4. Chapter 4

In hindsight, Rey can blame lack of sleep for her next encounter with Professor Solo.

The weekend, as it's usually understood, has been nonexistent. The past several days have gone by in a muddle of essay writing, Arithmancy equation solving, practice spellcasting, and Quidditch training. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, so the work goes on late into the night. Now Rey understands why the seventh years of school terms past had seemed so distant and crabby through her younger self's eyes.

Only three weeks into September, and she's already running on fumes.

After Transfiguration class, Rey begs off from her and Finn's Thursday afternoon agenda of bothering Rose during Care of Magical Creatures. She has Potions tomorrow and Professor Hux insists that his N.E.W.T. level students brew from memory, textbooks firmly out of sight; Rey's got twenty-four hours to master the steps for Elixir to Induce Euphoria and Draught of Living Death.

Quite positive that she'll cry if she spends any more time cooped up in the library or the Gryffindor common room or even her secret place on the seventh floor, she grabs a handful of treacle tarts from the kitchens and heads to the shores of the Black Lake. It's a rare sunny day and the grounds are dappled in gold. The Giant Squid is basking in the shallows, tentacles pulsing lazily.

Rey spreads her black outer robes on the grass and assumes a cross-legged sitting position, leaning against a tree trunk. She eats her tarts, scattering crumbs all over the pages of her copy of Advanced Potion-Making that's open on her lap.

The next thing she knows, she's dreaming.

It's one of those hazy, shapeless dreams, images bleeding together such that it's impossible to bring any single one into focus. But somebody is holding her, his arms strong and warm. Somebody loves her, in this dream. She's floating in his embrace, aimless and content.

He whispers, "Miss Niima."

Rey opens her eyes with a start.

She's sprawled on her back, legs tangled in the robes she'd shed, one hand laying flat on the open book beside her. Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, she hasn't been out that long, but the other students who'd been milling around the shore are gone.

It's just her.

And Professor Solo.

He's looming over her prone form in a navy blazer and a white button-up, hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks. He's not looking at her directly— in fact, there's a certain pointedness in how he's looking away from her, his jaw clenched.

It's the chill in the air more so than the glancing down that makes her realize that her pleated gray skirt has ridden up past her thighs while she slept.

Solo has the grace to not say anything while Rey pulls herself into a sitting position. However, once she's... decent, it appears that the temptation to be a prick becomes too great for him to ignore.

"Do they not provide beds in the student dormitories here in the UK?" he asks.

"Well, no, obviously, they make us sleep outside like animals," she snaps, too flustered to be tongue-tied.

His lips twitch. She suddenly wonders what he'll look like if he smiles for real. If he's even capable of it.

"Are you looking for a place to sleep, too, sir?"

She still hasn't forgotten the way his big, big hand drew into a fist when she called him that.

This time, however, he seems unaffected. The expression of elegant boredom on his pale face doesn't waver.

So it had been a coincidence, after all. The epiphany is more crushing than she cares to admit, although it shouldn't have come as a surprise. She's hardly the type of person who can incite anyone to those kinds of fantasies.

"Actually, I came out because Obi-Wan told me there was a Giant Squid in the lake and I wanted to see it," Solo drawls. "But it seems you've driven it away with your snoring."

Rey stares down at her lap, self-conscious. Her snoring is a thing of legend in the Gryffindor dorms. Back in fourth year, Jess— finally having had enough— cast a Silencing Charm on her in the middle of the night; now Rey does it herself before bed at the end of every long day, when she knows she's tired enough to rattle the windows.

Stupid, stupid, to think that someone like her could have ever made someone like Solo clench his fist.

She feels the weight of his gaze on the dejected slump of her shoulders for several long moments before he abruptly changes the topic. "Crush the sopophorous beans with a silver dagger instead of cutting them, that releases the juices more efficiently. And use thirteen beans, not twelve."

Her eyes fly up to meet his, confused. He nods at the open textbook on the ground. "For Draught of Living Death," he clarifies. "You could also do worse than stir clockwise once after stirring anticlockwise seven times."

"How do I know you're not trying to sabotage me?" It doesn't make any sense for him to want that, but few people ever help her when they don't need to and so that's her first reaction.

"You don't." Solo's voice is as soft as the gentle, sunlit waves. "You just have to trust me."

Despite herself, Rey cracks a wry smile. "Have you got any insider tips for Elixir to Induce Euphoria, too?"

It's a joke, but he takes it seriously, his lips pressing together as he sinks into thought.

"Add a sprig of peppermint," he finally says. "That will counterbalance the side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking."

"You do realize that if these potions blow up in my face tomorrow I'll be pinning the blame on you?"

He smirks and, oh, it isn't a nice smirk. It makes her toes curl. "And what will you give me if they work?"

"A ham sandwich," Rey says boldly.

She watches that smirk of his sharpen. Watches his brown eyes gleam. "I'll make sure to stay away from the hippogriff paddocks, then," he quips, already turning to walk away. "Have a good day, Miss Niima."

She continues to sit there, staring out at the lake, long after he is gone.

✨✨✨

Defense Against the Dark Arts passes without too much incident the following day. Professor Solo grills them on hexes, then announces that they'll launch into the dueling module next meeting after he's had the chance to look over their essays.

He takes the winding stairs up to his office located above the classroom two at a time, and has completely vanished even before the last student has set foot out the door.

Rey's Potions practical goes shockingly well. Crushing the sopophorous beans with the flat side of her dagger produces so much juice that she has to hurry to scoop it all up into her cauldron before it can drip to the floor, and adding a clockwise stir after every seventh anticlockwise stir soon turns her attempt at the Draught of Living Death a pale pink that gets lighter and lighter as the minutes pass.

"How are you doing that?" Finn hisses, the liquid in his cauldron still the color of blackcurrants.

"Add a clockwise stir," Rey tells him out of the side of her mouth.

"What? Could've sworn the book said—"

"No talking!" Hux's strident tones ring through the steamy air, all the way from the other end of the dungeon. "The next student to breathe a word will test the efficacy of their classmates' draughts for themselves."

It's a testament to how little faith the seventh years have in one another's potioneering abilities that every single one of them falls as silent as the grave.

When Hux calls the time, the liquid in Rey's cauldron is as clear as water. Hux pierces Rey with a suspicious glare but, after checking to make sure her textbook is nowhere near her person, he grudgingly concedes that she's brewed Draught of Living Death to perfection.

Making Elixir to Induce Euphoria also goes without a hitch. A sour-faced Hux doles out an extra point— "and not a fraction more, Miss Niima"— for the sprig of peppermint.

Rey leaves the dungeon in unusually high spirits. Solo's tips had helped, but she's the one who'd successfully memorized the complicated steps for both potions. As far as small triumphs go, it's a rush to the head, which is why she thinks nothing of sneaking into the kitchens during her free period and asking the elves for a ham sandwich, which she carefully wraps in a paper bag to bring to Professor Solo's office.

He'll appreciate the humor behind the gesture, if nothing else. Maybe he'll even laugh. At this point in time, she's really curious about what he looks like when he laughs.

She arrives at the D.A.D.A. classroom just as he's leaving it with Headmaster Kenobi. They spot Rey before she can duck out of sight.

"Ah, Eurydice!" Obi-Wan's blue eyes twinkle kindly at her before flitting to Solo. "Did you have a consultation? Forgive me if I've intruded—"

"We didn't." Solo looks confused— even somewhat dazed— as he blinks at Rey for a moment, and then that stern, impassive mask of his slides into place. "What are you doing here, Miss Niima?"

Rey is mortified.

She is, without a doubt, the world's biggest idiot. And she certainly feels like it as the two men regard her expectantly.

"Just wanted to eat someplace quiet," she manages to force out, holding up the brown paper bag as if in self-defense.

It's not like she can give her teacher a sandwich in front of the headmaster. It would put Solo in a very uncomfortable position.

She probably shouldn't even be giving him anything, period.

"We won't keep you long, then, we're just off to tea ourselves," Obi-Wan says jovially. "Ben, I do hope you're treating Miss Niima all right. She's one of our most exceptional students."

"I'm well aware," Professor Solo says as Rey desperately wills herself not to blush.

"The two of you should be getting on famously," Obi-Wan continues, "considering that your wands are siblings." Two pairs of eyes shoot to him, startled, and he chuckles as he begins to elaborate. "Lor San Tekka wrote to me after you acquired your blackthorn wand, Ben. He was most excited because the feather that is its core came from a phoenix who gave one other feather... the one that's in your wand, Miss Niima. It's never happened before, sibling wands in such close contact, operating in the same general vicinity. San Tekka wishes to be kept updated on any developments that might result."

✨✨✨

Rey decides not to tell anyone— not even Finn and Rose— about her and Solo's twin wand cores.

She's not even sure what to make of it herself, on top of the matching Patronuses and everything.

Stag and doe. Feathers from the same phoenix. It's too much of a coincidence. It... means something.

And she can't even discuss it with the other person concerned, because she'd have to admit that she'd broken curfew the night she saw his Patronus.

Not to mention that she's hopelessly attracted to him, and he's her professor.

It's an impossible situation. Rey just hadn't acknowledged how impossible it was until she was holding something for him while they were both in Headmaster Kenobi's presence.

Merlin, if anyone were to think that Ben Solo had encouraged her feelings— or, even worse, reciprocated them— he would be in very real danger of getting fired. And, with his mother being the MACUSA president, it would be worse than a scandal.

So, no more lame attempts at gift-giving. Even if she'd meant it as a joke. And she should probably learn how to get her hormones under control, too.

Rey eats the ham sandwich in the Room of Requirement, swallowing it all down even though it tastes like ash in her mouth. She'd learned very early on in her childhood not to waste food. She spends the afternoon revising nonverbal charms for Professor Erso-Andor's upcoming practical and doing the translations that her Ancient Runes instructor, Professor Yoda, had assigned as homework last Tuesday, and when she's done she looks up at the wall clock and discovers, much to her chagrin, that it's half past ten in the evening.

She'd missed dinner and curfew.

Rey pulls out the invisibility cloak from her bag and slips it on before leaving the room.

The halls of Hogwarts are quiet at this time of night, the portraits snoozing in their frames. She's on the approach to the one of the Fat Lady that covers the entrance of Gryffindor Tower when she hears it— the eerie sound that cuts through the stillness.

The song.

It's so faint that at first she thinks she's imagining it. But, no, something is crooning, guttural yet melodic. The still waves of night air carry it to her like distant thunder.

It sends chills down her spine.

Rey creeps over to a nearby window and peers out across the dark, starlit grounds. While she can't be completely sure, it seems like the song is coming from the Forbidden Forest. The image of Chewbacca wielding that huge crossbow flashes across the surface of her mind.

The sound shifts and vibrates and trills and echoes. Whatever's making it isn't human— at least, not entirely. It doesn't take long for Rey to decide that she can't bear to listen to it any longer, and she flees to the safety of the Gryffindor common room.

✨✨✨

The thing is, it's quite easy to forget about strange singing coming from the woods when one is a N.E.W.T. level student.

Another couple of weeks go by. Rey makes the Quidditch team and they start training in earnest for the match against Slytherin that will take place the first weekend of November. She aces several quizzes and passes others by a thread. Outside of meals and the few classes that they share, she rarely sees Finn and Rose— even though she and the former are housemates.

Who she does end up seeing a lot of is Seff Hellin, the blue-eyed boy from Ravenclaw with the curly blond hair. He's in all her classes— even Arithmancy and Study of Ancient Runes, both of which less than a quarter of seventh years are taking. Seff's nice enough, Rey supposes, and they take to sitting next to each other in class and revising together in the library.

Professor Solo continues to be... his usual self. After two sessions spent ensuring that his students have a repertoire of non-lethal curses and defensive spells at their disposal, he declares that they're ready to begin dueling properly.

It's a cold Friday morning in early October when the seventh years walk into the D.A.D.A. classroom to find all the desks gone and Hux and Solo standing in the middle of the room, facing each other across a distance of perhaps twenty feet. Both men are in their waistcoats, shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows.

Nothing in the world could have prepared Rey for the sight of Professor Solo's bare forearms. They're long and leanly muscled, ridged with veins that her eyes can't help but run along the length of. She's so entranced that she almost misses it when he tells the class, "Keep to the walls and be ready to cast a Shield Charm just in case. Professor Armitage Hux has kindly agreed to assist in today's demonstration."

"'Kindly agreed' is a unique way to put 'was forced to by the headmaster,'" Hux sneers.

"You've been wanting to curse me since we were boys, Hux," Solo replies, unperturbed. "Now's your chance."

Before Rey can dwell on the revelation that her two professors knew each other before Hogwarts, the duel begins.

She is familiar with the rules for dueling. Hux and Solo follow exactly none of them. There are no bows to each other, no flourishes of the wrist. Instead— as soon as the students have glued themselves to the walls and the room has fallen silent—

— Hux's wand arm lashes out, the unmistakable fiery orange light of a Blasting Curse jetting towards Professor Solo.

It vanishes in an instant, swallowed up by the invisible aura of a nonverbal yet powerful Protego that Solo keeps up for less than half a heartbeat before firing off a Disarming Charm, which Hux physically dodges and counters with yet another spell.

"The most important thing to remember when battling a Dark wizard," Solo tells the class as he sidesteps Hux's attack, "is that the usual rules don't apply. Your opponent wants you dead, there's no room for being noble—" He brandishes his wand at the iron chandelier overhead and the flames come swirling down from the candlewicks in a searingly brilliant lasso that surrounds Hux— "only for being quick and inventive." Hux's sneer deepens at that last word, and the flames are transfigured into dozens of throwing knives that hurtle themselves at Solo; before any can reach him, however, his wrist slashes through the air and the knives freeze and shiver and melt together, and suddenly Rey is looking at a massive serpent, red-eyed and inky black, hissing as it slithers toward the redheaded Potions instructor with fangs bared.

"The Dark Arts," Solo continues in a languid drawl as Hux scrambles away from the beast, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Like the hydra of Ancient Greece, each time a neck is severed, a new head sprouts even fiercer and cleverer than before."

Hux manages to disintegrate the serpent and doesn't pause for breath before attacking with a curse that Rey doesn't recognize, something purple that seems to warp the air with its very wrongness.

Solo's eyes glint dangerously, a semblance of some strange, twisted joy wreathing his features. He casts a full-body Shield Charm on himself, but it's not Protego— or, at least, not the Protego that Rey knows. "When you fight the Dark Arts, you are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible," he says as a ring of crackling black shadows surround him. The instant Hux's spell collides with it, it's Hux who falls to the ground, his screams of pain rending the air. Solo is quick to cancel the curse, towering over his defeated opponent as he looks back at the class. "Your best defense," he concludes, his gaze locking onto Rey's, "is to be the same."

✨✨✨

Solo dismisses the class early so that he can bring Hux to the hospital wing.

The seventh years are in a subdued mood as they troop down the stairs to the Great Hall.

"I don't like Professor Solo anymore," Tallie blurts out. "That was... I don't know what that was, but that was really, really Dark."

A few heads bob in agreement. It's Rey's hand, this time, that balls into a fist at her side.

"Hux started it," she argues. "Didn't you all see that purple curse he used? He cast it powerfully enough that it would've ripped right through a normal Shield Charm."

"Hux may have started it, but Solo definitely ended it," Finn points out, and she blinks at him, feeling oddly betrayed.

"Rey's right." Seff speaks up. "D'you all remember there was some trouble in America last year? My dad was on the team the International Confederation sent to do post-assessment. He told me there were field reports of a spell indicated by purple light that ate its target from the inside out. I think that's what Hux used."

"And did your dad say anything about a shield literally woven out of Dark magic?" Jess asks dryly.

Rey suddenly can't bear to listen anymore. Can't bear to be there, among her stupid classmates who'd much rather that Solo be eaten from the inside out than defend himself. She'll end up getting into a real fight if she doesn't remove herself from the situation.

Muttering a half-hearted excuse about needing to retrieve something from her room, she tears away from the pack.

And sets out to find him.