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-13

Spoilers: Everything

xxx

48. A Quidditch Summer 2: The World Cup

The closer the time drew toward 5 p.m., the more nervous Cho got. There were hardly any customers in the shoppe the past few days, but she hardly paid attention to them anyway. She was waiting for this moment: the closing of the shoppe on Friday, the 22nd of August, 1994 . . .

The number of customers had been tapering off daily, until Cho seldom had to wait on more than one person per hour. Of course, as many as could go were leaving Diagon Alley to attend the World Cup match. The Friday afternoon was so slow that Cho wondered why they couldn't just close early.

Of course, as soon as the thought crossed her mind, an old hag came into the shop, followed a few minutes later by a fairly good-looking young mediwizard. The hag dawdled over the gentian root, arguing about its freshness with Cho until Mrs. Chang heard the commotion and took over for Cho. The mediwizard, meanwhile, was simply purchasing bulk herbs for St. Mungo's because it was his turn on the rota, and he clearly thought the business of buying supplies was beneath him. "There are places I'd rather be," he muttered impatiently to himself.

Same here, Cho thought, and I hope I don't see you there.

Finally he and the hag paid for their purchases and the door onto Diagon Alley closed at 5:10 p.m. At once Cho drew down the shade and put up a sign:

GONE TO THE WORLD CUP WILL REOPEN WEDS THE 27TH

Cho dashed upstairs to find Lotus already bustling about. Their tent had been packed long before, and most of their personal items would fit into a haversack Cho would be carrying. While her parents were finalizing the packing, Cho went down to the kitchen and set out food and water for Chairman Miao, and enchanted it to last five days without going stale.

"I wish you could come along," Cho said as she scratched the cat behind the ears, "but it's going to be so wild and so crowded. Besides, I've never really heard you express an opinion on Quidditch. So tell me: who do you think will take the Cup?"

The cat, being a cat, rubbed itself against Cho's ankles and walked out of the kitchen.

"Almost time!" Cho's father called from the parlour. Cho gathered the haversack and ran out of the kitchen.

Her father already had the Grendel model collapsible tent on his back. Her mother had a bundle on her back, similar but smaller, and another bundle tucked under one arm. "What's that, then, mummy?"

"Later." She said it in her "end of discussion" voice, so Cho didn't give it another thought.

Chang Xiemin opened his large pocket-watch and watched as a miniature earth orbited a miniature sun. "We have about ten minutes," he announced, and led his family out of the shoppe and down Diagon Alley.

Now there were many witches and wizards in the street, all of them converging on the Leaky Cauldron. The front room of the inn was the terminus for a Portkey that would take them-in groups of about thirty-to the campgrounds near the stadium where the Quidditch World Cup finals would be played.

In this case, the Portkey was a long piece of binder's twine. Everyone who was going pinched themselves a bit of twine.

"Enjoy yourselves!" Tom the innkeeper called from behind the bar. "I'll follow along in a day or two. And tell the Irish to brush them Bulgarians all the way back to . . ."

Cho never heard the end of the sentence, because the Portkey came alive, and all the people that were clutching onto it became detached from the world of Diagon Alley. They seemed to spin through a creation that had not yet settled when, after a few seconds, they came to a jarring stop. A voice called out:

"Your attention please! The six o'clock p.m. Green Witch Mean Time Portkey from Diagon Alley has just arrived. Please clear the landing stage as quickly as possible."

Cho had traveled once or twice by Portkey when she was very young, and, even though she'd gotten used to Porting to Puddlemere for Quidditch practice in recent summers, she felt a bit exhausted as she followed her parents off of the platform. They, however, looked more annoyed at the trip than anything else, and Lotus Chang seemed to clutch the bundle under her arm even more tightly.

They got a map showing their campsite, paid the owner of the land (with Muggle money Cho's father had gotten from Gringott's days before) and walked down the lane in the gathering dusk. A small army of tents was already up, but it would double and redouble over the weekend. The Quidditch World Cup stadium was built to seat one hundred thousand, and on Monday night it would be absolutely full.

xxx

Pitching the tent had been easy. The Grendel came with self-driving stakes and a hinged frame that made it simple to erect a tent that, from all appearances, looked as if it could hold two cots and little more. Inside, however, it was a small but serviceable apartment, with two bedrooms, two baths, a front parlour and a kitchen. Lotus promptly started arranging things in the kitchen, saying, "You can muck about with campfires if you wish, but it's all for show and everyone knows it. In the meantime, you'll all have proper meals."

The first night, those "proper meals" consisted of corned beef, potatoes and cabbage, with a loaf of fresh-baked soda-bread, in honour of the Irish Quidditch team making it all the way to the Finals. Stepping onto the road after dinner made Cho think, between the food and the sights and sounds of the campground, that they'd actually traveled to another country. She could hardly wait to explore it the next day.

However, she overslept. When she finally awoke, she had to endure her mother's arguments as the two of them cooked a late but sumptuous breakfast. To make it worse, she couldn't leave to explore the camp until she'd cleaned the breakfast dishes. But once she was on the path looking at the other tents, she knew it was all worthwhile-even her mother's withering insults. She had thought that she couldn't see witches and wizards more unusual than those she saw back in China last year; she was wrong.

One group of Spanish brujos were sitting around a gigantic pot of what turned out to be mulled Muggle wine with herbs and fruit-a mix the brujos called "sangria", meaning "blood". One of the brujos was playing a guitar, and most of the others were singing. Further down the lane, some Black American wizards were trying on robes that reminded Cho of band uniforms, while a collection of brass instruments polished themselves; apparently, there would be a concert or parade at sunset. Even further down, just at the edge of the wood that separated the campground from the stadium, some wizards from the Amazon River listened impassively as representatives from the Ministry of Magic tried-in several languages-to explain that they could not wear their traditional clothing-which, in their case, meant wearing nothing at all.

Each step took Cho further and further away from her parents, but she couldn't help herself; everything was just so fascinating.

She finally reached the edge of the camp, although the spaces were still being filled even as she watched, and turned back. She hadn't gone twenty paces when she heard the clear, pure baritone:

"We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,/Frae morning sun till dine . . ."

She looked around and saw a small tent painted to look like the Welsh flag. She ran over to it, noticed that the canvas felt more like wood under her hand, and rapped on it with her knuckles.

"Is that you in there, Mackie?!"

The flap opened and Macarthur "Mackie" Culligan, former Quidditch captain and Seeker for Ravenclaw, stepped out of the tent, looking delightedly at Cho.

"View halloo! Whose little Seeker are you?!" he laughed, and she laughed, as he picked her up and spun her around, almost over his head. She sounded almost exhausted as he set her down.

"Roger said you had to leave school," Cho began.

"So, so," Mackie nodded, "had to go and build up the family fortune. But we're doing all right. Everything should be settled in a few more years."

"It would be funny if we were in the same year in uni," Cho laughed.

"No, what's funny will be me feeling like a geezer at the extreme old age of twenty-three."

"Has Roger been telling you about the team?"

"That he has, and he also tried to tell me how beautiful you've become, but he's clearly fallen short there."

Beautiful???

"Sometimes he acts so addle-pated that he . . . He HAS told you this, hasn't he?" Cho shook her head no. "Oh, damn. Look, forget I said a word, can't ye?"

"Mackie, I can't, not now! If Roger . . ."

"Look, if he hasn't told ye, then I can't be the one!"

"Is he coming?"

"We're supposed to meet up tomorrow night. Cho, please, you can't let on I said anything."

"I-I'll try."

With that, he ducked back into the tent. Cho wandered back to her parents' campsite, hardly looking at the others along the way.

"CHO! Where have you BEEN!"

She'd almost walked past her own campsite without seeing it. Without a word, she turned, went into the tent and started helping her mother with dinner.

As they ate, Cho kept turning the conversation with Mackie over in her mind. Finally, halfway through pork chops with hoisin sauce, she set down her fork. "Mummy, if I were beautiful, would you tell me?"

The question caught both her parents by surprise. While her father blushed, her mother's expression didn't change a bit: "I would hope that you're too mature to put much stock in that sort of nonsense."

That was the answer: not exactly a "no", but close enough. She got up from the table and went into her room, slamming the door. Her parents didn't see or hear from her until the next morning.

xxx

Nonsense!? How can she say that?! This is important!

Isn't it?

I mean, if Roger thinks -- But Roger said -- When I started, Roger -

Why now? Why does this have to be important NOW?! I wanted to wait until I was a Seventh-Year, maybe put it all off until university . . . What do I do?

Roger Davies was the smallest part of the equation, unfortunately. Cho turned it over and over in her mind, and always came down to the same answer:

No matter how Roger might feel about her, she could never feel that way about him. He was a friend, a coach, and that was all. Nothing more.

But what now? Will he get upset? Will he kick her off the team? Yes, it's petty, and she couldn't imagine Roger Davies being that petty, but one never knows . . .

xxx

Sunday morning saw a little bit of rain fall onto the camp. Cho was glad she had a warm bed and a warm comforter, and a window she could look through to see the neighboring tents without their seeing into hers.

She missed her cat.

The skies didn't clear until noon; without breakfast, without a word to her parents, she was out and down the path exploring again.

The camp had almost doubled in size since yesterday evening. The tents became larger, more colourful. Flags painted onto tents was common, but so were actual dioramas of Quidditch matches, painted directly onto the canvas of the tents. Of course, any Muggle who saw it would be at best hopelessly confused; but then, how could any Muggle ever get into a wizard gathering of this size?

She sought out Mackie, and they sat and talked for two hours, like old combat veterans remembering the trials by fire and the moments of glory. Mackie recalled Snitches he had the most trouble winning, or never won at all; Cho recalled her unofficial game against Slytherin. And neither brought up what Mackie had let slip the day before. They both spoke around it, like hunters pacing in front of a cave where a deadly animal might-or might not-be lurking. Neither wanted to risk themselves twice.

As twilight gathered Cho started walking back toward her family camp, and she heard, consciously heard for the first time that weekend, a baby's cry. She had not really forgotten the fundamental truth of life in the magical world: that witches and wizards are born, not taught. But the cry reminded her of how many wizards might be here who were still too young to even realize they are wizards. And she was reminded of perhaps the most famous wizard baby of all, and kept an eye on the crowd that milled around her. As if she were Seeking a Snitch.

A black-haired, green-eyed Snitch.

Cho was talkative at dinner, but the talk was light and airy; of sights seen and people recognized. There was nothing of importance, and again nothing of the topic that had driven yet another wedge between herself and her mother.

Just after sunset, when the dinner dishes were disposing of themselves, Cho stood with her parents, watching a fireworks display of dragons battling among the clouds, and wondered why life had to be so awful and so wonderful all at the same time.

xxx

Monday morning, the day of the Cup, Cho did not oversleep. She was awake with the first hint of dawn, reaching for her Hogwarts bedside table to grab a hairbrush that wasn't there. It had been weeks since she flew, and now her body almost instinctively wanted to suit up for a Quidditch match.

Rather than disturb her parents, she tiptoed out of the tent, and out onto the campground. It had grown again during the night, and was now a city of tents, of all possible shapes and colors (and a few impossible ones as well). Banners flew in the air, and so did a few brooms. Excitement was also in the air; the anticipation felt by all of these wizards and witches that some top-quality Quidditch would be played here in a few hours' time.

Cho now regarded the tents closest to her family's as old neighbours, exchanging pleasantries with them as she walked down the path to a small rise.

Where she saw him.

Surely all she had to do was to keep walking among the hundred thousand people come to watch the match, and she'd bump into someone from Hogwarts; it was strange, though, that so far she'd only met Mackie, and he'd already graduated. If she'd seen wizards who were younger, she didn't recognize them.

But you couldn't help but recognize Ha Li Po Te.

There he was; the rumpled black hair, the green eyes behind thick glasses, the body only slightly taller than her own-built for a Seeker. They were on separate paths that would meet up ahead-perfect! She waved.

He waved. Actually, he was so enthusiastic that he looked like a castaway on a desert island trying to hail a ship at sea. In itself, that wouldn't have been so bad, but, while he violently waved with one hand, the other held a bucket of water he'd gotten at a nearby tap. Quite a lot of the water slopped out of the bucket and onto the ground-and Harry.

To cover his embarrassment, Harry tried to steer his companion-one of the Weasleys-down the path. Cho, meanwhile, had happily clapped her hands over her mouth and ran back to her parents' tent. They were standing in front, looking over the army of tents.

Lotus Chang regarded her daughter critically. "What's got you in this mood?"

"Just saw the most powerful wizard in the world, is all, mummy. I saw Ha Li Po Te."

"Really?!" She started looking about. "Where is he? What does he look like?"

"You go down that road about a hundred yards, and look for a boy with black hair and green eyes-WHO LOOKS LIKE HE JUST WET HIMSELF!" The incongruity of the image was finally too much for Cho; she burst out laughing and ran into the tent.

xxx

As the excitement grew in the camp, Cho's parents seemed more and more intent on keeping their own excitement in check-and that of their daughter as well. During lunch, she was told repeatedly to "Remember your manners", "Be sure to bow when you're introduced", "Don't interrupt anyone speaking to your father", and especially "Don't wander off".

Cho thought that the last part, at least, would be easy. She'd already wandered around the campsite for two days, and had seen so much. But she was wrong. When she went out, wearing her school robes and walking behind her father in his three-piece Savile Row suit and her mother in a Vera Wang pantsuit, she just kept marveling at all that the wizarding world still had to offer.

But the Changs never stopped to look at the really interesting things, like the assortment of Ukranian hags who were boiling something alive in front of their tents; the Japanese wizards who all wore identical short cotton robes and invited all passers-by, even Cho, to drink with them; or the Dervishes who, according to Madam Trelawny, spun themselves into dizzying trances.

Instead, Cho had to stand behind her parents as her father collared first one business associate and then another. Since there was no Quidditch being played yet, he probably figured that he could put the time to good use. He seemed to know which wizard was in which campsite, and seldom found a site where his quarry wasn't there. He spoke mostly with other Diagon Alley merchants, and sometimes with wizards from the Ministry.

One of the latter was of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures: Mr. Amos Diggory, who kept his son Cedric standing behind him. Cho and Cedric knew each other, both being Seekers at Hogwarts, but they were expected to keep quiet and stay still while their fathers settled important matters of business.

After about ten minutes of waiting, Cho silently brought one arm up, started licking the back of her hand then rubbing her face with it, like a cat grooming itself. Cedric turned his head, to keep from laughing out loud. Amos Diggory caught the movement and turned. Cedric struggled to hide his grin. Mister Chang turned back to look at Cho, whose face was perfectly composed.

Fortunately, this was their last stop; it was time to go back to the tent and change, then head over to the stadium. The mass of people grew and grew as they made their way from the tent to the woods, and then through the trees to the golden stadium. Design of the stadium had begun shortly after the previous World Cup, three years earlier. Construction had taken most of the past year, and yet, as soon as the match was over, the magnificent stadium in the middle of the moors would be taken down in a matter of hours.

The crowds were so intent on watching the match that Cho hardly dared look around; if she saw someone she knew, such as Professor Flitwick or Madam Malkin, she barely had time to call to them or wave before the tide carried her along. After a while, all she could do was follow along behind her parents. They led her to what turned out to be excellent seats: near the center of the field, and just below the goals. Now that they were in the stadium, though, the crowd just seemed to get louder and louder. They were here for one reason-to watch Quidditch-and it was finally about to happen.

xxx

Sometimes the Quidditch World Cup is remembered for a spectacular play or other, such as the innovations of the great Polish Seeker Josef Wronski. Sometimes the less savory nature of the play makes the games memorable, as in 1473, when the first Cup match between Flanders and Transylvania produced what is still a legendary number of fouls on both sides.

The 1994 Quidditch World Cup, however, will be remembered for both the game and what happened after the game. Depending on which book you read, 25 August 1994 is either "The Night of the Irish Miracle" or "The Night of the Dark Mark".

The pre-game display by the teams' respective mascots were also disruptive, but carried far fewer repercussions. Leprechauns scattered enchanted (and therefore worthless) gold about, while Bulgarian veela tempted many of the males in the stadium with feminine charms and promises of bliss-even though the Ministry's Department of Magical Games and Sports had repeatedly asked the Bulgarians to substitute a different mascot, given the wizarding children who would be in attendance. The Bulgarians either did not understand, or acted as if they didn't. In any case, the veela's displays were subdued-just barely.

The "Irish Miracle" is a safe way to describe the play between Bulgaria and Ireland. These two top teams had to conquer other mighty septets to get to the Finals; both teams intended to play hard and long, and to spare nothing to win.

Cho had gotten used to the pace of play at Hogwarts; when the whistle sounded, it was as if these were players from another planet. She realized that she had come a long way indeed toward her goal of becoming a Seeker- and that she still had a very long way to go.

Still, it was instructive to watch Bulgaria's Viktor Krum, playing on through a broken nose, using the Wronski Feint to good effect against Ireland-and making a global fool of himself by catching the Snitch when the Bulgarians were 160 points down. When he ended play, they still came up short. Viktor Krum handed the victory to the Irish.

It seemed only fair to Cho, since Krum had rendered the Irish Seeker unfit for play. Twice Aidan Lynch had fallen for the Wronski Feint; and twice his screaming dive had sent him crashing into the pitch-one time, with the Bulgarian veela mascots trampling him before the mediwizards could get him up. Lynch couldn't even take the victory lap on his own. Cho's mother spent the rest of the evening muttering darkly to herself about "permanent damage" and Lynch probably having to live out his life at St. Mungo's.

But Cho knew better; she knew a sensible Seeker could find a way around even the Wronski Feint. And, as soon as she got back to the tent, she lit her wand, conjured parchment and quill, and started to solve the problem herself.

xxx

Still, even the best intentions cannot keep one alert at all times, and Cho's head began to nod by half past one in the morning. She rested her head in her arms and swore it would only be for five minutes-she was so close to it-when she was woken up out of sleep by her mother shaking her shoulder.

"Pack everything! NOW!"

Cho was used to her mother giving orders, and she knew not to be slow about carrying them out. However, this time Cho had to stay in her chair for a second, staring at her mother's face. She saw something there she'd never seen before:

Fear.

Cho couldn't put two thoughts together as she gathered everything she could find and packed it all in the haversacks. Finally, with the tent cleared out if not cleaned up, she stepped out onto the path, where her parents were waiting. Her father, still in a dressing gown, collapsed the tent with his wand, and took it upon his back. He was sweating, but not from the heat.

Cho then noticed that her mother only had a pack upon her back, the other mysterious parcel was missing. "Mother . . ."

"Get into the woods!" Mister Chang pushed his wife and daughter along the path into the woods that separated the campground from the stadium. Almost everyone else seemed to be running away-away from . . .

Now Cho could make out four people being held aloft by magic; four people tossed and tumbled as if they were ants. Cho couldn't say a word, but looked to her father for understanding.

"They're doing it," he said simply, as he pointed up to the sky.

At first she saw what she thought was a fireworks display, but no fireworks ever tried to make people feel fearful and nauseous. This design, of a skull with a snake crawling through the skull's open mouth, held a kind of sick power that Cho instinctively knew was not right.

"I thought you'd never see this," Mister Chang told Cho, "but there it is. Now look at it! Remember it! That's the Dark Mark, the symbol of the Dark Lord. If you ever see that sign in the sky, run away from it; run as fast as you can! And if you ever meet anyone-ANYONE-with that mark branded into their flesh, then kill them! Kill them, Cho, before they kill you, because it will surely come to that."

"But what do we do now?"

"We're going home."

"But the Portkey . . ."

"There's no time!" her mother interrupted. "Just hold on tight, and don't make a sound!"

She grabbed onto both parents' shoulders, while they put their arms around her waist. That was when Cho noticed their shoes. They were wearing something she'd never seen before. They looked ancient, Chinese, like shoes made of woven reeds.

Mister and Missus Chang glanced at each other, then they started muttering an incantation in a dialect far older and stranger than any Cho had ever heard. They stamped upon the ground with their left feet, then stamped with their right feet. They stamped again with their left-

and Cho found the three of them suddenly hurling straight up into the night sky. In an instant the tops of the trees, the top of the stadium, the Dark Mark itself, were all glowing beneath them as they rose higher and higher, actually into the clouds.

Cho's mother needn't have worried; Cho's mind had locked up and she couldn't move a muscle or utter a sound, except to think, "So THIS is Chinese cloud-riding!"

In what seemed only a minute, they reached the top of their arc, where, poised for a second, they could see almost all of England laid out at their feet. Then they began their rapid descent. They dropped down and down through the air, faster and faster-

until they softly landed at the front door of their shoppe in Diagon Alley.

Cho's father opened the door to the shoppe, while Cho, who was still trembling and couldn't speak, was helped inside by her mother. Her mother handed her a mug of tea; Cho vaguely recognized the smells and tastes of ginseng and chamomile. Once she'd finished the tea, her mother helped her into bed, where she slept dreamlessly for twenty-four hours.

xxx

to be continued in part 49, wherein Cho finds out that her Fifth Year will be unimaginably different

A/N: In this episode we finally see a bit of Chinese magic. If you're interested, one of China's great magical tales is available in the west in the book "Monkey", retold by David Kherdian.