Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 43 - Harry and Cho

December arrived quickly and with it came more snow and, of course, more homework. I was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, reading a letter my dad had just sent me when Ron, Harry and Hermione arrived.

"Ron!" I said with a smile as they sat down. "My dad's letting me stay with you guys at the Burrow for Christmas!"

"That's great!" He said enthusiastically.

"You're not spending Christmas with your dad?" Hermione asked with a knowing look.

"No, it's like I told you, he's real busy with work..."

"Oh, that's too bad," Harry said.

"Yeah, well, I don't really mind..." I sighed. "My dad and I haven't really been in the best of terms lately."

"Why's that?" He asked.

Hermione and I tensed up. "Oh, er... no reason," I said quickly, hoping he would not linger on the subject anymore.

That evening we were both glad and sad to attend the last DA meeting before the holidays. The Room of Requirements had been beautifully decorated for Christmas. I laughed merrily when I saw a bunch of golden baubles hanging from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry's face and bearing the legend 'HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!' indicating that Dobby had clearly been the one to decorate the place. Harry shot me a look before he pleaded us to help him get them down before the others arrived.

Once everyone had arrived, Harry instructed us to simply practice everything we had already seen.  This time Hermione sacrificed herself and paired up with Neville, leaving Ron and me to practice together. I took a few steps away from Ron and smirked as I readied myself.

"I'll go easy on you," he said, making me snort.

"Sure, Ronald," I said before pointing my wand at him. "Impedimenta!" I cried, and Ron had no time to react before he was frozen in place. I glanced at Hermione beside me, who had successfully cast the same spell on Neville.

"Good job, Granger," I said teasingly. We simply talked and laughed as we waited for the pair to unfreeze before moving on to other spells.

"Way to go, Neville!" Hermione beamed at him. I smiled at him at seeing just how much he had improved. He wasn't the only one, as far as I could see. Everyone was doing so much better than they were doing at the first meeting. It was no surprise, I thought: Harry was such a good teacher.

We were practicing Stunning when Harry called a halt. "You're all doing fantastic!" he said encouragingly. "When we get back from the holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff — maybe even Patronuses."

There was a murmur of excitement as we all packed our things and headed for the door, wishing everyone merry Christmases and happy holidays as we went. I joined Ron and Hermione before the door but saw them looking behind me. I turned around curiously, only to see Harry not ready to leave.

"You three go on," he told us absently.

When I saw that the other person staying behind with him was Cho, my heart seemed to sink to the bottom of my chest. I gulped as I stared at Harry for another moment before lazily turning around to catch up to Ron and Hermione.

***

"Mimbelus mimbletonia," Hermione said to the Fat Lady, and we walked into the common room. I didn't even bother saying anything and walked straight to my dormitory, where I threw my bag on the ground before throwing myself on my bed. I grunted loudly as I buried my head in my pillow, trying to make sense of the tornado of emotions raging up inside me. I didn't quite understand what was happening: I was feeling a mix of hatred, jealousy, and sadness. What was going on? One moment, I was having a blast stunning Ron and laughing with Hermione and Neville, and the next I was angrily stomping through the common room and dramatically throwing myself on my bed. About half an hour later, I heard laughter coming from the common room.

I stood up and walked down the steps to see Ron, Hermione and Harry giggling before the fire.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, completely ignoring Hermione's questioning glare.

"Harry just kissed Cho!" Ron said with a huge grin. It felt as though my heart had been ruffled up like an old piece of parchment and thrown into the trash. I involuntarily glanced at Harry, who frowned as he looked at me standing there, not saying a word.

"How was it?" I finally managed to ask, trying to sound casual.

"Er, great — alright, I suppose."

"Great," I said as I nodded. I gulped nervously as I tugged at the sleeves on my robe before nodding frantically. "I'm tired, so I'll be going to bed now. Goodnight," I said before turning around and walking back to my dormitory.

I swore under my breath for I must have looked like a complete idiot. I sat down on my bed, unable to let the tears fall from my eyes. With another pang in my heart, I suddenly realized why I had felt the way I had every time I saw Cho and Harry laughing together, every time I saw Harry blush when he saw her.

I jumped slightly when I felt a shifting weight on the mattress and saw Hermione sit down beside me. She engulfed me in a hug and drew circles on my back, slowly calming me down. I wiped my tears away and stared at her, nodding to show her I was fine.

"Now, er, I think I know what's going on but..." she spoke in a low voice to avoid waking up the others, "can I ask you what's wrong?"

I sniffed as the tears kept rolling down my cheeks. "I don't know- I, ugh, I don't know..." I said, hiccuping between each word that came out of my mouth.

Hermione nodded apologetically, still holding onto me. "Since when have you had feelings for Harry?"

I sighed heavily. "I don't know, I think... maybe ever since we went to the Yule Ball together... I don't know, it was different that night, you know?" she nodded, even though perhaps she did not know what I meant. "I didn't even realize I was feeling this way until just now..."

We stayed in silence for a long moment, simply holding on to each other, the bright moon illuminating the dark dormitory so that everything seemed dipped in blue. I heard her yawn a couple of times and said that we should probably go to bed as it was now past midnight. She gave me a big, warm hug before we both crawled into our beds.

"Night, Liz," she whispered softly.

"Night, Mione."

When we woke the next morning we were stopped by McGonagall on our way to the Great Hall. She led us to her office and quickly closed the door, great concern written across her fair face. She then proceeded to tell us that Harry had had a vision last night involving Mr. Weasley and so him along with Ron, Ginny, Fred and George had been sent to Grimmauld Place with Sirius to wait for news.

"Now, I'm told you were meant to stay with the Weasley's for Christmas, Rosier, is that correct?" She asked.

"Yes, Professor."

"Well, no need to worry dear. You will join them at Grimmauld Place as soon as the break starts."

"Professor?" Hermione said tentatively. "Might it be alright if I went with her? I know the Weasley's would not mind at all, I just need to inform my parents, of course..."

Professor McGonagall sighed, but there was a faint smile on her face. "Yes, alright..."

She handed Hermione a quill and parchment so that she could write to her parents and sent it away with her owl and told us that there would be no way for Umbridge to intercept it.

We thanked her before leaving her office and walked back to the common room, having completely lost our appetite. The common room was filled with students so we walked back to our dormitory and shared our worries quietly as we prepared our suitcases, both glad and anxious about staying at Grimmauld Place for Christmas.