The Poster Wars

by Azerea

When all of Hogwarts awakes to a school covered in wanted posters showing Harry's face, a war is started between the houses. A war not about Voldemort, but about the students' ability to alter the posters. Once the poster war is started will it ever be stopped?

Written for kitty132383's Things I'm not allowed to do at Hogwarts Challenge. Mine was 'I shall not put up wanted posters with Harry's face on them.'

Everyone knew that Harry Potter was probably the most wanted person in all of Britain. They all knew the reward for turning him in. They all knew this but someone still felt the posters were necessary.

No one knew when someone had found the time to make them or what had given them the idea. They woke up one morning and the whole school was covered in them. Gazing at them from every classroom and up and down every corridor was a picture of Harry with a caption beneath him that said, "WANTED: HARRY JAMES POTTER, REWARD TO THE WIZARD WHO BRINGS HIM TO THE MINISTRY"

In less than ten minutes the whole school had seen them. Some were torn down when no one was looking and some were glared at, but there were always some left on the walls.

The Slytherins liked them. They would magically alter Harry's face then laugh and nudge each other to show off their work. The Gryffindors would scowl and do their best to fix the posters, sometimes changing the caption so that it said, "NEEDED: HARRY JAMES POTTER, THE WIZARD WHO WILL BRING DOWN THE MINISTRY" It turned into a battle between the houses to see who had the most posters. Soon the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws joined the Gryffindors against the Slytherins.

There was nothing the Hogwarts teachers could do to stop this battle. Some took down the posters in an effort to calm the students fighting. But for every poster taken down two more would appear the next day. Even the Carrows didn't like them. At first they had thought that perhaps the posters would help catch Harry. But no one at the school had seen him, therefore they did not have a chance to turn him in. The longer the posters were up, the more the Slytherins seemed interested in altering them rather than torturing other students. This is what led the Carrows to begin helping the other teachers in their efforts to rid the castle of the posters. Hating to be a part of anything that the Carrows supported, the other teachers began to use magic to cause the posters to multiply. Only when the Carrows were watching would the teachers remove the posters, which were reappearing at a rate even faster than before.

The poster war ended as quickly as it had started. One night the school was covered in posters and in the morning they were all gone.

No one ever knew for sure who put the posters up. There were rumors but they were never verified and each one never lasted more than a few days.

There were people who were glad the posters were gone, and people who weren't so glad. The Slytherins went back to their torturing the students of other houses, and everything else returned to how it was before. It was as if the poster war had never existed. But it had existed and everyone involved was not likely to soon forget.