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Author: Thalia Kendall
Category: Vignette, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. Characters and situations are used without permission, no infringement is intended.
Summary: Four separate vignettes with different Ravenclaws on different holidays. Chanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Eve and Chinese New Year... and how Ravenclaws and non-Ravenclaws celebrate.
Author's Notes: Dedicated to Lyta, best Ravenclaw webmistress ever! Happy belated... lots of things!
* * *
It had been an arrangement that had pleased both of them at first. She'd been a wide-eyed, nervous girl-- still a girl despite the laurels of Head Girl and seven Outstandings on her NEWTs, with the highest Transfiguration mark out of all the Hogwarts scholars in her entire class-- and it had seemed providential that Shacklebolt's assignment of her primary trainer just so happened to be a familiar face-- an old chum, even. Cho Chang's dark, limpid eyes had lit up with disbelieving joy when Roger Davies strode out of the inner bowels of that mysterious, still-new sanctum of the Aurors' Guild headquarters and met her in the lobby with a smile and a friendly hug far too informal for a supposed trainer to bestow upon a trainee in the Auror programme.
And perhaps that should have been an indication of how things were to be in the days to come, Cho thought darkly now. That was more than two years ago, and perhaps she'd just been destined to be unlucky in certain aspects.
Though a young woman of nearly twenty-one and a full-fledged Auror should NOT be thinking such naive, improbable things, to be sure!
It had come on quite suddenly-- grown out of an easy camaraderie and quick understanding that came from years of playing Quidditch and sharing a Common Room together. It was quite simple and natural to spend evenings at a time at his flat or at hers, poring over manuals and spellbooks, him waxing effusive in his compliments about her cooking and her laughing at the fact that HE would have to buy take-out every time she was over rather than burn the flat down trying to make something more complicated than coffee. It wasn't at all awkward or unwelcome for him to clap a familiar, fine-boned, almost-proprietary hand on her shoulder and glare down with a sharp rebuke at an overly impertinent fellow trainee who'd whistled and made a ribald remark when she'd passed. This was friendship at its best, and she flourished under his tutelage, facing exams with the same sort of bolstered, dauntless spirit as she'd faced opposing Seekers on the pitch.
It wasn't seemly or acceptable for things to have gone further than harmony and perhaps friendship, and yet it did. It was only too short a time that she was able to rest under the pretense that it was just gratitude for his friendship and help that she started feeling strangely bereft every evening when she bid him farewell after training. It was also too short a time after THAT that she could write it off as a mere infatuation-- she was young and Roger had always been handsome, with just the right amount of chivalry and courtesy to thaw even the most immune feminine heart. But infatuations came and went, and this didn't, and it was when she found herself staring and found him staring back that she felt the compulsion to DO something.
Of course, it would be out of the question, so Ravenclaw logic sounded sternly in her head, and it was a month and a half of increasingly stilted conversations and increasingly frequent blushes that broke her.
"I think we should call it a night," Roger said softly, sitting on the settee at her flat in a manner that suggested that he wasn't at all at ease. "You'll do splendidly on the stealth and tracking exam, Cho, I'm sure of that."
The words could've been spoken to ANYONE, and the fact that he wasn't meeting her eyes struck her with a sudden fury. And as he turned towards the door, reaching out to retrieve his cloak, she sprang in front of him so quickly that she might have Apparated. "Don't you DARE!"
"I beg your pardon?" Only Roger Davies could've taken refuge in such a terribly polite and impersonal inquiry even while a flush crept up into his cheekbones and his eyes stared down at the ground. Cho stood in between him and the door, and had wrapped her fingers around a handful of his robes, forcing him to bend down slightly.
"YOU of all people should never try to pretend with me," Cho's voice was low and fierce, with a hint of anger and recklessness completely unusual in it. And before Roger could say anything in defence of himself over that accusation, she'd dragged his face down with a yank and pressed her lips to his.
His surprise was so palpable that she could practically taste it on his lips... and then that vanished. She felt fingers reaching up to tangle in her hair, felt a strong arm wrap around her waist, felt his lips parting against her own, and it was dizzying and perfect and the sort of kiss that happened like a volcano, hot and searing and explosive, a build-up of pressure flaring to a head. There was the soft, needy sound of a moan, and then she realised that it was hers.
And then the kiss broke apart just as suddenly as it started, and he backed away with wide eyes, dropping his hands as though she burned him. "We... we can't do this," he said softly, his voice lacking its usual cheerful calm.
Cho clenched her fists, furious as she'd never been before. "You can't say that there was nothing there just then!"
"No," his voice was infinitely gentle and sorrowful and final. "No... I CAN'T say that. But Chapter 1 of the Rule Book, section 34, Rule number 12B says it for me."
She wanted to hit him, to rage at him, and then throw the rule book into the fire. She fully intended to say something scathing about what he could do with the sodding rules, and yet what came out was a vulnerable, unplanned, "I love you."
With infinite gentleness and care, he cupped her face in his hands and this time, he was the one to kiss her, softly and slowly, a careful caress of lips. "Eight months, Cho." And there was something in his voice that almost sounded like a promise, though she couldn't be sure.
The next day, when she went to the usual room in the Ministry for practicing drills, it was a jovial, snarky-but-surprisingly-good-natured Marcus Flint who supervised. There were no late-nights and no hugs and it was utterly safe.
And she should've forgotten all about before.
* * *
Cho Chang pushed all such wayward thoughts out of her mind now, determinedly hanging a square of red paper with a Chinese character in calligraphy on the door of her flat, a traditional gesture to bring fortune in the New Year, and shivered slightly in the February wind. It was 'New Year's Eve', in the lunar calendar. Tomorrow would be a feast at her mother's, a new moon and lots of questions and congratulations about her successful completion of Auror's Training-- a full month ahead of schedule, even.
It was the sharpened awareness that came from meticulously honed observation and tracking skills that enabled her to become aware of a presence behind her, but even that couldn't prepare her for just WHO it was, and before her shocked eyes, he drew a spray of delicate, star-like plum blossoms out from behind his back and tucked it in her hair, his eyes bright as they gazed down into her face, his fingers lingering by her temple.
"You remembered," she whispered, and she wasn't quite sure what she was referring to. That plum blossoms were her favourite flower, perhaps. The dates for Chinese New Year. The last thing he'd said to her seven months prior.
"I'd never forget," he said quietly, and there was something in his eyes that mirrored the tumultous emotions in her own. She suddenly found herself smiling giddily, and when she kissed him this time, he met her halfway and it felt just like the first time.
Somewhere behind her, gold-on-red, a Chinese character signifying good fortune shimmered in the light of the setting sun. Night was falling, but it felt like a new day dawning, somehow.
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