(no subject)
Sentimental Heart
Cho (Harry/Cho), 1560 words, G.
note: for obvious reasons, this doesn't fit with the epilogue.
(six)
Her uncle comes to visit from Hong Kong. She squeals when he picks her up and swings her in a circle, her stomach dropping as he lifts her up high onto his shoulders. He's brought gifts, toys with shiny labels that make sounds and emit sparks and move on their own, cheap and useless and delightful. The diary is at the bottom of the pile, made of plastic and decorated with colorful cartoon characters. It closes with a button that snaps and the lock is charmed, hiding her secrets from any eyes but hers.
The toys break and she forgets about them, eventually, but the diary enchants her. Years later it makes her smile to think about it, the way she'd carefully scratched out her fears and desires on the cheap paper; when her biggest fear was written in her awkward, childish print on page forty-seven: "what if i turn eleven and nothing happens?"
(eleven)
She's been waiting for this moment for years and years, maybe her entire life, and she hates the lump in the back of her throat when she hugs her parents goodbye. She blinks very quickly as she boards the train, looking for familiar faces. Everyone seems so much bigger than her. She swallows her fear and opens the door to a compartment whose occupants seem smaller than the rest, closer to her size. She smiles and edges into the window seat, her hand sweaty against the glass as she searches for her parents in the crowd. The whistle blows and the train jerks to life and she feels a rush of terror, panic closing up her throat as her mum and dad blur, then fade into the distance.
She blinks back the tears in her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, steadying herself, before she looks around her for the first time. The faces around her look just as scared as she feels, and she thinks she's brave enough for this adventure after all.
(thirteen)
Marietta loftily informs her that Divination is the way to go, her eyes wide as she talks about crystal balls, tea leaves, seances... and Professor Trelawney's notoriously easy final exams. Cho smiles, nods, and signs herself up for Ancient Runes. The other girls huddle together in the common room and whisper about visions and trances while Cho studies past, present, future and memorizes the foreign phrases, murmuring "to cry, to sleep, to die" as she runs her finger down the list.
(sixteen)
Her friends don't know what to do with her, some days. Her eyes fill with tears at the slightest provocation: when a boy in yellow Quidditch gear brushes up against her in the hallway, when she forgets her Charms essay for the third week in a row, when she goes to see Professor McGonagall after class and the formidable, severe woman calls her "my dear girl," voice full of sympathy and frustration in equal parts.
She writes her thoughts down because she doesn't know how to say them out loud to her friends, not when they giggle about boys and Hogsmeade trips and the family vacations they've got planned for the summer. She hides parchment under her mattress and at the bottom of her trunk, and when she charms them blank she remembers her plastic journal, with its cartoon cover and innocent secrets. The thought makes her cry even harder, pressing her face into a pillow until she can barely breathe.
"She hardly even knew him, honestly," she hears Parvati Patil whisper to her sister Padma in the third floor girls' bathroom, as she's hidden in a stall with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. That's just it, she wants to scream at them, don't they understand? She didn't know him at all: she didn't know what his favorite color was or what subject he liked best; she only met his parents at the funeral. The things they talked about were so trivial: books, quidditch, the House Cup, Professor Snape's horrible hair. If she had known she would have asked him about everything; she would have kissed him first. She would have held his hand in a tighter grip.
(seventeen)
She spends her first summer as an adult at home with her parents, halfheartedly studying for her NEWTs and helping her mother in the shop. She likes to walk down the road to the muggle village close by; at first she's only looking for some time alone but then she discovers the bookshop, and soon Saturday mornings become the high point of her week. She reads the titles on the spines very carefully and tries to safely navigate conversations with the old man behind the counter, smiling and letting him do most of the talking. She fills the shelf in her room with Hamlet and Macbeth, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, The Iliad.
At the end of August her parents bring up school at dinner, and her father stares carefully at his plate when her mother asks her if she'd like to furlough for a year; she's sure Professor Flitwick would understand. It's tempting, but Cho shakes her head firmly and says "no, I want to go," thinking of NEWTs and the familiar colors of the Ravenclaw common room, and the fake gold Galleon she still keeps in her pocket.
(nineteen)
The war is over but her life is just beginning: this is what she tells herself when she refuses her parents' offer to come back home. She rents a flat in Diagon Alley instead, and gets a job at a muggle coffee shop. She likes talking to the university students, with their thick philosophy texts and battered novels, some with names she can recognize; they seem so young even though they're all her age or older. Their knowledge of war comes only from history books, or from news reports featuring far away countries. She likes to go to the muggle shops, bright and cheerfully unaware, after her shifts are finished. She stays up late some nights helping her flatmate, a Beauxbatons graduate with a job at the ministry, with her English. She's working toward something, but she's not sure what it is just yet.
(twenty-two)
She's still got her job at the coffee shop. The muggle boys from the university ask her out, sometimes, and sometimes she says yes. It feels as though she's stalled, even though Luna's offered to let her write pieces for the Quibbler and she writes for herself too; she hasn't shown anyone but she's proud of herself nonetheless.
She's working behind the counter, rushing through mochas and lattes and green teas and chai teas, when she sees him. He looks a little awkward, a little out of place here where no one recognizes him: small and uncomfortable rather than larger than life. "Decaf latte," she calls out, and his eyes meet hers. She smiles a little as she hands over his drink, fingers brushing against his. "Hi," she begins, but someone's asking for their tea and Sarah needs her at the register and she doesn't hear his reponse, if he makes one at all.
Her shift ends a half hour later and he hasn't left yet; he's sitting in an armchair by the window, holding his drink and looking out at the street. "Hi," she says again, and this time he looks up at her and smiles.
"Hi," he says back.
"I haven't played in years," she admits, smiling at his look of consternation. "I guess I do miss it, sometimes, but," she pauses, taking a sip of her tea, "I just don't think of it very often." It doesn't seem to be a good enough explanation for him, and he sets his cup down on the table. "That is entirely unacceptable," he says firmly, and she'd think he was serious if it weren't for the smile on his face.
Two weeks later he's managed to convince her to take the weekend off from work and they're in the countryside, not far from where Luna and her father live, clutching their old broomsticks as they stumble through the open field. The grass is tall, uncut, and when she misjudges her first dive and tumbles off her broom the earth is softer than she expected. She stays there a while, staring up at the blue sky and the white clouds, until he appears in her line of vision, looking concerned.
"It's nice down here," she explains, and his expression shifts to one of disbelief. She hauls herself to her feet and tries to discreetly brush the grass from her pants. "It's nice up there too," she concedes, reaching for her broom, and he grins.
He's more relaxed now than he was all those years ago, and it's easier to talk to him. She likes spending time with him. He'd admitted, that first day, that he'd sought out the muggle coffee shop to avoid running into familiar faces, and she'd felt awkward for a moment before he reached across the table and tapped her wrist, eyes warm as he reassured her that he didn't mind seeing her face.
When she was sixteen she thought he was sweet and strong, and she wanted him to piece her back together. She'd kissed him and it had been nice. She's twenty-two now and she blushes under his steady gaze, and she knows if she kissed it would be much more than nice.
Cho (Harry/Cho), 1560 words, G.
note: for obvious reasons, this doesn't fit with the epilogue.
(six)
Her uncle comes to visit from Hong Kong. She squeals when he picks her up and swings her in a circle, her stomach dropping as he lifts her up high onto his shoulders. He's brought gifts, toys with shiny labels that make sounds and emit sparks and move on their own, cheap and useless and delightful. The diary is at the bottom of the pile, made of plastic and decorated with colorful cartoon characters. It closes with a button that snaps and the lock is charmed, hiding her secrets from any eyes but hers.
The toys break and she forgets about them, eventually, but the diary enchants her. Years later it makes her smile to think about it, the way she'd carefully scratched out her fears and desires on the cheap paper; when her biggest fear was written in her awkward, childish print on page forty-seven: "what if i turn eleven and nothing happens?"
(eleven)
She's been waiting for this moment for years and years, maybe her entire life, and she hates the lump in the back of her throat when she hugs her parents goodbye. She blinks very quickly as she boards the train, looking for familiar faces. Everyone seems so much bigger than her. She swallows her fear and opens the door to a compartment whose occupants seem smaller than the rest, closer to her size. She smiles and edges into the window seat, her hand sweaty against the glass as she searches for her parents in the crowd. The whistle blows and the train jerks to life and she feels a rush of terror, panic closing up her throat as her mum and dad blur, then fade into the distance.
She blinks back the tears in her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, steadying herself, before she looks around her for the first time. The faces around her look just as scared as she feels, and she thinks she's brave enough for this adventure after all.
(thirteen)
Marietta loftily informs her that Divination is the way to go, her eyes wide as she talks about crystal balls, tea leaves, seances... and Professor Trelawney's notoriously easy final exams. Cho smiles, nods, and signs herself up for Ancient Runes. The other girls huddle together in the common room and whisper about visions and trances while Cho studies past, present, future and memorizes the foreign phrases, murmuring "to cry, to sleep, to die" as she runs her finger down the list.
(sixteen)
Her friends don't know what to do with her, some days. Her eyes fill with tears at the slightest provocation: when a boy in yellow Quidditch gear brushes up against her in the hallway, when she forgets her Charms essay for the third week in a row, when she goes to see Professor McGonagall after class and the formidable, severe woman calls her "my dear girl," voice full of sympathy and frustration in equal parts.
She writes her thoughts down because she doesn't know how to say them out loud to her friends, not when they giggle about boys and Hogsmeade trips and the family vacations they've got planned for the summer. She hides parchment under her mattress and at the bottom of her trunk, and when she charms them blank she remembers her plastic journal, with its cartoon cover and innocent secrets. The thought makes her cry even harder, pressing her face into a pillow until she can barely breathe.
"She hardly even knew him, honestly," she hears Parvati Patil whisper to her sister Padma in the third floor girls' bathroom, as she's hidden in a stall with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. That's just it, she wants to scream at them, don't they understand? She didn't know him at all: she didn't know what his favorite color was or what subject he liked best; she only met his parents at the funeral. The things they talked about were so trivial: books, quidditch, the House Cup, Professor Snape's horrible hair. If she had known she would have asked him about everything; she would have kissed him first. She would have held his hand in a tighter grip.
(seventeen)
She spends her first summer as an adult at home with her parents, halfheartedly studying for her NEWTs and helping her mother in the shop. She likes to walk down the road to the muggle village close by; at first she's only looking for some time alone but then she discovers the bookshop, and soon Saturday mornings become the high point of her week. She reads the titles on the spines very carefully and tries to safely navigate conversations with the old man behind the counter, smiling and letting him do most of the talking. She fills the shelf in her room with Hamlet and Macbeth, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, The Iliad.
At the end of August her parents bring up school at dinner, and her father stares carefully at his plate when her mother asks her if she'd like to furlough for a year; she's sure Professor Flitwick would understand. It's tempting, but Cho shakes her head firmly and says "no, I want to go," thinking of NEWTs and the familiar colors of the Ravenclaw common room, and the fake gold Galleon she still keeps in her pocket.
(nineteen)
The war is over but her life is just beginning: this is what she tells herself when she refuses her parents' offer to come back home. She rents a flat in Diagon Alley instead, and gets a job at a muggle coffee shop. She likes talking to the university students, with their thick philosophy texts and battered novels, some with names she can recognize; they seem so young even though they're all her age or older. Their knowledge of war comes only from history books, or from news reports featuring far away countries. She likes to go to the muggle shops, bright and cheerfully unaware, after her shifts are finished. She stays up late some nights helping her flatmate, a Beauxbatons graduate with a job at the ministry, with her English. She's working toward something, but she's not sure what it is just yet.
(twenty-two)
She's still got her job at the coffee shop. The muggle boys from the university ask her out, sometimes, and sometimes she says yes. It feels as though she's stalled, even though Luna's offered to let her write pieces for the Quibbler and she writes for herself too; she hasn't shown anyone but she's proud of herself nonetheless.
She's working behind the counter, rushing through mochas and lattes and green teas and chai teas, when she sees him. He looks a little awkward, a little out of place here where no one recognizes him: small and uncomfortable rather than larger than life. "Decaf latte," she calls out, and his eyes meet hers. She smiles a little as she hands over his drink, fingers brushing against his. "Hi," she begins, but someone's asking for their tea and Sarah needs her at the register and she doesn't hear his reponse, if he makes one at all.
Her shift ends a half hour later and he hasn't left yet; he's sitting in an armchair by the window, holding his drink and looking out at the street. "Hi," she says again, and this time he looks up at her and smiles.
"Hi," he says back.
"I haven't played in years," she admits, smiling at his look of consternation. "I guess I do miss it, sometimes, but," she pauses, taking a sip of her tea, "I just don't think of it very often." It doesn't seem to be a good enough explanation for him, and he sets his cup down on the table. "That is entirely unacceptable," he says firmly, and she'd think he was serious if it weren't for the smile on his face.
Two weeks later he's managed to convince her to take the weekend off from work and they're in the countryside, not far from where Luna and her father live, clutching their old broomsticks as they stumble through the open field. The grass is tall, uncut, and when she misjudges her first dive and tumbles off her broom the earth is softer than she expected. She stays there a while, staring up at the blue sky and the white clouds, until he appears in her line of vision, looking concerned.
"It's nice down here," she explains, and his expression shifts to one of disbelief. She hauls herself to her feet and tries to discreetly brush the grass from her pants. "It's nice up there too," she concedes, reaching for her broom, and he grins.
He's more relaxed now than he was all those years ago, and it's easier to talk to him. She likes spending time with him. He'd admitted, that first day, that he'd sought out the muggle coffee shop to avoid running into familiar faces, and she'd felt awkward for a moment before he reached across the table and tapped her wrist, eyes warm as he reassured her that he didn't mind seeing her face.
When she was sixteen she thought he was sweet and strong, and she wanted him to piece her back together. She'd kissed him and it had been nice. She's twenty-two now and she blushes under his steady gaze, and she knows if she kissed it would be much more than nice.