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

63. Two Students Gone

"And then the two of 'em stood there arguin' the toss! Well, Cedric was standin', ennyway. Harry's leg was hurt bad."

Cho and Jan were both on Jan's broom, headed for the stadium. Jan was bringing Cho up to date about the Third Task.

"So the way they're wavin' an' shoutin' at each other, ye'd think neither one of 'em wanted teh get it. But then, Cedric helps Harry up an'--"

They were landing just outside the stadium when the broom swerved suddenly.

"Jan, what's wrong?"

"Wha? Er, nothin'. Jes' not used teh the extra weight, I guess."

But Jan Nugginbridge lied to Cho. What rattled her landing was what happened to Cho: in that instant, her Glow vanished; winked out, like a candle. Jan knew that, under the circumstances, it could only mean one thing.

The babble of a thousand voices in the stadium seemed louder than the crowd at the World Cup. Jan had to shout to make herself heard above the din. "Yeh'd think there'd be some way they could trace 'em. Wonder why they ain't tryin'?"

Cho didn't answer. She was praying to every ancestor she could name, praying that Cedric would come back, so that she could apologize for their argument, so that she could make everything up to him...

There was a sudden crack and a flash and, just at the spot they'd disappeared, the two Hogwarts Champions returned, both lying on the ground. Harry Potter's face was to the grass; in one hand he held the Cup. The other grabbed the wrist of Cedric Diggory. Cedric, whose body was twisted like a cloth doll's, his glazed eyes open yet staring without sight.

He was dead.

A girl in the crowd screamed.

Cho Chang fainted.

xxx

Hours later, Cho began coming back to consciousness. She knew exactly where she was as soon as she opened her eyes--on the day-bed in the Ravenclaw Common Room--and she knew why she had fainted.

"Cedric! Where's Cedric?"

It was a mark of her popularity in the house that almost every Ravenclaw, including Professor Flitwick, was in the Common Room waiting for her to recover. Still, when she asked this, nobody would answer.

"It's true then," she said aloud to herself; "he's dead."

Everyone winced or turned away from her when she said that. "I suppose I fainted at the stadium, but why am I here? Why wouldn't they put me in the hospital wing?" Then she answered her own question: "Because he's there, isn't he? Because they didn't want to put me in the same room with Harry Potter."

Professor Flitwick tugged nervously at one sideburn. "Miss Chang, I understand that you and Mister Diggory were close..."

Cho interrupted sharply: "You don't understand anything!" She must have surprised even herself, because she swallowed hard. "Forgive me, Professor, but, could everyone just leave me alone for a little while?"

"Do you want to come up to the dorm?" Raina asked hesitantly.

"Not yet; it's too close in there. I couldn't stand it for long."

Everyone started drifting upstairs to their dormitories, after approaching Cho with a squeeze of her hand or a pat on the shoulder or a quick clumsy word of sympathy. After a while, she was alone in the Comon Room.

Alone except for Roger Davies.

"Why are you still here?" she said, in a voice that had lost all inflection. "Checking to see if I'm fit to play next year?"

"I get the feeling there's something you've not told anyone else. I'd like you to tell it to me."

"Some juicy little tidbit about me and Cedric? At a time like this you expect me--"

"I expect nothing," he interrupted. "This is worse than a shock; it's a disaster, for all of us, but especially for you. We all know that. We haven't been blind these past few months, you know. But there's something you know that we don't. And I'm asking, not as the Captain but as a friend, for you to tell me."

"Out here? You want me to make a spectacle of myself?"

"Well, I can fix that." Roger drew his wand and drew a circle in the air. "Camera oscura."

Nothing seemed to happen. Cho looked quizically at Roger.

"The Hidden Room Charm. Flitwick only teaches it to the Seventh-Years. It's obvious why. You create a bit of a space where nobody can see or hear you."

As if to prove Roger's point, at that moment Sally Fawcett and Michael Corner came into the Common Room from the bookcase. Their arms were around each other. They looked around and, satisfied that they were alone, they kissed, long and hard, before going up to their separate dormitories. As they kissed, Cho let out a painful sob.

As she watched them climb the stairs, she felt Roger's hand on her shoulder. "Cho?" he said softly.

Cho lost all attempts at composure; throwing herself on Roger's chest, she sobbed into his robes, wailing indistinctly for several minutes before Roger could make out the words: "God help me, Roger! I did it! I killed him! I killed Cedric!"

Roger didn't react to this news at first, but just kept his hands on Cho's shoulders, letting her exhaust herself, before he spoke. "You can't think you killed him."

"But I ... We, we quarreled this afternoon. His parents, they wouldn't, but I shouted and I'm so sorry!" The tears started again.

Roger gently wiped her eyes with the sleeve of his robes. "Sorry, but I didn't get that last bit at all."

"I met Cedric's parents, and they hated me. Roger, the things Mister Diggory said. Cedric told me after, and I told him that he had to stand up to his parents, as I've had to stand up to mine. But he couldn't, and I told him he'd have to or it was over between us. Roger, he was all upset and bothered during the Task. I upset him, and he was thinking about our fight instead of the Task, and it killed him." She broke down sobbing again.

In the middle of the sobbing, Roger led Cho to a nearby loveseat. Roger sat her down; Cho hardly noticed. She didn't notice anything but her grief, and her guilt, and the terrible fact that Cedric was gone forever.

"In the first place," Roger said, "I met with Cedric just before the Task. I was there with Fleur, and I guess I was pretty far gone--you know the way she can be. But I didn't see anything wrong with Cedric."

"You wouldn't. He's been very good at hiding his pain." Then Cho, realizing that she'd spoken of him in the present tense, and remembering anew that he was dead and gone, broke down again.

After a few minutes, Roger spoke again. "Cho, this may sound crazy to you, but I think you need to read a bit of Eunice Murray right about now."

"Why?" she sniffed. "I know the book inside-out and there's nothing there to help me."

"I'm talking about the epilogue."

"There is no epilogue."

"Yes, there is; you just don't know of it. Don't move; I'll be right back." Roger undid the Camera Oscura Charm and dashed up the stairs to his dorm. Cho sat on the loveseat, knowing she could be seen now, and wishing she could shrink to nothing and disappear.

In less than a minute Roger was back, with a copy of Murray's autobiography. It looked like most of the other editions she'd ever seen, except this one looked almost new.

"Here's a little bit of history for you that's not too well known. About a year before she died, Eunice Murray decided to bring out a new edition of her book, but she says she's going to add a new last chapter. She sends it off to the printers herself; she'd made enough Galleons at Quidditch, she could afford to do it. It wasn't much of a press run because the Muggle war had just started and everything was scarce. Well, when the book comes out and the Games and Sports wizards at the Ministry read the new bits, they go into a panic, because Murray didn't let them know. By then she's on her deathbed, so they just wait her out. Then the Ministry tries to buy up and burn every copy. But a few got out, and they're collector's items. You won't believe what I had to pay for this one."

"Roger, why are you telling me all this?"

"Because it's time for you to read it. Because I meant to give you this last Christmas, but, well, I guess being around Fleur addles the noodle. Just think about it, and be well. And let me know if there's ever anything I can do."

"Thanks, Roger. You're ... I'm very ... Thanks." He squeezed her hand, then dashed upstairs.

Cho started to read the epilogue:

"Those of us who live our lives in the eye of the wizarding world may seem to some to have no secrets. Wizards and witches around the town, or around the world, think that they know you on sight. They speak to you like an old friend, or upbraid you for a mistake in a game, as if you'd attended school together. They think that the little they know is all that they need to know.

And yet we all have secrets, things which we never reveal to even our nearest and dearest. I have kept a secret for most of my life, and now is the time to reveal it, although I fear it is too late. I can only pray that someone will read and understand what I am about to say.

On this, the tenth day of October 1941, Sylvia Marlbourne died. She was my secretary, she was my travelling companion, she handled my business affairs. And for decades I have lied to the wizarding world about her, for she was also "my North, my South, my East and West,/My working week and my Sunday rest,/My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song." We met thirty years ago, and became lovers the very night we met, and were never apart until now.

I have cried for her all day, but I don't know why I have been crying. For sorrow, of course, because the one I loved, she who gave my life any meaning at all, is gone from me forever. But also for regret, wishing that things could somehow be different; wishing that I could have back the opportunities I squandered; wishing that I had the courage to tell the world what I am finally telling it here and now.

I have no choice but to carry on and be who I am. Time has now deprived me of my two great loves--Quidditch and Sylvia--and left me here to get by without them. But I will no longer insult Sylvia by burying her memory as well as her body. I will mourn her publicly, as we should have lived publicly, come what may. If I shall lose a friend or a hundred friends by so doing, I care not. I shall remember her all the days I have left before I pass through the Veil to be with her again. Failing to love her in the future, completely and unashamedly, would betray our love in the past, and I cannot do that."

Cho closed the book and clutched it to her chest, weeping openly and saying softly to herself: "God bless you, Roger Davies."

xxx

Cho spent all of the following day in her bed, with the drapes drawn. The other girls tried to speak to her, but she wouldn't answer them. They only heard sobs and whimpers and one loud shriek come from behind the bedcurtains. Her dorm mates brought food to her from the Great Hall. She didn't touch any of it, at least, when they were around. That afternoon, Luna Lovegood knocked on the door.

"Is Cho here?" she asked. Jan pointed to the bed with the closed drapes. "Well, the, er, the Diggorys are about to leave, but they're asking about you."

"No." Cho's voice was muffled by the curtains.

"Are you sure? I mean, they seem sad and all but Missus Diggory looked like she really wanted--"

"I said NO!"

Luna bit her lip and ran down the steps.

xxx

Nobody at Hogwarts saw Cho Chang until the next morning, at breakfast, while Harry was still in the hospital wing. Cho walked into the Great Hall as if she were walking into a torture chamber and trying not to scream. She moved slowly and deliberately, her face as much a mask as she could make it. The conversations at the tables dropped to almost nothing as she walked to the Ravenclaw table, then glanced at the Head Table. She turned on her heel and walked up until she was standing in front of Madam Trelawney.

She stared straight up at the Divinations professor for a minute before she finally spoke. "Why?" she ask wearily. "Why didn't you see it? Why didn't anyone see it?" Madam Trelawny's face burned. Cho turned and ran out of the Great Hall, unable to stand being in the room with so many people staring at her.

"Cho!" Jan was running after her.

"Leave me alone!"

"But I have teh tell yeh!" Jan grabbed Cho's robes, pulling her to a halt. "I'm sorry I didn't tell yeh!"

"Tell me what?"

"About you an' Cedric an' the Glow. That las' day, I was watchin' Cedric in the maze, an' his Glow was so bright it fair hurt me eyes. An' then, when I was landin' the broom, and yer Glow was as bright as his, well, then it just went out. I guess tha's when it happened. To Cedric. Fer what it's worth, he loved yeh right up teh the end."

By now tears were running down both girls' cheeks. They hugged each other in the corridor for a minute. Then Jan spoke: "Can yeh come back teh the Great Hall?"

Cho shook her head. Together they walked back to Ravenclaw.

Nobody saw Cho outside of Ravenclaw House for three days. At that time, she went to Professor Flitwick's office. She didn't come inside, but stayed at the threshold. "I'm making a change in my schedule for next year. I want to take Muggle Studies instead of Divination."

"Ah. May I ask--"

"Because Divination is rubbish. Excuse me." She turned and walked down the corridor.

As that last week of the term went on, both faculty and students began to realize that Hogwarts had lost two students on the night of the Third Task. Cedric Diggory was dead, of course, but Cho Chang--the friendly and popular student, the Ravenclaw Seeker--had gone missing. She might find her way back, but it would be a long and painful journey, and she might not ever return.

xxx

to be continued in part 64, wherein a third Hogwarts student also departs

A/N: The lines quoted by Eunice Murray are from W. H. Auden's poem "Funeral Blues", which gained modern fame when it was recited in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral".