OR DIE TRYING: THE STORY OF CHO CHANG
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms.
Rated: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
6. A Lesson and a Fight
The next day, Cho and the other Ravenclaw First-Years went in a bunch to their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It was in a part of the castle where the upperclassmen warned them not to go alone.
"What's the problem; is it haunted?" That was Diana Fairweather, who despite her name was the most pessimistic girl Cho had ever met. To hear her tell it, nothing would ever go right again in the history of the world. It was Thursday night, they were all in the Common Room talking about their Dark Arts class the next day.
"In a manner of speaking," Penny Clearwater said, curled up in an armchair in front of the Common Room fire. "You're near Filch's office. So, unless you want to tangle with him or Mrs. Norris."
"We travel in packs, and the predators might get confused," Vincent Krixlow picked up the thought. "Of course, they could just end up thinning the herd of those too weak to go on."
"And who exactly is supposed to be thinned out, Vincent?" Letitia asked.
"Well, not Cho, of course; we may have to hitch a ride on her broom."
Word of Hooch's praise for Cho got around the First-Years just after Cho sent Quan Yin back to Diagon Alley with the letter to her parents. Davies and the team, however, seemed to be avoiding her.
"Don' rightly know what they're afeared of," Jan said. "Not like yeh could play this year ennyway."
"I think our Co-Captain Davies likes things just as they've been for decades." This was Lizabeth (Libby) Foggly, who made no secret of her interest in Defense Against the Dark Arts. She intended to major in it later on. "But he can't hang onto the past forever, can he, Cho? Somebody's got to turn the tide."
"I just never expected it to be me. I want to play Quidditch; I didn't think I'd have tp move the world to do it."
"Not the world, Cho; just our little corner of it." Penny closed her book and stretched like a cat. "Pardon my manners, but I've got to read two more chapters by tomorrow and I can't look at another rune. I'm going to nap for an hour or two and pick it up later." She pointed toward a day-bed upholstered in worn dark-green velvet.
"Do you need us to go upstairs, then?" Letitia asked.
"No need. That's another Ravenclaw tradition you'll find out about. If you've got a lot of reading to do, it's more comfortable to do it here in the Common Room. You can sleep in the chairs or sofas if you like. Not as comfortable as a bed, but good enough, and the others'll leave you in peace."
"But isn't it ." Everyone turned; this was the first time Raisa had spoken up outside of class this week. She had a nervous voice, which grew quieter and more nervous with the room's attention on her. "I mean, what if someone decided to go through your pockets while you slept, or . or some boy decided he wanted to ." She looked down at her lap, where she was wringing her hands.
"You're probably safer here than in your dormitory. You see that picture?" Penny was pointing to a painting of a ruined castle on a hillside. It was one of the few landscapes they'd seen on a Hogwarts wall. "Somehow or other, the Grey Lady lives in that painting. She's connected to it, at any rate. Nothing nasty has ever happened in this room in my memory, but I was told that, if something did happen, she'd be here at once with the other ghosts-and worse. Or so I've been told."
"Load o' rubbish." That was Gurney Ingletor, whose family lived just outside of Dover. "Ghost can't touch you or anythin' anyway. How they goin' to stop you?"
"They don't have to touch you," Libby said. "I've read of cases where ghosts have messed about with people's senses. Let's say that you're there, and I'm sitting here."
"Where are we? What about your audience?" Vincent asked.
"The point I want to make is this: You think you can, let's say, pull out your wand and put a Curse on me. A ghost can't tackle you or pull the wand out of your hand, but they can affect the way you see. Maybe you'll see me five feet to the left of where I really am, or you'll see that the room is a mile long."
"Well, I'd notice something is different, wouldn't I?"
"Not necessarily. Hardly anyone challenges the evidence of their own senses. It takes someone with very firm control..."
Cho looked over at the day-bed; Penny was sound asleep. She smiled as she listened to Libby and Vincent going back-and-forth on ghosts. She was an only child, and had often wondered what it would be like to have brothers and sisters. Now it seemed that she'd just picked up eleven of them her own age, and then there were the older ones.
This really IS a family, she said to herself.
xxx
In spite of the dire predictions, they arrived in one piece at their Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
They found themselves in a dungeon cell. Apart from the occasional torch or taper, whatever light there was in the room came through very narrow windows, only a couple of inches high, set along one wall.
"The Prof's not here yet," Vincent said. "Hey, Gurney, give us an alley- oop."
"What?"
"Boost me up to that window; I wanna see where we are."
Cho didn't particularly care about all that, and took a seat next to Libby.
Vincent, meanwhile, was hanging by his fingertips and trying to look through the window. "No good; can't see nothing but grass. Although that may be the stadium."
"He's coming!" Letitia said by the door. "Get down!" Vincent dropped to the floor just in time as Professor Quirrell walked into the classroom.
He wasn't as tall or as imposing as many of the students had secretly feared. He seemed rather young to be a Professor; as if he hadn't been out of college very long. His face was as pale as candle-wax, and seemed even paler due to the purple turban that he wore.
"Welcome, c-c-class." Professor Quirrell had a stammer, as well as an eye which twitched at odd intervals. Cho realised that she couldn't let herself get distracted by all of that if she wanted to concentrate.
"I d-don't know what s-s-silly rumours you may have heard, b-but even though this class deals with the D-Dark Arts, you won't be learning any of them here. N-No, the t-t-trick here is to learn to d-d-defend yourself against them, w-w-which has to start at the m-most b-b-basic level.
"Miss, er al-Q-Qaida: can one b-be b-b-born without magic, then g-get it later in life?"
"No, sir." Her voice was very soft, but carried through the whole room. "If you can do magic late in life but not early, we assume it was always there."
"Well done, R-R-Ravenclaw. Miss Ch-Ch-Chang, on p-p-p-page f-f-forty- eight, Trimble says that the D-D-Dark Arts can be used by M-M-Muggles more easily than proper magic; t-true or f-f-false?"
She'd learned her lesson from Snape's class; no showing-off. Well, maybe a little. "That's false, sir. Trimble says it's more common for Muggles to use the Dark Arts, but that's only because they offer more of a temptation."
"A p-p-perfect answer!" Quirrell was smiling; the students in the front row were not.
xxx
"Got to bring an umbrella next time," Vincent joked as they returned after class.
"Yeh," picked up Giulio Grimaldi. "Expect intermittent showers every Friday afternoon."
"That's cruel," Jan snapped at them. "Poor thing can' help it."
"How come nobody warned us about that stammer?" asked George George Millethammer.
"He wasn't always like that," Cho replied. "Penny Clearwater told me that he was fine until he took last year off. Wanted to go to Transylvania, Albania, some of those places to do some research. When he came back, he was like that."
"I feel sorry for him," Letitia said. "What do you suppose did that to him?"
"Nothin' I wants ter meet," Jan said. "Hey, Cho, yeh wants ter werk on tha' essay together? Yeh kin read Trimble, I'll read Quaffling, and we can match 'em up."
"That sounds good. Let's meet Sunday after lunch in the library."
Grimaldi crossed his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelids. "Ah, the term's first romance."
Whatever else he was going to say was lost when Jan turned on him, grabbed the knot of his tie and pushed him violently against the wall of the corridor.
"Yeh wants ter repeat that?" she said in a low growl. "My fist di'nt quite hear yeh." She waved that fist an inch from Grimaldi's nose for emphasis.
"Jan! Stop that!"
"But we all heard him, Cho."
"That's no excuse, I'm afraid," came a deep, somewhat hollow voice behind them. They turned; it was the ghost known as the Fat Friar. Usually he was always smiling, but not now. "Surely, no words are sufficient to provoke such violence."
"Yeh ain't heard these words, then."
"Jan, he'll tell Flitwick!"
"Flitwick, did you say?" the ghost asked. "Then you would be from Ravenclaw House. I would only be obliged to report this to the Gray Lady. But she surely would tell Professor Flitwick."
Jan, while still glowering at Grimaldi, let go of him. She turned and strode quickly toward Ravenclaw, the others following.
"You got off easy, Nugginbridge," Grimaldi shouted after her.
"Too right," agreed Vincent; "one more minute and she would have been all worn out from polishing the floor with your face."
Cho had rushed to catch up with Jan, and walk fast to keep up with her. "What was that all about?" she asked in a whisper.
"Shouldn't joke 'bout things like that," she muttered, almost to herself.
"Like what?"
"Like bein' bloody unnatural!" Jan picked up her speed to get back to Ravenclaw.
Cho didn't know if this would be a problem later on. She wasn't interested in girls-or boys, for that matter. But Jan was her first real friend at Hogwarts, and she didn't want this to turn into the start of a larger problem. Still, she had to chuckle to herself. Yesterday I thought we were a family; I guess this just proves it.
The others were catching up to her. Never mind, Cho said to herself; nothing may come of it after all. There are more important things-like dinner, and homework, and the first lesson with Madam Hooch tomorrow.
xxx
to be continued in part 7, wherein Roger Davies and some other Ravenclaws talk about girls in general, and Cho in particular, playing Quidditch
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms.
Rated: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
6. A Lesson and a Fight
The next day, Cho and the other Ravenclaw First-Years went in a bunch to their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It was in a part of the castle where the upperclassmen warned them not to go alone.
"What's the problem; is it haunted?" That was Diana Fairweather, who despite her name was the most pessimistic girl Cho had ever met. To hear her tell it, nothing would ever go right again in the history of the world. It was Thursday night, they were all in the Common Room talking about their Dark Arts class the next day.
"In a manner of speaking," Penny Clearwater said, curled up in an armchair in front of the Common Room fire. "You're near Filch's office. So, unless you want to tangle with him or Mrs. Norris."
"We travel in packs, and the predators might get confused," Vincent Krixlow picked up the thought. "Of course, they could just end up thinning the herd of those too weak to go on."
"And who exactly is supposed to be thinned out, Vincent?" Letitia asked.
"Well, not Cho, of course; we may have to hitch a ride on her broom."
Word of Hooch's praise for Cho got around the First-Years just after Cho sent Quan Yin back to Diagon Alley with the letter to her parents. Davies and the team, however, seemed to be avoiding her.
"Don' rightly know what they're afeared of," Jan said. "Not like yeh could play this year ennyway."
"I think our Co-Captain Davies likes things just as they've been for decades." This was Lizabeth (Libby) Foggly, who made no secret of her interest in Defense Against the Dark Arts. She intended to major in it later on. "But he can't hang onto the past forever, can he, Cho? Somebody's got to turn the tide."
"I just never expected it to be me. I want to play Quidditch; I didn't think I'd have tp move the world to do it."
"Not the world, Cho; just our little corner of it." Penny closed her book and stretched like a cat. "Pardon my manners, but I've got to read two more chapters by tomorrow and I can't look at another rune. I'm going to nap for an hour or two and pick it up later." She pointed toward a day-bed upholstered in worn dark-green velvet.
"Do you need us to go upstairs, then?" Letitia asked.
"No need. That's another Ravenclaw tradition you'll find out about. If you've got a lot of reading to do, it's more comfortable to do it here in the Common Room. You can sleep in the chairs or sofas if you like. Not as comfortable as a bed, but good enough, and the others'll leave you in peace."
"But isn't it ." Everyone turned; this was the first time Raisa had spoken up outside of class this week. She had a nervous voice, which grew quieter and more nervous with the room's attention on her. "I mean, what if someone decided to go through your pockets while you slept, or . or some boy decided he wanted to ." She looked down at her lap, where she was wringing her hands.
"You're probably safer here than in your dormitory. You see that picture?" Penny was pointing to a painting of a ruined castle on a hillside. It was one of the few landscapes they'd seen on a Hogwarts wall. "Somehow or other, the Grey Lady lives in that painting. She's connected to it, at any rate. Nothing nasty has ever happened in this room in my memory, but I was told that, if something did happen, she'd be here at once with the other ghosts-and worse. Or so I've been told."
"Load o' rubbish." That was Gurney Ingletor, whose family lived just outside of Dover. "Ghost can't touch you or anythin' anyway. How they goin' to stop you?"
"They don't have to touch you," Libby said. "I've read of cases where ghosts have messed about with people's senses. Let's say that you're there, and I'm sitting here."
"Where are we? What about your audience?" Vincent asked.
"The point I want to make is this: You think you can, let's say, pull out your wand and put a Curse on me. A ghost can't tackle you or pull the wand out of your hand, but they can affect the way you see. Maybe you'll see me five feet to the left of where I really am, or you'll see that the room is a mile long."
"Well, I'd notice something is different, wouldn't I?"
"Not necessarily. Hardly anyone challenges the evidence of their own senses. It takes someone with very firm control..."
Cho looked over at the day-bed; Penny was sound asleep. She smiled as she listened to Libby and Vincent going back-and-forth on ghosts. She was an only child, and had often wondered what it would be like to have brothers and sisters. Now it seemed that she'd just picked up eleven of them her own age, and then there were the older ones.
This really IS a family, she said to herself.
xxx
In spite of the dire predictions, they arrived in one piece at their Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
They found themselves in a dungeon cell. Apart from the occasional torch or taper, whatever light there was in the room came through very narrow windows, only a couple of inches high, set along one wall.
"The Prof's not here yet," Vincent said. "Hey, Gurney, give us an alley- oop."
"What?"
"Boost me up to that window; I wanna see where we are."
Cho didn't particularly care about all that, and took a seat next to Libby.
Vincent, meanwhile, was hanging by his fingertips and trying to look through the window. "No good; can't see nothing but grass. Although that may be the stadium."
"He's coming!" Letitia said by the door. "Get down!" Vincent dropped to the floor just in time as Professor Quirrell walked into the classroom.
He wasn't as tall or as imposing as many of the students had secretly feared. He seemed rather young to be a Professor; as if he hadn't been out of college very long. His face was as pale as candle-wax, and seemed even paler due to the purple turban that he wore.
"Welcome, c-c-class." Professor Quirrell had a stammer, as well as an eye which twitched at odd intervals. Cho realised that she couldn't let herself get distracted by all of that if she wanted to concentrate.
"I d-don't know what s-s-silly rumours you may have heard, b-but even though this class deals with the D-Dark Arts, you won't be learning any of them here. N-No, the t-t-trick here is to learn to d-d-defend yourself against them, w-w-which has to start at the m-most b-b-basic level.
"Miss, er al-Q-Qaida: can one b-be b-b-born without magic, then g-get it later in life?"
"No, sir." Her voice was very soft, but carried through the whole room. "If you can do magic late in life but not early, we assume it was always there."
"Well done, R-R-Ravenclaw. Miss Ch-Ch-Chang, on p-p-p-page f-f-forty- eight, Trimble says that the D-D-Dark Arts can be used by M-M-Muggles more easily than proper magic; t-true or f-f-false?"
She'd learned her lesson from Snape's class; no showing-off. Well, maybe a little. "That's false, sir. Trimble says it's more common for Muggles to use the Dark Arts, but that's only because they offer more of a temptation."
"A p-p-perfect answer!" Quirrell was smiling; the students in the front row were not.
xxx
"Got to bring an umbrella next time," Vincent joked as they returned after class.
"Yeh," picked up Giulio Grimaldi. "Expect intermittent showers every Friday afternoon."
"That's cruel," Jan snapped at them. "Poor thing can' help it."
"How come nobody warned us about that stammer?" asked George George Millethammer.
"He wasn't always like that," Cho replied. "Penny Clearwater told me that he was fine until he took last year off. Wanted to go to Transylvania, Albania, some of those places to do some research. When he came back, he was like that."
"I feel sorry for him," Letitia said. "What do you suppose did that to him?"
"Nothin' I wants ter meet," Jan said. "Hey, Cho, yeh wants ter werk on tha' essay together? Yeh kin read Trimble, I'll read Quaffling, and we can match 'em up."
"That sounds good. Let's meet Sunday after lunch in the library."
Grimaldi crossed his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelids. "Ah, the term's first romance."
Whatever else he was going to say was lost when Jan turned on him, grabbed the knot of his tie and pushed him violently against the wall of the corridor.
"Yeh wants ter repeat that?" she said in a low growl. "My fist di'nt quite hear yeh." She waved that fist an inch from Grimaldi's nose for emphasis.
"Jan! Stop that!"
"But we all heard him, Cho."
"That's no excuse, I'm afraid," came a deep, somewhat hollow voice behind them. They turned; it was the ghost known as the Fat Friar. Usually he was always smiling, but not now. "Surely, no words are sufficient to provoke such violence."
"Yeh ain't heard these words, then."
"Jan, he'll tell Flitwick!"
"Flitwick, did you say?" the ghost asked. "Then you would be from Ravenclaw House. I would only be obliged to report this to the Gray Lady. But she surely would tell Professor Flitwick."
Jan, while still glowering at Grimaldi, let go of him. She turned and strode quickly toward Ravenclaw, the others following.
"You got off easy, Nugginbridge," Grimaldi shouted after her.
"Too right," agreed Vincent; "one more minute and she would have been all worn out from polishing the floor with your face."
Cho had rushed to catch up with Jan, and walk fast to keep up with her. "What was that all about?" she asked in a whisper.
"Shouldn't joke 'bout things like that," she muttered, almost to herself.
"Like what?"
"Like bein' bloody unnatural!" Jan picked up her speed to get back to Ravenclaw.
Cho didn't know if this would be a problem later on. She wasn't interested in girls-or boys, for that matter. But Jan was her first real friend at Hogwarts, and she didn't want this to turn into the start of a larger problem. Still, she had to chuckle to herself. Yesterday I thought we were a family; I guess this just proves it.
The others were catching up to her. Never mind, Cho said to herself; nothing may come of it after all. There are more important things-like dinner, and homework, and the first lesson with Madam Hooch tomorrow.
xxx
to be continued in part 7, wherein Roger Davies and some other Ravenclaws talk about girls in general, and Cho in particular, playing Quidditch
