If Ron had known what kismet was, he would have called it kismet. The solution to all his frustrations, wrapped with all the excuse he needed, materialised right in front of him. Flint pawing a simpering Pansy intent on dragging her off for purposes bloody obvious by pug-face's smirk. And Hermione was here. She would see it.
Kismet.
But Ron did not know the meaning of the word so he just punched Flint in the face. The Aurors had trained in hand-to-hand combat just in case. It had seemed a bit pointless when they all had wands but right now, Ron would buy the best whiskey he could afford for his martial arts instructor. Flint's nose broke with a gloriously satisfying crunch.
He stumbled backwards. Pansy grabbed at him, maybe trying to keep him upright. That was okay, Ron thought as much as he was thinking anything other than 'take that, you bastard'. He drew his wand. Two bottles of whiskey; the second one for Sturgis who had taught him this curse.
"Resilio!" Ron whirled and flicked his wand then laughed as Flint flew up to smack into the ceiling then the floor then the ceiling again like a rubber ball. He'd been spoiling to use the Rebounding Curse on the Bouncing Ferret but bloody Flint would do nicely.
"I have a wand too!" Pansy crowed, flourishing Marcus's cherry wood wand. The Ministry had confiscated her own. That had been demeaning but now she could show them. Best test it first, yes. Marcus was such a duffer he probably only used his wand to polish his broom. She laughed and corrected herself. No, that was Granger's job! "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The cheeses arranged on the Bordeaux table levitated. Pansy flung them at Weasley, Longbottom and whichever blonde tart they had lured along. The wand worked. She followed the cheddar with the wine, almost preening when people had to dive out of the way of her ballistic bottles. Served them right for taking her wand away!
"Stand down!" Ron shouted at her from behind a small table Neville had hastily upended. Glass shattered against it, leaving them kneeling in a spreading red pool. Unpleasant memories seethed at the edges of his mind. So much blood.
"I will not." Pansy said petulantly, looking around for more things to throw. There seemed to be rather a lot of glassware. A slow smile twisted her snub-nosed face. She threw hexes with merry abandon, turning the lounge of the Prismatic Dragon into a whirlwind of sparkling shards.
Hannah flinched as something else smashed. She had a shield up but there were so many flying splinters that her Protego was rippling with the effort of deflecting them. She looked to Ron and Neville for a plan. They could not stay bailed up here while Pansy had a tantrum.
"We need to herd her into one of the rooms. Keep her away from the crowd." Neville spoke as quietly as he could and still be heard by his friends as broken stemware hailed down on them. "Back into the Slytherin party. She might not be so keen to hurt her cronies."
"You've met Parkinson, right?" Ron shook his head but they did need to contain the destruction. He would rather the Death Eaters took the brunt of the maelstrom than decent people. "Right. Hannah, you levitate this table and bring it with us. We can bull rush her if we have to. Neville, you keep throwing Stunners. I'll go with the restraint hexes. On three."
As a team, they rose and charged. There was no way to avoid Parkinson seeing them coming. She was wound up enough that her magic was running wild. She blocked Neville's Stun and partially deflected Ron's Tendriculos. It rooted her to the spot with winding vines but did not immobilise her arms. Then the drunken witch started on the real curses.
Hannah got the table between them and the first Cruciatus. It exploded in a cloud of sawdust. Neville stuck to the plan and sent another Stunning curse while Ron switched to an old favourite.
"Crucio!"
"Stupefy!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"Accio Flint."
The fourth voice was lower, making a try for surreptition. Ron caught sight of Hermione edging along the wall towards the unconscious bugger she'd married. Parkinson in her imprisoning tendrils blocked her way and the witch shrieked as her wand went flying into the trainee Auror's hand.
Hannah put her all into her shield charm, pushing the bubble out to protect Ron and Neville. Hermione dove across Flint's body. Pansy collapsed. The storm of glass fell in a beautiful deadly crystal shower then lay still - a scintillating carpet.
Ron crunched hurriedly to Parkinson and put a Body-Bind on her. Then he looked around at the damage. Bloody Hell, he hoped he wouldn't be the one paying for it. The crazy tart had done a number on all the posh nibbles.
Hermione used a Scourgify to carefully clean the broken glass off herself and Marcus. He was out cold, a red bruise across most of his face. She looked accusingly at Ron, noticing then he had two wands.
"That's Marcus's." The first she had known of the fight had been her boyfriend's shouted curse. Ex-boyfriend. She and the newly formed Strategy Committee had peeked out the door then retreated. A very hasty conference had resulted in them doing what they could to limit the collateral damage.
"Spend a lot of time looking at his wand, do you?" Innuendo dripped from his words.
"Honestly, Ron!" Hermione felt cold. Her second thought on seeing Marcus's battered face was how she could square this with him to keep Ron from losing everything. If an argument had cost her a press interview then the price to make grievous bodily harm go away would be stratospheric. "Think about your career! Don't say anything. Give me his wand. Get Parkinson out of here and pray there's something he wants more than revenge on you!"
"He was sneaking off to shag her, 'Mione!" Ron said hotly. Her so familiar schoolgirl expression took him right back to a time when he thought everything was sorted. "You didn't see them! She was all over him."
"Of course she was. She's halfway to drunk. This is her first time out of her home in almost two years. The first thing she did when she arrived was grope a waiter and down a cocktail. Marcus was escorting her to a Floo before she did something socially inappropriate." Hermione spoke quickly, aware of the injured man at her feet. "Escorting her, not going with her."
"Socially inappropriate." The words even tasted sour. Ron tossed Flint's wand at her, realisation slowly coming to him that he had started the fight. He would be in trouble. A lot of trouble. "At a Death Eater party. That would've been something to see."
"Neville, please." Hermione turned to her fellow Gryffindor, She did not know exactly what she wanted him to do but someone had to get Ron out of the club. The lanky young man nodded, not sure what needed to be done and painfully aware whatever it was had to be done quickly.
"Get to St. Mungo's. We'll clean up here." Neville noticed without wanting to how Hermione cradled Flint to her before she Disapparated. Of course, that may be because she suspected he had a spinal injury. Maybe.