3. Chapter 3

It's four days later, and Finn and Rose still haven't let it go.

"What does it mean?" Finn dramatically throws himself against the wooden boards fencing in the pumpkin patch outside Chewie's hut. "A Patronus is an extension of the self— so how come you and Solo have matching ones?"

"A funny little thing called coincidence, perhaps?" Rey counters, glaring at him a little too sharply.

"Maybe they're soulmates," Rose teases as she hand-feeds more lettuce to one of the plump, slime-coated flobberworms that Chewie has for some mysterious reason decided were just what his N.E.W.T. level Care of Magical Creatures class needed to study on this fine autumn afternoon.

"Come off it," Rey snorts, leaning against the fence next to Finn. The two of them aren't feeding any flobberworms. They're not even in this class, but Chewie has a rather lackadaisical view of protocol.

"I wouldn't mind having Professor Solo for a soulmate," quips Jysella Horn, a redheaded Hufflepuff who's standing next to Rose and running a diagnostic spell on her own flobberworm. Traced in blue light, a miniature diagram of the beast's organ system glows gently in the air, shifting here and there as Jysella prods it with her wand, scanning for abnormalities.

Not that there's anything particularly complicated about flobberworm anatomy. Rey swears they're the most boring creature she's ever laid eyes on.

"That's because he's not your professor," Finn tells Jysella. "He's a pain in the ass, you wouldn't believe..."

As he launches into a tirade on the D.A.D.A. instructor's many flaws, Rey tunes out. What Finn had mentioned has plunged her into a somber mood; Ben Solo is her teacher, no matter how handsome he is, and she would do well to keep this attraction in check.

But, Merlin, she's never felt this way before. About anyone. She's an eighteen-year-old virgin and being around him sets her on fire.

It's not a simple case of hormones, either. There's something wild and lonely about him that pulls her in like an undertow. It's something she thinks she recognizes, almost as if she's made of it, too, and she just hadn't known until she spotted him in the Great Hall.

She thinks about his Patronus. She wonders what he must have thought when he saw what hers was.

"I'm curious about that, too," Finn says in hushed tones, and Rey nearly has a heart attack until she realizes that she'd been staring at the Forbidden Forest while zoned out and her best friend had only been following her gaze after Rose and Jysella headed over to the next batch of flobberworms. "What d'you reckon they were looking for in there?"

"I really want to find out," Rey admits. She and her friends have been in the forest before; they'd had Care of Magical Creatures lessons take place there in third year and, in fourth, they'd collected bubotubers for Herbology class— all the other not-so-sanctioned times, they were merely driven by curiosity and the allure that anything out-of-bounds holds to a gaggle of kids. But they've never gone further in than a few meters past the hippogriff paddocks, because there's a certain point where the trees start growing too close together for sunlight to penetrate and eerie noises creep in and there's the sensation of hundreds of unseen eyes looking back...

"Whatever it is, it must be dangerous," says Finn. "Did you see that crossbow Chewie was holding?"

"Yeah." Rey glances at the instructor. He's moving around checking on how his students are doing with their flobberworms, but every once in a while his beetle-black eyes dart to the Forbidden Forest and she can make out a frown beneath his thick brown beard. "Yeah, I did."

✨✨✨

On Friday morning, Rey wakes up earlier than usual. After showering and brushing her teeth, she casts a quick drying spell on her hair and tries to do something different with it. After four failed attempts at braids and chignons and half-ponytails that all collapse into tangled bird's nests of disaster, she gives up and settles for the usual three buns.

It's the only hairstyle her mother had taught her how to do.

And, honestly, it's not as if Professor Solo will suddenly look twice at her if she manages to figure out what the hell a French twist is.

Rey leaves the bathroom feeling very stupid. Her roommates are awake at this point, making their beds and cramming homework at the last minute. "Rey, you're up early," Jannah remarks. "Excited to face off with Solo again?"

Tallie and Jess giggle. Rey wills herself not to blush. "Just want to get it over with," she mumbles as she shoves quills and parchment into her book bag.

"Right. Well, Quidditch tryouts are on Sunday next week," Jannah informs her. "Not that anyone else will even dream of going for Seeker when you're around, but I've got to be fair, you know?"

"Of course, captain." Rey tips Jannah a small salute as she shrugs on black Hogwarts robes over her white buttoned shirt and gray skirt, then begins fiddling with her red-and-gold-striped tie in front of the mirror next to her bed.

"We'll be the first batch to win the House Cup for Gryffindor seven years in a row since Paige Tico," Jannah confidently predicts. "I have spoken."

Rey nods despite the sliver of anxiety that coils through her stomach. There's a lot of pressure on her this year but she hadn't been able to get on a single broom at all in the summer, stuck in the Muggle world as she'd been. She'll have to start spending her free afternoons out on the pitch in order to make up for lost time.

Half an hour later, as she enters the D.A.D.A. classroom, she's nervous for an entirely different reason.

Professor Solo's wearing a black tweed jacket, a light blue shirt, another pair of those trousers that are so expertly tailored that they emphasize his long legs and drive Rey to madness, and his usual stern expression. He offers the class a curt nod before starting the practical right away and, as expected, the results... aren't great. After having been given a mere week to study, it's less than a handful of students who successfully produce a corporeal Patronus while some manage a burst of shapeless silver light, and the rest nothing at all.

Solo saves Rey for last. She casts the charm nonverbally, as he'd instructed, her wrist moving in a precise imitation of his wandwork the night he'd summoned his stag in the Entrance Hall, and her doe shimmers into existence. There's a ripple of applause, cries of "Way to go, Rey!"— "Good job!"—

And Solo doesn't smile, not exactly, but the line of his mouth is softer than it usually is. He's standing close enough for her to see that his narrow face is dusted with a constellation of beauty marks, that his eyes are actually a rich chocolatey brown with a hint of olive, fringed by long lashes, and that the buttons of his shirt are straining against his chest.

Rey gulps.

"What are you," he murmurs, in that low, deep voice that's gone lower and deeper still, meant for her ears alone, "some kind of child prodigy or something?"

She can't think clearly. His nearness is dizzying. That voice, those eyes, that height. "I'm..." It comes out in little more than a breathless squeak. She licks her lips and tries again. "I'm eighteen."

I'm not a child.

Something in his expression shifts. He takes a couple of steps away, leaving her with the oddest of sensations that she's done something wrong. It's like a bucket of cold water being thrown over her head and, as awareness of her surroundings filters back in, it becomes apparent that not all of the students are happy about her progress.

There are snide mutterings about who knows how long she's been able to practice the spell before last Friday. Stage whispers about being graded on a curve. And the thing is, Rey can't even blame her classmates, because it is unfair, and all she'd wanted was to get through this last year with her head down and leave everyone with no bad memories, if not any particularly lasting impressions.

But now Solo's gotten her singled out.

He frowns as he picks up on the terse atmosphere in the room. "I had you study the Patronus Charm because the intense mental focus it requires vis-a-vis the dynamic wand movement is a good foundation for other types of combat spellwork. It was a quiz so that all of you would take it seriously. Your N.E.W.T. examinations will be far more grueling, I assure you."

The class had fallen silent at the beginning of his speech, and now everyone's listening intently, most of them appearing properly chastised. What sticks out is that there are no more resentful glances being thrown in Rey's direction.

"And for those aiming for a career as an Auror, knowing how to conjure a Patronus is an essential skill, which you now have a headstart in," Solo continues. "If the British Ministry of Magic is anything like MACUSA, they'll accept only the best of the best, not those who whine about others being better. Now— let's run through jinxes."

They spend the remainder of first period practicing the Knockback Jinx, Levicorpus, the Multi-Shot Jinx, and Waddiwasi on rows of dummies that Solo creates from thin air. He'd been right; with their minds sharpened by the last several days spent trying to cast the Patronus Charm, the seventh years have never been in finer form. They're all in high spirits by the end of the class, Rey included— maybe there's hope for this ragtag group of ne'er-do-wells, maybe they really are the next generation of elite Ministry Aurors—

"I can't decide which was more painful to observe, the generally sloppy casting or the part where you all forgot that simple jinxes should be nonverbal at N.E.W.T. level," Professor Solo drawls. "Keep training. I expect a less amateurish output next week, as well as a thousand-word essay on the importance of dueling form. Class dismissed."

The students troop out, shoulders slumped as they grumble among themselves. Rey's halfway through the door when Solo's gravelly voice stops her in her tracks. "Miss Niima— a word, if you please."

"I'll meet you at the Great Hall for lunch," she tells Finn and Rose.

"We don't mind waiting," Rose hurries to assure her.

"It's not a big deal," Rey insists.

Actually, she's a little worried— she can't possibly imagine what Solo would want to speak to her after class for, which probably means it can't be anything good— but it'll be a cold day in hell before Rey's friends go hungry on her account.

She waves Finn and Rose off and they nod before walking away with their fingers laced together. They never hold hands when she's around— probably so that she won't feel left out— and she watches them go with a slight pang before turning around to face her professor.

He's standing at his desk, meticulously packing his book bag. She keeps a careful distance, waiting. The room is so quiet that she's afraid he'll hear her thundering heartbeat.

"What happened to your other D.A.D.A teachers?" he asks.

Oh.

Rey starts from the beginning. "Professor Greenley ran into a bit of trouble with a hag during winter break in Bavaria. The next year, Professor Krennic's wand backfired while he was demonstrating a Memory Charm— he's at St. Mungo's now. In our third year, Professor Borkas was savaged by a hippogriff who wanted his ham sandwich, and when we were in fourth Professor Vischera was arrested for using an Unforgivable on a shopkeeper in Hogsmeade—"

"I think I get the picture," Solo dryly interrupts. "I wonder what grisly fate shall befall me this term."

Rey's not sure if she believes in the jinx on the D.A.D.A. position or if she's one of those who agree that it's a combination of coincidence and statistical fact— anything to do with the Dark Arts doesn't tend to attract the type of wizard who dearly values a long life or a complete set of body parts. What she's absolutely certain of, however, is that she doesn't want any kind of grisly fate to befall Professor Solo.

Even if he is an asshole.

"Maybe you'll be the one to break the curse," she suggests.

He doesn't look up from his task, but his lips twitch in the way that they always seem to around her. She has the distinct impression that he thinks she's a funny girl. "Thank you for the vote of confidence, Miss Niima. And don't let me keep you—"

She forces the question out before she can lose her nerve. "Why do you have a San Tekka wand?"

He glances at the aforementioned object on his desk. "My old wand broke, so I went to Diagon Alley first thing upon arriving in London. I still prefer the feel of tamarack as compared to blackthorn, but beggars can't be choosers— and I will concede that phoenix feather performs more versatilely than rougarou hair thus far."

"My wand core is phoenix feather, too," Rey offers shyly.

She hates the way she sounds when she says it— as if she believes it means anything— but Solo nods. "And your wood is aspen. A potent combination for martial magic. I'm eager to see how you fare in our dueling module."

It's like a sunbeam lancing through her soul, the fact that he'd noticed what her wand's made of, that he'd thought it important enough to file away for reference just like she's filing away every little thing she can learn about him. She just wants to keep this conversation going for as long as she can. "How did your old wand—"

"That's my own affair." He straightens up, his book bag snapping shut. "Until next week, then."

And it's not that Rey can't tell a dismissal for what it is when it's being hurled in her face, but she also can't bring herself to stop, to bid him a good day, to leave him. She plants her feet firmly on the floorboards. "Do you like it here so far? In Britain?"

At first, Solo kind of looks like she's giving him a headache. But, when he answers, it's with enough awkwardness that it makes her wonder if he has anyone at all to make small talk with. "It's fine. A little rainy."

"Oh? It— it doesn't rain a lot, where you're from?"

She bleats the question rather than simply asking it and, shit, she is such a mess, but that vague half-smile flickers at the corner of his mouth again. "I grew up in Nevada."

Nevada. Is that where the cowboys are? Rey pictures him in denim, with a Stetson hat and a bit of scruff. The image... leaves her more than a little dazed, takes her away from the physical realm for a bit, and it's not until he's suddenly so much closer than he was before that it hits her that he's on his way out of the room and she's blocking his path.

His shoulders are so wide that she can see practically only the edges of the burnished windows behind him. He's so tall that she has to lift her chin in order to peer into his eyes. He smells like parchment and oakmoss and sandalwood, with hints of copper and tobacco.

He is an assault on all her senses.

Solo cocks his head. "Is there something else I can help you with, Miss Niima?"

Yes, Rey wants to whimper, her thighs pressing together underneath her pleated skirt. God, yes, Professor.

"N-n-no," she stutters. "That's all. Thanks."

He gestures at the open doorway. "After you."

This time, she can't leave fast enough, desperate to get away before she combusts. "Bye," she rasps, turning tail for the exit, and she's got one foot in the corridor when those smoky, rumbling tones of his stop her once again.

"Not that I'm too much of a stickler for formality or anything," he says with a trace of amusement that she could almost have described as roguish, "but you really should be calling me sir. "

Rey stares out at the stone walls of the deserted corridor. It's painfully obvious that Solo's making fun of her again. To him, she's the silly girl who tripped over her own feet while walking, the girl who can barely string two sentences together when he's in the vicinity.

She thinks about her mother laughing in her face when Rey told her that she'd gotten a "prestigious scholarship." She thinks about her father saying it was good that she'd decided to spend last summer at home because they needed someone to keep the flat clean. She thinks about everyone in the Muggle world whose eyes ever slid away from her in her secondhand clothes and ratty shoes and those select bastards in the wizarding world who sniff at a surname not to be found on any pureblood family tree. She thinks about the schoolmates that can either take her or leave her and talk around her all the same, and the teachers who can never quite manage to hide their surprise when she comes up with a clever answer or nails a difficult spell.

She is so much more than what people think she is.

She can call anyone's bluff. She can play along with the very best of them.

Rey whirls around, meeting Professor Solo's gaze. She waits for his dark eyes to flicker before she lowers her own, peeking up at him through her lashes the way she's seen Tallie do around boys she likes.

"Yes, sir."

Rey's voice is a little huskier than it ought to have been. A little more breathless than the situation warranted.

Solo's hand— the one that's not clutching the strap of his book bag— clenches into a fist at his side.

That's all she'd needed to see.

Rey scurries out of the D.A.D.A. classroom without a second glance. She barrels down the stairs with her skin flushed, her heart blazing in triumph, and a telltale wetness between her legs.