章 42: 42. Chapter 42
On Saturday morning, Rey and the other seventh years head outdoors in the June sun to find the Quidditch pitch completely transformed.
Aside from being expanded to thrice its original size, which had already been considerable in the first place, the pitch now sports dozens of tents that have sprouted up overnight on the neatly trimmed grass. They come in various colors and patterns, all signposted with logos of Ministry departments, businesses, sports teams, and the like. Interspersed among them are booths selling food items and souvenirs, courtesy of Honeydukes, Zonko’s, and other Hogsmeade establishments.
A little over half of the expanded pitch is devoid of both tents and booths; instead, it’s been set up to look like a mountainous habitat, a rocky valley bracketed between ledges of sharp granite.
“Ooh, that’s probably where they’ll show the dragon!” Rose gushes, shaking Rey’s arm. “We have to get to Baze’s demonstration early, we need front-row seats—”
“To the giant, carnivorous, fire-breathing lizard?” Finn asks, incredulity written all over his features.
Rose’s head bobs up and down in a series of enthusiastic nods. She’s bouncing on her heels. It’s quite possibly the most animated that Rey’s ever seen her no-nonsense best friend who’s just as introverted as she is, if not even more so.
“Right, then.” Finn rolls his eyes. “Guess I’ll die.”
But he’s returning Rose’s wide smile as he drapes an arm over her shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple. Rey looks away—both to give them privacy and to alleviate the familiar wishful loneliness that stabs at her chest. It’s the same sort of pang that has constantly been sneaking up on her and catching her off-guard ever since Finn and Rose started dating, but it’s so much sharper now.
Because now Rey remembers how it had felt to be touched like that. Even if it had only ever been in secret.
She is powerless to refrain from searching the crowd for Ben, although she tells herself that she shouldn’t. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the immediate vicinity, and she doesn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved.
Granted, there are a lot of people milling around the booths, and the tents are bustling with activity. So perhaps she just hasn’t seen him yet.
To minimize foot traffic and keep the younger students away from the riskier demonstrations, only seventh years are allowed to enter the fairgrounds. An Age Line has been constructed to border the pitch, leaving nary a single gap, the spellwork glowing silvery blue and emanating fine veils of smoke. Rey and her friends had passed through it with no problem; however, she soon spots several fifth years trying to sneak in, no doubt fortified with Aging Potions. She almost calls out to them that it’s not going to work, but decides against it at the last minute—they’re not going to listen to her in the same way that she and Finn and Rose hadn’t listened to Paige Tico, back when Paige was in seventh year and they’d been freshmen.
The fifth years storm the Age Line. They are immediately blasted backwards off of their feet and, once the dust has settled, they’re all sporting long, flowing white beards. They take one look at one another while clutching at their own faces, and then they begin screaming.
Finn, Rey, and Rose collapse into peals of laughter as a stern-faced Mon Mothma appears on the scene and ushers the wailing fifth years off to the hospital wing.
“Our beards were much more luxurious than those.” Rose brushes tears of mirth away from the corners of her eyes. “Clearly, our Aging Potions were better.”
“And just as ineffective,” Rey quips, which sets them all off again.
That sunny morning is spent drifting in and out of the various tents, with lots of snacks in between. It’s fun, and Rey is more or less content. Like her battered heart is being eased by the summer warmth.
There’s a Quidditch tent where Bodhi Rook holds court, signing autographs and answering questions about every single aspect of going pro. A host of scouts for different teams in the British and Irish League are there as well, and to Rey’s very great surprise she finds herself swarmed with invitations to try out after she is revealed to be the Seeker who won the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup for her team by swallowing the Snitch. When Jannah proudly informs the scouts that Rey had also flung herself into the Whomping Willow to protect her broomstick in an earlier match, several of the invitations to try out become concrete offers of a guaranteed spot.
“It’s your dedication, I expect,” Finn tells Rey as they leave the Quidditch tent. “The scouts are probably looking for someone who’ll sacrifice life and limb for the soul of the game. It’s like that in gobstones, too.”
Rey and Rose exchange looks, and then Rose is hugging her boyfriend with all of her might while Rey pats his head fondly as he sputters about how gobstones is a perfectly legitimate sport.
The truth is, Rey doesn’t think that she’ll ever be a professional Quidditch player. She loves the game with every fiber of her being but she suspects that she wouldn’t love it as much if it’s something that she has to do for the rest of her days. In that respect, she’s different from Jannah, who eats, lives, and breathes Quidditch, and who has in fact apparently decided to camp out in Bodhi’s tent the whole day; Rey doesn’t see her anywhere else the entire morning.
But she and Finn and Rose do run into Tallie, Jess, Kaydel, and Seff—at the queue for special-edition Fizzing Whizbees that are in “career fair” flavor, whatever that means.
“We just came from Chirrut Imwe’s tent,” Tallie says in the breathless tone that heralds juicy gossip. “You won’t believe what happened.”
Rey waits patiently, knowing that Tallie will divulge more than enough details in due time. Sure enough, not even a second after the wizard running the Queenbee booth hands Rey the large pink sherbet balls that he’d scooped out of a wooden barrel, Tallie’s speaking again. “So we all know how Korr Sella has forever been making these throwaway remarks that turn out to come true a lot of the time—like, a lot of the time—”
“Remember back in fourth year when she said that Professor Vischera’s fascination with the Dark Arts was going to land him in Azkaban one of these days?” Jess prompts excitedly. “And when it actually happened we all took the piss out of her for cursing him—”
“—but everyone has been thinking that it’s all just coincidence, yeah?” Tallie continues. “Well, Chirrut immediately stopped his lecture when Korr and her friends walked into his tent, he said a true Seer had just entered, he tested Korr out on several Divination methods, crystal balls and tea leaves and tarot cards and such, and finally he proclaimed that she has the Sight! The most potent Sight that he’s ever encountered from someone without formal training!”
“Korr’s parents are not going to be pleased to hear about this,” Kaydel says with a smirk. “They want her in politics.”
As the others discuss Korr Sella’s newly confirmed abilities and what it means for her career path, Rey feels cold all of a sudden. She recalls every single throwaway remark that the Head Girl had made about her and Ben—the ones at the height of the teasing a few months ago, and the one just recently.
Don’t forget Professor Solo, who’s in love with her.
Rey is left reeling. Not only is she on edge waiting for somebody to connect the dots and wonder out loud if Korr had been right about her and Ben all along, but there’s also a singular question flooding through every space in her head—had Korr been right about that one thing in particular, is Ben in—
No. No, that can’t be. Rey fights against the hope that sends its tremulous blossoms rising up in her chest. He isn’t. He’d cared for her, certainly, but not enough to want to stay.
Besides, Divination is hardly an exact science. Ben had been the one who’d said that, to Chewie, in the Entrance Hall, that night at the beginning of the school year. Then again, the centaurs had been right, hadn’t they, they had correctly predicted that ill fortune had been running amuck in the Forbidden Forest—
There’s no use thinking about it, Rey tells herself bleakly. It’s over now.
If Ben had stayed with her, it would have been in the cage that her actions had trapped them in. Sometimes she realizes that and she takes it to heart that it had been her fault. Other times, though, she’s just a mess of rage and confusion and longing.
Fortunately, none of her friends seem to have recalled Korr’s wisecracks regarding Rey and their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. The chatter moves on to other topics and, in a desperate bid for something to distract her and keep her from spiraling, Rey pops a Fizzing Whizbee into her mouth and sucks on it with far more fervor than a sherbet ball warrants.
Career fair flavor, as it turns out, is a bit on the lemony side. It’s obviously a gimmick but Rey’s not complaining, she likes it well enough, and it’s not long before the sweet’s magical effect kicks in and she’s floating several inches off the ground.
The higher vantage point allows her to see more of the pitch. There’s no sign of Ben, although Luke is setting off tiny fireworks and cackling to himself several tents away. And a couple of tents away from Luke is Aleson, who’s leaning against one of the wooden tables that had been laid out among the food stalls that are serving hot meals.
Aleson has his arms crossed in front of his chest and he looks mildly annoyed—either by the festivities or the businesspeople types that have gathered around him, all enthusiastically talking over one another.
Rose levitates beside Rey and follows her line of sight. “The Grays have got a finger in every pie,” she says around the Fizzing Whizbee in her own mouth. “Those suits are probably chatting him up, trying to get his dad to invest, wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the reason they’re here in the first place—oh, bollocks—” A few of the aforementioned suits have spotted Rose as she floats above the crowd and they eagerly make their way over to her, their mercenary eyes glinting with sweet promises of House Tico’s gold—“Finn, Rey, get me out of here—”
It's a bit difficult to run while levitating, but eventually the effects of the Fizzing Whizbees wear off and Finn, Rey, and Rose are scampering over the grass, away from the businesspeople. They duck into the Twilfitt and Tatting’s tent and, for the next several minutes, have to pretend to be interested in the latest robe styles and materials. They endure it for as long as they’re able to before making their excuses and leaving.
Happily enough, they turn out to be near the tent for the Gringott’s Curse-Breakers.
“I’ve always thought it’s a cool job, pretty glamorous, innit, you go to all these interesting ruins all over the world,” Finn remarks as they head inside. “Too bad I just never really warmed to Arithmancy, horrid subject—”
“Rey could be a Curse-Breaker,” Rose suggests. “She’ll definitely be able to get the N.E.W.T.s for it, won’t she—bloody hell—”
At first, Rey thinks that Rose has stopped in her tracks because there are more businesspeople inside the Curse-Breaker tent for whatever reason, but no—a svelte brunette witch in stylish blue robes that would have sent the Twilfitt and Tatting’s representatives into conniptions of delight is walking over to them, a smirk on her stunningly pretty face.
“Surprise.” Paige Tico holds her arms out to her younger sister, who immediately tumbles into them without further prompting. “I was just about to go looking for you lot.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t owl me!” Rose sniffs, the words muffled into Paige’s robes.
“Like I said, it was a surprise,” Paige retorts. “I wasn’t even that sure if I could make it, there was a bit of a bother with a mummy in Saqqara.” She nods at Finn and Rey as she ruffles Rose’s hair. “Good to see both of you. Has this one caused any trouble?”
Finn and Rey assure Paige that Rose has been nothing but the paragon of exemplary behavior, and Paige’s smirk deepens like she knows that they’re lying.
There’s a hasty little cough that attempts to do far too much legwork in appearing subtle. Rey turns around to find that Poe has entered the tent. His usually riotous curls have been combed back, held in place with such a volume of gel as to have been quite capable of drowning the Forbidden Forest manticore if Ben and Rey hadn’t managed to kill it first.
“Dameron.” Paige’s smirk flits close to an actual grin, and Rey remembers that Poe had been ahead of Rose’s sister at Hogwarts by only a year. “Or should I say—Professor Dameron.”
The Flying instructor lifts his chin. “Fancy seeing you here, Tico. I thought I’d have a look ‘round—intriguing profession, curse-breaking.”
“It’s all right, I suppose,” says Paige. “How’ve you been, then?”
“Been all right,” Poe replies. “Keeping busy, y’know, working out—”
Rey is seized by the abrupt, horrible, and violent sensation that she’s going to die of laughter within the next few seconds if she so much as opens her mouth. Before this can happen, she ever so silently drags Finn out of the tent—she’d assumed that, because Rose is still hugging Paige, it’s too late to save her as well, but Rose hurriedly extricates herself from her sister and follows.
Aleson Gray finds the three of them beside Maz Kanata’s refreshment stand several minutes later, clutching their sides and howling for all that they’re worth. He raises an eyebrow. “Dare I ask…?”
Neither Finn nor Rey nor Rose are able to respond through their guffaws, so it’s Maz who fills Aleson in. “It’s a doozy!" the proprietress of the Three Broomsticks exclaims, then proceeds to tell him all about the encounter between Poe and Paige that Finn had pulled himself together long enough to recount to her before dissolving into a veritable puddle of hilarity. The incident has put Maz in such a good mood that she’s handing out tankard after tankard of butterbeer on the house.
Eventually, Rey has calmed down enough to be capable of taking sips from her free beverage. “We saw you earlier,” she informs Aleson. “Getting accosted by suits.”
The corner of the Slytherin boy’s mouth twitches. “I saw you, too. Floating.”
“Bet this career fair is too merry for the likes of you,” Rey quips.
“It’s intolerable,” Aleson drawls. “Particularly because it’s distracting me from working out.”
Rey chokes on her butterbeer. Finn and Rose practically burst into conniptions.
And Rose is still kind of laughing as she ushers Finn away, claiming that they need to get something but Rey shouldn’t worry and just enjoy the fair and they’ll find her later.
The events of the past year have given Rey enough of a clue to know what her friends are up to. It’s the saga of Seff all over again. But there’s really no graceful way to tell Finn and Rose to come back and, in any case, Aleson’s speaking—
“Nice to see you happy for once, Niima.” His tone is meditative.
“I thought you didn’t like it if people are happy,” Rey points out, referring to their conversation by the lake.
“I could be persuaded to make an exception in your case.”
She pauses. His words are… well, not that she’s being presumptuous, but they are sort of flirty, aren’t they? Or at least there seems to be more to them, simmering beneath the surface despite his haughty features arranged into his characteristic, vaguely disdainful boredom.
It's something that Ben could have said to her, back when they were still together or standing dangerously close on the precipice of it. She wonders if she’ll have to go through life understanding other men solely through her memories of him.
The thought is almost too painful to bear. Rey looks away from Aleson, who, to his credit, doesn’t miss a beat in asking her if she wants to walk around.
It’s something to do, at the very least—drinking butterbeer, attending the lectures and the demonstrations, distracting herself from her tortured wallowing over Ben. Aleson Gray is not too shabby a companion; he doesn’t talk much but, when he does, it’s usually droll remarks that never fail to amuse her.
She does get a little tetchy with him when he reveals that he’s not even the slightest bit invested in the career fair. He already knows what he’s going to do after graduation: nothing.
“Maybe sign a few documents here and there,” he acknowledges with a shrug. “Or whatever it is that executives at my family’s company do.”
“Don’t you want to make something for yourself?” Rey demands.
Aleson blinks at her, long and slow, with those blue-violet eyes. “Not really.”
She shakes her head. “Unbelievable.” She can’t decide whether she’s jealous that his place in the wizarding world is secure or annoyed that he just takes it for granted.
After a while, they reach an elegantly styled tent with a signpost bearing a logo that Rey doesn’t recognize. Without consulting her, Aleson ducks inside a little too quickly and she trails after him, her curiosity piqued.
The interior is minimalist in that artful way that Rey doesn’t fully trust, used as she is to Hogwarts’ cluttered charm. A perfunctory glance at what few posters decorate the snow-white walls and the flyers on the desks that are arranged in meticulous piles reveal that the tent belongs to a consulting firm of some sort, headquartered in Paris. The majority of the seventh years perusing the displays and chatting with the representatives are the keenest of the Ravenclaws and the most ambitious of the Slytherins. Rey feels as though she sticks out like a sore thumb.
It's not long before Aleson’s lounging insouciantly by one of the desks, flashing a cool smirk at the company representative sitting behind it. She’s in her early twenties, with light brown hair in a fringed bob and red-framed spectacles that make her blue eyes look enormous. And she does not seem pleased to see Aleson.
“Hors de ma vue,” she snaps at him. Although Rey can’t understand the language, the tone of sod off is very much universal.
“Tu me blesses,” Aleson drawls with equally universal sarcasm.
Rey hangs back awkwardly as Aleson and the bespectacled woman fire off several more lines of rapid, utterly incomprehensible French. Finally, the woman picks up a heavy-duty stapler and motions as though to chuck it at his head, and he takes that as his cue to grab Rey’s arm and gently steer her out of the tent.
“Always a pleasure to chat with our Genevieve,” he says. “Fine example of the traditional Gallic temper, that one.”
“How do you know her?” Rey asks cautiously.
Aleson doesn’t say anything until they’ve circled back to the tables by the food stalls. They sit across from each other and he takes his sweet time diffidently studying his fingernails.
“Genevieve,” he finally says, “runs in the same crowd as my ex-girlfriend. She was ahead of Lairelosse by three years at Beauxbatons.”
“Oh,” is all that Rey can think to say at first, because Hogwarts’ gossip grapevine had somehow not picked up on the fact that he’d ever been attached, but the longer she mulls it over the more she has to admit that it is quite possibly the most Aleson Gray thing in the world to be in a discreet relationship with someone from the French wizarding school.
Or to have been in a relationship, anyway.
“Do you, er, want to talk about it?” she prompts him.
For a moment he looks mildly horrified by the idea. Then resignation flickers across his face and he offers her another one of his half-hearted shrugs. “There isn’t much to talk about. Lairelosse and I are childhood friends. We got together a couple of summers ago, then she owled me back in April that she wanted to break up. I thought I’d check in on her via Genevieve, since I doubt it’s the done thing to write your exes just to ask how they are. That’s all.”
Aleson sinks into a flat silence that’s almost defiant, and a pang of sympathy twinges within Rey’s chest. She knows exactly what he’s going through. The exact circumstances might be vastly different, but at the end of the day grief takes on similar patterns. For everyone.
She’s suddenly conscious of how quiet they both are amidst the loud and ever-moving sea of their animated, carefree schoolmates. Perhaps this is why he’d started seeking her out in the first place—sometimes, you just need someone to be still, and with you.
“I’d be a liar if I were to say that I never saw it coming,” Aleson mutters. “Lairelosse and I are completely incompatible. She’s driven and I’m lazy. And she has—” He wrinkles his nose, but somehow Rey gets the feeling that it’s mostly for show—“emotions, and she’s not scared to use them. But I suppose that there was a part of me that hoped it would work.”
“Maybe it’s just not the right time,” Rey ventures.
“I guess.” Aleson stares down at the grass by his feet. “But it’s not as though I can change my entire personality for her. You want someone to love you for who you are, don’t you?”
Rey’s breath catches in her throat. It had been a rhetorical question, but it pierces.
There had been a lot that she’d tried to change about herself and a lot of things that she’d tried to become too fast, but Ben had nipped all of it in the bud. When her first ill-fated attempt at makeup had melted off of her face to her great mortification, he’d just been glad to see her freckles again. He’d been the one who told her that she didn’t have to rush to say yes to whatever he or anyone else asked. He hadn’t minded her insecurity or her awkwardness. There have been many times this past month where she’d woken up crying from a dream of a memory, a memory of the day he made love to her on his desk so achingly slow, whispering all the things that he adored about her.
Had she been lucky in that respect, or does it all just hurt even more in hindsight, given the way that things had ended?
Rey’s firmly descended back into her post-breakup funk when she and Aleson find Finn and Rose again. Fortunately, Rose—who’s usually so perceptive when it comes to Rey—is much too excited to notice. Obi-Wan’s magically amplified voice had just rung throughout the pitch, announcing that it’s almost time for Baze Malbus’ demonstration, and the seventh years are stampeding toward the habitat area. In her fervent bid for front-row seating, Rose is somehow managing to clutch onto Finn’s, Rey’s, and a very aghast Aleson’s clothes all at once and tugging them in the direction she wants to go, all while elbowing her way through their other schoolmates.
“It’s like watching a tiny bulldozer in action,” Finn whispers to Rey, stars in his eyes as he fixes them on Rose.
They’re able to claim spots in the second row of the stands. There is space available in the first row, but it’s mostly occupied by Hogwarts faculty and career fair guests, and not even Rose will voluntarily sit next to Professor Hux despite the promise of a dragon.
Rey is just starting to feel her schoolmates’ collective anticipation—just starting to let it lift her up—when the absolute worst thing that can happen—
—happens—
Still wearing the same starry purple hat, robes, and cape from the previous night, Luke Skywalker makes his way to the front row of the bleachers. With Ben and the MACUSA Aurors in tow.
Rey can’t move. She can’t breathe. She’s frozen in her seat between Finn and Aleson, too stunned to even look away.
Ben hesitates upon catching sight of her, but only for as long as it takes someone to blink. Nobody else aside from Rey notices, because nobody else’s world has faded out of focus, leaving only him.
It’s so unfair how handsome he is, dressed down for a summer weekend event in a black blazer, gray trousers, and that crisp white button-front that her fingers have memorized how to unravel, his dark hair in tousled waves. He nods at her—or in the general direction of her and her friends, really, he’s greeting his students—and he follows his uncle further down the row, and she notices with a heart like a bitter stone sinking to the pit of her stomach that Tahiri Veila’s graceful steps have taken her ahead of another Auror so that she’s now right next to him.
Tahiri glows in the daylight, impossibly, ethereally beautiful. Rey can never hope to compete.
“Budge up, cockatoo, come on!” Luke yells at Hux, brandishing his staff in a threatening manner.
“There’s only one cockatoo here,” Hux says, not quite under his breath, as he shifts to make space for Luke, who merely screeches with glee.
Ben sits in front of Finn, which means that Rey now has to be behind Tahiri and she now has to watch the early afternoon sun dance through the star-dusted strands of the woman’s white-gold hair like it’s grateful to be able to touch them.
The situation does not improve when Tahiri glances over one delicate shoulder and smiles at the students, and lovelorn sighs can be heard rising up from several of Rey’s schoolmates.
Tahiri is even more gorgeous up close. There is not a single flaw to her symmetrical, fine-boned features.
Finn had been one of those who sighed, so Rey looks to Rose in a selfish desire for her friend’s indignation to be her ally. But Rose’s jaw has dropped as well and it stays dropped long after Tahiri has turned back to the pitch.
“Blimey,” Rose whispers to Finn, leaning closer to him so that Rey will be able to hear as well. “For a moment there I forgot all about the dragon. I swear, that lady’s got Veela blood.”
“Don’t go trying to impress her by petting the dragon or something,” Finn hisses at his girlfriend.
“I would pet the dragon anyway, babe,” Rose informs him loftily. “But you’re just saying that because you want to impress her first—”
The two of them dissolve into snickers, elbowing each other. And Rey wonders what it must be like, being so confident in your relationship that you and your partner can make jokes like that. She doubts that she could ever have had that with Ben—she would have wanted to be the only one and to be assured of that every day.
Could have. Would have. Should have.
Her limbs feel heavy. It’s the weight of whatever stage of the breakup she’s at now, perhaps a tangled mix of all of them, weighing down on her with Ben so close that she could reach out and touch him.
It’s a small mercy that Aleson seems to be entirely unaffected by Tahiri’s presence. Or maybe he’s just better at hiding it than most. Rey turns to him and strikes up some inane conversation that she barely even pays attention to. She just needs to be talking. Just needs to be doing something so that she doesn’t fall apart.
Then Paige arrives, with Poe right behind her, and Rose waves them over to the spot that she’d saved next to herself. Or, well, the spots, as it turns out, because it soon becomes apparent that Poe will sit next to Paige come what may, determinedly ignoring the other Hogwarts professors who call out to him to join them.
“Uh oh,” Aleson murmurs to Rey as Poe and Paige approach, “here comes Mr. Muscle.”
A strangled sound that is halfway between a giggle and a snort claws its way out of the knot that has lodged itself at the bottom of Rey’s throat. It is a dose of humor that is so unexpected and so badly needed that she ends up laughing harder than she normally would have.
“How do you even know Mr. Muscle?” she demands through her mirth.
“I’ve been taking Muggle Studies since third year,” Aleson says. “Mostly because it’s a fluff class. I got an O.W.L. for it without even revising. I think that the examiner was just grateful that he had someone to grade.”
Rey slaps Aleson’s knee, laughing fit to burst.
Ben’s head whips toward her. His eyes dart from her to Aleson and then they meet her gaze, his lips flattening out into a thin, terse line.
Then he turns away, and she releases the breath that she hadn’t known she’d been holding.
It’s like being doused with a bucket of ice-cold water. Rey’s mirth has vanished. In its place is a slowly boiling resentment.
Where does Ben Solo get off, making her feel bad for laughing? Where does he get off, ruining her mood just like that?
The stands gradually fill up as the minutes pass. Rey makes an effort to chat with her friends, not keen on the risk that someone might ask her why she’s being awfully quiet when Ben is within earshot. She makes an effort to not stare at the back of his head and to not strain to catch whatever Tahiri says to him every time the blonde woman of probable Veela lineage leans in to tell him something. But, seriously—does Tahiri really have to lean in? They’re sitting right next to each other, it’s not as though he won’t be able to hear her if she doesn’t drape herself all over his side—
Whatever. Rey is being casual. She’s breezy.
Another MACUSA Auror saunters over to the front row. Obi-Wan had introduced him as Ganner Rhysode the previous evening. He has spiky black hair and piercing blue eyes, and he’s languidly sipping from an engraved, leather-wrapped flask.
He does an exaggerated double-take as his gaze lands on Ben and Tahiri. “Fuck me. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it, Solo?”
Rey is plunged into numbness. Dread hollows out her ribs and the tips of her fingers and her toes. She is no longer breezy.
“You shouldn’t be swearing in front of the students, Rhysode,” Ben admonishes, his tone flat and curt.
“Fuck me,” Ganner says again, completely unrepentant, “you haven’t changed a bit. Still a total stick-in-the-mud. Tahiri, baby, come on, what do you see in this guy?”
Tahiri tosses her curtain of silvery hair over her shoulder and lets out a throaty chuckle. It’s quite possibly the sexiest sound in the world. It shatters Rey’s fragile self into a million pieces.
“It’s not like that, Ganner,” Tahiri purrs. “Ben and I are just friends now.”
Just friends now.
They’re just friends now.
At first, Rey tries to console herself with the fact that the statement leaves room for interpretation. But it is a hope that is quickly dashed when Eryl Besa, the MACUSA Auror with close-cropped red hair and a small armory of piercings who’s sitting on Tahiri’s other side, pipes up, “Well, you never know, it might be time to rekindle the romance.”
Ben scoffs. Tahiri chuckles again.
Rey’s breath is coming out in short, shallow bursts. She swears that she can feel the blood pounding in her veins.
“Did I hear that right?” Tallie Lintra, never one to miss good gossip, pops her head in between Finn and Rey from where she’s sitting behind them. She speaks in a furtive hiss. “Tahiri Veila is Professor Solo’s ex?”
“Looks like it,” Finn, who is a bit of a gossip himself even though he’ll deny it to hell and back, whispers in response. “Blimey.”
“Who knew Professor Solo had such a glamorous past?” Jess titters beside Tallie.
I didn’t, Rey thinks. Her skin’s gone clammy and she’s trying not to shake.
She had been aware, of course, that Ben had experience. But it had always been such an abstract concept. She’d never asked about any of his previous relationships and he had never told her.
As she looks at him sitting with the people who are obviously his former coworkers, it starts to sink in just how little she knows about certain chapters of his life. He had shared bits and pieces of his childhood with her, as well as the story of his family and the ruin that the Dark Arts had brought him to. But Rey has no idea what any of these MACUSA Aurors are like, she’d never even heard of any of them until last night, and they’re clearly his friends. And one of them is clearly his ex-girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Rey had told Ben everything about herself. He’d always been so content to just listen to her as she talked, and she’d jumped at the chance to share her life with someone who was actually interested in it. She’d given him everything.
What had she gotten in return?
Where does this leave her?
Rey Occludes. She has no choice. She Occludes because, if she doesn’t, she’s going to have a panic attack on these damn bleachers. At least he’d taught her this. At least she knows how to do this.
And when a mighty, ancient roar splits the air in half, and a dragon the size of worlds blots out the sky in a mass of silver-gray scales before swooping down toward the pitch on vastly beating wings, with Baze Malbus on its back—when Rey’s schoolmates spring to their feet and cheer for all that they’re worth—she can’t even enjoy it.
She stands up, too, and she goes through the motions of applauding. Her lips stretch painfully into a smile so that no one will ask her what’s wrong, so that she doesn’t take this moment away from any of her friends. Her mental walls are so high up, so firmly in place, that not a single emotion manages to filter through. She stares at the wonder that is the dragon, with its flashing red eyes and its serpentine neck and all of the old magic rolling off of it, and she hears everyone around her screaming in delight, and there is nothing inside her chest but a long, cold winter.
At least she’s not thinking of Ben. Of how she lost him. Of how she never really had him at all.
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