Author's Note: In some ways, I think I'm a lot like Cho, only less with the perfection and more with striving for it. [I admit, I'm somewhat an obsessive perfectionist.] Being Chinese helps as well. This fic goes out to all who adore Ravenclaw; I do, too. Written in honour and admiration of Elektra, whose insightful fic 'Traditionally Speaking' made me want to probe deeper into Cho's character. It's basically an outline of Cho's personality, told in a sort of story form. Bit of a personal account.
Blank Perfection
By like a falling star
[this story takes place around the middle of GoF, in Cho's fifth year.]
I look around the room. Ravenclaw girls are generally known to be tidy and very organized. If ever comes the case that we're not; we're, at the very least, uncluttered, and if ever comes the case that we're messy, we're immaculately disheveled, and we still know where everything is, in case of an emergency.
My gaze travels to the hard, brown bookcase-cum-tabletop beside my bed.
Light oak Body Shop brush, pins facing upwards. There are no strands of black hair tangled within the pins; I always make sure to pull them out after each stroke of the brush. Approximately two inches to its right is placed my trusty black, bound hardcover daily planner, a gift from father. It's still in the same, perfect condition it was in when I received it: spine unbent, cover unscratched, edges un-creased, pages still crisp and white despite the neat print running across them. A soft-tip quill with a lovely snowy feather lies diagonally across it. I really prefer the pens that mother uses at home; they're much more hardy and easier to use, but as the saying goes: 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do', and since I'm at Hogwarts, quills do very nicely.
At the edge of the tabletop, backed against the wall, is a glossy picture of my family, enclosed in a glass photo frame. It is a fairly ordinary-looking photograph; my father is sitting on a peach-coloured settee, my mother and I perched on each side of the arm rest. It was taken three years ago, right before the beginning of my second year. We are smiling; the photograph shows none of the shadows lurking beneath our eyes, none of the eye bags nor the puffiness that should have been there.
I take a deep breath as I survey the room. Right. I tell myself that everything is in its place. Everything is perfect.
I don't know when I found the need to arrange everything as such, the need for everything to be all orderly and impeccable and. . . and perfect. I sometimes think it's innate; maybe that's why I'm in Ravenclaw. Because Ravenclaws are like that. All Ravenclaws are like that. That moment in my first year when I set foot into Hogwarts, when the I looked down the row of tables where sat the Ravenclaws, with their smiling faces and apparent flawlessness, I realised with a start that it was like looking into a mirror and seeing a hundred or so carbon copies of myself being reflected back, all with the same purpose, the same goal: to achieve the social martyrdom that is perfection. I knew then that I was right where I belonged. I was home. I am home.
The room is empty.
Everyone's at Hogsmeade. I didn't particularly feel like going today, so I just told them that I didn't want to. No one questioned me. No one ever does. It's like this unspoken rule in Ravenclaw. Here in Ravenclaw, everyone respects your privacy. It's one thing to tease and be playful when we're having a game of Truth or Dare; it's another to pry and probe into things people don't want you prying and probing into. Which works well for me.
Just as I am about to sit down, there is a loud tapping at the window. It's a very ordinary-looking brown barn owl, with a slim parcel in its beak. I open the window to let it in, and am glad to note that the package is addressed to me. As it gives a loud hoot and flies off, I absently brush the imaginary dirt off my bed where it landed; I can't have owls ruining the clean white bedspread, now can I?
I shift the parcel in my hands, and decide to open it. No point wondering who it's from since I'm eventually going to open it anyway, is there? How logically Ravenclaw. I gingerly peel the scotch-tape off, taking special care not to tear the brown parcel paper. I've always loved parcel paper; it's all lovely and smooth and has this warm, woody smell, and it makes the most wonderful light, crinkly sound when I run a finger over it. This may sound silly to you, but I collect parcel paper. Honestly, I do. Each time I receive a parcel, I remove the pieces of scotch-tape, flatten the parcel paper, and put it into the box that came with the first ever straw hat I bought.
Anyway.
My mother has sent me a letter. The gist of it is the usual stuff: Don't overburden yourself, are you eating well, what happened in your last Quidditch match, how's that nice Hufflepuff boy, etc.
I reach into the parcel, and pull out a stack of red packets, held together with a rubber band. It's February. We Chinese have a tradition of exchanging red packets, or hong baos, during the Chinese New Year. Basically those who are married give red packets to those who aren't. My family isn't all that conservative, having moved to Britain a few generations back, but we still keep to certain traditions. Well, I'm not exactly complaining. I pull out the money from the packets and make a mental note to deposit it into Gringott's before I misplace it. Not that I have ever misplaced anything, ever. I conjure a Portbin and discard the envelopes, watching the bright crimson paper swirl into the hidden depths of nothingness.
Just the way I imagine my life to end. I'd go from being a popular teenaged girl one day to a wrinkly old woman, grouchy and bitter and thoroughly jaded, with nothing to show for it. Yes, so what if I caught the Snitch during that all-important game against Hufflepuff? Yes, so what if I constantly score top marks in Charms? Yes, so what if I've achieved more in my fifteen years than many can hope for in their entire lifetimes? People forget, and memories dim.
And I'd just fade away, and no one will remember. No one will care.
All my life I've been scaling the same damned ladder, the one that's supposed to lead me to the peak of the tallest hill in the valley. I'd dreamed about this hill. I'd thought that once I reached the top, I'd have the best view, the best position, the best everything. And so I scaled this ladder slowly and surely, careful not to tread on people's toes as I passed them, dead afraid that someone would stick out a foot or tug a shoelace and I'd fall, fall a million miles down back to right where I started—with absolutely nothing at all.
And now I've done it. I've climbed to the top of the ladder, rung by rung. Good grades, check. Quidditch player, check. Have reasonably good relationship with family members, check. Balance it by having a rather active social life, check. Round it all off by dating the most sought-after guy in school, check. It's all rather tiring, when you get down to it, but someone's gotta do it. But now that I've reached the top, I feel. . . empty. Lost. I look around me, at all that I've done, all that I've achieved, and I think, where to next? Like I've been working for something all my life, and now that I've gotten it, now that it's within my grasp, I don't know what to do with it, and I just sit and stare and wonder what I've really been doing all this while. It's utterly meaningless.
Yes, everything is just where it's supposed to be. Yes, everything is perfect. But sometimes I wonder what perfection really is. I'm afraid that in my constant, desperate need to attain this sole, unblemished perfection, I've forgotten exactly what I'm trying to achieve. I've lost track of what matters.
There was a time when I believed that being perfect would make me happy. It does make me happy, but it doesn't make me whole. People make mistakes and people learn from them. But be damned if I throw away what I've worked for my whole life [albeit its heretofore relatively short span] for a little bit of spiritual satisfaction. This is why I'm not in Gryffindor. It's because I don't dare to take that next step. I make mistakes, I learn from them, but nothing ever changes.
Nothing's going to change now.
*
Author's Note: I think this is by far the most angsty thing I've written. [which is not saying a lot.] I'm planning to do a sequel, though. Should I? Please review. I would really like to know what you think of it.