The Saturday before the first task was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and FitzSimmons were enjoying lunch in a crowded Three Broomsticks when Hagrid and Professor Moody sidled up to them.

Hagrid leaned down and whispered to Fitz, "Harry, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear yer cloak," before straightening back up and saying suspiciously loudly, as if Simmons hadn't been able hear everything that he'd just whispered to her husband sitting right next to her, "Nice ter see yeh, Hermione."

As the exceptionally large man then turned to leave, Fitz replied not quite so loudly as Hagrid's greeting to Simmons had been, but plenty loud enough for several tables around them to hear him, "Of course, Hagrid! I'd be happy to meet you at your cabin at midnight tonight. What are we going to be doing, so I can tell Snape or Filch or Professor McGonagall or anyone else if they catch me walking through the halls of the castle three hours after curfew?"

Predictably Hagrid froze, what he'd clearly been trying to keep a secret now known by everyone in a five table radius. It also turned every head in said radius, but it was so obviously a secret meeting that no one would ever let anyone hear about if it was actually real, that Simmons highly doubted that anyone around them would believe that it was in fact actually 100% true. But if they did, perhaps they could find out whatever it was that Hagrid wanted to show Harry Potter, as she and Fitz sure as hell weren't going down there three hours after curfew without a physical note in hand from a teacher who had more authority around the castle than the gamekeeper who also taught a class did.

Professor Moody apparently didn't believed that there was any chance of anyone else going to the secret meeting either, or else for whatever reason midnight that evening was the only possible time that the meeting could be held and therefore must be maintained despite the new increased risk of someone else showing up to it as well, as he pushed Hagrid out of the pub in front of him before Hagrid could even try to say anything, leaving FitzSimmons alone once again.

Once he was sure that the professor and gamekeeper were gone, Fitz turned to his wife and asked quietly, "I wonder what Hagrid has that he can only show me in the dead of night, with me being invisible? That we obviously won't see, as we're not stupid enough to go without a legitimate permission slip in hand."

"No idea," Simmons replied, shaking her head. "But like you said, we won't be finding out. I do wonder if he'll tell us in class on Monday, though, when we don't show up tonight."

And with that FitzSimmons pushed the entire odd encounter out of their minds, as they really didn't care what was going to happen and they would deal with it whenever it came. Meanwhile, completely unbeknownst to any them, one of the tables within hearing distance of Fitz's repeating out loud of what Hagrid had told Fitz in obvious secret, was occupied by a couple of Slytherin third years who were talebearers of Malfoy. And so after hearing that Malfoy's self-declared archnemesis had a secret midnight meeting — not hearing FitzSimmons' private discussion after that about not actually going — they scurried off to tell their master all about it.

So a little before midnight that night Malfoy snuck down to the gamekeeper's hut and lay in wait to spy on Potter and the Oaf. Only midnight came and went without Potter showing up and knocking on Hagrid's door — Malfoy knowing nothing about Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, but even an invisible Harry Potter would have still had to audibly knock on Hagrid's door, which Malfoy would have been able to hear. Several minutes into the start of the new day Hagrid stuck his head out of his door and looked around, before whispering out not very quietly, "Harry? You there, Harry?", but no response ever came. When a few minutes later Hagrid stepped fully outside, and after calling out Harry's name several more times started off towards the Beauxbatons carriage anyway despite Harry not seeming to be present, Malfoy quietly snuck along behind the oaf, hoping to learn whatever it was that Potter was supposed to be finding out in order to hopefully be able to lord it over Potter's head as something else he knew that the boy-hero did not.

Hagrid led his unknown tail to the Beauxbatons carriage where he picked up the Beauxbatons headmistress for a date, before heading around the perimeter of the forest. After a long walk they finally arrived at Hagrid's intended destination, an enclosure filled with four large dragons. After definitely not shitting his pants a little at seeing four real, loud, angry dragons, Malfoy learned from Hagrid's conversation with yet another Weasley (Seriously — how many of them were there?! — no wonder they were so destitute) that the dragon mums were for the upcoming TriWizard task, and that the champions were going to have to get past the dragons in some way.

Well, that should take care of Potter once and for all, Malfoy thought gleefully to himself as he snuck away, just barely avoiding running into Karkaroff in the woods as he headed back up to the castle and Karkaroff snuck towards the dragon enclosure.

Now just to figure out the best way to lord this new information over Potter's head without accidentally revealing to the Boy-Who-Lived anything that could help him in the first task of the tournament.

~FS~

The following morning FitzSimmons were about to leave breakfast and head outside for a hike around the lake when Malfoy strolled over to them like he owned the place.

"Worried about the first task, the unknown obstacles that you're going to have to be facing?" he drawled.

"No," Fitz answered truthfully, shaking his head. "Not really."

"Well, thanks to my connections — being a well-known pureblood and all — I do know what the first task is. And let me just say, you are definitely going to die, Potter," Malfoy said.

"I doubt it," Fitz replied calmly. "The part about dying, that is — I wouldn't be at all surprised that your father bribed someone into tell him what the first task is, or that he then turned around and told you what it was."

"Oh, but you definitely will die," Malfoy smirked evilly. "Like I said, I know what the first task is going to be, and there is no way that you're going to survive. And it's going to be oh so enjoyable watching you die in agony."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that before — please elaborate," Simmons replied.

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough, mudblood," Malfoy sneered. "You'll get a front row seat to your precious boyfriend getting killed."

"How much are you willing to bet?" Simmons asked seriously. "A hundred galleons on whether my man survives or not? Or are you not willing to put your money where your mouth is? You're just running your mouth because no one ever calls you out on any of your bullshite."

And apparently he was just running his mouth because no one was ever willing to stand up to the bully, student or professor, because Malfoy merely scowled back at her before grumbling, "I'll enjoy watching Potter die his slow, painful death."

Then he stomped back over to the Slytherin table, all in a petulant huff. He'd had great information with which to terrorize Potter and his girlfriend, and then they'd had the nerve to not only blow him off and not be scared at all of Potter's impending doom, but to even throw it right back in his face by trying to make him bet on whether Potter would actually die a slow, horrible death in the first task.

Fitz, meanwhile, as he and his wife headed outside like they had been planning to do before the bully had shown up and tried to ruin their day, said, "I wonder if he actually knows what the task is, or if he was bluffing the whole thing?"

"You know — I wonder if someone at the tables around us yesterday either went to Hagrid's meeting and then told Malfoy, or told Malfoy about the meeting and he went himself, and he found out whatever it was that Hagrid wanted to show Harry instead of us, and it happened to be whatever the first task is going to be," Simmons mused thoughtfully. "Could that be something that Hagrid would do for Harry even though we've never been friends with Hagrid?"

"But the one rule of the tournament is that champions can't ask for or accept help from professors," Fitz replied.

"Which would explain the midnight meeting time and invisibility cloak," Simmons answered. "I don't know — it was just a thought."

"Perhaps."

~FS~

The following morning it turned out that Simmons had been correct.

As FitzSimmons were walking through the entrance hall towards the greenhouses and Herbology class, they were waylaid by none other than Professor Moody, Hagrid's partner in crime two days earlier, who demanded that Fitz follow him to his office, school and classes be damned.

Once inside, and after giving Simmons a confused look for also following him to his office instead of going to class like she was supposed to be doing, the retired auror said to Fitz, "So...found out about the dragons the other night, did you?"

"Dragons, Sir?" Simmons asked in confusion.

When Professor Moody merely continued looking at Fitz — as if somehow thinking that Harry might not have told Hermione something as rather important-sounding as very large, pyromaniacal winged lizards, even if the two of them didn't do everything together and therefore she would learn anything as Harry learned it — Fitz echoed his wife. "What dragons?"

Now it was Professor Moody's turn to look at Fitz in confusion. "The dragons that Hagrid showed you Saturday night when you met him at midnight at his hut? The dragons for the first task?"

"Oh, we didn't go," Simmons laughed pleasantly, understanding the confusion now. "We thought surely you would have known that with the whole asking you what we should tell any of the adults if they caught us out three hours after curfew, and neither of you giving us an answer or preferably a written permission slip signed by both of you. I mean, we can't just going walking through the castle in the middle of the night without written permission to show Filch, or Snape, or any of the professors who might be patrolling the hallways making sure that no one is walking through the castle in the middle of the night to go outside or otherwise do something that they don't have permission for."

But Fitz remembered something else, and turning to his wife said, "We aren't about to break curfew without permission, but it sure seems like Malfoy or one of his crew probably did, like you suggested yesterday after our brief talk with him. Remember, when he told us that he knew the first task? I assumed that he knew it from his father, but you suggested that maybe he went to the meeting instead."

"It definitely seems probable now," Simmons answered, before turning back to Professor Moody. "Does this mean that we're disqualified now and don't have to compete in the tournament any longer? — Since we're not allowed to accept help of any kind from our teachers to complete the tasks, and we just accepted the help from you, a professor, of learning what the first task is when we're not supposed to know what the first task is."

Professor Moody stared at her like she was completely out of her bloody mind, before ignoring her and turning to Fitz and saying, "The first task involves dragons. And cheating's a traditional part of the TriWizard Tournament, always has been. I've been telling Dumbledore from the start, he can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won't be. They'll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They'd like to prove he's only human. So…can you think of any ideas on how you're going to get past your dragon?"

Fitz looked over at his wife. "They're not cuttlefish and they don't change colors, that I've ever heard of in any story anyway, but this is still your area of expertise, not mine."

"What exactly do you mean by 'get past' the dragon?" Simmons asked Professor Moody. "That's rather vague. Like do we have to walk past it in a narrow corridor, or sell it a piece of swampland and a bridge? Although I guess that's more 'get one over on' than 'get past', technically."

"Well, I can't tell you exactly what the task is going to be — I don't show favoritism, me," Moody answered gruffly, in complete contradiction to his current actions of showing them favoritism. "I'm just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is — play to your strengths."

"So you told the other three champions about the dragons as well?" Fitz asked, attacking the favoritism bit first — anything about strengths and getting past dragons could wait until after the more important matters were brought to light. When Professor Moody looked at him in confusion, he continued on in explanation, "You just said that you don't show favoritism. Which by definition means that you also had to have told all of the other champions, or else you would be showing favoritism towards me, or Hogwarts, or whichever students you did tell or are going to tell."

Moody's face told them everything that they needed to know that he was clearly showing favoritism towards Harry Potter and wasn't going to be telling any of the other champions, like they already knew. But as they weren't competing, and as far as they were aware, only they knew what the first task was going to be, they put who knew what or didn't know what out of their minds as irrelevant to the ongoing tournament and upcoming task.

And instead Simmons said, "Our strength is our intellect. But I have a feeling that you're not simply saying that we can research dragons enough to figure out what spells we need to 'get past' a dragon — I mean, that's what every champion would have to do if you weren't showing blatant favoritism and were telling them all what the first task is."

"Your strength is hugging," Fitz interjected with a smirk at his wife. "But I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to go up and hug the dragon so it'll let us past. Although you never know — they probably don't receive very many hugs in their lifetime, so they might just be angry and in need of a good hug."

As Simmons rolled her eyes at her husband, Professor Moody ignored all this nonsense that he didn't understand and instead said, "From what I've heard, and seen on the weekends this year, you're a damn good flier, Potter. And your father was an amazing flyer before you."

"I know you said that cheating's normal, but I'm pretty sure they're going to draw the line at bringing a broom with us when they said wands only," Simmons replied. "Though, maybe that could get us dq'd, trying to bring a broom with us as well — worth a shot, I suppose."

Moody completely ignored her reiterated point about trying to get disqualified and said, "My second piece of general advice is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need."

"Gin? I mean, it's a magical world, I wouldn't be surprised if there's spells for conjuring various alcohols, but we haven't ran across any yet," Fitz said. "Have we Hermione?"

"I saw a vinegar into wine spell in a NEWT Charms book I was flicking through a couple weeks ago," Simmons answered. "We could probably guess the right books to look through to find a spell that could give us gin. Not sure how that's going to help us get past the dragon, though — just make us not care about getting past a dragon. Or maybe we're supposed to give it to the dragon, though flames and high-proof alcohol don't exactly mix — flammable and all that."

Professor Moody stared strangely at them throughout their discussion of Simmons' favorite drink, but when they were done he simply said, "You need to get your broom, but you can't bring it with you, Potter, all you can bring is your wand. Think. Come on, boy, put them together…it's not that difficult."

"Use Hermione's wand to transfigure my wand into a broom?" Fitz asked. "Seems rather complicated to learn in just a day or two, even for us. And can that type of transfiguration even be done, to begin with? It seems like wands might be magical objects of a sort that wouldn't lend themselves to being transfigured into something else — being a source of magic themselves, and all that."

They could both tell that they were frustrating Professor Moody beyond belief, but it was fun to watch and they didn't care enough about the task to try to think of what he actually wanted them to think of. Anyway, they wanted to see how far he was willing to go in telling Harry Potter how to succeed in the first task, and perhaps begin to deduce why he was showing such blatant favoritism towards Harry.

And Professor Moody didn't disappoint, growling out, "You alone, Potter, just your wand against a dragon, needing your broom to fly past it — what do you do? How do you get your Firebolt once the task has started using just your wand?"

It flashed through Fitz's mind to reply with Director Coulson's sage advice to Mack about what to do if Hive couldn't be killed — 'I suggest running...very fast…away' — but figured that they had intentionally pushed Professor Moody far enough for one morning, and so didn't say it out loud. But Simmons was reminded of a Charms class that they had fortuitously just had.

"You're saying that Harry should use the Summoning Charm to summon his broom to us," she said.

Professor Moody gave them a crooked smile that told them all that they needed to know.

~FS~

FitzSimmons thought that that would be the last they would have to hear about the dragons before the first task the following afternoon, but such a reprieve was not to be.

After sending everyone else off to be distracted by the blast-ended skrewts, Hagrid called Fitz over to him in their Care of Magical Creatures class later that morning after they had finally made it to Herbology halfway through the class period, immediately demanding in a harsh whisper, "Where were you Saturday night?"

"Sleeping, instead of breaking curfew without permission," Fitz answered calmly, pretty sure that they had been asleep by that point and not still awake having hot, passionate sex.

"But Professor Moody told us all about the dragons this morning when we were supposed to be in Herbology class," Simmons added, wanting to skip ahead in the conversation and not be there all day. "So we found out about the dragons anyway."

"Oh — well, uh, you got a plan, Harry?" Hagrid asked, slightly pacified at Harry's not being at his hut when Harry was supposed to be, since the soon-to-be winner of the TriWizard Tournament had found out about the dragons anyway, like he had been trying to make sure that Harry did.

"Professor Moody told me to use the Summoning Charm that we learned in Charms class last week to summon my Firebolt that I got for Christmas last year, to fly us past the dragon," Fitz answered. "Sounds like a solid plan."

And he did consider it a solid plan. But he figured that it was best not to mention that he and Simmons actually planned on doing no such thing, as they had less than zero desire to actually get past the dragon, preferring in fact to not get past the dragon so that they would get the worst score possible from the five judges, in order to hopefully take themselves completely out of contention from the end of very first task, though in a three task set-up that seemed unlikely to actually be achievable. But it should put them far enough back that a failed second task would take them completely out of the running.

As expected and intended, however, Hagrid took this all to mean that Harry Potter was going to use that plan to successfully get past his dragon better than every other champion who had no idea what the task was going to be (because of course Madame Maxime, whom he had shown the dragons, was going to obey the rules and not tell Fleur what the first task was, even though in reality, as Madame Maxime was Fleur's headmistress and not teacher, she could actually quite legally tell the veela everything that she knew, something that both Hagrid and Professor Moody seemed to have forgotten). And so with a nod he let FitzSimmons get back to keeping their distance from the blast-ended skrewts, having no desire to suffer unnecessary injuries at the hands (or stingers and suckers) of the probably still illegal creatures.

The following day at lunch Professor McGonagall came hurrying over to where FitzSimmons were sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall eating lunch, Sara already in tow.

"Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now. You have to get ready for your first task," she told them.

So FitzSimmons stood up and began following her and Sara out of the Great Hall, seeing Fleur and Krum each being led by their own respective headmasters out of the Great Hall as well, towards an as of yet unknown location somewhere outside on the grounds.

But despite having two champions, and both from her own House at that, McGonagall only seemed concerned about Harry Potter, as she completely ignored Sara as she anxiously said to Fitz, "Now, don't panic. Just keep a cool head. We've got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand. The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you. Are you all right?"

"Professor McGonagall — Professor Moody told me that we have to get past dragons. And Professor Hagrid was going to actually show me the dragons on Saturday night at midnight, but we weren't about to risk breaking curfew without a pass from a professor, which neither Professor Moody nor Hagrid gave us."

"Dragons?!" Sara exclaimed from the other side of them in shock, unable to avoid overhearing what Fitz had said to Professor McGonagall.

So Simmons quickly slid over to tell Sara everything that she and her husband knew about the first task and the dragons, which admittedly was practically nothing. Though she did tell the other girl about using a Summoning Charm to summon something once the task had begun, such as a broomstick if she was good at flying.

Meanwhile Fitz was continuing on to Professor McGonagall, "So we already know what the task is going to be, and have for over twenty-four hours now. While your concern is — well, distrusted to say the least, as you did absolutely nothing to nullify my enslavement into this tournament and still haven't given us a single report on how your hunt to find, arrest, and prosecute whoever did enter my name against my will is going, very reminiscent of second year when you did absolutely nothing to find out why a bludger was attacking me specifically, a fan — we're fine. We've had over twenty-four hours to formulate a plan of survival for the first task."

The entire time he spoke McGonagall just stared at him in shock, clueless as to what to say now that Potter had broken all of the nonexistent rules of finding out what the first task was, and the one rule of accepting help from a professor — except offer to disqualify them for it, of course. But by this point the other two champions were walking past them with their headmasters, so FitzSimmons were able to just follow them and leave McGonagall behind, pulling Sara along with them as they followed the foreigners to a tent set up at the edge of the forest.

Inside they found Mr Bagman eagerly waiting for them wearing his Wimbourne Wasps quidditch robes, saying as soon as they all entered, "Come in, come in, make yourselves at home! Well, now we're all here, time to fill you in! When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face!"

"You have model dragons?!" Simmons exclaimed in gleeful surprise, interrupting the judge. "How cute! Do we get to keep them?"

Unlike when Sara had heard Fitz say to Professor McGonagall that they already knew about the dragons, neither Fleur nor Krum seemed surprised by this should-have-been-novel news, something both FitzSimmonses noticed. Apparently it wasn't only Malfoy who had discovered the first task beforehand, though whether through Hagrid or some other means, they didn't know — or care.

Mr Bagman, meanwhile, after a brief flicker of surprise, took it in stride and replied with a boyish chuckle, "I can't imagine why you couldn't, just make sure they don't set your homework on fire — can't imagine your teachers would be too happy if you told them that your model dragon burnt your homework." Then he continued on, "But as I was saying, there are different species of the dragons, you see, and you will each be facing a different one. And finally, your actual task is to collect the golden egg!"

Once they heard the crowds stampeding by a few minutes later on their way to somewhere, Mr Bagman went around in turn letting the four champions pick their model dragon out of his purple silk sack — first Fleur, then Sara, followed by Krum, and finally Simmons reached into the bag and plucked out the last remaining dragon for her husband. The model dragons were perfectly realistic, down to being fully mobile, stretching their wings, baring their minuscule fangs, and breathing out small breaths of fire that probably could light dry parchment on fire.

"We'll take anyone's dragon who doesn't want theirs," Simmons said to the three champions. "If you want it, please keep it, but if you're just going to toss it in the woods as soon as you can, we'll take it off your hands for you."

Fleur immediately hurried over, delicately holding the edge of her Welsh Green's wing by her fingertips away from her body, and dropped it into Simmons' outstretched hand. Krum grunted something and tossed his Swedish Short-Snout across the tent to Simmons, but Sara said, "Give me a few days to play with it, and then you can have it, Granger."

Mr Bagman, meanwhile, continued on, "Well, there you are! You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I'm going to have to leave you in a moment, because I'm commentating. Mr. Krum, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now...Harry...could I have a quick word? Outside?"

FitzSimmons followed the judge outside the tent and a short distance away into the trees, where Mr Bagman asked quietly, "Feeling all right, Harry? Anything I can get you?"

"Gin? Beer? Whiskey? Vodka? Wine? Or this is a very medieval society, maybe you'd be more likely to have mead and rum," Simmons answered.

As Mr Bagman stared at her in confusion, Fitz said, "We're fine, Mr Bagman. I mean, we're certainly not saying no to a drink, but we don't expect one, either."

Apparently deciding to ignore this entirely, Mr Bagman lowered his voice even further and asked, "Got a plan? Because I don't mind sharing a few pointers, if you'd like them, you know. I mean, you're the underdog here, Harry. Anything I can do to help."

"Sure, we'd be happy to hear anything you've got," Fitz answered. "We have no plan for getting a pre-born dragon, fake though it might be I presume since I can't ever remember reading about any dragon that lays golden eggs, and certainly not our Hungarian Horntail, away from our adult dragon."

"Of course, of course!" Mr Bagman said excitedly, as if he had been hoping that Harry Potter would ask for his help. "See, all you have to do is —"

But at that moment a whistle blew off in the distance, and Mr Bagman exclaimed in alarm, "Good lord, I've got to run!", and hurried off without telling FitzSimmons how he would suggest that they get their golden egg.

While curious what Mr Bagman was going to tell them, and even more curious why there were two seemingly separate groups of adults wanting to help Harry Potter presumably win — as they certainly weren't telling Harry ways in which to forfeit like they should have been doing if their concern was about making sure that Harry survived this enslavement — FitzSimmons didn't actually care about learning another way of getting a baby from a mum whom there was no way in hell that they were going to try to steal a baby from, and casually strolled back into the tent.

As they listened from inside the tent to the noises of the crowd outside and Mr Bagman's announcements, it certainly sounded as if Fleur and Krum had known that they were going to be facing a dragon at least a day or two in advance, as it only took Fleur ten minutes to finish and Krum slightly less than that, while it took Sara nearly an hour. An hour in which she was clearly trying to figure out the best way to confront her winged friend, as after the initial roar of the crowd when she entered the arena, there was nothing for several minutes, and then scattered boos that were loud enough to be heard in the tent as parts of the crowd voiced their displeasure that she was taking her time deciding how she wanted to face the task that she had been assigned, instead of rushing straight in and getting herself grievously injured in spectacular fashion to the great entertainment of the crowd, like the ancient Roman gladiator games. Of course, once she did start going there were significantly fewer gasps and close call comments by Mr Bagman, and she was done less than five minutes after she had actually started, in half the time of Fleur or Krum.

But finally, the whistle blew one last time for Harry Potter.

FitzSimmons strolled out of the tent hand in hand and around to the entrance of the enclosure that their dragon was being held in. Peeking through the gap that they were to enter through, FitzSimmons saw a Hungarian Horntail crouched at the far end of the enclosure over a nest of eggs. She was thrashing her tail about leaving deep gouges in the earth, most likely due to being trapped in a small prison surrounded by hundreds of shouting students set high in stands above her head — the sheila was just scared, and protective of her pre-born babies.

As the enclosure seemed sufficiently long enough that they wouldn't be set upon the moment that they stepped inside, and Sara had clearly managed to stay alive for most of an hour without doing anything, FitzSimmons slipped through the gap in the fence. The moment that they appeared the crowd let out another very loud, irritating roar, increasing the Horntail's anxiety even further. But FitzSimmons ignored this, and got ready to initiate their carefully crafted plan.

While lying in bed the night before, after sex and before going to sleep, FitzSimmons had decided to take the Star Lord approach to 'getting past' a dragon — or as it turned out, getting a fake egg from a guarded dragon's nest filled with real eggs — and have a dance-off with it. Or really, just practice their formal dances in case Director Coulson ever sent them undercover somewhere where they needed to ballroom dance. And so now, despite having no music to dance to, they got in position and clasped one pair of hands, as Fitz's free hand went around his wife's back and her free hand went onto his shoulder.

But before they could actually begin dancing, they heard a familiar irritated shout from the gap in the fence. "Granger! What are you doing?!"

Keeping their positions, FitzSimmons turned their heads as one to look over at the interrupter, none other than McGonagall.

"We're trying to get the golden egg from the dragon as required by the first task so that we don't lose our magic, since you're either incapable of stopping slavery or else actively support it — there really isn't a third option here," Simmons answered coldly.

It seemed pretty obvious to her what they were doing, as it was exactly the same thing that the three champions before them had done, and what they had been told by Mr Bagman to do.

"This is Potter's task! You're not allowed to be in here!" McGonagall shouted irately, and also factually incorrectly, something that Fitz quickly pointed out.

"That is actually incorrect, Sir," Fitz corrected the deputy headmistress, who apparently didn't even know the rule of the tournament that she was trying to enforce the rule of. "We were only told that we could not ask for or accept help from a teacher. And while Hermione is smarter than all of the teachers in this school combined, and taught both lessons of the dueling club two years ago, she is not by definition a teacher, nor is she paid, and therefore by the literally only thing that we have been told about this entire tournament, she is allowed to be in here helping me with this task if she so desires. But if you would like to disqualify me for violating an unstated or completely made up on the spot rule — then by all means, please do so. Otherwise stop threatening us with a good time and politely fuck off. At the moment, you're coming closer to making me break the one rule of this tournament than the lovely Hermione is."

McGonagall looked shocked and offended at being called out on her bullshite, before turning and scurrying away, doubtlessly to try to find someone who would take her side on the who was cheating here argument. But FitzSimmons didn't care what McGonagall did, so as soon as she was gone they began their dancing that she had so rudely interrupted. Of course, as was wont in tournaments that made up rules as they went along, or otherwise neglected to tell the participants all of the rules before the start of the tournament, FitzSimmons weren't to be left in peace for long, as less than five minutes later they heard another sharp, "Harry!" from the fence gap.

Glancing over they saw that it was Dumbledore, and Fitz made the quick decision of simply giving the headmaster the middle finger and continuing on with their task, highly doubting that Dumbledore was there to tell them that they could be done with the task already, and figuring that if there was any chance at all that they could get disqualified from the tournament, that had the highest likelihood out of all the responses that they could give the headmaster.

Of course, all it actually got them was Dumbledore staring in shock at Harry Potter's brazenness for several seconds, before shouting out to them, "Harry, you won't score as many points if you don't follow the rules of the tournament! It will be much, much harder for you to win!"

"Good!" Fitz shouted over his shoulder at the old wizard as he continued waltzing along with his wife. "Now scram until we've failed this task, and can get on with our lives!"

FitzSimmons didn't hear any response, and by the time they glanced back over at the gap a few minutes later Dumbledore had thankfully disappeared. For the next hour they practiced all of the formal dances that they knew, and a few that they really didn't but tried to improvise on the spot anyway, taking occasional five minute breaks to catch their breaths and decide what dance they wanted to practice next. Meanwhile, the crowd off and on booed and cat-called them, but mostly just sat there in first dumbfounded silence, and then bored silence, as the pair of scientists did absolutely nothing in regards to trying to get an egg away from its mum. As for said mum, after about ten minutes of fiercely guarding her pre-born brood, she began to relax slightly as it became clear to her that these two humans on the other side of her prison cell had no intentions of threatening her pre-born children, or even bothering her at all, and finally lay down with her head over her nest and watched the twirling and swaying humans with wary vigilance.

After an hour of FitzSimmons just dancing, and over two hours of total tournament task-watching time for everyone in the stands, students began slowly trickling out to go do other things, bored to death of watching barren dirt grow no grass, and not expecting the already weird Harry Potter/Hermione Granger duo to do anything exciting anytime soon, or ever. And the rate of leaving only increased when FitzSimmons sat down in the corner of the arena tired out from all of their dancing, and Simmons leaned her head against her husband's shoulder and they both appeared to fell asleep — though neither of them were actually stupid enough to go to sleep in a prison cell with a dragon as their cellmate, and both kept an eye cracked open to watch the sheila on the other side of the cell.

When nearly half of the stands had emptied, the adults finally got it through their thicker-than-dragon-hide skulls that Potter's task was over an hour earlier if not even longer than that, and finally sent out the dragon keepers in to remove the dragon. Guessing that they were finally being set free, FitzSimmons stood back up and walked out of the arena and straight back up to the castle, since there was nothing left for them down there, and they didn't particularly want to hear any of the professors bitch at them about their unconventional approach to the first task that just so happened to be less than successful this particular time around — but it would definitely work next time.

The adults, meanwhile, were so delusional that they still believed that Potter gave two shits about the tournament, and therefore assumed that he would obviously come over to where the judges and the other champions were congregated, to find out his score and place in the tournament, along with instructions for the next task. So FitzSimmons were able to successfully make it to the castle and up to Gryffindor Tower and their private flat below without getting caught and drug back down to the champions' tent, where all of the adults and judges were patiently waiting for Potter to scurry over in eager haste.

As FitzSimmons gave the portrait of the fat broad the password to get into Gryffindor Tower, the adults were finally beginning to gather the picture that Potter wasn't coming over on his own, and McGonagall stormed off towards the entrance to the enclosure to find her most troublesome student. But after ten minutes of looking and asking around she still hadn't found him or Granger, as they seemed to have disappeared entirely, something she grudgingly returned to the other adults to inform them of. Once the other two headmasters and Mr Crouch found out that Potter wasn't coming to find out his score or learn about the next task, they immediately demanded that they go ahead and give their scores for Harry Potter and tell the champions who were still there what the next task was — Dumbledore and Bagman could do whatever the hell they wanted about telling Potter what his score was, what the second task was, and giving him his egg — or not, they didn't care and the other two headmasters wanted Potter to fail, since he wasn't their champion.

Mr Bagman gave Harry five points just for having the bravery to get out there and try (even he couldn't justify giving Harry any more points than that in case one of the other judges questioned his choice in points, even though he desperately needed Harry to win, almost as much as Professor Moody did), but everyone else was in agreement that Potter deserved zero points for not even trying to get his egg from the dragon, giving Fitz a grand total of five points for the first task.

Points settled, Mr Bagman told the three champions who were present the time and hint for the second task, and sent them on their merry ways to enjoy the rest of their afternoon and evening.

~FS~

Towards the end of suppertime that evening FitzSimmons wandered down from their dorm to the Great Hall, hoping that the majority of the crowds would have already eaten and left by then.

And for the most part their plan worked, as there were a lot fewer students in there to give them strange to disapproving to angry looks over their performance in the first task earlier that day, but there were two adults whom their late eating hour still wouldn't let them avoid. The first was Mr Bagman, who hopped up from where he was sitting at the staff table and hurried down to them as soon as he saw them enter the hall and sit down.

Coming up to them, he said, "Harry, my boy! I know the first task didn't go the best for you today, and I apologize for having to leave before I could give you any suggestions on the task, but you were still supposed to come over to the judges' stand to get your score, and to get your egg and the instructions for the second task. But it's no matter, as I can tell you all that right now. First off, disappointing as I know it will be to you, the judges only gave you five points for your valiant efforts today. I really thought you deserved more, just going out there and trying against your dragon, it showed far more courage and bravery than half of the other students would have had in your position — they would have run and hid and never even shown up for the task, let alone gone inside the enclosure to stare death in the face — but unfortunately none of the other judges saw it that way, so it is what it is.

"But don't worry, you'll have your chance to catch up in the second task, and put yourself in a good position heading into the final task, which is the one that really matters, anyway. And speaking of the second task, here is your egg, you'll need it."

He handed Fitz the golden egg, which Fitz reluctantly took and set down on the table in front of him, next to the shepherds pie.

Then Mr Bagman continued on, "Now Harry, you've got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth. But in the meantime, you've got something to think about and prepare for! If you look at your golden egg, you will see that it opens...see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg, because it will tell you what the second task is, and enable you to prepare for it! Best of luck, Harry, I know you've got this one!"

And with that he practically bounced out of the Great Hall, apparently having been sitting at the staff table waiting for them to arrive so that he could tell Harry all of that.

Once Mr Bagman was gone, Fitz looked over at his wife and said, "Well — that was interesting."

"Yes," Simmons replied. "I can't believe you got five points for dancing, though I have a really strong suspicion that all five of those points came from Mr Bagman himself, not a point each from the five judges, assuming they gave individual scores, which is how multiple judges normally works. But regardless, we do now know how long it will be before we have to go through all this hassle again, and if someone doesn't tell us the answer before, once the second task is over I'll be interested in solving its clue just for the fun of a puzzle."

"Speaking of which, what are we actually going to do with the egg, especially not to tempt ourselves into solving its clue before the second task?" Fitz asked.

"I say we take it down to the lowest dorm beneath us that we got to before coming upon another visibly solid wall, and place it on the mantle above the fireplace in that dorm, where it'll be out of sight and too many flights of stairs down for us to actually be tempted to go get again, but there for after the task or if we need it for some emergency."

The golden egg settled, FitzSimmons started eating that they hadn't been able to before Mr Bagman arrived, but they hadn't been eating for long when the second of their two mealtime visitors arrived. Dressed in acid-green robes, Ms Skeeter sauntered up to them, an acid-green quill that was hard to spot against her robes already in her hand.

"Harry!" she said brightly, sliding into one of the open seats directly across from them. "I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring? How you feel about the upcoming second task, and your chances of making up the sizable point gap between you and the other champions?"

Continuing the protocol that Simmons had established the first time that Ms Skeeter had approached them, Fitz merely nodded his head over towards his PR Rep.

Who quickly and curtly said, "We told you before to address all of your questions to me, not my client. And Potter has nothing that he would like to say to you. Anyway, I'm not sure why you're even trying to ask my client questions, as you had no problem making up an entire article about him last time. But regardless, he has no interest in talking to the press, whether to set the record straight or to answer any of your questions, and I have no prepared statement to give to you either, because quite frankly we don't care about your articles or your newspaper. So once again, good day. Don't make us file a restraining order against you."

Once again Ms Skeeter's eyes widened in shock, but this time her mind was already generating ideas in which to use this to her advantage. Refusing to talk surely meant secrecy, which in a tournament like this meant cheating — right? That was an angle she could definitely use whenever she wrote an article bringing the famed hero down to his knees. So with little hesitation she quickly got back up, slipping back into the shadows that she had slipped out of to come try to talk to Harry Potter again.

~FS~

By the time that FitzSimmons finished supper and made it back up to Gryffindor Tower — several broom cupboards waylaying them on the long journey — they found that a party for Sara had already been started in the common room, to celebrate her successful completion of the first task.

It was pretty much the same as every quidditch party that FitzSimmons had seen the twins throw in their years there, and the party that they had thrown the night that Sara and Harry Potter's names had come out of the goblet, only much more dragon-themed than any previous party. Having just finished eating FitzSimmons didn't plan on sticking around to grab any more desserts, but before they could weave their way over to the staircase to head down to their dorm room Lee Jordan asked Sara to open her egg and find out what the clue was that she had to solve.

And a second later, before FitzSimmons could even try to scurry down to their dorm before they learned something about the next task, a deafening, screechy wailing pierced the air and their eardrums, before ending just as suddenly with the metallic clanking of the metal egg being slammed shut.

"So much for being at risk of hearing the clue," Fitz whispered into his wife's ear in the silence that had befallen the room. "What the hell was that?"

"Best guess? Some wild, probably magical animal scream," Simmons answered. "We already had to face a dragon, would make sense we have to face another animal next time as well. Little repetitive maybe, but no one has ever accused wizards of originality."

The initial shock of the noise now over, everyone in the common room began excitedly throwing out their ideas of what they thought the champions were going to have to face next in the tournament, and FitzSimmons began making their way towards the staircase again. But just like on the first night of the tournament when Harry Potter's name had come out, the same someone was waiting for them in front of the stairs.

"What the hell were you doing out there today, Harry?!" Ron shouted, turning all of the heads in the room away from their discussion of the egg, towards whatever fireworks were about to go down here. "You're wasting the opportunity that you've been given to compete in this amazing tournament! Wasting your chance for fame and fortune!" Pointing vaguely in the direction of where Sara was standing next to her egg, he yelled on, "Sara did really good this afternoon, and is in a very tight second place! She's at least using her cheated way into the tournament!"

He meant to continue on in his irate tirade, but Fitz's fist connecting with his jaw and nose prevented this, and instead sent him sprawling to the floor in a very undignified, and bleeding, lump.

"Do not insult the Hogwarts champion," Fitz growled icily, glaring down at the redhead. "She did not cheat her way in, she was the most worthy person out of everyone in this school who was able to enter their name for consideration. Unlike you, who isn't worth anything but whining and bitching."

And with that he stepped over Ron and opened the door to the staircase, and he and Simmons slipped inside closing the door back behind them, and then through the stone wall down the stairs to their dorm. Up in the common room everyone stared in shock at the scene, at everything from Ron's tirade against a Harry whom he'd been known to spend a lot of time around before all of this tournament stuff had gone down, to Ron first praising Sara and then immediately insulting her (a classic sign of abuse, or at least abusive tendencies), to finally Harry Potter punching Ron in the face and defending the other Hogwarts champion before leaving Ron behind like a piece of worthless garbage on the floor.

Meanwhile several floors below them FitzSimmons were carrying their own golden egg down to the lowest dorm that they had ever explored, and setting it on the mantelpiece so that they wouldn't be tempted to try to figure out what the horrid screeching meant before the second task was over. Then they headed back up to their own dorm a floor below the common room, happy to have the annoyance of the fist task out of the way, and several free months of nothing but school before they had to worry about going through everything all over again towards the end of February for the second task.

FitzSimmons were helping Hagrid collect his escaped skrewts in the first Care of Magical Creatures class of December when they heard the voice of none other than Ms Skeeter.

She was leaning against the split rail fence of Hagrid's garden watching, before finally announcing her presence with a cheerful, "Well, well, well…this does look like fun."

Hagrid looked over from the ground where he had just launched himself onto the last skrewt that they hadn't re-caged yet, and asked, "Who're you?"

"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," Ms Skeeter answered, beaming at him. "Now what are these fascinating creatures called?"

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid grunted out in reply as he wrestled the creature into its cage, before straightening up and brushing himself off as he looked over at the press member.

"Really? I've never heard of them before...where do they come from?" Rita asked with wonderful feigned interest — far more than anyone in Hagrid's class had ever tried to muster up for the beasts. Then again, none of them were trying to make money off of Hagrid's probably illegal pets.

But Hagrid didn't seem inclined to answer this question, instead preferring to flush a deep red and stare at the ground, making FitzSimmons even more suspicious than they already were that the creatures were illegal, and therefore that Dumbledore was protecting Hagrid and the horrid beasts.

Ms Skeeter, however, didn't seem to actually care where the creatures came from, and in the ensuing silence began looking around the garden at all of the students there. Her eyes traveled over the few students besides FitzSimmons who hadn't run away in fear, such as Dean, Lavender, and Seamus, taking in all of their scrapes, bumps, burns, and torn robes, before traveling on to the windows of Hagrid's hut, where most of the class (including all ten of the Slytherins) could easily be seen cowering. But then her eyes landed on Fitz.

"Ah, you're here, Harry!" she said brightly. "So you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?"

"It is mine as a biochemist," Simmons answered coolly from next to her husband, giving the reporter a pointed look. "And you know better than to ask Harry questions — this is the third time we've gone over this."

As Hagrid briefly beamed at Simmons for saying that she liked his class before looking slightly confused at the 'know better than to ask Harry questions' bit, Ms Skeeter sweetly said to Simmons, "Lovely, really lovely," before turning back to Hagrid and asking, "Been teaching long?"

"This is o'ny me second year," Hagrid answered.

"Lovely...I don't suppose you'd like to give an interview, would you?" Ms Skeeter asked him. "Share some of your experience of magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these — er — Bang-Ended Scoots in there."

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid replied eagerly, eating up the fact that someone was finally showing an interest in his creations. "Yeah, why not?"

As Hagrid and Ms Skeeter made their arrangements to meet that Friday night in the Three Broomsticks for their interview, FitzSimmons silently wondered if they just might finally be rid of these abominations if Skeeter wrote a widely read article in the nation's one media source about their illegality, which the Ministry could no longer ignore or Dumbledore could no long keep swept under the rug. It was probably too much to hope for Hagrid being fired from teaching for the possession of illegal animals, and possibly illegal breeding, but it might be within the realm of possibility for the appropriate department to sweep in and kill the creatures, or else take them off to research facilities and zoos and wildlife preserves to study the animals and see if there were any uses for them besides tearing everything to shreds and lighting everything on fire.