House: Gryffindor
Position: Positions
Standard
Prompt: [dialogue] "I liked my life before you came into it."
WC: 1621
Betas: beawrites, Ash Juillet, charlotteredmond99, The Majestic Dolphin
Cho hovers in the air for a minute before directing her broom to come almost crashing to the ground at a break-neck speed. She feels weightless and light; she feels perfectly powerful. She knows at that moment she is whole.
No one gives her validation when she is flying, nor do they control her when she is in the air. To her, it is both prayer and meditation. This time, high in the air, where there is barely enough oxygen, is where she feels safest. She is a flyer and was a competent seeker when all that mattered was her ability to catch the Snitch faster than her opponents.
Not that it matters anymore. The past is something she tries hard not to dwell upon. She is over what has happened. That's what she tells herself. She has worked through the insecurity that has plagued her and that is all that matters. She is just Cho Chang, without the extra frills and attachments. That's what she tells herself when she walks past The Leaky Cauldron, not daring to go in.
The Quidditch pitch is empty at this time of day. Cho doesn't have a class to teach, and Dudley mentioned wanting to read the latest Danielle Steele novel during breakfast. She likes that Dudley is man enough to read weepy romance novels. She likes this side of her life. The parts that make sense and don't give her a minute to breathe. She is either teaching, going to the boxing gym or flying, between those three pursuits there is very little time for her to dwell.
It has been years since she visited any of her old schoolmates or played Quidditch with them. She tends to book the community pitch to herself during obscure hours as to avoid everyone. She knows she is not ready to talk about everything.
However, today, luck is not on her side, and as she comes down from her flying session, there is a figure waiting for her.
Harry Potter isn't someone that has kept in contact with Cho. Cho acknowledges that she isn't the easiest person to get along with. However, Harry should have made the first move after everything that had happened between them.
The fact that he chose not to is telling enough for her. That is another difference between Dudley and everyone else who thinks they care for her. Dudley knows when she needs to be dragged out of her comfort zone and when it is better to just leave her alone.
She watches as Harry's green eyes trail her every move. Cho doesn't reach for her wand, although she thinks that her wand holder is biting the skin of her thighs much harder than usual.
"Hello," Cho greets awkwardly. She cringes at the sound of her voice, which is hoarse from the hours she spends teaching. It is still a delicate balance between sounding authoritative and yelling that she hasn't figured out. "What do you want?"
Cho knows it is rude to demand what Harry is there for. He is the Saviour of the Wizarding World after all and, therefore, there is a requirement that she is polite to him. However, this is also the same Harry who ghosted her during her teenage years and a part of Cho is still very bitter towards him because of it.
Cho wants to shake Harry when he shrugs. She has an inkling about why he is here, but this is something she wants to hear from his own lips because she knows exactly why he is here. Dudley insisted on sending Harry an invitation, although Cho argued very strongly against it.
"You can't marry him," Harry says.
Cho gives him a level stare. Her brown eyes boring into his green ones, daring him to look away. Harry does not. In fact, he looks straight at her, and she just sighs in absolute frustration.
"Why do you think you have an opinion on this?" Cho asks Harry, hugging her Comet and trying to ground her emotions.
"I don't know," Cho could hear the thickly laid sarcasm in his voice. "Maybe because he spent a good chunk of his childhood bullying me, or the fact that he and his parents hate magic. They hate people like us, Cho. I spent my entire life with them thinking I was a freak, unnatural something that needed to be hidden."
Cho did concede to the fact that those were valid fears when dealing with the Dursleys. She knows that Harry is tip-toeing around the issue of racism. However, Dudley's parents weren't welcome in her life. She did make it clear to them, and to Dudley. She is marrying their son, not them. Traditions can take a nice stroll to hell when it comes to respecting undeserving elders for all she cares.
But that is the issue, even if she doesn't care about those things. Cho doesn't care about tradition or the way Dudley's family sees her; there were others who do.
"Can I tell you something, Harry?" Cho orders Harry the way she does her students. "I liked my life before you came into it."
Cho waits for Harry to recoil, to get defensive, but he simply replies with, "I know, I figured it out when you didn't come to any of the War Memorials."
Cho's heart skips a beat at the mention of the Memorials. Those days had been especially hard on her — hard on all of them. She knows that Harry won't believe her if she tells him how much she wanted to go. But there is nothing left for her in the Wizarding World.
She went to Cedric's Memorial at age sixteen. She had sat in the front row. She didn't need to go to another.
She no longer feels assured of her place in the Wizarding ecosystem, and a lot of that insecurity has to do with Harry. She knows it's unfair to put that kind of emotional labour on him. In fact, even her thinking of it reminds her of the conversations she has had with her students about respecting boundaries and appropriate behaviours. She knows that this conversation does not embody any of those ideals.
"I tried so hard when Cedric was murdered. I tried so hard with you because I thought that's what I needed to heal. But Harry, it wasn't healthy or good. I was so sad, and you were so angry. We met on this incredibly toxic middle-ground with no boundaries or safety nets until neither of us could hold onto it anymore."
Cho tries to articulate her feelings the way her therapist told her to. Her language is nowhere near gentle enough, but this is a messy conversation about a messy past.
"So what do you see in him?" Although this question is an intrusive one, Cho cannot stop herself from answering.
"Dudley isn't you or Cedric. He isn't going to be the hero or jump in the fire. He is there, steady and constant and normal. And I don't need to demand any more from him."
"So that's your reasoning?" Harry asks.
Cho hugs her Comet tighter and pulls her gaze away from Harry's. "What better reasoning is there other than I like who I am with him?"
That will always be the issue. She is supposed to like who she was before Dudley; however, Cho physically can't stand to think about herself like that anymore.
Cho had met Dudley in university. He had been studying History, and she had just wanted a break from being reminded about the War every day. Dudley had spotted her wand in her backpack, however, they had become friends over long study hours in the library.
Dudley hadn't done any of it because he loved her. That had been important to Cho; they were just friends, acquaintances who had become best friends. He had introduced her to the boxing gym where army veterans trained and wallowed over the horrors of war. He had given her an out and direction when everyone else assumed that she was okay enough to hold it all together on her own.
They had lived together for years and even taught together at the same school. Dudley understood that she would always be a witch, and he didn't mind that it was hard for her to accept that.
"I picked him and he picked me. We've known each other for years. He reads romance novels and doesn't complain when I cry about Cedric or wake up in the middle of the night because I watched my classmates die for the fifth night in a row in my nightmares. I know those might seem like petty reasons to say that you want to spend forever with another person, but I do know I'm not settling. You of all people should know that, Harry. I do not settle for the second-best, but I am allowed to choose someone who makes waking up in the morning easy."
Cho knows that this is a rant, one that she would have been afraid to tell Harry back at sixteen. However, she no longer has the strength to live a life she dislikes because of Harry. Before Cho can mentally reprimand herself for blaming Harry as the sole cause that her life changed for the worst, Harry clears his throat.
Harry shrugs but makes sure to state his final statement strongly. "When this blows up terribly, don't say no one warned you." He turns to leave, and Cho lets him go with just as much ease as she lets her past go.
That is to say, she feels awful, but there is only so much of the past one can hold onto.