Chapter Text
Is there anything worse than someone who doesn't want to fuck you anymore? Thought Cho to herself as she saw Michael Corner smiling awkwardly at her from afar. He was so visibly embarrassed that he kept glancing at the corners of the room, at his shoes, at his watch, at anything really, in the hopes that a magical deus ex machina would materialize out of thin air and save his sorry self from the ensuing mortification.
Well, Michael had better get used to it. There would be no saving grace on Cho's end.
She sauntered over to where Michael was pathetically standing.
"Good evening, Michael."
He nodded, feigning indifference. Cho could see that beneath the thin veil of nonchalance, Michael was terrified, sweating.
"Cho."
Aw, sod off. There was no need to be so short! She hadn't killed his mother, for God's sake. Would it hurt to be cordial?
"Good to see you again. Have a nice evening", said Cho, smiling thinly at him, pressing down the sheer embarrassment.
Michael didn't really deserve the smile or the politeness. She could have gone on for the whole evening without acknowledging his presence, and it would have been fine. No one would have chastised her. Nevertheless, she was kind.
"You too." Replied Michael, relieved of some imaginary burden of his. As if she was a Medusa that had just roved her eye away from him, he exhaled in relief.
Michael used to be nice to her. Not overtly so, but still.
Their relationship had been built on the superficial value of convenience. Cho wasn't sure she had even liked Michael, to begin with. She'd stuck with him only because he was attracted to her. Michael in his turn was attracted to Cho because she was a pretty girl from school and he should be attracted to pretty girls from school. Cho should return his affections because he was nice to her. Those were the rules! It was easy and things had fallen into place for a while, just as she had fallen into his bed like a ripe fruit, paying tribute to his action with her inaction. A well-learned theatre was as comfortable as it was numbing.
But as often happens, Michael's attraction had gradually morphed into aversion as the times went by. Cho was sure he'd seen something in her that had greatly disturbed him.
The big missing puzzle piece consisted of figuring out what had repulsed him so. For Harry, it had been the sound of her tears. For Roger, the sound of her laughter. What had done it for Michael? The sound of her mastication, perhaps? Or maybe the way she unconsciously ground her teeth in her sleep? Could it be an earth-shattering case of bad breath? What unforgivable humanly detail had had the power to shake spineless Michael Corner out of his infatuated stupor one day and cause him to realize that, " I don't love this woman anymore "?
Cho hadn't liked Michael, hadn't loved Michael, and still, she had begged him to stay. Had wasted countless hours and tears on the vain effort to get him back, and then when that search had proved to be fruitless, on the effort to reconcile the notion that she wasn't wanted, or even merely desired, anymore. She had auditioned, manipulated, and begged for love.
How tricky that had been! Without Cedric's, Harry's, Roger's, Michael's, or a stranger's piercing gaze to cut and give shape, her body felt not like a woman's, but rather an amorphous mass of strangeness. Unwanted.
Cho watched as the people at the party drank and ate. She watched the couples and wondered which of them would have sex that night. Whose sex would bring great joy and whose sex would bring great disappointment? She tried to judge that by observing the hesitation in their smiles.
It had been some time since she'd used her body for blood and sex. These days, she only ever used it to gain fat and flour.
She sipped her fishy green ale, in the hopes that the bitterness of the drink would win over the bitterness in her mouth.
Right. Think of baby owls, Cho. Distract yourself from the numb and miserable reality you're stuck on. Baby owls.
People came over. People talked. Gosh, she'd grown to abhor how people talked. Why should she care if someone's father had made good money off post-war real estate speculation? Oh, how fortunate, she mouthed. Yes, I would like to know more about the floral arrangements of your sister-in-law's wedding. Oh, hydrangeas. How nice for her.
A little bit unbelievably, a magical deus ex machina materialized out of thin air in the shape of one Hermione Granger.
Something had changed in Hermione these days. In her teenage years, Cho had once felt a deep, heavy sensation in her gut whenever she thought of Hermione. It was jealousy of the latter's proximity to Harry, of course. But also envy of her good grades. Of her curly brown hair. Of her flawless skin.
Cho watched keenly as Hermione strolled to the terrace. She seemed to have grown into her skin. Her gait had a newfound confidence that Cho didn't recall ever noticing before. The only exception would be that of the Winter Ball when Hermione had styled her hair and worn a most enchanting blue gown...
Her wild mane of curly brown hair was more beautiful than ever. She was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and a sleeveless wool sweater on top. Her body was fleshed-out, capable.
As the sight of Hermione disappeared beyond the curtains of the terrace, the noises of the idle talks became unbearable to Cho's ears.
Years later, Cho would remember that moment. She would remember the light on Hermione's hair, imbuing her tresses with the tone of copper, of gold. She would remember the lightning bolt that suddenly struck her: wait, I do have a choice.
Was that not the prerogative right of every human being? Much as Cho wanted to, she could not control whether Hermione came over and spoke to her or not. She could not control that bride's choices concerning the arrangement of her bouquet (but seriously, a bouquet of hydrangeas sounded seriously odd). She could not control Michael Corner into worshipping her again. She could not control what people said or did. However, what she could control was her own choice. Her voice. And if that realization felt too much like the renouncing of a preconceived world order, then so be it.
Was that how revolutions gained their spark? Cho took one step after another, disbelieving herself the whole way through, and she eventually found herself on the balcony.
The white curtains were blown by the wind, and under the moonlight, they looked like veils. A most mystical thing.
The cool breeze was refreshing since the main room was very crowded and practically melting with all the candles.
There was a flash of light on the balcony: Hermione lit a cigarette between her teeth, and the fire briefly illuminated her face. Cho saw Hermione's lips painted with rouge, and as Hermione puffed up smoke Cho felt the smell of burning green dragon flower... mixed with Hermione's earthly perfume.
Cho stared, unable to stop herself.
Hermione stared back. A bold choice in its merit.
"Hello, Cho." Hermione nodded, and the amber of her eyes seemed to twinkle up at Cho.
"Hermione", Cho smiled the first real smile of the night. "Didn't take you for a smoker."
Cho thought of Hermione as a goody-two-shoes. A law-breaking, world-saving, absolutely brilliant goody-two-shoes...
"I don't smoke regularly", the witch admitted.
"Just socially?"
"Yes. Or rather, anti-socially."
"How come?"
"I always do that when the party gets excruciatingly boring."
Hermione grinned as if they were sharing a secret.
Cho felt her cheeks flushing, her ears prickling.
"And what have you discovered in these experiments?"
"People have learned to keep their distance when they see someone smoking. It doesn't matter if it negatively affects my health. After all, I'm smoking green dragon flower, which is harmless. It's just a bad pedagogical example."
Cho kept silent for a moment. What does one do when one is given something real? Then said:
"I'm sorry, am I bothering you?"
Hermione stared her up and down, examining her, peering, a cat.
"Why would you be bothering me?", Hermione answered, grinning. As if Cho had just said something silly. And she had!
Cho didn't know why, but it was suddenly impossible to keep looking into Hermione's face. She would be seared to the ground.
Cho knew she had to move on with the conversation, lest things got awkward. But for once, she didn't know what to say. Making small talk would be wrong. Hermione was not just another person with whom she could afford to be mutually condescending.
Cho walked to the railing, stepped into the moonlight.
They stared off into the vacant blue distance. Cho leaned on the parapet as she spoke.
"I have learned to say I'm sorry even when I'm not. Sorry for that", Cho said, timidly offering a joke.
Hermione took it.
"There are other armors you could use, instead. But you don't need me to remind you of that."
Did Hermione have any female friends? Cho had the impression that she got more along with boys. It surprised Cho that Hermione had some sympathy for her.
The noise from the party was no longer a cacophony of chattering and clanking silverware. It faded into the background.
"Why did you come?" Cho was intrigued. She would have expected Hermione to be thriving at the ministry, with virtually no need to network down the circles of mediocrity with the likes of her.
"Same reason as you, I suppose. Doesn't look good if I don't."
Was Cho that obvious that Hermione could tell that simply by guessing?
"Call it an occupational hazard", Cho deferred.
"I call that a hazardous occupation", Hermione replied, shrewd.
"What do you work with, again?"
It was a purely observational question. Cho knew what Hermione worked with. She didn't ask the question out of a need to know the answer. She asked the question for wanting to hear the other woman speak.
"I work in the Department for the Regulation and Control for Magical Creatures. Primarily with issues regarding the treatment of house-elves."
Yes. Cho remembered Hermione's SPEW project. How wonderful it must have been: to decide at an early age what you were bound to make a career out of, to know what cause to devote your life to. To care.
Cho could not relate. There had been dreams for her, none of which had come to fruition. They were best left unsupervised.
"And how's that going?" Cho stared at her feet. Why had she chosen that particular shoe with the glittery laces? She was a child again, wearing glittered shoelaces and asking Hermione Granger about her work with the humbleness that only someone who had been painfully let down by life could know.
"It's hard. Not that I'm complaining. It's work that needs to be done. There are two rewarding things about it. The first is realizing that my prior approach to the issues of house-elves was very misguided. After proper training, I had the opportunity to improve it. The second one is having a sense that I am making some kind of impact, rare and slow as it may be. As to the unrewarding aspects of the profession... well, I'm not drunk enough to ramble about it yet", Hermione grinned at Cho again, but there was a shyness to her this time.
Hermione was unexpectedly modest.
Cho thought that modesty was the humble vanity of acknowledging that you really are the best. And was Hermione not the best? She had always been on a league of her own, unparalleled by her peers.
A lifetime ago, Cho would have been dreadfully envious. It would have been painful to witness Hermione's good fortune. She would have felt the envy scorching her gut, blackening her heart.
To Cho's utter surprise in herself, she searched her heart and found no signs of envy anymore. Not really. And this wasn't some half-assed attempt at evangelizing the darkest aspects of her psyche, to make her palatable for herself again so she could rest her head on the pillow at night and fall asleep. In the years in-between, she had learned to recognize envy for what it was. She had been brave enough to name it. Cho knew not what factor in the equation had done so, but the envy was simply gone. It had disappeared without a trace when she wasn't paying attention to it. As if she had lost track of it.
And since envy had cleared some space, Hermione's hair shone through.
The night sky was brighter than Cho had initially thought it to be. It was salted with stars and the moon was fat, stamped on the face of heaven like a white button. A cicada was singing, and - surprise! - there were baby owls on a nearby tree. Cho remembered with a pang: it was summertime.
Hermione's smile was somewhat dizzying. Cho felt as if a spell had been cast upon her because never had she felt something so mysterious: she knew with a strength unknown that she could trust Hermione Granger with her life. She knew that she could say whatever she wanted to Hermione, and the witch would understand. And if not to understand, at least she would welcome it.
Cho's heart startled her with blood.
"I'm sorry for the way I behaved back in Hogwarts", Cho kept looking.
"I'm sorry too", Hermione admitted. "I wish we could have been friends."
Cho grinned wildly, as a strong emotion overtook her.
"Would you like to grab a cup of tea sometime? We could catch up", Cho suggested, eager.
"Of course", Hermione agreed, but her face became thoughtful. "But I'm thinking... Are you free tonight?"
Cho could barely believe what she was hearing.
"Yes. I've got nowhere to go. Take me with you."