WIZARDS DUEL
Fanfic by Patrick Drazen
a/k/a Monkeymouse
1.1: A Year Begins
The Ravenclaw Quidditch team ran into the changing room at the Hogwarts stadium. What had been an excellent set of drills had been cut short by a sudden autumn cloudburst.
"Nothing to worry about," said Roger Davies, the captain of the team. "It's as good a workout as we've had so far this year."
"Yes, but will it be enough?" Jameson Bridgewick asked. It was his first year on a Hogwarts Quidditch team, but for a second-year student he was a natural Beater. "We've got this crazy thing in the spring…"
"Don't worry about that," Davies said as he wrung the rain out of his blue robes. "If we keep on like a well-oiled machine, Dumbledore will have to play us all."
"He's not serious, is he? Put together one team from all four Houses?"
"Well, he wants to win this international school competition they've dreamed up. So do I, but I want Ravenclaw to win it. All of us!" The rest of the team cheered, as well as they could while toweling off their heads. "With no help from Gryffindor, or Harry the Almighty Potter!"
This brought a fresh round of muffled cheers. Some of the players started pulling off the wet jerseys that had gotten soaked, even under their playing robes.
They were stopped by the sound of someone clearing her throat. Cho Chang, a sixth-year at Hogwarts, and Ravenclaw's Seeker—Ravenclaw's only female player, in fact—wanted to get their attention before they'd removed any more clothing.
"Sorry, Cho," Bridgewick muttered. "We keep forgetting."
Cho smiled. "Well, I'm sure if I pulled my shirt off in front of you, you'd remember I was a girl quick enough." A couple of the players chuckled in embarrassment. "So would you mind awfully going to the changing room next door? I'm soaked to the skin too, you know."
The others picked up their sodden robes and went into the next room. Cho locked the door after them, then turned and leaned against the door. A quick wave of her wand, and all her clothes were dry.
She looked around the empty changing room and said, to absolutely nobody there, "I thought they'd never leave!"
A few feet away from her, the air shimmered as a Cloak of Invisibility was removed. There stood Harry Potter, fifth-year student and Gryffindor Seeker. "You really wouldn't have done that, would you?"
"Done what?"
"Pulled your shirt off in front of that lot?"
Cho walked over to Harry, still smiling. "Of course not. A waste of perfectly good…" Harry silenced her with a kiss on the mouth, which she eagerly returned. They held that kiss for the better part of two minutes. When they finally broke for air, they pulled apart, only to find that Harry's glasses were now on Cho's nose.
They both laughed, not caring who might be next door to overhear. They were with each other again. These moments came so seldom, and made them the happiest they'd ever been in their lives.
***
It had really started September 1, on Platform 9¾ at King's Cross. Harry was getting ready for his fifth year, and was just about to move his bags and his owl Hedwig onto the train when he caught sight of Cho Chang. She was one year ahead of him, and in a different House at Hogwarts. But what struck Harry was her face. It was the same as the last time he saw it in the spring: looking as if she wanted to die.
It was because of what had happened at the Triwizard Tournament. He and Cedric Diggory, who was on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, had made it through the maze and touched the prize Goblet at the same moment—only to be teleported straight into the arms of Lord Voldemort, newly restored to life. Voldemort killed Cedric, and would have done the same to Harry if the spell hadn't backfired.
None of this made any difference to Cho. She had gotten close to Cedric. After he had been chosen Champion for Hogwarts, he had asked her to the Yule Ball. She accepted, being both gladdened that he would choose her and a bit disappointed that the one she really cared about didn't seem to think she was anything special. With Cedric dead in so horrible a fashion, and the other boy still not saying anything to her, Cho turned into a lost soul for the rest of the term, walking about sullenly or bursting into tears at a moment's notice.
This image haunted Harry. The fact is, he had noticed Cho two years earlier, but could never seem to find the right time, or the right words, to tell her so. They faced each other on the Quidditch field as Seekers, but off the field, they were in different years, and in different houses. Besides, she was just so, well, pretty…
Harry thought about all this again as he sat in his usual compartment with his usual companions—Ron Weasley, Ron's kid sister Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. It was a tight fit, especially with the animals, but Harry hardly noticed, hardly joined in the conversation, and went through the motions of playing Exploding Snap with Ron. About two hours into the trip, he'd had enough. He stood up, interrupting Hermione in the middle of a sentence, and walked out of the compartment and up the corridor.
He didn't know where she'd be, but he looked in every compartment until he found her. Cho Chang was sitting with some friends two cars down. They were talking to her; she hardly seemed to notice them. Without even knocking he flung open the door and announced, "Excuse me, Cho, but I have to talk to you now. Alone."
"OOOOOOHH!!" chorused the other girls. Cho just sat there, dead to the world. They left as Harry closed the compartment door and the curtains. He sat across from Cho.
"Cho, I…" Harry suddenly forgot almost everything he was going to say. Her eyes, red and puffy from long bouts of crying over the summer, seemed to be accusing him. This made Harry defensive. "Dammit, Cho, I never meant any of that to happen! I didn't want to enter the Tournament in the first place! I can't help it if Voldemort was after me."
"That's right," she said, in a dispirited voice that still had the ghost of a sharp edge to it. "Your whole life revolves around Voldemort. That's what they call you, isn't it—The Boy Who Lived? What does that make Cedric—The Boy Who Died? Well, why? Why did he have to die? Why didn't you just go off and fight with Voldemort and leave Cedric out of it!" Sobbing overwhelmed her again, and she turned her face away from his.
This wasn't going the way Harry had thought, but he had to press on. He took one of her hands in his. "Believe me, Cho, if I could change places with Cedric I'd do it today. Right up until the minute we Ported out of the maze I…well, I envied him. And not for his grades, or his good looks, or anything like that. It was because of you." Cho turned, looking into Harry's face as he went on. "You two were always together, and you seemed to be so happy, and I…I could never tell you how much I …I love you." As he spoke, tears started forming behind Harry's glasses. "I…I never felt like that before, not ever, not for anyone. And I guess I felt then what you're feeling now. Maybe that was my only chance at love, and it would never come again…" Harry couldn't go on.
Cho stared at him, as if she'd not seen anything like his tears before. Tentatively she reached up, gingerly touching one with a fingertip.
An instant later, they moved as one, wrapping their arms around each other, beyond speech, letting their tears come. Then, when the tears finally stopped, they moved without even thinking about it, first with their lips brushing against each other, then hungrily pressed together. They held that first kiss for over a minute, before, by some kind of mutual signal neither really understood, they separated, staring into each other's eyes.
Cho spoke first, barely above a whisper. "It was always you, you know."
"What was?"
"All that time I wanted you to notice me. I wanted you to say something, do something. I asked you for directions to places I already knew how to find. I gave back quills you never dropped. I wanted you to give me a reason to tell you I love you."
"Me?"
"I mean, I cared for Cedric too. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But I kept waiting and waiting for you to see me, see what I was feeling."
Harry got flustered. "Well…I…how was I supposed to know? I've never felt anything like this before."
"Nor have I. So, what do we do now?"
"I dunno. I mean, I…I guess I'll…"
"HAVE SOMETHING OFF THE CART IN THERE?!" It was the old witch who pushed the snacks cart up and down the train. Harry and Cho looked at each other, the spell broken for the moment, and started to laugh. They were still laughing when Harry opened the compartment door—and a dozen students looked in at the two of them from the corridor. The others let up a chorus of howls. Cho and Harry saw only each other's eyes.
…to be continued…
Fanfic by Patrick Drazen
a/k/a Monkeymouse
1.1: A Year Begins
The Ravenclaw Quidditch team ran into the changing room at the Hogwarts stadium. What had been an excellent set of drills had been cut short by a sudden autumn cloudburst.
"Nothing to worry about," said Roger Davies, the captain of the team. "It's as good a workout as we've had so far this year."
"Yes, but will it be enough?" Jameson Bridgewick asked. It was his first year on a Hogwarts Quidditch team, but for a second-year student he was a natural Beater. "We've got this crazy thing in the spring…"
"Don't worry about that," Davies said as he wrung the rain out of his blue robes. "If we keep on like a well-oiled machine, Dumbledore will have to play us all."
"He's not serious, is he? Put together one team from all four Houses?"
"Well, he wants to win this international school competition they've dreamed up. So do I, but I want Ravenclaw to win it. All of us!" The rest of the team cheered, as well as they could while toweling off their heads. "With no help from Gryffindor, or Harry the Almighty Potter!"
This brought a fresh round of muffled cheers. Some of the players started pulling off the wet jerseys that had gotten soaked, even under their playing robes.
They were stopped by the sound of someone clearing her throat. Cho Chang, a sixth-year at Hogwarts, and Ravenclaw's Seeker—Ravenclaw's only female player, in fact—wanted to get their attention before they'd removed any more clothing.
"Sorry, Cho," Bridgewick muttered. "We keep forgetting."
Cho smiled. "Well, I'm sure if I pulled my shirt off in front of you, you'd remember I was a girl quick enough." A couple of the players chuckled in embarrassment. "So would you mind awfully going to the changing room next door? I'm soaked to the skin too, you know."
The others picked up their sodden robes and went into the next room. Cho locked the door after them, then turned and leaned against the door. A quick wave of her wand, and all her clothes were dry.
She looked around the empty changing room and said, to absolutely nobody there, "I thought they'd never leave!"
A few feet away from her, the air shimmered as a Cloak of Invisibility was removed. There stood Harry Potter, fifth-year student and Gryffindor Seeker. "You really wouldn't have done that, would you?"
"Done what?"
"Pulled your shirt off in front of that lot?"
Cho walked over to Harry, still smiling. "Of course not. A waste of perfectly good…" Harry silenced her with a kiss on the mouth, which she eagerly returned. They held that kiss for the better part of two minutes. When they finally broke for air, they pulled apart, only to find that Harry's glasses were now on Cho's nose.
They both laughed, not caring who might be next door to overhear. They were with each other again. These moments came so seldom, and made them the happiest they'd ever been in their lives.
***
It had really started September 1, on Platform 9¾ at King's Cross. Harry was getting ready for his fifth year, and was just about to move his bags and his owl Hedwig onto the train when he caught sight of Cho Chang. She was one year ahead of him, and in a different House at Hogwarts. But what struck Harry was her face. It was the same as the last time he saw it in the spring: looking as if she wanted to die.
It was because of what had happened at the Triwizard Tournament. He and Cedric Diggory, who was on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, had made it through the maze and touched the prize Goblet at the same moment—only to be teleported straight into the arms of Lord Voldemort, newly restored to life. Voldemort killed Cedric, and would have done the same to Harry if the spell hadn't backfired.
None of this made any difference to Cho. She had gotten close to Cedric. After he had been chosen Champion for Hogwarts, he had asked her to the Yule Ball. She accepted, being both gladdened that he would choose her and a bit disappointed that the one she really cared about didn't seem to think she was anything special. With Cedric dead in so horrible a fashion, and the other boy still not saying anything to her, Cho turned into a lost soul for the rest of the term, walking about sullenly or bursting into tears at a moment's notice.
This image haunted Harry. The fact is, he had noticed Cho two years earlier, but could never seem to find the right time, or the right words, to tell her so. They faced each other on the Quidditch field as Seekers, but off the field, they were in different years, and in different houses. Besides, she was just so, well, pretty…
Harry thought about all this again as he sat in his usual compartment with his usual companions—Ron Weasley, Ron's kid sister Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. It was a tight fit, especially with the animals, but Harry hardly noticed, hardly joined in the conversation, and went through the motions of playing Exploding Snap with Ron. About two hours into the trip, he'd had enough. He stood up, interrupting Hermione in the middle of a sentence, and walked out of the compartment and up the corridor.
He didn't know where she'd be, but he looked in every compartment until he found her. Cho Chang was sitting with some friends two cars down. They were talking to her; she hardly seemed to notice them. Without even knocking he flung open the door and announced, "Excuse me, Cho, but I have to talk to you now. Alone."
"OOOOOOHH!!" chorused the other girls. Cho just sat there, dead to the world. They left as Harry closed the compartment door and the curtains. He sat across from Cho.
"Cho, I…" Harry suddenly forgot almost everything he was going to say. Her eyes, red and puffy from long bouts of crying over the summer, seemed to be accusing him. This made Harry defensive. "Dammit, Cho, I never meant any of that to happen! I didn't want to enter the Tournament in the first place! I can't help it if Voldemort was after me."
"That's right," she said, in a dispirited voice that still had the ghost of a sharp edge to it. "Your whole life revolves around Voldemort. That's what they call you, isn't it—The Boy Who Lived? What does that make Cedric—The Boy Who Died? Well, why? Why did he have to die? Why didn't you just go off and fight with Voldemort and leave Cedric out of it!" Sobbing overwhelmed her again, and she turned her face away from his.
This wasn't going the way Harry had thought, but he had to press on. He took one of her hands in his. "Believe me, Cho, if I could change places with Cedric I'd do it today. Right up until the minute we Ported out of the maze I…well, I envied him. And not for his grades, or his good looks, or anything like that. It was because of you." Cho turned, looking into Harry's face as he went on. "You two were always together, and you seemed to be so happy, and I…I could never tell you how much I …I love you." As he spoke, tears started forming behind Harry's glasses. "I…I never felt like that before, not ever, not for anyone. And I guess I felt then what you're feeling now. Maybe that was my only chance at love, and it would never come again…" Harry couldn't go on.
Cho stared at him, as if she'd not seen anything like his tears before. Tentatively she reached up, gingerly touching one with a fingertip.
An instant later, they moved as one, wrapping their arms around each other, beyond speech, letting their tears come. Then, when the tears finally stopped, they moved without even thinking about it, first with their lips brushing against each other, then hungrily pressed together. They held that first kiss for over a minute, before, by some kind of mutual signal neither really understood, they separated, staring into each other's eyes.
Cho spoke first, barely above a whisper. "It was always you, you know."
"What was?"
"All that time I wanted you to notice me. I wanted you to say something, do something. I asked you for directions to places I already knew how to find. I gave back quills you never dropped. I wanted you to give me a reason to tell you I love you."
"Me?"
"I mean, I cared for Cedric too. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But I kept waiting and waiting for you to see me, see what I was feeling."
Harry got flustered. "Well…I…how was I supposed to know? I've never felt anything like this before."
"Nor have I. So, what do we do now?"
"I dunno. I mean, I…I guess I'll…"
"HAVE SOMETHING OFF THE CART IN THERE?!" It was the old witch who pushed the snacks cart up and down the train. Harry and Cho looked at each other, the spell broken for the moment, and started to laugh. They were still laughing when Harry opened the compartment door—and a dozen students looked in at the two of them from the corridor. The others let up a chorus of howls. Cho and Harry saw only each other's eyes.
…to be continued…