Author's Note: Hey guys! Thanks for taking a chance and reading this fic. Before we get started here, I figured I'd go ahead and outline where things are at, just in case I didn't make it super obvious during the course of the first chapter:

+ All the (mentioned) Stark children are in Gryffindor. I'll decide what house Bran's in when/if he becomes relevant, and Rickon's not Hogwarts age yet in this fic.
+ Robb and Jon are sixth years, Sansa is a fifth year, and Arya is a third year.
+ Daenerys, Margaery, and Theon are all Slytherin sixth years.
+ Oberyn is their potions professor because why not?

I'd also like to say a quick thanks to targaryenstyrell on Tumblr, who helped me talk through my ideas for this fic enough for it to actually become a reality (and for loving Theonsa so much that they snuck into this fic, even when I hadn't originally intended for them to be a side-ship in it).

"Daenerys Targaryen!"

Professor Martell's voice snaps Robb to attention. It's the first day of their NEWT level Potions class, and as soon as he'd discovered they were doubled with Slytherin, he'd been looking forward to an extra chance to be around their beautiful Quidditch captain every week.

Robb had always noticed her, of course. Daenerys was fierce; she was the kind of girl where you just felt her presence the second that she walked into a room. And sure, lots of other people noticed, too—it's why Robb hardly ever seemed to get a word in edgewise around her. This year would be different, though. Over the summer, he'd been named Gryffindor's Quidditch captain, he'd gone on a few dates with a girl named Roslin Frey while he'd been on vacation and had gotten his confidence up, and he was ready to sail into sixth year with a brand new attitude.

His eyes darted between Daenerys, waiting expectantly to hear who she'd be partnered up with for the rest of the term, and Professor Martell, who always seemed to have a glint of mischief in his eyes. It was why he was one of Robb's favorite professors; he seemed just as likely to have a good laugh with his students as to punish them, and it was certainly a step up from their other teachers.

"You'll be working with…"

Robb Stark, Robb Stark , Robb willed silently. Perhaps if he thought it hard enough, it would come into existence, as if Professor Martell was a Legilimens using his powers to see into his students eyes and matchmake them with the girls of their dreams.

It was an insane thought, but right up until Professor Martell opened his mouth again, Robb really thought that it was going to work. That he'd get to spend the whole term with Daenerys Targaryen, talking with her, laughing with her, impressing her with his as-of-yet-lacking-Potions skills (he'd work on them just for her sake, though, until they had the best grade in the whole class).

"Jon Snow," Professor Martell finished, and Robb sank into his chair as his dreams came crashing down.

Theon, who'd been sitting next to Robb, had a good laugh at his expense, watching Robb make pleading eyes in Jon's direction. As if his brooding cousin would ignore their professor's wishes just to let Robb take his place besides Dany instead.

Jon just brushed Robb off while Theon shook with silent laughter, and Robb leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table, waiting to see who he'd get paired up with.

Maybe he should focus his energies on wishing for Theon as a partner instead. He was cross with him for taking pleasure in his pain, Theon was one of his best mates, and one of the few Slytherins he got on with. His grade wouldn't be as good as if he was bending over backwards to wow Daenerys, but he'd have fun, at least, and there were worse fates in the world.

Much, much worse fates. Like being paired with someone prissy and fake and who didn't seem like they knew how to have any fun, like Margaery Tyrell. Robb hadn't talked to her much because she'd always been mixed up in the wrong crowds: hanging out with loathsome Joffrey Baratheon, or amongst a gaggle of girls who were always too busy giggling at the sight of him and Jon to have a decent conversation with.

Maybe Professor Martell was a Legilimens, because as soon as Robb thought about how miserable that would be, the instructor turned to him with a mirthful smile and announced, "Mr. Stark, you'll be working with Miss Tyrell."

Bloody hell . So much for double potions with Slytherin being a good thing.

Margaery Tyrell is beautiful, Robb will give her that. When Robb grudgingly carries his books over to her table and plops down in the seat next to her, he notices the way her perfectly curled hair frames her smiling face, and the way her pretty eyes are alight with… something. She's probably just delighted that she can brag to her friends she got paired with the Gryffindor Quidditch captain later—she's always seemed like someone who cares about status, and Robb has enough of it to be a worthy partner in her eyes, he supposes.

Idly, he thinks that she also smells nice. He'd never been up close and personal with her, but he'd expected her to smell sickly-sweet and overwhelming. Instead, there's just a subtle hint of something floral, more outdoorsy than he would have pictured for her. He thinks he likes it, maybe.

But that doesn't mean he likes her .

"All right, let's get on with it," Robb says crossly, casting a glance towards Jon and Daenerys. His cousin's head is ducked over his book, mostly ignoring his partner, and he wants to grumble about how unfair it is. He'd never ignore Daenerys Targaryen; if Robb were with her instead, he'd be attentive, and trying to make her laugh as he got potions ingredients off of the shelves in the back of the class, and he'd at least look at her instead of burying his face to read whatever recipe they're working on today.

What recipe are they working on today, anyway? He'd missed that announcement during his sulking, and for a second Robb thinks that he'll go over and ask Jon, as an excuse to say hi to Dany in the process. When did he get it this bad for the girl? He supposes maybe it got worse over the summer, when he'd gone out with Roslin and found himself bored by how meek she was.

Daenerys Targaryen has never seemed meek. She's seemed like a girl who can keep Robb on his toes, and that only makes her all the more interesting to the boy who's admired her from afar for ages now.

"Trying to abandon me so soon?" Margaery Tyrell asks him as he presses his hands down on his chair, like he's about to rise from it. Robb he thinks there's a teasing lilt to her voice, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Robb just mutters something unintelligible back and is surprised to find that his sour mood is met with a tinkering laugh from Margaery Tyrell. "Don't worry, if I'm really such miserable company, I'll let you take our draught of living death when we're done with it. Then you can sleep through the rest of the year and when you wake up, perhaps she'll be your partner instead."

Now he knows Margaery Tyrell is teasing him, but Robb is too floored by her other words to focus on the playfulness of her tone. "I don't know what you're talking about," he declares, even as his gaze shifts back to Jon and Dany. They're actually talking now, and Jon's not smiling, because when is Jon ever smiling - but Daenerys is, and the sight of it is blinding.

Robb can try to convince Margaery Tyrell she doesn't know what she's talking about all he wants, but her gaze is fixed on him as his jaw goes slack and he gets that dazed look in his eyes that only comes from being around someone who's as much of a badass and a babe at the same time as Daenerys Targaryen.

"You're not the first boy I've seen infatuated with her, you know. It's nothing to be ashamed of," Margaery titters on, and it's annoying, the way she's reading him like a book. It's not unusual, though; Robb Stark has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and it's never even really seemed like a bad thing to him before.

"Oh, what do you know?" Robb says darkly as he flips open his potions book. Draught of Living Death , Margaery had said, so he finds the right page, scribbles down what ingredients to pick up off the shelves, and tells his new partner that he'll go grab them while she reads through the instructions.

By the time he comes back, Robb's mood is no better, and they work in a tense silence of Robb's design for the rest of the period.

Robb sits by the fire in the Gryffindor common room that night with Jon and Sansa and Arya, working on homework and talking about how their first week of class is going. Sansa's glowing about how her professor told her she's sure to ace her Transfiguration OWL at the end of the year, and Arya's saying her Defense Against the Dark Arts professor told her about something in the Forbidden Forest that she wants to go searching for. Jon doesn't talk much, preferring to listen to his siblings, and usually he just wears a mostly blank stare that barely masks his amusement at them.

When Robb groans about potions, though, and how annoying Margaery Tyrell is and how Jon got paired with Daenerys and doesn't even appreciate how brilliantly lucky he is, Jon's detached mask.

"She's a good partner," his cousin protests, and Robb narrows his eyes.

" Good partner? She's the best partner in the whole bloody universe, and you barely talked to her!" Robb whines, and Arya tells him he's gross, for caring so much about a girl. Jon tells him that he's being dramatic, and that he talked to his own partner plenty .

Sansa's the one who seems the most appalled, though. "Did you just stare at Jon and Daenerys the whole time instead of talking to your own partner? Robb, that's rude ," she says in a voice that reminds him so much of their mother he's almost ashamed.

"What am I supposed to talk to a girl like that about anyway ?" Robb asks as a last line of defense, but it's too late. Sansa has gotten under his skin, has made him slightly ashamed of taking out his disappointment on Margaery Tyrell, and next week he vows to try a little harder to be nice to her.

Only a little, though. She still seems like she's a stuffy social climber as far as Robb's concerned, but that doesn't mean he can forget his manners.

Robb and Jon walk to class together, and Robb doesn't complain about their partner situation on the way there. Instead, he rambles about plans he has for Quidditch try-outs, and whether or not they could plant a dung bomb in Theon's bag during class, and about whether or not Sansa's got a crush on her Transfiguration professor.

Robb's proud of himself, for trying to make the best of this whole potions partner thing. Last week he'd been miserable, but he'd been worse company for Margaery than she'd been for him, and they'd done well on their potion. Time to just make the most of it.

It was easy to forget for a second, though, his resolve to be happy about things, when they strode into the room and Daenerys was already there, one of the first people in the classroom, and she smiled brightly at the sight of Jon. He gave Robb a half-wave and went instantly to join his partner, not even leaving Robb an opening to walk over with him and 'finish their conversation' as an excuse to say hi.

That's just how Jon is, though. Robb's the talkative one of the two of them; Jon just quietly goes about things, and if those things include slipping into the desk beside his partner and offering her a smile in return as a greeting, well then… that's his business.

Still, Robb's body language is slightly dejected when Margaery arrives, giggling with a couple of her classmates and chatting with them beside the desk before she finally says goodbye and joins Robb.

"Hi," he says, half-hearted but not unkindly. He may have spent the last two minutes agitated as Theon threw tiny balls of parchment at his hair from two desks back, and Jon and Dany chatted as if there was no one else in the room, but he's still much more polite to Margaery than he was last week. The gesture doesn't go unnoticed.

Margaery arches an eyebrow at him, and asks, "Oh, you've decided I don't bite, have you?" She smirks at him, and while a part of Robb wants to roll his eyes, the other part is starting to think he misjudged her. He thought girls like Margaery were all simpering and false compliments, but she seems intent on teasing him, and it's better than he imagined.

And, he notes, as she flips her hair over her shoulder and gets situated in her seat, that same floral scent from last week wafts his direction. She smells better than Theon, who had been his original second choice for a partner, so at least there's that.

"I never thought you were going to bite me. Poison me, maybe," he corrects her, gesturing to the cauldron in front of them. "You did threaten to put me into a year-long sleep last week, after all."

Margaery smiles. Maybe she's pleased that he remembers what she said, or maybe she actually thinks he's funny. Either way, the smiling at him bit's not so awful, either.

" Never . I'm a civilized woman, I'd have hit you with a bat bogey hex if you'd really vexed me instead," Margaery informs him, keeping a straight face except for her eyes, which betray her amusement.

He wants to ask if she's ever actually cast that curse on someone, but Professor Martell calls the class to order, and the question's forgotten.

Maybe Margaery's not as bad as he thought. As a few more classes come and go, he finds himself almost enjoying being around her, although she still can be annoying sometimes.

Like when she reads him like he's an open book. He is , Robb knows he is, but the teasing every time he glances towards Daenerys and Jon is no fun. His crush on Daenerys is just a thing that's just kind of been there for a while, and his friends and family tease him for it occasionally, but not nearly with the regularity that Margaery does. She makes it a point to call him on it every time they're in class together, and Robb starts to wonder if he should ask Sansa about it. She understands girl world better; maybe she'd know if there's some kind of weird, unspoken contest between the two Slytherins that makes Margaery feel the need to fixate on his attention to Dany the way she does.

Not that there's much to fixate on . After Robb had gotten over his initial misery at Jon getting paired with her instead of him, he'd decided maybe it was the same as getting paired with Margaery—if he just looked at it a different way, it might be kind of okay. He'd just walk with Jon to class, stop by his desk when he went to sit with his beautiful and weirdly punctual partner, and then get a few words in edgewise with Daenerys before he took his own seat.

Except it hadn't worked out that way; Jon was even quieter than usual and didn't really give Robb much in the way of continuing a conversation, and half the time he was so distracted that he had to run back to the Gryffindor common room to grab something and urged Robb to go on to class without him.

Truth be told, using Jon as an in to talk to Daenerys more had been pretty useless. Robb got more facetime with her when he went to chat with Theon at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, and that was still far from enough.

By October, his cousin's lack of wingmanning skill was starting to bother Robb, so much so that he nearly lost his mind and complained to Margaery about it one day in potions. Before he even opens his mouth, though, Margaery is cocking her head to the side, a very curious look in her doe-eyes. Robb follows her gaze to his cousin, laughing uproariously with Daenerys, and he scrunches his nose up in confusion. Jon hardly ever laughs like that, even around Arya, who's always been his favorite.

He knows that Margaery's about to say something mocking, but even having braced himself for it, what she says next still floors him.

"Are you going to become the handsome brooding one now that your cousin's gotten the girl?" she inquires. Her tone isn't unkind - she might have even thrown in the word handsome deliberately, to soften the blow. Still, though, it feels almost like a punch to the gut, and Robb hisses, "What are you talking about?"

Before Margaery can answer, though, Professor Martell starts writing their potion of the day up on the board, and Robb's left to wonder at her words for the entire rest of the class period.

Every time Robb tries to ask during the class period, Margaery taps on her potions book and reminds him that they're meant to be working . It's driving Robb mad , though. He wants to know what this sometimes insufferable girl thinks she knows, because as far as Robb's concerned, it's nothing.

So Dany made Jon laugh—so what? His cousin's intense, but he's not some soulless being that can't find a lick of humor in the world. It doesn't mean that they're… whatever it is that Margaery's trying to imply that they are.

But each time Margaery shoots Robb's questions down, his gaze shifts towards Jon and Daenerys. They're maybe sitting closer together than is strictly necessary, their hands nearly touching as they pour over the recipe of the day, the hint of a smile always ghosting over Jon's face as he talks to her.

It's there, right there in front of Robb's eyes, but he doesn't want to see it. He won't believe it, he won't. There's no way that Jon Snow finally is interested in a girl, and it's the same one Robb's been mooning after for at least a year now. No way.

Still, as soon as class ends and Margaery is whisked away by her normal squad of Slytherin girls, Robb doesn't just watch her go. He chases after her, jogging lightly down the hallway— how fast do girls walk , Merlin!— until he catches up to her. Robb reaches a hand out to wrap around her wrist, tugging her away from the group and down a quieter hallway and dropping his grip on her once he's got her attention.

"What did you mean, am I going to be the brooding one now that Jon's got the girl?" he demanded, searching Margaery's face desperately for some hint that she's teasing him like usual. She doesn't seem happy to poke fun at him like she usually does, though; Margaery Tyrell reaches one delicate hand up to pat his cheek.

"Dear, sweet Robb," she sighs, her slender fingers cool and soft as they rested against his skin. "I know you don't want to see it, but Daenerys seems quite taken with your cousin. And he looks at her just the same as you do—like she's hung the moon."

Her hand falls from Robb's face, and he feels cold. Margaery's not just japing with him anymore, she's being serious, but she can't be right, can she? Jon would have said something, he and Robb tell each other everything.

Only… suddenly, Jon leaving things behind in the common room, or running out of things to say as soon as they approach Daenerys, doesn't feel like such a coincidence anymore. It feels like maybe it means something, but Robb won't be satisfied until he asks his cousin about it himself.

"There's nothing to brood about," Robb grumbles at Margaery, turning on his heel to leave her behind.

"If you say so," she replies, and he can practically feel the judgment in her tone. Like she thinks he's some poor sap, deep in denial. "When you're ready to see it for yourself, though, don't forget that you'll be at least as handsome as your cousin when brooding. Maybe even more so," she teases, taking the opportunity to squeeze past him and be the one to walk away first.

Robb rolls his eyes at her retreating form, then heads back to Gryffindor tower, wondering what the hell he's going to say to Jon later when he sees him.

In the end, Robb takes the direct approach.

"So Margaery said something weird to me earlier." The words practically burst out of his mouth the second Sansa has retreated up into the girl's dormitories, before Jon has a chance to leave, too.

"From all the griping you do about her, that hardly seems like something new," Jon chuckles lightly, although Robb thinks he might look nervous . He can't imagine why, though; Robb's had hours to think about it, and Margaery's rare flash of earnestness is long forgotten. Maybe she thought she was helping, but she was way off base. Jon would laugh about what Margaery had said, scoff at the idea that there would ever be anything between him and Daenerys, and that would be that.

Only… Robb recounts it for him, paraphrasing a little to make it sound even more ridiculous, to get a bigger reaction out of his cousin. He claims Margaery had asked if he was going to turn into the broody one when Jon and Dany got together, and how Margaery said it was so obvious . He tells Jon everything, aside from Margaery's quips about him being handsome—those, Robb decides, he can keep just for himself.

He waits for the laughter, or even for Jon to shrug it all off as ridiculous in that dismissive way he has sometimes. Jon doesn't, though. He seems tense as he jerks his head to look into the fire, and his voice is almost far away as he says, "Of course we're not going to get together. I'd never do that to you, mate."

It's not the dismissal Robb had wanted. He knows he acts like an idiot sometimes, but he's not one, and even he can read between the lines.

Jon's not saying he doesn't like Dany. All he's saying is that he knows nothing can happen, because Robb liked her first.

Robb claps a hand on Jon's shoulder and squeezes it, feigning ignorance. "Can't wait to tell Marg just how wrong she was," he chuckles as he heads up to bed, leaving Jon to stare into the fire on his own a while longer.

He doesn't go to sleep, though. Robb lays flat on his four-poster bed, staring at the red and gold adornments above him, and curses the fact that Margaery's right.

Jon and Robb like the same girl, and he has no bloody idea what he's supposed to do about it.

While Robb's at a loss for ideas, though, it's Margaery that seems to have plenty of them.

Robb had gone to bed swearing he'd never let her know she was right, but that was before he'd spent a sleepless night thinking about it. Jon never liked anybody . He kept to himself and to his family, always the quieter one of them, always content to stay in the background while his Stark cousins did what they could to shine.

Jon never asks for anything, and Robb knows he's not asking for Dany, but… He also can tell now that he wants her, and for as much as he and Theon joked about having dibs on different girls and the like, it feels wrong . He's laid some kind of claim on Daenerys when he's hardly even gotten to know her; he just admires from afar, and expects that the people around him can't have her because he wants her.

He needs someone's advice, and Margaery's the first person that he thinks to ask for it. He can't wait until their next potions class, either; that's days away, and patience has never been one of his strong suits.

"Come to tell me I'm right?" Margaery asks, batting her eyelashes at him, when he tracks her down sitting down at the edge of the Black Lake the next afternoon. He'd expected to find her surrounded by the usual gaggle of girls from potions class, but she's all alone, Charms text book in her lap, quill in hand until he sits down next to her and she closes it inside to keep her place.

"Ugh, don't make me regret deciding to talk to you about this," Robb groans, running a hand through his auburn hair and tugging on the ends of it. He's a sleepless mess, and he doesn't want her to be smug about this. He just wants her to tell him what to do, because he can't seem to figure it out for himself.

"Talking to you is delightful, too," Margaery teases in that lilting voice of hers, and he shakes his head at her. Maybe he should appreciate the fact that she's making light of this situation; Robb himself is taking it entirely too seriously, and maybe he and Margaery can meet in the middle at an appropriate level of seriousness.

"I told Jon what you said, and he didn't say that he didn't like her, or that you were crazy, or any of that! All he said was that he'd never get together with her because he wouldn't do that to me," Robb sighs, running his hand anxiously through his hair again. Margaery lightly smacks his hand away from his head, smoothing out his auburn curls before folding her hands primly back in her lap.

"You'll make everyone on the grounds a nervous wreck if you keep that up," she scolds him, then her face turns contemplative. Margaery's really only been talking to Robb for about a month and a half now, but when she looks at him the way she's looking now, it rankles him. It's that look like she knows exactly what he's thinking, the same one she always gets before she teases him about some emotion that he's apparently wearing on his sleeve.

"You just don't want to be distracted by how devastatingly handsome I am with my hair pushed back," Robb tries to quip in response. A deflection, but it falls flat, because his heart's not in the joking. His heart's back in the castle, with Jon, the cousin who he's maybe sort of been overshadowing ever since Jon's mum had died and he'd come to live with his uncle Ned. Robb's life has been so golden compared to Jon, and while he wouldn't say he's had things handed to him, Robb's never had much trouble earning them, either. Jon's worked harder for the things that he has, and he wants less than Robb does.

But Jon seems to want this, whether he'll admit it or not. Robb just needs to find a way to remove himself from the equation, and his voice grows more and more frantic as he explains this to Margaery.

Daenerys Targaryen is beautiful, and she fascinates him, and she makes Robb's face go all red whenever she talks to him. She's a challenge, but she's not worth it, not if pursuing her for real was going to be another disappointment that Jon didn't deserve.

Damn you, Professor Martell , Robb thinks idly. If the man hadn't assigned them as potions partners, this probably never would have happened, and Robb wouldn't be scrambling for a way to delete the last year and some of crushing on the girl for Jon's sake.

Margaery twirls her long brown hair as she silently thinks on it, biting back a smile as Robb rambles incessantly to fill the void. Each of his proposals is more preposterous and illegal than the last—memory charms, Time Turners, Polyjuice Potion for who knows what. In the end, though, it's not a magical solution that Robb settles upon.

"You'll just have to get a girlfriend. Convince Jon you're really over Daenerys, so he won't hold himself back from going for it," Margaery muses. "You'll have to be quite serious about her, though; you went on a few casual dates with Roslin over the summer, didn't you? And that didn't seem to dampen your enthusiasm for Dany in the slightest."

Margaery's nose turns up as she says it, and he wonders what about all of that she found distasteful. It's not as though her taste in guys qualifies her to judge who Robb's interested in, after all; she'd dated that prick Joffrey Baratheon all last year, it was part of why he'd assumed she'd be so awful.

"How very Slytherin of you, to suggest I use some poor girl and break her heart just so Jon can be happy," Robb replies, folding his arm over his chest. The idea doesn't hold much merit, as far as he's concerned; at least, not until Margaery amends it.

"I'm cunning , not cruel. Don't feign affections for some girl who actually likes you, Robb. If you're going to be using someone, you should find someone who's more than happy to use you back," she points out, and it still sounds stupid to Robb, but… maybe not nearly so stupid as he'd initially thought.

Find a girl to play the part, go through the motions of dating her long enough for Jon to at least try to be something more with Daenerys… It'll suck to watch, but Robb knows that the girl's never paid him a fraction of the mind she's paid Jon. Making sure they get their shot is the right thing to do.

"Fine, maybe it's not an awful idea," Robb concedes, unfolding his arms and starting to pick at the grass underneath him instead. "But where am I supposed to find a girl who'll agree to fake-date me, just like that, genius?"

Margaery places her hand on top of his, stopping him from ripping up the grass. She doesn't seem to like Robb's nervous ticks, or the way he's so hopeless and mooning in class, just like he doesn't like that she's always poking fun at him and that she's right about this, and most other things, too.

But he kind of likes her company, anyway, and Robb kind of thinks she likes his, too. That's part of why he agrees to her plot instantly when she tells him that the girl he's looking for, the one who'll be his fake girlfriend, is sitting right next to him.