Disclaimer: All I own is this fanfic, J.K. Rowling owns the rest. No copyright intended!
Author's note: A Harry/Cho main pairing one-shot. Takes place in Harry's second year. Implied bad Ginny. Rated T for teen drama.
Taken By Surprise!
By Brockster550
Twelve-year-old Harry Potter and his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. It was a cool 6:15 AM Valentine's Day morning. Up at the staff table, Gilderoy Lockhart was wearing periwinkle-blue robes and in his usual cheery, arrogant, attention-seeking self. As all of the students took their seats at their respective house tables, the arrogant defence teacher stood up to address everybody before it was time to eat.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Professor Lockhart greeted with his usual 'charming' smile (most of the girls, including Hermione, swooning in awe). "I'll be having dwarfs going around delivering Valentine's cards, so don't be afraid to make any to give to others. To make it better, Professor Snape will be happy to give out love potions."
Professor Snape's black eyes glared at Gilderoy with pure hatred. The potions teacher quickly developed a look on his face that made it seem like he would force feed anybody poison if they dared to ask him for a love potion. Gilderoy turned out to be far from finished, since he turned his attention to Harry.
"And I'm sure you'll be getting most of the girls giving you Valentine cards, Harry," Gilderoy blurted out to him, much to his annoyance. "Especially the more flashy ones!"
Harry put his head down into his arms in embarrassment. He was oblivious to a certain redhead girl named Ginny Weasley looking at him in awe as she swooned, like the ultimate fangirl she always had been. Most of the girls looked over at Harry while batting their eyes at him. Once breakfast was over, Harry got up and ran out of the Great Hall at a speed so fast that hardly anyone saw it coming. Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday, Harry used the opportunity to find a corridor where most of the student body avoided. He already had enough of getting blamed for being the Heir of Slytherin for the last seven-and-a-half almost eight weeks. It was approximately fifteen minutes later when one of the dwarfs spotted him and handed a valentine envelope to him.
'Oh great!' thought Harry in annoyance, rolling his eyes after reading the name on the envelope.
It turned out to be from Ginny, with the envelope decorated with everything possible (she even made it very flashy). Harry opened it and pulled out an equally decorated card that had his face on there (especially the lightning bolt scar on his forehead). Harry opened the card to read it, which said:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the dark lord.
Harry felt his limbs trembling with anger at the realization that Ginny continued to see him as the Boy-Who-Lived. He also realized that the day she defended his honour at Flourish And Blotts, Ginny wasn't genuine about it and that she was only sucking up to him. Didn't she see him at all looking all tense any time Professor Lockhart dragged him into the spotlight? Was she conspiring with the incompetent defence teacher for the whole 'getting a photo with him and Harry' plan? It didn't appear that Ginny would ever overcome her fangirl behaviour. Another dwarf showed up some minutes later and delivered another Valentine's card to Harry. The envelope was in an ordinary pink colour. Harry ripped the envelope open and saw an ordinary pink-coloured card with a heart that was half-blue and half-bronze on the front (which helped Harry in deducing that it must've came from a Ravenclaw student). Harry opened it and read the inside of the card, which said:
Happy Valentine's Day, Harry,
Hope you have a wonderful day. Don't let those false accusations get to you, you're still you, Harry. Your real friends will see that and stay by your side no matter what.
Yours Sincerely,
Cho Chang
'Cho Chang?!' thought Harry in surprise. 'That name sounds vaguely familiar.'
He closed his eyes in thought to remember where he heard the name. Then his eyes suddenly opened back up when he remembered hearing that name during one quidditch match last year when Ravenclaw played against Hufflepuff. Harry recalled hearing that Cho was Ravenclaw's reserve seeker and the only female on their team. Since she was almost always too far from him and flew too fast during quidditch practice, Harry couldn't memorize her facial features well (but remembered that she had the same hair colour as he did). Reading the card again, Harry couldn't help but wonder why Cho took the time to send him a Valentine card when they haven't even spoken to each other. Nevertheless, Harry shrugged his shoulders since there was nothing wrong with politeness. But then he looked over the card from Cho and the one from Ginny again and saw that Cho didn't write anything regarding his fame as the Boy-Who-Lived in any way.
'Now that was unexpected!' thought Harry in amazement. 'Cho didn't say anything about me being the bloody Boy-Who-Lived. She even gave me some helpful advice, something Ginny never bothered doing.'
Naturally, Harry ended up liking the card from Cho. True it wasn't all flashy nor decorated with everything imaginable, but the fact that Cho's note in it proved that she didn't care about all the Boy-Who-Lived malarkey was a rare moment for Harry. Given how he hated his fame with a passion (because it was a constant reminder that he no longer had his parents), Harry also naturally hated the poem inside the card from Ginny and it was enough for Harry to roll his eyes in annoyance. Harry got up and left the classroom to return to Gryffindor Tower (with Cho's card in his right hand and Ginny's in his left hand). When he made it back to the common room, Harry spotted the Weasley twins (Fred and George, fourth-years with the famous red hair that the Weasleys had) and their best friend, Lee Jordan (a fourth-year dark-skin boy with black dreadlocks) sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace.
"How's our honourary little brother doing?!" Fred and George asked Harry in their twin talk.
"Alright, now," said Harry. "Since I'm nowhere near that dunderhead of a professor known as Lockhart."
"Don't pay attention to Lockhart, Harry," Lee advised. "Even Fred, George and myself could tell that he is so full of himself. Lockhart can also be something like an older version of Malfoy in some way."
That comment had Harry, Fred, George, and Lee giggling like crazy. Once the four Gryffindors calmed down, Fred and George spotted the Valentine's cards in Harry's hands (as did Lee). Naturally, they knew the card in Harry's left hand came from Ginny, especially Fred and George due to knowing how unhealthily obsessed Ginny was when it came to her hero known as the Boy-Who-Lived. Fred, George, and Lee eyed the card in Harry's right hand curiously.
"Who gave you the pink card, Harry?" asked the Gryffindor pranksters in unison.
"Some girl named Cho Chang." Harry revealed.
"Really?!" Fred and George replied in their twin talk, in surprised voices.
"Ravenclaw's reserve seeker?" Lee responded.
"Yes," stated Harry, showing them the inside, especially where her signature was. "Something I didn't expect."
"That's a good thing, Harry, Cho writing you some wonderful advice!" Fred, George, and Lee replied in impressed voices, as they finished examining the card and gave it back to Harry. "Cho is a third year Ravenclaw and she's asian."
Harry widened his eyes in surprise to find out that Cho was an asian girl. He remembered seeing a few female classmates of his back in primary school who had some asian ancestry. Naturally, he never got to befriend them because Dudley and his gang always scared away any kid who dared to befriend 'the freak.'
"If you'd like, Harry," Fred and George offered. "We can take care of that card from Ickle Ginnykins for you, since she shouldn't be seeing you as the Boy-Who-Lived."
Satisfied with the offer, Harry happily handed Ginny's Valentine's card for him to the twins. The twins were right, Ginny needed to stop seeing him as the Boy-Who-Lived and start seeing him as a person. Somehow, it seemed very unlikely that Ginny would ever outgrow that. Harry remembered the twins telling him that Ginny had been planning her wedding with her hero since she was five, which would make sense that Ginny would always see him for the legend and never the person. Harry pocketed his card from Cho and left Gryffindor Tower to walk around the school grounds. Upon making it to a shoreline of the Black Lake, Harry spotted a tree close by and sat down, leaning his back against the tree trunk. Then he pulled the card from Cho out of his pocket and looked at it again, greatly admiring the fact that Cho didn't make any references to his much-hated fame as the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was eyeing the card for so long that he didn't realize how much time flew by and he was sort of staring blankly. As a matter of fact, he didn't even notice that somebody spotted and approached him (nor did he hear the footsteps).
"I'm flattered that you like the card I gave you!" an unexpected (but ecstatic) voice blurted.
Harry jumped as he snapped back to reality. Upon turning his head in the direction the voice came, Harry saw that it was an asian girl with shoulder-length black hair with bangs covering her forehead and dark-brown eyes, and she was standing ten feet from him. She was also dressed in a black jacket, gray jeans, black shoes, and a scarf that was blue with bronze linings on it wrapped around her neck. Harry immediately realized that it was Cho Chang, but he found himself unable to respond to her comment due to getting nervous. He wanted so badly to put the card back in his pocket, but his arms didn't seem to want to work. Harry was petrified to have been spotted with the card in plain view. While Harry could see how beautiful Cho was, he was unable to say anything due to the shock of her spotting the card she made for him in his hand. Not only that, but Harry wasn't one to go for outer beauty (since looks can be deceiving).
"Y-Y-Y-Yeeeaaaahhhhhhhh!" Harry nervously responded.
"No need to be nervous, Harry." Cho assured him in a soft voice.
"B-But I h-had the card where everyone can see it," said Harry, again in a nervous voice. "No one was supposed to see that."
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Harry," Cho assured again, keeping her voice soft. "You did show that you loved the card I gave you and it made my day!"
Harry was taken aback to find out that he made Cho's day by having the card in his hand in plain view. Harry felt himself relaxing when he realized that Cho had a point and that he didn't have to be ashamed of the card in plain view. He also realized that he was lucky that Ginny didn't see him holding the card Cho made for him, since she would've asked him about the flashy card she made for him and who knew what may have happened if Ginny found out that her twin brothers currently had a hold of it.
"May I sit down next to you, Harry?" asked Cho.
All Harry could do was nod his head as if to say that she was allowed to. As Cho sat down next to him, Harry felt his heart beating with excitement since this was the first time he'd been this close to a girl outside of his own house who was in a different year. The only girls before that who Harry had been standing close to where the ones in his year, especially at the sorting ceremony last year. Still, Harry didn't know what to ask Cho because of the Dursleys having always forbade him to ask questions, regardless if they were good questions or not while Dudley was allowed to ask even the lamest questions and he'd still get an answer.
"So, Harry, what did you like about that card?" Cho asked after a minute or so of silence.
"The note you wrote," Harry admitted. "N-Not what I expected! Was th-there a reason why?"
"To let you know in some way that there are bound to be some students in the other houses who don't think of you as the Boy-Who-Lived nor the Heir of Slytherin," Cho explained in a soft voice, much to Harry's relief. "After all, the Boy-Who-Lived is just a fictional character. Plus, several times I've seen you trying to keep a low profile and how you'd tense up whenever you're near Professor Lockhart anytime he drags you into the spotlight. I even saw you running away as fast as you could whenever Lockhart made that so-called announcement of signed photographs without asking you first. It was more than enough for me to understand that you didn't want that."
Harry felt a smile forming on his face as that realization started sinking in. Cho was even continuing to prove to be more interested in being friends with him for just him because she wasn't afraid to be around him. It also inspired Harry to try befriending other students and not just the ones in his house. Harry could also feel his cheeks radiating heat when he faced Cho, making him feel certain that he was blushing. He even spotted Cho having turned bright-red, showing that she was also blushing. Then Harry and Cho looked out over the Black Lake as a way of continuing to bond, in the process Harry set the card Cho made for him down right next to him. He was going to have interesting story to tell his best friends and even his quidditch teammates later on. It was also possible that they might even encourage Harry to get to know her better.
The End!