Challenge: 100 ways of saying I love you
Prompt: 39- Don't cry
Disclaimer: the Harry Potter fandom is an enormous playground and I'm just one of the players
Warning: I was too lazy to look for a beta besides I just wanted this posted.
The great hall was in chaos. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he turned, was desolation. Broken furniture, smashed windows and walls, bodies wrapped in white blanket, some not so white, healers, teachers, aurors, volunteers and students alike were running around trying to help as much as they can.
He didn't know what to do. His part was done but to what cost? The Weasleys were gathered around Fred's corpse, Remus and Tonks lay side by side not far, there were so many injured friends and dead friends he didn't know where to go. They had fought the same battle, the same evil; they had defended the same cause and risked their life for it.
There was so much to do yet he stood there helplessly. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to stay with the Weasleys and he couldn't stand the sight of Remus and Tonks. He didn't even remember leaving them and wandering around like a lost soul. Now and then, someone would call his name, would clap his back, thank him, congratulate him but it all felt like nothing.
Then at the corner of his eyes he saw it: shiny long black hair spilled on the ground. He didn't see the rest of her for there was shambles all around. He found his foot moving one after the other until he stood at her head. A healer was kneeling next her but somehow that's only when Harry noticed him. The young man looked at him briefly then went back to his work before lifting his head again, now recognizing him.
"Will she be alright?" Harry asked quickly before the healer started congratulating him. Her eyes were closed and her face looked pale and dirty.
"She's pretty injured, lost a lot of blood. Do you know her?"
He saw it now, the wide gash on her stomach and the blood pouring out of it. He knelt at her other side and pushed a lock of hair out of her face. She stirred at his touch and opened her eyes.
"Harry?" she asked weakly.
"Hi," his voice sounded flat and dead.
"You won," she mumbled attempting a smile.
"We won." Harry rectified.
"Yes we won," she repeated.
"Does it hurt?" the healer asked suddenly as he started to sew the wound with a silver thread produced by his wand.
"Not really," Cho said though she had gone even paler, her face moist with sweat. She grimaced as the silver thread weaved in and out of her flesh and Harry took hold of her hand.
She smiled. "Finally…Brought yourself…To hold my…Hand," she panted and Harry emitted something that sounded like a sob and a laugh.
"It seems so."
"I'm going to die, aren't I?" she asked with a surprisingly calm voice.
"Don't say that." Harry said forcefully almost angrily. "You're not. There's a healer just here patching you up. Think of it as just another Quidditch accident."
"Quidditch," she whispered. "Remember that first and only time in your third year?"
Harry nodded.
"Too bad…never had the chance…to face…each other again," she said. Harry saw that she was getting weaker and weaker.
"Cho," he said "don't talk."
She smiled. A wide and beautiful smile. "I have to…wanted to tell you…since that day" Her eyes were too bright, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked feverish.
Harry had no idea what day she was referring to and he didn't want to know, not now. "You'll tell me later." He promised.
"I'm going to die Harry Potter. Why else would you be here?"
He was taken aback by that. By the clarity of her words, her calm…"Of course I'm here," he assured and after a moment of hesitation he caressed her hair with his free hand. He was surprised to notice that despite the dirt and the sweat clinging to it, it still felt smooth between his fingers. For a moment he recalled how many times he had contemplated her shiny dark locks, how he had wondered how it would feel to touch it. "You are my friend." He finally said "You came back here even though you didn't have to and you've always believed in me."
That was true. She's always believed him. When his name entered the Goblet of fire and everyone treated him like dirt, when the whole wizard world called him liar, even after that awful break up and the way he had treated her, she came back to fight at his side.
She whispered something, closing her eyes, but he didn't hear it. "You never really cared about me." She finally managed to say. It wasn't said as an accusation, but a statement. And somehow, it was sadder.
"That's not true," he insisted. "You know what? You quiet down, you get better and we'll play Quidditch again, like that first time."
"Is that a date?" she asked trying to keep her eyes open as her wound started to bleed again. The healer tried to hide the grim look on his face but Harry saw.
"Yes," Harry replied and for the first time he felt something. His voice shook and he realized that he wanted to cry. "It is a date," he repeated.
Cho laughed or tried to. "You made me cry at our first date."
"I'm sorry for that," he said now openly crying. He was just now realizing, really realizing that people were dead around him, that they were robbed off their future. "I'm so sorry Cho," he said wiping at his tears angrily. He was sorry for hurting her, he was sorry she came back, he was sorry she was injured and he was sorry she was probably dying.
"And now I'm making you cry," she smiled. "Don't cry. You're the strongest and most courageous person I know."
"No I'm not," he said in a strangled voice. "I've been dying to ask you to the Yule Ball but I was too scared and I did want to hold your hand that day but then again I was too scared." He didn't know why he told her that. It was the past, it didn't matter anymore.
"But now you're holding my hand," she whispered and as if to prove it, she squeezed it.
"You need to go to St Mungo," the healer said when his attempt to stop the blood failed. "I have an emergency portkey. I can't go with her," he told Harry. "I have too many injured here. I can tie her up with the portkey or you can take her."
"I'll do it," Harry offered.
"Alright," the healer said as he handed Harry a blue cube.
"I've always liked you", Cho said urgently in her weak voice as Harry struggled to gather her in his arms. He was so tired. "Ever since that day up in the Quidditch pitch. I'm really sorry for—"but Harry cut her off because she was starting to scare him and for the first time since he came to her side, he heard fear in her voice.
"It doesn't matter now," he said.
"I don't want to die Harry," she said as though she was realizing it for the first time, tears were silently streaming down her face. "I want to play Quidditch again, I want to go on that second date with you, I want to see the sunset, I want to see the snow, I want to wake up from a long nigh—"
"Portus" the healer said taping the blue cube with his wand.
"I—I what if I don't wake up from this? I don't want to go yet." Cho was getting more and more agitated.
"Tell my friends where I've gone," Harry told him quickly. "Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Ask around if you don't know them." and to Cho he said "You won't die." And with that he disappeared with her in his arms.
A/N: Thanks for reading and go check my other stories if you'd be so kind!