Cho/OC. I'm hoping to make this a multi-chap, but for that I'll need some feedback. Written for the OC Character Boot Camp with the prompt 'black'.

Cho woke up, shivering violently and with the image of Cedric still in her mind. Every night since that night she dreamed of him, and every night she watched him die. The worst of it was that each time, he died a different way. Not two minutes ago she had watched him choking, slowly going purple in the face and reaching out a hand towards her. She'd tried to grab it, but before she could she felt herself fade away. His sickly gargles still stirred in her memory.

Inadvertently, Cho started to sob. Partly out of missing Cedric, partly because she felt sorry for herself. She was repulsed by how much she seemed to cry these days, even though it was 5 weeks, 2 days and…(she stopped to check to clock) 5 hours since he died. There had to be something she could do about it…

And with that, Cho fell back to sleep.

The next day at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, Cho was startled by an owl landing on the sill of her open window, holding a letter addressed from her friend Marietta.

'Mon amie, Cho!' it read,

'So, I was shopping for some shoes the other day, and these absolutely gorgeous heels I saw in Esmeralda's reminded me of you. Then I remembered I hadn't seen you in a long time and thought I ought to write. For all I know you could be dead. Are you dead? I hope you're not, because if you are then I'm going to kill you for ditching me.

Anyways, how are you darling? Found a new boyfriend yet? You've got to hurry up and get over that dead guy, I know he meant a lot to you, but you were only with him for like six months. Ok, that is quite a lot of time, but it's time to move on honey. The clock is ticking and you're not getting any younger. Find yourself some nice Quidditch player and go make out with him. Seriously girl, you have to get yourself out there again! Remember last summer when we put on so much make-up and sneaked into that nightclub? The confundus charm I cast on that muggle bouncer didn't hurt our chances either. Remember how much fun we had then? Remember when we got totally drunk and only got home in the morning? Remember all those good times, Cho? Because sometimes I think you forget. If you continue moping like this you'll end up just like Myrtle. Ugly, unloved, forever doomed to spend her time in a toilet. Get yourself the fuck up!

When have you last gone out of your house? I haven't seen you since you got off the train and I MISS YOU! Come out with me this Saturday! I want to go out with you somewhere, get you out of your shell, and then we can have a sleepover. It'll be so much fun! We can read Witch Weekly (I've got a pile of issues that I know for a fact you haven't seen yet, and I want to know how you're doing. I don't want us to grow apart just because you're obsessing about some guy.

So, see you tomorrow and don't you dare not turn up. If you don't then I will be very sad.

Your bestie,

Mari xoxoxo'

Cho sighed. Now Marietta was on her case it would be impossible not to go out. The girl was incredibly persistent and always got what she wanted. Lately, Cho had been thinking that she'd outgrown her. The two had met on their first day at Hogwarts, when they were both sorted into Ravenclaw. Mari had sat down next to Cho and hugged her assertively, even though they'd never even spoken before. "We're going to be great friends, I just know it. My name's Marietta, but that's dumb. You can call me Mari." Then, Cho had been too shy to answer, not having known any other children who were witches or wizards before. She'd just gone along with the friendship, tagging along with Mari when she went down to the Great Hall to eat and sitting next to her in class whenever she could. She'd thought that having a friend would help her to fit into Hogwarts and make more friends. Mari attracted people as if they were flies and she a fresh hunk of meat. She was never alone, always in the middle of a small crowd of chattering females. Cho was overshadowed by her friend's popularity, but she didn't mind. As long as at the end of the day Mari came back to the girls' dormitory and poured out all the day's gossip in a steady stream of chatter, everything would be just fine between them. Cho's quite demeanour balanced out Mari's incessant talking and made the girls feel totally comfortable with each other. The only thing that nagged the back of Cho's mind was that she was never able to get a word in edgewise. She didn't talk much, but Cho would have liked to have an earnest chat every now and then, with someone else listening to her.

This was where Cedric had come in and swept her off her feet. He was attentive, he treated her well and he worshipped the ground she trod on. In fact, that had been a point of disagreement between Mari and Cho just after the Yule Ball. Mari was complaining that Cho never spent time with her anymore, that they weren't 'sisters' anymore. Cho had tried to explain how she felt about Cedric to her friend, but the other girl had simply spun on he heel and flounced away when Cho started talking. That day was when Cho feared she might soon lose control. How could Mari, someone who'd known her for five years, not understand how she felt? It was frustrating to say the least.

Cho sighed again and decided she should probably reply to the owl. Otherwise, Mari might get mad and then no-one would be happy. She took out some paper (parchment was expensive) and a pen (so much easier to use than a quill) and duly wrote out a reply.

'Dear Mari,

I hope you've been having a nice summer so far. Meet anyone? Knowing you, you've probably met about a hundred boys already and flirted outrageously with each of them. We can't all have as much fun as you do. Me, I've been out a few times, but nothing special happened.

I'd love to come over to your place on Saturday. I need to catch up with you about what everyone's been doing. Knowing you, you have all the answers!

Yours,

Cho xoxo'

Cho called to the owl sitting on top of her dresser and attached the note to its leg. She watched it fly off. 'That bird has not a care in the world' she thought. Well, except for the obvious ones of starving or dying of cold. Cho sighed at being faced with the tragedies of the world.

She let out a deep breath. Truthfully, she wasn't feeling as upbeat as the letter suggested. She was feeling tired, even though she'd not even got off her bed this morning. Cho just wanted to sleep, to forget, but she couldn't run away from the images that burned in her dreams. It was a vicious cycle, she had no energy or will to do anything because she couldn't get over Cedric, and she couldn't get over Cedric because she saw him whenever she closed her eyes.

Cho tried to tell herself that she was worth more than this, that it was no use worrying over a dead boy. She sighed with angst. She seemed to do a lot of sighing these days. Out of misery, she sighed.

She knew should go get dressed into something that didn't smell like old socks and get something to eat. Saturday was just around the corner and Cho knew that if Mari ever saw her like this, she would faint, dramatically. She couldn't bring herself to hurt her friend like that, so she set off to the kitchen to look for a change of clothes in the laundry.

Once she'd showered and was feeling clean and refreshed, Cho went out the shops to buy herself a sandwich. The area she lived in was largely populated by muggles, so she had no worries that she would meet someone she knew and would have to talk to them. She'd have to get over Cedric one step at a time.

While waiting in line, Cho saw a girl who immediately caught her eye. The girl was wearing all black on a sunny day. She had her head covered by a top hat and was wearing a dark leather jacket, but oddest of all was her dress. It reached all the way to the pavement and further, covering the ground in a radius of about half a metre. The dress was only midnight black, which is not as dark as people would assume, so Cho guessed that she'd worn it lots of times and it had faded from the wash. What was really characteristic about the dress were the thousands of glass beads sewn all over it. They glimmered in the sunlight streaming through a window and blinded Cho. She didn't care though. She'd never seen such a beautiful thing in her life. All thoughts of Cedric cast from her mind, Cho watched the girl.

She watched her while the girl bought a Snickers bar, a single roll of toilet paper and a dog leash (it was a weird shop). When she took out her wallet, Cho thought she saw the tell-tale glint of a galleon in the girl's muggle money. But that was probably her imagination desperately searching for something to grab hold of to make her think that the girl was a witch. Surely, no-one who dressed this oddly could be a muggle. Could they?

When the girl left, Cho hurriedly paid for her sandwich and scrambled to go outside. She had nothing to do all day except mope, and Cho suddenly hated herself for wasting so much time cooped up in her room. Determined to make this day different, she followed the girl, occasionally ducking behind corners like she'd seen people do in muggle spy movies. Cho couldn't understand this sudden interest for the dark girl, but she knew she had to know more about her. There was something she couldn't put her finger on, like...like the girl had too many secrets to be forgotten about.

Cho dismissed this as a side effect to not talking to anyone for days. Anything, even a muggle, would be fascinating to her now.

The dark girl walked purposefully through the streets of Cardiff as if she owned the place. She parted crowds as if they were the Red Sea and she Moses. Tendrils of her dark hair hovered in the breeze like snakes. Her dress trailed behind her and created a wake. Oddly though, no-one seemed to notice her. The muggles just shifted away absentmindedly when she came their way and then drifted back to where they'd been standing. What was even weirder was that Cho couldn't take her eyes off her, literally. However hard she tried to look away, they remained glued to the dark girl.

After what seemed like hours of walking through shadier and shadier suburbs, Cho followed the girl behind a building and suddenly found herself in a graveyard. Her eyes unglued, allowing her to look around. It seemed that whoever owned the graveyard wanted to make the most of the space they had, so they'd erected a flimsy fence almost touching the wall of a nearby building. There were gravestones everywhere, more that Cho had ever seen before. She crouched down to read the one nearest to her, about a foot away from inside the fence. 'Isla Hitchens, 1853-1902, Maye She Reste In Peas' it read, and she was only able to decipher it by clearing away the moss covering the headstone with her wand.

"So, I see you've found my great-great-great-grandmother."

Cho attempted to turn on the spot, but, as she was perched on her toes, this only made her fall down on the ground opposite the girl she'd followed. The girl's voice was melodious and conveyed more than a hint of amusement.

"What do you think then? Am I a witch or not?" the girl smiled and nudged Cho's leg with the tip of her (dragon hide?)boot.

"What? How did you know-"

"-what you were thinking? My dear, I may be fourteen, but I can tell when someone is eyeing me up for all the wrong reasons."

"I wasn't...I just wanted to see…I was bored, ok?" Cho was gathering confidence and now stood up and brushed the dirt off her clothes. She jabbed a finger into the girl's chest, "If you want me to go, then I'll go. I have better things to do than listen to insults."

"No you don't, Chang. All you have to go home to is an empty house and a lot of unhappy memories. I can help you with that."

"How do you know my name?"

"Aren't you more interested to hear how I can help you? I promise you, it's good."

"I have enough offers of help already, I don't need any more, thank you very much."

"Don't you at least want to know my name? Don't you want to know how I know about you pretty dead boyfriend and about," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "what you almost did to that cat last-"

"Stop it! Who are you?" Cho was staring at the girl with horror etched on her face. The other girl wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, she looked down at her left arm, covered by a billowing sleeve, and looked up again sharply. "Who am I?" she asked hollowly, "That's the question I've been asking myself ever since I could think. You can call me Diane. Diane Black, as in daughter of Lady Bellatrix and His Greatness, the Dark Lord. I like to think I was adopted."

"And now, you will help me. You will have no choice not to. You see, I know your darkest secrets, and I can do anything I like with them. Follow me."

Diane turned her back on Cho and blasted a hole into the graveyard fence, then walked away into it. Cho let out a strangled half-cry, then obeyed and went after her mutely.

In a yew tree above them, a raven perched, watching and waiting.

So, what do you think? Good idea, bad idea, confusing, great, do you want more? I have been told that sometimes my stories move too quickly.