Cho Chang and the Goblet of Fire: An Alternate Fanfic
By monkeymouse
Based on writings by JK Rowling
Part Two: 25 June, 1995
xxx
Cho spent a very fitful night, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, before waking and turning the problem over in her mind again and again. Where was Harry? What had happened to Cedric? How could the Ministry have let the Tournament go so horribly wrong?
As soon as there was enough light in the east to see by, she was out of her dormitory in Ravenclaw and knocking on the door to the hospital wing. She waited, then tried the door; it was locked. She knocked again. This time, Madam Pomfrey opened the door just a crack.
"Miss Chang," she sighed, "I understand you're anxious about Mister Diggory, but not letting him sleep isn't going to help. There's nothing new to tell you in any event. If you'll come back after breakfast, maybe we'll all feel…"
Cho spun angrily on her heel and briskly walked down the corridor. Nobody was in the corridor, and anyone who saw her would have described her as seething. In her frustration, she actually punched at a suit of armour.
"Hey, watch that!" the armour complained.
Cho muttered, "Sorry," and kept walking toward the Great Hall, hardly seeing where she was. It was maddening. In the six months she had known Cedric, the six months they'd been a couple, she could count on one hand the number of days they hadn't been with each other. Even studying for her O.W.L.s, even taking the O.W.L.s, hadn't gotten in the way. But the Cedric she knew, the Cedric she loved, and who she thought loved her, would certainly have asked to see her, to explain to her about whatever had happened after he and Harry had disappeared. This was all wrong. Why didn't he want to see her?
She was so wrapped up in this situation that she almost let Amos and Celia Diggory walk right past her, headed for the hospital wing. They either didn't remember her, having been introduced by Cedric yesterday, or they too had Cedric on their minds. As it is, Cho stopped in the corridor, let the Diggorys walk a few paces past her, then turned and followed after them.
Pride be damned, she thought. If Pomfrey won't let me in there in my own right, I'll trail along behind them and see what happens.
She walked along behind Cedric's worried mother and angry-looking father. The mother; she'd be the one to approach. Amos Diggory looked as if he wanted to take a bite out of the suit of armour Cho had punched earlier; as they passed it, Cho could swear she saw the armour flinch at Amos.
Amos strode up to the door, pounding on it with his fist as if he meant to break through it. His wife hung a few paces back; Cho decided that this was her moment. "Pardon, Missus Diggory," she said, barely above a whisper, "but Cedric introduced us yesterday. I'm…"
Before she could even get her name out, the door to the hospital wing opened, and Celia Diggory turned away to focus on Madam Pomfrey. At first she looked as if she was going to bark at Amos Diggory, but her face softened a bit. Just a bit.
"Amos, I don't blame you for what you must be going through," Pomfrey began.
"How nice of you," he snapped back. "Why didn't we stay in Hogwarts instead of that barnyard Rosmerta calls an inn?!"
"Headmaster's orders. Until we know what happened, we have to assume your son was attacked, and you being a Ministry official were considered safer away from the castle."
"This isn't about my safety. Now, stand aside!" Without waiting, he shoved his way into the wing, with his wife right behind him. A second later, while the door was still open a crack, Cho slipped in.
She was familiar with the hospital wing, having sustained a number of Quidditch injuries over the years. The ward seemed to be empty except for a bed at the other end of the room, around which Pomfrey had already put up curtains. Cho ducked into Pomfrey's office next to the door, leaving the office door ajar. At least she could hear what was going on, if not see it.
"I'm sorry, Cedric," Pomfrey was saying, "but I couldn't keep them out."
"It's all right," Cho heard the familiar voice of Cedric, sounding not sleepy or tired but exhausted. "I heard the commotion, and figured it was either a herd of hippogriffs or my old man." Cedric paused a moment, then said, "Are you both all right?"
Celia started to speak: "It's you everyone is worried about."
"NO!" Cho almost cried out herself when she heard Cedric's shout. He sounded terrified; there was no other word for it. "Sorry, mum," he said after a minute's silence, "but I guess my nerves are still a bit of a wreck after last night."
"You'd better not let anyone hear you talk like that," Amos interrupted. "You're just about to get out of school, and as the TriWizard Champion to boot. Any position you want at the Ministry would be yours for the asking. If you give them reason to think you're not up to scratch…"
"Amos, stop that." Cho realized that Cedric's parents had the kind of marriage in which Celia didn't have to shout at her husband to get him to see reason.
Pomfrey spoke next: "I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will be down to speak with you soon. Is there anything you can tell us in the meantime? About last night."
Cedric didn't speak for a minute; when he did, his voice was soft and husky, in a way Cho had never heard it before. "It's all a blur, I'm afraid."
"Do you know where Mister Potter is?"
Cedric mumbled something that Cho couldn't make out.
"Could you say that again, please? Louder?"
"I DON'T KNOW WHERE HARRY POTTER IS ANYMORE, YOU STUPID OLD COW! IS THIS LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!"
Celia sounded as if she was in tears, "Madam Pomfrey, is there anything…"
"As I told you before, he needs to rest. No distractions and no excitement, until we get to the bottom of this. Will the two of you please go home? I'll Floo you if he takes any kind of a turn."
"I'll go home by way of Minister Fudge's office," Amos snarled as he strode down the length of the ward, again leaving his wife and Madam Pomfrey to try to catch up. "I need some answers about who's running this school." Cho stayed watching in Pomfrey's office, realizing that she could be seen but unable to hide.
As Amos Diggory reached for the door, it was opened from the outside by Albus Dumbledore.
"Albus, you're just the man I want to see," Amos began.
"Yes, I imagine so," the headmaster replied, "but right now your son is the man I want to see. Please give me one minute alone with him."
"He's very excitable just now, headmaster," Madam Pomfrey said. "Talking about the tournament might set him off."
"Then I won't do any talking. Wait for me outside, please."
The Diggorys left, reluctantly. Dumbledore strode down to the curtained-off bed with Cedric Diggory in it, with Madam Pomfrey at his elbow. They seemed not to have seen Cho, who breathed a very careful sigh of relief. She closed the door to about halfway, so she could still hear but was less likely to be seen. Cho strained her ears but, true to his word, Dumbledore didn't say anything; after a minute at Cedric's bedside, he left the wing.
As he did, Cho heard Cedric speak: "Madam Pomfrey?"
"Yes?"
"I don't want any visitors, not yet."
"Well, that won't be easy. I expect all of Hufflepuff and half the students from the other Houses will be down in short order. In fact, you had a visitor this morning early, even before your parents showed up."
"Who was it?"
"Your Miss Chang."
There was a pause. "Madam Pomfrey, swear to me that you won't let Cho in to see me."
"Personally, I think she might be a bit of a pick-me-up…"
"Swear it!"
After a pause, a very confused sounding Madam Pomfrey said, "Very well, Mister Diggory. I will not let her in."
"Tell her I'm unstable; tell her whatever you like. I just can't see her now; not like this. Later."
Pomfrey nodded and turned back toward her office. As she walked the length of the ward, she thought she saw the main door closing by itself.
xxx
Cho skipped breakfast altogether. Instead she went to the Quidditch stadium. A number of Aurors were still guarding the maze, or looking for clues as to whatever happened. Cho stood a minute watching one witch who looked young enough to have just gotten out of Hogwarts herself. She had a pleasant smile and a head of short-cropped hair the color of violets. Unfortunately, she seemed to catch her toe on the roots of one of the gigantic shrubs that made up the maze, lost her balance and fell on her face.
"Pick 'em up, Dora," said a round wizard in seedy-looking robes. "You want them to take you seriously, don't yeh?"
Cho went on to Madam Hooch's office, where the school brooms had been relocated for the duration of the Tournament. She found her Comet Two-Sixty after about five minutes' searching; not that she could confuse it with other brooms, but there were literally hundreds to sort through. She wasn't sure where to fly, but she was sure of one thing:
she had to fly.
She took the broom up to the Astronomy Tower and circled it for a few minutes, not really noticing anything about the castle below. She was trying to sort out the biggest mystery she had ever been confronted with, a mystery that apparently also had a dozen Aurors and the Hogwarts faculty trying to solve it.
They, however, didn't have as much invested in this mystery as she did. What had happened to Cedric Diggory? What had happened to the boy she loved, the boy who was going to ask her after the Tournament—win or lose—to marry him? Wherever he and Harry Potter had gone for that lost hour, Harry was still nowhere to be found, and Cedric was definitely not his old self. His nerves were broken, maybe shattered beyond repair.
No; she wouldn't admit to that. Even if he's a mental case for the rest of his life, even if it means she would be his nurse as well as his wife, Cedric was still here. Cedric was still alive. They still had a chance at a life together.
But none of this was answering the question: what had happened. She started to fly over the maze, and was just about to cross above it when her way was blocked by a shower of blue stars.
"Hey, you! Get out of that!" One of the Aurors was shouting at her. "The Ministry has declared this maze a danger zone. Nobody goes in, near, over or under without approval for the duration."
For a minute, Cho thought about putting this wizard's words to the test: flying to the center of the maze at high speed, to see for herself what might have happened. But then, she realized that the wizard had both a broom and a wand, and she'd left her wand in her dormitory room.
I'll never make that mistake again, she told herself, as she started flying around the edge of the maze. She hoped that there was a weak spot, where she could slip in unnoticed. Unfortunately, there always seemed to be an Auror or two watching her. Finally, she gave up and went back to the castle. This time, though, she took her broom with her up to her dorm room. By then, it was time for lunch, and Cho was definitely feeling her missed breakfast.
xxx
After lunch, Cho went to the Ravenclaw Common Room; the weather outside was perfect, and she hoped to find a book that would let her rest in the sun, or under a tree, or on the great stone steps. As she had so many times in the last few months with Cedric…
Cedric again. There was no way around it: no book would ever present a puzzle more complex, or more vital, than the mystery in the hospital wing. Nothing left to do but try again.
She wanted to check the Great Hall, just to see if Madam Pomfrey was having lunch. I doubt it, Cho thought; if it were me, I'd have lunch delivered to the wing. Still, I have to try.
She went past the hospital wing, of course, and when she did she heard a loud and angry shouting match: two men yelling at each other in some foreign tongue. She could also hear Madam Pomfrey trying to calm things down, but the foreign argument kept on. After a minute, the door to the wing flew open, and Cho barely had time to hide around the corner as two men spilled out into the hall, still arguing: Durmstrang Champion Viktor Krum, and Durmstrang's Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff. They went down the hall, still arguing in Bulgarian. At that moment, Peeves, Hogwarts' resident poltergeist, squeezed through the gap under the door, wearing what looked like a white laboratory coat worn by Muggle doctors and carrying a sheaf of papers.
A second later, Pomfrey burst through the door. "Peeves! Bring that back!"
"Very interesting case, this," Peeves said in an affected upper class accent. Then he cackled as he floated down the corridor ahead of Pomfrey. "Patient just isn't himself these days. What a shame."
Cho realized that she might not have much time, so she waited until Peeves, with Pomfrey right behind him, turned a corner, then dashed into the wing. She closed the door and went right to Cedric's bed at the end of the wing.
Cho doubted that Cedric was asleep, what with the Bulgarians and the poltergeist. Sure enough, he was still in bed, looking pale and trembling like a scared rabbit.
"Don't be mad at Madam Pomfrey, Ced," Cho said, coming up beside Cedric's bed. "I had to sneak in. Nobody's saying anything and I couldn't stand not knowing." Cedric still trembled, holding the covers up to his eyes. She sat on the next bed. "Why haven't you said anything, or sent word you were alive? I've been going out of my mind."
Cedric brought the blanket down to his chin. He smiled weakly. "I know the feeling."
"If you don't want to talk about it, I understand, and you don't have to. But where's Harry? Can you at least say where Harry is?"
Cedric looked as if he was going to start sobbing. He covered his eyes with one hand and muttered the word, "Lost." After a minute's silence: "I'm sorry, Cho, but I can't talk about this right now. I just can't."
"Nobody's blaming you for anything, if that's what has you worried," Cho said, trying to sound soothing. She reached toward Cedric, who cowered away from her hand as if it were a tarantula. "Cedric, I'm, I'm sorry, but…"
They were interrupted by a stream of colorful cursing coming through the door from the corridor.
"Hide," Cedric whispered.
"Where?"
"Under the bed." Cho gave him a puzzled look; he smiled weakly back. "Last place they'd look, isn't it?"
Cho nodded, and crawled under just as the door flew open and she heard the last voice she wanted to hear: that of Severus Snape.
"Don't press your luck, Alastor," Snape was shouting. "Madam Pomfrey says he's in no shape to be interrogated."
"Don't tell me my job, Severus! Every moment is a memory, and every second means the lad is forgetting some important bit of information!" That was Professor Moody, this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
"Your orders are clear, from the Ministry and from the Headmaster!"
"Stop pretending to love the rules so dearly. It must be driving you mad, isn't it; Lily's boy vanished into thin air, and you can't go chasing around for him because of those precious rules."
Cho couldn't see anything from under the bed, but it sounded as if Moody had said the one thing that would enrage Snape. "This is one promise that has nothing to do with the rules," Snape snarled. "You will never mention that name to me again, or it will cost you the other eye. Are we clear?"
"Very clear," Moody sneered. "I saw through you years ago. Just you go on the way you're going. You'll bring yourself down, and I won't have to do a thing about it."
There was a slam, then Moody's voice came faintly through the door. "You think you know security, Severus, and you can't even keep meddling little mice out of the wing."
Cho froze. She'd forgotten about Moody's weird eye. He must have been able to see her under the bed. She looked at the floor and saw Snape's robes approaching.
Suddenly Cedric croaked out: "Help … Help me."
Snape's pace quickened as he walked up to the bed.
"Get … Pomfrey. Can't … breathe," Cedric gasped.
Snape turned and almost ran out of the wing.
"Cho, get out," Cedric whispered.
Cho crawled out from under the bed. "Good thinking; thanks," she smiled.
"He'll be back any moment; get going! I'll talk to you tomorrow; promise."
"See you tomorrow, then." Cho smiled and ran out of the wing.
It wasn't until she was halfway to Ravenclaw that Cho stopped in her tracks. Hiding under the bed? Faking an attack to get her out? Cedric had a sense of humor but he was never a trickster; he was open and honest. He'd changed in a day's time; was that even possible, whatever he and Harry had endured in that missing hour? And why wouldn't he speak of Harry?
She'd learned something today: that much of what happened was still being hidden from her.
xxx
continued in part 3: 26 June, 1995