Author: Thalia Kendall
Category: General, Romance
Rating: PG/PG-13
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. Characters and situations are used without permission, no infringement is intended.
Summary:Written for a prompt: Cho Chang, Roger Davies, irritation. A brief glimpse at the last few days of a certain Ravenclaw girl's last days in 6th year, and an important lesson learned.
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It was one of those days that Cho just felt as though she could-- and had every right to be-- perfectly savage. But of course, she remained quiet about things, because she was Cho Chang and the public eye was a fearful thing at times.
The morning had started with a shriek of most unglorious proportions, as Leticia Houghton awoke to find that Cassandra Duffy's cat had upset an inkwell onto her new white jumper. Cho had most ungraciously cast a Cleaning Charm on the jumper in question just so Leticia would stop screaming, but that act of kindness didn't garner any thanks or cause for the two roommates to stop sniping at each other.
Through breakfast, Cho severely kept her nose buried in her Potions text and her hands clasped around a cup of coffee. Professor Snape was looking particularly vindictive up at the staff table, and she was decidedly not looking forward to the final exam in class that day.
Though it did give her a valid excuse to ignore Michael Corner, whose flirtations were getting on her very last nerve. Michael was a likely enough fellow, but Cho was in no humour to entertain any more romances with younger boys who went with her in a mix of lust and pity. Hadn't she just put an end to a disastrous one?
Not that anyone cared. And not that SHE should care. But it was frustrating for everyone to watch her every movement these days. Especially since no one actually felt like befriending her.
Oh, she was Cho Chang, ever to be overshadowed by brighter, bolder Gryffindor girls, and if she wasn't the belle or the best Seeker, she was superfluous. Perhaps once upon a time, she might have counted Marietta and Roger among her friends, but she supposed that she couldn't blame either of them for ignoring her these days. After all, it WAS her fault that the former had gotten into such a mishap, and as for the latter... Cho's lips thinned. A male friend always threw one over when he had a girlfriend. Not that she HATED Ursula Grinnell, but she'd thought that Roger would be different from other blokes. But Roger saw her as a child... someone to chat with and indulge and act like a big brother to. He'd asked her to Hogsmeade on Valentine's day "because it's not healthy for you to stay in with only your thoughts on a nice day like this", and she'd fumed because she knew that she wasn't his type at all.
And wasn't Ursula just perfectly tall and blonde and voluptuous? A Gryffindor in the bargain? There was no need for him to pity her so.
The day didn't get any better, though she was fairly sure of good marks on her Potions exam. Harry and his friends were in the hospital wing, and when she went there to visit Marietta (who was either sleeping or ignoring her), she could hear Weasley's comments about her, none of them kind. They stopped when she walked past, and Cho would almost have preferred jeers to the stares and awkward silence. She nodded an uncomfortable greeting to Luna, who was a housemate after all, and left the infirmary with an unpleasant crawling sensation on the back of her neck.
She had a little consolation in Transfiguration, which had always been her best subject. Professor McGonagall had given a faint smile of approval of the perfectly cast spell to change her quill into a swan, and returned Cho's last essay with a neat "Full Marks" written across the top.
But then she passed a gaggle of spiteful-looking Slytherin girls in her year, most of them surrounding a smirking Maeve Travers. Maeve was the Sixth year female Slytherin Prefect, and in classes, she had always been neck to neck with Cho. She was a dark-haired, handsome girl, with long green eyes and a smile that was never kind or genuine. Now, she and her posse accosted Cho.
"You know, it's a pity, Chang," she started in a voice of affected, honeyed nonchalance. Cho gritted her teeth and ignored the girl, but one of Maeve's friends stepped into her path, effectively blocking her.
"Whatever the pity is, you'd be best to soliloquize about it somewhere else," Cho muttered darkly. "I've Quidditch practice, Travers. If you'll please excuse me..."
"Oh, didn't you know?" Maeve let out a dainty, cold, tinkling little laugh. "I overheard Ursula Grinnell talking with Katie Bell. Roger has apparently decided to have Stefan Ackerley replace him as Captain. I know you were aiming for it, dear... but really, one cannot blame Roger for that. Captaining a Quidditch team would be FAR too much responsibility for someone of your delicate sensibilities."
Cho turned deathly pale and started to tremble. She detested Maeve Travers, and the feeling was mutual, but the Slytherin girl had no reason to lie about something like this. Not giving her a chance to respond, Maeve and group swept away.
To her credit, Cho's expression remained set until she'd made it back to the thankfully empty Common Room before she started crying. It was unfair. She didn't do anything to deserve this. And whatever Roger thought of her as a person... whether or not he still considered her a friend, she'd always tried her best on the pitch. And she COULD handle it! No one had any right to suggest otherwise!
She dimly heard the creak of the Common Room entrance opening, and didn't bother to raise her head. She heard footsteps approaching, the sound of someone clearing his or her throat. Cho's hands clenched, but she still didn't look up.
"I'll hex you if you don't go away," she snapped, but her voice was shaky and muffled by the cushion in which she'd buried her face. But the threat did not deter the person, whoever it was. The sofa sank as the person sat down by Cho's feet, and a warm, gentle hand sank into her tangled hair. She stiffened.
"It's me," a familiar male voice said soothingly by her ear. "Now, why don't you tell me what's made you so upset that you won't even come out for a fly with your old captain one last time before he signs his youth and life away to the Auror Guild?"
"G'way, Roger," she sniffled, but the day had been too long already, and she no longer had the energy to fight. She didn't want to raise her head, because she just knew that her nose was a most unbecoming shade of red.
But Roger was apparently rather determined to talk to her, because a moment later, he'd lifted her up by the shoulders and turned her around, batting away Cho's ineffectual attempts to disengage herself. Cho glared when she finally faced him, and ignored the handkerchief that he held out.
"What is it that you want to tell me, Roger?" she inquired resentfully. "If it's the fact that Ackerley's to be the new captain, I already know, thanks to one very helpful Maeve Travers. Nice of you to tell Ursula so that all of Gryffindor knows before I get the news. Because it's not enough that Hermione Granger disfigured my friend and Weasley's calling me names when he thinks that I can't hear. Charming of you, really."
She felt very much like burying her face in the cushion again, but that would be just undignified, and she clung to the last shreds of her pride. His face was unreadable, though that was probably because her vision was a bit blurry with the remnants of her little cry. He silently proffered the handkerchief again, and this time she took it, a bit rudely, and used it to wipe her face. She felt very tired and weary and stupid... and very, very young. She supposed that she couldn't blame Roger for thinking of her as a silly little sister, not when she cried over little things-- or lots and lots of little things.
"Feel better?" he broke the awkward, tense silence. His face was solemn and concerned, and Cho could almost imagine that he still considered her something akin to a friend... an equal. "You had a long day. Now, will you listen to me?"
She nodded mutely, and he scooted closer to her on the couch. "I didn't tell Ursula any such thing, you know," he started. "Either Maeve Travers made that up, or Ursula was a bit more upset at me than I thought... I broke up with her."
Cho stared at him uncomprehendingly, and Roger gave her a rueful smile. It was a deprecating twist of boyish, soft-looking lips that unconsciously managed to wreak havoc on all females' psyches, and Cho HAD considered herself immune to such silliness prior to now. But then again, she HAD just been through a very trying day, and perhaps her guard was down. "You... broke up with her?" she asked faintly, incredulously.
He nodded, and patted her shoulder. "Turned out that she was just dating me to try to get Montague jealous. Rival captains and all that... didn't seem to work very well, and then, she was upset that I didn't pass the captainship to Ackerley. They are cousins, you know."
Cho had nothing to say in response to that, and Roger took that as a hint to continue. "Which is, of course, what I wanted to talk to you about. Captainship..." and here Cho started and he held out a hand, "I know it's a lot of responsibility, lassie, but I think you'd be the best for it. Think you can spare a few afternoons a week til the end of term so we could discuss it?"
Of course she could! And perhaps Roger knew that telling an overwrought Ravenclaw girl a piece of overwhelming good news would garner such a reaction, and perhaps that was what he was seeking, but the next moment found him sprawled untidily on the couch with his arms full of ecstatic Oriental girl, who looked as though she wasn't sure whether to cry again or kiss him.
He settled the matter by holding her close for a few moments, but chastely, and kissing one tearstained cheek. "Now, let's go out and fly for a bit. It's the first warm night in months-- and nothing seems as bad when you're out in the air, hmm?"
That was true, and he didn't even seem upset that she'd lost to Ginny Weasley. Cho let him guide her out of the Common Room and down the hallway, somehow managing to ignore any irritating looks cast her way as he talked about his NEWTs (apparently the spell that she'd done in McGonagall's class would be on the Transfiguration NEWT, to her gratification). And then, it was just them and two battered broomsticks and the open night air.
Slowly, she felt herself calming down, and things didn't seem so bad as they lazily circled the darkening pitch. The roommates surely had stopped bickering by now. Maeve Travers was a nasty, lying bint, and it would not do to take her seriously. Marietta's face would recover. Michael Corner was nowhere to be seen, and she was to be the next captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. And most importantly, for the next few days, until the end of the term, she had at least one friend, still.
"Sickle for your thoughts?" the kind tenor voice of said friend broke through her reverie, and she merely smiled a bit.
"I'll miss you awfully when you leave," she said seriously. It was true... even if they'd never been as close of friends as they could have been. Perhaps someday...
He gave her a slow, tender sort of smile. "I'll visit you, and we'll be sure to make these last few days count, all right? As long as you don't cry any more."
"Why not?" she asked childishly.
He passed her by on his broom, and hovered mid-air, watching her steadily. "Because when you smile, you're the prettiest girl in the school."
She felt a scorching blush rising up her face, and in normal circumstances, she would have glared and flown off as fast as a Comet could accelerate. But now, perhaps she was too tired to do so, because the only thing accelerating was her pulse. "I... you don't need to say such things," she managed at last, and it was preternaturally dignified.
"I know," he said, with a tone that almost bespoke diffidence. "But I mean it."
Cho promptly forgot all about the day's irritations in the face of THIS, which she didn't completely understand-- not yet-- though she instinctively knew it was bigger than everything else in the day combined.
Twelve days later, the Hogwarts Express pulled into King's Cross station and two Ravenclaws parted ways. The taller of them fingered a blue hair tie, still with a long black hair caught upon the clasp, and Apparated away. The other, a slim, petite girl with crimpy-looking hair that looked as though it had recently been in a braid, tucked a handkerchief into her pocket.
Her name was Cho Chang, and her face held a much different _expression from the end of last year. It was satisfaction, as though she'd learnt a valuable new lesson in the last few days.
And to Ravenclaws, the most important things in life are always lessons.