Loved

Loved
By Izzy

Harry Potter's arms were already aching by the time he got his trunk and Hedwig's cage onto a trolley, but he pushed it ahead nonetheless, heading for the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10. He wondered if it wasn't closed up, it being so early in the morning, but when he leaned against the barrier, he slid right through.

On Platform 9 3/4, all was still. The train hadn't arrived yet. Given it wasn't supposed to depart for over an hour, he had expected that.

The Dursleys had wanted Harry out of the house as soon as possible, so as soon as Uncle Vernon could be bothered to get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, drag Harry trunk to the car, and depart, he had driven him to London. He had then dumped the trunk onto the pavement outside King's Cross and driven away without saying goodbye. This last bit didn't bother Harry in the slightest, but the early hour would leave him very bored.

And when he got bored, he started about thinking about things. Like the fact that Voldemort was back. And that Cedric Diggory had died in front of him. And that led to thoughts of Cho Chang, which had recently started to get very painful.

Finding a bench, he sat down, reached into his trunk, and fished out his copy of Hogwarts:A History, a birthday gift from Hermione, which her note had said she was getting for everyone's birthdays this year, and something about some comment from Ron. Harry was not surprised. They had been having a rather lively conversation, both friendly and less so, the entire summer, and when Pigwidgeon had arrived bearing Ron's birthday gift(Errol now being too old to travel), he'd looked rather tired.

He had been there some time, trying to distract himself with book and failing utterly, when he heard voices, and turned towards the barrier, wondering who else was arrived so early.

There was an Asian man and woman, and he was looking around confused. "Certainly the train should be here already!"

"I told you we were an hour early," sighed the woman, and then none other then Cho appeared behind them. "What are we going to do now?"

"It's okay," said Cho, "I don't mind waiting-Harry?" She had spotted him. "What are you doing here?"

"My Uncle left me off early." Suddenly he wondered when she'd started calling him Harry.

"Well, you certainly shouldn't be sitting here alone, said Mrs. Chang, "not with You-Know- Who. We'll wait with you."

"Um, Lien, we can't," Mr. Chang told her. And he leaned over and whispered something in her ear. "Are you sure?" she asked anxiously.

"Positive."

"Cho, you're going to have to wait with him. Will you two be okay alone?"

"I think we should be." Cho replied.

She hugged her mother, who added. "I hope this year goes better for you then the last one."

"I wish I could hope that," replied Cho sadly.

Her parents left, and Cho plopped down next to Harry, her legs crossed and nestled on the top of her trunk. "What're you reading?" she asked.

This was horribly awkward. She had only seemed pretty before, but right then, Harry dared not look at her closely, for fear of how he would react. She's probably still mourning Cedric. I don't want to upset her, or worse, get her angry. He moved the book so she could see the title.

"How far have you gotten? I've read a bit of it, but it is a big book."

"I've read a lot of it over the past month. I'm up to the Weyard sisters."

"Wow!" said an astonished Cho. "I certainly haven't gotten that far." Suddenly her eyes dropped, and the slight smile she was wearing vanished very quickly. "Cedric said he'd reach heaven before he reached the Weyard sisters. He did."

"I'm sorry," said Harry hastily, though he wasn't sure exactly what he was sorry for. After all, she'd asked him the question and he'd answered it. He had heard Ron complain about annoyingly sensitive girls were, and right then he could sympathize.

"It's okay. You couldn't have known. That was impossible. Pity."

"Pity?" repeated Harry. "Impossible?" Of course, he hadn't really been friends with Cedric, though he wasn't about to mention why, but those two words seemed odd in their usage.

"Oh!" Cho's hands almost flew to her mouth, which was round. She was mortified.

"What? What is it?" Had she made some sort of slip?

For several minutes she gave no response, but just stared at him, eyes narrowed and lips pursued, as if she was scrutinizing him.

"You know what?" she finally said, just when he was wondering if he could try to go back to Hogwarts:A History even under that stare. "I'm going to tell you. I think you should know." Her expression then turned stern. "But you must promise not to tell anyone what I'm about to tell you. Noone. This was a secret Cedric intended to reveal eventually, but after his death, I knew I had to keep to myself. But as I said, I think you should know."

"Me? Why me?" asked the baffled Harry.

"You'll understand when you hear it." Cho took a huge breath. "Cedric Diggory and I were never dating."

"What?" Harry's mind flew. Had he been so upset at Cedric for nothing? "But-but-you were always holding hands! And the ball! And you were the thing he would miss the most-"

"Of course I was," she cut him off with a sad smile. "I was his best friend, and the only one who knew. Our acting as boyfriend and girlfriend was front. All of last year, he was in love with someone else."

"Who? And why are you telling me? And why does this make my not knowing him well a pity and impossible?"

"Because," she took another breath, "the person he was in love with was you."

At first Harry thought he'd misheard. But she was sitting there, looking at him with her face braced for a shocked reaction. "Yes Harry," she said when he failed to speak. "He was gay."

"Wait a minute, you were raised by Muggles, right? I hope you don't think-"

"No, of course I don't!" Harry hastily reassured her. "My Aunt and Uncle do think there's something wrong with that, but they hate anything that they don't see as normal. Including me. So I actually tend to assume the opposite whenever they expression an opinion on something like that. But with me?"

"He kept it pretty well concealed. I only guessed by his reaction when he read the Rita Skeeter article. The part that said you were involved with Hermione Granger. By the way, were you ever? I'm still a little fuzzy on that."

"No, never." Harry replied. "In fact, anything Rita Skeeter ever writes, you would do well to disbelieve."

He couldn't help but notice that she looked rather pleased to hear he had never been dating Hermione. She said, "Well, the articles on Hagrid and Hermione tipped me off that something was wrong with her. After all, your asking me to the ball liked that convinced me that even if you had been dating Hermione at some point, you certainly weren't anymore. And like the majority of the school, I knew better to do more then gape in shock at the whole article about Hagrid."

"But back in November we believed the first article, Cedric and me. He was heartbroken. Later he confided to me that knew it was unlikely that you'd ever see him...well, like that, but knowing the likelihood of something hurts a hell of a lot less then knowing it for sure, you know."

"Um," Harry interrupted her. "How long did he, well, I mean, how long was he-"

"-In love with you?" Cho cut him off. "I don't know. But he had it bad, Harry. Really bad."

"I actually could have agreed to go with the ball with you. We hadn't agreed to go together at that point. But that would have been very painful for him. Betrayal, even. Thanks to the Skeeter article, I hadn't dreamed before you took me aside that you'd ask me, and I wanted to go with you, Harry, I really did. But I couldn't. I couldn't do that to Cedric."

Harry barely heard her words after "I really did." "You really wanted to go with me?" She lowered her head, and spoke very softly and sadly. "I still couldn't refuse you outright. I don't know why; but I couldn't. So I claimed I was already going with someone. When you asked who, Cedric was the only person I could think of."

"And he agreed to go with you afterwards?"

She nodded, still looking down. "I told him as much of the truth as I could. That someone I didn't think it right to go with but didn't want to refuse outright-I didn't give any names-had asked me, and I had claimed I was going with him, and he was willing to go with me without an arguement. We probably would have gone together anyway. We were best friends, after all."

"The idea of putting a front up came from the ball and the rumours that were flying around by the end of the evening. He told me we could 'break up' at any time if I didn't like it. But I had a number of reasons for agreeing to it. I was hoping maybe even he'd get guilty about holding me and come out, because I didn't like him hiding from his parents. His father was Muggle-born, you see, and Cedric didn't know how he'd react."

"You know, Cedric's parents had an interview with me before they left Hogwarts with his body. They said it was such a pity and I must be so sad, and they were so condescending. I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't been too fond of Asians...and when they talked about how they took comfort in how happy Cedric had been, I wanted to yell at them, 'Are you blind? Your son wasn't happy at all, and because he couldn't tell you he was gay, and it was because of your own bloody stupidity!' But that wouldn't have accomplished anything. Better to let them cling to their memories." She looked back up. "That's why I don't want you tell anyone."

"The secret's safe with me." Harry assured her. He had kept many secrets over the years; one more was no trouble at all. "But," he shouldn't ask this. He really shouldn't. But he had to know. "I have one more question."

"What?"

"When," he took a deep breath, "when you read the first Skeeter article, and believed it, how did you feel? Outside of any sympathy for Cedric."

"I-" He'd put her on the spot, Harry realized. She squeaked out, "I don't know," then shook her head, though whether to confirm or deny her assertation Harry dared not guess. Finally she just sobbed out, "Oh, Harry!" and threw her arms around him.

Harry felt a momentary confusion onto why she had done so, and could only chalk it up to that impossible-to-understand-but-too-easy-to-hit sensitivity of girls. Then, he slowly felt the warmth of her body, and realized he was enjoying holding her. Then he thought of Cedric, and how badly he'd treated him, and while he understood why he had done so, Harry could not stop the shame from filling his heart. "After you said you were going to the ball with Cedric, I was really angry with him, even though I knew he hadn't done anything wrong."

"As I said," she sobbed back, "you couldn't have known."

Finally she pulled away, and Harry felt her absence very acutely. "What now?" he asked. "If, well, if..." How could he say if? There was nothing to if about. He could feel such a strong certainty, and yet such a doubt, and he had no idea how to put the subject of either into words.

"Well," said Cho slowly, "I know Cedric loved us both, if in different ways. He'd want us to be happy."

That made sense. But... "I can't be happy. There's Voldemort." he said simply.

Cho flinched, but she understood. "He affects all of us. Cedric and I have been friends for two years. I've felt so alone this summer."

"I have two best friends that are alive and well," Harry replied, "but I've felt very alone too."

He realized suddenly that at some point he had put his hand onto her open palm, and her fingers were now interlocked with his. His heart had been rocking wildly during the entire conversation, but now it began hammering harder then ever against his ribs. He wondered if he should kiss her. He leaned it-

Then they heard a whistle, and jumped up, hands still linked, and turned towards the origins of the sound. "The train," Cho said, unnessecarily.

Harry looked back at her, and once again wondered if he should kiss her. But then, some voice inside him said, Not yet. They had a long way too go, and a lot of grief to get over. But eventually, if he lived to see it, perhaps. But not before he had her as a friend, which he would, because he needed all the friends he could get.

"Sit with me on the train. Your friends can join us, of course, but I want you to sit with me." she said, and he replied, "I will."