A SUMMER PLACE
by monkeymouse
a/k/a Patrick Drazen
2.11: Summer's End
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]
Author's Note: The song that is "filked" here is a real one: "Pilot" was composed by Yoko Kanno, and sung by Maaya Sakamoto, who also wrote the lyrics.
Note: sexual content
* *
On the morning of August 31; Harry Potter woke up as nervous as he'd ever been; as if he were meeting Cho's parents instead of Cho herself. He knew she'd be there, but didn't know when. He knew they'd be together for the day, but he didn't know where. Not exactly, anyway.
He fussed more with his untamable hair on this morning than he had all summer, finally deciding to let it do what it wanted to do. He dashed downstairs to the dining room the minute Tom opened it for breakfast. It was early in the morning, but he felt let down when he looked around the Leaky Cauldron and didn't see her. It's too early, he chided himself; what are you thinking?
Two minutes later, Cho Chang Ported in, holding a carrier bag of records and tapes in one hand and a rolled-up umbrella–the Portkey–in the other. She dropped both to throw her arms around Harry, for the first time in a month. No one came in to interrupt their kiss, not even Tom.
Harry smiled when he saw she still wore the necklace he had given her for Christmas: a thin gold chain with two rings, one red for Gryffindor and the other blue for Ravenclaw. "What are your plans?"
"Take this to the club, of course, when they open." She pointed to the carrier bag. "I forgot about the time difference."
"Wait a minute. Last time YOU told ME about the time difference!"
Cho simply smiled and shrugged. "You have me there. Truth is, I wanted to spend all day with you today. Then I'll go with you down to King's Cross tomorrow; see you off at the train, maybe talk to some of the others on the platform; four months seems like such a long time."
"And tonight?"
"I could stay with my family, but they don't even know I'm here."
"Aren't you going to tell them?"
Cho looked down at the table, smiling slightly and blushing slightly. "Not just yet."
They sat at a table by the window overlooking Diagon Alley. Cho wanted to order everything on the menu for breakfast–"It's been so long since I've had any of these!"–but Harry advised her to keep breakfast light. He wouldn't say any more than that "lunch is going to be a bit different", and Cho couldn't get him to let out any more details.
Instead, they talked about Cho's school in Japan, and Harry seeing Ron and Hermione again (although he didn't tell her everything about those encounters). Harry mentioned that, just the other day, he noticed that he could see the Changs' shoppe, and Cho's eyes lit up. "Gran hadn't mentioned it in her last owl. I suppose that they think you're harmless. And you're leaving for Hogwarts tomorrow anyway."
"Let's go see them, then."
"Harry, don't joke about that."
"I'm not joking!"
Cho shook her head. "You don't know them the way I do. Gran said you had to wait another year, and that's that. When the year is up, they will send for you."
"You make them sound like royalty."
"My parents? They might as well be." Cho took a long drink of tea. "Enough of that. What mysteries do you have planned for the day?" she smiled.
"Let's go find out," Harry smiled back. Taking a knapsack with his wand and a roll of Muggle money, he led Cho out onto Diagon Alley. He glanced at the other end of the street, toward the Changs' shoppe, but it was Cho who pulled him around the corner. "Later," she said.
They went to King's Cross and took the Victoria Line from there to Brixton. When they came out and saw the open-air market, the change in Cho was remarkable. She was like a child visiting Honeyduke's for the first time. Everything was fascinating to her, from the food in the stalls to the people who sold them and their barely-understandable English. Yet she tried to talk to everyone they met, acting as if most of them were old friends.
At one stall, where a woman sold bolts of cloth with African batik patterns, Cho went straight for one bolt of Ravenclaw-blue cloth with black geometric patters. "Oh Harry! Wouldn't this make a smashing set of robes?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"You guess?"
"All I know is, I'd love you in anything."
Cho chuckled, kissing Harry o the cheek. "You're easy to please."
They spent the next hour buying food for their picnic lunch. There were things that neither had ever heard of before, and a few that they weren't sure they wanted to try, but they settled on jerk chicken, chunks of mango, and two small bottles of pineapple juice.
"So where's the picnic going to be?"
"That way." Harry pointed past the open-air market. They walked to Brockwell Park, a large stretch of land that looked set up for some summer festival or other.
"Bit crowded, isn't it, Harry?"
"Just follow me." They made their way through the crowd that was already gathering. Harry led Cho to the edge of the crowd, where there was a slight rise. They walked up the hill, then Cho let out a gasp.
Just over the rise was the rest of Brockwell Park–only this side was seldom used for festivals or anything else. It was as if they'd been Ported to another part of England, miles from the nearest village.
"Harry! This park isn't magical, is it?"
"It is if you're here."
Cho ran ahead about a hundred yards to claim space under two elm trees growing together. As they set up their lunch, Cho asked, "I suppose we won't want to be disturbed." Without waiting for an answer, she pulled her wand out of the carrier bag, drew a circle in the air and said, "Camera Oscura!"
"What's that, then?"
"The Secret Room Charm,"
"That's a new one on me."
"You'll learn about it in sixth year; the Ministry set an age restriction on it. Professor Flitwick told us all sorts of awful stories about children trying the charm, locking themselves in hidden rooms then not knowing how to get out. Grownups would be looking for them, worried sick, and couldn't see or hear that the children were right there. He said some had even died that way; I'd hate to think that's true."
"When I first found out I was a wizard, I thought magic would be this great lark; pulling rabbits out of hats, making things appear and disappear all at once. It seems to get less and less fun every year, the more I learn about it."
"It's called growing up, Harry."
They didn't say much while they ate lunch, except to comment on the surprising taste of the food. They ate slowly, enjoying the taste of the food, the perfect weather of the day, and each other's company. Finally, they were done.
"Got a question for you." Harry sat with his back against a tree; Cho lay on her back on the ground, using his legs for a pillow. Harry idly twirled a lock of Cho's hair around his finger. "When did you know about you and me? When did you first really, really know?"
"That's not so simple, Harry, since I grew up hearing your name. I was just two years old when you stopped the Dark Lord, so for weeks all anyone could say was "Ha Li Po Te" this-that-and-the-other. Everyone made you out to be this amazing person.
"So when you first got to Hogwarts, and they called you for the Sorting, my ears pricked up. I'd finally get to see what Harry Potter looked like, and the first thought in my mind was, 'But that can't be Harry Potter; he's so CUTE!'"
Cho laughed at the memory; so did Harry, but not too enthusiastically.
"I didn't mean to embarrass you," Cho added, "but you know what second- years can be like. I thought I knew everything. Anyway, as soon as I heard you'd made the Quidditch team, I tried to get on Ravenclaw's team. I liked flying well enough, but I never really thought about it until then. I made it onto the reserve list, but I still took practice with the others. I was the only girl on Ravenclaw's team, and they weren't too kind to me. I think they were roughing me up, to see if I would quit. I got to know Madam Pomfrey rather well that year. The year after that, of course, the season was cut short.
"The next year, though, the previous Seeker had graduated, and I got the place. My first game was also our first game together. I blocked you that one time from getting the Snitch."
"I remember. You cut me off and then gave me that little smile, like you were rubbing it in."
"Hardly," Cho laughed. "The fact is, one close-up look into those green eyes and I was stopped dead. I went goofy for a second; I really forgot I was playing Quidditch. You should have heard some of the things Davies called me after that match.
"When it came to the finals, I wished you luck in the Great Hall."
"Yeah, I heard you. I guess everyone else did too."
"But I was torn between yelling 'Good luck Harry' or 'I love you!'. I decided the latter might put you off your game."
"And then the Tournament, and Cedric."
"You're not still upset about him, are you?"
"No. Mad at myself, maybe, for not speaking to you sooner."
"But there's more to it than that. When I was growing up, I had a picture in my head of what the Great Young Wizard Harry Potter would look like, and Cedric fit that picture. When he took a liking to me, I couldn't help but like him. In a sense, I liked him because he was standing in for you."
"And I was worried about you thinking I was standing in for him."
"No worries, Harry, ever again." She pulled his head down to hers; their lips met, light but hungry. "And how about you; when did you know?"
"Same game, same moment, as it happens. I saw you there, for the first time really, my stomach went all helter-skelter, and all I could think was "She's pretty". Wood didn't like it any more than Davies liked you."
"Just pretty? Is that all?" Cho teased.
"Well, there were a couple of other thoughts, but I wasn't about to mention them."
"Hmm. Are you sure you can't mention them now?"
"How strong is that Oscura charm?"
"Ah, those kinds of thoughts." Cho dropped her voice. "I've had those myself."
"Mind if I ask when?"
"When we were in Hogsmeade, and you were the stag. I was happy that you came to see me, and sad to be going, and angry at my family for coming for me, and proud that you'd succeeded in changing yourself. And..." She turned her face away from his; "and something else."
"What?"
"Well, animals don't wear clothes, do they? And your, er, little friend was right out there, plain as day. I really had to resist the temptation to reach down and pet him."
Harry started blushing. "Yeah, well, at the end, when you were rubbing my back, I mean the stag's back, if you hadn't left off, the little friend was almost ready to come out and play."
Cho suddenly sat up and turned toward him, her voice dropping to a whisper, although there was nobody anywhere nearby. "I have to confess, Harry; part of me wanted exactly that. I told you one time I wanted, just for a moment, to be a deer. That was the moment. For just that moment, I wanted to stand before you, as naked as you were. I wanted you to take me and mount me, in full view of my parents. I didn't want to belong to them any more; I wanted to be yours, completely, forever... God, Harry, I can't stop babbling..."
He silenced Cho with his mouth on hers. Their kiss was fierce, hungry, with the knowledge, certain but unspoken, that Harry was off back to Hogwarts the next day, while Cho was off back to Japan, and neither knew when they'd see each other, hold each other again…
Their hands clutched each other's back, their tongues danced in each other's mouth. They rolled on the grass, not looking at anything, past thinking about anything but each other.
Harry had become erect almost from the second he started kissing Cho. His rod was pointed straight up now, right behind the zipper of his jeans. As they rolled on the ground, Cho opened her legs, so that Harry rolled between them, his hardness pressing squarely at Cho's center, pressing against her already swollen pearl.
Without thought, with an instinct far older than Hogwarts, as old as magic itself, Cho gasped, pressing her knees against Harry's hips, forcing his bulge to rub against her. The shock of the friction hit Harry like a blast of wind inside his body; her pushing him made him push against her, drowning himself in the feeling of the friction. Rhythmically, repeatedly, they thrust against each other, reaching for a nameless ecstasy they knew they could almost feel…
and when Cho felt it, felt a rush of pleasure unlike anything she'd felt in her young life, her eyes rolled back in her head as her hips pushed up off the ground. This sudden thrust sent Harry over the edge; his climax soaking the insides of his trousers although Harry hardly noticed, moving from being tossed by a wave of ecstasy, through to floating in a sea of contentment, to a kind of emptiness that his heart told him could be filled by only one person…
Harry was suddenly very aware that he was still on top of Cho, which might make her uncomfortable; he rolled to the side, but she rolled right with him, onto her side, so they were still face to face, her arms still around him, both of them still panting.
Harry tried to speak, but couldn't find his voice. He had to clear his throat a couple of times. When he spoke, it was almost in a whisper: "Are you … um, do you feel…"
Cho's breathing was still quick. "I…I'm not sure. I've never felt anything like that before, not even close. I think I passed out at the end there. I saw galaxies, planets, stars…"
Harry put a finger to her lips. "I saw you. And you're more beautiful than any star."
Cho's face scrunched up; she hid it in Harry's shoulder as she burst into tears.
Harry swallowed hard. He was afraid of something like this: it was his nightmare. As many times as he'd fantasized about making love with Cho Chang, his fancies usually ended one of two unflattering ways. Either she dismissed him for not knowing what to do, or she burst into tears of fear or shame or revulsion.
He was so sure that he'd got it wrong that he wasn't ready for her next words: "I'm sorry, Harry," she sobbed, "I'm just so happy, and I love you so much."
A thought sparked in his mind, and began to glow into a flame. He pushed it aside for the moment as his hold on Cho tightened. "I love you too. And I always will." They lay in the grass for a few more minutes before Cho's tears subsided and they sat up.
When Cho spoke, it was hesitantly: "Harry, would you mind turning, just for a minute, so I can…"
"Oh! Of course; I'm sorry," Harry stammered, turning his back on Cho to let her straighten herself up. Harry took advantage of the moment to spell himself clean as well. As he did so, he remembered hearing the older boys at Hogwarts refer to what they'd just done as a "dry hump". They've got to come up with a better name, Harry thought to himself; the insides of his trousers were anything but dry.
Cho opened the Secret Room Charm, the gathered up their things, threw the trash in a nearby barrel, and walked back toward Brixton. They were holding hands, but also looking mostly down or ahead, exchanging only a few furtive glances, as if each wasn't sure what the other was thinking.
They'd only gone a few paces when Harry, still staring straight ahead, blurted out: "Look, I hope I haven't offended you or anything, I really didn't plan for that to happen. If you want to be done with me I'll understand, but …"
"Do you really think I'd turn away from you?" Cho drew herself even closer to Harry, leaning her head against his shoulder. She looked up into his eyes, smiling: "If you don't know me any better than that…"
Walking back through Brockwell Park, through the open-air market and the streets of Brixton to Zafar's club, Cho suddenly started chuckling to herself.
"What brought that on?"
"Why on earth did one of the most wonderful feelings in the world get one of the worst names? "Orgasm"--who came up with that one?" They were both chuckling now. "Sounds like something we have to fight off in Dark Arts."
"Or in Magical Creatures," Harry laughed, picking up Cho's thought and launching into an impression of Hagrid: "Today we'll be studyin' hinkypunks, grindylows and orgasms!"
Both of them were laughing now, long and loud. Some passersby looked disapprovingly at the noisy teenagers, while others saw them for what they were: two young people very much in love.
* *
There were already about two dozen young people in MoshiMoshi when they got there. Cho, who had only met Zafar for the first time a month ago, greeted him like a long-lost relative. She gave him the carrier bag, and started talking about one record in particular. No sooner had Zafar taken the records to the sound booth than Cho grabbed Harry's hand.
"Come on, you. I owe you this."
"Owe me what?"
"I should have danced with you at least once at the Yule Ball. This will have to do."
"But, Cho, I'm not really that good…"
"Relax, Harry, this is a slow one; you already know what to do. Just put your left arm round my waist; I know you can do THAT. Then just take my hand in yours."
"Now what?"
Sinuous guitar music cut through the atmosphere of the club. "Now we just move in time to the music. That's all."
It seemed easy enough, with Cho in his arms. As the music continued, the singer's voice came in–a woman's voice, but light and high and as pure as a child. "What's she singing about?"
"I don't really know. It took me an hour with a dictionary just to translate a few lines. But some of the words are, "Can we fly when we're fast asleep? Can we fly just by our own power? We're not running, we're just imitating it, but we can't feel the aeroplane anymore.""
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"In our case, I think it's about what it's like to fly without brooms."
"But how is that …"
Cho put a finger to his lips. "Just listen, and dance."
The singer's voice had just doubled; no, tripled; no, there were two choirs answering each other back and forth. Then all but the main voice disappeared for the second verse.
The Yule Ball had been nothing short of a disaster for Harry: not knowing how to dance, not wanting to know how to dance, and certainly not wanting to be in the Great Hall to watch Cho dance with Cedric Diggory. That was almost two years ago now, and so many things had changed. Cedric was dead, and Cho was in his arms. Harry looked at her, felt her body leaning up against his, and realized that she had chosen the perfect song. They were flying without brooms.
He realized something else. An idea had been pushing at him for months. It was an idle fancy at first, but started to take shape and become real when they were on their first Hogsmeade trip together. Every time it reappeared after that, it grew more insistent, more real. Now, he was actually dancing; Cho was in his arms. And the idea was full and complete; he didn't want to push t away another second.
When the song ended, Harry and Cho just stood in each other's arms on the dance floor; they were there for a minute, before Harry led Cho to a table.
Harry took her hand. "Cho, this has been an amazing day. What am I saying; the whole year has been amazing. A lot has changed since I got my first Hogwarts letter and found out about my real family. But you're the biggest and most wonderful change my life could ever have. I can't see into the future, but I know I want you in it. I don't have a ring or anything, but I'm making it official: Cho Chang, will you..."
"WAIT! Don't look so sad, Harry. I know what you're going to ask, and I'm sure you know my answer. But--well, just indulge me in this. I want to ask them to play our song again, and I want us to be on the dance floor, and I want to be in your arms when you ask, and when I answer."
She almost ran to the sound booth to request their song.
Our song, marveled Harry to himself. That's the sort of thing that happens in the movies. He never thought it would really happen to him.
Cho had just started back across the dance floor when the bomb went off.
…to be continued…
by monkeymouse
a/k/a Patrick Drazen
2.11: Summer's End
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]
Author's Note: The song that is "filked" here is a real one: "Pilot" was composed by Yoko Kanno, and sung by Maaya Sakamoto, who also wrote the lyrics.
Note: sexual content
* *
On the morning of August 31; Harry Potter woke up as nervous as he'd ever been; as if he were meeting Cho's parents instead of Cho herself. He knew she'd be there, but didn't know when. He knew they'd be together for the day, but he didn't know where. Not exactly, anyway.
He fussed more with his untamable hair on this morning than he had all summer, finally deciding to let it do what it wanted to do. He dashed downstairs to the dining room the minute Tom opened it for breakfast. It was early in the morning, but he felt let down when he looked around the Leaky Cauldron and didn't see her. It's too early, he chided himself; what are you thinking?
Two minutes later, Cho Chang Ported in, holding a carrier bag of records and tapes in one hand and a rolled-up umbrella–the Portkey–in the other. She dropped both to throw her arms around Harry, for the first time in a month. No one came in to interrupt their kiss, not even Tom.
Harry smiled when he saw she still wore the necklace he had given her for Christmas: a thin gold chain with two rings, one red for Gryffindor and the other blue for Ravenclaw. "What are your plans?"
"Take this to the club, of course, when they open." She pointed to the carrier bag. "I forgot about the time difference."
"Wait a minute. Last time YOU told ME about the time difference!"
Cho simply smiled and shrugged. "You have me there. Truth is, I wanted to spend all day with you today. Then I'll go with you down to King's Cross tomorrow; see you off at the train, maybe talk to some of the others on the platform; four months seems like such a long time."
"And tonight?"
"I could stay with my family, but they don't even know I'm here."
"Aren't you going to tell them?"
Cho looked down at the table, smiling slightly and blushing slightly. "Not just yet."
They sat at a table by the window overlooking Diagon Alley. Cho wanted to order everything on the menu for breakfast–"It's been so long since I've had any of these!"–but Harry advised her to keep breakfast light. He wouldn't say any more than that "lunch is going to be a bit different", and Cho couldn't get him to let out any more details.
Instead, they talked about Cho's school in Japan, and Harry seeing Ron and Hermione again (although he didn't tell her everything about those encounters). Harry mentioned that, just the other day, he noticed that he could see the Changs' shoppe, and Cho's eyes lit up. "Gran hadn't mentioned it in her last owl. I suppose that they think you're harmless. And you're leaving for Hogwarts tomorrow anyway."
"Let's go see them, then."
"Harry, don't joke about that."
"I'm not joking!"
Cho shook her head. "You don't know them the way I do. Gran said you had to wait another year, and that's that. When the year is up, they will send for you."
"You make them sound like royalty."
"My parents? They might as well be." Cho took a long drink of tea. "Enough of that. What mysteries do you have planned for the day?" she smiled.
"Let's go find out," Harry smiled back. Taking a knapsack with his wand and a roll of Muggle money, he led Cho out onto Diagon Alley. He glanced at the other end of the street, toward the Changs' shoppe, but it was Cho who pulled him around the corner. "Later," she said.
They went to King's Cross and took the Victoria Line from there to Brixton. When they came out and saw the open-air market, the change in Cho was remarkable. She was like a child visiting Honeyduke's for the first time. Everything was fascinating to her, from the food in the stalls to the people who sold them and their barely-understandable English. Yet she tried to talk to everyone they met, acting as if most of them were old friends.
At one stall, where a woman sold bolts of cloth with African batik patterns, Cho went straight for one bolt of Ravenclaw-blue cloth with black geometric patters. "Oh Harry! Wouldn't this make a smashing set of robes?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"You guess?"
"All I know is, I'd love you in anything."
Cho chuckled, kissing Harry o the cheek. "You're easy to please."
They spent the next hour buying food for their picnic lunch. There were things that neither had ever heard of before, and a few that they weren't sure they wanted to try, but they settled on jerk chicken, chunks of mango, and two small bottles of pineapple juice.
"So where's the picnic going to be?"
"That way." Harry pointed past the open-air market. They walked to Brockwell Park, a large stretch of land that looked set up for some summer festival or other.
"Bit crowded, isn't it, Harry?"
"Just follow me." They made their way through the crowd that was already gathering. Harry led Cho to the edge of the crowd, where there was a slight rise. They walked up the hill, then Cho let out a gasp.
Just over the rise was the rest of Brockwell Park–only this side was seldom used for festivals or anything else. It was as if they'd been Ported to another part of England, miles from the nearest village.
"Harry! This park isn't magical, is it?"
"It is if you're here."
Cho ran ahead about a hundred yards to claim space under two elm trees growing together. As they set up their lunch, Cho asked, "I suppose we won't want to be disturbed." Without waiting for an answer, she pulled her wand out of the carrier bag, drew a circle in the air and said, "Camera Oscura!"
"What's that, then?"
"The Secret Room Charm,"
"That's a new one on me."
"You'll learn about it in sixth year; the Ministry set an age restriction on it. Professor Flitwick told us all sorts of awful stories about children trying the charm, locking themselves in hidden rooms then not knowing how to get out. Grownups would be looking for them, worried sick, and couldn't see or hear that the children were right there. He said some had even died that way; I'd hate to think that's true."
"When I first found out I was a wizard, I thought magic would be this great lark; pulling rabbits out of hats, making things appear and disappear all at once. It seems to get less and less fun every year, the more I learn about it."
"It's called growing up, Harry."
They didn't say much while they ate lunch, except to comment on the surprising taste of the food. They ate slowly, enjoying the taste of the food, the perfect weather of the day, and each other's company. Finally, they were done.
"Got a question for you." Harry sat with his back against a tree; Cho lay on her back on the ground, using his legs for a pillow. Harry idly twirled a lock of Cho's hair around his finger. "When did you know about you and me? When did you first really, really know?"
"That's not so simple, Harry, since I grew up hearing your name. I was just two years old when you stopped the Dark Lord, so for weeks all anyone could say was "Ha Li Po Te" this-that-and-the-other. Everyone made you out to be this amazing person.
"So when you first got to Hogwarts, and they called you for the Sorting, my ears pricked up. I'd finally get to see what Harry Potter looked like, and the first thought in my mind was, 'But that can't be Harry Potter; he's so CUTE!'"
Cho laughed at the memory; so did Harry, but not too enthusiastically.
"I didn't mean to embarrass you," Cho added, "but you know what second- years can be like. I thought I knew everything. Anyway, as soon as I heard you'd made the Quidditch team, I tried to get on Ravenclaw's team. I liked flying well enough, but I never really thought about it until then. I made it onto the reserve list, but I still took practice with the others. I was the only girl on Ravenclaw's team, and they weren't too kind to me. I think they were roughing me up, to see if I would quit. I got to know Madam Pomfrey rather well that year. The year after that, of course, the season was cut short.
"The next year, though, the previous Seeker had graduated, and I got the place. My first game was also our first game together. I blocked you that one time from getting the Snitch."
"I remember. You cut me off and then gave me that little smile, like you were rubbing it in."
"Hardly," Cho laughed. "The fact is, one close-up look into those green eyes and I was stopped dead. I went goofy for a second; I really forgot I was playing Quidditch. You should have heard some of the things Davies called me after that match.
"When it came to the finals, I wished you luck in the Great Hall."
"Yeah, I heard you. I guess everyone else did too."
"But I was torn between yelling 'Good luck Harry' or 'I love you!'. I decided the latter might put you off your game."
"And then the Tournament, and Cedric."
"You're not still upset about him, are you?"
"No. Mad at myself, maybe, for not speaking to you sooner."
"But there's more to it than that. When I was growing up, I had a picture in my head of what the Great Young Wizard Harry Potter would look like, and Cedric fit that picture. When he took a liking to me, I couldn't help but like him. In a sense, I liked him because he was standing in for you."
"And I was worried about you thinking I was standing in for him."
"No worries, Harry, ever again." She pulled his head down to hers; their lips met, light but hungry. "And how about you; when did you know?"
"Same game, same moment, as it happens. I saw you there, for the first time really, my stomach went all helter-skelter, and all I could think was "She's pretty". Wood didn't like it any more than Davies liked you."
"Just pretty? Is that all?" Cho teased.
"Well, there were a couple of other thoughts, but I wasn't about to mention them."
"Hmm. Are you sure you can't mention them now?"
"How strong is that Oscura charm?"
"Ah, those kinds of thoughts." Cho dropped her voice. "I've had those myself."
"Mind if I ask when?"
"When we were in Hogsmeade, and you were the stag. I was happy that you came to see me, and sad to be going, and angry at my family for coming for me, and proud that you'd succeeded in changing yourself. And..." She turned her face away from his; "and something else."
"What?"
"Well, animals don't wear clothes, do they? And your, er, little friend was right out there, plain as day. I really had to resist the temptation to reach down and pet him."
Harry started blushing. "Yeah, well, at the end, when you were rubbing my back, I mean the stag's back, if you hadn't left off, the little friend was almost ready to come out and play."
Cho suddenly sat up and turned toward him, her voice dropping to a whisper, although there was nobody anywhere nearby. "I have to confess, Harry; part of me wanted exactly that. I told you one time I wanted, just for a moment, to be a deer. That was the moment. For just that moment, I wanted to stand before you, as naked as you were. I wanted you to take me and mount me, in full view of my parents. I didn't want to belong to them any more; I wanted to be yours, completely, forever... God, Harry, I can't stop babbling..."
He silenced Cho with his mouth on hers. Their kiss was fierce, hungry, with the knowledge, certain but unspoken, that Harry was off back to Hogwarts the next day, while Cho was off back to Japan, and neither knew when they'd see each other, hold each other again…
Their hands clutched each other's back, their tongues danced in each other's mouth. They rolled on the grass, not looking at anything, past thinking about anything but each other.
Harry had become erect almost from the second he started kissing Cho. His rod was pointed straight up now, right behind the zipper of his jeans. As they rolled on the ground, Cho opened her legs, so that Harry rolled between them, his hardness pressing squarely at Cho's center, pressing against her already swollen pearl.
Without thought, with an instinct far older than Hogwarts, as old as magic itself, Cho gasped, pressing her knees against Harry's hips, forcing his bulge to rub against her. The shock of the friction hit Harry like a blast of wind inside his body; her pushing him made him push against her, drowning himself in the feeling of the friction. Rhythmically, repeatedly, they thrust against each other, reaching for a nameless ecstasy they knew they could almost feel…
and when Cho felt it, felt a rush of pleasure unlike anything she'd felt in her young life, her eyes rolled back in her head as her hips pushed up off the ground. This sudden thrust sent Harry over the edge; his climax soaking the insides of his trousers although Harry hardly noticed, moving from being tossed by a wave of ecstasy, through to floating in a sea of contentment, to a kind of emptiness that his heart told him could be filled by only one person…
Harry was suddenly very aware that he was still on top of Cho, which might make her uncomfortable; he rolled to the side, but she rolled right with him, onto her side, so they were still face to face, her arms still around him, both of them still panting.
Harry tried to speak, but couldn't find his voice. He had to clear his throat a couple of times. When he spoke, it was almost in a whisper: "Are you … um, do you feel…"
Cho's breathing was still quick. "I…I'm not sure. I've never felt anything like that before, not even close. I think I passed out at the end there. I saw galaxies, planets, stars…"
Harry put a finger to her lips. "I saw you. And you're more beautiful than any star."
Cho's face scrunched up; she hid it in Harry's shoulder as she burst into tears.
Harry swallowed hard. He was afraid of something like this: it was his nightmare. As many times as he'd fantasized about making love with Cho Chang, his fancies usually ended one of two unflattering ways. Either she dismissed him for not knowing what to do, or she burst into tears of fear or shame or revulsion.
He was so sure that he'd got it wrong that he wasn't ready for her next words: "I'm sorry, Harry," she sobbed, "I'm just so happy, and I love you so much."
A thought sparked in his mind, and began to glow into a flame. He pushed it aside for the moment as his hold on Cho tightened. "I love you too. And I always will." They lay in the grass for a few more minutes before Cho's tears subsided and they sat up.
When Cho spoke, it was hesitantly: "Harry, would you mind turning, just for a minute, so I can…"
"Oh! Of course; I'm sorry," Harry stammered, turning his back on Cho to let her straighten herself up. Harry took advantage of the moment to spell himself clean as well. As he did so, he remembered hearing the older boys at Hogwarts refer to what they'd just done as a "dry hump". They've got to come up with a better name, Harry thought to himself; the insides of his trousers were anything but dry.
Cho opened the Secret Room Charm, the gathered up their things, threw the trash in a nearby barrel, and walked back toward Brixton. They were holding hands, but also looking mostly down or ahead, exchanging only a few furtive glances, as if each wasn't sure what the other was thinking.
They'd only gone a few paces when Harry, still staring straight ahead, blurted out: "Look, I hope I haven't offended you or anything, I really didn't plan for that to happen. If you want to be done with me I'll understand, but …"
"Do you really think I'd turn away from you?" Cho drew herself even closer to Harry, leaning her head against his shoulder. She looked up into his eyes, smiling: "If you don't know me any better than that…"
Walking back through Brockwell Park, through the open-air market and the streets of Brixton to Zafar's club, Cho suddenly started chuckling to herself.
"What brought that on?"
"Why on earth did one of the most wonderful feelings in the world get one of the worst names? "Orgasm"--who came up with that one?" They were both chuckling now. "Sounds like something we have to fight off in Dark Arts."
"Or in Magical Creatures," Harry laughed, picking up Cho's thought and launching into an impression of Hagrid: "Today we'll be studyin' hinkypunks, grindylows and orgasms!"
Both of them were laughing now, long and loud. Some passersby looked disapprovingly at the noisy teenagers, while others saw them for what they were: two young people very much in love.
* *
There were already about two dozen young people in MoshiMoshi when they got there. Cho, who had only met Zafar for the first time a month ago, greeted him like a long-lost relative. She gave him the carrier bag, and started talking about one record in particular. No sooner had Zafar taken the records to the sound booth than Cho grabbed Harry's hand.
"Come on, you. I owe you this."
"Owe me what?"
"I should have danced with you at least once at the Yule Ball. This will have to do."
"But, Cho, I'm not really that good…"
"Relax, Harry, this is a slow one; you already know what to do. Just put your left arm round my waist; I know you can do THAT. Then just take my hand in yours."
"Now what?"
Sinuous guitar music cut through the atmosphere of the club. "Now we just move in time to the music. That's all."
It seemed easy enough, with Cho in his arms. As the music continued, the singer's voice came in–a woman's voice, but light and high and as pure as a child. "What's she singing about?"
"I don't really know. It took me an hour with a dictionary just to translate a few lines. But some of the words are, "Can we fly when we're fast asleep? Can we fly just by our own power? We're not running, we're just imitating it, but we can't feel the aeroplane anymore.""
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"In our case, I think it's about what it's like to fly without brooms."
"But how is that …"
Cho put a finger to his lips. "Just listen, and dance."
The singer's voice had just doubled; no, tripled; no, there were two choirs answering each other back and forth. Then all but the main voice disappeared for the second verse.
The Yule Ball had been nothing short of a disaster for Harry: not knowing how to dance, not wanting to know how to dance, and certainly not wanting to be in the Great Hall to watch Cho dance with Cedric Diggory. That was almost two years ago now, and so many things had changed. Cedric was dead, and Cho was in his arms. Harry looked at her, felt her body leaning up against his, and realized that she had chosen the perfect song. They were flying without brooms.
He realized something else. An idea had been pushing at him for months. It was an idle fancy at first, but started to take shape and become real when they were on their first Hogsmeade trip together. Every time it reappeared after that, it grew more insistent, more real. Now, he was actually dancing; Cho was in his arms. And the idea was full and complete; he didn't want to push t away another second.
When the song ended, Harry and Cho just stood in each other's arms on the dance floor; they were there for a minute, before Harry led Cho to a table.
Harry took her hand. "Cho, this has been an amazing day. What am I saying; the whole year has been amazing. A lot has changed since I got my first Hogwarts letter and found out about my real family. But you're the biggest and most wonderful change my life could ever have. I can't see into the future, but I know I want you in it. I don't have a ring or anything, but I'm making it official: Cho Chang, will you..."
"WAIT! Don't look so sad, Harry. I know what you're going to ask, and I'm sure you know my answer. But--well, just indulge me in this. I want to ask them to play our song again, and I want us to be on the dance floor, and I want to be in your arms when you ask, and when I answer."
She almost ran to the sound booth to request their song.
Our song, marveled Harry to himself. That's the sort of thing that happens in the movies. He never thought it would really happen to him.
Cho had just started back across the dance floor when the bomb went off.
…to be continued…