A/N: Wow, I told you to give me bad reviews and you gave me good ones (although it did help my self-esteem a pinch :) even though I called you mindless idiots. Wait, I never did that, but I think I should. So you mindless idiots, maybe if told you to give garbage, you'll perhaps think it wise to parade me in riches! No? It was worth a try. . .

Disclaimer: I've tried blackmail, violence, and even chocolate cupcakes but sadly, these characters still do not belong to me.

Chapter 1: Inter-House What?
It was Saturday at breakfast and the Great Hall was full of chatter. The lives of all the happy children were so wonderful and unblemished by the things that lurked beyond the castle walls at this very moment. There was no way for Harry Potter and his fellow classmates to know that their happiness would soon be beaten to a bloody pulp and then shoved into a blender, not to mention peed on and flushed down the toilet.

The aged Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore stood up slowly from his seat and raised his wand into the air, sending mauve sparks up into the air in order to draw attention to himself, as every teacher loves to do. Of course there was no need for this because the second the the aged Professor stood up, every eye in the room went to him. After the war, those on the winning side felt a sense of respect towards him more than ever before and those on the losing side were too scared of him to show anything but generosity.

Harry looked up respectfully at the man who had saved his life on countless occasions and listened intently for what he had to say. On the other side of the room, however, Draco Malfoy, although looking up at the headmaster as were all else, was dreading his speech. 'Probably praising Potter on his courageous act of glory again,' he thought.

The small amount of silverware clattering that was left since the Dumbledore stood up ceased at once as he began to speak in his wheezy but jubilant voice.

"As you all know, today is Inter-House Cooperation Day," he said.

At once, the chatter broke out again. "Inter-House what," Ron blurted out from the Gryffindor table, afraid of what this could mean. "Inter-House Cooperation Day, Ron," Hermione hissed in her boyfriend's ear. "It was created in light of the end of the war. The school thought it appropriate to unite all the houses now that we are all on the same side. I personally thought that something like this would have been useful before the war began, but that's just me," she said in her bossy tone.

'Oh great,' Harry thought. Just what he needed, a lecture on being nice to Slytherins.

"Why didn't you warn us earlier, Hermione," Harry asked.

"It was in the New, Unbiased, Un-braised, Uncut, and Unabridged version of Hogwarts: A History. I would have thought that you and Ron would have started reading that by now," she said, sounding scandalized.

"Hermione, when have Harry and I ever read anything that wasn't assigned to be read? Hell, when have we read anything that was assigned to be read," Ron asked.

He was cut short by the continuation of Dumbledore's speech.

"In honor of this very special day, we are going to have a little contest between the houses," Dumbledore said. "A joint common room will be created for one night only to pair two of each of the houses into one. Whichever two houses have the most people left in their common room by tomorrow morning will have a special ball just for those houses.

"The Head Boy and Head Girl will monitor the situations as will our prefects. If no fighting occurs and it seems like we have all gotten along, we are likely to do this again next year.

"The voting for which houses will be paired together will begin today at 12:00PM and will end at 7:00PM sharp, right after dinner is done being served. The sheets to vote can be found outside of the Charms classroom on the seventh floor. You may only vote once and every pupil must vote. The results will be announced after dinner at which time the chosen houses will gather in the joint common rooms that have been set up. The prefects will be able to direct you to the appropriate location.

"If you become aggravated with the people that you are sharing a common room with, which I'm sure you all will, please do not take rash action, simply come to the Great Hall where all of those who forfeit will sleep until the contest is over in the morning.

"Finally, I advise you all to take this very seriously as it is in hopes that we can be stronger wizards in learning foreign techniques and seeing situations from someone else's point of view, in turn gaining new opinions of our own which could effect our lives as we know it. Good luck and good day to you all."

Dumbledore sat back down as talk broke out amongst the students once again. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione gathered their school bags and stood up to go Ron said "What the bloody hell was Dumbledore talking about when he said seeing the world from someone else's point of view? If we saw our world from the Slytherins' point of view, think of where our world would be!" "Ron, I think he meant more along the lines of learning about the good side of people that you never knew was there," Hermione interjected. "Hermione, when are you going to get that Slytherins don't have good sides," Harry said. Hermione sighed.

As they made their way up the marble staircase and on to the seventh floor, Harry and Ron turned to walk in the direction of their common room but Hermione took hold of them both and forced them off to the voting ballots outside the Charms Department.

"Hermione, I'm not bloody voting for this thing since I'm not doing it," said Ron stubbornly.

"Oh come on, Ron," Hermione said brightly. "If you vote, we have less of a chance of being paired with Slytherin and if we win, we'll have another ball!"

"Hermione, do you remember what happened the last time we had a ball," Ron asked, looking at her as though she were mad.

"Well, I'll be there with you this time, Ron, it would be much more enjoyable."

Ron still did not look convinced.

"Will you just vote, Ron," Harry said, a little unnerved by his two friends constant bickering. "I'm going to. It might not be that bad. Who in their right mind would vote for the Gryffindors and Slytherins to be together ,anyway? You'd have to be mad! Besides, even if we do get paired with them by chance, we can always just go to sit in the Great Hall."

"That's the spirit, Potter," said a drawling voice from directly behind the trio. Harry turned to see Draco Malfoy, his signature smirk in place along with his best friend and most secretive of Slytherins, Blaise Zabini, who was staring at Ron and Hermione as though he did not approve of them but seeming completely uninterested in the conversation going on between the blonde next to him and the brunette right in front of him.

"Go and hide from confrontation like you always do. Don't face things. Just let people do it for you. Just like you had Dumbledore kill You-Know-Who for you," Malfoy said.

"Yes, I'm so cowardly, Malfoy," Harry said sarcastically. "where as you and your mates only have to hide behind a power-hungry old fraud who was afraid to die."

Malfoy chuckled maliciously but Blaise stayed silent, now focusing his gaze upon Harry. He seemed to regard his statement momentarily before focusing on his bottle green eyes. Harry, in turn, fixed his own gaze upon Blaise's mysterious hazel orbs.

"Potter, you understand nothing about this world, do you," Malfoy said after he quit laughing. "This world is not made up of good and evil but of power and those too weak to seek it! Don't you see that the life you are living is only a pawn in a much larger game! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named may be gone but his supporters and his ideas are not. Eventually, all the muggleborns and muggles will be eliminated" here he paused to glare menacingly at Hermione "as will all those to incompetent to understand it all. Then, the world will be as it should. The Death Eaters will rule and no one will ever die again!"

"Your crazy, Malfoy. What is it with you people and immortality? If I've learned anything from Dumbledore at all, it's that there are things much worse than death! Like being born into a world where no one understands you and you feel alone. I would rather die than live my life with the Dursleys' now that I know I have friends and people just like me in this world. Why can't you understand that? And you've met Hermione and you know that she's the smartest witch to ever pass through this school and she's a muggleborn. And there are hundreds of muggle scientists who are finding cures to diseases that kill people, something that you and your little gang bang seem to be so terrified of, cures that wizards like yourself could not manage to discover. You and your philosophy are all wrong, Malfoy, just admit it," Harry said.

He had not meant to say all that. He just felt so strongly about the things that Malfoy always seemed to push to the limit, that all of it just sort of flowed out of him, as though he were meant to say it all.

Malfoy looked stunned at Harry's own daring but Harry was not watching him. He was once again watching Blaise who seemed to be pondering what he said. He was then abruptly snapped out of his fixation.

Wham!

Harry fell down to the floor. Everything was blurry. The nest thing he knew, his glasses were being pushed back onto his face by a scared looking Hermione and Blaise was standing in between Ron and Draco who looked like they were about to kill each other.

"Are you okay, Harry?" Hermione asked, bending over by his side to make sure that he was alright. Harry nodded. He rubbed his head where Malfoy had punched him as he stood up, wobbling from the pain a bit. "Malfoy punched you," said Hermione, almost squealing in worry. "Yeah, that much I deduced," said Harry.

He shrugged off Hermione and walked over to where Blaise was trying to prevent Malfoy from getting away.

"Move aside," said Harry to the Italian boy.

Blaise looked at him. He did not seem like a person who liked to be told what to do but he nonetheless, moved aside so that Harry could be face-to-face with Draco.

"You'll see, Malfoy. We're going to stay in the common room the entire time and if the professors just happen to find a dead body lying around, that's not my problem," Harry said, menacingly.

Malfoy snorted as Harry reached down to sign the ballot for Gryffindor and Slytherin to be paired together.

"Harry, are you mad," Ron said from behind him. Harry did not answer.

"You're on, Potter," said Draco with a smirk as he too reached down and placed his ballot for the Gryffindor/Slytherin pairing. Blaise soon followed. Hermione, looking skeptical at first, saw the determination in Harry's eyes to show up Malfoy once and for all so she also reluctantly signed the ballot. They all looked up at Ron.

"What," he said. "There's no way I'm spending all day with a bunch of jumped-up Slytherins," he said defiantly. "Come on, Ron, don't you want to see Malfoy's face when he wants to leave so badly but he knows he can't?"

"Yeah, Weasley, don't you want to see my face when --. Hey, wait a minute!" They all laughed. Even Blaise joined in. Harry could never remember seeing Draco look this angry before. He loved it. Finally Ron signed the ballot as well.

"See you tonight, Potter. I can't wait to see the look on your face when you're dying to leave. I'm going to torture you and your friends mercilessly until you submit," he said with a chuckle.

"Wait, don't you do that anyway," Harry said under his breath to Ron and Hermione after Draco and Blaise were out of earshot.

Finally, they moved away from the sign sheets and saw that a crowd of people had appeared there almost at once and Harry saw to his satisfaction, a couple more Slytherins and Gryffindor sign the same box. He supposed that seeing Harry's and Draco's names on the list, they figured they had some sort of plan and the courageous and mischievous people they were the Gryffs and Slyths went right along with it.

As Harry, Ron, and Hermione reached the common room to finish up some of the week's homework and play some exploding snap until lunch, Harry was sort of thankful that the teachers had devised this day. Harry thought, 'Maybe this day will turn out to be very cooperative'.

A/N: So sorry for the lack of smut but it is coming. Anyway, I have a lot in store for these feud fires so just say tuned to find out what happens! Also, I love constructive criticism because it helps me to become a better writer so tell me what you don't like, tell me what you do, give me suggestions, I love it all!