Chapter Three
Cho Chang, Head Girl, 7th year
Ravenclaw Quidditch Seeker
Cho was exhausted, exhausted and exhilarated. This was the third morning in a row that she had dragged her sleepy body out of a warm bed and into the ensuite of her Head Girl's private bedroom. She had pulled on her Quidditch training uniform in the dark, slipped her Quidditch robes over the top and grabbed her sports bag and broom.
Locking her bedroom door at the top of the stairs of the Ravenclaw Common Room, where to her right and up the stairs were the boys dormitories and to her left and up was the way to the girls, turned and made her way through the circular common room, with the starry domed ceiling. It had clearly been cleaned and set to rights overnight by the house elves because it did not look like this when she had suggested, with a certain authority, that students pipe down and make their way upstairs to bed.
Cho had turned in relatively early, not to sleep as much as to start working on a timetable that included her Head Girl responsibilities, meetings and duties, classes, homework, Quidditch training and her personal early morning training. She did not see much time left for socialising, which she knew was probably more likely by design than due to a heavy schedule.
Cho was more or less repeating her final year. All of her own cohort, both Ravenclaw as well as the other houses, had all graduated and moved on. Cho had left Hogwarts before the end of the school year and unknown to almost anybody she had not graduated. Her mental health had been in tatters, although she continued to look okay on the outside, her insides were in a state of emergency. Not that she really knew that at the time, nor did anyone else it seemed, she just thought she was having a rough time...
So she didn't really have many friends left at Hogwarts, not that she was anticipating that that would be a problem. Cho was in a much better frame of mind, she was prepared for hard work, she was confident she could achieve it and felt she could be resilient in the face of any setbacks. She supposed there wouldn't be much time for socialising this year in any case and Cho was fine with that.
When Cho had been at Hogwarts previously she had been all about the socialising, the romancing and the Quidditch, being naturally clever she had never needed to apply more than a minimum effort to maintain an B plus average. She had never given any thought to a future career, there were subjects she had liked and subjects she didn't and those preferences had been based on who was in the class and which Professor she'd had, more than anything else.
Being highly attractive Cho had never been short of romantic attention and opportunities, both boys and girls had been obvious in their attempts to gain her affection. She had more or less had one boyfriend after another; Roger Davies, Cedric Diggory, Roger Davies, Harry Potter and Michael Corner and then she had rushed into a short lived marriage with a muggle she barely knew straight after the war. Another example of the poor state of her mental health.
Her natural Quidditch skill and success had raised some early attention outside of Hogwarts with Selectors for the local English and Scottish teams. She had been interviewed several times and taken on several facility tours, Selectors had been impressed with her maturity, teamwork skills and keen interest in playing professionally post education. When a few tentative enquiries were made she responded with excuses to hide the real reason she could not accept - she just was not in the right headspace, in fact she had been rather ill.
On Monday morning Professor Flitwick had helped Cho finalise her subjects and academic timetable, he was the Charms Professor and she had always been very good at Charms, in addition he was the Ravenclaw Head of House, and between the two she had had rather more contact with him than many other Professors. He was only too happy to support, encourage and assist her in any way he could.
Cho had a plan, not many people were as fortunate to be given a second opportunity and she was not going to let it slip through her fingers. She wanted to get top marks in all of her subjects in this, her seventh and final year - also she wanted to give Quidditch everything she could. Cho was hoping to be offered a contract to play professional Quidditch and failing that to have developed some idea of an alternative career path, as indicated by her final marks.
Cho would stand out amongst this cohort of Hogwarts Quidditch Players, this population of Quidditch players will be younger and less experienced than previous years due to the absence of older students. She would be the oldest player, she will be amongst the most skillful, she will be playing as Seeker (hopefully) and she is Head Girl, for what that's worth! Selectors will likely remember her name easily against the roll call of new names. The chances of her being offered another spot on a regional team were rather good and Cho wanted it. She wanted it very much. If hard work alone could secure it, Cho was going to make it happen.
Having finally completed the second half of her laps around the Quidditch pitch, she was breathing hard, sweating profusely and sucking down more water, but Cho felt great. Physically fatigued but happy, emotionally energised and mentally alert and prepared for hard labour. She looked around for Ginny and found her hovering at one of the goal hoops, she watched the girl as she drew back her right arm and threw a tiny, shiny ball across the pitch, spin twice on the back end of her broom, search earnestly for the little globe and then point her broom and bear down upon her prize.
Cho grinned, she wondered if this was a game two could play. Grabbing her second hand Nimbus 2001, she threw her leg over and pushed off. Her broomstick wasn't as nice looking or as powerful as Ginny's Firebolt but she had traded in her old Comet 250 for a rarely used new model Nimbus and a Broomstick Servicing Kit and set to work upgrading it herself. It was worth the effort and expense if Cho could achieve her goal of turning pro!
"Nice ride, Wealsey!" she called out, circling the red head widely. She was keen to train but hadn't given much thought as to how to actually do that, on her own.
"Thanks. Finished your laps?"
"Yeah. What do you have there?"
Ginny flew up close to Cho and hovered beside her, holding out her hand.
"Muggle children's toys called marbles. I found them in Dad's shed, it's full of old muggle stuff."
"Oh yeah? Your father works at the Ministry, too?"
"Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office."
"My mother is in the Department of Magical Transportation."
"Cool. Want to train?"
"Yeah, I won't be bothering you?"
"Nah, catch!" Ginny pulled her arm back and threw the tiny glass sphere across the pitch. Recovering from her surprise, Cho squinted, leaned forward and shot off like a bullet. Ginny moved to the middle of the pitch, throwing one marble after another in all directions and Cho had to work hard to catch every single one before they could collect even a drop of moisture from the dewy grass.
Then Cho took her pocketful of marbles to where Ginny had been hovering and threw them for Ginny to catch, when she threw the last one in her possession, she gave Ginny a little head start and then took off into a dive herself, racing her training partner for the final marble. Ginny got there first and the two burst out laughing, gasping for a breath.
"Don't get a big head, Weasley, it's the Firebolt."
"Could be, want to try it?"
"I really do." The pair circled lazily to the grass and Ginny held it out to her. When Cho took it, Ginny jumped onto the Nimbus and took it for a run, it felt like it was in really good mechanical nick, no vibration even at maximum speed. It couldn't keep up with the Firebolt, but Quidditch could not be won on speed alone and Cho had been a very fine Seeker.
Shortly after the pair walked back up to the castle together, they said goodbye and parted at the bottom of the main staircase in the Entrance Hall. Ginny headed upstairs to the Gryffindor Tower for a shower and to prepare for the day and Cho walked further through the Castle toward the staircase leading up to the Ravenclaw Tower for much the same purpose.