She hadn't quite expected her mother to encourage her so fervently to buy the apartment. As far as her mother went, she had never pressured her to do whatever she didn't want to do. When she had rebelled outright against going to a summer camp when she was six years old, she stayed home. If her mother took her shopping and a certain toy wasn't the right color or kind, it was never bought. Which was why Cho was astonished when her usually easy-going parent had expressed how she should take the flat that they had visited only once and that she was apprehensive about.
"I don't know Mum," she said, as they looked around once more. "It's nice, but I'm not sure I need such a roomy apartment. Three bedrooms is a bit much,"
"Nonsense," she said briskly. "Now you can have more guests to come visit you and spend the night,"
"Hmm…" she replied hesitantly. "This kitchen seems a bit large as well…" She faltered as she took note of her mother's increasingly impatient expression. However, she was determined to confess each small doubt she had about the place, and so, she continued.
"What about those cracks in the ceiling? And I've also heard that the person who lives above this flat loves to throw large parties… I'm not sure if I'd be able to enjoy it very much with all the racket upstairs,"
"Don't be so silly, Cho. You've had seven excellent years of education at Hogwarts. I think you'll be able to manage fixing the ceiling with a flick of your wand. As for your upstairs neighbor, he's planning on moving out. I overheard something about him looking for a larger apartment to accommodate more people for his social gatherings,"
"The color the living room is painted is a shade too dark, don't you think so?"
"Yes, but you can always repaint it," was the curt reply. "Oh, it's just a wonderful flat, and my opinion is that you should take it." She said again, with less impatience and something more like clever persuasiveness. "It reminds me of the first apartment your father and I bought together and this just brings back so many memories; it has this sense of familiarity… well, of course, the building that we originally lived in was torn down long ago, please excuse your sentimental old mother for rambling on and on…"
She stole a sly glance at her daughter as she trailed off, walking towards the door before sighing and saying, "Well, if you don't like it, I suppose that we could go find another flat that you like more,"
Cho bit her lip and thought carefully for a moment. This place wasn't exactly her idea of a dream home, but it did seem to mean a great deal to her mother and she certainly didn't want to disappoint her… and yet there were so many other choices available to her. Remembering the way her mother's face had lit up when her eyes had caught a glimpse of the apartment, she found that she couldn't let her down and decided that she'd buy it, just for her mother's sake. It wasn't such a bad place anyway; her mother was right in saying that she could make all her little adjustments after she had moved in and gotten everything settled. There was no flaw that a few well-done charms couldn't fix that the flat possessed.
"Wait," she said suddenly. "I think I like this apartment after all,"
"Good," Mrs. Chang said, nodding approvingly. Taking her daughter by the arm, she led her out into the hallway and towards the elevator. "I promise you won't regret it."
That had been several months ago, and she had found that her mother was right; she had become very fond indeed of the place, just its welcoming aura and sense of being home. And yet there was something else. She found that she couldn't quite put her finger on it and finally gave up trying to discover what obviously did not intend to be discovered anytime soon, if ever. It seemed to be almost as puzzling as when she had first begun to question her feelings for Harry… Harry. It had been a long time since she had thought of him. She often found that once thoughts of him entered her head, it was nearly impossible to rid herself of them, plaguing her just as they did years ago. Painful memories flooded her senses once more to cause her dreams to become replays of what had been and what could never be in random fits. To remedy the old ailment, she buried herself in work at the Ministry and busied every spare moment she had visiting with old friends or shopping, although she didn't always find something to buy. And yet, when she was alone in her own room with nothing to distract her any longer, he still haunted her, his face more vivid in her mind than it had been for so long. She often longed for a means of escape, but she had lost the notebook ages ago… she had been positive that it was in her bag when she had left Hogwarts, so that possibility was ruled out. She finally came to accept the fact that it was gone and that she would never see it again… even without it, she found consolation in one thing that was different this time; she hadn't seen Harry for so long, except for in the news occasionally, and, although she would have welcomed this sudden onslaught of old feelings with more dread a year or so earlier, she found that she was strangely… happy as well as sad and tormented whenever she saw him as she had seen him years before in her memory or dreams. She loved recalling every which way his hair stuck up, his facial expressions, the way he said her name, almost uncertainly, confirming that he was almost as frightened as she was about the idea of the two of them together and how- right it seemed. She loved the way he would be just as competitive as anyone else on the Quidditch field when playing against her team, and most of all, she loved the idea that maybe, just maybe, he had loved her once too. As time slipped through her fingers as easily as water, she found that the pain from the memories would slowly fade away as she began to think of all the things that she loved about him and that it returned when she thought of how he surely would have forgotten her by now.
The year after she had graduated from Hogwarts, she had paid close attention to the newspapers, her eyes constantly searching for a bit of news, anything about the Dark Lord's return or defeat. As the death toll rose steadily, she began to despair of good prevailing over evil after she had visited yet another funeral, Marietta's parents'. When offered a position in the Order of the Phoenix by Dumbledore, she had accepted- on one condition: that Harry would know nothing of her belonging to the organization. Having this agreed upon, she set out on a dangerous mission to discover Voldemort's whereabouts, which had been rumored to be somewhere around Switzerland. No sooner than she had been in Bern for five weeks, she overheard a crucial bit of information in a marketplace while disguised as an old peddler. Harry was not safe. Quickly deciphering the code with which the Death Eater spoke to another wizard, she discovered that the Dark Lord was not in Switzerland, but in Finland, and was planning an attack on Hogwarts during which Harry would be taken. Sending an owl to England immediately, she warned the other members of the Order of the dark plot that would soon be fulfilled if they did nothing to prevent it. However, before her letter arrived, the siege had already taken place. She returned, fully aware that Harry had won once more, his latest victory more meaningful now that he had done it all on his own with only his own skill and wit, and already having been tortured and injured. Feeling a bit disappointed at not being able to contribute more to the noble cause, she received the Headmaster's thanks all the same and proceeded to attempt avoiding Harry at all means possible. Finally, she settled for going abroad with her parents to the United States to visit some relatives and do a bit of sightseeing along the way for a while. Upon their return, she knew that she wanted to live in a place of her own, and so the search began… and ended after her mother had insisted on that one flat. It was peculiar… she had barely stuck her head in an apartment before she almost immediately dragged Cho straight out the door again, insisting that it wasn't good enough, even when they had looked at a flat that once belonged to Celestina Warbeck herself. It was always the same response after a moment's reflection, until they had come upon the one that she had finally deemed as worthy of her occupation.
Her mother often came to visit after she officially owned the apartment, and still thought it as charming as the first day she had seen it, and told her an assortment of stories about the other flat she had lived in.
That apartment had become home to her now, and she'd been reminded once more that Mother knows best. There was a certain aura about the place that gave it a welcoming feeling once she stepped inside the door that wasn't unlike the impression the house she had grown up in gave her each time she came home from school. And yet… there seemed to be something else. Almost as though it had some hidden secret within its walls that was not to be revealed to her just yet; it also had something to do with its atmosphere… almost a sense of anticipation. As to what it was anticipating, she had no earthly idea, and as she continued to think of this, a small voice would break her out of her trance and reprimand her for being foolish. Yet still the thought remained in her mind and refused to leave her be…
But her apartment didn't seem to be the only one with something to hide. More than once she had caught her mother staring intently out the window, seeming to expect something. When inquired upon this strange activity, the reply was always a calm, "Oh nothing, nothing at all. Just seeing what the weather looks like,"
She was not one to doubt her mother's honesty, but she couldn't help but be skeptical…
"Mum, why don't you come away from that window and help me make some biscuits for tea?" she said one day. "Surely you know what the weather is by now,"
"Just a moment dear," her mother replied, her head turning to the right slightly, following a figure on the street below before smiling and walking into the kitchen. She glanced curiously at her mother, examining her face more closely, but as she did, the broad smile disappeared and was replaced instead by a polite smile that was more ordinary. Giving up, Cho only moved to take out the ingredients they needed and to bustle busily around the kitchen. As her daughter did all this, Mrs. Chang's broad smile crept back onto her face again as she thought of the parts of her prophesy that had already been fulfilled.
It had all gone very well. She had foreseen years before that the one who would change the entire course of her daughter's life would someday cross her path once more, only to stay on it, with a bit of help, of course. Sometimes things just needed a helpful nudge to set everything correctly and make the cards play out in her favor. Thankfully, her daughter was blissfully unaware of the hand that had been dealt her, as well as the fact that her very own mother was a Seer. Maybe someday she would tell her. Every now and then, Cho herself had had small predictions, something that she had never been able to fully explain to her. She could no longer use the excuse that she was too young to know of these things, for she was now a young woman, capable of supporting herself without the aid of her parents. Still, she decided that these secrets could wait just a bit longer. Maybe they would be revealed to her as a wedding gift…
The man who had owned the building had also been the owner of the building that she had spoken fondly of to Cho so many times, so it had been with no real difficulty that one of his very best flats had been put up for sale for an almost outrageously low price as soon as its tenant had accepted a position overseas. It was all part of the prophecy. First, the boy would break her only child's heart once and then the notebook would become her refuge. Then, years later, she would live on the same plot of land that he did, therefore making it possible for their paths to cross, and the rest would be history after he had read the notebook that he had gotten a hold of.
She watched carefully from the window facing the street leading to Diagon Alley, searching for any sign of him. She had held her breath as his eye caught the "for sale" sign on the front of the building and, motioning to his friend, they both entered. A few days later, he returned, this time with an entire mass of redheaded people, probably to inquire their opinions on the place. It could only be the apartment directly above Cho's that he was interested in; it was the only one up for sale. Of course, his friends would all encourage him to buy it. Nearly a week later, when she had almost driven her daughter out of her wits by dropping by to visit every day and yet doing almost nothing except for staring out the window, she was relieved to see him come out of the building and shake hands with the owner of the flat. It was later in the afternoon that the man who owned the actual building took down the sign.
To soothe her daughter's frayed nerves and limited amount of patience, she spaced the intervals of her visits so that they spanned at least several days. When the moving van came, her visits became a bit more frequent again before stopping entirely after she had seen him.
He had been walking quickly down the street, looking as though he were trying to escape some burden he carried in his heart or on his mind, while she had been looking out the window, as usual. The beginnings of a smile started at the corners of her mouth and gradually spread to the rest of her face until it was obvious to anyone who saw her that she was extremely pleased about something.
She restrained herself as Cho called her to the kitchen to help, and the smile returned when she was in the hallway outside of the flat, and remained there for the rest of the day.
A/N: Eh, I think I did all right, and sorry again about the long wait. If you had read my Author's Note/fake chapter (lol) then you would know why I'm so late in updating… oh, and an update on that author's note; I had to remove it because of a new rule and that may be why some of you are confused about whether or not you reviewed and why there are reviews for chapter five when there isn't actually a chapter five. Anyway, you guys are all still really flattering, and thanks to everyone for having patience with me and reviewing and I promise I'll try to make the next chapter longer!
