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

64. The Feast and the Leaving

I shouldn't be here, Cho thought; I shouldn't have come here.

She was in the Great Hall, on the last night of the term, waiting for the Leaving Feast. In the morning, everyone would board the Hogwarts Express for the trip back to London. Tonight should have been a night of fun and memory, of reflection on the past year and anticipation of the summer; tonight should have been the awarding of the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup.

Not this year. There were no cups. Mourning black covered the Great Hall. The students were quieter than usual.

Cho sat among the Ravenclaws, yet felt utterly alone. One student or another had tried to reach out to her during the week since the Tri-Wizard Tournament, but all they did was force Cho to tighten her mask, nod and listen politely, and bury her emotions ever deeper, only to have them come screaming out at night when she was in bed.

Tonight, she found herself sitting between the Ravenclaws on one side, and the Beauxbatons on the other. Little Gabrielle Delacour sat next to her, and once or twice reached over and silently squeezed Cho's hand in her own, as if she understood Cho better than anyone else. Cho smiled at Gabrielle as best she could, while tears rolled down her face.

Dumbledore started the meal by asking everyone to rise, lift their goblets, and salute Cedric Diggory. Cho almost choked trying to say the name, and wondered again why she was there.

Her question was answered almost at once when Dumbledore said: "Cedric Diggory was killed by Lord Voldemort."

Others around the hall cried out, frightened by the mere mention of the name of the Dark Lord. Some clearly refused to believe it; hadn't Harry Potter vanquished He Who Must Not Be Named all those years ago?

But to Cho, the words carried absolute truth, and clarified her next year at Hogwarts.

That's how it was, she thought; that's how it must have been.

She hardly listened to Dumbledore as she considered what her new course of action would be, how she would go about avenging the death of Cedric Diggory. First would be to throw herself next year into Defense Against the Dark Arts, with an intensity previously reserved for Quidditch. After that...

"I am talking, of course, about Harry Potter."

The name caught Cho's attention as Dumbledore prepared another toast. He raised his goblet toward Harry at the Griffindor table. The students likewise rose, raised their goblets. Cho tried to speak Harry's name, but it caught in her throat. The goblet held water, but she could barely drink a drop; it tasted of wormwood to her.

The more Dumbledore went on about about unity among wizards, the more uncomfortable Cho became. When he spoke of Cedric again, asking everyone to "remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort," something in Cho's mind screamed NO! Don't remember him because he died! Remember him because he lived! Remember the days in the garden and the night of the Yule Ball! Remember the Seeker, not the corpse!

As soon as the food appeared on the tables, Cho stood and walked out of the Great Hall. Once outside, she ran to the girls' toilet where Moaning Myrtle occupied a stall. Cho fell to her knees in one stall, retching violently, losing the few bites of food she had eaten that day. She then buried her face in her arms, sobbing helplessly.

"STOP THAT!"

Cho raised her head and turned to watch Moaning Myrtle pass through the stall door.

"You've been like this all week, and I thought it was amusing at first, but now you're just an annoyance. You're not the only one who lost something when Cedric died, you know. I had my moments, watching him disrobe in the prefect's bath. He really was a fine looking specimen." Myrtle sighed, and came as close as she ever did to smiling wistfully. "But that's all done," she suddenly snapped at Cho, as if it were her fault he was dead. "Now he's gone, and neither of us can have him!"

"Have? What do you mean?"

"I mean that I was hoping that his ghost would hang about Hogwarts for a while. Have a little fun with him on my terms. But, no; his parents have to take him back home! It isn't fair!"

This was worse than an insult to Cedric. Cho got to her feet, walked right through Myrtle and out of the stall.

"How rude!" came the voice behind her as Cho stepped out of the toilet. The first thing she saw in the corridor was Draco Malfoy, leaning against the wall, arms folded, smirking.

"Not having one of your better days, are you? It's to be expected, after all, falling into your own trap."

She never liked talking to Draco, and didn't want to talk to him now, but his statement made her ask, "What trap?"

"Don't play the innocent. All this year and last the whole school watched Harry Potter practically trip over his own tongue following you around. We could all see he liked you, and I suspect you liked him too." Cho didn't say anything. "Then came the Ball, and suddenly that oaf Diggory looked a lot better: more money, Ministry connections, a proper old wizarding family."

"It wasn't like that..." she started feebly; Draco just went on.

"And now he's out of the picture and you're wondering if Potter will have you back." Cho's breath caught; it's exactly what she didn't want to think all week, but a thought which had forced itself into her mind when Dumbledore toasted Harry. "I rather doubt it. I mean, you threw him over for the Hufflepuff; he can hardly feel good about being second choice. He hated seeing you two together, and I don't think he'll forgive and forget anytime soon. But that's what happens when you try to keep two boys going at the same time. It's simple arithmancy: three take away one leaves nothing."

Whether or not he'd planned it, Draco's insults to Cho had never hit so close to the bone. With her tears starting again, all she could do was say to Draco, in a clipped whisper, "May God damn your soul to Hell, Draco Malfoy, if it isn't there already." Then she ran toward Ravenclaw.

Draco didn't care. He'd made Cho Chang cry. He'd finally gotten back at the Ravenclaw Seeker.

He'd had a good day.

xxx

Cho made her way up the steps. The dinner was still going on. The dormitory would be empty now, and she wanted the solitude. Especially now, after the nightmare this day was turning into, what with the banquet and what Draco had said about her and Harry...

The dorm wasn't empty. Elizabeth Foggly was throwing her belongings into her trunk.

"Packing for tomorrow?" Cho asked mechanically.

"No; for now. I'm leaving Hogwarts now and never coming back."

Cho was stunned by the announcement. "Will I ever see you again?"

"Cho, I hope not. Because if we ever meet again, one of us is going to have to die."

"I don't understand."

For an answer, Libby rolled up the left sleeve of her robe, showing Cho the brand: the skull with the snake slithering out of its mouth.

Cho couldn't speak at first; she was even afraid that she might faint again. "But you--when did--"

"After our second year here. When I went home for the summer, my parents told me everything; that they'd joined Voldemort the first time, but nobody ever suspected them. And of course, after classes with Professor Quirrell, with Voldemort so close by, it didn't take much to convince me."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere with my parents. That's all I know, and if I knew more, I still wouldn't tell you."

A pit seemed to open up in Cho's stomach: "Then your parents were there when Cedric ..."

Libby nodded. "They were there."

For the first time since the Tournament, she spoke the words: "What happened?"

"Cho, we've just heard Dumbledore reciting a lot of sanctimonious cliches about Cedric. If you really want the truth, I'll tell you, because it won't make a bit of difference. Cedric showed up by mistake; the Portkey was supposed to bring Harry Potter, and ONLY Harry Potter, to Lord Voldemort. Cedric Diggory was a mistake, and Lord Voldemort got rid of him. He told his assistant to 'Get rid of the spare'; that's all Cedric would have been anyway. Someone to bring Lord Voldemort back into the world if Harry Potter didn't work out."

Get rid of the spare.

"Cho, listen to me. I know how much this must hurt you, and believe me, it was never my idea to hurt you. But you have to understand: this is the kind of universe we live in. By ourselves we're nothing. You and Cedric and all your Quidditch friends play a few games, and that's all the mark you've left on the world. But the Dark Lord has a great vision of what the world is to become, not just the wizarding world, and he has the power now to make it happen. So I've decided to be with him, and with my parents, when it happens.

"I probably shouldn't ask this, but I will. Come with me, Cho."

This exchange had left Cho sitting on the edge of her bed, feeling quite numb. But now she was roused enough so that Libby could hear the edge in her voice: "Never."

"Face it, Cho, you're on the losing side. Dumbledore is too old, and Harry Potter is too young. And you must realize that they're on the top of Voldemort's 'List of Things to Do.' It may take a month or two; it may take a year or two; but, believe me, they will go the way of Cedric Diggory."

"No. You caught Cedric by surprise. It won't happen that way with Harry."

"It won't? Cho, they were there together. Neither one had the chance to lift a finger."

It was strange to hear from a Death Eater that Harry Potter didn't have anything to do with Cedric's death, but Cho found this news reassuring. "Do you intend to kill me now, Libby?"

Libby had been throwing more of her belongings into the trunk. Now she turned to face Cho, wand at the ready. "I promised myself I wouldn't harm any of us here. But if I have to, I'll kill you."

The words of Cho's father reushed back to her brain: "Kill them before they kill you!" he had shouted on the night of the World Quidditch Cup. Cho stood up, pulled her wand out of her robes, then let it fall onto her bed. "Do what you must."

"Cho, please. Pick up the wand; threaten me with it. That's the only way I can attack you. It has to be self-defense."

"Then you know I've never been a threat to you."

"Cho, please reconsider."

"Only if you'll reconsider. You don't have to go to them."

"Yes I do. But you can't understand that."

"I understand threats; I know you just threatened me. But I don't have to live by them, and neither do you."

"It's not just threats. It's my parents; don't you understand that?"

"Maybe I don't. I defied my parents when I told them I..." Cho's voice broke only slightly. "I was going to marry Cedric."

"You're different, Cho. You, you found someone to love. I don't love anyone that way; not Dumbledore, not Harry Potter."

"You don't love the Dark Lord either, do you?"

Libby's voice was now barely a whisper. "You're right. I'm afraid of him. But I've seen him; I've heard him. And fear is a very sensible thing to feel around him." She sighed, half-smiling. "And you know us Ravenclaws; we're nothing if not sensible."

"Then stay here in Ravenclaw. Stay through the summer. Dumbledore and the teachers can protect you."

"I ... can't."

Cho heard steps on the stair. She turned her head for a second to look at the door. When she looked back, Libby was at the open window, astride her broom, tears in her eyes.

"Good luck to you, Cho Chang; the best luck would be if we never meet again."

Libby pointed her wand at her trunk: "Locomotor!" She was through the window. Cho ran to catch her, but knew she couldn't do it. She stood at the open window, watching Elizabeth Foggly and her trunk disappear toward the north.

xxx

All during the train ride back to London, Cho was bothered by two thoughts: Harry and her mother.

Would Harry hate Cho, as Malfoy had said? That could wait until September. Maybe by then she'd be better able to control her emotions. Several times a day, every day since the Third Task, some memory of Cedric would come unbidden, causing her to burst into tears. They had shared so many goods times; all of them now gone forever.

As for her mother, Cho knew she still had a slight reprieve. Her father always dropped her off at King's Cross or picked her up, and it would be night in Diagon Alley when she got home and faced her mother, from whom she hadn't heard a word since the O.W.L.s. Her last own home must have upset her mother more than she thought.

However, when Cho walked through the barrier, Mrs. Lotus Chang stood in King's Cross, her gaze fixed on the portal between tracks 9 and 10, as if Cho might try to slip past her. When Cho appeared, with her luggage and an empty cage (Quan Yin having been sent home the night before), she simply stood still for a minute, looking for some sort of clue from her mother of what would happen next.

What happened next was something she never expected. Lotus led Cho toward the wall, away from the middle of the corridor, gently took her daughter's face in her hands and sighed.

"Dear, dear Cho," she said sorrowfully, "I knew that someday the world would break your heart; it breaks all our hearts sooner or later. I just didn't expect it to be like this. Most times, if you have an argument, and you have them even with someone you love, you can get back together if you want, work it out if you want. But this--"

There were times that Cho wanted nothing else in life than to see this: her mother in pain, nearly in tears. But she wasn't sorrowing over her own life, her own marriage, her own failure to be the witch she wanted to be; it was Cho's heartbreak that had broken her mother's heart.

Cho had been holding herself in all day, letting a few tears tell everyone all that they needed to know. No more; in the middle of King's Cross, she threw herself at her mother, howling out her hurt and desolation. Lotus stroked Cho's raven hair, speaking softly in Mandarin.

Cho's mother happened to look up only once-just in time to see Harry Potter come through the barrier, pushing his luggage and his owl on a cart. He was surrounded by a group of gwailo, most of them with bright red hair. She saw Harry look at Cho; saw the look on his face--a look of pain and desolation and a sorrow fully as deep as Cho's.

Lotus had heard the rumours, read the Daily Prophet, read and reread her daughter's letters (for-unknown to Cho-she had saved them all, from the very first day of school) and came to one conclusion: the rumours were wrong. Ha Li Bo Te could not possibly have killed Cedric Diggory.

As Mrs. Chang watched, Harry exchanged words with the others, and one girl--not the one with red hair--kissed Harry on the cheek. She resolved to speak of this with Cho over the summer, as she wished to speak with her daughter of so many things...

xxx

to be concluded by an Epilogue, in which Cho Chang says goodbye to Cedric Diggory.

A/N: I have decided to end "Or Die Trying" at this point for the time being. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" finally started filling in blanks in the character of Cho Chang, and I was gratified to find that I was correct in reading Rowling and seeing that Cho was interested in Harry at least as long as he was interested in her. I was further gratified to find that Cho, as depicted in "Phoenix", did not stray far from my conception of her in this fic, even if it did cause some readers to lose interest in or even revile her. To go back now, though, and bring the story into compliance with the new Canon, I would have to tweak more than just her favorite Quidditch team (from Puddlemere United to Tutshill). I'd have to lose a couple of my OC classmates to substitute some of Rowling's wonderful creations. I couldn't resist inserting Luna Lovegood once I saw who she was, and Marietta Edgecombe would be an interesting character to work with. But all of this will have to wait. For now, I thank you for all your comments and for sticking with the story this far, and ask you to take the last step, along with Cho Chang, into the cemetery of Ottery St. Catchpole...