FIC: Ways Found (Harry Potter/Cho Chang)
Title: Ways Found
Author: pretty_panther
Characters: Harry Potter/Cho Chang
Prompt number: 38
Word Count: 2799
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Cho says yes to Harry when he asks her to go to the ball and becomes his girlfriend. She sticks by him through the tournament and when others are willing to listen to Dumbledore and refuse to tell Harry anything, she finds a way and becomes the person he trusts most.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit from this.
Author’s Notes: This went in a totally different direction from what I expected but still stays true to the prompt. I hope the prompter likes it.
Ways Found
Cho says yes to the ball, and then it turns out to not be totally humiliating, even after having to listen to Dumbledore talk about chamber pots. One look at Ron's face and Harry decides it is best to avoid him altogether and somehow, he and Cho manage to stumble their way through several conversations. She laughs a few times and Harry nearly collapses with relief. In his book that means he has avoided total disaster because she appears to be laughing with him and not at him. She kisses him goodnight on the cheek, makes him promise they will meet up again, and not even Hermione and Ron's screaming match can ruin his evening.
*
Ron is taken for the second task, and Harry thinks that might be it with Cho but she doesn't mind. They meet in the library and talk a lot, looking through ancient tombs for charms and hexes that might keep him alive in the last task and she learns all about his best friends. She respects what they mean to him because she takes the time to listen to why. It is Ron he pulls from the lake but Cho that crashes into him a few minutes later and tucks the blanket closer around his shoulders when it slips loose.
*
When Harry wakes up after the Third Task, Voldemort, Crouch, and everything else, Cho is clinging to his hand so hard it has gone numb, and her cheeks are streaked with eyeliner and dried tears. Mrs Weasley gives Cho odd looks and it looks to Harry like she wants to interfere but it is Cho that presses the potion to his lips and refuses to leave his bedside until he himself can do so. Pomfrey frowns upon it all but Dumbledore allows it and she can't overrule that. Besides, it gives Harry a sense of comfort to have Cho by his side. She wasn't there before with the dementors, the snake and Quirrell and yet she questions nothing. He can tell she is overwhelmed with it all, bursting with questions, but it isn't the place to ask them so she doesn't. He is so grateful for that.
She sits with them all on the train back to London, joined by her friend Marietta, and while it is awkward and conversation is strained in parts her hand in his is reassuring. It reminds him when they start to pull their trunks down onto the floor that someone cares for him and despite only having seen bad things in his life wants to be with him. Yes, there had been kisses stolen in the library and fun in Hogsmeade but the tournament was always hanging over him. Over them.
"I'll keep in touch. Be safe, Harry," she says breathlessly in his ear before pulling him to her and squeezing him tightly in full view of his aunt and uncle. He leaves the station with a smile on his face, best friends and girlfriend waving him goodbye and he almost forgets what else the year has brought.
*
Letters to his friends over the summer take days to return and lack the information he asks for. They feel awkward and fake in his hands. Hermione is pushing him to talk about things he doesn't want to and Ron's just seem to remind him of how alone he is. Every mention of a family member getting on his nerves is a reminder of something Harry just doesn't have. Cho doesn't write at all. Instead she turns up on his doorstep two weeks into the summer wearing jeans, scuffed trainers and a t-shirt with a character Harry vaguely recognises from the TV on it. It is enough to placate his aunt and he leads her to the local park with a bounce in his step.
"You're being watched, Harry" is the first thing she says once they cross into the park, "There is someone following us right now."
His mouth opens and closes while her eyes plead for him to say nothing. He feels his temper rise up in his chest, feels words threaten to burst out and disturb the children playing on the slide, but Cho squeezes his hand and he holds it in. She slowly warps her arms around him, buries her head in his chest and mumbles to him, "I have a letter for you, but they can't know I've given you it." Harry is impatient, her words only causing more questions but he puts his trust in her. Cho is, after all, actually there and talking to him while his apparent best friends can't even write a letter to him without sounding suspicious in their lack of information. They sprawl out on the grass, kissing between comments and Harry almost feels like a normal teenager. She spends the afternoon with him, laughing, asking about why she found him gardening and promptly complimenting the bed when he tells her that he has always taken care of the flowers and every summer is about putting it all back together before going back to school. No one has given him any recognition for it before and he realises how much he has missed that, and more importantly how much he has deserved it.
*
When she walks him back to the house, promising that it might have taken her two trains from London after flooing at 6am in the morning to get there but it certainly won't take her as long to get home and she will manage. She throws her arms around him again outside the house, kisses him soundly and he feels an envelope being pressed to his back and tucked into the back of his jeans as she pulls away.
"I probably won't be able to come back but...you will understand. I'm glad I came. I've missed you," she says blushing, tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear before nodding, almost to herself, and making her way down the street and around the corner out of sight. The paper burns on Harry's back.
*
Dear Harry,
I'm sorry I couldn't tell you but as I said, we were being followed. My father was recruited by Dumbledore into an organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix at the start of the summer. They are trying to stand up to You-Know-Who, and he has put a team in charge of protecting you. There is a guard, invisible, outside your home twenty-four hours a day. Your friends are not allowed to tell you what is going on but we are all at the same place, protected. I met your godfather there. I have been getting to know him better and I'm glad you have him. I know you told me more about him at the end of the year but it is different getting to know him in person.
We figured out that just because Dumbledore had banned magical contact didn't mean I couldn't get around it. I hear he caused a lot of trouble at school and we put that together with my Claw traits! I doubt I will be able to visit again. I'm sure your guard will have frogmarched me home but I've enclosed my aunt's address and some stamps . My father doesn't agree with keeping you in the dark. He seems to think you have to play a huge part in this war that is coming and he will make sure I get the letters you send and send mine in return. I will try and pass on all the information that I can.
So far I really only know that Fudge is refusing to admit that He is back and Dumbledore is being branded crazy for saying so. I have not heard of the Death Eaters making any moves so far but they could be hiding that information from us. We are not allowed into the meetings because of our age. It all seems ridiculous to me. Your age has never protected you after all and they say that before Hogwarts was the only safe place left. If You-Know-Who wants to make a statement about his return then surely that would be the place to do it? I will try and learn as much as I can but I'm sure they will be watching me more now. They underestimated me before and just thought I was your girlfriend but I will help you in any way I can, through all of this.
Take care of yourself Harry. All my love,
Cho
He crumples the letter in his hands, shaking with fury, before immediately straightening it out and folding it neatly. His heart swells with something it takes him a moment to identify as love. It is almost a foreign feeling but he embraces it before sitting down to write a letter in return. It doesn't even cross his mind to look for the guard.
*
Every letter that arrives on the carpet addressed to him makes his Aunt Petunia glower at him but she does nothing more than that. A postman looks normal after all and it is one less owl arriving at all hours of the day. Each letter is like a lifeline and he stops hiding in the bushes to listen to the news, does his chores quietly and studies all his textbooks for offensive and defensive spells when he is done. He trusts Cho completely now, and she informs him that she was frogmarched back to their Headquarters and bawled and shouted at by Mrs Weasley before being given a stern talking to by Dumbledore. Harry knew that was inevitable though. What disturbs him is her declaring that Dumbledore had tried to read her mind. She explains how it is done and it leaves Harry reeling. Of course he suspected it was possible but it seemed so wrong to do such a thing to Cho. Again he feels like he is being shut out. Dumbledore knows he saw Voldemort return, that his blood had been used in the ritual, and now he wants to keep Harry in the dark about the war that has to be coming. It makes him angry, makes him kick at his desk, and mutter angrily to himself about his situation where he hopes his guards will hear him. He doesn't appreciate their protection in the slightest, especially when the dementors come and they are nowhere to be seen anyway.
*
The Order arrive to fetch him and Harry says as little as possible. Moody lectures him on sending letters to Cho and Harry's outburst keeps the rest quiet for the trip to London.
"Yeah, because I am going to take safety tips from a guy that spent last year locked in his own trunk. I'm allowed to get mail. What is the point of me having a life if you won't allow me to live it?"
His anger simmers away until he is pushed into Headquarters. Molly Weasley meets him at the door but there is no warm hug like he had expected, just a stern look before she tells him Ron and Hermione are upstairs. Puzzled, Harry makes his way upstairs as quietly as he can as instructed but he walks past the room Ron and Hermione are supposed to be in and knocks quietly on the one next door instead. When Cho appears in the doorway, his anger dies away and he pulls her close and whispers in her ear, "Thank you. I've no idea how I would have coped without your letters, without you being there."
She squeezes him and pulls him into the room, pushes him flush against the door and kisses him soundly. When Hermione and Ron come and knock on the door he doesn't feel happiness or joy, just irritation.
*
Hermione doesn't stop going on about why they can't expel him, while Cho comes up with plans for if they do. There are other schools, she reminds him, and expulsion from one is not expulsion from them all. A wizard can go new places, become a new person, get a new wand. It isn't legal, or good, or anything Harry wants but it is more reassuring than anything anyone else has to say to him that morning because he just isn't in the right frame of mind to hear their words.
*
Everyone else is ready to look to Dumbledore but no one gets a twenty-four hour guard unless someone wants them dead. Cho looks up books that can teach him how to defend himself better, keep him alive long enough to learn how to attack. He pours over his new textbooks and then over Cho's before ordering more books by owl. He refuses to help clean up the house, Cho pointing out there are better things to do with his time, and Sirius holds their ground and sets them up in the family library for the rest of the summer. Cho has no loyalties to Mrs Weasley's , is immune to her disappointment and the more she stands up for him the closer they come and the further Harry distances himself from the friends who don't seem to grasp how serious it all is despite living in the Headquarters of the second war with Voldemort.
Harry has no doubt that it is war. The soldiers are not clashing outright but that doesn't mean they are not on the move.
*
"You're only here because you're my girlfriend. I'm putting you in danger."
"There is no version of this war where I don't fight him, Harry. I'm here because I love you," she replies, curled up into his side on the sofa the night before they go back to Hogwarts. Noise drifts down the hall from the kitchen where the others are laughing, joking and having pudding but Harry's stomach is churning at the idea of being back at school, exposed.
He tenses up, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Cho smiles, reaches up, kisses him softly on the cheek, "I love you, Harry Potter."
The words catch in his throat. He wants to return them, wants to scream them out to anyone that will listen, but he can't. No one has ever said that to him before. He doesn't even remember his own mother saying those words and now he has his arms full of a girl who stood by him as a target was painted on his back, left her home to be a prisoner in his and broke all the rules because she cared about Harry, the boy and not Harry, the boy who lived. Where others wouldn't try she found a way.
"I..."
"Shhh, we won't be alone for long. Let's enjoy it," she says quietly, smiling before burying her face in his side again, pressing their bodies together so tightly on the sofa that is uncomfortable. She doesn't need to hear the words right now.
*
"Nothing is going to be the same," Harry states as he hands his trunk to Ron and then takes Cho's from her to pass it on as well.
"Nope. We will get through it though. We have to believe that," she says while looking around the platform and studying her fellow students carefully. Any one of them could be tasked with sending information to Voldemort and they know it. Hermione doesn't want to believe that children would do such a thing but it is Ron that reminds her of all the things they have had to face from within the school itself before this. Cho's family beckon her over and Harry lets them say their goodbyes, all too aware that instead of a family to wish him off there are visible and invisible Order guards watching his every move.
It only takes a few glances between Cho and her housemates to make it clear that they are no longer friends. Their gazes linger on Harry and he feels a deep sense of guilt. He makes to say something but Cho shakes her head and leads him onto the train, head held high and proud as she asks Ron if he will try out for the Gryffindor team now quidditch will be back. They clash over what they think is best for Harry but his friends are hers now and Harry can at least be glad of that. It takes a lot to go into hiding, remain with someone so dangerous, lose your friends and still be willing to laugh about it all. Cho's way of looking at the world is what makes her a Ravenclaw and has changed Harry's summer, making him feel prepared for what is to come, and yet Harry thinks she might just be the bravest and most courage of them all.
Author: pretty_panther
Characters: Harry Potter/Cho Chang
Prompt number: 38
Word Count: 2799
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Cho says yes to Harry when he asks her to go to the ball and becomes his girlfriend. She sticks by him through the tournament and when others are willing to listen to Dumbledore and refuse to tell Harry anything, she finds a way and becomes the person he trusts most.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit from this.
Author’s Notes: This went in a totally different direction from what I expected but still stays true to the prompt. I hope the prompter likes it.
Ways Found
Cho says yes to the ball, and then it turns out to not be totally humiliating, even after having to listen to Dumbledore talk about chamber pots. One look at Ron's face and Harry decides it is best to avoid him altogether and somehow, he and Cho manage to stumble their way through several conversations. She laughs a few times and Harry nearly collapses with relief. In his book that means he has avoided total disaster because she appears to be laughing with him and not at him. She kisses him goodnight on the cheek, makes him promise they will meet up again, and not even Hermione and Ron's screaming match can ruin his evening.
*
Ron is taken for the second task, and Harry thinks that might be it with Cho but she doesn't mind. They meet in the library and talk a lot, looking through ancient tombs for charms and hexes that might keep him alive in the last task and she learns all about his best friends. She respects what they mean to him because she takes the time to listen to why. It is Ron he pulls from the lake but Cho that crashes into him a few minutes later and tucks the blanket closer around his shoulders when it slips loose.
*
When Harry wakes up after the Third Task, Voldemort, Crouch, and everything else, Cho is clinging to his hand so hard it has gone numb, and her cheeks are streaked with eyeliner and dried tears. Mrs Weasley gives Cho odd looks and it looks to Harry like she wants to interfere but it is Cho that presses the potion to his lips and refuses to leave his bedside until he himself can do so. Pomfrey frowns upon it all but Dumbledore allows it and she can't overrule that. Besides, it gives Harry a sense of comfort to have Cho by his side. She wasn't there before with the dementors, the snake and Quirrell and yet she questions nothing. He can tell she is overwhelmed with it all, bursting with questions, but it isn't the place to ask them so she doesn't. He is so grateful for that.
She sits with them all on the train back to London, joined by her friend Marietta, and while it is awkward and conversation is strained in parts her hand in his is reassuring. It reminds him when they start to pull their trunks down onto the floor that someone cares for him and despite only having seen bad things in his life wants to be with him. Yes, there had been kisses stolen in the library and fun in Hogsmeade but the tournament was always hanging over him. Over them.
"I'll keep in touch. Be safe, Harry," she says breathlessly in his ear before pulling him to her and squeezing him tightly in full view of his aunt and uncle. He leaves the station with a smile on his face, best friends and girlfriend waving him goodbye and he almost forgets what else the year has brought.
*
Letters to his friends over the summer take days to return and lack the information he asks for. They feel awkward and fake in his hands. Hermione is pushing him to talk about things he doesn't want to and Ron's just seem to remind him of how alone he is. Every mention of a family member getting on his nerves is a reminder of something Harry just doesn't have. Cho doesn't write at all. Instead she turns up on his doorstep two weeks into the summer wearing jeans, scuffed trainers and a t-shirt with a character Harry vaguely recognises from the TV on it. It is enough to placate his aunt and he leads her to the local park with a bounce in his step.
"You're being watched, Harry" is the first thing she says once they cross into the park, "There is someone following us right now."
His mouth opens and closes while her eyes plead for him to say nothing. He feels his temper rise up in his chest, feels words threaten to burst out and disturb the children playing on the slide, but Cho squeezes his hand and he holds it in. She slowly warps her arms around him, buries her head in his chest and mumbles to him, "I have a letter for you, but they can't know I've given you it." Harry is impatient, her words only causing more questions but he puts his trust in her. Cho is, after all, actually there and talking to him while his apparent best friends can't even write a letter to him without sounding suspicious in their lack of information. They sprawl out on the grass, kissing between comments and Harry almost feels like a normal teenager. She spends the afternoon with him, laughing, asking about why she found him gardening and promptly complimenting the bed when he tells her that he has always taken care of the flowers and every summer is about putting it all back together before going back to school. No one has given him any recognition for it before and he realises how much he has missed that, and more importantly how much he has deserved it.
*
When she walks him back to the house, promising that it might have taken her two trains from London after flooing at 6am in the morning to get there but it certainly won't take her as long to get home and she will manage. She throws her arms around him again outside the house, kisses him soundly and he feels an envelope being pressed to his back and tucked into the back of his jeans as she pulls away.
"I probably won't be able to come back but...you will understand. I'm glad I came. I've missed you," she says blushing, tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear before nodding, almost to herself, and making her way down the street and around the corner out of sight. The paper burns on Harry's back.
*
Dear Harry,
I'm sorry I couldn't tell you but as I said, we were being followed. My father was recruited by Dumbledore into an organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix at the start of the summer. They are trying to stand up to You-Know-Who, and he has put a team in charge of protecting you. There is a guard, invisible, outside your home twenty-four hours a day. Your friends are not allowed to tell you what is going on but we are all at the same place, protected. I met your godfather there. I have been getting to know him better and I'm glad you have him. I know you told me more about him at the end of the year but it is different getting to know him in person.
We figured out that just because Dumbledore had banned magical contact didn't mean I couldn't get around it. I hear he caused a lot of trouble at school and we put that together with my Claw traits! I doubt I will be able to visit again. I'm sure your guard will have frogmarched me home but I've enclosed my aunt's address and some stamps . My father doesn't agree with keeping you in the dark. He seems to think you have to play a huge part in this war that is coming and he will make sure I get the letters you send and send mine in return. I will try and pass on all the information that I can.
So far I really only know that Fudge is refusing to admit that He is back and Dumbledore is being branded crazy for saying so. I have not heard of the Death Eaters making any moves so far but they could be hiding that information from us. We are not allowed into the meetings because of our age. It all seems ridiculous to me. Your age has never protected you after all and they say that before Hogwarts was the only safe place left. If You-Know-Who wants to make a statement about his return then surely that would be the place to do it? I will try and learn as much as I can but I'm sure they will be watching me more now. They underestimated me before and just thought I was your girlfriend but I will help you in any way I can, through all of this.
Take care of yourself Harry. All my love,
Cho
He crumples the letter in his hands, shaking with fury, before immediately straightening it out and folding it neatly. His heart swells with something it takes him a moment to identify as love. It is almost a foreign feeling but he embraces it before sitting down to write a letter in return. It doesn't even cross his mind to look for the guard.
*
Every letter that arrives on the carpet addressed to him makes his Aunt Petunia glower at him but she does nothing more than that. A postman looks normal after all and it is one less owl arriving at all hours of the day. Each letter is like a lifeline and he stops hiding in the bushes to listen to the news, does his chores quietly and studies all his textbooks for offensive and defensive spells when he is done. He trusts Cho completely now, and she informs him that she was frogmarched back to their Headquarters and bawled and shouted at by Mrs Weasley before being given a stern talking to by Dumbledore. Harry knew that was inevitable though. What disturbs him is her declaring that Dumbledore had tried to read her mind. She explains how it is done and it leaves Harry reeling. Of course he suspected it was possible but it seemed so wrong to do such a thing to Cho. Again he feels like he is being shut out. Dumbledore knows he saw Voldemort return, that his blood had been used in the ritual, and now he wants to keep Harry in the dark about the war that has to be coming. It makes him angry, makes him kick at his desk, and mutter angrily to himself about his situation where he hopes his guards will hear him. He doesn't appreciate their protection in the slightest, especially when the dementors come and they are nowhere to be seen anyway.
*
The Order arrive to fetch him and Harry says as little as possible. Moody lectures him on sending letters to Cho and Harry's outburst keeps the rest quiet for the trip to London.
"Yeah, because I am going to take safety tips from a guy that spent last year locked in his own trunk. I'm allowed to get mail. What is the point of me having a life if you won't allow me to live it?"
His anger simmers away until he is pushed into Headquarters. Molly Weasley meets him at the door but there is no warm hug like he had expected, just a stern look before she tells him Ron and Hermione are upstairs. Puzzled, Harry makes his way upstairs as quietly as he can as instructed but he walks past the room Ron and Hermione are supposed to be in and knocks quietly on the one next door instead. When Cho appears in the doorway, his anger dies away and he pulls her close and whispers in her ear, "Thank you. I've no idea how I would have coped without your letters, without you being there."
She squeezes him and pulls him into the room, pushes him flush against the door and kisses him soundly. When Hermione and Ron come and knock on the door he doesn't feel happiness or joy, just irritation.
*
Hermione doesn't stop going on about why they can't expel him, while Cho comes up with plans for if they do. There are other schools, she reminds him, and expulsion from one is not expulsion from them all. A wizard can go new places, become a new person, get a new wand. It isn't legal, or good, or anything Harry wants but it is more reassuring than anything anyone else has to say to him that morning because he just isn't in the right frame of mind to hear their words.
*
Everyone else is ready to look to Dumbledore but no one gets a twenty-four hour guard unless someone wants them dead. Cho looks up books that can teach him how to defend himself better, keep him alive long enough to learn how to attack. He pours over his new textbooks and then over Cho's before ordering more books by owl. He refuses to help clean up the house, Cho pointing out there are better things to do with his time, and Sirius holds their ground and sets them up in the family library for the rest of the summer. Cho has no loyalties to Mrs Weasley's , is immune to her disappointment and the more she stands up for him the closer they come and the further Harry distances himself from the friends who don't seem to grasp how serious it all is despite living in the Headquarters of the second war with Voldemort.
Harry has no doubt that it is war. The soldiers are not clashing outright but that doesn't mean they are not on the move.
*
"You're only here because you're my girlfriend. I'm putting you in danger."
"There is no version of this war where I don't fight him, Harry. I'm here because I love you," she replies, curled up into his side on the sofa the night before they go back to Hogwarts. Noise drifts down the hall from the kitchen where the others are laughing, joking and having pudding but Harry's stomach is churning at the idea of being back at school, exposed.
He tenses up, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Cho smiles, reaches up, kisses him softly on the cheek, "I love you, Harry Potter."
The words catch in his throat. He wants to return them, wants to scream them out to anyone that will listen, but he can't. No one has ever said that to him before. He doesn't even remember his own mother saying those words and now he has his arms full of a girl who stood by him as a target was painted on his back, left her home to be a prisoner in his and broke all the rules because she cared about Harry, the boy and not Harry, the boy who lived. Where others wouldn't try she found a way.
"I..."
"Shhh, we won't be alone for long. Let's enjoy it," she says quietly, smiling before burying her face in his side again, pressing their bodies together so tightly on the sofa that is uncomfortable. She doesn't need to hear the words right now.
*
"Nothing is going to be the same," Harry states as he hands his trunk to Ron and then takes Cho's from her to pass it on as well.
"Nope. We will get through it though. We have to believe that," she says while looking around the platform and studying her fellow students carefully. Any one of them could be tasked with sending information to Voldemort and they know it. Hermione doesn't want to believe that children would do such a thing but it is Ron that reminds her of all the things they have had to face from within the school itself before this. Cho's family beckon her over and Harry lets them say their goodbyes, all too aware that instead of a family to wish him off there are visible and invisible Order guards watching his every move.
It only takes a few glances between Cho and her housemates to make it clear that they are no longer friends. Their gazes linger on Harry and he feels a deep sense of guilt. He makes to say something but Cho shakes her head and leads him onto the train, head held high and proud as she asks Ron if he will try out for the Gryffindor team now quidditch will be back. They clash over what they think is best for Harry but his friends are hers now and Harry can at least be glad of that. It takes a lot to go into hiding, remain with someone so dangerous, lose your friends and still be willing to laugh about it all. Cho's way of looking at the world is what makes her a Ravenclaw and has changed Harry's summer, making him feel prepared for what is to come, and yet Harry thinks she might just be the bravest and most courage of them all.