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
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
4. Just Between the Two of Us
Cho could hardly contain herself as she worked in the shoppe on the twelfth. She was forgetting orders, not listening to conversations, jumping at movements caught in the corner of her eye.
"Settle down and focus!" Lotus scolded her daughter. "You mind's a hundred miles away."
Actually, this was the truth, and they both knew it. Cho could hardly stand waiting for five o'clock. The minute the last customer had gone and the shoppe was closed, Cho dashed upstairs to her room and grabbed a garment bag on her bed--a bag with several changes of clothes and a few other items which had been packed more than twenty-four hours earlier. She ran into the parlour, where she saw her mother standing in front of the fireplace.
"Maybe you should eat something before you go."
"I'm sure I should, mummy, but it's been ages since I've seen Penny. I don't want to miss a minute!"
Lotus nodded, as if she knew exactly what her daughter would say. "You'll be back this time tomorrow?"
"Unless something goes wrong, and I'll let you know at once if anything changes."
"And if you go see this Muggle--"
"Mother! I know what to say and what not to say; we went over this a dozen times!"
"Then just stand there while I go over it again! This isn't like Quidditch. You can't practice for meeting Muggles. Their minds go off in all directions, and they'll say and do things you won't expect. You have to be prepared for anything."
"I got an 'E' in Muggle Studies, mummy. Besides, Penny will let me know what to do."
"Hmm." Lotus didn't seem to approve of the Muggle-born friend of Cho's; that was just about right for her, Cho thought. Such a narrow mind.
"Just let us know immediately if anything happens."
"Don't worry, mummy. I really think this will do me good."
For a second, Cho hoped that Lotus would act like a typical mother: throw her arms around her daughter and say, "I hope so, dear." Instead, Lotus simply stepped to one side, so that Cho could get to the fireplace. "Give her our regards, then."
She'll never change, Cho thought. She took a pinch of Floo powder, threw it in the grate, then stepped into the flames and shouted, "The Clearwater family, Old Oaks!" With a green flash, she was gone.
"Well?" Cho's father was standing in the parlour doorway.
Lotus Chang walked to an armchair, then slumped into it. "I hope she finds some kind of peace."
"For all our sakes," Xiemin nodded.
Lotus was almosty angry as she looked at her husband. "This isn't about me. I know what I said the other night, but I'll do whatever I have to do for her. I'm just afraid it won't be enough."
xxx
"Oh, Cho, I wish you could stay for days!" Penny gushed as the girls threw their arms around each other. "There are so many places around here you should see! There are some wizarding families in towm, but they all live in Portugal Place. That part of town doesn't allow motorcars at all! And the ruins of Barnwell Priory and the old windmill out on the fen--"
"Stop, stop!" Cho laughed--for the first time since the Third Task. "I didn't come for the Grand Tour!"
"Fine, then. We can see a few things tomorrow. Tonight you just get the House Tour."
So Penny showed Cho around a Muggle house. The Clearwaters had bought Old Oaks as part of a subdivided estate on the edge of Little Wilbraham, and turned a 17th century carriage house into a home that could hold more than just the three of them. Penny's parents, however, were scholars on the faculty at Cambridge, so some of the rooms had been turned into libraries. Books lined the walls of these rooms. "I guess you don't miss the Common Room after all," Cho smiled at Penny.
They also looked at some Muggle devices Cho had only heard about, such as a telephone, a washing machine, and a television. "We only watch it once in a way," Penelope said; "Dad thinks the programs are usually awful, and I have to agree."
Mrs. Clearwater had left the girls a cold buffet, so they made sandwiches of ham and roast beef, with jam tarts for later.
Penny's parents had set up a spare room for Cho to sleep in, but Penny Locomotored the bed into her bedroom instead. There, by candlelight, they ate tarts and crisps (which Cho had never tried before) and, courtesy of Cho's overnight bag, drank butterbeer (which Penny hadn't had since she left Hogwarts). And they talked, for hour after hour. They talked until the candles burned themselves out, and they kept on talking.
"Penny, do you ever miss it?"
"Miss what?"
"The castle, the Common Room, all of it."
"It's strange," Penny said, picking at the label on the butterbeer bottle. "I hardly remember the classes at all. But everything else: the Common Room, the library, the Owlery. When I left it, I thought, 'Right, I'm not a child anymore, I'm well out of here.' But there have been times when I just wanted to go back, and do nothing but read and eat and sleep..."
"I saw you," Cho said suddenly, with a catch in her voice. "When they gave you the mandrake potion and you were un-petrified, I saw you. I was in the corridor, and Percy was waiting for you, and I saw you--I saw you rush to him." Cho had to wait a minute; her voice caught again, and tears started down her face. "I thought you two were the perfect example of love, and I so wanted to find what you had found. What happened to you?"
Penny didn't answer right away. She went to her bureau, opened the top drawer, and took out a framed portrait, wrapped in black paper. She slowly unwrapped it, revealing a picture of Percy Weasley. Cho looked at the young man in the picture, who had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes.
"I hate these long naps," he muttered. "Penny, what are you... Oh, hello. Have we met?"
"Percy," Penny interrupted, "this is Cho, an old friend from Ravenclaw House. She's spending the night."
"Very well, then, YOU talk some sense into her. Merlin knows I've tried. The Ministry has laid everything out quite sensibly--"
"On second thought," Penny interrupted, "goodnight, Percy." She put the picture back in the drawer.
"I don't understand."
"You've kept up with the Prophet, haven't you, Cho?"
"No. Been thinking about, about other things."
"Oh. Sorry. It's just that there are these reports of You Know Who being back, and..."
"He is," Cho said simply.
"But, but how can you SAY that?!"
"Because Dumbledore said it. Because Harry Potter told him. That's who, who killed Cedric."
Penny had only heard Percy's version of this, which of course was also the Ministry's version, and stopped to consider it. "Cho, are you sure?"
"Does any other answer make sense?"
"The thing is, that answer may not be allowed to make sense. The Ministry's been putting out stories that, well, they don't exactly say much, but they hint that Dumbledore's getting senile and that Potter's just out to call attention to himself."
"You don't believe that, do you?"
"No, not really. I mean, they haven't even tried to offer up any sort of convincing alternative. But people are listening to them. You know Dumbledore's lost his places on the International Conference and the Wizengamot?"
"No, I didn't."
"It could be that he really is slipping."
"Or it could be that the Prophet is being guided by someone in the Ministry."
"Cho, if you don't mind my saying so, you're sounding like Lovegood now."
"I don't care who I sound like, if that's the correct answer."
"Well, this is why Percy and I are having problems. He believes every word out of Fudge's mouth. I could even learn to live with that, but, as usual, he's jumped into it with both feet, and, well, the upshot is, he's walked away from his entire family. Moved out and left after some big row." Now it was Penny who was crying. "And the Weasleys--his parents--are so wonderful. It's bad enough that he broke their hearts. But then he expected me to take his side, just like that, without thinking. I don't know what the Ministry knows, but his family, all of them, they teased him a bit, of course, but they basically stood behind him, and now he's being such a bastard!" Penny was overcome and couldn't speak for a minute.
During that time Cho thought of a question, then asked it: "It's over between you, then?"
"No, of course not! I wish it were different, but I can't just pretend I never loved him. Truth is, I haven't stopped yet."
"That doesn't make much sense."
"Trust me, Cho. If you love someone, and they break your heart, that doesn't stop you loving them all the same. That's what Percy's doing to his mum right now, and to me."
Cho had never looked at it in that light before.
"Cho?"
"Hmm?"
"Cedric. Did he ever break your heart?"
"Only by dying." Cho's voice caught and was silent for a moment, then, with a smile Penelope could hear, "but I know it wasn't his idea." She sighed deeply. "There wasn't time for him to break my heart."
"Of course there was. You were just lucky--or unlucky."
"Well, which is it?"
"Cho, maybe one couple in a thousand I know of live happily ever after. My parents have had some colossal rows, but after a while they make it up. The Weasleys are the same."
Cho began to sniffle. "That last day. I scolded Cedric--the last words I ever said to him, and I never knew if he went into the Third Task angry at me or not. Of course, an hour after we quarreled, I was sorry. But I never had the chance--"
"You two always got on, then, apart from that one row. No rough patches. No trials by fire."
"Is that what it feels like for you, without Percy?"
Now it was Penelope's turn to stop and sigh. "I never thought I could love and hate someone at the same time."
"Is it really that strong, Penny? You're not just annoyed with him or bothered or--"
"You didn't hear what he said. Actually, I didn't either, but I heard his version and his mother's so I think that, between the two, I got the whole picture."
"How bad could it have been?"
"Bad enough, from what I heard. The worst of it was when Percy said that he wasn't a member of the Weasley family anymore, that his father was an idiot and a traitor to the Ministry for siding with Dumbledore against Fudge."
"Why would Dumbledore and the Ministry fall out?"
"I guess you HAVE been preoccupied. It's all to do with what Dumbledore said about You Know Who. The Ministry has been saying he wasn't telling the truth."
"What, about Voldemort being back?"
Penelope gasped loudly. "How can you say his name so casually?"
"I'm just not afraid of him anymore. And if there's going to be another war as Dumbledore said, I want to be part of it. I want to meet Voldemort face to face. I want it to be my hand that plunges a knife through his heart for what he did to Cedric."
Penelope must have been holding her breath, because she let it all out in a rush. "I didn't think you had that in you."
"If Cedric were alive today, I probably wouldn't."
"If Cedric were alive today, you'd probably be off with him now."
"Possibly." Cho was glad that Penny couldn't hear her blushing.
The sound of crickets came in through the open window.
"You'd best get some rest, Cho. You've got to keep your wits about you tomorrow with the doctor. She's a Muggle, you see."
"But you think she can help?"
"Mum says she's helped lots of people, some of them with problems worse than yours."
"Hard to imagine such a thing."
"Could you have imagined what happened between Percy and me? Because I couldn't. G'night."
"Good night, Penny."
xxx
to be continued in part 5, wherein two witches tour Cambridge and Cho goes in for counseling
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
4. Just Between the Two of Us
Cho could hardly contain herself as she worked in the shoppe on the twelfth. She was forgetting orders, not listening to conversations, jumping at movements caught in the corner of her eye.
"Settle down and focus!" Lotus scolded her daughter. "You mind's a hundred miles away."
Actually, this was the truth, and they both knew it. Cho could hardly stand waiting for five o'clock. The minute the last customer had gone and the shoppe was closed, Cho dashed upstairs to her room and grabbed a garment bag on her bed--a bag with several changes of clothes and a few other items which had been packed more than twenty-four hours earlier. She ran into the parlour, where she saw her mother standing in front of the fireplace.
"Maybe you should eat something before you go."
"I'm sure I should, mummy, but it's been ages since I've seen Penny. I don't want to miss a minute!"
Lotus nodded, as if she knew exactly what her daughter would say. "You'll be back this time tomorrow?"
"Unless something goes wrong, and I'll let you know at once if anything changes."
"And if you go see this Muggle--"
"Mother! I know what to say and what not to say; we went over this a dozen times!"
"Then just stand there while I go over it again! This isn't like Quidditch. You can't practice for meeting Muggles. Their minds go off in all directions, and they'll say and do things you won't expect. You have to be prepared for anything."
"I got an 'E' in Muggle Studies, mummy. Besides, Penny will let me know what to do."
"Hmm." Lotus didn't seem to approve of the Muggle-born friend of Cho's; that was just about right for her, Cho thought. Such a narrow mind.
"Just let us know immediately if anything happens."
"Don't worry, mummy. I really think this will do me good."
For a second, Cho hoped that Lotus would act like a typical mother: throw her arms around her daughter and say, "I hope so, dear." Instead, Lotus simply stepped to one side, so that Cho could get to the fireplace. "Give her our regards, then."
She'll never change, Cho thought. She took a pinch of Floo powder, threw it in the grate, then stepped into the flames and shouted, "The Clearwater family, Old Oaks!" With a green flash, she was gone.
"Well?" Cho's father was standing in the parlour doorway.
Lotus Chang walked to an armchair, then slumped into it. "I hope she finds some kind of peace."
"For all our sakes," Xiemin nodded.
Lotus was almosty angry as she looked at her husband. "This isn't about me. I know what I said the other night, but I'll do whatever I have to do for her. I'm just afraid it won't be enough."
xxx
"Oh, Cho, I wish you could stay for days!" Penny gushed as the girls threw their arms around each other. "There are so many places around here you should see! There are some wizarding families in towm, but they all live in Portugal Place. That part of town doesn't allow motorcars at all! And the ruins of Barnwell Priory and the old windmill out on the fen--"
"Stop, stop!" Cho laughed--for the first time since the Third Task. "I didn't come for the Grand Tour!"
"Fine, then. We can see a few things tomorrow. Tonight you just get the House Tour."
So Penny showed Cho around a Muggle house. The Clearwaters had bought Old Oaks as part of a subdivided estate on the edge of Little Wilbraham, and turned a 17th century carriage house into a home that could hold more than just the three of them. Penny's parents, however, were scholars on the faculty at Cambridge, so some of the rooms had been turned into libraries. Books lined the walls of these rooms. "I guess you don't miss the Common Room after all," Cho smiled at Penny.
They also looked at some Muggle devices Cho had only heard about, such as a telephone, a washing machine, and a television. "We only watch it once in a way," Penelope said; "Dad thinks the programs are usually awful, and I have to agree."
Mrs. Clearwater had left the girls a cold buffet, so they made sandwiches of ham and roast beef, with jam tarts for later.
Penny's parents had set up a spare room for Cho to sleep in, but Penny Locomotored the bed into her bedroom instead. There, by candlelight, they ate tarts and crisps (which Cho had never tried before) and, courtesy of Cho's overnight bag, drank butterbeer (which Penny hadn't had since she left Hogwarts). And they talked, for hour after hour. They talked until the candles burned themselves out, and they kept on talking.
"Penny, do you ever miss it?"
"Miss what?"
"The castle, the Common Room, all of it."
"It's strange," Penny said, picking at the label on the butterbeer bottle. "I hardly remember the classes at all. But everything else: the Common Room, the library, the Owlery. When I left it, I thought, 'Right, I'm not a child anymore, I'm well out of here.' But there have been times when I just wanted to go back, and do nothing but read and eat and sleep..."
"I saw you," Cho said suddenly, with a catch in her voice. "When they gave you the mandrake potion and you were un-petrified, I saw you. I was in the corridor, and Percy was waiting for you, and I saw you--I saw you rush to him." Cho had to wait a minute; her voice caught again, and tears started down her face. "I thought you two were the perfect example of love, and I so wanted to find what you had found. What happened to you?"
Penny didn't answer right away. She went to her bureau, opened the top drawer, and took out a framed portrait, wrapped in black paper. She slowly unwrapped it, revealing a picture of Percy Weasley. Cho looked at the young man in the picture, who had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes.
"I hate these long naps," he muttered. "Penny, what are you... Oh, hello. Have we met?"
"Percy," Penny interrupted, "this is Cho, an old friend from Ravenclaw House. She's spending the night."
"Very well, then, YOU talk some sense into her. Merlin knows I've tried. The Ministry has laid everything out quite sensibly--"
"On second thought," Penny interrupted, "goodnight, Percy." She put the picture back in the drawer.
"I don't understand."
"You've kept up with the Prophet, haven't you, Cho?"
"No. Been thinking about, about other things."
"Oh. Sorry. It's just that there are these reports of You Know Who being back, and..."
"He is," Cho said simply.
"But, but how can you SAY that?!"
"Because Dumbledore said it. Because Harry Potter told him. That's who, who killed Cedric."
Penny had only heard Percy's version of this, which of course was also the Ministry's version, and stopped to consider it. "Cho, are you sure?"
"Does any other answer make sense?"
"The thing is, that answer may not be allowed to make sense. The Ministry's been putting out stories that, well, they don't exactly say much, but they hint that Dumbledore's getting senile and that Potter's just out to call attention to himself."
"You don't believe that, do you?"
"No, not really. I mean, they haven't even tried to offer up any sort of convincing alternative. But people are listening to them. You know Dumbledore's lost his places on the International Conference and the Wizengamot?"
"No, I didn't."
"It could be that he really is slipping."
"Or it could be that the Prophet is being guided by someone in the Ministry."
"Cho, if you don't mind my saying so, you're sounding like Lovegood now."
"I don't care who I sound like, if that's the correct answer."
"Well, this is why Percy and I are having problems. He believes every word out of Fudge's mouth. I could even learn to live with that, but, as usual, he's jumped into it with both feet, and, well, the upshot is, he's walked away from his entire family. Moved out and left after some big row." Now it was Penny who was crying. "And the Weasleys--his parents--are so wonderful. It's bad enough that he broke their hearts. But then he expected me to take his side, just like that, without thinking. I don't know what the Ministry knows, but his family, all of them, they teased him a bit, of course, but they basically stood behind him, and now he's being such a bastard!" Penny was overcome and couldn't speak for a minute.
During that time Cho thought of a question, then asked it: "It's over between you, then?"
"No, of course not! I wish it were different, but I can't just pretend I never loved him. Truth is, I haven't stopped yet."
"That doesn't make much sense."
"Trust me, Cho. If you love someone, and they break your heart, that doesn't stop you loving them all the same. That's what Percy's doing to his mum right now, and to me."
Cho had never looked at it in that light before.
"Cho?"
"Hmm?"
"Cedric. Did he ever break your heart?"
"Only by dying." Cho's voice caught and was silent for a moment, then, with a smile Penelope could hear, "but I know it wasn't his idea." She sighed deeply. "There wasn't time for him to break my heart."
"Of course there was. You were just lucky--or unlucky."
"Well, which is it?"
"Cho, maybe one couple in a thousand I know of live happily ever after. My parents have had some colossal rows, but after a while they make it up. The Weasleys are the same."
Cho began to sniffle. "That last day. I scolded Cedric--the last words I ever said to him, and I never knew if he went into the Third Task angry at me or not. Of course, an hour after we quarreled, I was sorry. But I never had the chance--"
"You two always got on, then, apart from that one row. No rough patches. No trials by fire."
"Is that what it feels like for you, without Percy?"
Now it was Penelope's turn to stop and sigh. "I never thought I could love and hate someone at the same time."
"Is it really that strong, Penny? You're not just annoyed with him or bothered or--"
"You didn't hear what he said. Actually, I didn't either, but I heard his version and his mother's so I think that, between the two, I got the whole picture."
"How bad could it have been?"
"Bad enough, from what I heard. The worst of it was when Percy said that he wasn't a member of the Weasley family anymore, that his father was an idiot and a traitor to the Ministry for siding with Dumbledore against Fudge."
"Why would Dumbledore and the Ministry fall out?"
"I guess you HAVE been preoccupied. It's all to do with what Dumbledore said about You Know Who. The Ministry has been saying he wasn't telling the truth."
"What, about Voldemort being back?"
Penelope gasped loudly. "How can you say his name so casually?"
"I'm just not afraid of him anymore. And if there's going to be another war as Dumbledore said, I want to be part of it. I want to meet Voldemort face to face. I want it to be my hand that plunges a knife through his heart for what he did to Cedric."
Penelope must have been holding her breath, because she let it all out in a rush. "I didn't think you had that in you."
"If Cedric were alive today, I probably wouldn't."
"If Cedric were alive today, you'd probably be off with him now."
"Possibly." Cho was glad that Penny couldn't hear her blushing.
The sound of crickets came in through the open window.
"You'd best get some rest, Cho. You've got to keep your wits about you tomorrow with the doctor. She's a Muggle, you see."
"But you think she can help?"
"Mum says she's helped lots of people, some of them with problems worse than yours."
"Hard to imagine such a thing."
"Could you have imagined what happened between Percy and me? Because I couldn't. G'night."
"Good night, Penny."
xxx
to be continued in part 5, wherein two witches tour Cambridge and Cho goes in for counseling