Harry would never be able to forget the events that followed Cho Chang’s death. The week after she died was like a nightmare, a dreadfully slow nightmare in which you can never escape. Miserable memories kept replaying in his mind like he was watching one of those clip shows that TV shows have when the writers can’t come up with any new ideas.
The most painful thing was when Harry landed to the grown, Cho’s torn lifeless body had already beat him to the ground long before he could get there. Dumbledore was standing to her, examining the remains of a beautiful young woman. Dumbledore had no answers for Harry, but he told Harry it was not his fault, and there was nothing anyone could have done. Dumbledore and many of the teachers had tried to slow her down as she was falling or put some sort of soft thing on the ground for her to fall on, but she was falling so fast from so high up that their spells won’t work. “It’s almost like there was something pulling her down, besides gravity.” Harry had heard Snape remark.
Despite Snape’s remark, everyone seemed to believe that Chos’ death was an accident. But Harry did not. All of the students were sent back to their common rooms, except for Harry. He was sent to the Hospital Wing as a precaution to make sure he was physically okay. Nobody blamed Harry for Cho’s death. The Ravenclaw’s were grateful to Harry because everyone had seen how he tried to save her. Even the Slytherins didn’t say a word to Harry including Draco Malfoy.
When Harry was allowed to return back to Gryfindor Tower, it was very late at night. The Common Room was pitch black, and Harry could tell that everyone had gone off to their beds. But Harry felt like something was watching him.
He could hardly see his own hands, so he pulled out his wand. “Lumnous.” he said. The Commons were so dark that even his wand didn’t help. Someone must have put out the fires. The skin prickled on the back of his neck. Someone was most defiently watching him. He heard a rustle of movement from behind him. The sound of somebody’s cloak brushing against a chair.
He spun around. But didn’t see anyone. Then he heard another sound behind him again, and when he spun around he felt hands around his shoulders. He tried to push the hands off, but they were holding on tightly to his robes.
“Harry.” a whisper called out to him. If Harry hadn’t been so emotionally exhausted, he might have recognized that voice, but he didn’t. Then he inhaled a sweet familiar perfume and was brought back.
“Katrina?” he whispered.
She flung her arms tighter around Harry, pushing him onto an arm chair. She sat very close to him in the chair, practically on his lap. She whispered some spell Harry didn’t recognize, and the fireplaces were lit. A warm glow of light comforted them, but it was still very dim. The shadows played across their faces. Katrina seemed very jumpy, and every time a the fire crackled a bit, she’d jump closer into Harry’s arms..
“I am so glad that you are alright” she whispered, resting her head on his chest.
Harry could feel his heart speed up, he felt like it was going to jump right out of his chest.
“Of course, I’m okay.” he whispered back. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Katrina, are you alright? Why are you so worried about me?”
She shook her head. “That was no accident, Harry.”
“But Dumbledore said it was.” Harry reminded her.
“I don’t care what my Uncle says, it was no accident. There was a reason why Cho died today, and I don’t know what it was, but somebody wanted to hurt you.”
“If they wanted to hurt me,” Harry said angrily, “why wouldn’t they mess up my broom instead of Cho’s?”
“They knew you loved Cho and wanted you to watch her die.” she whispered. Her voice was barely audible an her body was trembling.
“I never loved Cho.” he whispered. “I had a crush on her last year, but I was not in love with her. She asked me on a date, and I said yes, but when she asked me out, I ended it because I was in love with someone I couldn’t have.”
“Me.” she whispered back.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“Ginny.” she replied and then laughed. “She knows everything about you, I think she spies on you. She used to like you, but she doesn’t anymore. She likes Neville Longbottom. But she spies on you out of an old habit.”
Harry smiled sheepishly. “You know how I feel about you?”
She lifted her head and rested it against Harry’s neck. Her lips brushed his flesh but it was not in a kissing manner. “Harry, I don’t want you to die.”
“That makes two of us.” Harry tried to joke.
“You’re in a lot of danger here, I can feel it. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Katrina I’ll be fine.” he said. “They say Voldemort has a heir, but I don’t know if I believe it.”
“You’ve got to be careful, Harry. For one thing, you must stop playing Quiditch.”
“What!” Harry exclaimed, pushing her away. “I’m not going to stop playing Quiditch. I know Cho died, but she would not want me to stop playing. I love Quiditch, it’s the only thing I really feel like I’m good at.”
“Harry, I want to keep you safe.” she whispered, scooting in closer. She leaned her face in close to his lips and Harry thought she might kiss him. He held his breathe.
“Promise me, you’ll think about this.” she said to him.
Harry agreed, at that moment he would have promised to buy Snape a “Number 1 Teacher” mug if she had asked him to.
She leaned ever, ever closer. “I love you too, Harry.” she whispered.
“You do?” Harry asked, breathlessly.
“Yes.” she smiled.
“What about Percy?” he asked. “I thought you loved him too?”
She sighed. “I love Percy, but I’m in love with you too.”
“Forget Percy.” he whispered. “Be with me. I may never be Head Boy, but I do anything you wanted.”
“No,” she whispered back. “I care very deeply about Percy, and I could never break his heart.”
“So, you’ll just break mine.” he whispered.
“You are stronger than Percy is.” she whispered.
And then she kissed him. When their lips broke apart, she silently got up from their chair, and walked to the girl’s dormitory. Spellbound, Harry followed her.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, amused.
“With you.” he said, a dreamy look in his eyes.
“Um, I don’t think so.” she told him, pointing him in the direction of his dormitories.
When Harry climbed into bed, his head was so full of thoughts that he could not keep them all in his head. “She loves me.” he announced out loud.
“Who does?” asked a half asleep Neville.
“Katrina Figg.” replied Harry.
“Oh, that’s nice.” Neville said yawning. “I was afraid you would say Ginny. I was going to ask her out today at the Quiditch match, but with what happened an all, it didn’t work too well.”
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The funeral service for Cho Chang was beautiful and emotional. All of the school went. All of the prefects and Head Boy and Head Girl had to speak. Hermione read John Dunne’s Mediation 17, and it gave everyone chills down their spines.
A feast was given to celebrate Cho’s life. It was very quiet in the Great Hall, and it reminded him so much of when Cedric Diggory died.
Ginny was very upset about Cho’s death. Like Katrina, she was worried that it could have been Harry, and something was just not right about the whole situation. Neville found this the perfect opportunity to comfort Ginny, and a few days after this, they were seen passing notes under the tables at breakfast and holding hands.
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A week after the funeral things started to get back to normal. But during the middle of the night, something was very wrong. Harry couldn’t get back to sleep. He was afraid to sleep, because if he slept, he might she visions of Cho Chang.
Suddenly, the scream of a girl shattered the calm of the night. It was one single scream and Harry knew that it had to be Katrina.
“How does one girl manage to get into so much trouble,” Ron complained as they were running to the girl’s dormitories. Harry woke Ron up so that he would not have to go alone.
A few of the other girls in the dorminatries were awake. Hermione was wide awake, sitting at Katrina’s bed wearing a fuzzy bathrobe, trying to get an idea of what had happened. The lights were on, and Harry could see red marks, and small bleeding cut on her neck. She was hysterical.
“What’s going on?” Ron said.
“My necklace. Somebody stole my necklace right off my neck!” she managed to say.
“You woke us all up over a stupid necklace!” Ron yelled.
“No!” cried Hermione, throwing one of Katrina’s pillows at Ron. “Look at her neck, you idiot! Somebody ripped the bloody thing right off of her when she was sleeping, it looks like they almost choked her from those red marks on her neck. And she’s cut too.”
“I wasn’t just robbed, I was also attacked. I felt their hands around me, they tried to strangle me!” Katrina said, shaking.
Harry was not concerned about her attacker, or her stolen necklace, she was concerned about the bleeding cut on her neck. It might have been small, but Harry couldn’t stand to see her hurt.
He pulled a tissue off of a sleeping Lavender Brown’s nightstand (“What are all these pretty giraffes doing at Hogwarts?” she muttered in her sleep.) and used it to wipe the blood from her pretty neck.
“Are you alright?” he whispered, looking up into her eyes wearing a tender expression.
She nodded.
Ron raised one eyebrow at him, and they immediately scooted away from each other.
“Someone tried to steal your necklace before, when you were attacked. Why would they do that? Is it really valuable or something, Katrina? Maybe you should have put it in a vault at Gringotts or something.” Hermione said.
“Yeah, it’s valuable.” she told them.
Pavariti Patil walked up to them. “We didn’t see anyone here.” she said. “I heard her scream and I flicked on my lamp, but nobody was there. I think she might have left the necklace someplace else, and nobody stole it.”
“What about the marks on her neck!” Harry exclaimed angrily.
Pavariti shrugged. ‘Maybe it was from a pillow.”
“Oh, that was no pillow.” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.
“Somebody needs to go get help.” Ron said.
“Good idea. We’ll go see Dumbledore.” said Harry.
He jumped up from where he was sitting, and grapped Katrina’s hand, pulling her along. Ron and Hermione followed.
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