Everything You Want

~*Everything You Want*~

Chapter Three: Don´t Speak

"You and me,

We used to be together,

Every day together,

Always.

I really feel that I´m losing my best friend.

I can´t believe this could be the end.

It looks as thought you´re letting go.

And if it's real then I don´t want to know..."

-No Doubt, "Don´t Speak"

Cho got up the next morning, bright and early. Efficiently putting books and parchments into her schoolbag, she started down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Roger was already there when she arrived, looking over his schedule as he munched on a piece of toast.

"Good morning, Roger!" she greeted, "What´re your morning classes?"

"Advanced Charms, and then Divination." Roger replied, "You?"

"Potions, then Arithmancy... just as I thought!" Cho grimaced, blowing one of her bangs out of her face. "I told Cassandra and them to go to bed instead of speculating over my supposed love life last night. The ninnies wouldn´t even believe me when I told them that Cedric and I are not dating! Blimey, can´t they think of anything else besides bloody relationships?!"

Perhaps the coffee he was drinking had started to take effect, or perhaps something else had happened, but Roger suddenly seemed more alive and alert after her statement. Giving her a wry grin and ruffling her still unbraided hair, he said, "Well, you know how those roommates of yours are. But I have to say that I´m glad you´re not in a relationship with Diggory."

Cho turned sharply, "What´s wrong with Cedric?"

"Nothing´s wrong with him... just... er... I´m glad that you two weren´t up in the Astronomy Tower `till midnight last night... um... doing what most couples do up there. Unpleasant mental image, you know," he replied hastily.

Cho laughed and smacked his arm lightly, "Of course we weren´t, silly! Cedric and I would never do such a thing!" That being said, she turned away from him and started to deftly plait her long black hair into a neat braid. Muttering Potions notes under her breath, she did not hear Roger give a sigh of relief.

Advanced Charms was a class comprised of ten students from all four Houses in sixth year. There were two Slytherins, one Hufflepuff, three Gryffindors, and four Ravenclaws in the class this year, and Professor Flitwick didn´t waste any time with pleasantries, instead starting right in with the lesson. Roger spent the hour taking copious notes, for he had learned fifth year, when the advanced level classes had begun, that there were exams of some sort weekly, and they were incredibly difficult.

Therefore, it seemed like no time at all before he was heading up the many flights of stairs towards the Divination Tower. He saw Harry Potter and his friends on the way down, as they had obviously had their first class with Trelawney this morning. He only noticed because he had gotten into the habit of observing the players from the other Quidditch teams. He grimaced however, as he got to the ladder that led to the classroom, for Diggory had just climbed up it, and Roger had done his best to forget he had class with him at all.

"Morning, Davies!" Cedric called cheerfully as Roger climbed into the classroom. Cho´s close friend and Quidditch captain did not look in the last friendly, however.

"Diggory," he nodded, before settling down in a seat as far away from him as possible and preparing to force himself out of boredom for an hour.

"Welcome to your continued exploration of means to predict the future." The misty, portentous voice signaled the arrival of Professor Trelawney, as usual draped in layers upon layers of shawls, scarves and chintzy jewelry.

As she schooled her face into the tragic, quasi-omniscient expression that she most favored, Trelawney murmured, in a thrilling whisper, "We will be starting the year with some review. Doubtless over the summer, you must have forgotten some of the valuable and intriguing lessons learnt here, in my classroom... Hampton," addressing a 6th year Hufflepuff girl, "Be sure to watch out during your next Transfiguration class, lest you get into a dangerous accident." The girl winced briefly and nodded. Trelawney continued.

"We shall begin by reviewing the horoscopes. As you know, we are now in the sign of Virgo..." Roger drowned it all out, his mind occupied with other, more interesting things, like how to make sure, when Quidditch season started, that Cho would not get hurt by the Slytherin team. Suddenly, he heard Trelawney calling his name, and snapped back to attention.

"Yes, Professor?" he asked, trying to look as though he had been paying attention.

"Am I correct in remembering that you are a Leo?" she asked.

"Uh... yes, Professor. My birthday´s the twenty-fourth of July."

Trelawney looked shocked and very, very sorry for him. He was of the opinion she spent hours before the mirror, perfecting that look. "You had best watch out, poor boy. It is a bad season for Leos... you will be involved in a bad accident before the end of the month... you´re a Beater, aren´t you?"

"Er... yes," Roger said, wondering if he should be worried or dismiss this all as babble from the not-all-there professor.

"You want to be careful who those bludgers fly at, dear," she said. "Someone will get badly hurt quite soon... Ravenclaw will lose the game, of course."

Roger seethed. "Now Professor, that really isn´t fair."

She shrugged. "Why build your hopes up when I can tell you now? Besides, I´d watch out for the smaller members of your team... some of them have had bludger problems before, as I recollect. Now, Miss Lindley, you must be a Sagittarius..."

Roger wasn´t particularly listening to Trelawney anymore, mainly because he was now in full blown "panic over Cho" mode. She couldn´t possibly be that accurate, not unless there was some truth to her words. He was trying to think of the most tactful way to get Cho to relinquish her position to the alternate when Trelawney began speaking to Cedric, and he decided to pay attention.

"Ah yes, Pisces," she was saying. "Venus is in your favor... you should be lucky in love this month, my dear... do take advantage of it, as the object of your affection will likely be badly injured in some way in the near future... take the time now, while you can..." The coincidences just seemed to line up.

Now Roger was sure he should worry.

Roger was still mulling over Trelawney´s ominous words when class was finished and it was time for lunch. Sitting down at the Ravenclaw table, he looked down at his plateful of steaming chicken pot pie. Usually, he would have wasted no time with finishing his lunch, with Hogwarts´ delectable cooking, but today, he seemed to have lost his appetite. This queasy feeling only increased when Cho plopped down next to him, throwing her bookbag down on the floor and tossing her braid over her shoulder.

"How were your classes? Potions was horrible, as usual. I still cannot comprehend the use of a draught that makes one´s nose longer, but the overgrown bat of a Professor Snape decided to make us do it. Of course, there were twenty-five ingredients to go in, and any mistake would make the bloody cauldron explode. Thank goodness Professor Vector was in a benevolent mood today and decided to make it an easy Arithmancy lesson. If I had two classes like Potions early in the morning every day I might go crazy!" Cho ranted. "What about you? You had Charms and Divination, didn´t you say? Isn´t Ced in Divination with you? So tell me, what sort of rigmaroles did Trelawney come up with today in her `Horrors of the Future and our Inevitable Doom´?"

Roger gulped, but forced his voice to be nonchalant. "Er... nothing really. Just the usual doom-and-gloom in our horoscopes, that´s all," he replied, then took out his large and immensely boring History of Magic textbook and buried his face in it, to avoid more questions on that particular issue.

Cho sighed as she began to purposefully load her plate with a fragrant stew in the middle of the table. "Hey, Roger, when does Quidditch practice start?" she asked. "Don´t we need a new Chaser, too?"

"About Quidditch, Cho..." Roger mumbled.

"Yes?" she asked, somewhat confused. "What about Quidditch?"

"Are you sure you want to play?" he asked, almost desperately. "You´re taking the hardest subjects, and you need to study, and anyway, it´s dangerous, and-"

Cho interrupted him, hurt in her voice. "Roger Davies, it sounds to me like you don´t want me on your team!"

Under her piercing gaze, Roger squirmed. "No! I mean, yes, I want you on the team! It´s only... well... only that..."

"Yes?" she said, eyebrows still raised questioningly.

"Never mind," Roger said miserably. "Practice starts next Wednesday."

***

Wednesday arrived all too soon, and that evening, an hour after a dinner that Roger didn´t find the appetite to eat, he found himself and the rest of the team, Cho included, on the Quidditch pitch.

"Now, team, this is our first practice this term. We have a new Seeker this year," Roger began, indicating the confident, excited little Chinese girl by his side, Comet in hand and grinning ear to ear. "Today, let´s just run through our old drills, and show her the ropes, okay? Let´s take it easy on Cho here..."

Before he could continue with this speech, Cho interrupted him, "Ah, don´t worry about taking it easy on me. I want us to win, so don´t do anything different than usual. After we´re done trying out new Chasers, show me a real game."

Before Roger could say anything to protest her statements, she had already soared into the air. Well, if she was not going to... to listen to reason, then he, Roger Davies, would just have to make sure personally that nothing happened to her.

Fifteen minutes later, a fifth year by the name of Henry Vanderhoff was chosen to fill in the vacant Chaser position. Now, Quidditch practice would officially start. All seven players took position, and soon, the chasers were running through their drills and competing with the keeper as Game simulation began. Roger threw the enchanted golf ball that the teams used as a snitch substitute during practice into the air with a heavy heart, all the while watching the bludgers like a hawk, Beater club clutched so tight that his knuckles whitened.

About twenty minutes into the practice, Cho caught sight of the "Snitch" and went into a dive. Hair flapping in the breeze, a look of single-minded focus on her face, she did not notice the bludger that Gordon Brocklehurst pelted her way. But Roger did. Zooming forward, he hit the bludger back towards Brocklehurst with such force that the other Beater nearly tumbled off his broom when it caught him in the midsection. A moment later, Cho´s triumphant, bell-like call of "I´ve got the Snitch!" rang out through the field.

Everyone landed, and Cho proudly offered the golf ball to Roger. Roger, however, wasn´t paying much attention. "What, pray tell, did you think you were doing, Brocklehurst?"

The seventh-year boy shrank before his livid captain, despite being the elder. "Er... what you told me to, Captain... in practice, we simulate a game. If we see the Seeker going down for the Snitch, we stop her at any cost." After a few moments of tense silence, he added "Sir."

"Brocklehurst?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"You are an idiot!!!"

And, in front of his incredulous teammates, Roger proceeded to berate Gordon loudly and sometimes in rather vulgar terms. He had obviously lost his temper completely.

"Wow..." Robin Harrison said, obviously having never seen Roger this furious. He was the last of the reserve Chasers to be moved up to the actual team as a seventh year. "He´s really lost it." He was well used to Roger´s temper, having been a reserve since his third year, but in his experience, Roger´s temper was never so bad as when dealing with something that might concern Cho.

"Er... Roger?" Cho ventured.

"How dare you send it at her!? What kind of idiot-"

"Roger! I´m really all right!"

"What if she´d been hurt!? I´d have to KILL you then-"

"Roger!" Cho finally shouted. "For Merlin´s sake, calm down!"

Roger, eyes wild, turned to her. "Are you all right? No injury? No problems at all?"

"Roger... you´re acting strange," she said, looking at him oddly. "It was just a bludger. I´ve taken one to the head before."

He sighed. "I know, only..."

Cho looked affectionately at her friend and captain. He was just being the concerned friend that he always was, and worried about her, and she would show him that there was nothing to worry about. Taking his hand in one of hers, she did a graceful little pirouette. "See, Roger? No bruises, no injuries, limbs and muscles all still in functioning order. Stop worrying so much about me. Besides, I was going too fast for that bludger to hit me anyway."

The rest of the team grinned when Roger´s expression slowly returned to normal. "All right, if you say so, Cho. I just want to make sure that you don´t get yourself injured again on the pitch. Team, dismissed."

The rest of the team walked off, to put away their brooms and equipment, then to return to Ravenclaw Tower. Roger and Cho walked slowly back towards the castle together. Cho gave him a sidelong glance. "So, tell me seriously, what has gotten you so worried all of the sudden?"

Roger took a moment before finding the right words. "Well, Cho, you´re one of my closest friends, and I don´t ever want to see you hurt." Trying to lighten his tone a little bit, he added half-jokingly, "Besides, I don´t want to get any Howlers from either of our mothers demanding to know why I didn´t watch out for you."

Cho laughed, "If that happened, I would send one right back to them telling them to sod off and quit bothering us."

At her impish expression and audacious declaration, Roger was forced to laugh. Ruffling her hair with one hand, he chuckled, "Chang, you´re incorrigible!"

Cho smacked his hand away, feeling the top of her head and finding that what had been a neat braid was now close to a bird´s nest. Putting on her best mock glare, she shook one slender finger at Roger. "Davies! You great prat! Look at what you did to my hair! I must look like a bloody scarecrow!"

"That would be interesting, Chang... you as a scarecrow? A bit of a stretch..." Roger found that his earlier gloom had disappeared like snow in the springtime. Grinning, he reached out and mussed up her hair even further. "Hmm... there we are... now that´s a bit more like a scarecrow."

Eyes blazing with indignation, she lunged at him, managing to unbalance him for a brief moment. But Roger was, after all, two years older than her, a head taller, and probably outweighed her by fifty pounds, and within moments, she found herself lying on the ground, her hair now entirely out of its braid and fanning out messily around her, with him tickling her and causing her to shriek with laughter. "All right! All right! I surrender!" she squealed, face flushed and voice breathless from laughter. Roger gave her a deep, seeking look.

"Do you now, Chang?" The sun had set by then, the stars were slowly becoming visible in the sky. She was lying on the ground, in slightly rumpled Quidditch robes, face flushed a dusky rose, delicate lips parted. Her loose hair flowed about her, down to her waist, long and wild and silky. Her eyes looked up into his, limpid and dark as pools of sweet hazelnut coffee. She was so beautiful. Slowly, tentatively, he brushed her soft cheek with the back of one hand...

"Hello there, Cho! Evening, Davies." If Cedric Diggory found anything unusual about the two Ravenclaws´ positions, or the look of frustrated annoyance that Roger Davies shot at him, there was no indication of it as he greeted the both of them jovially.

"Hello, Ced!" Cho got to her feet, smiling at her Hufflepuff friend. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Oh, Professor Sprout wanted me to help her harvest some roots of Japanese blood grass for Herbology." Cedric answered easily, indicating the soiled gardening gloves he held in one hand. "I´m assuming that you two just finished Quidditch practice?"

"Of course! Two Galleons and a sugar quill that I win the match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff!" Cho said playfully.

"You´re on!" Cedric shook her outstretched hand, "Seriously, though, I believe that you´ll be an excellent Seeker! You´ve just the right build for it, and you´re fast and agile. You´ll do great!"

"Thanks, Cedric! You´re so sweet!" Cho replied. Roger balked at this exchange, though neither Cedric nor Cho noticed. What right did Diggory have to comment on her body like she was a piece of meat?

"Cho, we have to get back to Ravenclaw Tower," he said abruptly, "Good evening, Diggory," he addressed the other boy coolly. Cho waved at the Hufflepuff prefect before following Roger into the castle. Cedric stared after the two Ravenclaws for a moment, a thoughtful look crossing his face, before he, too, returned to the castle and headed towards the Hufflepuff Common Room.

Cho seemed unaware of the tension between the two boys. "Ced told me he was playing Seeker too, this year. It will be interesting competing with someone so close to me..." she shrugged, and finally noticed the slightly moody expression on Roger´s face. "Hey, are you all right?""

"Fine," he quickly reassured her. "Just fine. Really."

"You´ve been acting strange," she mused. "Are you sure you aren´t sick? Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey."

Roger chuckled under his breath. "I´m afraid Madam Pomfrey can´t cure this."

"Can´t cure what?" Cho asked interestedly as they walked into the castle and headed across the hall.

"Oh... just... she can´t cure someone who isn´t ill, now can she?" Roger quickly improvised, wondering when he would learn not to think aloud.

"No, I suppose not." They headed up the stairs and Cho said, "Aquila," to the portrait, naming the Latin word for eagle. It swung open and they headed inside. "Well... I´ve got a Transfiguration essay to do, and I really need to study for Ancient Runes tomorrow, so I had best get to my books," she said. "Practice was... something."

Roger looked a bit abashed. "I went a bit overboard, didn´t I?"

"Just a bit," she laughed. "I really have to go now. Homework calls. Good night, Roger."

"Good night."

***

In upcoming practices, Roger did manage to not let his concern for her or his temper get the best of him. There were no more tirades at Brocklehurst, for which the other Beater was very thankful. However, the rest of the team seemed to have learnt their lesson, and there were no more bludgers deliberately pelted at Cho. She was doing quite well, much to everyone´s delight, and had a head for tactics and a penchant for aerial acrobatics which would force the Seeker on the other team to swerve about, distracting him from looking for the Snitch, and give their team opportunity to score as many points as possible. She truly was becoming a credit to the team, and though Roger still conscientiously made sure that she was kept safe during practices, he was slightly less worried than before. For a slip of a girl riding a Comet, she really was quite fast.

Things seemed to be looking up for Roger. Quidditch and classes were all going well, though Trelawney still gazed at him with that tragic expression and maintained that dreadful things were in store for his future, none of it was any worse than the things she said to anyone else. Cho was still quite healthy and happy, from the looks of it, and often spent evenings studying together with him. Gradually, Roger was even able to look at and greet Cedric Diggory without an accompanying feeling of intense dislike and distrust.

Of course, as always, things were too good to last.