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

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12. Her Second Year

It was with a heart as light and free as a released Snitch that Cho Chang made her way toward the barrier at King's Cross on 1 September, 1991. She couldn't imagine how her second year at Hogwarts could possibly be better than her first. No, that was wrong; she could imagine it very clearly. She had spent most of the summer holidays imagining.

First would be the tryout for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. Sometimes she dismissed it as a formality; surely Roger Davies and Macarthur "Mackie" Culligan could see her flying abilities. They'd put her on the Reserve list at the very least, replacing Dimsdale, whose flying was a joke at best. They might even let her play a pushover team like Hufflepuff, just to get her toe in the water. And maybe that was all for this year; Culligan was still Ravenclaw Seeker. But he was Seventh-Year; this would be his last chance. Next year, she'd really shine. Would Marcus Flint and Terrence Higgs still be playing for Slytherin when she was Third-Year? That was her real aim: to show those overbearing bullies and cheaters in Slytherin how the game should really be played. She'd outfly them all, up one side of the stadium and down the other, and with the Snitch in her hand she'd circle the stadium while the crowd shouted out her name-

"CHO! WAKE UP!"

She'd closed her eyes, pushing the luggage cart, and almost ran it into the barrier between platforms 5 and 6. Her face burning Gryffindor crimson, she rushed back to Amanda Lightfoot, who'd called to her.

"Can't have forgotten the way, can you?" she asked in all seriousness.

"Sorry," Cho muttered. "I was thinking about . something else."

"Ah. What's his name, then?"

"It wasn't a boy!" Once she said it, Cho wished she hadn't been so quick to answer; she found the truth more embarrassing. "I was thinking about Quidditch."

Whether or not she believed Cho, Amanda nodded. "Any case, you still look like you need help staying out of trouble."

"I'm fine," Cho insisted. "How was your summer?"

"Deadly," Amanda sighed. "My folks didn't like my Levels at all; I've got to bring up all my O.W.L.s this year. Otherwise, they say I'll never get to intern at St. Mungo's when I leave Hogwarts."

"What would you do instead?"

"I don't like to think about it. Probably something awful in the Ministry having to do with Potion Analysis."

They found an empty compartment and settled in. A minute later, Raina al- Qaba and Libby Foggly joined them. Cho was glad to see the change in Raina. The year before, she had mostly kept nervously to herself, seldom speaking. Now, as if she had never had friends before Hogwarts, she smiled warmly and openly, her olive eyes flashing as she told of cousins who had spent the summer in London, bringing many magical souvenirs from Iran.

They kept talking even as the Hogwarts Express lurched forward and started the long journey north. But they hadn't been out of King's Cross for five minutes before Diana Fairweather, with her cat Pillarbox in her arms, burst breathlessly into the compartment.

"What's all this, then?" Amanda asked.

Diana sat down on a suitcase on the compartment floor. She was as out of breath as a marathon runner. At first, she just kept repeating, "Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh."

Libby had to grab the other girl's shoulders. "Diana, what's wrong?"

Diana took a deep breath. "He's . here. He's . on the train, and he's . here!"

"Who?" the others asked at once.

"Harry Potter!"

The others stared in disbelief. It took a second for Cho to make the connection, but then, her parents had only ever spoken of him as "Ha Li Po Te." And when Cho was very young, her parents spoke of almost nothing but Ha Li Po Te.

Cho remembered just a few nights earlier, she had gotten in some practice in Puddlemere, and had walked into the house while her parents were entertaining Mister and Missus Tan, another prominent Chinese family who had arrived in London about the same time as Cho's parents. Before she went to clean up for dinner, she lingered at the study door.

"We all rather jumped from the frying pan into the fire, as they say," Mr. Tan chuckled. "I mean, if I'd known the Dark Lord was here."

"Even so," Cho's mother spoke up, "it was time to leave. I'd never seen China so unsettled."

"We were all pretty anxious those first few years," Cho's father said. "But then came Ha Li Po Te. Imagine: whole armies fell before the Dark Lord, yet he gets bested by an infant! Practically a babe in arms!"

"Has anyone heard of him after that?" asked Cho's mother.

"The ones who know aren't telling," Mr. Tan said.

And that was the last time Cho had given any thought to The Hero Who Vanquished the Dark Lord. But now to find out that he was somewhere on the Hogwarts Express.!

"Come on, then," Libby nudged Diana. "What's he look like?"

"Oh, um, black hair, that goes every which way. Very green eyes, but he wears glasses so you can't see 'em proper. I thought he was a bit short."

"Who's short?" Giulio Grimaldi and Vincent Krixlow had just opened the compartment door. Vincent was sucking on a Peppermint Fizzgig while Giulio spoke.

"It's." Diana's voice dropped, as if it were somehow wrong to say the name. "Harry Potter."

"Hear that?" Giulio asked Vincent. "Harry Potty's on the train!"

The girls looked shocked; even the Second-Years, who knew what these two jokers were capable of doing. Vincent merely shifted the Fizzgig into one cheek as he said, "Yeh, I seen 'im."

"WHERE?" the girls asked in chorus.

"Two cars down," Vincent shrugged. "He's sitting with a Weasley."

"Percy or the twins?" Amanda asked.

"Neither; another one. First-Year, from the looks."

"Cripes, another one?" Grimaldi blurted out. "That makes four at Hogwarts now!"

"And you never met the older brothers," Amanda added. "Charlie was a wicked Quidditch player, but he decided he'd rather spend time with dragons. Then there's Bill." They all could see a light go on in Amanda's eyes as she recalled him. "A real heartbreaker, that one." After a few seconds reverie, she came back to the compartment. "I understand he works for Gringotts in the Sudan or some such forsaken place."

"And that's not all," Vincent added. "I saw 'em on the platform with a little girl in tow. Figure she'll be here next year."

"We might have to start a fifth House," Amanda said, "just for the Weasleys."

"I'll bet their parents are Animagi," Giulio said.

"What animal?" Amanda asked, before the other girls could stop her.

"Rabbits, of course," Grimaldi replied. "I mean, at least seven kids, somebody's been doing some serious shagging, ain't they?"

Just at that moment, the hag with the snacks car showed up, caught what Giulio was saying, and blushed like a sunset.

xxx

As the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, Cho wished-not for the last time-that it wasn't just First-Years who arrived at the castle by boating across the lake. It was such a marvelous sight last year, when she came up on it for the first time. She thought that the thrill would somehow be diminished by riding in an ordinary carriage.

She needn't have worried. She followed Hagrid's booming voice to the carriages and found that, like the boats, they were rather small, and only held four or five people. She climbed in with most of her mates, including Jan Nugginbridge, who hadn't gotten on the train until Snitter's Run, one stop before Hogsmeade.

"Bit daft, innit," Jan was saying, "fer me ter go all the way ter London jus' ter come all the way back here."

But Cho stopped listening and leaned her head out the carriage window as Hogwarts came into view. Even though the students were only just arriving, every light in the place seemed to be on. It wasn't just a castle; Hogwarts was its own city, a metropolis of magic, and seeing it this way- passing down a rough road and through a gate guarded by statues of two winged boars-was no less impressive than when Cho had seen it from the lake the year before.

It seemed as if they had barely gotten themselves seated at the Ravenclaw table when the First-Years were brought in for the Sorting. Cho's eyes quickly scanned the group of children behind McGonagall, looking to match a face to Diana Fairweather's description. Unruly black hair, glasses, green eyes. But the students were in too tight a knot, and she couldn't see but two or three at a time.

Ravenclaw picked up two of the First-Year students before the Bs were out- Boot and Brocklehurst-but it wasn't until McGonagall called out "Granger", and a girl with frizzy hair and a bit of an overbite stepped up to the hat, that Cho caught a glimpse of him. Was it.

"Jordan, Lee."

Black hair-but black skin, too, and brown eyes. Not Harry. But he looked like dozens of kids she'd seen in the south of London, when she and her mother had gone shopping in Brixton.

"Malfoy, Draco."

She heard Pablo Molina mutter, "Where did they find the ice sculpture?" Indeed, there was something glacial about the platinum-haired boy who approached the Sorting Hat as if he owned it. He clearly wasn't there to make any friends, and Cho breathed a sigh of relief when the Hat announced Malfoy for Slytherin.

Two lovely dark-skinned East Indian girls-identical twins, no less-were Sorted. The first, Padma Patil, went to Ravenclaw. The table cheered loudly-until her sister Parvati was Sorted into Gryffindor. Cho wondered if there might be problems later on as a result. The only other twins she knew at Hogwarts-the Weasleys-were both in Gryffindor.

"Potter, Harry."

Professor McGonagall had tried to say his name as normally as all the others, but she couldn't disguise a bit of a thrill in her voice. Finally, Cho got a look at The Hero of the Wizarding World, and the first thought that ran through her mind was: "That can't be him; he's too cute!"

Indeed, Harry seemed more nervous and self-conscious than any of the others had been. The Sorting Hat went on, and seconds ticked away.

Ravenclaw? Cho thought. Will he be Ravenclaw? Let him be Ravenclaw. That would be such a-

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Cho applauded dutifully, but she could tell that others at the Ravenclaw table felt what she was feeling: disappointment that Harry Potter wasn't going to be in Ravenclaw.

xxx

continued in part 13, wherein things just seem to get worse and worse for Cho Chang.