found another way to make him pay
Ron came crashing into his living room from the floo line with all the grace of a particularly drunk goose. Or maybe a cardinal was a better comparison, considering the bright flush to her face that crept steadily down her neck.
Hermes nearly hexed her into next week from his place on the couch. Ron didn’t seem to notice.
“Viktor cheated on me,” she announced to the room at large.
Hermes choked. “He what?”
After fourth year, Hermes wouldn’t say that his and Viktor’s friendship had soured, exactly, but the man had gotten spottier and spottier in replying to his letters. When Viktor had come back over to England for some coaching opportunity he’d only been mildly pleased instead of enthused.
That one of the first conversations Viktor had with him was about Ron and how she’d ‘grown up well’ hadn’t made him much more enthusiastic. Doubly so when they actually started dating.
Still, Ron had seemed happy for the last couple of months. Which was why Hermes’ brain was having trouble computing those four simple words. Why on earth would anyone want to cheat was beyond him in the first place, but who would want to cheat on Ron?
“Blonde bird,” Ron elaborated. “Prissy-lookin’. French, I think. Screamed her head off when I came into the room, so at least he isn’t gettin' any from her tonight."
“I—alright,” Hermes said. “What would you like to do about it?”
It was the only question he could think to ask. That she wasn’t outright raging or moping yet struck him as strange, but the several-too-many drinks she’d clearly had in the interim between finding the scene of infidelity and bursting into his home looked to be the cause of that. Ron was either a very maudlin drunk or an oddly manic drunk, and it was always impossible to predict which she’d be once she started drinking.
Manic this time. Hermes was already anticipating the horror show that the next morning would be.
Ron swayed in place. She was wearing a nice dress that shifted with the movements of her hips—had Viktor gone and brought a girl home on a date night? Or had Ron intended to surprise him? Hermes selfishly hoped for the former. It was hard not to look at her hips.
It was so hard not to look at her hips, in fact, that it took him a second to register the money pouch Ron was waving in one of her hands.
“We,” she enunciated grandly, “are gonna hit the town and spend the hell out of his money! Fancy restaurants! Expensive stuff! …other things! ‘Cause fuck him!”
“Right,” Hermes agreed, rising from the couch. Normally he’d be against this sort of revenge, but really, cheating on Ron? “I’ll call Hattie, then.”
“No, we’re going out.” She surged forward and grabbed the front of his shirt, grinning at him. Her face was very flushed. It made the hazy blue of her eyes stand out.
“Just us,” she emphasized. “He’ll hate it more than the three of us.”
This was a tremendously terrible idea. Viktor would surely retaliate once he learned Ron went and spent a good chunk of his money, and the press would be insufferable if they caught wind of any of this, especially if they learned it was just him and Ron out and about the town on a money-wasting joyride.
Hermes found his eyes drawn down to Ron’s lips, the way she was smiling so hopefully at him.
He looked back up. Sometimes he found he didn’t want to completely restrain his friends from their bad decisions.
“What did you want to do first?”
“Steaks,” she said. “The mad expensive place up in London.”
Hermes smiled. “It’s a date, then. Let me get changed.”
They spent the hell out of Viktor’s money.