Phoenix Summer

Cho Chang sat morosely at her window, watching the rain slide down her window in continuous waves. The first week of summer was nearly gone. Normally she wouldn't have started her schoolwork. She would been keeping her owl Fena busy corresponding with friends and setting dates. Normally she wouldn't be doing something as feeble, as useless, as downright lazy as watching the rain fall. But normally, she reminded herself, Cedric wouldn't be dead.

It wasn't normal. She needed to organize herself, to get her thoughts together so that she could sort her problems out. But it wasn't normal. It was crazy, chaotic, disorganized, shattered melee. Anarchy. Insanity. Mayhem. Normally she could have pulled herself together and thought things out and figured out what she wanted to do. But it wasn't normal. Her brain didn't seem to work in the same way it did before. She felt like her mind was submerged in a pool or sticky quagmire. And the easiest thing to do was just not think. To simply eat and sleep. To mechanically fill her days with tasks that kept her from going back into the mental mayhem.

So that was why she sat by her window, homework done, friends left in the dark, and course books practically memorized. Her mother came in. Again. Usually she'd leave after a few comments about being busy with schoolwork. Feng valued schoolwork above almost everything else.

"Hi, Mom. I've just been reading the new DADA book, and there's some really interesting material in them about vampires." A lie.

"Cho, your DADA book is downstairs. On the table in the front hall."

"Oh." She laughed, somewhat hysterically, and continued at a rapid pace. "Well, you see, I must've been reading it before and left it there. Yeah."

"I see. Well Cho, I didn't mean to intrude," another lie, "but really. There's no way you had enough schoolwork to occupy you for this amount of time, and f you're that desperate to not think about what happened then. . . well, if you don't want to think about something, sometimes the best thing to do is talk about it. I find it really frees you up to get on with other things."

Silence.

"Honey, was what happened really that bad? Why can't you tell me?"

Huge, expansive, ear-splittingly loud silence.

Feng gathered together her formidable and considerable wrath to dignify her inevitable retreat. "Fine." Her voice was short and clipped. "If you're not even going to speak to me then I'll leave." As she moved toward the door, she heard a sound that greatly surprised her. Cho was curled up on the bed sobbing.

"Honey!" She scurried back over to the bed. "I know you're very upset by whatever happened at that school, but, - why can't you tell me?"

Cho herself was shocked. She hadn't expected to let herself go like that, but it's always an unpleasant and surprising experience for a child when their mother loses all degrees of patience and lenience and begins to shout. But it was just too much, coming home from that hellish experience to find that even her mother was mad at her! It was her own, fault, she knew, she had taken the wrong path, as Dumbledore had said at the leaving feast. She had chosen what was easy, to lay around and wallow in misery, over what was right, to confront her problems and come out on top with a clear head.

"Be-becau-se I- don-t-t kno-o-o-w-w! I don' hiccup know what hic-hap-hic- happened! The cranky old Head- hic Headmaster didn't te-e-e-l-l-l-ll me-ee-e-eee! And Cedric's dead! mum, he's ded an I donno whut tu duouo!" Her voice shaking like a washing machine on spin cycle with every syllable, plus the hiccups and the sobs that were racking her small frame made it nearly impossible to speak.

"Honey, just sit here and calm down a bit." It was a command, but Cho needed no invitation. She flung herself at her mother like a projectile, driving her backwards onto the bed. Feng sat there soothing her stricken child for quite a while.

Cho thought she had been all cried out at school, but now came a new wave. She didn't think it was because of the grief, she was over that, but she didn't know; it was driving her mad. At school maybe a certain word, or tone of voice, or face, or phrase would just trigger the thought- He's not here with me. He can't see this funny thing, or help that first year, or ride that broomstick. It was just the realization, like she had never known before and was only just finding it out; that Cedric was dead had driven her to pieces.

She was done with that grief. But now she grieved more because she hadn't grieved properly before; she hadn't known what to grieve about. It was stupid and she knew it. But she didn't care, because it wasn't normal and the quagmire was threatening to pull her back in again. But she didn't care, because her mother was there, a warm protection against everything bad. And just as she had suddenly realized that Cedric was dead numerous times throughout the last few weeks, she suddenly came upon that here mother was here, eternally warm and comforting against it all. It wasn't normal anymore. She didn't care.

And so, for the first time, she willingly slid into the quagmire and allowed herself to sleep.

~*~*~*~

Feng smiled as she slipped quietly out the door and walked off softly down the carpeted hallway. She'd talk to Cho about writing to Harry Potter when she woke up. Honestly, wasn't that the only feasible solution?

She also wondered about how Cho had slept so immediately. She'd had hollow circles under her eyes lately, and Feng assumed she wasn't sleeping well. Well, Feng didn't mean 'phoenix' for nothing. She often had a calming effect on people, giving them new strength to go on. And she could sing beautifully. No, she wasn't called phoenix for nothing.

~*~*~*~

Stiff.

Puffy.

That's how Cho felt when she awoke. Feeling remarkably calm, she got out of bed and tried to make herself look decent. She'd only been asleep for a half hour. That was strange; it felt like more. Here comes mom again.

"Hi, mom."

"Hello, Cho. Feeling any better?"

Cho didn't. "Quite a bit, actually. Just. . you being here really helped. And mom. . I've been noticing that you look. . a bit different. I guess, of course, I haven't seen you in a while, and of course you've changed a bit. ." her chatter ground to a halt when she saw the expression on her mother's face.

"Quite observant of you, honey." Was she being sarcastic, or was it just her imagination? "In fact, you're going to be a big sister this summer."

Cho's face broke out into a grin. "Good way to break the tension, mom. Hehehe, I thought you were serious a minute there, looking at your. . . face. . ." her chatter once again petered out with the expression on Feng's face.

"I'm serious, Cho." If this hadn't been such a solemn moment, she would have laughed at the look on Cho's visage. Her jaw had dropped down to her feet. "You're going to be a big sister sometime around July. Isn't that wonderful?"

This actually cheered Cho up quite a bit. Of course, she knew that babies were work, but the overwhelming opportunity in them. . . just the possibilities of what they could become was enough to give her something to look forward to, to keep her out of the quagmire. "That's great, mom! I can't wait!" It wasn't like this new baby was replacing Cedric's spot in her life. . no. It wasn't. Nobody could occupy that special place in her heart that Cedric did. No one.

Seeing her expression turn from delighted to melancholy, Feng remembered what she had thought would help Cho's problems. She decided to bring it up now. "Cho. . . if you won't feel better until you talk to us and you can't talk to us until you write to Harry Potter, than why don't you write to him?"

Cho frowned. "Mum, I. . . I might as well just find out second-hand, someone will write me and tell me what happened in there, or I'll just- find out this year, really. . . He's a celebrity, mom! He probably gets fan mail!"

"Oh, come on, Cho." Feng was amused. "If you really think he gets that much mail, then it shouldn't be a big deal to write to him! Why, I can remember when he beat You-Know-Who, and I took you to the park for the first time, and we played there all day. I hadn't dared to take you there during His time. You were so happy, and I. . ."

Cho decided to give in rather than endure her mother's reminiscing. "Okay, I'll write the letter, mom," she scowled.

Feng grinned in a satisfied sort of way. "I knew you'd see it my way. Oh, and Cho. . just call when you know enough to talk, okay?"

Cho just nodded as she wearily got out parchment and a quill and settled down to write.

~*~*~*~

That had all been yesterday, and Feng was considerably happier now. Cho had come down and flown her broomstick through the trees in the park all day, and upon returning seemed like a new girl.

Of course, she did have to be careful in that park, as she was constantly reminded of. It was open to muggles who might be wandering around the woods. One had to keep an eye out for them, and use a muggle-detecting charm every once in a while.

But there were never any muggles in their part of the park, anyway. Feng could still remember the day they moved in, the secluded, comfortable old house tucked away in the woods near the suburb of Surrey.

Cho had actually seemed genuinely happy about the baby, which Feng figured was a good thing. She'd been afraid that Cho would just flip out and go crazy, with all the things that had been happening to her.

Speaking of those things, Feng thought it was about time Cho spilled the beans. She could still sense that her daughter was harboring some burden, and if only she would release it she would be okay. She would find out today.

With her new resolution in mind, Feng stomped clumsily up the stairs to check on Cho again. It was quiet in her room, until- bang! There was something slamming around in Cho's room! Quickly, she threw open the door and there was a sudden buzz as a tiny gold object whipped past her face!

Staring wildly into the room, she caught a glimpse of her daughter heading right for her before she had been knocked aside and Cho was past.

"Young lady, what are you doing?" she demanded angrily.

"Mom!" yelled Cho's receding back. "You just let out my Snitch!"

Feng sighed, then clomped down the stairs again after the elusive golden ball, and her still more elusive daughter. Wildly, she called at Cho as she jumped down the last six steps.

"Get your broom! It's probably already out the window!"

Cho pelted around the shed, grabbed her broom (a new Nimbus 01), and shot like a rocket out into the woods.

~*~*~*~

Harry Potter had come into the woods again for solace. This time it was not from the persecution of Dudley's gang, but from the oppressive silence of the Dursely residence. He couldn't figure out what to put in his letter to Cho. Try as he might, there seemed no words that expressed his thoughts in the right way. He'd filled his full wastepaper basket with scraps before the decision had come to move out here for inspiration.

He was in a clearing behind a dense thicket of branches, bushes, and thorns. Stunted trees grew all around it, effectively hiding it from view from anyone who might make it through the woods and into the thicket. Exceptionally useful in hiding from Dudley's gang.

Not finding any sudden bursts of poetic brilliance in the greenery around him, he wandered around the edges of the clearing. A creek running through the thicket, a couple old tires near its edges- and a tire swing hung on the largest tree. He meandered closer to the swing, peering at it curiously. He'd never remembered it being here before; was it new?

That didn't matter. Coming up next to the swing, he hopped on and began to push himself a bit. Not managing to get very high, he began to look for something more interesting. He began to shimmy up the rope.

Suddenly, his hands slipped and he dropped the five feet onto dirt below. He gasped. A couple brushburns on his hands and knees, and a scraped shin. He grinned; he was acting like a five year old. . . now he should go run for his mommy so she could give it a kiss. The thought sobered him up quickly.

Carefully, he rubbed the dirt from his wounds and spit on his hands. He began again to climb up the rope. Redoing his childhood, that's what he was doing. No, he was making up for lost childhood, he thought to himself. Lost childhood. Lost childhood. Damn that Voldemort! Just the thought made him angry enough to scream.

With redoubled ferocity he clawed at the rope, snarling as he propelled himself to the top with strength born of fury. Almost slamming his head on the sturdy limb that protruded above him, he blinked. He was at the top. He'd been so caught up in his madness that he hadn't watched where he was going. He rested a bit.

Even though a seeker required more finesse than strength, Harry had decided that it certainly couldn't hurt. He'd tried to build up his scrawny frame as much as possible with crunches and sit ups, push ups and pull ups, and any other activity he could. Landscaping the garden, fixing the roof, even mowing Mrs. Figg's lawn had helped him tone his wiry muscles.

Almost laughing out loud at the thought of old Mrs. Figg in wizard's robes with all her cats, Harry relaxed on the rope.

Suddenly, he tensed again. There was a buzzing in the air. He knew that sound. . . the Snitch! There it was! In his mind, he was at Hogwarts on his Firebolt. . . propelled by the roar of the crowd, he shot at the gold ball before it had time to move again. Got it!

The feeling of the slightly warm, struggling metal beneath his fingers gave him another burst of adrenaline, and with a start he realized where he was.

Not at Hogwarts! He was falling. . . Lucky the rope was so high, there was still time. Feeling like he was moving through water, he slowly maneuvered himself around. Turning. . . turning. . . lunge! He snatched at the rough rope as he plummeted earthwards, arresting his fall.

It wasn't in slow motion anymore. He was bumping, smashing, shaking around as he finally ground to a halt on the rope.

Ouch.

He was dangling by one hand from the rope, blood staining the few feet above him that he slid. The other hand was closed on the Snitch, and he raised it in glory.

Wait a minute.

A Snitch!? This was a muggle town! Dropping to the ground, he landed catlike, his thin sinewy frame creeping along like a predatory beast. It was Voldemort! He knew Harry couldn't resist a Snitch. Damn him again! He takes away his childhood and then, when he tries to make up all that lost time he needs to go and screw it all up again! Well, he'd be ready this time.

Grasping his wand lightly, he pulled it out. No! It caught on the belt loop of his pants! Slowly. . . don't drop it. . . good. He pried the wand out from its knot and began slowly revolving around, backing out of the clearing as he did so. Cedric hadn't died for nothing. He knew what to do this time Voldi came for him.

Moving behind the shadow of the thicket, he saw something that made his jaw drop.

~*~*~*~

Cho leapt onto her broom and pelted off into the woods. She couldn't risk flying above the treetops, she would definitely be seen by Muggles. Weaving in and out of the trees at near top speed, dodging branches and avoiding trunks; that was living.

There'd be plenty of time for sightseeing later- right now she had to get that Snitch! She cursed her stupidity in trying to improve her quickness by shutting it in her room and trying to catch it. Of course someone would walk in one her! Of course it would fly away!

Focus. . . listen. . . there! A flash of gold! She sped off after it.

It was one thing catching a Snitch in an open area with the golden ball bound into to pitch, but it was quite another to try to find it as it ran free through thick undergrowth. For all she knew, it could be down in a rabbit hole.

There! Another flash of gold, straight ahead. She accelerated to the Nimbus's limit; the trees and sky around her blurred and she focused on the Snitch, shining like a beacon out in front of her. Watch out!

A huge thicket of brambles and bushed leapt up to meet her, and she pulled up with all her might. She was going up now. Mustn't break tree level! Cho inverted, pulled down again into a half loop, screeching to a halt as she came up on the opposite side of the brambles.

She gaped, utterly astounded at what she was seeing. There was a small boy- a muggle! -hanging on the top of a rope that went nearly forty feet up into a tree. As the Snitch buzzed by him, he threw his head back- and the rest of him followed. He flipped over backwards until he was diving down do intercept the Snitch, and then-

-He caught it. What!? Now he was plummeting- she should help him- suddenly; his arm whipped out and caught the rough rope like a vice. The sudden halt brought the rest of his body whipping viciously around; he ground down the rope- ouch, that was blood!

Whiplash. She winced. The boy on the rope rose his arm slowly, as if in a trance. He held the Snitch above his head, nodding to the roar of an imaginary crowd. Suddenly, he came alive again.

Dropping to the ground gracefully and noiselessly, he looked around warily. Cho nearly fell off her broom! That was Harry Potter! Catching herself and regaining balance, she noticed she had floated above the thicket.

By now he had his wand out - why? - and was sliding towards her, low to the ground, still circling around like he expected an attack any moment. Did he see her yet? No, she answered her own question. He would have called out if he had. What was wrong with him? He was acting like some stalking beast! He slid smoothly into the shadows of the thicket, melting in with them, nearly invisible. He rotated again. She moved into view.

Whatever she expected, it wasn't this. She'd thought that he'd probably go red and mumble something, or get tears in his eyes, or look at her with his big green eyes vying for a romantic moment. She nearly giggled, she was flattering herself.

She had expected something, but this wasn't it. As soon as he caught sight of her, he yelled, "EXPELLIARMUS!" and she tumbled backwards off her broom.

The broom began to float lazily upwards, but Harry leapt up and hoisted himself onto the broom in one smooth movement. Pocketing Cho's wand, he muttered a spell that bound her limbs as she tried to get up.

Eying her warily, he shouted, "Are you the only one?"

What??? "Er. . Harry. . . are you okay? It's Cho! Er. . . Cho - Chang!? Harry, what's wrong with you!? Let me go!" She began to struggle with her bonds.

Harry muttered again and the ropes suddenly squeezed against her tighter. "I'll keep squeezing until you tell me!" he called down. "When are the others coming?"

Cho was beginning to get seriously annoyed, and also a bit scared. "Harry Potter! This is Cho Chang! I don't know whether you're trying to be funny or something, but you'd better let me go now!" The bonds squeezed tighter, biting into her arms.

"I don't have time for this! Fine, if you really are Cho Chang, tell me this- who asked you to the Yule Ball this year?" he looked quite frightening, really, almost insane.

Her voice began quavering. Why? "Cedric and- Ernie Macmillan and- er. ."

Harry looked quite insane now, capable of anything. "Ha! Did your dumbarse master actually think he could use Polyjuice again to fool me? That's never going to work on me anymore! Actually, you're never going to be able to tell your 'Lord' that because I'm taking you to the Ministry right now. Mobilicorpus." All the pent-up anger in Harry was coming out. He would either get this Death Eater to the Ministry or kill them trying. He'd stoked the fires of his rage in his thoughts of his lost childhood, and now he was blasting the fires out like a dragon.

Cho was desperate. "Wait! You asked me to the ball, too! I really am Cho!"

He scowled. "Yeah. Just like he really was Moody, too. How long is your wand?" he snapped.

Cho looked scandalized, then recovered herself once she got his meaning and said, "Eleven and a half inches. It's willow!"

Harry measured the wand up against his own. "Fine. One last test. What's the last spell you performed with this wand?"

Cho thought for a moment. "Lumos. I needed it because I couldn't see my books last night.

Harry looked in wonder at her. If he didn't know better, he'd think this was Hermione in Cho's form. Recovering himself, he put the tip of his wand to the tip of Cho's and shouted, "PRIORI INCANTEDEM!" A glow, like a weak beam of light shooting through smoke emanated from the tip.

"Er. . . sorry," he apologized awkwardly, before his voice grew hard again. "But don't try any funny stuff, or else. You still don't get your wand back until I'm sure you're not an imposter."

Cho sighed in an exasperated manner. "Fine. Just untie me, will you?" The bonds were gone. "Now my broomstick and my wand." Harry didn't budge, just sat there motionless on the broom.

"Okay, Harry. What the hell is going on? I see you suddenly out in the woods making leaping grabs at my Snitch! Then you attack me and ask the weirdest personal questions at wandpoint, and threaten me! So give me my broom, give me my wand, and give me my Snitch. Now."

Harry's face wore a peculiar expression. It looked like he wanted to believe her, but his face kept twitching back to the impassive interrogation mode. "Hmmmm. . . where do you live?"

"Damnit, Harry I live way back off of Summit Lane! You know that from when I gave you my address!"

Harry pondered that for a moment. Yes, it did fit. . . but the imposter could have taken over before then. Ah, he knew what to ask. "All right, prove your innocence. What did I say to you in the hall after the Rita Skeeter article came out?"

Cho's face was beginning to show as much anger as Harry's had. "Oh, that one where you told the reporter that you were the only champion? The one where you totally trashed your friends? Or the one where you spilled the beans on the groundskeeper?"

Well, that was it. She had just hit Harry on several points he was most sensitive about; not even Malfoy had ever managed to do that. The last remnants of his crush on her dissipated, displaced by cold indifference. The ropes appeared around Cho's body again. "The article where I told Rita Skeeter that I was nervous about the tournament and didn't mention another word," he growled dangerously.

"Oh, that article that you excluded Cedric in. Well, you told me that you had just been crying over your dead bitchy mum, and were off to do a bit more. Then you were probably going to run off with McGonagal, and after that maybe you'd sleep around with your old dead mum's ghost. . . anything else?" She smiled sunnily. She could be quite a terror when she wanted to be, as well.

She mentally applauded at the clever trap she had formulated in the conversation. Now she had him angry enough to leave her alone after she found out what happened, with her innocence proven, but he was still obligated to tell her what happened in the maze. Tricky, Cho, tricky. She commended herself.

Harry looked shocked. Was this really Cho Chang? She'd proven herself to be innocent, but. . . so had Crouch, numerous times. No. It had to be Cho; he just didn't want to believe the girl he'd been admiring from a distance was such a bitch. Well, that was it. He'd still have to be careful in case Voldi showed up, but that was unlikely now.

"Here's your wand." The thin stick dropped downward. She caught it deftly, like a true Seeker. As soon as it was in her hands, she spun it back around at Harry. "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Now it was Harry falling off the broom and Cho who pocketed his wand. She grabbed her broom and hovered above him.

Harry bounced off the broom and dropped down to the ground for the third time in as many moments. This time, however, he did not land with a catlike grace but landed awkwardly on the side of his ankle, twisting off to the side and reeling until he finally came to a halt with a few stray blades of grass tickling his nose.

"Wow. Déja vu." He gazed up at Cho with a detached expression on his face. "I suppose you'll summon the rest of them and then Voldemort can finally feed me to the snake? Go ahead, I don't care. But I can say right now, it's going to take a whole crowd of you."

With that, he launched himself up at her broomstick, ignoring his twisted ankle (he'd had plenty of experience in that). Managing to get her broomtail, he hung on doggedly as she bucked the broom violently.

Suddenly, she whirled the broom around again with a vengeance, and Harry's grip slipped. He crashed headlong into the thicket, cut open in a dozen places by the brambles and bushes. The seat of his pants began to get wet due to the creek running through the underbrush, but what really worried Cho just then was the rock under his head, and the blood seeping onto it. . .