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
24. "Expecto Patronum"
The party that night at Ravenclaw was everything the one in December was, after they'd beaten Hufflepuff. There were congratulations and commisserations with the teammates who had struggled to finish with a win; there was anticipation of the next match.
And there was Cho off in a corner, speaking to nobody, and with nobody speaking to her.
It wasn't that Cho had somehow disgraced herself during the match; to the contrary, her catching the Snitch accounted for all but ten of Ravenclaw's points. But the rumours persisted, even if they weren't true: Cho could blow up unexpectedly, at the least little thing, or at nothing at all. Yes, she had been weepy since Cedric's death, but why couldn't anyone seem to understand that? Yes, she had blown up at Harry in Hogsmeade, but there was a reason for it, and no Ravenclaw was likely to make that mistake.
And yet the rumours persisted. Some (who weren't there, of course) said that Cho actually pulled her wand on Harry at Madam Puddifoots and threatened to hex a certain part of his anatomy; others said that she had found a deserted classroom and turned it into a shrine to Cedric Diggory, and wept alone there every night. It was madness, of course, but Cho couldn't deny any of it without seeming as emotional and overwrought as the rumours themselves painted her.
Only a handful of Ravenclaws knew better: her teammates, and the students in the DA. And Marietta, her Prefect, and at this point her closest friend. She still treated Cho's occasional nightmare, although these were diminishing in frequency. Marietta also had to admit that Cho could always be counted on to have a cheery disposition for a meeting of Dumbledore's Army.
Which is why, at the party, Cho sat alone at the bay window in the Common Room. Marietta brought her a cup of pumpkin punch, then sat beside her. She seemed to want to ask Cho something.
"Listen, Cho, I... I've been getting an earful from my mum about Harry Potter."
"What's he done now?"
"Well, nothing really, but she hears talk around the Network."
"Can she do that--listen in on Floo conversations?"
"She's not supposed to, I guess, but Fudge asked her about certain, as he put it, 'wizards of interest,' and Harry's name keeps coming up."
"Well, you know there's not much he can get up to now."
"Except for the group."
"Well, you can't talk me out of Monday's meeting, and that's that. It should be the biggest thing we've done yet!" Cho realized her voice was rising; she looked around, was sure she was being ignored, and sipped her punch.
"Anyway," Marietta added after a minute of silence, "you're looking lots cheerier lately." She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead stood up and went to get some batwing cookies.
xxx
"The wand work isn't so important," Harry was saying to Dumbledore's Army two nights later, "but to produce a Patronus you have to focus on your happiest memory of all time."
Cho started thinking: something to do with Cedric? Never; too much sadness mixed in with the joy. Something about Harry? No, for the same reason, only moreso. Coming to Hogwarts? Making the team? Beating Slytherin in that pickup game in her Third Year? Beating Hufflepuff in December in her first real victory? Saturday's win over Slytherin?
No; go further back, Cho told herself. Go back to childhood, when everything was simpler, when emotions were pure, when you felt happiness and nothing but happiness.
Cho closed her eyes, focused her mind, and suddenly she was five years old and with her parents in Regents Park. They'd taken her on a Sunday afternoon outing; she fed the noisy clacking ducks and watched the gray fidgety squirrels, and then she looked out across the pond...
and there, coming straight toward her, was a bird. The largest bird she'd ever seen; it towered with its long neck over the ducks like a giraffe over zebras, or so she imagined. This blazingly pure white bird with the black mask and yellow bill and neck as long and straight as a lamp-post sailed across the surface of the pond right up to Cho, who wasn't the least bit afraid of it, nor was it afraid of her. They simply looked at each other, trying to figure out what would happen next.
What happened next was Lotus speaking: "Cho, honey, that's a swan."
THAT'S a swan? Like the one in her story-book about the Ugly Duckling? The small, ugly, lonely little duck which Cho had believed herself to be would grow up to be THIS…
The image of the swan in the park completely filled her mind, and the words were out of her mouth before she even realized it:
"Expecto Patronum!!"
Silver light exploded out of the end of her wand, resolving itself into the image of a swan like none had ever seen: its neck stretched out full, its wing-span almost too large for the classroom. The wind of its passing whipped the robes of the rest of Dumbledore's Army. Everyone there, including Harry, watched in amazement as it glided up to the ceiling chandelier and circled it three times before it dissolved into silver vapour.
When it was gone, some of the students started applauding. Cho had her hands over her mouth in delighted surprise. She stopped looking up at the ceiling and looked down at Harry, who was absolutely beaming, and thought: I did that, I did that and you showed me the way to do that, and if I live for two centuries I will never receive a finer gift than you have given me tonight. I love you, Harry Potter…
Now that the rest of Dumbledore's Army had watched someone produce a Patronus--someone who wasn't The Boy Who Lived--and realized that they could do it, too, the whole group broke up and tried to follow Cho's lead. None of them, however, seemed to have any success. A few wands squirted out silver light, but it seldom came to more than that.
Cho, meanwhile, found her Patronus-creating almost intoxicating. She would produce them one after the other; smaller than the first one, because now she was learning to control her power and not merely create. But she had spent so many months either living in sorrow, or with sorrow as a background for fleeting joys, that she was almost overwhelmed. She hadn't felt this, well, this HAPPY since Cedric...
One other student produced a Patronus that night, and at first Cho wouldn't have bet even a Knut that it would have been Hermione Granger. The Gryffindor seemed serious, even grim, after Cho's triumph with the Swan Patronus, and was determined to simply master this spell as she had mastered so many others. But it's not about competing, Cho thought as if she were coaching Granger; it's about feeling the joy...
Granger then stopped her fruitless attempts, lowered her wand, closed her eyes and concentrated. And a bit of a smile came to her lips...
For a fleeting second, Cho wondered what brought about that smile, and did it have anything to do with Harry--
"Expecto Patronum!" This time, a flash of silver burst out of Granger's wand and resolved into--
An otter? What a strange choice, Cho thought.
But the strangeness of Granger's Patronus, and the worry about what might have made her happy enough to produce it, were swept aside when the otter appeared, seeming to swim through the air on its back, kicking with its powerful hind legs.
One thought remained in Cho's head and heart watching the Otter Patronus: How cute! Surely this is how they defeat Dementors, Cho thought: by awakening a happiness in you that no Dementor can take. It was a shame that Marietta had to catch cold this night, of all nights. Just being here with Patronuses in the room would doubtless cheer her up; they work better than Cheering Charms!
So Cho shared the spotlight with Granger: each would produce a Patronus, then another when the previous one faded. Harry finally had to interrupt them.
"You're doing great, both of you, but remember that this isn't a game. You'll need to be able to do this when you're under attack by Dementors."
"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," Cho laughed as she watched her most recent Swan Patronus fly up to the vaulted ceiling of the Room of Requirement. "They're so pretty!"
"They're not supposed to be pretty; they're supposed to protect you."
"They are sort of nice, aren't they," Hermione Granger smiled, watching the antics of her Otter Patronus.
Harry had turned to some of the others, telling them that he had learned to produce his Stag Patronus after being threatened by a Dementor--at least, by a boggart pretending to be a Dementor.
Granger looked as if she wanted to say something to Harry, to contradict something he'd just said, but instead she sighed and turned to Cho. She smiled at Cho, and seemed to want to say something to the Ravenclaw. Just then, the door to the classroom opened and closed, seemingly by itself.
Cho didn't worry much at first, and created a Swan Patronus the size of her bookbag. She watched in delight as it "swam" two feet above the floor of the classroom. Then she noticed: the room was gradually falling silent. Everyone was watching Harry in conversation by the door with a house-elf. Cho couldn't hear the conversation; just a series of hoots and howls from the house-elf as it seemed to wrestle with Harry--or with itself. But then she looked at the students closer to the door and saw that they, like Harry, were afraid...
Harry turned suddenly to the class. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! RUN!!"
No leaving in twos and threes this time; it was a mass stampede for the door. Cho wanted to grab Harry's sleeve, but she'd been trapped between the Weasley twins, and got swept into the hall before she knew it. She ran toward the far staircase--it was closest to the library--but stopped at the head of the stairs. There was an old suit of armour, and, just beside it, standing perfectly still but otherwise out in the open for all to see, was Luna Lovegood.
"This way!" Cho hissed.
Luna shook her head. "Snakes have awfully bad eyesight, you know. If I stand perfectly still, they won't see me."
"But they're not--" Cho gave it up and grabbed Luna's sleeve. "Come on!"
When she started down the stairs, Cho heard shouts coming from near the classroom; one of those shouting sounded dreadfully like Draco Malfoy. Not a snake, Cho thought, but the next worst thing...
On the sixth floor landing, Cho stopped; she could hear the pounding of steps coming up from below, and more steps racing down from above. She dragged Luna down one corridor after another, finally stopped by the stairs leading to the Astronomy Tower. There was no hope for it; she could still hear running steps behind her. She pulled Luna up to the Tower, closed the door, and braced it with Professor Sinistra's telescope, which weighed about fifty pounds.
"Oh!" Luna said, as if just realizing that she was outdoors; "what a lovely evening!" She climbed up onto the ramparts and began strolling along the edge, singing to herself:
"Mud, mud, glorious mud/Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood..."
Cho realized that the telescope wouldn't keep their pursuers out; they'd knock it away from the door with one good shove. Unless--she drew her wand.
"Engorgio!"
The telescope immediaterly grew to five times its size--and weight. Confident that this would slow them down, she looked around the tower. There was no other way on or off it. She and Luna were trapped.
No; whatever's going on, it won't end like this! Got to think of a way out of this. What to do in a spot like this? What would Harry do...
What DID Harry do!
She looked over the ramparts toward the Quidditch stadium, and the shed where the school's brooms were kept. By rights, it ought to be locked up, and this might not even work. Still, Madam Hooch could be a little lax sometimes, especially after a game weekend. In any case, it was the only thing to try. She pointed her wand at the shed and took a deep breath.
"Accio Comet!"
The sun had almost completely set, and it was difficult now to even see the shed, much less whether anything was--YES! Cho's Comet Two Sixty was sailing along on its own, headed straight for the Astronomy Tower.
The pounding on the door grew more insistent, the voices on the other side of it louder and angrier. The broom seemed to take forever to get to her, during which time Cho was busy thanking every ancestor she could name. Finally, it clattered at her feet on the stone floor. She hopped on at once, and, without a word, so did Luna, who was grinning from ear to ear.
The broom lifted slowly off, unaccustomed to a double load. Cho stopped just beyond the parapet, pulled out her wand again and pointed it at the massive telescope:
"Finite Incantatem!"
Professor Sinistra's telescope immediately shrunk back to its original size, as Cho and Luna dropped down out of sight, headed for the West Tower and Ravenclaw House.
However, as soon as Cho turned toward their tower, Luna began singing again, very loudly:
"Oh, you'll never never never/Find a girl as clever/As the Girls of Ravenclaw!/You'll--"
"LUNA!" Cho regretted shouting at Luna, and her voice dropped back down to a whisper. "We don't want them to find us."
Luna simply smiled at Cho.
Luna, you're not mad; I know you're not, Cho thought as she flew toward her dormitory window. You were Sorted into Ravenclaw; you know that Voldemort is back, and that a new war could begin at any time. But, if you get through this war in one piece, it'll be nothing less than a blessing from Rowena Herself...
They sailed into the Sixth Year girls' dormitory through the window. Luna at once bounced off the broom, gave a friendly wave, mouthed the words "Thank you!" and then dashed through the open door and down the steps.
Cho looked around, and it took a few seconds to realize what was wrong: Marietta wasn't there. If she was too sick to attend the DA meeting, she should still be in her own bed. It hadn't even been slept in.
Cho was worried; suppose the raid on the classroom was one of several raids. What if they'd come to Ravenclaw looking for Marietta or Corner, Padma or Luna... She hid her broom in her wardrobe and ran downstairs to the Common Room. Vincent Krixlow was there, puzzling over an astrological chart.
"If you're going out," he said without looking up, "tell that lot to stuff their hats in their cake-holes. I'm trying to concentrate."
Cho could now hear shouting and pounding beyond the tapestry. She went through the bookcase, and the commotion got louder. She took a deep breath, adjusted the expression onn her face, and opened the tapestry just a crack.
"Yes?" she smiled. "Can we help you?"
Three or four of the older Slytherin were there, led by Adrian Pucey, one of Slytherin's Chasers. "How long have you been in there?"
"I came back right after dinner," Cho said, which was true as far as it went.
"Well, I need to know if anyone's come in during the last few minutes."
A hand clapped itself onto Pucey's shoulder, and a voice asked, with cold and level anger, "Well, why would you need to know that?"
Roger Davies had come up behind Pucey and the others, who all seemed to be Slytherins.
"I am here," Pucey started, "under the authority of Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial..."
"I don't care if you're here with the Coldstream Bleeding Guard! If someone's broken a rule, you'd better be prepared to say who broke what rule. Otherwise, you lot can bugger off."
"If you think you can overrule Professor Umbridge--"
"If she wants to drag somebody out of Ravenclaw House, she'd better drag herself down here first and tell us who and why!"
Pucey knew that Davies was right about school rules, and didn't have enough imagination to think of a way around him on the spot. He glowered at Davies, then at Cho, then led his fellow Slytherins back in the direction of the Great Hall.
Cho had been holding her breath, and let it out all at once. "Thanks, Rog."
"Don't thank me. We have to talk." Cho held open the tapestry for him; he strode past her and threw himself into a comfy chair in the Common Room. "Didn't I tell you lot not to get into anything dicey with Umbridge on the prowl?"
Cho knew why she was being scolded, but also knew that she could neither confirm nor explain what she had been doing with Dumbledore's Army. "What do you mean, dicey?"
"Don't think you can play me like I'm a Snitch! I'm your Captain, and I thought I was your friend. I think I deserve better than this!"
Cho, now desperate to change the subject, said the first thing that came to mind: "I would have thought you deserved better than Annabella Smoot, but apparently I was wrong. Tell me, Rog; when you invited me to Puddifoot's, was it so that I could put on the same kind of display you two did?"
"I don't see as it's any of your business, but, for the record, I asked her because you wouldn't go."
She was almost shouting now. "Is that-- Is that the way you've seen me all this time?"
"All this time, no. But I'm out of here in June and I was looking to have a bit of fun..."
"So you DID expect me to make a spectacle of myself!"
"Well, so you did, only it was with Potter."
"Well! If you expect me to say anything at all to you, Roger Davies, you'd better come back with a very well-crafted apology! And take a few days to get it right!" Cho jumped up and ran to the stairs to the girls' dormitories. She stopped there, and said, in a much softer voice, "Thanks for taking care of those Inquisitors." Then she dashed up the stairs.
As she ran, she heard Roger: "Hey! Get back here!"
Sorry, Rog, Cho said as she threw herself onto her bed. I don't mean to lie to you or evade anything, but it looks as if someone's betrayed the D.A. I can't make a move until I find out what's happening.
Cho sat on her bed for the next hour, trying not to think of one particular thought that kept coming back to her: Marietta. Where is she? Did she have anything to do with this? She couldn't! She must have known that she'd be putting me in danger of expulsion--or worse! And herself as well, and Padma Patil, and Luna and Corner... But she's never really liked the D.A., and she's always grumbled about going to the meetings, but it was never more than just grumbling. She can't have found it so awful and still kept going for all these months. Or would she say I dragged her? No; I never dragged her. If she came along, it was because she chose to come. I told her often enough that she didn't have to attend if she didn't want to. And perhaps tonight she just didn't want to. She wasn't necessarily the traitor; maybe she's been in the library all this time, doing a scroll for Ancient Runes or, or, something...
Cho tried and tried to convince herself that her Prefect and dorm-mate, her closest friend after a horrible year of nightmares about Cedric, that Marietta couldn't possibly be the one. But it just made too much sense.
Cho had been in her room forty minutes when Raina al-Qaba came in, dropping her bookbag with a loud thud by her writing-desk. "Two hours studying Arithmancy and I still don't think I got any of it," she sighed. "Hi, Cho."
"Were you in the library just now?" Raina nodded. "Was Marietta there?"
"I didn't see her; but then, it's a big library." Raina stopped to think. "That's funny, though. If she was there, I would have seen her when Pince shooed us out at closing time."
Just then Jan Nugginbridge walked in. Raina turned to her: "Jan, have you seen Marietta?"
"Not since dinner. She came back here, said summat about goin' to hospital wing, then went off in a differ'nt direction."
Cho jumped to her feet without a word and ran downstairs.
The hospital wing; I never checked there. Maybe she really was sick; maybe she had nothing to do with this at all...
As she neared the hospital wing, Cho could hear a student wailing and moaning like a lost soul. She knew that voice.
Marietta.
xxx
to be continued in part 25, wherein Cho finds out what happened to Marietta and tries to make things right...
A/N: The song Luna sings on the ramparts is a real song, although a Muggle one, and still fairly well known in Britain. "The Hippopotamus Song" was written in about 1960 by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.
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
24. "Expecto Patronum"
The party that night at Ravenclaw was everything the one in December was, after they'd beaten Hufflepuff. There were congratulations and commisserations with the teammates who had struggled to finish with a win; there was anticipation of the next match.
And there was Cho off in a corner, speaking to nobody, and with nobody speaking to her.
It wasn't that Cho had somehow disgraced herself during the match; to the contrary, her catching the Snitch accounted for all but ten of Ravenclaw's points. But the rumours persisted, even if they weren't true: Cho could blow up unexpectedly, at the least little thing, or at nothing at all. Yes, she had been weepy since Cedric's death, but why couldn't anyone seem to understand that? Yes, she had blown up at Harry in Hogsmeade, but there was a reason for it, and no Ravenclaw was likely to make that mistake.
And yet the rumours persisted. Some (who weren't there, of course) said that Cho actually pulled her wand on Harry at Madam Puddifoots and threatened to hex a certain part of his anatomy; others said that she had found a deserted classroom and turned it into a shrine to Cedric Diggory, and wept alone there every night. It was madness, of course, but Cho couldn't deny any of it without seeming as emotional and overwrought as the rumours themselves painted her.
Only a handful of Ravenclaws knew better: her teammates, and the students in the DA. And Marietta, her Prefect, and at this point her closest friend. She still treated Cho's occasional nightmare, although these were diminishing in frequency. Marietta also had to admit that Cho could always be counted on to have a cheery disposition for a meeting of Dumbledore's Army.
Which is why, at the party, Cho sat alone at the bay window in the Common Room. Marietta brought her a cup of pumpkin punch, then sat beside her. She seemed to want to ask Cho something.
"Listen, Cho, I... I've been getting an earful from my mum about Harry Potter."
"What's he done now?"
"Well, nothing really, but she hears talk around the Network."
"Can she do that--listen in on Floo conversations?"
"She's not supposed to, I guess, but Fudge asked her about certain, as he put it, 'wizards of interest,' and Harry's name keeps coming up."
"Well, you know there's not much he can get up to now."
"Except for the group."
"Well, you can't talk me out of Monday's meeting, and that's that. It should be the biggest thing we've done yet!" Cho realized her voice was rising; she looked around, was sure she was being ignored, and sipped her punch.
"Anyway," Marietta added after a minute of silence, "you're looking lots cheerier lately." She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead stood up and went to get some batwing cookies.
xxx
"The wand work isn't so important," Harry was saying to Dumbledore's Army two nights later, "but to produce a Patronus you have to focus on your happiest memory of all time."
Cho started thinking: something to do with Cedric? Never; too much sadness mixed in with the joy. Something about Harry? No, for the same reason, only moreso. Coming to Hogwarts? Making the team? Beating Slytherin in that pickup game in her Third Year? Beating Hufflepuff in December in her first real victory? Saturday's win over Slytherin?
No; go further back, Cho told herself. Go back to childhood, when everything was simpler, when emotions were pure, when you felt happiness and nothing but happiness.
Cho closed her eyes, focused her mind, and suddenly she was five years old and with her parents in Regents Park. They'd taken her on a Sunday afternoon outing; she fed the noisy clacking ducks and watched the gray fidgety squirrels, and then she looked out across the pond...
and there, coming straight toward her, was a bird. The largest bird she'd ever seen; it towered with its long neck over the ducks like a giraffe over zebras, or so she imagined. This blazingly pure white bird with the black mask and yellow bill and neck as long and straight as a lamp-post sailed across the surface of the pond right up to Cho, who wasn't the least bit afraid of it, nor was it afraid of her. They simply looked at each other, trying to figure out what would happen next.
What happened next was Lotus speaking: "Cho, honey, that's a swan."
THAT'S a swan? Like the one in her story-book about the Ugly Duckling? The small, ugly, lonely little duck which Cho had believed herself to be would grow up to be THIS…
The image of the swan in the park completely filled her mind, and the words were out of her mouth before she even realized it:
"Expecto Patronum!!"
Silver light exploded out of the end of her wand, resolving itself into the image of a swan like none had ever seen: its neck stretched out full, its wing-span almost too large for the classroom. The wind of its passing whipped the robes of the rest of Dumbledore's Army. Everyone there, including Harry, watched in amazement as it glided up to the ceiling chandelier and circled it three times before it dissolved into silver vapour.
When it was gone, some of the students started applauding. Cho had her hands over her mouth in delighted surprise. She stopped looking up at the ceiling and looked down at Harry, who was absolutely beaming, and thought: I did that, I did that and you showed me the way to do that, and if I live for two centuries I will never receive a finer gift than you have given me tonight. I love you, Harry Potter…
Now that the rest of Dumbledore's Army had watched someone produce a Patronus--someone who wasn't The Boy Who Lived--and realized that they could do it, too, the whole group broke up and tried to follow Cho's lead. None of them, however, seemed to have any success. A few wands squirted out silver light, but it seldom came to more than that.
Cho, meanwhile, found her Patronus-creating almost intoxicating. She would produce them one after the other; smaller than the first one, because now she was learning to control her power and not merely create. But she had spent so many months either living in sorrow, or with sorrow as a background for fleeting joys, that she was almost overwhelmed. She hadn't felt this, well, this HAPPY since Cedric...
One other student produced a Patronus that night, and at first Cho wouldn't have bet even a Knut that it would have been Hermione Granger. The Gryffindor seemed serious, even grim, after Cho's triumph with the Swan Patronus, and was determined to simply master this spell as she had mastered so many others. But it's not about competing, Cho thought as if she were coaching Granger; it's about feeling the joy...
Granger then stopped her fruitless attempts, lowered her wand, closed her eyes and concentrated. And a bit of a smile came to her lips...
For a fleeting second, Cho wondered what brought about that smile, and did it have anything to do with Harry--
"Expecto Patronum!" This time, a flash of silver burst out of Granger's wand and resolved into--
An otter? What a strange choice, Cho thought.
But the strangeness of Granger's Patronus, and the worry about what might have made her happy enough to produce it, were swept aside when the otter appeared, seeming to swim through the air on its back, kicking with its powerful hind legs.
One thought remained in Cho's head and heart watching the Otter Patronus: How cute! Surely this is how they defeat Dementors, Cho thought: by awakening a happiness in you that no Dementor can take. It was a shame that Marietta had to catch cold this night, of all nights. Just being here with Patronuses in the room would doubtless cheer her up; they work better than Cheering Charms!
So Cho shared the spotlight with Granger: each would produce a Patronus, then another when the previous one faded. Harry finally had to interrupt them.
"You're doing great, both of you, but remember that this isn't a game. You'll need to be able to do this when you're under attack by Dementors."
"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," Cho laughed as she watched her most recent Swan Patronus fly up to the vaulted ceiling of the Room of Requirement. "They're so pretty!"
"They're not supposed to be pretty; they're supposed to protect you."
"They are sort of nice, aren't they," Hermione Granger smiled, watching the antics of her Otter Patronus.
Harry had turned to some of the others, telling them that he had learned to produce his Stag Patronus after being threatened by a Dementor--at least, by a boggart pretending to be a Dementor.
Granger looked as if she wanted to say something to Harry, to contradict something he'd just said, but instead she sighed and turned to Cho. She smiled at Cho, and seemed to want to say something to the Ravenclaw. Just then, the door to the classroom opened and closed, seemingly by itself.
Cho didn't worry much at first, and created a Swan Patronus the size of her bookbag. She watched in delight as it "swam" two feet above the floor of the classroom. Then she noticed: the room was gradually falling silent. Everyone was watching Harry in conversation by the door with a house-elf. Cho couldn't hear the conversation; just a series of hoots and howls from the house-elf as it seemed to wrestle with Harry--or with itself. But then she looked at the students closer to the door and saw that they, like Harry, were afraid...
Harry turned suddenly to the class. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! RUN!!"
No leaving in twos and threes this time; it was a mass stampede for the door. Cho wanted to grab Harry's sleeve, but she'd been trapped between the Weasley twins, and got swept into the hall before she knew it. She ran toward the far staircase--it was closest to the library--but stopped at the head of the stairs. There was an old suit of armour, and, just beside it, standing perfectly still but otherwise out in the open for all to see, was Luna Lovegood.
"This way!" Cho hissed.
Luna shook her head. "Snakes have awfully bad eyesight, you know. If I stand perfectly still, they won't see me."
"But they're not--" Cho gave it up and grabbed Luna's sleeve. "Come on!"
When she started down the stairs, Cho heard shouts coming from near the classroom; one of those shouting sounded dreadfully like Draco Malfoy. Not a snake, Cho thought, but the next worst thing...
On the sixth floor landing, Cho stopped; she could hear the pounding of steps coming up from below, and more steps racing down from above. She dragged Luna down one corridor after another, finally stopped by the stairs leading to the Astronomy Tower. There was no hope for it; she could still hear running steps behind her. She pulled Luna up to the Tower, closed the door, and braced it with Professor Sinistra's telescope, which weighed about fifty pounds.
"Oh!" Luna said, as if just realizing that she was outdoors; "what a lovely evening!" She climbed up onto the ramparts and began strolling along the edge, singing to herself:
"Mud, mud, glorious mud/Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood..."
Cho realized that the telescope wouldn't keep their pursuers out; they'd knock it away from the door with one good shove. Unless--she drew her wand.
"Engorgio!"
The telescope immediaterly grew to five times its size--and weight. Confident that this would slow them down, she looked around the tower. There was no other way on or off it. She and Luna were trapped.
No; whatever's going on, it won't end like this! Got to think of a way out of this. What to do in a spot like this? What would Harry do...
What DID Harry do!
She looked over the ramparts toward the Quidditch stadium, and the shed where the school's brooms were kept. By rights, it ought to be locked up, and this might not even work. Still, Madam Hooch could be a little lax sometimes, especially after a game weekend. In any case, it was the only thing to try. She pointed her wand at the shed and took a deep breath.
"Accio Comet!"
The sun had almost completely set, and it was difficult now to even see the shed, much less whether anything was--YES! Cho's Comet Two Sixty was sailing along on its own, headed straight for the Astronomy Tower.
The pounding on the door grew more insistent, the voices on the other side of it louder and angrier. The broom seemed to take forever to get to her, during which time Cho was busy thanking every ancestor she could name. Finally, it clattered at her feet on the stone floor. She hopped on at once, and, without a word, so did Luna, who was grinning from ear to ear.
The broom lifted slowly off, unaccustomed to a double load. Cho stopped just beyond the parapet, pulled out her wand again and pointed it at the massive telescope:
"Finite Incantatem!"
Professor Sinistra's telescope immediately shrunk back to its original size, as Cho and Luna dropped down out of sight, headed for the West Tower and Ravenclaw House.
However, as soon as Cho turned toward their tower, Luna began singing again, very loudly:
"Oh, you'll never never never/Find a girl as clever/As the Girls of Ravenclaw!/You'll--"
"LUNA!" Cho regretted shouting at Luna, and her voice dropped back down to a whisper. "We don't want them to find us."
Luna simply smiled at Cho.
Luna, you're not mad; I know you're not, Cho thought as she flew toward her dormitory window. You were Sorted into Ravenclaw; you know that Voldemort is back, and that a new war could begin at any time. But, if you get through this war in one piece, it'll be nothing less than a blessing from Rowena Herself...
They sailed into the Sixth Year girls' dormitory through the window. Luna at once bounced off the broom, gave a friendly wave, mouthed the words "Thank you!" and then dashed through the open door and down the steps.
Cho looked around, and it took a few seconds to realize what was wrong: Marietta wasn't there. If she was too sick to attend the DA meeting, she should still be in her own bed. It hadn't even been slept in.
Cho was worried; suppose the raid on the classroom was one of several raids. What if they'd come to Ravenclaw looking for Marietta or Corner, Padma or Luna... She hid her broom in her wardrobe and ran downstairs to the Common Room. Vincent Krixlow was there, puzzling over an astrological chart.
"If you're going out," he said without looking up, "tell that lot to stuff their hats in their cake-holes. I'm trying to concentrate."
Cho could now hear shouting and pounding beyond the tapestry. She went through the bookcase, and the commotion got louder. She took a deep breath, adjusted the expression onn her face, and opened the tapestry just a crack.
"Yes?" she smiled. "Can we help you?"
Three or four of the older Slytherin were there, led by Adrian Pucey, one of Slytherin's Chasers. "How long have you been in there?"
"I came back right after dinner," Cho said, which was true as far as it went.
"Well, I need to know if anyone's come in during the last few minutes."
A hand clapped itself onto Pucey's shoulder, and a voice asked, with cold and level anger, "Well, why would you need to know that?"
Roger Davies had come up behind Pucey and the others, who all seemed to be Slytherins.
"I am here," Pucey started, "under the authority of Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial..."
"I don't care if you're here with the Coldstream Bleeding Guard! If someone's broken a rule, you'd better be prepared to say who broke what rule. Otherwise, you lot can bugger off."
"If you think you can overrule Professor Umbridge--"
"If she wants to drag somebody out of Ravenclaw House, she'd better drag herself down here first and tell us who and why!"
Pucey knew that Davies was right about school rules, and didn't have enough imagination to think of a way around him on the spot. He glowered at Davies, then at Cho, then led his fellow Slytherins back in the direction of the Great Hall.
Cho had been holding her breath, and let it out all at once. "Thanks, Rog."
"Don't thank me. We have to talk." Cho held open the tapestry for him; he strode past her and threw himself into a comfy chair in the Common Room. "Didn't I tell you lot not to get into anything dicey with Umbridge on the prowl?"
Cho knew why she was being scolded, but also knew that she could neither confirm nor explain what she had been doing with Dumbledore's Army. "What do you mean, dicey?"
"Don't think you can play me like I'm a Snitch! I'm your Captain, and I thought I was your friend. I think I deserve better than this!"
Cho, now desperate to change the subject, said the first thing that came to mind: "I would have thought you deserved better than Annabella Smoot, but apparently I was wrong. Tell me, Rog; when you invited me to Puddifoot's, was it so that I could put on the same kind of display you two did?"
"I don't see as it's any of your business, but, for the record, I asked her because you wouldn't go."
She was almost shouting now. "Is that-- Is that the way you've seen me all this time?"
"All this time, no. But I'm out of here in June and I was looking to have a bit of fun..."
"So you DID expect me to make a spectacle of myself!"
"Well, so you did, only it was with Potter."
"Well! If you expect me to say anything at all to you, Roger Davies, you'd better come back with a very well-crafted apology! And take a few days to get it right!" Cho jumped up and ran to the stairs to the girls' dormitories. She stopped there, and said, in a much softer voice, "Thanks for taking care of those Inquisitors." Then she dashed up the stairs.
As she ran, she heard Roger: "Hey! Get back here!"
Sorry, Rog, Cho said as she threw herself onto her bed. I don't mean to lie to you or evade anything, but it looks as if someone's betrayed the D.A. I can't make a move until I find out what's happening.
Cho sat on her bed for the next hour, trying not to think of one particular thought that kept coming back to her: Marietta. Where is she? Did she have anything to do with this? She couldn't! She must have known that she'd be putting me in danger of expulsion--or worse! And herself as well, and Padma Patil, and Luna and Corner... But she's never really liked the D.A., and she's always grumbled about going to the meetings, but it was never more than just grumbling. She can't have found it so awful and still kept going for all these months. Or would she say I dragged her? No; I never dragged her. If she came along, it was because she chose to come. I told her often enough that she didn't have to attend if she didn't want to. And perhaps tonight she just didn't want to. She wasn't necessarily the traitor; maybe she's been in the library all this time, doing a scroll for Ancient Runes or, or, something...
Cho tried and tried to convince herself that her Prefect and dorm-mate, her closest friend after a horrible year of nightmares about Cedric, that Marietta couldn't possibly be the one. But it just made too much sense.
Cho had been in her room forty minutes when Raina al-Qaba came in, dropping her bookbag with a loud thud by her writing-desk. "Two hours studying Arithmancy and I still don't think I got any of it," she sighed. "Hi, Cho."
"Were you in the library just now?" Raina nodded. "Was Marietta there?"
"I didn't see her; but then, it's a big library." Raina stopped to think. "That's funny, though. If she was there, I would have seen her when Pince shooed us out at closing time."
Just then Jan Nugginbridge walked in. Raina turned to her: "Jan, have you seen Marietta?"
"Not since dinner. She came back here, said summat about goin' to hospital wing, then went off in a differ'nt direction."
Cho jumped to her feet without a word and ran downstairs.
The hospital wing; I never checked there. Maybe she really was sick; maybe she had nothing to do with this at all...
As she neared the hospital wing, Cho could hear a student wailing and moaning like a lost soul. She knew that voice.
Marietta.
xxx
to be continued in part 25, wherein Cho finds out what happened to Marietta and tries to make things right...
A/N: The song Luna sings on the ramparts is a real song, although a Muggle one, and still fairly well known in Britain. "The Hippopotamus Song" was written in about 1960 by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.