Was it all enough? - Year 7

Harry and Cho stayed down in one of the boxes to watch the second match while the others went up to their seats. Cho looked around and saw most of other French team. The thing that struck her was that all of the other guy players had at least two women hanging all over them. She knew that they were celebrities but had always been out in the stands and just heard all the girls yelling. She'd never really seen how the girls that got back with the team actually behaved.

Cho continued looking around and saw Kristi motioning her to come over. Cho told Harry she'd be back and left him watching the action on the pitch. "You looked surprised at how they act?" Kristi asked directing her gaze to the girls hanging on the male players. "This is pretty tame since we have to play again tomorrow. You should see how things get once everyone has been celebrating for a few hours."

"I don't know what I expected, but I am kind of surprised. I guess they're always like this?" Cho replied still surprised.

Kristi nodded and said, "But not our little schoolboy. He acts like he could care less about any of this."

The 'our' little schoolboy seemed to sting. "It's not an act. Honestly, sometimes he seems so naïve about things," said Cho shaking her head. "I notice you don't have anyone hanging on you?"

Kristi smiled and said, "Where's the challenge in that? By the way, I meant it when I asked you to be my manager."

Cho was going to ask Kristi what she meant about the challenge but something caught her eye. She ran back to Harry and told him she was going to take care of something and left quickly. The match was about ready to start when she came back with a couple of shirts. "Did you see these?" she asked angrily while holding up a shirt with Harry's head from the nose up on front and his scar glowing red. "They don't have a license for these."

"What did you do Cho?" Harry asked, concerned. The shirt only irritated him a little so he really didn't care.

"I found the stand selling these; went to security and had him shut down. He said that if I didn't press charges he would split the take with me. I wasn't going to press charges anyway; I just wanted him to quit so I took his offer. Here are 500 more galleons," Cho said trying to hand a bag of money to Harry while still looking angry.

Harry just laughed and hugged her. "Keep the money Cho. I am the luckiest person alive to have you with me." Harry kissed her and they watched as the match started. Harry had brought the omnioculars he got at the last World Cup and kept them focused on Viktor, trying to learn as much as he could. Viktor just seemed menacing on his broom; his eyes were really focused scanning for the snitch. It was like Viktor didn't worry much about the other seeker and only rarely went to breakup a scoring run. Harry saw that Viktor must just feel when the other seeker was close because he gave no hint when he was starting a feint. The other seeker was lucky to pull up in time and when Viktor took off again, Harry couldn't tell any difference in his motions, but within a few seconds Viktor had the snitch. Viktor's expressions never changed; there was no way to read what he was really thinking. France would play Bulgaria again tomorrow for the Cup.

Harry and Cho were standing just inside the lounge area when their friends made it back. "Man Krum's good," Sirius said shaking his head.

"You don't have to tell me," Harry quickly replied.

"You got the snitch the last time you played Harry, you're just as good," Hermione added trying to make her friend feel better.

"Thanks Hermione but it was just luck. It turned toward my side at the last second," Harry admitted.

Cho spoke up, "Did you see these shirts they were selling?" She held up the shirt with Harry's head. They all laughed and said they had almost all bought one to wear back but didn't want Harry to hex them. Cho didn't think it was that funny. "Well, they weren't licensed."

"Cho had the stand shut down! Can you believe it?" Harry said impressed.

"The man running the stand offered to split what he had made so far if I didn't press charges. He had made 1,000 galleons off of those shirts! Now, Harry won't take the money."

"Harry, Cho's right you know. It was illegal for him to be using your ...um...head to make money. You should take it," Hermione said moving closer to Cho.

"I tell you what. Why don't you two take the money and go shopping? I mean it. Hermione, go get an outfit like Cho's since you liked it so much. I'm sure Cho could find something else also. It would make me happy if you two did that. One rule. NO BOOKS," Harry said still amused at how worked up the two girls got.

"Harry. You don't have to do that, I was just agreeing with her," Hermione said blushing. She hadn't meant for Harry to give her anything but Cho grabbed her.

"Harry said he didn't want it and I'm sure you'd like to make Harry happy wouldn't you?" Cho said nodding at Hermione.

Then Cho turned back to Harry and said, "See you tomorrow Harry, I love you." She kissed him and he heard Hermione yell, "Me too Harry," before the two girls apparated away.

McGonagall left shortly which left Harry and Sirius talking to Fleur. Sirius thanked Fleur for being a good friend to Harry and they looked like they were getting along well. Fleur left then Harry and Sirius went home as well. The two men talked about Lupin and how much fun the two old friends had going out. "Where's your next trip?" Harry asked.

Sirius thought for a minute and said, "I want some place warm, with a beach and girls in bikinis or less. I read a in a muggle book one time that an author wrote about an island as the most beautiful place on earth. It's called Bora Bora, and it's somewhere in the South Pacific. But, I can't go there until I have a real girlfriend to take with me. Until then, maybe the south of France." They sat around for a while talking about places Sirius wanted to visit. They all sounded good to Harry since he had never been out of England except to Quidditch stadiums.

Harry went to bed early and felt pretty good about the match but nervous the next morning. Viktor Krum seemed to be playing really well and Harry would just need to be lucky to beat him. Ron showed up early and wanted to hear all about yesterday's match.

Harry let Sirius tell it all. "You can beat Krum Harry. He's not that good," said Ron, sounding like he meant it.

"You say that but you bought a little model of him," Harry joked.

Ron's ears went pink and he said, "I'll just buy one of you today."

"You're not coming back here if you do," Harry said angrily.

"Why not, I have one," Sirius said and fetched it from his bag. Sirius held up the little model of Harry in French National Team robes. It paced around his hand smiling and would occasionally put out its fist.

"Sirius! I can't believe you bought one of those things. That's just wrong!" Harry exclaimed, totally embarrassed by the little model.

Sirius and Ron joked about it and Harry said, "C'mon put that away. Don't irritate me before I go get abused by Krum."

Just then Harry heard a sound and turned to see Cho in his house. She had another new outfit that was a bit more risqué than she normally wore. She wore a very tight red leather dress that was much shorter than anything Harry had ever seen her in. Around her neck was a thick gold chain with the dragon brooch Harry had given her. Harry heard "Damn!" come from Sirius.

"Thank you Sirius," Cho said confidently.

"Cho, you look...um... amazing. I don't think you should go too far away from me today," Harry said giving her a big kiss. Harry flashed back to how different Cho looked back in her fifth year when Harry first developed his crush on her. Now, she's eighteen and has grown into an amazingly beautiful young woman.

"I take it you approve? I couldn't wear something like this very often, but when my boyfriend is playing for the European Cup, I'll bend the rules. And, I figured out how to make the brooch work with it."

"Don't tell me Hermione got something like that as well?" Harry asked worried.

"No, she did get something nice, closer to what I had on yesterday. She said to tell you thanks," Cho said and kissed him on the cheek.

Ron who hadn't spoken yet said, "What happened yesterday? And Cho, you're not going to work with the twins like that are you?"

"No Ron, I wouldn't wear this to work. And yesterday..." she started to continue but Harry cut her off.

"Please let me tell this. Ron it was great. First Kristi asks Cho to be her manager. Then Cho goes running off and comes back with some stupid shirts in her hand that had my head on them. She was really irritated. She actually shut down some guy selling the shirts because they didn't a license to use my head! Can you believe it? The guy was so worried about getting prosecuted that he gave Cho half the money he had made and then left. So Cho and Hermione went shopping and well you see the results."

"I should have picked the first day," Ron said sounding upset.

"I don't think you would look quite as good in a dress like that Ron," Sirius said joking.

The time came and they all went to the stadium. Harry noticed as soon as they arrived that many of the men were eyeing Cho. Before she headed up to her seat he said, "You are by far the sexiest woman here. Stay away from the other guys." She kissed him and followed Sirius and Ron out.

Harry waited in the locker room and listened to the coach keep telling them they couldn't make any mistakes. They were the visiting team for the final and had to be announced first. Once in the air, Harry calmed down and tried to block everything else out. This became impossible once Krum came out onto field; the crowd went wild cheering for him.

Like last time, Krum circled the field and came up to meet Harry. They hit fists and Krum said, "Told you we'd meet again. You have played very well."

"I watched you yesterday, you were amazing. Good luck today Viktor," Harry replied and they both parted.

Play started and everything just moved so fast. Harry tried to watch Viktor without making it obvious what he was doing. Harry wished he had the confidence to just ignore the other seeker like Viktor seemed to do. One thing was clear; France had improved since the last meeting of these two teams and was hanging very close to Bulgaria. Harry and Viktor swapped feinting runs in which both times they stayed right with the other seeker until the last possible second before breaking off. Harry could hear the gasps from the crowd both times. Once, Harry tried the fake start that had worked well against England and Viktor actually bought it, telling Harry that Viktor was watching him as much as Harry was watching Viktor. Right after this move, Harry saw Viktor take off and Harry hesitated for a second thinking it was a fake start like what Harry did but then he caught the flash of gold. Harry took off after Viktor and was right on his tail when Viktor closed in on the snitch. Taking a page from Viktor's book, Harry nudged into the tail of Viktor's broom enough to throw him off and draw a foul. When Viktor regained control, he looked at Harry with rage in his eyes but quickly regained his composure when Harry raised his hand in a 'sorry' kind of message. Viktor understood what Harry had done.

The two seekers went back and forth for a while with feinting and fake starts until they both saw the snitch and went for it. They were close until suddenly the Bulgaria chasers swerved in front of Harry and he was forced to dive down a bit to miss them. This gave Viktor a slight advantage. Harry had almost caught up when the snitch veered just a little toward Viktor allowing the other seeker to grab it. Viktor had caught the snitch!

Harry heard the crowd roar and felt totally deflated. He had never missed the snitch before as long as he was conscious. Slowly flying down to the team, he heard the cheers for Viktor when suddenly he felt a tap on the shoulder. Viktor had flown over next to him. "The luck went my way today. You played very well."

Harry responded, "Thanks Viktor. You deserved to win. At least we're both not being carried off." The two seekers hit fists and Viktor flew away holding the snitch high above his head causing the crowd to erupt into even more cheers.

Harry was ready to get yelled at for his miss, but even though no one on his team was really happy, they didn't take it out on him. Coach said, "We played well today, there's nothing to be mad about. We took second place in the European Cup tournament. When has this team even made the playoffs before? Go out and celebrate all we accomplished this year. I couldn't think of anything we should have done differently."

Harry spent longer in the shower than normal and sat down with his towel around him. He hadn't even realized Kristi had sat next to him until he heard. "It had to happen sometime, don't worry about it. Krum's the only one to beat you to it this year. We're not ready to hurt you...yet." Kristi went back to her locker area to change. Harry was nearly the last one changed and went out to the reporters. He walked over to the normal reporter slower than usual.

"Congratulations on a great season. I guess you're human after all."

"Thanks. I should have got to it. The rest of the team played perfectly."

"Everybody gets beat once in a while. Now that you have a break, what are your plans?"

"Maybe travel a bit with my godfather. We haven't spent enough time together."

"Make sure you both visit Paris. You will be welcomed at any location in town. I want to thank you for the interviews this year."

"My pleasure Ms. Mishmas. You were recommended by a good friend. See you next season."

Cho came running up and hugged him. "You played great Harry. Everyone in the stands thought so." All the rest of his friends said the same thing.

Cho was giving him a big kiss when they heard, "Maybe I should have tried that to cheer you up. What would your little friend say about you acting like this?" Kristi said not realizing it was Cho who was kissing him.

Cho pulled back and said, "She would be glad he was."

Kristi looked Cho over and said, "Impressive, very impressive. Any decision on my request?"

"I'd be glad to manage you Kristi. Tell them to send the contract over and I'll do my best," Cho replied.

They shook hands and Kristi said, "Take good care of him until next season. I'm getting used to wining."

They all moved into a private lounge area and talked for a while with other players and their friends. Cho was talking to Kristi off and on. Ron kept saying he couldn't believe how many beautiful women were back here. "I should get some type of job for a Quidditch team," he kept saying over and over. Ron noticed that even the trainers had good looking women around.

Finally, all of Harry's other friends had left and he and Cho were just watching the other people celebrating. "Ready to take me home Harry? Think you're up to a quick dance before I need to leave?" Cho said and gave him a deep kiss.

"With you dressed like that, I'm about ready to dance right here. What about Sirius, he'll be there?" Harry moaned.

"I'm sure Sirius will stay downstairs, he's a big boy," Cho said and they left.

When they got back, there was a note from Sirius. "I've gone out for the evening. I hope you two can manage on your own."

"See Harry, he knows how things are supposed to work," Cho said smiling.

"Why don't I know these things?" Harry asked slightly annoyed.

"That's what you've got me for, to teach you. C'mon," Cho said and they went upstairs. Cho was acting more confident and aggressive this time. She seemed to play around more before she let Harry remove her new dress. They were both worn out and were just recovering when Cho said she needed to get home.

"What did your father say when you left in that outfit?" Harry wanted to make sure her father kept liking him.

"He said I should be doing more things like this to keep you interested. He says you're going to be tempted by other women all the time. I think he'd be mad at me if I let you slip away."

"I won't be tempted. I really love you and you looked just amazing tonight."

"I love you too Harry. We'll see each other soon," Cho said and then left.

Sirius was back the next morning. "Cho's quite a catch Harry."

"I don't know how I got so lucky," Harry admitted.

Harry decided he didn't want to sit around all summer so he wrote a note to see if he could go back to the unspeakable department for a while.

Fletch

How is everyone doing? I'm off for a few weeks and was wondering if there is anything I could do with your department? It doesn't have to be anything like the last time (I don't mind if it is though). If there is anything I could help out with or do for any of you, I'd be glad to.

I could come three days a week since I'm learning to read/write French twice a week right now.

If there's nothing useful I can do, I understand and it's no problem.

Take care

Harry

He went and found Hedwig and sent the note. He would like to see all of them again and keep in touch in case he wanted to work there. He changed and went for his run and then worked outside for a while. He was surprised when later in the night, Hedwig turned up with a response from Fletch. Harry had expected it to take a few days.

Harry

We'd love to have you. I don't think it will be like last time. We may try to have you finish Auror training but then the rest will be looking at a couple new items that have been uncovered.

I don't know how long it will last, there are some strange things happening at the ministry. Some people are really trying to pry into what we do here. I'll setup the floo to allow you in for the rest of the summer. Three days a week will work well with us. Can you start Friday?

See you then.

Fletch.

Great. Now Harry would have something useful to do. For the next couple days, he did his normal routine of run; French writing lessons; study and run again later. Sirius had been gone almost the entire time. Friday morning, he got up early and had to wait until a realistic time to go to the Ministry. He threw the power into the fire and said, "Department of Mysteries Ministry of Magic," and instead of being whisked away, a ghostly voice said, "Identification please." Harry responded with "Harry Potter," then he heard "Granted" and was pulled into the fire.

"Hello Harry, good to see you again." It was Rose Douglas who had been here the last time Harry came.

"Hi Rose. Good to see you're still here," Harry replied looking around at a familiar setting.

"C'mon in, they're waiting," Rose said and led Harry down the hall to Fletch's office.

Harry recognized the two men sitting in the office, it was Fletch and Larry. "Hi Harry, glad you wrote to us," Fletch said shaking Harry's hand. Larry did the same.

Harry saw something that looked familiar and said, "What's that on the table?"

"Oh these?" Fletch said moving out of the way. "We were just replaying the European Cup match." There were little models of Harry and Viktor. The model Harry would walk around and hold out his fist but the Viktor model just scowled at the other model and then Larry would knock the Harry model down and the Viktor model would seem happier, causing everyone in the room to laugh. "Had to welcome you back proper didn't we?" Larry joked.

"Still can't tell you how much we appreciate the quick information on the former employee who became a Death Eater. Sometimes we may talk a little too much to people that used to work with us. You really saved us on that one. We're all curious what really happened out there. Mrs. Figg only knew what that girl you saved told them."

Harry went through the whole story and they made him repeat some of the parts. At the end, Larry seemed happy that Harry had been able to use the 'Totilla Desissa' spell. "I don't know exactly what happened with it though since I was knocked unconscious. I had hoped it would have finished him," Harry said sounding disappointed.

"Yes, that's very strange, not at all what I expected. So, you didn't even know that a dementor brought you out?" Larry asked.

"Nope, I don't remember anything until waking up in the hospital wing," Harry said, intentionally left out the part about being an animagus.

"We've worked it out for you to finish Auror training which should take about two weeks. I doubt it will be much trouble and we are going to bring in another person from the department that has no clue what you can do to finish it up. At least if nothing else comes out of this, you will be an official Auror. While you're doing that, we are going to keep working on some items."

"Fletch, you mentioned strange things at the ministry. What's going on?" Harry had been very interested in this.

The other three looked at each other and then Fletch said, "Officially, I don't know what you're talking about. But, between the four of us, we think something is up. In fact, we've moved some things we want kept private into secure areas the ministry doesn't know about. They've always wanted to know more about us, but this time it's different. I bet by the end of this summer you'll be able to tell for yourself it's different. Ok, ready to get started?"

Harry followed Fletch back to the entrance and down another hall. They came to a door and knocked. Inside was a pretty blonde woman who seemed to be in her mid twenties and looked slightly familiar to Harry. "Debbie Bell, this is Harry Potter. Harry this is Debbie. She will finish up your Auror training. We've already told her what areas you've covered. She may want to re-cover something just to make sure you haven't forgotten anything since you were here last. Just head down here each day when you come in. I'll see you in a couple weeks."

"Hello Harry, it's nice to meet you. My little sister used to talk about you a lot. You knew her, her name was Katie."

"Nice to meet you Debbie," said Harry realizing that's probably why she looked familiar. "I knew Katie; she was on the Quidditch team. We hated it when she left."

"Well let's get started," Debbie said sounding anxious to get going. "We're going to review spell blocking and how you handle a couple of the unforgivable curses since these are very important. Then I want to show you some variations on the bind curse and then some advanced Apparation that the team has recently perfected."

"Great, I'm ready to start." Harry followed her down to the training area that was basically a larger room with obstacles that could be moved in and out. Training and practicing were some of Harry's favorite things to do and since he wasn't seventeen yet, he couldn't do magic with his wand outside of Hogwarts or the Unspeakable department.

"Ok, I'm going to cast some spells and I want you to try and block them. Let's put a protection charm on you in case one gets through," Debbie said sounding like she wanted to get this over with.

"No thanks Debbie. If one gets through, I deserve the full force. I'm ready," Harry said confidently, thinking he had already been through this before.

"Have it your way," she replied thinking Harry was being arrogant. Debbie started by sending a few slow moving spells that Harry easily blocked.

"I could have just dodged those," Harry joked back, the way a confident sixteen-year-old boy would.

"Just letting you get warmed up," Debbie said and then shot a few more powerful and faster spells. Again, Harry blocked them all rather easily. Debbie then did some quite powerful spells that are normally hard to block but again Harry was able to stop each one.

"Fine, I guess you remember how to block. Let's go on to handling the Imperious Curse. I won't make you do anything too embarrassing." She didn't sound very friendly when she said this. Debbie pointed her wand and said, 'Imperio'.

Harry felt the nice calming feeling and heard 'lay down on the floor'. His mind started off by thinking 'that sounds like a good idea, I'll do that', but then another voice came in stronger 'you don't really want to do that, just tell her no'. So, Harry said, "Nope, I don't want to." Debbie looked surprised and tried two more times with the same result.

"Ok Fine again," Debbie snapped and Harry could tell she wasn't happy. "Now the Cruciatus curse. Larry said you had worked on throwing this as well. It's not normal part of Auror training but he insisted you try it. I'll apologize now for doing this to you. 'Crucio' she said quickly and suddenly Harry felt enormous pain before concentrating on the thought that made him the angriest, Voldemort talking about killing Cho. Quickly the pain passed and Harry stood there obviously in no pain. She stopped the curse and said, "Damn them!"

"What's wrong Debbie? Did I do something wrong?" Harry asked concerned. He hadn't meant to upset her.

"No, of course not. Fletch and his team got me to bet on how many you wouldn't pass. I bet you would only block half the spells and fail the unforgiveables. Now I owe them ten galleons. I should have believed Katie. She said never bet against you." Debbie kicked a chair and caused it to fall over.

"Let's get right into the next part and maybe we'll have this over in less than two weeks." She showed him some variations on the bind spell. "You could target areas of the body so you could bind someone's hands only. That way they could still walk but wouldn't be so dangerous."

Harry's favorite was binding just their mouth so they couldn't talk it was, 'Tiaree Linguis'. He put the spell on Debbie about ten times before she really started to get angry.

"Ok, that's enough for today. Practice the bind spells. Mrs. Figg mentioned that when you were younger and being chased, you ended up on the roof. This gave us the idea for something else to work on. So we'll start on advanced Apparation Monday." Debbie still didn't sound happy about doing this.

"Thanks Debbie. If you talk to Katie, tell her I said hi. I'm sorry you lost money," Harry said and walked back to the lobby and flooed home.

Cho was there waiting. "Cho! What are you doing here?" As usual, Harry had to smile and think how lucky he was that Cho was his girlfriend, still remembering the first time he saw her.

"I came to surprise you but you were out. Dobby told me you went to the Ministry. Anything going on?" She came over and hugged him.

"No, I wrote to Fletch and asked if I could come back to the Unspeakable department and do anything with them. I'm finishing my Auror training! Hopefully in two weeks, I'll be an official Auror," Harry said proudly. He could tell Cho didn't understand his interest in the department.

"That's what you're doing for fun over the summer? I wonder about you sometimes," she said smiling.

"This is a great surprise Cho. I'm really glad you came. What time do you need to go home?"

"Tomorrow evening," she said looking around, "Where's Sirius?"

Harry realized what she said and the implications. "Really? You can stay until tomorrow? You're parents are ok with that?" Harry couldn't believe her father would be happy about this.

"Yes, yes and yes. Now, where's Sirius?" Cho asked again, sounding impatient.

"Probably the south of France. He said someplace warm with girls in bikinis or less."

"Someplace warm with palm trees, blue water and one of those frozen drinks in my hand sounds perfect," Cho thought out loud.

"So, let's go someplace like that. After the Auror training I could get out for a week and we could just go. Sirius could recommend someplace when he gets back." Harry started to get excited about the thought.

"I can't," Cho said sounding depressed. "There's a lot to do at the store and, I haven't finished with Kristi's contract yet. She plays hardball way more than you did. It sure would be nice to go someplace like that with you."

"So, how's Kristi to work with?" Harry wondered how the two women would work together.

"Better than I expected, she really treats me like a professional. I hope to be done with the contract by the end of next week." Cho hesitated and pulled a parchment out of her bag and handed it to Harry. "Oh yeah, here's an invitation from my father. I told him to just have me ask but he wanted to do it himself."

Harry

My wife and I would like to invite you to our home three weeks from this Friday. We are having some other family in town and they would all like to meet you. If you could, we would enjoy having you stay until Sunday.

You could give Cho your response before she leaves.

Mr. Chang

Immediately, he felt his stomach drop. "Stay all weekend at your house. Now that will make me nervous. So, do you want me to come?"

Cho hit him and pushed him onto the couch. "Of course I want you to come. I'm going to tell him yes no matter what you say just to force you," she looked up and said, "So, when exactly is Sirius coming back?"

Harry didn't know, and when he said so Cho took that to mean they had time so she started messing around right there on the couch. After a lot of rolling around and laughing, the two were under a blanket in front of the fireplace with their clothes all around the room. Suddenly there was a 'pop' and Winky was standing there. Harry felt totally embarrassed but Cho didn't look bothered at all. "Would sir and miss like to have a warm bath?"

Cho answered, "Thank you Winky. That would be very nice." Winky popped away and Cho turned to Harry, "I could get very used to this." They laughed and talked until Winky said the bath was ready and popped away. Grabbing their clothes they went up to relax in the warm water. Winky had lit nice candles around the room.

After laying in the bath for a while, Cho started rubbing Harry again. He looked at her and said, "Miss Chang, what do you think you're doing?"

She smiled, "I've never done it in the water before." After much splashing and very heavy breathing, Cho looked at Harry very satisfied and said, "Damn you're good."

Harry looked back and said, "Damn you're beautiful."

Winky brought them some food that they ate in bed and didn't get up all night. They were in bed a little late in the morning when Harry heard the door open and Sirius say, "C'mon, let me tell you about St. Tropez. You should have seen..." Sirius quickly stopped once he saw Cho under the covers with Harry, "Um...Sorry...I'll be downstairs." Harry blushed but Cho just laughed it off. They both cleaned up and came downstairs.

"I'm sorry you two. I learned my lesson. From now on I'll assume that you could be here Cho," Sirius said obviously embarrassed.

"That's ok Sirius. At least you didn't come home when we were on the couch!" Cho said and then Harry turned completely red, not believing how open Cho was with these things.