The first time that he saw her, she was all sharp angles and bone. He'd heard of her before when the Gryffindor team held tryouts at the beginning of the year, the second-string chaser who'd seemingly come out of nowhere with a crappy Cleansweep and a mean right arm. It was unclear why she'd been subbed in for the second match of the year; the first Gryffindor vs. Slytherin had been one of the most intense games of the year and most teams would not dare to put in a second-string player so early in the season. Still, he was ill-prepared for the small fourth-year chaser whose body flitted from one end of the pitch to the other like a hummingbird zooming from blossom to blossom.
It was then that he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Fifth year Ben Solo was going to knock her straight off her broom the moment the whistle blew.
It was nothing personal. A right of passage, maybe. Little Gryffindor girls should know what they're up against when there are big bad Slytherins on the pitch. It was only fair to let her know as soon as possible. Let her quidditch hopes and dreams crumble with a couple of well-placed shoves and bruises.
So, when he careened into her, slamming his body - already a somewhat impressive 5'9" for a 15 year old - into her own slight frame, he could not expect what would happen next: a fumbling of quaffle into the arms of a fellow teammate, a sharp elbow into his eye socket, and a tangle of limbs grasping towards his broom.
"Let go!" Ben growled while trying to pull away. Her legs shifted, beginning to slip off the broomstick . The girl grit her teeth, a vaguely animalistic sound surging from her throat as she teetered wildly on her broom and latched one hand over his shoulder in a death-grip that made his stomach lurch. The whistles blared, the foul already called, yet the grappling continued. He shoved his arm into her neck, trying to displace her with brute force, but the rabid girl only turned her head, sinking sharp teeth into his arm. Kylo yelped, his broom jolting sideways in a desperate attempt at escape. The Gryffindor's eyes widened in a sudden surge of panic as her legs finally lost control of her broom, her body shifting off and sliding forwards.
Ben Solo had two thoughts before losing consciousness. One was the improbable realization that not only was this tiny parasite of his hurtling straight to the ground, but she was also taking Ben with her. The other was that, if he somehow survived, he would learn to not underestimate little Gryffindor girls with sharp elbows and sharper teeth.
The last thing he remembered was the sight of her eyes, wide and desperate, before his body crashed and crumpled.
o-o-o
"You're incredibly lucky, young man," Doctor Kalonia admonished. Ben was vaguely aware that the doctor was rubbing some sort of potion over his arms, though through sight only. His body felt as if it were floating upwards, and he wondered if this was how Seers felt when they had out-of-body experiences.
"What I win?"
"Your life, for one," she said with a roll of her eyes. She lit the tip of her wand and pulled Ben's eyelids up, peering closely. "Ground was muddier than usual, so a few broken ribs and appendages, but no snapped neck or spinal cord, which is thankful for falling at that height. Should mend quickly. The concussion though," she breathed sharply through her nose, "Well, sometimes the muggle ways are better than our current wizarding solutions. Been known to confound some patients as a nasty side effect."
"I'm confounded?"
"No," she corrected. "Pain potion, Solo. Pain potion. You will be back to normal in a few hours, though you may feel a bit out of sorts until then. Not sure which of you is worse right now, to be honest. Your little quidditch friend has been giggling for the past half hour since receiving her own potion. If you find anything humorous, please refrain? I can only take so much."
Ben swiveled his head to the side in a way that made his eyesight dim slightly from the movement. The savage Gryffindor girl was sitting up in the bed next to him, glancing at Ben with eyes that were barely opened and snorting to herself.
"Be ready for a long night, Mr. Solo. You both will be on observation until the concussion has ended. If you require assistance, I'll be in my office. And no sleeping, understand? I am not against taping both of your eyelids open with spellotape until you've recovered."
"Who won?"
"Excuse me?"
"The match? Slytherin won?"
Kalonia let out a sigh, muttering under her breath. "Gryffindor, okay? Does it really matter? You both could have brain-dead due to that stupid excuse of a sport!"
Ben let out an exaggerated groan, collapsing backwards on his bed. The Gryffindor's snorts burst into a peal of wild laughter that did not cease until Kalonia had slammed her office door shut. She turned to Ben and smiled wide, showing the sharp teeth that had sunk into his arm only hours earlier.
He lifted his head and grinned back, eyes unfocused. In the back of his brain, something shouted at him to stop; that this little Gryffindor girl was the cause of this entire ordeal in the first place. That she was the enemy, not some fourth-year with bright eyes and a pleasant laugh that he maybe would like to get to know a little better. He shushed it; he was high as a kite and he wasn't going to let something as stupid as his own intuition get in the way. Besides, perhaps it would be fun to get to know his competitor from the other side of the pitch?
"Merlin, I think I'm going to vomit."
The last 6 and a half hours had been decidedly not fun. After 3 hours of foggy bliss, Ben Solo's head ached as if a thousand banshees were screeching inside. To make matters worse, his temporary roommate had gone from occasional giggles to occasional dry heaves that made his own stomach roil in protest.
"You've said so already," Ben mumbled while shoving a pillow over his eyes. He could see stars behind his eyes. "Several times. Seven, to be exact."
"You're point, Solo?"
"My point," he flung the pillow to the ground, "is to shut up before I make you, you rabid animal!"
"Excuse me?" The fourth year had the nerve to scoff at him.
"Well, normal human girls don't go around biting people on the quidditch pitch! If I contract something, you're being held responsible."
"Would you piss-off already? You're acting as if I'm to blame for you being a git on the field!"
"We wouldn't be here if you had just gotten shoved into one of the quidditch stands like a good little Gryffindor. But, no. You had to go all vampire on me and bite my fucking arm."
"First of all, that sounds rather close-minded towards other magical creatures. But really, what can I expect from a Slytherin? You probably torture goblins in the basement of your fancy mansion. Secondly, so sorry I decided to not let you push me around like every other girl on the pitch, but I happen to have pride and skill." She laughed to herself and the noise triggered another sharp pain in Ben's head. "Seems to me that you only have one of those two, and it's most definitely the former rather than the latter."
"We'll see about that, Gryffindor-"
"Rey."
Ben stared at her blankly. "What?"
"Are you stupid?" She sighed and nodded in his direction as a brief sign of acknowledgement. "My name isn't 'Gryffindor' or 'rabid animal' or whatever else you've been calling me. Rey. Rey Niima."
Ben rolled his eyes and slumped down in his bed.
"Like I care. And I suppose you'll be wanting to know my name, then? So we can be best friends and braid each other's hair?"
"I know who you are, Ben Solo. Everyone does." Rey settled into her own hospital bed, turning her back to him and curling up into a ball. "I'm not interested."
o-o-o
The last few hours of observation passed in relative silence. The Gryffindor girl—Rey—was reading what looked like her charms' textbook and Ben spent the last half hour counting the number of stones that made up the wall near his hospital bed. Every once in a while, Doctor Kalonia would enter, prod one of them awake if they seemed decidedly sleepy, and cluck her tongue about their grumpy dispositions. By eight a.m., Ben was groggy, but eager to leave his bed and hopefully forget all about that hell night.
"Visitors," Kalonia stated matter-of-factly as three students entered the wing. Two of them, Gryffindors around Rey's age, were an unfamiliar couple who entered the room far louder than necessary. Ben groaned as the third student entered; Poe Dameron, Gryffindor's golden boy and self-proclaimed best flyer on the pitch, was the bane of his existence since both of them had been recruited onto their respective teams during year 2.
"You're alive!" the girl shouted while wrapping Rey in an enthusiastic hug.
"It's going to take more than a fall to take me out!" Rey responded with a laugh.
"I've missed you! The common room's been so quiet and Finn wants to do nothing but play gobstones and I swear there's been no one to gossip with about whether or not Professor Snoke's secretly a grindylow in disguise and it has been just so incredibly boring!"
"Let up, Rose! I've been gone for less than 24 hours," Rey laughed while trying to pry the girl's arms from around her neck. "And to answer your question: yes. Snoke is most definitely a grindylow in disguise and gobstones is, in fact, dreadfully boring."
"Gobstones aren't that boring," the other boy—Finn, Ben gathered—muttered sheepishly as Rose grinned in his direction. "Brilliant flying, Peanut. Fierce, as usual."
Ben's eyebrows rose at the nickname.
"I at least made it an interesting match, right?"
"At the edge of our seats!" He confirmed while ruffling the girl's hair. "Maybe a little too much at the edge of our seats, to be honest. Next time, I'm applying a permanent sticking charm to your arse. You'll be walking around the halls with your Firebolt permanently attached to your bum, knocking into first years on the stairs and whatnot."
Rose rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to speak.
"Rose, you make one dirty joke, and I swear!" Rey warned.
"Finn started it!"
"Well," Poe Dameron interrupted, flashing an obnoxiously bright smile that made Ben cringe. "Now that my favorite band of fourth-years are done hassling our star chaser, seems to me we should make sure she's well-fed and ready for class. You feel okay walking, Rey?"
"What, you planning to carry her?" Ben grumbled under his breath. Poe turned to him and stared.
"Alright there, Ben? Didn't notice you."
Ben snorted. "Only so many loser Gryffindors I can take in one room, that's all. Go on, then."
"How badly did you hit your head then, Ben? Because if I recall correctly, Slytherin was the loser last night," Poe pointed out with a cocky grin. "Or were you too busy hurtling through the air to take notice?"
"Seasons not over." Ben flexed his fingers, fighting back the urge to throw something, anything, at Poe's head. Last time he'd done so, it had resulted in a week's worth of detention and one of the most embarrassing howlers that he had ever received from his mother. He settled for squeezing his hands around the frame of his bed, pretending it was Dameron's pretty little neck.
"Off to an exciting start, though, wouldn't you agree?" Poe continued. "Though, I'm not sure if you can top today's match. Your flying's not nearly as graceful as your falling." Ben moved instantaneous to his feet, towering over Poe and leering downwards. Maybe the detentions would be worth it.
Rey cleared her throat, interrupting the mounting tension between the two boys. "Listen, I'm starving, so if we could just leave? I haven't eaten in ages."
"You act like they were starving you here," said Finn while slinging an arm over Rose and Poe's shoulders while heading out the door, giving a wary glance in Ben's direction. "C'mon, Peanut! You can go stuff your face on pumpkin pasties and we'll pretend we aren't disgusted by your ability to inhale an entire table's worth of food in one gulp."
Rey gathered her things, purposely avoiding Ben's gaze. The fact that she wouldn't look at him almost made him angrier, though he could not quite place why. She was a silly underclassman with a big mouth and an elevated ego. Why should he care what she thought of him? Still, it nagged at him. Was she really not even going to say goodbye to him? Or apologize for Poe Dameron acting like a complete load of dung? No, it shouldn't be that easy.
"See you around school, Peanut."
If anything would make the last 12 hours of suffering worth it, it was the bright red blush that spread over Rey's face. She opened her mouth as if to say something before she stormed out the room without glance. A slow smile spread over Ben's face. But it wasn't a cheerful one. More like one that a cat gets before spotting it's prey.
Maybe Dameron was right. Things were off to an interesting start.