I can't help but be wrong in the dark
'Cause I'm overcome in this war of hearts
I can't help but want oceans to part
The night had not left Cho Chang since Cedric's death. It was a cold, numbing thing, a phantasmic darkness cast over her world.
The silhouettes she often saw in darkened corridors, or at the corner of a staircase. Small things, like the slope of his nose, or the outline of his profile. But when Cho would go to look, she'd find herself staring at nothing but the shadows of a boy long gone.
It was a bleak night, one with no stars. Summer came and went, and it was without sun. When she returned for her sixth year come September, things were no different.
There was no such thing as a fresh start, she'd decided on that first night in the Great Hall spent forcing herself not to look over at his table.
They said a new year would wipe the slate clean. But there had been nothing but darkness on it to begin with.
She had had a star once, a fleeting thing that had disappeared in a mess of tears and sobs in Madame Puddifoot's tea shop on a blustery Valentine's Day. Needless to say, her encounter with Harry Potter had been far from enlightening.
In all honesty, it had been confusing. Trying to navigate her way through the dark, reaching out with her hands to guide her, stumbling through every word and sentence and movement.
It was no wonder that everything had come crashing down, Cho included.
But. She realized sometime after, sitting in the common room, knees hugged to her chest, gazing forlornly out the window. The star had not been Harry Potter himself.
It was something she had started to realize when they'd kissed beneath the mistletoe, a passionless moment that had ended in nothing but her sobs. She'd ignored that feeling, though, hopelessly desperate for something to hold on to. Someone.
But that was not what she had needed.
Her star, she realized now, as the tears came again, had not been Harry Potter. It had been what he had stood for.
The stars had come when she'd stood in the Room of Requirement, wand raised, incantation on her lips.
Not arms locked in an embrace, his lips on hers.
They'd twinkled with every beam of light from her wand.
Not with every beaming smile he had given her.
Harry Potter had not been her star.
Dumbledore's Army had been her sun.
That understanding had marked the end of the night.
Day came slowly, the first rays of light hazy and pink. Not the sort of garish shade that had adorned Umbridge's office, but something softer.
Something colored like roses, like the flush on Cedric's cheeks that night at the ball when they'd danced.
The color that had been the first thing Cho noticed when she'd seen him at the funeral- it was rapidly fading, but still there.
It had been all but gone when she'd whispered her goodbyes.
When the night had come to take him away, and Cho with him.
Now, it was there again, not on Cedric's face but in Cho's heart.
It was only after her seventh year that the sun reached its peak. How peculiar, Cho had thought, seeing as that was when the world had been at its darkest. As Cho's nightfall gave way to day, the world did the opposite.
Perhaps Cho was their star.
As the battle began between good and evil, that indistinct pink was ignited into a blaze.
She had a cause.
Cedric may have left, but Cho was still here. His night had come, his light snuffed out, but Cho Chang still had something to stand for.
A reason for being.
A night filled with stars, and a day filled with light.
She ran to meet it.