Challenge: Phobias
Prompt: Ecophobia (fear of home) & Cho Chang

Home. Home. Home. The word resonated through her mind like the beat of a bass drum. Home. Wasn't your home supposed to be the one place you felt safe? Wasn't home the one place you were supposed to be able to go when you felt worthless, when you had no hope left? Weren't you supposed to want to go home? Then why didn't she want to?

It was a question she had fought with since she'd started school. Why did she hate her home so much? The house was beautiful and she had everything she could ask for. Her mother loved her, yes, but that only went so far. Her mother's love only saved her sometimes. But her mother didn't know. She never would know.

"Cho!" Marietta's voice interrupted her thoughts.

Cho stopped and turned to face her red headed friend. "Yeah?"

"Are you ready to go?" Marietta asked, coming to stand beside her.

"Oh, sure." Her voice sounded off, she knew, but Marietta didn't press the issue.

Home. The word left a bitter taste in her mouth. She wasn't even sure where her true home was. She hated going to the house where she, her mother and step-father lived, if just because of the latter person in her list. He was vile. Cho just didn't understand why her mother had married him. But then again, her mother didn't know about the vile things Neil did to her.

It all started one December night when she was twelve. She was lying on her bed reading her Charms textbook when Neil knocked on her door. Her mother was out doing some last minute Christmas shopping in Muggle London. Cho looked up as Neil entered her room, assuming he was just coming to say goodnight. Instead, he grabbed her, roughly, and pressed her to the bed with his beefy body. He kissed her, hard, his beard scratching her face. He smelled of Firewhiskey. He pulled away, smiling, and whispered for her not to tell her mother. She was so terrified that she wouldn't have said a word anyway.

She was so shaken after that incident that she didn't speak to Neil if she didn't absolutely have to. Over the years, it never amounted to more than a kiss here, a groping grasp there, until one night after her seventeenth birthday. Cho thought she was home alone and had decided to take a shower.

The steaming hot water felt glorious as it cascaded down her back. She'd made sure to lock the bathroom door, just in case. Not that it would have done her any good, as Neil was a wizard (albeit a poor one), but it made her feel just a little bit better. Cho was just turning off the water when she heard the door open. She just assumed that it was her mother, coming in to say hello. She wrapped her towel around her as she pulled the curtain aside and stepped on the rug. The Silencer hit her before she could even think about screaming.

"Hello, Cho," Neil growled, his voice throaty. She pulled the towel around her tighter, shaking her head. She wished she hadn't left her wand in her bedroom. This was her home. Wasn't she supposed to be safe?

He kept coming closer to her. She backed up, but too late realized the stupidity of that movement. She had backed herself into a corner. Tears came to her eyes as her grabbed her and forced her towel off. "So young," he whispered, "but just old enough." He smelled of Odkin's again. She closed her eyes and readied herself for the loss of what she would never be able to regain.

Cho jolted awake as the train whistle blew. She must have fallen asleep on the ride home. She'd had the nightmare again, of what awaited her the moment she walked through the front door. Her mother stood alone on the platform to welcome her home. Cho resolved right then and there that she would no longer be afraid to go home, that she would no longer hear the echoes of unuttered screams at night.

"Mum, I need to talk to you about something."

(A/N: So, what d'ya think? Please review!)