Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter characters.

I've finally added a cover, apart from my go-to "blindman" cover. If there's a problem with copyright or use of image, please let me know. It's a faded picture of Parvati with a butterfly. I have zero photoshop skills.

9 Cho Haley, nee Chang

What is Magic?

The question placed to a Wizard or a Witch is as difficult as asking a five year old do define the nature of life. For a natural born Witch or Wizard Magic is such a part of one's life that it is impossible to imagine it as something new and weird. At least for the Wizarding community, there has always been a stark contrast to which we could always measure our reality in the half blood and muggle born members. I had been born in a long generation of pure blooded witches and wizards that my childhood was measured whence we could first learn to levitate objects and change the color of our toys. Though we were never skilled at it until we reached Hogwarts, the use of Magic was something that was expected to come. And so I had quite some difficulty when I first arrived at the Wizarding University, and on Slug's lectures he touched upon the central question of 'what is the nature of magic'?

Despite my disparage at Slug's personality, the man was a solid scholar, and during my early graduate years I flocked to his lectures as though he were a veela. His solidness in the theoretical nature of magic, however was soon eclipsed by his political nature. I was no fool to have run into his apprenticeship without any foreknowledge of his hypocrisy. But still I was young, and I imagined that despite the hurdles I would overcome.

Here he stands before me, now, in my office at Hogwarts. Like Magic.

My hands tremble, but I try to calm them. And I measure my facial expression to quench the instinctive terror and radiate some measure of confidence in my own being.

Unlike myself, the Slug is a professional. He knows who he is and he knows who I am. Despite his obvious nature to have visited me with asking a favor, he is not groveling nor overly friendly. He is calm and composed, but only so far as to be bereft of arrogance, as he stands confidently beside the parents of a young girl. The girl I have not seen before, but the mother who accompanied her I know well.

"Professor Parvati Patil," Slughorn is cool, offering the coolest of warmth in his smile, "I am sure you are well acquainted with Mrs Cho Haley, nee Chang."

The last I heard, Cho had married a muggle and had been living a muggle life. Usually a witch who takes the muggle life lives her life a muggle, completely shielding her muggle family from the magical world. And even though the offspring should be born magical, it would be entirely up to the parent to decide. Cho had, so far, kept her wizarding connections completely secret from her family so far, as no one knew what had become of her besides her marriage. But the child was obviously pre-Hogwarts age and something was amiss.

Cho looks frightened, her large eyes wider than usual and emanating a sense of urgency.

"Parvati," she shakes my hand too warmly.

"Cho," I hug her in return. I was moderately friendly with her, but she was too popular even for Lavender and me. But right now, she seemed to need a hug. "How have you been? I missed you!"

Cho looks obviously relieved at my friendliness, and turns to her daughter.

"Kimmy, this is mommy's best friend when mommy was in school," Cho comforts the child. The obvious lie probably meant that Cho wanted the girl to feel safe in my presence, to consider me as her surrogate mother. Why. One of the first things Slughorn had taught me was that Witches and Wizards were idiots when it came to logic. Even in magic there was always a Why. And especially in human nature there was always a Why.

I take cue and kneel before the young frightened girl, taking care to discard my heavy wizarding robe to reveal more familiar casual garments underneath.

"Hey, sweety!" I pinch her cheek. The girl is holding an elephant, and it seems she lets it the briefest space to breath as her arms sneak over and touch my butterfly hairpin. I take it off and pin it on Kimmy, and the girl seems relieved. Almost happy.

Victoire is an angel, and despite her awkwardness when being called into my office, mostly trepidation on whether or not I would hold her to a grudge for refusing my coaching, she immediately melted down into a tender soul and took Kimmy by the hand to show her the Gryffindor tower.

Alone, now, and free to show weakness, Cho breaks down crying immediately. The Slug is calm and cold and calculating as ever, and it's a good thing that he's not a 'villain', just my villain, my own personal villain. Seeing Cho was unable to continue, the Slug speaks on her behalf, recounting how Cho came to him.

"I think it's foremost for the sake of clarity to state that dear Mrs Haley should be referred to Miss Chang, again," the Slug is blunt, and unapologetic, and perhaps it was necessary, in retrospect. I am not a bright person. It takes a couple of moments for that to sink in.

"Huh?"

Slug offers me his disdainful look, as though he could barely manage the suffocating atmosphere of mediocrity to which he was subject to at the moment.

"Oh," it dawns on me, now. That Cho has returned from the Muggle World, crying, with a daughter of pre-Hogwarts age, hoping passage to safety of her youth. "I'm so sorry, Cho."

Men, I am frustrated. Cho was one of the most prettiest girls in all her time at Hogwarts, the jewel of Ravenclaw. I suppose she was a bit of a fish out of the pond in the muggle world, but she couldn't quite recover from the world where You-Know-Who tore down the kingdom where she was Queen and Ced Diggory was King. I never understood muggles very well, but I suppose men were men in any world.

"Don't worry, honey," I offer, brightly, "men are such a-holes. I never got married, myself. It's so hard to find the right guy-"

Cho is staring at me with a lost look of confusion, while the Slug coughs trying to interrupt me. Okay. I am confused. I think I should shut up.

"Mister Haley has passed away, recently," the Slug acts like he's trying to be polite while gently shoving me into the shark pit. The bastard could have told me before hand, at least that he was coming, at least that he was bringing someone, and that someone was Cho, and that she was a widow... okay. Maybe I should have been a bit more cautious. Cautious is not my forte.

"Oh," Oh, okay. I get it. Huh? "I'm sorry, Cho. I didn't know."

"No, I'm sorry," Cho stutters. "I didn't know who to turn to."

As Cho pieces together her story, I'm able to add one and one to make two point three. Cho had been living a 'normal muggle life' of being a 'housewife', which sounds more like something akin to 'house elf', but with sex. She bumbled about a bit getting used to things but often relied a bit on magic to do the rudimentary chores when her husband was out of the house, like dish washing and clothes washing. I have no idea how Cho managed to live a life where something as simple as cleaning your house and washing your clothes took up, or at least was supposed to take up, most of your life. But she must have found some semblance of peace after the insane damage of You-Know-Who versus the Chosen One in that she really committed to that life, to her love and her child. She talked about taking Kimmy, by foot to a school that was supposed to be located in your proximity because apparating was out of the question. She talked about buying food and preparing it and the knowledge that was required to actually make something edible without the option of willing it into being - though she did admit that sometimes she went against ministry policy to spruce up something really nice. She looked happy when she told me of her muggle life, hidden magic from the prying eyes of the mundane who were curious where the nice young Mister Haley had fished up this pretty girl out of nowhere. They had hierarchies of their own, where Mister Haley would have to entertain other beings who were no more powerful than him in magic but simply had more 'paper power', as Cho put it. Her husband's bosses and friends would be curious about him marrying someone 'without a background', but their love seemed real and she was content.

And then it happened.

One day she kissed her husband goodbye and sent him off to work. And then during the day, she played with Kimmy, went to the market to prepare something, food, probably. And then the day turned to afternoon, and afternoon turned to evening and then darker and darker into night, and her husband was not home.

The Muggle investigators couldn't find him for days. No one could find him for days. Cho, becoming desperate, tried everywhere. She even tried contacting the ministry, but the ministry declined to get involved at first, because it was their policy not to get involved with the muggle world. And when she kept on contacting people and pestering people, the Auror office eventually did do a quick investigation but detected no use of magic and assigned it to primarily a muggle concern to be solved with muggle means.

"Miss Chang came to me, but only through the Auror office," the Slug finally speaks. He is not boastful, but merely stating facts. With all his intellect, the Slug is an idiot when it comes to bragging. For someone like him, he shouldn't need to brag, and I suppose it's a habit, even when he's talking to someone like me, so insignificant in his eyes. "I, of course, took immediate attention. Cho was a member of the Harry Potter's Army, like me-"

I keep my eyes steely in place from rolling my eyes. Slughorn's mind has somehow fused the Order the of the Phoenix, to which he was an on-the-field new member during the Battle of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore's army, to which Cho and I were both members, but Slug selectively chose to forget my involvement in anything.

"- and I am always concerned of the welfare of my friends. How was it that someone has committed a crime in the muggle world, that has so deviously managed to avoid the persistent concern of both the muggle world and the wizarding world. Despite her pleas, what amazed me most was how forgotten her singular case was by both governments. Where did Mister Haley go? What happened to him? Why has he suddenly disappeared, and why does no one seems concerned?"

Story of my life, I muse drolly.

"No one is investigating, Parvati," Cho looks at me shaken. "No one seems to care. The Muggles think that he's been embezzling company funds and have escaped the country. They point at me and say that he's got himself a trophy wife from nowhere, sets up a phony appearance of life and just escaped with the company's money as soon as he was able to. But he's not like that, Parvati! I know him. He'd never leave his family."

"The Aurors are no better," Slug adds, "they've taken more pains to investigate why it's not their concern than investigate the disappearance itself."

It's not something new. In the old days, magical gossip got around and roused a lot of people. Harry Potter at Hogwarts dating a girl used to make the Daily Prophet. It was a small community back then. But somehow the world became so large and we got lost so fast.

"But I'm no investigator, Cho," I try not to sound like I'm distancing myself from her concern, but I am truly curious why they came to me.

"Of, course, you, aren't." The Slug is such a bastard. He lets his words drip with every bit of derision he could muster. I think it's the high point of his day to ridicule someone under him.

"I'm no investigator, Cho," I glare at Slug for a moment; he couldn't care less if I'm annoyed. "But how do you know he's... you know... dead?"

I was expecting a plausible fact, I suppose. They had come naturally so distraught. It was just a simple question, I suppose. I wasn't expecting the following.

"I can feel it, Parvati!" she gushed.

No, really. She gushed. She sounds like a bad actor. My expression must have betrayed my utterly crumbling sympathy for her situation.

Cho looks worried, trying to be pleasant. She's here to ask a favor, after all.

"I'm going to look into it, Parvati," She says, "But I can't leave Kimmy alone."

Oh. I should have seen that.

"Of course, Cho!" I squeak, wanting to be helpful. "I'll take care of Kimmy... How long do you expect to be gone?"

Kimmy looked like a sweet girl. I could go about helping her for a couple of days. Help her with her school work. Show her some magic.

Cho's eyes are suddenly steely. She is not a wide eyed fragile beauty Queen of Hogwarts, all of a sudden. Her lips tighten, determined.

Uh-oh.

"I don't know." Cho states. "I don't know how long I'll be gone. But there's something around. I sense darkness. And for the love I held and for the safety of my child, I have to do this. I can't ask you to join me walking into the darkness, Parvati. But, please keep Kimmy safe."

This is awkward.

Darkness? Destiny? I hate that. I hate it when everyone thinks that their life is suddenly embroiled in this great epic saga, and they suddenly start disregarding everyone around you, and everyone suddenly has to sing your tune. Is this it? Is this why Slughorn brought Cho to me? Because he thought up 'Helpful, Vague, Ally Person who could be trusted, but not with too much' and thought of me?

And what happens to Kimmy while her mother suddenly decides that despite the tragedy that has befallen her life, she suddenly decides to "Fight Darkness" and it's okay? No, idiot! When tragedy happens, you're supposed to just pick up the pieces and try to make semblance of what's left of life. You don't go into the eye of the hurricane to chase windmills.

"You mean indefinitely?" My dry tone breezes through the conversation like a sudden drop in temperature.

Cho and Slug both look startled, having been caught up in their grand 'Mystery' and 'Investigation' and 'Darkness'.

"Of course, it's the least you could do to help," the Slug scoffs as he admonishes me.

"I'm afraid for her, Parvati," Cho looks at me pleadingly. "I would have gone to Padma. You know we were close. But Padma has her hands full. You know, children."

"Ah, yes," They're my nephews, of course I know. Again, they would have sought Padma. But, of course, I couldn't know. How could I? I don't have children.

"Everyone else didn't want to listen," Cho continues, unsure. "I didn't want to burden Neville, I heard he has so much on his hands. I never did know Hermione very well, and I couldn't ask Harry."

Oh, why not, Cho? I catch myself from saying. This was pure name dropping.

"The other girls my year weren't responding," Cho is near tears, "Does anyone know where Katie is? Katie Bell?"

I don't think I can listen anymore. I'm sure that, like Flitwick, like Slughorn, like Sprout, I have probably been relegated to the bottom of a very very long list.

"Don't worry, Cho." But my tone is already icy. "I'll take care of Kimmy. She'll stay with me. Go chase the shadows."

The Slug and Cho exchange a concerned look, unsure what mood I am in.

I give them my reassuring tender smile, "No, really. I'll take care of Kimmy while you're gone. She'll be safe here. Hogwarts is safe."

I suppose they really had no choice other than me. Sucks to be them.

The reason I took on Kimmy? I can't explain what caught me up in the moment. The rage that I was being sought for, only for every other reason because Padma wasn't available. The rage that Cho and the Slug would assume that I would help them because I'm just another "friend". The exasperation that somehow I could understand the frustration Cho was feeling. No, don't worry, I'll take care of Kimmy, tossed aside for your crazy Quest, Cho.

Summary: I think I'm finally progressing from the first act to the second act. I've finished setting up the characters, I think.

There is definitely something going on, Neville thinks.

No, life is random and meaningless, stupid, thinks Parvati. By the way, where is Katie Bell?