"Niima! Left side!"
Ducking to the side, Rey rolled out of the way of a bludger and dipped below her fellow chaser, careful to reconstruct formation.
"LEFT SIDE, Niima! Eyes open! Move it!"
Once again, she rolled in a sideways spiral before hurriedly returning to formation below Poe's left elbow, gritting her teeth as she awaited the pass.
"Ready?" Poe shouted over the sound of rushing wind.
"Open!" Rey shouted, positioning her body just right. The quaffle passed behind Poe's back, dropping steathily to the side and into Rey's awaiting arms. Rey reached outwards, speeding up slightly to account for the whizzing bludger that just passed her ear, and was horrified to watch the ball fumble out of her arms and into the mud below. A whistle blew, signalling their failure in sharp, high-pitched spurts.
Rey skittered to the ground breathing hard. Zorii Bliss, Gryffindor's quidditch captain, had held practice for nearly 3 hours at this point, and the sun had grown cold in the late-December sky. Rey's fellow chasers, Poe and Paige, descended after, frantically rubbing at their hands in a desperate attempt to regain circulation as their captain scowled at them. Zorii flew like a falcon, but she was a madwoman when it came to leading a team. After Gryffindor's first match, she'd been relentless during every practice. It didn't matter that their next opponents, Hufflepuff, had lost gloriously to Gryffindor last year; Zorii ran drill upon drill as if their next bout would have them in contention for the Quidditch World Cup.
"Dameron and Niima! You know the only job you've got down there is to not drop the damn quaffle, right!" Zorii shouted. "Again!"
"Bliss, my fingers are turning purple," Poe insisted as he held up the violet digits for proof. "We can barely breathe, let alone properly complete a play." Rey nodded miserably in agreement, too ashamed at her botched pass to meet her captain's eyes.
"Why don't we call it? Our next match isn't even until after break, Zor," Paige said, setting her hand Bliss's shoulder. In times like this, fellow seventh-year Paige Tico was one of the few people who could calm Zorii down to a reasonable level when she went on one of her quidditch tirades. This time, however, the seeker merely shrugged her friend's hand off of her shoulder in an irritated huff.
"Well, excuse me for being one of the few people who actually gives a flying flip about winning the Quidditch Cup this year," Zorii grumbled, clearly exasperated. "You want Wexley to knock a bludger into our own keeper again? Or Niima to fall off her bloody broom? No? Then, we're out here until the drill is done flawlessly!"
"Let up, Zorii," Jessica advised as she dismounted and slung her bat over her shoulder. "This is the last time we're able to book the pitch before break. Shouldn't we be leaving on a more positive note? Christmas cheer and all that? You know, actually remind us why we like quidditch rather than making us want to drop it entirely after hols?"
"You want to run laps again, Pava?"
"All I'm saying is that we've got a good team," Jessica continued, slinging an arm over Poe's shoulder. "I mean, look at this face! How could you not fall in love with your teammates when they're all this damn adorable."
"I am pretty damn adorable, " Poe confirmed.
"Quidditch isn't about being cute," Zorii answered. "Poe can't just flirt his way to defeating Hufflepuff next semester."
"It could work," Poe said with a shrug. "I assume that's how I made it on the team in the first place."
"Your face is going to be less damn adorable after I curse it, Dameron."
"Just trying to lighten the mood!" Poe insisted. "Listen, Zor, we're going to be okay. We've got a solid line-up and a team of mostly veterans. Hufflepuffs got a pretty tight-knit group, too, and they've got that keeper who's an all-out miracle on the pitch, but they completely blunder when it comes to speed and strength. We've got this win clinched."
"That's not enough!" Zorii insisted. "We barely beat Slytherin during the first game and we've got a brand-new chaser with barely any experience. How secure are we really right now?"
Rey's face colored with the realization that her mishap during their first match was responsible for the onslaught of pain that was happening each practice since then. If she had just maneuvered out of Solo's grasp smoothly, she and her teammates would be laughing in the Gryffindor common room and exchanging last-minute gifts rather than freezing off their respective appendages in the cold, winter air. It didn't matter that they won the game against Slytherin; none of it had been thanks to Rey.
"I'm getting better," Rey answered quietly.
"Better, yes. But that doesn't change the fact that you were passed out for most of the only game you've been put in so far. Not to mention the blatant fouls you pulled before that. Highly inappropriate conduct, Niima."
"Sorry I had a fucking nut job of a Slytherin target me," Rey muttered, unable to stop the irritation bubbling up in her veins. "Next time I'll just let him run me into the stands rather than standing up for myself. Much better to be a doormat, right?"
"Check your anger, Rey," Zorii warned, her tone hard as flint. "Listen, you fly like hell and you can catch a quaffle like no other newbie that I've seen. But losing control of your emotions? Biting an opponent in the middle of a game? We aren't Slytherins, Rey. We don't play that sort of game."
"I'm not-"
"Is your lot done flailing around out there?" a sharp voice interrupted from the side of the pitch. A crowd of silver and green hugged the side of the enclosure, a series of pinched faces glaring over at Rey and her teammates. Slytherin Captain Gwen Phasma led the charge, a towering sixth year who was considered one of the most dangerous beaters to ever grace Hogwarts' quidditch league. Despite her generally foul demeanor, Rey couldn't help but feel thankful for the intervention.
"We've got the pitch reserved for seven o'clock," Phasma said with a sniff. " If your team hasn't learned how to fly in a straight line yet, it's simply a lost cause. Vacate the premises."
"It's 6:58! We have two minutes!" Zorii snapped as she tossed a quaffle so hard at Paige that she nearly dropped it. "Brooms up!" she shouted to her team.
"120, 119, 118, 117..." the redhead to the left of Phasma, Armitage Hux, interrupted with a snide check of his watch.
"It's going to take more than two minutes to save that sorry excuse of a team," Phasma retorted. A handful of the Slytherin team tittered. Rey noticed that Ben Solo did not join, but he did stare unflinchingly at the Gryffindor team, puffed up like an animal trying to intimidate his opponent. A great lunking guard dog, Rey thought as she studied his stance.
"Two minutes is all it's going to take for us to beat your sorry arses again," Zorii shouted.
"...68, 67, 66, 65, 64..." the insufferable redhead continued.
"Last chance this year, isn't it, Bliss?" Phasma says lazily from the sidelines. "A shame you'll be letting down Gryffindor for another year. But then again, maybe they'll pick an actual captain that knows her way around a quidditch pitch, next time."
"Who knows her way around how to cheat on the quidditch pitch, more like!"
"...28, 27, 26, 25, 24…"
"Tell that to the three straight years we've won the cup."
"I'll tell it to your fucking giant arse, Phasma!"
"And that's your time," Hux interrupted as he smugly brandished his timepiece.
"That's our time, huh?" Zorii shouted, tossing her broomstick to the ground and stalking over. Hux instinctively flinched. "That's our time? That's rich coming from a seeker whose entire muscle mass amounts to less than what's in my own left arm! You want to come closer with your daddy's borrowed pocket watch and see what we're made of? Snap's got a bludger with your name on it, you little weasel!"
"We are not brawling on the pitch," Paige interrupted, pulling Zorii backwards. "Are you insane? You're going to get disqualified from future matches unless you rein it in, Zor."
"And you think Niima's not in control of her emotions," Jessica muttered, jumping as she realized that Rey was still standing behind her. "Sorry, Rey. Just… You know…"
"It's fine," Rey answered blandly.
"Let it go," Paige said, turning Zorii's entire body around in order to break her line of sight. "Don't stoop to their level. You know they just like riling you up like that." Zorii muttered a halfhearted agreement as Paige regained the Gryffindors' attention. "Listen up, everyone. Good practice, good first match, and Happy Christmas," Paige continued on Zorii's behalf. "Rest up well and be ready to kick some arse next term!"
Limbs still stiff from the cold, the Gryffindor team staggered to the bench to gather their equipment before splitting off into the locker room. Despite Paige's attempts, the air was thick with tension as each player muttered noncommittal well-wishes for the holiday. With a heavy sigh, Rey sat down at the bench, her head in her hands.
"You're a natural on a broom, you know." Rey looked up from the bench as Poe took the empty seat next to her. "Don't take it personally. It's Zorii's last year, so she's desperate to win the Quidditch Cup before leaving. She just gets like this sometimes. My first year we ended up running suicides till I puked," he said with a reassuring squeeze to her shoulder.
"You guys have all been playing together for two years," Rey said, hunching lower. "She's right. I'm an amateur."
"You're fresh," Poe answered. "You're intuitive and aggressive and impulsive, yes. But that's not a bad thing, Niima."
"Did you end up almost plummeting to your death during your first game?"
"Well," Poe answered carefully. "No. But, that's hardly going to be the case for every match, Rey."
"And how many times did you drop the quaffle today?"
"Rey don't do this to yourself," Poe said with a sigh. "It was a bad practice. That's it. You can't beat yourself up about it. Besides," he continued with a grin, "You know Paige and I have got your back. We all make eachother look good out there."
"I guess," Rey conceded.
"Well," Poe said as he stretched and rose from his seat. "I don't know about you, but I could go for something hot to bring feeling back to my limbs. Want to see if there's anything left to eat at the Great Hall?"
"I'll be there soon. Just need a breather," Rey said as Poe gave an uncertain nod. Reluctantly, he exited the stands with a wave and a promise to help her with her transfiguration homework later that night.
Despite her promise, Rey did not follow shortly after. As she sat in the stands, subtly wiping away her own tears, she watched as the Slytherin team accomplished play after play of perfect passes, lost in her own thoughts. If Rey wanted to make a place for herself on the team, one thing was clear: she'd have to prove that she belonged and wasn't merely some fourth year her teammates were taking a chance on. In the back of her head, Ben Solo's warning from earlier that year echoed through her mind. Would she be enough to be kept on as a first-string player if she continued to mess up?
Watching onwards, Solo swerved so suddenly that Rey could have sworn he was crashing. Last minute, he swung upwards and to the left, quaffle swishing cleanly through the hoop. As he let out a brief shout of victory to his teammates, Rey had to begrudgingly admit to herself that Ben Solo's talent could not be questioned.
o-o-o
"You aren't completely terrible on a broom."
Ben looked up from his table at the library, his copy of Defensive Magical Theory slipping from his grasp when he saw Rey Niima, of all people, take the seat opposite of his. Quickly, he searched the room, looking for whatever gaggle of Gryffindors put her up to this and readying his wand under the table.
"What are you doing?" he asked, seeing no offending Gryffindors in sight.
"My transfiguration essay," Rey hummed, unfurling a roll of parchment and licking the tip of her quill before dipping it into Ben's own pot of ink. "You only have black? No blue?"
"What do I look like? A Flourish and Blotts?"
Rey shrugged, tapping her quill against the table to get off the excess ink and sending a thin arc of liquid across the table. Ben all but hissed, pulling his own materials closer to him with a glare. It would figure that the first time Rey Niima talked to him in over a month, she would only be doing so in order to get under his skin. Purposefully, he moved over a seat, Rey sending him a small smirk as he readjusted.
"So, I'm apparently not bad on a broom," Ben said suspiciously, avoiding eye contact as he flipped a page in his book.
"Apparently," Rey said with a snort.
"And how exactly did you come around to realize this very obvious truth?"
"Don't get full of yourself, Solo," Rey said as she blew on her parchment to dry the ink. "I said you were good on a broom, not that you should be given your own chocolate frog card."
"Never been a fan of chocolate frogs. Too squirmy on the way done. Now, licorice snaps I can get behind."
Rey looked at him blankly. "No one under the age of fifty like licorice snaps, you psychopath."
"Not everyone has the tastebuds of a five-year-old," Ben muttered. "Listen, I can only do this whole 'pleasant conversation' thing for so long before the insults start coming up again. Do you have any particular reason for bothering me with your presence?"
"What? I can't have a pleasant conversation with my mortal enemy?"
"I like the insults better," Ben admitted.
"Your face looks like the back end of a troll. Better?"
"Much better," said Ben with a nod. "Now, leave."
"I would prefer not to," Rey insisted, moving another seat closer as if in protest, her shoulder almost knocking into his own. He had half a mind to elbow her in the rib as she scooted ever closer.
"Niima, there are over a hundred tables in this damn room, and you choose to sit next to me," Ben said, the challenge clearly building in his voice. "If you aren't here for any other reason than to do this Defense Against the Dark Arts homework for me, I suggest you get your scrawny arse out of here."
Muttering a defeated "Fine," Rey angrily gathered her materials into a messy bundle and hitched her school bag up on her shoulder. At the end of the table, she halted, staring down at her books and chewing at her lip like a small child who knew they were about to get yelled at.
"Does the offer still stand?"
"What offer are we talking about, Niima?" Ben asked lazily, adding the final period to answer number two. "I'm a busy man. Can't keep track of every witch that's trying to proposition me."
"Do you want to coach me in Quidditch or not?"
Ben's lip curled backwards. "Interesting." He leaned forward, pulling Rey's books from her hands and forcing her to meet his eyes. Hazel. Huh. "I suppose it's not so much about what I want, though. It's what you want."
"I'm bloody asking, aren't I?"
"And yet, the question remains: why?"
"Because I want to fly better, okay?" Rey said, slamming her books down in exasperation. "Because I don't want to go back to the reserve team next year. Because I want to hold that shiny Quidditch Cup in my hands and gloat in your face. Because I'm after stealing all your Slytherin secrets and learning how to reanimate the dead. Because, and I hate to admit this, you're infuriatingly good on a broomstick and the fact that you're actually offering to teach me is a better opportunity than I could ever have expected! Take your fucking pick, Solo. I can't say I entirely know the answer to that question."
"You think I can help you stay on the team," Ben repeated. He couldn't doubt it was delicious, seeing his opponent desperate for his aid. He'd remember this moment the next time some foul Gryffindor got all self-righteous on him. Still, he was surprised to see that beneath all that anger that Rey Niima presented as she asked for his help, there was a layer of fear and uncertainty that he could see in her eyes. "Didn't know Gryffs actually listened when being talked to. You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
"I'm a fucking jar of Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans."
"Once again, cannot compare to the bite of a good licorice snap."
"Still wrong on that one. But, yeah," Rey said with a deep breath and a nod. "I need your help. I can pay you, if that's what you need."
She couldn't. Ben knew she couldn't. It only took one look at her second-hand robes and crumpled quill to know that Rey didn't carry as much as an extra sickle in her pocket. Why she would even offer, he had no idea. "I don't need money. Your groveling is it's own reward," Ben lied. "As long as you're willing to listen to me completely without question, I'll take you on, Niima."
Her smile brightened. "Nice! So, what's the plan?"
"Plan?" Ben repeated blankly.
"What, have you received too many bludgers to the head?" Rey responded impatiently. "I seriously doubt your Slytherin minions would be all too happy about you hanging out with a Gryffindor. I'd rather not receive death threats from Armitage Hux or get jinxed by Bazine Netal in the hallways."
Ben rolled his eyes. "You assume too much to think they'd even know your name, Niima."
"Armitage Hux can barely tell the difference between a quidditch hoop and his own arsehole. I could hardly care if he knows of my existence as long as he's not casting shoddy spells in my direction."
Ben cracked a small but honest-to-goodness smile at that one. Armitage Hux, Slytherin's newest team member this season, had proved himself insufferable within the few months that Ben had the displeasure to play with him. If the weasel-faced git wasn't complaining about mudbloods using the same pitch as them, he was accusing his own teammates of cursing his broom every time he failed to catch the snitch. It took most of Ben's willpower to not set his broom on fire on a weekly basis.
"No one'll notice. Not if we do it at night," Ben answered. "That is, as long as you're not too much of a good little Gryffindor to break a couple of school rules."
Rey preened, her head lifting with a haughty expression. "I'll have you know that I can be surprisingly sneaky," she confirmed. "I've broken into the kitchens on numerous occasions. I'm on a first-name basis with the house elves and everything."
"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me," Ben admitted. "Sneaking out of the castle is different, though. If you let anyone know, and I mean anyone, we're both looking at a week's worth of detention, at the very least. Can you handle it?" Rey nodded. "Good. And once a week, the day before flying, we'll meet up in the library to discuss best practices."
Rey raised an eyebrow. "Didn't take you for the particularly studious type, Solo. How very un-Slytherin of you."
"Ambition and knowledge go hand-and-hand," Solo responded with a roll of the eyes. "Theory comes first. The best flyers start with the research, then use instincts to improvise."
"Maybe. But, one of our friends is going to notice if we meet here on a regular basis," Rey insisted. "Flying only. No other meetings."
Of course she wouldn't let this be easy.
"I know that Gryffindors are notoriously stupid, but maybe you should just be thankful that I'm offering to help at all, Niima," Ben argued. "Like I said, this only works if you get it through your thick skull that you'll need to listen to me. Entirely. Once a week we fly. Once a week we meet," Ben insisted. "Tell your little pals that I'm fucking tutoring you. Charms class or something."
"I'm ace at charms."
"Then make it potions. Does it matter? You can tell them I'm holding you hostage for all I care. I'm not particularly afraid of a couple shrimpy Gryffindors," said Ben. "If it makes you feel better, we'll count this as our first library meeting so you don't have to worry about it this week. Tomorrow night, meet me at the pitch at 2:00 am for flying. Deal?" Ben extended his hand, and Rey looked on warily as if expecting it to shoot sparks at her. He would have laughed in any other situation.
"I don't know why I'm trusting you," Rey answered, taking his hand in hers. As they shook, Ben couldn't help but notice that while her hand was significantly smaller than his, they were as rough and calloused as any seasoned quidditch player. "If this is some sort of plot to steal secrets from the Gryffindor playbook, I'll do more than just bite your arm this time."
"Ah, is that a promise?"
"Ha, fucking ha, Solo," Rey responded, letting out a deep breath. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
"Most definitely," Ben said with an all-out grin. "Can't get any better without a couple of bruises and knicks, can we?"