Harry Potter and the Battle of the Sexes

It was a normal morning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At first. The students had been back at school for a couple of weeks, and life had settled into a comfortable routine. Harry Potter and his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were eating breakfast in the Great Hall with Ron's twin brothers Fred and George and their baby sister Ginny. As usual, the conversation had turned to Quidditch, which the boys discussed passionately while the girls talked to themselves, probably about "stupid boys and their sports," Harry figured. After five or ten minutes, however, he realized that the girls didn't seem to be grumbling at all, which was quite unusual (especially for Ginny, who was apparently something of a whiner). They seemed to be looking at something and giggling, which was also quite unusual (especially for Hermione, who was definitely not a giggler). Before Harry asked what they were looking at, however, the bell had rung for their first class-- double Potions with the Slytherins --and all unusual activity fled from his mind as he dragged himself to the hated dungeons, feeling only slightly cheered that after Potions was Care of Magical Creatures with his dear friend Hagrid.

Four hours, three Centaurs, and sixty points from Gryffindor later, Harry and his friends trudged into the Great Hall for lunch. Harry was surprised when Hermione and Ginny chose to sit with Lavender and Parvati and their gaggle of giggling girls instead of sitting with him and Ron, until he noticed that the same thing seemed to be happening at ALL the tables in the Hall. Harry examined the hall carefully for a few minutes, his eyes lingering over Cho sitting with a group of girls at the Ravenclaw table, and yes, even at the Slytherin table the girls were crowded into one or two groups and were discussing something quietly (and gigglingly). Harry nudged Ron and pointed this out. Ron just shrugged. Well, that made sense, Ron really wasn't very good with girls.

The rest of the day continued smoothly until dinner. The girls were again separated from the boys, this time louder and much more obnoxiously. Harry saw all the girls crowding around Hermione, which was really rare as Hermione wasn't the most popular female at Gryffindor by any means. Ron followed Harry's gaze.

"Thrr lknn 't hrr Rithmnnsee bkk?" ("They're looking at her Arithmancy book?") Ron questioned through his food. Harry stared at the book for a minute before noticing that no, they weren't looking at the book...they were looking at a parchment behind it. Before he could stop and think, Harry pulled out his wand.

"Accio Parchment!" He grinned at the girls' faces as he grabbed hold of the parchment. All of the girls wore an identical expression of horror, except for Hermione, who stood up.

"Give that back, Harry!" she screeched, causing everyone else in the Great Hall to turn and stare. When the other girls in the room saw what was in Harry's hands, their faces started to match those of the Gryffindor girls.

"What IS this you gals have been giggling over?.." Harry gave a smirk lightly reminiscent of his rival Draco Malfoy and glanced down at the paper. The smirk faded immediately, however, as he saw what was written on the parchment. "Wh...what the hell is THIS?!" he yelped, causing Ron, Fred, and George to jump up and stare over his shoulder at the paper. Fred and George glanced the paper over and burst out laughing. Ron just stared in abject horror, and Harry scanned the list (for that's what it was):

Hogwarts' Hottest:

Best Muscles: Roger Davies

Nicest Smile: Justin Finch-Fletchley

Best Ass: Blaise Zabini

Biggest Manslut: Seamus Finnegan

On and on it went. Harry flushed to see his own name, not once, but twice, around the end:

Nicest Eyes: Harry Potter

Best Dressed: Draco Malfoy

Best Kisser: Lee Jordan

Boy we'd Most Like to Try: Blaise Zabini

Most Shaggable Overall: Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter

By this time, all the boys had found someone with a copy of the parchment and were glancing it over. Some were ecstatic at being on the list, others embarrassed, and still others embarrassed not to be on it. Fred and George pounded Lee and Harry on the back, hooting and catcalling, Ron shot dagger glares at Hermione (probably because he had won the category of "Sweetest Idiot"), who in turn glared at Harry and from the Slytherin table, Draco gave off his infamous smirk.

Harry, by this point red enough in the face to rival his own Quidditch robes, turned to Hermione with a look that plainly said, "how could you DO this to me?" Hermione quailed under his look and stomped out of the room. Fortunately, this was covered by Professor McGonagall's magically magnified voice, calling for order.

"I don't know what this ruckus is about-- nor do I WANT to know," she scowled fiercely, "but I must insist that you all quiet down!"

Within ten seconds, the noise level was back to normal. But the damage had been done; the only thing anyone was talking about for the rest of the evening was the list.

Harry sat in his bed, still blushing furiously. "As if I needed any MORE attention, honestly, I hope Ron isn't upset. And to tie with Malfoy, that's dead embarrassing, that is! I can't believe Hermione was the ringleader in all this!" This was true, he'd discovered. Lavender and Parvati had been all too eager to talk about their fearless leader's calling of several meetings, in which all the girls in the school--yes, all of them--had voted on the various categories. Harry sighed and rolled onto his side. How would Hermione feel if such a list came out on the girls? He grinned, knowing she'd be horrified. An idea began to take form in his head as he sat up in bed and woke his roommates up to discuss it with them.

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ron whined as Harry flung his Invisibility Cloak over his friend and himself. "I mean, we could get in so much trouble, and I wanna go back to bed, come on Harry, we don't have to talk to him to do this..."

"But it wouldn't be proper vengeance if we didn't get EVERYONE in on it, and we need his help to do it!" Harry shoved Ron out the portrait hole, forcing him to be quiet lest they get caught. The two fifteen-year-old boys made their way up to the Astronomy tower and flung off the cloak when they saw the person they were looking for--Draco Malfoy.

"Well, Potter, Weasel," the blonde boy drawled, "what IS this all about? Are we going to duel or something? Or are the two 'Most Shaggable' boys in Hogwarts going to get it on while the Weasel takes pictures to sell to the press?"

"In your dreams, Malfoy," Harry rolled his eyes as he stopped Ron from attacking his rival.

"Then what do you want?" Malfoy snapped. "I need my beauty sleep!" Ron snorted.

"Hang on, Malfoy, we're waiting for a couple of other people." Harry replied.

Malfoy looked taken aback. "What, are we going for an orgy here?"

"Don't be ridiculous, ferret boy!" Ron couldn't keep himself quiet anymore. "We're planning revenge!"

"Revenge?" a fourth, soft voice broke in. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Terry Boot, of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, respectively, stood at the tower door.

"Yes, revenge. We four are the most, well, popular boys in our houses, so we can get the others to join forces with us. Guys, it's time to set aside our house differences and fight the real war that's been fought since time began: G--"

"Good versus Evil?" Justin grinned at Harry. "And you invited Malfoy?"

Harry blinked owlishly. "Err...well..no. I was going to say Girls versus Boys."

* * *

A week later, the new list appeared. Unlike the girls, however, the boys made no effort to hide their list. Hermione snatched one copy out of Harry's hands and looked it over, eyes widening.

Hogwarts' Hottest Part Two

Best Breasts: Parvati and Padma Patil

Nicest Smile: Cho Chang

Best Ass: Ginny Weasley

Ron had been quite against his sister's presence on the list, but it was almost unanimous among the other boys, and he'd been forced to let it be.

Biggest Slut: Susan Bones

Nicest Eyes: Lisa Turpin

Best Dressed: Pansy Parkinson

Girl We'd Most Like to Try: Hermione Granger

Hermione looked appalled. "What do you mean, 'most like to try!?'" she screeched shrilly at Harry.

"Probably the same thing you gals meant." Harry leaned back in his seat and grinned.

"Most Shaggable Overall, Parvati and Padma!?" she cried. "You've got to be kidding!" She toned her voice down as Parvati glared at her. "This is ridiculous. I'm going to Dumbledore." With that, Hermione stood and stomped out of the room. Fortunately, Harry had been prepared for this. He met Malfoy's eyes, and both boys stood up and walked out of the room.

* * *

"Professor Dumbledore, this is sexual harassment, pure and simple!" Hermione declared shrilly.

"Headmaster," Malfoy stepped forward, "perhaps our list was sexual harassment, but we would like to show you something..." Harry whipped out the original list and set it next to the new one on Dumbledore's desk. "We feel that we have merely fought fire with fire, Professor. Perhaps it wasn't the most mature way to deal with the issue, but we felt that this was the best way to handle it, as we didn't want to go running to involve the faculty, who we felt might be biased," Malfoy finished smoothly with a winning smile as Hermione glared on.

"Yeah, really, Hermione, why is OURS sexual harassment and yours ISN'T? Boys can be sexually harassed too, you know!" Harry pouted at his female friend, who flushed and bit her lip.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Yes, yes, I believe that the issue has been resolved this way. No punishment on either side."

"But--" Hermione started and bit her lip again before storming out of the room.

Draco and Harry left the room. Draco turned and gave Harry a mischievous grin. "You know she's going to try and get back at us. Those girls'd jump off a cliff if she led them to it."

Harry grinned back. "Yeah, she will. I know Hermione, she's not gonna just give up. Think you'll be ready for whatever she pulls?"

"I was born ready." Draco's mischievous grin turned evil. "And I'm sure we'll think up a wonderful revenge to that, too."

When Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, all the girls were sitting together on one side and the boys on the other. The groups were talking low and glaring at each other, though occasionally someone would raise their voice to say something rude about the opposite sex. It was one of the quietest nights Harry could ever remember in the tower.

The gloves had been thrown, and the war was on!