15. Chapter 15

Potions isn't Rey's favorite class by a long shot. The subject itself is interesting, but listening to Hux drone on and on had always been akin to fighting the effects of a mild sleeping draught while at the same time listening to nails grate on a chalkboard.

Today, it's so much worse.

Because she's not wearing any underwear.

And she can't stop thinking about why she's not wearing any underwear.

Rey is crushing a bezoar into fine powder with mortar and pestle. Finn is beside her and he's working far more efficiently than she is, due to the fact that her hands are shaking and she's— well, she's squirming. Every time her bare thighs brush together she's reminded of her little problem. And every time her mind wanders— which doesn't take a lot of effort considering how mechanical her task is— she thinks about Professor Solo eating her out on his desk after class, and a trickle of arousal drips out with nothing to catch it but her bare skin.

She feels so exposed. So dirty. And that makes her even wetter.

Something's wrong with her. She really isn't like the other girls.

She's a pervert.

"What's going on with you?" Finn hisses.

"Nothing," Rey hisses back far too quickly. "What's going on with you?"

"No talking," snaps Professor Hux. It's a common enough refrain on his part as he paces from one end of the dungeon to the other, hands folded behind his back, but what's not so common is the way he stops at Rey's table to give her a hard stare.

"Miss Niima," he says coldly, "your face is as red as one of those infernal Muggle stoplights. Are you unwell?"

"No, sir," Rey mumbles, giving all her attention to her half-crushed bezoar until Hux finally moves on.

With no idea that one of his students is a stiff breeze away from causing a scandal.

This is so, so wrong.

She's going to kill Ben Solo.

But you like it, whispers her treacherous inner voice. You like no one except for him knowing what's under your skirt— or, rather, what's not under it. You like keeping secrets. You like your friends and classmates not having any idea of the things you dare to do.

God damn it, she's horny again.

She really will make Solo pay for this.

Rey all but weeps in relief when Hux dismisses the seventh years an hour later. She's high-key entertaining the notion of rubbing one out in the nearest bathroom, but then Rose is grabbing her arm as they file out of the dungeons while Finn tosses them a wave as he races off to his next class.

It's only then that Rey remembers Rose has something for her.

"I wrote Mum and Dad about the ball," Rose announces after they've found a quiet spot where they can talk. "They said you ought to have something nice to wear, so they sent this over." She roots around in her book bag; judging by the cacophony that emanates from within, some kind of expansion charm has been cast to make the bag larger on the inside. It's not long before she's pulling out a ripple of gauzy midnight blue fabric, studded with tiny silver stars that glimmer in the pale December light.

"Ta-dah!" Rose holds out the dress with a flourish. A herd of fourth years gasp admiringly as they walk past, then hurry away once Rose shoots them the typical upperclassman get lost look. "This is Paige's old gown that she wore to her graduation ceremony," she tells Rey. "The two of you have similar measurements, I believe, but we can alter it."

"Rose—" The protest had been rising up Rey's throat from the very first moment she laid eyes on the beautiful gown. "I can't—"

"Sure, you can," Rose insists. "Listen, I know this ball's not your thing, but it's our last year and, I don't know, it might be fun? I shan't force you to go but, in case you decide to, at least you've got your outfit all sorted, yeah?"

Rey gives up. Rose looks so happy to be able to do this for her. And she won't deny that there's a lump in her throat from how much she's overflowing with love for the Ticos in this moment.

To stop herself from bursting into tears on the spot, Rey inspects the garment. Skepticism soon dawns on her face. "Rose, it's missing a panel in the back and in the front."

"That's what we call fashion, Rey," the other girl huffs, thrusting the dress into Rey's arms.

✨✨✨

Rey walks Rose down to the latter's Herbology class. While structurally similar to the other Hogwarts greenhouses, the one that the seventh years use contains a variety of foliage that all look snarly and spiky from the outside— Rey's never gone in, it's strictly off-limits to those without the proper clearance. Through the glass, though, she can see the danger signs that are prominently displayed amidst almost every clustered-together species of plant. Large areas of the otherwise transparent building are bathed in magical darkness; Rose had told her once that it's for the flowers that bloom only in the total absence of light. Most of which are poisonous.

The truth is, Rey can't help a sliver of mild alarm from coursing through her system every time Rose vanishes into the leafy depths of that place. By their sixth year, it had become quite obvious that advanced Herbology is no joke. Students can't proceed to the N.E.W.T. level class without a special waiver signed by their parents or their legal guardians.

"See you later," Rey tells Rose. "Don't die."

"Nothing to worry about, we're just handling man-eaters today," Rose says in breezy tones as she enters the greenhouse. "They're awfully predictable."

Sighing, Rey heads back to the welcome warmth of the castle. She only has the two classes— Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions— on Fridays. A schedule that she'd liked at the beginning of term because it allowed her to get more schoolwork done so she'd have some semblance of a weekend, but on this particular afternoon she already knows she won't be able to concentrate on runes or spellcasting or essays or equations. It's going to be an unbearably long stretch of empty hours until dinner time and then lights out, when she can sneak away to meet Professor Solo at the Room of Requirement.

The prospect of seeing him— of being alone with him for hours in a space no one can intrude upon— sparks a flurry of excitement in the pit of her stomach. It is echoed in the bare wetness between her legs.

Well— maybe she does know a way to pass the time.

Unfortunately, Jannah has a free afternoon as well, and it's too cold to while away the hours on the grounds as she usually does. Thus, when Rey eagerly barrels into the dorm room, she stops short at the sight of Jannah idly sketching out Quidditch formations on the floor with colored chalk.

"Ah, Niima, there you are," Jannah says. "There's a couple of new strategies I was picturing that I wanted to run by you—"

"Oh— I can't." Rey starts backing out of the room. "I have— a thing. I must go... bye..."

Jannah blinks, utterly mystified. "What'd you come in for, then?"

"I don't know," Rey tells her with quiet dignity, before hightailing it out of the dorms.

Bugger. She has no choice but to find a supply closet. She knows there's one near the Clock Tower.

"Rey!" a male voice calls out just as she's about to make the turn into that particular corridor.

"Bugger." This time she says it aloud, under her breath. She spins on her heel to see Seff Hellin running up to her while his friends hang back with grins that can be described as enigmatic, for some reason.

"Hullo," Seff says, a little breathlessly, his cheeks pink. "Have you got a minute? There's something I want to ask..."

Rey really cannot discuss homework right now, with her body all tensed up at the promise of relief. Her head is swimming. She's so horny she can barely see straight.

"I'm in a hurry," she tells Seff. "I'm— I have a thing."

"Oh, all right." He visibly deflates. "Some other time, then."

"Yes, brilliant," she says, already hurrying away.

The hallway leading to the Clock Tower is mercifully deserted, since there are no classrooms in this area of the castle. Rey all but dives into the supply closet, muttering a quick "Colloportus" to seal the door after she's slammed it shut behind her.

She leans against the aforementioned door and doesn't venture in any further. It's too dark for her to be able to see where she's going and the last thing she needs is to get into a wrestling match with buckets and mops and who knows what else the house-elves fill the supply closets with. She tucks her wand into the pocket of her robes and has enough presence of mind to then clap her hand over her mouth, muffling her gasp as her other hand disappears underneath her skirt.

Just a couple of experimental strokes, and the tips of her fingers are already drenched. She's so wet. Fuck. She's got half a mind to never let Solo steal her knickers again, if this is what it brings her to.

It's too much.

But getting off quickly had always been Rey's area of expertise, even before she'd met him. With practiced motions, she slides two fingers inside herself— inside her pretty little pussy, as Solo had called it. So pink and soft. She shudders. What a filthy man, with a filthy tongue that had done filthy things.

Rey moans into her palm as her thumb finds her clit. The clit that her teacher had sucked on until she came, crying. She tries to mimic what he'd done in his office. She falls into the rhythm he'd set, gently rubbing while her fingers crook against her most sensitive places. It feels delightful, but maddeningly so because it's not delightful enough. Her fingers are small compared to his— now that she knows what it's like to be stretched out, she craves it.

Biting down on her lower lip, Rey adds a third finger. Better. Much easier to imagine that it's his hand, that his voice is murmuring in her ear and guiding her to her peak. Doing it standing up is a bit weird at first, but soon her hips are rolling down to match the upward flicks of her wrist, chasing the pleasure. Quick learner, aren't you, Solo had said. Eager little thing, aren't you.

She wonders what he'll do if she tells him she'd masturbated in a supply closet. Maybe he'll call her a dirty girl again. Her toes curl at the thought of it.

She wonders what he'll do to her tonight. If he'll lick her cunt again.

If he'll fuck her.

Merlin, would he even fit? From what she'd seen of him, he'd been so huge...

She'll take it, Rey decides. If she and Solo go all the way tonight, she'll show him that she can take it all. She'll be good for him, she'll be his dirty girl, she'll come on his cock—

She orgasms with a muffled cry, her teeth digging into the mound of her palm. Her spine arching off the closet door. Three fingers crammed inside herself, thumb moving in haphazard circles under her skirt. Her eyes fluttering in the dark as wetness drips down her thighs in much-needed release.

When it's over, Rey pulls out her fingers, wincing as they scrape against her overly sensitized walls. She feels... sordid. Embarrassed. Guilty.

But also blissfully relieved that she'd taken the edge off.

Now she can act like a completely normal person until she sees him again.

✨✨✨

Rey had agreed to meet Professor Solo at eleven in the evening. It's a stroke of luck that Tallie and Jannah fall asleep earlier than usual, but at half past ten Jess still hasn't come back from her rounds. Rey waits fifteen more minutes before deciding— screw it. Jess may be a prefect but she usually leaves well enough alone if no blatant rule-breaking is committed in plain sight. She's also the type to mind her own business, so she probably won't ask Rey why she hadn't been in the common room or the dorm when she returned.

It's not like no one's ever broken curfew before— including Jess herself, in earlier years.

Buoyed by all of this internal justification, Rey dons the invisibility cloak and steals out of the portrait hole. Every inch of her is buzzing with excitement. The thrill of it. All the way up the torch-lit staircases and shadowy corridors, her steps are lighter than air.

On the sixth floor of the castle, she encounters Jess, who is clearly on her way back to Gryffindor Tower, but not alone— Kaydel Ko Connix, the Slytherin Chaser who's also a prefect, is with her. They're conversing in hushed tones and holding hands.

Although unseen and at some distance across from them, Rey still instinctively flattens herself against the wall as Jess and Kaydel pass by. They're speaking too quietly for Rey to make anything out, but Jess is all... smiley and giddy-looking, while Kaydel is uncharacteristically relaxed.

Blimey, Rey thinks. First Doran Sarkin-Tainer and Korr Sella, and now Jess and Kaydel. Did all her housemates have a Slytherin fetish? Shaking her head, she tears off again, the low burble of the two prefects' voices fading away as she turns the corner and ascends one more flight of stairs.

She spots Professor Solo soon enough. He'd followed the directions she'd spouted before leaving his classroom and he's now squinting up at the troll tapestry with an expression of deepest bewilderment, still wearing his gray suit from earlier. As she approaches, Rey's struck by the way the torchlight flickers over his marble-carved profile, creating strange shadows on the planes and hollows of his face.

She's so nervous that she bleats out a quavery "Hi" before she can think better of it.

And she swears to Merlin that Solo jumps a foot in the air.

And then he whirls in her general direction, blackthorn wand aimed at an invisible attacker.

"It's me," she hastens to tell him before he ends up accidentally hexing her nose off or something.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters. He slips the wand back into the inner lining of his suit jacket. "That cloak's a menace."

Rey makes a face at him before realizing he can't see her. She doesn't want to remove the cloak just yet; although there are no portraits in this hallway that can tell on them, someone could come around the bend at any moment. Plutt, or the house-elves, or one of the castle ghosts. It's not a risk she's willing to take.

So she takes his hand instead.

Or— to be more accurate— she almost does, but she chickens out at the last possible second and her fingers close around his wrist. He jerks at this sudden contact and she doesn't blame him one bit, it's not every day that the seemingly empty air grabs hold of you. She tugs him forward, and if there is a small and secret part of her that wistfully thinks about Jess and Kaydel lacing their fingers together as they walk— well, she quashes it right away.

"Wait here," Rey tells Solo once they're standing in front of the blank wall. She lets go of his wrist and paces back and forth, thinking hard. We need to hide, we need the Room of Hidden Things, and no one else can come in—

The door materializes. She turns to Solo in triumph, but he's not looking at it. Instead, he's staring down at his wrist, his expression disbelieving and sort of... despondent? No, that can't be right—

The blood in Rey's veins turns to ice. Is he offended that she'd hauled him around? In hindsight, it had been rather forward of her.

She doesn't know the rules for this.

"Do you still want to go in?" she asks him quietly.

His dark eyes snap up in the direction of the sound of her voice. She realizes there's already a part of her that's bracing for him to say no. She's too awkward. Too grabby. According to her parents, she's not even much to look at. Waste of space.

Hardly the kind of girl worth risking a career and a reputation for.

"Yes," Solo says. He licks his lips in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture; her invisible gaze tracks the sweep of his tongue over the swell of a plush bottom lip. "Yes," he says again. "Let's go."

Heart pounding, hardly daring to believe it, Rey pushes open the door to the Room of Requirement. "After you."

Slowly, he steps over the threshold. She casts one last look back at the dimly-lit, empty hallway, and then she follows him inside.