Author's Notes:

Greetings fellow Harry Potter fans and welcome to my first ever story, 'While you were scheming'

This is a slash fic containing Harry/Draco love (plus a little bit of Seamus/Blaise).

Reviews would be greatly appreciated. I know this is my first story so I won't be surprised if you tell me that it sucks. I would also really love and appreciate any suggestions that you have that might make this story better.

Thanks to Sanguiyn my wonderful beta, who not only saves me from grammatical errors, but also dresses as a super hero when she does it.

Disclaimer:

Loosely based on '10 Things I hate about you', which was based on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'.

Gilmore Girls quote alert in this chapter too. ;-)

You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters, JKR does. But if I did, something like this would happen to them...

Blaise Zabini only ever had one thing on his mind. In fact, if his name could be looked up in a dictionary it would clearly state:

Blaise Zabini (Bl-aze Zab-ean-y) n. 1. Slytherin 2. Crafty 3. Gay 4. Unceasingly horny

The first two aforementioned characteristics never came as a surprise to him. He'd always known that he would be in Slytherin, as his family had expected it of him since birth. And as craftiness was a particular trait that was common to all Slytherins, and definitely a pre-requisite to enter the house, he prided himself on demonstrating it at all times.

The third characteristic, however, had come as a little bit of a shock to Blaise. He hadn't noticed his homosexuality until his sixth year. Consequently, this was also the time when he had begun to develop the fourth and final of his trademark characteristics. Sure, things had gotten bigger, hair had grown in unanticipated places, and he had had his fair share of interesting dreams, well before his sixth year. Except it wasn't until his dreams started to reveal more, that he began to become even hornier and realise his true gender preference.

Before sixth year, his dreams were always vague and dark. After experiencing them, he would wake up drenched in sweat and with a wet, sticky patch on his sheet, with no clear recollections of what the dream had actually contained. He knew that he had been naked in his dreams, and also touching an equally naked person, but that was about as detailed as it got.

When his sixth year started, he found himself no longer inclined to check out girls, but boys instead. He began checking out his dorm mates all the time, and as a result his dreams became clearer, with actual people he knew appearing in them, all of them boys.

His house mates easily accepted his homosexuality, once he decided to confide to them the reason for his sudden disinterest in his old favourite past time of using a levitating charm to hold up Pansy Parkinson's skirt to see what coloured underwear she had on that day.

Their straightforward approval was mostly due to certain unspoken rules that Slytherins have to follow. The most important one being: 'always respect your fellow housemate'. His best friend, Draco Malfoy, had been the most understanding, mainly because he had been openly gay himself for the past year.

Now, Blaise had remained true to his fourth characteristic ever since his realisation. He had had countless sexual trysts with many boys, both inside and outside Slytherin house. But as the year progressed and the rest of the sixth years began settling down into more serious, long-term partnerships, he found himself wanting the same.

But Blaise was not only crafty, gay and horny, he was also very picky. He concluded that his new partnership not only had to be serious for the long-term, but also needed to include a lot of sex to satisfy his addictive personality.

Blaise had spent the past couple of weeks analysing every gay male in his year, regardless of house and blood status. Choosing someone was a difficult task, due to his enduring pickiness. He wanted someone who was confident, good-looking and horny. He quickly had ruled out the Hufflepuffs because of this, as they were all gutless and incredibly cowardly. He also had ruled out any Ravenclaws, all far too studious to indulge in any sexual encounters.

All his sixth year Slytherin counterparts seemed worthy enough, but, after a lot of inner deliberation, he decided against it. After sharing a dormitory with them for nearly six years, he knew that not many of them would be capable of withstanding a serious relationship.

After all these eliminations, there was only one house left. Blaise considered the Gryffindors longer than he did any other house. After a long contemplation process, Blaise decided that Seamus Finnigan seemed to be the horniest and gayest of the lot, and also genuine enough to want more than a meaningless fling. So it was him that Blaise decided would be worthy enough to be his first ever proper boyfriend.

Draco Malfoy rolled his eyes for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day. This would usually be considered quite normal, except for the fact that it was only eight o'clock in the morning.

"Fucking hell, Blaise, can you keep your eyes off the Gryffindor table for five minutes?" Draco pleaded, dropping his fork loudly onto his plate in frustration. The fork made a loud clattering noise, but even that, along with Draco's whining, wasn't enough to stop Blaise from grinning appreciatively at the sandy-haired Gryffindor. He was becoming increasingly proud of his choice as he took in Seamus's sandy hair, bright blue eyes and to-die-for Irish accent, which he could barely hear over his fellow students' numerous loud conversations echoing throughout the Great Hall.

"You'll bore holes into Finnigan if you keep that up," Pansy stated, reaching over Blaise in order to retrieve a plate of bacon, thus blocking Blaise's view of the Gryffindor table. He reluctantly looked away from Seamus for the first time that morning and began to eat his toast, which had been ignored on his plate for the past fifteen minutes, as Blaise had deeply been contemplating how he would much rather eat up the Irish Gryffindor sitting on the other side of the Great Hall instead.

"Don't tell me that you're still serious about asking Finnigan out!" Draco declared, disgusted, pushing his breakfast plate away from him to further prove his revulsion.

"Of course," Blaise admitted proudly, not in the least bit embarrassed by Draco's loud voice.

Draco glared at him in shock. "I have no words…"

"Well, that's a nice change!" Blaise smirked before taking another bite of his toast.

"Oh, no, wait. I thought of some," Draco yelled, and Blaise covered his ears ready for the obvious incoming blow. "Jerk! Ass! Arrogant, mindless, stupid, butt-faced miscreant!"

"Butt-faced, Draco?" Blaise laughed. "That's highly unoriginal, especially from you."

"I just can't believe that you're actually considering--"

"Oh for heaven's sake, Draco, calm down!" Pansy interjected. "You have nothing to worry about."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Blaise asked haughtily, dropping his half eaten piece of toast back onto his plate. He allowed himself to turn and glare at Pansy expectantly.

"It means that it's not going to happen," Pansy stated confidently, ignoring Blaise and Draco's questioning looks while she poured herself a glass of orange juice.

"Mark my words, I fully intend to--" Blaise started, but Pansy interrupted again.

"Forget him, Blaise; it's not going to happen."

"And why the hell not?" Blaise was starting to get frustrated now.

"Finnigan can't date unless Potter does," Pansy revealed with her famous all-knowing smile. It was a well known fact that Pansy was the gossip queen of Hogwarts, and there was hardly any gossip that failed to reach her.

"Excuse me?" Blaise's frustrated expression immediately dropped and was replaced by one of confusion. "Since when has Seamus's dating life ever had anything to do with Potter?"

"You mean you haven't heard about the Gryffindor pact?" Pansy asked smugly. She loved knowing about things that other people didn't.

"Obviously not," Blaise huffed, hoping that it wouldn't be too much of a hitch in his plans.

"Well, you know how Dean Thomas is dating Ginny Weasley?" Pansy lowered her voice, leaning in closely to Blaise and Draco.

"Yes," Blaise nodded. "But what does that have to do with Seamus?"

"Let me finish," Pansy whined, holding her hand up in front of him to stop further questions. "Dean Thomas is dating Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley is dating Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom has just started seeing Luna Lovegood from Ravenclaw…"

"So?" Blaise and Draco asked simultaneously as Pansy looked at them eagerly.

"So," she continued at their lack of understanding, "Finnigan and Potter are the only ones in their circle of friends who do not have partners."

"And…" Blaise egged her on when he still didn't quite see where this was going.

"And… Finnigan and Potter decided to make a pact stating they could only date if the other had a date as well, so they won't risk having one person in their dormitory not having someone and as a result feeling left out, lonely and awkward when hanging out in their group."

"You're kidding!" moaned Blaise, realising that he had a lot more work ahead of him. "Not only do I have to ask Seamus out but I have to find someone for Potter as well!"

"Are you not seeing the problem here, Blaise?" Pansy looked at him sceptically.

"Well, I've noticed that he's a little anti-social when it comes to dating," Blaise admitted. "Why is that?"

"He just hasn't been the same since he killed off Voldemort," Pansy observed. "I guess he's just sick of people only wanting to date him because of his fame."

"Well yeah, but I'm sure that there are lots of girls who would go out with Potter not just because he's famous," Blaise pondered uncertainly.

Pansy snorted in amusement. "Even if there were, he wouldn't go for them. Potter's gay."

"How do you know all this?!" Blaise stared at her incredulously.

Pansy simply shrugged in amusement. "It's a gift."

Blaise shook his head to overcome this new piece of information. "Anyway, I'm sure that there are plenty of guys who would date him for other reasons than his fame."

"Doubtful, very doubtful," Pansy disagreed. "And even if you found one, they'd have a hard time convincing Potter otherwise."

Blaise paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"So…" he considered carefully, "what I need to do is find someone that Potter knows isn't such a huge fan of his…"

"You think that you could find someone who hasn't been infatuated by Potter's fame?" Pansy blinked in disbelief.

Blaise grinned evilly, realisation dawning on him. He slowly turned and faced Draco, who had remained silent for most of the conversation but had been listening intently the whole time.

Draco looked at him confusedly for a second and then screeched when he realised what Blaise was obviously thinking.

"NO FUCKING WAY, BLAISE!" Draco shook his head so vigorously that the Great Hall seemed to spin a little bit for him. "THERE ISN'T ENOUGH MONEY IN GRINGOTTS FOR ME TO AGREE TO GO OUT WITH HIM!"

"Like you need any more money," Blaise stated. "Besides, you and Potter patched things up after he did Voldemort in."

"I would hardly call that patching things up!" Draco continued in hysterics. "He merely came up to me at the start of the year and requested that we both stop insulting each other!"

"Well, it's not like you're enemies anymore, though!" Blaise tried to convince his friend.

"Be that as it may," Draco admitted, "we still definitely can't be around each other armed."

"Well, you're not going to be armed, are you?" Blaise was practically pleading now, something that was both very unSlytherin-like and very unBlaise-like. "Please, Draco! Just one little dance with him at tomorrow night's dance! I'm desperate here!"

Draco sighed in exasperation. "You're not going to give up until I agree to do it, are you?"

"Nope," Blaise said, simply shaking his head once.

"Fine!" Draco huffed crossly, turning away from his friend in annoyance to pick up his school bag. "But I'm only going to do this once!"

And with that, he hastily climbed out of his seat and marched out of the Great Hall angrily.

"I can't believe that you just persuaded him into doing that," admired Pansy. "Do you really want to get into Finnigan's pants that bad?"

"More than you'll ever know, Pans," Blaise sighed enigmatically before he resumed staring at his favourite Gryffindor.

Meanwhile, over at the Gryffindor table…

"That Zabini is staring at you again, Seamus," Dean noticed as he looked up from his bowl of cornflakes.

"Well, maybe I'm just his type," Seamus replied eagerly, taking a good long look at the dark hair and eyes of said wizard as he started to get up from his seat.

"Where are you going?" Dean asked in confusion.

"Bathroom before class starts," Seamus stated honestly.

"No! Stay!" Dean pleaded mockingly.

"Why?" Seamus asked, confused.

"I want to see if he asks you out."

Everyone in the vicinity laughed at Dean's joke.

"Even if he did, I'd have to wait for my good friend Harry here." Seamus smiled encouragingly at Harry, who was sitting next to him, and gave him a friendly pat on the back. "Don't think that I've forgotten our Gryffindor pact."

Harry smiled weakly at this. He really wasn't thinking about going out with anyone anytime soon, as the whole school seemed to see right through him and only focus on his fame. He knew that the odds of him finding someone who saw more to him than his scar were very low. And he felt guilty that Seamus's love life had to suffer just because his did.

"Speaking of which," Ron spoke through a mouthful of food as usual, "have you two--"

"Ron!" Hermione scolded. "Stop talking with your mouth full!"

Ron swallowed his mouthful of food obediently, being careful not to roll eyes, in order to prevent his girlfriend's wrath. "--got dates for tomorrow night's dance?"

Harry pretended to drop his fork so that he could avoid answering the question while going to retrieve it from under the table. When he surfaced, fork in hand, he was thankful to see that Seamus had already started to answer the question.

"No," Seamus replied cheerily, but Harry knew that he was slightly disappointed. "But it doesn't matter, Harry and I can just hang out together while the rest of you lot snog."

Everyone laughed at this except for Harry. It was his fault that Seamus couldn't date anyone at the moment, and he knew that he couldn't live with that responsibility for much longer. He began to consider breaking off the pact, as his fellow Gryffindors returned to normal conversation. Being lonely and miserable on Hogsmeade weekends was a small price to pay in order to relieve the constant guilt he felt whenever the subject of dating was brought up.