11. Chapter 11

There are seven hundred known fouls in Quidditch. Professor Dameron had once accused Rey of making it her personal mission in life to commit all of them.

This had hardly been fair. There have always been extenuating circumstances— for example, in third year, Rey had only punched that Slytherin Chaser out of the sky because he'd called her a Mudblood. Dameron had banned that Chaser from playing on the Hogwarts pitch ever again, but he'd still also called foul because, well, Rey had punched someone out of the sky.

In the present time, the extenuating circumstance is that she can't stop scanning the crowd for Professor Solo. It's not like she wants to jeopardize Gryffindor's chances at winning the Quidditch Cup, but— oh, her traitorous heart. She's so distracted that she's barely looking where she's going, which results in her crashing into Kaydel Ko Connix hard enough to knock the other girl off of her broom.

It's Jess who saves Kaydel, hauling her onto her own broomstick before she can hit the ground as Rey shouts a hasty apology from up on high.

"Damn." Elliver Ollim is laughing. "Niima won't rest until she's murdered every single one of Slytherin's Chasers."

"It was an accident," Rey protests for all the good it will do; to the other players and the spectators, it would have definitely looked like she'd done it on purpose.

Sure enough, an indignant Dameron blows his whistle and fouls Rey for blatching— flying with the intent to collide. A disgruntled, vengeful Kaydel scores the penalty, and just like that Slytherin's in the lead.

Rey grits her teeth. She and her teammates have worked hard to defend their championship title these past several years— she can't let it all go to waste just because the teacher she has a crush on didn't come to the match. It takes a lot of willpower, but she's eventually able to tear her eyes away from the stands, pushing Professor Solo out of her mind as she focuses on avoiding Bludgers and looking for the Snitch.

Gryffindor rallies under Jannah's capable leadership. The team captain and Keeper is in fine form as always, blocking several would-be goals in quick succession— and with such ferocity that it prompts Dameron to finally yell out his usual warning for her. "A Quaffle is not a Bludger, Miss Ackie!"

The two houses are tied when Rey spots a telltale glimmer of gold far below. The other team's Seeker, Rosh Penin, immediately plunges into a dive, and Rey has no choice but to do the same.

So much for Gryffindor's big lead. If Penin gets his hands on the Snitch now, it'll be game over and Slytherin will have won.

The ground rushes up to meet her. The wind whips at her face. She leans forward, building speed until she and Penin are neck and neck. The crowd is going wild, a distant roar in her ears.

The Golden Snitch's tiny wings flutter over the grass.

Penin chickens out when they're six feet from the ground, pulling up on his broom to avoid what would be a grievous, possibly even fatal crash.

Rey doesn't.

People are screaming now. Someone— Jess, she thinks— calls out to her that it's not worth it.

I can do this, Rey thinks, her eyes narrowing in concentration, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. I just have to time it right...

Less than a foot from the ground, she swerves hard to the left, so low that the grass brushes against her arm as it shoots out.

Her fingers closing around the Snitch.

At first, there's only a stunned, collective silence. It's not until Rey has skidded to a halt, holding the Snitch up in triumph, that the stadium explodes into a deafening medley of raucous cheers and despairing groans.

Rey's smile is not as wide as it has been the other times she's won a match for Gryffindor. Her victory feels oddly incomplete and hollow.

Her teammates swoop down upon her in a flurry of hugs and high-fives. The Golden Snitch's wings beat in vain against the curl of her fingers. Her eyes dart to the crowd again even though she already knows she won't find him there.

✨✨✨

After the match, Rey slips away as everyone is heading back inside the castle. There's going to be the customary party in the Gryffindor common room but she doesn't think she can bear to attend. Doesn't think she can drink butterbeer and laugh and play the part of conquering hero with the rest of her teammates and act like everything's okay.

Because everything's not okay.

She'd theorized that it had been like a dam breaking for Professor Solo when he was no longer suppressed by magic. Rey's not an Occlumens, but so much has happened over the last three days and she hasn't been able to process any of it— and now it's all crashing through her, catalyzed by the punch to the gut that is Solo not coming to her game.

One of the few things that she's proud of is her skill at Quidditch, and he hadn't even been there to see.

Rey's dam breaks. She wanders the grounds aimlessly, blinking away tears every few minutes. Her chest hurts, it feels like it's going to be ripped apart at any moment by a mess of conflicting emotions. Her thoughts are both storm and wildfire.

Her first kiss— her first orgasm with someone else— it had been with her teacher.

And he was a former Dark wizard. Coerced into being one.

And he'd told her to stay away from him.

And he hadn't come to her game.

In truth, Rey feels kind of stupid crying about that last bit. Maybe she really is just a kid.

She doesn't mean for her steps to take her to Greenhouse Three, but it's where she ends up in her desperate bid to keep moving until she calms down. The site of many a Herbology class, Greenhouse Three is a massive structure consisting of transparent crystalline panels set into a wooden frame, with dragon statues running along its peaked roof. Visible from the outside is a profusion of flowers, trees, shrubs, and vines occupying most of the interior space.

Rey's heart catches in her throat when she sees a tall, broad, and familiar figure through the glass.

She shouldn't... She should just keep walking. Perhaps even go back to the castle and join her friends. There's nothing for her here except all that is bad and forbidden.

She bursts into the greenhouse, anyway.

The doors open with a clang and Rey just as gracelessly kicks them shut behind her. Solo is over by the potted mandrakes, a cautious distance away from the spiky, toothsome Venomous Tentacula in the corner, which he'd been eying with his usual show of intense academic fascination. Now that she's arrived on the scene, though, his gaze darts to her in surprise.

Rey's still in Quidditch gear, sweat-soaked and grass-stained, her hair a rumpled bird's nest. It's a weekend so Solo's dressed in more casual attire— a sweater and dark jeans— but his hair is as immaculate as usual, and he looks as fresh as though he'd just stepped out of the shower.

Feeling more and more like a gremlin with every second that ticks by, Rey gradually closes the distance between her and Solo, approaching him beneath a ceiling hung with giant, umbrella-shaped blossoms oozing honey-sweet perfume. The air inside the greenhouse is humid, containing a whiff of damp earth and fertilizer, and occasionally flickering with the glossy wings of tiny insects in flight.

Solo watches her draw near with an expression that for some reason brings to Rey's mind a caged animal, before it is slowly shuttered away behind blankness.

She panics— she can't let him put his mask back on. Not yet. "You didn't come to the match," she blurts out.

He arches a brow. "I didn't know it was required." His tone is polite but so, so distant.

"It's— it's not required, but..." She trails off as he looks away.

If she weren't utterly exhausted, Rey thinks that this might've made her furious. But, as it is, she's all wrung out. In this state, she seizes the simple truths. Clings to them like they're all she knows.

"I don't want a good man." Her voice catches on a strangled sob, there in the hazy, emerald-tinted light. "I want a man who can love somebody hard enough to break the Imperius Curse."

Solo blinks, and there it is, an outpouring of loneliness and vulnerability shining through the cracks in the walls he's built around himself, and that's all the impetus Rey needs to sew up the last of the space between them, her hands fisting into his sweater to tug him down as she surges onto the tips of her toes, pressing her lips to his in a clumsy, desperate kiss.

She realizes it's the wrong move to make right from the moment she makes it. Anyone could look into the greenhouse and see them— Eurydice Niima snogging Professor Solo amidst the mandrakes. It is the worst possible situation to be in for a man who has already almost lost everything.

He recoils. She stares at him through blurry eyes, her mouth still pursed, her world shattering. He looks... crazed, for lack of a better word, his dark eyes glittering fiercely. In this moment it's truly a coin toss whether he'll bring up his hand to wipe her kiss from his lips on the back of it— or reach for her again.

But he does neither. Instead, he simply tells her, "We can't."

And he leaves, careful not to brush past her as he walks by. And she is left, stewing in humiliation and defeat.

✨✨✨

"Are you all right?"

Rey looks up from the Arithmancy worksheets that she's spread on the floor of the Room of Hidden Things. Rose is curled up on the battered old couch with her Herbology textbook, but she's studying Rey, Flesh-Eating Trees of the World forgotten on her lap.

It's Sunday afternoon. Finn's off with his gobstones clubmates, doing... whatever it was the Hogwarts Gobstones Club did, so it's just the two girls trying to get a headstart on the upcoming school week.

"I'm fine," Rey lies.

"It's just that..." Rose hesitates. "You haven't seemed like yourself lately."

"It's the stress. I wasn't prepared for how hectic seventh year would be." At least this contains an element of truth.

Rose abruptly slams her book shut and sits up straight. There's a nervous but determined look in her eye, the look of someone about to broach a less than palatable subject, and Rey tenses. Shit, she knows, Rose knows—

"It's not me and Finn, is it?" the other girl asks, with that same tendency to blurt out what's been pent up, with that same bluntness that had led her and Rey to gravitate to each other like two socially awkward ducks in a pond full of extroverts. "You don't hang out with us as much anymore and I've been so worried that we're making you uncomfortable. I knew things would change when he asked me out, but, please, Rey, if there's any way I can fix it— I love Finn but I love you, too—"

"Rose. Wait." Rey holds up a hand. Relief and guilt are flooding through her in equal measure; relief because her secret is safe, after all, and guilt because Rose isn't entirely off-base. "You and Finn— it's taken some getting used to, but I'm happy for you both. I really am. I'm so sorry if there've been times when I made it seem otherwise. When I don't hang out, it's so you can be alone for— for all that couple stuff." Rey offers as reassuring a smile as she can muster. "There's no need to worry about me, I promise."

"I can't help worrying, Rey," Rose frets. "You're always so— so strong, y'know, and I admire you for that, but I don't think you realize that you don't have to be. Even if it's just for a little while, you can lean on other people— especially on me." It's Rose's turn to flash a smile that is more genuinely reassuring than whatever Rey had attempted. "If you want to talk about anything, I'm here."

Rose means well, but Rey can't talk to anyone else about Professor Solo. It's what makes her situation even more frustrating. Still, she wastes no time in sitting beside the other girl on the couch and giving her a hug. It had been Finn who'd taught Rey how to hug, back in first year— how to draw comfort and strength from physical touch, from togetherness.

Screw Ben Solo. She has her friends.

"Love you, too," Rey sniffles into Rose's hair. "But you're making me cry. Bloody Hufflepuff."

Rose giggles, and everything's all right again for a while.

✨✨✨

Life goes on, much to Rey's bemusement. It feels like it shouldn't, but it does. In a way, she's grateful for the mountains of homework heaped upon her and her classmates— it means that she has scant opportunity to wallow.

She doesn't look at Professor Solo in class, busying herself with taking the neatest, most meticulously detailed notes of her academic career. She stays far away from him during practical, always turning away whenever there's the slightest chance that their eyes might meet.

Most of November passes like this. Dreary, gray, and sane. After Study of Ancient Runes one day, Seff Hellin asks her if she'd like to have lunch in the courtyard while they go over Yoda's lecture in preparation for the quiz next week.

Rey accepts. They grab sandwiches, crisps, and tiny cups of trifle from their respective house tables and head outdoors, where they sit on a bench beneath an oak tree and compare notes as they eat. They're amiably arguing over whether ehwaz means "partnership" or "defense" when a shadow falls over Rey's chicken scratch handwriting and Seff sits up a little bit straighter.

"Afternoon, sir," he says politely.

Rey knows who it is. Feels the electric heat of dark eyes rake down the back of her neck even before she hears the rumbled greeting emanate from somewhere behind her and over her.

"Mr. Hellin. Miss Niima."

She wills herself not to turn around. Up until now, she's been doing a relatively good job of pretending that Solo doesn't exist, considering that she has to see him in class once a week. But she knows that if she looks back now— if she sees him gazing down at her against the gray and red and gold of autumn— she will break. The scent of oakmoss and sandalwood and copper envelops her senses like a fugue. Her spine is riddled with the static of his nearness.

She doesn't breathe again until his scent fades away and Seff relaxes.

"Dour sort of fellow, isn't he?" muses the Ravenclaw boy. "His mum's the MACUSA president, did you know?"

"Yeah," Rey forces out. "Yeah, I did."

"Wonder why he decided to move to Britain."

"Our lovely weather, of course."

Seff bursts out laughing. It's not very often that people do that in response to her quips, and it's so warm and joyous that Rey's lips can't help but twitch in a slight smile before she steers the conversation back to Ancient Runes.

On Friday morning later that same week, Seff comes up to her as the seventh years file into the D.A.D.A. classroom.

"Rey— d'you want to sit together?"

A hush falls over the Gryffindor contingent. It seems like every Ravenclaw within the vicinity is staring, too.

"Um... oww!" Rey yelps, because Tallisan Lintra has very deliberately stepped on her toes.

"Eurydice would love to sit with you," Tallie tells Seff, and she and Jess all but bodily haul Rey into the empty chair beside Seff's usual spot. The blond boy trails after them and takes his seat, his face as red as a tomato.

Rey's face might be a little on the pink side as well. She looks around for help, but Finn and Rose— now on the opposite end of the classroom— merely grin and wave. Pamich Nerro Goode, who's been Seff's seatmate since the beginning of term, has taken Rey's place beside Korr Sella.

Professor Solo emerges from his office a few minutes later, his footsteps heavy on the spiral staircase. Since this is the first time he's made his entrance after everyone's already settled down, Rey gets the proper look at him that she hasn't since that day in the greenhouse; there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair is a little less immaculately groomed.

"Professor Solo looks stressed again," whispers one of the nearby Ravenclaws.

"He would be, after grading your essay," another retorts.

Solo slowly begins to unpack his bag at the teacher's desk. Today, for some reason, Rey's not as quick to avert her eyes, reluctantly concerned by his pallid appearance. She wonders if something's happened back in America— if his father has taken a turn for the worse, or—

He looks up. Their gazes collide.

Solo's already blank expression proves to be capable of somehow shutting down even further. "Miss Niima, please return to your seat." His tone is as cold as ice.

There's a collective groan from Tallie and Jess and some of Seff's housemates, and the hollow beneath Solo's right eye twitches. "There is a prescribed seating arrangement that you yourselves determined at the start of term," he snaps. "I will have order in my classroom. Now, Miss Niima."

Rey's more than a little offended. With the exception of Potions class, they've always been free to sit wherever they please. She'd had no idea that Solo was such a Hux.

And it's more scrutiny, scrutiny that she doesn't want, the whole class looking at her as she and Pamich quietly exchange seats, her cheeks flaming, Finn and Rose shooting her sympathetic glances over their shoulders.

"If you're all done playing around, let us return to your education," Solo bites out with one last scornful look at Rey, and she is possessed by the absolute certainty that she's going to end up hexing him before the school year is over.

Solo continues to be in a bad mood all throughout the class. An hour in, when Finn writes something down on a scrap of parchment and surreptitiously hands it to Rose, Solo snatches it from his grasp and tosses it onto the teacher's desk without so much as a pause in his lecture. He shoves this scrap of parchment into his bag with the rest of his things at the end of first period, then storms back up to his office like an angry, overly large thundercloud.

"Rey," Finn whimpers as the seventh years leave the room. "Rey, what am I going to do? That note..." He gulps, as if he's about to vomit.

Rey frowns in confusion. "It's not the first time you've been caught passing notes and, anyway, at least he didn't give you detention like Mothma does—"

"You don't understand," Finn hisses, lowering his voice even further. "There was some pretty explicit stuff on there—"

"Finn!" Rey and Rose chorus, the latter sounding like she wants to jump off a cliff from sheer mortification.

"I was bored, okay?" Finn wrings his hands. "It's charmed to look like a drawing, but the spell will wear off at the end of the day and if he reads it then he's going to see that I think Rose is really good at—"

"Please don't finish that sentence," Rey interrupts at the same time that Rose wails, "I'll never be able to look Professor Solo in the eye ever again! And if he tells the other teachers— Finn, you're going to get us expelled—"

"All right, both of you, calm down," Rey says. "No one's getting expelled." She quickly puts together a plan. "The fourth years have Defense Against the Dark Arts later in the afternoon, don't they? That's my free period after Potions, so I can sneak up the stairs while he's lecturing and erase the hidden message on the note."

"How are you going to do all of that without anyone seeing..." Finn's face lights up. "Oh! Right. The invisibility cloak."

"Right." Rey nods at him. If she's being honest, there's a part of her that's looking forward to getting back at Professor Solo in this manner, even if he'll never know about it. "Also, I'll have to cancel the charm before I can erase the note, which means I'm going to have to read what you wrote with my own eyes."

"You're a good friend, Rey," Finn solemnly declares while Rose nods in fervent agreement.

✨✨✨

The first stage of the plan doesn't go as well as Rey had hoped. She gets caught on one of the temperamental moving staircases and then another, which means she ends up all the way across the castle from the Serpentine Corridor and has to double back. She hadn't thought to already don the cloak, so Professor Erso-Andor catches sight of her and pulls her into the Charms classroom along with a couple of nearby sixth years to help round up some pixies that Mr. Pancakes had freed from their cage so he could hunt them.

It's not like Rey can refuse, particularly when it's a teacher whom she respects asking for assistance, but she does fantasize about Transfiguring Mr. Pancakes into a fur coat while she and Jyn and the other students hurl Freezing Charms at the rioting pixies.

By the time Rey slips into the D.A.D.A. classroom, Professor Solo is almost done with his lecture. He and the fourth years are oblivious as Rey scurries past them and up the stairs to his office, although his deep voice carries and still sends shivers down her spine as she fiddles with the door that is locked because— of course it's locked.

A simple, nonverbal Alohomora doesn't work. Rey tries a few more variants, but it would seem that there's an anti-unlocking enchantment on the door.

Roughly five minutes have gone by before she thinks to cast Offero, a counter-spell designed to return the target to its previous state.

The door swings open.

Wow, Rey can't help but congratulate herself as she scurries inside, maybe I'm not an idiot, after all.

Professor Solo's office is sparsely furnished, nearly sterile. A good thing, too, because otherwise Rey's natural curiosity would have gotten the better of her. She really doesn't have time to snoop. Finn's parchment is on the desk, atop a pile of essays that all seem to be practically covered in red-inked corrections and withering remarks, and Rey has to shake her head.

She taps her aspen wand to the drawing of a hippogriff on the note. Finite Incantatem. The charm wears off, Finn's scrawl blossoming across the parchment, and Rey finds out exactly what Finn thinks Rose is really good at, and she contemplates Obliviating herself when all of this is over.

She banishes the message, waiting only until the note has permanently reverted to the hippogriff drawing before she makes a hasty exit.

Her hand is inches away from the knob when the door it's attached to flies open.

Every swear word known to both human and wizardkind runs through her head as she backs away from the door. As Solo closes and locks it behind him.

She's trapped.

Despite being safe underneath the invisibility cloak, Rey hardly dares to take anything but the shallowest of breaths as she pads toward the far wall and leans against it, trying to make herself as small as possible.

Solo sits at his desk, tossing his bag carelessly onto the floor. He then proceeds to do nothing but stare into the distance for several long minutes.

It's hardly the time to be fascinated by his sharply handsome profile— but, then again, it's not like Rey can do much of anything else until he leaves his office. He does look very stressed, she thinks. His features are tense, his pale brow knitted. As she watches, he leans forward with a sigh, placing his elbows on the desk and running frustrated hands through his hair.

Rey's heart begrudgingly goes out to him. It's hard to stay mad when he looks so defeated.

Several more minutes go by before Solo moves again, shifting in his seat. "Fuck it," he mutters, and the American accent does something to Rey, couched as it is in that husky rasp. "I'm going to hell, anyway."

And slowly, methodically, he unbuckles his belt and tugs down the zipper of his pants.

Oh, God. The inside of Rey's chest slams against her ribcage. Oh God oh God oh God—

She whirls to face the wall, affording Solo what privacy she can. She has to sit down on the floor because her knees have turned into jelly. She's pushed into that strange state of mentally blacking out without actually blacking out.

This can't be happening. She can't possibly be here in her professor's office, huddled under an invisibility cloak while he has a nice little afternoon wank.

Behind her, his breath hitches. There is the rustle of clothing being moved aside. The faint slap of skin.

Rey claps a hand over her mouth, staring blindly at the wall. She still has it in her to be mildly surprised that blood hasn't started gushing out of her nose. She is scared and embarrassed and— and curious. Shamefully, disgustingly so.

She wants to turn around. To see if he is as big as she'd imagined. To see what his face looks like when he—

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, biting down into her cupped hand as her thighs press together under her skirt. It's so messed up that she's getting wet because of this— and, somehow, she understands that the fact that it's messed up is making her even wetter.

"Dirty girl," she remembers Professor Solo saying as he nipped at her bare neck. Remembers how his hot mouth had traced the words into her skin. "Dirty, dirty girl."

The pattern of his breathing escalates into something harsh and ragged. He's obviously going faster now. Her teeth sink into the mound of her palm.

"Rey," he whispers hoarsely.

She gasps.

Out loud.

It reverberates through the quiet air like a shockwave.

Solo has the reflexes of a former Auror. Chair legs scrape against the floor as he bolts to his feet, mingling with the grate of a zipper being pulled up.

"Finite Incantatem," he growls.

Nothing happens. There is no concealment spell to lift. Rey cranes her neck to look back at him even as the rest of her remains frozen in place. He's clutching his blackthorn wand in a shaking fist, his belt still unfastened, his shirt untucked, his hair mussed. His eyes narrowed as he surveys the room.

She frantically rifles through escape scenarios in her head, but it's too late. Because of course someone who'd trained as an Auror would be quick to account for every possibility.

"Accio, cloak," he intones.

And, just like that, the invisibility cloak is lifted off of Rey by the Summoning Charm and sent flying into Solo's waiting hand.