For the purposes of this oneshot, Jake is Malfoy, Amy is Hermione, Boyle is Blaise, and Rosa is Ginny. And Harry is Terry, because their names rhyme. And ever since Hogwarts, Blaise and Draco have both gotten really silly. Deal?

I walked straight up to him and stood nose-to-nose with my friendly rival.

"Malfoy."

"Granger."

"The bet ends today."

"Are you ready?"

"I was born ready."

"-to lose? The whole question was, 'are you ready to lose' and you said you were born that way."

"Twist my words all you want-"

"Okay,"

"-I'm winning this bet."

"No."

A year ago today, Draco Malfoy and I made a bet to determine who's a better Auror.

flashback to a year ago (to the tune of "This Girl Is on Fire" because why not?)

"Whoever gets the most felony arrests, wins."

"What are the stakes?" I asked. "And don't say money, because we all know you're in debt, ever since you stopped using your father's money."

"If you knew me at all, you would have said crushing debt, and I'll bet anything, because there's no way I'm losing."

"What about your car?" I inquired. Blaise stepped in. "Oh! That thing is a date magnet! How many girls have you made out with in that car? Six?" He nodded. "Well, I'm gonna win, so sure. Let's bet the car."

"Yes!" Personal victory 1: achieved. I got him to be overconfident and bet the car in the first place. #Score.

"No, Drakey, NO! That car is your superpower! Thor would never wager his hammer. Neil Patrick Harris, that American actor guy, would never wager his showmanship. Losing that car would be the worst thing in the world for you."

It was Harry's turn to step in, being the moderator of the bet. "What would be the worst thing in the world for you, Hermione?"

"Being one of those girls in Drake's car," I answered immediately. "Then it's settled. If Malfoy loses, Granger gets his car. If Granger loses, she has to go on a date with him, in said car."

"Game on," we agreed, and shook. "Wow, your handshake is quite firm."

"Thanks. I took a seminar," I bragged.

"Where?!" he asked incredulously.

end of le flashback welcome to the real time idk why I make this shit so long

"And the score is all tied up," I announced to the precinct. "But not for long," Draco challenged. "For in eight hours, I will win the bet, and take Hermione Granger on the worst date in the history of the world."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present Carl Ludson, who stole 3,000 Galleons from Gringotts. Hermione takes the lead with one minute left." I added a tally to my side and put the perp in the holding cell. "Suck it, Malfoy."

"Oh no," he deadpanned.

"That's right, 'oh no.'" Wait...

"Oh, no, you don't seem worried. Why aren't you worried?" I was about to have a panic attack. I could feel it coming.

"Bring in the Johns!" Draco shouted to someone in the back. A long line of men started streaming through the Bullpen. "I ran a prostitution sting through vice and arrested thirty guys for soliciting."

"That's not a felony!" I shouted, grasping for straws. "It is when it's your second offense, which is the case for ten of these gentlemen. Four of them are actually named John. Huh. Ironic. Anywho, ten more for Malfoy, accept your fate."

"Never!"

"Five, four, three, two, one, Drake wins, Hermione loses!" He walked over to the whiteboard we'd been keeping score on and flipped it over. On the back it read, "Malfoy WINS" in block letters. "Look!" he shouted over the stupid American song that was playing through his old stereo. He grabbed something and shuffled over to me. He knelt and opened the box. Inside was an imitation wedding ring. "Hermione Granger, you have made me the happiest man on Earth. I spent one whole dollar on this ring, will you go on the worst date ever with me you have to say yes."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes," I replied begrudgingly.

"She said yes! She said yes," he announced to everyone. He shuffled backwards and tossed me the little box. "This is for you."

"Hermione Granger, date time! Time to date!" I poked my head out my front door. "Malfoy, this outfit is ridiculous."

"Chop chop! There is much embarrassing to do and only a few hours to do it in." I walked out of my apartment, giving up. "Happy?"

"Oh, yeah. You look like every girl at every bat mitzvah I ever had a crush on. Let's see the bow." I spun reluctantly. "Oh, yeah. Just like Jenny Gildenhorn. Why do I wish you had braces? Should we get you braces? No, that's too much. Here I come." I thought for just a moment that he looked attractive, standing on the opposite side of his car in a suit, with his blond hair slicked back. Then he ran around the front of his car wearing tan-brown cargo shorts, and I immediately withdrew any thoughts of attraction to him. "Nice shorts."

"Thank you. Believe it or not, they were not very expensive."

"Do I really have to wear this all night?" I asked. The very thought made me want to puke. It was a sapphire-blue tiered dress with a huge bow in the back, directly above my butt. It was very hot. "You know the rules," he chided. "The date starts now and ends at midnight. I decide what you where, what you eat and where we go. Oh, and there is one more rule." He did his best to look pretentious as he said, "no matter what happens, you're not allowed to fall in love with me." I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and instead looked at him condescendingly. "Won't be a problem," I promised.

Woooooooooo… the siren on Draco's megaphone was going off. He switched it off and yelled, "hot date, coming through!" As soon as he had everyone's attention, he said, "let's all take a moment to admire and comment on every terrible aspect of this." He gestured to my body. I rolled my eyes, and, on a whim, asked, "permission to go to the bathroom?"

"Granted. First of three, use them wisely."

I walked as quickly as possible behind the bar and then pulled Extendable Ears out of my bag. I stretched them long enough to hear Draco's conversation with Blaise. "…she'll savor that memory for all time," Draco was saying. "Drake, do you know why little boys pull little girls' pigtails on playgrounds?" Blaise asked. "Because they're so easy to grab. They're just begging to be pulled," was the response. "No, it's because they like the girls, and that's the only way they know to get their attention."

"What are you saying?" Draco asked, as shocked by that insinuation as I was.

"All of this teasing, this elaborate date, somewhere deep down, you fancy her."

He scoffed. "Okay, that's just straight up insanity."

"Drake, how much are you spending on tonight?"

"Fourteen hundred galleons, but it's all on Gringotts cards so it's like five Galleons a month for the next 2,000 years I do not like Mione!" I could practically feel Blaise's smirk. "Draco, twice in this conversation you've called her by a nickname only her closest friends call her. I'm just saying, you're putting a lot of effort into a joke. Why don't you just sit down, and have a real conversation with her?" I looked at my watch suddenly. It had been a while, he'd be wondering what I was doing in the bathroom. I missed the end of their conversation as I packed up my bag.

As soon as he spotted me, he said, "attention everyone! Hermione and I will now be performing the steerage jig from the movie Titanic, which we have prepared for in no way, shape or form."

"Romantic," I muttered. "No, embarrassing," Draco corrected. "Milady." He led me by the hand onto the dance floor and we began to spin in a circle. "You look pretty," he whispered to me. "I hate your guts," I mumbled back. "Channel that passion into the dance!" he exclaimed. "Malfoy," our captain said. "Scully, tag in. Keep spinning," he said to me. He exchanged a few words with the captain, then came back and said, "darling, brief pause. Duty calls." I smiled. "Oh, thank Merlin."

Back in Draco's car, with nothing to do but wait, I decided to make small talk.

"I'm so happy to be out of that dress. It was weirdly hot."

"Yeah, that's probably because it was a cotton and plastic blend. But not to worry, we're gonna catch these guys and get back to the worst date of your life." I shook my head. "Oh, no way. Nothing will ever be worse than the date I had with my aunt's dentist. What was your worst date ever?"

"It's probably like, a fifty-way tie. The last woman I went out with burst into tears when I told her I was a Gemini."

"Wow."

"I know. Hey, those people left that door open. I bet there's a better vantage point from the roof."

"And I bet it doesn't smell like old cheese."

"Okay, that's just hurtful. Shall we?"

"Yeah."

"Man, I don't know how Batman does it. It is super scary up here." I shook my head at him. He was such a goofball. An adorable goofball, sure. But a goofball nonetheless. "Hey, can you grab my binoculars?" he asked. "They're in my stakeout bag." I opened it up. "Your stakeout bag is ninety-eight percent nuts." He raised his hands defensively.

"I get snacky! Besides, nuts are super healthy. They're, like, zero percent fat."

"Drake, that's not true at all. It's actually the opposite." He stared at me.

"What? That nut vendor lied to me!" I saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye and looked. "I think a pigeon just flew out of your car."

"Yeah. The windows don't exactly roll up."

"The car's a piece of crap. Why do you love it so much?"

"You really wanna know?" I nodded. "I was two days out of the academy. Super nervous. I saw this guy run out of a bodega clutching a ton of cash. I pursued him on foot, eleven blocks. I finally caught him, cuffed him, and threw him up against-" dramatic pause "-that car. There was a 'For Sale' sign in the window, and, it being the best day of my life, I bought it." He sighed. "Thus began the debt."

"Crushing debt," I corrected. He smiled and nodded. "Yeah, you do know me."

"Nut?" I offered. "Only if you throw it."

"Ready?"

"Yeah." I threw it, and it fell perfectly into his mouth. "Nice," I remarked sincerely. "You ready?"

"Uh-huh." He threw it and I leaned forward to try and catch it. It bounced off the bridge of my nose and clattered down the side of the building. After a second, we both burst into laughter. "What are you doing?" he asked incredulously. "Are you trying to catch it in your nose?" His phone rang. "I got it." He checked it. "It's the captain. Keep practicing." I kept trying different things and eventually I found the trick. He came back, and I asked, "what did he want?"

"Just checking in. How you doing? Any progress?"

"Yep. Watch." I took a handful of nuts out of the giant bag that Drake kept on him all the time, and threw it up into the air. I caught maybe 15% of the nuts in my mouth. I pointed to my face and through a mouthful of nuts said, "the key is volume."

"I see that," he joked. "So be honest. If you'd won the bet, were you really gonna destroy my car?"

"No," I responded. "I was going to drive it." My turn for a dramatic pause. "So I can learn stick."

"You wouldn't!" he shouted.

"I would. Would've been like, EEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR…" I made screeching sound effects with my mouth as he said, "no!"

Suddenly, two guys came out of a building and began loading a moving truck. I grabbed his arm and we both ducked down. "There's our guys," he whispered. "What's the play here?" I asked.

"Just follow my lead. Give me the ring." I did. "Now give me some nuts. I'm snacky," he said dramatically.

"Alright, fine darling! I'll ask him, will that make you happy?" He walked up to the two men. "Excuse me," he said politely. "Um, we're kind of busy…" said the man, trailing off. "Yeah, my girlfriend here thinks we're lost."

"No, I know we're lost. I think he's an idiot." I crossed my arms and jerked my thumb in his direction, getting into character. "Idiot?" He turned on me. "Do you know why we're out here in the middle of the night, Esther? I was gonna propose to you-" he pulled out the ring, and I gasped for effect. "-by the Tower Bridge, where we met!" My expression of surprise turned to frustration immediately, and I yelled, "Tower Bridge? We met on the London Bridge!"

"You know what? This is over. Say goodbye to the ring, and everything it represents!" He waved it in my face, then threw it away down the street. "You son of a bitch!" I screamed. "Hey. Hey!" The guys were trying to calm us down. "No one talks to Esther like that! And you know what else? On the ground! Auror Office, you're under arrest!" We pointed our wands at him and he and his partner slowly knelt to the ground. "Nice work."

"You too."

The next morning, I walked into the Captain's office and he looked up at me and said, "Good job on the stakeout last night. I'm glad to see you still work well together despite that ridiculous bet."

"Thanks. Me too."

"And I appreciate you turning down the relief team. I'm not sure they could have made that bust."

"Yeah. Right. The relief team."

I walked back out into the bullpen and sat down at my desk. "Sorry you lost to much money last night. I guess you can add it to your list of bad dates."

"No, it still goes on the good date list. You know, cause we caught the bad guys."

"That's very mature of you."

"Well, I am a very mature man."

That you are, Draco Malfoy. That you are.