Chapter Text
It wasn’t until after the Quidditch final that Rey realized just how much the majority of the school had been rooting for her and Poe to get together. While it was a little flattering that so many people, many of whom Rey didn’t know, had wanted to see her with the incredibly popular Head Boy, it also guaranteed a lack of the privacy that Rey wanted while exploring things with Poe.
They couldn’t hold hands in the hallway when they finally met up after the Gryffindor party ended - some fifth year screamed “YES!” and high-fived their friend – and sitting together in the Great Hall caused a a gaggle of Hufflepuffs to pass by and sigh with powerful collective emotion. Rey just wanted everyone to find something new to gossip about, so she could get on with her life (and snogging Poe Dameron in private, thankyouverymuch).
“Are you and Dameron dating?” A Ravenclaw whispered to her during Charms on the Monday following the match.
“I beg your pardon?” Rey stared at her in mild amusement. The question had absolutely nothing to do with Erso’s lesson, and Rey for one was not inclined to push Erso’s temper by engaging in a side conversation.
“You know,” the girl leaned in closer and grinned at Rey. “Is it official? Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend, or just hooking up?”
Rey opened her mouth to provide a colourful retort, but Erso called, “Kenobi?” and she turned towards the professor.
“It’s Fianto Duri,” Rey responded, not batting an eye. “It has the same properties as Duro, but does not need to be specifically applied to tangible objects.”
“Clever girl,” Erso winked at her and waved her wand at the board – a diagram of how to cast the strengthening charm appeared. “Now, Collins, if you’re done harassing Kenobi over boys, would you like to start practicing this spell which will most certainly appear on your exam in three weeks?”
“Yes ma’am.”
At the bell to signal the end of classes, Rey gathered up her things and headed for the door. She was stopped by Professor Erso, who called her over to her desk. Rey crossed back over to the small woman, slipping through the throng of students going the other direction.
“Sorry about that,” Rey said as she walked up to her professor. “I really didn’t want to be talking while you were lecturing—”
“I know that,” Erso laughed and straightened up a stack of essays on her desk. “I’ve been your professor for six years, Kenobi, I know boys are the last thing you want to talk about.”
Rey winced and nodded, her hand playing with the strap of the bag. “So, er – what did you want to talk about?”
“You.” Erso leveled her with a keen gaze, and although she was almost a half foot taller than the older woman, Rey felt very small. Oddly enough, it was a similar effect to being in Organa’s presence. They must get along like a house on fire. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do after Hogwarts?”
“Not really,” Rey said truthfully. “I’m just…trying to get through the next year without being expelled.” The joke fell flat in the air between them, and Erso hopped up on her stool and regarded Rey with unreadable brown eyes.
“Why do you think you’ll be expelled?” Erso asked quietly.
“I don’t…” Rey trailed off at the single, raised eyebrow. She sighed and redirected. “I’m really, really good at getting into trouble,” she said. “Organa could have expelled me at least half a dozen times since third year.” She stared at the floor, face red as she thought back on some of her finest moments – the time she’d jinxed a carpet to be a trap door, swallowing Armitage Hux whole when he walked over it; the instance in her fourth year where she tried to drown a Beauxbatons student in a bowl of punch for getting too fresh at the Yule Ball…It’s why I don’t have any plans, she wanted to say. I’m not meant to have a future. Just look at my past.
“You haven’t gotten in trouble in at least a month,” Erso observed. “You haven’t even been insulting people in my class for idiocy. To my knowledge, at least.”
“A brief reprieve, I guess,” Rey said weakly.
“No, I don’t think so.” The professor stared at her for a long moment, and Rey writhed internally. It felt like a physical examination at the doctor. “Did I ever tell you that I almost went to Azkaban when I was twenty years old?”
What?
“Um, no?” Rey blinked in surprise, her mouth slightly parted.
“Yes, it’s true,” Erso looked bizarrely nostalgic as she smiled to herself. “I … came across some sensitive information that proved several high-ranking Ministry members were closeted Vader supporters. This was over ten years after his downfall, mind you, but still, things were very volatile after he was killed. And,” Erso tossed her hair back and grinned like the Cheshire cat, “rather than do something legal with the information – like give it to the authorities, for example – I took it upon myself to publish it, broadcast it for the whole world to see, in the Daily Prophet under a pseudonym.”
“Stardust,” Rey breathed, eyes wide. She remembered the case well, having studied it in History of Magic. “They – they never published the real name of the leak, but that was – that was you?”
“Mhm.” Erso folded her hands. Rey could hear thundering feet on their way to lunch in the corridor outside, but in the classroom, a significant silence passed between the two. “They discovered it was me, of course, and I appeared before the Wizengamot. They were going to find me guilty on all charges, but…oh, somehow the evidence against me quite literally disappeared, and they never found out how. And then the daughter of the most popular Minister for Magic of all time spoke in my defense, and well—” Erso spread her hands wide. “No dementors for me.”
“Why are you—”
“Why am I telling you all this?” Erso cocked her head and smiled at her. “At twenty years old, I was angrier than a basilisk in a henhouse. I had the most miserable childhood, and there wasn’t a weekend at Hogwarts where I didn’t have detention. I was absolutely convinced that there was nothing better I could do with my life than lose it in the name of something more important than myself.” Rey’s eyes lowered once more to the floor, cringing in half-understanding of what Erso was trying to say.
A small hand grasped Rey’s arm, and she looked up to see Erso in front of her, smiling kindly. Her throat burned at the expression – Erso had never smiled like that in six years. “I’m telling you this, Rey, because I had no idea what I was going to do with my life when I was twenty years old, and certainly not when I was sixteen. And that was okay. It took some time to figure out, but if you had told me when I sat in court, waiting to be sentenced, that one day I’d be a professor at the school I’d done nothing but terrorize, married to the love of my life who was also an Auror, and happier than anything to sit in my armchair at home with my cat, a warm cup of tea, and a fire, I’d have laughed in your face.”
Rey nodded, still too overwhelmed to say anything. Somehow, she didn’t think Professor Erso minded. Her hand gripped her shoulder tightly, and Erso gave her one last searching look, her eyes bright and framed by her steel-grey bangs. “You remind me very much of myself, Kenobi,” she said at last, releasing her. “And I’d hate to see you give up on yourself because you assume you don’t deserve any better.”
With that, she turned around and started drawing notes on the chalkboard. “Head to lunch, now,” she called over her shoulder.
“Thank you, Professor,” Rey said quietly. Erso stilled for a moment, nodded, and then went back to her diagrams. Rey slipped through the door, and walked down the corridor entirely lost in thought. Her conversation with Erso hadn’t even been five minutes, but the hallways were mostly clear now; she was completely caught off guard, then, when someone walked up next to her and whispered, psst.
She startled violently and looked up from the carpet. Poe held his hands up apologetically and smiled at her. “Sorry,” he said softly. “Sorry – I was calling your name but you didn’t hear me –”
“That’s okay.” Rey smiled at him.
“Did you want to get some lunch?” Poe asked hopefully. “I was…I was hoping we could finally talk about…everything…and I went to Erso’s classroom so we could walk down together, but you guys were talking—”
“You waited for me?” Rey asked shyly, biting her lip. Poe’s eyes tracked the movement, and she blushed at it. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” Poe said quickly. They smiled at each other for a few seconds, and then Rey cleared her throat and looked away, still blushing furiously.
“I’m not really hungry,” she admitted. “But—”
“But?” Poe leaned in, smiling, and Rey took the opportunity to lift up slightly on her toes and kiss his cheek.
“But I wanted to do that all day,” she finished. The expression of shock on Poe’s face made her giggle, but then his eyes darkened slightly, and she stopped laughing.
“Well, if you aren’t hungry,” Poe said slowly, taking a small step forward. Rey swallowed and stared up at him. “…and we have a free hour…”
Rey nodded, rapidly. “We do,” she said. “Almost a whole hour.”
“Hmm,” Poe held his hand out, and she took it. He led her down the hallway, and she wondered where he’d take them – the Room of Requirement? Rose and Finn went there sometimes, after all, not that she’d rat them out over it to the Head Boy – and he paused in front of a tapestry. He pulled it out of the way, revealing a small, hidden passageway. “After you?” He asked, looking very shy suddenly.
She’d never backed down from a challenge in her life, but the admittedly incredibly attractive idea of snogging Poe Dameron senseless also made her incredibly nervous. Rey nodded again, silent once more, and slipped behind the tapestry in front of him. “Hold on,” he whispered, and then a soft blue light emitted from his wand. He took the bluebell flames and tucked them up into an unlit bracket, and the passageway was washed in its gentle glow.
“So what were you and Erso talking about?” Poe asked conversationally as he lit another bracket. The passageway looked distinctly more cheery now, and Rey breathed a little easier. She wasn’t sure if she could handle a dimly lit corridor and the way Poe Dameron looked in torchlight and the way her heart felt when she was within five feet of him. She might combust.
“Uhm.” Rey didn’t want to share what Erso had told her in private, so she went for the first part of the truth. “A girl was bugging me during class, and Erso wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“Bugging you?” Poe looked concerned, and she swore she saw his chest with that damned badge on it puff up. “Who was bugging you?”
“Easy, Dameron,” Rey laughed, stroking a hand down his arm. He immediately relaxed. “It was just Morgan Collins, from my year. She had some…questions about you and me.”
“What about you and me?” Poe murmured, stepping in close to her. Rey’s back hit the wall – she hadn’t realized they’d been drifting towards it, but she looked Poe in the eyes, searching them for a sign of something, but what she saw made her shiver.
“She asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend,” Rey laughed awkwardly.
“And what did you say?” His voice, honey warm and rougher than she ever heard it, spooled through her stomach and made it hard to answer.
“I didn’t say anything,” Rey said truthfully. She was very aware at how little space existed between them at the moment, and a burning ember in her lower stomach urged her to end the conversation and just put her mouth on his mouth, damnit. “I wasn’t sure how to answer.” He blinked, and some of the headiness vanished from his gaze.
“Do you me to be your boyfriend?” Poe asked, tilting his head to the side. Rey opened her mouth but nothing intelligible came out. She shrugged with one shoulder and looked to the side. What if he doesn’t want the same thing? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I ruin everything? “Because – God, Rey, I’ve wanted to be your boyfriend since I was fifteen years old.”
“Really?” She couldn’t believe it. That was – that was impossible. “Why? I’m just – I give you shit all the time, and I’m not…I’m not nice like other people are, and—”
“Hey,” Poe grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently, and Rey’s mouth snapped shut. “Hey – first of all – you’re not nice, not really, not all the time, but who gives a shit about that? You’re a good person.” Rey wanted to argue, but Poe shook his head. “I see you. I see you all the time, Rey, and you go through life caring about other people, and trying to help people who deserve it, and standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. And yeah, you give assholes a hard time, and sometimes your absolute knack for finding the most possible danger makes me want to scream, but you’re so much more than nice. You’re kind,” he leaned in and kissed her cheek gently, and then smiled at her with soft eyes. Rey wanted to melt. “And funny, and strong, and brave. Nice.” Poe shook his head and laughed. “As if a lioness needs to be nice.”
In a voice thick with unshed, half-formed tears, Rey said, “Can I kiss you now? Because I really want to kiss you.”
“Of course.” Poe smiled and leaned in, and Rey hummed at the way his hands framed her face delicately, the way she always imagined they would when she let herself picture this.
“So,” Rey whispered when he pulled back and rested his forehead on hers. “You want to be my boyfriend, and I want you to be my boyfriend, so that means I’m…your girlfriend?”
Poe groaned softly and opened his eyes, which had just been closed in quiet bliss. “Can you say that again?”
“I’m your girlfriend,” Rey repeated, grinning like mad. “I’m your girlfriend, I’m Poe Dameron’s girlfriend—”
She expected him to laugh at the sing-song tone she’d adopted to repeat the phrase, but Poe surged in and kissed her breathless instead. This kiss quickly became not delicate, and Rey gasped as she was pushed up against the wall, and snogged very thoroughly. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, locked together in an embrace that made it hard to tell where she stopped and where he started, but they did part for air eventually, and Poe traced the line of her jaw.
They didn’t say anything, but it felt like a thousand words passed unspoken between them while they looked at each other. Poe shook his head slightly and ducked down to replace his fingers with his mouth. She gasped as he kissed along her jaw, to the very edge of it, and then down her neck. “Is this okay?” He asked when her hands fisted in his shirt. He had frozen when he asked, and Rey nodded quickly, her eyes closing.
“So okay,” she answered, praying that he’d – yes, he started again, and Rey squirmed and sighed and – squeaked.
Poe laughed, an exhalation of breath against her throat that made her toes curl.
A thought occurred to her while her boyfriend (her toes curling further at the word) kissed the delicate hollow of her throat, his fingers trailing along her collarbone. He hummed happily when he passed over the locket she still wore, the one he’d made for her, and Rey carded her fingers through his hair, knocking it out of its careful style.
“Is this the first time you’ve broken the rules all year?” Rey asked, aiming for cheeky. Instead, she sounded breathless, like she’d run a very great distance.
He didn’t pause in kissing her neck, but she felt him shrug slightly. “Not against the rules,” he said softly, and gently sucked under her jaw.
Her fingers dug into his elbows, and before she entirely lost her nerve – “You looked it up!” Rey accused playfully. He didn’t say anything, but the pressure on her neck increased, and Rey gasped loudly at the heat that spiraled from the point of contact. “Y-you dork,” she said. “You did, didn’t you?”
Poe pulled away and straightened up, smiling bashfully. “The rules are for public displays of affection, and sneaking into dorm rooms,” he pointed out, rubbing the back of his neck. “And we aren’t in public or a dorm room…” Rey was overwhelmed by a wave of affection for him, and surged back into him, kissing him soundly. They stumbled back until Poe was up against the opposite wall, and Rey took full advantage of their positioning to kiss his neck the same way he’d kissed hers.
“You can—” Poe gasped, his hand gentle on the back of her head. “Harder is fine, I don’t mind it, I don’t—” Rey sucked particularly viciously on the spot he’d indicated, and Poe made an odd, strangled noise that she shouldn’t have found as attractive as she did.
They tumbled out of the passageway a while later as students rushed down the hallways once more. Rey turned and headed towards her next class, but Poe caught her hand and tugged her back. Rey spun as though they were waltzing, and ended up in his arms, beet red while some student shouted encouraging remarks at the couple.
“One more?” Poe asked, his eyes soft and earnest. “If it’s okay with you, that is, you don’t have to –”
Rey kissed him lightly, with none of the passion they’d just demonstrated in private, but Poe grinned widely, his eyes sparkling, and she felt incredibly successful. That is, until her eyes caught on something very obvious. “Um,” she said, fairly certain at this point her blush was permanent. “You’ve got a – I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
One of his hands drifted to the red spot on his neck that she was staring at, mortified, and he smirked at her. “Lioness,” Poe murmured, kissing her gently and releasing her. “Have a good rest of your day.”
“Mhm,” Rey squeaked, still embarrassed. Poe grinned at her, and she spun on her heel and fled down the corridor, well aware that his eyes followed her until she turned the corner.
***
Poe and Rey found it increasingly difficult to do things together that didn’t involve some kind of studying as Rey’s exams and Poe’s N.E.W.Ts approached. In the final weeks of May, they usually snuggled up in the library or outside in the warm sunshine, often accompanied by Rose and Finn, and quizzed each other. Sometimes, they just sat quietly and read notes side by side, but Rey mostly appreciated the calm confidence Poe always projected, particularly when it came to her own abilities.
Once, when she had a minor panic after forgetting the name of a hex referenced by Skywalker back in December, Poe took the flashcards out of her hands gently and set them aside. He framed her face in his hands and kissed her forehead delicately, and Rey sighed in contentment. “You’re the smartest person I know,” he reminded her, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “And you don’t have to do perfectly on this exam. You’re still going to blow everybody else out of the water.”
“But I might not,” Rey grumbled, her nerves frazzled by the constant stress of the last few days. “I might fail the exam, and then fail out of Hogwarts, and then –”
“During my Astronomy O.W.L., I dropped my telescope off the side of the tower,” Poe said serenely, talking over Rey’s anxious ramble. “And I just started naming random things for constellations. Pretty sure I named one ‘Frodo Baggins.’ The proctor was…not amused.”
“Did you still pass?” Rey asked, distracted from her worry for a moment.
“Nope,” Poe said cheerfully. “Absolutely bombed it. But no one kicked me out of school, and my dad got me a child’s planetarium for Christmas.” Rey laughed at the thought of Kes being such an arse, and she accepted Poe’s next kiss on the lips with her heart much calmer than before.
After a few moments of quiet, she said, “…Come on, Dameron, if anyone deserves a constellation, it’s Samwise.”
“I didn’t say I was smart,” Poe said, turning back to his Potions notes. Rey nudged his shoulder with her own, snuggling into his side, and when Finn and Rose joined them ten minutes later, she was able to set aside her flashcards and help Finn finish his Astronomy study guide.
As May faded into June and exam season started in earnest, Rey found herself more and more in love with Poe Dameron. No matter how stressed he was – and he rarely let it show that he was stressed – he always had time to help others. He brought Jess snacks in the library when he found out she’d been in there for over ten hours, helped Rose practice her Arithmancy for her practical, comforted a first year who’d completely messed up their Potions final, and always, always had time leftover to spend time with Rey.
He really was perfect, she realized, but not in the untouchable, priggish, irritating way she thought he was at the beginning of the year. No, Poe Dameron was perfect in a very real, very noble way, and she loved him for it. And she wanted to tell him, but every time she opened her mouth to, a joke or a story would come out instead. And Poe would listen to her through all of it, the same wonderful, admiring smile on his face that he always had when she spoke, and he’d usually kiss her at the end of it (and Rey hoped that meant he understood what she really wanted to say).
Still, she should have known this period of barely complicated bliss was too good to last.
On Thursday morning, in the first week of June, the owls arrived at breakfast. Immediately, the Great Hall started buzzing. Rey was exhausted, having pulled an all-nighter in preparation for her DADA practical, and a little grumpy as Poe had skipped breakfast to assist Skywalker in setting up for it. She stabbed at her eggs, trying to clear her mind, when someone marched up to the table and demanded, angrily, “Did you know this?” She looked up, surprised, to see a fifth year Hufflepuff she’d barely ever spoken to (alright, so she’d only spoken to her when she’d caught Rey and Poe stumbling out of a closet last week) glaring at her furiously and clutching a copy of this morning’s Daily Prophet.
“Know what?” Rey asked, swallowing her mouthful and frowning. The girl scoffed angrily.
“This.” She tossed the paper in front of Rey, and it splashed some of her juice out of the goblet. This got Finn’s attention, who’d been staring at his notes before.
She and Finn leaned in together to read the title, and Rey felt an icy chill pass through her.
Darth Vader Revealed to be None Other Than Anakin Skywalker, Father of Current Hogwarts Headmistress, the headline proclaimed.
Her stomach dropped out from underneath her, and she pinched her thigh under the table, praying that this was a bad dream, that this wasn’t actually happening.
“I knew you and Solo were close,” the girl said bitterly. “But if you had any idea that this was true, and you didn’t say anything? Then you’re no better than they are.”
Rey stood, angrily, the bench thrown back from how quickly she moved. “Ben has nothing to do with his grandfather,” she snapped. “Even – even if this is true! People aren’t defined by their family.”
The girl shook her head, sneering, and Rey fought the urge to grab her by the robes and introduce her fist to her face. “You’re going to defend them? Vader killed thousands. He doesn’t deserve to go to this school if it’s true, and Organa doesn’t deserve to be headmistress.”
Rey jumped out from the bench entirely, and the girl screeched and dodged out of the way, and Rey went to chase after her, fuming.
“Whoa,” Finn warned, grabbing her around the middle and hauling her back. “It’s not worth it, Peanut.”
“Who told them?” Rey asked miserably, grabbing the paper and staring at it. Anakin Skywalker’s face laughed out from his picture, right next to a picture of the fearsome Darth Vader in his full mask and robes. Even after her realization over the winter holiday, Rey had tried her hardest not to think about it, praying that it wasn’t true, not wanting to upset Ben by bringing it up.
Ben.
Rey looked up at the surge of agony she felt from across the hall, and spied Ben sweeping for the doors. She hadn’t spoken to him since the Quidditch match – he hadn’t even tried to speak to her, and she had hoped it had more to do with his exams and nothing to do with her very public first kiss with Poe – but all the awkwardness of the last year fell away as her every instinct screamed at her to protect her friend. If a person she barely knew was willing to confront her over an assumed connection to the Skywalker family…
“Rey, wait!” Finn called after her as she sprinted to catch up with Ben.
It was too late – there was a large group of people gathered around him by the time she emerged from the Great Hall, and her friend looked panicked, angry, and miserable as people began to jeer at him. She fought her way through the crowd, trying desperately to get to Ben.
He had frozen when she reached him, and she desperately tugged on his hand. “Let’s get out of her,” she said desperately. “Come on, we can – we can go to the tower, or to your mother’s office—”
Ben stiffened, and Rey felt a recoiling disgust inside him. Mother. His mother had lied to him, had kept the truth from him, had hidden this from him and why? Shame? Rey shook her head to clear Ben’s projected thoughts and emotions, the bond of their childhood roaring to life in the stress of it all.
“She probably didn’t want to hurt you,” Rey whispered, and she knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Ben stared at her in shock, and Rey stared up at him with an apology in her eyes.
“You knew?” He whispered. No sound fell from his lips, but she felt the words all the same.
“Muggle killer!” Someone screamed, and it startled them both enough into looking away from each other.
“Leave him alone!” Rey shouted back. She tugged on Ben’s hand one last time. “Come on, let’s get out of here, please.”
Finn had reached the edge of the crowd, and she saw his hand go to the wand at his hip – he was staring at someone past Rey, and she looked over her shoulder and saw more than one student with their wand drawn, leveled at Ben, and by extension, herself.
“No!” She shouted, flinging her arm out as if she could protect Ben from a dozen hexes at once. “No, it isn’t his fault!” Hux and Phasma appeared within her peripheral, but they didn’t look surprised or disgusted. Hux looked oddly…smug, even as he started shoving people out of the way, barking at people to look away and leave Ben alone.
Rey turned to Ben, and grabbed the front of his robes. “Let’s go,” she repeated urgently.
“Don’t touch me,” Ben snapped. “Just leave me alone.”
“No,” Rey whispered, her eyes wide. “You shouldn’t be alone.” She pushed the memory of herself at age eight, crying and alone under Obi’s porch after a hard day at school, the memory of Ben coming to find her and sitting with her, showing her small magic tricks until she wiped her eyes and smiled again.
“I am alone,” Ben said.
“That isn’t true.” Rey tugged on his hand, and he ripped it away from her.
“Don’t touch me,” he snarled, and she froze at the cruel expression on his face. “How dare a Mudblood touch me?” Her entire world stopped moving for a painful moment, and Rey stared at him in shock, too distant from herself to feel much of anything. “Especially a weird, little homeless Mudblood.”
Half of the crowd had dispersed at this point, potentially due to an adult authority demanding it break up, but those in attendance gasped. Rey took a stumbling step back, waiting for Ben to apologize, for his expression to clear, for him to become Ben again. It never came.
Instead, Finn charged forward, rolling his sleeves up. “Oh, that’s it,” he said. Rey continued to stand absolutely still as Finn slugged Ben in the stomach. The taller boy roared in anger, and the two began to brawl like Muggles, with their fists, in the middle of the front hall.
“What the hell is going on?” Poe Dameron arrived at the scene, his eyes wild and hair messy. His cheeks were red, and he was out of breath, as though he’d sprinted here. He must have, Rey realized distantly, the second someone told him a brawl was happening. “Stop it! Oi! You two! I said stop it!”
Poe blasted them apart using a Shield Charm, and Finn and Ben stood, panting and glaring at each other.
“What the hell happened?” Poe repeated angrily. He looked over at Rey, and his expression softened immediately. “What happened?” He asked her quietly, and she found herself unable to answer, her throat too thick with tears.
“Ben called her a – a—” Finn choked on the word, and shook his head, still furious. Something clicked behind Poe’s expression, the realization dawning on him. He stared at her, and she could tell he wanted her to say something, but she just…couldn’t. Not without crying.
“Is it true, Kenobi?” An unknown voice shouted from the crowd. “You’re homeless?” There were a couple nervous titters, and that was it. Rey burst into tears, her hand covering her mouth for a moment as though that could hide how distraught she was.
Poe blinked slowly in understanding, and said, “Oh. Okay,” very, very softly, nodding to himself while he turned towards Ben. And then, to the absolute shock of everyone gathered, he hauled back and punched Ben Solo in the face, an almighty crack echoing in the front hall when his fist made contact.
He fell with a howl, clutching his nose, and Rey’s crying slowed from the surprise of Poe’s action. “You’ll pay for that, Dameron,” he snarled, his hand going to his wand, revealing the blood trickling down his face.
“That’s enough!” Professor Organa stood at the foot of the staircase, and she glared at her son and her favorite student. “Trooper – Dameron – Solo. You three with me. Now.”
Finn squeezed her arm reassuringly on his way past, and Ben stared at her for a long time before stumbling to his feet as well. She couldn’t know what was on his face, as she refused to meet his eyes. Poe walked to Organa last, after walking to Rey and stroking some hair out of her face. He kissed her forehead tenderly and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.” And then she was alone.
But not for long. Jessika Pava and Rose Tico appeared on either side of her, and ushered her away from the hall. They walked her through the front doors, and they didn’t stop until they cleared the courtyard.
“Your final is in three hours,” Jess said quietly. “Let it out, Kenobi.” And Rey cried in earnest, her heart broken, for Ben, for herself, for the trouble she’d gotten her friend and boyfriend into – she cried and cried, and Rose and Jess wrapped their arms around her as they sat on the lawn. In the distance, a single grey cloud drifted over the Forbidden Forest, the one disfiguration of the otherwise perfect June sky.
***
Her final that afternoon went as well as it could have. She didn’t miss a single spell or falter for a moment, some bizarre calmness settling over her when she stepped into Professor Skywalker’s classroom. Not a single student raised the question of his parenthood to his face, but Rey didn’t think she was imagining how tired he looked.
Finn arrived on time to the exam, and when she asked him what his punishment was, he just shrugged. There would be no punishment, apparently, Professor Organa deciding that points removed from the three houses would be enough. Rey learned later that Poe had tried to turn his Head Boy badge in after her disappointed lecture, something that had caused Organa to laugh for the first time that day.
So, Poe remained Head Boy, Finn stayed out of detention, and Ben…well, Rey didn’t like to think about Ben.
On Saturday morning, she found herself sitting at her favorite spot, looking out over the lake. Poe leaned against the tree, and she sat between his legs, her head resting on his chest. Their hands were clasped, and his lips were in her hair.
“This is nice,” Rey said softly. She needed nice. And good. And…she needed Poe. “Imagine if we’d been doing this all year.”
“Hmm,” Poe kissed the tip of her ear, and Rey smiled, tilting her head so she could squint at his face. “You mean if I hadn’t been such a coward and asked you out after Christmas?”
“You aren’t a coward,” Rey corrected him, frowning. “Besides, if I hadn’t almost died and scared you off—”
“Don’t say that.” She nodded and rubbed her nose into his chest apologetically. He kissed the top of her head. “But yeah. Hard to convince the girl you’re in love with that you want to date her when you’re too busy yelling at her.”
Rey laughed brightly. “It isn’t just on you, Dameron! I gave you a run for your money, how were you supposed to know—” Something he said slipped into place in her mind, and Rey sat up quickly, turning to stare at him. Poe was blushing, his eyes looking anywhere that wasn’t at her. “Hang on. What did you say?”
Poe sighed and winced. “I didn’t…I didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to pressure you, I’m sorry—”
“Sorry because you think it’ll upset me, or sorry because you didn’t mean it?” Rey asked, trying to catch his eye. After what looked like great personal effort, Poe managed to look at her.
“Sorry because…because you have another year at Hogwarts,” Poe said softly, and Rey frowned at him. “Because I don’t want to pressure you into saying something you don’t mean, or make you feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to stay with me when I’ll be literally hundreds of miles away from you all next year, just because I’m an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut, and—”
Rey held her hand out, and he stopped talking abruptly. “Say it again?” She asked shyly.
Poe smiled and looked down at the ground for a second before leaning in so that their noses were almost touching. “I’m in love with you.”
Her answering smile spread across her face faster than fiendfyre. “I’m in love with you too,” she said, and Poe’s eyes widened, making her laugh. “And I don’t care how far away you are from me, Poe Dameron. That won’t change how I feel about you.”
“Yeah?” Poe breathed. Rey nodded, and he kissed her with an impossible warmth, a hand coming to cup her cheek. A light breeze stirred the branches of the tree overhead, and Rey leaned into the kiss, draped over his chest, her legs tucked up underneath her as she kissed her boyfriend, who she loved, who loved her, with complete and total resistance to every awful thing the world had to offer her.
“Okay then,” he mumbled when they’d broken apart. He looked incredibly dazed, his cheeks pink, and smile bashful. “We’ll stay together?”
“For as long as you want me, Dameron,” Rey said, burying her actual fear in a bit of a joke.
“Don’t say that unless you mean it,” Poe warned softly, and Rey watched as his hand went to the ring around his neck. Her mind whirled at the implication, and her breath caught audibly –
“Oi! Lovebirds!” Finn and Rose walked towards them along the lake shore, a basket held between them, and Poe laughed softly at the same time Rey grumbled. “We brought you something!”
“You couldn’t have brought it later?” Rey hissed so that only Poe could hear. He kissed her cheek, still chuckling, and Rey settled back down into his embrace in a decidedly more appropriate manner.
“What’d you bring us?” Poe asked as their friends walked up and settled down next to them.
Rose beamed at him and opened up the basket. “Now, I know you would fuss,” Rose said warningly. “Which is why it’s a day early –”
Rey groaned as Rose lifted a chocolate cake out of the basket and held it out excitedly. Finn raised his wand, and seventeen candles sparked to life and shone merrily.
“It’s your birthday?” Poe asked, mystified. “You didn’t tell me!”
“I didn’t know when it was your birthday either,” Rey pointed out, smiling at him. “Besides, I was actually going to tell you later today. And – as Rose and Finn know,” she glared at them, and they looked distinctly unapologetic, “I hate celebrating my birthday.”
“Whatever,” Finn rolled his eyes. “I wanted an excuse to stress eat cake.”
“And you do like cake,” Rose argued, grinning as though she’d won. And she had won. Rey really, really liked cake.
They sang an incredibly off-tune rendition of “Happy Birthday” (well, Rose and Finn were off-tune, and Rey blushed at how absolutely beautifully Poe sang it, just another talent of his, she supposed), and then Rose and Finn cut some slices and passed them around. They giggled and talked for a while in the shade of Rey’s favorite tree, and her heart skipped a beat when Poe leaned in and whispered, “Happy Birthday, Sunshine,” in her ear, kissing right under the lobe with extreme delicacy.
Rose and Finn had been debating the virtues of chocolate over vanilla when Poe did so, and Rey was able to avoid merciless teasing over how hard she blushed. The four ended up eating the entire cake on a blissful Saturday afternoon, unafraid of the challenges that still lay ahead of them, and absolutely undeterred by the make-up studying they would have to do the following day as a result of their relaxation.
And while Rey missed one person in particular as she celebrated her birthday and the end of her sixth year, and while she worried at what the future might hold –
She knew the next year wouldn’t be impossible, not with friends like these.