Cho Chang liked boys. This was, to her, an undisbutable fact of her life. She had liked Cedric for years--loved him even--and Harry had recently edged his way into her romantic life as well. But Cedric was gone now, and Harry was certainly no Cedric.
Dating The Boy Who Lived sounded like a lovely idea at first, but she had doubts. For starters, what would people think of her?
"First she dates one Triwizard Champion, then she moves on to the next. Before you know it, she'll start making moves on Krum... maybe even that Delacour girl."
"Harry Potter? Is that who she's dating now? Well, Merlin's Beard! That was a quick recovery from Diggory's death..."
Oh yes, she could see that as clearly as the empty crystal balls in Trelawney's class. And that certainly would not do.
But as she watched the scruffy black-haired boy in the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match, she wondered if perhaps all that trouble would be worth it after all. He was certainly short, but he had a fairly nice body for a fifth year. He was brave, and good at Quidditch, and well... he was famous.
So she fancied him a bit (for all the wrong reasons). Fine. But there was no way in hell she was going to let anyone catch on to that--especially not that obnoxious girl with the curly dirty blonde hair, whom he always seemed oh-so attached to.
What was her name again?
"Wot'cher, Harry!"
"Why, he's done it! He's caught the snitch again!"
Harry descended to the ground of Quidditch pitch, holding high in his proud little arm the golden snitch. He grinned wildly, the corners of his mouth twitched up in smug glory. The Gryffindors quickly surrounded him, praising him and lifting him above their heads, carrying him from cheering student to cheering student with raised arms like he was one of those muggle rock stars.
That curly-haired girl stood off to the side, smiling politely. Cho imagined she'd probably been through this a million times.
Hermione--that was her name. Hermione Granger.
She felt a little sorry for the girl--she looked rather bored standing over there and watching her clumsy friend celebrating another one of his many petty victories.
Cho was surprised to see her alone at the pitch the next day, considering how incredibly unamused she had seemed about Quidditch and the sort yesterday.
"Hermione Granger... right?" Cho tapped on her shoulder lightly from behind. Hermione flinched and swung around quickly, her dark blonde curls bobbing slightly.
"Yes, and I would imagine," she began, her tone indignant, "that you would be able to confidently say my name without confirmation now, considering this is most certainly not the first time we've met."
Had they met before? Cho wondered, quitely. She then realized, with the feeling of a sudden drop in her stomache, that she had indeed met her before (and that the circumstances were not exactly pleasant).It had been a brief meet in which to discuss Hermione's relationship to Harry, which seemed quite petty now considering Cho wasn't sure if she really even liked Harry now.
"Oh, yes, that's right. Sorry, I'd forgotten for a minute." She smiled apologetically and began again, "But, Hermione, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you doing here? You don't play Quidditch after all."
Hermione looked for a minute as though she were about to ask the same thing in retaliation, but she seemed to have thought better of it after realizing the significance of Cho's blue Quidditch uniform.
"It's none of your business, really," she spat instead.
She was glaring, her teeth clenched as she spoke. She looked so angry and defensive, almost to the point of being unbearably fragile. Cho wondered then what it would be like to break her--to defile and confuse and utterly destroy that fragile, frigid mentality of hers.
In a sudden state of fury (madness, even) she pinned the younger girl to the ground. Grass tickled her pale wrists as she held Hermione's arms down, smiling wickedly as she bent to kiss the girl's chapped pink lips. She wondered if anyone was watching, and if they were, what would they say?
"What a slut, seems she can't have Potter and has moved on to his little friend!"
"I thought she was such a nice girl... not too proper to go about kissing other girls though, apparently!"
She wondered what Hermione was thinking, too. What a stupid girl, she had seemed to catch on to everything that went through Cho's head except anything involving herself in any way unrelated to Potter. She had known, frighteningly enough, exactly what Cho had thought about Harry, and at their prior brief encounter the girl had thrown about all her fears on the matter as though they were the most obvious thing in the world. But she had not been clever enough to catch on to this.
As Cho began to let go of Hermione's wrists and get up, Hermione smiled and grabbed a hold of her dark blue robes and as quickly as Cho had her on the ground just a minute ago, she too had Cho on the ground now. Hermione landed a slow but modest kiss on Cho's surprised open lips.
"Not too proper to kiss another girl, Cho Chang?" Hermione whispered knowingly into her ear as the kiss ended.
She rose, quietly, and left Cho on the ground stunned.
How unsettling that the one good trick she had up her sleeve should have been seen through as quickly as all the others, and how much more so that her confession--not of love really, but more of curiosity--should be returned as passionately as though the original confessor was the younger girl herself.