OR DIE TRYING: CHO CHANG'S SIXTH YEAR
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 (for disturbing imagery)
Spoilers: Everything
A/N: To make this fic conform to both the original "Or Die Trying" and to "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", some adjustments must be made. The Ravenclaw Girls Prefect in Cho's dormitory is now named Marietta Edgecombe instead of Letitia Groondy, but her character is essentially the same: more concerned with style than with substance, more worried about appearances than about the truth.
xxx
3. What Are Friends For
Cho and Cedric were together, lying side-by-side, on some sort of bench; cloth-lined, but she could still feel the hard wood beneath. They were both in their school robes. The light was dim, but just enough to see. Cho turned to face her beloved.
"Cedric?"
Cedric Diggory's head turned to face Cho-
and fell off of its neck.
Cho watched in shock as the head started to change, as if it were being Transfigured. The hair kept growing even as it turned gray and started falling out. Cedric's soothing gray eyes collapsed into his skull, the sockets quickly filling with pools of maggots. Worms burrowed out through his cheeks.
Cho tried to look away, but terror kept her gaze fixed on the rotting skull. She tried to sit up, to run, but couldn't. She realized that this wasn't a bench; it was a coffin. She pounded on the lid, but all that came back was a dull thud, the sound of a coffin buried under six feet of earth, where nobody could help her, nobody could hear her if she screamed--
"CEDRIC!!"
Lotus Chang was up in an instant, as her daughter had awakened her so many times this summer. She didn't go down to the kitchen; she knew to keep some potions in her bedroom. She poured a dose of the Draught of Peace into a goblet and took it across the hall to Cho's bedroom.
Cho was sitting up in bed, drenched with sweat but shivering as if in a blizzard, staring straight ahead, panting as if she'd just run a mile. Lotus put the goblet to her daughter's lips, and she mechanically drank the potion. She didn't seem to realize what she was doing until she'd finished and her mother was making her lie back down.
"Mummy, did you just--? But I hate that potion! It makes me feel..."
"You need it," her mother interrupted. "And you need your rest. Now don't give me an argument."
The Draught was starting to work, so Cho couldn't do much of anything except let herself be arranged in her bed. She stayed for a moment between waking and sleeping as her mother left the room. But she was still conscious enough to hear her mother complaining to her father:
"I can't take much more of this! That's twice in the six nights since we've been back, and it's just getting worse!" She heard her father's voice vaguely through the bedroom doors, but couldn't tell what he was saying. "A professional?" her mother shouted. "You mean some sort of Muggle doctor, don't you? How can we possibly trust her not to make a mistake and say the wrong thing, and her in the state she's in?"
Cho tried to tell her mother she was wrong, but with the potion working in her now, all she wanted to do was sleep--
--which she did until just after noon on 10 August, undisturbed by any dreams.
She didn't dare leave her room. She wasn't at all eager to get into an argument with her mother, especially when she knew exactly what the argument would be.
I have to stop remembering him, she'll tell me; I have to stop crying for him, but I can't! I didn't start by my own choice; how can I stop?! But I'm disrupting her life as well as mine, and I guess that's not really fair, but there's nothing fair about any of this! What happened to Cedric wasn't fair, and my shouting at him on his last day on earth--I wasn't fair--and I can't change it--and that's not fair..."
That's as far as Cho's thinking got. She spent the next hour sobbing into her pillow over Cedric and the way she had treated him.
She couldn't stop crying until the afternoon was half gone. She didn't know whether to dress and help her parents in the shoppe for an hour or two, and have to face their questions, or simply stay in her room for the rest of the day. She'd have to miss dinner, too, but it wouldn't be the first time, and she really wasn't hungry anyway.
Cho looked out her bedroom window. Late afternoon in August and the sun was still high in the sky; the day would never end. Cho sat at her writing desk, with her head in her arms, and finally had to face it: her parents were right. She needed help from someone. Ravenclaw or not, she couldn't think her way out of this one; not on her own, anyway. There had to be someone she could talk to, but not an adult; someone only a little older, more experienced, who knew something about young love...
The answer hit her like a Bludger. Why didn't I think of her sooner?! She never failed me at Hogwarts; surely she can help me now!
Cho wanted to run to the parlour at once to place the call, but this bit of hope seemed to give her back her appetite. She suddenly realized that she hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours, and felt it. She hurriedly changed. There might still be time to help out in the shoppe, to try to make up for the way she'd been acting. But she'd call first thing in the morning.
xxx
Cho raced through breakfast the next morning, and, with thirty minutes to spare before having to open the shoppe, she dashed to the parlour. She knelt on the carpet, threw a pinch of Floo powder into the flames and stuck her head into the grate.
"Floo Network Information, please."
At once the fire resolved itself. Cho now saw that she was in one of a dozen hearths that lined the wall of a large circular room. In the middle of the room sat a witch in tweed robes; a thin witch with a thin face and with rectangular glasses perched on her long, thin nose.
The witch looked vaguely familiar to Cho. "Erm, Madam Edgecombe?"
"Yes?" The witch squinted through her spectacles at Cho's head in the hearth. "Ah, Chang, isn't it? You're at Hogwarts with my daughter."
"Yes, and she speaks very highly of you." Cho was lying; Marietta seldom spoke of her mother at all. Cho had met the woman briefly a year ago, at the World Quidditch Cup, when all that Madam Edgecombe did was complain about the crowd and complain about the "primitive conditions" and complain that she just wanted to watch a match and go back to London. "I need to locate someone on the Network, Madam. Do you have a listing for Percy and Penelope Weasley?"
Madam Edgecombe Summoned a large book from between two of the hearths in the room. When it had settled on her desk, she started to thumb through it. It took about a minute for her to find anything. "Penelope Weasley, did you say?"
"Yes, Madam. The last I heard, anyway, my friend was engaged to Percy Weasley."
"Well, young Mister Weasley is not married, and never has been. In any case, he's been putting in long hours here at the Ministry, working very closely with Minister Fudge himself, no less. The information I have is that Percy Weasley has no fixed abode; he's moved out of The Burrow, the family home near Ottery Saint Catchpole, Devonshire, and has taken up temporary lodging in London. Messages are to be taken here and called for."
Cho didn't know what to make of this. They had seemed so close. Madam Edgecombe interrupted her thoughts: "If you don't mind my asking, Miss Chang, what is the name of your friend?"
"Oh, I doubt she'd be listed. Her parents are Muggles, you see. They have something to do with a Muggle university."
"The name?"
"Penelope Clearwater."
Madam Edgecombe turned back to the book. "Well, it looks as if nothing's changed here. We still have Miss Penelope Clearwater living at Old Oaks, Little Wilbraham, near Cambridge. Shall I connect you, dear?"
"Yes, thank you very much, Madam Edgecombe."
The older witch threw a handful of Floo powder at Cho's face, which caused the fire to flare up bright green. When it died down, she could see the parlour of a clean, carefully decorated cottage. An older, heavy-set woman with long wavy hair, like Penelope's, was looking rather nervously at the hearth.
"I'm sorry to drop in unannounced like this," Cho said, "but I knew your daughter at Hogwarts Academy, and I rather need to talk to her right now. Would that be possible?"
"Oh, er, yes. I'll just, er, go fetch her." She backed nervously away from the hearth, then turned and ran from the room. Cho was surprised; Penelope was nineteen years old now. Surely her parents could have adjusted to something like the Floo Network by now.
A few seconds later, she saw Penelope run into the parlour, her robes billowing behind her. She had changed only a little: she'd grown a bit fuller in the face, a bit rounder in the figure. She was clearly taking after her mother.
"Cho!" Penelope shouted happily. "Good Heavens, it's been ages! How are things?"
"Not very good. I really need to speak with you. Do you have time?"
"Not right now, I'm afraid. I was about to leave for the Ministry, to test for my Apparator's License. I should have done a year ago, but I just kept putting things off." Penelope bit her lip, as if she suddenly remembered something she didn't want to mention.
"If I may ask," Cho ventured hesitantly, "about you and Percy..."
Penelope shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "That's rather a long story, I'm afraid, and I don't really want to talk about it."
"But that's why I wanted to talk to you! I had to ask someone about, about so many things."
"You've been seeing someone, Cho?"
"Yes, until recently." Cho needed a few seconds before she could say the name, and even then could barely speak above a whisper: "Cedric Diggory."
Penelope's eyes grew wide. "Oh, you poor thing! Now I understand. How can I help?"
"I wish I knew," Cho said, trying very hard not to cry. "I need to talk to someone."
"Wait there. MOTHER!" Penelope stood up and ran from the room. After a minute, Penelope came back. "Listen, Cho, do you think you could Floo over here on the twelfth?"
Two more days? "I think I can wait that long."
"It's just that my folks are going to be out of town that night. They have to attend a conference in Bristol; something to do with the uni. But then you could come over, spend the night if you can, and we can just talk everything over. I'll ask around until then and see what I can find out. Please say you'll come over."
Cho smiled, for the first time in days, it seemed. "I'm sure I can."
"Wonderful! I'll look for you in two days, then."
"Around five, I think, once we've closed up the shoppe."
"Goodbye, Cho."
Cho lingered with her old friend for just a second, then pulled her head out of the grate.
As she sat back on the floor, she realized that her mother had been sitting in an armchair, watching her-she didn't know for how long. "I heard about your sleeping over on the twelfth, and I suppose it'll be all right," she said in a voice that sounded grudging but that didn't match the concern on her face. "At first, I thought you were looking for something."
Cho felt her throat go dry. "I think I might have found it."
xxx
to be continued in part 4, wherein Cho and Penelope speak of love and broken hearts
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 (for disturbing imagery)
Spoilers: Everything
A/N: To make this fic conform to both the original "Or Die Trying" and to "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", some adjustments must be made. The Ravenclaw Girls Prefect in Cho's dormitory is now named Marietta Edgecombe instead of Letitia Groondy, but her character is essentially the same: more concerned with style than with substance, more worried about appearances than about the truth.
xxx
3. What Are Friends For
Cho and Cedric were together, lying side-by-side, on some sort of bench; cloth-lined, but she could still feel the hard wood beneath. They were both in their school robes. The light was dim, but just enough to see. Cho turned to face her beloved.
"Cedric?"
Cedric Diggory's head turned to face Cho-
and fell off of its neck.
Cho watched in shock as the head started to change, as if it were being Transfigured. The hair kept growing even as it turned gray and started falling out. Cedric's soothing gray eyes collapsed into his skull, the sockets quickly filling with pools of maggots. Worms burrowed out through his cheeks.
Cho tried to look away, but terror kept her gaze fixed on the rotting skull. She tried to sit up, to run, but couldn't. She realized that this wasn't a bench; it was a coffin. She pounded on the lid, but all that came back was a dull thud, the sound of a coffin buried under six feet of earth, where nobody could help her, nobody could hear her if she screamed--
"CEDRIC!!"
Lotus Chang was up in an instant, as her daughter had awakened her so many times this summer. She didn't go down to the kitchen; she knew to keep some potions in her bedroom. She poured a dose of the Draught of Peace into a goblet and took it across the hall to Cho's bedroom.
Cho was sitting up in bed, drenched with sweat but shivering as if in a blizzard, staring straight ahead, panting as if she'd just run a mile. Lotus put the goblet to her daughter's lips, and she mechanically drank the potion. She didn't seem to realize what she was doing until she'd finished and her mother was making her lie back down.
"Mummy, did you just--? But I hate that potion! It makes me feel..."
"You need it," her mother interrupted. "And you need your rest. Now don't give me an argument."
The Draught was starting to work, so Cho couldn't do much of anything except let herself be arranged in her bed. She stayed for a moment between waking and sleeping as her mother left the room. But she was still conscious enough to hear her mother complaining to her father:
"I can't take much more of this! That's twice in the six nights since we've been back, and it's just getting worse!" She heard her father's voice vaguely through the bedroom doors, but couldn't tell what he was saying. "A professional?" her mother shouted. "You mean some sort of Muggle doctor, don't you? How can we possibly trust her not to make a mistake and say the wrong thing, and her in the state she's in?"
Cho tried to tell her mother she was wrong, but with the potion working in her now, all she wanted to do was sleep--
--which she did until just after noon on 10 August, undisturbed by any dreams.
She didn't dare leave her room. She wasn't at all eager to get into an argument with her mother, especially when she knew exactly what the argument would be.
I have to stop remembering him, she'll tell me; I have to stop crying for him, but I can't! I didn't start by my own choice; how can I stop?! But I'm disrupting her life as well as mine, and I guess that's not really fair, but there's nothing fair about any of this! What happened to Cedric wasn't fair, and my shouting at him on his last day on earth--I wasn't fair--and I can't change it--and that's not fair..."
That's as far as Cho's thinking got. She spent the next hour sobbing into her pillow over Cedric and the way she had treated him.
She couldn't stop crying until the afternoon was half gone. She didn't know whether to dress and help her parents in the shoppe for an hour or two, and have to face their questions, or simply stay in her room for the rest of the day. She'd have to miss dinner, too, but it wouldn't be the first time, and she really wasn't hungry anyway.
Cho looked out her bedroom window. Late afternoon in August and the sun was still high in the sky; the day would never end. Cho sat at her writing desk, with her head in her arms, and finally had to face it: her parents were right. She needed help from someone. Ravenclaw or not, she couldn't think her way out of this one; not on her own, anyway. There had to be someone she could talk to, but not an adult; someone only a little older, more experienced, who knew something about young love...
The answer hit her like a Bludger. Why didn't I think of her sooner?! She never failed me at Hogwarts; surely she can help me now!
Cho wanted to run to the parlour at once to place the call, but this bit of hope seemed to give her back her appetite. She suddenly realized that she hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours, and felt it. She hurriedly changed. There might still be time to help out in the shoppe, to try to make up for the way she'd been acting. But she'd call first thing in the morning.
xxx
Cho raced through breakfast the next morning, and, with thirty minutes to spare before having to open the shoppe, she dashed to the parlour. She knelt on the carpet, threw a pinch of Floo powder into the flames and stuck her head into the grate.
"Floo Network Information, please."
At once the fire resolved itself. Cho now saw that she was in one of a dozen hearths that lined the wall of a large circular room. In the middle of the room sat a witch in tweed robes; a thin witch with a thin face and with rectangular glasses perched on her long, thin nose.
The witch looked vaguely familiar to Cho. "Erm, Madam Edgecombe?"
"Yes?" The witch squinted through her spectacles at Cho's head in the hearth. "Ah, Chang, isn't it? You're at Hogwarts with my daughter."
"Yes, and she speaks very highly of you." Cho was lying; Marietta seldom spoke of her mother at all. Cho had met the woman briefly a year ago, at the World Quidditch Cup, when all that Madam Edgecombe did was complain about the crowd and complain about the "primitive conditions" and complain that she just wanted to watch a match and go back to London. "I need to locate someone on the Network, Madam. Do you have a listing for Percy and Penelope Weasley?"
Madam Edgecombe Summoned a large book from between two of the hearths in the room. When it had settled on her desk, she started to thumb through it. It took about a minute for her to find anything. "Penelope Weasley, did you say?"
"Yes, Madam. The last I heard, anyway, my friend was engaged to Percy Weasley."
"Well, young Mister Weasley is not married, and never has been. In any case, he's been putting in long hours here at the Ministry, working very closely with Minister Fudge himself, no less. The information I have is that Percy Weasley has no fixed abode; he's moved out of The Burrow, the family home near Ottery Saint Catchpole, Devonshire, and has taken up temporary lodging in London. Messages are to be taken here and called for."
Cho didn't know what to make of this. They had seemed so close. Madam Edgecombe interrupted her thoughts: "If you don't mind my asking, Miss Chang, what is the name of your friend?"
"Oh, I doubt she'd be listed. Her parents are Muggles, you see. They have something to do with a Muggle university."
"The name?"
"Penelope Clearwater."
Madam Edgecombe turned back to the book. "Well, it looks as if nothing's changed here. We still have Miss Penelope Clearwater living at Old Oaks, Little Wilbraham, near Cambridge. Shall I connect you, dear?"
"Yes, thank you very much, Madam Edgecombe."
The older witch threw a handful of Floo powder at Cho's face, which caused the fire to flare up bright green. When it died down, she could see the parlour of a clean, carefully decorated cottage. An older, heavy-set woman with long wavy hair, like Penelope's, was looking rather nervously at the hearth.
"I'm sorry to drop in unannounced like this," Cho said, "but I knew your daughter at Hogwarts Academy, and I rather need to talk to her right now. Would that be possible?"
"Oh, er, yes. I'll just, er, go fetch her." She backed nervously away from the hearth, then turned and ran from the room. Cho was surprised; Penelope was nineteen years old now. Surely her parents could have adjusted to something like the Floo Network by now.
A few seconds later, she saw Penelope run into the parlour, her robes billowing behind her. She had changed only a little: she'd grown a bit fuller in the face, a bit rounder in the figure. She was clearly taking after her mother.
"Cho!" Penelope shouted happily. "Good Heavens, it's been ages! How are things?"
"Not very good. I really need to speak with you. Do you have time?"
"Not right now, I'm afraid. I was about to leave for the Ministry, to test for my Apparator's License. I should have done a year ago, but I just kept putting things off." Penelope bit her lip, as if she suddenly remembered something she didn't want to mention.
"If I may ask," Cho ventured hesitantly, "about you and Percy..."
Penelope shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "That's rather a long story, I'm afraid, and I don't really want to talk about it."
"But that's why I wanted to talk to you! I had to ask someone about, about so many things."
"You've been seeing someone, Cho?"
"Yes, until recently." Cho needed a few seconds before she could say the name, and even then could barely speak above a whisper: "Cedric Diggory."
Penelope's eyes grew wide. "Oh, you poor thing! Now I understand. How can I help?"
"I wish I knew," Cho said, trying very hard not to cry. "I need to talk to someone."
"Wait there. MOTHER!" Penelope stood up and ran from the room. After a minute, Penelope came back. "Listen, Cho, do you think you could Floo over here on the twelfth?"
Two more days? "I think I can wait that long."
"It's just that my folks are going to be out of town that night. They have to attend a conference in Bristol; something to do with the uni. But then you could come over, spend the night if you can, and we can just talk everything over. I'll ask around until then and see what I can find out. Please say you'll come over."
Cho smiled, for the first time in days, it seemed. "I'm sure I can."
"Wonderful! I'll look for you in two days, then."
"Around five, I think, once we've closed up the shoppe."
"Goodbye, Cho."
Cho lingered with her old friend for just a second, then pulled her head out of the grate.
As she sat back on the floor, she realized that her mother had been sitting in an armchair, watching her-she didn't know for how long. "I heard about your sleeping over on the twelfth, and I suppose it'll be all right," she said in a voice that sounded grudging but that didn't match the concern on her face. "At first, I thought you were looking for something."
Cho felt her throat go dry. "I think I might have found it."
xxx
to be continued in part 4, wherein Cho and Penelope speak of love and broken hearts