7. Chapter 7

The first time Rey Niima masturbates to thoughts of her Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, it's late afternoon of the next day and she's all warm from the copious amounts of butterbeer that she'd imbibed with Finn and Rose at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade.

Butterbeer has a low alcohol content so she's not exactly in a stupor, but she is edging very slightly into tipsy. Rey's a lightweight. She doesn't drink in the Muggle world. But butterbeer is magical, which means it can't hurt. The magical world doesn't hurt, and it never will.

Still, she always paces herself more cautiously than the other seventh years, and she's disavowed anything stronger since the glass of firewhisky she'd first tried at seventeen had smelled too much like the stains on the couch in her parents' living room.

Upon returning to Hogwarts, Finn and Rose cheerily reach a consensus that it would be a shame to not enjoy the remaining daylight hours by going for a walk along the shores of the Black Lake. Rey takes one look at the longing glances that her best friends are not so subtly casting in each other's direction and she just— hightails it out of there, saying that she has to go study and she'll see them at dinner.

To be perfectly honest, she's a little relieved to finally be alone. Ever since that fateful D.A.D.A. lesson yesterday morning, her classmates have been grilling her nonstop about her and Solo's twin wand cores. Finn and Rose, in particular, think it's a hoot, given the already matching Patronuses, and they keep wondering aloud what it means and Rey keeps snapping at them that she has no idea.

Because she really doesn't. And every time what happened in class gets brought up, her single brain cell immediately fixates on what happened after. Professor Solo's large fingers doing up the buttons on his cuffs. The droplets of sweat that trickled tantalizingly down his pale temples. The way his dark hair had been just the slightest bit mussed, and damp.

The soft look in his eyes when he mentioned that her freckles had reappeared.

He'd probably meant nothing by it. Teasing her as always.

But still— still— and it is the diabolical stroke of cruelest misfortune that she runs into him on her way back to the castle. He's with Headmaster Kenobi and two other teachers— Poe Dameron and Jyn Erso-Andor. They look like they're coming from Chewie's hut, but it could just as easily be the Forbidden Forest.

Rey hasn't had a class with the Flying instructor since first year, but she and Dameron have frequently been at odds throughout the entirety of her time at Hogwarts. He considers her the most problematic Quidditch player to ever cast a shadow on his pitch. She thinks he's the worst referee in the history of the sport.

"Miss Niima." He nods at her coolly.

"Professor Dameron," she grunts.

"I do so love the nurturing environment of mutual respect here at our fine institution," Obi-Wan says brightly. "Hello, Eurydice. Just got in from Hogsmeade, I take it?"

Rey nods. Professor Solo is hanging back from the rest of the group, as tall as a tower looming on the horizon as he stares fixedly at a point over her shoulder. His pale features seem to gradually become even more indecipherable as she watches, and she gets the oddest notion into her head— the notion that he has a mask that he keeps somewhere inside him, and he slips it on whenever the need arises.

But why would he have need of it now?

She's so busy studying him that it takes her a while to realize Obi-Wan is still talking.

"... kind enough to reply to my owl yesterday. After cracking the books, he has determined that it's apparently called the Reverse Spell effect."

Rey has no idea what the headmaster's on about at first. She frantically pieces context clues together. Solo must have told Obi-Wan what happened in class, and Obi-Wan must have written to San Tekka about it, keeping the wandmaker updated as per his request.

"So it is like the Prior Incantato charm, then?" Rey shoots a triumphant glance at Solo.

"Yes," Obi-Wan confirms. "Priori Incantatem. Among wandlore experts, it's currently being attributed to some kind of resonance between the two genetically alike cores."

"It's so interesting," Jyn says, and Rey wonders if the entire faculty knows. For a brief moment she's plunged into a waking nightmare where her teachers gossip about her and Solo's wands over cups of tea in the staff lounge. "But, of course," Jyn continues, turning to Solo, "it must put a damper on dueling sessions, I imagine."

"It does," he agrees. "Miss Niima and I will no longer be dueling each other for the remainder of the term." His lips curve into the faintest of wry smiles. "Which is probably a blessing for me, because she's good enough to be capable of dealing some serious damage."

The other teachers look at her, impressed, although Dameron does so with slightly more reluctance. Rey's eyes drop to the ground. She's as still as a statue, or perhaps she's assumed the shape of her doe Patronus and is poised to flee. Before Hogwarts, she'd been the nuisance at home, the poorest of the poor kids at school— she never learned how to deal with compliments.

Coming from him, it's almost too much to bear.

"She's quick on her feet and her spellwork is precise." Solo's tone is neutral. It's nothing more than a professional assessment. It makes the blood in Rey's veins thrum like crazy. "If she attains the required N.E.W.T.s, I believe she would be a credit to the Auror program."

"I'll put in a word with Cassian, then," says Jyn. "They're sending out recruitment feelers in a few months. Keep up the good work, Miss Niima."

Jyn's husband is the head of the British Auror Office. Rey's more than a little floored by the realization that Solo had talked her up just now. She can't figure out why he'd do something like that.

The teachers resume the walk to the castle— and Rey has no choice but to walk with them. She wouldn't have, but Jyn and Obi-Wan look at her expectantly because she is so very obviously heading inside as well, and as she falls into stride with them they chat about her classes and the weather and if she's excited for the first Quidditch game of the season. She answers as politely as she can, but the whole thing is... stilted. She can barely manage small talk with schoolmates who aren't Finn and Rose as it is— what more with her professors, and with her mind all floaty from Solo's presence and the butterbeer.

Eventually, Jyn and Obi-Wan give up on her, which— thank Merlin, but maybe not, because she allows herself to lag behind, her steps slowing—

— and Solo, who's bringing up the rear, walks into her.

It's like being bumped into by fucking Treebeard.

Rey stumbles. A pair of strong hands catch her by the waist before she can hit the ground, hauling her up against a rock-solid, impossibly broad frame.

Professor Solo is so warm. He surrounds her completely, her own personal, sandalwood-scented furnace. The world doesn't fade away but it becomes less real, and there is only him and his racing heart as it thunders along her spine.

His fingers span the entirety of her waist. Rey can't help herself. She gasps at the realization. A sharp intake of breath that's soon mirrored by a frustrated hiss of air between her teacher's teeth that sounds so close— oh, so close— to her ear before he takes a step back.

He's probably annoyed that she got in his way.

His left hand slides down her hip as he lets go of her.

It's an accident. She knows it's an accident. But that doesn't stop her from melting at the fleeting sensation of that huge, burning hot palm curving over the jut of her hip. That doesn't stop her from sinking her teeth into her lower lip, both because it feels good and because she has to bite back a moan at just how good it feels.

It doesn't stop her from wanting to look back at him, from wanting to see his face...

But she can't. Quick as a flash, he's moving forward, his long, brisk strides carrying him past her. She's hurrying to catch up before she knows it, before she can think twice. "Professor Solo—" she calls out to him, her mind a whirl of scattered thoughts, her nerves abuzz— "wait—"

He stops and turns around. So slowly, so reluctantly, his hands shoved into his pockets. She's always bothering him— in truth, he must have the patience of a saint.

The other teachers are well ahead of them now, too preoccupied chatting with one another to notice what's going on. No one except Rey knows that she's tipsy, that she's wet between her legs, that Solo's scrutiny is making her feel like a butterfly pinned to a board as she comes to a stop in front of him.

No one can ever know.

"Thank you," she says, "for your help with—"

"You helped yourself," he firmly cuts across. "I didn't tell Jyn anything I failed to observe with my own eyes. There's no need to thank me. You deserved it. You are very good, Miss Niima."

Her soul glows at his praise. She nods, having forgotten how to speak, and then there's nothing left to do but walk with him as they catch up to Headmaster Kenobi and Professors Erso-Andor and Dameron.

Upon reaching the Entrance Hall, Rey opens her mouth to bid her teachers a good day, only to snap it shut when Obi-Wan speaks first. "By the way, Eurydice— I'll be making a formal announcement, but while I have you here... Please do kindly stress to your friends that the Forbidden Forest is out of bounds. We are currently dealing with a nasty erkling infestation. They can shoot darts at unsuspecting passersby, you know."

"Erklings," Rey echoes blankly.

That would explain the singing she'd heard that night. They're small creatures, but a chorus of an infestation's worth of them could probably carry all the way across the grounds.

What it doesn't explain is Chewbacca's gigantic crossbow on that other night, because erklings are three feet tall at most.

Then again, if she's remembering Chewie and Solo's conversation correctly, the staff hadn't determined what they were dealing with yet. And it's not too far-fetched that the centaurs' omens would speak of doom, since erklings are evil and they eat children.

Which is very sad and all, but Rey can't care less at the moment. She just wants to be alone with the storm of her thoughts, and if she spends another second standing near Professor Solo she's going to burst into flames.

Rey says goodbye to her teachers and scurries off to Gryffindor Tower. She's flushed all the way to the tips of her toes in a manner that has nothing to do with the butterbeer. Her entire body is overly sensitized; despite it being autumn, she's wearing a skirt today because her usual weekend jeans are in the wash and her bare thighs rub together with every step she takes and it's maddening. Her breasts feel almost swollen from how aware she is of them, each scrape of her nipples against her bra enough to coax a whimper higher and higher up her throat. A whimper that she doesn't release until she barrels into the thankfully deserted Gryffindor common room, the Fat Lady's portrait swinging shut behind her.

This is her comeuppance. It surely is. She's never been attracted to anyone before and has in fact often scoffed at her hormone-addled classmates over the years. And now it's all crashing down on her. A dam that's been unleashed.

Her dorm room is empty. She'd known it would be; Jannah, Tallie, and Jess always opt to take the last carriages back to school on Hogsmeade weekends. They'll be gone for at least another couple of hours.

Professor Solo's compliments have been on loop in Rey's head since she left the Entrance Hall, and now they're amplified in the silence. He thinks she's good enough. He thinks she's quick on her feet. Precise. Deserving.

You're very good, Miss Niima.

Rey unhooks her bra and slips it off without removing her shirt. It had been Rose who taught her how to do this. She kicks off her shoes and collapses into bed, sprawling out flat on her back. Everything about this is wrong, and wild. She doesn't care. She's burning up. Later, she'll blame the butterbeer for her lowered inhibitions. She'll blame her own hyperfocus on Solo's deep, rumbling voice telling the other teachers that she's worthy of the magic she'd been given, moments before his hands encircled her waist as if she were the daintiest, tiniest thing.

You deserved it.

With a complete and utter lack of ceremony, Rey slips a shaking but determined hand into her underwear. She stares up at the ceiling, her breath hitching as her fingertips run slick with arousal. Shit. She'd known she was wet earlier out on the grounds, but she hadn't realized just how much until her middle finger meets no resistance when she pushes it in.

She's heard other girls talk. A lot of them prefer to take it slow at first, prefer to tease themselves. Rey doesn't see the point. She gets too impatient when she tries, and the end goal is the same in any case. There's no use drawing it out.

She adds a second finger and sets about to finding her rhythm. This, she learned how to do herself, locked up in her room at the council flat to keep out of her parents' way and the inside of her skin blooming roses of heat that it took her a while to understand.

Her fantasies have always been nameless. Have always been shapeless, almost. Just someone touching her instead of her touching herself, just someone holding her gently like in that dream by the lake. Just someone, anyone, to be with.

This time, though, it's Ben Solo she's imagining. She remembers that hard, unyielding body meeting the back of hers not even an hour ago. Pure muscle. He would be pure muscle— he has to be, given how his shirt buttons strain against his chest. She would sit on his lap and feel so small and surrounded and safe and he would pick her up by the waist like she weighed nothing, then drop her down on his—

Rey blushes and shivers, her eyes fluttering shut as her thumb curls into her palm, the knuckle pressing against her clit. Her spine arches and her free hand frantically rucks her shirt up over her breasts, fingers fumbling with her nipples in a graceless, unthinking bid for more stimulation. He would be big down there, too. It would be a very tight fit, but she'd take all of it, and he would be hot and hard and thick inside her as he pants harshly in her ear.

Very good, Miss Niima.

She already knows what he'd sound like saying this. He'd told her earlier. She doesn't have to imagine it at all. She's quick on her feet and she's precise and she's deserving. She's a good girl. She can be such a good girl for him.

Rey moans. Her fingers work faster. She's so close.

She pictures his strong forearms encircling her slight frame while he fucks her. Would he be gentle or rough? She thinks that she might like it a little rough. She thinks that his brown eyes might light up when she shows him that she can take it, she thinks that the ghost of a slight smile might soften the line of his mouth the way it had during their duel when he'd seen what she was capable of. Her questing fingers graze that sensitive spot inside her that she only ever manages to find by accident sometimes and stars begin to explode in the darkness behind her closed lids.

She's sweating. Her wrist aches. Her nipples are sore from being pinched and tugged at. But she's almost there and she deserves this. Professor Solo had told her so. She's deserving. Good girls deserve to come.

Come for me, Miss Niima.

Rey's so caught up in her fantasy that she practically hears him say it. As if he's there in the room with her.

"Yes, sir," she whimpers out loud.

And her orgasm hits her like a tidal wave.

She gasps as the world shatters into a million pieces, her hips spasming against her hand. She writhes in obeisance to the bright, white-hot pleasure that rolls all over her body. She soaks her underwear through.

She thinks about Ben Solo kissing her neck as she slumps against him, all worn out and thoroughly used. So good, he would murmur. Such a good girl. So pretty when you come.

Rey falls back against the mattress, her breathing slow and ragged like she's run a mile. The aftermath of such an intense physical experience guts her like it always does. She needs to be held. She needs someone to say they love her.

But there isn't anyone she can turn to for that sort of thing. That's why she's alone in her dorm, why she'd hurriedly rubbed one out to a weird daydream about her bloody professor before her roommates come back.

She winces as she slips her fingers out, wiping them dry on the sheets. She'll have to cast some cleansing charms. Wash herself, then change into a fresh pair of knickers. But first she takes some time to turn onto her side, burying her face in the pillow as she sniffles into it, a few tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

I'm so lonely, Rey thinks. Her mind is no longer racing. It's oddly calm, and bleak. So, so lonely.

✨✨✨

The end of October draws near, bringing with it the chill and the damp. The Gryffindor team throws itself into Quidditch practice with renewed fervor. The homework and the quizzes pile up. The pumpkins outside Chewie's hut grow and grow to impossible sizes as he tends them in preparation for the annual Halloween feast. The students speculate about the erkling infestation in the Forbidden Forest.

Professor Solo is polite, yet distant. He no longer duels in class— he'd paired Rey up with Seff Hellin once the latter recovered from the mumblemumps and he now sticks to simply observing the seventh years, walking around deflecting stray spells and doling out critique while he's at it.

By the time the thirty-first of October rolls around, Rey's masturbated while thinking about him four more times.

It's getting to be a problem. She can hardly look at him in class anymore. Which seems to suit him just fine, because he apparently has no problem only barely acknowledging her existence.

Halloween this year falls on a Thursday. Chewie dismisses his Care of Magical Creatures class early so that he can start lugging the pumpkins up to the castle for the feast.

"We've got a couple of hours to kill before dinner— want to explore the Room of Hidden Things some more?" Finn asks Rey as they wait for Rose to pack up her things and join them by the fence.

Rey's about to say yes— it does sound like fun— but right at that moment Rose skips over and Finn immediately takes his girlfriend's book bag for her, slinging it over his own shoulder.

It's such a simple thing that Rey has watched him do dozens of times before, but today, for some reason, it stabs at her heart.

"You lot go on ahead," she says. "I think I might take a quick walk before heading up for a nap."

"All right, see you at the feast, then," Rose says amiably. Her dark eyes twinkle. "Maybe you'll meet a tall, dark, brooding figure coming up out of the fog."

"You never should have let her watch those Muggle movies at your house the summer before sixth year," Rey grumbles to Finn. "She's obsessed."

"Oi, you were the one who put on Pride and Prejudice, not me," Finn retorts with a laugh.

Rey snorts and waves Finn and Rose off, turning away before she can see them hold hands. It is quite a bit foggy this afternoon, the sky overcast, and she performs a warming charm on herself to keep out the worst of the cold as she skirts around the borders of the Forbidden Forest, its shadowy tangle of trees wreathed silver at the edges by curls of smoke-like mist.

She pauses to take stock of the eerie scene, thinking about the erklings lurking deep within the branches. She wonders if she'll hear them sing again. Most of the student populace have taken to avoiding going near the woods and the more paranoid ones wear ear plugs when they're out on the grounds, but, at eighteen, Rey's no longer considered a child under magical law. She should be immune.

Theoretically.

She decides to start moving away, just in case.

Before she can take so much as a single step, though, something furry brushes against her leg.

Rey starts. It's automatic, how she kicks the thing away from her before she can see what it is.

An outraged yowl pierces the air, more annoying than nails scraping on a chalkboard. A pair of yellow eyes glare at her through the fog.

"Oh, bother— you were the one getting underfoot," Rey snaps at Unkar Plutt's cat.

Mr. Pancakes hisses at her.

"Shoo!"

The obese feline yowls again and then— to Rey's complete disbelief— he scampers off into the woods, his broad, fluffy tail the last she sees of him as he's swallowed up by the undergrowth.

Oh, bother.

No matter how much she hates this stupid cat, Rey decides that she cannot in good conscience allow him to get eaten by erklings or hippogriffs or giant spiders— especially since it would be kind of her fault, because she'd kicked him and shooed him away.

Not to mention that Plutt would take it out on the students if his cat goes missing.

She'll be quick about it. Mr. Pancakes can't have gotten very far and he's too fat to climb up a tree. She'll just dart in and either stun or immobilize him and bring him back to the castle with no one the wiser.

Her mind made up, Rey gives chase. The mists part before her as she vanishes into the Forbidden Forest.