OR DIE TRYING: CHO CHANG'S SEVENTH YEAR

By monkeymouse

NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over Hogwarts that Harry isn't aware of.

Rated: PG

Spoilers: Everything

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1. "You have to make a choice"

"Cho, do you think we're going to Hell?"

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Any doubts that the wizarding world had been thrust back into its war against Lord Voldemort were dispelled almost as soon as Cho and the others got off the Hogwarts Express. Wizards and witches waited a nervous week for the troubles to begin again. When they began, they came in quick succession. In Nottinghamshire, the Brockdale Bridge suddenly gave way, dropping a dozen automobiles into the River Trent. No official death count was ever released. Part of the problem was the time it took to recover the bodies, and then there was the unusual condition of some of the bodies. Some were drowned, and some were killed by the falling debris of the Brockdale Bridge crushing the cars. A few, however, seemed to have survived both, only to be tortured and even killed in cars from which they were unable to escape.

This was followed by violent storms in Somerset. At least, the Muggles assumed that it was the work of a hurricane or two. Anyone who's seen the aftermath of a hurricane knows that its path looks deliberate, even selective; no wonder that ages ago people believed in giants.

Muggles were also messed about with in ways that seemed like adolescent pranks. Herbert Chorley, a Junior Minister in the Muggle government, suddenly and inexplicably began quacking like a duck. The Muggles dismissed it as a fondness for the bottle, but the Ministry of Magic came to its own conclusions and rushed him away to St. Mungo's. For security's sake, since it seemed that the Muggle government was neing targeted, an experienced Auror named Kinksley Shacklebolt was put on the staff of the Prime Minister. Officially, he was there as an administrative assistant; unofficially, he was a bodyguard.

The need for such a bodyguard became clear when a witch named Emmeline Vance was murdered near number 10 Downing Street. Both communities were upset for different reasons. The magical world knew Vance as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, a corps formed during the first war against Voldemort. She had been trained to fight off the Death Eaters; few witches were as capable as she was of protecting herself.

When one of those most capable, Magical Law Enforcement chief Amelia Bones, was also murdered, it seemed as if nobody would be safe this time.

Of course, all of this did not go unnoticed. One result was that Coenrlius Fudge was sacked as Minister of Magic. In his place was Rufus Scrimgeour, who had been elevated to head Auror after the death of Amelia Bones.

The worst attack, though, was also the subtlest of all. That summer was the coldest and gloomiest on record, as a persistent mist blotted out the sun for days on end. For those who knew, it was clearly the work of Dementors, who had abandoned Azkaban prison to serve the Dark Lord and were infecting much of England with gloom and despair.

Among the holdouts, though, was the Chang herb shoppe.

xxx

At the end of her second week back, Cho was once again regaling her family at the dinner table with carefully edited tales of the sorry administration of Dolores Jane Umbridge at Hogwarts.

"You couldn't call it defense of anything, could you?" Cho was saying as her mother Lotus spelled a pot of tea and a plate of almond cookies onto the table after dinner. "She just had us reading a book!"

"Never thought I'd hear a Ravenclaw complain about books," Lotus said as she sipped her tea.

"I see what she means, though," her father replied. "All theory and no practice? That would drive any schoolroom mad."

Lotus used her wand to close the drapes a little tighter. "Dementors are supposed to be causing this foul weather, and the foul mood," she said. "They seem to be multiplying, although I don't want to imagine how they do THAT. It's a shame you didn't learn something that would cheer us up a bit."

Cho took a sip of tea, set her cup down, and smiled. "Now that you mention it…"

Thirty minutes later, the Chang family (including the cat, Chairman Miao) was still in the parlour, smiling as if it were Christmas Day, and basking in the after-effects of the Swan Patronus.

"Cho," her father asked, "why on earth didn't you tell us you could do that?"

"Because I didn't even learn how until about three months ago."

"But you said Umbridge didn't teach practical magic!"

"Well, she, she didn't. But some of us got together for an independent study group."

"She can't have been too pleased to find out about that," Lotus sniffed.

"Well, she didn't really find out. When she'd heard something about it, the group disbanded, but …"

"Was it just a Ravenclaw group, then?"

"No, some from most every House. Except Slytherin, of course."

"And did a Ravenclaw lead it?" her father asked. Before Cho could answer, though, Lotus interrupted.

"Some lazy rebellious type, I imagine, some good-for-nothing…"

Cho stood angrily. "Harry is neither lazy nor good for nothing!"

Cho's mother raised one eyebrow. "Harry, eh? Harry Potter?" Cho didn't bother to answer. "You've said he was always at wands drawn with Umbridge. I suppose this was why."

"Look," Cho sighed as she sat back down, "almost everyone there didn't get along with Umbridge…"

"I take it 'almost everyone' was in this Dumbledore's Army, then."

Cho looked down at her hands; if she looked into her mother's eyes, she knew she'd explode. "No," she said softly, her cheeks burning, "only about two dozen of us."

"So this small group of—"

"Stop, Lotus," Cho's father interrupted, "and don't say something you'll regret. The Patronus, I think, speaks for itself." He turned to his daughter, smiling. "Did they teach anything else as advanced as that?"

"No." Cho's flush of anger hadn't gone, but seemed to turn into a flush of embarrassment. "Umbridge found out and we were almost caught."

Lotus leaned forward, with an unusual kind of hunger behind her bright eyes. "Have you, erm, kept in touch with Harry?"

"Well, well, no, but…"

"Well, excuse me for butting in, but this is the chance of a lifetime! You simply MUST keep in touch with him!"

"Look, we had a, a sort of a falling-out."

"Then apologise and get back together with him!"

"Mother! It wasn't my fault!"

"That's beside the point!"

Cho jumped up, ran to her bedroom, slammed and locked the door, and threw herself onto the bed.

Why, why, why was her mother like that! It drove her crazy, especially because Cho knew that she couldn't tell her mother the true story. Cho couldn't admit that Marietta Edgecombe, one of her few remaining friends at Hogwarts, had tried to tell Umbridge about Dumbledore's Army, and been hexed for it. The hex consisted of a violent case of acne with pimples that actually spelled out the word "Sneak." Cho had tried to get the hex lifted, but Harry refused, partly because of what Marietta had done, and partly because the hex had been created by Hermione Granger, Harry's friend since First Year. And Harry simply refused to listen to reason, refused to do the right thing and have the hex taken off Marietta. He put so much store in his Muggle-born friend Hermione—

Muggle-born! Cho was surprised that she didn't think of it sooner! She stayed in her room, waiting until she heard her parents go to bed. Then she snuck down to the parlour, tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the fire and said, "Penelope Clearwater!"

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So it was that, the following Friday afternoon, Cho closed up the family herb shoppe, grabbed a small backpack, then took the Floo Network to the home of her older Ravenclaw friend Penelope Clearwater. Penelope and her Muggle parents lived in Little Wilbraham, a suburb of Cambridge, where the Clearwaters were both on the faculty.

At first Cho thought the network had made a mistake. It had only been a year since she'd seen Penelope, but the older girl had actually changed quite a bit. She was slightly taller, had tamed her hair and wore it pulled back, and had put on about fifteen pounds, all of which had gone to her hips and bust. This witch had clearly made the passage from schoolgirl to woman.

Cho couldn't even speak for a minute; she just stared at Penelope. Penelope looked down at her somewhat tight-fitting blouse and blue jeans: "Something wrong, Cho?"

In spite of herself, a laugh escaped from Cho. "I just, just didn't expect you to look so, so…"

"Time did this to me, and it'll get you too. And frankly, I hope I'm there to see it when you come into your own. You should be a real stunner."

To hide her embarrassment, Cho started looking at the book-lined walls of the living-room. "Anything new and interesting?"

"Oh, stop pretending you care about those!" Penelope grabbed Cho's hand. "There's a busy weekend ahead and it starts in the kitchen!"

xxx

It wasn't long before they were back in familiar territory: two Ravenclaw students discussing, snacking, laughing, and reminiscing. It took about an hour, several sandwiches, a bag of crisps, and a half-pitcher of lemonade before the talk turned somber.

They were in the living room, watching the fire burn in the grate. "Did you know her, then?" Cho asked suddenly. "Amelia Bones?"

Penelope shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the fire.

"I never met her myself," Cho went on, "but then, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, I'd hardly be likely to. But the Prefect in my year, Marietta Edgecombe, her mother runs the Floo Network, and that just destroyed her. She was so upset she couldn't come to work for a week. After all, if such a powerful witch could be—"

"Cho!" Penelope had suddenly stood up. She picked her wand up from a small table near the sofa, and made a pass in the direction of the fireplace. When she sat down again, she still wasn't looking at Cho. "Sorry, I just had to…" Her voice faltered for a moment. "I had to lock out the Floo for the night. Still, it makes me crazy that my parents are in Manchester. I can't stop worrying about them. They may be Muggles, but they know all about our world. If the Death Eaters wanted to make an example of anyone…"

"Have you asked the Ministry to keep an eye on them?"

"Yes, but what good will that do? If they can get to Amelia Bones…"

Cho didn't say anything for a minute. She was half-afraid that, when she got home on Sunday, it would be to an empty house. Not that her parents would give in to even a dozen Death Eaters; they knew too much Chinese magic, things even the Hogwarts faculty never knew. Such as those special hidden shoes, made for cloud-walking…

Penelope sighed. "Sorry to be in such a rotten mood. Wish I could feel better."

At that, Cho smiled and drew her wand.

"Expecto Patronum."

xxx

An hour later they were in the two beds in Penelope's room, with the lights out, but still talking. And it was an hour after they'd gotten into their beds that Penelope asked the question:

"Cho, do you think we're going to Hell?"

Cho couldn't help grabbing her wand and muttering "Lumos," causing it to glow. She stared at Penelope and asked, "What brought THAT on?"

"Well, I've been going to uni, and all my pals are Muggles of course. They ask me out places, and a week or so ago one of them asks me to someone's flat. She just said it was a 'get-together,' but it turned out to be a sort of church service. They wanted to know if I'd been saved. I didn't know what to say." She thought for a few seconds. "Remember Binns and his Second Year homework?"

"Oh, no!" Cho laughed. "You mean the last class before the summer break, right? He's probably still assigning that one!"

"I'm sure of it. Death didn't change him, why should a war? Remember how he'd deliver That Quote?"

Cho started to imitate the ghostly Professor Binns, who taught History of Magic. "The verse in question reads, 'Thou shalt not suffer…' Of course, the Jacobean use of the word 'suffer'…"

Penelope was laughing out loud for the first time that evening. "It took him five minutes to finish that one bloody sentence." Then, a cloud seemed to pass over her face. "But he finally said it in plain English: You must not allow a witch to live. I had to wonder the other night what my Christian friends would say if they knew who I really was."

"Do you regret it, Penny, being born a witch?"

"I never used to. But why is it so wrong to be who we are?"

Cho sighed. "I don't think it's about who we are. It's about what we do with the magic we're born with. That's the only right and wrong I can see. It's all about making choices." Cho extinguished her wand, settled under the covers, then spoke into the darkness of the room: "Choose between what is right and what is easy."

"Binns say that?" Penelope asked sleepily.

"Dumbledore," Cho said softly. "Good night, Penny."

Cho stayed awake long after Penelope's breathing became soft and even. She was remembering the Leaving Feast after the Tri-Wizard Tournament—the tournament which had cost Cedric Diggory his life. Cho wasn't weeping for her beloved Cedric anymore; she had finally gotten past that. Now, she was considering the choice she had to make; the only choice that mattered.

xxx

To be continued in part 2, wherein Cho and Penelope continue their weekend and talk about two stubborn boys…

A/N: The verse in question is Exodus 22:18.