(no subject)
Title: Playback, Delete, and Rewind
Pairing: Cho/Various (including Cedric, of course)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: History has a peculiar way of repeating itself.
Notes: Weird pairings amidst canon ones. Also there’s a pattern in this story. Kudos to those who find it.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all. Title belongs to Circa Survive.
1.
Cho Chang is taught to never believe in magic.
She doesn’t quite understand why, however, because whenever she gazes at objects long enough they will twitch under her eyes and occasionally zoom across the room. Sometimes her bed even made itself and her chores would be done before she woke up. With such substantial evidence, she knows this, regardless whatever her father claims, is magic.
It’s a wonderful feeling, being somewhat special, but that same ballooning feeling gradually deflates when her parents begin to argue in hushed voices that are far more frightening than when they scream. And no matter how hard she tries, neither she nor her magic, can stop them.
2.
It was during her sixth year of existence when her mom sneaks them off one day, promising her father they were going to visit relatives a few towns over, and instead she finds her and her mom sitting in a large stadium that had appeared in the middle of nowhere. The circular building was loud and terrifying and she laces her fingers tightly with her mom’s, squeezing for security. In return Mrs. Chang glances down upon the uncertain adolescent, widening her unfamiliar smile that did not shine once while in their bleak household, and Cho doesn’t feel the fear peel off her like they both want it too, it thickens at the foreign sight instead.
Then there’s a loud boom and cheering erupts across the stadium. Suddenly people whisk by mounted on brooms and everything begins to paint itself like a chaotic fairytale displayed in front of her.
It’s then when Cho grows suspicious of her father and his evident detest with magic. Because it is real, like she always knew. And, according to the people who flooded the stands across the entire stadium, it’s the farthest thing from evil and a terribly tangible aspect to their lives. So why can’t it be with hers?
When they arrive home that same evening she’s immediately sent up to her room and she can hear her father’s thundering voice echoing through the empty rooms of their too grand of a house. Cho then realizes that her father was half-true and half-false about what he told her regarding magic.
There has to be evil in the wizarding world, like he alleges, but he never mentions there’s the same amount in his dark one too.
3.
Birthdays. Cho was never good at remembering when it came to birthdays, especially her own because they just seemed so irrelevant to her.
For her eleventh one she doesn’t want much in particular. Perhaps a new blue sweater; that sounded nice. A skirt or two would be great too, but she wasn’t greedy, not when it came to material things that could be easily replaced with another fad a month from now, so she wasn’t hoping for much. But instead of a birthday cake thickened with an overflowing mass of yellow frosting; her loud relatives gathered in one room as they momentarily place their differences aside for her, she receives a letter sent from a make-believe (from what her father says) place called Hogwarts and yells and cries bouncing across walls quickly ensue afterwards, eventually resulting in the house’s front door slamming behind her father and one less plate at the table for dinner that night.
Cho was never good at remembering when it came to birthdays to begin with. After this, she forgets to celebrate them entirely.
4.
Cho is nervous when she boards the Hogwarts train. She’s nervous because it’s not a fabricated lie like her father once told her and because the guilt of leaving her mom to their house’s cold and lonely confinements pierces a bitter and puncturing shard in her heart, vividly reminding her she’s leaving the one person who loved her so dearly and comfortably for the unknown. Her mom sharply dismisses her worry with a slanted smile and coaxes her inside and she strains her neck; her eyes glued on her shrinking mom as the train begins to move under her and whisks her away to a land she once thought did not exist.
She pushes through the crowded halls, wobbling clumsily into people and walls, and nearly trips when she snatches a glimpse of fiery red hair and eyes twinkling with mirth. When she catches herself, her hand gripping the hilt of the wall, she dares another glance and finds two identical boys wearing ragged and tattered clothes staring mischievously at her.
Admittedly, she likes what she sees. Not because they are dashing, in fact, they’re a bit awkward and pudgy looking, but because they appear to have a history behind them. A history so readable she can imagine a stocky ginger-haired man and woman running after them with an equivalent amount of rage and love flaring in their eyes.
Cho is jealous when she looks at those boys soon to be entitled the inglorious Weasley twins. She’s jealous because she’s never had a history behind her, just a vacant place to live with parents who aren’t in love with each other but in love with the idea of each other, and prized honor that never reaches her after being severed when her mom announces herself as a witch.
5.
Roger Davies is a good-looking second year with dark brown hair and long bangs that he carelessly pushes off to the side. He is also the first to congratulate Cho when she’s selectively sorted into Ravenclaw and she feels her heart flutter immediately in return.
The next few months she, in spite of herself, follows him around the school’s grounds with dependence glittering in her almond shaped eyes that he can’t help but give into. She learns to love his quirks and his consistent tales he retells her every month of how he was improving in flying and the whispers of his misplaced ambitions of being deemed Ravenclaw’s Quidditch Captain and titled Head Boy very soon in the promising future.
Roger Davies, she thinks, is her first crush. She realizes so when he meets her outside the Ravenclaw common room one afternoon and she’s standing rigidly with tears welling at her eyes. She’s been trying to decipher the hidden message between the meaningless words the eagle recited over an hour ago and still failed.
“What does the sun wait for?”
With ease Roger replies, “simple, the moon.” and Cho feels more foolish than before and begins to cry. He comforts the girl with a small pat on the back and a flash of his polished smile before he leaves her to the boys’ dormitory.
Roger Davies never knows he dug himself a deep hole in her heart. But she doesn’t tell him that she likes him, afraid that, even if they’re still pristine adolescents, love might stain them later on like it had with her parents, and she doesn’t want to soil herself or him.
6.
Second year in Hogwarts wasn’t entirely exciting, with the exception of some Harry Potter boy attending the school now. For the most part, Cho finds herself more experienced and doesn’t dread walking through the hallways; fear and anxiety no longer ghosting over her oval shaped face. The year flies by, spells and lessons echoes close by her ears, and friends’ -have they known each other long enough to be friends?- faces blur her peripheral vision every day. The only fleeting moment when everything in her world seems to still is when an owl swoops downward one morning in the Great Hall and leaves an envelope behind. The writing is discernable and she tucks the untouched letter away, only opening when she feels it safe enough, in the back of the library shielded with shelves and slips the folded paper out. She reads without hesitation, her eyes hungrily scanning over the unrelated letters stringed together to form the most horrific word she’s ever had to behold.
Divorce.
Cho counts down the escaping seconds until beautifully broken tears thread themselves over her skin and dampen her cheeks. She harshly pushes the rest of her things into her bag and storms quietly out of the library, taking the one letter her father has ever written her and shreds it to pieces, scattering the remains across the floor behind her.
She stops when she hears “reparo!” in back of her and reels around to find one of the Weasley twins with her paper magically repaired to perfect condition in his hand while his identical brother stares questionably at her.
“I hate you!” she seethes at them and they appear, for once, solemn as they watch her snatch the letter back and tear it apart again. She’s never said a word to them until now and still her misplaced loathing fails to squander their demeanor. In return, they don’t say anything to her when she stalks away and silently gather the several pieces of paper together, disposing it permanently so no one else can ever read what broke Ravenclaw’s porcelain doll before heading back to their dorm.
The next day Marietta greets Cho during breakfast and she smiles back. The twins then exchange a stolen smile between themselves. All is well.
7.
“I’m so sorry, Cho,” Mariette apologizes with a frown distorting her features, “but you’ll have to take the next cart - I really tried to save you a seat, I swear!”
Mariette doesn’t have to swear, Cho believes her though the giggling group of girls surrounding her friend screams to tell her otherwise. Still the raven-haired girl nods, reminds herself she’s a third year and can take care of herself without the assistance of her friends, and allows the cart to depart from her and reluctantly climbs into the next, a gauntly boy with an upturned nose already residing in the near emptied seats and she takes the farthest one from him. No one else accompanies them and the wheels begin moving by themselves.
She spares the boy a glance and notices he’s wearing a gleaming Slytherin badge pinned against his robes and his eyes are set directly in front of the cart, she follows his gaze and wonders where he is looking.
“Disgusting,” he hisses to himself and her eyes sharply shift toward him again. He’s still staring at something she has the inability to see. His steel eyes then dart towards her, abhorrence glazing over them, and he barks, “filthy half-breed.”
She feels oddly offended but doesn’t understand what he means and remains quiet for the rest of the ride. When she arrives to the Ravenclaw table she tells Roger what had occurred and his expression hardens as he throws a disgusted glance at the Slytherin table where stentorian voices are traced to. He then tells her in a kind tone she hardly ever hears him muster that the Slytherin had called her a half-breed because her father was of muggle descent and also the boy could see Thestrals, caliginous creatures that only appeared to those who witnessed death firsthand. He pauses and leans forward as he adds in an undertone how the death must’ve been dark magic-related and someone close enough to the boy for him to be an eyewitness.
Cho then doesn’t understand Roger and why he’s so angered with the boy. Nott, Theodore Nott, she thinks is his name. After all, why would anyone be angry with someone who’s forgotten how it is to be sad and remorseful?
8.
Holidays are lonely, barren, and, quite literally, cold in Hogwarts.
Roger asks casually one day when the two are strolling around the castle’s ground draped over with a thick blanket of glistening, virginal snow where Cho decided she’d reside in over the break. Before she answers him she notices it’s late and peers upward to see black exploded over the stretched atmosphere with stars periodically placed against the inky sky.
Where is she going this winter? To her mother’s with cool air and the stirring loneliness that seeps in every direction of the house or her father’s with his overbearing wife who wears too much red lipstick and vacuums with pearls on in their smaller house that suffocates her just the same?
She opens her mouth to reply but is cut short when there’s a demand for them to halt where they are. They turn to see a handsome boy glaring at them with suspicion creeping behind his grey eyes and he displays his Prefect page.
“You’re out late,” he informs coolly, his eyes sweeping across their faces, pausing momentarily when they fall upon Cho’s, and she thinks they soften the slightest, “get back inside before McGonagall or Filch sees you.”
“Who’re you?” scowls Roger, remaining stationary. He grows more frustrated when the Prefect doesn’t lift his gaze from Cho and the Ravenclaw clears his throat roughly.
“Cedric,” finally answers the boy but he’s still disregarding Roger, his eyes drilling into hers, as if to tell her to remember his name. “Cedric Diggory. Hufflepuff Prefect.”
9.
It’s warm. Cho cannot see Thestrals, but what she does see is the several skins she shed of her former self mingling amidst the shadows cast throughout the castle. They jeer and taunt her with their devouring eyes and words and she shivers to herself when her eyes can’t help but graze toward them and her ears refuse to fall deaf upon their littering snippets of frozen reminders. That’s why she soars so high when she mounts her broom, to leave the darkness behind, and she wants to touch the sun and let it shower her with warm kisses, but she can never manage to reach it. Instead, her fingers brush over a golden orb and roars of approval are caught against the wind and she suddenly knows what it’s like to feel more than alive. …It’s warm.
10.
Harry Potter is a nice boy. He’s awkwardly cute, polite, and brave. But he isn’t what Cho likes. She thought she fancied Roger and she still thinks she does the slightest, but when she’s approached by a pulchritudinous boy and she gives him a careless once over and arches an intimating eyebrow, she begins to question her morality and dynamics. Giggles haze around them and he appears stricken for a moment.
“Um, Cho, you remember me, right?” She doesn’t really but then a vague image of Hufflepuff’s seeker inundates her mind and realization delicately grazes over her. She gives him a smile and he feels valiant enough to continue. “Yeah, well, the ball, err, yeah.” He sucks in a quivering breath, its waking emotion much different from the one that exists in the determined look in his eyes. “I mean, if you aren’t going to the Yule Ball with anyone yet, I’d be honored if you, well, y’know, went with me.”
She wants to wait for Roger but she sees a flash of resent in Fleur’s eyes when the French princess glides by and she swears their icy blue color nearly changes to green. She then decides that Roger can wait and agrees to Cedric Diggory.
11.
Cedric Diggory is a pleasant boy. He’s terribly charming, respectful, and humble. And he’s exactly what Cho likes. Her mind is already made up and when a scrawny, deprived boy catches her alone one day, she feels something grotesque settle in her stomach. There’s nothing to distract him but still his eyes wander and his face is tinted white.
He initially says something incoherent and then stretches his words apart when she gazes at him, perplexed. She politely refuses his request of her to be his date for the Yule Ball, truly sorry but not because she couldn’t go with him, and he looks humiliated but nods it off quickly.
She wants to tell Cedric but when she sees disappointment in the suffering boy’s eyes she doesn’t think she will. She then tries to blind herself with Cedric but cannot help but see Harry Potter in a different, contorted light.
12.
It’s cold. When they break to the surface, Cho’s shivering and she feels Cedric hold her closer, treading through the icy water with his face pale and his lips tinted blue. He looks more worried than scared and when they reach safety, he hoists her out of the water and she’s instantly wrapped in a blanket, her makeup running down her face, and she finds herself seated on a dock. Cedric is congratulated by many people, some even so overwhelmed with his remarkable talent and outstanding lead in the competition, they trip over her. She looks away from the teeming crowd and she catches the distraught in Fleur’s eyes. She’s empty handed and her eyes are filled with utmost distress. Cho wonders if Cedric looked remotely like Fleur while swimming mindlessly through the Great Lake but she doesn’t think so. She doesn’t think Cedric really loves her. Because how can someone love another who can’t define it for themselves? She stops thinking, her teeth chattering so noisily they manage to drown her thoughts for the time being. …It’s cold.
13.
Summer is as cold as winter, possibly even colder this year.
There was a certain chill in the atmosphere and silence is near impenetrable. There’s no need for words or glances that display the evident grief clinging tightly onto the air. Time seems to be fragmented and sporadically torn at certain places so people can’t entirely remember what happened. They do, however, remember one thing and one name.
Marietta accompanies Cho in the gardens on last day of school and silently watches the prettily ruined girl sob to herself. To occupy herself, Marietta plays with her bouncy blonde curls and bits her lip nervously; jerking slightly when she hears Cho moan something and she musters enough courage to ask, “what?”
“Cedric.” whispers the mourning Ravenclaw. “Cedric Diggory. I will never forget him.”
14.
“Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger! But you won’t talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just… just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to!”
She isn’t greedy, she hasn’t ever been given a reason to be, but she’s jealous and she’s filled with ugly hatred. Most think she hates Hermione Granger because the bookworm claims more of Harry’s attention than she does, but she doesn’t hate Hermione for that reason.
Cho hates Hermione because of her muggle parents. Because she can picture their proud faces and their newfound fascination with magic and, most importantly, their respect for the discovered witch. Because, after all, they never stopped loving Hermione for what she was first and foremost, their daughter, did they?
Sometimes she worries all she knows is anguish and she hasn’t even seen death firsthand yet.
15.
It’s a year after she graduated and still Cho finds herself in Hogwarts with her wand ready and the several lessons and classes swirling in her head. She looks at Harry and wants to wish him good luck and, if his luck runs out, that she’ll miss him terribly and the days when things meant little importance to her, when time was boring and illegitimate. But instead everyone scatters before she can say another word to The Boy Who Lived (more like, the boy who wants to live) and she and the rest of the D.A are off, battling dark forces with little conscious or thought of what might come if death welcomes them early.
Death.
Cho discovers Fred’s body after his scholarly and previously Ministry-brainwashed brother is forced to fight Death Eaters off, leaving the twin’s lifeless body behind momentarily. Fred’s eyes are open and unseeing while a smile’s silhouette still graces his lips. Without thought, she drops to her knees before steadily extending a hand out and gently closes his eyes scintillating with stars he can no longer see. She then leans down and kisses his cheek before hoisting herself back onto her feet and turns to walk away.
She pauses when the hysterical cry of “Fred!” rings in her ears and she turns to see George, his eyes clouding with tears as he stares disbelieving at his brother, his mirror, his life. The rest of his family push past both him and Cho and begin to mourn over the loss of Fred’s stolen life and before Cho leaves the Weasley family to themselves she quietly throws her arms around George’s neck and brushes her lips against the cheek that she did not touch on Fred’s face and leaves to continue fighting.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” she thinks repeatedly over and over again later the next night. She doesn’t return to her house like most assumed she had. Instead she apparates into a room she’s never stepped foot in before until now and she delicately runs the tips of her fingers over a gaping hole and compunctious eyes gaze into hers while hands begin to unbutton her shirt as she leans forward to press her mouth against a quivering one. She’s then gently led to a bed several inches apart from an empty one and a silence spell is performed, a door is locked, and she can hear sounds of grieving beneath her that reminds her why she’s here. Because she’d rather be in a home that’s suffering than in one that doesn’t feel at all.
The next afternoon a ginger-haired woman enters her son’s (sons’) room to ask him if he wants anything to eat and he doesn’t reply but manages an small smile when his mom notices a bracelet on the floor. Cho observes there’s nothing occupying her wrist when she returns home earlier that day and she smiles to herself. All is not well.
16.
Michael Corner is an attractive seventh year with black hair which layers itself into a shaggy hair style that he tends to very little. He also forgives Cho when she confesses her private night she spent at the Weasley home and she feels a little better.
The passing months they write continuously to each other letters that hold mechanical words and little meaning. She begins to forget who Michael exactly is and scans listlessly over his paragraphs of how Hogwarts is rebuilding itself back to normal.
Michael Corner, she believes, is someone she will never love. She thinks so when she attends his graduation and doesn’t shed a tear when his name is called and he’s finally deemed a wizard and no longer a boy. She assumes she’s cried out all her tears beforehand but something stirring inside of her opposes otherwise.
“I’m glad you could make it.”
Unable to contain herself she deadpans, “I don’t love you.” and Michael looks ridiculous standing before her with arms wide open as her fragilely structured words pass over him. He doesn’t say a single word to her and drops his arms to his sides before he walks away without a goodbye.
Michael Corner never understands why Cho doesn’t love him. But he’s seen far more devastating and destructive things in his life to feel sorry for himself and assumes he’s given her too many chances at love anyway.
17.
Cho isn’t anxious when she heads into a brightly colored shop located in Diagon Alley. She isn’t anxious because she hasn’t been able to hold any emotion other than despondence for the past few months and because she’s slightly surprised this shop is even opened and running. She pushes herself farther into the busy store and looks around to see fiery red hair and dead eyes almost cowering in the background.
She decides not to stay for too long and refuses to say a word. Instead she stares at his eyes that hold no light, all which was lost to the darkness, and forces a smile to her lips. His tall brother, Harry’s friend, glances at her with eyebrows furrowed and she decides to leave.
Cho isn’t angry that she has to leave so soon. She isn’t angry because she’s able to push aside memories that still echo in her head and because she’s happy she doesn’t have a house filled with people, like his, to watch her cry silently to herself every day.
18.
Death. Cho is never the one to forget death dates, specifically this one.
For the fifth year in a row she drops everything she’s doing, calls in sick at work, and walks, instead of apparates, to his grave. Her heart doesn’t break every time she sees it now but constant shadows of the grief and devastation that came after his death pass over her. She knows time can heal but what she doesn’t know is how long it takes.
Cho is never the one to forget death dates. Every day, though, she wishes she couldn’t remember them at all.
19.
She’s twenty-eight when her mom’s existence comes to an abrupt end. She can’t cry anymore and she simply says a goodbye to the one person she held no conflicting feelings for. The funeral is unpleasantly calm and steady and the air around her and her nameless relatives is musty.
It ends on the same note it started and Cho turns to see her father staring past her and at the grave with expressionless eyes. She becomes disappointed with her father for the first time in her life. She wanted him to forget her and her mom and like she used to take his absence as nihility.
There is death in this world, he tells her then and she doesn’t want to listen but she does, and once again he fails to say there’s just as many in the other one too.
20.
Cho Chang is taught to never believe in magic.
She still does, however, because it explodes wisps of life into her desolate, lonely one. It also gives her a home, and friends, and friends that gradually turned into a family. But although she uses those as reasons to continue with magic, she thinks, even with everything it gave her, it took far too much away.
This does not only deflate the ballooning hope in her, it bursts it completely. Magic has given her a lot of things and taken away just as many, but the real reason why she returns to her father’s house with him and marries a bland muggle he introduces to her a year later is because magic could not give her the one thing she desires the most. Love. And no matter how hard she tries, neither she nor her magic, can make it.
A/N: Well, thanks for sticking with the story this far and feedback would be more than amazing…
Pairing: Cho/Various (including Cedric, of course)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: History has a peculiar way of repeating itself.
Notes: Weird pairings amidst canon ones. Also there’s a pattern in this story. Kudos to those who find it.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all. Title belongs to Circa Survive.
1.
Cho Chang is taught to never believe in magic.
She doesn’t quite understand why, however, because whenever she gazes at objects long enough they will twitch under her eyes and occasionally zoom across the room. Sometimes her bed even made itself and her chores would be done before she woke up. With such substantial evidence, she knows this, regardless whatever her father claims, is magic.
It’s a wonderful feeling, being somewhat special, but that same ballooning feeling gradually deflates when her parents begin to argue in hushed voices that are far more frightening than when they scream. And no matter how hard she tries, neither she nor her magic, can stop them.
2.
It was during her sixth year of existence when her mom sneaks them off one day, promising her father they were going to visit relatives a few towns over, and instead she finds her and her mom sitting in a large stadium that had appeared in the middle of nowhere. The circular building was loud and terrifying and she laces her fingers tightly with her mom’s, squeezing for security. In return Mrs. Chang glances down upon the uncertain adolescent, widening her unfamiliar smile that did not shine once while in their bleak household, and Cho doesn’t feel the fear peel off her like they both want it too, it thickens at the foreign sight instead.
Then there’s a loud boom and cheering erupts across the stadium. Suddenly people whisk by mounted on brooms and everything begins to paint itself like a chaotic fairytale displayed in front of her.
It’s then when Cho grows suspicious of her father and his evident detest with magic. Because it is real, like she always knew. And, according to the people who flooded the stands across the entire stadium, it’s the farthest thing from evil and a terribly tangible aspect to their lives. So why can’t it be with hers?
When they arrive home that same evening she’s immediately sent up to her room and she can hear her father’s thundering voice echoing through the empty rooms of their too grand of a house. Cho then realizes that her father was half-true and half-false about what he told her regarding magic.
There has to be evil in the wizarding world, like he alleges, but he never mentions there’s the same amount in his dark one too.
3.
Birthdays. Cho was never good at remembering when it came to birthdays, especially her own because they just seemed so irrelevant to her.
For her eleventh one she doesn’t want much in particular. Perhaps a new blue sweater; that sounded nice. A skirt or two would be great too, but she wasn’t greedy, not when it came to material things that could be easily replaced with another fad a month from now, so she wasn’t hoping for much. But instead of a birthday cake thickened with an overflowing mass of yellow frosting; her loud relatives gathered in one room as they momentarily place their differences aside for her, she receives a letter sent from a make-believe (from what her father says) place called Hogwarts and yells and cries bouncing across walls quickly ensue afterwards, eventually resulting in the house’s front door slamming behind her father and one less plate at the table for dinner that night.
Cho was never good at remembering when it came to birthdays to begin with. After this, she forgets to celebrate them entirely.
4.
Cho is nervous when she boards the Hogwarts train. She’s nervous because it’s not a fabricated lie like her father once told her and because the guilt of leaving her mom to their house’s cold and lonely confinements pierces a bitter and puncturing shard in her heart, vividly reminding her she’s leaving the one person who loved her so dearly and comfortably for the unknown. Her mom sharply dismisses her worry with a slanted smile and coaxes her inside and she strains her neck; her eyes glued on her shrinking mom as the train begins to move under her and whisks her away to a land she once thought did not exist.
She pushes through the crowded halls, wobbling clumsily into people and walls, and nearly trips when she snatches a glimpse of fiery red hair and eyes twinkling with mirth. When she catches herself, her hand gripping the hilt of the wall, she dares another glance and finds two identical boys wearing ragged and tattered clothes staring mischievously at her.
Admittedly, she likes what she sees. Not because they are dashing, in fact, they’re a bit awkward and pudgy looking, but because they appear to have a history behind them. A history so readable she can imagine a stocky ginger-haired man and woman running after them with an equivalent amount of rage and love flaring in their eyes.
Cho is jealous when she looks at those boys soon to be entitled the inglorious Weasley twins. She’s jealous because she’s never had a history behind her, just a vacant place to live with parents who aren’t in love with each other but in love with the idea of each other, and prized honor that never reaches her after being severed when her mom announces herself as a witch.
5.
Roger Davies is a good-looking second year with dark brown hair and long bangs that he carelessly pushes off to the side. He is also the first to congratulate Cho when she’s selectively sorted into Ravenclaw and she feels her heart flutter immediately in return.
The next few months she, in spite of herself, follows him around the school’s grounds with dependence glittering in her almond shaped eyes that he can’t help but give into. She learns to love his quirks and his consistent tales he retells her every month of how he was improving in flying and the whispers of his misplaced ambitions of being deemed Ravenclaw’s Quidditch Captain and titled Head Boy very soon in the promising future.
Roger Davies, she thinks, is her first crush. She realizes so when he meets her outside the Ravenclaw common room one afternoon and she’s standing rigidly with tears welling at her eyes. She’s been trying to decipher the hidden message between the meaningless words the eagle recited over an hour ago and still failed.
“What does the sun wait for?”
With ease Roger replies, “simple, the moon.” and Cho feels more foolish than before and begins to cry. He comforts the girl with a small pat on the back and a flash of his polished smile before he leaves her to the boys’ dormitory.
Roger Davies never knows he dug himself a deep hole in her heart. But she doesn’t tell him that she likes him, afraid that, even if they’re still pristine adolescents, love might stain them later on like it had with her parents, and she doesn’t want to soil herself or him.
6.
Second year in Hogwarts wasn’t entirely exciting, with the exception of some Harry Potter boy attending the school now. For the most part, Cho finds herself more experienced and doesn’t dread walking through the hallways; fear and anxiety no longer ghosting over her oval shaped face. The year flies by, spells and lessons echoes close by her ears, and friends’ -have they known each other long enough to be friends?- faces blur her peripheral vision every day. The only fleeting moment when everything in her world seems to still is when an owl swoops downward one morning in the Great Hall and leaves an envelope behind. The writing is discernable and she tucks the untouched letter away, only opening when she feels it safe enough, in the back of the library shielded with shelves and slips the folded paper out. She reads without hesitation, her eyes hungrily scanning over the unrelated letters stringed together to form the most horrific word she’s ever had to behold.
Divorce.
Cho counts down the escaping seconds until beautifully broken tears thread themselves over her skin and dampen her cheeks. She harshly pushes the rest of her things into her bag and storms quietly out of the library, taking the one letter her father has ever written her and shreds it to pieces, scattering the remains across the floor behind her.
She stops when she hears “reparo!” in back of her and reels around to find one of the Weasley twins with her paper magically repaired to perfect condition in his hand while his identical brother stares questionably at her.
“I hate you!” she seethes at them and they appear, for once, solemn as they watch her snatch the letter back and tear it apart again. She’s never said a word to them until now and still her misplaced loathing fails to squander their demeanor. In return, they don’t say anything to her when she stalks away and silently gather the several pieces of paper together, disposing it permanently so no one else can ever read what broke Ravenclaw’s porcelain doll before heading back to their dorm.
The next day Marietta greets Cho during breakfast and she smiles back. The twins then exchange a stolen smile between themselves. All is well.
7.
“I’m so sorry, Cho,” Mariette apologizes with a frown distorting her features, “but you’ll have to take the next cart - I really tried to save you a seat, I swear!”
Mariette doesn’t have to swear, Cho believes her though the giggling group of girls surrounding her friend screams to tell her otherwise. Still the raven-haired girl nods, reminds herself she’s a third year and can take care of herself without the assistance of her friends, and allows the cart to depart from her and reluctantly climbs into the next, a gauntly boy with an upturned nose already residing in the near emptied seats and she takes the farthest one from him. No one else accompanies them and the wheels begin moving by themselves.
She spares the boy a glance and notices he’s wearing a gleaming Slytherin badge pinned against his robes and his eyes are set directly in front of the cart, she follows his gaze and wonders where he is looking.
“Disgusting,” he hisses to himself and her eyes sharply shift toward him again. He’s still staring at something she has the inability to see. His steel eyes then dart towards her, abhorrence glazing over them, and he barks, “filthy half-breed.”
She feels oddly offended but doesn’t understand what he means and remains quiet for the rest of the ride. When she arrives to the Ravenclaw table she tells Roger what had occurred and his expression hardens as he throws a disgusted glance at the Slytherin table where stentorian voices are traced to. He then tells her in a kind tone she hardly ever hears him muster that the Slytherin had called her a half-breed because her father was of muggle descent and also the boy could see Thestrals, caliginous creatures that only appeared to those who witnessed death firsthand. He pauses and leans forward as he adds in an undertone how the death must’ve been dark magic-related and someone close enough to the boy for him to be an eyewitness.
Cho then doesn’t understand Roger and why he’s so angered with the boy. Nott, Theodore Nott, she thinks is his name. After all, why would anyone be angry with someone who’s forgotten how it is to be sad and remorseful?
8.
Holidays are lonely, barren, and, quite literally, cold in Hogwarts.
Roger asks casually one day when the two are strolling around the castle’s ground draped over with a thick blanket of glistening, virginal snow where Cho decided she’d reside in over the break. Before she answers him she notices it’s late and peers upward to see black exploded over the stretched atmosphere with stars periodically placed against the inky sky.
Where is she going this winter? To her mother’s with cool air and the stirring loneliness that seeps in every direction of the house or her father’s with his overbearing wife who wears too much red lipstick and vacuums with pearls on in their smaller house that suffocates her just the same?
She opens her mouth to reply but is cut short when there’s a demand for them to halt where they are. They turn to see a handsome boy glaring at them with suspicion creeping behind his grey eyes and he displays his Prefect page.
“You’re out late,” he informs coolly, his eyes sweeping across their faces, pausing momentarily when they fall upon Cho’s, and she thinks they soften the slightest, “get back inside before McGonagall or Filch sees you.”
“Who’re you?” scowls Roger, remaining stationary. He grows more frustrated when the Prefect doesn’t lift his gaze from Cho and the Ravenclaw clears his throat roughly.
“Cedric,” finally answers the boy but he’s still disregarding Roger, his eyes drilling into hers, as if to tell her to remember his name. “Cedric Diggory. Hufflepuff Prefect.”
9.
It’s warm. Cho cannot see Thestrals, but what she does see is the several skins she shed of her former self mingling amidst the shadows cast throughout the castle. They jeer and taunt her with their devouring eyes and words and she shivers to herself when her eyes can’t help but graze toward them and her ears refuse to fall deaf upon their littering snippets of frozen reminders. That’s why she soars so high when she mounts her broom, to leave the darkness behind, and she wants to touch the sun and let it shower her with warm kisses, but she can never manage to reach it. Instead, her fingers brush over a golden orb and roars of approval are caught against the wind and she suddenly knows what it’s like to feel more than alive. …It’s warm.
10.
Harry Potter is a nice boy. He’s awkwardly cute, polite, and brave. But he isn’t what Cho likes. She thought she fancied Roger and she still thinks she does the slightest, but when she’s approached by a pulchritudinous boy and she gives him a careless once over and arches an intimating eyebrow, she begins to question her morality and dynamics. Giggles haze around them and he appears stricken for a moment.
“Um, Cho, you remember me, right?” She doesn’t really but then a vague image of Hufflepuff’s seeker inundates her mind and realization delicately grazes over her. She gives him a smile and he feels valiant enough to continue. “Yeah, well, the ball, err, yeah.” He sucks in a quivering breath, its waking emotion much different from the one that exists in the determined look in his eyes. “I mean, if you aren’t going to the Yule Ball with anyone yet, I’d be honored if you, well, y’know, went with me.”
She wants to wait for Roger but she sees a flash of resent in Fleur’s eyes when the French princess glides by and she swears their icy blue color nearly changes to green. She then decides that Roger can wait and agrees to Cedric Diggory.
11.
Cedric Diggory is a pleasant boy. He’s terribly charming, respectful, and humble. And he’s exactly what Cho likes. Her mind is already made up and when a scrawny, deprived boy catches her alone one day, she feels something grotesque settle in her stomach. There’s nothing to distract him but still his eyes wander and his face is tinted white.
He initially says something incoherent and then stretches his words apart when she gazes at him, perplexed. She politely refuses his request of her to be his date for the Yule Ball, truly sorry but not because she couldn’t go with him, and he looks humiliated but nods it off quickly.
She wants to tell Cedric but when she sees disappointment in the suffering boy’s eyes she doesn’t think she will. She then tries to blind herself with Cedric but cannot help but see Harry Potter in a different, contorted light.
12.
It’s cold. When they break to the surface, Cho’s shivering and she feels Cedric hold her closer, treading through the icy water with his face pale and his lips tinted blue. He looks more worried than scared and when they reach safety, he hoists her out of the water and she’s instantly wrapped in a blanket, her makeup running down her face, and she finds herself seated on a dock. Cedric is congratulated by many people, some even so overwhelmed with his remarkable talent and outstanding lead in the competition, they trip over her. She looks away from the teeming crowd and she catches the distraught in Fleur’s eyes. She’s empty handed and her eyes are filled with utmost distress. Cho wonders if Cedric looked remotely like Fleur while swimming mindlessly through the Great Lake but she doesn’t think so. She doesn’t think Cedric really loves her. Because how can someone love another who can’t define it for themselves? She stops thinking, her teeth chattering so noisily they manage to drown her thoughts for the time being. …It’s cold.
13.
Summer is as cold as winter, possibly even colder this year.
There was a certain chill in the atmosphere and silence is near impenetrable. There’s no need for words or glances that display the evident grief clinging tightly onto the air. Time seems to be fragmented and sporadically torn at certain places so people can’t entirely remember what happened. They do, however, remember one thing and one name.
Marietta accompanies Cho in the gardens on last day of school and silently watches the prettily ruined girl sob to herself. To occupy herself, Marietta plays with her bouncy blonde curls and bits her lip nervously; jerking slightly when she hears Cho moan something and she musters enough courage to ask, “what?”
“Cedric.” whispers the mourning Ravenclaw. “Cedric Diggory. I will never forget him.”
14.
“Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger! But you won’t talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just… just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to!”
She isn’t greedy, she hasn’t ever been given a reason to be, but she’s jealous and she’s filled with ugly hatred. Most think she hates Hermione Granger because the bookworm claims more of Harry’s attention than she does, but she doesn’t hate Hermione for that reason.
Cho hates Hermione because of her muggle parents. Because she can picture their proud faces and their newfound fascination with magic and, most importantly, their respect for the discovered witch. Because, after all, they never stopped loving Hermione for what she was first and foremost, their daughter, did they?
Sometimes she worries all she knows is anguish and she hasn’t even seen death firsthand yet.
15.
It’s a year after she graduated and still Cho finds herself in Hogwarts with her wand ready and the several lessons and classes swirling in her head. She looks at Harry and wants to wish him good luck and, if his luck runs out, that she’ll miss him terribly and the days when things meant little importance to her, when time was boring and illegitimate. But instead everyone scatters before she can say another word to The Boy Who Lived (more like, the boy who wants to live) and she and the rest of the D.A are off, battling dark forces with little conscious or thought of what might come if death welcomes them early.
Death.
Cho discovers Fred’s body after his scholarly and previously Ministry-brainwashed brother is forced to fight Death Eaters off, leaving the twin’s lifeless body behind momentarily. Fred’s eyes are open and unseeing while a smile’s silhouette still graces his lips. Without thought, she drops to her knees before steadily extending a hand out and gently closes his eyes scintillating with stars he can no longer see. She then leans down and kisses his cheek before hoisting herself back onto her feet and turns to walk away.
She pauses when the hysterical cry of “Fred!” rings in her ears and she turns to see George, his eyes clouding with tears as he stares disbelieving at his brother, his mirror, his life. The rest of his family push past both him and Cho and begin to mourn over the loss of Fred’s stolen life and before Cho leaves the Weasley family to themselves she quietly throws her arms around George’s neck and brushes her lips against the cheek that she did not touch on Fred’s face and leaves to continue fighting.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” she thinks repeatedly over and over again later the next night. She doesn’t return to her house like most assumed she had. Instead she apparates into a room she’s never stepped foot in before until now and she delicately runs the tips of her fingers over a gaping hole and compunctious eyes gaze into hers while hands begin to unbutton her shirt as she leans forward to press her mouth against a quivering one. She’s then gently led to a bed several inches apart from an empty one and a silence spell is performed, a door is locked, and she can hear sounds of grieving beneath her that reminds her why she’s here. Because she’d rather be in a home that’s suffering than in one that doesn’t feel at all.
The next afternoon a ginger-haired woman enters her son’s (sons’) room to ask him if he wants anything to eat and he doesn’t reply but manages an small smile when his mom notices a bracelet on the floor. Cho observes there’s nothing occupying her wrist when she returns home earlier that day and she smiles to herself. All is not well.
16.
Michael Corner is an attractive seventh year with black hair which layers itself into a shaggy hair style that he tends to very little. He also forgives Cho when she confesses her private night she spent at the Weasley home and she feels a little better.
The passing months they write continuously to each other letters that hold mechanical words and little meaning. She begins to forget who Michael exactly is and scans listlessly over his paragraphs of how Hogwarts is rebuilding itself back to normal.
Michael Corner, she believes, is someone she will never love. She thinks so when she attends his graduation and doesn’t shed a tear when his name is called and he’s finally deemed a wizard and no longer a boy. She assumes she’s cried out all her tears beforehand but something stirring inside of her opposes otherwise.
“I’m glad you could make it.”
Unable to contain herself she deadpans, “I don’t love you.” and Michael looks ridiculous standing before her with arms wide open as her fragilely structured words pass over him. He doesn’t say a single word to her and drops his arms to his sides before he walks away without a goodbye.
Michael Corner never understands why Cho doesn’t love him. But he’s seen far more devastating and destructive things in his life to feel sorry for himself and assumes he’s given her too many chances at love anyway.
17.
Cho isn’t anxious when she heads into a brightly colored shop located in Diagon Alley. She isn’t anxious because she hasn’t been able to hold any emotion other than despondence for the past few months and because she’s slightly surprised this shop is even opened and running. She pushes herself farther into the busy store and looks around to see fiery red hair and dead eyes almost cowering in the background.
She decides not to stay for too long and refuses to say a word. Instead she stares at his eyes that hold no light, all which was lost to the darkness, and forces a smile to her lips. His tall brother, Harry’s friend, glances at her with eyebrows furrowed and she decides to leave.
Cho isn’t angry that she has to leave so soon. She isn’t angry because she’s able to push aside memories that still echo in her head and because she’s happy she doesn’t have a house filled with people, like his, to watch her cry silently to herself every day.
18.
Death. Cho is never the one to forget death dates, specifically this one.
For the fifth year in a row she drops everything she’s doing, calls in sick at work, and walks, instead of apparates, to his grave. Her heart doesn’t break every time she sees it now but constant shadows of the grief and devastation that came after his death pass over her. She knows time can heal but what she doesn’t know is how long it takes.
Cho is never the one to forget death dates. Every day, though, she wishes she couldn’t remember them at all.
19.
She’s twenty-eight when her mom’s existence comes to an abrupt end. She can’t cry anymore and she simply says a goodbye to the one person she held no conflicting feelings for. The funeral is unpleasantly calm and steady and the air around her and her nameless relatives is musty.
It ends on the same note it started and Cho turns to see her father staring past her and at the grave with expressionless eyes. She becomes disappointed with her father for the first time in her life. She wanted him to forget her and her mom and like she used to take his absence as nihility.
There is death in this world, he tells her then and she doesn’t want to listen but she does, and once again he fails to say there’s just as many in the other one too.
20.
Cho Chang is taught to never believe in magic.
She still does, however, because it explodes wisps of life into her desolate, lonely one. It also gives her a home, and friends, and friends that gradually turned into a family. But although she uses those as reasons to continue with magic, she thinks, even with everything it gave her, it took far too much away.
This does not only deflate the ballooning hope in her, it bursts it completely. Magic has given her a lot of things and taken away just as many, but the real reason why she returns to her father’s house with him and marries a bland muggle he introduces to her a year later is because magic could not give her the one thing she desires the most. Love. And no matter how hard she tries, neither she nor her magic, can make it.
A/N: Well, thanks for sticking with the story this far and feedback would be more than amazing…