Return of the Unicorns, Chapter 23
Note: This chapter will be from the POVs of Hope Marshall, Cho Chang and Natalie Diggory.
Another note: The wonderful reader, Nanettez, pointed out that Cedric would have to have been born in September or October in order to be in the same school year as Fred and George Weasley – not on December 21 like I wrote in Chapter 22. I am changing it so that Cedric started Hogwarts a year late because he got dragon pox when he was supposed to be starting Hogwarts and couldn't go until he got better (IDK, I'll fill in the details later).
But why did I make Cedric a December baby in the first place? IDK, I just liked the idea. I was born right after Christmas and contrary to the popular lore about your birthday being forgotten if you were born close to Christmas, I have found that celebrating my birthday during the holiday season ABSOLUTELY ROCKS.
The next day, Hope woke up early, went for a run on the snowy forest pathways in the forests near Ottery St. Catchpole, and then took her new broom out for a spin for good measure. Invigorated by the exercise, she apparated to 12 Grimmauld Place, hoping to catch Harry Potter at breakfast. They had much to discuss.
Hope came in through the doorway and followed the smells of coffee, tea, and cooking to the kitchen.
"Ah, Cinnamon," said Remus with a cordial wave. "Happy belated birthday!"
"Horny!" proclaimed Sirius. "How goes it?"
"Don't call me that!" griped Hope.
"Ah, don't tell us," said Sirius, taking in Hope's running shoes, leggings, sweatshirt, and workout gloves, "You've already run twenty miles and gotten in a workout that'd put most Olympic athletes to shame!"
"Actually, it was just a seven mile run and then I took my new Nimbus 2004 for a spin," Hope replied sheepishly.
"Yeah, yeah, you're a unicorn and your workouts are absurd, we get it," groaned Sirius.
"What did I say to offend him?" asked Hope.
"Ignore my fiancé, he's being a prat," consoled Remus. "Care to join us for breakfast?"
"I'm looking for Harry, actually."
"He should be upstairs. You can wake him if he's not up yet."
Hope nodded. For good measure, she loaded a spare tea pot, some cups, and a basket of breakfast pastries onto a tray, which she levitated ahead of her up the stairs.
"What's all this?" yawned Ron Weasley when Hope walked into his and Harry's room and opened the curtains. Before he'd fully opened his eyes or gotten out of bed, Ron had somehow snatched a chocolate croissant from Hope's basket and started munching on it. He easily had to be the hungriest person in all of Hogwarts.
"I was hoping I could talk to you about Dumbledore's Army," replied Hope.
"We should get Hermione, too. And Fred, George, and Ginny," said Harry, who'd just woken up. "They're part of the DA, too."
Hope was going to ask which doors she should knock on, but Ron banged on the wall by his bed, shouting "Mione! Ginny! Get in here, we need you! Fred, George! We need you too!"
Hermione and Ginny walked in through the door. Ginny sat next to Harry on his bed while Hermione joined Ron on his bed. Fred and George apparated in a second later and conjured themselves chairs. "Do you have to go whipping your wands out for absolutely everything?" groaned Ginny. The twins stuck their tongues out at her in response. A very amused Hope took the window seat and waved her want to distribute cups of tea to everyone.
"How do you know about Dumbledore's Army, anyway?" asked Harry.
So, Hope told him about how she'd accidentally happened in on the DA's meeting and spied on them from under her invisibility cloak. "It's absolutely brilliant, what you're doing," she finished.
"Thanks," said Harry. "You're obviously welcome to come for the lesson where I teach the Patronus Charm."
"Thank you. But I'm actually here to talk to you about Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe."
"What, and the way they betrayed us?" spat Ron.
"Well, is it really a betrayal?" asked Hope.
"Well, no one besides you has found out about the DA, so it isn't a betrayal yet," clarified Hermione, "but if anyone does actually betray us, then the list of members is jinxed to write the word SNEAK onto the betrayer's forehead. That's how we'll know who the guilty party is."
"Sure, sure, that makes sense," mused Hope. "That makes sense… if someone was going to randomly betray you, unprompted. But if someone got blackmailed, like Marietta is currently getting blackmailed, then threatening to jinx the word SNEAK onto that person's forehead wouldn't do much good, would it?"
"Well, what're we supposed to do if Marietta's determined to betray us, and Cho's determined to stand up for her?" spat Harry.
"Well, Umbridge is threatening to fire Marietta's parents from their jobs at the Ministry if Marietta doesn't get some intelligence on you. So, what choice is Marietta being forced to make?" asked Hope, looking to Harry and then staring pointedly at Hermione, who'd clearly been the one with the idea to jinx the list of DA members.
"She's being forced to choose between loyalty to her parents and loyalty to us," said Hermione. "She never should've put herself in this situation if she didn't think she could handle it."
"Well, maybe she thinks she really needs to defend herself," countered Hope. "After all, isn't that what your organization is about? Teaching people to defend themselves, preparing to fight Lord Voldemort, and resisting Umbridge?"
"So?" asked Harry.
"Well, pardon me if I'm asking a stupid question, but why would you start an organization to fight Umbridge… and then not help anyone actually resist Umbridge when they most need your help?" asked Hope. "I know Marietta – she'd be happy to help you avoid Umbridge, and she'd be eternally grateful to you for stopping Umbridge from firing her parents."
And suddenly, light dawned on the marble heads of all 6 DA members.
"We need to work together to figure out a way for Marietta to defy Umbridge… without letting Umbridge fire her parents from the Ministry," said Ginny. "We can start by confusing Umbridge! We'll have that mean old toad chasing her tail like a tadpole stuck in a tornado!"
"And the Defense Against the Dark Arts job is jinxed, so we only have to keep Umbridge at bay for the rest of the year!" exclaimed Harry.
"Of course!" beamed Hermione.
"I reckon that together, we can confound Umbridge into forgetting to give you detention, mate!" Ron said to Harry, who beamed with relief. Hope wondered what these detentions consisted of and if they had anything to do with the angry red marks on Harry's left hand.
"We can keep that mean old toad so busy stomping out pranks she won't even have time to blackmail anyone! D' you reckon spraying stink sap on the next Inquisitorial Squad meeting ought to make a good start?"
"Only if we follow it by slipping memory-modifying mints so they won't remember to go after us, twin o' mine!"
Hope grinned. Now, they were getting somewhere.
XXXXX
Cho Chang was not having a particularly happy holiday season.
Because it seemed easier than staying at Hogwarts, Cho had taken the Hogwarts Express home to meet her parents. Only to be greeted by her father, who immediately started berating her about getting her grades up and why couldn't she just stop being sad and start studying harder this year.
Sigh. Cho wished there was somewhere she could go where she wouldn't be bothered either by her parents or by the other students or the well-meaning (but very nosy) professors of Hogwarts. She sighed. This April, she'd be turning 17. Maybe then, she could go somewhere by herself and not have to deal with people.
The main person she didn't want to deal with, though, was herself. She'd been such a bitch these past 6 months. First, she'd been sad and depressed about Cedric's death. That, perhaps, was understandable, but then she'd secluded herself in her own little bubble of tears and swatted away anyone who wanted to offer to help her. No wonder her friends who were getting sick of her. They didn't have time to deal with her nonsense when they were suffering from Professor Umbridge's terrible lessons and the Ministry of Magic's general tyranny.
But the worst thing she'd done was to Hope – the reincarnated version of Cedric. She'd pushed the lovely and loving Hope away – because she'd been a bit disconcerted that her Cedric looked different now. As though in the process of reincarnating from the dead to reclaim his former life, he'd somehow done it wrong. And then she'd gone ahead and baselessly accused Hope of cheating on her when the fact was, she knew absolutely nothing about Hope's real life.
Nothing, nothing at all, could excuse her abominable behavior.
And now, she sat in the window of her bedroom, curled up in a ball on December 22, the day after what would've been Cedric's 19th birthday, missing him and regretting everything she'd done wrong.
Even though it was unreasonable, she hoped Cedric would come for her. He'd always come from her before, ready to comfort her even when she'd been an unreasonable brat.
Had she finally driven her Cedric off this last time?
A knock sounded on the door below, drawing Cho's curiosity. The door creaked as her father got up to let in whoever it was.
Cho listened at the door to her bedroom.
"Mrs. Diggory… what are you doing here?" asked her father.
"Ah, Mr. Chang, I'm just here to see Cho about the mentorship program. You see, I work as a transactional drafter and negotiator for Gringotts Bank. And I'm paired with Cho to mentor her about possible future careers at Gringotts. Would that be all right?"
Cho had no interest in working at Gringotts and she had no idea why anyone would think she did.
"She's upstairs," said Cho's father, and a moment later, Cho heard Mrs. Diggory's footsteps on the stairs to her room. She threw her door open before the woman could knock.
"Come on in, Mrs. Diggory," said Cho, ushering the woman into her bedroom. She supposed she should feel ashamed of how messy it was, but in the past six distressing months, tidying up wasn't really a high priority.
"Thank you, Cho," Natalie Diggory replied, sitting on Cho's bed, smoothing her hands over her perfectly tailored dress, and crossing her legs at the ankle. Elegant, accomplished, and smart, Natalie Diggory was the sort of woman Cho hoped she might grow up to be.
Natalie pointed her wand at the door. "Muffliato," she murmured, silencing all noise from outside the room.
"You're… not here to mentor me about careers at Gringotts, are you, Mrs. Diggory?" asked Cho. Heck, the woman was probably here to chew Cho out about how awful she'd been to her child and Cho couldn't even blame her.
"I'm actually here to deliver a message from Cedric, now known as Hope," she said calmly. "Won't you sit down? It's nothing bad, I promise."
"How is it NOT bad?" spat Cho. "I was awful when Hope told me who she was! I didn't react well to the news at all! Surely, you've heard about that!"
Mrs. Diggory blinked and shook her head. "Actually, the only things Hope told me were that you seemed distressed, that you needed help, and that you might be bothered by seeing her face again, so I was to go see you instead of her. Oh, and that she intends to help keep you and Marietta out of trouble. And that was it! She didn't say anything about your behavior."
Cho blinked and sat down in her former seat by the window. A knot in her chest seemed to loosen all of a sudden. "Oh," she breathed. But then, everything started to make sense. Of course, Cedric wouldn't go saying nasty things about her behind her back – even if she deserved them. Of course, he would find a way to be there for her, even if she'd made it clear that she didn't want to see him. Why was he always so good to her?! She surely did not deserve such good grace.
"Are you all right, dear?" asked Natalie.
"No…" sighed Cho. "Ever since Cedric died at the end of June, nothing has been right. I've missed him terribly, I can't concentrate on my schoolwork or on flying, my father is telling me I shouldn't have given my heart away to some idiotic pretty boy – that's the awful name he calls Cedric. I'm sick of fighting with him about it – and my mother is too scared to stand up for me against my dad. My life is a mess."
"No wonder you were so distressed," said Mrs. Diggory, getting up from her seat on Cho's bed and coming to sit by her on the windowsill. The older woman wrapped Cho in a tender embrace, enveloping her in the gentle smell of her delicate floral perfume.
Cho had promised herself that she wouldn't cry anymore. Her father said that crying was pathetic – and she'd certainly felt pathetic crying about Cedric in front of Harry Potter. But, so help her, she couldn't hold back her tears as Natalie held her close.
"Thank you," said Cho, burrowing into the older woman's embrace.
"Not a problem," murmured Natalie after several minutes of silence. "If there's anything I can do for you, sweet Cho, please don't hesitate to let me know. And that includes confiding in me about things you don't want to tell Hope. She was rather specific on that point."
"Is that why Hope sent you? Because you'd be able to look after me?" asked Cho.
"She also thought I might be a little bit better equipped for this outing than my loyal and loving, but extremely hot-headed, husband Amos," Natalie laughed delicately.
Cho laughed despite herself.
"Don't feel bad that your life is a mess. I've had that feeling, too. I've even felt that I was a disaster when it came to love. I promise."
"When did you ever feel like a disaster? You graduated at the top of your class at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Ministry, you got an amazing job at Gringotts that pays really well, you got married, and then you had Cedric! Where could things have possibly gone wrong for you?"
Natalie laughed and shook her head. "Did Cedric ever tell you how I met his father?"
"Uh… he saved your life from a rogue dragon someone had released in Gringotts, you fell in love really fast, and the rest is history?"
Natalie blinked and then laughed. "Ah, yes, that's right. We gave our son the sanitized, wholesome version of the story. Let me tell you what really happened…
"I was in a relationship with another man. I'd let him know I loved him, but he was incredibly callous about the fact that he didn't love me back. Anyway, we were both deployed on a business trip to Gringotts in England – we were supposed to help provide the Wizarding Community with supplies that would get them through the war against the infamous You-Know-Who.
"The trip was pretty uneventful, and the deal had been more or less going okay, but on the last day I was there, someone let a dragon loose in Gringotts. Fortunately, a task force from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures subdued the dragon… and the person leading the task force was none other than my future husband."
"Is that when you changed your mind about the other guy?" asked Cho.
"Oh heavens no," scoffed Natalie. "Sure, I thought he was brave and talented and good-looking, but I was still totally gone over someone else. Plus, Amos is fourteen years younger than me, so I never would've considered it. When he joined us later that night to celebrate the closing of our deal, I only flirted with him because I thought it would make the Randall jealous."
"Was that the other guy's name?"
"Yes. Anyway, flirting turned into a one-night stand, which turned into a fling because I wasn't yet done licking his eight-pack abs." Natalie rolled her eyes at the memory of her own silliness.
"What was the factor that made you decide to stay in England and marry your husband?" asked Cho.
"It was a no-brainer, really. Amos was everything that Randall never was – loyal, honest, kind, and incredibly expressive of his love for me. He made me feel like the queen of the world, you know?"
"Cedric always made things so clear for me," said Cho. "Ever since he died, it's like I've been in a haze of confusion."
"I know the feeling. Anyway, because I was an idiot, I left Amos and left England to go back to my job at Gringotts in the US. And Randall actually proposed to me when we got back. I was engaged to the moron for all of five hours, before I realized the error of my ways, returned to England and all but begged Amos to forgive me."
"Cedric was always so sweet to me, even when I was being a moron. I just hope he can forgive me now. Or rather, that she – Hope – can forgive me now," Cho corrected herself. It was going to take some time to get used to the name/gender change.
"Oh, our child has always been the forgiving sort, thanks in part to NOT having been raised by Randall. And by the way, this is the part where I threaten you with horrible things if you break my child's heart," said Natalie, affecting a sinister glare.
"Well, what are your threats?"
"Oh, I don't have any threats for you," Natalie said breezily. "I believe you'll do the right thing, and that things will play out exactly as they should. Now if you don't mind, I should let myself out."
Cho nodded. "Natalie? Can I see you again sometime?"
"Absolutely, my dear. Anytime you want"
XXXXX
Natalie Diggory returned later that night to Diggory Hollow.
"How is she?" asked an anxious Hope, the moment she returned.
"She'll be all right," reassured Natalie. "She's sorry for how she reacted to you, and she's glad you're back among the living."
"I'm glad," sighed Hope. "Thanks for going to see her."
"Of course!"
"Now, can I get one more favor from you and Dad?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"Leave Christmas Day open for me. Be prepared to spend the day outdoors, and dress warmly."
"Ooh, whatever for?"
"That is for me to know and you two to find out," said Hope as she skipped off to her bedroom. "Good night!"
XXXXX
Christmas Day itself did not disappoint. When they woke up, Natalie and Amos dressed in warm clothes, not sure what Hope had planned for them… only to be apparated to the middle of an enchanted forest.
"Right, now get on my back and be prepared to make some introductions," said Hope. Before either parent could question what she meant by 'get on my back,' Hope had transformed into a tall, majestic male unicorn with soft white fur and a bright pearly horn. It took a little while for either parent to get used to the idea of riding their child, but they got up all the same and Hope ran off into the distance.
It was the best – and most surprising – either Natalie or her husband had ever had.
Hope trotted along through the forest and Natalie had no idea where they were headed… until she trotted out to an open meadow full of unicorns. Some were grazing on herbs beneath the show, some were playing in the open, and others simply stood by and watched. But as Hope approached, they all turned their heads.
"Everyone," she said coming to a stop. "These are the parents who took care of me in my past life. Meet Amos and Natalie Diggory."
The unicorns stood still around them, unsure of what to do. It appeared that they were sizing up Amos and Natalie.
At last, a young foal strode forward into the middle of the meadow, sizing up both humans.
"Should we…" asked Natalie.
"Yeah," replied Amos.
Both humans dismounted from Hope's back and walked until they were a few paces from the foal.
Amos yanked an apple out of his pocket and let the foal take a taste. Approving of the first bite, it went back for more.
Natalie cautiously approached the foal and, when it'd finished the apple, she raised a questioning hand to its snout. The foal closed the gap and let her pet its soft face.
And even though the snow was thick in the forest and in the meadow, the proverbial ice in this situation was somehow broken.