"Obviously some of our yearmates are objectively fit," Seamus said loudly. "I could write a whole list."
"Oh, no," Hermes heard Neville mutter, and was inclined to agree.
He didn't even know what the conversation preceding this declaration was, and he didn't really care to know. Arithmancy was much more interesting than this. Also, there was infinitely less chance that continuing to read about spell matrices would make him flush the next time he had to interact with any of the girls in their year, which was often, on account of two of them literally being his best friends.
As if he had heard that very thought, Seamus added, "Hermes isn't allowed a word in this."
"What?" said Hermes, unsure if he should be offended or not.
"I'm kind of friends with Lavender, can I be excluded too," Neville said, still not looking up from the box of Leaping Lilacs he was nursing back to health for a sixth-year.
They were apparently a common magical houseplant, which was interesting, but also tended to come down with a case of magical disease that made the plant corrosively acidic, which was also interesting in a much more unfortunate way.
"No," said Seamus. "If being friends with one girl disqualified people from making a list, I'd be too, because Fay is cool as hell. Hermes is disqualified because he's got a blood pact with Hattie and Ron, so he's definitely not objective."
Was that what people thought about Hermes, Ron, and Hattie's friendship? Okay, sure, why not at this point. He wouldn't even bother to argue.
"I really don't think you need to make this list," he put in anyway.
Seamus shrugged, grinning. "It'll be fun! Dean, tell 'em it'll be fun."
They all looked to Dean hopefully, for very different reasons.
"Eh, why not," Dean said, awful enabler of Seamus' continuing bullshit that he was.
Dean was also something of a masochist, based on the raging crush he seemed to have on Seamus from Hermes' point of view. Who would want to listen to their crush talk about the appeal of other people? Dean Thomas, apparently.
"Sweet," said Seamus, and pulled out a quill and a roll of parchment.
Hermes did not really want to hear about his roommate's opinion about any of the girls they both knew. He could have just left.
For some reason, he didn't. Call it morbid curiosity.
"Lavender and Parvati basically share the top spot," Seamus said, "the question's really more who's the top of the top spot."
""I think Parvati's prettier," Neville said, sounding a bit apologetic that he was even contributing to this whole thing. "She has nice eyes."
Hermes had not thought about either Parvati or Lavender overmuch, other than to admire their skill in Potions and Charms, respectively. He supposed he did think they were pretty, but usually he was concerned about other things. Like escaped criminals, or dark lords. Or homework.
Seamus was nodding sagely at Neville's words. "She does have great eyes. Her whole face is great, honestly. And she's got a nice body. I'm putting her in the top spot for now, you've convinced me, Nev."
He wrote "Parvati", then "Lavender" on the parchment. If any of the girls found that list, Seamus would probably die. Neville didn't look pleased at this, though whether he disliked being a contributor or being called Nev more was hard to say.
"I like Lavender, but that's fine," Dean said mildly. "Who's third?"
"Ron," Seamus replied readily.
Ron? Hermes thought, and immediately felt like a git.
It was less the idea of Ron being attractive, and more the idea of Seamus noticing she was attractive. He wasn't sure if that was a better excuse for his confusion.
"Ron?" Dean also asked, and the spike of irritation Hermes felt at his questioning was likely undeserved. He didn't sound dismissive, just curious.
"She can trounce me in both chess and Quidditch, which is hot," Seamus said matter-of-factly. "And have you seen her without a cloak on? She has fantastic legs!"
Hermes' irritation only grew and grew, morphing into the desire to hex something, preferably Seamus' face.
Yes, Ron had great legs. That was frankly just a fact of life. He felt the need to ask her to start wearing longer skirts, which was deeply absurd of him and also pretty rude. Her skirts wear fine, usually regulation length. If they were shorter it was because she had accidentally rucked the band up by slouching down in a chair, not by intention.
Seamus didn't have to go looking at her legs in them, though.
Dean wore the expression of a man experiencing a great revelation. Hermes wished he would stop with that.
"She did look pretty hot wrestling one of the twins to the ground last week," he said, terribly.
Hermes suddenly remembered Seamus' tendency to wrestle that fourth-year he was friends with to the ground in friendly matches just whenever, and felt he understood more about Dean and his inner workings than he had ever wanted.
"You understand my vision," Seamus said, pleased. "Ron is like the dark horse of hotness. You get used to her being one of the boys, then bam, you notice she's pretty cute when she beats you at chess and now you can't un-notice it."
"No kidding," Dean said distantly. "She does have a nice smile, doesn't she?"
Neville had gone quiet. Hermes looked to him for salvation from one of his friends being declared very hot by the rest of his roommates, but instead found him looking down thoughtfully at the lilacs. And not with the sort of expression that said he was thinking about the lilacs.
This was becoming very surreal.
"She also has a great arse," Seamus said bluntly.
The only reason Hermes didn't brain him with his textbook is that it might damage the textbook.
That must have somehow been clear on his face, because Seamus hurriedly went on, "Anyway, Hattie's next—it's weird, she's really more cute than hot, you know? And then Fay's after that."
He wrote them all down.
"Didn't you say you were friends with Fay?" Hermes asked despite himself. "Why is she last?"
"Look," Seamus said, "Fay is brilliant, but also she has the worst case of baby-face around. It makes it weird to think about her like that."
"...alright," Hermes said, because he could kind of see that. She did look younger than the rest of the fifth-years, more like a third-year than anything. He really just wanted this to be over.
"Makes sense to me," Dean said, and then pointed to the parchment in Seamus' hands. "You should probably burn that or something."
Seamus, ever willing to set shite on fire, immediately dug his wand out of the pile of blankets on his bed and cast incendio on the list. Hermes was glad to see it go.
He stood up, eager to go to the common room or the library or somewhere that wasn't this very dorm room, in case any of the other boys tried to do something terrible like ask Hermes to be their wingman, or something somehow worse.
"See you then," he said lamely, and made a quick pace out the door.
Unfortunately, someone followed him and let the door close behind him. With great reluctance, Hermes turned to face him. It was Seamus.
Hermes didn't want to hear whatever Seamus found the need to say, but he especially didn't want to hear it in the public space of the common room, so he accepted whatever was about to happen.
"Listen," Seamus began, laying his hand on Hermes' shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a gesture of manly camaraderie. "It was a bit rude to talk about Ron like that when I know you have this huge repressed crush on her, so sorry about that."
"What," Hermes said blankly.
Not even about him having a repressed crush on Ron specifically, but about the audacity of Seamus— Seamus Finnigan —being the one to talk about other people's "repressed crushes" despite his literal... everything with Dean. The amount of awkward glances he and Neville had shared this week when Seamus got all up in Dean's business was astronomical. Just this week.
Naturally, Seamus completely misunderstood. The grip on his shoulder became stronger and more purposeful.
"Seriously, I didn't mean anything by it," he insisted, and, wow, he was earnest.
Hermes gently tried to remove the hand. "I... didn't think you did, Seamus."
That wasn't even a lie. Hermes didn't think he meant anything by it. This didn't stop a sort of residual annoyance from rising up as he thought about it again.
Seamus finally let go. Thank God. He started to open his mouth. Oh, no.
"Like, we can all just agree Ron's a bit of a looker now," he said with full confidence. "You really don't have to be embarrassed about liking her, or anything."
Hermes' fingers twitched. Don't hex him, don't hex him, don't hex him.
He wasn't even sure why he wanted to hex Seamus even before the crush remark. There was nothing necessarily wrong with outright saying one found another person attractive—it was a nice thing to say, theoretically. It wasn't like he was singling her out to ogle at, he had talked about several girls. Seamus didn't even say anything particularly questionable aside from that she had a nice ass, and wasn't like he walked up and said it to her face. It was fine.
It was just—it was Ron. The thought of Seamus hitting on Ron—or worse, dating her—was very, very vexing for reasons Hermes did not want to examine.
He didn't have a crush on Ron. He didn't.
"Please stop talking right now," Hermes said plaintively.
"Seriously," Seamus went on, still talking for some reason. "I honestly don't know why you haven't asked her out yet. I might do it if you don't get the guts to."
Don't hex him, don't hex him, don't hex him, Hermes chanted to himself.
"Stop talking," he said again. "And don't date girls you don't actually like that much, that's terrible."
"You got me there," Seamus said with a frown. "Not like serious dating, then. A trip to Hogsmead or something."
Don't even do that, Hermes wanted to say, but that was probably crossing a line. If Seamus asked Ron out during a Hogsmead trip and she said yes, that was her decision. Hermes didn't have any control over who Ron did and didn't date. She'd probably yell at him if he did try to control that, with good reason.
"...do whatever," Hermes told him, trying to ignore the tight feeling in his chest. "Just don't be stupid about it."
Seamus favored him with a sharp, contemplative look that Hermes felt the conversation really didn't warrant, but finally stopped talking and let go of Hermes' shoulder. Thank God for small mercies.
Hermes escaped to the common room to do his Arithmancy work and hoped his face didn't do anything weird when Ron sought him out and sprawled out in the opposite chair, going on about chess maneuvers. She hooked one of her legs over the arm of it, and it was very distracting.
A week or so passed, and there was no word from Seamus or Ron that any date was happening. Even if there had been, Hermes insisted to himself that he would have been perfectly happy for Ron if she had accepted a date. It wasn't his business. The tight feeling in his chest didn't return at the thought of it.
He was very bad at lying to himself. He did it anyway.
