OR DIE TRYING: THE STORY OF CHO CHANG
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over Hogwarts that Harry isn't aware of.
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
27. Fair
Friday night, Cho Chang sat on the edge of her bed, serenely brushing her hair, black and shiny as polished onyx. She looked through the dormitory window at the snow, which had started heavily falling that morning and had yet to let up, without giving it a serious thought.
Of course there'll be a Quidditch match tomorrow, she thought. A little thing like snow doesn't stop a real player. It wasn't just Bludgers and the occasional Curse that earned "Dangerous" Dai Llewellyn his nickname; nor was it the stunts he pulled, flying too close to the stands or the ground or other players, closer than a sane wizard would dare. He also must have flirted with frostbite a dozen times in his career. If that one mediwitch, at that match in Oslo, hadn't spelled his feet from the ground with a Warming Charm, with his boots soaked with slush and turning to ice and the wind well below zero-well, he could have lost some toes to frostbite, but he didn't. He knew the risks of the game, and kept on playing.
Cho tried to keep a surface as still as a pond on a windless summer day as she turned down the covers and prepared to go to sleep. Inside, however, she was jumping in six different directions. Tomorrow, Saturday 19 December, 1992 was almost here. Ravenclaw would play Hufflepuff and Cho Chang would finally, FINALLY, rise up off the bench to take her place in the air as the Ravenclaw Seeker. Finally.
xxx
Cho was awake just before sunrise. She dressed herself in something warm but not confining; her favorite pair of knockabout trousers and a bronze- coloured turtleneck sweater. As part of her ritual on game day, she spelled her hair up and out of the way; she filed her nails down to almost nothing.
By this time the sun was up-except nobody could see it. The snow was still falling, giving a look of bright fog to the sky. Surely Hagrid's taken care of it, she thought as she prepared to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
Except that, in the Common Room waiting for her, sat the rest of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
And Madam Hooch.
The instructor took a few steps toward Cho, who had frozen on the bottom step. "Cho, they asked me, the team, that is, asked me to tell you . . ."
"Is something wrong? My parents-are they all right?"
"It's not about them. It's about . . . the match."
Even though Cho's brain felt as if it had locked up and stopped working, her head started to shake, and her lips already half-formed the word "no".
"The drifts are just impossible. It's been twenty-four hours of snow with no let-up. Madam Sprout can't even get to the greenhouses."
"No," the word finally escaped Cho's lips. "No, there's going to be a match, there has to be . . ."
"Wait!" Hooch had actually had to grasp Cho by the shoulders. The instructor's eyes, golden like a hawk's, locked onto those of the Seeker. "There's another reason. Last night, there was another attack. Two victims. A Hufflepuff student, and one of the ghosts: Nearly Headless Nick. Both frozen into statues. So the faculty decided that it wasn't a good time to . . ." Her voice trailed off helplessly.
Cho wrenched herself free of Madam Hooch's grasp and ran out into the corridor. She ran without thinking until she came to the Great Hall. Nobody else was there. She was no longer even sure why she was there. She walked over to the Ravenclaw table and slumped onto the bench. As soon as she did, a golden plate appeared on the table, courtesy of the house-elves.
Cho picked up the plate with both hands, raised it above her head and, making a sound somewhere between a groan and a snarl, threw it across the room. She immediately collapsed, crying into her arms, which were folded on the table. She cried there for five minutes, and during that time only spoke once.
"It's not fair," she sobbed into the table. "Damn it, it's not fair!"
When she had cried herself out, Cho realized that she was in the Great Hall, and hoped that she hadn't acted an utter fool in front of too many people. The only thing worse than missing her debut as Ravenclaw Seeker would be missing it, and making a spectacle of herself in the process. She raised her head, and saw that there was only one other person there, watching her from the other side of the Ravenclaw table.
The Grey Lady.
The ghost sat on the bench, back as stiff as a chair's, her hands folded demurely on her lap, and looked at Cho with a kind of sorrowful compassion.
Cho, her own eyes still red from crying, looked at the Ravenclaw ghost for a moment as if at a stranger. After all, since her first day at Hogwarts, Cho had only seen the Grey Lady a handful of times.
But at that moment, Cho couldn't be bothered with how she looked to the Grey Lady. "Well, what would you call it? It's not fair, is it? I mean, I worked for years-YEARS-to be a Seeker, and when I finally get the chance, they take it away because of . . ."
Cho finally stopped and remembered why the match had been canceled, and to whom she was complaining. She blushed profoundly, and even had a momentary impulse to bow to the Grey Lady. Instead, she cleared her throat. "Forgive me, ma'am; that was very rude of me. I'm sure you're worried about Nearly Head-sorry, about Sir Nicholas."
The Grey Lady sat there, saying nothing.
"It must be awful. I mean, nothing is supposed to be able to harm a ghost, and now this. It's like my mum says, I guess: 'If you think you have trouble, just go next door and listen to them.'"
The Grey Lady said nothing.
"Sometimes I think she's Hexed me-my mum, I mean. She never wanted me to play Quidditch, and so far I haven't. Not a real match, I mean; just practice. Today was supposed to me the day. Finally, finally, today I'd have a match. And what happens? A blizzard AND a monster. Doesn't it sound like a Hex to you?"
Cho stood and started pacing back and forth, a bitter smile on her face. The Grey Lady said nothing.
"Can I tell you the worst part? I hate my mum for trying to keep me off Quidditch, and then I hate myself for hating mum. It's just-I go round and round between the two, and I can't seem to stop."
Cho sat down again at the Ravenclaw table.
"Is this what is was like for you-growing up, I mean; not the monster and all the rest of it. It feels as if I don't know about anything anymore. That's how it seems, anyway. I wasn't like this a year or two ago; I know I wasn't. Things were . . . simpler, and I was simpler."
If she understood Cho, the Grey Lady didn't give any indication.
"Mum would say it's my fault; no, that's not quite what I mean. In Divination, when we're using the I Ching, she taught me that, if you don't like the answer you get, maybe it's because of the way you asked the question. Change your question to change the answer. I can't believe it's supposed to be just that simple."
Still the ghost said nothing, but seemed to be looking searchingly at Cho.
"I don't know why," Cho finally said, "but I really think that you know the answers. I really think that you can help me-more than the Prefects, more than my parents. You've been here such a long time, you must know such a great deal. Not just about magic and Hogwarts; about me, or girls like me. You see, I . . . I don't want to tell this to anyone else, but sometimes I just don't know which way to turn. So many new and strange things are happening, and I'm supposed to be able to handle them all. But what if I can't handle them all; I'm afraid to show that. My parents expect so much of me, and I guess I expect so much of myself . . ."
The Grey Lady reached out one ghostly hand toward Cho's. No sooner did the hand pass through Cho's hand than Cho yawned mightily.
"Sorry," she said, "don't know what came over me just now. I guess I didn't sleep too soundly last night . . ."
Again the Grey Lady reached out toward Cho. This time, as the hand brushed the side of Cho's face without touching it, Cho's eyelids fell. She leaned forward until her head was again resting on her arms, although this time in a deep sleep.
She was out for about five minutes. It took the sound of someone knocking on the table next to her head to bring her awake again. Cho looked up, and this time saw Roger Davies. Earlier she had seen him wearing his Quidditch robes in the Common Room; now, he had a black winter cloak over those robes. Snow was still melting off of his shoulders.
"Are you all right, then?" he asked.
Cho wiped her eyes. "I, well, I think so. I was just dreaming about, something; now I've forgotten. Where have you been?"
"Making a killing," he smiled as he tossed a leather money pouch onto the table. It landed with a heavy jingle. "Are you going home for the hols?"
"No. That is, I told my parents that I would if there was another attack."
"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to take your chances with the rest of us. When the school found out this morning about last night's attacks, there was a stampede. Everyone who didn't have a seat on the Express beat a path to the ticket office, even through four feet of snow. I doubt Hagrid could have cleared that path quicker. The upshot is, there isn't a seat left on Monday's train."
"Did you get a ticket?"
"Of course; weeks ago. I just came in from selling mine to some luckless Hufflepuff who was at the end of the line when they announced the sellout. Got back more than I paid for it."
"That's cruel; taking advantage of someone's distress to make a profit."
"First of all, it wasn't exactly a profit. I overspent myself on the last Hogsmeade trip, so all this did was put me back to where I was supposed to be. Second, it was simple economics: I had something he wanted, and he paid what he was willing to pay. Lastly, it's not as if I make a habit of it. This is a one-in-a-million opportunity."
"Very clever," Cho said, with a bit of disapproval still in her voice. "I suppose that's why you were Sorted into Ravenclaw."
"You make it sound like something bad," Roger said, looking concerned. "Look, if I knew you still needed a ticket, I would have given it to you for nothing."
"That's, I, thank you." Cho found she was blushing, and didn't know why. She hurriedly stood up and almost ran from the Great Hall. She didn't stop until she was back in the Ravenclaw Common Room.
She looked around the room; shelves full of hundreds of books, and, as far as she could tell, none of them were any help at all. But if you couldn't find the answer to your most important questions in books, what's the point of being a Ravenclaw?
xxx
to be continued in part 28, wherein Cho and Roger spend a New Year's Eve together talking about life, Quidditch and other things . . .
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over Hogwarts that Harry isn't aware of.
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
27. Fair
Friday night, Cho Chang sat on the edge of her bed, serenely brushing her hair, black and shiny as polished onyx. She looked through the dormitory window at the snow, which had started heavily falling that morning and had yet to let up, without giving it a serious thought.
Of course there'll be a Quidditch match tomorrow, she thought. A little thing like snow doesn't stop a real player. It wasn't just Bludgers and the occasional Curse that earned "Dangerous" Dai Llewellyn his nickname; nor was it the stunts he pulled, flying too close to the stands or the ground or other players, closer than a sane wizard would dare. He also must have flirted with frostbite a dozen times in his career. If that one mediwitch, at that match in Oslo, hadn't spelled his feet from the ground with a Warming Charm, with his boots soaked with slush and turning to ice and the wind well below zero-well, he could have lost some toes to frostbite, but he didn't. He knew the risks of the game, and kept on playing.
Cho tried to keep a surface as still as a pond on a windless summer day as she turned down the covers and prepared to go to sleep. Inside, however, she was jumping in six different directions. Tomorrow, Saturday 19 December, 1992 was almost here. Ravenclaw would play Hufflepuff and Cho Chang would finally, FINALLY, rise up off the bench to take her place in the air as the Ravenclaw Seeker. Finally.
xxx
Cho was awake just before sunrise. She dressed herself in something warm but not confining; her favorite pair of knockabout trousers and a bronze- coloured turtleneck sweater. As part of her ritual on game day, she spelled her hair up and out of the way; she filed her nails down to almost nothing.
By this time the sun was up-except nobody could see it. The snow was still falling, giving a look of bright fog to the sky. Surely Hagrid's taken care of it, she thought as she prepared to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
Except that, in the Common Room waiting for her, sat the rest of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
And Madam Hooch.
The instructor took a few steps toward Cho, who had frozen on the bottom step. "Cho, they asked me, the team, that is, asked me to tell you . . ."
"Is something wrong? My parents-are they all right?"
"It's not about them. It's about . . . the match."
Even though Cho's brain felt as if it had locked up and stopped working, her head started to shake, and her lips already half-formed the word "no".
"The drifts are just impossible. It's been twenty-four hours of snow with no let-up. Madam Sprout can't even get to the greenhouses."
"No," the word finally escaped Cho's lips. "No, there's going to be a match, there has to be . . ."
"Wait!" Hooch had actually had to grasp Cho by the shoulders. The instructor's eyes, golden like a hawk's, locked onto those of the Seeker. "There's another reason. Last night, there was another attack. Two victims. A Hufflepuff student, and one of the ghosts: Nearly Headless Nick. Both frozen into statues. So the faculty decided that it wasn't a good time to . . ." Her voice trailed off helplessly.
Cho wrenched herself free of Madam Hooch's grasp and ran out into the corridor. She ran without thinking until she came to the Great Hall. Nobody else was there. She was no longer even sure why she was there. She walked over to the Ravenclaw table and slumped onto the bench. As soon as she did, a golden plate appeared on the table, courtesy of the house-elves.
Cho picked up the plate with both hands, raised it above her head and, making a sound somewhere between a groan and a snarl, threw it across the room. She immediately collapsed, crying into her arms, which were folded on the table. She cried there for five minutes, and during that time only spoke once.
"It's not fair," she sobbed into the table. "Damn it, it's not fair!"
When she had cried herself out, Cho realized that she was in the Great Hall, and hoped that she hadn't acted an utter fool in front of too many people. The only thing worse than missing her debut as Ravenclaw Seeker would be missing it, and making a spectacle of herself in the process. She raised her head, and saw that there was only one other person there, watching her from the other side of the Ravenclaw table.
The Grey Lady.
The ghost sat on the bench, back as stiff as a chair's, her hands folded demurely on her lap, and looked at Cho with a kind of sorrowful compassion.
Cho, her own eyes still red from crying, looked at the Ravenclaw ghost for a moment as if at a stranger. After all, since her first day at Hogwarts, Cho had only seen the Grey Lady a handful of times.
But at that moment, Cho couldn't be bothered with how she looked to the Grey Lady. "Well, what would you call it? It's not fair, is it? I mean, I worked for years-YEARS-to be a Seeker, and when I finally get the chance, they take it away because of . . ."
Cho finally stopped and remembered why the match had been canceled, and to whom she was complaining. She blushed profoundly, and even had a momentary impulse to bow to the Grey Lady. Instead, she cleared her throat. "Forgive me, ma'am; that was very rude of me. I'm sure you're worried about Nearly Head-sorry, about Sir Nicholas."
The Grey Lady sat there, saying nothing.
"It must be awful. I mean, nothing is supposed to be able to harm a ghost, and now this. It's like my mum says, I guess: 'If you think you have trouble, just go next door and listen to them.'"
The Grey Lady said nothing.
"Sometimes I think she's Hexed me-my mum, I mean. She never wanted me to play Quidditch, and so far I haven't. Not a real match, I mean; just practice. Today was supposed to me the day. Finally, finally, today I'd have a match. And what happens? A blizzard AND a monster. Doesn't it sound like a Hex to you?"
Cho stood and started pacing back and forth, a bitter smile on her face. The Grey Lady said nothing.
"Can I tell you the worst part? I hate my mum for trying to keep me off Quidditch, and then I hate myself for hating mum. It's just-I go round and round between the two, and I can't seem to stop."
Cho sat down again at the Ravenclaw table.
"Is this what is was like for you-growing up, I mean; not the monster and all the rest of it. It feels as if I don't know about anything anymore. That's how it seems, anyway. I wasn't like this a year or two ago; I know I wasn't. Things were . . . simpler, and I was simpler."
If she understood Cho, the Grey Lady didn't give any indication.
"Mum would say it's my fault; no, that's not quite what I mean. In Divination, when we're using the I Ching, she taught me that, if you don't like the answer you get, maybe it's because of the way you asked the question. Change your question to change the answer. I can't believe it's supposed to be just that simple."
Still the ghost said nothing, but seemed to be looking searchingly at Cho.
"I don't know why," Cho finally said, "but I really think that you know the answers. I really think that you can help me-more than the Prefects, more than my parents. You've been here such a long time, you must know such a great deal. Not just about magic and Hogwarts; about me, or girls like me. You see, I . . . I don't want to tell this to anyone else, but sometimes I just don't know which way to turn. So many new and strange things are happening, and I'm supposed to be able to handle them all. But what if I can't handle them all; I'm afraid to show that. My parents expect so much of me, and I guess I expect so much of myself . . ."
The Grey Lady reached out one ghostly hand toward Cho's. No sooner did the hand pass through Cho's hand than Cho yawned mightily.
"Sorry," she said, "don't know what came over me just now. I guess I didn't sleep too soundly last night . . ."
Again the Grey Lady reached out toward Cho. This time, as the hand brushed the side of Cho's face without touching it, Cho's eyelids fell. She leaned forward until her head was again resting on her arms, although this time in a deep sleep.
She was out for about five minutes. It took the sound of someone knocking on the table next to her head to bring her awake again. Cho looked up, and this time saw Roger Davies. Earlier she had seen him wearing his Quidditch robes in the Common Room; now, he had a black winter cloak over those robes. Snow was still melting off of his shoulders.
"Are you all right, then?" he asked.
Cho wiped her eyes. "I, well, I think so. I was just dreaming about, something; now I've forgotten. Where have you been?"
"Making a killing," he smiled as he tossed a leather money pouch onto the table. It landed with a heavy jingle. "Are you going home for the hols?"
"No. That is, I told my parents that I would if there was another attack."
"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to take your chances with the rest of us. When the school found out this morning about last night's attacks, there was a stampede. Everyone who didn't have a seat on the Express beat a path to the ticket office, even through four feet of snow. I doubt Hagrid could have cleared that path quicker. The upshot is, there isn't a seat left on Monday's train."
"Did you get a ticket?"
"Of course; weeks ago. I just came in from selling mine to some luckless Hufflepuff who was at the end of the line when they announced the sellout. Got back more than I paid for it."
"That's cruel; taking advantage of someone's distress to make a profit."
"First of all, it wasn't exactly a profit. I overspent myself on the last Hogsmeade trip, so all this did was put me back to where I was supposed to be. Second, it was simple economics: I had something he wanted, and he paid what he was willing to pay. Lastly, it's not as if I make a habit of it. This is a one-in-a-million opportunity."
"Very clever," Cho said, with a bit of disapproval still in her voice. "I suppose that's why you were Sorted into Ravenclaw."
"You make it sound like something bad," Roger said, looking concerned. "Look, if I knew you still needed a ticket, I would have given it to you for nothing."
"That's, I, thank you." Cho found she was blushing, and didn't know why. She hurriedly stood up and almost ran from the Great Hall. She didn't stop until she was back in the Ravenclaw Common Room.
She looked around the room; shelves full of hundreds of books, and, as far as she could tell, none of them were any help at all. But if you couldn't find the answer to your most important questions in books, what's the point of being a Ravenclaw?
xxx
to be continued in part 28, wherein Cho and Roger spend a New Year's Eve together talking about life, Quidditch and other things . . .
