Categories > Books > Harry Potter
Mending the Rift
5 reviewsOne-shot, HPCC! After the events of OotP, Harry and Cho try to resolve past issues, only to end up with more than either one originally expected...
2Insightful
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, etc.; J.K. Rowling does.
NOTE: Originally, I was a Harry/Cho (HPCC) 'shipper, as could be seen in my big story "The Heir of Gryffindor," before I decided to switch it to Harry/Ginny (HPGW). Even though HPCC is officially over in canon, I decided to write this anyway.
WARNING: Minor violence and implied sex, so it's rated PG-13 just to be safe.
/"Mending the Rift,"/
By Quillian
Harry Potter was in a strange mood.
Currnetly, he was with his friends, shopping for sixth year supplies in Diagon Alley. Being in the company of his best friends helped lighten his otherwise gloomy mood from the events of his fifth year, but the dark feelings were still there.
At least some good had been done since then: Wormtail had been captured (thus clearing Sirius' name), Umbridge was convicted for her crimes at Hogwarts, and Fudge's career looked as though it would end any day.
Taking a detour into Flourish & Blotts, Harry went on his own to get some books, and not just those every sixth-year student would need, but also special books. Dumbledore agreed to train Harry in advanced dueling, and Harry knew he would need all the help he could get.
As he rounded a corner, he accidentally bumped into someone, causing him to drop all his books.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry..." the other person said.
It took only a moment for the two people to recognize each other. Harry looked up to see the face of the girl he dated briefly: Cho Chang.
She had changed somewhat since the last time Harry saw her on the Hogwarts Express at the end of his fifth year, especially in terms of her mood and attitude. She had stopped looking so sad and weepy, and now looked almost remorseful and quiet, wearing an expression similar to the one Harry himself often wore these days.
"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry, I..."
She trailed off as she was at a loss for words, and as Harry was getting his books together, he said quietly, "It's okay, Cho, accidents happen."
"Actually, I'm kind of glad we bumped into each other, so to speak."
Harry looked up with a slightly questioning look.
"Look, I just wanted to say... I'm sorry for last year. I'm sorry I said the things I said, and I'm sorry I acted the way I did. And I'm sorry I made you miserable by being that way. I know this is probably no excuse, but I just had a lot going on."
After a moment in which Harry processed all this, he heard himself saying, "Yeah, well, things were chaotic and stressful for me too. I don't know if I was any better..."
"No, you were fine... I just wasn't myself."
"Hm," was all Harry could say in response to this. A moment later, he asked, "Well, just out of curiosity, Cho, what brought this on?"
Cho gave a small shrug (and here Harry noticed that now she was almost as tall as he was), and replied, "I guess I couldn't stop thinking about it... I just wanted to resolve this and find some sort of closure. I wanted to... I don't know, mend this rift or something."
"I think I understand."
Here flashing a small smile that seemed to break the gloom that Harry had become used to seeing on her, Cho said, "Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, then." With that, she departed.
Harry walked out sometime later, strangely feeling somewhat better. His friends noticed this, and when they asked why this sudden change, he couldn't answer, because he wasn't honestly so sure himself.
Harry and Cho kept bumping into each other during the following year at Hogwarts, and without even thinking about it, they talked and had conversations. Without the same factors stressing them as the year before, it seemed they could share a special kind of friendship. Even then, Cho helped Harry learn unique things he never would have learned otherwise, and Harry dueled with her for the sake of practice.
Harry told himself that their friendship was platonic and not romantic, but deep down, something kept telling him otherwise.
It was one of the last days before students would go home for Christmas break, and Cho came up to Harry, who was sitting in the library near a window, gazing out onto the grounds where snow fell lightly.
"What's on your mind, Harry?"
Harry slowly turned to face her. "Oh, I dunno... just thinking about stuff, I guess. Sometimes I just don't know what to think or what to do."
"People our age tend to often feel this way, Harry," Cho pointed out with a bit of humor in her voice.
"True," Harry commented in return.
Turning to look out the window yet again, Harry said quietly, "I keep thinking about Sirius, and can't stop thinking about how I..."
Harry began to sound choked up, and so he quickly departed the library before he could make a scene.
Cho walked out, wondering where Harry could have gone, and then it occurred to her: The Room of Requirement.
As she walked up there, her mind went back to learning about how Peter Pettigrew framed Sirius Black, and Luna's story of the battle in the Department of Mysteries months ago, where Sirius Black, Harry Potter's godfather, was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange.
Cho's heart went out to Harry. A small part of her felt it wasn't right for Harry to suffer like this, but then again, as her more sage-like side told her, people suffered like this all the time, and that's just the way things were.
Upon entering the Room of Requirement, she found Harry sitting on a large comfy couch, looking rather huddled up. Cho really saw for the first time how, underneath the famous aura people tended to stick on him and the tough and serious aura he displayed himself, how Harry was nothing more than a scared and confused teenager.
"Harry," she said, sitting down next to him and putting an arm around his shoulder, "I may not have known your godfather at all, as opposed to a handful of people who did know him, but if she's anything like the kind, loving person you portray him as, then I am sure he did not want you to be like this."
"I'm sorry," Harry said in a quiet voice. "It just seems like everything or everyone that gets close to me gets ripped away from me."
"I used to feel much like that too after Cedric died. But there's one thing I learned through all that, which maybe you should think about."
"What's that?"
"There's always someone who was it worse off than yourself, one way or another."
There was a pause as Harry took those words into consideration.
"And believe me, Harry, you still have a lot to still be grateful for. And I know I am grateful to be with you."
Harry gazed upon her, as though seeing her in a new light. Behind her dark beauty was a light of wisdom that had temporarily gone out over the course of the previous year. Right now she was indeed the girl of his dreams.
Cho glanced up and saw the mistletoe, and thought back to a year before when she gave Harry his first kiss. With a mental sigh, she thought, I could have given him better than that... such as not crying during it, for starters...
Leaning forward, Cho kissed him passionately. Inside, Harry felt as though a surge of energy was running through him.
In that one moment, the old relationship between them was renewed.
They ended up spending the rest of the night together by each other's side, snogging and cuddling, and Harry felt as though a small part of him which had previously died had just been renewed.
Cho was sitting in the hospital wing, looking as worried as she ever did, afraid to lose someone again...
She, among several other Hogwarts students, had been kidnapped by Voldemort towards the end of the year, not long after everyone's final exams. Hours later, Harry Potter and other students and adults had shown up at Riddle Manor, where Voldemort had hidden his lair. A furious battle had commenced, with both sides rearing up and neither one backing down.
Cho and the other students had been freed just in time to see Harry and Voldemort in a spectacular duel. Both combatants had sustained injury, and yet both of them still plowed on.
Harry caught sight of Cho at one point, and while distracted, was knocked flat to the ground. Voldemort was gloating, saying something demoralizing, and yet Cho could see a flicker of something in Harry's vivid green eyes... the determination he was known for...
Getting up, Harry simply pointed his wand at Voldemort while letting out a scream of defiance. An indistinct bright white-and-silver beam of light shot out at Voldemort, blinding everyone; when it faded, Voldemort was dead, reduced to a pile of ashes.
Even after that, the fighting continued, and Harry performed admirably, mowing down all the Death Eaters in his path. However, as he was nearly done, Bellatrix Lestrange shot him in the chest with a painful curse, and while Harry fell to his knees, she advanced on him with maniacal laughter, hoping to finish him off once and for all. She would have succeed, had not Cho snuck up on her and blasted her across the room; a moment later, she was killed as her neck got broken.
Now, Cho was at Harry's bedside, desperately hoping that he would pull through...
"Cho?"
Her heart must have skipped a beat as she jolted out of her seat and saw her boyfriend look up at her, smiling weakly.
"Harry!" she squealed, although it came out muffled as she hugged him fiercely. "Oh Merlin, I was so worried..."
"I can't thank you enough, Cho," Harry said quietly. "Apart from saving me the trouble of getting rid of Lestrange... you helped me kill Voldemort..."
"What? You mean with that 'spell' which no one has ever seen before and no one can still figure out what it was?"
"Yes... because I was thinking of you when I did that."
Cho never felt happier nor prouder in her entire life before that point.
"Ever since you gave me that advice, it helped me appreciate things more... not to mention other people... and you're definitely one of the people in my life who count."
"I love you, Harry," Cho whispered in her boyfriend's ear.
"I love you too, Cho," Harry whispered back to his girlfriend.
A year later, Harry could be found finishing his N.E.W.T. exams in the Great Hall. The last year had seemed to fly by in a blur, especially with Voldemort dead and gone for good. He continued with his studies to become an Auror, and he also had a shrewd feeling that with Cho now working as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic, he just might find a good recommendation here or there.
Harry had also kept in contact with Cho via owl or special mirrors like the kind James Potter and Sirius Black once used when they were students at Hogwarts. Their separation hardly put a dent in their relationship, and yet still neither could wait until Harry was out of Hogwarts.
More than a month later, a day after Harry's birthday and the first month of August, Harry was yet again shopping in Diagon Alley, this time for supplies he would need as a student Auror-in-training. History seemed to repeat itself in a good way as he yet again bumped into a familiar someone at the bookstore late that afternoon.
"Oh hi, Cho," Harry called once he spotted her.
Cho walked over him, wearing a smile so bright that Harry wondered why it wasn't illuminating the area itself.
"Hi Harry," she said once she came up to him. "Looking for something?"
"Nah, not anymore," he replied, gesturing towards his full shopping basket.
"Listen, Harry, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my apartment later for dinner."
"Sure, why not?"
"Great! I'll see you then."
"Bye."
Later that evening, both of them dined on the sumptuous meal that Cho had cooked. Sometime afterwards, Cho excused herself to her room "to go get something." A few minutes later, she called Harry in.
Harry walked in, not suspecting a thing.
The inside of Cho's room was partially darkened, with candles giving off gentle, flickering lights. Soft music played from somewhere in the room. Cho reclined on her bed, dressed in a bathrobe, looking over at Harry.
Getting up, she daintily walked over to Harry, and he slowly began to realize what this was all about.
"Harry," Cho said, gazing into his eyes and taking his hands in her own, "I've known you a long time, and I think it's time we took things further."
Harry knew exactly what she was getting at. True, he had had plenty of private thoughts in regards to Cho before, but a part of him felt like holding back from that.
"Cho," he said slowly, "You don't have to do this just to please me or something."
Dark brown eyes met emerald green ones, not breaking contact. "I know you're just being a chivalrous Gryffindor... and in fact, I think that's one of your best qualities... and I know what I'm doing."
Harry thought things over for a moment before he realized nothing was the matter at all. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be. Just be with me."
Extricating his hands from hers, Harry wrapped his arms around Cho and delivered a passionate kiss, feeling more enticed by the second. "Then I will."
They began to maneuver their ways towards the bend, slowly shedding their clothes en route...
The next morning, Harry and Cho reminisced. "Any regrets?" Cho whispered to him.
"No, none at all." After a pause, Harry then added, "You told me once a long time ago to treasure and be grateful for what I have left. Now I think I can truly appreciate that wisdom you gave me."
Five years later, Harry and Cho were married, with a two-year-old son Cedric and a one-year-old son named Sirius. Both husband and wife enjoyed being in each other's lives, and neither one regretted it. The rift had been mended.
/FIN/
A/N: Okay, this may not have been my best work, but I just wanted to do it anyway. You know, for the heck of it. So... yeah.
So how does this story measure up? -Quillian
NOTE: Originally, I was a Harry/Cho (HPCC) 'shipper, as could be seen in my big story "The Heir of Gryffindor," before I decided to switch it to Harry/Ginny (HPGW). Even though HPCC is officially over in canon, I decided to write this anyway.
WARNING: Minor violence and implied sex, so it's rated PG-13 just to be safe.
/"Mending the Rift,"/
By Quillian
Harry Potter was in a strange mood.
Currnetly, he was with his friends, shopping for sixth year supplies in Diagon Alley. Being in the company of his best friends helped lighten his otherwise gloomy mood from the events of his fifth year, but the dark feelings were still there.
At least some good had been done since then: Wormtail had been captured (thus clearing Sirius' name), Umbridge was convicted for her crimes at Hogwarts, and Fudge's career looked as though it would end any day.
Taking a detour into Flourish & Blotts, Harry went on his own to get some books, and not just those every sixth-year student would need, but also special books. Dumbledore agreed to train Harry in advanced dueling, and Harry knew he would need all the help he could get.
As he rounded a corner, he accidentally bumped into someone, causing him to drop all his books.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry..." the other person said.
It took only a moment for the two people to recognize each other. Harry looked up to see the face of the girl he dated briefly: Cho Chang.
She had changed somewhat since the last time Harry saw her on the Hogwarts Express at the end of his fifth year, especially in terms of her mood and attitude. She had stopped looking so sad and weepy, and now looked almost remorseful and quiet, wearing an expression similar to the one Harry himself often wore these days.
"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry, I..."
She trailed off as she was at a loss for words, and as Harry was getting his books together, he said quietly, "It's okay, Cho, accidents happen."
"Actually, I'm kind of glad we bumped into each other, so to speak."
Harry looked up with a slightly questioning look.
"Look, I just wanted to say... I'm sorry for last year. I'm sorry I said the things I said, and I'm sorry I acted the way I did. And I'm sorry I made you miserable by being that way. I know this is probably no excuse, but I just had a lot going on."
After a moment in which Harry processed all this, he heard himself saying, "Yeah, well, things were chaotic and stressful for me too. I don't know if I was any better..."
"No, you were fine... I just wasn't myself."
"Hm," was all Harry could say in response to this. A moment later, he asked, "Well, just out of curiosity, Cho, what brought this on?"
Cho gave a small shrug (and here Harry noticed that now she was almost as tall as he was), and replied, "I guess I couldn't stop thinking about it... I just wanted to resolve this and find some sort of closure. I wanted to... I don't know, mend this rift or something."
"I think I understand."
Here flashing a small smile that seemed to break the gloom that Harry had become used to seeing on her, Cho said, "Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, then." With that, she departed.
Harry walked out sometime later, strangely feeling somewhat better. His friends noticed this, and when they asked why this sudden change, he couldn't answer, because he wasn't honestly so sure himself.
Harry and Cho kept bumping into each other during the following year at Hogwarts, and without even thinking about it, they talked and had conversations. Without the same factors stressing them as the year before, it seemed they could share a special kind of friendship. Even then, Cho helped Harry learn unique things he never would have learned otherwise, and Harry dueled with her for the sake of practice.
Harry told himself that their friendship was platonic and not romantic, but deep down, something kept telling him otherwise.
It was one of the last days before students would go home for Christmas break, and Cho came up to Harry, who was sitting in the library near a window, gazing out onto the grounds where snow fell lightly.
"What's on your mind, Harry?"
Harry slowly turned to face her. "Oh, I dunno... just thinking about stuff, I guess. Sometimes I just don't know what to think or what to do."
"People our age tend to often feel this way, Harry," Cho pointed out with a bit of humor in her voice.
"True," Harry commented in return.
Turning to look out the window yet again, Harry said quietly, "I keep thinking about Sirius, and can't stop thinking about how I..."
Harry began to sound choked up, and so he quickly departed the library before he could make a scene.
Cho walked out, wondering where Harry could have gone, and then it occurred to her: The Room of Requirement.
As she walked up there, her mind went back to learning about how Peter Pettigrew framed Sirius Black, and Luna's story of the battle in the Department of Mysteries months ago, where Sirius Black, Harry Potter's godfather, was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange.
Cho's heart went out to Harry. A small part of her felt it wasn't right for Harry to suffer like this, but then again, as her more sage-like side told her, people suffered like this all the time, and that's just the way things were.
Upon entering the Room of Requirement, she found Harry sitting on a large comfy couch, looking rather huddled up. Cho really saw for the first time how, underneath the famous aura people tended to stick on him and the tough and serious aura he displayed himself, how Harry was nothing more than a scared and confused teenager.
"Harry," she said, sitting down next to him and putting an arm around his shoulder, "I may not have known your godfather at all, as opposed to a handful of people who did know him, but if she's anything like the kind, loving person you portray him as, then I am sure he did not want you to be like this."
"I'm sorry," Harry said in a quiet voice. "It just seems like everything or everyone that gets close to me gets ripped away from me."
"I used to feel much like that too after Cedric died. But there's one thing I learned through all that, which maybe you should think about."
"What's that?"
"There's always someone who was it worse off than yourself, one way or another."
There was a pause as Harry took those words into consideration.
"And believe me, Harry, you still have a lot to still be grateful for. And I know I am grateful to be with you."
Harry gazed upon her, as though seeing her in a new light. Behind her dark beauty was a light of wisdom that had temporarily gone out over the course of the previous year. Right now she was indeed the girl of his dreams.
Cho glanced up and saw the mistletoe, and thought back to a year before when she gave Harry his first kiss. With a mental sigh, she thought, I could have given him better than that... such as not crying during it, for starters...
Leaning forward, Cho kissed him passionately. Inside, Harry felt as though a surge of energy was running through him.
In that one moment, the old relationship between them was renewed.
They ended up spending the rest of the night together by each other's side, snogging and cuddling, and Harry felt as though a small part of him which had previously died had just been renewed.
Cho was sitting in the hospital wing, looking as worried as she ever did, afraid to lose someone again...
She, among several other Hogwarts students, had been kidnapped by Voldemort towards the end of the year, not long after everyone's final exams. Hours later, Harry Potter and other students and adults had shown up at Riddle Manor, where Voldemort had hidden his lair. A furious battle had commenced, with both sides rearing up and neither one backing down.
Cho and the other students had been freed just in time to see Harry and Voldemort in a spectacular duel. Both combatants had sustained injury, and yet both of them still plowed on.
Harry caught sight of Cho at one point, and while distracted, was knocked flat to the ground. Voldemort was gloating, saying something demoralizing, and yet Cho could see a flicker of something in Harry's vivid green eyes... the determination he was known for...
Getting up, Harry simply pointed his wand at Voldemort while letting out a scream of defiance. An indistinct bright white-and-silver beam of light shot out at Voldemort, blinding everyone; when it faded, Voldemort was dead, reduced to a pile of ashes.
Even after that, the fighting continued, and Harry performed admirably, mowing down all the Death Eaters in his path. However, as he was nearly done, Bellatrix Lestrange shot him in the chest with a painful curse, and while Harry fell to his knees, she advanced on him with maniacal laughter, hoping to finish him off once and for all. She would have succeed, had not Cho snuck up on her and blasted her across the room; a moment later, she was killed as her neck got broken.
Now, Cho was at Harry's bedside, desperately hoping that he would pull through...
"Cho?"
Her heart must have skipped a beat as she jolted out of her seat and saw her boyfriend look up at her, smiling weakly.
"Harry!" she squealed, although it came out muffled as she hugged him fiercely. "Oh Merlin, I was so worried..."
"I can't thank you enough, Cho," Harry said quietly. "Apart from saving me the trouble of getting rid of Lestrange... you helped me kill Voldemort..."
"What? You mean with that 'spell' which no one has ever seen before and no one can still figure out what it was?"
"Yes... because I was thinking of you when I did that."
Cho never felt happier nor prouder in her entire life before that point.
"Ever since you gave me that advice, it helped me appreciate things more... not to mention other people... and you're definitely one of the people in my life who count."
"I love you, Harry," Cho whispered in her boyfriend's ear.
"I love you too, Cho," Harry whispered back to his girlfriend.
A year later, Harry could be found finishing his N.E.W.T. exams in the Great Hall. The last year had seemed to fly by in a blur, especially with Voldemort dead and gone for good. He continued with his studies to become an Auror, and he also had a shrewd feeling that with Cho now working as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic, he just might find a good recommendation here or there.
Harry had also kept in contact with Cho via owl or special mirrors like the kind James Potter and Sirius Black once used when they were students at Hogwarts. Their separation hardly put a dent in their relationship, and yet still neither could wait until Harry was out of Hogwarts.
More than a month later, a day after Harry's birthday and the first month of August, Harry was yet again shopping in Diagon Alley, this time for supplies he would need as a student Auror-in-training. History seemed to repeat itself in a good way as he yet again bumped into a familiar someone at the bookstore late that afternoon.
"Oh hi, Cho," Harry called once he spotted her.
Cho walked over him, wearing a smile so bright that Harry wondered why it wasn't illuminating the area itself.
"Hi Harry," she said once she came up to him. "Looking for something?"
"Nah, not anymore," he replied, gesturing towards his full shopping basket.
"Listen, Harry, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my apartment later for dinner."
"Sure, why not?"
"Great! I'll see you then."
"Bye."
Later that evening, both of them dined on the sumptuous meal that Cho had cooked. Sometime afterwards, Cho excused herself to her room "to go get something." A few minutes later, she called Harry in.
Harry walked in, not suspecting a thing.
The inside of Cho's room was partially darkened, with candles giving off gentle, flickering lights. Soft music played from somewhere in the room. Cho reclined on her bed, dressed in a bathrobe, looking over at Harry.
Getting up, she daintily walked over to Harry, and he slowly began to realize what this was all about.
"Harry," Cho said, gazing into his eyes and taking his hands in her own, "I've known you a long time, and I think it's time we took things further."
Harry knew exactly what she was getting at. True, he had had plenty of private thoughts in regards to Cho before, but a part of him felt like holding back from that.
"Cho," he said slowly, "You don't have to do this just to please me or something."
Dark brown eyes met emerald green ones, not breaking contact. "I know you're just being a chivalrous Gryffindor... and in fact, I think that's one of your best qualities... and I know what I'm doing."
Harry thought things over for a moment before he realized nothing was the matter at all. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be. Just be with me."
Extricating his hands from hers, Harry wrapped his arms around Cho and delivered a passionate kiss, feeling more enticed by the second. "Then I will."
They began to maneuver their ways towards the bend, slowly shedding their clothes en route...
The next morning, Harry and Cho reminisced. "Any regrets?" Cho whispered to him.
"No, none at all." After a pause, Harry then added, "You told me once a long time ago to treasure and be grateful for what I have left. Now I think I can truly appreciate that wisdom you gave me."
Five years later, Harry and Cho were married, with a two-year-old son Cedric and a one-year-old son named Sirius. Both husband and wife enjoyed being in each other's lives, and neither one regretted it. The rift had been mended.
/FIN/
A/N: Okay, this may not have been my best work, but I just wanted to do it anyway. You know, for the heck of it. So... yeah.
So how does this story measure up? -Quillian
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