Harry Potter and the Battle of the Sexes

A week had passed with nothing happening, but Harry and Draco cautioned all the boys of Hogwarts not to let their guard down-- Harry knew that Hermione wasn't going to just let this go, and he also knew that he and Ron had taught her too well when it came to pranks and revenge. He was just glad that Fred and George were on their side, not hers.

For the first couple of days after the now-infamous lists had been passed around, all the girls refused to talk to all the boys, except when utterly necessary in class. The tension was horrid. Even couples weren't speaking. Quidditch practice was hell, as the twins (who were co-captains) kept teasing the girls and the girls kept throwing Quaffles at them. Harry enjoyed spending the time just flying around randomly, though, and ignoring the skirmish below.

Harry liked to think that the girls' reactions proved that they were embarrassed at being outwitted. Fortunately, by the third day things had calmed down enough that the two genders began to talk again. Of course, some damage was irreparable-- the boys and girls were each sitting at opposite sides of the table now. Relieved though he was that Hermione was helping him with his homework again, Harry wasn't stupid enough to believe that she had forgiven them. The topic of the lists never came up, and Harry figured that if she didn't say outright she'd forgiven them, then she hadn't. He was certain that there were two reasons for the girls being willing to speak to the boys again: One, that they were tired of having to not talk to half of the people at the school, just as the boys were. The second reason was that the girls probably had a plan of some sort. Harry just knew something was going to happen.

Then it did.

Harry had gotten up early as usual (he chose not to sleep too long, for fear of nightmares), and went to wake Ron up for breakfast. However, instead of the usual "Ron, you prat, get the hell up or we'll miss breakfast!" that normally came out of his mouth, he said:

"Ron, Ron, you must wake up, or we'll be unable to sup!"

Ron sat up and gaped. He tried to say "What the fuck is wrong with you?" but it came out as

"Sirrah, something's amiss-- what's up with this?"

Harry raised an eyebrow and rushed to wake up the other boys in the dorm. "Boys, boys, awake you must! The girls have struck, that much I trust!" Some ten minutes later it had been discovered that all of the Gryffindor boys had been struck with a sudden need to recite poetry. Harry sent Hedwig to what he had affectionately dubbed the "House Representatives" (Draco, Justin, and Terry), and was not surprised to learn that they, too, had turned to poetry during the night. The boys all trudged out to the Gryffindor common room, only to find the girls already there, a smug expression tainting each and every face.

"Why Harry, Ron...is something wrong?" Hermione stood and smiled sweetly at her two best friends. Harry had to grab Ron's arm and cover his mouth to keep him from trying to yell at her (he felt that its being a rhyming verse would detract from the offensiveness of the statement). Harry knew that his housemates' eyes were all on him, as he'd become the unofficial leader of the male sex, waiting for a witty retort. Harry thought for what felt like far too long and grinned evilly when a thought struck him. He was glad he was such good friends with Hermione, because he knew exactly what to do to annoy her.

"Hickery dickery doc," he started, sing-songingly. "You can go suck on my--" He was drowned out by a sudden roar of laughter and Hermione's screech. The brunette turned bright red. She HATED sex talk in public. Ironically enough, she was quite proficient in talking about sex when in private with just her best friends, and perhaps with Lavender and Parvati. But only he friends knew that, the rest of Gryffindor saw her as rather uptight about such things and this just added to their laughter. Hermione abhorred the discussion of sex in public, thought it was crass and stupid, and everyone in Gryffindor knew it. The girls scowled fiercely behind her.

"Just wait until you boys--" she spat the word out in a way normally reserved for Slytherins or Death Eaters --"get to class!" With that, she stood, "hmph"ed, stuck her nose in the air, and stomped out of the room to go to the Great Hall. Each and every girl stood up and followed suit (nose in the air and everything). Harry rolled his eyes. She was right, though. He couldn't keep spouting out dirty rhymes in class. He shuddered at the thought of being overheard saying "There once was a man from Nantucket" in front of McGonagall. Well...best worry about that when the time comes, he supposed.

"Fellows, we must follow the girls, I'm hungry for some Cinnamon Swirls!" he announced, blushed at the lame rhyme, and led the company out of the room.

* * *

Breakfast was quite an affair. "Can you pass the plate of ______ my mate?" became the common way to ask for food to be passed amongst the men and boys of Hogwarts. The girls made a big show of being able to speak without rhyming, grinning all around. Draco and Harry met with Terry and Justin at the Ravenclaw table and discussed the situation (with some difficulty). Draco was certain that the girls had used a Poetry Potion, but was unsure of how they managed to ensure that every single boy in Hogwarts had drunk it. He was also unsure of how they'd gotten the ingredients to make enough of the stuff for half of the student population, and he didn't know how long the potion's effects would last or if there was a cure.

For this, Harry, Justin, and Terry sent Draco as their representative to Professor Snape. The other boys didn't go along-- Snape was less likely to want to help them. It didn't help much that Draco could only tell Snape that "The femmes have struck again, putting poison in our gin. We speak only poetry pure, but do you have a cure?" It helped even less that Professor McGonagall wasn't even trying to hide her peals of laughter. It was still less helpful that Madame Hooch had-- very loudly --congratulated Hermione. And it was absolutely horrid when Snape informed Draco (once he'd figured out exactly what potion Draco was talking about) that there was no cure for the Poetry Potion, and that they'd have to wait for it to wear off, which would take about a day. He announced this very loudly, to ensure that all the boys knew it and didn't go whining to him for help, but unfortunately this meant that the girls heard as well. Of course, they already knew it, thanks to Hermione.

The boys sighed, knowing that they'd just have to deal with classes speaking only in rhyme. Potions was, for once, the least annoying of their classes: Snape took pity on the boys (perhaps only because the girls had apparently stolen a large amount of stuff from his private stores), and allowed the boys to sit and take notes while the girls did the actual making of the potions. Harry would have grinned as he jotted down the details of what Hermione was doing, if he hadn't been so certain that Snape would have taken points for it.

Divination was the worst, as Sybil Trelawney sat there babbling on and on about how the girls of Hogwarts were all destined to be great one day. And Harry was destined to die painfully, naturally. She even matched up girls with boys to do the tarot readings, and the boys were forced to tell the girls' their fortunes in spooky rhymes. Harry was paired up with Lavender, and he grinned and whispered eerily, "There once was a barmaid from Wales, on her breasts were the prices of ale, and on her behind, for the sake of the blind, the prices were tattooed in Braille."

Lavender gaped and flushed red at him. "THAT is my FUTURE?!" Harry just grinned. This limerick thing was working pretty well.

Unfortunately, Trelawney heard him, and assigned him an extra one-scroll essay on the importance of the Death card in the tarot. Harry sighed. Naturally.

Lunch continued on the same as breakfast had. The boys were refusing to talk to the girls, and the girls were going out of their way to force the boys to say something-- anything --just to hear them rhyme. Ron was getting the worst of this, as he could never keep silent at hearing a barb. His ears were now as red as his hair.

Care of Magical Creatures didn't even really happen. Hagrid just sat there belting out his laughter at the young boys, who stood there scowling, quite humiliated. Especially when the girls' gigglings joined the half-giants roars. Whenever Ron tried to yell out something insulting, it would come out as "I hope you fall, I hate you all!" Which only made them all laugh even more. It was dead depressing.

Harry was just glad he didn't have Transfiguration. He was quite certain that the girls had McGonagall on their side.

* * *

After what felt like waaaaay too long, the day was finally over and the boys were in bed. One or two of them, perhaps having drunk less of the potion, had already been able to say things out of rhyme (though still in rhythm). Fred and George, on the other hand, had stood up in the common room and belted out dirty limericks (they had praised Harry for his brilliance in the use of these) and rap lyrics until it was time for bed, ending on a really awful rendition of Queen's "We are the Champions." Hermione was quite pissed, as she was trying to study in there. She finally huffed off to her room, congratulating the twins on finally becoming more annoying than Lavender and Parvati. Harry shook his head, chuckling, and headed up to the fifth year boys' room. He sent out some notes to Draco, Terry, and Justin, calling a meeting together to discuss vengeance.