Chapter 9: THE LEGEND OF THE SCAR
Cho met up with Harry the following morning outside his tent just as he finished getting dressed. Mr. Chang, sucking up some of his pride, had walked over with his daughter to meet Harry.
For a good ten seconds, no one said anything, and then, breaking the unsettling silence in which Harry's finger twitched convulsively, Cho said, "Harry, I'd like you to meet my dad, Jun."
"Hello, Mr. Chang," said Harry awkwardly as Mr. Chang advanced on him in what, at first, he thought was threatening until he stuck a hand out to let Harry shake. He made a very strained smile, reminding Harry of the one Uncle Vernon gave when he first saw Sirius.
Everyone noticed a change for the better though as the three of them talked about yesterday's events and how Harry was doing at Hogwarts. Harry was particularly happy that the conversation had not once mentioned things such as Lord Voldemort and company and when Mrs. Chang insisted that they go home as they had kept getting called back to their tent, (Mrs. Chang's sister, a non-fan of Fire Quidditch due to it's violence, wanted her to come home already and did so by sticking her head in the living room fire of the tent), Mr. and Mrs. Chang left Cho with Harry and the Weasleys and Disapparated with a hearty good-bye.
Feeling slightly relieved about Cho's father, Harry wasn't keen on returning to Privet Drive. They first used Raides to Disapparate to the Burrow and then rode Mr. Weasley's Dodge Viper all the way to Privet Drive, skipping ahead, car to car, to the beginning of lines of cars at red lights along the way. Mrs. Weasley scowled each time Mr. Weasley did this.
With a glum face, Harry knocked on the door and Aunt Petunia opened it. Aunt Marge was still there, as was her nasty dog, Ripper and Harry refrained from looking at them all that day, being more keen on keeping the past two day's events fresh in his head.
The next night during dinner, Aunt Marge wasn't too successful on restraining herself on her favorite subject: Harry's faults. Harry was keeping to himself, eating his dinner without speaking. Cho must have sensed Harry's wish to keep the Fire Quidditch game in his head and did the same. Aunt Marge, of course, wasn't going to let things stay just fine.
"I must get your recipe for beef casserole," Aunt Marge was saying, licking her lips clean after every bite.
"It's nothing, Marge, really," said Aunt Petunia, flattered. "I just use a bit of spice my mother used to use."
Feeling fully overwhelmed by the unpleasantness of Privet Drive once again, Harry kept his eyes on his food, trying not to let Aunt Marge catch his gaze. There was a quick picture in his head of the three hundred foot ice dragon facing Aunt Marge, barring it's mountain-sized teeth at her. Harry didn't think his beef casserole was so fantastic and, according to Cho's glare at Aunt Marge when she had her eyes closed for a bit, neither did she. For a moment, it looked as though Uncle Vernon was going to reprimand Cho but thought better of it.
"Such excellent nosh, Petunia," boomed Aunt Marge thickly, chewing on a mouthful of rice. "I'm surprised you haven't gained any more weight!" Aunt Petunia dangerously flicked her eyes towards her sister-in-law and then back, looking slightly insulted that Aunt Marge had just suggested that she, Petunia, be fatter. "Dudley, here, I'm sure, just can't resist..." And Dudley beamed at her.
Noticing his wife's slight disgust (and Harry wondered when in the world his aunt had picked up this slight hostility towards Aunt Marge), Uncle Vernon pointed his finger at the corner of his lips, looking purposefully at his sister. She picked up a napkin and cleaned her rubber-sized lips of excess food.
"You do normally feed this boy food, don't you, Petunia?" snarled Aunt Marge, gazing over at Harry.
There's a whole year of Quidditch in just one, short month, Harry thought to himself at once. And then he remembered that Ron told him the Triwizard Tournament was taking place.
"Of course," Aunt Petunia drawled in her most reassuring voice. "He's just got his parents -- Dudley has tried several diets you know, none of them worked," she added quickly.
There was a most grievous pause while Aunt Petunia thought desperately for a change of subject. Harry was at least half-grateful that she didn't persue it. Aunt Marge wasn't so easily diverted.
"Speaking of which, Petunia, you never told me, what did the boy's father do for a living?"
It had come to this once before and Harry had come off the worse. Everyone except Aunt Marge flicked their eyes in the direction of Harry, who thought quickly back to his story about his parents.
"Doctor," said Harry quickly. "He worked at a hospital." He had a strange feeling of deja vu.
Aunt Marge narrowed her bloodshot eyes (too much Brandy) suspiciously at Harry. Harry stared determinedly back at her, though he probably shouldn't have because then she barked, "Such a prestigious job, one wonders how they get themselves killed in a car crash."
Harry and Cho had been sitting very close to each other and not without good reason. Cho, who had most likely grown a nose for smelling danger a mile away in her own house, put an arm around Harry and clutched his shoulder, making it look like she was consoling him for the loss -- and truthfully, she was. She knew it had had the effect she wanted as she felt Harry's tense shoulder slowly drop a good inch.
"Didn't make a good good living, did he?" said Aunt Marge, her beady eyes still narrowed in suspicion. "Couldn't have, with the way you turned out..."
"He did," said Harry, now sitting a little taller. "I inherited a small fortune." This wasn't going so bad, Harry thought. Now that he had something to fight with, it was keeping the other dog in the house at bay.
"A small fortune? How much?" She looked strangely interested.
"Er," Harry said, stumped. He didn't exactly know how much money he had if you converted his small fortune of golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts locked away in his vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, to Muggle money.
"A couple hundred thousand pounds, wasn't that you told me, Harry?" Cho said as Uncle Vernon's eyes lit up like spotlights at the sound of so much money.
"Oh, yeah, right," Harry said. Evidently, Cho had some experience in the matter.
Maybe that wasn't such a good thing to say, as the Dursleys never knew of Harry's small fortune at Gringott's. But, then again, there was no way in the world to convert wizard money to Muggle money without attracting some attention and there was further no way in the world that Harry was going to let them have any of it. Just when he realized this, however, Aunt Marge exploded, saying exactly what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were thinking.
"YOU'VE HAD A SMALL FORTUNE AND NOT LET YOUR HARDWORKING AUNT AND UNCLE SEE ANY OF IT?" she roared.
Dudley's fork fell with a clatter to the floor. Apparently his dislike for Harry didn't extend to a small fortune, either. To make matters worse, Harry's finger was trembling and Cho sensed more danger. Now that Harry was becoming fairly adept at magic without a wand...
"YOUR RELATIVES SPEND THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY ON YOU WHILE YOU HAVE HALF A MILLION POUNDS STASHED AWAY IN A BANK!" she continued roaring. Harry thought she would make a good impression of a dragon if asked to do so.
"Spend their money on me?" Harry said, narrowing his own eyes and looking at his aunt dangerously through the top of his round glasses. "They give me Dudley's old clothing which fits me like elephant skin and the only reason she feeds me is because if she doesn't I'll die and then the police will arrest her," he said fiercely.
And with one nasty look at his two aunts and uncle, he stood up to go upstairs to which Aunt Marge barked, "You sit down, you nasty, insolent little prat!"
"You're such a pleasant woman," Cho said scathingly.
"And you!" Aunt Marge said, now rounding on Cho. "You're another one!"
Cho looked absolutely horrified this woman would dare talk to her with only barely knowing her.
"Come on, Harry," Cho said and she wheeled around, grabbed his hand and walked up the stairs with him. "I'm not going to last here," she then said when they had reached his bedroom. "Haven't you got a place to go besides this house?"
"No," Harry said, sitting heavily upon Cho's bed. "And how are we going to get anywhere. Can you drive a car?"
"Yes. Passed my driver's test just before the end of last term."
For a split second, he wanted to stand up, but then he remembered something. "There's no way they'll let us take one of theirs, though."
It was Cho's turn to sit heavily (next to Harry). Both of them let out a huge breath of disappointment at the same time and for some reason they were staring at Hedwig, whose amber eyes kept darting between the both of them uncertainly. Hedwig?
"Hedwig!" Harry hissed, getting up very quickly walking over to Hedwig on Harry's desk. "What are you doing back here?" Cho got up, too. "You're supposed to be at Ron's!"
"There's a letter tied to her leg," Cho said, pointing. She took it off and read it aloud.
Harry and Cho,
Mrs. Weasley, bless her, suggested something that I'm sure you're both going to agree to. I guess she felt that you're going to want to get out of that house. Cho passed her driving test recently so if you two want, you can borrow one of our cars. I barely ever use mine, and I think you're going to need it more than I will. Feel free.
PS: The Weasley's used Hedwig because their owl, Errol, was not feeling up to it, Ron's owl was busy, my owl was busy and we felt this was rather urgent. Just send her back to the Weasleys and they'll notify me.
Happy summer,
Blossom
Harry's face had slowly turned from gloom to bloom in the minute it took Cho to finish reading and so had her's. Hedwig, on the other hand, was looking ready for a long sleep.
"We have to let her stay for a day," Cho said. Harry nodded, as did Hedwig.
Suddenly, the three of them looked at each other and then at the door. Hedwig was hungry and there was no way Harry or Cho was going to go back downstairs until tomorrow morning.
"Raides," Harry said, as he poked his head under his bed and grabed the Staff of Cybele, making it spring to life.
Raides took one look at Hedwig when Harry had sat back down and said, "Need some food for the owl and don't want to go back downstairs?" Harry and Cho nodded at her. "The words, well, word, is 'Ambrosia.' Conjures up whatever you're thinking of. I like beef casserole, myself."
Neither Harry nor Cho bothered to voice a comment but both of them silently wanted to just hit Raides.
Hoping this would count as necessary magic, Harry said quietly, "Ambrosia," thinking of a meal consisting of bacon strips and Hedwig's favorite, a rat (except he pictured the rat cut and served up like chicken). It was immeasurably better than the dead rats that Hedwig sometimes turned up with. Harry didn't mind it though, he was used to gross things while he had taken residence in the cupboard under the stairs for ten years. He had to. There were lots of spiders in there.
There was a pop that they all hoped no one but them could hear and a bacon strip and a few slices of neatly prepared rat meat appeared in front of Hedwig. Her amber eyes widened in delight and she began eating, occasionally fluttering over to her cage and taking a sip of the water. Eventually she just picked it all up and dropped it at the bottom of the cage. Cho promptly ordered Harry to clean the greasy spot the bacon had left.
Sitting down and watching Hedwig eat, Harry had to think. He wanted to keep it to himself but the words came tumbling out his mouth before he knew what he was doing.
"Why are you staying here? They treat you just as bad as they treat me."
This had caught Cho by surprise. She turned quickly from Hedwig to Harry but didn't reply, she just sat there. He suddenly felt extremely stupid. What was she thinking, Harry thought desperately, and what words were forming in her head? What did that mean, her mouth being half open?
He knew. He should have kept that to himself. He was assured this as Cho's head slowly turned back to Hedwig and her mouth closed.
"Sorry," he said quietly, looking at the floor in front of him.
Harry sat up, crossed the room, took out a pen and crossed off another day on his calendar until September the first. Harry couldn't see but Cho was watching him with both of her eyes, watched him stand up, watched him open the desk drawer and watched him take out a pen. Harry stopped writing and stared at the pen for a second. A sudden feeling in spite of the mood of what just happened downstairs crossed over Cho.
"I'm staying because I -- I -- I love you."
Harry dropped the pen.
"You what?" he croaked without turning around, or, in fact, moving at all (his hand was still shaped as if clutching a pen). Those three simple words had the same effect a torch would if brushed up against his insides: it burned them all away.
"You heard."
Harry heard, but he wished he didn't because it a strange effect on him he couldn't explain. He didn't particularly feel like moving, those three words from Cho had frozen his entire body. They made his mind go completely numb and he didn't know what to do, say or think so he settled for just standing there and not moving a muscle. He did hear Cho calling his name but it sounded far away and distant, like he was standing in a humongous, echoing cave. The picture of the calendar in front of him became blurred and indistinguishable.
She called his name again, this time tugging on his arm as well. Harry didn't budge, and so Cho gave up.
She sat down and the sound of her sigh somehow unlocked Harry's body -- he was at least able to drop his arm. Raides, who both of them forgot was still full of life, kept her silence, hoping this would resolve itself. Harry sat down in the chair at his desk. His body tensed up again and he couldn't answer himself when he asked why this was happening, why his head had frozen up and why his heart just felt like mush.
Maybe it was because no one, in seventeen years, had said those three words to him? Well, he guessed his parents might have said it but he only knew one moment of his life with them and recalling it didn't bring any comfort.
Cho stood up and left the room. It wasn't that Harry didn't want her to stay, it was just that he couldn't make any sound exit his mouth and his legs seemed to be disconnected from the rest of his body. Cho didn't come back at all that night and when Harry's eyes drooped, he had the dream again.
The following morning, Harry woke up all on his own and it was fairly late in the day: around two in the afternoon. He picked up his glasses on the table next to him to have a look around. Cho was gone and someone had left a plate on his desk with a bagel, buttered the way he liked it (not too little, but not enough to make it seep out the sides). He noticed that Hedwig was gone again and that his head was sore, possibly from sleeping so long, or was that last night's events still spinning around in it?
He rubbed his stomach and pushed in on it just to make sure that his insides had indeed come back. Assured he wasn't going to eat the bagel and have to go charging to the bathroom, spitting it up, he sat down at his desk, picked it up, took a bite, chewed slightly, swallowed it mostly whole, dropped it onto the plate, stood up and then exited the room. Harry absolutely had to find and talk to Cho -- now.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Aunt Petunia had Aunt Marge in an engrossing conversation he was sure was absolutely wonderful but he couldn't give two gnomes in a garden about (the home shopping channel's latest endeavours in designer bathrooms). Not daring to interrupt them, Harry wondered where she could be when at that moment he saw her hair out of the corner of his eye, watching television on the couch in the living room. Shaking, a strong urge to run upstairs and get the Order of Merlin necklace bearing down on him (and ignoring the silent sniggers from his porky cousin Dudley in the kitchen), he screwed up what remained of his courage and walked over.
He opened his mouth to speak but before he got a word out, Cho held up a pair of car keys and dangled them in front of him. It would appear she didn't want to talk about it any more than Harry did and he was okay with that.
"Go get changed," Cho said. "My Aunt Blossom let me borrow her white Ford Taurus. I already squeezed directions out of your aunt for the Surrey Place Mall."
"I've never been to a mall before..." Harry thought out loud.
Cho was clearly upset by this statement and while Aunt Petunia was getting up to get a cup of tea, she gave the back of her's and Aunt Marge's head a rude look.
"You two better be careful," Aunt Petunia said while waving a threatening, bony finger (which, by the shape of it, wasn't really all that threatening) at Harry. Aunt Marge waved one of her own tree-thick fingers as well.
"Whatever," Harry said dismissively as Cho told him to go finish the bagel she made for him and get changed.
Harry wanted to take Raides and pass her off as a pet but he was forcefully reminded of what people would say when looking at an animal of her stature when Harry and Cho told her where they were going. And, following Harry and Cho's lead, Raides didn't mention last night either.
They didn't really think they'd need them, but each of them hid their wands inside their pants and took a light jacket to cover it. Harry didn't go anywhere in the wizarding world without it and the Muggle world was just as strange to him, having not stepped foot outside Privet Drive in six years except to go to Hogwarts. It was a little windy, after all... But before he left the room, Harry's eyes grazed over the Order of Merlin necklace and, in one quick motion, snatched it from his desk and put it on. He certainly couldn't wear the Phoenix Bracelet. What would a Muggle say if they saw a bracelet engulfed in flames?
Harry liked driving with Cho a lot more than with his aunt and uncle: he could talk and not get snapped at.
"I remember having a dream a while ago about a flying motorcycle," Harry was saying as Cho pointed out the one that her uncle wanted. "That was the night --"But he quickly stopped talking. It was painful to finish that sentence.
"Flying motorcycle?" Cho said, turning to look at Harry while stopped at a red light.
Harry suddenly grinned and added, "I mentioned it once in the car with my aunt and uncle. My uncle was driving and he nearly hit the car in front of us. Then he turned around and screamed at me that motorcycles don't fly."
"Do you know who's it was?"
"Sirius lent it to Hagrid to -- er -- before --" It was painful to finish that sentence, too.
Cho abruptly changed the subject to all of the stores she wanted to take a look at. Her aunt performed an Exchanging Charm on her wizard money to turn it into Muggle money; she had about five hundred pounds to spend on anything but items of note were jewelery and clothes. Harry had no objections in paying her back for any money he wanted to spend.
"First thing we do is get you some new clothes," she said, parking the car, getting out with Harry, locking it and looking up at the huge mall in front of her, a sparkle of longing in her eye like this was a heaven. All Harry noticed was that when the wind blew, his already untidy hair became even more untidy.
"Flatten it, will you?" Cho snapped.
Harry glared at her. She ran her fingers through his hair like a comb and the best she managed was, well, nothing.
Upon entering Surrey Place Mall, the first store Cho dragged him into by the sleeve was Bloomingdale's.
Cho's eyes lit up like someone had just started a candle in them and said, "I would just die to go visit the one in New York. It takes up an entire block! And New York's blocks are huge! Wouldn't you?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I would."
Apart from the large selection of designer fashion, Harry wasn't all that interested in clothing. Cho bought a scarf that was longer than he was tall, doning a small picture at one end of a thirty-year-old Muggle he never heard of named Daniel Radcliffe. She was just giddy about it.
Harry thought some of the people they passed while walking in the high-ceiled, beautifully decorated mall, coupled with lavish water fountains and glass elevators, to be a rather unpleasant lot. He wasn't pleased to see that even some Muggles, who had never heard of Lord Voldemort, could be seen flicking their eyes up at his forehead. Cho helped him to cover it with his bangs...
"Did you hear about that guy that's terrorizing all of England?" Harry heard some young girl say when they were eating lunch at a place Harry picked out that he thought was sort of interestesting: McDonalds.
"Yeah," said some young boy, though slightly older than the girl, excitedly. "They say he killed his dad because his mom married some foreigner and when she died giving birth to him, his dad disowned him because he hated the way he turned out!"
Harry knew that to be mostly correct but he knew that, Lord Voldemort, formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, had a dad who hated having a wizard as a son and a witch for a wife -- it wasn't just that his wife was a foreigner. Tom exacted his revenge against his hateful father by killing him and changed his name to Lord Voldemort after he left Hogwarts.
Cho tried to say something but Harry silenced her with a finger to his lips. He wanted to hear what the Muggles knew. Cho was partially interested, too, but she was more concerned about Harry getting upset by hearing it.
"Dad told me that some nutter about fifteen years ago was doing the same thing. They say he died. You think it's the same person?"
"Don't be stupid," the boy said while laughing airily. "People don't come back from the dead."
"He didn't die," Harry muttered under his breath. "He's immortal."
"My mom told me some legend about it, it's the most coolest thing!" Harry heard the girl say. "It said that some one year old baby killed him and the most the baby got was a scar on his forehead! Shaped like a lightning bolt! And the baby was a wizard! Killed him with one spell!"
Cho looked to make sure the scar was still well-hidden.
"Don't be stupid," the boy repeated. "If that's true then I'll eat my shorts. And no one gets lightning-shaped scars on their foreheads, you'd have to make that yourself and I'm willing to bet it would hurt a lot."
"Want to know what the Cruciatus Curse feels like?" Harry mumbled irritably which made Cho give him a very angry look.
"Sarah said she saw someone with a scar walking around in the mall today!" the girl said. "She did! Just before we left! On the phone!"
Harry looked around for them to know where not to turn his face to.
"He's got black, messy hair and round glasses!" the young girl went on feverishly.
Harry couldn't find them.
"Come on, Lucy," said the boy, now sounding slightly annoyed. "Do you really expect me to believe a normal, human, one year old baby can kill a fully grown person? Listen to yourself!" He tutted loudly, sounding a lot like Hermione, Harry thought. "It's an urban legend."
"What's an urban legend?" said the young girl, sounding excited to find out what an urban legend is. "What is it! What is it! What is it!" she chanted.
"Shh!" he said forcefully. "Mom's going to have my head if we get kicked out again!"
"Hey! There's a boy with black, messy hair and glasses!" the girl shouted very loudly. Harry could only guess that, wherever she was, she was pointing at him.
"We better go," Cho said quietly. Harry nodded before she even finished speaking.
They both threw out their empty hamburger wrappers and cups of coke but kept their box of fries and munched on them as they stood up and tried to walk out of the crowded eatery inconspicuously.
"It's rude to point, Lucy," the boy said, to Harry and Cho's great relief.
Other people had evidently heard this seemingly tall tale and more than one head turned, trying it's best to look nonchalant, to look at Harry as he passed.
Harry kept his eyes on this one toddler who jumped up and town, shouting "You! You! You!" as he bent his head closer to Cho's ear and whispered desperately, "Can we go home now?" The fries were very good but they were so greasy they would only make it harder to shove people out of the way if he had to run for it.
"No!" Cho hissed fiercely. "I haven't even shown you Hot Topic!"
"Hot -- what?"
Cho dragged Harry by the arm to a store full of clothing that Cho said she would never buy but sometimes liked to look at. Artfully ripped, blood-red jeans, shirts by Muggle music bands with very strang names... One by the name of Creed looked quite odd but Harry resisted the urge he had to buy it.
"Can I help you?" the store clerk asked. She had violently yellow hair and was wearing a black shirt with red claw marks on it.
"Just looking," Cho told her in a distance voice, distracted by the pair of pants she was holding up that had what looked like -- and Harry hoped it was fake -- human hair at the bottom.
Harry spotted the very same cloak that Jeff Uder had worn except it wasn't white, it was dark blue and it wasn't made of dragon hide, it was made of leather.
"They shouldn't bother trying to imitate wizard clothes," Harry said to Cho, chuckling softly.
They left Hot Topic, a black leather belt with a metal clip (it had a picture of a golden lion with a scarlet tail on it) sitting safely at the bottom of Cho's bag from Bloomingdale's. It was the last one on the rack.
Harry needed a break -- his feet were starting to hurt from non-stop walking for the past two hours. Cho suggested video games would be a good way to relieve their feet.
Harry's first choice (and Cho's last) was a game with six buttons and a joystick. Three punches, three kicks and a lot of motions with the stick that Harry knew he would never memorize. His first victory (against the computer) pushed his confidence up a little, making the second round a whole lot easier. And then someone a little older than him, wearing a leather jacket and a shaved head, tried his luck against Harry.
"No, no, you're doing it all wrong," he said as Harry accidently pulled a thirty-nine hit combination move on him.
He showed Harry how it was really done and managed ninety-nine hits. Cho cheered Harry on and in the end, it was Harry who won purely due to luck. The person with the shaved head gave Harry a forceful push on the shoulder, colored the air with some rather rude words, clearly upset by his loss, and then stalked away.
Harry gave up after the third round and decided it was best to move on. After trying his hand at a game where you sat on a fake motorcyle and raced through several tracks (and losing horribly), Cho then proceeded to drag him into a store that actually carried men's clothing.
"Ooh look at these nice tops -- oh fifty percent off!" Cho said gleefully, coming up to a table full of t-shirts of a variety of colors, including Harry's least favorite: pink.
"You can buy that but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it," he told her.
He pulled Cho away from the table of shirts and walked towards a bunch of shirts that caught his eye on a rack on the far back wall.
"Those are nice," Cho said, feeling the material and pulling one off the rack.
She held it against him, seeing if it even remotely fit him.
"You're going to make me try them on, aren't you," said Harry, reading Cho's mind.
"Yes," she said, pointing a stern finger in the direction of the changing rooms. "Do you want to try them on two weeks from now and find out they don't fit and then we have to come back?"
They walked out with one new pair of pants and two shirts for Harry.
On the way towards a bunch other stores, he couldn't help but ask why she wore Muggle clothing most of the time and not wizard robes. Her reply was that she had half a closet full of robes and the other half with Muggle clothing. The only robes he had were the ones that he wore at Hogwarts. Harry just couldn't picture himself dressed as something like Albus Dumbledore for quite some time, that is if he even, well... nevermind. He just hoped that Voldemort would never get his wish.
By the time Cho deemed their visit to the mall finished, she had made Harry visit what seemed like every store and every muscle in his foot -- all nineteen of them, according to the sign in Foot Locker, a shoe store (and all twenty-six bones) -- was screaming for help.
Cho met up with Harry the following morning outside his tent just as he finished getting dressed. Mr. Chang, sucking up some of his pride, had walked over with his daughter to meet Harry.
For a good ten seconds, no one said anything, and then, breaking the unsettling silence in which Harry's finger twitched convulsively, Cho said, "Harry, I'd like you to meet my dad, Jun."
"Hello, Mr. Chang," said Harry awkwardly as Mr. Chang advanced on him in what, at first, he thought was threatening until he stuck a hand out to let Harry shake. He made a very strained smile, reminding Harry of the one Uncle Vernon gave when he first saw Sirius.
Everyone noticed a change for the better though as the three of them talked about yesterday's events and how Harry was doing at Hogwarts. Harry was particularly happy that the conversation had not once mentioned things such as Lord Voldemort and company and when Mrs. Chang insisted that they go home as they had kept getting called back to their tent, (Mrs. Chang's sister, a non-fan of Fire Quidditch due to it's violence, wanted her to come home already and did so by sticking her head in the living room fire of the tent), Mr. and Mrs. Chang left Cho with Harry and the Weasleys and Disapparated with a hearty good-bye.
Feeling slightly relieved about Cho's father, Harry wasn't keen on returning to Privet Drive. They first used Raides to Disapparate to the Burrow and then rode Mr. Weasley's Dodge Viper all the way to Privet Drive, skipping ahead, car to car, to the beginning of lines of cars at red lights along the way. Mrs. Weasley scowled each time Mr. Weasley did this.
With a glum face, Harry knocked on the door and Aunt Petunia opened it. Aunt Marge was still there, as was her nasty dog, Ripper and Harry refrained from looking at them all that day, being more keen on keeping the past two day's events fresh in his head.
The next night during dinner, Aunt Marge wasn't too successful on restraining herself on her favorite subject: Harry's faults. Harry was keeping to himself, eating his dinner without speaking. Cho must have sensed Harry's wish to keep the Fire Quidditch game in his head and did the same. Aunt Marge, of course, wasn't going to let things stay just fine.
"I must get your recipe for beef casserole," Aunt Marge was saying, licking her lips clean after every bite.
"It's nothing, Marge, really," said Aunt Petunia, flattered. "I just use a bit of spice my mother used to use."
Feeling fully overwhelmed by the unpleasantness of Privet Drive once again, Harry kept his eyes on his food, trying not to let Aunt Marge catch his gaze. There was a quick picture in his head of the three hundred foot ice dragon facing Aunt Marge, barring it's mountain-sized teeth at her. Harry didn't think his beef casserole was so fantastic and, according to Cho's glare at Aunt Marge when she had her eyes closed for a bit, neither did she. For a moment, it looked as though Uncle Vernon was going to reprimand Cho but thought better of it.
"Such excellent nosh, Petunia," boomed Aunt Marge thickly, chewing on a mouthful of rice. "I'm surprised you haven't gained any more weight!" Aunt Petunia dangerously flicked her eyes towards her sister-in-law and then back, looking slightly insulted that Aunt Marge had just suggested that she, Petunia, be fatter. "Dudley, here, I'm sure, just can't resist..." And Dudley beamed at her.
Noticing his wife's slight disgust (and Harry wondered when in the world his aunt had picked up this slight hostility towards Aunt Marge), Uncle Vernon pointed his finger at the corner of his lips, looking purposefully at his sister. She picked up a napkin and cleaned her rubber-sized lips of excess food.
"You do normally feed this boy food, don't you, Petunia?" snarled Aunt Marge, gazing over at Harry.
There's a whole year of Quidditch in just one, short month, Harry thought to himself at once. And then he remembered that Ron told him the Triwizard Tournament was taking place.
"Of course," Aunt Petunia drawled in her most reassuring voice. "He's just got his parents -- Dudley has tried several diets you know, none of them worked," she added quickly.
There was a most grievous pause while Aunt Petunia thought desperately for a change of subject. Harry was at least half-grateful that she didn't persue it. Aunt Marge wasn't so easily diverted.
"Speaking of which, Petunia, you never told me, what did the boy's father do for a living?"
It had come to this once before and Harry had come off the worse. Everyone except Aunt Marge flicked their eyes in the direction of Harry, who thought quickly back to his story about his parents.
"Doctor," said Harry quickly. "He worked at a hospital." He had a strange feeling of deja vu.
Aunt Marge narrowed her bloodshot eyes (too much Brandy) suspiciously at Harry. Harry stared determinedly back at her, though he probably shouldn't have because then she barked, "Such a prestigious job, one wonders how they get themselves killed in a car crash."
Harry and Cho had been sitting very close to each other and not without good reason. Cho, who had most likely grown a nose for smelling danger a mile away in her own house, put an arm around Harry and clutched his shoulder, making it look like she was consoling him for the loss -- and truthfully, she was. She knew it had had the effect she wanted as she felt Harry's tense shoulder slowly drop a good inch.
"Didn't make a good good living, did he?" said Aunt Marge, her beady eyes still narrowed in suspicion. "Couldn't have, with the way you turned out..."
"He did," said Harry, now sitting a little taller. "I inherited a small fortune." This wasn't going so bad, Harry thought. Now that he had something to fight with, it was keeping the other dog in the house at bay.
"A small fortune? How much?" She looked strangely interested.
"Er," Harry said, stumped. He didn't exactly know how much money he had if you converted his small fortune of golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts locked away in his vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, to Muggle money.
"A couple hundred thousand pounds, wasn't that you told me, Harry?" Cho said as Uncle Vernon's eyes lit up like spotlights at the sound of so much money.
"Oh, yeah, right," Harry said. Evidently, Cho had some experience in the matter.
Maybe that wasn't such a good thing to say, as the Dursleys never knew of Harry's small fortune at Gringott's. But, then again, there was no way in the world to convert wizard money to Muggle money without attracting some attention and there was further no way in the world that Harry was going to let them have any of it. Just when he realized this, however, Aunt Marge exploded, saying exactly what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were thinking.
"YOU'VE HAD A SMALL FORTUNE AND NOT LET YOUR HARDWORKING AUNT AND UNCLE SEE ANY OF IT?" she roared.
Dudley's fork fell with a clatter to the floor. Apparently his dislike for Harry didn't extend to a small fortune, either. To make matters worse, Harry's finger was trembling and Cho sensed more danger. Now that Harry was becoming fairly adept at magic without a wand...
"YOUR RELATIVES SPEND THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY ON YOU WHILE YOU HAVE HALF A MILLION POUNDS STASHED AWAY IN A BANK!" she continued roaring. Harry thought she would make a good impression of a dragon if asked to do so.
"Spend their money on me?" Harry said, narrowing his own eyes and looking at his aunt dangerously through the top of his round glasses. "They give me Dudley's old clothing which fits me like elephant skin and the only reason she feeds me is because if she doesn't I'll die and then the police will arrest her," he said fiercely.
And with one nasty look at his two aunts and uncle, he stood up to go upstairs to which Aunt Marge barked, "You sit down, you nasty, insolent little prat!"
"You're such a pleasant woman," Cho said scathingly.
"And you!" Aunt Marge said, now rounding on Cho. "You're another one!"
Cho looked absolutely horrified this woman would dare talk to her with only barely knowing her.
"Come on, Harry," Cho said and she wheeled around, grabbed his hand and walked up the stairs with him. "I'm not going to last here," she then said when they had reached his bedroom. "Haven't you got a place to go besides this house?"
"No," Harry said, sitting heavily upon Cho's bed. "And how are we going to get anywhere. Can you drive a car?"
"Yes. Passed my driver's test just before the end of last term."
For a split second, he wanted to stand up, but then he remembered something. "There's no way they'll let us take one of theirs, though."
It was Cho's turn to sit heavily (next to Harry). Both of them let out a huge breath of disappointment at the same time and for some reason they were staring at Hedwig, whose amber eyes kept darting between the both of them uncertainly. Hedwig?
"Hedwig!" Harry hissed, getting up very quickly walking over to Hedwig on Harry's desk. "What are you doing back here?" Cho got up, too. "You're supposed to be at Ron's!"
"There's a letter tied to her leg," Cho said, pointing. She took it off and read it aloud.
Harry and Cho,
Mrs. Weasley, bless her, suggested something that I'm sure you're both going to agree to. I guess she felt that you're going to want to get out of that house. Cho passed her driving test recently so if you two want, you can borrow one of our cars. I barely ever use mine, and I think you're going to need it more than I will. Feel free.
PS: The Weasley's used Hedwig because their owl, Errol, was not feeling up to it, Ron's owl was busy, my owl was busy and we felt this was rather urgent. Just send her back to the Weasleys and they'll notify me.
Happy summer,
Blossom
Harry's face had slowly turned from gloom to bloom in the minute it took Cho to finish reading and so had her's. Hedwig, on the other hand, was looking ready for a long sleep.
"We have to let her stay for a day," Cho said. Harry nodded, as did Hedwig.
Suddenly, the three of them looked at each other and then at the door. Hedwig was hungry and there was no way Harry or Cho was going to go back downstairs until tomorrow morning.
"Raides," Harry said, as he poked his head under his bed and grabed the Staff of Cybele, making it spring to life.
Raides took one look at Hedwig when Harry had sat back down and said, "Need some food for the owl and don't want to go back downstairs?" Harry and Cho nodded at her. "The words, well, word, is 'Ambrosia.' Conjures up whatever you're thinking of. I like beef casserole, myself."
Neither Harry nor Cho bothered to voice a comment but both of them silently wanted to just hit Raides.
Hoping this would count as necessary magic, Harry said quietly, "Ambrosia," thinking of a meal consisting of bacon strips and Hedwig's favorite, a rat (except he pictured the rat cut and served up like chicken). It was immeasurably better than the dead rats that Hedwig sometimes turned up with. Harry didn't mind it though, he was used to gross things while he had taken residence in the cupboard under the stairs for ten years. He had to. There were lots of spiders in there.
There was a pop that they all hoped no one but them could hear and a bacon strip and a few slices of neatly prepared rat meat appeared in front of Hedwig. Her amber eyes widened in delight and she began eating, occasionally fluttering over to her cage and taking a sip of the water. Eventually she just picked it all up and dropped it at the bottom of the cage. Cho promptly ordered Harry to clean the greasy spot the bacon had left.
Sitting down and watching Hedwig eat, Harry had to think. He wanted to keep it to himself but the words came tumbling out his mouth before he knew what he was doing.
"Why are you staying here? They treat you just as bad as they treat me."
This had caught Cho by surprise. She turned quickly from Hedwig to Harry but didn't reply, she just sat there. He suddenly felt extremely stupid. What was she thinking, Harry thought desperately, and what words were forming in her head? What did that mean, her mouth being half open?
He knew. He should have kept that to himself. He was assured this as Cho's head slowly turned back to Hedwig and her mouth closed.
"Sorry," he said quietly, looking at the floor in front of him.
Harry sat up, crossed the room, took out a pen and crossed off another day on his calendar until September the first. Harry couldn't see but Cho was watching him with both of her eyes, watched him stand up, watched him open the desk drawer and watched him take out a pen. Harry stopped writing and stared at the pen for a second. A sudden feeling in spite of the mood of what just happened downstairs crossed over Cho.
"I'm staying because I -- I -- I love you."
Harry dropped the pen.
"You what?" he croaked without turning around, or, in fact, moving at all (his hand was still shaped as if clutching a pen). Those three simple words had the same effect a torch would if brushed up against his insides: it burned them all away.
"You heard."
Harry heard, but he wished he didn't because it a strange effect on him he couldn't explain. He didn't particularly feel like moving, those three words from Cho had frozen his entire body. They made his mind go completely numb and he didn't know what to do, say or think so he settled for just standing there and not moving a muscle. He did hear Cho calling his name but it sounded far away and distant, like he was standing in a humongous, echoing cave. The picture of the calendar in front of him became blurred and indistinguishable.
She called his name again, this time tugging on his arm as well. Harry didn't budge, and so Cho gave up.
She sat down and the sound of her sigh somehow unlocked Harry's body -- he was at least able to drop his arm. Raides, who both of them forgot was still full of life, kept her silence, hoping this would resolve itself. Harry sat down in the chair at his desk. His body tensed up again and he couldn't answer himself when he asked why this was happening, why his head had frozen up and why his heart just felt like mush.
Maybe it was because no one, in seventeen years, had said those three words to him? Well, he guessed his parents might have said it but he only knew one moment of his life with them and recalling it didn't bring any comfort.
Cho stood up and left the room. It wasn't that Harry didn't want her to stay, it was just that he couldn't make any sound exit his mouth and his legs seemed to be disconnected from the rest of his body. Cho didn't come back at all that night and when Harry's eyes drooped, he had the dream again.
The following morning, Harry woke up all on his own and it was fairly late in the day: around two in the afternoon. He picked up his glasses on the table next to him to have a look around. Cho was gone and someone had left a plate on his desk with a bagel, buttered the way he liked it (not too little, but not enough to make it seep out the sides). He noticed that Hedwig was gone again and that his head was sore, possibly from sleeping so long, or was that last night's events still spinning around in it?
He rubbed his stomach and pushed in on it just to make sure that his insides had indeed come back. Assured he wasn't going to eat the bagel and have to go charging to the bathroom, spitting it up, he sat down at his desk, picked it up, took a bite, chewed slightly, swallowed it mostly whole, dropped it onto the plate, stood up and then exited the room. Harry absolutely had to find and talk to Cho -- now.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Aunt Petunia had Aunt Marge in an engrossing conversation he was sure was absolutely wonderful but he couldn't give two gnomes in a garden about (the home shopping channel's latest endeavours in designer bathrooms). Not daring to interrupt them, Harry wondered where she could be when at that moment he saw her hair out of the corner of his eye, watching television on the couch in the living room. Shaking, a strong urge to run upstairs and get the Order of Merlin necklace bearing down on him (and ignoring the silent sniggers from his porky cousin Dudley in the kitchen), he screwed up what remained of his courage and walked over.
He opened his mouth to speak but before he got a word out, Cho held up a pair of car keys and dangled them in front of him. It would appear she didn't want to talk about it any more than Harry did and he was okay with that.
"Go get changed," Cho said. "My Aunt Blossom let me borrow her white Ford Taurus. I already squeezed directions out of your aunt for the Surrey Place Mall."
"I've never been to a mall before..." Harry thought out loud.
Cho was clearly upset by this statement and while Aunt Petunia was getting up to get a cup of tea, she gave the back of her's and Aunt Marge's head a rude look.
"You two better be careful," Aunt Petunia said while waving a threatening, bony finger (which, by the shape of it, wasn't really all that threatening) at Harry. Aunt Marge waved one of her own tree-thick fingers as well.
"Whatever," Harry said dismissively as Cho told him to go finish the bagel she made for him and get changed.
Harry wanted to take Raides and pass her off as a pet but he was forcefully reminded of what people would say when looking at an animal of her stature when Harry and Cho told her where they were going. And, following Harry and Cho's lead, Raides didn't mention last night either.
They didn't really think they'd need them, but each of them hid their wands inside their pants and took a light jacket to cover it. Harry didn't go anywhere in the wizarding world without it and the Muggle world was just as strange to him, having not stepped foot outside Privet Drive in six years except to go to Hogwarts. It was a little windy, after all... But before he left the room, Harry's eyes grazed over the Order of Merlin necklace and, in one quick motion, snatched it from his desk and put it on. He certainly couldn't wear the Phoenix Bracelet. What would a Muggle say if they saw a bracelet engulfed in flames?
Harry liked driving with Cho a lot more than with his aunt and uncle: he could talk and not get snapped at.
"I remember having a dream a while ago about a flying motorcycle," Harry was saying as Cho pointed out the one that her uncle wanted. "That was the night --"But he quickly stopped talking. It was painful to finish that sentence.
"Flying motorcycle?" Cho said, turning to look at Harry while stopped at a red light.
Harry suddenly grinned and added, "I mentioned it once in the car with my aunt and uncle. My uncle was driving and he nearly hit the car in front of us. Then he turned around and screamed at me that motorcycles don't fly."
"Do you know who's it was?"
"Sirius lent it to Hagrid to -- er -- before --" It was painful to finish that sentence, too.
Cho abruptly changed the subject to all of the stores she wanted to take a look at. Her aunt performed an Exchanging Charm on her wizard money to turn it into Muggle money; she had about five hundred pounds to spend on anything but items of note were jewelery and clothes. Harry had no objections in paying her back for any money he wanted to spend.
"First thing we do is get you some new clothes," she said, parking the car, getting out with Harry, locking it and looking up at the huge mall in front of her, a sparkle of longing in her eye like this was a heaven. All Harry noticed was that when the wind blew, his already untidy hair became even more untidy.
"Flatten it, will you?" Cho snapped.
Harry glared at her. She ran her fingers through his hair like a comb and the best she managed was, well, nothing.
Upon entering Surrey Place Mall, the first store Cho dragged him into by the sleeve was Bloomingdale's.
Cho's eyes lit up like someone had just started a candle in them and said, "I would just die to go visit the one in New York. It takes up an entire block! And New York's blocks are huge! Wouldn't you?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I would."
Apart from the large selection of designer fashion, Harry wasn't all that interested in clothing. Cho bought a scarf that was longer than he was tall, doning a small picture at one end of a thirty-year-old Muggle he never heard of named Daniel Radcliffe. She was just giddy about it.
Harry thought some of the people they passed while walking in the high-ceiled, beautifully decorated mall, coupled with lavish water fountains and glass elevators, to be a rather unpleasant lot. He wasn't pleased to see that even some Muggles, who had never heard of Lord Voldemort, could be seen flicking their eyes up at his forehead. Cho helped him to cover it with his bangs...
"Did you hear about that guy that's terrorizing all of England?" Harry heard some young girl say when they were eating lunch at a place Harry picked out that he thought was sort of interestesting: McDonalds.
"Yeah," said some young boy, though slightly older than the girl, excitedly. "They say he killed his dad because his mom married some foreigner and when she died giving birth to him, his dad disowned him because he hated the way he turned out!"
Harry knew that to be mostly correct but he knew that, Lord Voldemort, formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, had a dad who hated having a wizard as a son and a witch for a wife -- it wasn't just that his wife was a foreigner. Tom exacted his revenge against his hateful father by killing him and changed his name to Lord Voldemort after he left Hogwarts.
Cho tried to say something but Harry silenced her with a finger to his lips. He wanted to hear what the Muggles knew. Cho was partially interested, too, but she was more concerned about Harry getting upset by hearing it.
"Dad told me that some nutter about fifteen years ago was doing the same thing. They say he died. You think it's the same person?"
"Don't be stupid," the boy said while laughing airily. "People don't come back from the dead."
"He didn't die," Harry muttered under his breath. "He's immortal."
"My mom told me some legend about it, it's the most coolest thing!" Harry heard the girl say. "It said that some one year old baby killed him and the most the baby got was a scar on his forehead! Shaped like a lightning bolt! And the baby was a wizard! Killed him with one spell!"
Cho looked to make sure the scar was still well-hidden.
"Don't be stupid," the boy repeated. "If that's true then I'll eat my shorts. And no one gets lightning-shaped scars on their foreheads, you'd have to make that yourself and I'm willing to bet it would hurt a lot."
"Want to know what the Cruciatus Curse feels like?" Harry mumbled irritably which made Cho give him a very angry look.
"Sarah said she saw someone with a scar walking around in the mall today!" the girl said. "She did! Just before we left! On the phone!"
Harry looked around for them to know where not to turn his face to.
"He's got black, messy hair and round glasses!" the young girl went on feverishly.
Harry couldn't find them.
"Come on, Lucy," said the boy, now sounding slightly annoyed. "Do you really expect me to believe a normal, human, one year old baby can kill a fully grown person? Listen to yourself!" He tutted loudly, sounding a lot like Hermione, Harry thought. "It's an urban legend."
"What's an urban legend?" said the young girl, sounding excited to find out what an urban legend is. "What is it! What is it! What is it!" she chanted.
"Shh!" he said forcefully. "Mom's going to have my head if we get kicked out again!"
"Hey! There's a boy with black, messy hair and glasses!" the girl shouted very loudly. Harry could only guess that, wherever she was, she was pointing at him.
"We better go," Cho said quietly. Harry nodded before she even finished speaking.
They both threw out their empty hamburger wrappers and cups of coke but kept their box of fries and munched on them as they stood up and tried to walk out of the crowded eatery inconspicuously.
"It's rude to point, Lucy," the boy said, to Harry and Cho's great relief.
Other people had evidently heard this seemingly tall tale and more than one head turned, trying it's best to look nonchalant, to look at Harry as he passed.
Harry kept his eyes on this one toddler who jumped up and town, shouting "You! You! You!" as he bent his head closer to Cho's ear and whispered desperately, "Can we go home now?" The fries were very good but they were so greasy they would only make it harder to shove people out of the way if he had to run for it.
"No!" Cho hissed fiercely. "I haven't even shown you Hot Topic!"
"Hot -- what?"
Cho dragged Harry by the arm to a store full of clothing that Cho said she would never buy but sometimes liked to look at. Artfully ripped, blood-red jeans, shirts by Muggle music bands with very strang names... One by the name of Creed looked quite odd but Harry resisted the urge he had to buy it.
"Can I help you?" the store clerk asked. She had violently yellow hair and was wearing a black shirt with red claw marks on it.
"Just looking," Cho told her in a distance voice, distracted by the pair of pants she was holding up that had what looked like -- and Harry hoped it was fake -- human hair at the bottom.
Harry spotted the very same cloak that Jeff Uder had worn except it wasn't white, it was dark blue and it wasn't made of dragon hide, it was made of leather.
"They shouldn't bother trying to imitate wizard clothes," Harry said to Cho, chuckling softly.
They left Hot Topic, a black leather belt with a metal clip (it had a picture of a golden lion with a scarlet tail on it) sitting safely at the bottom of Cho's bag from Bloomingdale's. It was the last one on the rack.
Harry needed a break -- his feet were starting to hurt from non-stop walking for the past two hours. Cho suggested video games would be a good way to relieve their feet.
Harry's first choice (and Cho's last) was a game with six buttons and a joystick. Three punches, three kicks and a lot of motions with the stick that Harry knew he would never memorize. His first victory (against the computer) pushed his confidence up a little, making the second round a whole lot easier. And then someone a little older than him, wearing a leather jacket and a shaved head, tried his luck against Harry.
"No, no, you're doing it all wrong," he said as Harry accidently pulled a thirty-nine hit combination move on him.
He showed Harry how it was really done and managed ninety-nine hits. Cho cheered Harry on and in the end, it was Harry who won purely due to luck. The person with the shaved head gave Harry a forceful push on the shoulder, colored the air with some rather rude words, clearly upset by his loss, and then stalked away.
Harry gave up after the third round and decided it was best to move on. After trying his hand at a game where you sat on a fake motorcyle and raced through several tracks (and losing horribly), Cho then proceeded to drag him into a store that actually carried men's clothing.
"Ooh look at these nice tops -- oh fifty percent off!" Cho said gleefully, coming up to a table full of t-shirts of a variety of colors, including Harry's least favorite: pink.
"You can buy that but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it," he told her.
He pulled Cho away from the table of shirts and walked towards a bunch of shirts that caught his eye on a rack on the far back wall.
"Those are nice," Cho said, feeling the material and pulling one off the rack.
She held it against him, seeing if it even remotely fit him.
"You're going to make me try them on, aren't you," said Harry, reading Cho's mind.
"Yes," she said, pointing a stern finger in the direction of the changing rooms. "Do you want to try them on two weeks from now and find out they don't fit and then we have to come back?"
They walked out with one new pair of pants and two shirts for Harry.
On the way towards a bunch other stores, he couldn't help but ask why she wore Muggle clothing most of the time and not wizard robes. Her reply was that she had half a closet full of robes and the other half with Muggle clothing. The only robes he had were the ones that he wore at Hogwarts. Harry just couldn't picture himself dressed as something like Albus Dumbledore for quite some time, that is if he even, well... nevermind. He just hoped that Voldemort would never get his wish.
By the time Cho deemed their visit to the mall finished, she had made Harry visit what seemed like every store and every muscle in his foot -- all nineteen of them, according to the sign in Foot Locker, a shoe store (and all twenty-six bones) -- was screaming for help.