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

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61. An Exchange of Owls

"AAARGH! WHY DOES SHE DO THIS?!"

Every head in the Ravenclaw Fifth Year Girls dormitory turned to Cho. She was at her writing desk, her back to the others, and had just uncharacteristically screamed about something. They all had an idea what.

It was the first Sunday in June. Starting tomorrow, the Fifth Year students at Hogwarts would have no classes for two weeks, but would have to endure something much worse: the O.W.L.s. These were among the first tests given to examine a student's comprehensive knowledge of both the theory and practice of magic. They would sit for exams on theory in the mornings, and demonstrate their abilities in the afternoons. The importance of the tests was such that special examiners were sent to Hogwarts from the Ministry of Magic in London; they would proctor the examinations, then grade the results.

Every Fifth Year student became far more stressed than usual as the Ordinary Wizarding Levels approached. Cheering Charms and Composure Potions were always being administered to one student or another, sometimes more than once a day. But Cho had managed to keep her composure; she hadn't needed any brain-boosting or mood-leveling aides. Until now.

Letitia Groondy, being a Prefect, took it upon herself to keep the other girls in her year on an even keel. She walked over to Cho's desk and set a goblet of Composure Potion down on it. Cho swiftly grabbed it up, drank it all at once, then slammed the goblet down. "Do you have any more?"

"Yes, but you're not getting any. You'll end up sleeping for two days. Just give this one time to take effect."

Cho put her head down on the desk. Letitia was right, of course, but she didn't understand. It wasn't just the O.W.L.s. It was—her. How could she do this to Cho, with the O.W.L.s just about to start?

xxx

It had actually started a week before. Cho had finally decided that her love for Cedric, and his for her, should not be kept from her parents any longer. It was only right to send them an owl. Still, she found she could not work directly up to the subject:

"Dear Mummy and Daddy:

I'm sorry that I haven't written more often these past few weeks, but I'm sure that you can understand the reason. My Ordinary Wizarding Level exams are coming up very soon, and everyone in my year has been reading and practicing spells night and day. I have too, of course. I don't know what sort of exams you had to take in China when you were my age, but these are going to cover much of what I've learned these past five years. I expect you still think of me as I was back then, and are surprised by the changes that have taken place. I'm surprised as well, but mainly because of one change I haven't told you about yet."

Come on, Cho, she scolded herself for pausing. You can't put it off any longer. Like the old saying says, "grasp the dragon's tail firmly or don't grasp it at all." She sighed and started writing again:

"Something happened during the Second Task. It wasn't to do with being underwater or anything like that. But I was pulled out of the lake by Cedric Diggory. He's one of the Champions, but he's also been a friend of mine. He was the one who asked me to the Yule Ball. I didn't think anything of this until after the Task. We were talking, and he said things to me that I'm too embarrassed to put down on parchment—how I'm smart and pretty and everything." She deliberately avoided the word "beautiful", which really seemed to be a red flag for her mother. "And then, for the first time in my life, he kissed me."

Cho stopped writing, half-expecting the parchment to burst into flames. All she saw, though, was Quan Yin ruffling her feathers on the windowsill. She dipped her quill in the inkwell and continued:

"I didn't know what to think at first. All the way back to the House I thought I wasn't sure about how I felt about him, but one of the other girls just took one look at me and she knew! Maybe I should have known, too, if I hadn't been so worried about it. It was my first kiss, and from the way I've felt since then, I don't want it to be my last!"

She wasn't about to tell her mother how often they'd kissed in the past three months; Cho never stopped to count, although it must have run to over a hundred.

"This has got to be one of the most important moments in anyone's life. I'm sure that it was for the two of you. Believe me that I have not neglected my classes or homework. In fact," and Cho smiled as she wrote this, "I've been getting in a lot of extra Herbology practice, so that I can be of help in the family business. And I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. I wasn't trying to keep anything from you, but rather I was trying to get used to an overwhelming change in my life. But it's a good change, and I'm happier than I've ever been, and I hope that you can be happy for me too."

Cho read and reread the letter several times before she decided that it was convincing. She tied it to Quan Yin and sent the owl off to London.

Cho should have known that her mother's response wouldn't be pleasant. It arrived the very next morning, and it was as mean as it was short:

"All that talk about the kiss, and not a word about who kissed you. Is he some gwailo?"

Cho's first instinct was to react in kind, to give as good as she got: But of course, mummy; you send me to a school with nothing but gwailo. Did you expect me to start dating one of the ghosts? But she decided to save that letter for another day. Instead she wrote:

"Yes, you could say he's a gwailo. You could also say that his name is Cedric Diggory, that he plays Quidditch for Hufflepuff House, that in fact he's their Captain and Seeker, that he's one of the Tri-Wizard Champions, that at the end of the term he leaves Hogwarts (he's actually excused from taking NEWTs because he's one of the Champions), and that his father is Amos Diggory of the Magical Creatures division of the Ministry of Magic. Daddy's done business with him, so you certainly know him too. You could also say that Cedric is warm and kind-hearted and talented and funny and tall and handsome. You could say that he's even asked me to teach him a few words of Mandarin Chinese, although he keeps getting it wrong; he says "ni ho" instead of "ni hao" and his inflections are all wrong, but at least he's interested and he keeps trying. You could say that he loves me very much, and that I have come to love him."

Cho paused, thinking. This next paragraph might tell the tale:

"Mummy and Daddy, you know that I have never tried to sneak behind your backs on anything. I remember that 'a Chang always walks proudly in the front door'. But what I am going to ask of you now is very important to me. As I wrote, Cedric will leave Hogwarts in a month. His father wants to find him a berth in the Ministry." Cho decided not to mention that Cedric wanted to try out for a professional Quidditch team instead. "I want to write to him at the least, and to see him whenever I'm able, and to do so with your blessing. He has been a very dear friend, and I know that, if you met him, you would approve of him completely."

This time, two days passed before the reply arrived. Like the previous letter, it was written by Lotus, and it was long. Rather than read it at breakfast, Cho took it up to her room to read:

"It seems that, for the past three months, you have done as you pleased with this Cedric, and you didn't see fit to tell us one word about it. You ask us to trust you now, after all that time, now that the damage is done. However, you have shown that we cannot trust you to be honest with us after all. No matter how you dress it up, no matter how many excuses you make, your conduct has been deceitful and a disgrace to the family. I am confident that nothing truly damaging was done to you by this boy, for we trust the school to look after your well-being in matters like this. However, we cannot trust you any longer.

They say that a child despises its parents at your age, and no doubt you will despise what this letter says. You must realize, however, that you had written and asked that your own judgment be allowed to prevail over the considerations of your father and me, who have had many more years of life experience than you. Our decisions in such matters are based on our experience and our knowledge, which even you must concede are broader than your own youthful and narrow view of the world.

You have presumed to challenge our judgment in the past, such as your involvement in Quidditch, and we have probably allowed you far more latitude than was wise or healthy. In this latest request, though, you pass the limits of our patience. How can you presume to speak of love at your age? How can you presume to know that his motives are as honourable as you claim? Are your Divination marks so perfect that you can see everything that will happen accurately and only speak to us afterwards?

Perhaps we have waited too long to tell you this, but now it must be told: you have no basis at all to claim that you know about love. If all you do is what pleases you, with no submission to older and wiser authority, then you risk a great deal; not merely your education but your very future happiness. It is because we value your well being more than you seem to value it that we must withhold our blessing or approval of this friendship. You must explain all this to the boy, and, if he is as decent as you paint him, he will understand and agree with what we say. We can only hope that he will succeed where we have failed in convincing you of the dangers of the path you walk."

Cho sat at her desk for a full hour reading and rereading the letter, and growing angrier and angrier with her mother with each passing minute. Even by Lotus's standards, it was a long, impassioned and eloquent letter, and most children, having been thus lectured by their mothers, would stop and consider their actions. However, most children were not born in the Year of the Horse, and Cho Chang was in full gallop:

"What makes you think I have to live your life?" she wrote back. "What makes you think that you understand my life so much better than I? You understand the Chinese culture that created you and sustained you; the culture that you fled when you had to, in order to settle in Britain and create a new life in a new culture. Like it or not, mother, I am a product of that new culture. The ghosts of Hogwarts are far more real to me than the spirits of my ancestors, and the cobblestones of Diagon Alley are my real home.

You may talk about your experience and your wisdom being beyond mine, but I have experienced a love that is surely beyond you—a love that is surely one of a kind. And holding up your own marriage to me as a model only makes me realize how little I want to follow the path you walked. Yours is the old- fashioned Chinese way: cook for the man, keep his house, give him sex and tend his children. But I was born and raised halfway around the world from China, in the final years of one century and the beginnings of another. I must follow my path, not yours, and I must do so by following my heart.

If we cannot have your blessing, at least give us your understanding. Understand that Britain is not China, that Cedric and I are not our parents, and that the happiness we will find together may be different from your experience, but is no less real."

When Lotus read this letter she was livid, and actually had to leave off working in the shoppe to compose herself. Part of Chang Xiemin wanted to disown his daughter on the spot, but part of him also remembered writing the same sort of letter to his parents when he was her age. "Let's wait until after the O.W.L.s and the Tournament," he counseled his wife. "Once these things are done, surely we can talk sense to them. Besides, she's in school for two more years, and everything might change in that time."

Lotus didn't want to leave Cho's challenge unanswered, but Cho was right about one thing: her husband had laid out the course of action, and she would act accordingly. That Saturday night she wrote a note to Cho and sent Quan Yin off north with it. And on Sunday morning, the day before the exams, Cho received a note from her mother, a note that didn't even mention Cedric or anything about him:

"Your father and I trust that you will do well in your exams."

And this was why Cho screamed. It was the frustration of trying to talk to a mother who simply would not listen.

There was no time for anger, though; she would sit for her Charms exam in less than twenty-four hours. Feeling the Composure Potion take effect, she reached for the set of Miranda Goshawk's spell books.

xxx

to be continued in part 62, wherein Cho meets Cedric's parents on the day of the Third Task