46. Chapter 46

It isn’t that Rey’s never suspected that Ben loves her. Everything that he’d told her and done for her tonight had made it perfectly clear, she’d just needed him to say it. And even him saying it had only served to concretize his actions over the course of the past year, causing them to click into place in her mind with an Oh, that’s what that was, that was why.

So, yes, she’s not completely taken aback by his declaration and she is definitely not complaining that it had finally been issued.

It’s just that—well—it’s his timing that’s the problem.

It leaves much to be desired.

Her mouth hangs open and her eyes remain glued to his face even as she stands up. She backs away slowly, loath to let him out of her sight. They’re at the western edge of the graveyard, far enough from everyone else so that their conversation is private, but not so far that they aren’t able to distinguish someone—a Ministry Auror—screaming as they’re struck by a dark curse. Hand pressed over the wound in his side, Ben scrambles to his feet, to help. It’s only then that Rey is jolted into action, tearing her gaze from his and whirling around to get to Ganner Rhysode and bring him to safety.

She and Ben both have important things to do. To fail in them would be to fail each other. And the tentative new beginning that had taken root here on this night would be forever tainted.

The next handful of seconds are a mad dash to Ganner’s location, during which Rey narrowly manages to avoid getting clobbered by the spells that are flying everywhere. She helps Ganner up and together they stagger toward the cemetery gates, at last managing to break past them with a combination of his weakened but serviceable Shield Charms, Rey’s offensive spells, and sheer willpower.

Sixteen feet. They just have to make it sixteen feet. And then they can Apparate.

They’ve made it about halfway when Rey feels a cold, needle-sharp sensation colliding with her spine.

It’s a Deterioration Hex. Her steps begin to slow and her hold on her magic wanes as the spell chisels away at her stamina. It’s a horrible feeling, like the life is being drained out of her. She’s able to cancel it but it costs her and Ganner precious time and ground. Four dark wizards catch up to them; she gives as good as she gets, but one lands a Severing Charm on her wand arm and her trusty weapon slips from her grasp when the pain rips through her, searing and bone-deep.

Ganner reels off the counter-spell before any serious damage can be done, leaving Rey’s upper arm all carved up with a massive gash but thankfully still attached to the rest of her body. It’s not long, though, before the salvaged wand that he’s using is sent flying out of his hand by a precisely aimed Expelliarmus. Rey attempts to dive for her wand but she’s hit by the Leg-Locker Curse and she falls to the ground, Ganner dropping beside her in seconds.

“Merlin, I hate my life,” the Auror complains under his breath as the four members of the cabal surround them.

Rey’s inclined to agree at first, but then—she realizes that she doesn’t.

She doesn’t hate her life.

Ben had just told her that he loves her.

She has to live.

But there doesn’t seem to be any way out of this—she can’t even move her legs—

The loud and unmistakable pop of Apparition reverberates through the air. Rey looks over her shoulder to see the grizzled, unkempt, dirt-caked form of Luke Skywalker standing at the edge of the cemetery’s wards.

In one hand he is holding a large bag of pickled onion crisps.

He is munching away.

Rey gawks at him, as do Ganner and the four black-robed wizards. The crunch of the crisps between Luke’s teeth is a surreal complement to the noises of the battlefield.

“Sorry, got lost!” he barks out through a spray of crumbs. “Ended up all the way in Cardiff, would you believe it—anyway, I’m here now and I brought snacks!”

The cabal members spring into action, pelting Luke with a variety of spells all at once. A cry of dismay rolls off of Rey’s tongue. Luke is unarmed and he is still eating crisps—

He snaps his fingers. The rippling, silver-white aura of a Shield Charm wraps around his entire form. The multitude of curses bounces off of it harmlessly.

Rey blinks. Luke waves a hand in her and Ganner’s direction and suddenly they can move their legs again. Then Luke advances to take on the four dark wizards and it’s—

—it’s not even a fight. Not really. None of their attacks can break through his shield and he doesn’t give them the opportunity to cast the truly lethal, unblockable spells. He is so fast, almost like lightning, far too fast for someone who’s spent the weekend giving off the impression that he’s barely tethered to reality. He flicks his wrist and bats stream out of his enemies’ noses and their tongues twist into knots and he shoots Stunners from his bare and grimy palm. He leaves them all unconscious, cackling and eating his crisps as he toddles into the frenzied graveyard without so much as a backward glance at Rey and Ganner.

Luke Skywalker hadn’t just become an Animagus during the decades that he’d spent in exile.

He’d mastered wandless magic, too.

And there’s no time for Rey to even process that, because she and Ganner have to go. She picks up her wand and she hauls the Auror to his feet, and then she’s dragging him over the border of the Anti-Disapparition field and she’s concentrating with all of her might, picturing Hogwarts in her head. Safety. Home.

The world falls away.

When Rey and Ganner materialize at the edge of Hogwarts’ own wards, Madame Kalonia is waiting for them. Apparating, even just Side-Along, has badly taxed what few reserves of strength Ganner had possessed; Madame Kalonia hurries to catch him as he collapses, running a quick diagnostic charm on him and then on Rey.

“You’re fine, Miss Niima,” says the healer, sewing up the gash on Rey’s arm with another twitch of her wand. “A bit banged up but still in one piece, shockingly enough. Auror Rhysode, on the other hand, is severely malnourished. Come along to the hospital wing, we’ll put some dittany on your wound so it doesn’t scar…”

Kalonia trails off when she notices that Rey isn’t following her as she makes her way back to the castle with Ganner. Rey’s feet remain glued to the patch of grass she’d Apparated onto, and she thinks that it must be a testament to how well the school’s resident healer knows her, after patching her up these last seven years, that all it takes is one look at the expression on Rey’s face for Kalonia to understand what she’s about to do.

“Absolutely not, Miss Niima!” the older woman snaps. “The battlefield is no place for a teenager. Your professors and the Aurors will soon have everything under control—”

“I’m sorry,” Rey whispers.

And she Disapparates.

✨✨✨

In all honesty, it’s Ben’s fault, kind of.

Rey had been prepared to follow his orders. To leave him and the other fully-trained witches and wizards to handle an army of Dark Arts adherents. She had conceded that it was the logical course of action.

But then he’d gone and told her that he loved her. He’d said it like he was saying goodbye. So how is she supposed to leave him now?

And, the more that Rey thinks about it, she can’t leave her other teachers either. The Aurors as well, but especially her teachers—Obi-Wan and Mothma and Chewie and Jyn and D’Acy and Jiklip, and even Dameron and Hux—and she definitely can’t leave Paige. They’d all come to save her. Granted, her rushing back into the battlefield would be sort of defeating the purpose, but they’re wildly outnumbered and if any of them were to die tonight on her account—

She can’t allow herself to entertain that notion, to fall under the sway of its fear. She’s going back so that she can help. Every additional wand will help, as long as it’s being wielded by someone who is keeping a level head.

The graveyard glows in the moonlight. Rey darts in through the gates, skirting around the limp forms of cabal members and Aurors alike that litter the ground. She heads to where the fighting is thickest and sticks mostly to the periphery, ducking behind tombstones and statues, firing nonverbal Stunners and Disarming Spells at every swirl of black robes that she sees.

There are significantly less of them, she notices. The ranks of Sheev Palpatine’s loyalists have been considerably thinned.

It doesn’t take long for Rey to figure out that Ben Solo is a huge reason why.

He’s fighting in a tight-knit formation with Eryl, Tahiri, and the other MACUSA Aurors. He alternates between sweeping powerful hexes through clusters of opponents and casting shields and counter-spells to defend himself and his comrades. The frenetically magic-streaked space around him leaves no room for error and he never makes a single one.

Ben moves like a war machine. It is so incredibly entrancing to watch—a lesson in lightning-quick reflexes and inventiveness and raw devastation—that Rey almost forgets what she’s supposed to be doing. She’s jolted back into combat only when two dark wizards attack her from opposite sides; she ducks with a Seeker’s swiftness and her opponents hit each other and crumble to the earth. Then she’s upright again, fighting again, landing a Confundus Charm on another remnant member as he sneers down at Obi-Wan, who’s collapsed at his feet and is twitching in a manner eerily reminiscent of the spider on Jerjerrod’s desk, writhing in the grip of the Cruciatus Curse.

Rey’s never seen an Unforgivable take effect on a person before—and on her headmaster, to boot—it rattles and angers her so much that she takes a leaf out of Ben’s book and punches the Confounded dark wizard with all of her might. He reels backward and she kicks him in the groin for good measure before finally Stunning him.

“Professor Kenobi, are you all right?” Rey yells, her heart in her throat as she scrambles to the headmaster’s side.

Obi-Wan appears winded as he picks himself up, but the smile that he aims at her is genuine. “I’m quite fine, Miss Niima, that was hardly the worst Crucio that I’ve—” He does a double take, his kindly features twisting into alarm. “Miss Niima!” he repeats, flabbergasted. “Why in blazes are you still here?”

Before Rey can answer, she feels a familiar signature wrap around her form. It's Ben’s magic, she would know it anywhere in the world, no matter how much time would have passed, and that’s why she doesn’t fight it. She’s lifted off of her feet and tossed behind one of the gravestones by a Levitation Charm, a dark curse zipping through the spot where she’d been standing in front of Obi-Wan only a second ago. Then Ben is there, looming up from out of the shadows, and he and Obi-Wan quickly and seamlessly work together to bring down the black-robed figure who had fired the curse, as well as two of his nearby cohorts.

“Chewie and Uncle Luke are dueling Tarkin, Gideon, and Kaine by the church doors,” Ben tells Obi-Wan. “It shouldn’t be long now.” Obi-Wan nods and rushes off to help his old friends. Ben then turns to Rey, who is very casually peeking out from behind the gravestone. Eyes narrowed and sharp jaw clenched, he growls in a dangerous voice, “As for you—”

“There’s a war on,” she sweetly interrupts. “So maybe it would be best to get mad at me later, yeah?”

She swears that she can see a vein throbbing in his forehead.

But it’s not like they have plenty of time to continue this argument. Almost before she knows it, he’s grabbing her arm and they’re running again, running from another barrage of spells. They find a strategic location amidst a cluster of statues to stage their defense, and it’s only then that Rey’s adrenaline fades a little and she registers the bruising grip of Ben’s fingers on her newly healed wound—

She cries out. He immediately lets go of her upper arm. There is a moment of slowness, of stillness amidst the chaos of battle, as he stares at the crimson gash on her upper arm that’s visible through her torn sleeve.

“Where is the person who did this?” he demands. The words emerge soft and lethal, his gaze burning with a promise that sends the shiver of some illicit thrill down her spine.

“Luke already knocked him out,” she explains. “Ganner and I were ambushed on our way to the Apparition point, but I got him to Hogwarts safely—”

“And then you came right back here.” Ben glowers at her.

Rey lifts her chin. “Well, yes. I wasn’t going to leave you. Not after—not after what you said.”

He gets that familiar look on his face—the look that plainly states that he doesn’t know whether to kiss her or to blame her for his impending cardiac arrest. It’s just like old times. But that look suddenly softens, becomes more tender, and then—

Then the statue next to them disintegrates, blasted aside by a wave of spells from another group of dark wizards. With another lash of the blackthorn wand, Ben freezes every single shard of stone in the air; with another flick of his wrist, he redirects the rubble back onto the group.

At such a high velocity, stones can cut through human skin like bullets.

Ben doesn’t give Rey any opportunity to watch the carnage, even if she had been so inclined. Neither does she have time to marvel at the spellwork he’d used, a combination of the Freezing Charm and the Oppugno Jinx, difficult to integrate in such quick succession. He ushers her away, his hand pressed to the base of her spine, urging her into the formation of MACUSA Aurors.

“Solo, are you crazy?” snaps an older wizard who had been introduced at the feast as Kyp Durron. “What’s that kid doing here? Get her to Hogwarts!”

“She’ll only Apparate right back,” Ben grumbles. “Anyway, she can handle herself.”

Rey’s more than a little surprised. It’s a far cry from the Ben she knows—the Ben who had once threatened to confiscate her broomstick because of the stunts that she kept pulling while up in the air. The Ben who had been insisting only minutes earlier that she make herself scarce.

But there are other things to dwell on—for one, she’s extremely bothered by what Kyp Durron had said.

I’m not a kid, Rey thinks mutinously. She’d been holding her own all night. She’d held her own with the manticore until help arrived. She’d endured regrowing dozens of bones and she’d made it through a childhood of neglect. She’d rolled with the punches of the Muggle and wizarding worlds. She’d torn down her walls and let people in. She’d learned that she could drive someone mad with desire and she’d looked him in the eye and told him what she deserved from a relationship.

She’s been holding her own all her life.

For the next several minutes, Rey fights like she’s got something to prove. Not to Kyp Durron or even to Ben, but to herself. With every spell that she successfully casts and counters, with every Auror whose flanks she successfully covers, with every ounce of magic rising in her blood—with every moment that she takes another breath—she proves to herself that she gets to be worthy. That she gets to be a witch.

That she gets to make her own destiny.

That she gets to have this life, with all of its aches and joys.

✨✨✨

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours, but eventually there are less than half of the original number of black-robed combatants left. Most of the ones who’d seemed to be calling the shots are down, save for Tarkin, who’s still locked in a ferocious duel with Luke. At this point, Rey’s come to grudgingly admit that Luke is one of the most powerful wizards she’s ever encountered, but there’s a reason that Tarkin had been Palpatine’s right hand. It’s an even match. And although they have considerably less cabal members to deal with, Rey and the rest are still outnumbered.

Her strength is flagging. Her body twinges with scrapes and bruises and the phantom effects of curses that had hit her and been summarily cancelled. It’s getting harder to focus, to keep her spellwork accurate and effective. She can’t imagine that it isn’t the same for Ben and everyone else. She makes eye contact with Eryl Besa after the two of them have brought down yet another opponent; in the Auror’s gaze is a fatigued sort of hopelessness that is reflected in the depths of Rey’s being.

And that’s when a fierce and ancient roar splits the heavens above and a vast shadow falls over the graveyard, temporarily plunging the world into darkness as it blocks out the moonlight.

Everyone looks up.

Kaytoo is swooping down toward the battlefield on his gargantuan wings, all armored hide and snarling mouth the size of a small crater, his red eyes glowing like embers. Baze Malbus is saddled on his back, guiding the dragon to unleash a torrent of fire on the largest formation of black robes.

There are few wizards who won’t think twice before going up against a full-grown Ukrainian Ironbelly. At the sight of their cohorts being devoured by flames, practically all of the remaining cabal members either drop their wands or start fleeing to the Apparition point.

Rey’s just about to start helping the Aurors round up the would-be escapees, but then she notices—

—the two faces peering out from behind Baze on the dragon’s back—

—and her jaw drops—

“Rey!” Rose calls out after she casts a Shield Charm to ward off the Conjunctivitis Curse that one of the more enterprising remnant soldiers aims at Kaytoo’s eyes. “There you are, thank Merlin!”

“We’re here to rescue you!” Finn adds, firing a Stunning Spell at a nearby black-robed figure who’s trying to run.

“Well! I never!” The usually serene Mon Mothma is incandescent with rage. She doesn’t seem to be all that terrified of the dragon, either. she stomps over to Kaytoo’s general vicinity, yelling up at the man on his saddle, “Mr. Malbus, what were you thinking, bringing students to a battlefield—”

“They crept onboard,” Baze grunts, looking harried and like he regrets ever leaving Romania. “Didn’t notice they were there until we were already flying over Manchester—oi!”

He all but bellows this last bit because, the moment that he steers Kaytoo closer to the ground, Rose leaps off and, naturally, Finn follows.

And then Rey is running toward them—or, more accurately, running in the direction that they’re running to. She’d noticed it the same they did.

Poe and Paige are in trouble. She’s unconscious and he’s badly injured, and they’re surrounded by several enemies who have apparently decided to mount some form of last stand.

“DON’T—TOUCH—MY—SISTER!” Rose screams, firing off a volley of spells that nearly has Rey tripping over her own two feet in surprise. Rose is a gifted caster and she’s one of those who’d aced the dueling module, but it is still unexpectedly… well, savage, coming from such a tiny person.

Finn is similarly competent, casting Shield Charms around Rose, looking mildly shocked every time he reels off a jinx or a hex that hits its target. But they still need help and, soon enough, Rey is charging into the fray while Ministry Aurors ferry Poe and Paige off to the Apparition point for extensive healing.

Fighting dark wizards with her best friends is markedly different from fighting dark wizards with the American Aurors. It’s less contained, less strategic, but Rey, Finn, and Rose instinctively know what one another is about to do and it’s a sixth sense that enables them to move in sync, to launch effective attacks.

“We’re doing this!” Finn crows after he inflicts a Densaugeo on a cabal member that causes the latter’s front teeth to elongate at an alarming rate, which distracts him long enough for Rey to Petrify him. “We’re actually doing this!”

“We are bloody amazing!” Rose huffs, conjuring a patch of thorny vines to ensnare three foes in one fell swoop.

Rey’s inclined to agree. After a while, though, it occurs to her that more enemies are toppling to the ground than they’re knocking out, and a quick glance at the periphery reveals Ben standing on the sidelines, a long-suffering expression on his face as he fires sniper spells to save his students from a grisly demise at the hands of dark magic.

With Kaytoo flying around, the battle doesn’t last much longer. Tarkin is soon the only one of Palpatine’s remnant still fighting. He’s fended off everyone trying to bring him down save for Luke, whose good if somewhat oblivious nature is clearly being tested by the other man’s obstinacy.

“Come on, Wilhuff, old chap!” Rey’s close enough to hear Luke groan as he dodges yet another Avada Kedavra. “Just surrender! I’m so tired!”

Panting, Tarkin glares at Luke with that same icy, venomous hatred that Rey had seen up close earlier tonight.

And he holds his wand aloft and, with a defiant sneer, he casts his last spell.

✨✨✨

Fiendfyre is a curse of last resort. It’s virtually impossible to control. It destroys everything.

It is used only by the desperate. By those who know and accept that they have reached the end of the line.

Those who have nothing left to lose.

It all happens in slow motion—at least, that’s what it feels like. That’s how it seems to Rey. Time occurs in flashes, suspended, and nobody can move fast enough, can do enough.

The cursed flames stream out from Tarkin’s wand like jets of magma spreading through the night air, spreading through the gravestones and the church and the yew trees. Their red-gold waves form serpents and chimaeras and eagles whose only purpose is to pounce on living targets.

Everyone starts running.

Some head for the Apparition point past the cemetery gates. Others make a beeline for Kaytoo, scrambling up his tail and onto his back as Baze roars obscenities at them as a form of rather threatening encouragement to get a move on.

Rey, Finn, and Rose also try to reach the dragon. They’re too far away from the Apparition point, they will never be able to outpace the flames. Rey’s just about to glance over her shoulder to check if Ben is following them when he suddenly comes up from behind her, scooping her up by the waist, hauling her alongside as he runs on long, long legs. She glances to her left and she sees Rose in a similar position, tucked under Ben’s other arm.

“Run, goddamnit, Evans!” Ben growls at Finn, whose pace has slowed a little at what must have made for a startling sight. “If you’re not on that fucking dragon when it flies off, I will deduct a thousand points from Gryffindor!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Finn yelps. He reaches Kaytoo first, then he helps Rose clamber on, followed by Rey.

Ben climbs after her and Kaytoo soars higher. The wind whips at Rey’s face as she clings to the ridges of the dragon’s armored scales for dear life, Ben’s fingers brushing against hers while they both look down to watch the sea of fire engulf the graveyard, burning away all trace that it had ever been there.

✨✨✨

It is so difficult to pretend, now more than ever, that Ben is just her professor. All that Rey wants to do is hold his hand tight, kiss him, feel his warmth against hers. She just wants to revel in the fact that he’s alive, that they’re both alive, that they’ve made it.

Of course, this is not feasible at the moment. They’re on a Ukrainian Ironbelly with dozens of other people. She spends the next several minutes answering Finn and Rose’s questions and also checking to make sure that they’re okay. Ben is a sullen presence beside her, his gloomy silence radiating an immense disapproval that is echoed by other teachers and some Aurors nearby.

Rey knows that she and her friends are in for a world of trouble once the dust has settled, but she can’t bring herself to care. She and Finn and Rose have never been models of exemplary behavior, anyway.

Baze and Kaytoo deposit their passengers in a secluded woodland that’s miles away from the Fiendfyre-razed cemetery. One by one, people start Disapparating; some go back to Hogwarts, others take their severely injured comrades to St. Mungo’s, and the rest pop off to London to open an investigation with the Ministry of Magic.

Rey’s never been more glad for the world to spin away and for her feet to land on a patch of grass outside the school gates, the friendly silhouette of Hogwarts castle looming in the distance with its torchlit windows cheerily aglow. Her exuberant mood doesn’t dissipate even when Mon Mothma and Larma D’Acy soundly lay into her and Finn and Rose, eventually deducting twenty points apiece. Rey suspects that it would have been more if the professors hadn’t been so clearly relieved that their students didn’t die.

But her slight smile soon fades when she looks for Ben in the crowd and sees him leaning heavily against one of the columns, coughing into his cupped palm.

“Professor Solo!” she at least has enough presence of mind to call out in lieu of his first name. She rushes over to him and he blinks at her with a grogginess that sets off alarm bells in her head, his face as white as a sheet.

Ben’s hand drops from his mouth. His fingers are streaked with blood. He sways slightly on his feet and then he topples over and Rey’s automatically reaching out to catch him, and he falls unconscious in her arms.

✨✨✨

Harter Kalonia’s demeanor is subdued, her brown eyes faded and tired. She closes the door of the hospital wing softly and steps out into the hallway, her mouth set in a terse line as she regards the circle of people who had been waiting anxiously ever since Ben had been brought in on a conjured stretcher.

“Severe bleeding of the internal thoracic artery, a punctured lung, ruptured vocal cords, a concussion, and organ damage to the spleen,” Kalonia announces. “The concussion could have been caused by anything and was easy to heal, but as for the other injuries—my guess is that Professor Solo was hit by a slow-acting dark curse during the battle and either it slipped his mind to cancel it or his counter-spell didn’t take effect. Depending on the nature of the curse, he may not even have realized that it had been cast on him.”

Rey thinks—numbly—of the chaos of that battle. How there had been so many people to fight and to save. Ben had been doing so much, had exerted himself seemingly beyond limit. It’s entirely possible for a stray curse to have gone unnoticed or forgotten.

“Will he be all right?” Chewie asks gruffly, giving voice to the question that Rey doesn’t dare to ask. Not now, not when she’d already made quite the scene screaming and weeping over Ben as the other professors laid him out on the stretcher.

Madame Kalonia hesitates. “It’s difficult to say. The damage is extensive. He will have to take ten different types of potion every day for a week. I’ll be able to reevaluate then.”

A long, horrified silence follows her words. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees Finn and Rose exchange uneasy glances before looking at her.

But she can’t meet their gazes or anyone else’s. She’s staring at the floor. She’s trying to make sense of a world that feels as though it’s on the verge of crashing down on her.

“I need to owl Leia,” murmurs Obi-Wan. “And somebody has to break the news to Luke and the MACUSA Aurors, they’ll be coming back from London any minute.”

“I’ll do it.” Chewie claps a heavy hand on the headmaster’s shoulder and the two of them make their way down the corridor with solemn steps.

Kalonia nods at Rose. “Your sister is fine, Miss Tico. She’s currently resting, but you’ll be able to see her tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Rose says, her voice uncharacteristically small-sounding.

Mon Mothma conjures a handkerchief and uses it to dab at her wet cheeks. It’s not often that Rey sees her Head of House rattled, and the sight makes her want to burst into her own tears as well.

“Right, then,” Mothma sniffs. “Off to bed with you, Miss Tico and Mr. Evans. Miss Niima, please come with me. Cassian Andor will take your statement now.”

✨✨✨

Rey meets with Cassian in Mothma’s office, a small and meticulously organized study with a large, cheerfully roaring hearth. She gives the flickering flames a wide berth, the blazing inferno of Fiendfyre still fresh on her mind, and she recounts her version of the evening to Cassian while Mothma sits quietly beside her, offering moral support.

Britain’s chief Auror is every bit as taciturn and no-nonsense as his wife. He’s enchanted a quill to move by itself, translating Rey’s words to parchment, and he gives her his full attention—and no indication at all that he is the same man whom Rey had glimpsed utterly decimating an entire group of dark wizards while they had Jyn surrounded earlier.

Rey’s throat is scraped raw after she’s done speaking, compounded by all the yelling and sobbing she’d done tonight. Mothma hands her a glass of water and then a cup of hot chocolate and she drinks them gratefully, letting the cup warm her trembling hands.

Cassian puts away the quill and parchment and proceeds to tell Rey what information he is cleared to divulge. He must sense her lingering bewilderment at having been caught up in all of this. He gives it a shape so that she can begin to understand. And to heal.

“The majority of Sheev Palpatine’s soldiers went to ground after he was apprehended in the Pacific Northwest,” Cassian says. “There was an attempt to break him out of Nurmengard a decade later, but it was thankfully foiled. We’ve surmised that the loyalists who evaded capture during that incident made the Tarkin estate their new headquarters; the graveyard was the family cemetery. Wilhuff Tarkin was cunning enough that there was nothing that could link him to Palpatine and he lived the charade of a harmless recluse for many years, all while gathering more supporters for his old master’s cause of pureblood supremacy. I believe that they could have done serious damage once they ramped up their operations but, fortunately for us, Tarkin wanted revenge on Luke Skywalker first. All in all, twenty wizards were apprehended and are now awaiting trial. We have every reason to conclude that Tarkin and the rest perished in the Fiendfyre.”

Rey thinks about those twenty captured wizards and about the burning cemetery where Palpatine’s right hand had been engulfed by his desperate last spell. She thinks about what it had taken to get to that point and about Ben coughing blood into his hand. She finds herself wondering, with morbid curiosity and with dread, what the cost had been.

“Was there anyone on our side who, um…” She trails off, unable to finish the question.

But Cassian knows what she means. “Three Ministry Aurors are confirmed to have been killed in action,” he replies. “Two are missing. It is presumed that they were unable to escape the conflagration in time.”

“Five in all,” Rey whispers, guilt constricting her chest as Mothma rests a consoling hand between her shoulder-blades. “Because of me—”

Cassian raises an eyebrow. “Don’t flatter yourself, Miss Niima. The continued existence of Palpatine’s remnant greatly imperiled both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. The Aurors who died tonight were doing their duty. If you insist on carrying the burden of their sacrifice, then I suggest that you honor them by performing to the best of your ability in the joint training program.” He pauses, brow furrowing, and conscientiously adds, “Assuming that you achieve the requisite N.E.W.T.s, of course. But—” His tone softens—“it’s probably safe to assume that that’s only a formality at this point.”

✨✨✨

Rey sneaks into the hospital wing on Thursday night.

She has endured almost a week of her schoolmates’ incessant badgering and her professors’ well-meaning but ultimately suffocating concern. She has firmly put a stop to the wildest of the rumors, such as the one wherein she’d been abducted by vampires and Luke had slain them all by turning into the sun. She has managed not to break down completely every time she overhears a student wondering if Professor Solo is going to be okay. She has Occluded her way through her classes and her N.E.W.T. study periods, because otherwise she’d just keep thinking about Ben and she’d never get anything done. She has cried herself to sleep every evening, her thoughts spiraling and her heart so cold with the fear that he won’t make it, that she will lose him forever.

Hidden under the invisibility cloak, Rey had staked out the hospital wing three nights in a row. She’d used the detection spell that Ben had taught her to observe Madame Kalonia’s comings and goings, marking her schedule. She hadn’t been able to visit Ben before not just because of the healer, but also his visitors—Leia and Han are in Hogwarts, in secret due to the heightened security measures that are in place following the brief resurgence of Palpatine’s loyalists. The MACUSA president and her husband keep a constant vigil at their son’s bedside, frequently accompanied by Luke and Chewie and Obi-Wan.

But, tonight, it is Rey’s chance. Everyone had turned in early, shuffling past her in the corridor as she plastered herself against the wall and paranoia stopped the breath in her lungs despite the safety afforded by the invisibility cloak. She casts the detection spell and waits for the glowing orb that is Madame Kalonia to float off to her quarters at the end of her rounds, and then Rey slips into the hospital wing.

It's quiet inside—a peaceful silence punctuated only by the snores and occasional sleep-stirrings of the patients. Rey casts a nonverbal spell to mute the sound of her footsteps and she tiptoes over to the secluded, curtained corner where she’s judged Ben to be, given that it had regularly had multiple orbs clustered in it. She shoulders through the drapes and builds her wards—silencing charms and shrouding spells and anti-intruder magic that will alert her and only her if someone comes near. It’s only when the perimeter is as secure as it can be that she turns to the bed—

—and nearly jumps—

Ben is awake. The July moonlight casts his alert expression into sharp relief and seeps into his open eyes. He’s hooked up to multiple nutrient drips and he’s reclining against a mountain of pillows that have been fluffed to a somewhat exaggerated extent. His wide shoulders and broad chest strain against his white hospital robes, the blanket pooled at his waist. The tousled waves of his dark hair are etched in the silvery radiance streaming in through the window.

His gaze trawls his surroundings at a measured pace. He knows that she’s here, or at least that there’s someone here. He must have seen the curtains part or felt the magic wrapping around him.

Rey takes off the invisibility cloak. Upon seeing her, the ghost of a crooked smile plays at the corners of Ben’s lush mouth and she has to blink back tears—she’d been so afraid that she would never see that smile again.

She squeezes into the empty chair beside his bed. He lifts a hand with some effort, cradling the side of her face. Her fingers latch on to his wrist and she leans into his large palm, nuzzling ever closer, staring into those brown eyes of his that shine with joy and affection and—and probably with the really good wizarding drugs, to be honest.

With his free hand, Ben motions to his throat, his features screwing up in an apologetic grimace. Right. His vocal cords are still healing. He can’t talk yet.

But that’s okay—there are a lot of things that Rey needs to tell him. He had come so close to dying and he’s still not completely out of the woods. Waiting around for what she deems to be the right time will only bring more heartache and regret in the long run.

“Ben,” Rey whispers, savoring the shape of his name in her mouth. The way it rolls off of her tongue. “Ben, first of all, it was bloody daft what you did, prioritizing everyone else when you’d been hit by a lethal curse. You once told me that I had to take care of myself because I matter—that applies to you, too, y’know, you matter to your family and to your friends and to—to me—” She feels the pulse in his wrist skip a beat against her fingertips, and that gives her the courage to just say it instead of stammering it out all second-guessing and shy. “You matter to me more than anything else ever has. So—you’re not allowed to neglect yourself like this again, d’you hear?”

His smile widens. He nods.

“Second of all—” Rey takes a deep breath—“I’m sorry.” She watches his smile fade into a puzzled little frown. “What I almost did to Hux—that was serious. I wasn’t thinking clearly and you were right, I lost my head. But you saved me from it, you took that curse for him and for me because—because that’s what you do, Ben.” The sentence chokes on a small sob but she soldiers through it, finally giving voice to every realization that she’d come to the night he bared his soul to her in the cell. “You try to shoulder the pain for everyone else and you destroy yourself in the process.” She presses a kiss to the mound of his palm. “I’m always insisting that I don’t care about your past, but not caring isn’t—it shouldn’t be—the same as ignoring how it’s shaped you. I’m sorry. I was seeing only my side, but I’ll do better. I’ll take you up on your offer to tell me everything someday, because I want to understand everything.”

It's not the finest of speeches. She’ll probably never be as eloquent as Ben is. But her fumbling words seem to have some effect, because his scarred features soften and he brings her hand to his lips, covering her wrist and her knuckles and the tips of her fingers in chaste kisses as light and as gentle as butterflies. Each moment of sweet, blessed contact elicits tears from her eyes and, soon enough, she and Ben are both crying. Again.

We’re ridiculous, Rey thinks with a sniff. She lets go of his wrist so that she can touch his face, brushing his sweaty hair from his pale forehead, running her fingers down the scar.

“Lastly,” she mumbles once she’s regained some composure, “I’m not sure where we go from here or what this means for us. There’s so much that we still need to talk about. All I know is that I want to talk about them, so I need you to get well, so that we can. And even if you don’t want to talk about them—even if you want nothing more to do with me after this—” He scowls then, shaking his head with solemn fierceness, and she has to calm him down by placing a hand over his wildly beating heart. “Even if you want nothing more to do with me,” Rey continues firmly, flashing him a watery smile, “I still need you to get well, anyway. I need you to survive this, so that you can go on and live the life that you deserve. Because I love you, too, Ben.” How easy it is to say, after all. She has no idea why she waited so long. “I always will.”

Ben leans forward with a mighty grunt. Before Rey can cry out in alarm and insist that he lay back and stop exerting himself, he’s folding her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. She closes her eyes and returns his embrace, feeling like she’s come home at last. White curtains ripple in the summer breeze and the night surrounds them in shadowed radiance, like benediction. Like grace.