3. Feints.
Ron arose first, and the war was afoot.
Harry found out as soon as he woke up and reached for his glasses. His hint? The fact that his glasses weren't on his bedside table.
In fact, they were on the window sill.
In the tall glass pitcher.
The tall glass pitcher that was almost filled with ice water.
"Ron, you prat!" said Harry. Ron and their three dorm mates roared with laughter.
"Think of it as wizard chess, Harry."
Those were the last words the best of friends would exchange all day.
Harry was late arriving at breakfast, but just in time to see a school owl deliver a package to Ron.
Ron didn't have to fully unwrap it. The delivery wriggled out of its own package, and ran.
It took Ron a few minutes of embarrassing scramble, up and down the Gryffindor table, to catch Scabbers. A smiling Harry avoided eye contact. Now Ron knew why Harry had been late to breakfast.
But revenge is sweet. Or so they say.
Ron was late arriving at the midday meal, but just in time to see Hedwig deliver an envelope to Harry.
Not just any envelope, though. It was a Howler. It loudly purported to be from a house-elf named Fifi, who said she was brokenhearted that Harry had left her for a troll, after all they meant to each other! To the other Weasleys, the voice sounded remarkably like ickle Ronnie, talking in a high-pitched voice with a very bad imitation of an elfin accent.
Harry turned red as a beet, while a smiling Ron avoided eye contact. Now Harry knew why Ron had been late to lunch.
In study hall, Ron went to talk to Angelina Johnson about something. He made the mistake of leaving his books unguarded on the table.
When he came back, he couldn't find his Potions homework. He did a frantic search before stopping to consider the ongoing chain of events, and turned to where Harry had been studying.
Harry had left the room, but there on the table was Ron's homework parchment. On top of it, hanging off the edge of the table, was a wooden bookend, the flat backside up. On top of that was the glass of ice water that Harry had been sipping....except the half-full glass was now upside down on the bookend. Only the vacuum that nature abhors was holding the water in.
Ron thought about a wingardium leviosa, but if the glass levitated without the bookend, he was doomed. He was very, very gentle and very, very slow at sliding his precious homework out from underneath the stack.
Later that afternoon, the Gryffindor Quidditch team was delayed a few minutes in starting practice.
It seems their Seeker, one Mr. Potter, opened his wardrobe in the team room to find his uniform and broom had been replaced with a pink dress and a mop.
The rest of the team savoured the moment, especially the Weasley twins.
"Go on, Harry, you're a great wizard!"
"....We're sure you can make a mop fly..."
"....even if you have to ride it side-saddle..."
"....but how are you going to catch the Snitch, with one hand on the mop..."
"....and the other hand modestly holding your skirt down in the breeze?"
Harry found his proper gear in the nearby mop room. He reckoned Fred and George had helped Ron sneak in. For once, he was wrong to suspect the twins of perpetrating a joke.
Angelina volunteered to hold the dress until Ron's anonymous conspirator claimed it. After practice, she brought it to the girls' dorm, and snickering, put it back among her weekend things, where it belonged.
The banquet went quietly that night. Very quietly. Both sides figured they had used up their luck in perpetrating disruptive jokes in the venue of the Great Hall. But you could tell the war was hardly over.
Hermione couldn't take it any longer. "Are you two going to say anything to each other, or is this developing into a fist fight?"
"No problem," said Ron, "as soon as Harry admits he lost last night's game."
"Or," said Harry, "as soon as Ron agrees he resigned it."
Fred and George loved every minute of it.
"You're right, Hermione....."
"....Definite fist fight developing here."
"Kid Weasley, representing the Burrow gym..."
".... versus the Whinger from Little Whinging..."
"....for the peewee championship of the UK."
"The winner gets a week in the Infirmary...."
"....and the loser gets two weeks."
"I want the butterbeer concession...."
Without a word, Hermione got up and stamped out of the hall. The twins took the cue and shut up. Ron and Harry glanced at each other, then looked down, and said nothing.
Now several people who had a lot they should be saying to each other weren't talking at all.
There was no wizard chess game that night.