So Your Worst Enemy Wants To Date a Hufflepuff

It was semi-official, meaning it was a rumor spread by someone who wasn't Lavender Brown:

Harry wanted Zacharias.

It traveled through the castle faster than Filch when called by Mrs. Norris. By breakfast the following morning, the entire school, including the full staff and a few unluckily placed Ministry of Magic members who happened to be visiting, had been informed.

"I'm in love," Harry Potter informed his two best friends at breakfast, shoving half a muffin into his mouth.

Hermione looked up from her borrowed copy of So Your Best Friend Wants to Date a Hufflepuff: How to Cope. "You've told us, Harry," she said absently, engrossing herself again in the book.

"Pick Hannah Abbot," said Ron, "she's better-looking."

"But I don't like Hannah Abbot."

Ron made a gagging sound. "How can you like Smith? He hates you."

Harry gave a dreamy sigh. "He's just so-"

"No," amended Ron quickly, "save it. I don't want to know."

Harry obliged, propping his hand on his chin and looking toward the Hufflepuff table, a faraway look in his eyes.

"Probably planning their wedding," snorted Ron dubiously, looking away. Hermione snapped out of her book-induced reverie.

"Do you wish you were planning your wedding, Ron?" she asked seriously. Ron blinked.

"Uh. With Harry?"

Hermione gave him an 'honestly-you-are-so-stupid' (©) look and replied exasperatedly, "With Zacharias." Ron sputtered and stared at her, wide-eyed.

"I- wh- no!"

"Sounds like a textbook case of denial," replied Hermione promptly, and went back to reading.

--- --- --- --- ---

Across the hall, Draco Malfoy set his goblet down and looked over at Potter, who was- hey! Looking at the Hufflepuffs! What the hell? Potter always gave him a peremptory glare before looking at anything else.

The blonde gave a short sigh and turned in his seat to look at the Hufflepuff table. Just what was so interesting over there?

--- --- --- --- ---

"Erm- Zach?" said Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"I told you not to call me that," replied Zacharias without looking up.

"Is Harry Potter batting his eyelashes at you?"

"Probably," answered Zacharias, poking at his eggs with a fork. "He's in love with me, didn't you hear?"

"Oh," said Justin. "Yeah. I heard when I first came into the Hufflepuff Common Room, but I forgot, I suppose."

Zacharias snorted. "Could you have any more of a short-term memory?"

"Where did I put my Arithmancy book?" shrieked Hannah Abbot right on cue, leaping up from the table. "I just had it a couple minutes ago!"

Justin looked at Zacharias. "Yes," he said confidently, and put a piece of toast down on his plate with a flourish.

Zacharias rolled his eyes.

Harry sighed and gave a very manly giggle.

Ron threw half a bagel at Harry's head.

--- --- --- --- ---

Draco fumed. Potter was making eyes at that little blonde badger! As if some Hufflepuff took precedence over Draco! Draco was-

"Draco?"

Draco worked very hard not to ask who dared snap him out of his Potter-induced trance. It could only lead to people jumping to very bad and very, very untrue conclusions. Instead, he looked composedly away from the Hufflepuff table.

He glanced up and across his own table. Pansy Parkinson looked back at him, a vaguely concerned look on her face.

"Pansy?" he said, his eyes most certainly not still darting back to the badgers' table to see if there really was something greatly interesting about Smith. Let's see... he was in that bloody Army last year... scrawny, like Potter... blonde hair, brown eyes. Boring little twat.

"Are you... feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," he replied, eyes back to scanning the room. "I'm perfectly..."

Was Harry Potter batting his eyelashes? Was this a Love Potion? Could he possibly get Professor Snape to test Potter for foreign substances in the body? This was absolutely priceless. Potter was apparently temporarily insane. Stupid Potter.

"Perfectly what? Draco? Perfectly what?" asked Pansy in the background.

Draco gave a short evil laugh and looked menacingly at his breakfast.

"Perfectly insane," decided Pansy, taking a prim bite out of a pancake.

--- --- --- --- ---

It was double Potions, first thing that morning. Harry was distractedly staring at the wall. Hermione was distractedly staring at a pamphlet entitled something along the lines of So Your Best Friend Is Gay and Wants To Date a Hufflepuff and You've Already Finished the Book About the Hufflepuff Dating Problem: Reference Guide and Support Groups.

Ron was very focused on staring at Malfoy, who was rolling up a small wad of paper and trying to attach it to a stick. Next to him was a small plastic vial with... well, with something in it.

"I bet he's trying to poison someone- probably a Gryffindor- what if it's me? What if it's Harry? I have to stop him!" muttered Ron fervently under his breath. He readied himself for a large vocal outburst.

Just then, Snape swept impressively into the room. "Sit down before I take points from you all for no justifiable reason," he said menacingly. Everyone sat obediently.

Ron leapt up and pointed an accusing finger at Draco. "I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, YOU SLIMY BASTARD! YOU CAN'T HURT ANY OF US WITH YOUR- YOUR- DARK MAGIC DOLLS!" Draco looked up calmly. Ron's face was bright red.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor," said Snape. Ron swung toward him, fury in his eyes. The boy was on a roll.

"WHY DO YOU HATE US SO MUCH?" said Ron shrilly and loudly.

Snape shrugged. "I'm usually portrayed as having no friends. Sometimes, I'm even abused as a child. If I'm really lucky, I fall in love with Lily Evans and lose her to James. I'm entitled to be bitter, you see. And," he added, "your parents wouldn't sleep with me."

"YOU-" Ron blanched. "Wh- which of our parents?"

"Any of them. Oh," added Snape as an afterthought, "seventy-five points from Gryffindor. Sit down."

Ron sat. Hermione, who was compiling a twelve-step program and hadn't heard a word of this exchange, looked at Ron's pale face, frowned, and studiously began studying Harry. She sat and studied him studiously, before realizing what she was doing and stopping to giggle at the alliteration.

Draco's wand was pointed at the stick with the paper wad for a head, which now also had a single blonde hair on top.

--- --- --- --- ---

Zacharias had Serious Teenage Problems. He was wandering aimlessly, engrossed in thinking about his sad plight.

"I don't want Harry Potter to be in love with me.... How do you make someone stop loving you? Could I make an out-of-love potion?" wondered Zacharias aloud, roving the halls of Hogwarts.

"They don't exist," said Justin Finch-Fletchley helpfully from behind him. Zacharias jumped.

"Why do you keep showing up?" he yelled, spinning around.

Justin shrugged. "I'm the stereotypical Hogwarts gay student. What didn't you know?"

"Oh. No," said Zacharias, "I was just introduced in the last book, you know." Justin nodded wisely, feeling an unexpected surge of pride at being one of the original characters.

Somewhere else in the school, Draco Malfoy was intently focused on his Weasley-dubbed "dark magic doll." The Weasel had actually been almost right about something for once.

Draco held up his Zacharias Smith voodoo doll and smirked. Like the git could have ever been Potter's adversary. Ha. He wasn't even evil. "I bet his parents are Muggles," he muttered. Draco's parents were the epitome of evil. His level of evil was so much higher just by default.

Stupid Potter. Stupid Smith. Rivals. As if.

He reached up to twist voodoo Smith's leg and-

"Draco?" asked Pansy tentatively.

Draco looked up irritably.

"Sorry," Pansy amended quickly. "But you were looking at that stick and giggling and-"

"That was an evil, maniacal laugh," Draco informed her sternly. Maybe he shouldn't have attempted this delicate project in the common room.

"Okay. But what are you doing?"

"I," said Draco dignifiedly, "am killing that Hufflepuff, Smith, because Potter thinks he's his rival, but he cannot be if he is dead."

Pansy stared. "But why do you care?" she asked.

"I," began Draco, "-hmm."

Potter was his enemy. Potter couldn't be some Hufflepuff's enemy.

"And you do know that Potter is supposedly in love with Smith, right?"

"Ah," said Draco, "no, but that's very interesting." He smiled and walked out of the Common Room, voodoo doll in tow.

It hit him halfway to the Great Hall.

Pansy, curled up on a couch, heard the faint, shrill, "IN LOVE?" and smiled.