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

40. The Glow

Cho woke with the sunrise on Sunday. A quick look at her knee showed that Madam Pomfrey had put everything right; it seemed all right, anyway. Not wanting to wait for Pomfrey to show up, Cho got out of bed and stood, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. No pain, no weakness. She was just changing back into her school robes when Pomfrey came in.

"This is what I get for lingering over tea," she sighed. "You know you can't leave until I clear it."

"Sorry, ma'am, but I feel just fine and I didn't know when you'd be by. Besides, I suppose I can sometimes be . . ."

"Headstrong," Pomfrey finished the sentence. "I know that too well. Most young people are just naturally headstrong, and Quidditch players even moreso. You, Miss Chang, are stellar."

"My mother insists it's because I was born in a Year of the Horse."

"Well, my Divination marks were never all that wonderful, so I don't know about that. But please look after yourself. The more injuries like this you get, the harder they are to mend."

Cho started to protest that being injured wasn't her idea, but Pomfrey held up her hand for silence. "Get along, now."

Making sure that her wand was in the pocket of her robes, Cho walked out of the hospital wing-

and, a few steps later, came face to face with Cedric Diggory.

"Good," he smiled, "you're out of there."

"Were you looking for me?" Cho asked, part curious and part annoyed.

"I didn't know that you were in there until just before the match yesterday. We had some plays ready for you as Seeker, and didn't get to use them."

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're on about."

"I missed you. I mean, I missed playing against you. I really was looking forward to it."

Cho didn't know how to feel about Cedric, except that she smiled and said, "I think we both were looking forward to it."

"Well, maybe later; there's still the Cup."

Cho walked quickly past him, looking back over her shoulder just long enough to say, "And you'll have to work for it!" As soon as she was out of sight of Cedric, she broke into a run, not stopping until she was almost at the Great Hall. She stopped and leaned against the wall.

What was THAT all about? she wondered

xxx

Classes hardly seemed important in these last weeks before the Christmas holidays. Nothing seemed important; not even the fact that Sirius Black had not been captured, but was believed to be somewhere near Hogsmeade.

Cho was reminded of this when she lined up with many other students to book seats on the Hogwarts Express. The dementors weren't on the platform, but they were in the road just past the station, visible from the ticket window, and Cho couldn't help feeling queasy as she bought her ticket, then moved on to the last Hogsmeade visit before the holidays. Even the light snow that was falling seemed to avoid the dementors; Cho had the notion in passing the dementors that there wasn't enough warmth or humanity left in any of them to melt a single flake.

"Lookit this!" It was Vincent Krixlow, pointing to a notice posted on the side of the station by the Ministry of Magic. The notice warned that the dementors would patrol the streets of Hogsmeade after dark indefinitely until Sirius Black was recaptured. Krixlow seemed especially amused by the way the notice ended, as he read it aloud: "Complete your shopping well before nightfall. Merry Christmas!"

"Nice touch, that; Merry Christmas. We're going to set ghastly monsters all over town; Happy New Year!"

"Well, wot were they s'posed to do?" Jan challenged him.

"Get those things back to Azkaban. They're doing more harm than good here."

"An' wot about Sirius Black?"

"Look, nobody's seen so much as a puff of smoke from the man since Halloween. I'll bet it was Peeves carved up the painting . . ."

"You know poltergeists can't swing a knife," Diana Fairweather reminded him.

" . . . or some Seventh-Year gone loony from too much studying."

"Which will never afflict you, I'm sure," Letitia Groondy grinned. "Let's get going!"

Hogsmeade really wasn't the best place for someone like Cho to do much Christmas shopping; not when her parents had a shoppe in Diagon Alley, and didn't want for magical items. Still, she left the other Ravenclaws and set out on her own.

First she went to the local Flourish & Blotts, but didn't see anything interesting. There was no point in going to Honeyduke's; her parents were too old and too reserved for anything from Zonko's.

At Gladrags, however, which had just gotten in a shipment of winter cloaks with weatherproof hoods, she found a pair of earrings for her mother- delicately wrought silver in the design of a lotus blossom. Her mother only had a few occasions to wear anything that fine, but she did still have to go to formal wizarding events, and sometimes even out among the Muggles. At Dervish and Banges, she finally settled on one of several astrolabes for her father.

She now had very little of the money she'd budgeted for this visit, and little time as well; with the days getting shorter and shorter, the notice not to be in Hogsmeade after dark took on greater weight. Still, the snow was starting to fall a bit harder, and this helped Cho to decide that she could spend her last Sickles on a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks.

The crowds in the pub had thinned out as the sun sank lower; Cho ordered a tankard of warm butterbeer at the bar and had no trouble finding a table in the rear where she set her drinks and purchases. She waved to Professor Flitwick who seemed to be deep in conversation with Professors McGonagall and Hagrid, and also with (if Cho could trust her memory) the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge. She'd seen his picture a few times in the Daily Prophet, but she hardly thought he'd show up in a place like this. Besides, he seemed to want not to be recognized by too many people, and kept his face averted from the rest of the room.

Cho just made a mental note of it, took a sip from her tankard and reached into the pocket of her robes. Just as breakfast had been ending, Quan Yin had flown in with a scroll from home. She put it in her pocket unread, knowing that she'd probably have time to read it that afternoon.

It was a typical letter from her mother: terse and businesslike, as if she were addressing a client rather than her child:

"Your father will meet you at the platform on the 19th. Please do not make any plans for this summer until you are home and have checked with us. I should also tell you that we are having company for Christmas. The Ng family will be coming down from Liverpool. They will be bringing their son Tan, who is in his Seventh Year at Tara's Hall in Ireland, and will be going to University in the fall. It would be simple politeness for you to have a gift ready for him. Your mother"

Cho threw down the scroll and pounded the table with her fist.

"'Ere, wot did that table ever do teh you, then?" Jan didn't stand on ceremony and sat across from Cho, even though Cho didn't feel at all like having company.

Jan glanced at the scroll; over the years, she'd come to understand a few things about her roommate. "Letter from home, eh?"

Cho took a sip of her butterbeer, to give her time to cool down and organize her thoughts. "I will never understand her!"

"They're not on about Quidditch agin, are they?"

"Oh, it's gotten better than that. She's bringing some old friends of the family in for the holidays, and, oh, by the way, there's a nice Seventh- Year Chinese wizard coming to chat you up. She absolutely makes me boil."

"So this ain't about just the holidays, then."

"I don't know why she's in such a rush to marry me off! I'm not even interested in that right now!" She took another drink, and, as she was setting her mug down, heard a chair scrape behind her. She turned to see someone moving very quickly toward the door. He was wearing a rather bulky cloak, but from the back it looked like-

"Oh, no." Cho looked at Jan. "That wasn't Roger, was it?" Jan nodded. "Perfect. What can he be thinking of me now?"

"Wot do yeh want him teh think o' yer?"

"Well, well not THAT! I mean, after all he said about how I shouldn't be interested in boys over Quidditch . . ."

"How long ago was that?"

"A few years, but . . ."

"Relax, then." Jan drank some of her own butterbeer, although she had ordered a cold bottle rather than a hot mug. "Yeh ain't interested in nobody anyway."

"How would you know?"

"I kin see it."

"I'm sure. Rosy cheeks, fluttering eyes . . ."

"Not that rubbish. I can see it! All the women o' me family are able to. It's how we made a livin' tellin' fortunes years ago. I can't describe it exactly; I just call it The Glow. And, Cho Chang, you ain't Glowin'."

Cho absorbed this for a minute. "You never talked about this before."

"Wasn't sure I had it before. It's somethin' that comes with time. Just noticed a few weeks ago meself."

Cho suddenly felt rather nervous about this bit of news. "So you can look at someone and tell if they're . . ."

"Yeh. Saw Penny Clearwater in the Great Hall this mornin', an' she fair lit up the place."

"And you don't think people can keep this hidden from you?"

"Mos' people don' even try ter hide The Glow."

"Even if they wanted to?"

Now Jan stopped and thought. She took several sips without speaking. When she spoke, she chose her words very cautiously. "I seen these two girls- don' know their names, an' I wouldn' name 'em if I did. They had a kind of Glow about 'em, but I never seen 'em with anyone but each other."

"You really think they're . . ."

"Well, tha's a good reason to try to hide The Glow, innit? It don' make me feel comfortable, sharin' a secret like than when I don' even wants ter."

"Jan, promise you'll tell me if I start Glowing?"

Jan roared with laughter. "Believe me, Cho, if The Glow gets yer, ye'll be the first teh know!" She looked out the window. "Gettin' dark; we'd better get back."

Cho gathered up her bundles, pulled up her hood, and walked out into the snow.

xxx

to be continued in part 41, wherein Cho goes home for the holidays.