Whoo! Chapter two! Short chapter, yes, but I'm going away for a little while on vacation, so I didn't really have much time. Also, I ran into a snag with the plot and had to work it out. But don't worry. We're about to hit a whole bunch of fast-paced, intense action. That wasn't supposed to sound so wrong.

Disclaimer: See prologue.

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When Cho couldn't find Theodore by the tree two days later, it made her feel a little hurt, and a little worried.

When she didn't even see a trace of him for the next few days, it made her feel a little angry, and even more worried.

She couldn't find him at the Slytherin table, nor in any of his usual haunts. She thought about casually asking one of the Slytherin first years if they had seen him, but that would be too suspicious, as the only times she even saw the little brats were during meals - and there was no way she would bring attention to either of them. It just wasn't safe.

And so she perched herself on the stairs that lead up to the dorms in Ravenclaw, resting her chin in the palms of her hands. Her secret meetings with Theodore had given her a lot to think about. Once he told her how his father constantly threatened to remove his name from the family if he didn't take up the "family business"--she hadn't needed to ask what it was--and make the change permanent. Theodore, she learned, really wanted to be an author, and the few samples of his work that he had shown her had been amazing. Just like--

"What're you thinking about?"

Cho looked up at the sound of the voice and shook her head. "Hey, Terry. It's nothing important, really..."

Terry gazed at her, furrowing his eyebrows. "C'mon, Cho. I know you too well for that."

She bit her lip. "I can tell you anything, right?"

"Of course. You know that."

After some hesitation, she said, "I've... made friends with someone recently. Someone from Slytherin. He's kinda... he's one of those people you don't really notice very often. But he's not anything like the other Slytherins. Mostly he just... tells me about all his problems... It's sad, really..."

"...and you...?"

"I'm worried." Cho confessed, played with a couple strands of her hair. "I haven't seen him in a few days."

Terry blinked. "Well... Maybe he just had some things to take care of...?"

Cho furrowed her eyebrows. "Maybe."

It was a week before Cho even heard from Theodore again, in the form of a house-elf popping into the Ravenclaw sixth-year girls' dorms and handing her a note. There had been an emergency with his uncle's family and he had been temporarily pulled out of school. What the emergency was, he hadn't specified, and she had the distinct feeling that it would be wrong of her to ask. Cho glanced at the note again.

Meet me by the tree.

She sighed and pocketed the note.

As promised, Theodore was there sitting under the shade of the tree, although despite the somewhat higher-than-normal temperatures for this time of year, he was wearing a thicker, long-sleeved grey shirt. He didn't make any gesture to acknowledge her presence when she sat down beside him and said hello.

"Theodore," Cho frowned. "I said hello."

"I heard you."

"Bad mood?"

"Something like that."

"I see." Cho leaned back against the tree and stared up at the sky. "Anything I can do?"

Theodore finally looked over at her. "No."

"...oh."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It's a family issue."

That didn't really help. "I see."

"So I heard Ravenclaw won the match against Hufflepuff a couple days ago."

Cho nodded. "Their new Seeker, Scotty... He's a good player, but he's nothing compared to Cedric."

Theodore turned a bit to face her, as he asked, "No one will ever be as good as Cedric, will they?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Theodore smiled in a way that mimicked one of hers, "When you talk about Cedric, you get this look in your eyes. There's a part of you that still doesn't believe he's gone, isn't there?"

Cho looked away. "Perhaps."

"Do you ever plan to do anything about that part?"

"No." She shook her head and returned her gaze to Theodore's, once more looking him in the eye. "I don't. The ones we love don't really leave us... They just... go invisible after a while."

"You're strange."

"No, I'm Cho." She smiled. "We've been over this before."

He chuckled. "I guess we have."

"But the lesson hasn't sunk in yet, has it?"

"No." Theodore said. "But I never said being strange was a bad thing."