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

58. Before the Second Task

Cho had taken several classes in Muggle Studies. Even though she wanted to pursue a career in Quidditch (and her family wanted her to continue their tradition of Herbology), she found it interesting to wonder how people with no magic at all could get along in the world. So she studied textbooks that the Ministry provided about electricity and television and the Underground. She was most interested in Muggle medicine, since it came closest to her Herbology experience, but she felt the textbooks still weren't getting it quite right.

But there was one Muggle phenomenon she came to understand full well: addiction. Dancing with Cedric Diggory had given her a taste of physical contact, and it made her feel good-very good. And she wanted it to go on and on. Cedric must have felt this need too, because after the Yule Ball he re-arranged his schedule to be able to walk Cho to and from most of her classes. As soon as they drew near, her hand would slip neatly into his as if a sculptor had designed them to be together. Sometimes, as they did when they visited Hogsmeade together, he would put his arm around her shoulder or her waist, and she would lean up against him, feeling so secure and so happy that she didn't imagine how she could possibly feel any better.

These weren't the only happy moments for her, of course. It seemed to Cho that everything that happened after the Ball was conspiring to make her explode with joy. When she saw the unicorns in Care of Magical Creatures class, she gave in to their charm, as do all maidens. Flitwick began teaching Contentment Charms, since Cho was in Fifth Years and her class's first O.W.L.s were fast approaching. The winter weather would even break on occasion and permit her to go to the secret garden with Ced, where they would sit on the bench and talk about their futures, or simply sit, leaning up against each other, or on a couple of occasions they would dance, sweetly and slowly, to music that nobody played.

Two months flew by in this manner, and spring was just beginning to break when the week of the Second Task arrived. The night before, Cho went down to dinner and noticed that Cedric wasn't at the Hufflepuff table. She suspected that he was having a case of the jitters about the Task, and thought she knew where to find him.

She was right. The door to the garden was open, and Cedric was sitting on the stone bench. There were still a few minutes of daylight.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, sitting beside him.

Cedric just stared down at the ground. "Got an owl from my father today. He went on and on about the Task, of course. Cho Li, it was awful. He kept saying that I not only had to finish first this time, I had to humiliate Harry, pound him into the ground, take him out of the lead . . ."

He got up and started pacing the muddy ground; Cho had never seen him so agitated. "This summer, we were going to the World Quidditch Cup, we'd just found the Portkey and who should show up but a bunch of the Weasleys with Harry Potter in tow. My father-forget about manners. He starts in on Harry, taunting him with how he'd lost to Hufflepuff the year before."

"He's proud of you," Cho started, but Cedric cut her off.

"This went beyond pride. He starts telling me that 'This is something to tell your grandchildren: you beat Harry Potter!' Yeah, right; I beat him with the help of a driving rainstorm and a hundred dementors on the field. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF A LEGACY IS THAT?!"

Cho was stunned; she had never seen Cedric in such a rage before. He was shuddering, rooted to the spot. Cho touched one of his hands; he seemed to realize that she was there, and sat next to her on the bench. He was silent for several minutes.

"I didn't want you to see that," he said at last, in a soft and trembling voice. "This is why I got this garden. When I was a First Year, I got owls from my father almost every day. And they were all the same; all of them pushing me, berating me. I'd done everything right for him for ten years, and now it still wasn't enough. 'Keep up your studies,' 'Make sure you're on the Quidditch team,' 'You've got to be Prefect,'-all of this still in my First Year. The pressure was unending, and finally, I remember it was Halloween, I just-something snapped in me. Somebody said something in the Common Room, and I completely lost my temper. I rushed a group of boys, all of them bigger than me. I beat one of them pretty badly, before the others could pull me off; then, they started in on me.

"I ended up in the hospital wing that night, and in the morning I woke up and saw Professor Sprout and Professor Pomfrey having this big serious talk at the other end of the ward. They kept looking at me, and I thought that I was going to be expelled.

"But Professor Sprout showed me this garden instead. She said she was giving it to me during my time at Hogwarts. She said she knew my father and could imagine what living with him must be like, and said that if I felt myself losing my temper I should come here. I could let everything out, you see, without hurting myself or others. At first it made me feel like some sort of werewolf, but when spring came, I started planting cuttings. I found that gardening made me better able to stand the owls from home. It brought me peace."

Cedric had not looked at Cho during all this, and still was staring down at his hands, rubbing them nervously in his lap. "This is the real reason I would take a girl out once, and only once. I could tell that they weren't ready for someone like me. They all wanted the public Cedric: happy and competent and a credit to his father. I could never let them see the monster I have inside me."

Cho didn't answer. Instead, she put one hand on top of Cedric's hands, the other on his shoulder, and she leaned forward, resting her forehead against his. Not a word was spoken; the only sound was the soft splash of Cedric's tears falling onto the back of Cho's hand.

xxx

Cho woke early on 24 February. She'd had no trouble falling asleep the night before; she was exhausted by the time she went to bed. Holding Cedric, comforting him, didn't give her the same kind of joy she felt walking to class with her hand in his. This was something deeper, something she could never have anticipated. She felt drained, but would gladly have done it all again.

As she came down to the Common Room, she saw Luna Lovegood hanging upside- down on the ladder again. This time, though, as soon as she saw Cho, Luna slipped off the ladder, landed on the day-bed, and bounced up onto her feet. "There's something I've got to tell you!"

"All right, what is it?"

Luna had to stop and think. "Let me see. Algernon has just been signed from Tutshill to Puddlemere United, that American Simpson is still on trial for killing his wife, eight billion years from now the sun is going to swallow up the entire earth, and-oh, yes-you're to report to Professor McGonagall's office at once."

Cho left the Common Room shaking her head; for Luna, this was actually rather clear.

The door to McGonagall's office was open. The only three people in it beside her were two of Harry Potter's friends from his year: the younger Weasley, Ron, and the girl Hermione Granger. She'd been mentioned as Harry's girlfriend in that ghastly article in the Prophet, and Cho recognized her from the Yule Ball, even though her hair was wildly different. They were standing in a corner, talking to each other in low voices; when Cho came in, they looked at her with suspicion, then went back to talking to each other.

Very well. Cho went to the only other person in the room: a girl who couldn't have been more than ten years old, but had the long platinum blonde hair of the part veela Fleur Delacour. This girl sat by herself and looked completely miserable, and Cho's heart went out to her. "Are you here for the Second Task?" Cho asked, sitting beside the girl.

The girl nodded. "But pleez do not talk wiz me. My Eenglish, it is evil."

"Evil?"

"Yes; very, very bad."

It was all Cho could do to keep from laughing. "Nonsense, your English is fine," she smiled. "Are you Fleur's sister?"

The girl nodded again. "My name is Gabrielle. Fleur brings me to 'Ogwarts; I am not old enough for Beauxbatons."

"That was nice of her. You get to see another country and watch your sister."

"She does not do this to be nice. Ze ozzers at school; they do not like her. She makes me come because she is lonely. But now I am lonely too. I miss my maman."

Cho didn't know what to say. She wanted to comfort the child but, before she could do so, Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore swept into the room. Cho and Gabrielle jumped to their feet, Gabrielle wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her robes.

"Good morning, children," Dumbledore smiled. "I know that you would rather be looking for good seats from which to view the Second Task. However, I have called you here because you are all, in fact, part of the Second Task.

"When the Champions retrieved the golden eggs in the First Task, they found that there was a message within the eggs. The message was hard to understand and needed a bit of skill to translate, but that's all part of the Tournament. The message told them that, for the Second Task, they would have to rescue someone who they cared about. I should say that, in the case of Harry Potter, this was a difficult choice, since he seemed to care for three of you here." At this, Ron and Hermione again looked suspiciously at Cho.

"Even though there must be a certain element of danger to the Champions, I want to assure you that you will be in no danger at all. I'm going to put you into a Charmed sleep. You will then be placed into the lake, to be rescued by your respective Champions. They have one hour in which to accomplish this, but even if they exceed the time limit, no harm will come to you. The Charm will not allow you to wake up until you are in fact above the surface of the lake and able to breathe. You will suffer water- soaked robes, but that is the extent of the risk."

Professor McGonagall spoke up. "To simplify matters, please sit in those chairs," she pointed to four chairs side-by-side against one wall. Ron and Hermione sat together; Cho sat next to Hermione without hesitation, leaving Gabrielle to sit on the outermost chair.

"Don't worry," Cho whispered to Gabrielle. "Dumbledore is a great wizard; you can trust him completely."

She could say no more, though, as Dumbledore drew his wand, and Cho's eyelids grew heavy and her brain fogged up.

xxx

to be continued in part 59, wherein the completion of the Second Task brings about a major change