The raven-haired girl pulled a tall, handsome boy by the wrist. Slowing in a corridor next to a blank wall, she turned and flashed a smile before leading him though a door in the wall that had just appeared. The pair emerged onto a square balcony with a wrought iron fence around the edge. A cloudless, navy blue sky stretched above them, sprinkled with twinkling stars. The vast lake below them seemed to mimic the night sky, adding ripples, shimmers, and reflections of the majestic forest beside it.
"I didn't know the room could do something like this," the boy said, a hint of a smile playing upon his face.
"Of course it can. It can make anything you can dream up, so long as it corresponds with the basic laws of magic," the girl replied. "I like to come here sometimes, and just think."
"About what?" the boy questioned.
The girl hesitated. "Anything, really. The sky's the limit. Sometimes I'll think about tests. Or my friends. Hogsmeade. Hell, I'll even think about politics once in a while." The boy chuckled. "But more often than not… I'll think of you." She glanced down at the lake, then at her companion. He was looking at her, his eyes gentle, smiling down on her.
He leaned forward slightly, reducing the small space between them. She exhaled slowly and copied him.
"You know," he started in a soft voice, "I may not come to a place like this, but I definitely think about you every day."
A tear rolled down the girl's face. She hesitated, then closed the minuscule gap between them, and ever so softly, their lips met.
Cho Chang sat cross-legged on her four-poster bed, inside the refined elegance of Ravenclaw Tower. She sobbed, pressing her feather pillow against her wet face, muffling her cries so as to not wake her roommates. The memory of her and Cedric Diggory's first date lingered in her mind, haunting her with the power he'd had over her emotions.
It had been six days since that fateful day, the very day that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was resurrected, and the day that Cedric Diggory was murdered. She didn't quite know why she had believed Harry Potter, especially considering the fact that believing him meant Cho accepting Cedric's death. But just looking at the boy's terrified face, clutching her boyfriend's dead body, and announcing in a weak voice the horrible news, she just had to believe him.
Cho was confused that many people were now doubting Harry's sanity. She supposed that since they weren't there, they couldn't fully grasp the full size of the situation. They hadn't seen his face, what he exactly said when he "lied". But then again, even some who were there didn't believe him. She sighed, lowering her pillow and hiccuped.
She had cried herself to sleep every single one of those six days without Cedric. Mourning him had become a second nature. She sat up, and quietly pulled back the curtains hanging around her bed.
She quietly crept through the common room. She smiled weakly at the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw.
"I won't tell anybody, honey. You just go do what you have to do," whispered Rowena gently.
Strengthened by Rowena's words, Cho made her way out into the corridors and set out for the blank corridor that housed the Room of Requirement.
The pads of her feet made soft thumps on the cold stone. As she made her way towards the corridor, she was in a trance. She thought of nothing but Cedric. Arriving at the corridor, the door appeared and she stepped through it, emerging onto the elegant balcony once more.
She stood there in her pajamas for many hours, watching the night sky fade into light blue. She missed the feeling of Cedric's fingers intertwined with hers, and she imagined him there beside her, holding her close and watching the sky morph with her.
The room, reading the plan within Cho's mind, supplied her with an eagle-feather quill and a small piece of parchment. She sat down on a wooden stool in the corner and began to write.
Cedric
I know you won't be able to read this, but I'm writing it anyway.
These past six days at Hogwarts without you have been simply depressing. I miss you, your smile, your Hufflepuff loyalty, your bravery in the Triwizard Tournament. I miss our late-night snacks in the kitchen, our little dates in Hogsmeade. I miss it all. Harry told everybody everything, but most people won't believe him. I don't know what's running through their heads, but they're disgracing your death by not believing the story of how you died. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has come back. They don't want to face the truth. I wish you were here. You could tell them the same thing that Harry did, and then more people might believe the pair of you. We would still be together, laughing in Madame Puddifoot's and eating ice cream at Fortescue's in Diagon Alley. Oh, how I wish you were here.
Cho
Untying a yellow balloon from the fence, the sky was now bright and an inviting shade of turquoise. Cho rolled up the parchment and tied the ribbon of the balloon around it, and set it free. Watching her letter float away, she willed it with all her might for it to go up, up and reach heaven, or otherwise disappear and send itself to Cedric in the past. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she stared at the balloon until it disappeared.
A/N So, what do you think? I considered writing this for Tonks and Lupin, then Neville and Luna, and then Hermione and Ron, but Cho and Cedric won in the end. R/R please!