A/N: This was written for The Emotion Challenge. I got love and melancholy. Hope you like it. Please review :) It is set during DH, right before the war.
Finally a summer day came over to Hogwarts. Reflections of sunlight in the lake seemed like golden lights, refracted and spread around the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid's clumsy shack. Cho Chang walked through the edge of the lake, after finishing her detention with the Carrows. For her, this dazzling afternoon seemed out of tone, cold, as though it didn't quite fit the castle or her. A bit far from there, she caught a glimpse of the sun falling down behind the mountains, and she also saw the Quidditch field. It was a lovely sunset but then she remembered everything—the war, Harry's disappointment, Snape, Cedric, and again Harry—so she stopped walking. A strained smile appeared in her face at the thought of those deep, loving and then—it hurt to remember—empty, cold green eyes.
Shaking her head, Cho walked to a willow tree next to the lake, looking anywhere except the castle, and she sat. She put her hands in her pockets and her fingers caressed something cold, round-shaped. She grasped the object and took it out. It was that fake galleon Hermione gave them for the DA's meetings. In a rush of feelings and thoughts she could hardly control, memories took over her mind. The mistletoe, Harry asking her to the dance, the walks through the grounds next to the castle, the Quidditch talks, that first match in her third year, and Harry's bitter disbelief and deception when finding out her friend Marietta had given the DA away. She frowned and got angry, for the hundredth time in these years. It wasn't her fault, right? She'd only supported Marietta because she was her best friend, Harry had no right to get mad at her, but still it didn't change the fact that he was gone.
Cho briefly looked up; it was already dark, she realized, and it started feeling cold out there, next to the rough waters of the lake. He was gone, fighting or doing God knows what. Gone where she couldn't reach for him, and with her eyes wet, Cho started wondering that perhaps the one who had needed support wasn't Marietta but Harry. Maybe it was indeed her fault he'd gone away from her life, that she could no longer see him smiling, being brave and stubborn, standing up for what he thought was right. Maybe it was her fault that she wouldn't see him ever again…
The coin in her hand suddenly got hot, like it hadn't done in years. Startled, Cho looked at it and some words appeared on its surface: Harry's back, we'll fight.
Not really knowing what she was doing, Cho got to her feet and ran to the seventh floor corridor, trying not to get caught. She smiled while she stepped into the Great Staircase. Maybe it was nobody's fault, after all.