The Wandless Witch

It’s the first time any of the students have heard the sorting hat call only a first name and no last. 

Ben watches her climb the steps toward the stool. Every candle hovering above flickers. A chilling breeze sweeps across the floor before it whips up, blowing the candles out. The hall erupts in gasps and whispers.

The wandless witch. 

Despite the dramatic atmosphere, all he can think about is how small and scrawny she is.

She can’t possibly be eleven, he thinks.

She sits on the stool, eyes skittering nervously across the hall until settling on the grand entrance doors. Ben and a few others surreptitiously follow her gaze to the back, where Chewbacca and Han Solo are standing. Ben remembers the day he'd been sorted; when his eyes had cast about the great hall with the same desperate anxiety, seeking the same assuring smirk Han's donning now. He remembers how he'd smiled the same tiny smile as the girl is when he'd seen Chewie waving at him. 

She looks determined when the hat bellows, 

“SLYTHERIN!”





Four days later:





Two figures follow their professor up a small spiral stairwell to the headmaster’s office.

“Stop walking so close," the boy mutters irritably. His Slytherin robe sleeve doesn’t swish, being rolled halfway up his forearms in an obvious dress code violation, as he moves further from the tan, freckled girl beside him. His raven hair and ember eyes catch the lamplight as they ascend the dark stairwell. 

“I can’t see," she hisses back. From what little light there is, the boy glimpses messy chestnut buns bouncing at the back of her head, her fiery hazel glare glued to the steps.

“Eyes up, little one,” the professor advises from ahead. “Almost there.” The Slytherin pair round the final corner to find their defense against the dark arts professor at the top, wand elegantly raised in lumos to light the last few steps leading up to a great oak door. “Step inside and wait quietly. I’ll see you both in detention tomorrow.” The girl nods anxiously. Professor Ashoka Tano, clearly already soft on her, pats her shoulder empathetically before leaving them.  

The boy sniffs and shuffles inside, shadowed by his tiny companion. He twitches at the sound of the door latching behind them; the office feels as stale and silent as it always has. He wishes it didn’t smell so familiar.

“...The headmaster won’t expel us, right?” The girl whispers, eyes roaming the ornate space. 

He takes a seat in the chair closest to the door. "No." The boy levels a glare at the massive desk in the center of the room. “Tano expects us in detention tomorrow.” 

His cold appeasement falls on deaf ears as the girl gazes up at the animated portraits above them. The last headmaster, the late Obi-Wan, winks at her amidst brushstrokes of off whites and browns. The boy rolls his eyes and slouches further into the chair. 

A sharp, smoky voice pierces the silence. “There you are." Her grey crown of ornate braids is their first glimpse of the headmaster as she fully emerges into the candlelight. Leia Organa smiles with a fond gleam in her eyes. "Hello, Rey. Ben."

He rises, tense with defiance even as he unrolls his robe sleeves. Climbing the few steps at the center of the office brings him directly in front of the desk behind which Headmaster Organa is standing. 

The small first-year shakes out her hands, curling them into shaky fists, and follows. 

Organa takes her seat with a sigh before resting her glittering gaze on the girl. “I understand you are the newly adopted ward of our residing defense professor and head of Slytherin house, Professor Ashoka Tano. Is that right, Rey?”

Hands still shaking, Rey answers, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And that you, Ben, are here-” she pauses to raise a parchment closer to her eyes, “because you were caught chasing a classmate's cat around the grounds...when you were supposed to be in Charms class.” Her voice carries no question, and a clear amount of amusement.

Ben lifts his chin and frowns, making no effort at direct eye-contact, finding a floating candle just over the headmaster’s shoulder to glare at. 

Organa nods to herself, shuffling her few sheets of parchment. “And Rey, is it true you were enrolled a year too early at our sister-school, Ilvermorny?” Rey remains quiet and stiff. Ben glances curiously down at her. Organa brings another article of parchment closer to her face as she reads. “According to Professor Tano’s report, you somehow managed to transfigure a muggle electric bill into a Hogwarts letter, then proceeded to sneak into MACUSA, apparate into the Ministry, and hotwire a charmed muggle car, in which our flying instructor, Han Solo, found you. All of which was done...without a wand.” There’s a brief, agonizing pause in which the headmaster drops her hand holding the report to the desk with a shocked ‘thump’. “Crafty little nine year old, aren’t you?” 

Rey drops her head. Ben is staring at her with earnest disbelief, now. 

This seems to further amuse the Headmaster. “Rey.” The girl lifts only her eyes. “I’m sure you are aware by now that we do not tend to accept students until they are eleven.”

The nine-year-old seems, impossibly, to shrink further.

“That said..." Leia takes a deep breath in, "Hogwarts upholds that rule largely for safety and experience reasons, and you…” Organa pauses. “Well- you're a bit of a special case. You’ve proved you’ll find your way here no matter the cost--specifically to yourself, it seems. After an extensive meeting with the staff, we’ve decided the safest option is to leave you officially enrolled."

Rey straightens with shock, eyes wide as a doe's.

“Besides,” Organa adds with a smile. “Seems you’ve already made yourself a friend.”

The tense grip on Ben’s body vanishes completely as he rolls his eyes. Organa merely nods at Rey, whose eyes are equally disbelieving.

“No, I- he was blocking-”

“She just so happened to be passing as I was looking for-”

“-my way to Potions-”

“-Poe’s damned cat-”

“And he interrogated me about Beebee-”

“-it stole something-”

“We just-"

“We don't-”

“...” 

“...”

Leia is smirking. Ben and Rey stand staring at her, mouths agape, fingers pointing limply at each other.

“Yes, I think you two will grow quite close.” It’s a soft, satisfied declaration; her eyes sparkling, smile plump and smug. 

Ben grunts, turning to leave without permission. 

“You’re dismissed,” Organa offers the still-stiff Rey, not without gentility.

The young pair think they hear a soft, “see you soon,” but can’t be sure over the creak of the office door.

Earlier that day: 

“The girl I’ve heard so much about.”

Rey had taught herself not to respond when strangers are rude to her. And she finds it especially rude to block someone’s path when they’re half your size and already late for class.

“Rey NoName.” He looks older, maybe a fourth year like Poe. But he’s bigger than Poe. And his voice is deeper. “The wandless witch.”

She mashes her teeth together to keep the ‘piss off’ from toppling off the tip of her tongue. She didn't know being wandless would be such a big deal. The spotlight is uncomfortable, unwelcome, and cumbersome. She won’t risk a brighter spotlight for missing Potions. Especially since it's the only class she has with Finn today.

She glares up at him. "Move.”

“The map," he says simply. "Give it to me.”

Map? The orange tabby had had only a folded up bundle of blank, aged parchment. She continues to glare. 

“It's mine," he insists.

“Then what was it doing in Poe’s cat’s mouth?” 

“Dameron and I share a dorm. Beebee gets into things he shouldn’t.”

For some reason, hearing the cat’s name, ‘Beebee’, come out in the boy’s low, brooding tone makes him suddenly much, much less intimidating. “I gave it to Poe,” she says. The boy seems to relax. “Are you friends?” She asks.

He watches her for a beat. “Seem unlikely?”

Rey hadn’t considered how likely or unlikely it seems, only that if Poe likes this boy, Rey might be more inclined to. She shrugs. 

“You’re a first year in our house,” he says, eyeing the moth hole near the seam of her Slytherin patch.

She glares, defensive. “Let me pass. I’m late and I don’t have what you’re looking for.”

“Tell me where the cat is.” 

“I don’t know where the cat is.”

"I just saw you petting-"

"Then you know I didn't do anything with the cat!" Rey tries to shove past him, which makes the boy huff a little laugh.

"Hold on-"

"Let. Me. Pass!"

Before either of them are prepared, all of the air in the hall shrinks and expands within the exhalation of her final word. The boy is abruptly in the air, flying backward. 

Just as his body hits the stone floor, Professor Tano rounds the corner. 

Her wide eyes skitter from the boy, to Rey, and back again. There's a moment of silence in which Rey cannot hear her heartbeat. "What's happened here, Solo?"