Chapter 4
Rey isn’t sure she likes Valentine’s Day.
Ben isn’t really helping her figure it out.
He’s lying on his back along the bench opposite her in the Great Hall, his Advanced Charms homework leviosa’d above his head so he can study without “tiring his arms.” Rey can’t even see him--just the floating notes.
“Valentine’s Day is just an excuse for desperate, fighting lovers to make up with shallow purchases and hollow promises in order to save face in front of their nosy friends.”
Rey rolls her chin on her crossed arms atop the table between them, staring blankly at the floating parchment. “Maybe,” she sighs.
A trio of Ravenclaw girls walk slowly past Ben, giggling as they sneak him a passing look. Chin still lolling on her arms, Rey’s lazy gaze follows them out of the great hall. She wonders idly if Ben's noticed how often it happens, lately; girls giggling and blushing around him. She wonders if he'd like the attention if he did notice it, the way Poe does, or if he'd prefer the attention from a specific girl, the way Finn only prefers Rose. Still, Rey feels a small tide of pride at being friends with such a fawned-over sixth-year boy. This year more than last, girls haven't made their jealousy much of a secret; Rey's close friendship with Ben Solo and Poe Dameron--ostensibly the cutest boys in Slytherin if not the cutest at Hogwarts--has painted a target on her back amongst some of the older girls. (But Rey’s lucky enough to have Rose and Paige and Jannah and Tallie, so it doesn’t bother her much.)
She lolls her head back and returns to staring at his charms homework.
"Have you ever had a valentine before, Ben?"
"Not really," he says, "Bazine's poisoned chocolates from last year don't count."
"That was so creepy...." Rey murmurs.
"Borderline illegal," Ben adds.
"But didn't you go out with Paige once, back in your fourth year?"
"No. That was a friend thing." He sounds eerily defensive. It stokes Rey's interest.
"I thought I remember you two coming back from Hogsmeade-"
"What's with the sudden interrogation?"
"I'm not interrogating-"
"Have you not received any valentines?"
She still can't see his face, so the question floats in the air between them like a heavy balloon waiting to be popped.
Rey tucks her chin, resting her forehead on her crossed forearms, now.
"...Rey?"
"No."
She can hear Ben sitting up, which she didn't actually want. She shouldn't have paused. She shouldn't have muffled the admission into the table like a deep secret. It isn't one. It isn't even a big deal-
"Why not?"
The simple question erupts out of Ben as if he's been personally slighted. It's barb is so sharp it makes Rey look up.
He looks angry. "What do you mean, 'why not'?"
"I mean why the fuck has nobody given you a valentine?"
She lifts her chin just slightly to stare at him. "I don't really mind. I'm- I still have time..."
"Dameron never gave you any chocolate?" Rey considers for a moment before shaking her head. "That Finn kid?" Shake. "...Rose? Tano? Not even from Han or Leia or Chew?"
Rey's gone back to resting her chin on her arms, amused now. She smiles and laughs. "No."
Ben looks legitimately angry on her behalf, and Rey feels...warm. It's nice that he cares this much. "Fuckers," he mutters.
She laughs again before a comfortable silence rests between them for a while, in which Rey closes her eyes and soaks in the last few rays of sunlight streaming through the high windows of the Great Hall. She's always felt settled by the sounds of mid-evening activity here; the relaxing murmur of a few other voices, rustling of parchment, an occasional clink or scrape or plop of dishware.
But as Ben starts grumbling to himself about Valentine's day and how "fucking dumb" and "useless" and "fake" it is, Rey scrunches her face and decides to defend the holiday simply for the sake of her friends who do celebrate it.
“Know what, though? Rose hasn’t bought anything for Finn,” she argues. “No chocolates or anything. She was up all night writing him a letter, instead. I don’t think that’s desperate. I think it’s-”
“Sad.”
“-sweet.”
"Sad,” he repeats.
She raises her head to give him a more proper telling-off. “Is not. Finn and Rose really care about each other. Finn says the holiday is a chance to celebrate love.”
"And he can't 'celebrate his love' for his best fuckin' friend? Sounds fake to me."
...Okay, she had appreciated his anger on her behalf, but Finn doesn't deserve that. "We celebrate our friendship every day-"
"By letting him copy your potions notes? Him using you to get flying lessons with Poe?"
"Stop it," she demands childishly. "Finn can't see the Potions board, and Poe offered." He's working his jaw the way he only does when he's really pissed off. Rey can't fully understand why he's this pissed off. "Did Finn do something to you or something?" She asks, suspicious.
"What?" That seems to genuinely surprise him, which only confuses Rey further. "No."
"Then don't go after him on my behalf. He's a great friend. Just because I don't see Poe sending you chocolates doesn't mean I think he's a bad friend."
"Dameron, too-" he bites. "He should've- I don't get it."
No, I don't get it. Rey honestly cannot understand his ire. "I'll just let you to calm down-"
She stands, just about to leave him to stew, when he reaches across the table for her arm.
She meets his eyes with fire in hers.
“Rey.”
Her eyebrows lift, expectantly.
He takes a dramatic breath, lets go of her arm to hide his behind his back. Rey is nonplussed until he takes his arm back from behind him and-
Offers her a glowing flower. A pretty light blue bloom with hints of pink and purple.
She looks back and forth between it and Ben several times, whiplash licking at her temples. "Wh- is it-?"
He rolls his eyes. “For you? No, it’s for Nearly Headless Nick.” There’s the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Slowly, eyes all over his face, Rey lets her smile stretch and stretch. She takes the bloom, lifting it to her nose.
“It’s a gardenia," Ben says. Finally, he smiles, just a bit. Crooked and endearing, it wipes away his pinched fury from moments ago. Rey's always liked when his voice gets softer, the way it is now. His low cadence relaxing to listen to. “They’re supposedly stronger and more stubborn than your typical garden rose.”
Rey drops the flower just slightly to cock her head with exasperation, still smiling. “Are you calling me stubborn?”
“I called you strong, too, if you’d open your ears better.”
Rey laughs. She lifts the charmed flower to her nose again.
This - is this what it's like to get a valentine? This pure happiness? She feels her cheeks heat, realizing it’s not only her first valentine, but her first ever flower from a boy. From anyone.
“You said you’ve been apparating all summer?”
Ben looks entirely thrown by the question. “What-”
“Answer,” she insists. Affectionately.
“I did, but what’s that got to do-”
“Can you apparate over here so I don’t have to climb over the table to hug you?”
Ben’s confusion morphs into Rey’s favorite Ben Smile: the slow one with teeth. “Absolutely not. That’s a waste,” he teases.
She groans, sets the flower gently on the table and vaults across it to land beside Ben. He laughs. The few other students in the hall spare a curious glance at the sound of his laughter, and the loud shifting of the wood bench on the stone floor as she deftly plops herself beside Ben to hug him.
Rey will never ever admit to how much she loves the feeling of hugging Ben Solo. She will die before she confesses how much she loves being surrounded by him. And she'll take it to her grave, knowing she's the only one he ever actually hugs. (Poe was drunk. It was a secret he was probably sworn to take to his grave. Rey will protect it in his place.)
“Thank you, Ben.”
He squeezes her. "You're precious, Rey. You don't need chocolates or a flower or a dumb boy to tell you that, but it still pisses me off that you didn't get those things anyway, because you deserve it more than anyone."
Rey doesn't cry often. A rogue quaffle broke her arm several months back and she didn't cry when her bones were being regrown. But she tears up at the emotion in Ben's voice. She should've known: he's never so angry as he is when it's on someone else's behalf.
As she squeezes him back, her breathy confession is a perfect squeaky foil to his low, broken admission: "You're precious to me, too, Ben."
When they finally pull apart, he clears his throat and shoves her lightly. “Just put that thing somewhere safe. I charmed the bloom to last a few months--can’t help you if you step on it or something.”
Rey picks it up to stick her nose in it again. “I would never step on it.”
He smiles.
Rey rests her head for a moment on his bicep, sniffing at the flower and thinking, see, Ben? A celebration of affection.