I don't own Harry Potter.

Cho was really starting to hate that phrase: I'm sorry. If she heard it one more time, she was going to just run into the Forbidden Forest and just never come out. Maybe she would get lucky and some merciful beast would come along and reunite her with the person she loved.

Yes that's right love. She might've only been sixteen, but she knew she was in love. She knew if she told anyone, they would either: scoff and tell her that she was too young to be in love, or they would roll their eyes and humor her disbelievingly.

Marietta believed her though. Marietta never scoffed or rolled her eyes, or doubted for one moment that Cho and Cedric really were in love. Other people did, but never Marietta. Marietta just handed her tissues and found the old photographs that she had nearly forgotten and hugged her when she woke up crying. Marietta was a good friend.

There was another thing Cho liked about Marietta: she never said she was sorry about his death. It enraged Cho to no end that everybody was sorry about his death. I'm so sorry about your loss. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Cho knew they were empty words. No one who said those words was actually, truly sorry about his death, because if they were, then they would be the ones breaking down all the time, the ones who were plagued by grief and loss. They were just saying they were sorry because that's what they had to do, what they were supposed to do.

Despite how hard and painful it was, Cho knew that if she hadn't had Marietta there, it would've been a whole lot worse.

Marietta was the first person Cho told when she thought she started to fancy Harry Potter. Looking back on it, she knew it was just an attempt to stop being so lonely, so hurt after Cedric's death. She now knew that smoldering ember would have extinguished itself if not for the vital spark of lust.

But she didn't know that back then. All she knew was that suddenly Harry Potter, the boy who could've saved Cedric, was suddenly looking much better than usual. She was becoming more aware of when he was in the room, and to her great shock, she realized she was flirting her own little brand of flirting with him.

Marietta hadn't judged. She hadn't rubbed it in her face, and not once had she suggested the possibility that maybe Cho didn't love Cedric just as much as she thought she had. Marietta had just listened to her rave or rant (depending on the mood she was in) about Harry Potter.

Marietta had listened to her when she and Harry had kissed. Cho knew that any lesser friend probably would've snapped by now, or at the very started to tease her a bit about. Marietta knew those where the wrong things to do in this situation. Instead Marietta had patiently sat down on the bed opposite Cho's and listened Cho obsess over how she thought she was betraying Cedric, and the kiss just hadn't had that same spark that it had always had when she'd kissed Cedric.

By the time that Harry and Cho's date had gone awry, Cho supposed that Marietta had gotten used to her coming back in tear. Still, she had patiently sat on that bed and offered comforting words and done everything to make Cho feel better about her horrible date with Harry Potter and how he'd run off halfway through to go meet up with his female friend. Marietta still didn't say she was sorry about it, and that was the way Cho liked it.

It had never even occurred to Cho to ask Marietta about her Hogsmeade trip. Later she found out that Marietta had been dumped by her boyfriend of three months in the middle of The Three Broomsticks.

When it came out that Marietta was the snitch, and it was glaringly obvious that she was, Cho felt the same mixture of hurt and sadness and anger again. It was just as intense as when Cedric had died, but this one had a slightly different flavor to it.

And this time, Cho didn't have a Marietta. She didn't have someone to give her a hug and comfort her, and help make the pain away. She was just all by herself, wallowing in hurt, because really, who was going to help her? She had been part of an illegal Defense group, and her friend had just obeyed the rules.

She had known that Marietta had been hesitant, but she had never suspected that Marietta would rat them out. She didn't expect Marietta would betray her trust like that, and that was what made it really hurt. Marietta hadn't just betrayed the group, she had betrayed Cho.

Marietta still didn't say she was sorry, but this was the one time when Cho really wished she would.