Out of everyone's reaction to Harry 'The Boy-Who-Lived' Potter's name coming out of the Goblet of Fire, the one that FitzSimmons were looking forward to the most was Malfoy's.

They knew that there was no way in hell the bully was going to be able to keep his hands — or tongue — off of this one, even if every single one of his attempts to bully FitzSimmons over the three and a quarter years that they'd been at the school had fallen flat on its metaphorical face — from the very tip top of the Burj Khalifa, had it been built yet. And Monday morning, they weren't disappointed. They were waiting outside of Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures class to start, when Malfoy swaggered up from behind them, a very Ron-on-Saturday-night-in-the-common-room-after-Harry-Potter's-name-came-out-of-the-Goblet-like sneer firmly in place.

"Ah, look boys, it's the champion," he drawled as soon as he got within earshot of Fitz, to his two bodyguard trolls and the couple of Slytherin girls who hung around him for his family's money, as well of course to everyone else in the class. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer. Half the Triwizard champions have died. How long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task's my bet."

"I, who have been locked in a secure room with a superhumanly powerful formerly-robot ex-girlfriend finding out for the first time that I wasn't staying with her, shall do just fine in this pathetic little tournament that you're so clearly scared of," Fitz answered with an air of superiority that Malfoy wasn't used to out of his bullying victims. "In fact, I'm more afraid of what this one might do to me if I don't do my homework on time, than anything I could have to face in these upcoming tasks. In fact, that would actually be a really good task — escape from Hermione Granger after not doing your homework you had a week to complete."

Simmons slapped her husband in the stomach as she rolled her eyes at him — he really was going to get it for that later when they got back to the privacy of their dorm room, even if 'get it' would actually turn out quite pleasurable for both of them. Malfoy, on the other hand, stared at Fitz in shock, still not knowing how he was supposed to handle one of his helpless victims throwing the heat right back at him. And he was still just staring speechlessly at Fitz trying to come up with any kind of witty and biting retort when Hagrid came around the side of his hut to start the day's lesson. A lesson that Hagrid didn't let FitzSimmons participate in at the start, as he called Harry Potter over to discuss the TriWizard tournament instead.

"So — yer competin', Harry. In the tournament. School champion."

"No."

Hagrid stared in shock at Fitz out of his wild, scruffy tangle of a beard, clearly having expected a completely different answer, having been there when Harry Potter's name had come out of the goblet.

So Simmons quickly explained, "What Harry means is, that while we are in the tournament, we are not competing — or not really, at least. You, like everyone else in the school, knows that Harry is enslaved in this tournament, but calling what we're going to be doing 'competing' would be a disservice to the three champions who entered the tournament. Because we will just be doing whatever the absolute minimum is not to lose our magic. So by that definition, and that definition alone, we will be 'competing' as required by the rules of the tournament that we have been enslaved in. But by the spirit of the word 'competing', as Harry said, we will most certainly not be doing any such thing."

Hagrid continued staring at them shock for several more long seconds, before finally exclaiming, "But you're goin' ter win, Harry! I know it! I can feel it in me bones!"

"Only if everyone else quits," Fitz answered shortly before turning and walking back over to the skrewts, ending the conversation.

If the adults genuinely expected the three non-selected Houses to support the Hogwarts champion and/or Harry Potter, they were incalculably stupid and couldn't have been more wrong if they had tried.

Then again, half of the two opposing Heads of House — Ms Pomona Sprout of Hufflepuff — was acting unbecoming of a 'professor' herself, nearly as cold towards Fitz in their Herbology classes that following week as the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students were all of the time since Harry Potter's name had come out. Snape, of course, obviously wasn't even worth bothering to count, as he already hated and abused all non-Slytherins regardless of TriWizard selection status. So only Professor Flitwick was actually acting like a losing Head of House should and setting a good example for the students of the castle, politely wishing Fitz the best of luck in the tournament as FitzSimmons walked out of their first Charms class following the choosing of the champions.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to any smart, observant person that all of the losing Houses' students were acting the way that they were, given how most of their role models were acting. Now, it was true that the Hufflepuff students (following their Head of House's example) and Ravenclaw students were significantly less openly hostile than Snape and his den of Snakes, but they were still everything but supportive of the underage Gryffindor champion, and even more so of FitzSimmons since Harry Potter was already so famous and now looked like he was trying to get himself even more fame.

So after several days of open hostility and attempted bullying by Slytherin, and blatant cold-shouldering by Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Snape, and Sprout towards not just Fitz, but all of Gryffindor House that they could see, FitzSimmons went to Sara to find out if she was being treated as poorly as Fitz and what they could see of the rest of Gryffindor House were. Being closer to the age limit, along with being slightly more likely to be considered the rightful Hogwarts champion having had her name come out first, combined with not having the stigma of fame attached to her name that Harry Potter did, they hoped that just maybe she was being treated with slightly more respect, but their hopes weren't high.

FitzSimmons didn't care how the school treated them — they could handle all of the shit that the school could possibly throw at them and far, far more (planets halfway across the galaxy, the Matrix ran by a robot with anger management issues — so basically the Matrix — and literal death, just to name a few) — but when the school was treating the rightful champion who had earned her way into the tournament by being the best Hogswartian to enter their name, as they found out was the case when they went to talk to her on Thursday night, they had to do something. So Friday afternoon after their last class, they knocked on the door of Professor McGonagall's office.

Once inside and seated, Simmons demanded without preamble or pleasantries, "Do your job as a professor and an adult and make the school and Ms Sprout stop bullying Sara for being picked as the Hogwarts champion. Snape we'll take care of ourselves if we catch him — we already made him that promise last year — but Sprout and all of the students are your responsibility."

Like pretty much every time they were in her office, McGonagall stared at Simmons in shock for several seconds. And when she did finally speak, she completely ignored everything that Simmons had said — also like normal.

"Why come to me?" she asked, deflecting Simmons' very reasonable demand, which the biochemist shouldn't have even had to demand in the first place, because the professors should have already been doing it, it being their literal fucking jobs to make sure that none of their students were being abused. "Why not go to Professor Sprout or Professor Flitwick themselves about their Houses' behavior?"

"Because you're our Head of House, and therefore our point of contact to the rest of the staff, in addition to being the deputy headmistress, and therefore their boss and the highest person we can talk to directly since we can't go straight to Dumbledore, and it's unlikely that he would do anything anyway, as he clearly hasn't told his staff to act like fucking adults and not petulant, whining, bitching, temper tantrum-throwing children since their House didn't win," Fitz answered icily, sick and tired of her bullshite and continual refusal to take any kind of responsibility for anything.

"And you are a single meeting that can take care of everything, instead of having to have separate meetings with two Heads of House who aren't our own, and therefore would most likely tell us to come to you anyway. And even if they didn't, and did accept a meeting with us, we would still end up having to come to you when Ms Sprout denied that she was abusing Gryffindor, and didn't start doing a bloody thing about making her House stop, or herself stoping either, since she clearly wants to punish Gryffindor for the nerve of having a more worthy underaged sixth year than her entire House has of-age students, or we wouldn't be having this bloody conversation in the first point because she wouldn't be treating Sara like shite for being selected, you fucking moron!" Simmons added, losing her own patience with the deputy headmistress in the face of such idiocy. Taking a deep breath to calm herself slightly, she finished up her scolding, "We are just skipping all the in-between steps, and going straight to where we'd have to end up anyway, to make things better for the Hogwarts champion sooner rather than later — and that is obviously Sara, in case your head is so far up your arse that you might think that we're talking about Harry."

"And what exactly do you expect me to do?" McGonagall asked after a few seconds of more shocked staring, once again avoiding the important thing, which was that the 'adults' of the castle were doing absolutely nothing to stop any bullying, rather encouraging and supporting it by their lack of action against it.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to know as a bloody teacher?" Fitz growled, before saying sarcastically, "How exactly did you ever convince anyone to let you be in charge of children?"

But Simmons replied with more of an actual answer, saying, "For starters, you could tell Sprout to act like a bloody adult, and stop being cold towards the champion simply because Sara was the most worthy despite being younger than all the 'legal' entrants. And then tell both her and Professor Flitwick to meet with their respective Houses and tell them to be supportive of the Hogwarts champion, instead of being abusive towards her, and that any student who doesn't treat her with respect will face severe detentions and possible expulsion. True, that will do little actual good if none of you actually start giving out detention for blatant acts of demoralization and bullying, but it's at least a start. And then a public announcement in the Great Hall by all of the professors together, starting with Dumbledore himself, saying that Sara is the rightful Hogwarts champion and has just as much — or more, actually, since she was picked — right to be competing in this tournament, regardless of her age, as all of the of-age students who lost to her would've had had the spot been given to them instead, would be another helpful gesture. And finally, starting to actually open your bloody eyes and look for acts of bullying against all of the Gryffindors by the other three Houses, and giving out real punishments instead of taking away completely meaningless House Points — especially since there probably isn't even going to be a House Cup this year, since the other two schools are here and the TriWizard Tournament is going on instead, and there hasn't been a peep about it all year. Those would be a start. But like Harry said — stopping bullying is your fucking job as a professor, it's your goddamn responsibility to know how to do it!"

And with that final proclamation she and Fitz stood up and strode out the door, expecting absolutely nothing to change because it never did.

~FS~

And despite never having taken a single day of Divination, and not being Robin or Robin's dad, Simmons' prediction was dead on, making her better at future telling than 99.9% of what Trelawney did — a fact highlighted by Malfoy before their midweek Potions class the following week.

FitzSimmons were milling about outside of the dungeon door — pissing Snape off with their mere presence by always being the first ones to a class that he did everything in his power to make them hate — when Malfoy and Gang swaggered up, real pleased with themselves and wearing badges to prove it. Badges that glowed brightly, SUPPORT VIKTOR KRUM — A REAL CHAMPION!

"Like them, Potter?" Malfoy sneered loudly as FitzSimmons looked at the badge on his chest to read it. "And this isn't all they do — look!"

And the words on the badge changed to 'POTTER STINKS!' when he pressed the badge, before changing to 'AND JONES AND GRYFFINDOR!' when he pressed it again. As the badge changed, all of the Slytherins gathered around him guffawed and howled with laughter, before pressing their own badges to make them all read POTTER STINKS!

"Wow, so you know basic spells to make letters change," Simmons retorted condescendingly. "Congratulations on passing first year charms. Or did you have to go find a seventh year Slytherin and make them do it for you, because you aren't smart enough to do it yourself?"

Malfoy stared at her in shock, his brilliantly crafted plan to ridicule Potter and his mudblood tag-a-long not going quite as planned, before his shock quickly started turning into anger at being ridiculed himself.

So he snapped, "Well, I was going to offer you one, but I don't want a mudblood sliming up my freshly washed hands taking it."

"Okay then, I'll buy the entire box so you don't have to touch me," Simmons replied calmly. "Surely mudblood — mud, I guess? — can't be transferred several inches over cardboard, or whatever you have your badges stored in."

Malfoy didn't really know how to respond to this, until he suddenly realized that he could make a pretty penny off of it (or else not have to give her any at all), and still make more later to sell to the rest of the castle. There were only fifteen to twenty in the box that he had, but as Granger wouldn't know that before she bought the box, he had no problem lying his arse off for money that he didn't even need in the first place.

"All right, then — a galleon apiece. And there's probably several dozen, so call it fifty galleons for the box."

"Your money's in the same place as your human decency," Simmons replied, before turning to her husband and high-fiving him for her sick burn.

Malfoy snarled and whipped his wand out of his robes. He went to point it at Simmons, but Fitz stepped in front of his wife to protect her, so the wand ended up pointed at his chest instead. All around them people scrambled out of the way, flattening themselves up against the walls to avoid all of the spells that might soon be flying.

But Fitz merely stared down the bully dead in his eyes, growling icily, "Point that at my girl again, and I will rip it out of your hand, snap it in half, and shove both pieces straight up your arsehole."

As ninety percent of Malfoy pointing his wand at someone was to create fear in them, not to actually cast a curse at them, Fitz's complete lack of fear standing there with Malfoy's wand pointed in his chest, was causing problems for Malfoy. How was he supposed to terrorize Potter into submission if the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't afraid of his bluff? And seriously — what the bloody hell was wrong with these two?! They never acted like anyone else in the school ever did, and it infuriated and stumped him to no end.

In truth Fitz was actually quite afraid as Malfoy had proven over the years that he would in fact curse someone, and would curse unarmed victims at that, but the veteran Shield field agent had enough experience not to show that fear. Additionally, he thought it fairly unlikely that the bully would curse a clearly unarmed victim at point blank with the entire Gryffindor fourth year class standing there watching him, at least one of whom might attack him if he attacked their favorite, Potter, and also with no better excuse to give Snape than, 'His girl said mean shit to me'. Whether Malfoy also knew that Snape's hands were tied by FitzSimmons should the chief Snake try to punish FitzSimmons somehow, or not punish Malfoy for cursing an unarmed Fitz point blank execution style, Fitz didn't know, but regardless, standing toe to toe with Malfoy appearing unafraid seemed like the best course of action in this situation, and a most likely safe one, as well. That if it turned out not to be, his wife would probably instantly kill the bully in self-defense (of him), and that wasn't something Madam Pomfrey could ever fix, unlike whatever Malfoy cursed Fitz with to make Simmons have to kill Malfoy.

The staredown between Fitz and Malfoy lasted for several seconds, Malfoy not daring to actually cast a curse that there was no way he could talk his way out of with that many witnesses but also not wanting to look like the coward that he truly was by immediately lowering his wand against a completely unarmed boy, when the situation was suddenly resolved for him much to his relief.

"And what is this about?" came the soft, deadly voice of the Potions master from his classroom doorway.

Slytherins and Gryffindors alike clamored to give their explanation of the standoff, before Snape pointed at the only human being whom he almost sort of liked, one Draco Malfoy, and said, "Put your wand away and explain."

Malfoy put his wand back in his robes, but for once in his life he struggled to find an answer for his favorite teacher. The mudblood had insulted him. Anything short of a complete lie, which the Gryffindors could easily call him out on, and he had absolutely nothing to defend his pointing a wand at Potter, or actually Granger before Potter had stepped in the way.

So he simply muttered sulkily, "Nothing," before brushing past Snape and heading into the dungeon.

When Snape simply growled to everyone else, "Get inside," and turned and headed in himself, the Gryffindors burst out in angry shouts about Malfoy not being punished for pointing his wand at another student.

Snape turned back around and very briefly glanced in fear at FitzSimmons, but when they didn't have their wands pointed at him already cursing him, he snarled at the rest of the class, "Get inside or it'll be fifty points from Gryffindor for talking back to a professor, and detentions if you continue."

As no one other than FitzSimmons had promised Snape to physically hurt him if he continued being abusive, and no one else had FitzSimmons' diplomatic immunity from being expelled, they all immediately hurried into the classroom still muttering threats under their breaths, but not actually doing anything. And FitzSimmons didn't see this as a blatant enough instance of child abuse to go through the hassle of being called into McGonagall or Dumbledore's office for sending Snape to the hospital wing, especially since his abuse was against them and not one of the other students, so they likewise let him walk free this time, waiting for a more obvious case to strike on, knowing that one would eventually come, it always did.

Once everyone was seated in the dungeon, Snape, with his cold black eyes glittering in the candlelight of the room, sneered unpleasantly, "Antidotes! You should all have prepared your recipes by now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one."

Simmons immediately raised her hand. When Snape completely ignored it as he turned back towards the blackboard, she asked loudly anyway, "You're going to poison one of your students? You're going to poison them, in your classroom, surrounded by witnesses? Not to help you out here or anything, but that is really stupid. Which, I mean, we all know that you're stupid, and even more cowardly than you are stupid, but surely even you are not so monumentally imbecilic as to poison a child when there are nine other students around who can go report you to every professor in this castle, and some of your own House might even decide to turn their back on you if they watch you attempt to murder a Gryffindor right in front of their eyes. And if that doesn't work, because either the students or the professors are all so terrified of you, they can write home to their parents who can then go to the magical police, who can storm this castle with their SWAT team equivalent and arrest you for the attempted murder of a minor, completely bypassing all of the protections Dumbledore has set up for you, that are only surpassed by what he has set up to make sure that Harry Potter is never expelled from this castle."

As Snape and most of the class stared at her in shock, and in Snape's case quickly turning into a glare, Fitz leaned over and whispered into his wife's ear, "You're going to make him poison you if you keep this up."

"That's the idea," Simmons whispered back. "Remember getting Mack to let you out of your cell after you restored Daisy's powers? That's the plan. I'll even volunteer myself as a sacrifice if he picks Neville instead."

But before Snape could actually say anything in reply to Simmons, there was a knock on the dungeon door and third year Colin Creevey of all people entered the dungeon of doom and despair.

As Snape turned to glare at the newcomer like he was the root of all of Snape's problems and loss, instead of Snape's own personal decisions throughout his life, Creevey said eagerly, "Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs."

"No."

Everyone but Simmons turned to stare in shock at the source of the voice. Which happened to be none other than Fitz himself, better known to everyone else in there as Harry Potter, fourth TriWizard champion, and whom Creevey had been sent to retrieve. Also who, if any of the Gryffindors had been in his place, would have leapt, jumped, and scrambled at the opportunity to get out of Snape's class before it started and would have already been halfway upstairs by that point, not sitting calmly in his seat, getting his materials ready to make his antidote, saying 'no'.

After several seconds of deathly silence, Snape finally growled out the words that probably hurt him more than any other words that he had ever said before in his entire life. "Potter is right. He has another hour of Potions to complete. He will come upstairs when this class is finished."

Visibly scared of Snape's cold glare, but either more afraid of or in love with whoever had sent him, or else wanting more to spend time alone with the Boy-Who-Lived walking from the dungeon to upstairs than he was afraid of Snape, Creevey bravely soldiered on, "Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him. All the champions have got to go. I think they want to take photographs."

At that, the Slytherin half of the dungeon burst out into cruel, ridiculing laughter at Harry Potter, but Snape and FitzSimmons ignored them.

And apparently Snape had been told by Dumbledore that he had to listen to anything that Mr Bagman or any of the other judges said about the TriWizard Tournament — as the only person whom he ever ever listened to was his Master Dumbledore, unless FitzSimmons were pointing their wands at him — because the next moment the Potions Master actually turned to Fitz and snapped, "Very well, very well. Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote."

Creevey opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, Fitz said, "No. It's not one of the three tasks, we're not going."

Once again everyone turned to stare at him in shock, as this certainly wasn't how any of them would have been reacting had they been in his shoes.

Finally, Snape looked back over at Creevey and snarled, "Get out of here. We have class."

This Creevey obeyed, but it wasn't too many minutes after he had scampered out of the room with his tail tucked between his legs that there came another knock on the dungeon door and Mr Bagman himself entered this time, like he should have done the first time instead of pulling some student out of their own class (at least based on FitzSimmons' own Gryffindor third year class schedule the year before when they had been in class during this period) and sending them to do his tournament work for him. Especially into the jaws of the Snake. Especially especially apparently without having told the Snake beforehand that one of his students was going to be needing to leave class early that day for a sanctioned school event, because all of the adults in the castle were such colossal morons. Creevey also apparently hadn't told Mr Bagman that it was Fitz who had refused to come, not Snape who had refused to let Harry Potter come, or at least that was what Mr Bagman had heard, as the boisterous man addressed Snape, not Fitz.

"My dear man, I really must insist that Harry comes with me! It's the Wand Weighing Ceremony, and of course we have to make sure that all of the champions' wands are in tip-top shape before they compete in the first task of the tournament! Can't have any faulty wands! Besides, the Daily Prophet needs photos of the four champions for their article!"

So before Snape could reply, and so that Mr Bagman would know who it was who was really refusing to skip class, Fitz said to Mr Bagman, "No. It is not competing in the tournament, and therefore we cannot lose our magic by not going, so were not. If you still want to weigh our wands once class is over, come back and ask us again then, but right now we're staying in class — at this school, not sports training facility."

"But Harry!" Mr Bagman whined. "We have to check that your wands are fully functional, and have no problems, you know, as they are your most important tools in the tasks ahead! And there's a Daily Prophet reporter upstairs who is doing an article on the tournament. Everyone's there, waiting on you!"

This time, it was Snape who spoke before Fitz was able to answer, fed up with having his class disrupted and wanting to get rid of the trouble at its source.

"Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!"

At this, Simmons decided that it was finally the right time for her to stand up and defend her husband. Well, not literally stand up, as she remained seated, but metaphorically stand up. And also bring their weapons into the equation, as that was something that Snape understood very well, even if he understood nothing else most of the time.

So pulling out her wand and pointing it at the Snake, she said coldly, "No. This is class. You can't expel us from your class for demanding to stay in your class because someone else is trying to take us out of your class for no legitimate reason."

As Fitz had pulled his wand out as well when his wife had, Snape merely glared hard at both of them for several seconds, before turning to Mr Bagman and snapping, "Get out of my classroom!"

It took Mr Bagman several seconds of being glared to death by Snape, but he finally turned and left the dungeon, in shellshock over everything that had just taken place. How could Harry not want all of the fame and attention that came with being a champion and getting in the Daily Prophet?

Meanwhile in the dungeon everyone was beginning to make their antidotes, in preparation for Snape poisoning one of them at the end. Simmons spent the entire class flirting the line of being an annoyance and having points removed if she was anyone besides half of Potter/Granger, in order to bait Snape into picking her to be the one to be poisoned, in case her argument with him at the beginning of class hadn't been enough.

And it worked, for as class neared its end and everyone finished up their antidotes, Snape strode over to FitzSimmons' table and said coldly, "Everyone gather round, and watch what happens to Granger. If she has managed to produce an antidote, she will be fine. If she has done it wrong, she will be poisoned."

Like respectable human beings, the Gryffindors (and actually a couple of the lesser-known, less-brainwashed Slytherins) all watched fearfully as Simmons took the flask of poison that Snape handed her and downed it like a shot of gin, before tossing back her antidote chaser immediately afterwards. For a second it looked like she was going to be perfectly fine and her antidote had worked, to the point that Fitz very briefly wondered if she had decided to abandon her plan, before she breathed out, "Harry!", and began coughing. Then she collapsed to the ground, clutching at her chest and coughing and crying out like she was dying from the highly toxic phosphoric-acid compound used in the hydraulics of Yo-Yo's arms.

Fitz acted appropriately shocked, but stayed 'paralyzed' in his seat since he knew that she was supposed to be perfectly fine, and highly doubted that whatever Snape's poison was, it would cause this exact reaction if this wasn't Simmons faking it. After a second of frozen shock of his own that his best student ever had failed to produce the antidote, Snape whipped out his wand and cast a general countercurse spell to his poison, in his shock forgetting himself that this isn't how someone poisoned thusly should react if their antidote hadn't worked (unless the antidote itself was causing this reaction, not the poison, but the wizarding world didn't generally think things that well through to understand the medical concepts of a 'side effect' or 'drug interactions'). But as Simmons was perfectly fine, she continued faking her dying through the ineffectual spell, causing Snape to really start panicking. He could get by with verbal and emotional abuse and unfair punishments all day long, but Dumbledore might not be so forgiving if he actually killed a student and especially the smartest one in the school, and Dumbledore was nothing compared to the wrath he was afraid that Potter might rain down on him if Potter's best friend/probable romantic partner was killed by him.

So he quickly scooped Simmons up in his arms and shouted, "Out of the way!" as he ran towards the door and up to the hospital wing. Fitz quickly followed along with him, subtly casting a charm to open the dungeon door for Snape as he ran towards it so that the Slytherin wouldn't have to worry about trying to open it in his clear panic.

Simmons continued coughing and generally acting like she was dying a slow, painful death all the way up to the hospital wing, ramping her performance up to eleven any time that they passed a large group of students heading from their classes to the Great Hall for supper. But as soon as Snape got her into the thankfully empty hospital wing and set her down on a bed, and Madam Pomfrey hurried over in great concern, Simmons popped up into a sitting position with a smile, fake dying completely gone.

Snape and Madam Pomfrey stared at her in shock, until Snape finally shouted furiously, "You weren't poisoned?! Your antidote worked?!"

"Of course my antidote worked. I am the smartest scientist who has ever passed through these halls, which Potions is merely an archaic, primitive version of. But you now have an entire classroom that thinks I was poisoned by you, which is going to be an entire school by the end of supper when we never show up, and all the people we passed in the hallways on the way up here confirm that I sounded like I was dying," Simmons smirked. "You think three-quarters of the castle hates you now — just wait until this gets around. The Board of Governors might even finally get involved and fire your child-abusing arse. We're not holding our breaths, of course, as Dumbledore seems to override everything, including actual laws around here, so I'm sure the Governors are a piece of cake for him, but at least we've successfully stirred up enmity against you in the student body. And we're still going to hurt you the next time we catch you trying to abuse anyone else."

Turning to Madam Pomfrey, she continued, "But Snape did poison me, which he's already admitted to and I'm sure would be willing to admit to again since he knows that he's been caught redhanded, so we would like that reported to the appropriate authorities, that Snape intentionally poisoned a child."

But like every adult in that castle, Pomfrey seemed little concerned about Snape's abuse and literal poisoning of a student, and far more concerned with Simmons' 'lie'.

"That was a very dangerous thing to do, young woman!" she shouted. "Professor Snape here was terrified for you, and risked great personal danger getting you up here in time to save you from dying!"

"Snape was at risk?!" Fitz shouted in utter disbelief at the turn that this conversation had made so soon. "He's the fucking cunt who poisoned her in the first place! You can't shoot someone in cold blood and then claim you were in danger while going to get them help! Is every adult in this castle a complete fucking moron?! Or are you all so scared of Snape and Dumbledore that you would rather be complicit in his evil and cruelty and therefore encourage it than stand up for what is right?! What is wrong with you fucking people?!"

Simmons rested her hand on her husband's shoulder to calm him down slightly so that he didn't start cursing the child-abuser and child-abuse sympathizer no matter how much they deserved it, as she turned to Pomfrey and said coldly, "The only danger Snape was in was danger that he put himself in by deliberately poisoning one of his students. If this was the real world, we would have already called the cops and they would be hauling Snape off in handcuffs for attempted murder. I did what was necessary to show the castle the threat that this vile piece of human garbage poses to them, since telling the adults for three years has done absolutely nothing. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and we're apparently the only two with the balls in this place to actually do it. We will not be apologizing for doing what was necessary to bring evil to light, and ask Snape or McGonagall, or probably any of the other professors, what happens when anyone tries to punish us for not doing anything wrong. I'll give you a hint — we haven't lost yet.

"Now Snape, fuck off, you're not needed here any more, and ideally learn a lesson from this, because we're still patiently waiting for the time when it becomes our duty to hurt you to protect the rest of the students, and mark our words, we will do it — the past five minutes should be proof enough of that. And Madam Pomfrey, we're staying in here until just before curfew to make it best appear to the castle that I'm still in mortal peril from Snape's poisoning, so get us food brought up here from the kitchen if you don't want rumors to start circulating that you're complicit in and even encourage Snape's attempted murdering of students, and mistreating students in your care on top of that. Now get going, both of you!"

~FS~

When FitzSimmons returned to the castle the following morning, they detected a noticeable uptick in the righteous hatred of Snape from the other students.

They had of course done nothing to quell this newfound hatred of evil in Gryffindor House when they had returned to the common room the night of the poisoning at curfew, confirming to everyone who asked that Snape had in fact poisoned Simmons as the entire fourth year Gryffindor class was claiming, and merely saying that she was okay now, not how or why she was okay or why they had spent so long in the hospital wing, allowing everyone to draw their own Snape-hating conclusions based on their own years of experience with the child abuser. And everywhere that FitzSimmons went in the castle the following day they overhead far more mutterings than normal about Snape, mutterings about everything that said mutterers had personally seen and experienced the child abuser do in their classes with him throughout the years, and there even seemed to be some Slytherins here and there starting to question the man whom they had been brainwashed by all of the adults of the castle into believing was their Lord Supreme Master.

Of course, FitzSimmons knew better than to even hope that three-quarters or more of the castle hating Snape for a felony that he had committed against a child would actually get him fired, or even make him hate his post so much that he would quit on his own rather than continue abusing in such a hostile environment. But there was always a very small possibility that Snape would take something one step too far and there would be a revolution by the well-armed students, or the slightly greater possibility that when all of these students were adults and had children of their own, if Snape was still in the castle, they would refuse to send their children to Hogwarts, teaching them themselves or else sending them to magical schools in other countries, and thereby shut Hogwarts down from a lack of students until the castle was finally ridded of Evil.

Then again, there was also the possibility that McGonagall was going to call FitzSimmons into her office the following day to claim that they as the victims were the ones in the wrong here, which is of course what actually happened, because blaming the victim was so much easier than solving the problem.

"Granger, that was a dangerous thing you did yesterday with Professor Snape!" the stern deputy headmistress exclaimed once they were all seated around her desk.

"No, what is a dangerous thing to do is to poison students," Simmons replied icily, beyond done with the adults' continuous, never-ending bullshite and child-abuse sympathizing. "But I don't see Snape fired yet for it. All I did was a prove a point, which is that it is dangerous and reckless to poison a student in order to test their antidotes, something that I would like to point out would land you in jail for a very long time if not the rest of your life in the real world. Might even here if Snape wasn't protected by Dumbledore second only to Harry. And if you think Snape is in any way in the right here, you are just as bad as he is. Now, since I seriously doubt that you have anything worthwhile to say to us, and we're even more protected than normal from punishment and expulsion since Harry's name came out of the goblet — which, by the way, how are you getting on with figuring out who entered him, or have you even bothered trying to figure that out? — we're out of here, go fuck yourself in the arse with a cactus and then when you're done with that let Snape fuck you there, because you're clearly used to bending over and taking it from him."

And with that she stood up regally and strode out of the room, Fitz following her after taking just enough time to flick McGonagall off for good measure.

The morning after trying to make Snape a better man, but before they were called into McGonagall's office, FitzSimmons had been eating breakfast in the Great Hall for about fifteen minutes when a haughty witch wearing bright magenta robes walked up to them.

"Excuse me, Mr Potter," she said, making FitzSimmons turn and look at her. "My name is Rita Skeeter, well-known journalist, including for the Daily Prophet, perhaps you've heard of me? But I wonder if I could have a little word with you. The youngest champion, you know...to add a bit of color to the article I'm writing for the Prophet on the TriWizard Tournament."

"No."

Ms Skeeter turned slightly to look down on Simmons, before asking disdainfully, "And you are?"

"Potter's PR rep," Simmons answered coolly. "And the lady who's telling you no."

Taking his cue from his wife, Fitz turned back to the table and started eating again, happy to let her deal with the press if she wanted the job, and him have to say absolutely nothing. Ms Skeeter meanwhile stared at FitzSimmons in shock, never having been bluntly turned down before. Grumblingly turned down before, wishy-washily turned down before, sure, but those were easy to turn into yeses. A blunt no from someone who seemed just as determined and immovable as she was herself was a much harder answer to change, and one that she honestly didn't know how to go about doing. But it didn't mean that she wasn't going to try — she hadn't got where she had by accepting no as an answer.

Deciding that it was best to try and ignore the girl entirely (who the hell had someone to speak for them? — even the Minister himself didn't usually have anyone do that), Ms Skeeter looked back at Fitz and said, "Mr Potter, surely you can understand the great benefit of allowing someone such as myself to interview you. You are one of the most well-known names in all of the wizarding world, and this is the perfect opportunity to capitalize on that fame and increase your standing in the wizarding world even further!"

"My client has no desire to increase his fame, or to speak to the press," Simmons answered politely, but firmly. "And he would appreciate it if you addressed all of your questions to me. Now I believe that this conversation is over, so please leave so that my client and I can get back to eating before classes, or I shall be forced to find an adult around here who will forcibly make you leave. I'm sure at least one of them has had a less than pleasant run-in with you over the years if you've been in the press for very long at all."

At Simmons' hard look Ms. Skeeter wisely decided that it would be in her best interests to move herself right along, and hastily but elegantly did so, unsure what to make of this entire encounter, or what to do about her article that she had intended to be exclusively about Harry Potter, as his name was what sold papers, and therefore what sold her more articles to the Daily Prophet and other publications.

Sure, Hogwarts' other champion was also underaged, but no one had ever heard of her, so it was unlikely that they would really care. Then there was the Bulgarian quidditch star from Durmstrang, but outside of the quidditch fanatics, would enough other people care about some foreigner? And finally there was the veela, which would be great if veela allure worked through photos, as that would sell more papers and articles to papers than everything else combined, but unfortunately veela allure only worked in person, so she was just left with an attractive, but otherwise far less known foreigner.

Some people who understood nothing about mainstream media in the modern era might suggest that she simply write a factual article informing the public about who had been selected and what she knew about the tasks that they were going to be competing in, treating all four champions equally and sticking with the known facts, but she wasn't that stupid. That's not how papers were sold, or how people were mentally and emotionally enslaved into continuing to buy more papers in the future. She needed something sensational that would grab everyone's attention and swing their emotions strongly in one direction, so that later on in the year she could write another sensational article that swung their emotions entirely in the opposite direction, making them mindless sheep whom she could manipulate in any way that she pleased, especially into buying more of her papers.

Only Potter's unwillingness to cooperate like a mindless sheep was making that rather difficult.

But in the end Ms Skeeter decided to go with Harry Potter anyway, as he was doubtlessly the biggest selling point of the tournament, and there were plenty of other people who were willing to talk him up, which was her current goal, as everyone loved supporting the underdog so it would be easy to collect everyone in the palm of her hand with this angle, before making the hundred and eighty degree emotional swing in the opposite direction later in the year, and then if she had time making another hundred and eighty degree swing in some other direction even later in the year or as the school year was ending.

For instance, a boy named Creevey was happy to tell her that the girl Potter was always with was a muggleborn named Hermione Granger whom he was never seen outside the company of, which Skeeter promptly turned into Potter being madly in love with Granger. Which despite being a completely made-up lie by Skeeter did happen to coincide with the truth in this one particular instance, though no one knew that for sure yet as FitzSimmons kept their pda to a minimum except in very rare, isolated incidents, as everyone there considered them to be just fourteen year olds.

It was also readily apparent from everyone whom she talked with that the two of them were the smartest students in their grade, and in most of the grades above them as well from the sounds of it. Potter could also be portrayed as a very magnanimous hero, as numerous students revealed to her that not only had he discovered a way around the age restriction of the tournament, he had readily shared how to do it with everyone around, enabling Hogwarts' other champion to enter herself and be selected by the impartial Goblet to compete (along with a few dozen other students to enter themselves who hadn't been selected). And finally, this tournament clearly wasn't Potter's first dalliance with breaking the rules, as he and his sidekick were rather well-known for having butted heads with the school staff on numerous occasions throughout their three and a half years there.

The lack of any photos of him to plaster on the front cover was certainly not ideal, but otherwise she was able to make quite the article portraying him as the perfect rebel hero that the wizarding world already believed him to be, but hadn't been reminded of in several years — ideally positioned for her to bring down with her piercing quill in a few months time, as what sold better than a scandal or fallen hero?

~FS~

On the morning that her article came out in the Daily Prophet a few days later, FitzSimmons were already in the library studying for their classes that day by the time the owl post flooded the Great Hall.

However, the library got its own copy of every Prophet issue for students to be able to read and use in essays should they ever need to. And while FitzSimmons very rarely did more than glance at the front cover as they passed by sometime during the day, as life inside the castle was completely unaffected by anything occurring outside of the castle, on this particular morning when Simmons glanced at the cover as she passed by on her way to return some books to the shelves and saw that it had the words 'Harry Potter' in the oversized headline, she grabbed it on her way back to her husband and spread it out on their table for them to see what the reporter had written about them after they had refused to speak with her.

But to their surprise it was actually quite complementary of Harry Potter, though it was just a story about Potter, and not about the TriWizard tournament. Sure, it talked about how Potter had been chosen for the tournament, and misspelled the names of Fleur and Krum (while leaving the Hogwarts champion Sara Jones out entirely), but it was mostly just a fictionalized, sensationalized biography of Harry Potter, making him out to be a great hero and lovable rebel who had entered himself into the tournament. Through interviews with other students she had got it right that they were the two smartest students in the school, and had accurately made up that Potter and Granger were in love, though based on her only quote on the matter from Colin Creevey (who had been her source for most of her quotes), the romantic part she had entirely made up on her own, and no one whom she had talked to actually knew that they really were a couple or had seen any of their few overt displays of pda.

But all in all it wasn't actually bad at all, nothing like the slander piece that it could have been. Of course, this didn't stop Slytherin and some other students from still trying to make sneering comments at them about the article and negatively quote it at them, but as they really were the two smartest students in the school and everyone knew it, about all anyone could try to do was continue to accuse Fitz of entering himself or make a big hullabaloo out of the Harry Potter being in love with a mudblood. The first was what the bullies (including Hufflepuff Head of House Sprout) had been doing all along since the name 'Harry Potter' had come out of the Goblet, though, so that was nothing new brought about by the article, they just now had a newspaper article to quote with what they were already saying. And the second wasn't more than lightly annoying to FitzSimmons as they really were madly in love more than anyone there could possibly imagine, only not showing it publicly because they still considered the people whom they had replaced to be too young to be dating yet and displaying any real pda, and what they actually got up to every night and many mornings and afternoons and evenings in the privacy of their dorm room would have made even Rita Skeeter herself blush if she knew about it, and permanently scarred most of the students who were trying to ridicule FitzSimmons with the article.

So all in all the article made no real difference in FitzSimmons' life, and they continued on happily ignoring everyone who tried to bully them, annoying and irritating the living hell out of all of the bullies who preferred their victims to be more hurt by and emotionally wrought from their bullying.