Chapter 3
Cho went to bed exhausted and sore. She woke up the next morning energized and feeling better than she had for months. She decided to skip breakfast and have a lazy morning lay-about. There was so much she had to think about. She had wanted to do it last night, but she had fallen asleep as soon as she made it into bed.
That match! That had been a work of art. It had been a masterpiece. She hoped that someone had recorded it, maybe that weird Gryffindor kid who was always going around with a camera. She would have to ask him. That match deserved to be in the history books. To think, she had been worried that Harry Potter would throw the game!
Harry Potter was an artist. He was brilliant. He was a genius. And he had allowed her to be part of it. Quidditch would never be the same. He had changed the role of the Seeker from cat-and-mouse, please-dear-god-someone- catch-the-Snitch-so-I-can-go-to-the-loo to something like a cross between ballet and the Gran Prix. Once the word of this got out, no one would ever look at Seekers the same way again.
Not only had he allowed her to be a part of it, he had done it for her. She had seen it in his eyes, both before and after the match. She had mentally pleaded with him to give her a real game of Quidditch. She had seen the acknowledgement in his eyes. She didn't know what he had planned to do before he came out on the field, but she was sure it wasn't that. Then at the end, she had seen that fire in his eyes, his own amazement at what had happened, the look of questioning in his eyes as if to say 'Was that what you wanted?'
All she had wanted was a good match of Quidditch. She had asked for a sandwich and he had invented a whole new cuisine for her. Just for her! Harry Potter, who had more justification than anyone to simply forfeit the match – even she had half expected him to forfeit. Instead he had given her this! She wished she had kissed him yesterday. To hell with what anyone thought – Mother, Cedric, Anyone.
She had not known such flying was possible - not just Harry's flying, but her own as well. She had never, ever flown like that. He had brought things out of her she didn't even know she had. That match had transformed her. She was no longer the same person - not just in Quidditch, but in life. She was no longer going to be a passenger in her own life. She was going to make the choices now.
She had misjudged Harry. She had always thought of him as another of those "Oh Cho, you're so beautiful!" boys. She had heard of his crush on her, had even been somewhat flattered that the most famous boy wizard in the world had picked her. He had never done anything about it until last year's Yule Ball anyway, and then it had been too late. If she had known…well, that was silly because even he hadn't known.
He had known something though. He knew what Quidditch was. He knew what it was to be a Seeker, and have a Snitch just handed to you. He had known how it must have hurt her to catch the Snitch only to see Brigstock sitting placidly on his broom with his arms crossed. In one night he had known how to cure months of pain. What a wonderful, wonderful gift he had given her. She was going to see him.
Cho got out of bed, took a shower, and made herself presentable. In the Common was the usual crowd, studying, playing chess, writing letters. Maire, and Dierdre leapt to their feet when they saw her. "Cho, Are you all right? We were worried about you."
Cho laughed to herself. She was SO over that. "I am absolutely wonderful," she answered and continued on out of the Common Room without even pausing. She made her way down the three flights of shifting stairways, across the Main Hall, up two more flights of stairs, down the corridor to the left, and up one final set of stairs. Members of one house weren't supposed to know the exact location of the other houses entrances, but you had to be blind not to have some kind of an idea. She would wait.
She paced for several minutes before a Gryffindor first-year finally showed up. She asked him to please summon Harry Potter for her. He simply said he would be back in a couple minutes. The next person to emerge in the hallway was neither Harry Potter nor the young Gryffindor sent in. It was Ginny Weasley. This would be interesting, Cho thought. Ginny Weasley's crush on Harry was even more famous than Harry's crush on herself.
"Can I help you?" asked Ginny with a smile that had an edge like broken glass.
"Sure, " said Cho, "I'm here to see Harry Potter." She was entirely to happy to start assuming the worst about people.
"He doesn't want to see you." Ginny said bluntly, adding a bit of tooth to her smile.
"Shouldn't he tell me that himself?" asked Cho, "I'm pretty sure he wants to see me," Cho added a little smile of her own. The smile had a different effect on women than it did on men, but that effect seemed be appropriate at the moment.
"You're wrong for him. Why can't you just leave him alone? Don't you know how much he's been hurt already?" Ginny was no longer smiling.
"Believe it or not, I've learned a great deal about hurting lately. I'm here to see Harry Potter. Are you going to help me or not?"
"or Not…" answered Ginny standing her ground.
"Fine, I'll just send an owl. Thanks for nothing."
"Listen Chang, I've tried to be nice about this. Stay the bloody hell away from Harry Potter. Understand? Otherwise I'll make it my life's ambition to make your life a living hell."
"You and what army?"
"You Ravenclaws aren't as smart as you're made out to be if you're asking a Weasley that question."
"Alright 'Weasley', we'll do this your way." Cho turned and headed off to the Owlery. She scribbled a quick note and sent her owl, Clark, on his way. Since he was only flying a few hundred meters at most, Cho decided to wait for his return. As expected, Clark returned a few minutes later, but flying in circles and banking to one side, then the other. Her note still attached to his claw. That Weasley had hexed her owl. She was going to pay for that.
Cho searched until she found the perch of the Weasley family owl, and performed a little advanced transfiguration. When she was done she actually rather impressed with her work, too bad she couldn't turn a prank in as a class project. Lowell, the Weasley family owl was now a dead ringer for the Singing Valentine Dwarf that Ginny had sent to Harry during her first year. Let her relive that experience.
She didn't know how she was going to get in touch with Harry, she would probably have to wait until meal time. Meanwhile, she made her way down to the broom shack to clean and tweak her broom. Normally that was something she did immediately after a game, but yesterday she had just been too tired. Sitting in front of the shed she found the object of her earlier search, doing exactly what she had planned. Harry was unaware of her presence and she used the opportunity to observe him unseen.
She watched as he intently adjusted each twig and sighted it for trueness. She watched as he polished the handle and buffed out the nicks. He was a craftsman. The broom he owned was state-of-the-art. It was the same broom the pros used. It was obvious that he knew its significance, that he treated his ownership as a privilege and a responsibility. She wasn't even a little surprised. She decided to make her presence known and called his name. He did not answer immediately, but finished working out whatever imperfection it was he was working on, and then looked up. He smiled at her, eyes sparkling.
"I needed to say thank you," Cho started. She had wanted to talk to him do badly but now she didn't know how to say the words.
"Thank you as well," Harry answered.
"How did you do that? I mean, why did you do it? Or maybe I mean how did you know how?" Cho stopped herself. He knew what she meant.
"I had been thinking about it for a long time, since my first match really. When I saw the Championships last year, I started to think how it could really be done. Then there was last year with no Quidditch, and during the summer I didn't think much about Quidditch." Harry went silent. Cho put a hand on his shoulder. They would deal with that another time.
"I watched both of your earlier matches. You trounced Malfoy like he was a child," Harry continued.
"Malfoy is nothing. He's a snatcher, and not a very good one at that."
"Then that Hufflepuff match. I know he thought he was doing something grand, but I know that must have been humiliating. I think I would have just let the Snitch go."
He knew, Cho thought. She had been so incredibly wrong about this one. He saw the real her.
"You were so gracious about it though. You had to have been cringing on the inside, but still you let them have their moment. Everyone was expecting me to do the same thing. I even wondered if I was supposed to do the same thing. I wouldn't have done it the same way though. I would have just asked for a forfeit. I couldn't have done what Brigstock did though. I went on the field expecting to ask for a forfeit, but then I saw the look in your eyes.
"It all came back then. I knew what I was going to do. You are like me. You need to fly. When there is a Snitch in the air, you need to catch it. You're a Seeker. To play Quidditch, to play our Quidditch, two Seekers are needed, real Seekers. What had been missing from my vision was an opponent. Only flying against another true Seeker, could I have put the final pieces together. We created a whole new game last night. We did it together."
"I actually thought you were going to throw the game at the end. I thought you were just giving me the Snitch."
"Cho, you are the very last person to whom I would ever 'give' a Snitch."
Her heart did a somersault. Those words, they sounded cruel, but they were the finest compliment anyone had ever paid her. The words entered her body like shrapnel, and rattled around inside her. Those words eviscerated her. They killed her. It was a painless death. A new Cho immediately took her place. Cho the Passenger was dead. Now and forever she would be Cho the Seeker. She was Cho who made her own Choices. She was Cho who loved Harry Potter.
She encircled him in her arms and pulled him as close to her as she could. She let her body memorize the feel of his as it pressed against her. Then she kissed him, as she wished she had done the night before. This was not a shy, tenuous kiss, this was a full open kiss. This was the kind of kiss she'd only known once or twice before. She want to absorb him, to make him part of her. She did not let go until they were both desperate for air.
"Merlin's Ghost! that was a kiss…" Harry was in shock.
"Of course, it was silly…" She leaned in and kissed him again.
"Why me?" Harry asked when they paused for air.
"Why me?" Cho asked and kissed him again.
"What about Cedric?" There was pain in his voice. Cho could tell he was not going to let this go. They were going to have to deal with this. She would have to heal him as he had healed her. He had seen into her soul, and done it from a distance. Now she would have to do the same for him. She could do so from up close though.
"Cedric is gone Harry. He died too young, but he died a champion and he died a Hufflepuff, with his wand in his hand ready to fight beside another champion. That was how Cedric lived and that was how he died."
"He wasn't supposed to be there. If I hadn't insisted on sharing the trophy with him he would still be alive. I insisted, I am responsible."
"The man who cast the killing curse was responsible, the man who gave the order was responsible. You can't hold yourself responsible for wanting to share the trophy when you thought Cedric earned it. Can't you see, Voldemort is using your own best qualities against you. If you face him again like this he will defeat you, because you will have already done the hard part for him. You can't allow that. It's the last thing you'd want, it's the last thing I'd want, and it's the last thing Cedric would have wanted."
"And would he have wanted this?" The words stung. He instantly regretted having asked the question.
Cho was shocked into silence for a second, but she did not give up. She knew his secret now. She just had to make him spit it out. Once the words were said, he would be able to heal. "That's what this is really about isn't it Harry? That's why you feel so guilty isn't it? Because you wanted this, because you wanted to be here with me, like this?"
If his own words had stung, Cho's words burned. They burned with truth though. "I was jealous of him. If I hadn't been jealous I would have found a way to save him. I don't know how, but I would have found a way. If I were stronger, and braver, and able to see past my own stupid emotions, I could have saved him and you would still be able to kiss him instead of me." The words were out. There were tears in his eyes. She could see the shame in his face. He had told his secret and now she would tell hers.
"I was not in love with Cedric Diggory. I did not want to be his girlfriend. There was nothing between Cedric and myself except friendship. If Cedric were still alive, we would not be together. For almost six months I have been living this lie that everyone has forced on me. What could I do? Who wants to speak ill of the dead? I was grief stricken. He had been my friend. I felt so guilty because I hadn't been in love with him, that I couldn't return his emotions. I was trapped by him in death in a way I never would have been were he alive. How do you break up with someone who's dead?"
"We should thank him actually," Harry had put his arms around her. Gently he wiped the tears from her eyes. "If it had not been for him, we might never have learned how to really play Quidditch." He kissed her this time and she let herself fall into it. The storm had passed.
Some distance away, unseen by either of them, a small red haired figure was watching. Another storm was brewing.
Author's Note: I still need a beta reader, but I'll keep at this as long as I can without one and still produce a readable product. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed (both of you!) and the kind words. I am not writing for the reviews, but they really do help me stay motivated.
Cho went to bed exhausted and sore. She woke up the next morning energized and feeling better than she had for months. She decided to skip breakfast and have a lazy morning lay-about. There was so much she had to think about. She had wanted to do it last night, but she had fallen asleep as soon as she made it into bed.
That match! That had been a work of art. It had been a masterpiece. She hoped that someone had recorded it, maybe that weird Gryffindor kid who was always going around with a camera. She would have to ask him. That match deserved to be in the history books. To think, she had been worried that Harry Potter would throw the game!
Harry Potter was an artist. He was brilliant. He was a genius. And he had allowed her to be part of it. Quidditch would never be the same. He had changed the role of the Seeker from cat-and-mouse, please-dear-god-someone- catch-the-Snitch-so-I-can-go-to-the-loo to something like a cross between ballet and the Gran Prix. Once the word of this got out, no one would ever look at Seekers the same way again.
Not only had he allowed her to be a part of it, he had done it for her. She had seen it in his eyes, both before and after the match. She had mentally pleaded with him to give her a real game of Quidditch. She had seen the acknowledgement in his eyes. She didn't know what he had planned to do before he came out on the field, but she was sure it wasn't that. Then at the end, she had seen that fire in his eyes, his own amazement at what had happened, the look of questioning in his eyes as if to say 'Was that what you wanted?'
All she had wanted was a good match of Quidditch. She had asked for a sandwich and he had invented a whole new cuisine for her. Just for her! Harry Potter, who had more justification than anyone to simply forfeit the match – even she had half expected him to forfeit. Instead he had given her this! She wished she had kissed him yesterday. To hell with what anyone thought – Mother, Cedric, Anyone.
She had not known such flying was possible - not just Harry's flying, but her own as well. She had never, ever flown like that. He had brought things out of her she didn't even know she had. That match had transformed her. She was no longer the same person - not just in Quidditch, but in life. She was no longer going to be a passenger in her own life. She was going to make the choices now.
She had misjudged Harry. She had always thought of him as another of those "Oh Cho, you're so beautiful!" boys. She had heard of his crush on her, had even been somewhat flattered that the most famous boy wizard in the world had picked her. He had never done anything about it until last year's Yule Ball anyway, and then it had been too late. If she had known…well, that was silly because even he hadn't known.
He had known something though. He knew what Quidditch was. He knew what it was to be a Seeker, and have a Snitch just handed to you. He had known how it must have hurt her to catch the Snitch only to see Brigstock sitting placidly on his broom with his arms crossed. In one night he had known how to cure months of pain. What a wonderful, wonderful gift he had given her. She was going to see him.
Cho got out of bed, took a shower, and made herself presentable. In the Common was the usual crowd, studying, playing chess, writing letters. Maire, and Dierdre leapt to their feet when they saw her. "Cho, Are you all right? We were worried about you."
Cho laughed to herself. She was SO over that. "I am absolutely wonderful," she answered and continued on out of the Common Room without even pausing. She made her way down the three flights of shifting stairways, across the Main Hall, up two more flights of stairs, down the corridor to the left, and up one final set of stairs. Members of one house weren't supposed to know the exact location of the other houses entrances, but you had to be blind not to have some kind of an idea. She would wait.
She paced for several minutes before a Gryffindor first-year finally showed up. She asked him to please summon Harry Potter for her. He simply said he would be back in a couple minutes. The next person to emerge in the hallway was neither Harry Potter nor the young Gryffindor sent in. It was Ginny Weasley. This would be interesting, Cho thought. Ginny Weasley's crush on Harry was even more famous than Harry's crush on herself.
"Can I help you?" asked Ginny with a smile that had an edge like broken glass.
"Sure, " said Cho, "I'm here to see Harry Potter." She was entirely to happy to start assuming the worst about people.
"He doesn't want to see you." Ginny said bluntly, adding a bit of tooth to her smile.
"Shouldn't he tell me that himself?" asked Cho, "I'm pretty sure he wants to see me," Cho added a little smile of her own. The smile had a different effect on women than it did on men, but that effect seemed be appropriate at the moment.
"You're wrong for him. Why can't you just leave him alone? Don't you know how much he's been hurt already?" Ginny was no longer smiling.
"Believe it or not, I've learned a great deal about hurting lately. I'm here to see Harry Potter. Are you going to help me or not?"
"or Not…" answered Ginny standing her ground.
"Fine, I'll just send an owl. Thanks for nothing."
"Listen Chang, I've tried to be nice about this. Stay the bloody hell away from Harry Potter. Understand? Otherwise I'll make it my life's ambition to make your life a living hell."
"You and what army?"
"You Ravenclaws aren't as smart as you're made out to be if you're asking a Weasley that question."
"Alright 'Weasley', we'll do this your way." Cho turned and headed off to the Owlery. She scribbled a quick note and sent her owl, Clark, on his way. Since he was only flying a few hundred meters at most, Cho decided to wait for his return. As expected, Clark returned a few minutes later, but flying in circles and banking to one side, then the other. Her note still attached to his claw. That Weasley had hexed her owl. She was going to pay for that.
Cho searched until she found the perch of the Weasley family owl, and performed a little advanced transfiguration. When she was done she actually rather impressed with her work, too bad she couldn't turn a prank in as a class project. Lowell, the Weasley family owl was now a dead ringer for the Singing Valentine Dwarf that Ginny had sent to Harry during her first year. Let her relive that experience.
She didn't know how she was going to get in touch with Harry, she would probably have to wait until meal time. Meanwhile, she made her way down to the broom shack to clean and tweak her broom. Normally that was something she did immediately after a game, but yesterday she had just been too tired. Sitting in front of the shed she found the object of her earlier search, doing exactly what she had planned. Harry was unaware of her presence and she used the opportunity to observe him unseen.
She watched as he intently adjusted each twig and sighted it for trueness. She watched as he polished the handle and buffed out the nicks. He was a craftsman. The broom he owned was state-of-the-art. It was the same broom the pros used. It was obvious that he knew its significance, that he treated his ownership as a privilege and a responsibility. She wasn't even a little surprised. She decided to make her presence known and called his name. He did not answer immediately, but finished working out whatever imperfection it was he was working on, and then looked up. He smiled at her, eyes sparkling.
"I needed to say thank you," Cho started. She had wanted to talk to him do badly but now she didn't know how to say the words.
"Thank you as well," Harry answered.
"How did you do that? I mean, why did you do it? Or maybe I mean how did you know how?" Cho stopped herself. He knew what she meant.
"I had been thinking about it for a long time, since my first match really. When I saw the Championships last year, I started to think how it could really be done. Then there was last year with no Quidditch, and during the summer I didn't think much about Quidditch." Harry went silent. Cho put a hand on his shoulder. They would deal with that another time.
"I watched both of your earlier matches. You trounced Malfoy like he was a child," Harry continued.
"Malfoy is nothing. He's a snatcher, and not a very good one at that."
"Then that Hufflepuff match. I know he thought he was doing something grand, but I know that must have been humiliating. I think I would have just let the Snitch go."
He knew, Cho thought. She had been so incredibly wrong about this one. He saw the real her.
"You were so gracious about it though. You had to have been cringing on the inside, but still you let them have their moment. Everyone was expecting me to do the same thing. I even wondered if I was supposed to do the same thing. I wouldn't have done it the same way though. I would have just asked for a forfeit. I couldn't have done what Brigstock did though. I went on the field expecting to ask for a forfeit, but then I saw the look in your eyes.
"It all came back then. I knew what I was going to do. You are like me. You need to fly. When there is a Snitch in the air, you need to catch it. You're a Seeker. To play Quidditch, to play our Quidditch, two Seekers are needed, real Seekers. What had been missing from my vision was an opponent. Only flying against another true Seeker, could I have put the final pieces together. We created a whole new game last night. We did it together."
"I actually thought you were going to throw the game at the end. I thought you were just giving me the Snitch."
"Cho, you are the very last person to whom I would ever 'give' a Snitch."
Her heart did a somersault. Those words, they sounded cruel, but they were the finest compliment anyone had ever paid her. The words entered her body like shrapnel, and rattled around inside her. Those words eviscerated her. They killed her. It was a painless death. A new Cho immediately took her place. Cho the Passenger was dead. Now and forever she would be Cho the Seeker. She was Cho who made her own Choices. She was Cho who loved Harry Potter.
She encircled him in her arms and pulled him as close to her as she could. She let her body memorize the feel of his as it pressed against her. Then she kissed him, as she wished she had done the night before. This was not a shy, tenuous kiss, this was a full open kiss. This was the kind of kiss she'd only known once or twice before. She want to absorb him, to make him part of her. She did not let go until they were both desperate for air.
"Merlin's Ghost! that was a kiss…" Harry was in shock.
"Of course, it was silly…" She leaned in and kissed him again.
"Why me?" Harry asked when they paused for air.
"Why me?" Cho asked and kissed him again.
"What about Cedric?" There was pain in his voice. Cho could tell he was not going to let this go. They were going to have to deal with this. She would have to heal him as he had healed her. He had seen into her soul, and done it from a distance. Now she would have to do the same for him. She could do so from up close though.
"Cedric is gone Harry. He died too young, but he died a champion and he died a Hufflepuff, with his wand in his hand ready to fight beside another champion. That was how Cedric lived and that was how he died."
"He wasn't supposed to be there. If I hadn't insisted on sharing the trophy with him he would still be alive. I insisted, I am responsible."
"The man who cast the killing curse was responsible, the man who gave the order was responsible. You can't hold yourself responsible for wanting to share the trophy when you thought Cedric earned it. Can't you see, Voldemort is using your own best qualities against you. If you face him again like this he will defeat you, because you will have already done the hard part for him. You can't allow that. It's the last thing you'd want, it's the last thing I'd want, and it's the last thing Cedric would have wanted."
"And would he have wanted this?" The words stung. He instantly regretted having asked the question.
Cho was shocked into silence for a second, but she did not give up. She knew his secret now. She just had to make him spit it out. Once the words were said, he would be able to heal. "That's what this is really about isn't it Harry? That's why you feel so guilty isn't it? Because you wanted this, because you wanted to be here with me, like this?"
If his own words had stung, Cho's words burned. They burned with truth though. "I was jealous of him. If I hadn't been jealous I would have found a way to save him. I don't know how, but I would have found a way. If I were stronger, and braver, and able to see past my own stupid emotions, I could have saved him and you would still be able to kiss him instead of me." The words were out. There were tears in his eyes. She could see the shame in his face. He had told his secret and now she would tell hers.
"I was not in love with Cedric Diggory. I did not want to be his girlfriend. There was nothing between Cedric and myself except friendship. If Cedric were still alive, we would not be together. For almost six months I have been living this lie that everyone has forced on me. What could I do? Who wants to speak ill of the dead? I was grief stricken. He had been my friend. I felt so guilty because I hadn't been in love with him, that I couldn't return his emotions. I was trapped by him in death in a way I never would have been were he alive. How do you break up with someone who's dead?"
"We should thank him actually," Harry had put his arms around her. Gently he wiped the tears from her eyes. "If it had not been for him, we might never have learned how to really play Quidditch." He kissed her this time and she let herself fall into it. The storm had passed.
Some distance away, unseen by either of them, a small red haired figure was watching. Another storm was brewing.
Author's Note: I still need a beta reader, but I'll keep at this as long as I can without one and still produce a readable product. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed (both of you!) and the kind words. I am not writing for the reviews, but they really do help me stay motivated.