~*~His Lotus Flower~*~
by Hatter of Madness
When Cho had announced one morning over breakfast to her mother and grandmother that she wanted to attend a university, the shock was apparent by their silence. "Why?" was all her mother could say.
"I want to get away from it all," Cho said. The wizarding world had just been in chaos: Voldemort was defeated, Hogwarts was being rebuilt, families were torn apart, Cho's included. Though her father was absent quite a bit in her upbringing, his death had rocked the little family. Cho was certain that she was done with death. First Cedric…then her headmaster…Marietta and then her father… She wanted a bit of a sanctuary following all of that, one that she had hoped university would bring to her.
"Away from what, lotus flower?" her grandmother asked. As the first of the Chang family to make the move from China to Europe, Chang Shan always referred to her only granddaughter as her 'lotus flower'. It was a pet name that Shan had adopted in Cho's infancy, one that she had never failed to use. Cho was unsure if her grandmother had ever actually used her given name.
"The reminders of the war," she said quietly.
Soon, Cho was enrolled at University of Oxford, majoring in philosophy. At the age of nineteen, she was behind her schoolmates, who had all started attending the school when they were seventeen or eighteen. College life, she quickly discovered, was much different than that of Hogwarts. There was no reward for good deeds or intelligence; there was no stereotypes, as far as she could tell… Things were eons different.
She roomed on campus and had a met a girl (who had decided that Cho was her best friend, though the feeling was not reciprocated) in her philosophy class, though the girl was majoring in religion. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was very catty, talking a mile a minute about various different topics. She reminded Cho of some of the Slytherins at Hogwarts.
Starting with Elizabeth, she immediately (and subconsciously) started sorting people into different Hogwarts houses when the classes were dull. When her professor started lecturing about alchemy, for instance, she sorted over half of the class. The teacher, she decided, was a Gryffindor; his daring and sometimes standoffish nature would only elsewhere be suited for Slytherin. Of course, she knew that Gryffindors were not the only brave ones at Hogwarts, while Slytherins were not the only sinister ones. But Elizabeth and Professor Dowling's personalities did not match any of the criteria for any other house.
In her advanced maths class, however, there was one boy that Cho just could not place anywhere. He was big and burly and was a bit reserved, but seemed to be well liked—like Cedric, she realized after a very long time. His blue eyes were always focused on the lesson, never wavering, until the bell signaled the end of class and he left in a whirl of boys and girls alike, always laughing and chattering about Merlin knew what.
"Miss Chang," Professor Whiting snapped once during this class, "can you please focus?"
"I'm sorry, Professor," she said amidst a sea of giggles.
"Well, now that you are back to earth, Miss Chang, would you care to come to the board and solve this equation?"
Cho looked past Professor Whiting at the board, where it seemed that a bunch of gibberish was written. How long had that been there? She stood, took three steps, and reread the equation. Though it was probably simple enough, Cho's head started to whirl just looking at it: x² - 4 over x² - 3x - 10.
She continued walking to the board, took the pen off the table hesitantly, and uncapped it, her mind already at work. She knew this. She just had to. Slowly, her hand raised, and she began to write: (x - 2)(x + 2) over (x + 2)(x - 5). The way that the class began to snicker, she knew that was wrong, then looked at the words again. When is the following expression undefined? x² - 4 over x² - 3x - 10.
Oh, it suddenly made sense. Quickly she erased the problem and tried again. Eliminating the top of the fraction, she was left with x² - 3x - 10. Factoring the equation came next; she came up with (x + 2)(x - 5) = 0. Removing the parentheses, she arrived at x + 2 = 0 and x - 5 = 0. Therefore, the expression was undefined when x = -2 and x = 5. Writing that on the board, she started to put the pen down, but Professor Whiting was too fast, "Complete sentence, Miss Chang."
Cho quickly wrote the sentence and went back to her seat before he could ask her another question. "Excellent." She waited for the familiar droll of 'five points to Ravenclaw', but suddenly remembered that that would never come, not anymore anyway. As she walked past, she caught Mr. Mysterious, as she had dubbed the unsortable blond boy, looking at her, his eyes for once drawn away from the board. As soon as he saw her looking, however, they flicked back to the teacher.
Professor Whiting was writing the homework assignment on the board. "Now, class, take out your books and begin the homework." Cho pulled the battered secondhand book—the only one that her mother could afford—out of her book bag. Staring at the page, the problems started swimming before her eyes. If Michael can paint the room in 10 hours and Sasha can paint the room in 18 hours, how many hours would it take for Michael and Sasha to paint the room together?
Maths was a shockingly easy subject for her, having never attended a regular school. But the problems in the book just didn't make sense, because Professor Whiting refused to assess the work the way that she needed, and refused to answer questions as well. It was because of this that the class had time for homework, unlike Cho's other classes; Professor Whiting did not waste time, choosing instead to completely ignore helpless students and race through the lesson. Rather than attempt to make sense of the homework, she begin to chip away at what was left of her sleek silver nail polish.
When the bell finally signaled the end of class, she tried to reach her bag to start putting her things away, but the class had other plans. The throng of students that raced by made her feel small, and rendered her incapable of packing up. A usual occurrence in this class.
One thing Cho had not been prepared for when it came to attending university was how alone and homesick she felt. There was always an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, and more often than not, she found herself worrying about her mother and grandmother. Were they okay? Did they need anything?
Finally, the group was gone. All of Cho's things were on the floor.
Sighing, she got on the ground and attempted to shove everything back in her bag, but as she reached for her maths notebook, she found that another hand was already on it, handing it to her. "You okay?"
Blushing, Cho took the notebook back from the unsortable, blue eyed, blond boy. "Fine," she muttered. "Just…"
"A bit of a wreck?" he asked. Cho nodded. "We've all been there. Freshman, right?"
Cho said nothing, having no idea what a 'freshman' was.
"The look on your face and your silence tells me 'yes'," he said, smiling.
"Hurry along," Professor Whiting said from behind them.
Cho stood, hoping beyond hope that, since she was having some of her first true interaction with a Muggle, she looked…nonmagical. She was wearing a skirt from her days at Hogwarts (she just couldn't bear to part with her schoolgirl things), along with an oversized blue, black, and white argyle jumper and a black wife beater underneath. Her navy Converse with black laces were untied as well, which she would have to tend to later.
If there was a problem with her attire, the boy didn't mention it. He himself was wearing a maroon jumper advertising something called 'Smeltings Academy'. As Cho slung her bag over her shoulder, he led her out the door and shut it behind him. "Whiting's class is tough," he said. "I've had him twice now. A real joy."
Cho was speechless, unsure of what else to say.
"Well, as long as I'm here," he said, holding out his hand. "Dudley Dursley, and you are?"
"Cho," she finally said.
"Scottish?" he asked. She nodded. "I could tell from your accent. It's real cute."
Was the popular boy from her maths class hitting on her?
"Thanks," she said.
"Are you shy?" he asked.
"I didn't used to be," she said. "I mean…well, at Ho—my secondary school, I was sort of, well…popular. I dated two really popular boys and I was captain of the Q—girls' football team." You can't let him know you're not a Muggle, Cho, she chastised herself. Pull it together.
"'Two popular boys'?" Dudley echoed. "What happened with them?"
"One of them just didn't work out," Cho said, wondering how Harry and Ginny were doing. She hadn't spoken to either of them since the battle. "And, well…the other one…passed."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, really!" Dudley said. "I mean, I didn't—I don't mean to—I didn't mean to pry."
Cho smiled a shy smile, not realizing that they had left the maths building and were pretty much wandering the campus aimlessly. Luckily, maths was her last class for the day, so she was not in a big rush to go anywhere. "You remind me of him a lot, actually."
"Oh?" He seemed curious suddenly, smirking slightly. "How so?"
"Popular, muscular…handsome," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Realizing the mistake, she blushed bright scarlet.
Dudley, not seeming to notice, laughed. "Handsome? There's one I don't hear often…well, except from Mum."
Cho wondered if there was any truth to the statement. Dudley seemed so real and down to earth, and his looks were a definite bonus. If that wasn't attractive to someone, then she didn't know what was.
"You seem sweet, er…Cho, is it?"
She nodded, her long black ponytail bobbing up and down as she did. "Cho Chang."
"Well, Cho Chang. What are you majoring in?"
"Philosophy." Cho had assumed that it was going to be the thing that was most 'normal' to her; it seemed to be at least a little bit similar to magic. "And yourself?"
"Pre-law," he said.
Cho was completely unsure as to what this meant, but kept her mouth shut regardless. She had just met Dudley; there was no reason to let him know so soon that she wasn't like him…there was no reason for him to realize that she was a witch, and not a Muggle. If she didn't know what 'pre-law' was, then it would be obvious, in her mind, that she wasn't normal.
"Mmm," she finally said indifferently.
"My dad's a mechanic, in a way," he said. "He's sort of the head of this company that makes drills. Ever since I was born he's wanted me to do the same. Really, I've had no interest in any of it. He's thought that since we both went to the same secondary school—Smeltings—that I'd have this great big revelation and realize my true calling, or whatever. A load of rubbish, really. He's a bit of a tosser."
Cho wondered whether her father would have wanted her to be a healer like he was, had he survived the war. She honestly didn't know what she wanted to do with her life; for the time being, school was her main priority.
"Do you have any more classes today?"
She shook her head. "Maths is my last."
"Do you want to go with me to get some tea?" Dudley asked.
In all honesty, Cho was not much of a tea drinker. The only time that she had ever had the stuff was when Cedric had taken her to Madam Puddifoot's on their date before he had died. Though she had been there before with her friends, she had never tried the tea, which Cedric had ordered while they were there. In an attempt to impress him (which she realized was pointless), she too had ordered tea, but found it to be very bitter. But not wanting to sound rude, she agreed to go with Dudley.
He took her to the student parking, taking out his car keys and unlocking a car. Cho had honestly only ever seen one in her Muggle studies class, and it looked much different than how it had been described. Coming around to the passenger's side, he opened the door for her, allowing her to seat herself before going around the other side and getting in.
"Where are we going, exactly?" she asked as he started the car.
He adjusted the rearview mirror slightly, looking behind him to make sure there were no students coming behind him. Putting the car in reverse, his eyes fell on Cho again and he smiled. "Starbucks."
As they left the student parking, the only thing Cho could think was, What the hell is Starbucks?
Hi ^.^ I, along with others, now ships Chudley after wondering if the Chudley Cannons was JKR's way of telling us that Chudley is canon. I think they'd be an interesting pair, plus Cho does marry a Muggle ultimately. Also, I know it doesn't mention anything on Cho's family life nor the death of Marietta, but um fanfiction lol. Being from the States, please excuse any glaring mistakes, thank you. I have never left this country but twice (both were still in North America, however, soo). Please review, it is three a.m. and I'm tired ^.^
- Hatter of Madness
