At that precise moment the door of their compartment slid open.
'Oh . . . hello, Harry,' said a nervous voice. 'Urn . . . bad time?'
Harry wiped the lenses of his glasses with his Trevor-free hand. A very pretty girl with long, shiny black hair was standing in the doorway smiling at him: Cho Chang, the Seeker on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
'Oh . . . hi,' said Harry blankly.
'Um . . .' said Cho. 'Well . . . just thought I'd say hello . . . bye then.'
Rather pink in the face, she closed the door and departed. Harry slumped back in his seat and groaned. He would have liked Cho to discover him sitting with a group of very cool people laughing their heads off at a joke he had just told; he would not have chosen to be sitting with Neville and Loony Lovegood, clutching a toad and dripping in Stinksap.
Harry found his attentiveness ebbing, as though his brain was slipping in and out of tune. The quiet that always filled the Hall when Dumbledore was speaking was breaking up as students put t heir heads together, whispering and giggling. Over on the Ravenclaw table Cho Chang was chatting animatedly with her friends. A few seats along from Cho, Luna Lovegood had got out The Quibbler again. Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Harry was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect's badge gleaming on his chest.
They had got as far as agreeing that it was likely to be something extremely difficult, just to catch them off guard after a two-month holiday, when someone walked around the corner towards them.
'Hello, Harry!'
It was Cho Chang and, what was more, she was on her own again. This was most unusual: Cho was almost always surrounded by a gang of giggling girls; Harry remembered the agony of trying to get her by herself to ask her to the Yule Ball.
'Hi,' said Harry, feeling his face grow hot. At least you're not covered in Stinksap this time, he told himself. Cho seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
'You got that stuff off, then?'
'Yeah,' said Harry, trying to grin as though the memory of their last meeting was funny as opposed to mortifying. 'So, did you . . . er . . . have a good summer?'
The moment he had said this he wished he hadn't - Cedric had been Cho's boyfriend and the memory of his death must have affected her holiday almost as badly as it had affected Harry's. Something seemed to tauten in her face, but she said, 'Oh, it was all right, you know . . .'
'Is that a Tornados badge?' Ron demanded suddenly, pointing to the front of Cho's robes, where a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold 'T' was pinned. 'You don't support them, do you?'
'Yeah, I do,' said Cho.
'Have you always supported them, or just since they started winning the league?' said Ron, in what Harry considered an unnec-essarily accusatory tone of voice.
'I've supported them since I was six,' said Cho coolly. 'Anyway . . . see you, Harry.'
She walked away. Hermione waited until Cho was halfway across the courtyard before rounding on Ron.
'You are so tactless!'
'What? I only asked her if - '
'Couldn't you tell she wanted to talk to Harry on her own?'
'So? She could've done, I wasn't stopping - '
'Why on earth were you attacking her about her Quidditch team?'
'Attacking? I wasn't attacking her, I was only - '
'Who cares if she supports the Tornados?'
'Oh, come on, half the people you see wearing those badges only bought them last season - '
'But what does it matter?'
'It means they're not real fans, they're just jumping on the band-wagon - '
That's the bell,' said Harry dully, because Ron and Hermione were bickering too loudly to hear it. They did not stop arguing all the way down to Snapes dungeon, which gave Harry plenty of time to reflect that between Neville and Ron he would be lucky ever to have two minutes of conversation with Cho that he could look back on without wanting to leave the country.
And yet, he thought, as they joined the queue lining up out-side Snape's classroom door, she had chosen to come and talk to him, hadn't she? She had been Cedric's girlfriend; she could easily have hated Harry for coming out of the Triwizard maze alive when Cedric had died, yet she was talking to him in a perfectly friendly way, not as though she thought him mad, or a liar, or in some hor-rible way responsible for Cedric's death . . . yes, she had definitely chosen to come and talk to him, and that made the second time in two days . . . and at this thought, Harry's spirits rose. Even the ominous sound of Snape's dungeon door creaking open did not puncture the small, hopeful bubble that seemed to have swelled in his chest. He filed into the classroom behind Ron and Hermione and followed them to their usual table at the back, where he sat down between Ron and Hermione and ignored the huffy, irritable noises now issuing from both of them.
The Owlery door opened behind him. He leapt in shock and, turning quickly, saw Cho Chang holding a letter and a parcel in his hands.
'Hi,' said Harry automatically.
'Oh . . . hi,' she said breathlessly. 'I didn't think anyone would be up here this early . . . I only remembered five minutes ago, it's my mum's birthday'
She held up the parcel.
Right,' said Harry. His brain seemed to have jammed. He wanted to say something funny and interesting, but the memory of that terrible winged horse was fresh in his mind.
Nice day,' he said, gesturing to the windows. His insides seemed to shrivel with embarrassment. The weather. He was talking about the weather . . .
'Yeah,' said Cho, looking around for a suitable owl. 'Good Quidditch conditions. I haven't been out all week, have you?'
'No,' said Harry.
Cho had selected one of the school barn owls. She coaxed it down on to her arm where it held out an obliging leg so that she could attach the parcel.
'Hey has Gryffindor got a new Keeper yet?' she asked.
'Yeah,' said Harry. 'It's my friend Ron Weasley, d'you know him?'
'The Tornados-hater?' said Cho rather coolly. 'Is he any good?'
'Yeah,' said Harry, 'I think so. I didn't see his tryout, though, I was in detention.'
Cho looked up, the parcel only half-attached to the owls legs.
That Umbridge woman's foul,' she said in a low voice. 'Putting you in detention just because you told the truth about how - how - how he died. Everyone heard about it, it was all over the school. You were really brave standing up to her like that.'
Harry's insides re-inflated so rapidly he felt as though he might actually float a few inches off the dropping-strewn floor. Who cared about a stupid flying horse; Cho thought he had been really brave. For a moment, he considered accidentally-on-purpose showing her his cut hand as he helped her tie her parcel on to her owl . . . but the very instant this thrilling thought occurred, the Owlery door opened again.
Harry folded his arms and stared at the caretaker.
'Who told you I was ordering Dungbombs?'
Cho was looking from Harry to Filch, also frowning; the barn owl on her arm, tired of standing on one leg, gave an admonitory hoot but she ignored it.
Filch opened his mouth furiously, mouthed for a few seconds, then raked Harry's robes with his eyes.
'How do I know you haven't got it in your pocket?'
'Because - '
'I saw him send it,' said Cho angrily.
Filch rounded on her.
'You saw him - ?'
That's right, I saw him,' she said fiercely.
There was a moment's pause in which Filch glared at Cho and Cho glared right back, then the caretaker turned on his heel and shuffled back towards the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle and looked back at Harry.
'If I get so much as a whiff of a Dungbomb . . .'
He stumped off down the stairs. Mrs Norris cast a last longing look at the owls and followed him.
Harry and Cho looked at each other.
Thanks,' Harry said.
No problem,' said Cho, finally fixing the parcel to the barn owl's other leg, her face slightly pink. 'You weren't ordering Dungbombs, were you?'
'No,' said Harry.
'I wonder why he thought you were, then?' she said as she car-ried the owl to the window.
Harry shrugged. He was quite as mystified by that as she was, though oddly it was not bothering him very much at the moment.
They left the Owlery together. At the entrance of a corridor that led towards the west wing of the castle, Cho said, 'I'm going this way. Well, I'll . . . I'll see you around, Harry.'
'Yeah . . . see you.'
She smiled at him and departed. Harry walked on, feeling quietly elated. He had managed to have an entire conversation with her and not embarrassed himself once . . . you were really brave standing up to her like that . . . Cho had called him brave . . . she did not hate him for being alive . . .
Of course, she had preferred Cedric, he knew that . . . though if he'd only asked her to the Ball before Cedric had, things might have turned out differently . . . she had seemed sincerely sorry that she'd had to refuse when Harry asked her . . .
'I forgot,' said Harry, which was perfectly true; his meeting with Cho in the Owlery had driven everything before it out of his mind. 'Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was no way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?'
First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with (Harry's stomach did a back-flip) Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends, then (on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by acci-dent) Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait clown her back whose name Harry did not know; three Ravenclaw boys he was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom Harry recognised vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and, bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.
Harry tried to smile back, but did not speak; his mouth was exceptionally dry. Cho had just smiled at him and sat down on Ron's right. Her friend, who had curly reddish-blonde hair, did not smile, but gave Harry a thoroughly mistrustful look which plainly told him that, given her way, she would not be here at all.
'If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you,' Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith's aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho. 'I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out.'
Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said 'Wow!' softly. Harry was feeling slightly hot around the collar now; he was determinedly looking anywhere but at Cho.
'And that's not to mention,' said Cho (Harry's eyes snapped across to her; she was looking at him, smiling; his stomach did another somersault) 'all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and things . . .'
There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table. Harry's insides were squirming. He was trying to arrange his face so that he did not look too pleased with himself. The fact that Cho had just praised him made it much, much harder for him to say the thing he had sworn to himself he would tell them.
'Hang on,' said Angelina, 'we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice.'
'No,' said Cho, 'nor with ours.'
Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though Harry saw Cho's friend give her a rather reproachful look before adding her own name. When the last person - Zacharias - had signed, Hermione took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.
Cho made rather a business of fastening the catch on her bag before leaving, her long dark curtain of hair swinging forwards to hide her face, but her friend stood beside her, arms folded, clicking her tongue, so that Cho had little choice but to leave with her. As her friend ushered her through the door, Cho looked back and waved at Harry.
Harry, whose head was still full of Cho's parting wave, did not find this subject quite as interesting as Ron, who was positively quivering with indignation, but it did bring something home to him that until now he had not really registered.
Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry and then said in an under-tone, while Ron was still muttering imprecations about Michael Corner, 'And talking about Michael and Ginny . . . what about Cho and you?'
'What d'you mean?' said Harry quickly.
It was as though boiling water was rising rapidly inside him; a burning sensation that was causing his face to smart in the cold - had he been that obvious?
'Well,' said Hermione, smiling slightly, 'she just couldn't keep her eyes off you, could she?'
Harry had never before appreciated just how beautiful the village of Hogsmeade was.
Knowing they were doing something to resist Umbridge and the Ministry and that he was a key part of the rebellion, gave Harry a feeling of immense satisfaction. He kept reliving Saturdays meeting in his mind: all those people, coming to him to learn Defence Against the Dark Arts . . . and the looks on their faces as they had heard some of the things he had done . . . and Cho praising his perform-ance in the Triwizard Tournament - knowing all those people did not think him a lying weirdo, but someone to be admired, buoyed him up so much that he was still cheerful on Monday morning, despite the imminent prospect of all his least favourite classes.
A large sign had been affixed to the Grffindor noticeboard, so large it covered everything else on it - the lists of second-hand spellbooks for sale, the regular reminders of school rules from Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training timetable, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog Cards for others, the Weasleys' latest advertisement for testers, the dates of the Hogsmeade weekends and the lost and found notices. The new sign was printed in large black letters and there was a highly official-looking seal at the bottom beside a neat and curly signature.
She hurried off towards the Ravenclaw table; Harry watched her go. Cho was sitting not far away, talking to the curly-haired friend she had brought along to the Hog's Head. Would Umbridge's notice scare her off meeting them again?
Together with Ron they had spent most of the day seeking out those people who had signed their names to the list in the Hog's Head and telling them where to meet that evening. Somewhat to Harry's disappointment, it was Ginny who managed to find Cho Chang and her friend first; however, by the end of dinner he was confident that the news had been passed to every one of the twenty-five people who had turned up in the Hog's Head.
'Well,' said Harry, slightly nervously. This is the place we've found for practice sessions, and you've - er - obviously found it OK.'
'It's fantastic!' said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.
'I think we ought to elect a leader,' said Hermione.
'Harry's leader,' said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad.
Harry's stomach did yet another back-flip.
'The Defence Association?' said Cho. 'The DA for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?'
He avoided going near Cho and her friend for a while, but after walking twice around every other pair in the room felt he could not ignore them any longer.
'Oh no,' said Cho rather wildly as he approached. 'Expelliarmious! I mean, Expellimellius! I - oh, sorry, Marietta!'
Her curly-haired friend's sleeve had caught fire; Marietta extin-guished it with her own wand and glared at Harry as though it was his fault.
'You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!' Cho told Harry ruefully.
That was quite good,' Harry lied, but when she raised her eye-brows he said, 'Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there.'
She laughed. Her friend Marietta looked at them rather sourly and turned away.
'Don't mind her,' Cho muttered. 'She doesn't really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge. You see - her mum works for the Ministry.'
What about your parents?' asked Harry.
Well, they've forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge, too,' said Cho, drawing herself up proudly. 'But if they think I'm not going to fight You-Know-Who after what happened to Cedric - '
She broke off, looking rather confused, and an awkward silence fell between them; Terry Boot's wand went whizzing past Harry's ear and hit Alicia Spinnet hard on the nose.
'Don't ask,' Harry muttered to Cho as she opened her mouth, looking puzzled. She giggled.
They argued all the way back to the common room, but Harry was not listening to them. He had one eye on the Marauder's Map, but he was also thinking of Cho saying he made her nervous.
Several people sniggered. Harry saw Cho laughing and felt the familiar swooping sensation in his stomach, as though he had missed a step going downstairs.
Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the room and watch the others. When he passed Cho she beamed at him; he resisted the temptation to walk past her several more times.
There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most people wished Harry a 'Happy Christmas' as they went. Feeling cheerful, he collected up the cushions with Ron and Hermione and stacked them neatly away. Ron and Hermione left before he did; he hung back a little, because Cho was still there and he was hoping to receive a 'Merry Christmas' from her.
'No, you go on,' he heard her say to her friend Marietta and his heart gave a jolt that seemed to take it into the region of his Adam's apple.
He pretended to be straightening the cushion pile. He was quite sure they were alone now and waited for her to speak. Instead, he heard a hearty sniff.
He turned and saw Cho standing in the middle of the room, tears pouring down her face.
'Wha-?'
He didn't know what to do. She was simply standing there, crying silently.
'What's up?' he said, feebly.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
'I'm - sorry,' she said thickly. 'I suppose . . . it's just . . . learning all this stuff . . . it just makes me . . . wonder whether . . . if he'd known it all . . . he'd still be alive.'
Harry's heart sank right back past its usual spot and settled somewhere around his navel. He ought to have known. She wanted to talk about Cedric.
'He did know this stuff,' Harry said heavily. 'He was really good a': it, or he could never have got to the middle of that maze. But if Voldemort really wants to kill you, you don't stand a chance.'
She hiccoughed at the sound of Voldemort's name, but stared at Harry without flinching.
'You survived when you were just a baby,' she said quietly.
'Yeah, well,' said Harry wearily, moving towards the door, 'I dunno why, nor does anyone else, so it's nothing to be proud of.'
'Oh, don't go!' said Cho, sounding tearful again. 'I'm really sorry to get all upset like this . . . I didn't mean to . . .'
She hiccoughed again. She was very pretty even when her eyes were red and puffy. Harry felt thoroughly miserable. He'd have been so pleased with just a 'Merry Christmas'.
'I know it must be horrible for you,' she said, mopping her eyes on her sleeve again. 'Me mentioning Cedric, when you saw him die . . . I suppose you just want to forget about it?'
Harry did not say anything to this; it was quite true, but he felt heartless saying it.
'You're a r-really good teacher, you know,' said Cho, with a watery smile. 'I've never been able to Stun anything before.'
'Thanks,' said Harry awkwardly.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Harry felt a burning desire to run from the room and, at the same time, a complete inability to move his feet.
'Mistletoe,' said Cho quietly, pointing at the ceiling over his head.
'Yeah,' said Harry. His mouth was very dry. 'It's probably full of Nargles, though.'
'What are Nargles?'
'No idea,' said Harry. She had moved closer. His brain seemed to have been Stunned. 'You'd have to ask Loony. Luna, I mean.'
Cho made a funny noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. She was even nearer to him now. He could have counted the freckles on her nose.
'I really like you, Harry.'
He could not think. A tingling sensation was spreading through him, paralysing his arms, legs and brain.
She was much too close. He could see every tear clinging to her eyelashes . . .
Harry didn't quite know how to set about telling them, and still wasn't sure whether he wanted to. Just as he had decided not to say anything, Hermione took matters out of his hands.
'Is it Cho?' she asked in a businesslike way. 'Did she corner you after the meeting?'
Numbly surprised, Harry nodded. Ron sniggered, breaking off when Hermione caught his eye.
'So - er - what did she want?' he asked in a mock casual voice.
'She - ' Harry began, rather hoarsely, he cleared his throat and tried again. 'She - er - '
'Did you kiss?' asked Hermione briskly.
Ron sat up so fast he sent his ink bottle flying all over the rug. Disregarding this completely, he stared avidly at Harry.
'Well?' he demanded.
Harry looked from Ron's expression of mingled curiosity and hilarity to Hermione's slight frown, and nodded.
'HA!'
Ron made a triumphant gesture with his fist and went into a raucous peal of laughter that made several timid-looking second-years over beside the window jump. A reluctant grin spread over Harry's face as he watched Ron rolling around on the hearthrug.
Hermione gave Ron a look or deep disgust and returned to her letter.
'Well?' Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. 'How was it?'
Harry considered for a moment.
'Wet,' he said truthfully.
Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or dis-gust, it was hard to tell.
'Because she was crying,' Harry continued heavily.
'Oh,' said Ron, his smile fading slightly. 'Are you that bad at kissing?'
'Dunno,' said Harry, who hadn't considered this, and immedi-ately felt rather worried. 'Maybe I am.'
'Of course you're not,' said Hermione absently, still scribbling away at her letter.
'How do you know?' said Ron very sharply.
'Because Cho spends half her time crying these days,' said Hermione vaguely. 'She does it at mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place.'
'You'd think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,' said Ron, grin-ning.
'Ron,' said Hermione in a dignified voice, dipping the point of her quill into her inkpot, 'you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' said Ron indignantly. 'What sort of person cries while someone's kissing them?'
'Yeah,' said Harry, slightly desperately, 'who does?'
Hermione looked at the pair of them with an almost pitying expression on her face.
'Don't you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?' she asked.
'No,' said Harry and Ron together.
Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.
'Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's been flying so badly.'
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, 'One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode.'
'Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have,' said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.
'She was the one who started it,' said Harry. 'I wouldn't've - she just sort of came at me - and next thing she's crying all over me - I didn't know what to do - '
'Don't blame you, mate,' said Ron, looking alarmed at the very thought.
'You just had to be nice to her,' said Hermione, looking up anx-iously. 'You were, weren't you?'
'Well,' said Harry, an unpleasant heat creeping up his face, 'I sort of - patted her on the back a bit.'
Hermione looked as though she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with extreme difficulty.
'Well, I suppose it could have been worse,' she said. 'Are you going to see her again?'
'I'll have to, won't I?' said Harry. 'We've got DA meetings, haven't we?'
'You know what I mean,' said Hermione impatiently.
Harry said nothing. Hermione's words opened up a whole new vista of frightening possibilities. He tried to imagine going some-where with Cho - Hogsmeade, perhaps - and being alone with her for hours at a time. Of course, she would have been expecting him to ask her out after what had just happened . . . the thought made his stomach clench painfully.
'Oh well,' said Hermione distantly, buried in her letter once more, 'you'll have plenty of opportunities to ask her.'
'What if he doesn't want to ask her?' said Ron, who had been watching Harry with an unusually shrewd expression on his face.
'Don t be silly, said Hermione vaguely, Harry's liked her lor ages, haven't you, Harry?'
He did not answer. Yes, he had liked Cho for ages, but when-ever he had imagined a scene involving the two of them it had always featured a Cho who was enjoying herself, as opposed to a Cho who was sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder.
'Bit grouchy, yeah,' said Harry, whose thoughts were still on Cho.
They pulled off their robes and put on pyjamas in silence; Dean, Seamus and Neville were already asleep. Harry put his glasses on his bedside table and got into bed but did not pull the hangings closed around his four-poster; instead, he stared at the patch of starry sky visible through the window next to Neville's bed. If he had known, this time last night, that in twenty-four hours' time he would have kissed Cho Chang . . .
Maybe next time . . . if there was a next time . . . she'd be a bit happier. He ought to have asked her out; she had probably been expecting it and was now really angry with him . . . or was she lying in bed, still crying about Cedric? He did not know what to think. Hermione's explanation had made it all seem more compli-cated rather than easier to understand.
Harry dreamed he was back in the DA room. Cho was accusing him of luring her there under false pretences; she said he had promised her a hundred and fifty Chocolate Frog Cards if she showed up. Harry protested . . . Cho shouted, 'Cedric gave me loads of Chocolate Frog Cards, look!' And she pulled out fistfuls of Cards from inside her robes and threw them into the air. Then she turned into Hermione, who said, 'You did promise her, you know, Harry . . . I think you'd better give her something else instead . . . how about your Firebolt?' And Harry was protesting that he could not give Cho his Firebolt, because Umbridge had it, and anyway the whole thing w;3s ridiculous, he'd only come to the DA room to put up some Christmas baubles shaped like Dobby's head . . .
He felt as though he had journeyed for miles and miles . . . it seemed impossible that less than twenty-four hours ago Cho Chang had been approaching him under the mistletoe . . . he was so tired . . . he was scared to sleep . . . yet he did not know how long he could fight it . . . Dumbledore had told him to stay . . . that must mean he was allowed to sleep . . . but he was scared . . . what if it happened again?
'Forget it,' said Harry dismally. 'It's what everyone's going to think, isn't it? That I'm really stup - '
'Hi, Harry,' said a voice behind him. He turned round and found Cho standing there.
'Oh,' said Harry as his stomach leapt uncomfortably. 'Hi.'
'We'll be in the library, Harry,' said Hermione firmly as she seized Ron above the elbow and dragged him off towards the marble stair-case.
'Had a good Christmas?' asked Cho.
'Yeah, not bad,' said Harry.
'Mine was pretty quiet,' said Cho. For some reason, she was looking rather embarrassed. 'Erm . . . there's another Hogsmeade trip next month, did you see the notice?'
'What? Oh, no, I haven't checked the noticeboard since I got back.'
'Yes, it's on Valentines Day . . .'
'Right,' said Harry, wondering why she was telling him this. 'Well, I suppose you want to - ?'
'Only if you do,' she said eagerly.
Harry stared. He had been about to say, 'I suppose you want to know when the next DA meeting is?' but her response did not seem to fit.
'I - er - ' he said.
'Oh, it's OK if you don't,' she said, looking mortified. 'Don't worry. I - I'll see you around.'
She walked away. Harry stood staring after her, his brain working frantically. Then something clunked into place.
'Cho! Hey - CHO!'
He ran after her, catching her halfway up the marble staircase.
'Er - d'you want to come into Hogsmeade with me on Valentine s Day?'
'Oooh, yes!' she said, blushing crimson and beaming at him.
'Right . . . well . . . that's settled then,' said Harry, and feeling that the day was not going to be a complete loss after all, he virtually bounced off to the library to pick up Ron and Hermione before their afternoon lessons.
By six o'clock that evening, however, even the glow of having suc-cessfully asked out Cho Chang could not lighten the ominous feel-ings that intensified with every step Harry took towards Snape's office.
He was five, watching Dudley riding a new red bicycle, and his heart was bursting with jealousy . . . he was nine, and Ripper the bulldog was chasing him up a tree and the Dursleys were laughing below on the lawn . . . he was sitting under the Sorting Hat, and it was telling him he would do well in Slytherin . . . Hermione was lying in the hospital wing, her face covered with thick black hair . . . a hundred Dementors were closing in on him beside the dark lake . . . Cho Chang was drawing nearer to him under the mistletoe . . .
No, said a voice inside Harry's head, as the memory of Cho drew nearer, you're not watching that, you're not watching it, it's private - '
With so much to worry about and so much to do - startling amounts of homework that frequently kept the fifth-years working until past midnight, secret DA sessions and regular classes with Snape - 'January seemed to be passing alarmingly fast. Before Harry knew it, February had arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of the second Hogsmeade visit of the year. Harry had had very little time to spare for conversations with Cho since they had agreed to visit the village together, but sud-denly found himself facing a Valentine's Day spent entirely in her company.
'Listen, Harry,' she said, looking up at him, 'this is really impor-tant. Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?'
'Well . . . I dunno,' said Harry uncertainly. 'Cho might be expecting me to spend the whole day with her. We never said what we were going to do.'
Well, bring her along if you must,' said Hermione urgently. 'But will you come?'
'Well . . . all right, but why?'
He found it very hard to be sympathetic to Ron's plight, when he himself would have given almost anything to be playing in the forthcoming match against Hufflepuff. Ron seemed to have noticed Harry's tone, because he did not mention Quidditch again during breakfast, and there was a slight frostiness in the way they said goodbye to each other shortly afterwards. Ron departed for the Quidditch pitch and Harry, after attempting to flatten his hair while staring at his reflection in the back of a teaspoon, proceeded alone to the Entrance Hall to meet Cho, feeling very apprehensive and wondering what on earth they were going to talk about.
She was waiting for him a little to the side of the oak front doors, looking very pretty with her hair tied back in a long pony-tail. Harry's feet seemed to be too big for his body as he walked towards her and he was suddenly horribly aware of his arms and how stupid they must look swinging at his sides.
'Hi,' said Cho slightly breathlessly.
'Hi,' said Harry.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Harry said, 'Well - er - shall we go, then?'
'Oh - yes . . .'
They joined the queue of people being signed out by Filch, occasionally catching each others eye and grinning shiftily, but not talking to each other. Harry was relieved when they reached the fresh air, finding it easier to walk along in silence than just stand about looking awkward. It was a fresh, breezy sort of a day and as they passed the Quidditch stadium Harry glimpsed Ron and
Ginny skimming along over the stands and felt a horrible pang that he was not up there with them.
'You really miss it, don't you?' said Cho.
He looked round and saw her watching him.
'Yeah,' sighed Harry. 'I do.'
'Remember the first time we played against each other, in the third year?' she asked him.
'Yeah,' said Harry, grinning. 'You kept blocking me.'
'And Wood told you not to be a gentleman and knock me off my broom if you had to,' said Cho, smiling reminiscently. 'I heard he got taken on by Pride of Portree, is that right?'
'Nah, it was Puddlemere United; I saw him at the World Cup last year.'
'Oh, I saw you there, too, remember? We were on the same campsite. It was really good, wasn't it?'
The subject of the Quidditch World Cup carried them all the way down the drive and out through the gates. Harry could hardly believe how easy it was to talk to her - no more difficult, in fact, than talking to Ron and Hermione - and he was just starting to feel confident and cheerful when a large gang of Slytherin girls passed them, including Pansy Parkinson.
'Potter and Chang!' screeched Pansy, to a chorus of snide gig-gles. 'Urgh, Chang, I don't think much of your taste . . . at least Diggory was good-looking!'
The girls sped up, talking and shrieking in a pointed fashion with many exaggerated glances back at Harry and Cho, leaving an embarrassed silence in their wake. Harry could think of nothing else to say about Quidditch, and Cho, slightly flushed, was watching her feet.
'So . . . where d'you want to go?' Harry asked as they entered Hogsmeade. The High Street was full of students ambling up and down, peering into the shop windows and messing about together on the pavements.
'Oh . . . I don't mind,' said Cho, shrugging. 'Urn . . . shall we just have a look in the shops or something?'
They wandered towards Dervish and Banges. A large poster had been stuck up in the window and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Harry and Cho approached and Harry found himself staring once more at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters. The poster, 'By Order of the Ministry of Magic', offered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or wizard with informa-tion leading to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.
It's funny, isn't it,' said Cho in a low voice, gazing up at the pic-tures of the Death Eaters, 'remember when that Sirius Black escaped, and there were Dementors all over Hogsmeade looking for him? And now ten Death Eaters are on the loose and there are no Dementors anywhere . . .'
'Yeah,' said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Bellatrix Lestrange's face to glance up and down the High Street. 'Yeah, that is weird.
He wasn't sorry that there were no Dementors nearby, but now he came to think of it, their absence was highly significant. The) had not only let the Death Eaters escape, they weren't bothering to look for them . . . it looked as though they really were outside Ministry control now.
The ten escaped Death Eaters were staring out of every shop window he and Cho passed. It started to rain as they passed. Scrivenshaft's; cold, heavy drops of water kept hitting Harry's face and the back of his neck.
'Um . . . d'you want to get a coffee?' said Cho tentatively, as the rain began to fall more heavily.
'Yeah, all right,' said Harry, looking around. 'Where?'
'Oh, there's a really nice place just up here; haven't you ever been to Madam Puddifoot's?' she said brightly, leading him up a side road and into a small teashop that Harry had never noticed before. It was a cramped, steamy little place where everything seemed to have been decorated with frills or bows. Harry was reminded unpleasantly of Umbndge's office.
'Cute, isn't it?' said Cho happily.
'Er . . . yeah,' said Harry untruthfully.
'Look, she's decorated it for Valentine's Day!' said Cho, indi-cating a number of golden cherubs that were hovering over each of the small, circular tables, occasionally throwing pink confetti over the occupants.
'Aaah . . .'
They sat down at the last remaining table, which was over by the steamy window. Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, was sitting about a foot and a half away with a pretty blonde girl. They were holding hands. The sight made Harry feel uncomfort-able, particularly when, looking around the teashop, he saw that t was full of nothing but couples, all of them holding hands. Perhaps Cho would expect him to hold her hand.
'What can I get you, m'dears?' said Madam Puddifoot, a very stout woman with a shiny black bun, squeezing between their table and Roger Davies's with great difficulty.
Two coffees, please,' said Cho.
In the time it took for their coffees to arrive, Roger Davies and his girlfriend had started kissing over their sugar bowl. Harry wished they wouldn't; he felt that Davies was setting a standard with which Cho would soon expect him to compete. He felt his face growing hot and tried staring out of the window, but it was so steamed up he couldn't see the street outside. To postpone the moment when he would have to look at Cho, he stared up at the ceiling as though examining the paintwork and received a handful of confetti in the face from their hovering cherub.
After a few more painful minutes, Cho mentioned Umbridge. Harry seized on the subject with relief and they passed a few happy moments abusing her, but the subject had already been so thoroughly can-vassed during DA meetings it did not last very long. Silence fell again. Harry was very conscious of the slurping noises coming from the table next door and cast wildly around for something else to say.
'Er . . . listen, d'you want to come with me to the Three Broomsticks at lunchtime? I'm meeting Hermione Granger there.'
Cho raised her eyebrows.
'You're meeting Hermione Granger? Today?'
'Yeah. Well, she asked me to, so I thought I would. D'you want to come with me? She said it wouldn't matter if you did.'
'Oh . . . well . . . that was nice of her.'
But Cho did not sound as though she thought it was nice at all. On the contrary, her tone was cold and all of a sudden she looked rather forbidding.
A few more minutes passed in total silence, Harry drinking his coffee so fast that he would soon need a fresh cup. Beside them,
Roger Davies and his girlfriend seemed glued together at the tips.
Cho's hand was lying on the table beside her coffee and Harry was feeling a mounting pressure to take hold of it. Just do it, he told himself, as a fount of mingled panic and excitement surged up inside his chest, just reach out and grab it. Amazing, how much more difficult it was to extend his arm twelve inches and touch her hand than it was to snatch a speeding Snitch from midair . . .
But just as he moved his hand forwards, Cho took hers off the table. She was now watching Roger Davies kissing his girlfriend with a mildly interested expression.
'He asked me out, you know,' she said in a quiet voice. 'A couple: of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though.'
Harry, who had grabbed the sugar bowl to excuse his sudden lunging movement across the table, could not think why she was telling him this. If she wished she were sitting at the next table being heartily kissed by Roger Davies, why had she agreed to come: out with him?
He said nothing. Their cherub threw another handful of con-fetti over them; some of it landed in the last cold dregs of coffee Harry had been about to drink.
'I came in here with Cedric last year,' said Cho.
In the second or so it took for him to take in what she had said, Harry's insides had become glacial. He could not believe she wanted to talk about Cedric now, while kissing couples surrounded them and a cherub floated over their heads.
Cho's voice was rather higher when she spoke again.
'I've been meaning to ask you for ages . . . did Cedric - did he - m - m - mention me at all before he died?'
This was the very last subject on earth Harry wanted to discuss, and least of all with Cho.
'Well - no - ' he said quietly. There - there wasn't time for him to say anything. Erm . . . so . . . d'you . . . d'you get to see a lot of Quidditch in the holidays? You support the Tornados, right?'
His voice sounded falsely bright and cheery. To his horror, he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears again, just as they had been after the last DA meeting before Christmas.
'Look,' he said desperately, leaning in so that nobody else could overhear, let's not talk about Cedric right now . . . let's talk about something else . . .'
But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.
'I thought,' she said, tears spattering down on to the table, 'I thought you'd u - u - understand! I need to talk about it! Surely you n - need to talk about it t - too! I mean, you saw it happen, d - didn't you?'
Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Roger Davies's girlfriend had even unglued herself to look round at Cho crying.
'Well - I have talked about it,' Harry said in a whisper, 'to Ron and Hermione, but - '
'Oh, you'll talk to Hermione Granger!' she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears. Several more kissing couples broke apart to stare. 'But you won't talk to me! P - perhaps it would be best if we just . . . just p - paid and you went and met up with Hermione G - Granger, like you obviously want to!'
Harry stared at her, utterly bewildered, as she seized a frilly napkin and dabbed at her shining face with it.
'Cho?' he said weakly, wishing Roger would seize his girlfriend and start kissing her again to stop her goggling at him and Cho.
'Go on, leave!' she said, now crying into the napkin. 'I don't know why you asked me out in the first place if you're going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me . . . how many ere you meeting after Hermione?'
'It's not like that!' said Harry, and he was so relieved at finally understanding what she was annoyed about that he laughed, which he realised a split second too late was also a mistake.
Cho sprang to her feet. The whole tearoom was quiet and every-body was watching them now.
'I'll see you around, Harry,' she said dramatically, and hiccoughing slightly she dashed to the door, wrenched it open and hurried off into the pouring rain.
'Cho!' Harry called after her, but the door had already swung shut behind her with a tuneful tinkle.
There was total silence within the teashop. Every eye was on ?larry. He threw a Galleon down on to the table, shook pink con-fetti out of his hair, and followed Cho out of the door.
It was raining hard now and she was nowhere to be seen, he simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine.
'Women!' he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his pockets. 'What did she want to talk about Cedric for, anyway? Why does she always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?'
'You're early!' said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. '] thought you were with Cho, I wasn't expecting you for another hour at least!'
'Cho?' said Rita at once, twisting round in her seat to stare avidly at Harry. 'A girl?'
She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.
'Its none of your business if Harry's been with a hundred girls,' Eermione told Rita coolly. 'So you can put that away right now.'
Cho Chang walked into the Hall with her friend Marietta. Harry's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, but she did not look over at the Gryffindor table, and sat down with her back to him.
'Oh, I forgot to ask you,' said Hermione brightly, glancing over at the Ravenclaw table, 'what happened on your date with Cho? How come you were back so early?'
'Er . . . well, it was . . .' said Harry, pulling a dish of rhubarb crumble towards him and helping himself to seconds, 'a complete fiasco, now you mention it.'
And he told her what had happened in Madam Puddifoot's teashop.
'. . . so then,' he finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared, 'she jumps up, right, and says, "I'll see you around, Harry," and runs out of the place!' He put down his spoon and looked at Hermione. 'I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?'
Hermione glanced over at the back of Clio's head and sighed.
'Oh, Harry' she said sadly. 'Well, I'm sorry but you were a bit tactless.'
'Me, tactless?' said Harry, outraged. 'One minute we were get-ting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid teashop - how was I supposed to feel about that?'
Well, you see,' said Hermione, with the patient air of someone explaining that one plus one equals iwo to an over-emotional toddler, 'you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet me halfway through your date.'
'But, but,' spluttered Harry, 'but - you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that w:.thout telling her?'
'You should have told her differently' said Hermione, still with that maddeningly patient air. 'You should have said it was really annoying, but I'd made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you and hopefully you'd be able to get away more quickly. And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am, too,' Hermione added as an afterthought.
'But I don't think you're ugly,' said Harry, bemused.
Hermione laughed.
'Harry, you're worse than Ron . . . well, no, you're not,' she sighed, as Ron himself came stumping into the Hall splattered with mv.d and looking grumpy. 'Look - you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her.'
'Is that what she was doing?' said Harry, as Ron dropped on .o the bench opposite them and pulled every dish within reach towards him. 'Well, wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just asked me whether I liked her better than you?'
'Girls don't often ask questions like that,' said Hermione.
'Well, they should!' said Harry forcefully. 'Then I could've just told her I fancy her, and she wouldn't have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying!'
'I'm not saying what she did was sensible,' said Hermione, as Ginny joined them, just as muddy as Ron and looking equally dis-gruntled. 'I'm just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time.'
'You should write a book,' Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, 'translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.'
'Yeah,' said Harry fervently, looking over at the Ravenclaw table. Cho had just got up, and, still not looking at him, she left the Great Hall. Feeling rather depressed, he looked back at Ron and Ginny. 'So, how was Quidditch practice?'
But what made Harry happiest was Cho catching up with him as he was hurrying along to Transfiguration the next day. Before he knew what had happened, her hand was in his and she was breathing in his ear, 'I'm really, really sorry. That interview was so brave . . . it made me cry.'
He was sorry to hear she had shed even more tears over it, but very glad they were on speaking terms again, and even more pleased when she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and hurried off again. And unbelievably, no sooner had he arrived outside Transfiguration than something just as good happened: Seamus stepped out of the queue to face him.
They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practise, though, as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit class-room when they were not under threat was very different from producing it when confronted by something like a Dementor.
'Oh, don't be such a killjoy,' said Cho brightly, watching her sil-very swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement C-Uring their last lesson before Easter. They're so pretty!'
They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protect you,' said Harry patiently.
There was a wait of several minutes, in which nobody looked at each other, then Harry heard the door open behind him. Umbridge moved past him into the room, gripping by the shoulder Cho's curly-haired friend, Marietta, who was hiding her face in her hands.
Resigned to the worst, he set off for Snape's office after dinner. Halfway across the Entrance Hall, however, Cho came hurrying up to him.
'Over here,' said Harry, glad of a reason to postpone his meeting with Snape, and beckoning her across to the corner of the Entrance Hall where the giant hour-glasses stood. Gryffindor's was now almost empty. 'Are you OK? Umbridge hasn't been asking you about the DA, has she?'
'Oh, no,' said Cho hurriedly. 'No, it was only . . . well, I just wanted to say . . . Harry, I never dreamed Marietta would tell . .'
'Yeah, well,' said Harry moodily. He did feel Cho might have chosen her friends a bit more carefully; it was small consolation that the last he had heard, Marietta was still up in the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey had not been able to make the slightest improvement to her pimples.
'She's a lovely person really,' said Cho. 'She just made a mis-take -
Harry looked at her incredulously.
'A lovely person who made a mistake? She sold us all out, including you!'
'Well . . . we all got away, didn't we?' said Cho pleadingly. 'You know, her mum works for the Ministry, it's really difficult for her - '
'Ron's dad works for the Ministry too!' Harry said furiously. 'And in case you hadn't noticed, he hasn't got sneak written across his face - '
That was a really horrible trick of Hermione Granger's,' said Cho fiercely. 'She should have told us she'd jinxed that list - '
'I think it was a brilliant idea,' said Harry coldly. Cho flushed and her eyes grew brighter.
'Oh yes, I forgot - of course, if it was darling Hermione's idea - '
'Don't start crying again,' said Harry warningly.
'I wasn't going to!' she shouted.
'Yeah . . . well . . . good,' he said. 'I've got enough to cope with at the moment.'
'Go and cope with it then!' Cho said furiously, turning on her heel and stalking off.
Fuming, Harry descended the stairs to Snape's dungeon and, though he knew from experience how much easier it would be for Snape to penetrate his mind if he arrived angry and resentful, he succeeded in nothing but thinking of a few more things he should have said to Cho about Marietta before reaching the dun-geon door.
Harry moved into his usual position, facing Snape with the desk between them. His heart was pumping last with anger at Cho and anxiety about how much Snape was about to extract from his mind.
His breath was actually fogging the surface of Snape's thoughts . . . his brain seemed to be in limbo . . . it would be insane to do the thing he was so strongly tempted to do . . . he was trembling . . . Snape could be back at any moment . . . but Harry thought of Cho's anger, of Malfoy's jeering face, and a reckless daring seized him.
He seized his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and pretended to be looking something up in the index. Crookshanks gave him up as a bad job and slunk away under Hermione's chair.
'I saw Cho earlier,' said Hermione tentatively. 'She looked really miserable, too . . . have you two had a row again?'
'Wha- oh, yeah, we have,' said Harry, seizing gratefully on the excuse.
'What about?'
That sneak friend of hers, Marietta,' said Harry.
'Yeah, well, I don't blame you!' said Ron angrily, setting down his revision timetable. 'If it hadn't been for her . . .'
'You seem really down lately,' Ginny persisted. 'You know, I'm sure if you just talked to Cho . . .'
'It's not Cho I want to talk to,' said Harry brusquely.
'Yeah, that's right,' said Harry, losing track of what he was agreeing to. Cho Chang had just walked across the courtyard, determinedly not looking at him.
'Oh, gosh, I forgot!' said Hermione, watching the eagle flapping its wings as Luna walked serenely past a group of cackling and pointing Slytherins. 'Cho will be playing, won't she?'
Harry, who had not forgotten this, merely grunted.
'. . . Bradley . . . Davies . . . Chang,' he said, and Harry felt his stomach perform, less of a back flip, more a feeble lurch as Cho walked out on to the pitch, her shiny black hair rippling in the slight breeze.. He was not sure what he wanted to happen any more, except that he could not stand any more rows. Even the sight of her chatting animatedly to Roger Davies as they prepared to mount their brooms caused him only a slight twinge of jealousy.
'Hey, Harry,' said Ron softly, nodding towards the glass window on to the corridor.
Harry looked around. Cho was passing, accompanied by Marietta Edgecombe, who was wearing a balaclava. His and Cho's eyes met for a moment. Cho blushed and kept walking. Harry looked back down at the chessboard just in time to see one of his pawns chased off its square by Ron's knight.
'What's - er - going on with you and her, anyway?' Ron asked quietly.
'Nothing,' said Harry truthfully.
'I - er - heard she's going out with someone else now,' said Hermione tentatively.
Harry was surprised to find that this information did not hurt at all. Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him; so much of what he had wanted before Sirius's death felt that way these days . . . the week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer; it stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.
'You're well out of it, mate,' said Ron forcefully. 'I mean, she's quite good-looking and all that, but you want someone a bit more cheerful.'
'She's probably cheerful enough with someone else,' said Harry, shrugging.
'Who's she with now, anyway?' Ron asked Hermione, but it was Ginny who answered.
'Michael Corner,' she said.
'Michael - but - ' said Ron, craning around in his seat to state at her. 'But you were going out with him!'
'Not any more,' said Ginny resolutely. 'He didn't like Gryffindor beating Ravenclaw at Quidditch, and got really sulky, so I ditched him and he ran off to comfort Cho instead.' She scratched her nose absently with the end of her quill, turned The Quibbler upside-down and began marking her answers. Ron looked highly delighted.