A/N: WARNING, contains SLASH. Damnit, who says Crabbe and Goyle are stupid? Who says that Slytherins have no sense of humor? I say they've got brains and humor! They do, they do!!!!!!!
This is sort of a prequel to a thing I'm doing that I'm not sure will ever get done, 'cause I keep adding more and more and more...
Ahrg, forgot to say they aren't mine, and JK would probably faint if she knew what I was doing with them.

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"Flaming snitches, she's pretty." Vincent sighed as Fleur Delacour passed by their table.
"Yeah." Gregory agreed, pausing in his frantic inhalation of food to admire the way her backside wiggled as she walked.
"Hey, Draco, what do you think?"

Draco Malfoy looked up from the bouillabaisse that he had been absently playing with.
"What?"
"That girl, the one from Beauxbatons." Vincent pointed with his fork. "Isn't she hot?" Draco looked at her dispassionately.
"I suppose." Giving him an odd look, one he didn't notice for he'd returned to his bouillabaisse, Gregory said,
"Well, she's a site better than any of the girls here!"
"Yeah." Vincent shuddered, thinking of Milicent Bulstrode.

"Pansy's not so bad." Gregory nudged Draco, who smiled tightly.
"Yes." He agreed, glancing briefly at the Hufflepuff table as it had every meal for the last four years.
"Have you ever gotten her to, you know, take off her robes?" Vincent grinned and Draco couldn't help but wrinkle his nose in disgust.
"Are you mad?" he asked softly. "Ugh."
"Hey, it's better than nothing!" the other Slytherin protested.
"Mmm." Draco agreed, wishing they would get over this topic, as he sneaked another glance at the Hufflepuff table.

"I think Draco's got his eye on someone else, though." Vincent said slyly, following Draco's lightning fast glance.
"Oooo, is it that Hannah Abbot girl?" Gregory looked now too, and Draco flushed.
"No."
"Susan Bones?" Vincent suggested with a leer.
"No."
"Ahhh, so our Draco's got his eyes on an older lady, eh?" Gregory laughed.
"Well, older, yes." Draco conceded, dropping his glance from the Hufflepuff table and Cedric Diggory. The two bigger lads laughed at his reticence, and Vincent said,
"We'll get it out of you yet, Draco, just you wait."



Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes as he gazed up at the canopy of his bed. Sleep just was not coming tonight. From the bed on his right came the whisper of Vincent Crabbe, apparently sleepless also.
"So who is it Draco? Are you going to tell Pansy to bugger off?"
"No."
"No, you won't tell me, or no you're not going to tell Pansy off?"
"Both."
"Aren't we friends?" the bigger demanded, sitting up in bed and swinging his legs over the edge, so he face the bed that Draco still lay in, on his back.
"Of course we are!" he scoffed
"Then tell me! It can't be that bad, can it? Not a... a Mudblood?" he demanded.
"Oh no..." Draco laughed softly. "Not a Mudblood."
"See? Then what's the problem? None of them are that bad looking."

Draco rolled onto his side and propped his head on his arm. Not meeting Crabbe's penetrating gaze, he asked,
"What would you say if I told you it was Cedric Diggory?"
"Cedric?" Vincent said, reeling back. "Well, he's not bad looking at all, he's just... well, a he."
"Yeah, I know. That's what I meant." Draco still wouldn't look his friend in the eyes.
"Oh, I get it." Vincent nodded. "Cedric really *is* very handsome. I guess anybody could be confused because of that. But you're going with Pansy, right? So you don't have anything to worry about."
"I don't much care for Pansy." Draco confessed.
"Oh. But what about someone like Fleur?" he guessed.
"No." Draco shook his head slowly. "Not any girl, really."
"Oh." If he'd been looking, Draco would have laughed at the expression on his friend's face. But he wasn't. He was starring at the edge of his silver and green bedcovers as he played with a loose thread.

"Well," came the sound of Gregory's voice from across the room. "I'd have thought it of Zabini, but never of you Draco."
"Yeah, have you heard the way he lisps?" Vincent chimed in, and as Draco looked up in surprise, he saw the relief of his face.
"And how he dresses!" Gregory added, as he walked across to plop heavily onto the foot of Draco's bed.
"He spend hours in front of the mirror doing his hair in the morning." Draco said slyly.
"Oh, like you don't?" Gregory teased, shoving at one of his legs. Draco sat up a little, shrugging.

"So you don't care?" he asked, astonished. Vincent laughed, a low rumble.
"Just keep your attentions for Zabini, that girly-boy, and we're all fine." Gregory snickered.
"Yeah, leave us a warning out if you're going to bend him over the bed and-"
"Greg!" Draco exclaimed.
"Ok, ok, seriously." Vincent smoothed his expression and looked at the smaller lad. "Yes, Draco, we're so afraid you'll overpower us and take us in our own beds." They had to smother their howls of laughter. Draco looked on enviously as Gregory flexed some of his muscles.
"I wish that I'd hurry up and grow a bit." He said forlornly. Crabbe laughed.
"Face it, Draco. You're destined to be tall and skinny; we've seen your father."
"Yeah, we're the muscle, you're the brains." Goyle added. It was an old agreement, one they'd made long before they came to Hogwarts.

"Hey," Vincent asked, suddenly truly serious. "You going to tell your father?"
"Are you insane?" Draco demanded, pulling the covers up tighter as he shivered, but not from the cold. "I don't want to even think about what he'd do!"
"So what will *you* do then?" Crabbe continued relentlessly. "It's not like it's something you can hide!"
"Oh really?" Draco asked archly. "I suppose I'll wind up marrying Pansy, or someone like her, producing an heir, and being miserable." He said tiredly. He'd thought about it a lot before.
"Well... if you're going to go that route, why not have a mistress? Err, master? Um... whatever you want to call it!" Gregory asked. "My father's had more women than I can remember." He said with a light laugh.

"I'll do what I have to do." Draco shrugged lightly. "He won't be pressuring me to marry for a few years yet, and I expect he'll rather want to arrange it himself, so I have a while to decide how I'll act."
"So I guess that means Pansy's still off limits?" Vincent faked a depressed sigh.
"I suppose as long as she's leeched onto me, father won't suspect anything." Draco nodded. "So yes, I'd appreciate it if-"
"Say no more." Crabbe declared. "We'll sacrifice our own, selfish desires for you, and pursue other, more exotic beauties!"
"Oh, big sacrifice." Draco rolled his eyes.
"Security, wealth, fame. All she'd have to do would be ignore all the cute boys you sneak into your bedroom, and she'd have the perfect life. She's not pretty, she's not smart, she won't have many other choices. I suppose she'd marry you, if you asked."
"I don't want to ask." Draco informed him.
"Oh no, that's right, Draco's too interested in kissing the boys!" Gregory seemed to be struck by this comment.

"You ever, you know?" He arched a brow and Draco laughed.
"No! When would I have the time? And who with!"
"Well, there's always those rumors about some of the Ravenclaws, and-"
"Wait! What rumors?" Draco asked inquisitively, sitting up a little. Goyle immediately claimed the surrendered space with his sprawling form.
"Haven't you heard?" Vincent demanded. "Two 6th years were caught, in the library, smooching!"
"Two guys?" he exclaimed.
"No, two girls! I think one was Padma or something like that."
"Oh." Draco blinked. He'd never really thought about girls a great deal, much less thought of girls liking girls.
"That's something I wouldn't mind watching." Goyle said idly, scratching at his chin, where hairs were beginning to sprout. "Two girls, in scanty clothes, wrestling around." He sighed. Draco made a face, and Vincent, catching him, laughed.

"I do believe we're disgusting Draco."
"Oh." Gregory looked up at him. "I suppose you can talk about two guys wrestling in the mud, too, if you feel like making us vomit in return."
"No thanks, I don't feel like getting the sheets changed." Draco told them dryly. Then he yawned. And yawned again. With the second one, he looked out the window and gasped. He pushed at Gregory firmly with his feet.

"Out." He said. "It's almost dawn! We've got class tomm-, today!"
"Oh, no, rejected, tossed out of his bed!" Goyle whispered dramatically. "I'll have to throw myself off the astronomy tower now!" stifling a laugh, Draco burrowed into his blankets as Gregory stood.
"You just make sure to keep in your own bed, Malfoy." He said in a falsely threatening tone. Vincent laughed, putting his arms behind his head.
"Ooo, yes, we're sooo afraid of you sneaking into our beds to seduce us." He said before yawning. Gregory was already asleep, having perfected the art of falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
"*Goodnight*, Vincent." Draco whispered.
"Yeah, same to you Malfoy." Draco grinned a bit, relieved that his friends were still his friends, and fell into a peaceful sleep for the first night in ages.



Zabini kept his eyes tightly shut, listening to their every word. So they thought he was effeminate, eh? They thought he was weak? Well, he wondered, what kind of reward Lucius Malfoy would give for this kind of information about his son?
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A/N: Was it terrible????