A/N: Omg, another fandom! Anywho… this is not my first fanfic, but this is my first Harry Potter fic, and I haven't read any of the books for a long time, so if the characters are off, I apologize. Its not set in any particular book, its just a random little idea that kept bugging me until I finally started writing it. Reviews (praise or criticism, I ain't picky) are much appreciated. Enjoy =)

"How does he make it look so effortless?" Harry whined to his friends one fine Hogwarts morning.

The 'he' in question was a certain platinum-haired Slytherin by the name of Draco Malfoy, who appeared to be flirting with a hot brunette at the Slytherin table. As they watched, she leaned closer to him, putting a hand on his arm, which rested on the table.

Harry all but growled in frustration. "I mean, look at that! He's not even trying and she's practically all over him!"

"Who cares about Malfoy?" Ron waved his hand in a vain attempt at dismissal. "Nobody, that's who. Anyway, Harry, here's what you do-"

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, a bad but very comforting habit he picked up from Mrs. Weasley last summer. "Ron, no offense, mate, but no more girl advice. That last bit got me slapped five times today alone and death glares from half the female Ravenclaws in the school."

Ron flinched as he noted one glare in particular: Cho Chang's, his best mate's primary interest. "Sorry, mate."

Hermione, who had been studiously ignoring their stupidity by burying her nose in A History of Magic for the fifth time, finally sighed, carefully marking her page as she looked up. "Harry, you don't need Ron's stupid advice and even worse pickup lines to get a girlfriend. Just be Harry."

"'Just be Harry'" Ron mocked in a high voice. "Hermione, how can he be 'just be Harry' and do that?" He gestured rather obviously over at the Slytherin table, where the brunette was eagerly leaning over to kiss (Ugh, Harry thought) Malfoy. Ron flinched, misinterpreting Harry's look of disgust. "Sorry again, Harry."

"Sokay, Ron."

Hermione sighed. Both of them were missing the point, as usual. But Hermione was smart enough to recognize a lost cause when she saw it, so she switched tactic. "Well since you are so fixated o how Malfoy does it, why don't you just go and ask him?"

Harry let out a noise that was somewhere between a very unmanly squawk and a bark of a laugh. "Ask Malfoy how to pick up girls? You must be joking."

Hermione looked at them both, completely straight-faced. "I'm not. Besides, Professor McGonagall said-"

"I know what McGonagall said." Harry snapped. This year, McGonagall had made it a point to pull both Harry and Malfoy aside almost the second they arrived, to tell them to make nice or else, an order both had managed to dodge by avoiding each other at all cost.

"Well isn't that how boys make nice? By comparing notes on the female species?" Hermione asked slyly, knowing she had him, though he continued to shake his head in disgusted denial.

"I'm not going to talk to Malfoy, Hermione. Ever." But they both knew that he would, a fact that only served to piss Harry off more.

…...

In order for them to have their lovely talk, Harry had to catch Malfoy alone-which proved to be surprisingly difficult, as he always seemed to have a small posse of Slytherins following him around every where he went, in addition to small knots of admirers from every House. Harry felt his guts boil and churn with jealousy. How the hell did the git do it?

It took a week of (im)patient stalking, but Harry finally got his chance-almost completely by accident. He ducked into the library to avoid a group of murderous looking Ravenclaw females, who had been doing some (im)patient stalking of their own-on Harry. Harry shook his head as the group stormed past the library door. So smart, yet he avoided them by ducking into a library. Go figure.

He turned around, to see Malfoy, sitting alone at a table near the back. Just sitting there, book open, quill in hand. No giggling first years sneaking glances behind the shelves, no Blaise Zabini cracking raunchy jokes at Pansy Parkinson's expense, no Crabbe and Goyle guffawing stupidly at said jokes…Just Malfoy, and no excuse.

Harry sighed, gathering his courage as he approached the Slytherin. He opened his mouth-to say what he wasn't exactly sure-but Malfoy beat him to it.

"Hello Potter." He drawled not bothering to look up from the parchment he was writing on. "Did you finally decide to obey McGonagall's orders to come 'make nice'?"

"No." Harry growled stiffly. How girls could get close to such an annoying git and not want to hex his brains out was beyond him.

Blue eyes flickered up at him for the briefest of seconds. "Oh really?"

Silently cursing Hermione, Harry blurted, "I want to know how you get girls to practically hang all over you without even trying."

He bit his lip as Malfoy's eyes instantly snapped up. He snorted. "You want girl advice? The great Harry Potter wants girl advice from me, Draco Malfoy?"

Harry shook his head. He knew this was a bad idea. "Just forget it, Malfoy." He muttered, turning away.

"Potter." It wasn't his name but Malfoy's sudden change in tone that made Harry look back. "Sit down."

Harry bristled at the sudden tone of command, but he did as he was told, seating himself warily across the table from Malfoy. The Slytherin rolled his eyes.

"First off, it would help tremendously if you didn't sit like a slouched bag of rotten potatoes." He drawled. Harry glared but sat up, straightening his back and shoulders against the back of his chair.

"Good. Now what you need to get through your thick skull, Potter, is this: the quickest way to get girls to 'hang all over' you, as you so eloquently put it, is to pretend you don't want it, like it can't have you."

Harry stared at Malfoy's all too serious face for about a half second before bursting into loud peals of laughter. He quieted down when the librarian glared at him from her desk. "That's all? That's the biggest load of bull shite I've ever heard."

Malfoy arched one elegantly shaped brow. "There are other things that go along with it, of course, but it's a proven fact that forbidden fruit is the most eagerly sought after." He smiled as a particularly snobby girl-Vanessa Burgess-walked in. "Watch and learn, Potter."

Harry watched, but all Malfoy seemed to do was go back to writing his Potions paper. He just…sat there, all prim and proper, just the slightest fringe of pale hair falling over his forehead…Yet Vanessa seemed to deliberately change course when she saw him, obviously trying and failing to make the sudden change look casual, as she strolled right by their table.

"Hi Draco!" She beamed at Malfoy with a thousand megawatt grin. Malfoy just looked up briefly, a slight smile curling his mouth as he nodded to Vanessa-then he went right back to his paper, as if she had never come by at all.

To Harry's shock, Vanessa pouted adorably, but instead of flouncing off at the barely concealed snubbing, she quickly scrawled something down on a bit of parchment, folded it up, and slipped it under the edge of Malfoy's book.

"In case you're bored and wanna have some fun tonight." She purred before trotting away.

When she was gone, Malfoy looked up at Harry with a triumphant smirk. Harry, who was gaping in disbelief at the parchment peeking out from under the book, growled, "That was totally a setup."

Malfoy shrugged. "Believe what you want, Potter." He stood up to gather his things. "If you still want my help, be here this time tomorrow. Until then, ciao."

…...

Later, at dinner, Harry stared down at his food, too busy contemplating to eat. He couldn't believe he was actually seriously considering taking advice and help from Malfoy, of all people, but he didn't really didn't have a choice. His love life was suddenly becoming like the Titanic, and if he didn't turn it around soon, it would somehow be leaked to Rita Skeeter, he was sure of it. And then his life would be well and truly over, no Voldemort needed.

Ron and Hermione joined him then. Hermione, the bloody harpy, had a triumphant look on her face. She knew, somehow, that Harry had talked to Malfoy. Ron, of course, was completely oblivious. He smacked Harry's shoulder in what was supposed to be in a comforting way as he sat down. "Don't worry, Harry. Cho can't stay mad at you forever."

It was a good try, but Cho, remarkably, wasn't what Harry was bumming about right now. He sighed. "I talked to Malfoy."

Hermione's triumphant look grew brighter. Ron, all things considered, took the news fairly well. "Skipping over the fact that that was a very mental thing to do…what did he say?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at them both and buried her face back in her book. Harry hardly noticed. "Just some rubbish about 'forbidden fruit being eagerly sought after' or something like that."

"He's going off the assumption that 'forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.'" Hermione was just too noisy not to butt in this time. "And it might work on girls like Vanessa Burgess, but if you try that on someone like Cho, you'll be worse off than you are now."

Ron waved his hand dismissively. "You don't need that git's advice, Harry. I've got it now. All you need to do is-"

Harry growled out another sigh, pinching his nose. "No means no, Ron." Ron shut up, pouting into his pumpkin juice.

Hermione sighed. "Do what you want, Harry. Just don't say we didn't warn you."

…...

The next afternoon, Harry reluctantly dragged himself into the library, half hoping Malfoy wouldn't be there.

He was, sitting exactly where he'd been yesterday. His book was shut, though, and he was sitting primly with his hands folded on top of it. Like Hermione, he'd known that Harry would come-which, miraculously, didn't do anything to help Harry's mood.

He dropped into the same chair he'd been in yesterday, sitting extra slouchy just to piss the Slytherin off.

A sigh. "Is your head so full of air that whatever you're told just drifts in one ear and out the other?" Harry said nothing, just flipped the other boy off.

"If that's how you prefer to behave…" Malfoy stood up, shoving his book back into his bag.

Harry, to his shame, caved instantly. "Ugh, Malfoy, don't go."

Malfoy glared back. "Are you done being childish?"

It was Harry's turn to sigh. "Yes."

"Then sit up straight, like I told you yesterday."

Harry bristled. Just because Harry had asked for his help, didn't mean Malfoy could boss him around. He just barely stopped himself from saying so as he sat up. Titanic, he reminded himself grimly.

"Right." Malfoy said with a wicked smile Harry definitely didn't like. "Let's begin."

Harry expected the lesson to be horrible-full of more vague hogwash about forbidden fruit-but Malfoy proved him wrong. Well, mostly. There was no more talk about forbidden fruit, but for that first lesson, Malfoy made him practice sitting. That's right. Sitting. As in stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, over and over. And the fun part? Malfoy would zap him with his wand if he slouched even a little bit. The first time he did it, Harry almost hexed him on the spot.

"What the hell did you do that for?" He'd snarled. He had been on his feet, wand automatically in hand but not pointing at Malfoy-not yet.

The Slytherin had smirked at him, hip pressed slightly into the table, arms crossed over his chest. "What's the matter, Potter? Don't like my teaching methods?"

"As a matter of fact, no." Malfoy had merely shrugged, and reached for his bag.

Harry sighed. "Fine. Just keep it a minimum-a bare minimum."

Malfoy mock bowed. "As the Chosen One wishes."

By the time they each had to go to their late afternoon classes, only thoughts of Cho and Rita Skeeter's possible scathing article about his love life kept Harry from hexing the living daylights out of Malfoy the second they were out in the empty corridor-but only just.

Harry staggered through the rest of the day, irritated and wondering if putting up with Malfoy was really worth it-something he found himself griping at length about to Ron and Hermione at dinner that night.

When he paused for breath after his rant, Ron took it up. "Practice sitting? How the bloody hell is that in any way related to getting girls?"

"Posture is important…" Hermione muttered, almost to herself. Harry threw her a disgusted look.

"You sound like Malfoy."

But Hermione either didn't care, or didn't hear, because she plowed on. "Malfoy might be on to something with that."

"So your advice is to stick with it?" Harry asked dryly, already knowing the answer.

"If you want, Harry. Just remember that someone like Cho won't stay single forever."

Ron threw both of them a venomous look. "Traitors, both of you."

"Shut up, Ron." Harry and Hermione said together.

A/N: and so ends the first chapter! Sorry that this one is fairly short and kinda boring…the next one will be better, I promise!