Cho Chang and the Goblet of Fire: An Alternate Fanfic

By monkeymouse

Based on writings by JK Rowling

Part Three: 26 June, 1995

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It was late June; the days were as long as they could be. Cho, who hadn't had a good night's sleep since the Third Task, was up with the sun, threw on her robes and was down to the Common Room in a minute's time.

A boy from her year, Eddie Carmichael, was already down there. Like Cho, he had finished his O.W.L.s before the Third Task, and should have had no reason to be up before he had to be. Cho realized that Eddie must have slept in the Common Room and awoken just now.

His eyes were narrow slits of their former selves as he walked, very slowly, to the stairs leading up to the boys' dormitories. Rather than climb the stairs, though, he sat heavily down on the first step and turned himself so that his forehead was resting against the stone wall.

"Not feeling well, eh?" Cho asked.

Eddie didn't move. "No wonder you're a Ravenclaw," he muttered, his eyes closed.

"Should I send for Pomfrey?"

"This isn't anything I want the school to know about. A bunch of us have been trying to work up a spell that'll turn water to firewhiskey."

"Looks like it worked."

"Too well. Remind me never to use myself as a guinea-pig."

"I think you'll remember it for yourself," Cho smiled. She then went to the fireplace, took a pinch of Floo powder from the bowl on the mantelpiece, tossed it into the fire, and spoke in Mandarin Chinese.

The scene in the fireplace immediately changed to the hearth of the Chang household. At first, Cho couldn't see anything moving except the family cat, who acted as if Cho wasn't there (which, technically, she wasn't). After a minute, Cho's mother came into the room from the kitchen, wiping her hands with a towel.

"Ah, I thought I heard you. Is everything all right?"

"That's what I'm still trying to find out."

"Is this about your, erm, friend?" Cho's mother had yet to mention Cedric by name, and only referred to him as Cho's friend. Cho longed for her to at least call him "your young man;" at least that way she'd be admitting the state of things and letting Cho know that she accepted it.

"I saw him the other day," Cho said. "Whatever happened, it still has him terrified."

"And no word about the other boy?"

The other boy. Cho couldn't bear her mother when she was like this; pretending not to know the name of Harry Potter. She'd known since last year how Cho felt about Harry, and how Harry seemed to feel about Cho—until the Yule Ball. What had started out as a simple love-story, as straight as a wall, had now become all mixed up.

"No word here yet, mother."

"Strange. Nothing in the Prophet, either. The articles just get smaller and smaller. Do you think they already know something?" Mrs. Chang just let the question hang in the middle of the grate.

"Maybe I'll do some Auror work and find out," Cho said, as flippantly as she could—considering she meant it. "Give my love to daddy; I'll be home in about a week." With that, she signed off.

What had her mother said: nothing in the Prophet? Was the morning paper out already? She glanced over toward Eddie, but he'd already gone upstairs. She decided to go to the Great Hall and pretend to get breakfast; she wasn't a bit hungry, except to borrow someone's paper.

At this hour on a summer morning late in the term, even though breakfast was just starting, hardly anyone was there. Each of the four Houses, however, seemed to be represented by a knot of students, heads together, whispering; probably sharing rumours, Cho thought. I doubt there's anything to tell yet.

Just then, Cho saw one of the Hufflepuffs, Ernie Macmillan, enter the Great Hall. Since she and Cedric had started dating, she'd found herself on a first-name basis with some of the Hufflepuffs. Ernie, who seemed a bit of a "stuffed shirt" (his own words) at times, was simply nervous around people he thought had an "edge" on him. By now, though, he knew that Cho, unlike some other Ravenclaws, wouldn't try to lord her brains over his.

"Hello, Ernie," Cho called over to him.

"Ah, Cho; good morning."

"Have you seen Cedric yet?"

"Erm, not really. Tried to get in last night, but didn't get past the guard at the gate."

"Well, I hope he's doing better."

"Oh, yes, he seems to be." Ernie seemed to realize he'd said too much. "That is, erm," he stammered nervously, "from the little bit I could see by the door. But, well, you know old Pomfrey, eh? She'll have him right as dodgers any day now."

Like many basically good people, Ernie Macmillan was basically a very bad liar. Cho could tell that he knew more but was not telling her. She was wondering whether to challenge him on it, but was interrupted by owls flying in with mail and the morning copy of the Prophet. With a quick good-bye to Ernie, she went over to the Ravenclaw table.

She sat down across from a younger student who'd gotten a copy of the newspaper, helped herself to a little food and sat, not eating it, waiting to borrow the paper. The other student, a young, lanky boy who Cho knew only as Gregory, looked for a minute, said something to himself about "Tutshill's getting the year off to a good start," and handed the paper across to Cho.

"Thanks," she said; "I'll just be a minute."

"Don't worry about it," Gregory smiled back at her; "I just read it for the Quidditch scores. Besides, we've all got different interests."

I wonder if he knows, Cho thought; then she checked herself. He probably does know; he's a Ravenclaw, after all. She paged through the Prophet twice, but found what she was afraid she'd find: nothing. Absolutely nothing. Harry Potter was missing, and the Hogwarts Champion had gone missing for an hour and come back frightened half to death, and nobody was saying anything about it.

Cho was now too outraged to even pretend to eat. After a glance at the head table, noting that Madam Pomfrey was up there eating breakfast, she left the Great Hall, then dashed to the hospital wing.

This morning the door was unguarded. Cho realized why as soon as she stepped into the wing: it was empty. Cedric was gone.

Cho was getting madder by the minute. Hadn't Pomfrey said just two nights ago that Hogwarts would make an announcement if they learned anything? Well, apparently they learned that Cedric was well enough to go somewhere, but said nothing about it. What was their promise worth now?

"What are you doing there, girl?"

Mad-Eye Moody had just come into the wing. He had been this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher; he had prepared Cho, and the other students of her year, for their O.W.L.s; normally she would have shown him the proper respect. Not now.

"Where is he?"

"Well, look at you. Exams are in the past and you think you know it all, hey?" As he had so often, Moody tried to intimidate Cho with his sheer striking presence, but Cho was having none of it.

"Cedric is either gone back to Hufflepuff or home to his parents, but he's clearly not here. Harry Potter is still missing, and you're standing about in the one building where we know he's not!"

When Cho said this, a curious expression came over Mad-Eye Moody. He seemed to look through her with his artificial eye; Cho reminded herself that he'd done this before, told herself she was used to it.

"Girl, there's one thing you need to remember," Moody said at length. "A true Auror is the first to admit what he doesn't know. The Ministry is trying to determine what became of Master Potter. I'll leave you to try to find out where Master Diggory is, but I warn you: it's as tough a puzzle to crack as any he dealt with in the Tournament. So get out of here and leave me alone to figure everything out; getting in my way will only slow things down."

She was clearly being dismissed. Cho left the wing, trying to hang onto as much dignity as she could.

She turned things over and over in her mind. Cedric had promised to see her after the Third Task, and seemed to have forgotten that promise. The Hogwarts Champion, Head Boy, as common-sensical a wizard as one would ever meet, seemed to have some sort of a breakdown, avoiding people—avoiding Cho, who he said he loved. Something during that missing hour had changed him, but what? And how? And is it still out there?

As she walked back to Ravenclaw, she accidentally walked through Moaning Myrtle without even noticing. "Sorry, Myrtle," she said over her shoulder.

Myrtle said nothing.

This in itself was as big a mystery as anything else. Myrtle, who had been killed in the castle some seventy years ago, was as fond of bemoaning her lot in life as she was moaning about her afterlife. That she should say nothing-- Cho took a guess; "Do you know anything about Cedric?"

"I expect none of us knows anything, least of all Cedric himself."

"You've seen him, then? Tell me!"

"He was in the Prefects' Bath an hour ago. I thought it would be my last chance with him, but he was no fun at all. He didn't drop a stitch of clothing. He just sat on the bench, kept taking a picture of you out of his pocket, looking at it, and whimpering. That's the only word for it: he was whimpering like a beaten pup. Some Champion he turned out to be."

"Did you speak to him at all?"

"That's the really funny part of all this. The closer I got to him, the more his body started to, well, lose focus. It's as if it was trying to turn into something else. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, and I didn't like it. Your Cedric seems to be mixed up in something very Dark; mark my words."

"Never!" Cho said, although more out of reflex.

Myrtle shrugged her shoulders and floated away.

Cho went back to the Ravenclaw Common Room, and spent the rest of the day turning everything over and over in her mind, but couldn't find any kind of an answer.

xxx

continued in part 4: 27 June, 1995