A/N: The product of a day's worth of writing, a request for Roger/Cho with cameos of Percy Weasley, Angelina Johnson, and certain ships. This turned out quite long…
Disclaimer: The obvious ones still apply.
She has heard it innumerable times that friends don't hurt each other. After all, are not good friends supposed to bring out the best in each other, and be there for each other? She is intelligent and knows all the definitions: is she not one of Ravenclaw House's most beloved, after all?
But she knows that it isn't so simple, not with her and him, best of friends since the days before the war, when she wore her black hair in braids and he still slept with the old plushie Quaffle that his da had gotten for him when he was three. He knew nearly all of her stupid little secrets, and she could tell embarrassing stories about him all afternoon long. But they could never be the friends who never hurt each other.
They drifted apart slowly but surely in their last years of school, and a few of the younger Ravenclaw girls looked at them reproachfully, as though they were responsible for the shattering of a favourite fairy tale. She no longer called him 'Roggie' to naff him off, and he never pulled her hair any more. He left after his seventh year with a crisp "Good luck with the team, Chang", and his blue eyes were as steadily expressionless as the sky overhead.
She had stopped hugging him and going to him with her little problems in fifth year, when the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students had arrived and everything was too crowded and tense and different from before. She listened to him rhapsodize over the perfect beauty of Fleur Delacour and gave him endless advice on how to court the perfect blonde princess and seethed every time he walked away from her to talk to Fleur. Fleur, who never scraped her elbows and knees playing Quidditch or woke up with a crick in her neck and one cheek reddened from falling asleep on top of a book. Fleur, who was tall and had the perfect figure and could never be remembered as a little girl who used to wear pigtails. She tried to act more like a lady, and the other girls were delighted, because pretty Cho Chang finally showed an interest in things other than books and Quidditch, and yet, even as Cedric's illustrious date at the Yule Ball, she could not compete with Fleur's unearthly part-veela beauty. And then she remembered that she was not supposed to compete with Fleur anyway, because Fleur didn't have ANYTHING she wanted.
And she always turned away too quickly to see the hurt looks he shot at her when she was always too busy to talk any more, and a new, devilish part of her smirked inside each time that he solicited her company and she had to tell him that she was meeting Cedric. She did not love Cedric, no, but Cedric was handsome and charming and calming, and completely safe. Cedric, she decided, was the perfect epitome of good friend, who was always there for a person, and never ever hurt anyone's feelings.
She had been angry when, a year after Fleur and Cedric and the way everything had fallen apart, he had the nerve to ask her out. She was NOT the perfect beautiful girlfriend, and she could never replace some queenly Beauxbatons vamp anyway. He knew too much about her, and she had too much pride to return to someone who'd abandoned her. And then she saw him cuddling with Almira Abbott in Madam Puddifoot's, and all her vindictive satisfaction vanished like dust in the wind, and she picked a fight with Harry and went back to Ravenclaw Tower and cried her eyes out, and her roommates tsked over her and told her she should just get over Diggory already...
"And that was six years ago," she raised embarrassed eyes to the warm, hazel gaze of her boss, who had been listening attentively as the story poured out like water through a broken dam. "I know, Percy, it's silly, but I'm sure he hates me and... do you think you can assign me to another group?"
Percy Weasley, his movements careful and meticulous as his mother's, refilled her teacup and gave her a smile. "Cho, I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."
"I was so mean to him," she murmured a bit miserably. "Oh, I knew... even when I was a little girl, that it would be a life-long thing, and both of us play for keeps. And I just don't think that he would want to work with me at all."
"Love isn't about never hurting each other," Both she and Percy were aware that this wasn't typical for a conversation between the junior head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and his top assistant, but they had worked together for the past four years. Percy's eyes, behind their spectacles, were solemn but kind, more brotherly than Roger's had ever been. He laughed softly. "My fiancee and I weren't even on speaking terms for a year... she was best friends with my brother, after all, and it had been the common consensus that I had wronged them all."
She nodded slowly. It is a story that she'd heard, ironically about the same girl that she'd picked a fight with Harry over, all those years back. Percy gave her a fond smile, one that could never hurt her.
"I'm sorry, Cho," he told her softly. "Even if I were so inclined, I cannot grant your request for a transfer. There is no one who could replace you at present... and moreover, I think it will be all right. Just wait and see."
Of course, she would find out that he was correct. It isn't about never hurting someone, after all. It's about forgiveness, because life-long things transcended the little interruptions and troubles.
"So I hear that you're getting a cushy new job, hmm?" The young woman smiled warmly at her friend and next-door neighbor as she lifted her mug of coffee with a slim brown hand. "When do you start?"
"Next week," Roger answered, surveying his fellow ex-captain across the table. Their arrangement worked quite well: if he brought in her owl post and fed her cat when she traveled with the Arrows, she invited him in once a week for a home-cooked meal. Of course, he also respectfully kept silent to the ravenous press about her personal affairs, and knew the truth behind the rumours that she was seeing a player on a rival team (her boyfriend was actually a Magical Law Enforcement officer, though they had indeed been rivals once upon a time). "Cyrus Elgin is the actual head of the department, but my immediate supervisor is going to be Percy Weasley."
"Just like the old days, then," Angelina chuckled, rising gracefully to clear away the dishes. "Back when we were Prefects and he was Head Boy, hmm?"
"I suppose." Cyrus Elgin had also given him a list of names of his coworkers, and Roger had not been able to keep the surprise out of his face when he came to one name on that list, innocuously written as Percy's assistant. It had been more than five years since he had seen her again, and yet...
"Is something troubling you?" Angelina asked politely, her steadfast gaze focused upon his face. "You look a little distracted. There's nothing wrong with this new job, is there?"
No, nothing was wrong. Nothing had ever been so cut-and-dried as wrong. It simply had never been right, either. Roger wasn't sure what to say in answer to her concerned question. He settled for a hopefully-nonchalant "Everything is fine" and changed the subject.
Six years had not dimmed her beauty. The war had come, and the war had gone, but her hands remained graceful and her eyes the same velvety shade of dark brown. It was just his luck that Percy, with a disarming look, had jovially told him that the "indispensable Miss Chang" would show him around the department, and Roger had intercepted the alarmed look that she had shot their seemingly-oblivious boss. And then Percy Weasley had walked off, a sheaf of papers in hand for a business meeting, and they were left alone in the hallway. She broke their gaze after twenty seconds, and silently gestured for him to follow her down the corridor. Somewhere deep inside of him, he felt a slightly painful twinge. Where was the smiling, bright-eyed Cho Chang that he once knew, who had never feared or hid anything from him?
"Zis iz not love, you know." In his head, he heard a satiny, patrician voice with a French accent, "You are a nice boy, Roger, but you are no different from ze ozers, and I shall not continue on wis you. It will 'urt far more zan do any good, and you will be sorry." Fleur had not explained herself, and he could not, at age sixteen, make sense of it. It had hurt, but it was only two weeks after that breakup that he had witnessed something that had hurt much more, and a selfish part of him didn't just hurt for Cho when Cedric had been led out of the maze. The girls in her dorm room had surrounded her in a flurry of sympathetic cooings and blue robes, and he never had a chance to erase the anguish from her face.
Cho had cried for a year, but never around him. Something had been broken in between them, and now, as she walked with her back straight and a soft, bland coolness to her voice, Fleur's words came back to haunt him. Every non-work-related question he asked met with a monosyllabic answer, and he found himself clenching his hands in frustration. Was everything truly lost?
"And this is your office," Cho unwarded the door to a small, vacant room with a flick of her wand. He followed her inside, and a mix of desperation and determination made him shut the door behind both of them. He half-heartedly set a password as she pointed out the magically expanding filing cabinet and the floo grate, and then moved abruptly towards the door when she made to leave.
"Can't we talk, Cho?" a pleading note had entered his voice. Her head snapped up, delicate lips thinning to an unsmiling line and eyes losing expression. "We haven't seen each other for six years."
"Which is why there isn't too much to talk about," Cho's voice was nearly perfectly steady, but her fingers had tightened around her wand. "I shan't get in the way of your work, of course..."
"Is that all we are to be, then? People who work together?" The painful feeling was increasing with every moment. "We were friends once..."
"Yes," she said softly. "Once." Under his stare, her composure crumbled, and when she lifted her eyes to his face again, they were swimming with tears. "But it's not the same now. Friends don't hurt each other, and we're both guilty. I'm sorry, Roger, but it all happened and I can't pretend that it didn't, even if you can. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work."
She tried to step around him, and his hand closed around her wrist. "It's been six years, Cho Chang," he exclaimed in agitation. "Can't you spare at least a few minutes? Did what friendship we have not even warrant that much?"
She struggled to regain her dignity, and quailed a bit at the hurt look in his eyes. "I don't think we can go back to that sort of friendship, Roger," she finally says in a quietly determined voice. "I think it would be most advisable to keep everything strictly professional."
"By which you mean cold as ice," a hint of anger joined the hurt in his eyes, and she flinched. The hand around her wrist pulled her closer- close enough to hear his voice whispering in her ear. "Why did you stop talking to me sixth year, Cho?"
She laughed bitterly, hollowly. "You don't know?" Her voice is incredulous, "I would have thought it was obvious. I wasn't wanted, and you were... busy. I may have been only fifteen, Roger Davies, but even then I knew that an annoying little sister figure is the last thing a fellow in love with a perfect girl wants around. I have my self-respect. I refuse to stay around as the subject of negative comparisons!"
"It was a passing infatuation," he growled in frustration. "Just about everyone in the school adored her. Moreover, I didn't exactly want to butt in upon your perfect relationship with Cedric Diggory."
"Because Cedric was safe. He couldn't hurt me," she snapped, suddenly angry. "It didn't matter if I wasn't tall and blonde and perfect, because I didn't need to impress him. I can't believe you can fail to understand this, Davies." He scowled at the use of his last name, and she wrenched her wrist from his grasp, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm not perfect. You knew me too well to even consider such a thing. Of course I couldn't measure up, but you need not have dropped me like a bad study habit!"
The anger abated almost as soon as it flared, though, and then she bowed her head. "I was furious with you. Too upset to think straight," her voice dropped to a whisper, because any louder would have betrayed a wobble in her tone, "I wanted to hurt you back. And then it all backfired on me, and... we can't be friends again. We broke it and buried the pieces years ago."
"Why can't we try?" He wasn't speaking of friendship at all, but at least friendship would be a start. He reached out towards her, touching her arm lightly. "I want to try. Can't you let me have that chance?"
Her tears spilled over her cheeks when she raised her face. "I asked Percy for a transfer," she told him unevenly. "That way, we wouldn't run into each other and hurt each other more. But he wouldn't grant me one."
He made a mental note to thank his new boss fervently as soon as possible. "What makes you think that we'd hurt each other again?"
"Because we know each other too well," she stumbled over her words when he lifted a hand to brush away some of her tears. "I can't pretend around you. You have too much of me and about me for things to be safe. And when someone interesting comes along, someone who's prettier and more polished..."
A finger over her lips cut the statement off mid-sentence. Startled, she gazed up at his face, and watched mutely as he shook his head, a wistful smile playing at the corners of his lips. Sorrowful blue eyes met brown ones as his fingers traced over the contours of her face, brushing over damp cheeks and pert nose and furrowed eyebrows, before settling once more over her lips.
"For the last six years, you have effectually barred yourself away from me, Cho Chang," he started speaking, his voice slow and almost matter-of-fact. "During those years, a war has come and gone, and I've run the gamut through our world. I've patrolled Hogsmeade and spied on Death Eaters. I've watched comrades triumph and fall. I've experienced joy and sorrow and met people from all walks of life... and you know what? Through it all, there is no one else who knows me as well as you. If knowledge is power, as we all learnt our first day in Ravenclaw House, and you're afraid of me because I have too much knowledge about you, it goes both ways. No one elseno matter how 'interesting' or 'pretty'could ever come that close to me. And do you know why?"
Stunned, she shook her head, and the fingers that had been covering her lips moved to cup her face. "It's because they would have had to move your presence out of my heart if they wanted to take that place. And that would have been impossible."
Her eyes widened owlishly with confusion, and really, he hadn't seen her that dumbfounded since the first time she'd caught a Snitch when she was seven. "I'm sorry for hurting you," he finally said, the backs of his fingers brushing against her hair. "Will you forgive me?"
She stammered for a few moments, apparently at a loss for words, and then managed a nod. "What you told me... aren't you afraid I might hurt you with the information?"
There were many things he could say to that, but he opted for a light-hearted reply in his relief. "Cho, if Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley can look past their families' bitter feud and the countless amounts of hexing and taunting of their schooldays, and elope to Tahiti as the Daily Prophet reported two months ago, I rather think that with forgiveness comes trust."
She couldn't hold back a giggle at that, remembering the chaos that had erupted in Percy's usually-impeccable office when the owl post had arrived that day, and her boss's subsequent hysteria. Roger smiled back, and there was a hint of lingering uncertainty in his eyes. "Will you talk to me, then? Can we be friends like before?"
For a few minutes, she reflected upon this, her quick Ravenclaw brain rapidly analyzing and sorting through all the information and possibilities. Finally, she raised her head, looking him squarely in the eye, and gave her answer. "No."
But before his face could fall, she closed the distance between them and brushed her lips lightly over his. "I don't think we can be friends like before," she whispered against his mouth, slim arms reaching up to twine around his neck.
In very short order, he had backed her against the magical filing cabinet, pulling her flush against him as he drank a little moan from her lips like a man dying of thirst. She tangled her fingers in his hair as he kissed and nuzzled his way from her lips to her jaw, and then her throat, and maybe it was because they knew each other so well, after all, that they moved without awkwardness. He pressed his face to the soft skin of her neck and smiled. Really, she had nothing to worry about...
It was five o'clock that afternoon that the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation visited the office of his hardworking right-hand man. Cyrus Elgin raised a curious eyebrow at the expression on Percy's face.
"You look rather pleased," the older man remarked. "Is the new inspector for Quidditch equipment charms up to scratch, then?"
"I've been busy this afternoon," Percy replied blandly. "But Miss Chang showed him the ropes. I have confidence in her judge of character and competence, sir, and I feel quite sure that she'll be giving me a glowing report tomorrow morning as soon as she comes in."
Cyrus looked surprised. "So you're saying that she took off already? Unusual. She tends to stay late."
"The girl deserves an afternoon of peace," Percy declared. "She'll be all the better for it."
Elgin nodded, satisfied, and left the office himself, congratulating himself quietly on finding such a thoughtful junior head. Weasley might be a bit staid and slow on the emotional uptake, but the younger man ran the department with competence and vim. Less for him to worry about. And one could trust Percy. There wasn't an ounce of manipulation or guile in his body. He Apparated home complacently, blissfully ignorant.