Weakness in Me (How Cliche)

~-*-~

A boy sits by the telephone, wanting to call a girl
But not daring to because she might say no
At last he summons up the courage phones
And discovers someone else has asked her first and she's said yes
Now's time to deal with the fear of being rejected
No-one gets through life without being hurt
At this point the boy who's listening to this song
Is probably saying it's easier said than done and it's true

-"Facts of Life" Black Box Recorder

~-*-~

Draco was not generally a silly boy. In fact, he despised the boys in his dormitory that had gone soft over the romantic quandaries of their life and the over-all mushiness they displayed towards their significant others. He found it sickening.

Draco much preferred smooth, charming manipulations on his part and much swooning, and sighing on the part of his current female counterpart. However, Draco found this not to be the case with Hermione. And he was beginning to wonder how he ended up as the one swooning and sighing over the nervous, and eccentric bookworm he never usually found himself attracted to.

Pondering this with the visual aid of the canopy of his four-poster bed, Draco found the answer to be boredom. Vacuous, bubbly girls had began to bore him. Something he never thought possible. As if he actually wanted something more than mindless snogs and sexual encounters. Like, intellectual conversations for example.

And Hermione had a big, bubble butt. He smirked at that. Something he could never resist.

Yawning, he brought the covers under his chin, tucked Mr. Winkles into place, and fell into blissful sleep that involved dreams a certain frizzy haired girl, and a certain number of absurd items and kinky use of such (the pervert).

~-*-~

Coming back to her room that night, Hermione was buzzing with giggly exuberance. If this is what it was like to have a boyfriend, Hermione was starting wonder why she never got one long ago. The flirting, the conversation, it was all too grand to comprehend in her newly-ordained-to-romantic-affairs state of mind.

She realized that even weeks ago such a state as she was in right now would have made her gag reflex go into over-time. However, Hermione had a new view of life. She suddenly knew what all the fuss was about. She felt giggly. That would usually have been enough to set off warnings in her mind that it was too good to be true, however, she was smiling too inanely to notice anything else.

Coming back to the Gryffindor common room, however, put a damper on things. There she found the two partners in crime she had come to view warily in all things romantically considered. They were plotting came the instantaneous word association to her mind as she viewed the red and black hair of the two heads bent over something or other on one of the lumpy couches she had become accustomed to in her previous six years of attendance at Hogwarts.

Such a fear took root in the pit of her stomach, and came to a cemented conclusion as she saw the sinister smiles on their faces as they looked up at her from whatever it is they were studying. She looked to find it to be parchment and a regular muggle dictionary. That confused her momentarily, but damned if she let them get the upper-hand by letting it show on her face.

Walking over, and taking a seat, she covertly tried a few quick glances at the aforementioned objects of obvious teenage male fascination. "What’s up boys?" She was rather proud of the measure of control in her voice at the sense of foreboding within the back of her head at their menacing smirks and gazes.

"Well, dear, dear Hermione, Harry and I had just realized the full stipulations of our, ah, little bet. Which we had been sure you would be aware of as being a bright girl, however, due to recent turns of events, we feel it is necessary to review these with you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes and resisted the itch in her fingers to smack them both. Keeping her voice even, and forcing her jaw to unclench, she spoke. "And what would those stipulations be exactly?"

Harry cleared his throat and ran a hand through his still-to-be-tamed hair. "It is the general consensus of our fellow Gryffindors, as well as a good pooling of Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and even a few Slytherins, that to be of the title ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ the two people in question must be dating."

Ron broke in just as Hermione rolled her eyes. "Dating, verb transitive, meaning to go on a date or dates with."

She crossed her arms defiantly. "You two are being difficult."

She both looked at each in mock horror, before conceding with boyish, mischievous smiles. "Whatever we must do to win. Gryffindor pride and all that." Came the obvious explanation from the ever-unhelpful git (the red-haired one).

Hermione thought back, and open her mouth with a sound objection, that was before Harry opened his mouth before her.

"Oh, and meeting at the library is definitely not a date." Harry interjected helpfully.

Hermione was now irked. They were being truly, excessively, and utterly boyish. And difficult. And obnoxious. As she said, boyish.

"You both know full well I can’t manage a date till Saturday."

"And the bet ends Friday. Pity." Both looked to each other again with those infuriating sneers.

Hermione seethed visibly, and had to manage to deliberately keep her hands from ripping her robes in the unconscious kneading of the fabric. Boys. Boys were so difficult. And infuriating. And they were, well, boys. And she was supposedly dating a boy. However, according to some other boys, she was not. She did not think she could deal much more with boys.

Former giddiness gone, Hermione stalked up to her dormitory for a good sulk, leaving behind the obnoxious boys she did not like very much right now. Hermione was a naturally determined person not accustomed to failure, particularly in the realm of academics. And to a lesser extent in everything else. She was a competitive girl. And therefore did not care to lose, even in something as inconsequential bet about something as silly as her love life.

So Hermione set about to develop a plan. And plan she did. It was not a grand plan. But it would serve a purpose.

~-*-~

Blaise had a problem. One he had sought to avoid, and had successfully done so for most of his Hogwarts attendance. However, he found himself now in a particular quagmire he had feared and dreaded most of his adolescent existence.

Blaise had a crush. He cringed visibly at the very though of it. At the very word "crush," which indeed was as painful to our kid Zabini as it sounded. Blaise thought it a silly word years ago when he had first pondered the budding romanticism of his fellow mates; but now, it made sense in the painful need her found he felt needed to be filled. That was what he dreaded the most. An inane need for someone else. He was a responsible, independent person. He didn’t need to attentions of a silly girl to fill the gaping void inside his soul. That’s what alcohol and drugs were for.

And it didn’t help that he disliked girls generally. Girls were silly, vacuous, and spoiled. And so very girlish.

However, he found himself excessively liking one where he had only marginally found not annoying before. He found most people annoying or not annoying. He hardly ever actually liked someone. He didn’t do social interaction, or anything of the matter very well.

And it irked him greatly that he couldn’t do anything about it. There was no medicine one could take to get rid of this annoying pestilence. No patch to relieve him of the addiction. He was on his own, and for the first time in his life, as a loss of what to do.

It also didn’t help that she had a boyfriend. A boyfriend he helped her win. It didn’t help, he feared, he was quickly falling in love with Hermione Granger.

~-*-~

Hermione had long ago dispelled SPEW. Not in a loss of the ideals she had founded them upon. But rather, upon the fact that no one cared, and she found it depressing to have a movement of only one person.

So, while she still felt bad about doing it, she had employed the house elves to her own secret, clever plans. She did feel truly, deeply guilty about it. Really.

However, she was going to win the bet. Even if it ended in her own demise by embarrassment in the overall silly girl she had become. Small sacrifice, however, to the cause.

So had come Thursday, the day before the end of the bet. Earlier, she had tracked down her partner in romantic crime, and given the sullen-looking (Hermione found it to be the norm in concern to that certain boy) Blaise a note to later dispatch to her very own lover boy. Hermione had a moment of fleeting giddiness as the sound of his. "Her very own lover boy." It was enough to make her giggle. And Hermione certainly didn’t giggle. Well, not if she could help it.

And now, with lunch approaching, Hermione was ready to set her plan into motion.

The timing was perfect. A place suitable to her needs had been picked. And the large picnic basket filled to the brim with the tasteful delights of the house elves design.

Hermione smirked in an unbecoming, and thoroughly ominous way.

~-*-~

Walking she halls, she consciously made the effort to use those most often populated with other students. Particularly students she knew personally. Particularly those students by the name of Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. Otherwise known as the gossip king-pins of the school, whose network of secret spies was, deep, thick, and extending like the most cankerous of cancers upon the social lives of their peers.

Having had a free period before lunch, Hermione was prepared. She was always prepared and now was no reason to change her habits. Prepared also meant a system of knowledge to set her plan in motion.

Standing to the very left of the stair-case to the Divination Tower, Hermione tried her best not to look smug as the students of the seventh year Slytherin-Gryffindor class trickled down the aforementioned stair-case, and eyed her, picnic basket and all. She had to fight down the overwhelming urge to smirk in a self-satisfied way as her two best friends appeared only moments before Malfoy; who as a true gentleman, took the obviously heavy picnic basket and held her hand cordially only after kissing her thoughtfully on the cheek.

Surreptitiously looking over her shoulder at the Wonder Boys, she was not at all surprised to see their aghast and astounded expressions.

Smiling up at Draco, and affectionately squeezing his hand, Hermione felt about ready to burst in self-satisfaction and, dare she say it, happiness.

~-*-~

It was disgusting really. Blaise had come to this conclusion as he wandered out onto the Quiditch pitch later that afternoon, as many students did if Spring weather would allow. He didn’t usually do this. However, he had the sinking feeling it was where Hermione would be, and being the masochist he was, wandered to see the scene everyone had been buzzing about at lunch.

And after watching the spectacle for about five minutes, he had come to the conclusion that it was disgusting. Really. Really, really.

Sighing irritably, a little voice in the back of his head voice a mutinous statement.

You’re just jealous.

To which he gave the snarky reply. Shut it.

To which their were no more smarmy statements.

Watching them feed each other, playfully smear the other with whip cream, and eye each other with lovers’ eyes, he was almost ready to puke. The conversation of the Patil and Brown girls didn’t help either, as they say only a few meters beside him on the Quidittch pitch. They had obviously come to find the root of the most juicy gossip to surface in weeks.

"They do make the most absolute cutest couple don’t they?" Came on excited whisper, that wasn’t really a whisper, but a breathy yell in Blaise’s mind.

The other sighed in a way Blaise cringed at. "And it’s so very romantic. A forbidden, inter-house relationship, a true attraction of opposites, defying his Father’s ideals." Both sighed this time, and he could almost feel the palpable swooning in the air.

"And he is dead sexy." The other agreed whole-heartedly. Blaise rolled his eyes extravagantly.

He was ready for a good sulk now. Here came the self-pity. I’m her opposite. I’m from a pureblood family. I’m in Slytherin. If he wasn’t so manly and masculine, and liked to watch action movies and was completely into Quiditch and broomsticks (meaning, if he was even slightly foppish), he would feel the onset of tears at the utter helpless feeling he felt. The rejection of someone that obviously had something he didn’t.

However, he wasn’t really certain he knew what it was he didn’t have. Glancing over at the two girls he had come to disdain quickly, an equally disdainful thought came to mind. "Oi, Patil, Brown. Can I ask you a hypothetical question?"

The two girls heads came quickly to his gaze and he leaned back upon his elbows in the grass. They looked at one another, and shrugged indifferently.

"Right. Let’s say there’s this boy, who likes this girl. Only, the girl he likes had a boyfriend. A boyfriend that he’s not sure is so unlike the boy number one." Stopping, he thoughtfully planned his next statement. "But the point is, boy number one isn’t the girl’s boyfriend. Why is it he isn’t, but boy number two is, when they’re both much like each other in respect to what the girl finds attractive?"

For a moment he though he had worded it far too confusingly for their simple minds as they looked at each other questioningly at each other, before conversing in excited whispers, to which Blaise rolled his eyes.

"Well," here Brown cleared her throat thoughtfully, and a small smiled played at the edge of her lips. "It’s not really the personality dear. Draco’s just so much sexier than you."

His eyes widened on reflex, and he almost had a conniption fit. "Don’t worry about it dear. When she’s older, she’ll look for a reliable, boy such as yourself to settle down with and have children with after having her heart broken by a great many line of men such as Draco." Patil interjected helpfully.

Blaise, left without any further comment or thanks to their statement, and almost cursed himself for asking. Soon it would be all over the school, and Malfoy would kill him. At least he would be out of his misery.

Walking towards the exit, he only by chance caught the sight of the sullen Potter and Weasley. A plan broiled in his mind. A very clever, manipulative, Slytherin plan to get what he wanted.

Quickly changing his path, he descended upon his two male peers, and stood above them in what he hoped was a menacing, and authoritative pose. Potter and Weasley thought he looked daft.

"You want her away from that git right?" He decided to be straight-forward. It had always seemed to serve him best.

They both nodded hurriedly. It didn’t take a genius to notice they missed her and all her lovely homework to copy. But mostly her. Or at least that’s what they would say to cover their asses.

"Right then. You’ll be needing my help." Sticking his hand out congenially, he smiled. "Blaise Zabini, at your service."

~-*-~