Prompt: we're both prefects and we broke up a food fight in the great hall, but it got messy and dungbombs were involved, and now we're both disgusting and in immediate need of a bath, and it's okay, we can both use the prefects' bathroom at the same time, i promise i won't look

(btw, heads-up for a Brooklyn Nine Nine reference!)


"What the hell...?"

"Rizzoli!"

"Isles!"

"Get your house in order!"

"Don't tell me what to do! Get YOUR damn house in order!"

Maura dodged a large spoonful of mashed potatoes from one of the Weasley twins, which wound up smacking Vincent Crabbe square in the face. Jane saw a mischievous glint flash through the anger in Maura's eyes, and Jane flared up.

"You wanna go? Throw something at me, Queen of the Dead, bring it on!" When Maura did nothing but continue to glare, Jane said, "I'll even strike first!" and she grabbed a turkey leg and threw it at Maura.

Maura whipped out her wand and silently halted the turkey leg mid-air before letting it fall to the ground. "You'll have to wake up earlier in the morning than that, Rizzoli, if you want to-"

This time, Jane grabbed a handful of mashed yams, and Maura learned the hard way that a freezing spell was not very effective against less solid food. It splattered not only her face but her pristine clothing, and for several moments she was frozen in shock.

"I think you broke her," Angelina observed. "Well done!"

Jane wanted to laugh, but couldn't tell if Maura was still angry and thus if laughter would be cruel. Her face was covered by too many yams to be able to read her expression. In the blink of an eye, she magicked an enormous bowl of Brussel sprouts at Jane, where they pummeled her as painfully as paintball bullets. While Jane was distracted trying to fend them off, Maura picked up a spinach quiche, walked over, and smashed it in her face.

"How's that?" Maura asked, yelling over the food fight intensifying around them.

Though she was laughing, Jane sputtered, "Well I hate spinach and I don't love quiche, so..." She wiped the gooey green substance out of her eyes and tried to blink.

Maura moved close enough to whisper in her ear: "Oh, that's too bad." She ran her finger down Jane's cheek and sucked the quiche off. "I really love it." She winked before she walked back to her table, leaving Jane rooted to the spot.

The food fight had gotten so loud and out of control, nobody - not even Jane's friends - had noticed one of Slytherin's prefects coming on so strong to one of Gryffindor's.

Maura jumped when something wet was sloshed against her backside; she turned to see Jane holding the now-empty bowl of yams, which she promptly dropped as she walked to the Slytherin table.

"D-do you like yams?" she asked, her hand wavering near Maura's waist. "I could clean that up for you if you want."

Maura pursed her lips, trying to fight off a smile. "Big, bad, brave Gryffindor," she murmured.

They had been dancing around a mutual attraction for weeks, and this was the most direct Maura had ever been with her. Jane was so warm, she felt like she was on fire - which she soon realized she was. She jumped and looked around for something to douse her robes with, and then remembered her wand. She was about to put it out with a charm, but Maura had acted first, dumping a vat of mulled apple juice on her robes.

Jane meant to thank her, but then she saw a chafing dish at the floor near her feet. "Did one of your heathen students throw that at me?"

"Is one of those awful ginger twins about to throw a dungbomb?!"

Most of the teachers had filed out of the Great Hall before this all began. Dumbledore contended that a food fight was a healthy way for the students to exhaust themselves of nervous energy, and he was too absorbed in his magazine to pay much attention to the goings-on. The only remaining faculty were the heads of houses, on hand in case any of their students got dangerously rowdy.

"Oh, I think I've seen quite enough!" snapped McGonagall, leaning over Dumbledore to look at Snape. "Gregory Goyle just threw a chafing dish and the fire under it at Jane Rizzoli!"

"Don't work yourself into a dither, Minerva," he said, not returning her gaze but rather staring out into the melee with boredom. "Rizzoli may be muggle-born, but I believe after more than four years of magical education, she ought to be up to the task of completing a simple dousing charm - or are you worried your prefect isn't capable of such a simple-"

There was a small explosion, and almost the entire student body fled the Great Hall. George's dungbomb had gone off, a new prototype he and Fred had developed over the summer which was more powerful and painful than any other on the market. When the rotten-egg-smelling smoke had cleared, Jane and Maura were revealed to be the only students left in the hall. Both were trying to locate the dungbomb with the intent of vanishing it.

McGonagall and Snape approached, looking none too pleased; both appeared to have conjured a full-body of a Bubblehead charm, which Jane and Maura assumed was intended to keep the dungbomb's stench from sticking to them.

"I would have hoped for better behavior from prefects!" McGonagall said, eyeing the food splattering both girls' clothes. "Would either of you care to offer an explanation for this disaster?"

Out of devotion to their students and a desire not to be a tattle-tale, neither spoke at first.

"Miss Isles?" Snape prompted her.

"Well, Harry Potter started it by throwing a turnip at Draco Malfoy," she said. "But-"

"Potter, hm?" said Snape, shooting McGonagall an unsurprised look.

"That's only because Malfoy called his friend a mudblood!" Jane protested. Glaring at Snape, she missed the sympathetic expression on Maura's face. "If you ask me, Malfoy's lucky it was a turnip and not a hex!"

"Such tolerance in Gryffindor house," Snape said with a sneer. "If you truly believe hexes are the answer to name-calling, perhaps you would be better-suited for Durmstrang, rather than the office of a Hogwarts prefect."

Jane looked at McGonagall incredulously, and her head of house did not disappoint: "You would do well to ensure your students know the difference between name-calling and blood epithets, Severus," she said. "And that goes for you as well, Miss Isles. It would behoove you and Miss Rizzoli to learn how to better de-escalate inter-house tension."

"Yes ma'am," Maura said, staring resolutely ahead.

"Which class are you off to?"

"Defense against the Dark Arts."

McGonagall's nostrils flared at the thought of her students, especially the beloved Jane Rizzoli, being subjected to the awful woman posing as a professor for that course. "Yes - well, as punishment for failing to meet our expectations as prefects, you will both be one class behind your classmates."

"What's that now?" Jane asked in confusion.

"In case you have failed to realize it, Miss Rizzoli, the pair of you smell worse than a squid ruminating on spoiled beets," McGonagall went on. "Subjecting your classmates to this stench would no doubt be a dark art of its own, and I insist you both take this next period to bathe and cleanse yourselves. I will speak with Professor Umbridge about your absence; rest assured, this is a house matter."

Snape merely nodded his consent, and Jane and Maura turned to leave the Great Hall together.

"I feel like McGonagall kind of gave us a break back there," Jane said once they were far out of earshot.

Maura looked tense. "Normally the thought of skiving off class would give me hives, but I have to admit I doubt we're missing anything by skipping Umbridge. What a joke."

"What a jerk, more like," Jane scoffed. "We're probably on the brink of war any day now, and she doesn't want us getting any practical experience!"

"An utter embarrassment. I've taken to practicing spells myself between classes, since she's so useless. I even give myself homework sometimes," she admitted with a small laugh.

Jane chuckled too. It was easy to picture Maura holed up in a classroom, teaching herself hexes and spells on her own. She seemed like a solitary person, which Jane could only imagine was by design. After all she was a beautiful, intelligent pureblood in Slytherin; Jane was sure there must've been dozens of kids in that house dying to be her friend. Jane was tempted to tell Maura about Dumbledore's Army, because surely defense against the dark arts was best practiced with other people. But she wasn't sure how thrilled the others would be with a Slytherin joining the group.

"How come you're nice to me?" Maura asked out of nowhere.

"What?"

"Most Gryffindors wouldn't buddy up to a Slytherin if their lives depended on it."

"Most Gryffindors are stupid that way. Don't tell them I said that, though." She smiled when that got Maura to chuckle. "What about you, Isles? You're in Slytherin, but you don't seem to be a muggle-hater or otherwise a dick."

Maura laughed again, but this time it was sour. "You know what I am?"

"Hot?"

Maura stopped in her tracks, as did Jane, who looked horrified that the word had slipped out. After a few moments of painful awkward silence, Jane cleared her throat and kept walking.

"Do you think so?" Maura asked, sounding pleased.

"What were you going to say?"

Maura smiled, deciding to leave it for now and show that Slytherins could be nice. "I am ambitious, I'm resourceful, I'm determined, I'm intelligent, I'm loyal but prefer to work alone, I'm very hardworking and I take pride in my accomplishments. I'm also a pureblood," she added as an afterthought.

"So it's kind of like a rectangle-square thing," Jane said.

"A what?"

"It's like Slytherins and bad people. How all rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles." When Maura did nothing but frown, Jane sighed, "this is why wizards need to teach their kids math. It's basic geometry."

"I get your intended point, I just think it's a flawed syllogism," Maura snapped. "You're saying that because you know me, you know not all Slytherins are bad. And believe me, I know, my house has a reputation. But with your analogy, all bad people are Slytherins?"

"Well...that's just a thing people say, isn't it?" Jane asked awkwardly. "There's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin?"

"What half-baked, prejudiced first year did you overhear saying that?" Maura balked. "You really think that every person who was ever sorted into Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor has gone on to be a total angel?"

It was hard to imagine any Hufflepuff going rogue, but Jane had to concede Maura had a point. After all, hadn't Harry Potter himself said in their first DA meeting that the wizard who helped Voldemort come back had been a Gryffindor? She shivered at the thought.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "That was stupid of me, you're right."

Maura was silent for a few moments, then muttered, "You sound just like my parents."

"What?"

"My parents went to school here, but moved to France after they graduated. That's where I was born and where I grew up - and where I learned geometry, by the way," she added snidely. "I was invited to attend Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, but my father had just accepted a position at the Ministry, so we moved to England. All of that is to say, I grew up outside of the anti-Slytherin culture produced here, and I think my parents just took it as a given that I would be a Ravenclaw like they were, so they never discussed the houses much with me. I was so excited to be sorted, and wrote them at once to tell them about it."

"What'd they say?"

Maura chuckled mirthlessly. "I can tell you word-for-word, because the reply was so short: 'We are surprised to hear you are in Slytherin. Good luck with classes.'" She sighed and shook her head. "I went home for Christmas and overheard them arguing one night. One of my aunts refused to visit while I was there. She didn't want her young kids consorting with a Slytherin. That's how I found out I was adopted, actually," she added. "It came up in their fight. My dad implied my birth parents might've Slytherins."

Jane was stunned. "Were they?"

"I don't know, I've never tried to find out anything about them. I just heard my mother mention their pureblood status and then I left. I didn't want to hear anymore. Given my dad's comment and his feelings about Slytherins, though, I'm not sure they're people I want to know." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, that was the last time I went home for Christmas. I don't want to cause any unnecessary family drama just by showing up."

Jane followed Maura to the prefects' bathroom as if in a daze. Coming from such a warm family herself, it was mind-numbing to imagine Maura's could be so distant. Her mind was buzzing, trying to come up with something comforting to say as Maura gave the password for the bathroom ("fizzy lifting drinks") and turned on the nearest faucet for the pool-sized tub.

"Do you wish you'd been sorted into Ravenclaw?" Jane blurted out, desperate for the silence to end.

Maura frowned, undoing her robe. "The Sorting Hat considered putting me in there," she said. "And who knows; maybe if I'd been aware of the deep-seeded mistrust of Slytherins in our society, I'd have asked for Ravenclaw. The Hat could tell I was indecisive and said it thought I could..." She blushed, fumbling with her tie, not wanting to sound conceited. "It said I could really distinguish myself in Slytherin, like I could really be someone special and go far." That had been a very attractive promise to a lonely child desperate to make her neglectful parents proud. "Is it weird that I feel bad for letting down a Hat?"

"Are you kidding? You didn't let anyone down! Except maybe your dipshit parents, but they're dipshits," Jane said, getting Maura to laugh a little. "Come on, seriously. I think you ARE distinguishing yourself. In Ravenclaw, you'd just have been another brain. In Slytherin, you get to be this amazing, intelligent, unique prefect who actually cares about helping out. That food fight may not have been a great example, but most of the time I feel like you have my back. I think you change the way a lot of people see Slytherins."

"Aw, Jane."

"Hm?"

"That's really...that's really sweet!"

Jane tried to act nonchalant. "Yeah, well..."

"Take your clothes off."

"What?!"

Jane's eyes widened when Maura calmly unbuttoned her own shirt and took it off. "Get undressed. Did you forget we're here to rid ourselves of the combined stench of rotten doxy eggs and Stinksap?"

In all honesty, Jane had forgotten. She'd been so swept up in Maura's history that she hadn't been paying attention to where they were going or why they were going there. It wasn't like her to get so preoccupied and oh God is she taking off her bra?!

Maura couldn't contain a giggle when Jane twisted away from her. "Are you getting shy on me, Rizzoli?" she asked, letting her bra slide down her arms. "Or is the thought of having to look at me disgusting to you?"

Jane whipped around to confront this notion- "you know that's not true!" - but quickly finished the full 360 because now Maura was topless and taking off her skirt.

"You weren't planning to bathe clothed, were you?" Maura asked. "I mean, you knew we were coming here."

"Yes, I just wasn't ... thinking this far ahead," Jane said, taking off her tie. "Because I'm stupid. Incidentally, the Hat didn't offer to put me in Ravenclaw."

Maura laughed and walked over to the faucets (Jane pivoted as she moved to avoid seeing her), then turned on one that would leave a thick layer of bubbles over the water. "You were raised in America, weren't you?"

"Yes..."

"Hm, that explains your attitude."

"Oh, ha, ha, the American is a Puritan, very funny."

"What's a Puritan?"

"Never mind."

"Well don't worry, I'm not interested in making you uncomfortable," Maura said (though Jane strongly suspected otherwise). "These bubbles are very dense; you can't see through them. I promise not to look when you get undressed."

Jane took the extra precaution of doffing her clothes behind a large sculpture of a merman. Once completely undressed, she peeked around the side of the statue to make sure Maura wasn't looking. Maura's back was to her, and Jane nimbly stepped into the enormous tub. At the sound of the water shifting, Maura turned around at once.

"There, now was that so bad?"

"This just feels weird."

"Why?"

"Because I like you and I haven't even had the chance to ask you out yet and now we're like wet and naked and only eight feet apart. And no, I can't convert that to meters but you get the idea."

Maura was smiling, but didn't say anything for a few long moments. "So you like me."

"I...I wouldn't have said that if I wasn't pretty sure you liked me too," Jane said, already feeling her resolve might crumble. "Please, don't make fun of me, just be honest with me."

Another long pause, this time with a smile that was harder to read. "How well do you think you know me, Rizzoli?"

Was she about to extend a sultry invitation to get to know her even more? Oh God please yes - God please no - this is exhilarating and terrifying and why am I feeling so dehydrated all of a sudden?

When Jane failed to answer (from nerves but also because she thought it was a rhetorical question) Maura went on, "If you knew me well you'd know I would never make fun of anybody. And as far as the question of whether I like you, I'd say it took you damn well long enough to notice. I've been flirting with you for the entire year."

Although it was what she'd been praying for for the last several months, Jane couldn't believe what she was at last hearing. Her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest when Maura swam closer. The water was lukewarm but she was starting to feel red hot - and, unfortunately, it showed.

"You're blushing," Maura observed. "I'm sorry, am I making you nervous?"

"I'm - no, you're not; the situation is," Jane stammered. "I mean, you're really cute and I don't imagine this is embarrassing for you - not that I looked," she added quickly, sure to keep her gaze fixed on Maura's eyes. "But you do look good. I mean, duh. I mean - oh, God..."

"You are so cute," Maura chuckled. "I mean don't get me wrong; on a physical level, you are sexy as hell." The fact that she could say this so simply, as if it was an objective certainty instead of a subjective compliment, was a little odd for Jane to process. Maura went on: "But your demeanor, that's very cute. And I hope that doesn't sound condescending; I mean I find it... kind of endearing. Given your conduct on the Quidditch pitch and the occasional bravado I've seen you put on, I used to assume you'd be cocky. A lot of Gryffindors can be cocky, though, in my defense."

"Yeah, well. Feeling like you have a moral high ground can do that to a person," Jane agreed. "So you watch the Quidditch games, huh?"

"I used to prefer taking the time to study, because it basically guaranteed that the common room - or any room - would be empty. But then I learned the Gryffindor team had a very cute Chaser, and I decided I had to check out at least one game."

"Hm, Johnson? Bell?"

"Are you really going to tease me after I promised not to tease you?"

"I...sorry," Jane said, averting her gaze. "Humor's my defense mechanism."

"What do you need to be defensive about?"

"My own nerves, I guessssshhhhiiit..."

Jane had turned to look at Maura, who was leaning sideways agains the wall of the pool to face her. Maura had innocently let her elbow rest on the edge of the tub, letting her head rest against her fist, and this had resulted in one of her breasts rising above the layer of dense bubbles. After letting herself look a second too long, Jane almost snapped her neck turning it to look away.

"I'm sorry!" Maura squealed, bringing her arm back into the water.

"God, I'm sorry! I feel like a skeeze!"

"You're not a skeeze, Jane. If I was worried about the possibility of you seeing me, I'd be on the other side of the pool and not letting anything but my head and neck above the bubbles. And you'd be a skeeze if you saw my discomfort and actively tried to make me show myself. Would you be this skittish if you were in here with someone else?"

"Someone I didn't like, you mean? Probably not." When Maura started backing away, Jane reached blindly for her hand underwater. She skimmed Maura's waist before catching her wrist. "Don't go, though!"

Maura smiled at the gesture. "I was going to distance myself so I don't make you uncomfortable."

"No, that's okay, this is a good kind of uncomfortable."

"Hm. I didn't know there was a good kind," Maura mused. "Discomfort always makes me feel I've done something humiliating, or that I ought to hide myself away. What's the good kind like?"

"Well, it pushes you to do something. Something you'd want to do, but would usually be too shy or too scared to do."

"And you're scared to take a bath."

"Scared to take a bath with you!" Jane said, joining Maura in her laughter. "See, bravery means different things to different people. Sure, for Harry Potter it means fighting off Death Eaters. I'll get there someday. Right now I'm working on the bravery required to be naked in front of a girl I like before I've even asked her out."

Maura's immediate response was, "Would you like to go on a date with me to Hogsmeade this weekend?"

"Yes."

"You're not worried about being seen cozying up to a Slytherin?"

Jane paused to make sure she gave an honest answer. "We'll kind of be like a Hogwarts Romeo & Juliet. Or, hm. I don't know what the wizarding equivalent of that would be. I mean-"

"I get the reference," Maura said, not unkindly. "Shakespeare was the focus of our literature unit in Muggle Studies this fall."

"You take Muggle studies?"

"Yes, I think it's fascinating. I'm not surprised by your surprise, though; I'm the only Slytherin in the class and Professor Burbage told me she doesn't generally get a lot of us," Maura admitted.

"Oh. Huh. I hope we don't end up like Romeo and Juliet, though."

"You don't?"

"Well, no. The play ends with their double suicide."

"What?! It does?! Why do people like it so much?! Gah...never mind. What I should've said was, yeah, I'm sure some people might give me some guff about going out with a Slytherin, but I don't give a flying bowtruckle fart about that. I'd be proud to be out with you, no matter what house you were in."

Maura smiled so wide, Jane couldn't help reflecting it. "Would it be a good or bad uncomfortable if I kissed you?" Maura asked.

"Here? Right now?"

"I can wait."

"No, no, now's...that'd be fine. That'd be great. That'd be-"

Jane shut up when Maura took gentle hold of her face. Her gaze dipped from Jane's eyes to her lips and back again, then she leaned in and kissed her. Jane felt almost suffocated by immediate excitement, overwhelmed by the softness of Maura's lips and the intensity with which her heart was pounding. The pounding was matched elsewhere when Jane instinctively brought Maura closer, pulling their bodies together. Jane was shot at warp-speed into new realms of pleasure, feeling as dizzy as if transported there by portkey. But within moments, the reality of what she was doing registered with her and she all but vaulted away from Maura, a stream of obscenities tumbling out of her mouth as she turned bright red.

"I concur," Maura said breathlessly.

Heart still beating rapidly, Jane glanced over at Maura and saw her smiling. "That was... wow. That was wow," Jane said. "Judging by your expression, I guess I don't need to apologize. That was just a ... a heck of a lot more than I intended to do."

"I know," Maura said, treading a small distance away. "I just can't wait to come back here with you sometime after you've been dating me for a while." She laughed when something occurred to her. "Maybe I can get some extra credit for my-"

"Don't say it."

"-Muggle studies!"

"You dork!" Jane laughed, splashing her.

"Well, as the Bard said: but soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is a dork."

That one got a genuine laugh out of Jane. She couldn't wait to see what else Maura had up her sleeves.


A/N: This is the only one I've been tempted to continue