Madame Pomfrey fussed and fidgeted over Cho, being as cautious as humanly possible in examining her injuries to see how well they had healed, removing bandages here and applying medicine there.
"Let's see here, Ms. Chang," she said, almost as though to herself. "Does this hurt?" she asked, gently pressing an area on her side where a bruise should've been.
"No," she replied, hoping that she'd be declared perfectly healthy, or at least well enough to leave, and let go soon.
She moved an inch above the spot she had already tested and again pressed firmly on the tender skin. "Here?"
"No," she said again, becoming more impatient by the minute.
She moved another inch beyond that and applied pressure again to that untested area. This time Cho drew in a quick, sharp breath as a small, electrifying shock of pain shot through her side and seemed to go straight through to the bone.
The nurse clucked her tongue and immediately spread more paste onto the area, allowing it to sink in.
"Well," she said finally, "you're not as well as I'd hoped you'd be, but I believe, if you're strong enough, that is, that you'll be able to attend your classes today. If you hurry, you can most likely be able to walk into breakfast without missing very much of it." She added as her charge abruptly rose from the bed and, already having changed into her uniform, began to make her way towards the door.
"Thank you!" she called behind her shoulder, catching sight of the nurse waving to her before turning to make her bed and change the sheets. She closed the door behind herself and breathed a sigh of relief at having finally escaped from Madame Pomfrey; the nurse had meant well, but her nerve-wracking caution had been driving her mad. Ron hadn't gotten a chance to visit her since his very first call, but he had sent Pig tapping on her window, regardless of the hour, with letters, sometimes long, and sometimes short, that amused and comforted her. She had carefully saved each one in her schoolbag, which Marietta had brought to her shortly after she was allowed into the hospital wing again, and wrote her own replies on separate sheets of parchment. A smile made its way onto her face as she thought of how enthusiastically each note had been replied and how she had somehow managed to keep it a secret from Madame Pomfrey. She turned a corner and saw the large doors leading into the dining hall become even larger as she neared them step by step and her heart began pounding as she thought of seeing everyone and their reactions to her slightly early release.
Pulling open the door on the right, she slipped in noiselessly as the entire student body ate and chatted noisily, not a single person seeming to notice her enter. The door closed silently behind her and she felt the small breeze it created on the back of her neck, causing small bumps to rise. She calmly gathered together her wits, and proceeded to walk towards the head of red close towards the end of the Gryffindor table, bent over the golden plate in concentration, ignoring everything else; still no movement from anyone to welcome her. Evidently, due to the constant flow of stragglers who had decided to sleep in a bit, they had assumed that this new addition to the crowd was of no great importance. When she had come to a stop behind him, she saw that Ron was absorbed in his own thoughts, and an idea came into her head that caused her to smirk slightly and walk a bit faster. Leaning down close to his ear, she said quietly, "Miss me?"
The effect those words had were astonishing; he gave a short yelp of surprise, almost falling out of his seat and nearly accidentally flinging a spoonful of food at Lavender, who jumped out of her seat and shielded her face with her arms. Cho covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle the laughs rising up from her throat and finally gave in to the temptation and doubled over, clutching her sides as she giggled and laughed until it hurt. By now, every head had turned in their direction and an uproar rose soon after as word spread throughout the hall.
"She's back. She's back!"
Ron grinned and stood up, walking over to Cho, who was still slightly breathless. However, as soon as he approached her, she sobered up slightly, although she was unable to prevent a wide smile from spreading across her face.
"Think you're so sneaky, don't you?" he said, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. She returned it, looking over his shoulder as she did and seeing that Hermione was in clear view of the two of them, her heart sinking slightly as she realized that he must have embraced her for that reason. But wasn't that what they had planned on doing in the first place, making Hermione and Michael jealous? She decided to play along, still experiencing a feeling of vague disappointment.
"Well, I couldn't resist," she said, pulling away from him slightly and smirking.
"I'm not sure Lavender's too happy about it though," he said good-humoredly, jerking his head towards Lavender, who was now blushing furiously and attempting to avoid the stares of her fellow students as she sat in her seat, forcing herself to eat.
"Hmm… that part wasn't quite what I had been hoping for, but then again, I wasn't the one who was holding the spoon." She replied, taking a quick look at the red-faced Gryffindor and shrugging.
"Oh, are you implying that it's my fault?" he said jokingly. He still hadn't completely pulled away from her yet, his arms still encircling her halfway.
"Of course," she said, tilting her head to the side slightly and flashing him another broad smile. "If the spoon fits…"
He shook his head and leaned in to kiss her gently on the nose.
"Cho!" squealed Marietta, who had fought her way through the gathering crowd to reach her friend.
"Hi, Ma-" was as far as she got, however, before she was snatched away from Ron and clutched tightly into a bone-crushing hug.
"Marietta-" she gasped, "can't- breathe."
Without a single apology, she was finally released and then pushed towards the Ravenclaw table where an entire welcoming committee was awaiting her, her friend chattering nonstop while escorting her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Ron looking at her questioningly and she shrugged, mouthing, "I'll see you later." He nodded, looking… disappointed? Or was it a trick of the light? She wanted to study his face more closely, but it had resumed its previous neutral expression as he walked back to his seat and continued to eat his breakfast, ignoring Harry's attempts at conversation completely, and her friends seemed as though they weren't anxious to let her out of their sight anytime soon. Allowing herself to be seated in the very middle of the table, she turned away from the Gryffindor table to look at her dorm mates, who seemed to be anticipating her to say something. What they wanted her to say, exactly, was what she pondered in her mind as they continued to stare at her as though she were an animal on display.
June cleared her throat after a few long seconds of awkward silence and finally said aloud what they had all been wondering.
"So, Cho," she started nonchalantly, the look of suppressed curiosity in her eyes giving away her eagerness, "we heard that Ron went and visited you in the hospital wing, finally."
A wave of realization swept over her as she opened her eyes wide as a sign that she had become conscious of what they were asking of her.
"And so the game continues…" she thought wearily as she opened her mouth and began to speak to her enthusiastic audience.
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Ron walked down the hall in an extremely different frame of mind as he happily strolled to his least favorite class, Potions. Cho had been released and all seemed right with the world again… at least, as right as it had ever been in the past month or so. And yet… the very air he breathed in seemed to signify that something was wrong with each step that he took, and he looked apprehensively into the half-full classroom to see that nothing was awry inside that particular room. Which was when he discovered that the source of the problem was from his own memory. As he took his seat as far away from Hermione and Harry as possible, but within the Gryffindor group, he was plagued with the image of Cho looking let down and slightly hurt as her face was close to his. What did it mean? He had disregarded it at the moment, but now that he looked back on it, that particular facial expression most likely held some sort of meaning.
"Now, if you'll pull out your homework I assigned you yesterday, pass them up to the front of the class and I'll take them up," began the voice of the potions master, striking fear and panic in other students besides Neville Longbottom, whose frog had soiled his papers.
"Five points from Gryffindor, for Mr. Longbottom's lack of understanding of legible handwriting and a neat paper…" was what Ron heard as he passed his own paper up to the person in front of him before drifting back to his own thoughts. He could always copy off of Hermione's… a stab of anger swept over him as he remembered that he couldn't copy her notes anymore. Shaking the unpleasant thoughts from his head, he tuned out Snape's voice all the same to concentrate on the small battle that raged within his head.
She might really like him that way. She might not. She might like him. She might not. Cho was excellent at concealing her feelings, and so it might have been an act, to go along with their plot. Or maybe she'd let her guard down for that one brief moment and continued keeping herself in check. His heart began beating a bit faster as he thought of the possibility that she might want something real instead of pretend and returned to its normal rate when the small voice of reasoning in his mind deflated his fantasy. If she really felt that way about him, did he feel the same way?
The Ravenclaw was stubborn, and at times, seemed as though she'd prefer to stand alone against the world with no help from the outside; she was perfectly capable and had no intention of letting any boy reach through to her heart. The past few years had hardened her into a cold woman with nerves of steel and yet, he had somehow managed to find the old, carefree Cho, the girl who enjoyed being with friends and loved society as much as it adored her, not to mention that they kept each other at ease and comfortable. Surely that meant something.
But there was more to her than even he had seen thus far; it was as if she still had a secret side of herself that she had not yet cared to reveal to the world, a part of her that surely easily outshined any of her physical beauty. If only he could discover this secret, he was sure that he would know so much more about her…
The real question was, what would be his motivation for this small quest? She was extremely secretive and it would be simply task for him to accomplish; he sensed a revolution brewing as he finally probed away in the depths of his mind and heart to reveal that the electrifying feel of how her hands fit perfectly in his was the first sign that he had begun to fall for her.
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Cho-How about a walk tonight, after dinner? We can continue planning for our evil plot then, if you like.
-Ron
A wide smile spread across Cho's face again as she read the short note, obviously carefully written in no hurry whatsoever as she took note of the neatly spaced print. She took out a quill and as carefully as he had written, she wrote back her reply.
Ron- I'd love that. I'll see you after dinner, then. I can't meet with you outside the dining hall to walk in with you as usual because I've got to stay after Charms to talk to Professor Flitwick about when I can retake the test he gave while I was gone, so don't wait for me.-Cho
She tied the reply onto Pig's leg, smiling at the small owl, which hooted shyly in return before flying out the nearest window in the hall; continuing to walk to the Charms classroom, she couldn't help but wonder why her friends were so interested in her personal affairs as Marietta had hovered over her as she wrote her note and how no one had given her a moment's peace without knowing every detail over her discussion with Ron. Of course, they never asked for her to tell the entire truth…
Smirking, she slipped his note into her bag while no one was looking and feeling powerful with the knowledge that she seemed to have a secret that none of them knew, or at least in the fact that they didn't know all about her relationship with him. It seemed like a guilty pleasure, she thought, to hide something as large as pretending to be his girlfriend from her friends who would gladly tell her everything about their own personal lives. The point was, it seemed, that they would also gladly tell everyone they saw, making them swear not to tell, and ruining the secret faster than she could stop them from doing it. She resolved silently to explain all to them later, her heart softening as she remembered sentimentally that most of them had grown up with her, being her friends even before Hogwarts.
"Cho! Are you going or not?" June said impatiently from behind her, cutting her flow of thought short. She looked up, startled, and realized that she hadn't moved from the same spot in the past few minutes or so and, a touch of red appearing on her cheeks, she made her way up the rest of the staircase, following Marietta and allowing everyone behind her to move. She could hardly wait for dinner to come and go…
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"Ron?" Cho called out softly after she had come down the entire set of stairs. "Are you there?"
No reply.
She frowned and walked forward a bit, crossing her arms and stopping after a few steps. The grass crunched behind her and she saw a tall shadow, looking as though it was ready to attack her. Instead of screaming, however, she smiled, her quick mind putting together the pieces of the puzzle with rapid speed, and said, "A valiant attempt, Ron, but I know you're there."
Looking disappointed, he moved to stand in front of her with the look of a child who had just been denied a visit to the candy shop.
"What gave me away?" he demanded.
"Your own shadow, I'm afraid," she said, pointing to the extremely long silhouette on the ground next to hers.
"I suppose I should've waited until it was darker," he said, looking with a pretended air of grief at his shadow.
"Mm, well, I also knew that you'd most likely want to repay me for the small shock I gave you this morning," she said.
"All right, all right, no need to be cocky about it," he said lightly, contradicting his words completely with his attitude.
"You know, we should go down to the Quidditch field again. It seems to be our best thinking spot," Cho suggested, beginning to walk towards the close by rectangular patch of green. He followed, walking beside her and making a few comments here and there, but not saying much otherwise as they made their way to the field. Walking across the neatly maintained grass to the very center, she sat down and motioned for him to do the same.
"So, what do you have in mind for our holiday plans, exactly?" he said, sitting.
"I haven't really given much thought to it, but I need to know more details before I begin to work something out. Are Hermione and Harry both staying for Christmas and New Year's?"
"As far as I know," he said, shrugging. "I don't really check in on them much nowadays, if you understand what I mean."
"I understand perfectly. Hmm… I don't know. Do you have anything planned?" she said, biting her bottom lip in concentration after she had finished speaking.
"No…" was the reply. They sat in thoughtful silence for a few moments before he said suddenly, "Are you still planning on sending Harry that Howler? It'd make the perfect Christmas gift."
"I was really just joking when I said that I would, but now that you think of it, maybe I will, if I can find some way to disguise my voice."
"I could ask Fred and George. They'd probably be able to come up with a way… unless they take this chance to use you as an experimenter for one of their products." He said.
"I think I'll pass up the opportunity, although it does sound tempting," she said dryly. "Is part of that portable swamp they left here still roped off and there?" she added.
"Yeah. Filch still isn't too happy about it, though. It seems to bring back loads of unpleasant memories… for him, I mean."
"How's your brothers' business nowadays? I've always been curious as to how well they've been doing."
"I believe Zonko's may be trying to send spies over to try and steal some of their ideas, actually."
"I take that as a sign that they're doing well for themselves, then."
"Definitely. Mum still isn't sure whether or not she approves of it, but they're bringing in loads of money they made by themselves the honest way, so she's keeping quiet, if she does disapprove of some part of it."
"I liked your brothers. Their jokes and pranks always amused me. I remember when I tried to get Marietta to play a joke on her mother once when we were about seven or so." She said, looking as though she could see the seven-year-old version of herself right before her eyes.
"What happened?"
"She was too scared to do anything. She never did really have the courage to do something like that."
"But she was brave enough to turn us all in to Umbridge last year." He said, not sure if he would accidentally strike a nerve or not. But he was surprised when she remained calm and showed no sign of being angry whatsoever, replying him in a way that made it seem as though she was merely explaining a simple problem to him.
"Marietta's an only child. Her parents' lives completely revolve around her and she'd do whatever it takes to make herself look worthy in their eyes. I've never seen her stand up to them and refuse to do anything they told her to do, and I'm sure they'd say something to make her regret it forever if she ever did work up the nerve to say something. I don't really think she wanted to turn us all in, but she had to, in a way. She has no life of her own, and even if she wasn't born that way, she's been forced to become a follower."
She watched him as she spoke and saw his face alter from slightly begrudging to more sympathetic, saying nothing after she had finished speaking.
"It's been a while since the first time we did this," she said quietly, smiling as they watched another breathtaking sunset.
"You mean, talking face to face?" he said, leaning back.
"That… and watching a sunset together. I'm sorry; I just love sunsets. When I was a little girl, I loved to paint and draw and doodle on just about everything I could get my hands on, and the one thing that I wanted to be able to paint the most was a sunset. But I never could get it just the way I wanted it to be. I could visualize one in my mind, but when I put it to paper, it became very different from the image I had thought of. It seems like the only way to completely capture a sunset is in a picture."
"Then why haven't you every just taken a picture of one?"
"I don't know… I guess I don't have time. And it's so difficult to choose a specific day and sunset to photograph; each one is different, but also vaguely familiar to all the others, you know?"
"I see what you're saying…" he said, trailing off.
"So," she said, after the sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, "I came up with a few ideas of what we can do over the holidays. You've discovered for sure whether or not they're staying, right?"
He nodded. "When they passed around the list of people staying here for the holidays, they didn't sign their names."
"Excellent. So, what I'm thinking is…"
She leaned in close to whisper in his ear, and smiled happily at the look of absolute awe and excitement that crept onto his face.
"That's bloody brilliant," he said frankly, grinning from ear to ear.
"I'm glad you think so," she said, still smiling. "Because this'll require you to be completely concentrated on your task, as well as some acting skills."
"I'm ready for it," he said, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
"Perfect." She said, turning her face upwards as he did likewise to look towards the evening stars that had begun to make their appearance and just enjoy the silence of the night and being together.
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A/N: Now, this is longer than a lot of the previous chapters and I hope this makes up for the long wait and I'm really sorry about all that, but that's just how it worked out, you know? Oh, and a BIG announcement! Okay, it's not that big, but it does require some sort of an effort on your part. Ready? This is review one of Unicorn13's lesser-paid-attention-to songfics week. You have two choices: Unwell or You Raise Me Up. Please? Anyway, You've all been so great and here are my replies to your reviews:
To LauriAnn: The first one to review the last chapter! (*throws confetti and plays cheesy 'you've won' music*, lol) Anyway, I'm really proud of that last chapter I did and I'm glad that you like it a lot too. As you can see, there's some conflict, but it's mostly with Cho and herself and Ron and himself, etc. I can maybe see a fight between the two of them in the future, though, just to spice things up. (*winks*) Sadly, my other story, Dear Harry, might interfere with how often I can update this story, but I think I'll be able to manage it all right without having to sacrifice much. And it is a tough question!
To glitterfairyxoxo: Yeah, I know you love this story, but I never get tired of hearing it, lol. :-)
To fairy-lights1: I'm happy you loved that last chapter! It was extremely fluffy, but I myself really liked it. Thanks for your feedback on my question, and I want to finish writing the H/D fic completely first before I put it up on the web site, so you don't have to look for it yet, but I'm glad you're willing to give it a chance!
To LogicalRaven: They are cute together, aren't they? I have a feeling they're not going to be together in the next book though. :-( I wonder if I really should write this story so that Cho sends Harry a Howler… maybe as a Christmas gift… hee hee hee… I'm sorry for the second long wait in a row, though!
To shortywithbrains: Thanks. I had a very relaxing holiday. You know, I actually have a cousin who lives in California. Yeah, he's an only child and spoiled to death. He's a year younger than me… anyway, I love the weather in that state because even though it's kind of cold at night in the winter, the climate is just so mild, you know?
To Cho345Chi: Well, that obviously wasn't the end of the story, so I hope that makes you happy. And I agree; having Harry's POV all the time gets old after a while, and it's just so much fun to explore all the other characters' personalities and kind of play around with them to make them your own. I'm forever grateful to you for answering my question and I'd also like to thank you for your support on my Hermione/Draco story; your review was one of those reviews that just leaves a writer happy and satisfied.
To Siriusly Serious: Okay, I'm planning on having a sequel to this, but that last chapter was certainly not the end of the story, lol! Hold your horses and back up a little bit. I'm glad you like this story so far!
To ChoChang100: I get it, lol. It's all going to happen in its own sweet time, but it definitely will happen. Don't worry. Thanks for your answer to my question, and I knew it! I knew your boyfriend had to be cute! I wish I had one… no, lol. I'm just kidding. I'm all right by myself… You know, it's so easy to lie when you write it down… or, rather, type it…
Okay, everybody, the choices for the most insecure female HP character are as follows (choose one and tell me in your review which one you picked): Cho, Ginny, Hermione, Marietta, and Pansy. Whichever one gets the most votes will be the one I use in this story I'm planning out. I can't wait to hear from all of you!
-Unicorn13