A/N: I do not own anything. All chracters are owned by J.K.Rowling.
Chapter 12
Cho and Draco had been secretly meeting each other in secluded places occasionally around the school ever since that wonderful night a week ago.
Cho never felt happier when Draco and her were together. Nevertheless, she still went out with Harry. Things couldn't have been better.
And she was excited. Very excited. Today was her 17th birthday.
When she woke up that morning, Draco had greeted her with a kiss and a beautiful necklace - a plain silver chain with a heart shaped diamond for the pendant.
Cho was wearing it as she bounded to the great hall. The heart shaped diamond captured the morning rays of sunlight and it sparkled magically, receiving envious looks from other girls as they passed by her.
She entered the great hall and when she reached her place, there were quite a number of different owls waiting patiently for her, all with beautifully wrapped parcels and cards of different sizes and colours attached to their legs.
Cho sat down and people cluttered around her, offering her congrats and well wishes and handing her more presents.
Cho was sorting out her various gifts when Harry came.
"Hi Cho! Happy Birthday!" Harry said, and leant down to kiss Cho.
Harry held out a gift to Cho. Cho took it. She held it, unsure of what she should do with it. Harry noticed her doubt.
"Open it, silly!" Harry urged.
Carefully as not to damage the magical colour changing wrapping paper, Cho unwrapped the gift. Inside was a royal blue necklace case. Cho opened it.
A silver heart shaped locket lay against the soft cotton padding of the case. Cho drew a sharp intake of breath.
The locket was beautiful. The delicate heart was polished to a gleaming shimmer, and the surface was engraved with beautiful and strange markings that Cho could not identify.
"Oh Harry," Cho breathed. "You didn't have to do this..." Cho felt guilty at accepting such a beautiful thing from Harry. The locket was obviously expensive, and he had probably spent a lot of time picking it out. Cho was ashamed. She didn't want the gift, but she couldn't say that. If only Harry knew that she had been dating Draco behind his back, and what she was going to do to him.
Cho felt hot tears start to form in her eyes, but quickly blinked them away. Luckily, her head had been down, so Harry hadn't seen her reaction.
She closed the case softly and made to set it aside, but Harry stopped her.
"Aren't you going to wear it?" he asked.
"Yeah, um, okay," Cho replied. She took the case again and opened it. She picked up the locket. It was hanging off a delicate silver chain so thin that Cho was afraid that she might break it.
Cho then realised that she was already wearing the necklace that Draco had given her. She tried to cover it, in hopes that Harry would not see it, but too late.
"Hey, is this new? I've never seen it before," Harry said, lightly touching the necklace Cho was wearing.
"Oh, um, this? Yeah, it's new. I just got it from my brother. He bought it from Diagon Alley," Cho said quickly.
"Really? He gave you two presents?" Harry said, showing Cho a big rectangular shaped box with To Cho From Jae written in big black bold capitals in a childish scrawl across the front of the package.
Cho mentally slapped herself. Trust Jae to be too lazy to buy a gift tag and write everything on the present itself.
"Oh, this old thing? Oh, um, Jae gave this to me last year, but I forgot to wear it!" Cho quickly amended.
Harry looked doubtful but he still helped Cho remove the diamond necklace and helped her to fasten the locket on.
Harry then sat next to her for breakfast (though Cho had to remove quite a lot of packages off the chair before Harry could sit down).
Almost the whole female population looked at Cho through envious eyes. After all, what girl wouldn't want to be in Cho's shoes?
Look at it this way, she's pretty, popular, had the whole male population after her, smart, got a new necklace, was surrounded by hoards of presents and had a handsome boyfriend.
In the middle of breakfast, though, another lone owl came with a note for Cho.
The owl was pure black. Cho instantly recognised it as Draco's owl, Onyx. His owl was his pride and joy. Cho frowned. What was it that Draco was sending her? And why couldn't he have chosen a better time?
Onyx hooted regally, demanding Cho's attention. Feeling Harry's eyes on her, Cho removed the small slip of parchment from Onyx's leg and fed it a piece of bacon from her plate.
With her body shielding Harry's view from the note, Cho quickly read it. Meet me in the empty Muggle Studies classroom (Third floor corridor) at 8. There was no signature, but Cho knew who it was from.
"What is it?" Harry asked as Cho turned back to him.
"Oh nothing, my parents asking me if I liked the present," Cho replied absently. Harry would have questioned her more but luckily, the best friends, Hermione and Ginny came running up to Cho and dumped a huge basket of presents into Cho's lap.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHO!" They squealed.
"Thank you!" Cho replied, hugging them. On closer inspection, Cho saw that the basket contained many small presents.
"What are all of these?" Cho asked.
"There is present in there from each person in the school, except the people from Slytherin house and a few others," Hermione replied.
"And here is my present!" Hermione said eagerly and handed Cho a slip of parchment.
Cho read what the parchment said. "30 galleons off at Flourish and Blotts? Oh my god, thank you Hermione!" Hermione was one of Cho's good friends, and so she knew that Cho loved to read.
Ginny handed her a box from her and gave her one more box - a big one that was wrapped in bright neon coloured wrapping paper. "The big one is from Fred and George," Ginny explained, seeing how Cho looked confused.
Just then, Ron came walking along and handed her a humongous teddy bear that had a thick gold ribbon tied around its neck and a bulky package. "Happy Birthday Cho. The package's from mum. I think she knitted you a sweater," Ron said.
Once again, more people surrounded her and Cho drowned in their presents. Then along came Professor Snape.
"What is all this racket here?" he demanded. "Ah, Miss Chang. I realise that it is your birthday but that does not give you an excuse to disrupt breakfast. 20 points from Ravenclaw."
Everyone immediately groaned but shut up when Snape glared at them. Cho was feeling so happy, however, that even Snape couldn't dampen her mood.
At the end of breakfast, Cho wanted to run back to her room to put all the presents there, but most everyone had left and Harry had already gone back to the Gryffindor table.
As Cho was trying to plan how she was going to get all the presents back to the room without having to make second trips and avoid being late for class, a shadow fell across the table. Cho looked up and lo and behold! There stood Draco!
"Need help?" Draco said in his icy emotionless tone he used during school hours. Gone was the tender compassionate voice Draco had used when he had greeted her this morning.
"Yeah," Cho replied and Draco picked up the basket and many other packages. Cho wondered how he could balance all of them without falling.
They then left the great hall together. Cho didn't notice Harry's bright eyes following them.
As Cho and Draco walked side by side in silence back to their room, Draco spoke.
"I saw you remove the necklace I gave you for Potter's," he said bitterly.
"Yeah... well..." Cho stuttered.
"Why don't you break up with him?"
"NO!" Cho exclaimed.
"Why not?" Draco demanded. "Am I not good enough for you?"
By now they had reached their room. They entered and Cho dumped all the presents on her bed. Draco did likewise.
"No, it's not that Draco! It's just- I can't tell you!" Cho said in frustration.
"Yeah, whatever," Draco replied.
"Draco - " Cho stopped talking and grabbed Draco by his tie and pulled him forwards towards her.
Her lips met with his and they started kissing passionately. Draco's hand snaked it's way into Cho's blouse. They broke the kiss and just stared deep into each other's eyes understandingly.
Cho laid her head on Draco's chest and was comforted by the sound of his beating heart. So alive.
Cho looked at the time. "AAH! We're late for lessons!" she exclaimed, pulling away from Draco and rummaged around in her luggage for her textbooks. "What class do you have next?" Draco asked.
"Advanced potions," she replied. Advanced potions was a class that combined all four houses and sixth and seventh years together.
"So do I," Draco said. "I'll walk with you."
Cho finally found her book and together they set out for potions, hand in hand. Everyone was in class, so there was nobody to see them.
Just before the dungeons, Draco and Cho shared one fleeting kiss before letting go of each other and entering the class.
"Sorry we're late Professor," Draco apologised.
Snape, as usual, made some sarcastic remark and deducted yet another 10 points from each house.
Cho took her rightful place next to Harry at the front of the class. He greeted her with a hurt look.
The day went on.
A/N: What will happen next?