Entry 5: Catching Cho

The Unexpected Task
“Lasso one?” Ron suggested. “Got any idea who you’re going to try?”

Harry didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well whom he’d like to ask, but working up the nerve was something else …Cho was a year older than he was; she was very pretty; she was a very good Quidditch player, and she was also very popular.

Ron seemed to know what was going on inside Harry’s head.

“Listen, you’re not going to have any trouble. You’re a champion. You’ve just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet they’ll be queuing up to go with you.”

Harry doubted it was as simple as that, but Ron’s vote of confidence cheered him up immensely. He knew how difficult it had to be for Ron to tackle his bitterness. He had the same bitterness after all, at the Weasleys, at Hermione, and even Malfoy. All he had was an on the run godfather he couldn’t stay with…

Sirius! He’d have some advice, but Harry didn’t really want to tell him. Sirius had risked himself by reentering Britain. It would be silly to trouble him over this.

Thinking of Sirius plunged him back into brooding over the reason he supposedly had an advantage at all. The Tournament. Voldemort, if Moody was right.

He shook himself. Confronting a herd of girls couldn’t be so difficult, could it?

* * *

It was more difficult. Harry had rushed out from Charms, Ron’s fading “Oy — wait!” quickly left behind. He had …scouted …Cho’s schedule and History of Magic ought to be a good time to approach her, with everyone banished from the classrooms after yet another tedious lecture. He waited just around a bend in the corridor, peeking frequently at the door.

He caught sight of Cho and jumped out.

She was surrounded by four girls, and they giggled when they caught sight of him. Cho just smiled.

“Cho? Could I have a word with you?” said Harry. He was sure his cheeks must be the colour of the Hogwarts Express and cursed them.

“OK,” said Cho. She patted the hand of a curly haired friend and followed him out of earshot of her friends.

Cho looked expectantly at him and Harry felt dizzy all of a sudden.

“Would you like to go to the ball with me?” said Harry, running through the words quickly.

“Yes!” said Cho, beaming at him. Her ears went red too.

“Oh, no,” said Harry automatically before catching up to what Cho said, “No no, I mean yes…”

Cho laughed gently, and the tension broke. Harry laughed along with her.

“Well, yes!” said Harry. His heart beat heavily in his chest at having asked her.

“I’ve got to run now, Harry. We’ll meet again to plan our robes? Tomorrow at five? Great Hall?” said Cho. Plan robes? An image of bottle green robes drifted into Harry’s mind. He was seized by panic, he hadn’t taken care of them at all! …was there robe polish?

“Uh …sure …the Great Hall?” said Harry.

Cho nodded and grinned. She clasped her hands together and ran back to her friends. They squealed and mobbed her, mixing giggles with questions.

Harry glided all the way to the Fat Lady. He needed to check dress robes —

“Fairy Lights.”

Harry shook himself awake from his daze. It was Hermione and she was looking at him shrewdly.

“Did someone ask you out?” asked Hermione, peering intently at him.

Harry was hurt by the insinuation. He knew Ron and him were dense about girls, compared to Dean or Seamus, but to think he couldn’t ask someone out?

“Maybe. Have you asked someone out?” said Harry.

“I’m going with someone,” said Hermione, blushing. She shook her head, her bushy, brown curls forcing Harry back.

“You are going with someone,” declared Hermione, “Who is it?” She slipped into the Common Room through the portrait hole.

“Cho, Cho Chang,” said Harry. Hermione would learn it from the rumours anyways.

“Cho …the Ravenclaw seeker?” said Hermione. She flung herself into an armchair by the fireplace and pulled out a book covered in runes. “She asked you out?”

“I managed to catch her,” said Harry, his face involuntarily breaking into a wide smile. His legs felt rubbery from the memory and he found a second armchair to fall into.

Hermione fumbled her book. “Oh sorry! That’s great. I didn’t expect you to ask,” said Hermione, a sheepish smile on her face.

“I didn’t expect myself to ask her either,” admitted Harry.

Harry looked into the fireplace, his mind lost in the memory of asking out Cho and her smile. Hermione set her book right and the sound of pages flipping and the crackling of the fireplace were only broken by the shouts, laughter, and general chatter in the common room.

“Who are you going with, Hermione?” tried Harry again.

“He is very shy. He didn’t want me to tell anyone,” said Hermione, her face half-hidden by the book.

“Is it Neville?” Harry asked, a grin dancing on his face.

Hermione closed her book, and made as if to throw it at him. Her face was flushed crimson and she was shaking.

Harry leapt out of the chair. He looked at her again and saw Hermione burst out in giggles. “Why would I go with Neville?” said Hermione, opening her book again.

“I can’t think of anyone else who is shy,” said Harry, singing the last word. When Hermione didn’t rise to the bait, he sighed. “I’m going up then.”

Hermione nodded, still engrossed in her book.

Harry ran up into the fourth year dorm and rummaged through his trunk. He pulled out his dress robes to look at them — and the golden egg fell out with them.

Right, the egg. A problem for another day …into the trunk again. He held the dress robes up and lit his wand with a “Lumos”

The robes were as he last saw them, bottle green, no lace, and no tears, he was relieved to find.

Harry set the robes aside on his bed and knelt down. A parchment had fluttered to the floor. It was the Marauder’s Map!

He opened it and glanced at it out of idle curiosity. Everyone was either in the common rooms, the corridors, or out in the grounds. He searched for Cho, and found her in the Entrance Hall …with Cedric Diggory?

Jealousy reared in him like a snake, concealing within it a creeping fear. Cedric was handsome, popular, taller, and a Seventh Year. He was also the Hogwarts Champion; he recalled Moody’s words glumly. He had asked Cho first and she wouldn’t go back, change her mind and go with Cedric, would she? The names walked away from each other.

He roved his eyes over the map once more. Something caught his eye …Bartemius Crouch. He leaned in. What was Mr. Crouch doing with Moody in the latter’s office? Tracking Voldemort’s agents? Was he well and undercover?

Moody suddenly disappeared from the map. That was curious …there were no secret passages marked there.

He folded the map up and set it aside in his trunk. He had his hands full surviving the Tournament. And more importantly, he was determined to impress his beautiful date this Yule Ball. He picked up his robes again and squinted.

 

Spoiler: SPOILER

Did you just write the lightest possible entry and then just casually murdered Moody?

The exchange I understand was supposed to be awkward, but I think at one point it turned too much so, with noyeses and yesnoes, but I guess level of cringe is up to an individual. Catching Cho is nice lmao title, I've to say. Was there a robe polish made me smile. Was he well nd undercover is another great, funny line? Anyway good mix of humor, awkward, prompt, and uh, killing Moody for the sport of it?

I've no other ideas why he would disappear but I guess it gives you something to latch onto if this is just the intro to the main story. Good read.

 

Spoiler

Honestly, I just don't feel it. It's awkward and giddy but not in interesting ways, it's just all there. This feels like a story written purely to satisfy the prompt with minimal deviation from canon, and that's unfortunate. It's a sequence of scenes more than it's a story, really. Hermione and Harry talk about who they asked out without Hermione actually telling them who asked her out, except nothing's really being done with that.

 

Spoiler

Harry’s emotions are a bit all over the place in the first few paragraphs. I suppose this is true for OotP too, but it did stick out to me. Might just need a bit more fleshing out? We then see him end up in this giddy happily expectant phase, which can work but yeah I think it needs a bit more selling. Some of the conversation with Hermione I like, but they are both so unusually ditzy that I’m not sure I buy it.

Love the hint of another much bigger plot twist, but I wish you would have given that more space. Preferably also tying it up with a ripple effect from Harry managing to ask Cho out first.

 

Spoiler

I have to agree with the others. Harry is a little too awkward at the beginning, but it does get better as the story progresses. However, a large chunk of this story is Harry and Hermione's conversation, which is irrelevant to the rest of the story. The reader already knows who Hermione is going with (unless that has changed too, and if so, that isn't clear enough), and it slows down the rest of the story. Then, at the very end, you throw another twist. Is Moody dead? Will Harry seeing Couch Jr change things later on? I do like how this information is given (just a throw away paragraph), but it does leave me wondering what the plan is for the story.