Author: Thalia Kendall
Category: General, Humor
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. Characters and situations are used without permission, no infringement is intended.
Summary: Twenty random things that most people don't know about Roger
Davies. Shameless Roger/Cho shipping contained herein, because they're
my OTP.
Author's Note: This was written as part of the Harry Potter Random
Facts Fest here: http://iulia-linnea.livejournal.com/226238.html . Thank
you, zeft, for beta reading.
Feedback is love and sex and magic and caffeine. Or something.
* * *
1. That Roger Davies Sorted Ravenclaw was inevitable. Growing up the child of a Muggle biochemistry professor and a Potions researcher, he practically cut his teeth on books and information, and has an intrinsic love of knowledge that, had he been less socially adept, would have been relegated to hopeless geekiness.
2. The first instance of magic that Roger Davies exhibited happened when he was a baby. His mother, who'd always tucked him in with a particular lullaby, had gone on a business seminar, and when there was no one to sing that song, he caused the piano in the parlour to pick out the notes.
3. Roger first flew on a broomstick when he was four. It was a toy broom that he'd received for his birthday. He managed to wear out the charms upon the broom within two days and cried when it wouldn't float any more.
4. Roger went to a wizarding primary school and on his first day, was pounced by a rather aggressive girl with flame-red hair at recess and hugged and kissed quite enthusiastically. To this day, he has never dated a redhead.
5. When he was six and a half, a new family moved in next door with a little girl about his age. He saw her outside picking flowers in the yard, walked over, and tugged on her pigtails. She immediately started yelling at him in a language that he absolutely had no concept of. When their parents found them two hours later, she was still screaming at him, and he was still standing there, watching her in bemusement. No one expected then that she'd become his best friend.
6. He didn't find out her name, Cho Chang, until about a year later, when she finally learnt how to speak English. And then, when he generously let her ride his new-and-improved toy broom, they cemented their friendship for life. Though he WAS a bit jealous that she got the hang of it faster than he did.
7. He wrote her frequently when he went to Hogwarts, but that might have been because she pouted and made him pinky-swear to do so before he left.
8. Roger Davies joined the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as a Reserve Chaser in his second year. He rode on one of the school's old Shooting Stars, and made a resolution to not eat candy for a whole year to save up for a broom. Said resolution lasted about two weeks.
9. Thankfully, when he replaced Robert Entwhistle as a Chaser his third year, his parents bought him a Cleansweep Seven... but only after he'd received the highest mark in his class in Charms to prove that he could balance Quidditch and schoolwork.
10. Cho Chang joined the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as the Reserve Seeker that year as well, and Roger was subjected to quite a bit of unmerciful ribbing by other teammates about his 'ickle girlfriend', something that he'd invariably hotly deny. When the actual Seeker caught Dragon Pox the week of the Quidditch final between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and they had Cho play in his stead, she won the game... with a broken arm. A Bludger had cracked her arm at the elbow, causing a nasty open fracture even as she caught the Snitch. Roger was quite possibly more distraught over his friend's injury than she was.
11. In the middle of his fourth year, when he was in mortal terror of failing Potions, one of the house Prefects sat down with him for several hours patiently going over poisons and antidotes with him until he finally understood everything, and Roger has considered Penelope Clearwater a friend since then. He had considered visiting her in the hospital wing after she'd gotten Petrified, but upon seeing Percy Weasley haunting the place, decided to refrain.
12. In his fifth year, Roger Davies replaced Eamon Quirke as Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, and not a week after this was announced, was asked by a pretty Slytherin girl by the name of Giselle Parker to be her boyfriend. He agreed and went out with her for a few weeks before realizing that she was extremely vapid, but before he could think of a kind, gentle way to break things off with her, another Ravenclaw Prefect caught her in a broom closet snogging Kevin Bole. He was secretly relieved that she'd taken the guesswork out of things for him.
13. If one were to ask him how many girls he'd fancied, he'd likely name several, from a variety of different Houses. If one were to ask him how many girls he'd actually loved, he'd hedge over it, and babble a lot of stuff about how he wasn't sure how he'd be able to tell if he loved a girl or was just attracted to her, etc. etc. Though, if anyone where to ask if he loved Fleur Delacour, he'd shake his head. But likely only after she was no longer around, because she had a strange sort of ability to leave him tongue-tied.
14. Roger's favourite class is Charms. His least favourite is Divination, partly because Professor Trelawney somehow seems to think that he'd make an excellent Seer. He pouts (in a manly way, of course) whenever someone alludes to this.
15. Roger's worst moment at Hogwarts was probably at the end of his sixth year, at the conclusion of the Triwizard Tournament. He'd genuinely respected Cedric as a fellow Quidditch captain-- and it rather horrified him to see Cho in such a state of grief as well. He never learnt how to deal properly with crying girls. Especially girls who cried all over him.
16. Somehow, he still isn't sure precisely why, when Professor McGonagall asked him in 7th year what he wanted to do after school, he answered that he wanted to go into Magical Law Enforcement. He HAD thought that he'd rather like to go into Professional Quidditch. But after he thought about it, he became rather more fond of the idea. He had the marks for it, and making a difference appealed to him.
17. Though when his then-girlfriend Ursula Grinnell heard about said plans, she cooed over it and lionized him so much that he withdrew and they broke up a few weeks later. She was furious and declared that he must then be doing it to avenge Cho's heartbreak and that Cho would never love him like that anyway. He was outraged at her accusations. That was probably his only nasty breakup.
18. Roger Davies left Hogwarts with a respectable eight NEWTs: in Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Potions, History of Magic, Herbology and Muggle Studies. He was satisfied with his results, though wishes that he could have gotten one in Ancient Runes as well. But he's rubbish with languages: After more than ten years of friendship with Cho, he still only managed to learn two cuss-words in Chinese.
19. Outside of being rubbish with languages, he's also hopeless at cooking, and has a bad tendency to dwell over things. He had nightmares about his first raid for weeks: the scene of dead people and the Dark Mark replaying in his head. To cope, he buried himself in work for the next several months, and thus rose in the ranks at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement very quickly. To this day, he finds it ironic when people praise him about that quick progress, because really, he'd worked so hard in order to not think about things so much.
20. It was roughly fifteen years after they'd first met that Roger Davies shared a kiss with Cho Chang at a Ministry Christmas party under mistletoe. He'd rather awkwardly apologized to her afterwards, for which he was slapped. And it took a few hours of talking and angsting and pouting on both sides before they resolved their differences. He didn't notice the smug looks of various colleagues or money changing hands the next day, though. Bless Ravenclaws and their denseness.