The Silver Swan

Chapter 4

It would be pleasant to report that Cho Chang was healed overnight by Ginny's exuberant love for her, but life is never so simple. The love was real enough - I of all people should know - but the very thing that brought them together, that remarkable capacity for absolute loyalty that I had long known in Cho and discovered in her fiery-haired consort, came between them again and again that winter.

Trouble began just before Christmas, and it had nothing to do with kisses under the mistletoe. It was what happened afterward.

Ginny had vanished. So had her brothers and Harry. It was only a day before we were all to leave for home, but still, it wasn't right. Much worse was that, when we all came back after the holiday, Ginny refused to explain. We sat in the Ravenclaw common room, the first evening back, Cho's eyes haunted with concern and suspicion, Ginny's with guilt and something that looked to me very much like desperation. For once, she was a pathetic liar.

"Something came up. Family stuff. We had to go home."

"Harry too?"

"He spent Christmas with us, yes. Cho ... drop it please. It's nothing."

Reluctantly, Cho allowed herself to be put off. She gathered up her gear for Quidditch practice and left us with a long backward glance. I walked with Ginny back to Gryffindor.

"Whatever happened, you'll eventually have to tell her, you know."

"Padma, I can't ..."

"It's to do with him, isn't it? With Harry?"

She just shook her head at me and turned to the portrait at the door. She spoke the password and went through with her head high, but it was unmistakably flight, and I knew that I was right.

Damn Harry Potter anyway.

*

* *

Nor was Ginny the only one feeling the strain. Marietta was receiving almost daily owls from her mother. The content of the letters they carried was not hard to guess. Once again, Cho's older was becoming a self-appointed prophet of doom.

"This defence business, I'm telling you Padma, it's not a good idea."

"You have to admit, we're learning useful things."

"That's not the point and you know it! Everyone seems to think it's a game. Let's put one over on Umbridge! They don't think of the consequences; they don't think about other people."

"You're worried about your mother aren't you?"

"I'm worried about all of us! We all have families. Do you really think if there's trouble Harry Sainted Potter can get us out of it?"

I had to admit that she had a point.

For the time being, though, Marietta shared her doubts only with me. She did nothing, and we both knew why. Whatever its dangers or benefits for the rest of us, defence practice was clearly doing wonders for Cho's state of mind. She was never so cheerful as after a session in the Room of Requirement. As long as this lasted, neither of us would stand in her way - and we both would feel compelled to go along.

*

* *

Whether due to defence drills with Harry or kisses from Ginny, Cho's nightmares had almost stopped. Which wasn't to say that Our Girl, was making life easy for herself, or for us.

"Cho, why are you doing this?"

Against the combined and collective judgment of her friends - and her own for that matter, had she but stopped to consult it - she was going to Hogsmeade with Harry. On Valentine's Day, no less.

"Well, he asked me ... and it's been a long time since I had a real date."

And so there it was. She was surrounded by devoted friends and abiding love, but she wanted more. She wanted what none of us could give her - in Hogsmeade, anyway. She wanted sweet coffee and paper hearts; she wanted to be flattered and petted and have her hand held in public. She wanted, Heaven help us all, romance.

And who among us doesn't?

But she had an ulterior motive too, one she wasn't admitting, although I knew it perfectly well. She couldn't let go of one final doubt. Had Cedric repented before dying? She had to know and only one person could tell her. We had seen it coming. In desperation, Marietta and I - allies once again in a common cause - had even recruited Roger to ask her out, 'for old times sake.' She turned him down. She wanted Harry, and this time she got him.

Only Ginny, of all of us, saw any good in it at all.

"Sooner or later, she has to get this out of her system. It might as well be now."

Not that she had any doubts as to the outcome: she offered the common room 2 to 7, in galleons or gobstoppers, that it would all end in tears.

There were no takers.

I ended up going with Ginny and Michael. Marietta joined us at the last minute. It was a silent group as we trudged through the soggy winter landscape. Our chief common interest, after all, was not an appropriate topic of conversation in mixed company. We were, as Ginny put it to me in a private moment, the Cho Chang Memorial Lonely Hearts Club and Marching Society - except that, the way she actually said it, the title included several additional words; none of them printable.

So we marched on into the village in a desultory sort of way, not one of us admitting out loud what we were really looking for - or, more to the point, whom.

We found her sooner than anticipated - alone, of course, and crying. Ginny's snort of triumph at winning her non-bet was, to her credit, very discreet. She got her comeuppance just the same, though, because Cho in her self-inflicted distress had suddenly reverted to her Ravenclaw childhood, and it was Marietta who scooped up the prize, leading away her younger with faint clucking motherly sorts of noises.

Ginny looked vaguely revolted. Michael was resigned.

It started raining harder. I went home.

*

* *

Afterward, we worked hard to put together the pieces once again. Marietta was back in charge of Cho, and watched over her with a single-minded ferocity that even Ginny hesitated to challenge. For my part, once I finally got from Cho a reasonably coherent narrative of her morning in Hogsmeade, I was divided between annoyance and curiosity. What was Harry playing at - or, for that matter, Hermione? She wouldn't tell me, and damned if I was going to ask him. Infuriatingly, Ginny seemed to know as well - and it didn't help that she clearly considered whatever it was to be more funny than tragic. I had ample opportunity to notice this. Cho's new Marietta-enforced regime of remedial homework and early bedtime hadn't stopped Ginny's visits to Ravenclaw, but more often than not, toward the end of the evening, it left her with a choice of Michael or me for company.

On the whole, she seemed to prefer me.

Me and Luna Lovegood. I probably spent more time with my younger in the weeks after Valentine's Day than I had in all of the years I was meant to be looking after her. Ginny insisted. Whatever it was that she knew, Luna knew it as well - which should have been a hint right there - and the two of them took an evil pleasure in not telling me. I can't say it improved my opinion of either one. Finally the great mystery was pierced. They came to find me before breakfast the following Sunday, and Luna solemnly handed me the Quibbler.

"It's an advance copy, Padma, we don't usually give those out."

She was clearly under the impression that she had done me a great honour. I tried my best to be gracious and came up far short.

"Uh ... thanks, Luna."

Ginny's eyes were sparkling with repressed mirth.

"I think you'll find you owe Hermione an apology."

Typically, Luna seemed to lose interest almost at once and wandered off in the general direction of the great hall. Ginny stayed, however. Taking me by the hand, she pulled me into a quiet corner. I couldn't help but notice that all traces of humour had left her face.

"I need to talk to Cho about this before she comes down ... and then she's probably going to want some time alone. Can you make sure she isn't disturbed, please?"

"Ginny, what is all this? What's going on?"

She pointed to the front page.

"Read this, you'll understand. Now I really have to go."

I never did make it to breakfast that morning.

I made it a point to catch up with Hermione after the whole thing became public on Monday. She was looking smug, which confirmed my suspicions.

"That's what you were doing in Hogsmeade, isn't it? That's why Harry had to leave Cho behind."

"I'm really sorry about that. He should have been more tactful. I tried to tell him ..."

It occurred to me, somewhat uncharitably, that, if her own past experience was any guide, Hermione was about as qualified to offer relationship advice as she was to give flying lessons, but this didn't seem to be the time to bring it up.

"Faults on both sides, no doubt."

Her next comment, though, made it clear that she was more acute than I was giving her credit for. Uncomfortably so.

"Padma, what's going on with Cho anyway? I know she's still upset about Cedric, but there's more to it than that, isn't there? Is she seeing someone else?"

For better or worse, I decided that Hermione was not ready for the whole truth just then. Possibly I wronged her.

"With Cho it's never simple. I probably know her better than anyone, and even I don't always know what she wants. I'm not sure she does."

"It must not always be easy, being her friend."

"Believe me, Hermione, you have no idea ..."

Relationship advice aside, I had to admit that Hermione's engineering of the Quibbler story was a stroke of genius. Not only did it make Dolores Umbridge look ridiculous, always a worthy endeavour if not a particularly difficult one, but her absurd over reaction to its appearance largely put an end to any lingering doubts about Harry's credibility. If the authorities were really so anxious to suppress the story, we all assumed, it was probably true after all.

Closer to home, ironically enough, the Quibbler article marked the beginning of the end of Cho's infatuation with the Hero of the Wizarding World. It helped her to rationalize Harry's total ineptitude as a suitor, as compared to Cedric or even to Roger.

"He has other things on his mind. I can see that now, Padma."

Be that as it may, we owed Cho's ultimate liberation from the Boy who Lived to a dramatic episode that very nearly brought disaster to all concerned, and put Cho's tangled web of love and loyalty to a cruel test.

*

* *

To this day, I can't decide what I think of Marietta Edgecombe. It is possible that she really did think that she was saving Cho once again, that only Harry would suffer the consequences of her action. Not that my opinion mattered, then or later. Cho's decision was swift and without appeal. Ever loyal, she prepared to keep faith with her older in the best Ravenclaw tradition.

"She is our friend, our eldest. Maybe she made a mistake, but it doesn't matter. We stand by her. All of us."

In confusion and shame, disfigured and her memory inexplicably damaged, Marietta had come home from the hospital wing and couldn't have found a safer haven than in the arms of her younger. Cho held her close and faced us all down, defiance blazing in her eyes.

"She'd do the same for any of us!"

I wasn't so sure. Cho sensed it and turned on me with a fierceness I had never seen in her before.

"Padma, how can you! You of all people! You know what she did for me, what you both did. She helped keep me alive, Padma, I can't turn my back on her now. Neither can you, any of you. I won't let you."

And so that settled it. Marietta's treason, whatever its cause, had very nearly cost us all dearly. Nevertheless, she was one of ours and we would close ranks around her. We would comfort and protect her and stand up for her in public, even if it meant pissing off the almighty Harry Potter.

And Ginny Weasley understood. Against all hope, without explanation, acting on instinct alone, she managed to keep all of her loyalties intact. What exactly she said to Cho, I will never know, but whatever it was kept the two of them together. It even gave Cho the courage to tell Harry off once and for all, a development for which we were duly grateful.

What they didn't manage was to keep anyone else from noticing. This time it was Hermione who came to find me. She steered me far back into the restricted section of the library, where only those of us very high indeed in the good graces of Madam Pince dared to venture.

"Padma, tell me about Ginny"

"What do you mean?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Hermione sighed, somewhere between exasperation and despair.

Padma, please. We've been friends a long time. Don't do this. Just because the boys are too thick to see it doesn't mean that we all are. She spends all of her time in Ravenclaw, and somehow I don't think it's Michael she goes there to see. And then tonight, Ron was going on about Cho and Marietta, and he started in on Ravenclaw in general, how we couldn't trust them ... Padma, I thought she was going to attack him, I really did. In the end she ran out of the room and those two idiots didn't even notice. I tried to talk to her, but she won't tell me anything.

There was no getting around it; it was time to tell all.

"Right ... Hermione, I don't know how you're going to feel about this. Ginny and Cho ... they're in love ... with each other ... they have been since this fall."

Hermione just nodded.

"I though it had to be something like that. Actually ... forgive me Padma, I thought it might be you."

I had to laugh then, and I laugh now as I write it, ignoring Susan's querying eyebrows.

"Sorry, it never occurred to her. She went straight for the genuine article. We have become friends, though. We have so much in common, after all ..."

Hermione laughed as well, but soon sobered and looked at me with concern and a disquieting measure of understanding.

"Padma, tell the truth ... how are you with this?"

She was, then or later, the only one who ever thought to ask: she deserved an honest answer.

"I don't have much choice, really. What I feel for Cho, it's nothing to do with logic or reason. It's just there, and I don't think it will ever go away. I ... I'm not jealous, if that's what you're asking. If anything, I'm grateful. After Cedric died ... Hermione, we almost lost her. Ginny may well have saved her life. I'll never forget that."

Hermione shook her head.

"You know, Padma, don't ever tell Harry this, but there are days when I feel nostalgic for a simpler time - back when all we had to worry about was exams, House points, and the return of Voldemort."

"I know exactly what you mean ..."

She hugged me then, much as my sister sometimes did, and I remember feeling that we might somehow get through this.

*

* *

It wasn't all drama. With Ginny Weasley involved it couldn't be. Interspersed with the crises were moments of humour that, if not exactly harmless, nevertheless brought a considerable measure of relief to our strained nerves. Of these, the one that stands out in my mind is the day after the highly forgettable Ravenclaw-Gryffindor match, when I saw Cho come in to the common room hand in hand with ... Michael Corner. I sent her a raised eyebrow, to which she replied with a silly grin. Others were not so subtle. Upstairs in the Astraï dormitory that night Cho, for the first time in a year, was the target of the good-natured abuse for which Ravenclaw House is justly famous. As eldest, Marietta was the designated inquisitor.

"So Cho, are you and Ginny sharing everything these days?"

She replied with a sparkle in her eye that did me good to see.

"More's the pity. He's all mine."

"So what happened?"

"Well ... it was a bet, actually."

"You won him in a bet?!"

"Oh no, I lost ..."

After we picked ourselves up off of the floor and wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes, we swore a solemn oath in the name of Astraï and of Rowena Ravenclaw herself never to reveal to a living soul that poor Michael had been the booby prize in a game of Quidditch. Some things, the boys just didn't need to know.

Later that night, I finally got Cho alone and learned the full story. The whole thing had been Ginny's idea, of course, and it turned out that there was more to it.

"So what's Ginny going to do now that she's dumped Michael on you?"

"She has to find someone new; that was part of the bet. We both have to end up with a boy. She's going after Dean Thomas. It will be worth it just to see the look on Ron's face."

"And what was your plan, if you had won?"

"George Weasley ... keep it in the family, you know."

I had to admit, I hadn't thought of that one.

"Chang Cho Li, you are a very wicked witch."

"Aren't I just ..."

I shook my head and smiled my rueful smile.

*

* *

May turned to June, and I began to allow myself to believe that we would make it to the end of the year without further drama. Silly me. After Harry's spectacular collapse in the middle of the History of Magic O.W.L., the school was ablaze with rumours. Harry Potter finally gone stark raving mad. Harry Potter dead. Harry Potter expelled. Harry Potter arrested and sent off to Azkaban. None of it made any sense at all.

At dinner, that evening, there was not even pretence of normalcy. Professors Umbridge and Snape had joined Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall in the ranks of those absent from the head table, and the teachers still there talked among themselves in hushed tones, ignoring the students altogether. From Slytherin came an almost palpable aura of fear - a far cry from their recent arrogance as enforcers for the new regime. One look at the Gryffindor table, meanwhile, revealed that Harry wasn't the only one missing there. It was the usual suspects from Christmas: Hermione, Ron and Ginny along, more surprisingly, with Neville Longbottom. At Cho's frantic urging, I went for news. A hurried whispered conversation with my sister confirmed that none of them had been seen since shortly after the exam. Worse yet, Ginny and Luna (to my eternal disgrace, I hadn't noticed until that moment that my younger was also unaccounted for) had last been seen diverting students away from the corridor leading to Umbridge's office.

There was no getting round it. Ginny was no longer safely out of the reach of hare-brained schemes got up by Harry and her brother. No one mentioned, and all of us thought of, what had happened to the last person who had vanished with Harry Potter is such circumstances. For all of an endless night, we were back yet again to the evil days of autumn. I sat up with Cho, neither of us talking, as if speaking our fears would make them real.

Morning brought Luna Lovegood, wandering into the common room as if from an innocent stroll. For once, I exerted my authority as her older and finally pulled a reasonably coherent story out of her. Even so, it was a mad tale of a rescue mission to the Ministry of Magic gone horribly wrong, of Him Who We Do Not Name returned but held at bay by Dumbledore. For Cho, all of this paled besides the one thing that really mattered: confirmation that Ginny, once again, had knowingly gone off with Harry - and Hermione, which made it worse - into mortal danger without her, without even telling her. The fact that, in all likelihood, she had had no chance to do so had no bearing on the depth of Cho's bitterness. This wasn't about justice; it was about loyalty, and it wasn't a first offence.

When Ginny Weasley finally limped into the Ravenclaw common room that afternoon, one look at her face told me that she had made up her mind once and for all. She knew exactly what was coming, and meant to face it out openly and publicly. She walked steadily to meet Cho, who instinctively had risen to her feet when she saw her, and on whose face relief was giving way to fury. As Cho stood stiff with anger, Ginny went up to her and put both hands on her shoulders. Her voice was quiet but steady, and clearly meant for all of us to hear.

"Cho, I love you. Please forgive me"

And then she took a step back and stood with her arms at her side to weather the storm.

Cho began at a whisper and worked her way up to a towering crescendo of rage. Again and again her words pelted Ginny like hurled stones, left me ... abandoned me ... could have died ... didn't care. Ginny stood without flinching. Her very presence there and then, and she knew this perfectly well, was the ultimate rebuttal. Unlike Cedric, she had returned. She was committing herself now and forever. She was willing to speak in public the words that he had never dared utter even in secret.

Ginny Weasley never betrayed anyone.

Still, it took time. Triggered by fear, Cho's tirade was fuelled by wounded pride, and of this she had plenitude. As I listened, nevertheless, I slowly began to allow myself to hope, because in all of the injured and angry words that came pouring out of her, Cho avoided the two that would have been altogether unforgivable - Ginny too had her pride. She never denied her love or refused her forgiveness. I did not dare look at Ginny to see whether this was registering with her, but I trusted that it did, and my faith was rewarded.

When, finally, the storm had blown itself out, Cho stood unsteady on her feet, her breathing ragged, empty of reproaches, of accusations and fears. They were silent for a time, each gazing at the other. Then Ginny stepped forward again, and again she put her hands on Cho's shoulders. In the silence that had fallen over the room, her whispered words somehow seemed louder than Cho's yells had.

"Cho, I love you. I swear never to leave you again."

They were in each other's arms then, two exhausted fighters clinging together for support. We helped them to a seat by the fire and left them together.

It is not only the phoenix whose tears have the power to heal.