Harry Potter and the Battle of the Sexes

The stakes had been raised. The risks were higher now. The last prank had been disastrous, even if it had only been played on five boys.

After Harry and Justin had stumbled upon the method to returning back to manhood (and what a relief THAT was), Draco, Terry, and Ron followed.

Draco found that women's bodies were much softer and nicer to touch.

Terry decided that girls' minds were more apt to studying lots of different subjects.

Ron (after almost a week) finally admitted in a whisper to Harry that females had much more pleasant voices to listen to than males.

He then proceeded to remind Harry to meet with Draco and Terry and Justin as fast as possible to plan a suitable revenge. Before it was all battles, but this time, he said, it has to be war.

"Come on, Harry. This has been going on for a couple of months now. It's time to end it once and for all."

Harry knew that Ron was right. But he couldn't bring himself to explain that if the war ended, then he'd probably have to give up most of his friendship with Justin, Terry, and especially Draco. Oddly enough, Harry almost couldn't imagine going back to life as before, he simply didn't have the heart to hate Draco anymore. Especially after the scene in the library. Draco's words haunted Harry.

"You may think it's difficult growing up and being expected to save the world as we know it, Potter...but let me tell you that it's worse being expected to destroy it."

The more Harry thought about it, the more he realized that he and Draco had more in common than they'd ever admit. On the outside, they were exact opposites: Draco was cool and confident, sneering, condescending, spoiled, and a lone wolf. Harry was a bit on the reserved side and was unfailingly polite to everybody (except Malfoy and occasionally Snape), had grown up with little or no money spent on him, and had two of the best friends he thought anyone ever COULD have.

But underneath all that...Harry had grown up with a family who was ashamed of him. From what little Draco had let slip about his family life, it was much the same. So long as Draco didn't embarrass the family, he could do as he pleased. It wasn't exactly the same, but the similarities of the two loveless families were unmistakable.

At the age of eleven, Harry was finally opened up to a world he was expected to save. No one thought twice about expecting this of Harry, either. As far as they were concerned, he'd done it once, he could do it again. Harry still had a lot of trouble living up to the idea. Draco had spent a childhood almost as isolated as Harry's in terms of contact with anyone who didn't live in or frequently visit Malfoy Manor. While having access to the magical world, he still had no idea exactly how far-reaching his family's reputation would be. As soon as he got to Diagon Alley he observed the strange looks he and his father received. By the time he reached Hogwarts and was sorted, he knew he'd been branded a dark wizard by everyone-- including Harry Potter. He would never admit it, Harry knew, but Draco had been extremely hurt by Harry's rejection of his offer of friendship. Harry couldn't help wondering what would have happened if he'd accepted Draco's hand. Perhaps they would have been friends for five years now, instead of a handful of months. Perhaps Draco would have been put into Gryffindor.

Or, a nagging voice in the back of Harry's mind said, perhaps you would have been put into Slytherin.

Harry decided to stop worrying about Draco and to focus on the task at hand: the Ultimate Prank.

Harry called a meeting with the other house representatives. "Okay guys, we have to think of something big here. Let's get straight to it. What is the number one thing girls are sensitive about?"

Justin immediately said, "being fat. We could give them engorgement potions!" Draco snorted.

"Don't be ridiculous. First off, those are ridiculously easy to get antidotes for. Second off, they wouldn't care that much. We need something a bit more....permanent."

"Any ideas, then?" Harry glanced at Draco, who remained silent. "Terry? How about you?"

"Well...they always seem to think secret crushes are a big deal. Maybe something about crushes? Find out their crushes and post them?"

"That's not permanent." Draco's drawl cut in again. "Crushes are fleeting. They'd be embarrassed for a short while, perhaps...but they'd get over it."

"Draco's right," Harry started. "But I can't help wondering if Terry hasn't got something there...maybe instead of focusing on the crush part, we should just focus on the secret part. Find out each girls' hidden secret and post that?"

"Brilliant!" Justin laughed. "Ruddy brilliant!"

Draco gave Harry a pointed glance. "You want them to surrender this time, right? That'll hurt them, definitely, but it won't make them surrender."

"Good point..." Harry sat down in an armchair and sighed.

"But...that doesn't mean we couldn't use it." Draco stood and began pacing. "If we could find out their deepest darkest secrets....we could tell them that they have to surrender, or THEN we'll post their secrets!"

"Brilliant!" Justin jumped up. "Ruddy BRILLIANT!"

Harry eyed Justin for a moment. "Well...we can't just have the four of us collecting all the secrets, can we? First off, we'd never remember them all, and if we wrote them down, the girls could find the papers and destroy them..."

"We'd have to collect all the guys and make sure each guy gets the secret from each girl," Draco sat on the table.

"And we could use Veritaserum to get the secrets from them!" Terry grinned.

"Brilliant! Ruddy br--"

"STUPEFY!"

Justin slumped over in his chair, asleep. Draco set down his wand. "Sorry, but he was REALLY starting to get on my nerves."

Harry and Terry paused. "...Right then," Harry decided to just move on. Besides, Justin bugged him, too. "We'll have to mobilize all the guys. And we'll have to do it at the same time, or the girls will realize what's going on. I guess dinner would be the best time to do it...but...how did the girls get the poetry potion into all the boys' goblets?"

Draco glanced at Harry. "You know...I still have some Polyjuice potion. You could disguise yourself as that Patil girl, or Brown, and talk to Granger about it..."

"Me?! Why me? Why not YOU?"

"YOU know the Gryffindor passwords and everything! No one would suspect you!"

"I ruddy well think they'd suspect me if Parvati or Lavender was acting weird and I was nowhere to be found!"

"Damn. Good point."

"Besides, you can think of it as infiltrating the Gryffindor lair." This brought a grin to Draco's face.

"Too true..."

The boys jumped as they heard a loud snore. Then they realized it was just Justin. "...ruddy...brill'nt..."

* * *

Harry's second experience with Polyjuice potion went even better than the first, and he remembered how amazed he had been about how smoothly their sneaking into the Slytherin common room had went, even keeping the end (when they'd run out with Harry's scar and Ron's red hair sneaking back into place).

Draco, apparently, could play the girly-girl part astonishingly well. No one suspected that Parvati was actually lying on a table in an abandoned classroom with Harry's Invisibility Cloak over her and Justin and Terry keeping watch.

Harry had the easiest time of it; he just had to sit in the common room, listening for Draco to say "So Hermione, tell me how Viktor Krum is doing!" They had chosen this as a code phrase for "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, NOW."

But he never heard the phrase. Draco-Parvati came out of the girls' room, winked discreetly at Harry, and left the tower. No one even looked up as he-she walked by.

Harry waited for twenty minutes before heading to the library to meet with the representatives.

"Well?" Harry sat at their usual table, across from Draco. "How'd they do it?"

"Why didn't you tell me you'd made friends with Dobby, Potter?" Draco said reprovingly to Harry. "You know he was my old house elf. I'm surprised he's still alive...I figured Father had killed him." There was a very, very faint note of sadness in Draco's voice, but only Harry seemed to notice.

"Ah, well, I didn't think about it, I guess. I wasn't on friendly terms with you when I tricked your dad into freeing him--"

"You WHAT my dad?!" Draco jumped up, yelling and whispering at the same time. Harry paused a brief moment to be surprised that this was possible before repeating himself.

"I...tricked your father into freeing him. It was at the end of second year. Stuck his--err, his book in a sock and handed it to him. He threw the sock at Dobby without even realizing what he was doing..."

Draco flopped back into his chair. "You tricked my dad... you actually tricked my dad! I didn't even realize it was possible!"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Well, anyway...so Hermione used Dobby to administer the poetry potion, then?"

"Not only that, she told him that YOU wanted her to do it. I didn't know Granger had it in her." Draco smirked. "It only helped that the boys and the girls were sitting on opposite sides. They just had to make sure they knew which sides the girls were sitting on...and it's been fairly constant."

"That's wicked! This'll be too easy! Get Dobby to put a dose of Veritaserum in the goblets, send up sparks or something to tell the guys when to ask-- halfway through dinner at least, when the girls are all still there and they'll likely have drunk the stuff --and then each guy only has to remember one girls' secret! Then I'll tell Hermione that if they don't surrender, we'll write their secrets into a list and post them all over the school! And if they DO surrender...each guy will only know one secret, and they can't go around putting memory charms on EVERY guy or anything like that...it's perfect!"

Draco cleared his throat to break into Harry's rambling. "Err, there is...one problem."

Terry glanced worriedly at Draco. "Which is...?"

Draco sighed. "It'll take at least a month and a half to make up enough Veritaserum for all the girls in Hogwarts."

The boys were silent for a few minutes.

"Well...I say it's worth it. Besides, that means they'll be expecting it even less," Harry said, determination oozing from his voice.

Justin, ever ready to support a friend, stood and announced that he agreed.

"Well...better late than never. And if it works..." Terry also stood.

Draco paused for a minute.

"Well....okay. Potter, you're in charge of getting ingredients that we can't or don't need to get from Snape's stores, as well as in charge of talking to Dobby and telling all the other guys about it. And MAKE SURE THEY KEEP IT QUIET. Boot, you'll help me brew the stuff. Fitch-Fletchley..." Justin looked up, eager to take part. Draco smirked. "Just keep quiet." Justin's face fell in time to Draco's grin forming.

Harry nudged Justin. "You can help me gather the ingredients and talk to the guys." Justin smiled.

The meeting thus adjourned, the boys went to their separate rooms. Harry sighed. "A month and a half. That's all I have left..."