the hypothesis that you can enter yourself under a made-up school and get in. So you can forget about them, since you're not getting Atarah here no matter how much magic you have, and we're killing Ward on sight if you somehow do manage to find him, though I seriously doubt you can and he's not magical anyway. But Harry Potter is not ours. Sara Jones is sort of ours, as we showed her how to get past the stupid, pointless, virtue-signaling age restriction that protects absolutely no one but your own arses, but we only showed that it was possible to get past the restriction, we didn't enter her name for her, or the name of any other student in this castle."

McGonagall stared at Simmons for several seconds, before finally deciding it was best to take the normal adult approach and brush off everything that a student said as completely unimportant, and instead said, "Potter, come with me to the front, your name came out and you have to compete."

But Simmons wasn't having any of that bullshite, and demanded icily, "Prove it. Magically prove to us that that's my Harry whose name that came out of the Goblet, and not some other Harry Potter. And then give us a bloody damn good explanation for how you could be so monumentally incompetent so as to allow students to be entered against their will in a tournament that they can't get out of if someone else does enter them. And explain to us how this is not clear-cut slavery, the kind that most of the world got rid of a century or more ago. Because Harry did not fucking enter himself, which means if there exist magical contracts in the wizarding world that you can enter someone else into without their consent or a court order, that is no different than slavery. And this tournament of yours is no different than a Nazi concentration camp or Japanese POW camp! And possibly just as deadly based on how Dumbledore's gone on about underage students like Harry not being able to survive it at the two feasts he's talked about it during!"

"But—! Potter's going to be able to compete in the TriWizard Cup and have a chance to win!" McGonagall exclaimed, like she thought that this was some great privilege Fitz had been given instead of the cruelest of kidnappings and enslavement. "This is a great honor for Potter!"

"Which we don't give a bloody fuck about!" Simmons shouted right back, no way in hell about to back down to someone who was either willingly letting herself become a slave owner or else was so monumentally irresponsible that she should never be allowed anywhere near children, let alone in charge of them. "We don't want in your stupid tournament, we never have! And now you've violated every basic human right that exists by having a tournament that he can't get out of when he never agreed to compete if his name did come out, because he never entered his bloody name! So prove to us right this minute that my Harry is the one whose name came out of your stupid goblet or I'll shove my wand straight up your arse, and possibly quite literally! I wonder if rape or murder are sufficient grounds to nullify your contract — slave owner!"

McGonagall stared at Simmons in unadulterated shock for several seconds, not actually absorbing anything that the muggleborn had accused her of but definitely speechless at having been shouted at so much, before finally saying sternly, "Stay right here" (like they were going to go anywhere), and walking back up to the staff table where she whispered to Dumbledore again. A minute later, they both returned to where FitzSimmons were still sitting.

"You want proof that the Harry Potter whose name came out of the goblet is Harry Potter, is that right?" Dumbledore asked, like that was all that Simmons had said in her five minute diatribe, and she hadn't accused them all of literal kidnapping and slavery.

"Damn straight we do," Fitz answered with a glare. "We want a whole lot more than that — we want justice — but you can certainly start with proving that it's me, and thereby proving your incompetence and culpability."

Dumbledore pulled out his wand and waved it over the slip of parchment which he had brought with him, which glowed blue. A second later Jemma gasped, pointing at her husband — he was glowing blue, too. Dumbledore waved his wand again, and both glows disappeared.

"Satisfied?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes — and I forfeit," Fitz answered. "Does that work? Because if it doesn't, like Hermione said, this is literal slavery. Which is illegal and a blatant violation of human rights, and I demand that whoever entered my name be arrested and sentenced to the death penalty or Azkaban for life. Actually, I demand that even if I can forfeit, and I also hold each and every single one of you responsible for allowing this slavery to occur within your castle. This is as much your fault as it is whoever actually entered me, and I will be pressing charges against every single one of you just as soon as we figure out how."

"Yes — we want a full investigation launched by the Ministry to determine who put Harry's name in, and we want them arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Simmons added. "Like Harry said, do you have the death penalty in the wizarding world? — I think slavery could certainly deserve that."

Dumbledore and McGonagall just kind of stared at the two of them for several long seconds, never having expected any such reactions from a student, be it not wanting to participate in only the greatest honor ever created or being so caught up in their name being entered for them by some magnanimous third-party, but Dumbledore finally attempted a fatherly demeanor that really just came across as brushing them off as just being children who couldn't possibly understand the way the real world worked, saying, "Yes, well, I will personally look into who entered you, if you will just step into the next room, Harry, as your name did come out of the goblet and we really need to give you all your instructions about the tournament before it gets any later than it already is."

Not seeing a strong enough reason to start killing anyone for human trafficking yet, FitzSimmons stood up as one and started walking towards the door leading off to the adjoining room.

Right on cue, McGonagall exclaimed, "Granger! Not you! This is only for the champions!"

Deciding to show rather than tell, as trying to reason with a fool makes you a fool yourself, Simmons just gave the older woman the middle finger over her shoulder, never even turning around as she and her husband kept walking. McGonagall wisely shut the hell up.

When they entered the room, Fleur was the first to turn around.

" 'Arry? 'Ermione? What are you two doing 'ere?"

"Someone entered Harry, enslaving him in this tournament," Simmons answered concisely. "We demanded an investigation and the incarceration of whoever did it, but our headmaster pretty much just brushed us off and told Harry to get his arse in here, that he really didn't care that a student of his had been enslaved, the bloody tournament rules were more important to him than the sanctity of human freedom. So here we are — pissed off, but here."

But before Fleur or anyone else could reply to that, Ludo Bagman burst into the room behind them muttering, "Extraordinary! Absolutely extraordinary! Gentleman…ladies…. May I introduce — incredible though it may seem — the fourth TriWizard champion!"

"Out of six!" Fitz hurriedly added to the room at large. "There are two more, that we entered ourselves as a test to see whether Dumbledore and the Ministry's age-restriction could be beat, which Sara here used to successfully enter herself as she's clearly better suited for this tournament than any of the adult students from Hogwarts who entered. But as one of those two additional entrants is probably busy murdering puppies and generally learning how to be evil from the Clairvoyant, and the other is a sentient alien robot from a solar system far away from here, and neither of whom have any magic to lose by not competing, it is highly unlikely that either of them will actually be making an appearance at any of the tasks."

Everyone except for Simmons just kind of stared at him, having no clue what to make of the words coming out of his mouth, or the fact that three extra names had apparently come out of the Goblet of Fire after they had all left the Great Hall (Mr Bagman the one exception to that part, but even he had no clue who the two extra names were).

But never one to leave a good silence alone, Mr Bagman soon began rambling, "As you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as his name's come out of the goblet — I mean, I don't think there can be any ducking out at this stage. It's down in the rules, you're obliged to compete. Harry will just have to do the best he —"

Thankfully his rambling was cut short at that moment by the three headmasters entering the room, arguing heatedly about the fact that Hogwarts had two entrants, and both of them were underage. Snape, who had entered the room with them for reasons only known to himself, of course had to thrown in, "It's no one's fault but Potter's, Karkaroff. Don't go blaming Dumbledore for Potter's determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here," so FitzSimmons dutifully flicked him off in return, silently reminding him that the next time he tried to abuse a student in one of the classes that they were in, they would be attacking him with vengeance to protect said student from his abuse. It shut Snape up real quickly.

The headmasters' pointless banter continued on for a while, but in the end Mr Crouch made the ruling that there was nothing that could be done, and Harry Potter was well and truly now a slave of Hogwarts and the British Ministry and everyone else in charge of this tournament, and had to compete in the arena — just without actually acknowledging that Fitz was enslaved by them, of course. And all just in time for Professor Moody to clunk out of the shadows (where there must have been a candle burnt out) and ominously imply that whoever had entered Potter had done so as a convoluted, overly complex assassination attempt of the Boy-Who-Lived, though all that the retired auror actually said was that it was possible that someone had entered Harry Potter hoping that he would die — the convoluted and overly complex part was just in FitzSimmons' minds, having seen, heard about, and knowing actual assassination attempts in their day job, that didn't require so much chance, luck, and 'Harry Potter' not actually being a well-trained spy.

But as for the idea itself, FitzSimmons were intrigued. It hadn't been something that they had been thinking about previously — in fact, they hadn't got around to thinking about the why at all, only the what — but now that Professor Moody had said it out loud, it did seem like as good of an explanation as any other, though most likely by an inexperienced or first time assassin, as it didn't seem to them very well thought out or controlled. For the most important reason that it made the very erroneous assumption that they were going to be putting themselves in any kind of danger whatsoever for them to be killed or even lightly scratched during the tournament. Of course, FitzSimmons saw no reason to mention any of this to the people who couldn't even keep them from being enslaved in the first place, or else encouraged slavery as they had presumably been the ones to write the rules the way that they had that opened up the possibility of slavery, and so kept their mouths shut and let the adults get on with their bitching, which seemed about all any of them were actually capable of doing.

But in the end everyone finally shut up long enough for Mr Crouch to tell the champions that the first task was going to be a complete mystery, good luck not dying. He also said that they were going to face the first challenge armed only with their wands, but FitzSimmons knew that for them at least, that was not true — they were also going to be armed with an overabundance of confidence.

After leaving the meeting, once they were well out of earshot of any of the judges, Sara looked over at FitzSimmons and said, "Thank you for figuring out how underage students could enter, and telling me and the others who were able to enter before Professor McGonagall came along and ended it."

As she was a fellow Gryffindor, the three of them were walking together back up to Gryffindor Tower.

"Of course, no problem," Simmons answered. "We were curious whether we could beat Dumbledore's magic, and once we figured out that we could, since we disagree with the adults' stated reason for the rule, we weren't about to keep what we knew a secret from any underage students who did want to enter. We're only sorry that McGonagall caught us so early, and the entire castle didn't have the chance to enter."

"And best of luck to you, we hope you do well," Fitz added.

A few minutes later when the three of them entered the Gryffindor common room, a blast of noise collided with their eardrums, nearly all of Gryffindor House standing there screaming, applauding, and whistling for their two champions. And at the front, the obvious party organizers, were the twins.

"How did you do it without getting beards?! You're brilliant!" George exclaimed.

"You should've told us you'd entered, and how!" Fred added. "We would have tried again as well!"

"And how did you both manage to get in for Hogwarts?" Lee asked.

"Calm down, calm down," Fitz said patiently, taking charge of the situation. "We did not enter my name. Now, before you don't believe me, we did enter Ward and Atarah's names as a proof of concept, whom you saw come out after my name. And Sara here did use our long stick method to stay outside of the age-circle in order to enter herself, as did at least two dozen other underage students before that method, and any other possible methods, were shut down by McGonagall's arrival. But as far as Hermione or my own names go, we did not enter either of us into the Goblet, because we don't want to be in this tournament, and whether you heard it or not, we did everything we could to get out of it when McGonagall and Dumbledore came down to talk to us. But since we proved with Ward and Atarah that if you entered a name with a new, fake school you automatically got picked as the only entrant for that school, we believe that someone entered my name under some made-up school. And Professor Moody, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, believes that it was done in an attempt to murder me during the tournament somehow."

"And as for why we didn't tell you three, you were still in the hospital wing getting your beards trimmed when Professor McGonagall caught us testing our flying theory after we let everyone who was around and wanted to enter themselves with the stick, and from that moment forward, there was always a professor standing in the entrance hall making sure that no one else underaged successfully entered themselves," Simmons continued. "As for how Sara and the others entered, as long as you never touched the ground inside the circle, you were fine. Sara and the others used a twelve foot stick with the parchment loosely stabbed onto the end to slip it off into the Goblet, though presumably just tying it to a rock and tossing it in would have worked as well. But we also proved that if you use Wingardium Leviosa to float a person over to the Goblet without ever touching the ground, they could drop their name into the Goblet and float back out without ever getting bearded. But just to reiterate, since this is all you're actually going to remember of this conversation, while Sara and a couple dozen other students used the stick method to enter themselves, and we support their doing so as an act of civil disobedience against the pointless, virtue-signaling rule that actually makes the tournament less safe as Sara here proves by being Hogwarts' champion, Harry and I never entered either of our names into the Goblet because we don't want to be in this tournament, so we don't know for sure how Harry's name came out — BUT IT WAS NOT US!"

Despite FitzSimmons' long and thorough insistence that they hadn't entered themselves, it was very clear to them in the shocked silence that followed their speeches that most of their fellow Gryffindor students did not believe the duo, the looks ranging from polite scoffing to incredulous disbelief on their faces broadcasting their true beliefs for anyone observant enough to read like a book, which FitzSimmons easily could.

But no amount of disbelief that FitzSimmons hadn't entered themselves was going to stop a twins' party for long, which was exactly what had been going on before the three champions had arrived from their post-selection meeting. Because despite everyone having just come from a feast, the twins had quickly whipped up a party in the common room to celebrate Gryffindor having not just one, but two champions in the TriWizard Tournament, and even before the champions themselves had arrived, everyone was partying like there weren't multiple feasts every year, the twins didn't do this after every single Gryffindor quidditch win, and this wasn't the third party in just over twenty-four hours.

So having a champion insist (or lie, as many of them truly believed and their faces showed) that he hadn't entered himself (what Granger had to do with anything they didn't know, sure the pair had walked into the other room together, but only Harry Potter had been selected as the champion) wasn't about to cause more than a few short seconds of shocked silence, at which point first one, and then another, and soon a plethora of students who didn't care one way or the other who had or hadn't entered themselves, shifted their rousing celebrations primarily over Sara, as she they could party over without question. And so the party was quickly back to roaring at full strength, the partying itself all that most of them cared about, not whether FitzSimmons' story about not entering themselves was actually true or not.

Even though they had no interest in partying and really just wanted to get to bed so that they could be up bright and early again the next morning to continue their magical learning, FitzSimmons didn't immediately disappear, slowly meandering through the revelers to the food table to nab a few of their more favorite biscuits and other desserts, before wandering over to the window by the fireplace to look out at the moonlit grounds and star-strewn sky as they ate. At some point as they nibbled away and acted overly romantic by feeding each other, Lee materialized a Gryffindor banner from somewhere and draped it around Sara's shoulders, after receiving two wands pointed straight at his face and heart whenever he'd tried to do it to the Boy-Who-Lived first a minute before.

But eventually FitzSimmons finished eating and really were ready to be alone, and had just made their way through the throng of revelers and over to the staircases to head down to their dorm to commiserate being enslaved in their own, much more intimate way than the still raging party, when they were waylaid by one Ronald Weasley, who did not look happy. Sure, he was 'grinning', but it was much more of a grimace or a forced grin than being either pleased for Harry Potter that he had made it into the tournament, or consolatory for FitzSimmons that Fitz (and therefore the better half as well) had been enslaved into the tournament — or maybe he just really needed to take a dump.

"So — congratulations."

"Really? Because you sure don't look happy that my name came out of the Goblet," Fitz replied bluntly. "I mean, neither am I, but our displeasures about this situation just don't quite feel the same."

"I thought you might've told me how you did it. I thought we were friends and all."

"I didn't do it. We did Ward and Atarah, and showed Sara and a couple dozen others how to do it, but I didn't enter my own name, or Hermione's name, and Hermione didn't enter my or her own name either," Fitz answered. "Apparently someone else did, though whether benevolently or malevolently, we don't know. As for not telling you how to do it, you were in the Great Hall eating when we figured out how, and were still in there eating when McGonagall caught us and ended the opportunity for anyone who hadn't done it yet. And by the way — 'friend' is an awfully strong word. 'Acquaintance' is about the best you can hope for right now, but I'm thinking 'entitled bitch' is more appropriate at the moment."

"Why would someone put your name in the Goblet for you?" Ron sneered, very reminiscent of Malfoy at his best — worst.

"Professor Moody thinks it's an assassination attempt to kill the Boy-Who-Lived," Simmons answered, speaking up for the first time.

"Kill you?! Who would want to kill you?" Ron scoffed at Fitz. "That's pathetic — you could have come up with a better excuse than that. It's okay, you know — you can tell me the truth. If you don't want everyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie, you didn't get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady's, that Violet, she's already told us all that Dumbledore's letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don't have to do end-of-year tests, either."

"Only you don't want to do end-of-year tests, we love them and look forward to them every spring," Simmons sneered right back at the redhead, before continuing on in a more reasonable tone, "Well, no, actually most of you people don't want to do tests — or homework, or any kind of work at all for that matter — but Harry and I will certainly still be doing all the tests we can, because to be perfectly honest, we kind of get off on them. Or after them, at least."

"And Dumbledore isn't 'letting' us do anything, he is forcing us against our will to compete, like some Ancient Rome gladiator coliseum games or for most of the world pre-twentieth century slave ownership. We don't want to be in this stupid tournament, and we certainly won't be winning any money, as we aren't going to be trying," Fitz continued where his wife left off. "And name a single time that we have ever lied to you since meeting you. Not told you things that were none of your business, sure, but never lied. We. Did. Not. Enter. Ourselves."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," Ron replied, clearly not believing a word out of their mouths. "Only you've said yourself that you entered names. Who in their right mind wouldn't enter their own name when they had the chance? Everyone wants to be in this tournament, it's the most famous thing in the world with a ton of money and fame for the winner. I'm not stupid, you know."

Knowing a lost cause when he saw one, Fitz quit all attempts at convincing the redhead that they hadn't entered themselves, and instead went on the offensive. "And here I thought you considered yourself our friend. A friend would be happy that their friend got into the tournament, or else sad for them because they were put in against their will. What a friend would never do is petulantly accuse their friend of continuously lying, while refusing to listen to anything that their friend tried to explain to them."

"Yeah, well, you said it yourself, I'm not your friend," Ron snarled, certainly doing nothing to try to earn their friendship.

"And we're clearly not your friends, either, something you're proving more and more every time you open your mouth," Fitz answered coldly. "Now either get out of our way, or grow a pair of bollocks and try to punch me like you want to but are too cowardly to actually do, hence the reason you're trying to make us feel bad about you instead."

Completely ignoring the questioning of his possession or lack thereof of bollocks, Ron sneered, "Yeah, you'll be wanting to get to bed, Harry. I expect you'll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something," before turning and storming up the boys stairs to his dorm room to sulk some more alone.

Finally rid of the git, FitzSimmons continued on down to their own dorm where they spent a much more pleasant and pleasurable remainder of the evening than Ron did eight floors above them, before finally going to sleep.