Chapter 53 Back
Cho played with Cedric's fingers. He let her. Enjoyed it even. Though kept looking at her with this concentrated face as if he was going to catch an avada kedavra spell for her any moment. Cho thought it was sweet though it was eating at him so much that she couldn't bear to see it.
'Cedric I really think you should go eat something now,' Cho said.
'I'm fine,' he muttered and grabbed back her hand protesting.
'You haven't eaten all day yet! You have to eat something else I will go get it for you,' Cho threatened.
'Is not going to work Cho. Like you would win it from me.' He grinned.
'Would you like to see me try?' Cho asked and swayed her feet over the edge of the bed.
'No, no, stay in,' he sighed and swung her feet back. 'I don't want to leave you alone,'
'A person has to eat Cedric,'
'Alright well…I will just go grab something really quickly then I won't be long I promise if something is wrong than just…'
'Cedric. I will be fine,' Cho smiled.
'Well alright…' he said and kissed her head. 'I love you,'
'I love you too,'
He walked out of the room but not without looking over his shoulder for three times more. Cho blew him a kiss, which apparently only made it harder for him to leave. But he did in the end. Cho chuckled shaking her head. One of the doctors came in.
'Miss Chang, I'm pleased to say I can officially dismiss you from the hospital after you signed some papers,'
'Great!' Cho smiled. She was pretty sick of the whole thing. She would be happy to be home with Cedric again. The doctor gave her certain files and Cho signed them. Halfway Cedric returned. Cho could not imagine he already ate.
'You're already back?' she asked cynic.
'The line was too long.' Was Cedric's answer. Cho rolled her eyes but swayed with the papers.
'I can leave!' she said happy.
'You can?' he looked at the doctor. 'Are you sure? Nothing is wrong with her anymore, she will be absolutely fine, you can guarantee me that?'
'Sir, she will be absolutely fine,' the doctor promised.
Cho chuckled.
'Can I go now in that case?'
'Of course,' the doctor said and took the papers. 'Enjoy your further day,' he said and shook their hands.
'Come help me dress!' Cho squealed excited as the doctor was gone and jumped out of bed. Cedric's first reaction was pushing her back in.
'Hey!' Cho said.
'Oops, sorry…reflex,'
Cho giggled softly and Cedric helped her out again and hugged her close to him.
'I have to dress,' Cho reminded him.
'First things first,' Cedric said and started to kiss her.
'Mh,' Cho mumbled against his lips. Before she knew she was on the bed again, this time with Cedric on top of her, kissing her passionately. Just as he started wondering under her ridiculous hospital outfit a low cough made Cho look up though Cedric went on undisturbed.
'Mr. Diggory this is a hospital!' the nurse said.
'And why is it necessary to remind me of that?' he asked and looked in Cho's eyes with a shimmer of amusement in his eyes and Cho had to laugh. Especially when the nurse left the room all shaken up.
'You're pure evil!' Cho laughed.
'Just madly in love,' he said and kissed her neck but helped her up then.
'May I help you dress?' he asked.
'Please,' she smiled.
He closed the door and pulled the pajama over her head. As it was off he looked at her for a moment. Cho smiled innocent.
'Oh right, just smile at me like that, that will help to control me,' Cedric grinned.
'Maybe I don't want you to control yourself,' Cho said sweetly.
'You've just been poisoned I can't just…'
'Oh Cedric please!' Cho said rolling her eyes.
He took one of her clean dresses out of a bag his mother had packed for her.
'Hands in the air,' he ordered.
Cho did so while making sure her eyes would meet his and she would holds his gaze. As he touched the tops of her fingers in a try to put the thing over her head Cho smiled again. His mouth was the tiniest bit open as he looked at her face, her eyes, that would smile to him as they would for nobody else and then the dress dropped on the ground and his lips were on hers and she was against the wall. With just his loud gasps to focus on.
'Ooh there you two are, that took awhile!' Mrs. Diggory said as Cho and Cedric came downstairs, ready to leave. Cho felt like she was flying with every step and even Cedric's face glowed again.
'You look much better Cho,' Mrs. Diggory said while kissing her cheek.
'I feel better!' Cho smiled and she heard Cedric chuckle.
'Well let's go home!' Amos said.
'Where are Charlie and Selene?' Cedric asked.
'At Selene's home,'
Cedric nodded and wrapped his arm around Cho.
'How does your dream house look like?' he asked, kissing her ear once when they walked after his parents.
'My dream house?'
Cedric nodded.
'Oh, I've pictured that often enough,'
'Tell me,' Cedric smiled. 'Tell me little beauty of mine,'
Cho blushed smiling. He still could do that to her. His lips were on her cheek again.
'I want it somewhere on a quiet road, near to a forest, but also not top far from anything else,' Cho started. 'My dream house has a big garden with green grass where the kids can play quidditch on and with flowers in front of the house itself. And you will have to enter a little gate before you can go in,'
Cedric looked at her with a face that was shining, just because of listing to her interests.
'And the house has a little porch with three steps and there we have chairs where we can sit in, also when we grow old and our room has a little balcony. Oh and I want a swing!'
'A swing?' Cedric chuckled.
'Yes, a swing, I want our kids to swing and I like it too,' Cho smiled.
He took her hand and kissed the ring.
'My almost Mrs. Diggory,' he smiled.
'Almost,' Cho breathed. But she knew very well she had to pay for that. A year of loneliness before she could call herself that and her stomach changed into ice.
As the new year started, something where she usually was so much looking forward to, she now was sobbing.
'Cho,' Cedric said a little helpless.
'No, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm really f-f-fi…' a loud sob escaped from her throat and Cedric took her in his arms.
'Honey I will see you at Christmas again, the time will fly, you will see,'
'I don't want to go!' Cho said dramatic as a little kid on her first school day.
'Baby, just one more year,' he said, stroking her cheek.
Other students would look at them curious as they walked to the train. Cho pouted and Cedric pulled a face as if he was going to cry to if she would keep doing that.
'Honey, now don't do that alright, don't look so sad…'
'Sorry…'Cho whispered and looked down.
'Don't be sorry but you should see your face when you look like that, it's really heartbreaking, it wants me to put you in my pocket,'
'Your pocket?' Cho laughed the slightest through her tears.
'Yes and just carry you around everywhere and oh I could just eat you,' he smiled and took her face between his hands and started to kiss her. To kiss her goodbye. Cho clang onto him, forcing him to deepen the kiss, which he gladly did. Till the train made a sound that warned the last people to come on board and she felt how he was slipping away from her.
'No…' Cho mumbled.
'It will be over before you know it Cho,' he promised.
Cho looked at him with watery eyes. He kissed her one last time.
'Now go,' he smiled. Though she saw the same pain in his eyes that she felt in her chest. She lifted up her suitcase and she spotted Katie and David. Saying goodbye the same way as she and Cedric had done. Also David would not return.
'Bye…' Cho whispered to Cedric, who slowly also let go of her hand. Then she turned her back on him. It felt so unnatural. So wrong! And she walked towards the train, away from him. Also here her whole body screamed this wasn't right, that this was the wrong way and she lifted her suitcase into the train and decided to find Marietta, but suddenly she got grabbed. Her suitcase smacked on the ground and she got half dragged out of the train she just entered. She turned around to see who her attacker was but before she could focus on his face he distracted her with his lips upon hers. She wrapped her arms tightly around Cedric as she still stood on the first step of the train and he was below her touching her waist and her face while kissing her as if it would be their last kiss ever.
'Bye…' he gasped, when he was finally done.
Cho looked at him and stroked his face. Then they let go of each other and Cho disappeared into the train.
'Cho!' Katie waved at her from a coupé. 'Over here!'
Cho speeded towards her as fast her suitcases would allow. Also Katie hadn't taken the trouble yet to put them away neatly having her nose pressed against the glass where Cedric and David both stood. Cho went standing on the seat and forced open the little window as the train started to move. While David and Katie had their own little conversation through the glass she and Cedric would just stare in each other's eyes. Both full of love and pain. The train made more speed and started to separate them and then Cedric started running. After the train as far as he could go.
'I love you!' Cho yelled.
'I love you too!' he yelled back as he was forced to stop. Cho looked at him as long as possible. Even when he was not more than a spot at the horizon till the train went around the corner and nothing of him was visible anymore. She felt back in the train and both she and Katie started crying and found their comfort in each other's arms.
School was absolutely boring without Cedric. Cho and Marietta were still friend though they had got a little more separated since she betrayed the DA. Cho mostly hung out with Katie instead. Though Katie was in a different house, so sometimes it was simply impossible. Harry, Hermione and Ron were good company as well. Now Cedric had disappeared from school and it appeared Harry had been right about Voldemort all this time he was most popular! Girl sighed as they saw him and when Cho passed a group always someone was talking about Harry Potter. A lot of people asked her also about what happened on the ministry. Of course, she could have expected that. But she never talked about it. It wasn't something to talk about.
'Hi Cho,' Harry said as she passed.
'Oh hi Harry,' Cho smiled. 'How are you?'
'I'm fine and you?'
'I miss Cedric a little,' Cho admitted.
'Oh I'm sorry,' Harry said.
'Oh no that is alright…'
He must have had a lousy summer. Without his godfather. That knowledge. Of never seeing him again must be horrible.
'I heard you were in the hospital this summer,' Harry said.
'Yeah…' Cho blinked surprised. 'Who told you that?'
'Cedric,'
'You and Cedric talk?' Cho asked surprised.
'Yeah well, we wrote some letters, just so we both knew what was going on, he suspected some death eater behind your poisoning,'
Cho was so stunned by the fact they were writing letters together it took her awhile to answer.
'Oh well…I don't think so, it's quite impossible,' Cho said.
Harry nodded slowly.
'I saw Voldemort looking at you,'
Cho blinked. Had he noticed it too? That odd way of not just looking at someone he would kill that night. As if he would have spared her.
'You noticed it…' Cho breathed.
'Yes it was odd, I can't describe it but it was as if he knew you,'
Had Cedric wrote him this?
'Has Cedric told you?' Cho asked.
Harry looked confused.
'No…the only time he wrote about you was when you were poisoned,'
Cho wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
'You spend a lot of time with Dumbledore?' Cho asked.
Harry seemed to think about the answer. When ether he should lie or not.
'Yes,' he said after all. 'I spend a lot of time with him,'
He probably expected the question what they were doing in that case because he looked surprised when Cho asked something else.
'Maybe you can ask him, if he knows…Why Voldemort, seemed to know me?'
'That's a good idea actually!' Harry said.
'Harry are you coming?' Ron and Hermione had appeared. They waved at Cho.
'Oh well see you later, I will let you know when I talked to him,'
'Thank you Harry,' Cho smiled.
'No problem,' Harry said and disappeared with his friends.
The only contact Cho had with Cedric now was through letters and every morning with breakfast she looked longing between the owls to see if her Frodo was between them or perhaps one of Cedric's family owls. She hadn't heard from him for a few days. It worried her. Freaked her out even. She had wrote him about this new teacher. Hurrance Slughorn. And how he had added her, Harry, Hermione and Ron's little sister Ginny to his personal collection of favorite students who he thought the world would hear about later. Harry was of course his pearl on the crown. But Cedric hadn't answered yet, so Cho was pretty relieved when she saw Frodo appear between the crowd of owls and landed next to her plate.
'Cedric send you something?' asked Marrieta curiously as Frodo also had a little package next to a letter.
'I don't know,' Cho smiled. She held the package and the letter and decided to open the last one first.
His handwriting was welcoming her the very moment she fold it open.
My dearest Cho,
Forgive me that I didn't write you right away. I wanted to, really but I was so busy with moving and all. Yes you read that correct, I'm going to live in the house of the order for awhile that will save me a lot of traveling and it will also be a great new start, leaving my elderly house. Though of course I will take you with me in any case. I got a job too. To pay for our wedding and our house. On the ministry. I know I said I didn't want to work there in this time but I will explain to you when I see you face to face. I can't here because owls might get incepted. And of course you get added to some teachers collection! You're absolutely brilliant. And therefore really pretty too, I'm sure everyone is watching you all the time now I'm not there to claim and that you get prettier every minute I don't see you. I'm so curious how you will change over this year without me. It's the good kind of curiosity. I'm just wondering how you will do it on your own, for we have never been apart since the day you came to school. I can already tell you I'm doing a lousy job. I'm talking about you all the time, about my 'finance' and I carry pictures around from you everywhere I go and showing them to everyone that wants to see so I just have an excuse to talk about you. I'm sure I'm driving everyone pretty crazy. How was the first week of school baby? Oh, how I miss you. How I miss your smile and your voice. The picture I carry with me of you is one where you are walking ahead of me and look over your shoulder smiling. Showing your pretty white teeth. My stomach just hurts when I watch it! So much adoration I carry around for you. Before you know it's Christmas baby and we will have two whole weeks together. You can't believe how much I look forward to that.
I love you and please continue to write me! As I will to you. Faster this time.
Yours forever, Cedric.
p.s. I thought you might like this. I will be there tonight.
Cho kissed the letter, for she knew he had done that too. She wondered what he meant though, with I will be there tonight. Then she took the little package and started to tear it open.
'Oh Cho,' Marietta said as she had opened it.
Cho held a little mirror in her hands.
'It's a mirror,' Cho said.
'Not just a mirror!' Marietta said. 'Cedric has the other one?'
'Other one?'
'These come in pairs,' Marietta smiled mysteriously. 'Did he write something about it?'
'He wrote: I will be there tonight,'
Marietta chuckled. 'Then you might want to watch yourself in that mirror tonight,' was her answer.
Cho felt pretty stupid when she sat on her bed and stared at herself in the mirror. She was wearing her night dress and her long black hair fell over her shoulders. Cho had closed the curtains around her bed, in case anything scary would happen. She looked at the mirror. Her green eyes reflecting. Green? Cho was pretty sure hers were brown and she blinked. Till it wasn't her face anymore in the mirror but one she would recognize always.
'Oh you're beautiful…' the mirror image whispered.
'I can hear you…' Cho said amazed.
Cedric chuckled softly.
'Of course, we can communicate this way, isn't it amazing?'
Cho nodded and touched the mirror but she only felt cold glass but it was like Cedric pressed a kiss on her fingers an she swallowed.
'I miss you…' she said hoarse.
'I miss you too honey, but this way I still can be with you a little…'
Cho nodded. 'You work at the ministry? Why?'
'The order thinks they will place people under the imperio spell, I have to sort of spy,' Cedric said.
'Isn't that dangerous?' Cho gasped.
'No honey, it's just a job, I just will keep a close eye on everything,'
'Where are you now? In the house of the order?'
She saw Cedric's reflection nod. 'Yes.' Was all he said.
'Are you alright?' Cho asked.
'Yes…I'm just…I miss you…' he said.
Cho felt the tears stinging but didn't want to cry now he couldn't hold her. He would find that horrible too.
'I'm holding you in my hands,' he smiled. And Cho pictures how he would sit there on the bed holding the mirror and staring at it as if he wanted to disappear in it. 'You're so gorgeous Cho, so pretty,'
Cho smiled. 'Silly…' she said. 'We can do this all night?' she asked.
'Yes but we won't,' Cedric said shocked. 'You have to sleep.'
'I don't want to sleep, I want you,' Cho pressed the mirror against her in a try to hug him.
'Carefully where you point the mirror on darling,' Cedric said teasing as she released the mirror from her chest again.
'You pervert,' she smiled.
'You should sleep,' Cedric grinned.
Cho was tired indeed so she laid down but made sure she kept looking into the mirror.
'Now it's just like you're laying next to me,' she said smiling.
'I will watch you fall asleep,' Cedric said loving.
'I won't fall asleep, I will watch you all night,'
'You will fall asleep,' Cedric said sure, knowing her to well. Cho would stare at him. He would touch the mirror sometimes as if he touched her and after awhile her eyelids started fluttering. She still caught Cedric's content smile.
'Sweet dreams, my beautiful Cho,'
