A/N: First of all, to the people who have been reviewing this story: gigantic thanks!! You guys cheer up my monotonous days (honestly).
I know, I know...nobody likes Cho... but hey, I had a bunny hoping in my head. This character was requested, and although I was already working on it, the request made me speed it up, so thanks for giving me the push!
As additional information, I listened to Wreck of the day by Anna Nalick about a thousand times when I wrote this.
Wreckful Fate
"Come on…"
"No."
"Just one…" His voice was soft, sweet, and a little manipulative. The tip of his nose rubbed her forehead warmly. He was much taller than her, even when he leaned.
"No..." She was mumbling her words, like a little girl, and she was fighting the unreasonable need to cry, making it impossible for her to speak properly.
"Please?" He smiled, sweetly, but she wasn't looking at his smile. It was too tempting, so she looked at the floor instead. "Cho…" He grabbed her chin gently with his fingers but she lowered her face. Her eyes wandered to the floor, avoiding him. "Cho, you're beginning to worry me." His smile faded as he said this last, but his words were still soft and patient, just like him.
She raised her eyes again, and looked at him.
"Just go, you'll be late," she said, refusing to smile, not even a little.
"I'm not going until you kiss me. Come on…for luck?" He raised her chin again, and directly searched for her lips, but she moved her mouth away, in a subtle yet strict move. He looked startled by her action and she immediately hated herself for developing that look on his face. But she was upset and she couldn't stop demonstrating it. He, on the other hand, had been pretending he didn't notice.
"Cho... It's just a game," said his tone of voice. His eyes, though, spoke differently. Cho knew he didn't believe his own words. She knew him better than that.
"It's not just a game," she said firmly, and a little annoyed.
"All right, maybe not. But I got this far, didn't I? We all did. Stop worrying." His words were quite serious this time.
And the fact was that Cho knew what he was about to walk into. He knew, the professors knew, everybody knew. The Triwizard Tournament wasn't just some game, and the first task alone had been more than enough to prove it. As a spectator she had been scared to death through the entire task, and at times she didn't even look at the arena. But it was a secret to everyone that the person she had been most afraid for wasn't her present boyfriend.
But fate is a funny thing…
Because the guy that asked her to the Yule Ball first wasn't who she had been anticipating, she even felt thrown off, because she didn't know that he fancied her to begin with. She agreed to go with him, partly because she didn't want to end up going alone for waiting for someone who might not even ask. But also because his way of asking had been too charming to simply refuse.
She had bumped into him on her way to Arithmancy one morning. He didn't take Arithmancy, so he had no business in that wing of the castle. But she didn't notice that detail, her mind had been fixed on other things that day.
She bumped into him again a few days later after dinner. He asked her something random, something related with the time, or the weather, she couldn't remember now. She only remembered answering politely and after a few seconds she was the one that kept on walking, leaving him behind.
The third time she encountered him by accident, she was running down the stairs after exiting her common room. A bit more than distracted she collided against him when turning around the corner. Her bag fell to the floor, spreading freely her parchments and books. He kneeled down to gather them and she smiled gratefully when he returned her things. She was already in a hurry to get to Charms, so she didn't notice when he tried to say something as she left, just like she didn't notice that a Hufflepuff had no reason for being at the Ravenclaw Tower that early in the morning, unless he had a very specific purpose...
That night, when she reached the comfort of her common room again, she looked in her bag for the parchments that held an essay she had been working on for Defence Against the Dark Arts and noticed that they weren't anywhere. She didn't find them that night, they weren't in the common room, or in her bag, or in her dorm.
She despaired the next morning, because the assignment was due for the next day and she had been working her head off for the last week on it. But when she was exiting the Great Hall after breakfast, giving into the idea of having to rewrite the entire thing, she bumped into him, once again. He said he had been looking for her, and handed her the pile of parchments that she'd worried about the entire night. He claimed that she left in such a hurry he didn't have time to hand them back.
That night, when she gave the essay one last look, just to make sure everything was in order, she noticed by the end of the first parchment a handwriting that wasn't hers. Between Charms number five and six to repel Stunning Spells she found a few words, written in very light -easy to erase- ink, that formed a simple sentence.
For some reason you make it hard to say it in person…
That was all. Her curiosity made her look into the other parchments, to find the rest of the writing. She found it in the third piece.
…so I'll try this way instead…
She smiled, a little shocked, and quite intrigued. She looked for another one of her parchments just to confirm what she was already suspecting. She found a sentence by the end of the entire essay, next to her signature.
...Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?
Nothing more. No name was taking credit for the request, but she knew to whom it belonged. She surprised herself chuckling alone, realising that he had tried more than once to talk to her or maybe even ask her the question, but in her distraction she hadn't let him.
She closed the parchment, and after a few moments of introspective she realized how daring he had been. What he did had been risky, and more to her than him. She could have handed that essay in without looking over it, and she would have experienced the most embarrassing day of her life if Professor Moody read that insinuating request. But then, she thought, that maybe he knew her more than that. Maybe he already knew that she wouldn't hand in an essay without checking it first.
She didn't wait much longer to react to his request. She couldn't just leave him hanging for days, it would have been very mean, and that night she admitted to herself that she had to stop waiting for Harry to ask, because apparently, he wasn't going to...
The next morning she went down for breakfast very early. A few people were already there, and he was one of them, sitting at the Hufflepuff table. She walked up to him and once she stood closely enough she handed him a small piece of parchment.
"You left this when you gave me back my things yesterday," he received it suspiciously, and she walked away -submerged in embarrassment- before he could open it. Once she sat down on her table she looked back at him, he was already opening the parchment, which read the simplest word of all.
Yes
He looked up and his eyes met hers from the distance as a shy smile grew across her face.
And that was all it took to change the course of her following weeks. Only days before the Yule Ball Harry had approached her and had finally asked what she thought he would be asking earlier. With more than regret in her voice she turned him down, but it didn't take her much time to figure out that things had turned out for the very best.
Because fate is a funny thing, and nobody can tell where it will them lead to, it simply drags them along.
Cho learned that last bit the pleasant way. One day she had been shooting girlish glances at a fourth year Gryffindor and a few weeks later she was holding a seventh year Hufflepuff's firm, steady hand as she walked down the corridors with him; running her fingers through his hair, just for the pleasure of touching him, of returning the tenderness he showed every time he pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth.
Spending slow afternoons by a lonely edge of the lake with his head resting on top of her legs was enough for Cho to think that things happen in life for a very good reason, and everything goes the way it should. Of course, people will love fate as long as it takes them through a path they happen to enjoy, or maybe even love.
It was funny, no, hilarious, that she had never noticed how much he fancied her. He told her about the countless times he had tried to ask her out before the Ball, but she was always running late, or busy, and more than once she unconsciously left him standing in the middle of the hallway with the words already out his mouth. She apologized a thousand times for being so distracted –she never confessed to him that the reason she hadn't noticed his interest in her was because she was busy trying to catch somebody else's attention- and he teased her about it enough times to make her face go red. He admitted that it didn't really matter, because her indifference encouraged him to keep on trying, and he didn't regret a minute of it.
But, of course, things weren't always that perfect. As the second task approached she couldn't avoid feeling frightened for him. It was in Cho's nature to grow obsessive about certain things. And as the days came closer her fear for him increased, and she developed a very unstable, nervous behaviour. He tried to calm her worries but it never worked. If the first task had been filled with temperamental dragons, then she really didn't want to imagine what was waiting for him at the second task.
The night before the task arrived faster than she would have liked. What's more, that last week was over so fast she couldn't even savour it. She left him early, so he could rest properly, and once she got to her common room she threw herself on the couch in front of the fireplace. She rested her head against one of the cushions, and wished she could fall sleep until the minute after the task was over. She didn't want to see him walk into it, like she had seen him walk towards the dragon. It was a heroic picture, sure, but it was pure torture, and Cho wasn't a masochist. She wished she could simply close her eyes and open them in front of him, with the entire thing over.
Her thoughts and wishes must have been heard, and that night Cho felt foolishly lucky, because she was called in the common room by Professor Flitwick, led towards the Headmaster's office and without any previous preparation she, along with three other people, was explained about her important part in the task.
Throughout Dumbledore's entire explanation the hesitation and nervous glances between her and the other three were endless. The petit beautiful girl sitting next to her looked at Dumbledore with wide opened eyes. Cho glanced at Hermione Granger more than once, who was listening at the headmaster so intently she might as well have been writing it all down. Ron Weasley frowned deeply, almost not believing that any of what was going to happen was possible. Actually, she couldn't believe it either, and after Dumbledore was done explaining, a very disconcerted silence followed. Hermione asked a couple of questions that concerned the process, but the expression of her face was really wondering whether the champions were going to be alright, and that was the only thing Cho wanted to know as well. But that was the only thing no one dared to ask.
After the little girl was set to sleep first, thanks to Dumbledore's arduous spell, she was the second to be hexed. Dumbledore caught her with his powerful gaze, and her eyes were captured immediately. Cho's mind submerged into a tranquil blankness she had never experienced before. She did not dream, or think during the time of her sleep. No thought crossed her mind. It felt hallow, peaceful, and somehow perfect.
The next thing Cho saw when her eyes opened was a ray of light coming from above. The light got clearer as she was being pulled up by a firm arm, which's strength she recognized immediately. Everything else was confusing, but she knew who was swimming next to her. She felt her face rising from the water, while his grip was tight on her. She turned and saw his face. Cheers came from above, but she didn't look at them. She didn't ask if he was first or last either. She just smiled, as he smiled back, because it was all over.
And now, the day of the third task had arrived faster, if possible, than the day of the second task. Her worries were out once more, and now worse than ever, because she couldn't avoid the fear, the uncertainty of what could happen to him. She was in a worse state than she had been the previous time. She wasn't cut out for things like these, she thought. She was almost mad at him for being one of the Triwizard champions. That's why she wouldn't look at him, let alone kiss him.
"Cho..." he said again, settling his hands on her hips. "Are you really going to let me go...like this?" he was the worried one now, his eyes were as concerned as hers, although for a different reason.
But of course she wasn't going to let him leave like that. He should know her more than that by now, she thought. She met with reason and reached for him, for his lips, to be more precise. And as she finally let her lips give into the motion of his mouth, she tried to force her mind to go blank. She tried not to think, she tried to capture the hallowed, yet peaceful feeling the spell had given her. She searched desperately for serenity, but they were both filled with too many emotions to find serenity between them any time soon, especially that day.
Once she had given into him she was the one who wouldn't let go first. But when he separated them he smiled widely and she had no other choice than to smile back.
"You'll find a spot in the front row? So I can see you when I come out?" he asked, rather hopeful.
"I will," she agreed.
He kissed the corner of her mouth softly before walking away. She saw him leaving, filled with all the security she was lacking at the time. It was cold. For some reason it was a freezing, cold evening. She wrapped her arms tightly with her hands. It was going to be a cold night as well, she could tell. She didn't move, not one inch, she stood silently as she saw his figure disappearing in the distance.
A minute passed by and Cho didn't move at all.
Five minutes passed by and she turned her head back, looking up at the castle, hesitating, deciding if she should hide herself in her dorm, the common room, or maybe the Library. She could hide until it was all over, so she could stop obsessing with what was going to happen. She knew she would stop worrying when it was all finally over.
Another minute passed.
She looked forward again. People walking from different directions were gathering in the same place, cheering, laughing, some with their faces painted. Green scarves, heavy fur coats, and silk uniforms were all heading for the altered Quidditch pitch.
She walked forward, towards the crowd. She walked fast, so that she could get there before she changed her mind.
Fate is a funny thing...Cho already knew that, she didn't need that day's brutal reminder.
A/N: Feedback, please!! And special thanks to my beta for putting up with it!
Next chapter: Victorie Weasley.
