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
13. A Run of Bad Luck
Perhaps Cho wasn't the only one waiting and planning for the first day of the new term. The day after the students returned to Hogwarts, a notice was found copied and slipped under the doors of all the dormitories at Ravenclaw House. It listed all seven of Ravenclaw's regular Quidditch players and all seven of the reserves-the same roster as last year. Then, as if to emphasize the point, the following sentence: "Because there are no vacancies on the House team, there will be no tryouts this year."
Cho couldn't believe it. She read and reread the notice, trying to see if she had missed something, or if there had been a trick. Then she realized: there was a trick, and it was being played on her. She dressed as quickly as she could and stormed down to the Great Hall, notice in hand.
When she got there, she saw Madam Hooch just seating herself at the Head Table, in an animated discussion with the ghost of Professor Binns. Cho should have known better and waited for a break in the conversation, but, not standing on ceremony, she strode up to them, threw the letter onto Hooch's plate and said, "Look at this!"
The flight instructor's gold eyes ran over the document. "Begging your pardon, Professor," she muttered to the ghost; then, she grabbed at the letter and left the table, motioning for Cho to follow.
Hooch led Cho to an empty classroom just off of the Great Hall. As soon as she closed the door, she turned on Cho. "That was very rude of you just now. You don't show such disrespect to a teacher, even if he is a ghost. I ought to take points, but you're upset and I can see why ."
"Sorry," muttered Cho, who didn't sound sorry at all, "but what about that?!"
Hooch shook her head. "This is the first I've heard of it. I didn't think they'd try something like this, but-believe me, Cho, I'm sorry-I don't think there's anything you can do about this."
"But," Cho started sputtering, "but you told me, and after last year, I worked so hard."
Hooch held up a hand. "I know, dear, and I'll check this out. But if, in fact, all of the players have returned from last year, there isn't much I can do about that. I can't force anyone to start a second reserve list."
"Can't you take it up with . with SOMEONE!"
"Well, I'm not going to take this to the Headmaster, if that's what you mean. I'm supposed to sort these things out so that he doesn't have to worry about them. I don't have any authority over Culligan and Davies except on the pitch. I could ask Professor Flitwick to talk to them, but, well, I hate to speak ill of a colleague, but he's not exactly forceful. He'd probably go along with whatever they told him."
A look of disbelief crept over Cho's face. This was just impossible.
Hooch put a hand on Cho's shoulder. "Listen to me. Don't do anything rash; just bide your time for now. It's still two months until the first match, and things could well change."
Cho looked skeptical, but nodded her head in agreement.
xxx
Things did change, but not in the way Hooch had anticipated.
Cho didn't do anything in the first week of her Second Year except go to class. Her only new course, Herbology, wasn't hard in any case, since she'd grown up around herbs and magical plants her whole life. There were some plants in the family shop in Diagon Alley that had never been seen in the Hogwarts greenhouses-and vice versa, of course.
In that first week, Cho and her year, along with the Second-Year Slytherins, were repotting mandragora. Cho had been handling this very dangerous and potent plant since she was six years old, and carried out her assignments with practiced ease. It's just as well, since her mind was still on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
It was after dinner on Thursday of the second week that Cho, whose stomach had been out of sorts since her return to school, left the table early and started toward Ravenclaw. Just as she left the Great Hall, however, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Madam Hooch had intercepted her.
All Hooch said was, "Follow me."
They went back to the empty classroom where they had spoken a week earlier. "Cho," Hooch said, with a decidedly embarrassed look on her face, "I wanted to be sure you were all right if you'd already heard the news."
"What news?"
"You haven't heard, then. Well, there's no easy way to say this, but things have changed. They're letting a First-Year play Quidditch: Harry Potter."
For one brief moment, Cho looked angry enough to tear a very large chunk out of the castle wall. But she calmed herself enough to ask, "How did THIS happen?"
"It happened when I wasn't there, I promise you; otherwise, I'd have said something. It was a flying lesson for First-Years from Gryffindor and Slytherin. One of the Gryffindor boys was thrown from a wild broom, and broke his wrist. While I was taking him to the hospital wing, well, something happened. As near as I can make out, there was an argument between Potter and one of the Slytherins. Draco Malfoy, he was; son of a member of the Board of Governors, and a real piece of work by all accounts. He'd stolen something from the boy who was hurt, Harry was trying to get it back, and before anyone notices it, the two of them are chasing each other on brooms. Malfoy tries to destroy the thingie, and Potter rescues it, but Professor McGonagall sees it all. She drags Potter off, and the next thing anyone knows, he, well, I'm so sorry, Cho, he's a Seeker."
A First-Year Seeker, in a school where First-Years weren't allowed to play Quidditch at all. Cho now felt as if that chunk of castle wall was in her stomach. "There must be something we can do now, some way for Ravenclaw to open up the team. It's just so UNFAIR!"
"You're right there," Hooch sighed. "It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for McGonagall. She doesn't just teach Transfiguration; she's Assistant Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House. Seems to me she shouldn't have been allowed to wear two hats at once. Well, that's all one. Please, Cho, sit tight for a few more days and don't do anything rash. I promise to sort it all out."
She may have tried, but nothing changed at Hogwarts. One morning a week later, during the day's mail delivery, a large owl carried in a package whose odd shape proclaimed it a broom despite the wrappings. The owl dropped the parcel on the Gryffindor table, right in front of Harry Potter.
So, Potter the First-Year gets his very own broom, Cho thought. I couldn't get on a team at all in my First-Year, and he gets on. I had to wait until the end of my First-Year to get a broom, and he gets one sent to him, so all the world could see.
But the surprises weren't over. That evening, Cho didn't go in to dinner at all. Her stomach was in as bad a shape as it had been for the past month. She'd never felt anything like this: sharp pain at most times, but mostly a dull unsettledness. She didn't want to take this one to Madam Pomfrey; she was convinced she could figure this one out on her own.
During dinner, she was in the Common Room, looking through shelf after shelf for some sort of pharmacopoeia. She finally found the volume; someone must have set it on top of the day bed, and it had fallen between the day-bed and the wall. When Cho slid the day bed away from the wall, the book slid down to the floor and under the day bed. She was down on her knees behind the day bed when she heard voices. Davies and Culligan.
"Really? You're sure?" Davies asked in disbelief.
"This is Oliver Wood we're talking about. The lad can't keep a secret to save himself from the Dark Lord; he can barely keep water in a bottle. All I had to do was hang about him long enough."
"So Potter's going to be a Seeker, and he's got a Two Thousand."
"It may go no further than that, you know."
"They say he put on quite a show the other day. I'd worry if I were a Seeker."
"Haven't you heard his story, then, boyo?"
"What story?"
"Seems that, after the tyke's run-in with the Dark Lord, Dumbledore was afraid that there might be a few fanatical Death Eaters around wanting to try their hand at Harry Potter. You know, to finish up what their master had started. So Dumbledore hides the babe with some Muggle relatives on his mother's side; complete and total Muggles who didn't know magic and didn't want to know it. Potter only found out he was a wizard this summer."
"Pull the other one!"
"S'truth, and he'd never heard of Quidditch before last week."
"So you think this innate talent of his."
"That's one thing, but actually proving yourself on the pitch is quite another."
Cho listened, fascinated, from her hiding place behind the day bed. She heard them walk toward the steps to their dormitory. Just as they started up, Culligan spoke again: "Makes me wish we had a reserve Seeker, though."
"You don't think Dimsdale can handle it?"
"Only if we play Quidditch on paper; you know that."
"Surely you can handle Potter?"
By now their voices were fading away; Cho caught Culligan saying something like "wait and see." Then they were gone.
This was it; this was all she needed. Hooch had told Cho to wait; this was what she was waiting for. They had admitted, if only to themselves, that Dimsdale was a sham; that Ravenclaw really didn't have a reserve Seeker.
She had a chance.
xxx
The next day was Saturday. Cho was up before six, before the sun. She didn't stop for breakfast; she dressed, grabbed her broom and started toward the stadium. She noticed that her unsettled stomach seemed to get better and better with each step.
The sky was just beginning to lighten when she mounted her broom and took off. In that moment, she realized why her stomach was upset. She'd flown almost daily for a year now, but hadn't touched her broom since the day she got back to Hogwarts. It was the most important part of her life, and she had simply put it on the shelf when the notice came saying that there would be no tryouts.
Cho giddily cursed herself for a fool as she weaved in and out of the goalposts; did she really think that she could just walk away from flying and not feel any consequences? But that was over now. She was back on her Comet 260, which she wouldn't trade for anything, even Harry Potter's top- of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand.
"OY! UP THERE!"
Someone was calling to Cho. She looked down at the base of the goalposts, where she could see the Ravenclaw Quidditch team gathering for practice.
Perfect.
She dropped down, but rather than dismount, she hovered about a foot above their heads.
Roger Davies spoke up: "We've got practice here; clear out."
Cho considered this fort a second, then smiled prettily: "Shan't."
Culligan asked, "And what makes you think you can stop us?"
"Oh, I don't want to stop you using the field. But I'll play you for it."
It was as if she'd lapsed into speaking Chinese; the Ravenclaw team didn't understand what she meant.
"Look, I know that Ravenclaw doesn't really have a reserve Seeker. He's not even here now, is he?" The others didn't even have to look around to know she was right. Since it was all a pretense, Dimsdale hardly ever showed up for practice, and the team didn't care. "Well, I mean to become a Seeker for Ravenclaw, and if playing against the entire side is what it takes to show you I can do it, that's what I'll do."
Davies took a step forward. "You'll only end up getting carried out of here."
"Be that as it may, I'm staying here until you agree to my challenge."
Davies started to speak again, but he turned his head as Culligan cut him: "You're on."
xxx
to be continued in part 14, wherein Cho plays the first Quidditch game of her young life.
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms.
Rated: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
13. A Run of Bad Luck
Perhaps Cho wasn't the only one waiting and planning for the first day of the new term. The day after the students returned to Hogwarts, a notice was found copied and slipped under the doors of all the dormitories at Ravenclaw House. It listed all seven of Ravenclaw's regular Quidditch players and all seven of the reserves-the same roster as last year. Then, as if to emphasize the point, the following sentence: "Because there are no vacancies on the House team, there will be no tryouts this year."
Cho couldn't believe it. She read and reread the notice, trying to see if she had missed something, or if there had been a trick. Then she realized: there was a trick, and it was being played on her. She dressed as quickly as she could and stormed down to the Great Hall, notice in hand.
When she got there, she saw Madam Hooch just seating herself at the Head Table, in an animated discussion with the ghost of Professor Binns. Cho should have known better and waited for a break in the conversation, but, not standing on ceremony, she strode up to them, threw the letter onto Hooch's plate and said, "Look at this!"
The flight instructor's gold eyes ran over the document. "Begging your pardon, Professor," she muttered to the ghost; then, she grabbed at the letter and left the table, motioning for Cho to follow.
Hooch led Cho to an empty classroom just off of the Great Hall. As soon as she closed the door, she turned on Cho. "That was very rude of you just now. You don't show such disrespect to a teacher, even if he is a ghost. I ought to take points, but you're upset and I can see why ."
"Sorry," muttered Cho, who didn't sound sorry at all, "but what about that?!"
Hooch shook her head. "This is the first I've heard of it. I didn't think they'd try something like this, but-believe me, Cho, I'm sorry-I don't think there's anything you can do about this."
"But," Cho started sputtering, "but you told me, and after last year, I worked so hard."
Hooch held up a hand. "I know, dear, and I'll check this out. But if, in fact, all of the players have returned from last year, there isn't much I can do about that. I can't force anyone to start a second reserve list."
"Can't you take it up with . with SOMEONE!"
"Well, I'm not going to take this to the Headmaster, if that's what you mean. I'm supposed to sort these things out so that he doesn't have to worry about them. I don't have any authority over Culligan and Davies except on the pitch. I could ask Professor Flitwick to talk to them, but, well, I hate to speak ill of a colleague, but he's not exactly forceful. He'd probably go along with whatever they told him."
A look of disbelief crept over Cho's face. This was just impossible.
Hooch put a hand on Cho's shoulder. "Listen to me. Don't do anything rash; just bide your time for now. It's still two months until the first match, and things could well change."
Cho looked skeptical, but nodded her head in agreement.
xxx
Things did change, but not in the way Hooch had anticipated.
Cho didn't do anything in the first week of her Second Year except go to class. Her only new course, Herbology, wasn't hard in any case, since she'd grown up around herbs and magical plants her whole life. There were some plants in the family shop in Diagon Alley that had never been seen in the Hogwarts greenhouses-and vice versa, of course.
In that first week, Cho and her year, along with the Second-Year Slytherins, were repotting mandragora. Cho had been handling this very dangerous and potent plant since she was six years old, and carried out her assignments with practiced ease. It's just as well, since her mind was still on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
It was after dinner on Thursday of the second week that Cho, whose stomach had been out of sorts since her return to school, left the table early and started toward Ravenclaw. Just as she left the Great Hall, however, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Madam Hooch had intercepted her.
All Hooch said was, "Follow me."
They went back to the empty classroom where they had spoken a week earlier. "Cho," Hooch said, with a decidedly embarrassed look on her face, "I wanted to be sure you were all right if you'd already heard the news."
"What news?"
"You haven't heard, then. Well, there's no easy way to say this, but things have changed. They're letting a First-Year play Quidditch: Harry Potter."
For one brief moment, Cho looked angry enough to tear a very large chunk out of the castle wall. But she calmed herself enough to ask, "How did THIS happen?"
"It happened when I wasn't there, I promise you; otherwise, I'd have said something. It was a flying lesson for First-Years from Gryffindor and Slytherin. One of the Gryffindor boys was thrown from a wild broom, and broke his wrist. While I was taking him to the hospital wing, well, something happened. As near as I can make out, there was an argument between Potter and one of the Slytherins. Draco Malfoy, he was; son of a member of the Board of Governors, and a real piece of work by all accounts. He'd stolen something from the boy who was hurt, Harry was trying to get it back, and before anyone notices it, the two of them are chasing each other on brooms. Malfoy tries to destroy the thingie, and Potter rescues it, but Professor McGonagall sees it all. She drags Potter off, and the next thing anyone knows, he, well, I'm so sorry, Cho, he's a Seeker."
A First-Year Seeker, in a school where First-Years weren't allowed to play Quidditch at all. Cho now felt as if that chunk of castle wall was in her stomach. "There must be something we can do now, some way for Ravenclaw to open up the team. It's just so UNFAIR!"
"You're right there," Hooch sighed. "It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for McGonagall. She doesn't just teach Transfiguration; she's Assistant Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House. Seems to me she shouldn't have been allowed to wear two hats at once. Well, that's all one. Please, Cho, sit tight for a few more days and don't do anything rash. I promise to sort it all out."
She may have tried, but nothing changed at Hogwarts. One morning a week later, during the day's mail delivery, a large owl carried in a package whose odd shape proclaimed it a broom despite the wrappings. The owl dropped the parcel on the Gryffindor table, right in front of Harry Potter.
So, Potter the First-Year gets his very own broom, Cho thought. I couldn't get on a team at all in my First-Year, and he gets on. I had to wait until the end of my First-Year to get a broom, and he gets one sent to him, so all the world could see.
But the surprises weren't over. That evening, Cho didn't go in to dinner at all. Her stomach was in as bad a shape as it had been for the past month. She'd never felt anything like this: sharp pain at most times, but mostly a dull unsettledness. She didn't want to take this one to Madam Pomfrey; she was convinced she could figure this one out on her own.
During dinner, she was in the Common Room, looking through shelf after shelf for some sort of pharmacopoeia. She finally found the volume; someone must have set it on top of the day bed, and it had fallen between the day-bed and the wall. When Cho slid the day bed away from the wall, the book slid down to the floor and under the day bed. She was down on her knees behind the day bed when she heard voices. Davies and Culligan.
"Really? You're sure?" Davies asked in disbelief.
"This is Oliver Wood we're talking about. The lad can't keep a secret to save himself from the Dark Lord; he can barely keep water in a bottle. All I had to do was hang about him long enough."
"So Potter's going to be a Seeker, and he's got a Two Thousand."
"It may go no further than that, you know."
"They say he put on quite a show the other day. I'd worry if I were a Seeker."
"Haven't you heard his story, then, boyo?"
"What story?"
"Seems that, after the tyke's run-in with the Dark Lord, Dumbledore was afraid that there might be a few fanatical Death Eaters around wanting to try their hand at Harry Potter. You know, to finish up what their master had started. So Dumbledore hides the babe with some Muggle relatives on his mother's side; complete and total Muggles who didn't know magic and didn't want to know it. Potter only found out he was a wizard this summer."
"Pull the other one!"
"S'truth, and he'd never heard of Quidditch before last week."
"So you think this innate talent of his."
"That's one thing, but actually proving yourself on the pitch is quite another."
Cho listened, fascinated, from her hiding place behind the day bed. She heard them walk toward the steps to their dormitory. Just as they started up, Culligan spoke again: "Makes me wish we had a reserve Seeker, though."
"You don't think Dimsdale can handle it?"
"Only if we play Quidditch on paper; you know that."
"Surely you can handle Potter?"
By now their voices were fading away; Cho caught Culligan saying something like "wait and see." Then they were gone.
This was it; this was all she needed. Hooch had told Cho to wait; this was what she was waiting for. They had admitted, if only to themselves, that Dimsdale was a sham; that Ravenclaw really didn't have a reserve Seeker.
She had a chance.
xxx
The next day was Saturday. Cho was up before six, before the sun. She didn't stop for breakfast; she dressed, grabbed her broom and started toward the stadium. She noticed that her unsettled stomach seemed to get better and better with each step.
The sky was just beginning to lighten when she mounted her broom and took off. In that moment, she realized why her stomach was upset. She'd flown almost daily for a year now, but hadn't touched her broom since the day she got back to Hogwarts. It was the most important part of her life, and she had simply put it on the shelf when the notice came saying that there would be no tryouts.
Cho giddily cursed herself for a fool as she weaved in and out of the goalposts; did she really think that she could just walk away from flying and not feel any consequences? But that was over now. She was back on her Comet 260, which she wouldn't trade for anything, even Harry Potter's top- of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand.
"OY! UP THERE!"
Someone was calling to Cho. She looked down at the base of the goalposts, where she could see the Ravenclaw Quidditch team gathering for practice.
Perfect.
She dropped down, but rather than dismount, she hovered about a foot above their heads.
Roger Davies spoke up: "We've got practice here; clear out."
Cho considered this fort a second, then smiled prettily: "Shan't."
Culligan asked, "And what makes you think you can stop us?"
"Oh, I don't want to stop you using the field. But I'll play you for it."
It was as if she'd lapsed into speaking Chinese; the Ravenclaw team didn't understand what she meant.
"Look, I know that Ravenclaw doesn't really have a reserve Seeker. He's not even here now, is he?" The others didn't even have to look around to know she was right. Since it was all a pretense, Dimsdale hardly ever showed up for practice, and the team didn't care. "Well, I mean to become a Seeker for Ravenclaw, and if playing against the entire side is what it takes to show you I can do it, that's what I'll do."
Davies took a step forward. "You'll only end up getting carried out of here."
"Be that as it may, I'm staying here until you agree to my challenge."
Davies started to speak again, but he turned his head as Culligan cut him: "You're on."
xxx
to be continued in part 14, wherein Cho plays the first Quidditch game of her young life.
