Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There are references to past canon traumatic things and onscreen violence resulting in the death of hacky sacks. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: This fic ran away from me. Kind of like the jungle that I call a backyard.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Boys Love Boys; My Favorite Things [09] (Y); Best Stories (Y); La Vie Boheme; Culturally Inclined; Fix-It Felix (Y); Gryffindor MC; Durmstrang MC; Hufflepuff MC; Ravenclaw MC; SHIELD MC (x2); Marvelous HP (Y); LEO MC (x2); Bard MC (x3); Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion (x4); Ethnic & Present (x3); The 3rd Rule; Lovely Triangle; Ship Sails (x2); Hold the Mayo (x2); Gender Bender; Color Galore; Zed Era; Old Shoes (Y); Old Shoes; Marvelous Cinema; Performance Art; Short Jog; Bucket Listing; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 11
Subject (Task No.): English Language Studies (Task#5: Include one of the listed characters as your main character in the story.)[Cho Chang]
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [131](Viktor Krum); 365 Prompts [308](Juggling); Scavenger Hunt [82](Circus AU); Pride Booth [Blue/Red/Black](Polyam Character)/[14](Hacky Sack in Pride Colors [Ace])
Other MC4A Challenges: SpB [3A](Incense/Smoke); TrB [1A](Just a Flesh Wound); SuB [2E](Arrow); AU [5D](Disowned); Ship (Seekers Cubed; Desperately Seeking; Lion of Durmstrang; Finders Seekers; Black Bow)[Sp Mic 2](Fusion/Crossover); Chim [Isopra](Gender Bent; Royal Purple); Hunt [Su WD](South East Asian)/[Su WD](Roma/Romani)/[Su WD](Polyam)/[Su WD](ADHD)/[Su WD](Synesthesia); Garden [Chores](Arguing/Debating)/[Chores](Running/Jogging)/[Chores](Hugging)
Representation(s): Desi & Autistic Harry Potter; Female Harry Potter; Cho Chang/Harry Potter/Cedric Diggory/Viktor Krum; Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton; Circus AU
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Car in a Tutu; Clio's Conclusion; Lock & Key; Three's Company; A Long Dog; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi; Fizzy Lemonade; Tomorrow's Shade)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Tether); SN (Rail; Negate); LiCK (Poppy; Amaranth; Yarrow); FR (Satisfaction); War (Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui)
Word Count: 1716 words
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Under the Big Top
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Cho rolled her shoulders to loosen the tension that had built up while she had walked to the open area set aside for her to practice her acrobatics. She normally didn't pay any mind to who was watching her. Then again, most of the time, the only people around were the familiar faces of the other carnies or the even more familiar faces of her lovers. Now she was constantly aware of the two newbies they had picked up at the last stop.
The circus they were all with was one of the smaller ones. In all honesty, it was probably something of a miracle that they hadn't gone bankrupt ages ago or had gotten absorbed into one of the big names in the business. They probably would have a few times if it wasn't for the generous allotments that came from having actual nobility involved in the whole thing (even if said nobility was on the other side of the Masquerade and sort of on the run from the associated responsibilities to boot). Still, no one had a better head for numbers and charisma enough to convince even the most stubborn of mules than their Cedric.
Cho was their contortionist and head floor acrobat. Harini and Viktor were their trapeze artists. Well, when Harini wasn't putting her Divination OWL to horrible use by giving out fortunes to paying guests. She just wish that Harini wouldn't use that horrible accent when she was doing so or burn that thick incense that made the tent space filled with a sickly green color according to Cho's crossed senses. Cho did understand that Harini was playing up her heritage and what stereotypes people expected from someone of her complexion, but it was still ridiculous on so many levels, pea soup spatial-visuals or not.
Harini barely knew anything about either side of her heritage, because the Dursleys were abusive assholes who decided that taking in their Romani-Indian niece was bad enough. They certainly weren't going to allow her to have any interaction with anyone who could teach her about being Roma or Hindi. Things at Hogwarts certainly hadn't been much better—even before considering how often all of them had almost and actually died due to the manipulations and machinations that happened from everyone around them. As it stood, none of them were on good terms with the magical community back in Europe, and only marginally on better terms with the American community.
And all of that played into how suspicious Cho was of the two new carnies they had picked up outside of Boise. Cedric had decided that their circus could afford a couple of extra hands to do basic chores. The two had come drifting into the small town a week or so before the circus had, and they had built up a good reputation among the townsfolk in that time. They seemed to be a couple or at least partners, which was part of the reason that they were brought on together.
Both Natalia and Clint seemed normal enough, for whatever given definition of normal could be used for anyone willing to live a nomadic life with a circus. Natalia was rather cold and gruff, but in much the same way that Viktor could be when he was worn down from dealing with too many people in a short span of time. She was pretty in the way that would have had Cho pursuing her if their mutual situation wasn't what it was. Clint was even more energetic than Cedric after his fifth cup of coffee and seemed to know a fair bit about what was expected of him already. The way that Cho understood it, Clint had spent some of his formative years working for a circus, though she didn't remember if he had mentioned the name of it at all.
Not that any of them asked for a lot of details for things like that.
A lot of their people were on the run for various reasons and from various people. It was a known aspect of the life. It was also a sizable reason why Cho and her partners had bought the circus in the first place. They had wanted to disappear from their lives. In the circus, they had discovered others needing the same thing. Some of their people were with them only temporarily, just needing a way to escape a situation they couldn't have otherwise. Others stayed longer and became like family.
Cho didn't know which these two would be.
She didn't know which she wanted these two to be.
She watched them from the corner of her eyes as she began working through her routine. They both had a way of watching everything happening without making it obvious that was what they were doing. It wasn't the same way that Harini had, the way that she had learned from the Dursleys and shared with a lot of the people they moved that were escaping similar situations. It was more like the way that Cho and Viktor had, both learning it from their politically-minded parents (even if from different angles).
It made Cho twitchy about having them around the circus. She was aware that some of the people they moved were in need of escape due to their mutations or skill sets making them prime targets for conscription or worse. They had ways of handling any sort of enforcement (law or otherwise) that came sniffing after their people. Those ways might be questionable in the ethical sense of things, but it was still kinder than the fates which awaited their people if the wrong sort got the upper hand over them.
Cho knew that Cedric and Harini both had a thing about believing the best in people, sometimes even to a point of forgiving things which should be considered unforgivable by all sane people. She was a bit more pragmatic about things. Block all possible avenues a threat could use as an entrance; Parry all threats away before striking decisively. Viktor was the one who truly went a bit overboard, having seen just what happens when a threat has the possibility of getting back up.
Durmstrang was a hard school in more ways than one.
Which was probably why Viktor was hovering over Harini as she stood near the new guy who was talking her through how to juggle. The hacky sacks were each a different knit pattern but all of them had black, gray, white, and purple in some way. The purple was the deep royal purple that Harini loved. It was probably a good chunk of the reason that Harini was enduring the lesson on something that she already knew how to do. Although, Cho could not discount the possibility that Harini was feeling out the pair.
Harini was often deceptively sneaky like that.
"Just crisscross applesauce," Clint declared as he juggled the hacky sacks. He grinned suddenly, like he had just had what he considered a great idea. Cho's danger sense went off at the same time that the blond declared, "now's your turn."
Then he tossed all three knitted balls at Harini in quick succession.
What happened next was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east. Harini twisted as dropped into a crouch. Viktor had drawn a pair of daggers from the arsenal he tended to keep on his person. He cut through all three sacks easily, only missing Harini because she was no longer where she had been. The lintels that had been in the hacky sacks scattered across the mat of the ring in which they were standing.
The next heartbeat had Viktor turning his daggers towards Clint. He didn't move directly into an attack, stopping just shy of injuring the man. Cho didn't need to see Viktor's face to know how cold his dark eyes would be as they focused on the threat. Viktor was protective of all his partners, but none more than he was of Harini. Cho knew exactly why that was. She and Cedric would defend themselves, even against a loved one.
Harini would not.
It made all of them protective of their smallest lover, but none more so than Viktor. Cho was moving across the space before she had fully processed the thought of how needed intervention would be if they weren't going to deal with bloodshed. Honestly, it was remarkable that Viktor hadn't already crossed that line.
"Stop," Natalia ordered as she appeared out of the shadows from the nearby bleachers. Her red hair gleamed darkly in the harsher lights, but her pale green eyes were wide with artificial worry and her face paler than its already pale standard. She bit out something in Russian that was too fast for Cho to translate. Whatever it was made Viktor shift his weight to place himself more completely between the pair and Harini.
Harini relaxed out of her crouch, however, standing up and going loose in her limbs too deliberately to be fully natural. She pressed herself against Viktor's back, not trying to move around him at all. Viktor growled loud enough that Cho could hear it from the distance that she was still closing. Natalia tensed at the sound in the same way that most people would have flinched. Clint wisely managed to hold very, very still.
"I'm safe, love," Harini declared. She rubbed her cheek against his back. "You saved me from the evil beanbags of doom."
"This is a serious matter," Viktor countered. Harini slid her arms around his waist as Cho finally managed to get close enough to disarm Viktor if necessary.
"Yes," Harini agreed. Viktor relaxed just slightly into her hold. "Good hacky sacks are hard to find, and you just murdered three very good ones." She patted his stomach before shifting to his side. He had to move his blades away from Clint to accommodate her new position. "No killing Clint today."
"I would appreciate it if killing Clint was completely off the table actually," Clint commented dryly. Natalia rolled her eyes and lightly slapped the back of his head. "Hey," he complained, "I just said what you were thinking!"
Cho sighed in relief as the last of the tension dissipated.
She was going to lose her mind if these two ended up staying.
