Floricorpse - reyl0s - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Halloween. All Hallows’ Eve. The Day of the Dead. To some muggles residing outside Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, October 31st was simply considered a day for gathering treats (or tricks) from neighbors, friends, and others who made up the community that was considered downtown London. Others believed it to be a day where the doorway dividing the worlds of the living and the dead would open.

Rey Andor never considered herself to be a person that was superstitious. Ghosts, witches, werewolves and zombies? She remembered laughing in anyone’s face who tried convincing her that any of the aforementioned paranormal beings were real.

That was before all of the weird, inexplicable things started to happen around Rey. Things that the average person shouldn’t have been able to do with their mind and body; like levitating objects into mid-air and making bullies squeal like pigs and wielding curly-cue tails to match their behavior whenever they teased her. It only made her feel more like a freak than she was already considered to be at Plutt’s Orphanage for Girls.

That was until she received her first invitation at the age of 11 to Hogwarts that she discovered she was, in fact, one of the very things she initially refused to believe existed. Rey was a witch with flourishing powers deemed ‘unrefined’ by Hogwarts’ headmaster Luke Skywalker. Powers that were considered significant enough for Rey to be kept under control.

After a couple of months having discovered the remarkable world of magic, life for Rey at Hogwarts was like living Halloween every day. The only thing that appeared to distinguish the holiday from every other ‘normal’ day was the headmaster’s melodramatic way of decorating in regards to the highlighted occasion.

Sitting among the other young witches and wizards in the fortress’ massive dining hall in her sorted house of Hufflepuff, Rey took in the spectacular view of jack o’ lanterns levitating high above the dining tables. The candles inside their hollowed out interiors flickered, creating an extraordinary view that lit up the faces of anyone passing through the hall’s colossal entryway.

“It doesn’t seem possible, does it?” Rose asked, voice seeming far off in wonder as she slowly plucked away at the pumpkin pasty nestled in the palm of her left hand.

Rey nodded, appearing to be just as equally captivated with eyes the shape of saucers by the magnificent display of pumpkins as her friend. A low growl resonating from the pit of her stomach alerted Rey that she’d spent far too long holding her spoon over the bowl of porridge on the table in front of her than actually eating.

“If you would’ve told me earlier this year that things like this existed,” Rey scoffed, plunging the utensil into the bowl of mush, “I would’ve never believed you.”

“Your parents never told you?” Rose blinked, peeling her attention from the bewitched scenery to Rey.

Rey shook her head, momentarily worrying the metallic item between her thumb and forefinger. “Nope,” she admitted, finally considering taking a scoop of the lukewarm cereal. “I never knew my parents. It was always Plutt,” she snorted, “and he would’ve never told me the truth.”

“Oh,” Rose replied, scoffing. “Well, at least family doesn’t always have to be blood-related, right? You have us now.”

‘Us,’ meaning the small cluster of friends that Rey considered being the only family she ever had. Aside from Rose there was Finn and Poe, who had been sorted into the house of Gryffindor during the initial Sorting Hat ceremony. Poe was Gryffindor’s prized seeker in Quidditch and a master at broom flying. Then, there was Ben Solo, whom Rey sat next to in Transfiguration and had been partners with since the very first day classes started.

Like Poe, Ben was also a skilled broom flyer and an extraordinary seeker to the house of Ravenclaw. However, Ben was considered to be the wallflower of the bunch. When he wasn’t busy trying to ram the end of Poe’s broomstick into the Quidditch field, Rey often found him lounging in the courtyard with his nose stuck in a book. The other thing that Ben was good at was saving Rey’s ass after screwing up a spell in Maz Kanata’s Transfiguration class.

“Yeah,” Rey admitted, hastily attempting to change the subject prior to bringing the spoon with sustenance to her lips. “What do you think we’ll be doing in Kanata’s class?”

Rose shrugged, appearing to be less concerned about the topic. “I don’t know. I heard somebody mention something the other day that we were going to be working with porgs.”

Rey co*cked a brow, “What’s a porg?”

“They’re like a bird,” Rose explained, swallowing the small chunk of pasty she’d bitten into moments before Rey asked. “Kinda like penguins of the wizard world, so to speak. They’re gentle creatures, but annoying. They tend to make a nest out of anything they can find.”

Rey nodded, scooping up another spoon full of porridge. “So, it should be an easy class then.”

“Depends what Kanata wants us to do with them,” Rose countered. “I mean, she did say that transfiguration was the most difficult spell to perform. But yeah, they’re porgs. What could go wrong?”

**

Maz Kanata was a woman of many faces. There were often times she’d take on the form of a domesticated feline whereas some days (like today) she took on the façade of an Eastern screech owl. Rey never grew tired of watching the majestic bird of prey shape-shift into the form of a very petite, elderly woman with eye glasses that stretched far beyond the reaches of her eyebrows.

Swooping down from her perch at the forefront of the classroom, the owl’s wings quickly dissolved into the elongated sleeves of her robe and moon-shaped eyes shifted into the outer rims of the professor’s glasses. Everything else fell in suit within the mere blink of an eye to reveal Maz’s human form as if it were as easy as changing clothes.

“All right class,” Maz announced, chin jutted proudly, “today we’re going to be changing porgs into a small pot of mums.” The tiny woman proceeded to turn her attention towards the miniature, winged-creature perched at the corner of her desk, curiously co*cking its head as Maz approached with her wand in hand.

“Flora corpus,” Maz articulated, tapping her wand in three distinct spots on the porg’s back that proceeded to magically change the fluffy animal into a pot of rusty-colored mums.

The whole class erupted into a wave of genuine ‘Oohs’ and ‘Ahhs’ as they watched the porg casually change into its new floral-potted form.

“Looks simple enough,” Rey whispered, causing Ben to steal a slow and wary look in her direction. Rose hadn’t been lying when she said that porgs liked to nest in just about anything their rounded eyes settled upon. The porg that Rey had been assigned was nestled comfortably in the lap of her robe while Ben’s tirelessly attempted to make his fluffy hair its new home.

“If we’re lucky they’ll stay pots forever,” Ben grumbled, hands reaching above his head for the umpteenth time in the last ten minutes to retrieve the stubborn creature from his head.

“Aww,” Rey coaxed, “come on, admit it. You know that you secretly want to take one back to your room and keep it as a pet.”

Ben muttered some incoherent words under his breath before the sound of a door creaking open diverted everyone’s attention to the back of the room, acknowledging Professor Luke Skywalker as he asked for a few minutes of Kanata’s time.

“As you wish,” Maz agreed, turning her attention from her guest to the class. “No one is to perform any spells until I return.”

A series of silent nods and utters of ‘yes professor’ erupted through the class. Rey followed the woman with her eyes as she exited from the room, lingering a little longer at the door for a few moments before turning to Ben.

“No,” Ben stated firmly, his eyes remaining fixed on the irritating creature on the desk in front of him.

Rey scoffed, mouth held agape. “I was just going to say –.”

“I know what you were going to say,” Ben interrupted, pivoting his focus for a moment to Rey. “I said no.”

“Oh, come on,” Rey huffed, giving Ben a pouty-face look. “She’ll never know.”

“No.”

Rey rolled her eyes. Heaving a sigh, she proceeded to grab her wand sitting at the edge of their joined desks, aiming its tip at the porg taking up residence in her lap.

“Rey,” Ben warned, his voice raising an octave, “what are you doing?”

Rey shrugged, ignoring him. “Floricorpse,” she demanded.

“Rey!” Ben’s voice cracked, acknowledging the fact that he was undergoing the early stages of male puberty as he helplessly watched Rey utter the wrong words.

Tiny flashes of green light extended from the end of her wand, aiming directly at the porg. Rey and Ben watched the animal immediately go stone stiff and literally face plant into her lap.

“Oh my god,” Rey muttered solemnly, a look of horror spreading across her face as she stared in dismay at the supposedly dead creature. “I think I killed it?”

The two stared silently at the porg, appearing to be in some petrified form of sleep. Or was it dead? Ben couldn’t be positively certain as he carefully gathered the stiff creature in his large palms, resting it with care on the table top. Ben’s porg curiously strolled closer to its fallen comrade, examining it with a pitiful look that surprisingly seemed to mirror Rey’s. It only made her heart sink further in guilt along with the tears burning the backs of her eyes.

“What do you think we should do?” Rey sniffed, watching Ben as he leaned in a little closer to the limp porg, eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

His shoulders noticeably flinched when the porg that was presumed dead twitched its leg, followed by a distinct smell of decay and rotting flesh. Ben’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening.

“Rey,” he breathed, worry etched in his tone, “I don’t think it’s dead, but it’s also not dead.”

Rey was just about to ask what he meant when the porg’s eyes suddenly sprung open, revealing yellowish-colored eyes with red irises in place of the warm, honey-colored puppy dog eyes it once exerted. The porg immediately went into attack mode, snarling and screeching and revealing rows of sharp teeth as it attacked the other porg.

“Crap, Rey!” Ben exclaimed as they immediately slid their chairs back from the action, crashing into the desks behind them. “You created a zombie porg!”

“A what porg?” Rey shrieked, stupefied and not believing what was happening before her eyes as they watched Ben’s porg powerlessly convert to a so-called ‘zombie porg.’

Chaos immediately erupted inside the room as gradually, one by one, the zombie porgs attacked those remaining unaffected by the enchantment. Screams of students alerted by the horrific turn in events quickly darted to the back of the classroom, leaving Rey and Ben alone to enact damage control.

“Ben!” Rey cried, chest heaving in panic. “What do we do?”

Without so much as giving the situation anymore thought, Ben withdrew the wand hidden inside his robe and cried out with a dramatic flick of his wrist, “Immobulus!”

The zombie porgs instantly froze in place, rendering a heavy sigh in relief from Rey, Ben and the huddled bunch of students at the back.

“Will you listen to me next time?” Ben growled, eyes glaring at Rey.

Rey frowned, “I said the right words!”

“No you didn’t,” Ben accused, tucking the wand back into his robe. “You said ‘floricorpse,’ not ‘flora corpus.’

Rey worried her bottom lip, toeing the point of her shoe on the stone floor, “Oh.”

“That’s all you’re gonna say?” Ben countered sharply, brows raised in surprise.

Rey shrugged, looking to the frozen critters in a jumbled mess on the floor. “They’re a lot cuter when they don’t smell like rotting flesh and are trying to attack each other.”

Ben rolled his eyes, sighing in defeat. “Rey, you’re gonna be the death of me one of these days.”

Maz returned moments later, seeing the students innocently sitting behind their desks with a pile of zombified porgs occupying the middle aisle that divided desks on the left side of the room from the right.

“Explain,” Maz demanded; arms folded over her chest. It didn’t take long for her to follow the eyes of students, remaining silent as they looked to the guilty faces of Ben and Rey. Maz shook her head, annoyed. “20 points will be removed from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”