Everyone in all four houses at Hogwarts, and probably most of the teachers, knew Blaise Zabini's rule.

He never dated a girl more than once.

The rule was not open to interpretation, subjugation, or exception. No one got a second date with Blaise Zabini. End of discussion.

Many of the female population (and apparently even two males, although Blaise didn't swing that way) had taken the rule as a personal challenge. They each and every one strove to be the one person who was so irresistible, unforgettable, mysterious, or just plain shagworthy that Blaise would disregard the rule.

They all failed.

He had been presented with gifts ranging from extravagant to ridiculously sentimental. He returned only a few, such as a centuries old Greengrass family heirloom ring or a deed giving him partial ownership of Mandy Brockelhurst's family's vacation home in the Hamptons. He kept the rest. It wasn't as if he had asked for any of them.

He had been offered nearly every sexual favor known to mankind, including some that only belonged in magazines he wasn't old enough to buy. It's none of your business how many of the offers he accepted, although he will acknowledge that his evening with the Patil twins was extremely enlightening. Conversely, there had also been a faction that had militantly withheld physical affection, telling him that they didn't kiss/hug/suck/shag a near stranger. Not unless he agreed to a second date, that is. He didn't.

The only one who came close was Cho Chang. He could probably ask her out again without violating the rule, because they never technically finished their first date. About fifteen minutes into tea at Madame Puddifoot's, the first time Blaise had asked her a question about herself, she had become flustered, stammered "Maybe this wasn't a good idea.", apologized, and fled like a basilisk was chasing her.

The male population of Hogwarts thought he was a genius. His cool and aloof persona, his refusal to be impressed, made people desperate to do exactly that. He had girls throwing themselves at him on a daily basis. He could have nearly anyone he wanted. He was, in their eyes, the ultimate Slytherin.

None of them had any idea.

He held them all at arms' length, because if they got closer, they might see. They would realize he wasn't as handsome or as smart or as debonair as Draco. It was ironic, that the one person who had befriended him and brought him into Slytherin royalty, one of the closest friends he had ever had, was the measuring stick against which Blaise gauged all of his shortcomings. The one person he feared most would one day see through the smoke and mirrors which crafted Blaise's life. His family's wealth had been procured by his mother under dubious circumstances, rather than dating back for centuries. His mansion had, until two years ago, belonged to his late stepfather, his mother's fifth husband, who unlike her fourth husband, did not have a grown son to contest the will. His home life should have been featured on a muggle talk show, one of a myriad of muggle things a snobbish pureblood like himself should not have known about, but he did. He knew what it was like to eat in a muggle soup kitchen and to slip out the back door of a seedy motel when the local police drove up in front. He was a walking Room of Requirement, a soul full of tarnished, battered, scarred old junk hidden behind a pretentious portal that no one could find. He feared with every fiber of his being that one day, the aurors would come for his mother, and his entire existence would blow away like the dandelion petals he used to wish upon as a child.

He kept himself wrapped in his unimpressionable facade because it was his cloak, his shield, and his prison. He could never let it go, never let them see the Blaise inside who wasn't good enough. They would never understand. Except, sometimes he allowed himself to think, maybe Cho.

But he was so afraid she was like the others who wouldn't understand, he never asked her out again.