Title: The Breakup Algorithm (Sort Of)

Disclaimer: I don't make any money off of this personal interpretation of JKR's universe. If I did, then I would buy a new computer and not have to deal with one that freezes every time I try to edit this fic on the doc manager. Sigh.

Pairings: Harry/Hermione (to be broken up), Blaise/Theo, unrequited Draco/Harry and Draco/Hermione, past Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione. I have decided to make Harmony both the background of the story AND the driving motivation of the story, so in a way this is both Harmony and not. I've labeled it as Blaise/Theo, though.

Rating: T for some swearing and a couple of kisses.

Warnings: Crack fic (so I'm going to have to ask you to suspend your disbelief on that clothesline over there), Eighth Year world, the Harmony ship sinking, and fanon!Draco, Blaise, and Theo (which will be explained in the A/N).

Summary: Draco is desperate to disrupt Harmony, and his reluctant friends Blaise and Theo are dragged along for the ride.

Word Count: 3,169 in the story itself. LONG A/N, but like always, you can skip it if you're short on time.

Prompts: Red nails, "There's nothing good about goodnight when it means goodbye." ―Jeff Thomas (but used in reverse)

Author's Note: This is my entry for Round 7 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

I dedicate this fic to my captain, Two Four Twelve, hence the subtle math references, the "meh" feeling about Ron, the fact that Draco doesn't end up with either Harry or Hermione (aren't you relieved, Two?).

The objective this round was to take a ship that my captain supports and have them break up. My captain gave me the choice of Harmony or Drinny, and after some thought I decided to go with Harmony. Or, in this case, Disharmony.

My personal objective was to write a "humourous breakup fic." All the other voices in my head said that that was impossible, but I set out to prove them wrong!

This story is told from Theo's point of view. I emphasise this because I know some events here will be disconcerting, and the motivations will be unclear because Theo can't read minds. Good. That's life, man. Sometimes people around you do things for reasons you just can't begin to fathom. My choice of Theo as narrator is because I wanted someone as far removed from the drama/angst as possible while also still reasonably having enough connection to the action to be able to tell you the bare facts of what happened. Also, you can see him as a representation of us, the audience, being dragged along a narrative that might not make much rational sense.

Now, you might be wondering why I characterise Draco, Blaise, and Theo in the way presented here. 1) This is a humour/crack!fic, so I do have some leeway. 2) This is actually me paying homage to (maybe even parodying) the Drarry/Dramione fandoms (both enemies of Harmony, I'm sure), which have developed their own characterisations of those characters over time (and honestly, they're more "real" to me than the skewed, limited Harry-centric canon view of them, anyway).

In a typical Drarry/Dramione story, there is always the high risk of Draco acting dramatically OOC in order to create a world in which the ship is even viable, and sometimes, when one steps back, it might indeed seem ridiculous to those outside the ship fandom that Draco would even want either of them in the first place. Hence Theo's confusion about Draco's obsession here. A skilled Drarry/Dramione writer would find a way to circumvent the obstacles around the ship or write a Draco that is in-character enough and compelling enough to make us buy his feelings, but here I have taken you entirely outside of his head just to create the dissonance that belongs in a Disharmony fic.

Also, in case you are wondering, an algorithm is simply a sequence of operations. Like, a set of hopefully fail-proof steps that you do to achieve an objective (though error is always possible). A mainstream example is Sheldon's Friendship Algorithm on The Big Bang Theory. There's a better mathematical definition, but I'm not going to go into it here. Theo's algorithm here is awful, but that's because he's not really a math kind of guy and only heard about algorithms in its buzz word form, so his interpretation of it leaves something to be desired.

If for some reason you actually read all that, thank you. I appreciate it. On with the story!

Today the Slytherin common room was peaceful as usual, contrary to popular belief. Blaise and Theo were playing chess, Greg was staring blankly at a wall, and Draco was lounging on the couch with a book in hand. Everyone else was being irrelevant in their own quiet way.

Suddenly the door burst open. Daphne ran in, followed by Pansy, dashing the peace to pieces.

"You guys!" gasped Daphne.

"Shut up, let me be the one to—"

Daphne shoved Pansy aside, causing her to splutter and cut herself off. "Did you hear the news?"

Draco didn't even stop pretending to read. "What, you and Pansy are desperate for attention? That's old news."

Pansy scoffed and sent a kick Daphne's way, which she deftly dodged. "No! Potter—"

"And Granger—"

Pansy covered Daphne's mouth with her hand, her red nails glistening. "Are—OW!" Daphne had bitten her hand.

"TOGETHER" shouted Daphne triumphantly as Pansy howled in the background.

Blaise and Theo sighed over their chess pieces, but their sighs were drowned out by the heavy silence that fell over the room. Oh boy. Here they go. Although the girls had said this loud enough for the whole common room to hear, they were both looking at the one person who would actually react.

Sure enough, the book fell out of Draco's hands.

"WHAT?"

"Together!" repeated Pansy, now that her pain had subsided. "Potter and Granger are a couple! Apparently it's been going on in secret for a while!"

The shriek Draco emitted could rival the sound of a whole band of banshees.

Blaise and Theo shook their heads and packed up their chess pieces. Well, there went the peace. They made their way to the dorm, knowing full well that Draco would follow.

Follow he did. "Blaise! Theo! How can you be so stoic?"

"Pureblood training," Blaise deadpanned.

Draco ignored him. "How could they get together?"

Theo pasted on a placating smile. "Draco...sometimes, when a wizard loves a witch..."

Draco swatted his hand at him. "We must break them up!"

"We!" Blaise burst out, but Theo elbowed him into silence.

"Alright, Draco," smiled Theo. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"I don't know yet, but we can't do nothing!"

"How about we all go brainstorm on our own tonight and reconvene tomorrow?"

Draco brightened up at Theo's words. "Great idea!" He ran out the door, already muttering plans to himself.

Theo then turned around to find Blaise giving him the Glare of Death.

"Why did you drag us into this, Theo? You know everything goes to hell where that git is concerned!"

"Blaise...we owe Draco a lot."

The other boy closed his eyes, probably thinking back on their complex web of obligations. "I suppose."

"If we don't comply now, he will find a way to make us comply, and we can't afford to deal with revenge schemes, not when NEWTs are looming closer."

"Yeah..." He sighed and nodded. "So do you have a counter-plan, then?"

Theo grinned. "Of course. What do you take me for? Right now, let's just play along, but don't you worry. I'll make him regret this folly."

"Okay." Blaise relaxed his posture. "Why is he so interested in those two, anyway?"

Theo furrowed his brow. "That is a good question. But then again, remember when Potter had gotten together with Weaselette and when Granger had gotten together with Weasel? Draco had thrown a tantrum both times, right?"

Blaise nodded. "Yeah! It was strange. But he hadn't been so desperate to break them up back then."

"Maybe he wants both Potter and Granger and is now devastated that they took each other off the market. At least back when the Weasels were involved, there had been the hope of those relationships self-destructing. But Potter and Granger together are so…stable."

Blaise made a face, and Theo couldn't blame him. It was a ridiculous conjecture. But then again, this whole situation was ridiculous, so it was not too outlandish a claim.

"Now go away, Blaise, and pretend to be productive while I do all the work. As always."

Blaise stuck his tongue out and walked towards the door. "Goodnight!"

Theo rolled his eyes. "There's nothing good about you saying 'goodnight' when you don't mean 'goodbye.'"

"Whatever. You know you enjoy my company." With that, Blaise sashayed out, carelessly pulling the door shut behind him.

Theo grinned and got to work. He already had an idea, thanks to a chance glimpse from a book a Muggle left on a train station bench once…

When they gathered again, Theo proudly presented a parchment with an elaborate diagram consisting of boxes with arrows connecting them.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "What is that?"

"I present to you the Breakup Algorithm."

"What's an—"

"Here you will see the various ways a couple can break up over the course of a relationship," Theo cut in hastily, because explaining what an algorithm was would take forever, and he wasn't about to admit that he ever touched a Muggle book. "Some of them are out of our control, so we'll be ignoring those, but here, outlined in green ink, are the ways we can orchestrate the desired results."

Draco seized the parchment, algorithms forgotten. "So this really long arrow points to death..."

"The Ultimate Breakup," captioned Blaise. "But natural death takes forever, so unless you are willing to speed up the process..."

"Like your mum? No thanks; I'd rather stay out of prison."

Blaise narrowed his eyes. "I was just kidding. No need to drag Mum into this."

Theo quickly jabbed his finger onto the diagram before they started duelling. "U-Um how about this one, guys? A jealous ex-lover steps onto the scene…and both of them have ex-lovers attending this very school…"

Draco nodded eagerly; even Blaise looked appeased. "Let's track them down, then," Draco decreed.

"Weasel!" Draco called out the moment they spotted that off-putting ginger hair. "How does it feel, knowing that you were not manly and heroic enough for Granger?"

Blaise and Theo stood behind Draco, eager to hear Weasel's response, which was sure to be spectacularly violent. After all, Draco, the fool, was being incredibly rude to his potential ally/pawn. Surely the Weasel would get offended and tell him to piss off?

To their dismay, however, Weasel simply cocked his head in confusion.

"What do you mean? I was the one who dumped her."

Draco blinked. "What. Why?"

Weasel smiled wistfully. "We had a great thing going, Hermione and me. So much snogging and yelling and just having fun. But…well, sometimes things just don't work out. Things are complicated back home, and it was causing a strain on both of us."

"So you let Potter take over?"

Weasel shrugged. "He and Ginny weren't working out, either, so I figured he and Hermione could comfort each other, if you know what I mean."

"No, I don't know what the bloody hell you mean, but I can see now that you're a bigger fool than I thought; I don't know why I'm even deigning to speak with you."

"Hey, Malfoy, you were the one who wanted to start this conversation, not me."

Abruptly, Draco turned and walked away, muttering something about ungratefulness and idiocy.

"What," taunted Weasel at his retreating back, "no hexing, Malfoy?"

Theo pulled out his wand and held it firmly in his hand, making sure to keep it just visible enough to threaten but not provoke. "Don't ask for trouble."

Weasel shrugged. "Wasn't asking. Just wondering why he's changed."

"You've changed, too. I could change you more, if you like."

Weasel grinned, which only made Theo grip his wand harder. "You'll understand one day."

With that vague pronouncement, he walked away, leaving the other two in the hallway.

Theo huffed and put his wand away. "Whatever. I did not expect that, but that's even better. Saves us some work."

"What do we do now?" asked Blaise.

"Look for Draco, of course. Can't have him getting himself into trouble."

By the time they found him, however, he was already in trouble.

"ARRRGH! My nose! You bleeding bint!"

"You deserved it, Ferret! Get out of my face!" spat Weaselette before she stormed off.

Blaise and Theo sighed as Draco swatted at the bats emerging out of his nose. Messing with the Weaselette was always a foolish idea. The least he could have done was put up a pre-emptive Shield Charm first.

Then again, this meant that the other part of the silly plan was also dashed to pieces without any effort on their part. Maybe the whole algorithm would just break down by itself at this point, and then they could get back to their peaceful lives.

Theo and Blaise bumped fists behind their backs before stepping forward to help Draco clear the bat bogeys away.

"Okay, so we weren't able to get any jealous ex-lovers to participate in our plan. It's not the end of the world, Draco," soothed Theo.

"Look at my face!"

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," grimaced Blaise.

"Anyway, here's another part of the plan." Theo pointed to a different arrow. "We could get one of them to cheat on the other."

"Fat chance of that happening!" scoffed Draco. "Gryffindors never cheat! They're disgustingly virtuous."

"Draco, have you forgotten that you're a wizard? There are love potions, you know!"

"Do you have any idea how long it takes to brew a love potion?"

"I happen to have one," chimed Blaise.

The other two turned to look at him. Theo frowned. "Why do you have a love potion on hand?"

"In…in case."

It was highly suspicious that Blaise refused to look Theo in the eye, but that was irrelevant, especially to Draco, who seemed to be cheering up.

"Great! Now we just have to administer it to one of them somehow and um…make them fall for someone else. Perhaps me."

"Oh? Why you, Draco?" asked Theo, smirking knowingly.

Draco drew himself up. "Because there's no need to drag other people into this, and I don't mind sacrificing myself for the purpose of our plan. Besides, it wears off eventually, so it's not like I'll be stuck with them."

"I'm sure you'd wish otherwise," muttered Blaise, but thankfully Draco did not hear him. "Well, let's work on the details. I'll go fetch my bottle."

The plan was to target Potter, since he seemed more reckless than Granger and more likely to ingest the potion.

Blaise drew the short end of the stick and had to Polyjuice himself into a first-year Ravenclaw, although why he conveniently had Polyjuice, a first-year's hair, and the full uniform was something that both Draco and Theo knew not to question. Some things were not meant to be known.

Theo sat next to Draco at the base of a nearby tree, pretending to converse with him. They were all outside, since it was a lovely spring day and Potter had decided to take a walk. The plan was to have Blaise-as-a-little-girl deliver the box of potion-laced chocolates to Potter under the guise of delivering it for Granger, who was too busy studying to give it herself. (The studying part was true, at least; NEWTs were no joke.)

"H-Hi, Harry Potter," squeaked Blaise.

Potter looked down and frowned at the box in his hands. "Hi?"

"I saw Hermione in the library and she told me to give you this. She also said she was sorry she couldn't hang out with you lately."

Theo held his breath. It was such a transparent lie, and surely Potter would realise that and scoff in girl-Blaise's face. Any aspiring Auror would know better than to eat an unknown substance from a questionable source.

To his annoyance, however, Potter's face lit up, probably thinking sappy thoughts about his absent love.

"Oh, she's always working too hard! I keep telling her that she should take a break sometimes. Oh well, I won't say no to chocolate!"

Theo bit back a groan, even as Draco exuded gleefulness next to him. After years of friendship, did Potter know nothing about Granger? Why the hell would she feel guilty about putting her education first? And why would she apologise with chocolate?

Girl-Blaise scurried away, shaking his head and leaving Potter to his doom.

Just as Potter opened the box and prepared to prove once and for all that he was an idiot, however, Weasel suddenly showed up.

"Harry! Hi there!"

Potter's eyes widened, and his fingers clenched around the edges of the box. "Hey."

Weasel clapped him on the back. "I know things have been awkward between us, but I'm getting over it, especially after I ran into Malfoy the other day. You know what I did when he tried to taunt me about 'Mione?"

"What, Ron?"

"I calmly told him that I didn't care. I was so mature! You should have seen his face when I didn't even punch him. He was freaked out."

Potter smiled at that, and Theo could feel Draco fidgeting at the sight. Oh, Merlin.

But then Weasel spotted the newly opened box. "Oh hey, is that chocolate? Mind if I have a piece?'

Draco gasped in horror and Theo's heart thudded in his chest. Oh, no. Even though Theo wanted to sabotage Draco, there was no way he was going to let Weasel fall madly into obsession with Draco and make them have to look at his freckled skin more than necessary.

There was only one thing he could do.

He leapt from his hiding spot and launched himself at the Weasel.

"Weasley!"

"WHAT THE—"

They crashed to the ground, and the shock of seeing Theo emerge out of nowhere probably caused Potter to drop the box, spilling all the chocolate.

"Oh, Weasley! I've been dying to do this."

He pressed his lips to Weasel's, effectively preventing him from casting any dangerous spells.

Oh god it was awful, but it was a necessary evil, so Theo kissed and kissed him, keeping his lips clamped shut so they did not exchange any saliva, Merlin forbid.

Thankfully, Draco walked up to them as this was happening, his boots crushing the fallen box. He was clapping slowly.

"Bravo, Theo! You may cease now. Unless, of course, you're actually enjoying this."

Theo quickly rolled off of Weasel, spitting into the grass. "Certainly not. I just don't want you accusing me of not fulfilling the terms of our bet," he scoffed, following his cue.

"Well, you've earned it. Twenty Galleons." Draco tossed him a small coin pouch.

"Malfoy, what the bloody hell is going on?" It seemed that Potter had finally gotten over the shock long enough to speak. Weasel was still gasping for breath.

"Oh, just a friendly dare between friends. I'm sure you've done one of those before, Potty, although it always amazes me that you have friends in the first place." Draco grabbed Theo's arm, pulling him up. "Well, ta-ta. Thank you for your cooperation."

As they left, they could hear Weasel gagging and cursing at them, but that did not matter.

What did matter, however, was the sight of girl-Blaise glaring daggers into them. Clearly the kiss had been too much for him to bear.

"We'll talk later," muttered Theo. "I need to rinse my mouth with Firewhiskey."

When they got back to their dorm, Draco set fire to the algorithm.

"Draco!" gasped Theo, casting Aguamenti in order to look concerned. "How could you? There were many more methods to go! We didn't even iterate the last one!"

"No," he said firmly. "I put you in mortal danger, and that was completely unacceptable. Seeing you take that fall for me…What would I get out of breaking them up, anyway? Smug satisfaction that even the Golden Couple is not golden? Please, I already know I am better than the two of them combined. I'm going to concentrate on surviving this hellhole of a school instead."

He strode out of the room, his hands fluttering as he undoubtedly devised some new course of action, hopefully one that didn't involve Blaise and Theo.

Theo collapsed onto his bed. It had been a tiring day, but at least it was over.

Blaise flopped on top of him.

"Get off, you lug!"

"No!"

"Come on, I need to get up soon to get rid of the Weasel taste!"

"Don't you worry; I have that covered."

Then Blaise covered Theo's lips with his, ending the conversation.

Well, thought Theo dazedly, maybe something good came out of this plan, after all.

Theo and Blaise were playing chess again, but this time, their feet were knocking against each other under the table as each tried to distract the other with a bout of footsie. Just because they were an item now didn't mean they had to sappily let each other win, after all.

Draco was reading for real now, studying up on potions and looking very much like he was keeping his promise of taking his studies seriously. Theo was glad to see it, because that meant Draco wouldn't notice or care about his and Blaise's new relationship.

The common room entrance burst open, scattering Theo's thoughts.

The first thing he noticed was the flash of Pansy's red nails, because somehow, they served as harbingers of his doom.

He was right.

"You guys!" exclaimed Pansy excitedly as she shoved at an equally excited Daphne.

"We have news!" Daphne screeched, scratching at Pansy's offending hands.

"(Ow, stop that!) Potter-"

"And Granger-"

"HAVE BROKEN UP!"

Silence.

Then Blaise wailed.

Draco threw the potions book at him before directing a barrage of questions to Pansy and Daphne.

"How? When? Why? All of a sudden?"

Pansy answered with relish. "Details are hazy, but apparently the Gryffindor common room exploded this morning, with Potter yelling some nonsense about a box of chocolates and Granger calling him a 'delusional, self-centred brat.' Oh, it must have been something to watch! And at some point Weasley stepped in, but Potter punched him in the face!"

"No!" gasped Draco delightedly.

"Yes!" chimed in Daphne. "Then it devolved into a duel between Potter and Weasel until Granger finally snapped and cast Petrificus Totalus on the both of them before storming out of the room and vowing that she'd never get involved with men again."

Draco got to his feet, cutting her off. "I've heard enough! This changes everything! Blaise, Theo! We must make a new plan! Should I go after Granger or Potter? Decisions, decisions!" He ran into the dorm room.

Theo groaned and buried his face in his hands as Blaise continued to wail.

Life with Draco Malfoy and his illogical obsessions was never going to be peaceful.

Eventually, however, Theo pulled himself together and stood up, moving to envelop Blaise into a hug.

"Shh. It's okay. I'll find us a way out of this one, too."

Blaise sniffled. "Fine. But no more Weasel kissing."

Theo grinned. "I promise."

Blaise smiled, and the two of them went after Draco.

Somebody had to watch over him, after all.