Comfort

Comfort

After the Leaving Feast ended, everyone made their way out of the Great Hall. Harry, Ron and Hermione walked behind everyone else, not saying a word. Harry was too sad to speak, after going through all he had. Seeing Cho hadn't helped either. The sight of the tears streaming silently down her face had been almost too much to bear.

When they had walked all the way up the stairs, Harry turned around and looked at the empty Great Hall. Then suddenly realized it wasn't empty after all. Crying with every step she took, Cho was walking slowly out of the Great Hall alone. He turned away, not able to stand seeing her so sad again.

When they had gone halfway down the hallway at the top of the stairs, he realized he just couldn't let her be so sad. He had to try to comfort her. He turned back around and said, "Hey, guys, go ahead without me."

"Why-," Ron began. Neither he nor Hermione had seen Cho.

"Just go ahead. I'll meet you in the common room," Harry replied. They were still very curious but they started on their way back to Gryffindor Tower without him like he told them to. Harry turned around and walked back down the steps and met Cho halfway across the entrance hall. "Cho," he asked, "are you okay?"

"Yes," she answered in an entirely unconvincing tone. She did manage to stop crying but she didn't sound like she wanted to talk.

"It's okay, Cho. I know how you feel."

"No, you don't. You couldn't possibly know how I feel."

"Well, maybe not," said Harry, "but I probably have a good idea. I was there. I... I saw it happen." At this Cho almost started crying again. Harry immediately wished he hadn't said that, but Cho managed to hold the tears back. However, she couldn't seem to talk for minutes afterwards. Harry walked slowly down the hall, watching her fight back the tears, quickly looking away if she glanced in his direction.

"That must have been so... so sad," she finally managed to answer, at a loss for anything better to say.

Harry nodded. "And I just can't seem to shake the feeling that it was all my fault. I know it wasn't. I just-." Harry couldn't seem to find the right words. "I mean, I did tell him to take the cup with me. If he hadn't, none of this would've happened. But then again how was I supposed to know- how was anyone supposed to know - what was going to happen."

"What happened, anyway? How did he...he...?" She sounded like she wanted to know and didn't want to know at the same time.

Harry tried to put it all into words. "Well, right when I saw the cup I also saw Cedric running for it. I knew I wasn't going to make it. But then I saw this giant spider coming straight at him. With his eyes on the cup, he hadn't seen it. I shouted to him to watch out. Eventually we both beat it. Then we were both standing by the cup. We had to decide who should take it."

"Well, what did you do?"

"I told him to take it. But he said I should because I had saved him from that spider." Harry left out the part about Krum and about they help they gave each other throughout the year, not quite sure how he could explain it all. "Eventually we agreed that we would both take it. It would still be a Hogwarts victory. When we each grabbed a handle of it, we both realized that it was a Portkey. We zoomed off to some graveyard. I'm not sure where we were. Then this man appeared. He was one of You-Know-Who's servants." Harry figured it was useless to try to explain who Wormtail was. "And then this high, creepy voice said, 'Kill the spare,' and then-." Harry couldn't continue.

Cho seemed to somehow understand. Even though she still seemed more sad then Harry had ever been in his whole life (except maybe when his parents died, but he couldn't remember that), she managed to sound almost happy as she said her next words. At least the bitterness was mostly gone from her voice. "Well then he probably died happy. He had just won the Triwizard Tournament."

Harry had been walking along, not even noticing where he was going. He looked up and noticed with surprise that he was only a few feet from the Gryffindor portrait hole. Harry asked, "By the way, where is the Ravenclaw common room?"

"Well, where are we?"

"We're on the 6th floor."

Cho almost started to laugh. Well, she at least managed to smile faintly. "Oops," she said, "my common room is rather far down from here." Harry noticed that she didn't reveal at all where it actually was. He expected that. No one ever revealed the site of their common room, except with a good reason.

"Well," Harry said, "I guess I should let you go to your common room."

"Yeah," said Cho. "Well, see you later."

"Bye," called Harry. He watched her walk down the hall. Then he turned around and started walking to the Gryffindor common room.

"Harry!" called Cho.

"Yeah?" Harry asked. He turned around and nearly jumped. Cho was right behind him.

"Thanks so much for cheering me up," she said. Then just when Harry thought she was going to turn around and leave she kissed Harry on the cheek. Harry was so amazed. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He just stared at her, incapable of speaking or even moving until her words broke the silence.

"Well, I've got to go now," she said. "Bye."

"Yeah, bye," Harry answered. He watched her walk away until she was out of sight, then turned around and walked back to the common room, stunned. Just before he got to the portrait hole he realized it had been almost half an hour since he left Ron and Hermione. What were they going to say when he got in the common room? But he couldn't stay out there forever. He decided to just go in. Maybe they had already gone to sleep, although he doubted it.

He said the password and climbed into the common room. Just as he expected Ron and Hermione were sitting by the portrait hole waiting for him.

"Where were you?" asked Hermione.

"And what took you so long?" asked Ron.

"Well-," said Harry. He hesitated. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell them what happened. He was definitely not going to tell them about what happened at the end. Actually as he thought about it he was sure he didn't want to tell them any of what happened. Even if he left out the part about the kiss, Ron still knew that Harry liked Cho. Harry wasn't quite sure what Ron would say but he decided he didn't really want to know.

Ron seemed to think he had hesitated too long. "Well? Are you gonna tell us?" asked Ron.

Fortunately at that exact moment Fred came up and said, "Hey Ron, come look at this!"

"Not now," said Ron. "Harry was about to tell us something."

"You'll see him tomorrow. He can tell you then. Come on."

"Well, okay. You can tell us later, Harry." Hermione followed shortly behind him, not wanting to bug Harry too much.

Relieved, Harry walked up to his dormitory. He was tired, plus maybe they would forget about everything tomorrow. Even if they didn't forget he might be able to make up something good to tell them before they asked. He changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed, taking off his glasses.

Ron came in a little while later. Harry saw him and quickly shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. "Harry?" he asked.

But Harry didn't move or give any hint that he was awake. Figuring Harry was asleep, Ron walked back out of the dormitory. Harry moved a little thinking about what had happened that night, wanting to fall asleep so he would have a good dream. A little while later Harry finally fell asleep.