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 (language)
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
14. Lows and Highs
The air was filled with the clatter of hundreds of conversations. From where she stood, Cho couldn't see who was talking. She was, after all, standing on the Quidditch pitch on a warm June night. The Third Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament had just been announced:
"On my whistle, Cho and Cedric!"
What?!
Cho looked down at herself; she was wearing the same robes she wore to the Yule Ball: pale blue robes with a short string of pearls at her throat. But she didn't have her wand at the ready during the Yule Ball. And Cedric-- Cedric wasn't wearing the soft grey Ball robes ... a grey as soft as his eyes ... He wore the robes he wore during the Third Task.
Cho turned to him and tried to speak, tried to tell Cedric to give up the Tournament, go back to Hogwarts-- But no sounds came from her mouth.
"THREE!"
Bagman seemed absolutely absurd, yelling a number into the night sky.
"TWO!"
It was starting: Cedric Diggory's last hour on earth, and nobody else knew it... Why couldn't she speak?!
"ONE!"
She turned to Cedric, who stared straight ahead into the mouth of the maze, waiting like a great green dragon to devour anyone who approached...
Bagman blew on his whistle, and Cedric dashed forward, straight toward the maze.
Cho ran, too, trying to catch up with Cedric. She had to warn him, or maybe she could be with him this time, save his life-- But would he care? They had argued so terribly a few hours earlier--
"Lumos."
Cedric had lit his wand. Cho didn't bother about her wand; she followed the light of Cedric's wand into the maze for about fifty yards. Then, the wand blinked out as he ducked around a corner.
Cho got to the spot, but it was a fork, and Cedric's light had blinked out so quickly that she couldn't tell if he'd gone left or right. She turned to the left, but there were more turns in the path now, and she couldn't see a sign of Cedric's wand. She tried to turn back, but the maze itself seemed to keep stopping her. However she turned, she kept running into dead ends.
I have to get through this, she thought, still unable to say a word. I can't just let him go like this. No matter what he thinks of me, I can't just let him die!
No sooner had the thought passed through her mind than she found herself in a great clear space at the heart of the maze. The Tri-Wizard Cup, which had earlier served as the Goblet of Fire to choose the Champions, stood on a pedestal on a raised dais just a few yards away. On the other side of the dais, Cedric emerged unharmed from the maze, looking straight at the Cup--and at Cho.
They both started running toward the Cup, toward each other--
Cho was knocked to the ground halfway to the cup. She landed on her face, but some instinct told her to roll onto her back. No sooner had she done so than the ground where she had been was raked by a gigantic set of claws sticking out of a yellow-brown paw as big as Cho's whole body. She looked up, and saw at once that she had been knocked over by a sphinx.
Cho brought her wand up, and tried to speak, now that her life depended on it. But the word "Stupefy!" stuck in her throat. She knew that she would be killed if she couldn't Stun the sphinx; but she couldn't. She never could Stun anything, and certainly not a sphinx whose face bore such a resemblance to her mother's.
In a deep, un-motherly growl, the sphinx said one word to Cho: "Watch!"
Cho looked back to Cedric, who was reaching out for the Cup. As she watched, a dark shadow rose up behind Cedric, standing tall and broad as a Dementor. Except that this Dementor's hood fell away from his face as he prepared to strike Cedric--a noseless face out of which two red eyes glowed--
"NO!!"
As soon as she screamed out, Cho realized that she was sitting up in bed. It was all sickeningly familiar: soaked with sweat, her breath coming in short pants, the bed-curtains drawn shut, only to be opened by Marietta Edgecombe, her glowing wand in her hand.
"The coffin dream again?" she asked Cho matter-of-factly, as if she would be writing a report for Pomfrey or Flitwick.
"No," Cho said, looking down at her hands, spitting out the words with a voice full of bitterness. "This was a new one. We were in the Third Task. Cedric--" Cho's voice broke. She stopped, waited a few seconds, then went on. "They're not the nicest dreams I've ever had, but they do have variety."
"Will you be all right now?"
Cho half-smiled. "I always am, once I'm up."
Marietta closed the curtains. Cho counted to one hundred, until she was sure that Marietta had gone back to sleep, then she slipped out of bed.
It was an hour before sunrise on a Sunday morning. She would normally have gotten up precisely at sunrise, had a light early breakfast and gone out to practice with the Ravenclaw team. As Cho walked through the darkened room to her writing-desk in front of the window, she kept her grim half smile. Normally? Nothing's been normal since the Third Task.
She continued to sit at her desk, not making a sound, even when Marietta's cat Pywacket jumped up purring onto her lap. Cho scratched behind Pywacket's ears, the way she would at home with Chairman Miao on her lap...
The tears started again, but not for Cedric. Cho Chang was homesick, and, as she clutched the cat to her chest, nobody was more surprised about that than Cho herself. She hardly got along with her mother at the best of times, and didn't like working in the shoppe; yet that was where she wanted to be right now--in Diagon Alley with her family. No classes, no dormitories, no Quidditch--
What?! Cho's head came up so quickly that a startled Pywacket jumped clear of her. Give up Quidditch? She'd sooner give up-- and Cho realized the other reason she would want to stay, the only other thing holding her at Hogwarts now: the proposed Dark Arts instruction group, led by Harry Potter. A group that offered a chance, some day, a chance for Cho to avenge herself against Voldemort--and, in the meantime, closeness to Harry...
Cho's stomach growled, and she only realized at that moment that she'd been thinking with her eyes closed, that the sun had been up for half an hour, and that some of the other girls were up already. Pywacket was now held by Marietta, who sat on the edge of her bed fully dressed, watching Cho as if she were in a zoo. Jan Nugginbridge was dressing, watching Cho somewhat curiously, as if she wasn't sure what the Chinese witch would do next. The muffled sound of praying came from behind the closed bed-curtains of Raina al-Qaba.
Cho's cheeks burned as she hastily dressed and half-ran down to the Great Hall.
xxx
While she ate, some of the other Ravenclaw Quidditch players came and went, but Cho deliberately refused to speak to them. They accepted this; professional Quidditch players could be moody, unpredictable, or simply unhinged, and (if the Hogwarts teams were any indication) they got an early start at it. "Torture" Chambers, for instance, would change his diet on practice and game days, and refuse to eat anything orange-coloured; in the wizarding world, where pumpkin was a staple, that took in quite a lot.
Once Cho was in the stadium, the morning seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Quidditch practice was her time, a time of no distractions from within or without. She could focus clearly on one thing only: the Golden Snitch. Despite her having played a limited number of matches, she didn't feel the practices were dull or repetitive. The Snitch, after all, was almost a living thing, and it couldn't be second-guessed. Seeking it, then chasing it, took all her energies.
During the mid-morning break, she approached Roger. "Rog, do you think it's likely anyone would try to use the Wronski this year?" The Wronski Feint was a deceptive maneuver that was the hallmark of Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum; they had both seen Krum use the Wronski at the World Quidditch Cup Finals last year.
Roger had been thinking the same thing, because his answer came quickly: "I don't think Malfoy's good enough to pull it off. Potter could, I suppose, but not against everyone."
"Meaning, not against me?"
"I mean that he and Malfoy have been at wands drawn since their first day here. If Malfoy got him mad enough, he might try it just to put the Slytherins in their place."
"But you don't think I'd make him mad enough?"
"Well, you've only played against him once, haven't you? I don't recall him getting mad at you at all." Roger looked at her curiously. "Cho, look here; I spoke out of turn last year, I realise that. But are you trying to say that you and Potter..."
"Roger! Of course not!" Cho could feel her face turning red. "There's nothing like that between us!" And there wasn't, in spite of what Cho wanted, but she surprised herself with the ferocity of her denial, and lowered her voice. "I, erm, I was only asking because of the Cup Finals. I was thinking of a way to counter the Wronski, is all."
"Well, we may yet need it. But keep it to yourself for now; save it as a secret weapon."
Cho nodded and walked away from Roger; she was convinced her face was still flushed, and she didn't want Roger to think too much about that.
xxx
Cho usually spent Sundays catching up on her assignments, which meant lots of writing. If the weather was good she'd sit at the desk in her dorm room, which had a view of the grounds. If there wasn't much of a view due to bad weather, she'd go to the library. But the days were getting shorter and the assignments were getting more complicated, which meant writing in the library after dinner.
She could hardly concentrate, though, as she overheard a whispered conversation between two witches at the next table.
"You just keep your cat to yourself, that's all I'm sayin'!"
"I do! She never even got out yesterday!"
"How did she mess with my owl, then?"
"She couldn't and she didn't! What makes you think she did, anyway?"
"Because I came back from breakfast and my owl's on my bed with a near-broken wing, and your cat slinking 'round the room! And a letter from me mum's been messed with!"
"Hannah Abbott, are you saying that my cat attacked your owl AND read your mail?!"
"That's not what I meant!" Hannah Abbott took a look around, but Cho was no longer sitting behind her. She was walking briskly out of the library.
The Owlery, she said to herself. There's something about the owls, the mail, that's important. They've been watching Harry, and now Hannah, who was at the meeting. And--oh, no--what about ME??
Cho took the steps two at a time, racing to the Owlery but not sure what she'd find. She wanted to be sure Quan Yin was all right, but beyond that--
She threw open the Owlery door and stared at Argus Filch and Mrs. Norris, standing a few feet from the door, as if they were expecting her.
"Well, well," Filch said, an evil gleam in his eyes. "Someone out to cause trouble after hours, eh?"
"No, I ... I wanted to write a letter home, and wanted my owl. That's all."
Filch took one step back. Cho walked almost the length of the Owlery, until she saw Quan Yin up in the rafters. She called to the owl, which glided down and rested on her arm. Cho took a quick look at her wings. There were no marks, but it had been a few days since she'd heard from home. She turned and walked out of the Owlery without another glance at Filch, with Quan Yin still on her arm.
When she got to her desk, she wrote an immediate letter to her mother, in Chinese:
"Mummy, I don't know how they're doing it, and I'm not really sure why, but the school seems to be intercepting owls and reading student mail. I've never heard of such a thing! It's outrageous! Is there anyone you or Daddy can talk to at your end?"
She sent her owl off as soon as the letter was finished. She wanted to go back to the library, but her stomach and her mind were a bit unsettled. She worked for a while at her desk, then went to bed.
xxx
When she woke up, she sensed through the bed-curtains that something had changed. The very atmosphere of Hogwarts felt different, somehow. As she dressed, she saw that most of the other girls were now deliberately avoiding speaking to her. It couldn't be about the dreams, if they sleep through Cho's nightmares; what is it, then?
As she entered the Common Room she found out what, as she saw a group of students crowded around the notice-board, She heard one boy say, "Cripes! You figure this changes things?"
Another student answered, "I figure we may as well transfer to Durmstrang."
A witch asked, "How could Dumbledore permit this?"
Her companion replied, "Well, Fudge outranks Dumbledore, doesn't he?"
"Well, this isn't Fudge, is it?" Cho recognized that voice as Vincent Krixlow's. "This is that c--- Umbridge's doing."
Krixlow was known to have one of the filthiest mouths in Hogwarts, but he also had a grand sense of humour. Cho had never heard him speak in anger--until now. She edged to the front to see what the problem was.
The problem was Inquisitorial Decree Number 24. That was how Cho read it, anyway. Umbridge could claim that it was educational, but there was nothing educational about this: she had banned all clubs and groups (which she defined as any gathering of three or more students), and would not let them get together again without her approval.
"Does she really think she can get away with this?" Cho recognized that voice as well: the voice of "Jinx" Jenkins. Cho turned to him and asked, "Has Roger seen this yer?"
"Has he ever. Took some of us an hour to calm him down. He went straight off to Umbridge, just to make sure whether it applied to Quidditch teams. I don't see how it could, though. Quidditch is like classes here, she can't take it away!"
"She can and she did." Roger Davies was by the bookcase. "And, before you ask, I was all over Hooch to get her to try to do something, but Umbridge isn't having any of it. I asked her about the teams, and she said that," (here he imitated Umbridge's mincing, girlish voice) "everything must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis."
Jinx swore. "That means she can drag things out until after Christmas, and there's nothing we can do!"
"Oh, I'm not through yet. My next stop is Flitwick. She tried to catch him out in her inspection, but no luck. And he may be on Dumbledore's side, but he's never made a thing of it. If anyone can persuade her, I hope he can."
Cho, however, had her doubts.
xxx
Tuesday was terrible and rainy, as if Umbridge's decree of the previous day was seen as not enough to stop the students; the presence of the rain tried to discourage anyone from wanting to do anything.
Cho was part of the resigned atmosphere until the morning mail arrived. Quan Yin had returned from London, with a message from her father. Like Cho's message, his reply was written in Chinese characters.
"I can understand your concern about the safety of owl traffic, especially these days, when the Ministry doesn't seem to know its own mind. It insists with one hand that the Dark One and his followers are no longer a threat, and yet with the other hand it tightens security measures and promotes suspicion and fear.
"I hope that you will be safe in Hogwarts, whatever may happen, but that you will also remember the lessons I tried to teach you while we were in Europe this summer. It is worth remembering that, while Grindelwald caused so much evil in Europe, he also had allies in the East, and the wizarding community in China felt his grasp. That was when my elders and your mother's elders decided to move to England, although that took many years and, by then, Grindelwald had been destroyed but the Dark One was taking his place.
"I promise you that I will keep my ears open in the Ministry for anything that might endanger you, In the meantime, understand that I must not act with haste. I will find out what I need to know, in my own way and in my own time. Please do not do anything rash until then."
Fine to talk, Cho thought, but the pages of this three-scroll letter were out of order; something the methodical Chang Xiemin would never allow. But someone who didn't know Chinese could easily get the page order confused, especially if this were one of dozens of owl-posts being intercepted and read...
xxx
By Wednesday morning, when there was still no news of whether Ravenclaw would have a Quidditch team again, Cho's patience was almost at an end. When she came down to breakfast, it was with an eye out for Hermione Granger, or one of the others who were at the Hog's Head meeting. Obviously Decree Number Twenty Four was intended to stop the meeting, but the crowd that was there on Satureday--surely they'd try to go ahead regardless--unless something happened to someone, unless Umbridge had gone beyond intercepting owls to attacking the students...
The day was, in a word, terrible, beginning with the weather. The previous day's rain had gotten worse, with high winds driving the rain noisily against the windows in History of Magic. Binns was the only one unaffected by the climate as he droned on and on about the subject of the day--which was the founding of Durmstrang Academy. Cho tried to focus on her memories of Viktor Krum playing at the World Quidditch Cup, catching the Golden Snitch but handing Ireland the victory...what a duffer...none of us would have made that mistake...
By 'us', though, she meant herself, then Harry, then Cedric--and there the memories stopped being about Quidditch. It was all she could do to keep back the tears that threatened to well up yet again.
Charms was not much better. At least Flitwick had chosen a neutral subject--Bluebell Flames--but he started the lesson by going on and on about how this Sixth-Level Charm was mastered by Hermione Granger of Gryffindor in her First Year. Cho tried to pay attention to Flitwick's instructions, but her thoughts kept bouncing back and forth, wondering when Granger, or Harry, or ANYBODY, was going to start those special Defense classes--and wondering just how close Granger and Harry really were... Cho was finally able to produce a passable bit of Bluebell Flames, but she was convinced that she was the worst in her class.
Cho couldn't face lunch and instead dashed back to her dorm room after class, driven by her memories and the still-violent weather. Once again she simply threw herself on the bed and let the tears come, altrhough she'd already lost control of them as she dashed up the stairs to her dorm. When she'd calmed down, cursing herself for still being mastered by her grief instead of trying to master it, she opened her bed-curtains at the same moment that Raina opened hers. Raina had been saying her noon prayers.
Cho wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "We don't talk much anymore."
"Sorry." Raina sat on the edge of her bed, looking down at her hands but not at Cho. "I really don't know what to say."
"Don't you think I owe Cedric a few tears?"
"Not really. At least, not this much. Cho, believe it or not, I worry about you. All this crying; it's not healthy."
Cho found herself getting angry at Raina, but tried to stay calm. "If I could stop it, don't you think I would?"
"I--I don't know." Raina gathered her books for the Divination class after lunch.
Cho decided to try again. "Raina, are you sure you can't come to those meetings I spoke of?"
She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. "It would be wrong," she said, barely above a whisper. "Sorry." She almost ran from the room before Cho could say anything else.
Is she right, Cho wondered; is it so wrong to want to learn to defend oneself against Voldemort? No; I will NOT give Umbridge the satisfaction of thinking she's right. She's wrong, she's all wrong about Hogwarts, and about this!
In this frame of mind she went to Muggle Studies and sat through a tediously detailed explanation of the workings of guns. And in Potions, Snape was simply Snape. It was a rotten end to a rotten afternoon as Cho left the Potions dungeon and started up toward the Great Hall.
"Hi, Cho!"
Cho turned to find she was being hailed by Ginny Weasley, the Fourth Year sister of Harry's friend Ron Weasley.
Ginny dropped her voice as she stood next to Cho. "There's a meeting tonight."
Cho quickly held up her hand to silence Ginny. She looked around, spotted Marietta and waved her over.
"Eight o'clock," Ginny told both of them. "Up on the seventh floor, by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. There's a secret room there we can use." With that, Ginny stopped and dashed down the corridor.
Cho glanced at Marietta, who began to shake her head. "I've got so much work to do..."
"Don't say that, Marietta." Cho was almost pleading. "You can beg off later, but at least come with me to the first meeting. Please; it just won't feel right."
Marietta sighed. "For an hour, I suppose."
Cho seemed so happy--no, so relieved--that it didn't really register with her that Marietta didn't say another word to her, even as they made their way that evening to the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle, just before eight.
xxx
to be continued in chapter 15, wherein we find out a bit more about Dumbledore's Army.
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 (language)
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
14. Lows and Highs
The air was filled with the clatter of hundreds of conversations. From where she stood, Cho couldn't see who was talking. She was, after all, standing on the Quidditch pitch on a warm June night. The Third Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament had just been announced:
"On my whistle, Cho and Cedric!"
What?!
Cho looked down at herself; she was wearing the same robes she wore to the Yule Ball: pale blue robes with a short string of pearls at her throat. But she didn't have her wand at the ready during the Yule Ball. And Cedric-- Cedric wasn't wearing the soft grey Ball robes ... a grey as soft as his eyes ... He wore the robes he wore during the Third Task.
Cho turned to him and tried to speak, tried to tell Cedric to give up the Tournament, go back to Hogwarts-- But no sounds came from her mouth.
"THREE!"
Bagman seemed absolutely absurd, yelling a number into the night sky.
"TWO!"
It was starting: Cedric Diggory's last hour on earth, and nobody else knew it... Why couldn't she speak?!
"ONE!"
She turned to Cedric, who stared straight ahead into the mouth of the maze, waiting like a great green dragon to devour anyone who approached...
Bagman blew on his whistle, and Cedric dashed forward, straight toward the maze.
Cho ran, too, trying to catch up with Cedric. She had to warn him, or maybe she could be with him this time, save his life-- But would he care? They had argued so terribly a few hours earlier--
"Lumos."
Cedric had lit his wand. Cho didn't bother about her wand; she followed the light of Cedric's wand into the maze for about fifty yards. Then, the wand blinked out as he ducked around a corner.
Cho got to the spot, but it was a fork, and Cedric's light had blinked out so quickly that she couldn't tell if he'd gone left or right. She turned to the left, but there were more turns in the path now, and she couldn't see a sign of Cedric's wand. She tried to turn back, but the maze itself seemed to keep stopping her. However she turned, she kept running into dead ends.
I have to get through this, she thought, still unable to say a word. I can't just let him go like this. No matter what he thinks of me, I can't just let him die!
No sooner had the thought passed through her mind than she found herself in a great clear space at the heart of the maze. The Tri-Wizard Cup, which had earlier served as the Goblet of Fire to choose the Champions, stood on a pedestal on a raised dais just a few yards away. On the other side of the dais, Cedric emerged unharmed from the maze, looking straight at the Cup--and at Cho.
They both started running toward the Cup, toward each other--
Cho was knocked to the ground halfway to the cup. She landed on her face, but some instinct told her to roll onto her back. No sooner had she done so than the ground where she had been was raked by a gigantic set of claws sticking out of a yellow-brown paw as big as Cho's whole body. She looked up, and saw at once that she had been knocked over by a sphinx.
Cho brought her wand up, and tried to speak, now that her life depended on it. But the word "Stupefy!" stuck in her throat. She knew that she would be killed if she couldn't Stun the sphinx; but she couldn't. She never could Stun anything, and certainly not a sphinx whose face bore such a resemblance to her mother's.
In a deep, un-motherly growl, the sphinx said one word to Cho: "Watch!"
Cho looked back to Cedric, who was reaching out for the Cup. As she watched, a dark shadow rose up behind Cedric, standing tall and broad as a Dementor. Except that this Dementor's hood fell away from his face as he prepared to strike Cedric--a noseless face out of which two red eyes glowed--
"NO!!"
As soon as she screamed out, Cho realized that she was sitting up in bed. It was all sickeningly familiar: soaked with sweat, her breath coming in short pants, the bed-curtains drawn shut, only to be opened by Marietta Edgecombe, her glowing wand in her hand.
"The coffin dream again?" she asked Cho matter-of-factly, as if she would be writing a report for Pomfrey or Flitwick.
"No," Cho said, looking down at her hands, spitting out the words with a voice full of bitterness. "This was a new one. We were in the Third Task. Cedric--" Cho's voice broke. She stopped, waited a few seconds, then went on. "They're not the nicest dreams I've ever had, but they do have variety."
"Will you be all right now?"
Cho half-smiled. "I always am, once I'm up."
Marietta closed the curtains. Cho counted to one hundred, until she was sure that Marietta had gone back to sleep, then she slipped out of bed.
It was an hour before sunrise on a Sunday morning. She would normally have gotten up precisely at sunrise, had a light early breakfast and gone out to practice with the Ravenclaw team. As Cho walked through the darkened room to her writing-desk in front of the window, she kept her grim half smile. Normally? Nothing's been normal since the Third Task.
She continued to sit at her desk, not making a sound, even when Marietta's cat Pywacket jumped up purring onto her lap. Cho scratched behind Pywacket's ears, the way she would at home with Chairman Miao on her lap...
The tears started again, but not for Cedric. Cho Chang was homesick, and, as she clutched the cat to her chest, nobody was more surprised about that than Cho herself. She hardly got along with her mother at the best of times, and didn't like working in the shoppe; yet that was where she wanted to be right now--in Diagon Alley with her family. No classes, no dormitories, no Quidditch--
What?! Cho's head came up so quickly that a startled Pywacket jumped clear of her. Give up Quidditch? She'd sooner give up-- and Cho realized the other reason she would want to stay, the only other thing holding her at Hogwarts now: the proposed Dark Arts instruction group, led by Harry Potter. A group that offered a chance, some day, a chance for Cho to avenge herself against Voldemort--and, in the meantime, closeness to Harry...
Cho's stomach growled, and she only realized at that moment that she'd been thinking with her eyes closed, that the sun had been up for half an hour, and that some of the other girls were up already. Pywacket was now held by Marietta, who sat on the edge of her bed fully dressed, watching Cho as if she were in a zoo. Jan Nugginbridge was dressing, watching Cho somewhat curiously, as if she wasn't sure what the Chinese witch would do next. The muffled sound of praying came from behind the closed bed-curtains of Raina al-Qaba.
Cho's cheeks burned as she hastily dressed and half-ran down to the Great Hall.
xxx
While she ate, some of the other Ravenclaw Quidditch players came and went, but Cho deliberately refused to speak to them. They accepted this; professional Quidditch players could be moody, unpredictable, or simply unhinged, and (if the Hogwarts teams were any indication) they got an early start at it. "Torture" Chambers, for instance, would change his diet on practice and game days, and refuse to eat anything orange-coloured; in the wizarding world, where pumpkin was a staple, that took in quite a lot.
Once Cho was in the stadium, the morning seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Quidditch practice was her time, a time of no distractions from within or without. She could focus clearly on one thing only: the Golden Snitch. Despite her having played a limited number of matches, she didn't feel the practices were dull or repetitive. The Snitch, after all, was almost a living thing, and it couldn't be second-guessed. Seeking it, then chasing it, took all her energies.
During the mid-morning break, she approached Roger. "Rog, do you think it's likely anyone would try to use the Wronski this year?" The Wronski Feint was a deceptive maneuver that was the hallmark of Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum; they had both seen Krum use the Wronski at the World Quidditch Cup Finals last year.
Roger had been thinking the same thing, because his answer came quickly: "I don't think Malfoy's good enough to pull it off. Potter could, I suppose, but not against everyone."
"Meaning, not against me?"
"I mean that he and Malfoy have been at wands drawn since their first day here. If Malfoy got him mad enough, he might try it just to put the Slytherins in their place."
"But you don't think I'd make him mad enough?"
"Well, you've only played against him once, haven't you? I don't recall him getting mad at you at all." Roger looked at her curiously. "Cho, look here; I spoke out of turn last year, I realise that. But are you trying to say that you and Potter..."
"Roger! Of course not!" Cho could feel her face turning red. "There's nothing like that between us!" And there wasn't, in spite of what Cho wanted, but she surprised herself with the ferocity of her denial, and lowered her voice. "I, erm, I was only asking because of the Cup Finals. I was thinking of a way to counter the Wronski, is all."
"Well, we may yet need it. But keep it to yourself for now; save it as a secret weapon."
Cho nodded and walked away from Roger; she was convinced her face was still flushed, and she didn't want Roger to think too much about that.
xxx
Cho usually spent Sundays catching up on her assignments, which meant lots of writing. If the weather was good she'd sit at the desk in her dorm room, which had a view of the grounds. If there wasn't much of a view due to bad weather, she'd go to the library. But the days were getting shorter and the assignments were getting more complicated, which meant writing in the library after dinner.
She could hardly concentrate, though, as she overheard a whispered conversation between two witches at the next table.
"You just keep your cat to yourself, that's all I'm sayin'!"
"I do! She never even got out yesterday!"
"How did she mess with my owl, then?"
"She couldn't and she didn't! What makes you think she did, anyway?"
"Because I came back from breakfast and my owl's on my bed with a near-broken wing, and your cat slinking 'round the room! And a letter from me mum's been messed with!"
"Hannah Abbott, are you saying that my cat attacked your owl AND read your mail?!"
"That's not what I meant!" Hannah Abbott took a look around, but Cho was no longer sitting behind her. She was walking briskly out of the library.
The Owlery, she said to herself. There's something about the owls, the mail, that's important. They've been watching Harry, and now Hannah, who was at the meeting. And--oh, no--what about ME??
Cho took the steps two at a time, racing to the Owlery but not sure what she'd find. She wanted to be sure Quan Yin was all right, but beyond that--
She threw open the Owlery door and stared at Argus Filch and Mrs. Norris, standing a few feet from the door, as if they were expecting her.
"Well, well," Filch said, an evil gleam in his eyes. "Someone out to cause trouble after hours, eh?"
"No, I ... I wanted to write a letter home, and wanted my owl. That's all."
Filch took one step back. Cho walked almost the length of the Owlery, until she saw Quan Yin up in the rafters. She called to the owl, which glided down and rested on her arm. Cho took a quick look at her wings. There were no marks, but it had been a few days since she'd heard from home. She turned and walked out of the Owlery without another glance at Filch, with Quan Yin still on her arm.
When she got to her desk, she wrote an immediate letter to her mother, in Chinese:
"Mummy, I don't know how they're doing it, and I'm not really sure why, but the school seems to be intercepting owls and reading student mail. I've never heard of such a thing! It's outrageous! Is there anyone you or Daddy can talk to at your end?"
She sent her owl off as soon as the letter was finished. She wanted to go back to the library, but her stomach and her mind were a bit unsettled. She worked for a while at her desk, then went to bed.
xxx
When she woke up, she sensed through the bed-curtains that something had changed. The very atmosphere of Hogwarts felt different, somehow. As she dressed, she saw that most of the other girls were now deliberately avoiding speaking to her. It couldn't be about the dreams, if they sleep through Cho's nightmares; what is it, then?
As she entered the Common Room she found out what, as she saw a group of students crowded around the notice-board, She heard one boy say, "Cripes! You figure this changes things?"
Another student answered, "I figure we may as well transfer to Durmstrang."
A witch asked, "How could Dumbledore permit this?"
Her companion replied, "Well, Fudge outranks Dumbledore, doesn't he?"
"Well, this isn't Fudge, is it?" Cho recognized that voice as Vincent Krixlow's. "This is that c--- Umbridge's doing."
Krixlow was known to have one of the filthiest mouths in Hogwarts, but he also had a grand sense of humour. Cho had never heard him speak in anger--until now. She edged to the front to see what the problem was.
The problem was Inquisitorial Decree Number 24. That was how Cho read it, anyway. Umbridge could claim that it was educational, but there was nothing educational about this: she had banned all clubs and groups (which she defined as any gathering of three or more students), and would not let them get together again without her approval.
"Does she really think she can get away with this?" Cho recognized that voice as well: the voice of "Jinx" Jenkins. Cho turned to him and asked, "Has Roger seen this yer?"
"Has he ever. Took some of us an hour to calm him down. He went straight off to Umbridge, just to make sure whether it applied to Quidditch teams. I don't see how it could, though. Quidditch is like classes here, she can't take it away!"
"She can and she did." Roger Davies was by the bookcase. "And, before you ask, I was all over Hooch to get her to try to do something, but Umbridge isn't having any of it. I asked her about the teams, and she said that," (here he imitated Umbridge's mincing, girlish voice) "everything must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis."
Jinx swore. "That means she can drag things out until after Christmas, and there's nothing we can do!"
"Oh, I'm not through yet. My next stop is Flitwick. She tried to catch him out in her inspection, but no luck. And he may be on Dumbledore's side, but he's never made a thing of it. If anyone can persuade her, I hope he can."
Cho, however, had her doubts.
xxx
Tuesday was terrible and rainy, as if Umbridge's decree of the previous day was seen as not enough to stop the students; the presence of the rain tried to discourage anyone from wanting to do anything.
Cho was part of the resigned atmosphere until the morning mail arrived. Quan Yin had returned from London, with a message from her father. Like Cho's message, his reply was written in Chinese characters.
"I can understand your concern about the safety of owl traffic, especially these days, when the Ministry doesn't seem to know its own mind. It insists with one hand that the Dark One and his followers are no longer a threat, and yet with the other hand it tightens security measures and promotes suspicion and fear.
"I hope that you will be safe in Hogwarts, whatever may happen, but that you will also remember the lessons I tried to teach you while we were in Europe this summer. It is worth remembering that, while Grindelwald caused so much evil in Europe, he also had allies in the East, and the wizarding community in China felt his grasp. That was when my elders and your mother's elders decided to move to England, although that took many years and, by then, Grindelwald had been destroyed but the Dark One was taking his place.
"I promise you that I will keep my ears open in the Ministry for anything that might endanger you, In the meantime, understand that I must not act with haste. I will find out what I need to know, in my own way and in my own time. Please do not do anything rash until then."
Fine to talk, Cho thought, but the pages of this three-scroll letter were out of order; something the methodical Chang Xiemin would never allow. But someone who didn't know Chinese could easily get the page order confused, especially if this were one of dozens of owl-posts being intercepted and read...
xxx
By Wednesday morning, when there was still no news of whether Ravenclaw would have a Quidditch team again, Cho's patience was almost at an end. When she came down to breakfast, it was with an eye out for Hermione Granger, or one of the others who were at the Hog's Head meeting. Obviously Decree Number Twenty Four was intended to stop the meeting, but the crowd that was there on Satureday--surely they'd try to go ahead regardless--unless something happened to someone, unless Umbridge had gone beyond intercepting owls to attacking the students...
The day was, in a word, terrible, beginning with the weather. The previous day's rain had gotten worse, with high winds driving the rain noisily against the windows in History of Magic. Binns was the only one unaffected by the climate as he droned on and on about the subject of the day--which was the founding of Durmstrang Academy. Cho tried to focus on her memories of Viktor Krum playing at the World Quidditch Cup, catching the Golden Snitch but handing Ireland the victory...what a duffer...none of us would have made that mistake...
By 'us', though, she meant herself, then Harry, then Cedric--and there the memories stopped being about Quidditch. It was all she could do to keep back the tears that threatened to well up yet again.
Charms was not much better. At least Flitwick had chosen a neutral subject--Bluebell Flames--but he started the lesson by going on and on about how this Sixth-Level Charm was mastered by Hermione Granger of Gryffindor in her First Year. Cho tried to pay attention to Flitwick's instructions, but her thoughts kept bouncing back and forth, wondering when Granger, or Harry, or ANYBODY, was going to start those special Defense classes--and wondering just how close Granger and Harry really were... Cho was finally able to produce a passable bit of Bluebell Flames, but she was convinced that she was the worst in her class.
Cho couldn't face lunch and instead dashed back to her dorm room after class, driven by her memories and the still-violent weather. Once again she simply threw herself on the bed and let the tears come, altrhough she'd already lost control of them as she dashed up the stairs to her dorm. When she'd calmed down, cursing herself for still being mastered by her grief instead of trying to master it, she opened her bed-curtains at the same moment that Raina opened hers. Raina had been saying her noon prayers.
Cho wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "We don't talk much anymore."
"Sorry." Raina sat on the edge of her bed, looking down at her hands but not at Cho. "I really don't know what to say."
"Don't you think I owe Cedric a few tears?"
"Not really. At least, not this much. Cho, believe it or not, I worry about you. All this crying; it's not healthy."
Cho found herself getting angry at Raina, but tried to stay calm. "If I could stop it, don't you think I would?"
"I--I don't know." Raina gathered her books for the Divination class after lunch.
Cho decided to try again. "Raina, are you sure you can't come to those meetings I spoke of?"
She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. "It would be wrong," she said, barely above a whisper. "Sorry." She almost ran from the room before Cho could say anything else.
Is she right, Cho wondered; is it so wrong to want to learn to defend oneself against Voldemort? No; I will NOT give Umbridge the satisfaction of thinking she's right. She's wrong, she's all wrong about Hogwarts, and about this!
In this frame of mind she went to Muggle Studies and sat through a tediously detailed explanation of the workings of guns. And in Potions, Snape was simply Snape. It was a rotten end to a rotten afternoon as Cho left the Potions dungeon and started up toward the Great Hall.
"Hi, Cho!"
Cho turned to find she was being hailed by Ginny Weasley, the Fourth Year sister of Harry's friend Ron Weasley.
Ginny dropped her voice as she stood next to Cho. "There's a meeting tonight."
Cho quickly held up her hand to silence Ginny. She looked around, spotted Marietta and waved her over.
"Eight o'clock," Ginny told both of them. "Up on the seventh floor, by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. There's a secret room there we can use." With that, Ginny stopped and dashed down the corridor.
Cho glanced at Marietta, who began to shake her head. "I've got so much work to do..."
"Don't say that, Marietta." Cho was almost pleading. "You can beg off later, but at least come with me to the first meeting. Please; it just won't feel right."
Marietta sighed. "For an hour, I suppose."
Cho seemed so happy--no, so relieved--that it didn't really register with her that Marietta didn't say another word to her, even as they made their way that evening to the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle, just before eight.
xxx
to be continued in chapter 15, wherein we find out a bit more about Dumbledore's Army.