Pairing Wars

"I can't stand it any longer," said Ron Weasley one night. He stood up on the table of the Gryffindor common room and clapped his hands for attention. "Everyone! Listen up. I've got an announcement to make."

The room, which was crowded with Gryffindors of all ages, quieted down. In the corner near a stack of books, Percy glanced up from his homework. "You can't make announcements. You're not a prefect."

"It's not an announcement about school," said Ron.

"Oh." Percy went back to his homework. "I don't care about it, then."

"Good." Ron cleared his throat. "I just wanted to say, in front of the entire House, that I am in love with Hermione Jean Granger."

A chorus of gasps rang out, followed by applause and cheers. With a little shove from her friends, Hermione stepped up onto the table next to Ron. "Well!" Her cheeks turned pink. "This is all very exciting. But I actually have a confession to make." She swallowed. "I'm in love with Harry Potter."

There was another chorus of gasps.

"What?" said Ron.

"What?" said Harry. A group of people shuffled him toward the table, and he jumped up to join Ron and Hermione. "No, no, no! This isn't right at all. I'm in love with Ginny!"

"I'm a lesbian," Ginny yelled from the back of the common room. "Sorry, Harry. I've got a thing for Luna Lovegood."

"No!" Neville Longbottom ran to the front of the room and clambered onto the table. "Luna's with me. Everyone ships it. It's basically meant to be."

Behind him, Hannah Abbot burst into tears. "B-but I love you, Neville!"

"Wait a mo'." Ron wrinkled his forehead. "This isn't right. None of this is right. How did she get in our common room?"

His question was drowned out by Fred Weasley shouting, "George and I hooked up one time!"

There was a moment of dead silence, and then all hell broke loose.

"What?" cried Angelina Johnson. "But—Fred, what you and I have is so special!"

"Fred?" said George. "You know it was me you groped in that broom cupboard, right?"

"I have sexual fantasies about Dean," called Seamus.

"I know you do, you prat," said Dean. "We all know. You talk in your sleep. Once you woke up making out with your bedpost."

"I've made out with a broomstick and pretended it was Oliver Wood," volunteered Katie Bell.

"So have I," said Percy.

"So have I," said Marcus Flint.

Ron was about to repeat his question about how a non-Gryffindor had gotten into the common room when he saw Sirius Black in the back of the room, jumping up and down, hand high in the air. "Lupin and I used to have sex in the Shrieking Shack!"

Hermione gasped. "You pig! You took me there to make out on Valentine's Day!"

"Sirius?" Harry jumped off the table and waded through the crowd. "You're alive!?"

"Oy! Granger!" Draco Malfoy's blond head popped up in the middle of the crowd. "Is that why you cancelled our Valentine's date to Hogsmeade? To go make out with Potter's bloody godfather?"

"Don't act so high and mighty, Malfoy," she snapped. "I happen to know what you and Harry did in the Room of Requirement last weekend!"

"What?" Malfoy sneered. "Who told you?"

Hermione pointed to the corner, where Severus Snape was sobbing in the fetal position. "Professor Snape, during our sexually-charged remedial potions lesson yesterday!"

"I miss Lily so much," Snape bawled.

"Move on, git," said Lily Evans as she cuddled up to James Potter.

People began to swarm the table. Ron held up his hands, signaling for everyone to stop. "Wait. Wait! Everyone quiet down! We can fix this!"

Nobody listened. Pansy Parkinson slapped an apple out of Draco's hand before throwing herself into Theo Nott's arms. Charlie, Tonks, Bill, and Fleur had found a deck of cards and were playing a raucous game of strip poker. Cho Chang was locked in a furious three-way make-out session with Dudley Dursley and the ghost of Cedric Diggory.

"Stop!"

Oliver Wood was dry-humping a Quaffle. Narcissa Malfoy held Bellatrix Lestrange tightly while Lucius, looking lonely, made a beeline for Hermione, who was arguing passionately with Viktor Krum. Peter Pettigrew stood at the middle of the room, shouting, "Doesn't anyone want me?" over and over at the top of his lungs.

"Someone do something." Ron wrung his hands and looked around for a teacher, but it appeared that even the professors were not immune to this madness. Hagrid wrapped himself around Madame Maxime while Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout wrestled playfully on the floor. Lockhart gazed lovingly into a mirror. Peeves swooped around waving a bright pink bra that could only have belonged to Professor Umbridge while Filch chased him with a broom. Crookshanks was wedged into a corner with a tabby cat that looked suspiciously like McGonagall. Dumbledore grabbed Grindelwald and kissed him passionately. Voldemort began to undress Quirrell.

"ENOUGH!"

A large portal had appeared in the side of the Gryffindor common room. A middle-aged woman stepped through, a stern expression on her face.

"Oh, shit!" someone shouted. "It's her! It's J.K. Rowling!"

Silence fell over the room.

J.K. Rowling looked around at the scene. "What are you all doing?"

Nobody moved. Finally, Ron stepped forward. "I wanted to proclaim my love for Hermione," he said. "And—I don't know what happened. Everyone just started voicing opinions right and left."

"It's because I love Hermione, too," said Draco. Hermione blushed.

"And so do I," said a chorus of nearly a hundred others—including Harry, who earned a kick from Ginny. "What? You said you like Luna. I'm a free agent."

J.K. Rowling groaned. "Fucking fan fiction." She took a deep breath. "Look: I wrote all of you into very specific relationships for very specific reasons. Each and every one of you is with the partner that suits you best. You were all literally made for one another! Look around. Fall in love with each other again."

Everyone did. Snape let out a strangled sob.

"So." J.K. Rowling offered everyone a firm smile. "Can you all promise me that you'll just stay with your original partners?"

A scattering of affirmatives sounded throughout the crowd.

"Excellent." J.K. Rowling turned and started to leave. "Oh!" She paused with one foot in the portal. "Except for you two." She pointed at Ron and Hermione. "I screwed up big time with that relationship. Hermione, you should have been with Harry all along. Whoops!" She gave a little laugh and then waved as she put her other foot through the portal. "Bye!"

The portal disappeared.

All eyes were on Hermione. "It means nothing," she said, but she sounded uncertain. "We've got to stay with our original partners . . . right?"

"I don't know." Harry frowned. "I think it means you're with me now."

"Hell no, Potter!" Draco surged forward. "If anyone's changing partners, it's going to be me! Who the bloody fuck is Astoria Greengrass, anyway? I don't deserve such a minor character after all I went through. I'll gladly take Granger."

"Over my dead body, you will!"

Within moments, the chaos had built itself back up into a frenzy.

In all the commotion, nobody noticed J.K. Rowling sneak back into the common room to meet up with Ron, whom she had been secretly dating for years. Hand in hand, they slipped out through the portrait hole and went to enjoy a nice lunch in the Great Hall, which was blissfully empty, while they laughed at the idiots fighting over each other up in the common room.

Hope your OTP made the cut! Honorable Mentions who made it into the first draft but not the final version:

Moody/Crouch Jr.

Giant Squid/Sorting Hat

Parvati/Lavender

Dobby/Winky

Sirius/Marlene McKinnon

Aberforth/Goat

All the NextGen kids, popping in and out of existence as their various parents try to decide whether or not they're getting together