Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Competition: The School Subject Competition, run by ladyoftheknightely

Subject: Potions

Word Count: 2,172 words

The Two Unknown Wars

1975

"Prongs?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bored."

James gritted his teeth, trying his best not to strangle Sirius. He repeated in his head, like a mantra, the line, 'Don't strangle him no matter how tempting it is', over and over again.

It was lunch and everyone was pretty quiet, apart from the usual chatter.

"Prongs?" Sirius repeated, still slumped against the table, mindlessly playing with the fork in his hands.

James sighed, pretty sure he knew what Sirius was about to say. "Yes, Padfoot?"

"I'm bo - "

"Padfoot, if you do not shut up I swear I will hex you into the oblivion. I'm bored as well, and Peter's not here because of some bloody assignment and Remus is helping him. And that's annoying."

"You just read my mind," Sirius muttered.

For a few seconds he stared at the back of the head of a brown haired Slytherin girl... either that or the wall. Probably - or hopefully - the latter.

Then, his eyes brightened and he straightened. Though his black hair was covering his eyes, you could still see the glint there.

"I can't believe we hadn't thought of this before," he grinned, widely.

"Thought of...?"

"Food fight, of course!" Sirius rolled his eyes, obviously exasperated as he looked at his friend's blank expression.

At first James seemed reproachful at the idea. He'd thought it would have been better than that. Then he realised the Hall was a big place, and there were a lot of kids in there.

A smile appeared on his face, and he smirked.

"Oh, yeah, this is going to be fun," he said, "This is going to be so fun. Padfoot, would you like the honours of beginning the war?"

"I would actually," Sirius smirked, pleasantly, as if it was just a normal conversation, and they were not going to throw the Hall into utter chaos.

"Hm... I think I'll start with our dear friend, Snivellus..." he decided, being the mature 5th Year he was. He grabbed the nearest item - which happened to be a plate full of lasagne and aimed it at the back of Snape's head.

"Count down please, Prongs?" he suggested.

"Five! Four! Thre - " James said, enthusiastically, but paused as a girl looked at them oddly, while passing them.

"Three!" he repeated, half whispering, half yelling, "Two! One! Fire!"

The lasagne flew through the air, almost in slow motion - well, no, but later, Sirius and James both recounted it as such - and looked... lasagne-y.

Splat.

It hit a certain red-head, that had just been crossing the table, right in the side of her face. There was a pause from the people around them, and the Slytherins in vicinity sniggered - though there were some from other people as well.

Sirius' mouth fell open and he was just about to consider ducking behind James before he had the most amazing, most brilliant, most stupid, most - you get the idea - idea in the world. He pushed James behind him which caused him to indignantly yell.

"He did it," Sirius said, immediately pointing to the boy behind his back, as Lily Evans turned around - still wiping lasagne away from her face and hair - and glared at the pair, "See? He's hiding!"

"WHAT?!" James shouted, so loudly that heads turned from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables as well.

He got up - while bumping his head on the table, so therefore letting off a stream of curse words - and glared at Sirius.

"I did not!" he turned to face Lily then, and pleaded, "You know I didn't Evans? Right?"

For a few seconds, Lily studied the two.

Then she picked up another piece of lasagne and threw it right in James' face.

While Sirius roared with laughter at James' dumbfounded expression, he found himself with a rather large piece of chicken thrown right in the middle of his eyes.

He stared at the red head for a bit, not entirely sure of what happened, but sure that he may or may not have a bruise in the morning. He thought the latter.

Next to him, James was unable to do anything but crack a grin.

"Didn't know you had it in you, Evans," he said, almost carelessly as he wiped the lasagne away. It ended up on the guy next to him who turned around, frowned and shoved a pie right in his face. Ah, the classic.

Some people who had been watching (i.e. First and Second Years) decided this would be extremely amusing and decided to start throwing food at random people. In turn, this caused the said random people to throw things at the said people who had been watching.

Food flying everywhere, robes covered in food that technically should be on the table, on the way to the mouth or in the mouth and grinning faces - oh, and the horrified faces of some teachers, but they don't really count, do they - were pretty much all that was in the Great Hall. There was barely any food left on the tables at one stage, but then, food suddenly reappeared, as if the house elves were working hard to 'get enough food for everyone because they seemed to be starving'.

Remus and Peter walked in, tiredly, and were startled at the sight, but quickly guessed who had caused this mayhem. Remus allowed a grin to appear on his face, though his eyes still had bags under them due to his sleepless nights (full moon had passed only two nights before), while Peter let out a laugh and joined in the fight.

Some of the teachers (i.e. Professor Dumbledore) had a small smile on their face, and their eyes were twinkling in amusement. Proffesor McGonagall on the other hand...

"Stop this!" she called, "Stop this... stupidity!"

Waving her wand which was in hand, all the food disappeared and everyone ended up looking extremely stupid, as some were about to throw things and looked as if they were posing, or people who were ducking in cover were ducing from... nothing.

The two that had actually started this were watching, amused, trying not to laugh. As soon as McGonagall caused the food to disappear however, a panicked expression crossed their faces.

"Remain calm," James hissed, "Act innocent."

So that's what the two did. They put on innocent expressions and sat there, calmly.

Unfortunately for them, McGonagall's gaze landed on them and she saw right through their expression as if it was glass.

"Potter. Black," she barked, "To my office, immediately."

"That was so your fault," James grumbled, "Idiot."

"It's your innocent expression that was crap," Sirius argued.

"Hey, at least Snivellus got covered in food," James smiled, "That'll be engraved in my brain forever... and I'll always laugh at it."

The two exchanged grins.

The result of the - extremely amusing - event caused two things. One, for James and Sirius they got detention for the next 3 weeks and, two, the event went down in history.

1996

"You know Gred, I think we need to cause some more mayhem for Umbridge."

"Couldn't agree more Forge."

The twins looked each other, then at the food.

"I can't believe we didn't think of this before!" George exclaimed.

"It's humiliating!" Fred agreed.

"What is?" Neville asked, curiously.

Evil prankster grins appeared on both their faces.

"Don't worry, Neville," Fred replied, "You'll find out soon..."

He was right. Exactly 5.65 seconds later in fact, when a piece of lasagne flew through the air and hit Draco Malfoy directly in the face.

The Slytherins surrounding Draco burst into fits of laughter, highly amused, and the Gryffindors who saw it were also laughing. The latter may or may not have been due to the fact that Draco was hated by most, if not all, Gryffindors.

Neville was laughing especially hard, as it was satisfying to see the boy that constantly bullied him and humiliated him get humiliated for once... though he did feel slightly sorry for him.

Outraged, Draco stood up after wiping the lasagne off his face and grabbing the nearest food item and pegging it in the general direction of Fred and George. Unfortunately, it hit Ginny instead, causing her to yell in shock. In retaliation, she threw a plate of mashed potatoes at the Slytherin table which hit Pansy in the face, greatly improving her looks.

Only a few teachers had seen this so far, and most of them were wearing a small smirk on their face. They wouldn't interrupt the students today, unlike they had done 20 years ago. It would be nice to see Umbridge to have to sort it out. Even Snape was wearing a small smirk, but only because Umbridge was going to have hell. Definitely not because of the food fight 20 years ago.

A food war picked up between, first the Slytherins and Gryffindors, as more people got hit with food, but then Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff joined in after a few of them also got hit by food.

The Great Hall was in utter chaos. Food was being thrown everywhere, and everyone was having, generally, a good time.

"Stop!" Umbridge shrieked, racing around like a headless chicken, "Stop this or I will give you all detention!"

No one paid attention to her, except to 'accidentally' throw food at her. Almost immediately, the food fight between houses turned into 'One House' vs. 'Umbridge' vs. 'Other Houses'.

A point system spread through the whole school.

One point each time you hit people from another house, minus one point each time you hit someone from your own house and fifty times each time you manage to 'accidentally' hit Umbridge.

"Help me!" Umbridge all demanded the teachers. However, they simply replied with a, "This is beyond our control." Watching Umbridge suffer was too fun.

"You are the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, are you not?" McGonagall inquired, when she was told to help, "You must be able to sort this out."

Umbridge's face (or whatever wasn't covered in food) changed from red to a brilliant shade of purple that would have rivalled Mr Dursley's in a matter of moments.

"You - you," she spluttered, but was unable to form words. She ended up resuming running around the Great Hall screaming at students to stop the nonsense.

Fred and George ducked underneath a table and congratulated themselves on their brilliance.

"Well done Forge, brilliant idea, I must say."

"No, no, it was our brilliant idea that worked out so well, Gred. At least Umbridge is getting the hell she deserves."

The two twins flashed grins at one another before returning to the food fight, both having gotten the same idea at the same time. Great minds think alike!

"THE HOUSE THAT CAN HIT EVERY SINGLE PERSON FROM ANOTHER HOUSE WINS!" the two bellowed at the top of their voices.

It was obvious what was going to happen to next, even if it was obvious that there would be no way for a clear winner to be decided.

Gryffindor and Slytherin immediately started throwing food at one another, the food war becoming uncontrollable. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, not wanting to be left out, had their own war. The Hall was divided in four as each house pelted one another.

Some Slytherins slid into the Gryffindor ranks, sneakily, and pelted people from behind. A few Ravenclaws used various items on the table to give more firing ability. Most Gryffindors just threw pieces of food everywhere, splattering their opponents and Hufflepuff threw food as fast as it would appear (and that was fast).

If the Trio had been in the Hall (which they were, unfortunately not, as they were visiting Hagrid), then Hermione would have been horrified, and tried to cause this to end as soon as it had started. If she had been down in the Kitchens, she would have been outraged. The house elves were working as fast as they could, because it seemed like, suddenly, everyone was starving.

Finally, Dumbledore seemed to decide that since the Great Hall was coated in food, it was time to end the gigantic war.

He simply stood up and waved his wand, and all the food in the room suddenly disappeared. Students were still coated in food (he decided that they could learn their lesson by trying to get it off), but the rest of the Hall was perfectly fine.

"That's enough," he said, calmly, "It seems you had an enjoyable time, but now it is time to return to normal. If you would all please, it is almost time to return to your lessons."

Fred and George were smiling, thinking they were about to get away with it as they were just about to walk through the doors. Unfortunately, for them, Dumbledore called, not moments later, "And Mr's Fred and George Weasley, please see me in my office."

Looks like that didn't work.

At first, I was just writing this for the heck of it, but then I found this competition on HPFC! So... I decided to sign up for it :)

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- Cassandra