THC S8 R9
House: Slytherin
Position: Potions
Category: Standard
Prompt: [Location] Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, [word] create, [trope] mutual pining, [Prompt] The girl who stole the stars
WC: 1183
Beta: Aya, Ash, Ash
Notes and triggers:
Gazing up at the sky, Cho lifts her fingers and traces the constellations, her fingertips grazing the stars, and she winces at the burn that travels down her arms. She wonders what exactly possessed her to come back, to lie on top of the Astronomy Tower and to gaze at the stars. She can name them all and recite the multiple mythologies that put them into the sky. All it takes is for her to trace her hands gently against the night sky and then she rearranges them for herself to admire in new shapes and constellations. Cho is the night and she takes comfort in that fact.
She holds the stars in her hands and she wants to extinguish them. She desperately wants them and the world to feel her grief and guilt. She wants to draw astrologers and astronomers alike into a blind panic and the sky she molds into her own image. She reaches out and pulls Sirius down from his place in the sky, as always the initial touch burns. She's always been able to see him best at Hogwarts.
"You might want to put that back before you break it."
The voice startles Cho, and she nearly does drop the star. Carefully, gently, she places Sirius back in his place in the night sky and turns to look at the man who scared her. His Muggle jeans look like they have been hastily transfigured, the pattern looks off, and created to fit this man's form. Dudley looks so big; it's like he can create new universes that are able to swallow Cho whole. That's the first thing Cho noticed about him when Sprout introduced Dudley to everyone.
"Do you want me to give you one to hold?" Cho asks. She mentally slaps herself. She asked Cedric the same question in the middle of the Quidditch pitch almost five years before. Back when she had thought Hogwarts was safe and she had not torn her nails trying to rebuild the school that created her, that traumatised her.
Dudley shifts uncomfortably. He looks so small against Hogwarts and the clear Scottish skies. "Won't I die? It looks painful."
Cho wants to laugh at the stupidity of his question. Of course he won't die, but it hurts; as easy as Cho makes it look, plucking stars from the sky hurts. There is a twisted satisfaction in being able to create the sky and mold it to fit her fantasies and Hogwarts is the only place she has ever felt safe enough to try. For as far back as Cho remembers, she has been able to touch the stars, and that was terrifying. Cedric made her feel safe, and she thinks that if she was brave enough to ask, Dudley might make her feel safe, too.
Dudley brushes against her as they build the castle back to its original splendor brick by painful brick. Some of the sections knit themselves together through magic, but the castle is tired, and even Dudley can feel Hogwarts' exhaustion. Cho finds him whispering to the castle, begging her to hold the posts and lintels for a minute longer as he applies cement.
Dudley looks at the castle the way he looks at Cho, she realises. A very large, yet fragile thing he must not sully with his presence. She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him, tell him that she does not offer to pluck the stars out of their home for anyone and Hogwarts will always be home to those who need it. Cho has a million lessons to offer him about the school they are rebuilding and creating it to be a better place.
He follows her up to the Astronomy Tower after long days at work. She teaches him about stars, just like she taught Cedric, and wonders if her heart has the ability to love again. She really likes this large blond. Dudley is everything Cedric wasn't, and Cho takes more comfort than she should in Dudley's ability to be the most normal, uncomplicated man. She doesn't have to create a flawless fantasy that fits her ideas of what he should be.
Cho wishes he would make the first move though. That Dudley would admit that Cho was worth loving.
The first time Cho places a star in Dudley's hand, he screams from the pain. But he doesn't pull his hand away like Cedric had. She picks Capella for him, for military honour and wealth. It is the star Cho's Umma picked for her when she was born. It is the very first star Cho plucked from the night sky at Hogwarts and it is symbolic. To her, Capella is the start of new beginnings, and whenever she feels lost underneath the stars, or yearns for something that can never be hers completely, she takes Capella down from the skies and hugs it close. She ignores the gasses and heat scorching her clothes and lets the warmth of the star overtake her.
Dudley's fingers are singed and blistered from the heat of the star and she shows him how to gently place it back for the Astronomy Classes to gaze at.
"Thank you for making me feel welcome," Dudley says the next morning as they catalog books in the library together.
Madam Pince hovers over them before raising her eyebrows at Cho. Cho refuses to blush, she has spent too many years making herself small for others so that her love for them becomes comfortable. She isn't the only one here to create a space for the warriors and those who are good. Hogwarts took her in her incomplete form. It taught her that the stars in the sky are things she borrows and that her love is not enough to conquer death.
Dudley is so painfully ordinary amongst it all, but he, like her, feels guilty for the destruction and pain that his hands have caused. Hogwarts isn't like the rest of the world. It is magical and mundane and Cho feels shivers down her spine everytime she sees the castle from Madam Puddifoot's in Hogsmeade.
However, as comfortable Cho feels at Hogwarts, she knows she cannot stay. They have rebuilt enough of the school that they no longer need volunteer help. Over bowls of thick pumpkin soup, everyone has started talking about leaving and the goals they now feel comfortable and ready to aspire to. Cho looks over to Dudley, who is showing Dennis how to hold his fists for boxing, and behind her Hermione's muffled laughter fills the Great Hall. It is the sound of healing.
She taps Dudley's shoulder that night as he prepares to go to his room in the castle for the last time. He says nothing but follows her up to the Astronomy Tower, but before she can make her confession, he speaks.
"If you want, we could try to create universes together?" Dudley asks. He is clumsy, still wearing transfigured jeans, and Cho reaches for the entirety of Orion and hands it to him. She would love to paint the sky and rearrange it with him.