EPILOGUE II: "BAD TIME?"
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. In this case, though, since I'm speculating on the Potterverse without guidance from JKRowling, it's more like I'm building a new wing onto the house.
You may notice the first few paragraphs are identical to the beginning of Epilogue 1. There was no reason to change any of it; I just had to change the course of events a little and let a whole new story tell itself.
Rated: R for brief sexual content
Spoilers: None
xxx
Cho stayed remarkably close to the plan she outlined to her parents at Hogwarts. She joined the Tutshill Tornados as a Reserve Seeker, then in six months time was able to play her first professional match. In the interim she practiced harder than she ever had at Hogwarts. She saw that the level of play in professional Quidditch was much faster and much more aggressive than she was used to. She also saw that newspaper accounts of a match bore little resemblance to what really happened on the pitch.
Cho's training mixed Quidditch practice in Tutshill and sessions in the basement walking on teacups. One discipline sharpened her for the other, and in November 1998, when she played her first match as a Seeker for the Tornados, still using her old school broom, the crowd went from amused laughter to stunned silence to hearty cheering in short order. Quoting a piece that appeared in the Christmas Annual edition of "Which Broomstick," their Welsh correspondent wrote: "A Seeker who is about to turn twenty, riding a Comet 260. This sounds like a May-December marriage doomed to fail. And yet Chang of Tutshill achieved miracles during her debut—nothing less. We expect to see continued stellar performances from her."
Cho, however, was as good as her word. She was indeed sought out by the press—from the "Prophet" to sporting magazines, from "Witch Weekly" to "The Quibbler." In each interview, she never failed to work in the history of some stellar Quidditch player, past or present, who was Half-and-Half or even Muggle-born. It never overshadowed her performance, but she saw that it always made it into print—or, in the case of the Wizarding Wireless Network, on the air.
She also spent the first two years shuttling back and forth between Tutshill and Diagon Alley, helping her parents out in the shoppe three days a week on average. Finally, there was a bit of a family row at Christmas 1999, when Cho's mother suggested that she move out of the family home; in fact, out of Diagon Alley altogether. "There's no need to come over so often," Lotus said. "We can certainly take care of ourselves. We've had enough practice at it." They yelled at each other for several hours until Mister Chang tried to calm the troubled waters. "You're twenty years old now, and you should do what people your age do. Go out on your own, see to your own meals and hobbies and entertainment. You'll always be welcome here, of course, but you've still got some growing to do."
Cho had actually been thinking the same thoughts since she joined Tutshill, but hadn't wanted to seem as if she was deserting the family. So, with their knowledge and blessings, she went on her 21st birthday to an agent, who showed her a small fourth-floor walkup apartment. She furnished it, placed her books on Chinese and British magic on the shelves, and (one of the reasons for getting this place) set up a roost under the eaves for Quan Yin.
After five years with the Tornados, Cho announced her retirement from Quidditch. She wasn't injured, and she was only about twenty-five years old. Nor did she say that the game had become boring; the way she played proved she didn't believe that. All she would say was a variation of what she told "Which Broomstick": that "there's something else I need to do." She just didn't yet have an idea what that might be.
At first, Cho returned to the shoppe and to her practice of Chinese magic with her mother, but it wasn't satisfying. There was no real reason to learn all these new techniques, and, besides, her parents had taken on, in Cho's absence, a young apprentice. She seemed very like Cho, a young Asian girl who turned out to be a cousin of a cousin; but she seemed more interested in learning herbology than in chatting up Cho about anything at all. Cho tried on several occasions to draw her out, but she said little. After a while, Cho gave up.
She went to the shoppe on Fridays because the apprentice wasn't old enough or experienced enough to take the week's proceeds to Gringott's; Cho didn't mind doing this. She understood how to fill out the paperwork for the Ministry's Goblin Liaison Office, which had a sub-cabinet post reconciling Gringott's and the Revenue office. Gringott's also had a special goblin teller assigned to these transactions, and, even though he didn't say much more to Cho than the apprentice did, Cho never felt the goblin was deliberately cold toward her. Actually, she considered him to be friendly—for a goblin.
As she finished the paperwork for the deposit one Friday, Cho heard a voice that carried through the quiet marble lobby:
"I need to withdraw this amount from my account, please, and I'd like half of that in Muggle money."
Harry!
Cho knew she didn't have much time. She looked across at the goblin handling her family's account:
"Excuse me, but would it be possible to send an owl?"
The goblin gave her a blank sheet of parchment; she wrote the shoppe's address and the message:
Want to spend some time with an old friend. See you tomorrow.
She gave the goblin the note, pocketed the receipt and looked around the lobby. Harry was still there, pocketing his money.
How to do this? She didn't want to put him on a spot, but she couldn't just let him walk out. They hadn't seen each other since the Battle of Hogwarts, but no need to bring it up now. Then she remembered the time she dropped in on Harry's compartment on the Hogwarts Express, the year after the Tri-Wizard. That hadn't worked too well, since just before she opened the compartment door Neville Longbottom's Mimbulus had just sprayed the compartment with stinksap. Cho tried to make a joke of it, but she had to cut things short. Not this time!
Cho walked silently up behind Harry, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Is this a bad time?"
Harry spun quickly about; he recognized the voice, and his face was already beaming when he saw her. "CHO!" he almost shouted, bringing very stern looks from the staff of goblins. "It's grand to see you! What are you doing here?"
"Taking care of some business for my parents. How about you; what are you doing back in Diagon Alley, Mister Globetrotter?"
"Just taking a few days off from all that," he smiled, although his creased forehead and eyebrows told Cho he had something else on his mind. "I read you left the Tornados; you're back here, then?"
"More or less. I help my parents at the shoppe a few days a week. But I have my own place now, just down the road from the Three Broomsticks."
"Down the road? You mean…"
"Yeh, in Muggle London. It's a nice place and, well, we all have to leave the nest sometime."
"It's been ages since I've seen you, and there's so much to catch up on."
"Then let's catch up over dinner tonight; it'll be my treat. Unless you have plans…" Cho hated herself the moment she said that last sentence.
"Plans? Erm, no, nothing that can't wait…" Even though his words were reassuring, Harry seemed rather nervous. Cho knew she had to push on.
"Then let me change out of these robes, and I'll meet you in front of the Three Broomsticks in…" Cho glanced at the bank clock. "Fifteen minutes; okay?"
"Sounds super."
"See you in fifteen, then!"
Cho turned and ran out of the bank, across to the Three Broomsticks, and out the front door. She lived only a few doors down, but the worst part was having to walk—in this case, run—up four flights. But she did it, tossed off her robes, and quickly decided on what to wear: a black cheongsam with red silk designs and red piping, with tan sandals. Then she almost flew back to the Three Broomsticks, where Harry was sitting at the bar, fending off his own group of well-wishers, much as he'd met his very first day there.
Now, of course, when Cho joined him, Tom the innkeeper was stunned. "Well, now, wouldn't you two be on the cover of 'Witch Weekly!'"
As Harry tried to break free, Cho heard him say, "I'm sorry, but maybe later. We have an engagement—I mean, an appointment!" Harry's words could have been taken a number of ways, but for a moment they made Cho's insides tumble around like a Chaser who'd lost control of the broom.
Out on the pavement, the two took a moment to look at each other. Harry looked like a Muggle businessman after work: shirt open at the collar, no necktie, and a light jacket. He still wore the same wireframe glasses he'd worn at Hogwarts.
He looked at Cho and smiled. "You didn't have to dress up like that for me."
"It was quick, easy, and handy. Really, not so much."
"Well, really, you look beautiful."
"Thanks," she said, barely above a whisper, blushing prettily. "It's … just a shame that girls can never tell a boy that they look beautiful. It just sounds wrong."
"Erm, thanks, I guess."
They stood on the pavement for another minute, just looking into each other's eyes, just as they had done at Hogwarts when they were content to do no more than that—until Cho sort of shook off the memory.
"I did invite you to dinner, after all. Is Italian all right?"
"Yeah, fine."
xxx
The restaurant was only a few streets away; it was small but comfortable, and the décor was neither too garish nor too gloomy.
"Looks like a good place," Harry said.
Cho nodded; "An improvement over my choice of Madam Puddifoot's."
Harry winced a bit as he recalled their Valentine's Day date in Hogsmeade, which had gone so disastrously wrong. "You shouldn't blame yourself; I was a royal prat back then."
"I know, because I was one, too. I shouldn't have forced you into that, Harry. I was missing Cedric and, I suppose, trying to recapture him, somehow. It wasn't fair."
"Well, here's to getting away with no lasting harm." Harry raised his water goblet, and Cho did the same.
"I'm glad to hear that," Cho said as she took a sip. A waiter then brought their order: pork medallions for Harry, chicken vesuvio for Cho. They set to and were silent for a few minutes.
Once a large part of dinner had been eaten, and they'd drunk a bit of the house red wine, they began to talk. Harry, conscious of being in a Muggle restaurant, had to be careful what he told Cho about his work, especially his most recent case. "Had to go all the way to Malaysia. The Ministry wanted a hundred-year-old case reopened. Some really nasty things out there, attributed to what the locals called the Giant Rat of Sumatra."
"Sounds ghastly."
"It was. In fact, the Ministry got my report and locked it up in the file; says the world still isn't ready to hear about it."
"Makes me sound like a complete slacker."
"Don't say that. I've followed every match in your career; thanks to the Prophet, anyway. Couldn't always get to games from the other side of the world."
"Did you really? You followed me?"
""That's an odd question; why wouldn't I?"
"Because, well…" This was the moment Cho had dreaded; what Harry said next would either seal their friendship or kill it for good. "We didn't part on the best terms, because of Marietta. Hear me out! I know she betrayed the Army, but she was still my friend. You wanted me to choose between them, and I couldn't. She's still a friend of mine, in fact." She took another sip of wine. "Does that make a difference, then?"
Harry didn't say anything; he just looked down at the tablecloth, then after a minute his eyes met Cho's. "My last year at Hogwarts, well, when I was on the run from it, I spent a little time at Luna Lovegood's house; have you ever been?" Cho shook her head. "It looked like the tower of an old castle, or like a giant chess piece. But while I was there I had a chance to look into Luna's bedroom. You know she was friends with me and Ron and Ginny, and Hermione and Neville back then. Well, I saw something she put on the ceiling above her bed; it was pictures of the six of us riding brooms, and we were all connected by this golden ribbon that said 'friends.' It had to be the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing at night."
Harry stopped for a minute and sighed. "That was the most touching, and the most pathetic, thing I'd ever seen. Here's this girl who had so few friends in her life that she felt she had to build a shrine, practically, for the friends she had. Since then I've thought about that a lot; and also about you and Marietta. I came to realize that life is just too short to waste any of it being angry at someone because of their choice of friends. I wasted months being mad at Marietta, and being mad at you as well, because you took her side. I didn't want to feel that way but I did, and, well, I'm sorry."
Cho reached across the table, and took Harry's hand in hers. "Thank you for saying that," she said; "I didn't want it to end on that note."
Neither moved or said anything for a minute, until Harry suddenly pulled his hand away from hers. "Dessert?"
"Maybe later," Cho smiled, signaling for the cheque. "Do you fancy a stroll in the night air?"
xxx
They made their way to the Millennium Bridge, which had just been reopened to the public; some sort of design flaw gave it vibrations that took two years to sort out. Now, however, couples and families were walking along the bridge, or, like Harry and Cho, sitting on benches. They were eating lemon ices, and watching the stars wink on in the darkening sky.
"Do you see many of your old friends, then?" Cho asked.
"I saw a lot of Ron and Hermione when I was with the Aurors. I really don't know if I want to stay with the Ministry, though. After Voldemort, they gave me a lot of the hard cases, but that's pretty much done now. They'll keep me on call, but I probably won't hear from them for a while. Just as well, I suppose."
"Ron and Hermione were quite the item at Hogwarts."
"Yeh, and afterwards. He hasn't asked yet, but I expect it's a matter of time."
Cho wanted to keep looking straight ahead, but she turned to Harry: "And Ginny?"
Harry stayed silent for a minute. Cho thought he dreaded hearing the question as much as she dreaded asking it. "I'm going down to the Burrow tomorrow," he finally said. "I was supposed to get in late at night, so I booked a room at the Three Broomsticks, but I caught an early flight."
"You didn't use a Portkey?"
"Can't if you're with the Ministry. The Prime Minister made Minister Shacklebolt swear that nobody dodgy could Port across national borders, but Muggles think Portkeys are dodgy to begin with, so it really hurts. That's 9-11 for you. Anyway, I'll be down with the Weasleys starting tomorrow."
Silence. "And?"
They both knew what Cho meant. "I think it's time. I'm going to ask Ginny to marry me."
Silence again from Cho, so Harry kept talking. "You know how it is, and you know how it's been. I'm glad I ran into you today, Cho, because I really wanted to see you one more time. You're the first girl I ever really, you know, fell in love with, even if it didn't work out. And, believe me, I wish it did, but, well, it just didn't.
"I guess what really drew me to Ginny was her whole family, not just herself, although that's enough right there. But her mum and dad have been like parents to me, and they're links to my real mum and dad; it seems they'll never run out of stories about James and Lily Potter, before they met and right up to when Voldemort killed them. Family is the one thing I've missed all those years with the Dursleys; they treated me like some sort of stray dog and made life miserable right up to the day I discovered I was a wizard. And I always said to myself I'd marry into the best family there ever was; that's my revenge on the Dursleys. But that's just jam on the bread, of course; I've been in love with Ginny for years."
Cho was still silent, looking down at the pavement. "What's wrong, Cho?"
"Nothing." She looked at Harry and smiled. "You're happy with her, and that's the main thing." Then she grabbed one of Harry's hands and stood up. "But now you need to come with me."
"Why?"
"Because I made a promise to myself; a promise about you, even though you don't know it yet."
xxx
By the time they got back to Cho's flat it was late at night; most of the sounds of the city had ceased. Cho led Harry up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door, and opened it.
It looked pretty much as Harry thought it might; some furniture, used and somewhat worn; traditional Chinese art on the walls, doors leading from the parlour to the kitchen and to the bedroom.
There was one other thing in the parlour: a large bookcase that covered most of one wall, from floor to ceiling, with a rolltop writing desk in front; but only half the shelves were filled with books. The rest held plastic cases: row on row of compact disc jewel cases.
"I never expected this!" he said.
"Oh, there's a few of us who don't avoid Muggle tech," Cho smiled. "I rather like the music."
"How many discs do you have?"
"Ah, that's a tricky question. I have much more music than I have CDs, because I download from the Web to the CPU." Cho opened the rolltop, to reveal a monitor screen and a keyboard.
Harry flushed a bit in embarrassment. "Ever since I started at Hogwarts, I lost track of all this sort of stuff."
"You don't need to understand it, Harry. You just need to do one thing you already know how to do."
"And what exactly is that?"
Cho started clicking keys on the keyboard. "Harry, I've always felt totally rotten that I had to say no to your invitation to the Yule Ball. And I truly meant to seek you out that night and dance at least one dance with you. But being with Cedric was just so … befuddling, I guess you'd say. I stopped thinking straight that night, and it lasted far too long. So, no matter what happens tomorrow, tonight is my chance to make it up to you."
"You don't have the Weird Sisters on that, do you?"
"Good Heavens, no; this is more appropriate."
Cho clicked a final key and stood up. Harry just read the words "I'M OLD FASHIONED – JOHN COLTRANE" on the screen when the music started: a jazz trio with saxophone. He turned to Cho, still looking radiant in her black cheongsam.
"Harry Potter, may I have this dance?"
Harry could only nod as Cho stepped toward him, took his right hand in her left, and placed her other hand on his shoulder. Harry wrapped his free hand around her to her back. Cho leaned her head against Harry's chest, and the two began, not exactly dancing, but swaying to the music, holding each other.
Harry felt that he was in a fog; no matter how hard he tried to remember how he'd spent the days before this weekend anticipating the Burrow, the Weasleys, and especially Ginny, all he could see was Cho in his arms; all he could feel was her holding him as he held her; all he could hear was the soft slow jazz in the room and Cho sighing the most contented sigh he had ever heard—
"NO!"
He couldn't help it; a kind of panic took him over. He let go of Cho, took a step backwards. "This … I'm sorry, Cho, it's not right. I, well, I came back to England for Ginny, because I, I didn't exactly promise anything, but I need to, because I, because she … I can't be with you, not here, not now!"
Cho stood still as a statue. Her face was expressionless, yet, familiar as he was with Cho's moods and emotions even if he couldn't put it into words, she seemed on the edge of breaking down.
"Do you mean that, Harry? Do you really mean that?"
In Harry's chest at that moment, it felt like a stone split in two.
"Not one bloody word of it," he said hoarsely, as he stepped back to Cho and kissed her.
xxx
"Harry?"
"Hmm?"
Cho couldn't say anything else. She just reached over to Harry; the room was pitch black, but she didn't need to see him to know where he was, to know where they were, to know what they had been doing.
How long had it been? Hours, it must have been; this dark, it must be before dawn, maybe four. She would know if it was close to dawn. Her hand found Harry's chest, smooth and hairless, taut yet also relaxed. Harry curled one of his hands gently around hers, pulled it toward his face, and kissed one of her fingers. And, for the longest time, even after hours of passionate lovemaking, after the release of what felt like years of bottled-up desire for both of them, she would remember that one kiss on one finger.
They lay together a little while longer, unmoving, silent and happy, until Harry spoke: "Cho?"
"Hmm?"
"Erm, this, this seems like a silly thing to ask…"
"It's a little late in the game to be embarrassed, Harry."
'No, well, I was just wondering, well, do you feel…" His voice trailed off.
"I feel…" She didn't have to search far for the word: "perfect."
"I mean, I've, well, I've never done this before, and I wasn't sure that you…"
Cho shifted in the bed until her face was next to Harry's, and gently kissed his lips. "Full points for Gryffindor," she whispered, then rested her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.
They lay together until Cho saw it—what she'd dreaded seeing.
"Harry."
"Hmm?"
"The sun's coming up; it's time."
From what Harry could see, the curtains were still drawn. Cho caressed his cheek with one thumb. "Look up there." He looked toward the ceiling and saw, in one corner, a gray disk of light against the blackness. "I chose this flat because of that window; very handy for the owl. And it always catches the first light of morning. Better than a clock."
Harry tightened his grip on her. "I really don't want to go."
"And I don't want you to go. But you must, and we both know it."
"Yeh," he sighed. "I know I spent half of last night talking about Ginny, but you're not going to think any less of me, are you?"
"Why? Will you think less of me? Harry, neither of us planned what happened; we met in Gringott's by accident. And I wouldn't change a minute of what happened after that—and certainly not the last few hours."
"It's just that, well, this isn't the sort of thing I can talk to Ginny about. Accident or not, she'd go positively mental."
"Then don't tell her, if you think it's a bad idea. I trust your judgment about Ginny."
"But what if I…" Harry started to ask something, then let it trail off. Nothing he could think of would give him an excuse to stay. He sighed, but not a sigh of contentment like before. This was resignation.
"Harry, please, you love someone who loves you back. Don't feel bad about that on my account."
Harry started getting dressed. Cho just continued to lie in bed, uncovered and completely naked and unconcerned about what Harry could see.
He saw that Cho had grown into a classic Oriental beauty. Her breasts weren't large but they were large enough; her nipples were hard, almost olive-colored (since there was just enough light now to see colours) with hardly any areolae at all. He stopped himself looking beyond that, afraid that he might never leave.
"I'll walk you to the door." She slipped out of bed, still naked, and took his hand in hers, as naturally as they did when they were dating in Hogwarts.
"Well," Harry said, trying to make light of the moment, "maybe Ginny will change and we can all get together again one day."
"You may be right; none of us knows what's to come. Harry, I hope you'll be happy with Ginny, honestly I do."
"Well, if I'm not and it ends up going to pieces, you'll be the first to know." They kissed at the door: not passionately as they did in bed, nor brusquely like two people on a train platform. The kiss was light, lingering, and neither would forget it.
"Goodbye, Harry."
"Goodbye, Cho." And, with part of his brain still unsure why, he left.
As soon as he stepped out onto the road and started toward the Three Broomsticks, Harry heard a voice: Ron Weasley was just coming out of the inn, and had been asking for Harry. Harry knew he had to tell Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys, something; he decided to invent a story about meeting an old school friend—a house-mate from Gryffindor.
Cho watched from her window, still naked. At this hour it was unlikely that anyone was there to see her standing in the window. Harry turned, half-hoping to see her, but, by the time he turned, she was gone.
They would see each other again, in twenty-five years.
xxx
It was a Friday afternoon. Cho had been doing laundry, and was now folding it by hand. She could have spelled everything back into their closets and drawers, but it took up the time, and she liked listening to her music collection while she did so—a collection which had grown in the passing quarter-century.
Just as she finished, there was a knock on the door. Not expecting anyone so soon, she opened the door. The wire-rimmed glasses hadn't changed, except they were a bit worse for wear, and his hair had started to go salt-and-pepper, but his eyes still were the same vivid green.
He grinned like an embarrassed child. "I said you'd be the first…"
He never finished the sentence as Cho threw herself into his arms and kissed him.
An hour later they were sitting in her kitchen, holding hands and coffee cups, gazing into each other's eyes and smiling. They may have started trying to recreate that night of passion, but quickly realized: they were older—decades older.
"So, you actually left Ginny?"
"Yeh, the minute she threw me out."
"Harry, what happened?"
"Devil if I know," he said, a little too breezily; Cho let it pass for now. He's hiding something. If he keeps talking, she felt, he might tell the truth in spite of himself.
"Is she still here in London?"
"Maybe. She's all alone in the house if she is here. She's probably gone to her parents, giving them her side of the story."
"Where is the house?"
"Where it's always been, on Grimmauld Place. I inherited it from Sirius Black, you know."
Cho nodded. "Seems you had a very colourful family after all."
Harry sipped his coffee. "Not all of them. Our kids are grown now and moved out; I'm lucky if I hear from them on the hols. And I get back in London today and Ginny gives me this." He pulled some papers out of his pocket and dropped them on the table.
"So she brought the action?" Harry nodded. "The law doesn't admit to many grounds."
"She said I abandoned her."
"Even though you were still living there? She must have had a very clever solicitor."
"That's the only funny part of the whole thing. Her solicitor was my Muggle cousin Dudley Dursley."
"Pull the other one!"
"Just give me a few more minutes."
"Cheeky. But tell me about Dudley."
"As I got the story, he was still pretty much of a bruiser, although he behaved when I was around. Must have been because I saved him from a Dementor. Anyway, when he turns eighteen, he starts looking for work, and finds a spot where his brawling could be put to use: he became a constable."
"Now you ARE joking!"
"S'truth. He figured he could knock heads together and get paid for it. After a while, though, he surprised everybody. He noticed that barristers do less physical labour than the police, and get paid better, so he went into law school. It must have been tough for him, but the police work gave him a leg up, and, well, he graduated. He worked for a couple of seedy firms before striking out on his own. Had a bit of success at it."
"What could Ginny say to convince him that you'd abandoned her?"
Harry shrugged. "It all happened so fast, I didn't read the whole thing yet."
By way of reply, Cho cast a wandless Accio spell on the divorce papers. Once she had them in hand, she looked at Harry, with a deep sadness. "You know I'm willing to let you stay here as long as you like, but not if you're going to lie to me."
Harry started to say something once or twice, but then the look on Cho's face made him give it up. "You're right," he sighed; "it was the first thing I read, of course. It just, it showed how insecure and spiteful Ginny was all this time. I don't know why I didn't see it; maybe I just didn't want to see it."
"What happened?"
"About two years ago, we'd gone to visit one of the kids in their new flat. Albus, it was; wanted to set it up with no help from us. So we were there for a couple of hours, and then we walked back to Grimmauld Place." He paused for a few seconds. "And the way home took us past Regent Park."
Cho thought about that for a few seconds, then her eyes went wide. "Oh, Harry, no," she said, almost in a whisper.
"Yeh, that's exactly what happened. We stopped to look at the swans, and I remembered you and your Patronus. The next thing I know, she's punching my arm asking if I'd fallen asleep."
"Of course you tried to reassure her."
"I tried, I suppose, but not very hard. I thought it was such a foolish thing for her to worry about, and I probably sounded that way. You know I never tried to get hold of you from that day to this, but she seemed to think I'd…"
"Lost interest?" Cho got up from her chair, and held out her hand for Harry to do the same. She put her arms around Harry.
"We've known each other for decades," she said softly. "And I can't even remember a day any more when I wasn't in love with you. But I have to ask this. You know better than I what life married to Ginny was like: the daughter of your friends, the mother of your children. I don't know now if you're here because you want to be with me, or if she sent you packing and you just were looking for a friend. I'll always be that friend, Harry; I hope you know that. But if there's some part of you that still wants to be with her, if Ginny were to reach out and ask to have you back, well, what would you do? If that was what you wanted, I'd let you go, of course, even though it might kill me to do it."
Harry stood silent and still for a few seconds, then gave a rather weak smile and kissed Cho. "No fear, Cho; I'm here now because, even though there's places all over London I could be, I can't be anywhere else. If Ginny changed her mind now, it wouldn't change a thing; now I know what she's about, and I can't deny it. I guess we both made a mistake wanting each other, and I know that now because I never felt like this with her."
"Honestly? How did you feel?"
"What did you say about Cedric last time: you felt befuddled? I guess that was it. It all made sense at the time."
Cho smiled and hugged him tighter. Still, she thought, there's something he's hiding; something he's embarrassed to admit, I suppose. I know you'll tell me, Harry; just take whatever time you need.
Just as Harry started to kiss her again there came a loud banging on the door followed by an equally loud yell: "ARMFUL OF GROCERIES!"
Cho put one finger on Harry's lips, then turned to answer the door.
"Messenger service?" Harry asked.
"In a manner of speaking," Cho smiled, as she opened the door.
Whoever it was had a double armful of groceries, which obscured the speaker's entire face. He could tell from the voice it was a young woman, who kept up a nonstop chatter from the door to the kitchen. "The crowd at the market was an absolute bitch—pardon my French," she said as she placed the paper bags on the kitchen counter. "I don't know if they were having some sort of giveaway or…" She stopped talking as she saw Harry. Now he could see she was a young adult, with her own pair of wire-rimmed glasses tinted black, and with short raggedly-cut hair, almost as if she'd done it herself.
She stared at Harry, while a smile slowly spread on her face like a sunrise. "It's time, innit?" she asked Cho.
Cho nodded: "Yes, it's time."
"Time for what?" Harry asked.
"Well, you wouldn't tell me, even after it got obvious…"
"It only seemed obvious to you, because you were so…"
"I know, I know; wit and learning. Can we forget about Ravenclaw?"
"Not even with a hundred Memory Mods!"
"Erm," Harry interrupted, "excuse me, but…"
"Sorry, sorry. Harry, this is Chinhua."
"Awful name, innit?" the young woman interrupted. "It was even worse when I found out it meant 'golden flower.' Does that sound like some cliché or not? After a while, I found out what the Golden Flower means in Chinese magic; pretty important, actually, so I got used to it."
"Give him a minute, please!" Cho laughed. "Anyway, Harry, this is your daughter."
The whole world felt as if someone had slammed on the brakes. He fell back into a chair, still looking at this perfect stranger who…
"There were always clues, of course," Chinhua said as she walked up to Harry and lifted her glasses. "These were a bit of a giveaway." Behind the tinted lenses, under the epicanthal folds, her oriental eyes were the same vivid green as Harry's. "Oh, and they're not for show, either; I've needed glasses since I was nine. Another present you left me."
"WAIT!" Harry couldn't help shouting; everything was moving too fast. He'd just gotten back home after travelling on Ministry business—which he'd stretched out as if he knew what Ginny had waiting for him; then after losing Ginny he'd found Cho again, only to also find…
"Chinhua," Cho said, "would you please put up the groceries?"
"But I want to hear this!"
"Right, then. Chinhua, would you please go into the kitchen so I can talk to Harry privately?"
"Oh, it's THAT kind of talk, eh? Well, don't make too much noise; I'm still young and impressionable." She lifted her glasses, winked at Harry, then went into the kitchen.
Harry, still stunned, looked at Cho, who was chuckling. "I don't know where she gets that," she smiled, "but she can always make me laugh."
"Wait. So she… you and I…"
"That's all it took."
"Then, well, why the hell didn't you TELL ME!" Harry was somehow fearful of what happened: how he had been kept from knowing about this, his fourth child. Part of him felt panic rising, and he fell back on anger.
Cho, however, simply smiled. "Harry, think about it: what would have been the point? If I'd gone looking for you before you married Ginny—or, worse, after—it would have just rattled everything. I show up and say, 'Guess what's cooking in the cauldron!' Everybody would be upset. Ginny would hate you and me; worse, you might try to split yourself between two families and end up hating both of us. It just made more sense to wait until you had to know."
"But you and…"
"Chinhua."
"I mean, I could have helped…"
"And if help were needed, I would have asked. I AM a Ravenclaw, you know. So what do you think it means that I didn't ask?"
Harry started blushing. "That you didn't need help?"
"My mother helped with some things, but money was never an issue. I made an obscene amount flying for Tutshill."
"And you never got mad at me for not being around?"
"I missed you, Harry, but that's as far as it went."
"And as for me," Chinhua cut in, leaving the kitchen where she seemed to be listening by the door, "mummy always insisted I was never to hate or think ill of you. If you couldn't be here, she said you had your reasons. And now you have your reasons to be here after all, so it's all good."
Part of Harry wanted to explode; he felt that he'd been manipulated somehow. But, try as he might, he couldn't stay angry. Instead, he half-chuckled, turned to Chinhua and asked, "So is this what it's like when you love a Ravenclaw?"
"You should have had one for a mother," Chinhua smiled. "If I ever wanted to skive off some work, she'd give me ten reasons why I should do it anyway. And if I wanted to do something a little dodgy, she'd have twenty reasons why I shouldn't. It was always simpler just to listen to her."
"Thank you for that," Cho smiled. "Now, could you go back to the kitchen just for a minute?"
"Oh, all right," Chinhua said with mock reluctance, "but don't wear yourselves out. My debut's tonight."
"I remember, but this is important."
Chinhua saluted Cho, then went back into the kitchen.
"She's really something," Harry smiled, shaking his head.
"Harry, did you mean that?"
"Mean what?"
"Just now, when you asked if that's what it was like to love a Ravenclaw. That's…" She wrapped her arms around Harry. "That's the first time you ever said you loved me."
"The first? Are you sure?" Cho nodded. "Funny; I lost track of the number of times I thought it."
A tear started to form in the corner of Cho's eye; Harry kissed her. "I love you, Cho, and I want to spend the rest of my life here, with you and Chinhua."
Cho still had one misgiving about Harry but, before she could speak it, Chinhua burst out of the kitchen. "Tempus fugit, people! The show starts in an hour!"
"What show?!" Harry asked even as Cho pushed and Chinhua dragged him out the door.
xxx
From the street "Inside Outside" looked like any of a hundred other youth clubs scattered around London. The curtains were drawn and the door was closed, although there was a board on the sidewalk that announced : World Premiere Tonight! DJ MickMack and Chinwag. Harry barely had time to read the sign before he was dragged inside.
Again, it didn't look out of the ordinary inside. A dozen or so mismatched tables, chairs, and an assortment of posters on the wall. The posters, however, were of U2 and The Weird Sisters; Muggle musicians and those from the wizarding world. Dispensers were brewing coffee and tea, while bottles of Muggle fizzy drinks and butterbeer chilled in ice-filled tubs.
Harry turned to Cho: "Does the Ministry know about this?"
Chinhua answered instead: "If they know, they haven't said anything. Relax, daddy; they're not worried about cross clubs."
"Cross clubs?"
"A few years ago, Muggles on the Internet started making contact with some of us who were also online. After a while they started meeting in older established clubs, and then in clubs of our own. There are quite a few around London."
"How many is quite a few?"
"Nobody knows, really; the Ministry can't enforce the Secrecy Statutes because they never expected magic-Muggle contact like this. There's no real magic done of an evening at the clubs; it's just a social gathering."
"You saw the sign on the way in, right?" Chinhua asked excitedly.
Harry nodded. "I guess you're Chinwag, then." Cho rolled her eyes. "Who's the other one?"
"MickMack has been the DJ here for a couple of years. Actually, we met in Hogwarts; we were both in Ravenclaw. We both liked listening to Muggle music, and we started performing it, just for the Common Room at first. Tonight will be our first time in a club!"
"Next questions: what's a DJ, and what kind of name is MickMack?"
"Allow me." The voice behind Harry was of a young man who stood almost a head taller than Harry, Cho and Chinhua. He had dark eyes, unkempt sandy-brown hair and a bushy brown mustache. He thrust his hand out toward Harry, who shook it automatically; the gesture vaguely reminded Harry of something. "I'm Michael Macmillan, MickMack when I DJ. I can't wait for my da to get here; he's gone on about you for years; he'll be so chuffed to see you again."
Harry couldn't place this young man at first, much less imagine who his father might be. He glanced toward Cho, but she and Chinhua were at a makeshift stage in the corner of the club, where two chairs and two guitars were set up.
"Erm, right. And pardon my asking, but how do you DJ?"
"I guess you'd call me a Master of Ceremonies, really. I program background music most nights, mix tracks, introduce live acts if we have them; haven't done that too often. Mostly I just suss out the mood of the place, and match up the music to the mood."
"HARRY POTTER!"
Harry turned at the shout. At first he couldn't see who it was; the club was starting to fill up. Then a full-faced man, whose sandy hair was shot through with white, and with wizard's robes thrown over a three-piece suit, worked his way to the two and pumped Harry's hand fiercely.
"By the Lord, Harry, damned good to see you after all these years! The last time has to be the Battle, eh?"
Now Harry placed him: Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff who even as a youth seemed puffed-up and at first was suspicious of Harry, especially during the Chamber of Secrets business, but who later became a fierce ally.
"So, Michael's your son, then?"
"And who'd have thought our family trees would cross at the upper branches, eh? I don't know where you've been hiding yourself, but you've got to come round some Sunday so we can catch up."
Harry had heard words like those so many times that he usually brushed them aside, or referred these requests to Ginny to see what she wanted. Now that it was on his shoulders, he realized he wanted to go.
"I'd like that, yeh. What do you make of all this?"
"What? The mash-up, as Michael calls it? It's not Ministry approved, of course, but frankly I like it. There's an energy here, a reaching across the boundaries; it's just a lark, but I get the feeling something important could come of all this."
Michael clapped his hand on his dad's shoulder. "We're starting in a minute, da. Better grab a table."
Cho walked up to them at that moment. "You're welcome to sit with us, Ernie."
"That'd be grand, Cho, simply grand!" Harry found himself sandwiched between Cho and Ernie, as the house lights dimmed and Michael and Chinhua took the stage.
"Well, this is the big test, innit?" Michael said to the fifty or so people in the audience. He had an easy-going sense of humour about him, and Harry could tell they wouldn't have to work hard at winning over the audience. "Biggest test of all, though is that both our fathers are here tonight. That's a first, and I'm nervous about it. You nervous?" he asked Chinhua.
Her answer was a completely deadpan "Terrified." It seemed to Harry that everyone in the place laughed at that.
"Here we go, then."
Michael started strumming some chords while Chinhua played a light countermelody. Then he started singing Jim Croce's "I've Got a Name." At first, Harry looked about the club, watched Chinhua and Michael performing, looked at Cho positively beaming over her daughter—THEIR daughter. Ernie watched with his chin in his hands and elbows on the table. As Harry watched, a single tear rolled down his cheek. When the song ended, he loudly applauded; he would have jumped to his feet, Harry thought, if the place weren't so crowded.
After that it was a near-perfect set; tunes by the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, and even Green Day's "Good Riddance" to finish. Michael did most of the talking and had a very winning personality as well as a fine singing voice. Chinhua often only sang harmony but was the better guitarist.
Between the two sets, Harry asked Ernie about Michael.
"Surprised the dickens out of me that he was Sorted into Ravenclaw, but I should have seen that coming. He was always brilliant, nose buried in a book or listening to his mum's music, and I mean really listening. It's like he was looking for something there." Ernie took a sip of the ale he'd ordered, then sat silently for a minute.
Harry realized he had to ask, since Cho wasn't forthcoming with information. "What about his mother?"
Ernie looked straight ahead. "Sylvia Thundertree was just a junior clerk at the Ministry when I met her, just after I left Hogwarts. But I knew there was something about her. We dated a while, then we got married, and Michael came along." Ernie sat still at the table.
"After a few years she started having problems. I took her to Healers and Muggle doctors. And … it was cancer. Stomach. Pretty bad by the time they caught it; not much they could do. We lost her just a month before Michael was supposed to go to Hogwarts. At first he refused to go; can you imagine? He was worried about me being all alone, you see.
"He went, and was sorted into Ravenclaw, where he met Chinhua. I don't know how, but they found a couple of old guitars in the House, and they've been like brother and sister from that day to this. He'd come home for every vacation, though, and play me whatever songs he'd learned, and sometimes Chinhua would come over too. I was glad to see them together; I think it did them both good."
"I know it did," Cho added. "Harry and I were the same way: we found our brothers and sisters at Hogwarts. The place felt like home."
Just then the concert started again, with "Carolina in My Mind." This time, before the song was over, tears had run down Harry's cheek, and didn't stop until after the last song.
Even as Michael and Chinhua made their way to the table after the set, Harry's head was on the table, resting on his arms. Cho told Ernie "We'll be in touch" and complimented Michael on the music, then tried to talk to Harry. At first he didn't say a word.
"Daddy, what's wrong?" Chinhua asked.
After a minute Harry said: "I am. I got it wrong. I've been wrong this whole time."
"Talk to us, Harry," Cho said softly.
"I, I never forgave the Dursleys for the way they treated me. And I couldn't forgive Voldemort for taking away my parents. Not until the end, anyway, and I had to die and come back again to understand it all. And I put so much faith in Ginny, and, and today she…" Harry had to pause and take deep breaths to stay in one piece. "And that's all a lie. I wanted to be a Weasley so bad that I didn't say or do anything once we were married to keep it together, to make sure everything was all right. I made all the choices, and Ginny let me, but I never worried about how she felt or what she thought. We were in the family, and that was all that mattered."
Cho raised his head up so they could see each other. "Harry, this afternoon I asked you whether you'd go back to Ginny if you had the chance. Whether we like it or not, this is that chance."
Harry tried to speak, but no words came out at first. Finally, he shook his head. "I thought I knew what the answer was; I thought I knew what a family was. And I was so full of that idea that I ignored the Weasleys almost all of the time I was with Ginny. They were just too polite to call me out on it, I suppose. And today I find you and Chinhua and even Ernie Macmillan and Michael and, and Merlin knows who else will appear tomorrow. I know now. I know it's not about having a family; everybody's got that anyway, for good or ill. It wasn't until today I realized what I wanted all this time: a home. Even when I was married to Ginny, I've never had a home."
Cho thought for a minute, then stood up, reached down and took one of Harry's hands in her own.
"Well, then," she smiled, "let's go home, Harry Potter."
She helped him up, and, with his daughter Chinhua on one side and his beloved Cho Chang on the other side, they left the club.
xxx
A/N: You may know that "the giant rat of Sumatra" was a case alluded to in a Sherlock Holmes story of Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire." Holmes tells Watson in passing that it is "a story for which the world is not yet prepared." It's one of the most famous teases in literature, and quite a few writers have tried their hands at telling the tale.
So; here it is. Pretty much the end of a long and winding road, telling the Harry Potter Saga from Cho's point of view, and getting to a rather different Happily Ever After ending. Obviously, some will disagree that this is how to leave it, but, in any event, it's a tribute to JK Rowling and her industry and imagination that she was able to paint such a magnificently detailed picture. I just hope I did it the best justice I could with my own copy.