Weakness in Me (How Cliche)

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You come on like a drug

I just can't get enough

I'm like an addict coming at you for a little more

And there's so much at stake

I can't afford to waste

I never needed anybody like this before

- "Temptation waits" Garbage

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Looking skeptically at the out-held hand of a Slytherin (a Slytherin for chrissake), Harry and Ron weighed it over in their minds. Looking at one another, Ron, being ever the business man, spoke.

"One moment while we consult each other."

Turning their backs to the olive-skinned young man, they missed the rolling of his almond eyes, and snuffed exasperated sigh.

Whisperings and plotting was the topic as they brought out their ever-trusty Magic-8 Ball from the confines of Harry´s bag. Consulting the great wisdom of the plastic ball had gotten them through a great many Divination lessons and had made a great many important decisions for the otherwise indecisive boys.

Heads bent close together, Ron whispered in a hurried voice. "I don´t trust him Harry. He´s a Slyherin- a Slytherin for chrissake!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Stop being prejudiced. And besides, he´s on the inside. Like a double agent of sorts. He can get us spectacular dirt on Malfoy."

Thinking it over, Ron glumly conceded. "I still don´t like it. He´s a Slytherin, ergo he has his own secret agenda."

Harry sighed in an annoyed tone. "Fine, we´ll consult the Magic-8 ball all right?" Ron nodded readily to such a plan.

Holding the ball with both hands, Harry cleared his throat in a very ceremonial manner. "Oh dear, wise Magic-8 ball, tell us, is Zabini out for his own satisfaction?" Shaking vigorously for a few seconds, both eagerly looking to the clear plastic area, and sure enough, the triangle surfaced.

However, with the inscription "Do cows go `moo´?" they found the humor irritating, even if informative.

Harry cleared his throat once again, and shifted in the wet grass. Eyeing Zabini to his right, he saw the young Slytherin shifting one foot to the other, arms crossed and trying his hardest not to look in the direction of the two young Gryffindors. Harry also couldn´t help but notice the regal, aristocratic profile of the boy in question brought to mind images of rich cocktail parties and a smugness he disdained in anything. Smarmy bastard, he couldn´t help but think. It was an ingrained Gryffindor thought. Blame it on genetics.

Shifting his gaze back to the wise benefactor of all their Unimportant Adolescent Decisions, he posed his next question to the ball. "Will Zabini help us get Hermione back?"

Once again the rigorous shaking and eager looking to the inscribed triangle. Which this time posted a message of "Depends on how much you pay him."

Which didn´t help either. However, they were not deterred, and Harry spoke the next question. "Will Malfoy be utterly heartbroken?" Sure it was petty, but Harry was in a petty mood after the earlier display of his other best friend and his most irritating enemy.

"Don´t count on it."

"Ask it if we should trust Zabini to help us." Ron whispered to Harry, whom rolled his eyes skyward and made a face.

"You ask it."

Ron made a horrified face. "Last time I touched it, I broke out in hives. I´m fairly sure it doesn´t like me."

Harry sighed. "Fine. Can we trust Zabini to help us in our objective?" More forceful shaking, and Harry was sure he had gotten his cardio workout for the day.

"Can you trust a smiling mongoose?"

Snatching the ball viciously from his hands, Ron chucked it in the direction of the lake, and smiled a cryptic smile as it made a satisfying splash in the lake.

Looking back to Harry and the curious gaze of Blaise Zabini, Ron cleared his throat, and cleaned off the nonexistent lint from his robes. "What?"

Harry and Blaise both muttered "nothings" and other such phrases.

"So then, Potter, Weasley, what´ll it be? Me, or him." Saying it in a distasteful way he did not truly feel, but knew they could identify with, he looked between the two.

The two Gryffindors in question looked glumly to each other, Blaise, to each other once again, the Picnic Scene, and down to their shoes.

"Yeah, all right." Came the reply in unison, and Blaise smiled a snake-like smile he was so accustomed to doing.

Rubbing his hands together, he walked over to his newly found allies, and linked an arm around each in a chummy, masculine fashion. "Right then mates, listen to me and it´ll all be all right."

Somehow Ron and Harry weren´t so sure.

~-*-~

Draco frowned and narrowed his eyes a bit. Zabini was being excessively annoying. Draco generally liked Blaise, good ol´ buddy, ol´ pal that he was. Closest thing to a best mate he had. But now, now, he was being irritating and imposing on serious Snog-time.

He had to repress a snarl as Hermione and Blaise both laughed at something clever he had said. Draco sipped his butterbeer in the disguise of a snarky comment.

Sitting inside the booth at The Three Broomsticks, arm around Hermione´s shoulders, Draco came to resent the Grecian boy in the darkly lit tavern. Thinking back a few hours earlier on the Hogsmeade Saturday, Draco resented the act Zabini was obviously putting on.

Coming to the library to collect Hermione on their first, real official date, he wasn´t surprised to see her conversing animatedly with Zabini at her favorite spot in the library. Draco had been wary of the boy ever since the first time he had tried his luck with Hermione. It took him minutes to intercede in the conversation he envied for all the wrong reasons. I mean, he looked so much more handsome when he was making wild hand motions. He frowned. She was supposed to twirl her hair in that cute, girly manner only with him. He felt indignant at the sight.

And of course, dear, sweet Hermione had to ask Blaise what he was doing that night. Because he looked so lonely, so desperate, so goddamned helpless like a puppy dog that she wanted to take him along with her. Draco liked to kick puppies.

So beside all his most efforts to make it an exclusive affair, he somehow ended up as the third wheel on his date. Draco glumly took another sip of his butterbeer and glared at the new-found rival male to his alpha position of the pack.

What was his deal anyway? Zabini was an anti-social kid. He didn´t like anyone. Except for maybe himself. Couldn´t say he blamed him. Draco rather thought himself a charming bloke. But that wasn´t enough for him to want to impede upon his romantic excursions.

Unless he liked Hermione himself. Eyeing Zabini under far more scrutiny, he saw the definite signs were there. The way he looked at her, how he was so much more talkative around her, more alive. However, Draco wasn´t particularly sure about it all. Zabini in love was still antisocial Zabini.

However, the clue walked in the door at that exact time. The familiar (and familiarly despised) figures of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley sauntered like the smug buggers they were into the Three Broomsticks- and dear Lord help him, they were coming his way. He was now put in the state of mind to bolt like a scared, furry animals. Then he mentally slapped and reminded himself he was a Malfoy- a Malfoy for chrissake! Malfoys were not scared rats in the face of the cobra, they were the cobra. Or at least, that´s what he told himself to not wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat from a nightmare that involved being Neville Longbottom.

"Hermione! Old chum! Haven´t seen you in forever! Get yourself a boyfriend and you decide to forget your good, trusty, friends." Ron mocked a cry on Harry´s shoulder, who patted his shoulder in a comforting, yet manly way. Malfoy rolled his eyes, and Zabini watched impassively.

"Oh hush Ron, you´re being eccentric. Why don´t you two sit down?" She smiled up at both while Malfoy fought the urge to slam his head repeatedly upon the table (it would bruise his lovely skin you see- and would be admitting weakness to the enemy).

Harry interjected. "We couldn´t impose. You are, after all on a date." He trailed off a bit at the end and eyed Zabini with as much incredulity as Draco, whom thought it was the most clever thing Potter had said in his life.

Hermione dismissed it with an inconsequential wave of her hand. "Nonsense. Blaise has tagged along, I´m sure Draco won´t mind the two of you either." She looked to the boy-toy in question, who immediately ceased rubbing his eyes in an effort to ward off the on-coming migraine the moment his name was mentioned, and looked to find four pairs of eyes upon him.

He waved his hand in a solemn, conceding way. "Sure. I need to do my charity work for the month."

Hermione playfully hit him on the shoulder, and he mocked hurt if only to initiate some sort of flirting to ward off the unwanted freeloaders. It didn´t work quite as he had hoped. It somehow made him look ever the wimpy, submissive boyfriend. God he was getting soft. Looking at Hermione though, he didn´t think he minded so much.

With thoughts like that, I really am getting soft. The urge to bang his head in a bloody, and bruising manner upon the nearest hard substance became stronger once the conversation began anew.

"So, Zabini, old mate. How´s it been going for you? I hear you´re a regular natural at Quiditch. Why don´t you play for the team?" And of course Weasley would begin on the only topic he knew anything about.

Blaise waved an olive hand and leaned back in the booth. "School work, prefect, that stuff you know." Pause. "And I wouldn´t want to show up Malfoy at the only thing he´s good at." Smarmy, smug smile cleverly hidden behind a drink of butterbeer and Draco feigned an amused laugh. Harry and Ron however, thought it bloody witty. They would. The silly little bints they are.

Conversation continued for some time, and Draco relieved his boredom by interjecting with helpful (or not) comments, and Hermione would pinch his thigh under the table. He didn´t really mind the last one. At least she was paying some amount of attention to him. Looking sullenly down at his butterbeer Draco was feeling neglected. He had to resist the urge to sniffle pitifully.

"Oh!" Weasley looked as if he had been struck by an epiphany (one Draco hoped included how utterly smarmy and smug a bugger he was, and he decided to receive help for such a problem.) Fishing something out of his pant pocket, Weasley slid across the table an amount of money Draco was sure was more than the red-haired git had ever seen in his life. Two galleons and five sickles glittered in the dim light of the tavern, and a tense moment surfaced between the five.

"For winning the bet in a fair, Gryffindorish way." Harry smiled in a way Draco didn´t like.

He was rather proud of the glare Hermione fixed to the two of them.

Coming to his beloved´s aid, he spoke. "Not really Pot-head, Weasel. She was too cunning for anything Gryffindor to be considered." Smiling benignly at the two, he drummed his fingers upon the tabletop, and stroked a hand through Hermione´s irresistible hair.

Zabini laughed, and all eyed him warily. Picking up the two galleons and five sickles, he scooted out of the booth and wandered off, before coming back moments later with a new round of butterbeers.

Sitting back down, he handed them out to the curious companions. Raising his glass, Draco eyed him even more warily than before. "To Draco and Hermione. The cutest inter-House couple we´ve ever seen. Or, actually, the only inter-House couple we´ve ever seen." The git thought he was clever.

Draco, however, didn´t miss the surreptitious glance between the three other boys at the table. And it all clicked. And all of a sudden Zabini was disliked much more by Draco.

~-*-~

Walking down the Hogsmeade road, up to Hogwarts and the brisk night, Draco was careful to keep his voice low. Warily keeping a safe distance from the other students that lined the road, he leaned down to Hermione´s ear in a casual way. "I don´t like Zabini."

She looked up at him in the dimming light of the spring-time sunset and raised one eyebrow. "I thought you two were best mates."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "That doesn´t necessarily mean we like each other."

Hermione´s brow furrowed at the statement. Then she rolled eyes and sighed. "Sometimes I fear I´ll never understand you."

Her smiled his smarmy smile. " `Tis the great Malfoy trait."

"What, being a bit git?" She smiled playfully, and he stuck his tongue out at her in a certainly not Malfoy manner. She had that annoying gift of making him an actually nice person. He wasn´t sure if he liked it or not, but who was he to complain with all the snogs he was getting?

Speaking of snogs, he looked around at the other students that laughed and walked along the path. Seeing no sign of the infamous Zabini and his cohorts in crime Potter and Weasley, he drug Hermione by the hand in a secluded wooded area just off the road.

She looked a bit puzzled at the detour, which Draco thought to be the most adorable thing as he leaned his head down quickly and met her lips briefly in an electrifying kiss. Short and chaste, but passionate nonetheless, sending chills down her spine.

She responded in kind with an enthusiastic reciprocation of the action, this time more forceful and accompanied by roving hands between the two.

Minutes later, his lips were doing wonderful things to her neck, and she giggled every time he nibbled her ear. He murmured sweet nothings, and she giggled at those too.

She sighed contentedly later that night as she lay in bed, remembering the feel of his lips on her own, on her neck, on her ear.

She sighed, because she was in love.

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