The War of the Sexes
Written by Magus II
(Note: I don't own Harry Potter.)
A peaceful day was dawning on the stony parapets of Hogwarts Castle, located in Northern Scotland (not England, as is generally believed). As the morning dew was forming over the sleepy Scottish fortress, the sun was slowly creeping toward the sleeping figure of a young man asleep in his bed. The shadows from his dresser covered less and less of his face until finally the rays of the sun beat down on his eyelids. The young man arose, tired and hungry. He got up, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stepped into the common room bathroom.
Once there, he slapped hands with his roommates: the Irish Seamus; the black Dean; the clumsy Neville; and the fiery-haired Ron. He stepped into one of the private shower stalls and turned on the water to as hot as he could stand it, rubbed some shampoo into his hair, and rinsed. As he finished cleaning himself, he shut off the stream of water and dried himself off with his towel. He left his dark, unruly hair alone, letting it fall down his forehead without bothering to comb it. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he stepped back into the fifth-year's room, and walked toward his dresser to put on some clothes and his wizard's robes.
As he opened the drawers, however, he was greeted with a lonely emptiness. Nothing there. He opened all of his other drawers quickly, searching for something to wear. He found nothing. His drawers were empty. He stood up and glanced around the room, and the looks on his mates' faces revealed that they were in similarly dire straits.
"Okay, I've got two theories."
"Let 'em rip, Ron."
"One: Malfoy got some of his thugs together, stole the password to the common room, and stole all of our clothes."
"Possible. What's the second one?"
"That the house-elves have declared independence and started a civil war."
The laughter created by this comment was abated by the fact that none of them had any clothes, or any prospects of getting any.
"So, uh, what are we going to do? Walk around in towels all day?"
"Might set a new trend."
"If getting dozens of points taken away from Gryffindor is trendy."
"Right. Here's the plan. We go commando style down to the fourth year dorms and borrow some clothes. Then, we find out who stole our clothes and use the Cruciatus curse on them."
"W-what?"
"Sorry, Neville, just kidding about the curse part."
"Sounds like a plan, though."
"Hey, I've still got my Invisibility Cloak!"
"Sweet. Will it fit five?"
"It never seems to be too short, no matter how many people I put under it. Maybe that's part of the magic."
"Or just a plot device."
"Ron, what have I told you about breaking the fourth wall before breakfast?"
"Now you sound like Hermione." Laughter.
"Right. To the fourth year room!"
* * *
When they got to the fourth year dorm, however, they were greeted with a less than sympathetic reception. When the laughter had died down to a respectable level, one of the fourth years spoke.
"Wait. So you're telling me-" -more laughter- "that you need to borrow some of our clothes because-" -raucous laughter- "somebody stole yours?" Much laughter.
"Yeah, shove it up your-"
"Ron!"
"Sorry."
Colin Creevey was the first to stop laughing. "Well, I guess we can loan you some of our clothes. I mean, we'd want you to help us if we were placed in a similar situation!" Colin nearly bent double with laughter again before recovering. "Okay, Harry, feel free."
"Thank you, Colin." The fifth year students grabbed some clothes and vamoosed before another spate of laughter could burst forth.
* * *
Harry and his pals, now dressed in two-sizes-too-small clothing, proceeded gloomily down to the common room. Once there, they were greeted with more convulsive laughter. Harry glared at Colin's fourth-year friends, who shrugged as if to say, "couldn't help it, mate," and continued laughing. Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati were particularly struck with spasms of laughter. Harry and his friends held their noses high and walked out of the common room to plot their revenge.
* * *
"The plan was successful, commander!"
"Ha! Ha! Seeing them in those… what were they, fourth year robes?"
"Several sizes too small!"
"That was probably the funniest thing I've ever seen!"
"Right. So if we know them, they'll try as hard as they can to get revenge."
"Oh, very hard, if you know what I mean…" Laughter.
"Quiet, you. So we make our plans centered around an attack on Slytherin."
"Heh, heh. Right."
"Mee hee hee."
"Meeting adjourned!"
* * *
"So we're agreed. Tonight, we raid the Slytherin fifth year dorm."
"Agent Finnigan, did you procure the password?"
"Sure, Harry."
"Ahem."
"Sorry, um, 'Agent Potter.' The password's 'Malystryx.'"
"How do you spell that?"
"You don't need to write it down, Agent Longbottom."
"Um… Harry?"
"Agent Potter."
"Right. Um, why are we talking like this?"
"I dunno. Kinda gives us an enigmatic-mystique type factor, doesn't it?"
"I guess so…"
"All right, then. Agent Thomas, do you have the supplies?"
"Yeah, I snuck into the kitchens and got the stuff."
"Tonight, we will have our revenge!"
"Meeting adjourned!"
* * *
The next night, as promised, Harry and Ron snuck into the Slytherin fifth-year dorm under cover of invisibility. They had been elected, as they had been the only Gryffindors to have been inside the Slytherin common room at some point, although the details were sketchy. Armed with dessert-ish condiments, they decorated the Spartan dorm with confectionary delights. They finished with a few booby-traps in the showers and then stole out of the room as quickly as possible. They reported briefly back to their fellow conspirators and then retired to their beds to await the morning.
* * *
Draco Malfoy awoke with a sticky feeling all over his chest. He scratched his side, only to discover that he was covered in honey. He jumped out of bed rapidly, trying to scrape the sugary liquid off of his body. As he did so, he heard similar antics coming from his fellow Slytherin. Crabbe and Goyle had been additionally decorated with rainbow-colored sprinkles. Draco stormed off to the showers, muttering to himself about slimy Gryffindor scum and what he would do to them and their close relations if he got the chance. He flipped the "hot" dial on the shower and was still muttering when a stream of hot chocolate syrup spurted magically from the spigot. He screamed and turned the other dial. Immediately the stream changed into cold whipped cream, covering his body. As a final insult, a small cherry lay in the soap dish.
"AAARRGH!"
* * *
Care of Magical Creatures was an interesting class for everyone involved that day. As Hagrid was showing off the winged horses, one of them walked straight up to Malfoy and began licking his arm.
"Eeyuk! It's trying to eat me!"
"Now, now, Malfoy, it's not – why do you smell like chocolate?"
"Grrr….."
* * *
The triumph felt by the Gryffindor fifth years was tremendous. They went to bed that night elated and satisfied that they had obtained their revenge. They weren't worried about a counterattack, because they had persuaded the Fat Lady to change the password that night and hadn't told anyone yet.
Unfortunately for them, they weren't quite as safe as they thought they were.
* * *
The next morning, both fifth-year groups woke up to the smell of chocolate syrup. Once again, the Slytherins had been candied, but the Gryffindors had also been victimized. After a quick but unsuccessful attempt to wipe themselves off (neither group trusting the showers) they both gave up and stormed down toward the Great Hall. When the got there, Harry and Malfoy got right up into each others' faces.
"Potter, you've gone too far this time!"
"Yeah? I don't appreciate being made into a malt-shop product myself!"
"You apologize right now, Potter!"
"You first!"
"You wanna make this into a big issue?"
"I think it's big enough as it is, Malfoy. Let's take it outside."
"We'll meet you outside after classes. Be there or else."
* * *
"Um… was the fight in the original plan?"
"Yes, it was."
"Are you sure? I thought they were supposed to come to us and make us help them get back at each other."
"No, no. They'll fight each other into the ground, then we'll be able to reap the rewards."
"We've been dominated by their rivalry for far too long!"
"It's time that we took advantage of their hatred for each other!"
"Yeah!" Cheering.
"Seeing them covered in chocolate, though… I almost wet my pants, that was so good!"
"I felt it too, but let's not get distracted from our mission. Meeting adjourned!"
* * *
After their last classes were over, the five Gryffindor fifth-years and the three Slytherin fifth-years gathered outside the back of the castle. Neville and Dean both leaned back against the walls, sneers plastered across their faces. Goyle and Crabbe returned the scowls with knuckles cracking.
"You know, your friends are going to get arthritis from all of the knuckle cracking they do." Harry stood, his arms folded, directly across Malfoy's path. The end of his cloak billowed in the wind, Malfoy's doing the same.
"Yeah, well, your friends are going to get their faces rearranged in just a minute."
"Standard Wizard's duel. Wands only, no physical contact. First team with all three members decapacitated loses."
"And to the winner go the spoils."
"The losing team has to dress up in the worst Muggle clothing that the other group can find and walk around like that for a day."
"Agreed."
Harry and Malfoy stepped back and drew their wands. They both adopted a dueling stance and bowed to each other. Neville and Dean leaned forward in anticipation of a momentous battle.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Incendius!"
A red bolt of sparks shot out of the end of Harry's wand, striking the green sparks shot from Draco's. The red sparks glanced off and hit a large tree, which dropped some of it's leaves. The green sparks angled away into the lake, where they created a large cloud of steam. Draco and Harry glared daggers at each other. Heck, they glared broadswords at each other. Which is really totally physically impossible, considering that broadswords are awfully big compared to eyeballs.
Okay, we just totally lost control of the suspenseful atmosphere there.
Sorry, I couldn't help it.
I apologize.
Just don't do it again.
Draco and Harry lifted their wands toward each other, each trying to guess which spell the other would use. The reacted, as before, simultaneously.
"Angelus!"
"Angelus!"
A white bolt of sparks shot out of Draco's wand and connected dead on with a black bolt from Harry's. Their wands continued to feed magical power into the spells, creating a ball of energy that changed from white to black to white again. Draco and Harry fought a furious battle of wills, each trying to force their wands to exert a little bit more power than the other. Finally, the beams stopped, and they both collapsed onto their knees. Their friends rushed forward to catch them before they fell flat on their faces.
Crabbe lifted his wand and said the first word I can ever remember him saying in this fic. Ron matched him with a spell of his own.
"uh, Expelliarmus!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Ron's wand flew out of his hand toward Crabbe. Unfortunately, Crabbe was completely immobile, and the wand merely bounced off of his forehead and fell to the ground. Ron rushed to pick it up, but Goyle brushed him aside and grabbed it. Seamus called out a spell before Goyle could do anything more.
"Stupefy!"
Goyle fell unconscious on the ground. Ron grabbed his wand out of Goyle's hand and walked over to Harry. Harry was completely exhausted from his battle of wills with Malfoy. Ron tried to comfort him.
"It's okay, Harry, his wand's better for curses than yours is. You would have beaten him outright if the playing field was level, honestly!"
Harry coughed and brushed Ron aside. He got to his feet unsteadily, and managed to balance on them with Ron and Seamus's help. He had just managed to stand on his own when he heard a similarly recovered Malfoy utter two spells.
"Stupefy! Stupefy!" Ron and Seamus fell to the ground.
"You backstabbing idiot! We won!"
"That's what you think. The battle isn't over yet, Potter! You and I still have a score to settle!"
"Bring it on, Malfoy!"
"Consider it brought!"
"Evergreen!"
"Expelliarmus!"
Sparks flew again between the feuding wizards. Malfoy's wand flew into the air and he fell backward, unconscious. Harry felt Malfoy's spell hit him dead on, but he managed to retain consciousness throughout. He managed to smile weakly before collapsing himself.
Neville and Dean brought all six unconscious duelers to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey clicked her tongue and scolded them for dueling. She put them all into hospital beds and began to revive them. Seamus, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle were easy enough; simple countercurses were enough to revive them. Harry and Draco, however, had exhausted their bodies and their minds in the battle. Both of them were bone-tired and ravenously hungry, with splitting headaches to match. To add to the confusion, Harry's skin had been turned green by Malfoy's last spell. Since it was a relatively new spell, Madam Pomfrey wasn't sure if there was a counterspell or not, but Hermione came through soon enough with a counterspell of her own: "Nevergreen!"
Harry's skin resumed it's whitish hue.
* * *
"So what happens next?"
"We move in for the kill."
"Do they suspect?"
"Not a thing."
"Mee hee hee."
"Hey, stop that weird laughter, okay?"
"Whatever."
"What's our next move, then?"
"Find your target and go for it. Meeting adjourned."
The conspirators got to their feet, did their weird secret-handshake thingy, and set off for the hospital wing. The last one to leave was Hermione, the director of the group. It had been her idea to start the prank war between Gryffindor and Slytherin, in the hopes that the two groups would so humiliate each other that they would actually start paying attention to their girlfriends.
"I wonder if they ever even suspected us?" Hermione said as she left.
* * *
That evening, during dinner, Professor Dumbledore stood up and clinked his spoon against his goblet to call for attention. The four tables all looked up at the teacher's table, where they noticed several new faces sitting near the headmaster.
"Attention, please. I called for your attention for two reasons this evening. Firstly, I wish to talk to you concerning dueling on campus. While I realize that some of you may have irreconcilable differences," and here he glanced pointedly at the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, "I must stress to you the danger of allowing yourselves to seriously fight each other with magic. You are as yet untrained; even you seventh years must be careful in your usage of magic, no matter what the situation. As for our younger, underage students, such as fifth years," he coughed, "I must tell you that henceforth, in these troubling times, any student caught dueling will be given an automatic detention and ten points will be taken away from the house of each student involved, spectator or dueler. Students at this school have died before as a result of dueling, and I don't want to see any of our beloved student body this year fall prey to such an unfortunate occurrence."
The teachers nodded, and Professor McGonagall looked sternly at Harry, who blushed very slightly.
"On a happier note, I am pleased to welcome four temporary students to our halls for the remaining term. They are exchange students from non-European schools of wizardry. Several of our seventh-years have left us, as you may have noticed, and these students will be taking their places.
"The first student I introduce to you is a fifth-year from the Kiryu-Kai school of Wizardry in Japan. Please welcome Awesome Taro." Mild applause rang through the hall. "Second, from the Kamehameha Academy in Hawaii, Kami-san." More applause. "Third, from the Southern California Magic School, Magus II." Applause. "And fourth, from the Colorado Conjurer's school, Miss NekoMegami-chan." Loud catcalls from guys in the audience followed her introduction. "These students will not be a part of any particular house, and they may eat with any of you. They will be given their own private dorm for the duration of their stay. Please welcome them as you would our own new students."
Well, we put ourselves in.
At the very end of the chapter!
What's the plot, again?
Good question.
P.S. Does anyone know how to spell "Awesome" in Japanese Romanji? It would be simpler than writing Awesome every time I use the Japanese.
Or you could just use English.
It's a good language too, dude.
Shut up.
(Note: We're all from Southern California in real life. We're also all white, we just thought it would be cool to come from across the globe.)
Review please!