CHO CHANG'S EIGHTH YEAR
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over the wizarding world that Harry isn't aware of.
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
16. Seeing Harry Potter
There hardly seemed to be a pane of glass intact anywhere in Hogwarts, and crumbled masonry lay all about the front doors, and partly blocked the entrance to the Great Hall. The Changs stepped around the debris and into the hall. Near the door sat Madame Sprout, who with her eyes closed might have seemed to be asleep if she wasn't fanning herself with an elephant's ear frond. Cho went to her.
"Madame Sprout?"
The Head of Hufflepuff House opened her eyes a crack, then wider when she saw Cho and her parents. She stirred herself slightly, but didn't stand.
"Forgive me," she said somewhat weakly. "Thought I was still young enough to fight for Hogwarts; seems I thought wrong."
"Are you all right, Madame?"
"Just winded, dear."
"My parents and I are herbologists; it's the family trade, you know. Is there any way we can help?"
"Well, the wounded are at the end of the hall where the head table was, and I daresay Madame Pomfrey can use some help. Now's the time, isn't it, while we wait for the next wave?"
"If I may say so, Madame," Lotus Chang said, "you're taking all this quite well."
"And if I may say so, Missus Chang, you didn't live in London during the Blitz. This is bad enough, but, Merlin help me, I've seen worse."
"Of course. I'm sure we'll meet more properly in a happier time," Cho smiled.
"Miss Chang?"
"Yes?"
"I have a message from Cedric."
The blood in Cho's veins froze. "Cedric?"
"Yes. It was a dream of some sort, I think. This morning I woke up, and there was his voice in my head, just as I remember it. He said he had a message for you."
"Wha … what is it?"
"He said, 'Tell Cho Li that I don't want to find her in the Great Hall when the sun rises. She has a long and busy life ahead of her, and she shouldn't waste even a day of it.'" With that, Madame Sprout closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Once again, the only sign of life in her was fanning herself with the elephant's ear frond.
"Why shouldn't you be here in the Great Hall?" Cho's father asked.
Lotus answered instead. "Don't you ever listen? The wounded are being treated up there. So this room is for the dead."
There were only about fifteen to twenty people laid out on the floor, and Cho was surprised to find both friends and foes treated with equal respect. But then, Dumbledore would have wanted it that way. She recognized Professor Lupin; he had grown older and more haggard, but also looked more at peace now than he had as a teacher at Hogwarts. She thought she saw one of the worst faces ever to glare from a WANTED poster: the werewolf Fenrir Greyback, but it turned out on second glance to be another werewolf. Cho didn't know whether to feel worried or not.
She also saw the body of one of the Weasley twins laid out; his brother seemed inconsolable, as members of the Weasley family stayed near the body. One of these was Percy Weasley; Cho made a mental note to tell Penny Clearwater about this too.
The raised platform had become an improvised hospital wing: beds with occupants on one side, those less severely hurt in chairs or sitting on the beds on the other side, waiting for treatment. Madame Pomfrey had just returned with a beaker of potion. She seemed surprised for a moment, but then walked up to the visitors. "Another Quidditch injury, Miss Chang?"
"Not today, thanks," Cho smiled back. "Madame Pomfrey, these are my parents. We came to defend the school, and now we're wondering if we can help out here."
"Not much to choose from, I'm afraid. The Death Eaters have a rather limited repertoire: almost everyone here has had the Killing Curse thrown at them. Luckily they missed the mark, but we still have to sort out the consequences. One girl was savaged by a werewolf, and I'm afraid she's rather touch-and-go. Have you had any experience?"
"No, sorry," Cho's father said. "China never really had werewolves, except on the far western frontier. You'd have to go to the Baltic to find them."
"Pity. Well, I need to get back to these patients."
"And you'll need to be quick about it. Personally, I don't expect the Dark Lord to honour his promise to wait an hour."
"Mother! Father!" Cho had spotted a patient at the edge of the platform: Firenze the centaur, who had helped them defeat a dozen Death Eaters and a giant only an hour before. He was bleeding heavily from a cut in his left flank. He couldn't stand, and couldn't even speak, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Cho's father called Madame Pomfrey over. "Can't you do something about the bleeding? He's going into shock!"
"I'm afraid I was never taught about the arteries in a horse…"
"Damn the arteries! We've got to stanch the bleeding!" He turned to his wife, but Lotus was already rummaging through the potions Madame Pomfrey had brought from the hospital wing.
As Lotus set the bottles and a cauldron down next to her husband, she said, "We can make do with these, but we're still missing the main ingredient."
"Cho! Where's your herbalist?"
"We just spoke with her coming in."
"Does anyone else know plants?"
"Erm, excuse me," a tall, thin and nervous-looking boy approached the platform. "Plants are my special interest. I'm no Healer, though."
"You will be tonight, lad, if your greenhouse has caterpillar fungus."
"Yes, we do. Don't do much with it, though."
"Tonight you can save this centaur's life with it. Bring back as much as you can, as fast as you can!"
The boy turned and dashed out of the Great Hall.
Lotus turned to her daughter: "Do you know that boy?"
Cho nodded. "He's Neville Longbottom. His parents fought against the Dark Lord during the last war, and he took over Dumbledore's Army from Harry."
"Begging your pardon, Mister Chang, Missus Chang," Madame Pomfrey interrupted, "but there are others who need looking after…"
"Fine; go look after 'em," Chang Xiemin muttered as he started pouring potions into the cauldron.
"But I, I don't think it's wise to waste our time and energy on…"
Just then, Neville returned with a double armful of caterpillar fungus. "Well done, lad. Now tear them up and throw them in the cauldron."
"Shouldn't I chop them or…"
"No time for niceties; he's lost too much blood already!"
While Neville tore up the fungus, a task which grew harder the more he got onto his hands, Lotus created a fire under the cauldron. Cho looked around the platform, saw a goblet and grabbed it. "Are you sure this is safe?" Madame Pomfrey asked, as the potion in the cauldron turned from red to white. When it did, Lotus cut off the fire and Cho dipped the goblet into the potion.
"Cho," Lotus said, "make sure he drinks half the goblet. Then another half-goblet at three hour intervals, Madame." While Cho took the potion to Firenze, her father wiped his bloody hands as best he could with a towel as he spoke to Madame Pomfrey.
"Caterpillar fungus has been used in China for centuries as a coagulant; it'll stop the bleeding from within. This potion also has immune-suppressant qualities; keeps him from doing himself a mischief by trying to heal too fast. It also balances the coagulant so that blood continues to flow, and the effects will wear off in a couple of days, once the artery is healing."
"This is still rather strange," Madam Pomfrey said.
"Is it strange to save the life of a member of the faculty?"
"Of course not, but he is a…"
"He helped us defeat twelve Death Eaters and a giant in the woods. I would say he's earned some respect, no matter what he is."
Chang Xiemin sat in a chair by the wall, looking as exhausted as Madame Sprout had when they entered. His wife and daughter joined him.
"What do we do now?" Cho asked.
"Wait," her mother said. "It's between Harry and You Know Who now. No matter what happens, I doubt the Death Eaters will give in without a fight."
The hour was almost up. What would happen after that was anybody's guess.
xxx
They heard, more than saw, what happened next: the bellowing amplified voice of Voldemort proclaiming Harry Potter's death.
"He's bluffing," Cho's father said under his breath. "He doesn't know or believe most of what he's saying."
In a voice they almost couldn't catch, Cho said, "What about the rest of it?"
Cho sat in the Great Hall, registering nothing now but the smell of the wounded centaur's blood. She couldn't bear to move, even though she wanted to look at him, needed to look at him…
until she heard Professor McGonagall's anguished cry.
That was it, then. It's over. Daddy knew and didn't want to tell me but it's over. I missed my last chance to tell him how I…
"CHO!" Her mother spoke in a harsh whisper, digging her fingers into Cho's shoulders. "Can you see him?"
"I … I've already seen one dead boyfriend. That's enough for a lifetime…"
"Listen to me, Little Horse. I didn't say look at him; I said see him!"
As more and more cries rose up from outside the castle walls, from staff and students lamenting the death of Harry Potter, and Voldemort gloating over it all, Cho finally realized what her mother was saying, realized why she seemed so detached. Cho closed her eyes, focused her mind beyond the castle walls, and looked for Harry.
Even though Harry was being held in the arms of Hagrid the half-giant, Cho could tell the two of them apart. A blue light, roiling and shining like a volcano about to burst, was in the giant's arms.
Cho looked up into her mother's face: "His chi?"
Lotus nodded, trying not to smile.
Cho buried her face in her mother's robes, because she didn't want anyone to see her grinning, almost laughing. Alive! her brain kept shouting to itself: Alive! Alive!
"Now do you want to look at him?" Lotus whispered.
Before Cho could answer, there was shouting from the lawn outside. The Changs made their way to the entrance, which they expected to be crowded with onlookers, but these were already outside, on the steps and on the lawn. They were ready to defend Hogwarts.
The Dark Lord was disputing something with Neville Longbottom; suddenly, he paralyzed the boy, Summoned a hat (which Cho told her parents was the Sorting Hat) on Neville, then set it afire. This was one outrage too far, as the Hogwarts defenders and centaurs and wizards from Hogsmeade and others from Merlin-knows-where closed on the Death Eaters, suddenly trapped between two forces.
As the second stage of the battle started, Cho, who once she got to the main door never took her eyes off of Harry, saw him pull out a cloak and then use it to vanish. Only from sight, as it turned out; she could still see his chi.
A sudden flash of light and motion, and Neville had drawn a sword from nowhere and used it to slice the head off of the gigantic snake that Voldemort wore like a coat. She wasn't sure she wanted to, but Voldemort seemed so affected by this that she tried to see his chi. It was almost too small to be seen: one bilious green spark. In that instant, Cho knew the truth: it's over. He's a walking dead man. Harry has won!
She and her parents couldn't stay where they were, however; with the battle raging between the Dark Lord's giants and a fierce attack by a hippogriff and—Cho's mind froze for a second—a herd of black skeletal horses, the like of which she had never seen before. These flying beasts so harried the giants that both armies were at risk of being trampled, so the battle turned into a rout of both armies seeking shelter in Hogwarts.
Being the last ones to arrive at the door, the Changs were also first inside. Cho grabbed at both her parents and steered them to an almost hidden door opposite the Great Hall, where she pushed them in and closed the door.
Her parents were stunned; they found themselves in a forest, or at least a room enchanted to be very much like a forest. They both looked at Cho.
"This is Professor Firenze's classroom," she explained. "I suppose he needs it like this to feel at home. I've only been in here once, when he spoke to me about Cedric."
Her father, who had been looking around, turned to Cho. "Are you proposing we hide in here?"
"NO! Excuse me, daddy, but we're going to need a minute to regroup, aren't we?"
They listened at the door; sounds of fighting were diminishing.
"I think they've cleared out by now," Lotus said, drawing the sheng of He Xiangu from the folds of one of her voluminous sleeves. "Shall we?"
Xiemin drew the magical wooden sword of Lu Dongbin from his belt. "It's where we're needed."
Cho opened the door, and they stepped out of the classroom, dashing for the Great Hall.
xxx
It was no longer a war but a riot, with friend and enemy packed into the Great Hall like commuters in the Underground. By being the last in, the Changs were able to make short work of seven or eight Death Eaters, with Cho culling them away from the riot with her Patronus, while Lotus disarmed and disoriented them with the sheng and Xiemin delivered the final blows. They stopped when a shout went up, cries of "HARRY!" He had been wearing that cloak, Cho thought; it must be off now.
For the first time since they'd spoken of the Diadem, she heard Harry Potter speak; it was to say "I don't want anyone else to try to help!"
The Changs understood what had happened. Harry had been on a vision quest, and, armed with what he had learned, had come back, armed with the knowledge to take down the Dark Lord. They knew now that all they could do—all that anyone in the Great Hall could do—was watch.
And they watched as Harry told Voldemort about what had happened. And Cho knew, without being told, that Harry was wielding the sharpest blade in the room: the truth. Harry knew Voldemort's plan, and had countered it, step by step, and as he spoke Cho could feel Harry's words chipping away at Voldemort, reducing a mountain of evil magic to a pile of gravel…
and they drew their wands, and they pointed, and they commanded their magic.
And Voldemort fell, no longer a living wizard but an empty husk.
xxx
Being at the outer edge of the crowd, they saw that it would take an hour to move the few yards to be with Harry Potter, since hundreds of others wanted to do the same. Cho's parents looked at her; she smiled, shook her head, and gestured to them to follow her. The family went out onto the lawn, now a brilliant green under a brilliant rising sun.
"Well?" Lotus asked.
"Well, what?"
"Are you going to try to speak to Harry?"
Cho had wondered about that many days this year. He's seemed to have gotten over his mistrust of Marietta, but there was still Ginny Weasley in the picture. She didn't want to have to face that now.
Instead she turned to her parents. "It's been a long night for all of us. Let's just go home. Besides, if someone like Harry Potter doesn't want to be found…"
"Good point," Cho's father said. "Do you think we can declare this a holiday, close the shoppe until tomorrow, and get some rest?"
"Sounds like just what the herbologist ordered," Lotus said.
Cho, between her parents, walked out of the castle, even as students and faculty were rushing up or down the steps outside, running wherever. None of them tried to stop the Changs.
Cho spoke up suddenly as they were crossing the lawn. "I've been thinking about my life," she said, "and I know this is a rotten time to talk about it. But I wanted to tell you what I decided."
Her parents didn't say anything, so Cho went on.
"We all know that Voldemort's war was based on a lie; on the notion that wizards who weren't Pureblood were somehow less than true wizards. And, even though a lot of us refused to believe it, we didn't exactly work to get the message out that Voldemort was lying."
Mister Chang spoke up: "Well, between the Death Eaters silencing the dissidents and the Ministry controlling the Daily Prophet…"
"But Voldemort is gone, for good this time, and the Prophet can print the truth, assuming Minister Thicknesse gets run out of office. Otherwise there's too many who still believe in blood purity, and it can all start all over again."
"I'm afraid to ask this," Lotus said with a sign, "but how does that concern you?"
"It's simple, mummy. I go down to Tutshill, take them up on their training offer, knowing as we do that they'll have an opening for a Seeker. Then I play Quidditch; that's the easy part. And I know I can be a better Seeker than anybody in the league today. So I make a name for myself, the press will want to interview me, and when they do I talk to them about how this preference for Purebloods is a lie. Simple."
Cho's father chuckled; "Except for one or two steps in the middle there. They'll stop interviewing you if you just keep giving the same speech about Purebloods, you know."
"Then I just tell them something different each time. It can't be that hard."
"And if Thicknesse stays the Minister?"
"He can't, mummy; he just can't. I know that people will be working against that starting this very day, including Harry."
"He may want to get some sleep first; I know we all should," Lotus said. "There's time enough for your big plan in a few days."
"You think I'm not serious?"
Cho's mother stopped, and put her hands on Cho's shoulders. "I think you're absolutely serious about trying to change our ways for the better. You have no idea how proud of you we are." She pulled Cho toward her in a fierce hug. When she was done, Cho stepped back, biting her lower lip, tears welling up in her eyes, unable to say a word.
After a minute, Cho's father said, "Time to step off, then."
As they did at the World Quidditch Cup, Cho, between her parents and grabbing onto them tightly, took two short steps and, at the third, bounded up into the sky, headed for Diagon Alley and home.
xxx
A/N: Officially, this is the actual end of my rewrite of the Harry Potter Saga as the Cho Chang Saga. But then there's that pesky Epilogue…
I wrote this fic in part because I saw Cho as one of the few non-western heroines in western lit for young people. I also saw the Cho/Harry ship as sweet, awkward, poignant, and natural; the difference between butterflies and the Chest Monster. Not only did JKR side with Harry/Ginny, which is her right, but when asked about the Ravenclaw Seeker reduced her to (in my opinion) an offhand dismissal: "Cho married a Muggle," which raises as many questions as it answers. This cannot stand.
Therefore, even though I should know better, I have decided to post TWO Epilogues: one based on the Cho/Muggle idea, and one based on JKR's epilogue but bringing Cho into it as well. Coming soon!