Springfic: "Where My Thought's Escaping (1/2)" for kereia
Title: Where My Thought's Escaping (1/2)
Author: Snorkackcatcher
Recipient: kereia
Character(s): Cho Chang, her family, Michael Corner, Marietta Edgecombe, Su Li, assorted OCs and canon cameos
Rating: PG-13
Word-count: 19,750 words approx
Warnings (highlight to view): Character deaths (mostly canon)
Summary: Cho had enjoyed her visits to Guangzhou. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to live there. But when her parents moved their family away because of the war, she found herself trying to build a new life in China -- and struggling to reconcile it with her unfinished business in Britain.
Author's Notes: Su Li is a Ravenclaw on the list of 40 students in Harry's year in JKR's notebook (seen in the documentary Harry Potter and Me), although she never appeared in the books. She may in fact have been the prototype for Cho herself, but here I've followed fandom tradition by taking the notebook literally. The mention of Cho's Scottish accent here is a nod to Katie Leung, of course, though there's nothing in the books to say she doesn't have one. One line is taken directly from DH, others refer to it from Cho's POV. The title is from Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound. It was chosen post-completion when I decided my working title didn't cut it, but when I actually checked the lyrics they did seem to fit the general mood!
Beta: Thanks to kennahijja for regular betaing, plus shiiki and dolorous_ett for invaluable Sinopicking assistance. But anything problematic is my responsibility, not theirs. Many thanks to the mods for letting me overrun the deadline with this fic, and I should apologise for the length - perhaps one of those occasions where I ‘lack the time to make it shorter’!
Where My Thought's Escaping
到arrival
It inevitably took Cho a few minutes to recover from travel by Portkey, especially one that crossed continents, and as soon as they touched ground she reeled away to find the nearest solid wall to lean against. When her head finally stopped spinning she was able to take in her surroundings; she'd travelled to Guangzhou twice before for visits to parental aunts and uncles, and the arrival station was every bit as cramped as she remembered it. It was harder for wizards to hide themselves in such a crowded city, and a larger station would have run more risk of awkward questions from anyone who noticed that it shouldn't be there at all.
It was an interesting place, a thriving Muggle city with an equally thriving wizarding community scattered within it. Cho had enjoyed her visits. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to live there.
Her parents chuckled as they helped her sister and brother back onto their feet. They were saying it was 'full circle', or at least Cho was fairly sure they were -- they had, almost unconsciously it seemed, dropped back into the Cantonese that most of the other conversations in the room were being held in. Her mother blushed, and switched to English. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, mum." She dusted herself down. "Full circle?"
Her father beamed. "Good to see you understood, kitten," he said. Cho winced at the old childish nickname. Her younger siblings looked on curiously; they'd understood the words, but clearly had no more idea than Cho did what their parents were referring to. "I don't think we ever told you, but we met for the very first time in this place. We were only Chun's age then, of course, we had no idea what it would lead to." He smiled at them. "Your grandparents took us away in 1967, for much the same reasons."
"Why, Daddy?" That was Chun -- eleven soon, always curious, but she wasn't going to be a Ravenclaw like her elder sister. She wasn't even going to go to Hogwarts.
He lost the smile. "A war was starting here, so they took us away. A group of our people formed an organisation to -- to strike back at the Muggles. The Ministry fought them. You'll learn about it in time. We hoped never to have to do the same thing, but -- full circle, as I said."
"They ran away?" That was Ming, who sounded disappointed, almost disbelieving. To an eight year old it probably seemed that way.
"Just like we're doing," muttered Cho, trying not to sulk. It wasn't dignified to sulk when you were eighteen. She refused to cry. She'd done far too much of that in her time already.
搬moving
There had been a huge argument when her parents told her.
"You want to what?"
"We're moving back to China," her father said, more abrupt than usual. "I'm sorry, Cho, but it's becoming too dangerous here."
"Why now? Nothing's changed!"
"We've been thinking about this for a while, darling," said her mother. "And things have changed."
"Dumbledore," added her father heavily. Cho stared in disbelief. "After all, he beat You-Know-Who himself in that affair your boyfriend was involved with." His tone indicated some disapproval of Harry Potter and his behaviour, whether in general or towards his daughter in particular, Cho couldn't tell. "We were worried when they started killing Muggles, naturally, it was like seeing the Defenders back again, but so long as Dumbledore was fighting -- we were prepared to stay."
"You didn't even believe him when he said You-Know-Who was back! You told me to support the Ministry!" cried Cho. That still rankled, even two years later.
"The Ministry were wrong," replied her father in annoyance (and with perhaps a touch of defensiveness). "And you didn't pay any attention to what we told you, did you? Fudge let everyone down badly, yes, but that doesn't matter now. The situation is different. Now, things will go downhill very quickly, I fear. It's best that we leave as soon as possible."
"But ..."
He held up a hand, looking weary. "No buts, Cho, please. We've thought about this. It's a good time to go."
"But this is our home!"
"And it's been our home for the last thirty years," her mother put in, sounding sad. "But Edinburgh isn't ... home home to us, Cho. It's just where we happened to end up. You have to remember that."
"What about Chun and Ming? You can't take them away now!"
Her father shook his head. "They haven't started school yet. You've completed your education ... As I said, it's a good time for us to go."
Cho listened to this in dawning horror. "You want me to come too?"
"Of course. We're a family."
"But ..."
"You can hardly not come, Cho," said her mother gently. "You must see that it wouldn't be right. We should keep all the family together."
Cho felt like screaming, but she didn't. Instead she went to her room, threw herself on the bed, and punched the pillow. She couldn't think of any good way to argue. It was going to be miserable beyond belief if she couldn't talk them out of it -- and she rarely had been able to talk her parents out of anything once their minds were made up -- but still, she couldn't bear the idea of breaking their hearts by refusing to go. Whatever her duties here, whatever her plans had been -- well, she'd just have to scrap them now. She had a duty to her family first of all.
She stared at the opposite wall, feeling numb. A few of the players in the Tutshill Tornados squad poster that covered it grinned and winked at her, but it didn't really register. China. A new country, a new life. Just like that, out of the blue.
Great.
分手separation
Breaking up with Michael, just as they were beginning to get close to each other, had been painful.
"You're going where?"
"Guangzhou," she said miserably. "Mum and Dad grew up there. They don't think it's safe here any more."
"Well, not that safe, no, but ... why do you have to go too?"
"Because I can't let them down!" she replied with a flare of anger. "I'm the eldest child, they rely on me to set an example for Chun and Ming!"
"And us?" He looked mulish for a moment or two, almost sulky, then caught himself and his attitude turned pleading. "I thought ... it was really starting to work out, wasn't it? I knew it was going to be tricky for us now school's over for you, but I didn't think ..."
"I don't want to, you know," she said, feeling awful. "But ... don't you think it's best to make a clean break now before we go too far, yeah?"
"I suppose so," he said with difficulty. He looked stunned, almost lost. After a moment, he said "Will you write?"
"Yeah, of course I will. Will you?"
"You bet."
And that, after a lingering goodbye kiss, had been that. Under the circumstances there really wasn't a lot more they could say, even though they wanted to. And at least it was a clean break, not the protracted mess it had been with Harry ...
That consideration didn't actually seem to make it feel any better.
学learning
After the strangeness of moving into a new house (or rather an old house, the one her mother had grown up in, and which her second maternal aunt had been kind enough to make available), and the frenetic rush of the first week that left little time for thought, Cho was the only member of the family who found herself completely lost. Her father had arranged a job for himself via friends. Her mother was evidently thrilled to be back in her old home, and was forever making nostalgic remarks about things that had happened long before Cho was born. Her kid sister had been enrolled in a nearby school for the coming term, and was soon brushing up on her characters and looking forward to the prospect of learning magic with nervous excitement. Her little brother could make a nuisance of himself anywhere and had adapted quickly. Cho just felt out of place.
Feeling that she should probably know how she came to end up here, she tried to find out what had happened in the 1960s that was so bad. Unfortunately, her parents weren't much help; not only had they left when they were Chun's age, they were ill-at-ease with the subject and offered no more than a few awkward generalities about the 'Defenders of the Wand', who sounded horribly like the Death Eaters.
So Cho did the only thing a former Ravenclaw could reasonably do -- she decided to research it herself. A few tentative enquiries revealed that by common consent, Zheng Zhuang's Comprehensive Emporium of the Written Word was the finest bookshop in China. It was also about a thousand miles away in Jinan. However, once she'd negotiated the Portkey (vowing to Apparate next time) and managed to locate the Emporium, it quickly proved its worth. It was every bit as comprehensive as its reputation suggested, and carried a considerable stock of books written in foreign languages too -- a huge advantage for Cho. Her command of written Chinese was even rustier than her speaking ability.
In the English-language section there was a detailed History of the Defenders War that made it clear why her parents might consider they had come full circle. The origins she found confusing -- something about a revolution in culture in the Muggle world that had started within sight of the Emporium (even if the Emporium itself was not similarly visible to Muggles), and after which their government suddenly refused to acknowledge the presence of wizards in their midst, despite urgent entreaties from the Chinese Ministry. The results were depressingly familiar, however. The group calling themselves 'Defenders of the Wand' had published manifestos vowing to fight back against 'Muggle oppression', but most of their actual fighting effort had been directed at the 'counsellors of treason' in the wizarding government. It had taken ten years of bitter struggle to suppress them. The author mentioned -- in a tone that seemed rather sniffy -- that many people had left China as a result of the war. He seemed to consider this a failure of good taste, which might explain why her parents were so sensitive on the subject.
The Emporium also had an extensive periodicals section, although Cho didn't pay it much attention at first -- the Daily Prophet could be obtained in Guangzhou's wizarding quarter, if you thought it worth the inflated price asked for foreign publications. Cho rarely bothered during the first few weeks she was there. Any spectacular actions by You-Know-Who would probably get a mention in the overseas news section of the Guangzhou Messenger anyway, and reading about Ministry activities and Tutshill Tornados victories only made her feel horribly homesick.
But from time to time she made an exception. One day while browsing in the Emporium, the English headline 'New Minister Takes Charge' caught her eye, and she quickly opened her purse. The article left her with a sick feeling. She knew little of Rufus Scrimgeour, and even less about Pius Thicknesse, but the skills she'd learnt during her sixth year for translating Prophet reports into the probable underlying facts came in handy; the abrupt departure of the former Minister, and the harsh measures immediately taken by his replacement, positively screamed of a takeover by the Death Eaters.
Her parents exchanged dark glances when they saw the paper she'd brought home with her, and it was clear that they shared her suspicions. They didn't discuss them with her, but then they never did; maybe they considered the matter too dangerous for discussion, or simply closed. Cho herself wasn't sure what to feel about things. It was getting harder to maintain her resentment; she was growing used to her new situation, and things were clearly no picnic back home. Perhaps her parents had a point, which was an uncomfortable thought.
会meeting
As a legal adult, Cho received an invitation to her own introductory meeting with the Chinese Ministry, quite separate from the one for her parents. She hesitated for a day or so before accepting, but then decided that there was really no reason not to go. She had no wish to be seen as impolite.
The entrance to the central Ministry buildings was hidden in what appeared to be an overfilled warehouse in Beijing. When Cho spoke the pass phrase and stepped through the curtain on which it was embroidered, she found herself in a pleasant open courtyard surrounded by pagodas that might almost have been there since the fifteenth century -- indeed, Cho reminded herself, it was entirely possible that they had. It was a remarkable contrast to the office blocks on the other side. Unlike the London Ministry, this one was at ground level; the skyscrapers of Muggle Beijing towered over it, and yet somehow did not dominate the view, merely forming a ghostly backdrop through the haze of the atmosphere and the distorting effect of the concealment charms. You could imagine they were merely a trick of the light unless you screwed up your eyes and stared.
The offices themselves, inside a building towards the rear of the courtyard, were much more prosaic -- a familiar affair of cluttered desks and improvised bamboo partitions. The official who greeted her was a kindly old gentleman who spoke good if not perfect English, for which Cho was grateful. Even after weeks of effort on her part, it was still more practised than her Cantonese, and she'd have been completely lost if he'd spoken Mandarin.
"Welcome, welcome," he said. He blinked slightly when she told him her name, then gave an airy wave of his wand. "Please, let me offer refreshment." Tea began to manufacture itself while he spoke of China and its requirements, most particularly as they related to relations with the Muggles. The gist seemed to be that while laxity was sometimes forgivable in traditional rural areas -- where news of odd happenings seldom spread beyond the locality, and would probably be dismissed as nonsense if it did -- extreme caution was to be exercised in the cities. "You must try to be like them. Dress as they do." He shook his head sadly at the formal robes her parents had insisted she wear for such an important meeting. "These are not seen so much now. It is sad, but I set an example, you see?"
Cho bit her lip; she reckoned she had a rather better idea of Muggle fashion than anyone of his generation. He had dressed in what she thought was called a boiler suit -- in bright scarlet with gold collar and cuffs, which would probably stand out anywhere -- and although he had a baseball cap on his head, it was worn neither forward nor reversed but with the peak over his left ear. "I'll remember that in future, sir," she said. "Thank you."
He beamed at her. "It is the advice of the Council of Harmony. They speak to the leaders of the Máguā, who still do not trust us."
Cho sat forward. She'd picked up that word quickly; it sounded much the same anywhere in China. "Where I come from, they have no reason to."
"Ah yes. The Shí-sǐ-tú." Cho wasn't quite sure what that one meant until he added, "We learn they have taken the government. A distant threat, yes, but we watch with concern. We saw troubles start in Europe before, seventy years ago; it seemed small at first, then it became big. You should know I myself am old enough to remember those times." Cho wondered if she was meant to demur, but he continued, "Already there are people who hear the news and say they are right. We do not like this."
Cho didn't like it either. "And are there people who say they're wrong, sir?"
"Many more. Relations are always difficult, but this is not the answer. This we discovered thirty years ago."
"Will ... will your Ministry do anything to help stop them?" It was a sudden wild hope, which was quickly dashed.
"No, no. Europe is able to solve its own problems. As we solved ours, after your grandparents left."
"The Defenders weren't as dangerous as You-Kn ... as V-Voldemort!" she cried, forgetting herself for a moment. "They were just thugs! Can't people see that he has to be stopped early! Now he's in power in Britain, what's to stop him sweeping across Europe as soon as he consolidates!" She became suddenly, horribly aware of how rude a guest she was being. "I ... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"This is correct. It is not your concern." He seemed thoroughly shocked by her outburst, and Cho wondered if she'd just managed to place herself in the 'troublemaker' category. Not a great start.
"Please, forgive me." It wasn't hard to be contrite under the circumstances. "I spoke without thinking. It, er, it means a lot to me."
"This I see." The tone was still frosty, but he accepted the apology. "Well, well. I hear that one young man stands in his way before he can ... consolidate? If he is defeated, then we look again at what we should do."
Harry. The thought hit Cho like a blow to the gut. She had spent so much time last year avoiding him, and anything to do with him, that the sudden casual reminder of his horrible situation from such an unexpected source blindsided her. "Yes," she heard herself saying. "Yes, of course."
In an odd way, that thought was comforting. Harry was not the kind of hero she had once convinced herself he was -- in truth, she had been expecting him to be Cedric all over again -- but whatever their disagreements, he was still a hero. And as a further shock she realised: if he's really standing in Voldemort's way, I'd still be willing to stand with him.
争论argument
"Dad, Mum -- I just wondered -- well, have you thought much about what's going on back home?"
Both parents gave her sharp looks, and Cho cursed inwardly. She'd wanted to talk to them about this for weeks, and now she'd finally plucked up the courage, starting the conversation by referring to Scotland as home was a bad mistake. Sure enough, her father frowned and said, "This is home, kitten."
Cho took a deep breath. "Our old home," she said in a conciliatory manner, trying to recover from her slip. "You must have heard what's happening there."
"Of course." He exchanged looks with her mother. "Why do you ask?"
"Don't -- don't you want to go back ever?"
Her mother gave a slightly wistful smile. "Sometimes. We enjoyed living there. But this was always home, darling."
"I didn't grow up here, mum," she replied, as gently as she could. "Chun and Ming, they've never even been here before. It's not so easy for us, you know -- look at Chun's school marks, she's still struggling with the language, let alone the magic!"
Her father sighed. He gave the impression of having expected this conversation for some time. "I know it's not easy, kitten, but she'll soon pick it up. We had to pick up English at Hogwarts when your grandparents moved, and I know my children are cleverer than we poor old folk are."
"But they didn't move you back when the first war started in Britain," argued Cho. It seemed a good argument to her, but one her father had obviously anticipated.
"Perhaps they should have done. But it seemed a very small war, to start. The authorities seemed to be holding their own for a long time. And perhaps --" he seemed oddly ill-at-ease "-- the arguments that were used about Muggle threats sounded more plausible after what had happened here."
"Yes, the Defenders were still very active at home," added her mother. "One war or another, why move again? And they didn't want to spoil our education. It meant a lot to them. There is much prestige attached to Hogwarts -- I think you'll find that when you go looking for a job." Cho's jaw dropped; she hadn't expected that. "But for us, now, it's the ideal time, darling, with no such worries. And then ... well, as we told you, there was Albus Dumbledore. Even towards the end, it was hard to believe that a war could actually be lost when the man who defeated Grindelwald was still fighting it."
"He's not fighting it any longer," said her father heavily. "Kitten, we talked our parents round, and we were lucky. You were just a baby. It could have been the wrong decision to stay. This time, I think we made the right decision to leave."
"You made the decision." Again, the words were out of her mouth before she'd properly thought about them, and this time, she let it go.
"Yes, I did. And your mother agreed." Before Cho could say anything, he added, "We do not want our children growing up in a war zone."
"I'm not a child any more!"
"Then stop acting like one! While you live in this house, whatever you think about the decision, I expect you to respect it! I expect you to care more about your family." His voice was raw. "What do you want, Cho, to get yourself killed in some useless fight? I thought you were supposed to be the intelligent one? I thought you had more sense than that!"
"It's not useless! Somebody's got to do it!" She knew this sounded like bravado, even to her own ears.
"Like Harry Potter? Like Cedric Diggory?"
Cho was so shocked that her father had thrown Cedric's death at her, it felt like a physical slap. She stared at him for a moment in speechless fury then stormed out, ignoring her father's irate calls and her mother's shocked pleas for her to return.
逃flight
Long before, Cho had found that the best method of working off her frustrations was to climb on her trusty Comet Two Sixty and just fly. Brooms were considered rather crude by the local wizards and witches, who preferred to travel in a more sedate and comfortable manner on a variety of flying rugs, but she didn't care. She wanted the speed, the wind in her face, the literally soaring feeling that took her to a place of her own, high above the world and her woes. She really missed playing Quidditch, no matter how many disappointments it had brought.
In the aftermath of this latest argument she sped off, pushing the Comet to its limit as she hurtled across country. She didn't really care where she went, so found herself more or less following the course of the Pearl River inland, alone in the skies except for a few birds. Eventually she began to relax again, and when she checked her watch she couldn't believe it; she'd been flying for nearly three hours. Cho braked to a halt a few hundred feet above the river, and then it hit her that she had absolutely no idea where she was. In Britain she would probably long ago have reached the coast and known that she needed to turn back, but here the river simply continued to follow the path it had formed through the country below her, extending far into the distance to meet the horizon.
There was a city not so far away along the river, and a quarter of an hour later she was landing there under the protection of a Disillusionment Charm, trying not to bump into anyone -- the Ministry in Beijing were unlikely to consider that the discovery of an invisible foreigner showed the exercise of 'extreme caution'. The city was large, much larger than Edinburgh, and when she examined her surroundings she realised to her embarrassment that she had absolutely no idea what it was called. The scale of things here was suddenly overwhelming; this was a country in which there could be cities of millions that were nothing out of the ordinary and hardly worthy of special mention.
Cho returned home by Apparition, a stage at a time, not daring to risk the long journey of maybe hundreds of miles in one go. She didn't speak to her parents on her return, and although they were clearly relieved that she was back, they seemed to have decided that the best policy was to leave her alone and act as if nothing had ever happened.
She was very quiet for the rest of the day.
忠告advice
Cho was pleasantly surprised to find that she'd picked up more Cantonese from her parents than she'd realised. Admittedly her vocabulary was limited at first and her accent hard for many people to understand, but she very quickly progressed to finding her way around Guangzhou without trouble. What to do there was another matter entirely. She'd only ever thought about career plans in terms of Britain, with occasional idle thoughts of a year abroad in France when talking to the Beauxbatons students at the house table during the Triwizard Tournament.
Beijing had its own problems -- she was completely lost as far as communication was concerned, unless she could locate someone who spoke either Cantonese or English instead of Mandarin. The locals there tended to do a double-take at her name and sometimes concealed a smirk, and Cho blushed furiously when she realised that it sounded rather unseemly in Mandarin. When she travelled there (it did after all have some of the finest magical stores in the world, let alone China) she began giving her name as 'Jiang Qiu' in her best shot at a Beijing accent.
In some ways it was harder to fit into the wizarding areas, thriving as they were, than to slip anonymously into the huge cosmopolitan Muggle cities surrounding them. Her accent immediately made her stand out, as did her spellwork -- everyone else used incantations in Chinese forms rather than Latin ones. A scholarly gentleman in the Comprehensive Emporium heard her using Accio to retrieve a book from a high shelf -- it took a couple of tries to make it work -- and smiled at her. "You are English, then?"
"Scottish," she said automatically. "But my parents are from Guangzhou. We just moved there."
"I see." He nodded vigorously. "May I be so bold as to offer you a small but helpful suggestion?"
Cho blinked. "Er -- yes, of course, please do."
"A thousand thanks. Well then, allow me to say it will be worth your time and trouble to learn the Chinese forms. A spell and its incantation become as two parts of one whole, tied together and gaining in power by use; where everyone says the same words, the repetition smoothes and strengthens the flow of magic. It is like a river cutting its course through the earth, at once carving out and being guided by the path it has formed. This is a deep law of magic. You will find that the incantations everyone uses in Europe will be less effective here, so far from home, where spells have channelled their power in other forms, and a newcomer must create its own path. And of course this applies in reverse." There was a twinkle in his eye that reminded her of Professor Dumbledore; a sharp pang. "I myself always forget this when I travel to Europe for a conference, so the difficulty is not yours alone."
"Thank you, sir." Cho looked at him curiously; she could vaguely remember Professor Flitwick discussing the subject in the middle of her first N.E.W.T. year, but she'd been far too distracted by ... other things at the time to do herself justice. "Can I ask -- are you a teacher?"
"Ah, do I lecture without thinking?" He chuckled. "Please pardon me. Yes, I teach Charmcraft at the Imperial Academy to the north of Beijing -- not of course that the Imperial title is more than courtesy these days, but we wizards do not like to change our traditions. Are you perhaps due to attend? I am told that a former Hogwarts pupil will join us shortly."
Cho's eyebrows rose. "It's not me, sir. I finished school last year. And my sister's at, erm --" she had to think for a minute to remember the name "-- Xinbian Academy. It's nearer to home."
"Yes, yes, that is a fine school. Not as fine as the Imperial Academy, naturally, nor as fine as Hogwarts, I am sure. I met your headmaster several times -- a very wise and entertaining wizard. A tragic loss for us all."
"It certainly was," said Cho glumly.
求职employment
To Cho's surprise, the people she became most friendly with were their Muggle neighbours -- Máguā, as the wizards said, not so different from Britain. A few boys were showing definite interest and she flirted a little with one of the cuter ones, which only made it obvious that she didn't even feel up to thinking about another relationship just yet, so soon after breaking up the last one -- let alone a relationship that would require so much concealment and evasion about what she was. Not that any of her relationships had ended well yet -- a thought she didn't want to dwell on -- but with Michael it felt as if she'd been reading a story that stopped abruptly just as things were coming together nicely, and would now never be completed.
Also to her surprise, a job eventually found her when her father introduced an acquaintance who had known him as a child. In the thirty intervening years Yang Honghua had built up a thriving export business, and declared that he had urgent need of a junior administrative liaison who spoke fluent English, in order to deal with his many American clients. When he installed her in a small office with a girl called Hu Jiao -- about the same age and with duties consisting mostly of answering letters -- Cho suspected that the offer had been solely a favour to a childhood friend, not based on any qualities she might have. That proved to be too cynical, however. She was soon busy guiding a steady stream of buyers around the warehouse, while desperately trying to remember where everything was stored. Her mother turned out to have been right -- both co-workers and customers generally seemed rather impressed when they heard she'd been to Hogwarts. The school was evidently far more famous than any of its pupils had realised!
Or maybe that was simply because of its headmaster, personally known to scholars in Beijing, who had after all been the ceremonial head of the International Confederation of Wizards. Former head. Cho shuddered; her parents had been right about that one too. With Dumbledore in place, somehow everything had seemed under control, but not any more. The information she had from Britain suggested that Harry (wherever he was) had replaced him as the population's Last Best Hope, despite the Ministry's latest campaign to discredit him. No doubt people had learnt their lesson after the previous attempts by Fudge and Umbridge (the thought of the woman still made Cho want to spit).
Ah yes, Harry.
For better or worse, the singular story of the Boy Who Lived -- and who might or might not be the Chosen One mentioned in a prophecy -- seemed to have caught the imagination of the wizarding public worldwide, and Cho learned to her embarrassment that it was unwise to mention that she'd recently left school in Britain. Usually, one of the first reactions would be the excited question "Do you know Harry Potter?". Hu Jiao in particular was a big fan, and had an annoying tendency to tell customers (American, Chinese, or otherwise) that Cho had actually spoken to him. She managed to fend off the inevitable questions -- feeling a great reluctance to reveal that she'd done rather more than speak to him -- but it was seriously annoying. She needed concealment and evasion here too, another reason she often felt more at home among the Muggles.
Yang Honghua's customers were also often fascinated by her insufficiently concealed Scottish accent, and Cho quickly learned to wear a polite fixed smile every time someone mentioned it. The well-meaning sympathy rapidly became irksome. Everyone seemed to nod wisely and say that they quite understood why her family had left, they'd heard the news from Britain too (or England, as the American clients insisted on saying) and wasn't it terrible? It was equally irritating when they seemed to assume that it would be easy for her to fit in here just because of her Chinese background. She still stumbled over one word in ten when trying to speak the language, and fell back into using the incantations she'd been taught unless she consciously thought about it.
信letters
Michael's occasional letters were unsettling, indeed frustrating. Most were guarded to the point of blandness, as if he expected the staff to search every owl as a matter of course before it was allowed to leave the castle grounds. Only visits to the post office on Hogsmeade weekends gave him the opportunity to be more candid, and even then, much of what he had to say was indirect. It seemed that there was a new and unpleasant regime at Hogwarts ('Do you remember the school year we got together? It was much better than this one!'), that the DA had reformed in some fashion ('A lot of the old crowd have gone now, of course, and some of the others didn't come back this year, but those of us that are left are still trying to keep up the traditions!'), and that he at least was missing her ('I really, really miss you, you know'). Well all right, that at least was direct.
Marietta -- lovely, sweet Marietta, who had been a foul-weather friend to her -- wrote weekly, and was able to be more explicit. Her mother had secured a junior position for her in the Muggle Relations section of the Ministry of Magic, and it soon became clear that policy there had moved a long way from anything that might be approved by the Council of Harmony. Her first letters were gossipy, still almost schoolgirlish, as she talked about her new job and the robes she'd bought from Madam Malkin's with her first week's pay and the cute wizard in the next office who she hoped to get to know better. As the weeks went by and the new regime began to make changes, details of her work became noticeable by their absence. Cho didn't ask; Marietta had always been a little ... fragile, and it wasn't her place to harass her friend for details.
But then, finally, came a long, rambling letter that told how she was beginning to hate her job and the Ministry in general, and talked about some of the things that worried her -- a new statue, creepy in some way she didn't manage to express clearly; chilling official indifference to reports of quite brutal Muggle-killings; and some commission that Dolores Umbridge was running that seemed to have left Marietta even more disillusioned with the old hag than she'd been when Umbridge failed to protect her after the debacle of two years before. Reading between the lines, her friend was clearly scared out of her wits, and Cho longed to be able to comfort her, in the way she'd once been comforted by her.
In the way she would have been able to if, of course, she hadn't been several thousand miles away in a completely new life.
信息news
There had been one curious hint in Michael's letters -- 'everybody here reads the Quibbler, it's so much more interesting than the Prophet!'. Unfortunately, the multiple Apparitions necessary to get across country to Jinan were fruitless, as in this case Zheng's Emporium proved insufficiently comprehensive to supply an up-to-date version. The only one they had was a faded copy of the edition that had carried Harry's interview; the assistant explained that it had been asked for often enough to be stocked. After a year and a half on the shelves unpurchased it was priced to sell, and Cho bought it, for no real reason except old times' sake.
After some hard thought about where to try next, she located a source much closer to home. Hong Kong had never been politically detached from wizarding China in the way it had in the Muggle world, and so celebrations of its recent return had been muted -- but neither had it been a place of particular importance before the British came, and their influence was strong even in the magical areas. Cho poked around and found a small store that specialised in esoteric imports of all kinds; the merry little witch who ran it had contacts in Diagon Alley, and was only too happy to provide an up-to-date copy of The Quibbler.
"How soon could you get it?" asked Cho. She'd no idea how long such things took.
"I can sell one to you now." She laughed at Cho's expression. "No, no, I am not a Seer. You aren't the first person to ask."
"I'm not?"
"Not at all. I think there have been -- let me see, four others before you. They told me it's an open secret that it has the real news. Well then, I said, this is something I need to keep in stock!"
"Oh ... that's good then." Cho dug out some gold and placed a standing order.
When she got the magazine home and curled up on her bed to read it, she could understand why people had that opinion. The contents were still the sort of thing you would expect from something published by Loony Lovegood's father -- yet more claims that the Tornados' recent success was due to something other than their superior skill and tactics (this time, it was the ghost of Roderick Plumpton spying on the opposition's training sessions for his old team), and a 'Snorkack Watch' column with the latest sightings from obscure parts of Scandinavia (where the locals probably had little to do in the winter but knock back aquavit). But the political stories now had a new plausibility. When Lovegood had claimed that Cornelius Fudge was plotting to crush goblin opposition and seize Gringotts for the sake of its gold, it had sounded ridiculous. When he claimed that new minister Pius Thicknesse planned to eliminate goblin control of the bank at the behest of You-Know-Who, it sounded like reporting.
She found it frustrating.
硬币coin
Cho kept her DA coin with her at all times. To begin with, it had been a small gesture of rebellion against her parents, but as the weeks passed it gradually became a mere habit. Most of the time she forgot it was there, but whenever she left it behind by mistake she would feel a sense of slight unease. It was like a talisman of sorts.
Every now and then, she would take it out of her pocket almost absently to look at it -- always with a slight tingle of anticipation, almost hope, a feeling that it could have changed while she wasn't paying attention. And every now and then she would feel it heat up (Granger's Protean Charm working perfectly even across continents, big surprise there), and there would be a message for her to read. Usually the messages were cryptic -- no doubt of vital significance for those involved, but they might have meant anything to someone not in the know. Presumably that included the staff of the school as well as Cho. and was therefore the point of the exercise, but this too was frustrating.
The coin was a source of considerable amusement to local witches and wizards who saw her looking at it, although the disapproval of her parents was palpable on the one occasion a message came through while they were eating dinner. Cho excused herself and went up to her room as soon as she realised; she didn't exactly like arguing with them, and she definitely didn't want them asking why she was still carrying such a thing.
Especially as she didn't quite know why herself.
协定agreement
Ever since their big argument, her parents had carefully avoided the subject of the war back in Britain, and indeed most other subjects to do with life there, from her exam results to the latest Quidditch scores. On the whole, Cho went along with it, other than the occasional small dig almost immediately regretted as childish. They weren't going to change their minds and she wasn't going to leave them behind, so she decided (gritting her teeth) that she'd just have to make the best of it. As the weeks passed she worked hard on improving her Cantonese and getting used to her job, spent a lot of time catching up on her reading, and practised the Chinese spell forms (which were mostly Mandarin sounds, just to make things more difficult -- the result of some long-ago edict to spell developers by the Ministry in Beijing). She even made a few half-hearted attempts at putting together a social life, allowing Hu Jiao to drag her to poetry readings and other events she had little interest in, quickly changing the subject whenever the topic of conversation seemed likely to turn to Harry Potter.
But when both Michael and Marietta wrote and hinted strongly that they would really like to see her over the holidays, she couldn't take it any more.
"You want to what?"
Cho stood her ground. "I want to spend a few days visiting Michael and Marietta over their Christmas holidays. I'm not running away, if that's what you think, but I ... I need to do this."
"What about your job?" asked her father, his mouth set in a thin line of disapproval (although she thought there was a touch of apprehension too when she said running away).
"I can ask for a few days off. I'm dealing with American customers most of the time, they'll be having a break then as well."
He seemed mollified by that, albeit only slightly. "But what about the danger?" That was presumably the real sticking point.
"I'm sure I can go in and out without any trouble. I'll even use Muggle transport to get there if you insist. I don't suppose anyone will even notice I'm there."
"And then what?"
"And then I come back and ... do whatever I do here." Her life at the moment felt like one of those potions that refused to turn into something definite however hard you stirred them up.
Her mother spoke for the first time. "Be honest, Cho. Do you want to go back?"
"I don't know!" That was the most honest answer she could give.
"We do miss it too, you know," said her father kindly. "We know it's hard, it was for us too. But this is the better way. It's home."
'Home' again. "It doesn't really feel like it to me, Dad. Can't you see that?" She sighed. "It might some day, but right now I .. I just feel like I'm drifting. I want to see my friends again."
"You want to see your boyfriend again?"
There was a knowing glint in her mother's eye as she asked the question, and Cho flushed. The subject of Michael was another one she avoided discussing with her parents in case they asked questions she wasn't sure how to answer. "Yes, I'd like to see Michael, as it happens. You know, we'd only been going out for a year, it's not like we were close or anything!"
"You never talked about him much. Not like ... your other boyfriends." At least this time her father looked awkward; he'd finally remembered that both Cedric and Harry were touchy subjects for her. "He didn't visit last summer."
"Yes, well ..." Cho scowled. It had in fact taken some months before her emotional bruises had healed, and until then she'd just regarded Michael as someone fun to spend time with -- and occasionally snog -- when they weren't studying for N.E.W.T.s. She'd always suspected he felt more strongly about her, but that was his problem. "We'd only just started going out then. He couldn't come this summer, could he, we weren't there!"
Her mother laid a hand on her husband's arm before he could say anything. "I think we can understand young love, can't we?" Her eyes twinkled at the sight of her daughter cringing at the phrase. "I don't suppose a few days back in Britain will be too much of a risk. And she is of age." She turned to Cho and suddenly became much more serious. "Will you promise to be careful and come straight back, kitten?"
"Yes. All right." Cho would have promised almost anything to get them to agree. Yes, she was of age, but the thought of burning bridges by taking off by herself without their approval was still worse than not going at all.
访友visiting
Cho booked a room at the Leaky Cauldron and assumed that Michael would be staying there too, but to her surprise his letter directed her to a Muggle hotel in Bloomsbury. When she arrived there she understood why -- it was comfortable, but also large enough to be reasonably anonymous. The necessity for this precaution was disquieting. She was even more surprised -- but delighted -- when she arrived in his room to find Marietta already waiting with him. The two of them evidently still had a certain coolness towards each other, but once they began to discuss matters with Cho in earnest, they soon warmed up to the serious business of cursing the new regimes at Hogwarts and the Ministry.
"... Snape's headmaster? Snape? But ... he k-killed Dumbledore. How did they explain that?"
"They're trying to pin it on Harry." Michael was slightly ill-at-ease talking to Cho about him, which was rather endearing. "Nobody believes them except for a few idiots who can't see the obvious, of course, not even Parkinson and her crowd. Well, she probably knows her precious Malfoy was involved, doesn't she?"
"He's back too?" Cho was outraged.
"Yeah. Keeping his head down, though ..."
"... It's not much fun at the Ministry. People seem to be staying away if they can." Marietta looked miserable.
"Why?"
"It all feels a bit ... creepy. I don't think it's just me, Cho!"
"Who said it was?" asked Michael, who sounded as if he could easily believe 'creepy'.
"Well, a lot of people are carrying on like they haven't noticed any difference. Maybe they don't care. But Mum's seen it too -- she says she's getting some very funny requests to track Floos now, very dodgy people asking, not like Umbridge. Though her Commission's pretty iffy as well."
"What is that about? She's giving Muggle-borns a hard time again?"
"She's giving everyone a hard time. No-one likes being hassled over their Blood Status."
"Tell me about it," said Michael with a snort. "And they're not just giving Muggle-borns a hard time, they're taking their wands away. Some bollocks about them not really being wizards at all."
"What?"
"My granddad's a Muggle. Dad had to go in front of their Commission and prove my gran was a witch to get given 'Blood Status' ..."
"... People are fighting back at Hogwarts though, right?" Cho was fighting a sense of panic at the thought they might not be. Perhaps that had sounded like a rebuke, because Michael flinched.
"We're all doing what we can. Ginny and Luna and Neville Longbottom started up the DA again, but it's not been easy, not with the Carrows throwing Crucios about the way the other professors give out lines."
Cho gulped. "You ... you're not serious? They're not really using the Cruciatus on people -- on students?"
"Yeah they are. I suppose they're trying not to leave physical evidence." Michael shrugged, and Cho and Marietta shared horrified glances at his air of resignation.
The news confirmed everything Cho had suspected and feared. The coup had been quick and complete, and just enough plausible propaganda had been released to suggest that it hadn't really been a coup after all -- just a change of Minister, bringing new policies in his wake. Resistance seemed to be patchy.
"Maybe my parents were right!" she exclaimed at one point, as Marietta and Michael were discussing the failings of the Daily Prophet, as compared to The Quibbler or some clandestine wireless programme called Potterwatch (of all things). They'd confirmed her earlier impression of the Prophet; unless all you wanted was the recipe for Invigoration Infusion in the household tips column, it was impossible to glean anything useful without the kind of close reading-between-the-lines analysis normally reserved for Ancient Runes translations, or the plot developments of the latest epic in Winifred Wellbeloved's adventure series.
Michael and Marietta shared an uncertain look. "In what way?" he asked.
"Moving. Going to China." Cho wished she hadn't said that; she wasn't sure she quite believed it, but then again, she wasn't sure she entirely disbelieved it now.
"Yes, what's it like there?" Marietta seemed keen to change the subject away from doom and gloom, and after a moment Michael chimed in too. "It must be so cool, living in a different country! Is it really exotic?"
Cho laughed. "Exotic? Not really ... well, a bit, I suppose. Not as much to me as it would be to you."
"Do you like it there?" Michael was watching her closely, and she bristled.
"Yes!"
"Your letters sounded as if you weren't sure," said Marietta softly. Her friend knew her far too well. Damn. "Honest now, Cho."
"Well ... it's taken a lot of getting used to, yes." Cho picked her words with care; she owed them both as frank an answer as she could give. "Yes, I do miss Britain, and I miss all my friends. Then again, you two are the only ones who stuck with me all the way anyway," she added with a touch of bitterness.
"Of course we did," said Marietta. "You stuck with me, didn't you? Even when ... you know." She gave a small shudder, and Cho noticed that she still wore her makeup caked on, even though the spots had finally faded away a year ago.
"Yeah. You're all right, though?" This time Michael seemed to be the one keen to change the subject.
"I'm getting the hang of it -- my Cantonese is pretty fluent now I'm using it all the time, I'm remembering stuff I didn't know I knew. I've got a job, like I said in my letters -- nothing high-flying, but it's a nice place to work. I sort of ... do and don't fit in." A few people had called her Jook-sing, but mostly the tone had been teasing rather than insulting. "I'm the exotic girl there to the boy next door, aren't I?" Michael's smile became rather fixed, and she added, "And no, no-one special, Mike, don't get sulky. I didn't forget you that quickly. I haven't felt up to it, anyway."
"Right." There was a rather awkward pause. "Go on then ... tell us all about it!"
"Oh -- all right, erm ..." She started to talk about their new home, and her job, and what her parents were doing, and moved on to the Chinese wizarding and Muggle cultures in general. Marietta and Michael were fascinated, and Cho found herself quite enjoying telling the tales of her Chinese life.
It was amazing how much better it sounded, how much more of an adventure, when she was thousands of miles away.
Eventually Marietta made her excuses and went home, leaving Cho and Michael to look at each other awkwardly as soon as they were alone. She didn't really want to go just yet. Michael was the one who broke the silence, asking with a wry smile, "Was I really being sulky?"
Cho giggled. " A bit. You do do that, you know. I didn't mind, it's quite ... sweet. Sometimes. When you don't do it too much."
"Right." He went slightly pink. "You, er ... you said you didn't feel up to seeing anyone. Did you miss me, then?"
"Well -- yes." She could feel herself blushing too. "We went out for a year, Mike, I can't just let that go. You missed me then, too?"
"Yeah. Yeah." He paused. "A lot, actually." He turned away from her; he was having some difficulty talking. "We were really getting on well, weren't we? I wish you hadn't had to go."
"So do I." She put her arms around him, and for a few minutes they just stood there, hugging. Michael seemed to need it, and for that matter, so did she. Finishing with Michael at that point had been like putting down a book just as it was getting to the ... um, the last chapter. Yes. That. "I should leave, I suppose," she said after a while.
"Right." He let her go, kissed her once on the cheek, and then, as she reached the door, he said "Cho?" It sounded forced from him.
She turned, already halfway into the corridor. "Yes?"
He waited a moment, then suddenly asked, "Will you stay? Please?" There was more than one kind of need in his voice; he sounded both strained and desperately weary. It startled her.
"I ... I ... I don't know." She winced; that wasn't exactly a categorical 'no'. "It wouldn't be a good idea, would it?"
"No. Yes. Oh, I don't know either." He ran his fingers through his long hair; she'd never seen him quite so obviously hurting. "For what it's worth, your letters and the DA were the only things keeping me sane this term. I ... I hated leaving it where it was -- oh sod it. Sorry." His shoulders slumped. "Sorry, Cho. That wasn't fair. Forget it, sorry. Just ... you will keep writing to me, yeah?"
"Yeah, of course," she said, for the sake of something to say. Then after a few seconds of difficult hesitation, she made a decision.
Cho stepped back into the room and gently closed the door behind her, smiling slightly at the mixture of expressions that were chasing each other across Michael's face; disbelief, happiness, gratitude, a flash of raw, unconcealable desire, and finally a sort of hopeful nervousness. She wasn't at all convinced she knew what she was doing -- it wasn't quite what she'd envisaged -- but, well ... even if she was about to finish a story without being sure she wanted to continue with the sequel, at this moment, she didn't think she could bear never to find out what would happen.
Part 2
Author: Snorkackcatcher
Recipient: kereia
Character(s): Cho Chang, her family, Michael Corner, Marietta Edgecombe, Su Li, assorted OCs and canon cameos
Rating: PG-13
Word-count: 19,750 words approx
Warnings (highlight to view): Character deaths (mostly canon)
Summary: Cho had enjoyed her visits to Guangzhou. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to live there. But when her parents moved their family away because of the war, she found herself trying to build a new life in China -- and struggling to reconcile it with her unfinished business in Britain.
Author's Notes: Su Li is a Ravenclaw on the list of 40 students in Harry's year in JKR's notebook (seen in the documentary Harry Potter and Me), although she never appeared in the books. She may in fact have been the prototype for Cho herself, but here I've followed fandom tradition by taking the notebook literally. The mention of Cho's Scottish accent here is a nod to Katie Leung, of course, though there's nothing in the books to say she doesn't have one. One line is taken directly from DH, others refer to it from Cho's POV. The title is from Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound. It was chosen post-completion when I decided my working title didn't cut it, but when I actually checked the lyrics they did seem to fit the general mood!
Beta: Thanks to kennahijja for regular betaing, plus shiiki and dolorous_ett for invaluable Sinopicking assistance. But anything problematic is my responsibility, not theirs. Many thanks to the mods for letting me overrun the deadline with this fic, and I should apologise for the length - perhaps one of those occasions where I ‘lack the time to make it shorter’!
Where My Thought's Escaping
到arrival
It inevitably took Cho a few minutes to recover from travel by Portkey, especially one that crossed continents, and as soon as they touched ground she reeled away to find the nearest solid wall to lean against. When her head finally stopped spinning she was able to take in her surroundings; she'd travelled to Guangzhou twice before for visits to parental aunts and uncles, and the arrival station was every bit as cramped as she remembered it. It was harder for wizards to hide themselves in such a crowded city, and a larger station would have run more risk of awkward questions from anyone who noticed that it shouldn't be there at all.
It was an interesting place, a thriving Muggle city with an equally thriving wizarding community scattered within it. Cho had enjoyed her visits. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to live there.
Her parents chuckled as they helped her sister and brother back onto their feet. They were saying it was 'full circle', or at least Cho was fairly sure they were -- they had, almost unconsciously it seemed, dropped back into the Cantonese that most of the other conversations in the room were being held in. Her mother blushed, and switched to English. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, mum." She dusted herself down. "Full circle?"
Her father beamed. "Good to see you understood, kitten," he said. Cho winced at the old childish nickname. Her younger siblings looked on curiously; they'd understood the words, but clearly had no more idea than Cho did what their parents were referring to. "I don't think we ever told you, but we met for the very first time in this place. We were only Chun's age then, of course, we had no idea what it would lead to." He smiled at them. "Your grandparents took us away in 1967, for much the same reasons."
"Why, Daddy?" That was Chun -- eleven soon, always curious, but she wasn't going to be a Ravenclaw like her elder sister. She wasn't even going to go to Hogwarts.
He lost the smile. "A war was starting here, so they took us away. A group of our people formed an organisation to -- to strike back at the Muggles. The Ministry fought them. You'll learn about it in time. We hoped never to have to do the same thing, but -- full circle, as I said."
"They ran away?" That was Ming, who sounded disappointed, almost disbelieving. To an eight year old it probably seemed that way.
"Just like we're doing," muttered Cho, trying not to sulk. It wasn't dignified to sulk when you were eighteen. She refused to cry. She'd done far too much of that in her time already.
搬moving
There had been a huge argument when her parents told her.
"You want to what?"
"We're moving back to China," her father said, more abrupt than usual. "I'm sorry, Cho, but it's becoming too dangerous here."
"Why now? Nothing's changed!"
"We've been thinking about this for a while, darling," said her mother. "And things have changed."
"Dumbledore," added her father heavily. Cho stared in disbelief. "After all, he beat You-Know-Who himself in that affair your boyfriend was involved with." His tone indicated some disapproval of Harry Potter and his behaviour, whether in general or towards his daughter in particular, Cho couldn't tell. "We were worried when they started killing Muggles, naturally, it was like seeing the Defenders back again, but so long as Dumbledore was fighting -- we were prepared to stay."
"You didn't even believe him when he said You-Know-Who was back! You told me to support the Ministry!" cried Cho. That still rankled, even two years later.
"The Ministry were wrong," replied her father in annoyance (and with perhaps a touch of defensiveness). "And you didn't pay any attention to what we told you, did you? Fudge let everyone down badly, yes, but that doesn't matter now. The situation is different. Now, things will go downhill very quickly, I fear. It's best that we leave as soon as possible."
"But ..."
He held up a hand, looking weary. "No buts, Cho, please. We've thought about this. It's a good time to go."
"But this is our home!"
"And it's been our home for the last thirty years," her mother put in, sounding sad. "But Edinburgh isn't ... home home to us, Cho. It's just where we happened to end up. You have to remember that."
"What about Chun and Ming? You can't take them away now!"
Her father shook his head. "They haven't started school yet. You've completed your education ... As I said, it's a good time for us to go."
Cho listened to this in dawning horror. "You want me to come too?"
"Of course. We're a family."
"But ..."
"You can hardly not come, Cho," said her mother gently. "You must see that it wouldn't be right. We should keep all the family together."
Cho felt like screaming, but she didn't. Instead she went to her room, threw herself on the bed, and punched the pillow. She couldn't think of any good way to argue. It was going to be miserable beyond belief if she couldn't talk them out of it -- and she rarely had been able to talk her parents out of anything once their minds were made up -- but still, she couldn't bear the idea of breaking their hearts by refusing to go. Whatever her duties here, whatever her plans had been -- well, she'd just have to scrap them now. She had a duty to her family first of all.
She stared at the opposite wall, feeling numb. A few of the players in the Tutshill Tornados squad poster that covered it grinned and winked at her, but it didn't really register. China. A new country, a new life. Just like that, out of the blue.
Great.
分手separation
Breaking up with Michael, just as they were beginning to get close to each other, had been painful.
"You're going where?"
"Guangzhou," she said miserably. "Mum and Dad grew up there. They don't think it's safe here any more."
"Well, not that safe, no, but ... why do you have to go too?"
"Because I can't let them down!" she replied with a flare of anger. "I'm the eldest child, they rely on me to set an example for Chun and Ming!"
"And us?" He looked mulish for a moment or two, almost sulky, then caught himself and his attitude turned pleading. "I thought ... it was really starting to work out, wasn't it? I knew it was going to be tricky for us now school's over for you, but I didn't think ..."
"I don't want to, you know," she said, feeling awful. "But ... don't you think it's best to make a clean break now before we go too far, yeah?"
"I suppose so," he said with difficulty. He looked stunned, almost lost. After a moment, he said "Will you write?"
"Yeah, of course I will. Will you?"
"You bet."
And that, after a lingering goodbye kiss, had been that. Under the circumstances there really wasn't a lot more they could say, even though they wanted to. And at least it was a clean break, not the protracted mess it had been with Harry ...
That consideration didn't actually seem to make it feel any better.
学learning
After the strangeness of moving into a new house (or rather an old house, the one her mother had grown up in, and which her second maternal aunt had been kind enough to make available), and the frenetic rush of the first week that left little time for thought, Cho was the only member of the family who found herself completely lost. Her father had arranged a job for himself via friends. Her mother was evidently thrilled to be back in her old home, and was forever making nostalgic remarks about things that had happened long before Cho was born. Her kid sister had been enrolled in a nearby school for the coming term, and was soon brushing up on her characters and looking forward to the prospect of learning magic with nervous excitement. Her little brother could make a nuisance of himself anywhere and had adapted quickly. Cho just felt out of place.
Feeling that she should probably know how she came to end up here, she tried to find out what had happened in the 1960s that was so bad. Unfortunately, her parents weren't much help; not only had they left when they were Chun's age, they were ill-at-ease with the subject and offered no more than a few awkward generalities about the 'Defenders of the Wand', who sounded horribly like the Death Eaters.
So Cho did the only thing a former Ravenclaw could reasonably do -- she decided to research it herself. A few tentative enquiries revealed that by common consent, Zheng Zhuang's Comprehensive Emporium of the Written Word was the finest bookshop in China. It was also about a thousand miles away in Jinan. However, once she'd negotiated the Portkey (vowing to Apparate next time) and managed to locate the Emporium, it quickly proved its worth. It was every bit as comprehensive as its reputation suggested, and carried a considerable stock of books written in foreign languages too -- a huge advantage for Cho. Her command of written Chinese was even rustier than her speaking ability.
In the English-language section there was a detailed History of the Defenders War that made it clear why her parents might consider they had come full circle. The origins she found confusing -- something about a revolution in culture in the Muggle world that had started within sight of the Emporium (even if the Emporium itself was not similarly visible to Muggles), and after which their government suddenly refused to acknowledge the presence of wizards in their midst, despite urgent entreaties from the Chinese Ministry. The results were depressingly familiar, however. The group calling themselves 'Defenders of the Wand' had published manifestos vowing to fight back against 'Muggle oppression', but most of their actual fighting effort had been directed at the 'counsellors of treason' in the wizarding government. It had taken ten years of bitter struggle to suppress them. The author mentioned -- in a tone that seemed rather sniffy -- that many people had left China as a result of the war. He seemed to consider this a failure of good taste, which might explain why her parents were so sensitive on the subject.
The Emporium also had an extensive periodicals section, although Cho didn't pay it much attention at first -- the Daily Prophet could be obtained in Guangzhou's wizarding quarter, if you thought it worth the inflated price asked for foreign publications. Cho rarely bothered during the first few weeks she was there. Any spectacular actions by You-Know-Who would probably get a mention in the overseas news section of the Guangzhou Messenger anyway, and reading about Ministry activities and Tutshill Tornados victories only made her feel horribly homesick.
But from time to time she made an exception. One day while browsing in the Emporium, the English headline 'New Minister Takes Charge' caught her eye, and she quickly opened her purse. The article left her with a sick feeling. She knew little of Rufus Scrimgeour, and even less about Pius Thicknesse, but the skills she'd learnt during her sixth year for translating Prophet reports into the probable underlying facts came in handy; the abrupt departure of the former Minister, and the harsh measures immediately taken by his replacement, positively screamed of a takeover by the Death Eaters.
Her parents exchanged dark glances when they saw the paper she'd brought home with her, and it was clear that they shared her suspicions. They didn't discuss them with her, but then they never did; maybe they considered the matter too dangerous for discussion, or simply closed. Cho herself wasn't sure what to feel about things. It was getting harder to maintain her resentment; she was growing used to her new situation, and things were clearly no picnic back home. Perhaps her parents had a point, which was an uncomfortable thought.
会meeting
As a legal adult, Cho received an invitation to her own introductory meeting with the Chinese Ministry, quite separate from the one for her parents. She hesitated for a day or so before accepting, but then decided that there was really no reason not to go. She had no wish to be seen as impolite.
The entrance to the central Ministry buildings was hidden in what appeared to be an overfilled warehouse in Beijing. When Cho spoke the pass phrase and stepped through the curtain on which it was embroidered, she found herself in a pleasant open courtyard surrounded by pagodas that might almost have been there since the fifteenth century -- indeed, Cho reminded herself, it was entirely possible that they had. It was a remarkable contrast to the office blocks on the other side. Unlike the London Ministry, this one was at ground level; the skyscrapers of Muggle Beijing towered over it, and yet somehow did not dominate the view, merely forming a ghostly backdrop through the haze of the atmosphere and the distorting effect of the concealment charms. You could imagine they were merely a trick of the light unless you screwed up your eyes and stared.
The offices themselves, inside a building towards the rear of the courtyard, were much more prosaic -- a familiar affair of cluttered desks and improvised bamboo partitions. The official who greeted her was a kindly old gentleman who spoke good if not perfect English, for which Cho was grateful. Even after weeks of effort on her part, it was still more practised than her Cantonese, and she'd have been completely lost if he'd spoken Mandarin.
"Welcome, welcome," he said. He blinked slightly when she told him her name, then gave an airy wave of his wand. "Please, let me offer refreshment." Tea began to manufacture itself while he spoke of China and its requirements, most particularly as they related to relations with the Muggles. The gist seemed to be that while laxity was sometimes forgivable in traditional rural areas -- where news of odd happenings seldom spread beyond the locality, and would probably be dismissed as nonsense if it did -- extreme caution was to be exercised in the cities. "You must try to be like them. Dress as they do." He shook his head sadly at the formal robes her parents had insisted she wear for such an important meeting. "These are not seen so much now. It is sad, but I set an example, you see?"
Cho bit her lip; she reckoned she had a rather better idea of Muggle fashion than anyone of his generation. He had dressed in what she thought was called a boiler suit -- in bright scarlet with gold collar and cuffs, which would probably stand out anywhere -- and although he had a baseball cap on his head, it was worn neither forward nor reversed but with the peak over his left ear. "I'll remember that in future, sir," she said. "Thank you."
He beamed at her. "It is the advice of the Council of Harmony. They speak to the leaders of the Máguā, who still do not trust us."
Cho sat forward. She'd picked up that word quickly; it sounded much the same anywhere in China. "Where I come from, they have no reason to."
"Ah yes. The Shí-sǐ-tú." Cho wasn't quite sure what that one meant until he added, "We learn they have taken the government. A distant threat, yes, but we watch with concern. We saw troubles start in Europe before, seventy years ago; it seemed small at first, then it became big. You should know I myself am old enough to remember those times." Cho wondered if she was meant to demur, but he continued, "Already there are people who hear the news and say they are right. We do not like this."
Cho didn't like it either. "And are there people who say they're wrong, sir?"
"Many more. Relations are always difficult, but this is not the answer. This we discovered thirty years ago."
"Will ... will your Ministry do anything to help stop them?" It was a sudden wild hope, which was quickly dashed.
"No, no. Europe is able to solve its own problems. As we solved ours, after your grandparents left."
"The Defenders weren't as dangerous as You-Kn ... as V-Voldemort!" she cried, forgetting herself for a moment. "They were just thugs! Can't people see that he has to be stopped early! Now he's in power in Britain, what's to stop him sweeping across Europe as soon as he consolidates!" She became suddenly, horribly aware of how rude a guest she was being. "I ... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"This is correct. It is not your concern." He seemed thoroughly shocked by her outburst, and Cho wondered if she'd just managed to place herself in the 'troublemaker' category. Not a great start.
"Please, forgive me." It wasn't hard to be contrite under the circumstances. "I spoke without thinking. It, er, it means a lot to me."
"This I see." The tone was still frosty, but he accepted the apology. "Well, well. I hear that one young man stands in his way before he can ... consolidate? If he is defeated, then we look again at what we should do."
Harry. The thought hit Cho like a blow to the gut. She had spent so much time last year avoiding him, and anything to do with him, that the sudden casual reminder of his horrible situation from such an unexpected source blindsided her. "Yes," she heard herself saying. "Yes, of course."
In an odd way, that thought was comforting. Harry was not the kind of hero she had once convinced herself he was -- in truth, she had been expecting him to be Cedric all over again -- but whatever their disagreements, he was still a hero. And as a further shock she realised: if he's really standing in Voldemort's way, I'd still be willing to stand with him.
争论argument
"Dad, Mum -- I just wondered -- well, have you thought much about what's going on back home?"
Both parents gave her sharp looks, and Cho cursed inwardly. She'd wanted to talk to them about this for weeks, and now she'd finally plucked up the courage, starting the conversation by referring to Scotland as home was a bad mistake. Sure enough, her father frowned and said, "This is home, kitten."
Cho took a deep breath. "Our old home," she said in a conciliatory manner, trying to recover from her slip. "You must have heard what's happening there."
"Of course." He exchanged looks with her mother. "Why do you ask?"
"Don't -- don't you want to go back ever?"
Her mother gave a slightly wistful smile. "Sometimes. We enjoyed living there. But this was always home, darling."
"I didn't grow up here, mum," she replied, as gently as she could. "Chun and Ming, they've never even been here before. It's not so easy for us, you know -- look at Chun's school marks, she's still struggling with the language, let alone the magic!"
Her father sighed. He gave the impression of having expected this conversation for some time. "I know it's not easy, kitten, but she'll soon pick it up. We had to pick up English at Hogwarts when your grandparents moved, and I know my children are cleverer than we poor old folk are."
"But they didn't move you back when the first war started in Britain," argued Cho. It seemed a good argument to her, but one her father had obviously anticipated.
"Perhaps they should have done. But it seemed a very small war, to start. The authorities seemed to be holding their own for a long time. And perhaps --" he seemed oddly ill-at-ease "-- the arguments that were used about Muggle threats sounded more plausible after what had happened here."
"Yes, the Defenders were still very active at home," added her mother. "One war or another, why move again? And they didn't want to spoil our education. It meant a lot to them. There is much prestige attached to Hogwarts -- I think you'll find that when you go looking for a job." Cho's jaw dropped; she hadn't expected that. "But for us, now, it's the ideal time, darling, with no such worries. And then ... well, as we told you, there was Albus Dumbledore. Even towards the end, it was hard to believe that a war could actually be lost when the man who defeated Grindelwald was still fighting it."
"He's not fighting it any longer," said her father heavily. "Kitten, we talked our parents round, and we were lucky. You were just a baby. It could have been the wrong decision to stay. This time, I think we made the right decision to leave."
"You made the decision." Again, the words were out of her mouth before she'd properly thought about them, and this time, she let it go.
"Yes, I did. And your mother agreed." Before Cho could say anything, he added, "We do not want our children growing up in a war zone."
"I'm not a child any more!"
"Then stop acting like one! While you live in this house, whatever you think about the decision, I expect you to respect it! I expect you to care more about your family." His voice was raw. "What do you want, Cho, to get yourself killed in some useless fight? I thought you were supposed to be the intelligent one? I thought you had more sense than that!"
"It's not useless! Somebody's got to do it!" She knew this sounded like bravado, even to her own ears.
"Like Harry Potter? Like Cedric Diggory?"
Cho was so shocked that her father had thrown Cedric's death at her, it felt like a physical slap. She stared at him for a moment in speechless fury then stormed out, ignoring her father's irate calls and her mother's shocked pleas for her to return.
逃flight
Long before, Cho had found that the best method of working off her frustrations was to climb on her trusty Comet Two Sixty and just fly. Brooms were considered rather crude by the local wizards and witches, who preferred to travel in a more sedate and comfortable manner on a variety of flying rugs, but she didn't care. She wanted the speed, the wind in her face, the literally soaring feeling that took her to a place of her own, high above the world and her woes. She really missed playing Quidditch, no matter how many disappointments it had brought.
In the aftermath of this latest argument she sped off, pushing the Comet to its limit as she hurtled across country. She didn't really care where she went, so found herself more or less following the course of the Pearl River inland, alone in the skies except for a few birds. Eventually she began to relax again, and when she checked her watch she couldn't believe it; she'd been flying for nearly three hours. Cho braked to a halt a few hundred feet above the river, and then it hit her that she had absolutely no idea where she was. In Britain she would probably long ago have reached the coast and known that she needed to turn back, but here the river simply continued to follow the path it had formed through the country below her, extending far into the distance to meet the horizon.
There was a city not so far away along the river, and a quarter of an hour later she was landing there under the protection of a Disillusionment Charm, trying not to bump into anyone -- the Ministry in Beijing were unlikely to consider that the discovery of an invisible foreigner showed the exercise of 'extreme caution'. The city was large, much larger than Edinburgh, and when she examined her surroundings she realised to her embarrassment that she had absolutely no idea what it was called. The scale of things here was suddenly overwhelming; this was a country in which there could be cities of millions that were nothing out of the ordinary and hardly worthy of special mention.
Cho returned home by Apparition, a stage at a time, not daring to risk the long journey of maybe hundreds of miles in one go. She didn't speak to her parents on her return, and although they were clearly relieved that she was back, they seemed to have decided that the best policy was to leave her alone and act as if nothing had ever happened.
She was very quiet for the rest of the day.
忠告advice
Cho was pleasantly surprised to find that she'd picked up more Cantonese from her parents than she'd realised. Admittedly her vocabulary was limited at first and her accent hard for many people to understand, but she very quickly progressed to finding her way around Guangzhou without trouble. What to do there was another matter entirely. She'd only ever thought about career plans in terms of Britain, with occasional idle thoughts of a year abroad in France when talking to the Beauxbatons students at the house table during the Triwizard Tournament.
Beijing had its own problems -- she was completely lost as far as communication was concerned, unless she could locate someone who spoke either Cantonese or English instead of Mandarin. The locals there tended to do a double-take at her name and sometimes concealed a smirk, and Cho blushed furiously when she realised that it sounded rather unseemly in Mandarin. When she travelled there (it did after all have some of the finest magical stores in the world, let alone China) she began giving her name as 'Jiang Qiu' in her best shot at a Beijing accent.
In some ways it was harder to fit into the wizarding areas, thriving as they were, than to slip anonymously into the huge cosmopolitan Muggle cities surrounding them. Her accent immediately made her stand out, as did her spellwork -- everyone else used incantations in Chinese forms rather than Latin ones. A scholarly gentleman in the Comprehensive Emporium heard her using Accio to retrieve a book from a high shelf -- it took a couple of tries to make it work -- and smiled at her. "You are English, then?"
"Scottish," she said automatically. "But my parents are from Guangzhou. We just moved there."
"I see." He nodded vigorously. "May I be so bold as to offer you a small but helpful suggestion?"
Cho blinked. "Er -- yes, of course, please do."
"A thousand thanks. Well then, allow me to say it will be worth your time and trouble to learn the Chinese forms. A spell and its incantation become as two parts of one whole, tied together and gaining in power by use; where everyone says the same words, the repetition smoothes and strengthens the flow of magic. It is like a river cutting its course through the earth, at once carving out and being guided by the path it has formed. This is a deep law of magic. You will find that the incantations everyone uses in Europe will be less effective here, so far from home, where spells have channelled their power in other forms, and a newcomer must create its own path. And of course this applies in reverse." There was a twinkle in his eye that reminded her of Professor Dumbledore; a sharp pang. "I myself always forget this when I travel to Europe for a conference, so the difficulty is not yours alone."
"Thank you, sir." Cho looked at him curiously; she could vaguely remember Professor Flitwick discussing the subject in the middle of her first N.E.W.T. year, but she'd been far too distracted by ... other things at the time to do herself justice. "Can I ask -- are you a teacher?"
"Ah, do I lecture without thinking?" He chuckled. "Please pardon me. Yes, I teach Charmcraft at the Imperial Academy to the north of Beijing -- not of course that the Imperial title is more than courtesy these days, but we wizards do not like to change our traditions. Are you perhaps due to attend? I am told that a former Hogwarts pupil will join us shortly."
Cho's eyebrows rose. "It's not me, sir. I finished school last year. And my sister's at, erm --" she had to think for a minute to remember the name "-- Xinbian Academy. It's nearer to home."
"Yes, yes, that is a fine school. Not as fine as the Imperial Academy, naturally, nor as fine as Hogwarts, I am sure. I met your headmaster several times -- a very wise and entertaining wizard. A tragic loss for us all."
"It certainly was," said Cho glumly.
求职employment
To Cho's surprise, the people she became most friendly with were their Muggle neighbours -- Máguā, as the wizards said, not so different from Britain. A few boys were showing definite interest and she flirted a little with one of the cuter ones, which only made it obvious that she didn't even feel up to thinking about another relationship just yet, so soon after breaking up the last one -- let alone a relationship that would require so much concealment and evasion about what she was. Not that any of her relationships had ended well yet -- a thought she didn't want to dwell on -- but with Michael it felt as if she'd been reading a story that stopped abruptly just as things were coming together nicely, and would now never be completed.
Also to her surprise, a job eventually found her when her father introduced an acquaintance who had known him as a child. In the thirty intervening years Yang Honghua had built up a thriving export business, and declared that he had urgent need of a junior administrative liaison who spoke fluent English, in order to deal with his many American clients. When he installed her in a small office with a girl called Hu Jiao -- about the same age and with duties consisting mostly of answering letters -- Cho suspected that the offer had been solely a favour to a childhood friend, not based on any qualities she might have. That proved to be too cynical, however. She was soon busy guiding a steady stream of buyers around the warehouse, while desperately trying to remember where everything was stored. Her mother turned out to have been right -- both co-workers and customers generally seemed rather impressed when they heard she'd been to Hogwarts. The school was evidently far more famous than any of its pupils had realised!
Or maybe that was simply because of its headmaster, personally known to scholars in Beijing, who had after all been the ceremonial head of the International Confederation of Wizards. Former head. Cho shuddered; her parents had been right about that one too. With Dumbledore in place, somehow everything had seemed under control, but not any more. The information she had from Britain suggested that Harry (wherever he was) had replaced him as the population's Last Best Hope, despite the Ministry's latest campaign to discredit him. No doubt people had learnt their lesson after the previous attempts by Fudge and Umbridge (the thought of the woman still made Cho want to spit).
Ah yes, Harry.
For better or worse, the singular story of the Boy Who Lived -- and who might or might not be the Chosen One mentioned in a prophecy -- seemed to have caught the imagination of the wizarding public worldwide, and Cho learned to her embarrassment that it was unwise to mention that she'd recently left school in Britain. Usually, one of the first reactions would be the excited question "Do you know Harry Potter?". Hu Jiao in particular was a big fan, and had an annoying tendency to tell customers (American, Chinese, or otherwise) that Cho had actually spoken to him. She managed to fend off the inevitable questions -- feeling a great reluctance to reveal that she'd done rather more than speak to him -- but it was seriously annoying. She needed concealment and evasion here too, another reason she often felt more at home among the Muggles.
Yang Honghua's customers were also often fascinated by her insufficiently concealed Scottish accent, and Cho quickly learned to wear a polite fixed smile every time someone mentioned it. The well-meaning sympathy rapidly became irksome. Everyone seemed to nod wisely and say that they quite understood why her family had left, they'd heard the news from Britain too (or England, as the American clients insisted on saying) and wasn't it terrible? It was equally irritating when they seemed to assume that it would be easy for her to fit in here just because of her Chinese background. She still stumbled over one word in ten when trying to speak the language, and fell back into using the incantations she'd been taught unless she consciously thought about it.
信letters
Michael's occasional letters were unsettling, indeed frustrating. Most were guarded to the point of blandness, as if he expected the staff to search every owl as a matter of course before it was allowed to leave the castle grounds. Only visits to the post office on Hogsmeade weekends gave him the opportunity to be more candid, and even then, much of what he had to say was indirect. It seemed that there was a new and unpleasant regime at Hogwarts ('Do you remember the school year we got together? It was much better than this one!'), that the DA had reformed in some fashion ('A lot of the old crowd have gone now, of course, and some of the others didn't come back this year, but those of us that are left are still trying to keep up the traditions!'), and that he at least was missing her ('I really, really miss you, you know'). Well all right, that at least was direct.
Marietta -- lovely, sweet Marietta, who had been a foul-weather friend to her -- wrote weekly, and was able to be more explicit. Her mother had secured a junior position for her in the Muggle Relations section of the Ministry of Magic, and it soon became clear that policy there had moved a long way from anything that might be approved by the Council of Harmony. Her first letters were gossipy, still almost schoolgirlish, as she talked about her new job and the robes she'd bought from Madam Malkin's with her first week's pay and the cute wizard in the next office who she hoped to get to know better. As the weeks went by and the new regime began to make changes, details of her work became noticeable by their absence. Cho didn't ask; Marietta had always been a little ... fragile, and it wasn't her place to harass her friend for details.
But then, finally, came a long, rambling letter that told how she was beginning to hate her job and the Ministry in general, and talked about some of the things that worried her -- a new statue, creepy in some way she didn't manage to express clearly; chilling official indifference to reports of quite brutal Muggle-killings; and some commission that Dolores Umbridge was running that seemed to have left Marietta even more disillusioned with the old hag than she'd been when Umbridge failed to protect her after the debacle of two years before. Reading between the lines, her friend was clearly scared out of her wits, and Cho longed to be able to comfort her, in the way she'd once been comforted by her.
In the way she would have been able to if, of course, she hadn't been several thousand miles away in a completely new life.
信息news
There had been one curious hint in Michael's letters -- 'everybody here reads the Quibbler, it's so much more interesting than the Prophet!'. Unfortunately, the multiple Apparitions necessary to get across country to Jinan were fruitless, as in this case Zheng's Emporium proved insufficiently comprehensive to supply an up-to-date version. The only one they had was a faded copy of the edition that had carried Harry's interview; the assistant explained that it had been asked for often enough to be stocked. After a year and a half on the shelves unpurchased it was priced to sell, and Cho bought it, for no real reason except old times' sake.
After some hard thought about where to try next, she located a source much closer to home. Hong Kong had never been politically detached from wizarding China in the way it had in the Muggle world, and so celebrations of its recent return had been muted -- but neither had it been a place of particular importance before the British came, and their influence was strong even in the magical areas. Cho poked around and found a small store that specialised in esoteric imports of all kinds; the merry little witch who ran it had contacts in Diagon Alley, and was only too happy to provide an up-to-date copy of The Quibbler.
"How soon could you get it?" asked Cho. She'd no idea how long such things took.
"I can sell one to you now." She laughed at Cho's expression. "No, no, I am not a Seer. You aren't the first person to ask."
"I'm not?"
"Not at all. I think there have been -- let me see, four others before you. They told me it's an open secret that it has the real news. Well then, I said, this is something I need to keep in stock!"
"Oh ... that's good then." Cho dug out some gold and placed a standing order.
When she got the magazine home and curled up on her bed to read it, she could understand why people had that opinion. The contents were still the sort of thing you would expect from something published by Loony Lovegood's father -- yet more claims that the Tornados' recent success was due to something other than their superior skill and tactics (this time, it was the ghost of Roderick Plumpton spying on the opposition's training sessions for his old team), and a 'Snorkack Watch' column with the latest sightings from obscure parts of Scandinavia (where the locals probably had little to do in the winter but knock back aquavit). But the political stories now had a new plausibility. When Lovegood had claimed that Cornelius Fudge was plotting to crush goblin opposition and seize Gringotts for the sake of its gold, it had sounded ridiculous. When he claimed that new minister Pius Thicknesse planned to eliminate goblin control of the bank at the behest of You-Know-Who, it sounded like reporting.
She found it frustrating.
硬币coin
Cho kept her DA coin with her at all times. To begin with, it had been a small gesture of rebellion against her parents, but as the weeks passed it gradually became a mere habit. Most of the time she forgot it was there, but whenever she left it behind by mistake she would feel a sense of slight unease. It was like a talisman of sorts.
Every now and then, she would take it out of her pocket almost absently to look at it -- always with a slight tingle of anticipation, almost hope, a feeling that it could have changed while she wasn't paying attention. And every now and then she would feel it heat up (Granger's Protean Charm working perfectly even across continents, big surprise there), and there would be a message for her to read. Usually the messages were cryptic -- no doubt of vital significance for those involved, but they might have meant anything to someone not in the know. Presumably that included the staff of the school as well as Cho. and was therefore the point of the exercise, but this too was frustrating.
The coin was a source of considerable amusement to local witches and wizards who saw her looking at it, although the disapproval of her parents was palpable on the one occasion a message came through while they were eating dinner. Cho excused herself and went up to her room as soon as she realised; she didn't exactly like arguing with them, and she definitely didn't want them asking why she was still carrying such a thing.
Especially as she didn't quite know why herself.
协定agreement
Ever since their big argument, her parents had carefully avoided the subject of the war back in Britain, and indeed most other subjects to do with life there, from her exam results to the latest Quidditch scores. On the whole, Cho went along with it, other than the occasional small dig almost immediately regretted as childish. They weren't going to change their minds and she wasn't going to leave them behind, so she decided (gritting her teeth) that she'd just have to make the best of it. As the weeks passed she worked hard on improving her Cantonese and getting used to her job, spent a lot of time catching up on her reading, and practised the Chinese spell forms (which were mostly Mandarin sounds, just to make things more difficult -- the result of some long-ago edict to spell developers by the Ministry in Beijing). She even made a few half-hearted attempts at putting together a social life, allowing Hu Jiao to drag her to poetry readings and other events she had little interest in, quickly changing the subject whenever the topic of conversation seemed likely to turn to Harry Potter.
But when both Michael and Marietta wrote and hinted strongly that they would really like to see her over the holidays, she couldn't take it any more.
"You want to what?"
Cho stood her ground. "I want to spend a few days visiting Michael and Marietta over their Christmas holidays. I'm not running away, if that's what you think, but I ... I need to do this."
"What about your job?" asked her father, his mouth set in a thin line of disapproval (although she thought there was a touch of apprehension too when she said running away).
"I can ask for a few days off. I'm dealing with American customers most of the time, they'll be having a break then as well."
He seemed mollified by that, albeit only slightly. "But what about the danger?" That was presumably the real sticking point.
"I'm sure I can go in and out without any trouble. I'll even use Muggle transport to get there if you insist. I don't suppose anyone will even notice I'm there."
"And then what?"
"And then I come back and ... do whatever I do here." Her life at the moment felt like one of those potions that refused to turn into something definite however hard you stirred them up.
Her mother spoke for the first time. "Be honest, Cho. Do you want to go back?"
"I don't know!" That was the most honest answer she could give.
"We do miss it too, you know," said her father kindly. "We know it's hard, it was for us too. But this is the better way. It's home."
'Home' again. "It doesn't really feel like it to me, Dad. Can't you see that?" She sighed. "It might some day, but right now I .. I just feel like I'm drifting. I want to see my friends again."
"You want to see your boyfriend again?"
There was a knowing glint in her mother's eye as she asked the question, and Cho flushed. The subject of Michael was another one she avoided discussing with her parents in case they asked questions she wasn't sure how to answer. "Yes, I'd like to see Michael, as it happens. You know, we'd only been going out for a year, it's not like we were close or anything!"
"You never talked about him much. Not like ... your other boyfriends." At least this time her father looked awkward; he'd finally remembered that both Cedric and Harry were touchy subjects for her. "He didn't visit last summer."
"Yes, well ..." Cho scowled. It had in fact taken some months before her emotional bruises had healed, and until then she'd just regarded Michael as someone fun to spend time with -- and occasionally snog -- when they weren't studying for N.E.W.T.s. She'd always suspected he felt more strongly about her, but that was his problem. "We'd only just started going out then. He couldn't come this summer, could he, we weren't there!"
Her mother laid a hand on her husband's arm before he could say anything. "I think we can understand young love, can't we?" Her eyes twinkled at the sight of her daughter cringing at the phrase. "I don't suppose a few days back in Britain will be too much of a risk. And she is of age." She turned to Cho and suddenly became much more serious. "Will you promise to be careful and come straight back, kitten?"
"Yes. All right." Cho would have promised almost anything to get them to agree. Yes, she was of age, but the thought of burning bridges by taking off by herself without their approval was still worse than not going at all.
访友visiting
Cho booked a room at the Leaky Cauldron and assumed that Michael would be staying there too, but to her surprise his letter directed her to a Muggle hotel in Bloomsbury. When she arrived there she understood why -- it was comfortable, but also large enough to be reasonably anonymous. The necessity for this precaution was disquieting. She was even more surprised -- but delighted -- when she arrived in his room to find Marietta already waiting with him. The two of them evidently still had a certain coolness towards each other, but once they began to discuss matters with Cho in earnest, they soon warmed up to the serious business of cursing the new regimes at Hogwarts and the Ministry.
"... Snape's headmaster? Snape? But ... he k-killed Dumbledore. How did they explain that?"
"They're trying to pin it on Harry." Michael was slightly ill-at-ease talking to Cho about him, which was rather endearing. "Nobody believes them except for a few idiots who can't see the obvious, of course, not even Parkinson and her crowd. Well, she probably knows her precious Malfoy was involved, doesn't she?"
"He's back too?" Cho was outraged.
"Yeah. Keeping his head down, though ..."
"... It's not much fun at the Ministry. People seem to be staying away if they can." Marietta looked miserable.
"Why?"
"It all feels a bit ... creepy. I don't think it's just me, Cho!"
"Who said it was?" asked Michael, who sounded as if he could easily believe 'creepy'.
"Well, a lot of people are carrying on like they haven't noticed any difference. Maybe they don't care. But Mum's seen it too -- she says she's getting some very funny requests to track Floos now, very dodgy people asking, not like Umbridge. Though her Commission's pretty iffy as well."
"What is that about? She's giving Muggle-borns a hard time again?"
"She's giving everyone a hard time. No-one likes being hassled over their Blood Status."
"Tell me about it," said Michael with a snort. "And they're not just giving Muggle-borns a hard time, they're taking their wands away. Some bollocks about them not really being wizards at all."
"What?"
"My granddad's a Muggle. Dad had to go in front of their Commission and prove my gran was a witch to get given 'Blood Status' ..."
"... People are fighting back at Hogwarts though, right?" Cho was fighting a sense of panic at the thought they might not be. Perhaps that had sounded like a rebuke, because Michael flinched.
"We're all doing what we can. Ginny and Luna and Neville Longbottom started up the DA again, but it's not been easy, not with the Carrows throwing Crucios about the way the other professors give out lines."
Cho gulped. "You ... you're not serious? They're not really using the Cruciatus on people -- on students?"
"Yeah they are. I suppose they're trying not to leave physical evidence." Michael shrugged, and Cho and Marietta shared horrified glances at his air of resignation.
The news confirmed everything Cho had suspected and feared. The coup had been quick and complete, and just enough plausible propaganda had been released to suggest that it hadn't really been a coup after all -- just a change of Minister, bringing new policies in his wake. Resistance seemed to be patchy.
"Maybe my parents were right!" she exclaimed at one point, as Marietta and Michael were discussing the failings of the Daily Prophet, as compared to The Quibbler or some clandestine wireless programme called Potterwatch (of all things). They'd confirmed her earlier impression of the Prophet; unless all you wanted was the recipe for Invigoration Infusion in the household tips column, it was impossible to glean anything useful without the kind of close reading-between-the-lines analysis normally reserved for Ancient Runes translations, or the plot developments of the latest epic in Winifred Wellbeloved's adventure series.
Michael and Marietta shared an uncertain look. "In what way?" he asked.
"Moving. Going to China." Cho wished she hadn't said that; she wasn't sure she quite believed it, but then again, she wasn't sure she entirely disbelieved it now.
"Yes, what's it like there?" Marietta seemed keen to change the subject away from doom and gloom, and after a moment Michael chimed in too. "It must be so cool, living in a different country! Is it really exotic?"
Cho laughed. "Exotic? Not really ... well, a bit, I suppose. Not as much to me as it would be to you."
"Do you like it there?" Michael was watching her closely, and she bristled.
"Yes!"
"Your letters sounded as if you weren't sure," said Marietta softly. Her friend knew her far too well. Damn. "Honest now, Cho."
"Well ... it's taken a lot of getting used to, yes." Cho picked her words with care; she owed them both as frank an answer as she could give. "Yes, I do miss Britain, and I miss all my friends. Then again, you two are the only ones who stuck with me all the way anyway," she added with a touch of bitterness.
"Of course we did," said Marietta. "You stuck with me, didn't you? Even when ... you know." She gave a small shudder, and Cho noticed that she still wore her makeup caked on, even though the spots had finally faded away a year ago.
"Yeah. You're all right, though?" This time Michael seemed to be the one keen to change the subject.
"I'm getting the hang of it -- my Cantonese is pretty fluent now I'm using it all the time, I'm remembering stuff I didn't know I knew. I've got a job, like I said in my letters -- nothing high-flying, but it's a nice place to work. I sort of ... do and don't fit in." A few people had called her Jook-sing, but mostly the tone had been teasing rather than insulting. "I'm the exotic girl there to the boy next door, aren't I?" Michael's smile became rather fixed, and she added, "And no, no-one special, Mike, don't get sulky. I didn't forget you that quickly. I haven't felt up to it, anyway."
"Right." There was a rather awkward pause. "Go on then ... tell us all about it!"
"Oh -- all right, erm ..." She started to talk about their new home, and her job, and what her parents were doing, and moved on to the Chinese wizarding and Muggle cultures in general. Marietta and Michael were fascinated, and Cho found herself quite enjoying telling the tales of her Chinese life.
It was amazing how much better it sounded, how much more of an adventure, when she was thousands of miles away.
Eventually Marietta made her excuses and went home, leaving Cho and Michael to look at each other awkwardly as soon as they were alone. She didn't really want to go just yet. Michael was the one who broke the silence, asking with a wry smile, "Was I really being sulky?"
Cho giggled. " A bit. You do do that, you know. I didn't mind, it's quite ... sweet. Sometimes. When you don't do it too much."
"Right." He went slightly pink. "You, er ... you said you didn't feel up to seeing anyone. Did you miss me, then?"
"Well -- yes." She could feel herself blushing too. "We went out for a year, Mike, I can't just let that go. You missed me then, too?"
"Yeah. Yeah." He paused. "A lot, actually." He turned away from her; he was having some difficulty talking. "We were really getting on well, weren't we? I wish you hadn't had to go."
"So do I." She put her arms around him, and for a few minutes they just stood there, hugging. Michael seemed to need it, and for that matter, so did she. Finishing with Michael at that point had been like putting down a book just as it was getting to the ... um, the last chapter. Yes. That. "I should leave, I suppose," she said after a while.
"Right." He let her go, kissed her once on the cheek, and then, as she reached the door, he said "Cho?" It sounded forced from him.
She turned, already halfway into the corridor. "Yes?"
He waited a moment, then suddenly asked, "Will you stay? Please?" There was more than one kind of need in his voice; he sounded both strained and desperately weary. It startled her.
"I ... I ... I don't know." She winced; that wasn't exactly a categorical 'no'. "It wouldn't be a good idea, would it?"
"No. Yes. Oh, I don't know either." He ran his fingers through his long hair; she'd never seen him quite so obviously hurting. "For what it's worth, your letters and the DA were the only things keeping me sane this term. I ... I hated leaving it where it was -- oh sod it. Sorry." His shoulders slumped. "Sorry, Cho. That wasn't fair. Forget it, sorry. Just ... you will keep writing to me, yeah?"
"Yeah, of course," she said, for the sake of something to say. Then after a few seconds of difficult hesitation, she made a decision.
Cho stepped back into the room and gently closed the door behind her, smiling slightly at the mixture of expressions that were chasing each other across Michael's face; disbelief, happiness, gratitude, a flash of raw, unconcealable desire, and finally a sort of hopeful nervousness. She wasn't at all convinced she knew what she was doing -- it wasn't quite what she'd envisaged -- but, well ... even if she was about to finish a story without being sure she wanted to continue with the sequel, at this moment, she didn't think she could bear never to find out what would happen.
Part 2