a/n: written for hogwarts (challenges and assignments) - assignment 6, task 2: write about someone feeling/being powerful
also. i know this might contradict slightly what happened in canon and how cho acted. but that's the beauty of fanfiction: it's reimagining canon. things are a bit different here and that's okay :)
The Galleon in Cho's pocket had started to feel very heavy lately. At first, she'd carried it like a precious talisman, constantly checking the dates that were updated and then tucking it away before briskly heading towards the Room of Requirement, head held high.
Now it was beginning to feel like a burden, an omen, no matter how Cho tried to ignore it.
"It's just not right," Marietta Edgecombe had whispered to her on the walk there one day. "I mean, Professor Umbridge is teaching us like this for a reason."
Cho had shaken her head. "It's not even teaching, Marietta," she'd replied sharply. "Besides," she'd lowered her voice. "You-Know-Who is back. We've got to do something."
Later, she felt bad for patronizing Marietta as she had; she was her friend, after all. But she'd also been increasingly irritating these past few weeks. Worrying about the what-ifs and the implications of doing what they were doing. Talking about what a dangerous game they were playing.
Cho didn't care.
She didn't care if they were caught.
She didn't care if Umbridge had good reasons.
She wasn't just going to abandon the one thing that made her forget her shattered heart, the one thing that started to mend it.
Standing in the Room of Requirement, wand held aloft, Cho finally felt powerful. Unstoppable. She didn't need Hermione Grander to validate her anymore - she'd gained her own reputation. Second only to perhaps Harry himself and his small posse of friends, Cho was one of the most talented members of Dumbledore's Army.
Close as they might have been, Cho wasn't about to let Marietta take that from her.
Amber light streamed in through the large windows, illuminating the chair in the Ravenclaw common room where Cho currently sat, Marietta opposite her.
They had not spoken much since Cho's outburst a few days ago, and Cho wasn't sure she missed it.
Without Marietta to hold her back and tell her to be careful, she'd had some time to practice her spells. She'd cast a corporeal Patronus the other day, a silvery-bright swan that had soared through the empty corridor before dissipating.
Now, she could face fear itself head-on and come out on top.
Why couldn't Marietta see that this was a good thing?
She continued to come to the meetings, though Cho could detect a bitterness in her friend's eyes.
She did not feel the power and confidence as Cho did.
Perhaps it was because she had not been broken as Cho had.
The same bright amber sunlight was aplenty in the Room of Requirement later that day. Cho realized only belatedly that Marietta had not come to the meeting today.
She was not surprised.
She was surprised, however, when the doors were suddenly violently blown open.
When Dolores Umbridge, seething with uncontrolled rage, strode into the room. Wands fell from students' hands, mouths gaped in shock.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The worst of it was spotting Marietta standing near the edge of the doorframe, the word sneak written across her face in crudely inflamed pink boils.
Cho was shaking, livid, as she realized how careless her power had made her.
"How could you?"
"Cho," the words were soft, tentative, and laced with tears. "I'm sorry."
Cho turned away. She didn't dare meet her eyes.
"Why? Why would you do that?" Cho snapped, taking no care to be polite anymore.
Marietta, her friend - or so she'd thought - had betrayed her. Betrayed all of them. And all for what? Umbridge's favor?
Cho had no space within her for forgiveness.
The one place she'd felt validated, the one place she'd felt powerful, like she mattered, like she was more than the dead boy's girlfriend -
And one of her closest friends had stolen it from her, right under her nose.
Cho should have known. Perhaps if she'd paid attention, if she'd tried harder to convince Marietta that they were doing the right thing, if she'd waited for her that day so they could walk together…
But no.
Cho hadn't done any of that.
She'd thought only of herself and the power she'd gained, and now they were all paying the price.
Her heart, so painstakingly pieced back together, was cracked once more.
Cho was so used to the pain she hardly felt it.
