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Author: Jacynthe Story: A Few Things I Remember About Ravenclaw Rating: Everyone Setting: Pre-DH Status: Completed Reviews: 9 Words: 12,898
This final fragment, bleak as it is, has a ring of truth. No longer is the author trying to gloss over tragedy or put a brave face on events. The story is spare and stark. It explains a great deal. ***** Why do I go on about Cho Chang? It isn’t as if we were destined to live happily ever after, she and I. Even at twelve years old I knew that. My all-knowing sister has told me more than once to just get over it and go on, and perhaps I should. Out of what I choose to think of as loyalty, I do not. Cho herself, I think, would have appreciated this. She prized loyalty above all other virtues and pursued it single-mindedly, even when it extracted a terrible price. And so I keep faith with my older, in the best Ravenclaw tradition, even if all I can do is set down this record of a life so often misunderstood. *** It wasn’t more than a few weeks after the Yule Ball before Hermione was able to report that she and Ron were back to what, for them, passed as normal. By that time, Ginny’s toes had healed nicely from the damage inflicted on them by Neville Longbottom, and my incorrigible sister was masterminding a new romantic conspiracy, this time on behalf of her friend Lavender. For others, the events set in motion as a result of that most unfortunate of social events were not so easily put behind them. Cho was besotted; that was the only word for it. In a way, I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was still, after all, the Fair Flower of Ravenclaw, and Cedric, to his credit, worked hard for her love. And yet something had changed. Looking back, I have to smile mirthlessly at the irony of it. Cho Chang at sixteen had finally become more like me. She had discovered exclusivity. Cedric, to whom she had never given a thought before he burst into our lives, became her whole world. All else was forgotten: classes... Marietta and the sycophants... me. It hurt. At the time, I thought myself jealous—and guilt over this added to my unhappiness. Subsequent events, however, proved otherwise. What I really was, I now realise, was lonely. I had long since resigned myself to not being the sole object of Cho’s affection, but I missed her company, her conversation. I longed even for news of her. She had taken to leaving early and coming home late, and for hours at a time we had no idea of where she was—although little doubt as to what she was doing. I wouldn’t have minded: I just wanted to know. A new low was reached after the second task, when I was reduced to chatting up Ron Weasley in a futile attempt to learn just what had transpired under the lake. He had no idea, of course, which didn’t stop him going on about it at tedious length—or me from listening in vain hope. I could have tried asking Cedric, I suppose, but that humiliation, at least, I spared myself. Instead, I confessed all to Hermione. Well, not quite all, but I did tell her how much I was missing Cho. She understood at once. “I’ll never in a million years date Harry, but if he suddenly dropped out of my life, I really don’t know what I would do.” As for the business under the lake, it seemed that she had heard detailed, and interestingly different, versions of the story from Harry and Viktor. Hermione-like, she had quickly worked out the most plausible scenario—one, I had to admit grudgingly, that had Harry coming off rather well. Hermione had troubles of her own that winter, but she was still able to smile at my reaction. “You never know, Padma, maybe the two of you would be great friends. You have so much in common, after all. You’re both pining for Cho, and you both hate Cedric.” “But I don’t hate Cedric. She can kiss him all she likes. I just want her to talk to me!” And then, suddenly, she did. Without explanation or embarrassment, without apology. As if nothing had happened and no time gone by, Cho was back to a semblance of her old self, telling me everything that went through her head. It was mostly about him, of course, but I was happy enough to listen even to that. Indeed, now that Cho was talking to me again, I was able to rejoice in her happiness. Cedric, in fairness, seemed to be everything that Roger and Harry had not been, self-assured, uncomplicated, and just generally so competent. To me, at least, it seemed that life was back in order. My princess had found her prince, and I basked in the reflected glow of their mutual bliss. Others had their doubts. Arithmancy was one class in which we were officially encouraged to work together, and gradually a small group of us had got into the habit of meeting in the library once or twice a week for this purpose, Hermione and I and almost always Susan Bones, sometimes one or two others. It was a rare forum for inter-House cooperation, and over time Susan, at least, was incorporated into the quiet alliance that Hermione and I had formed the previous year. In general we stuck strictly to business, which all of us, I think, found soothing, but one evening when Susan and I were the first to arrive she put a question to me without preamble. “Do you know if Cho and Cedric are having a problem of some sort?” “I don’t think so. She seems happier than ever. Why do you ask?” “He’s back to acting strangely. She spends a lot of time in Hufflepuff, you know, and whenever they’re together it’s like he’s in a dream. It’s obvious that he absolutely worships her. But now, after she leaves, he always looks guilty, afraid almost.” “I don’t know, Susan, it sounds like he’s the one with a problem. Whatever it is, I don’t think she’s noticed. She wouldn’t necessarily, though....” I was left curious, but not particularly worried. If there really were a problem, Cho would tell me. If it was serious... well, the great thing about boys was that you could always find more. So I thought. Cho Chang, unfortunately, was in danger of forgetting that bit of ancestral wisdom. Marietta Edgecombe, of all people, guessed the truth. “Just wait and see. He’ll let her down, and we’ll be left to pick up the pieces.” “Marietta, you’re just jealous.” “Don’t! You know perfectly well whom I’m jealous of, and it isn’t the Pride of bloody Hufflepuff. Give me some credit, will you?” “Sorry....” “It’s all right, just trust me that I care about her as much as you do, and I really don’t like this.” “But why, Marietta? They’re so happy.” “She is. But she just doesn’t know. And as for him... Cho Chang is probably the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to that idiot in his entire life, but do you really think he’s told his family about her?” “What do you mean?” “I know the Diggorys, Padma, my family have known them forever, and let me tell you there isn’t a chance in Hell that Cedric’s father is going to welcome someone named Chang into his happy English home.” How naïve can you be? The thought simply hadn’t occurred to me. I was sickened by the obscenity of it and stupidly hated Marietta for being the one to force me to see it. “So why aren’t you doing something? Why don’t you tell her? She’s your younger, damn it!” “Don’t take that tone with me, Padma! ... Besides, she wouldn’t listen and you know it... and maybe I’m wrong... maybe they’ll give her a chance... if they do, she’s sure to win them over... she’s... she’s Cho!” But she wasn’t wrong. She was righter than she had ever been in her life. On that terrible evening when Harry Potter brought back Cedric’s body, Cho Chang stood alone and wept for the entire world to see. Only two of us there present, however, knew that the tears were not so much for the death as for the betrayal that had preceded it. She had come to me just before the start of the task, pale with shock and fury. “He won’t introduce me to his family! Says they might not like me... that we have to give them time to get used to the idea. The idea of what, Padma? What exactly is wrong with me?!” More than anything, I wanted to protect her, to keep her ever from knowing. Desperately, I tried to put a reasonable face on it, to convince us both that this was only temporary, that Cedric really did care for her, that he would work to bring his family round. He didn’t, of course. He died instead, and that made it all permanent. That summer, Cho Chang did not write to me at all. *** Marietta and I waited together on the platform at King’s Cross Station on the first of September, neither one speaking but each of us, for once, silently grateful for the other’s presence. When Cho finally appeared, coming through the barrier, I was startled. Vague detached serenity was the last thing I had expected. It was as if nothing had happened, as if we were all casual acquaintances meeting quite by accident. Even in my bewilderment, I saw Marietta’s jaw clench and her eyes go hard. I realised that, once again, she knew something I didn’t. What Marietta knew was revealed as we prepared for bed. Cho retrieved a crystal vial from her trunk and set it on the nightstand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marietta get up; clearly she had been expecting this. Before Cho could react, Marietta had confiscated what was clearly a potion container. Cho looked up, bemused. “Give that back, please. I need it.” Marietta ignored the request and put a question of her own, her voice low but harsh with angry insistence. “Cho, where did you get this? How often do you take it?” Cho’s answer was docile, childlike. “My mother gave it to me. Please, I have to have it. It helps me sleep.” Marietta bit off a string of curses for which I, as a newly minted prefect, should have given her a week’s detention. Startled, Cho looked to me for support, but now I had finally grasped what was going on. I could only shake my head in dismay. Marietta had regained her composure. She forced her voice into a gentler tone, but her judgment was without appeal. “Cho, you can’t do this. Not every night. It’s not safe. You have to stop. Right now.” Cho’s docility was turning to panic. “No! I need it! I have nightmares.... Padma, help me... tell her....” Cho gazed at me with desperate eyes, but I had no doubts. Marietta was right. I wasn’t betraying Cho, not this time. This time I was saving her. We were saving her. *** Cho Chang, I well knew, was far more resilient than she seemed. Even those first days, she was generally able to keep up appearances in public. She smiled and spoke of other things; she went to class and to Quidditch practice. She could still rise to the defence of her beloved Tornados. (Ron Weasley never knew how close he came to being jinxed into the Outer Hebrides over that—I had to restrain Marietta physically when she learned of the incident.) She even renewed her pursuit of Harry Potter—although that we could all have done without. Once back home, though, Cho would drop into listless exhaustion. We had to make her eat and remind her to bathe. And then, there were the nights: those nearly did us in. Within a week, she had recovered sufficiently to remember, even at two in the morning, that we really were trying to help her. The terrible pleading look left her eyes. But as her mind cleared, the nightmares returned. Cedric was still with her. She loved him, she hated him, she missed him; she couldn’t forgive him and she couldn’t let him go. I did what I could to help her through it all. Marietta was nothing short of heroic. Assailed by my own guilt, I could never have withstood Cho’s entreaties during that first hellish week, but with Marietta to back me up and keep me honest, I somehow did. I stayed up with Cho through sleepless hours; Marietta did homework for all three of us. Gradually, Cho improved. For days at a time, she seemed fine. And then, without warning, there would be a relapse. Something would remind her, would set her off, and we would find her collapsed in helpless tears. And the nightmares kept coming. Our devotion never wavered but, by late October, Marietta and I were reaching the end of our strength. We were seriously considering sacrificing Cho’s pride and dignity by turning her over to Madam Pomfrey, something we had sworn to her we would never do. Before we were reduced to this extremity, however, fate intervened once more in the unlikely person of Dolores Umbridge. *** It took me about five minutes, on the afternoon we all met at the Hog’s Head to plot our rebellion against this latest and worst Defence teacher and the forces of idiocy at her command, to decide that whatever it was that Hermione had in mind, I was for it—it was about time someone did something, and we might as well be the ones. Our newfound role as Heroic Resistance, however, brought trouble of a new kind. Marietta was receiving almost daily owls from her mother. The content of the letters they carried was not hard to guess. Once again, Cho’s older was becoming a self-appointed prophet of doom. “This defence business, I’m telling you, Padma, it’s not a good idea.” “You have to admit, we’re learning useful things.” “That’s not the point and you know it! Everyone seems to think it’s a game. Let’s put one over on Umbridge! They don’t think of the consequences; they don’t think about other people.” “You’re worried about your mother, aren’t you?” “I’m worried about all of us! We all have families. Do you really think that when there’s trouble—and you know there will be—do you think Harry Sainted Potter can get us out of it?” I had to admit that she had a point. For the time being, though, Marietta shared her doubts only with me. She did nothing, and we both knew why. Whatever its dangers or benefits for the rest of us, defence practice was clearly doing wonders for Cho’s state of mind. She was never so cheerful as after a session in the Room of Requirement. As long as this lasted, neither of us would stand in her way—and we both would feel compelled to go along. *** Looking back on it, I think the business on Valentine’s Day was the last straw for Marietta. Harry putting us all at risk, she could, however reluctantly, accept. Harry hurting Our Girl was not to be borne. To this day, I can’t decide what I think of her choices. It is possible that she really did think that she was saving Cho once again, that only Harry would suffer the consequences of her action. Not that my opinion mattered, then or later. Cho’s decision was swift and without appeal. Ever loyal, she prepared to keep faith with her older in the best Ravenclaw tradition. “She is our friend, our eldest. Maybe she made a mistake, but it doesn’t matter. We stand by her. All of us.” In confusion and shame, disfigured and her memory inexplicably damaged, Marietta had come home from the hospital wing and couldn’t have found a safer haven than in the arms of her younger. Cho held her close and faced us all down, defiance blazing in her eyes. “She’d do the same for any of us!” I wasn’t so sure. Cho sensed it and turned on me with fierceness like I had never seen in her before. “Padma, how can you?! You of all people! You know what she did for me, what you both did. She helped keep me alive, Padma; I can’t turn my back on her now. Neither can you, any of you. I won’t let you.” And so that settled it. Marietta’s treason, whatever its cause, had very nearly cost us all dearly. Nevertheless, she was one of ours, and we would close ranks around her. We would comfort and protect her and stand up for her in public, even if it meant pissing off the almighty Harry Potter. *** What came next, we all know. Harry had been right all along, of course. He Who We Do Not Name returned, and in the end we had little choice but to fight as best we could. By the time we prevailed, our world was changed beyond recognition. So many died—some heroically, others in their beds, a few on their knees. My sister, of all people, became famous. We all know what happened to Harry Potter.... But for me, when I think of that time, my thoughts are not of war and my grief is not for the dead. I write to fill the emptiness inside, the void still hollow after all these years, the place in my heart that was filled in my youth by Chang Cho Li, who once was the Fair Flower of Ravenclaw. Finis ***** Author’s note – So ends my tale. A few acknowledgements, at this point, are in order. Thanks once again to my betas, Monkeymouse (who allowed me to borrow a few background elements including Cho’s full name and the unkind words concerning Amos Diggory and son from his “Or Die Trying” – ff.net), CurrerB, and Gretchen. Thanks also to my reviewers past and (I hope) future. One minor departure from canon may be worth explaining. The first version of this story was written before the publication of HBP, and at the time there was no evidence one way or another about Marietta’s age. For narrative reasons, I chose to make her a year older than Cho. Speaking of which, that original, much longer, and somewhat different version of this story (parts of which would be inappropriate for the refined readership of PhoenixSong) does exist. Interested readers might seek out a story called “The Silver Swan” on Schnoogle.
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