OR DIE TRYING: CHO CHANG'S SIXTH YEAR
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over Hogwarts that Harry isn't aware of.
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
25. Marietta's Story
Cho pushed open the door of the hospital wing. Toward the far end of the ward she saw Madam Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick struggling with a student who was trying to get out of the bed.
"We want to help you, honestly we do," Professor Flitwick was saying as he tried to grab hold of a flailing arm, "but you must co-operate!"
Cho rushed to look at the student in the bed. It was Marietta. She was in her usual school robes and Prefect badge. but someone had thrown a towel over her face. Cho reached to pull away the towel.
"What do you think you're doing..." Madam Pomfrey started indignantly.
Cho had pulled off the towel.
In any school full of children between the ages of eleven and eighteen, blemishes were likely to be a problem, even a source of amusement. Some of the Hogwarts students had escaped relatively unblemished (so to speak), and Cho was, so far, anyway, one of the lucky ones. She believed it was due partly to her mother drumming the idea of being careful about diet and cleanliness into her; Cho thought it was more a matter of being out playing Quidditch and getting enough sun on one's face.
Other cases were far more dreadful. Some students would have large red patches of skin, which looked worst on those with pale skin and fair hair. Others would sport large white pimples in conspicuous places. Then there was Eloise Midgen the year before, who proved that a cure could be worse than the disease by trying to hex the pimples off her face. The pimples vanished, but so did the nose they were attached to. It took Madam Pomfrey several days to sort that one out. Cho found it amusing, but Cedric didn't, since Eloise was in Hufflepuff.
But Marietta Edgecombe's acne seemed like an Old Testament curse. Much of the skin from her cheekbones to her jawline was inflamed, and not red but purple in colour. The mottled skin surrounded pimples that were open and weeping like infected sores. And, in what could only be called an act of vengeance, the pimples were arranged in lines like a connect-the-dots puzzle in the newspaper. Marietta's dots spelled out the word "SNEAK".
Cho's heart broke. She knew exactly what Marietta had done to deserve this.
"Cho!" Marietta shouted. "You have to help me! I don't understand any of this!"
"We can't even begin to cure you until you tell us what happened!" Madam Pomfrey shouted.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!" Marietta wailed.
Cho grabbed onto Madam Pomfrey's arm. "Let me try talking to her. Please."
Pomfrey eyed the girls suspiciously, then nodded. She motioned to Professor Flitwick, and they went to the other end of the ward.
"Cho," Marietta sniffled, staring down at her hands, "you've got to help me. You've got to think of something. I think I'm going mad. They keep asking me about meetings. Six months of meetings, and I can't remember a single thing! Why?!"
"Calm down," Cho said, taking hold of Marietta's hands. "Now," and she felt her stomach churn, "how did this happen?"
"I don't know!" Marietta wailed again.
Cho suddenly realized that she had completely reversed roles with Marietta: the Prefect who had comforted her through nightmare after nightmare was now trapped in one herself, and there was nobody but Cho to remain as her friend.
Cho's grip on Marietta's hands grew tighter. "Tell me what you do know, then. Start after dinner. You said you weren't feeling well."
"I said that? I guess I did; I sort of remember it, but I was making an excuse to you. I had to be somewhere else tonight."
Cho's mouth was so dry she could barely ask, "Instead of where?"
"Instead of... Instead of..." Marietta paused, with a queer look on her face; a moment later, she went on. "Well, in any case, I went to see Madam Umbridge. My mum said I had to talk to her about something; funny, I don't remember what now. Something she heard on the Floo Network. Anyway, I went there and..."
Now Cho saw it: the glazed eyes, the loose jaw, the slightly bemused expression. It was the same as the Muggle who rented the Chang family their campsite for the World Quidditch Cup.
Marietta had been given a Memory Modification.
Within herself, Cho gave a sigh of relief. Marietta could no longer tell secrets about Dumbledore's Army, but her face was evidence that she had tried.
"Marietta! What did Umbridge say?"
Marietta seemed to come back to consciousness. "Tonight, you mean? Umbridge stopped me from saying whatever it was I was saying, so she could give some orders to some Slytherins she had waiting in the next room. They all went rushing off, and she took me up to Dumbledore's office, only while I'm walking there I started getting hot and I felt like I was going to faint, until I caught a look at myself in a suit of armour and..." Marietta buried her face in her hands and started crying again.
"Please don't take on so," Cho said as soothingly as she could. "Do you remember seeing Peeves or anyone in the corridor?"
"No, but there were lot of people in Dumbledore's office. Minister Fudge was there, and so was Thing-a-ma-bob, the Weasley that Penelope Clearwater was seeing..."
"Percy Weasley?!"
"Percy; that's it. Yes, he was there, too, and a couple of other Ministry wizards. And then they drag in Harry Potter, but he doesn't say anything. That's when they..." Marietta's voice caught. "They started throwing questions at me, but I had no idea what they were on about. And they just got louder and angrier and worse and worse and suddenly there's a big explosion, and I reckon Dumbledore caused it because when the smoke cleared he was gone!"
Cho bowed her head. Her only friend had planned to betray Dumbledore's Army; that much was certain. Dumbledore himself had gotten wind of it, and took it upon himself to protect Harry and the others by shifting Marietta's memory. The marks on her face were clearly a warning: avoid this traitor.
But Cho couldn't.
Madam Pomfrey walked back to Cho. "Has she said anything helpful?"
Cho didn't have to think; she shook her head. "I'd like to stay with her tonight, if I may. She may think of something, and besides, I need to bring her today's assignments."
Marietta, who had thrown the towel back over her face when Pomfrey approached, clasped Cho's hand. "You don't have to do this..." she started.
"Yes, I do," Cho smiled, squeezing Marietta's hand in her own. "It's my turn."
xxx
At first, Madam Pomfrey had looked at Marietta's face and told Professor Flitwick, "This should take an hour to sort out; I've seen this sort of thing before." However, by midnight she had to admit that she was completely foxed by whatever hex had caused the pimples. As she wrote a longer letter of explanation to Professor Flitwick, in his capacity as head of Ravenclaw, Cho and Marietta tried to carry on with their homework as if nothing unusual was happening.
By one in the morning, both girls were asleep; Cho still fully clothed and asleep on top of the covers, her copy of "Hogwarts: A History" fallen to the floor. Marietta had also finally fallen asleep, but the foot of her bed was littered with half-written scrolls and library books.
"HEM! HEM!"
It was the torture machine dream; Cho recognized it, even though she was powerless to stop it. This time, she was stripped naked and tied spread-eagle--and face to the sky--to the machine. She couldn't see if any of the people, standing on the high cliffs above her, were ogling her nakedness; nor could she tell by listening. All she heard was the wind blowing over a desolate landscape; that, and the echoes of Umbridge's voice.
Madam Umbridge, who now wore shocking pink robes and the kind of official regalia Minister Fudge only wore on special occasions, was reading from a scroll:
"Because the prisoner has repeatedly offended against our society, she has demonstrated to the satisfaction of this Tribunal that she is incorrigible and must suffer the fate of all incorrigibles!"
The machinery creaked to life. Cho could only watch in horror as tiny drops of her own blood began to appear on her stomach. The pain grew worse and worse as more and more dots appeared. Cho could barely keep her eyes open for the pain, but she did, forcing herself to read the message being carved into her stomach:
BETRAYER OF CEDRIC BETRAYER OF THE D.A.
"NOOO!!"
Cho sat up in bed, clutching her stomach through her robes. She was breathing heavily and felt the all-too-familiar clamminess on her face and forehead.
She heard footsteps: Madam Pomfrey was walking quickly down from the other end of the wing. "What in the name of Avalon... Miss Chang, has this been going on all year?!"
Cho nodded, her face burning. "It's down to once a week or so; used to be more often."
"I've been giving her the Draught of Peace when she needs it." Marietta was awake as well.
"Do you need some now, child?"
Cho glanced at the windows, and realized that the sun was just coming up. "No, thanks. I need to run back to Ravenclaw for a wash-up and to change clothes, and get a few things for Marietta."
"She's able to do for herself, Miss Chang. There's nothing wrong with her legs."
"But you can see what's wrong with her face! You can't send her to classes like that, Madam Pomfrey; it's cruel!"
"Well, classes take precedence. I'd still like you to report here in the evenings, Miss Edgecombe. We can't just leave your face alone. But what do you propose to do in the meantime?"
Cho glanced at Marietta, who was wringing her hands. "Let me ask about something."
xxx
An hour later, Cho and Marietta were walking toward the Great Hall for breakfast. Halfway there, though, they saw Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. The Slytherins took one look at Marietta and burst out laughing. Malfoy then started singing very high, nasal and off-key; he was doing his imitation of a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. Cho had borrowed one of Raina al-Qaba's veils for Marietta.
They quickened their pace past the Slytherins, who Cho noticed now had little badges like the letter I on their robes. They were too busy laughing and singing to say anything to the girls.
"It'll never work," Marietta moaned when they were around a corner. "Nothing will ever work! If I cover it up, it just calls all the more attention to it!"
"Don't be upset," Cho said. "I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will sort this out in a day or two."
"Somebody has to; I can't go around... What in Merlin's name?!"
They had finally noticed one of the posters that sprang up overnight around Hogwarts, declaring Educational Decree number 28: Dolores Jane Umbridge was now Hogwart's Headmistress.
Marietta grasped Cho's hand. "You don't think I had anything to do with that, do you?"
"Somehow I think we may both have," Cho said, barely above a whisper. She suddenly let go of Marietta's hand. "We really should get on to breakfast, and just keep things as normal as possible for now."
They accomplished this by Marietta standing behind Cho (even though she was taller) as they entered the Great Hall, and sitting at the end of the table closest to the door. Marietta didn't eat much; she didn't want to have to keep shifting the veil, and didn't want to remove it altogether. They left the Great Hall long before breakfast was done and went to their first class long before it was scheduled to begin.
Muggle Studies and Arithmancy were uneventful, except for the other Ravenclaws asking Marietta about the veil. Diana Fairweather was teasing Marietta about converting to Raina's faith when Professor Idylwyld called a halt.
"This is a classroom, not a pub, as our recently self-appointed Headmistress will tell you, if that's what you want." The professor looked clearly disgusted that Umbridge had taken over for Dumbledore, but there wasn't anything to be done about that now. "I believe the overall topic this week is the Muggle use of electricity instead of magic. Miss Chang, please read your report to the class."
Cho stood and cleared her throat. "Ice Cubes versus Freezing Charms," she started.
xxx
Cho had just tucked into her lunch of lamb stew, with Marietta watching morosely with an empty plate from across the table, when all of Hogwarts shook as if it had been attacked by dragons.
Students were shouting and screaming all over the Great Hall, unsure what was happening.
McGonagall had amplified her voice with a Sonorus spell. "Everyone stay where you are! Remain seated!" A few of the Prefects rushed to the massive doors, trying to close them on the Great Hall.
Before they could finish, however, they were shoved to the floor by a pair of Catherine wheels which not only pushed the doors open but off of their hinges. They screamed up to the enchanted ceiling as if they meant to keep on flying; before they hit, however, they each broke apart into a dozen smaller Catherine wheels, which flew away like manic birds to other parts of the castle.
"D'you think that's Peeves?" Cho heard a frightened First Year ask.
Just then, a fireworks dragon sailed into the Great Hall, belching fire and smoke. It dodged the faculty's attempts to Stun it as it circled the room a few times and flew back out into the hall.
Terry Boot finally answered the question: "To do all that, it would take an army of Peeveses."
A bottle rocket flew in next, skywriting obscenities, and that's when Cho realized: not an army of poltergeists; just two Weasleys. She started laughing, and found it hard to stop.
"Cho?" Marietta looked worriedly at Cho. "What do we do now?"
Cho reached up and undid the veil.
"You may as well relax and have a good lunch," Cho said, still trying not to laugh. "Nobody will look at your face with THIS going on!"
xxx
She was right. The afternoon classes were basically a wash, with enchanted fireworks sailing in every five minutes or so. Usually they'd fly in, cause a disturbance, and fly right out again to another part of Hogwarts. Now and then, one seemed to get stranded in a classroom, and in Advanced Transfiguration Professor McGonagall, no less, took the unusual step of asking "Headmistress Umbridge" to remove it. By late afternoon Umbridge looked as if she'd been digging a garden with her bare hands in the middle of a minefield. And Cho felt no sympathy for her whatsoever.
As Cho and Marietta entered the Common Room after the last class, Pablo Molina and Michael Corner were trading fireworks stories by the bay window. "For the first time in my life," Pablo was saying, "I envy that lunatic Colin Creevey. At least, I envy him his camera. You should have seen some of those things!"
Cho and Marietta quickly went up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. Michael followed Cho with his eyes and half-nodded, but didn't say anything.
Cho thought she knew what that was all about. He was in Dumbledore's Army, too, and would probably mistrust Cho as long as she was friends with Marietta. And he'd mistrust Marietta as long as that "Sneak" hex was on her.
Cho didn't care what Michael thought of her, but it was a reminder that something had to be done about Marietta's face.
As they prepared for another night in the hospital wing, Marietta looked over at Cho. "You really don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do. I know what it's like to be alone, to want a friend but know you can't have one. Just because of what's written on your face."
"Oh?" Marietta asked skeptically. "What's written on yours, then?"
Cho turned to Marietta. "Chinese."
Marietta looked puzzled. "That makes a difference?"
"To some." Cho was about to say that it made a difference to Cedric's father, but Marietta interrupted.
"But... But you're so pretty."
Cho half-smiled. "I'm glad somebody thinks so." Then she turned to put more books in her bag; she also turned away because she didn't want Marietta to see her crying.
Why is it, she thought; Oh my ancestors, why is it that I'm always punished if I think I might be pretty? My mother never lets me forget what she thinks, Cedric thought it and now he's dead; Harry thought it--
That's what I have to do, then. I can't ask Granger directly to lift the hex; she'd refuse, of course. She's so proud of all these advanced tricks she can do. But she's friends with Harry, and if I ask him to ask Granger...
Marietta, who was ready and waiting for Cho, cleared her throat. Cho grabbed her books and a change of robes, and they went to drop their things off at the hospital wing on their way in to dinner.
The hospital wing was quiet that night, except for the occasional sputtering of the Weasleys' fireworks. Most had died away, and the few that had survived until after sunset were just a nuisance, a joke that had gone on far too long. Cho and Marietta went back to the hospital wing after dinner, and, with interruptions from Madam Pomfrey who tried countercurse after countercurse with no effect, they prepared for the next day's classes. The morning would be simple anyway: Binns for History and Flitwick for Charms. Wednesday afternoons, though, Marietta had Divination and both would have Advanced Potions; Snape was a professor for whom one had to prepare.
xxx
Cho was also preparing to meet with Harry, to ask him about Granger lifting the curse on Marietta. She tried to plan out everything that she would say: that Marietta had been her best friend during a very difficult year, that she certainly got the message behind the hex, and besides, someone had given her a Memory Modification, so now she couldn't betray Dumbledore's Army even if she wanted to, so, really, what was the harm...
But the more she tried to run over her lines, the more nervous she felt about the whole business. Still, Marietta was miserable, and would be until her complexion cleared up, and Cho owed it to her to try to bring her some relief...
She stayed by Marietta through most of the classes (except Divination, of course) and through dinner, walked her to the hospital wing, then raced back to the entrance to the Great Hall. There he was, just leaving the Great Hall. Cho raced up to him, breathless. Harry seemed glad enough to see her, so far so good, but said, "Over here," and led Cho to a corner of the entrance hall where there would be at least a little privacy.
When they were in the corner, Harry spoke first: "Are you okay? Umbridge hasn't been asking you about the D.A., has she?"
"Oh, no," Cho said quickly. "No, it was only... Well, I just wanted to say..." Cho realized that she had forgotten all of the speeches she had spent all day practicing. Still, she knew what she had to say: "Harry, I never dreamed Marietta would tell."
"Yeah, well." That was all he said. He seemed grumpy, but so far he hadn't said "no," anyway.
"She's a lovely person, really," Cho went on. "She just made a mistake--"
"A lovely person who made a mistake?!" With Harry shouting it at her like that, Cho realized how stupid she sounded; as if Marietta had added two plus two to get five. Before she could say anything else, he angrily pressed on: "She sold us all out, including you!"
"Well, we all got away, didn't we?" As far as Cho knew, nobody had been expelled or was even suspected, except perhaps Harry, and he was still walking about. "You know, her mum works for the Ministry, it's really difficult for her..."
Harry cut her off. "Ron's dad works for the Ministry, too," he snarled, "and in case you hadn't noticed, he hasn't got 'sneak' written across HIS face!"
Cho knew that he was right, but she also knew that he hadn't spent the last two nights in the hospital wing, watching Marietta suffer. "That was a really horrible trick of Hermione Granger's. She should have told us she'd jinxed that list."
"I think it was a brilliant idea."
Cho might even have accepted that, and gone on to ask again for Harry to say something to Hermione, but the cold way he said that--so smug, almost sneering, almost like Malfoy--was the last straw. Again, she became possessed by the spiteful, jealous Cho of Madam Puddifoot's: "Oh, yes, I forget. Of course, if it was darling Hermione's idea..."
"Don't start crying again."
"I wasn't going to!" she shouted. She couldn't even believe he'd just said that.
"Yeah, well, good. I've got enough to cope with at the moment."
"Go and COPE with it, then!" Cho stormed off toward the hospital wing.
How dare he... How dare he! What can he possibly have to cope with that's worse than what Granger's put Marietta through? That Boy Who Lived reputation has finally given him the biggest head in Hogwarts!
Cho got to the hospital wing and spent the next five minutes re-enacting her argument with Harry Potter.
Marietta just looked at her friend. "How'd you know it was Granger, and what did I ever do to her to deserve THIS?"
Cho was sitting on the next bed. "I... I can't tell you; not yet. Believe me, you're better off not knowing."
"So I still have my curse."
"Yes," nodded Cho, "and I have mine."
"What curse is that?"
"Well... it's... the fact is... I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH THAT STUPID STUPID PRAT!!" Cho threw herself on the bed, burying her face in the pillow.
Marietta was quiet for a minute, then spoke softly. "I guess this is what they call a conflict of interest."
Cho nodded, her face still against the pillow, and kept it there another minute before coming up for air.
"I've just made things worse, haven't I?" Cho sniffed. This time she really was on the edge of tears.
"Don't say that! If Pomfrey can't fix me up, surely Flitwick can. I mean, the only way things could be worse..."
Before Marietta could finish her sentence, things got worse:
Snape walked into the hospital wing. And Draco Malfoy was with him.
Between them they held up the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Ashpeth Montague. He looked weak and extremely disoriented, as if he'd collapse if either Snape or Malfoy let go. Pomfrey conducted them to a bed near the door, and farthest from Marietta's bed. Cho and Marietta had no idea what had happened to him, but his boots squished as he walked, and he smelled vaguely like a swamp.
After Madam Pomfrey had put screens up around Montague's bed, she walked over to the two girls. "Miss Chang, I can't indulge you any more. You have a dormitory room and a bed, and you'll have to sleep in it."
"Must she, Madam Pomfrey?" Marietta asked woefully.
"You're a patient and she's not; it's that simple. Still, I don't think this will last much longer."
"My life is ruined," Marietta moaned, burying her face in her hands.
"Don't say that!" Cho said. "We weren't Sorted into Ravenclaw for nothing. There's got to be an answer."
"Any suggestions?"
"Well, there's more than one way to skin a Kneazle. If I can't talk to Harry directly, I'll just have to find another route. I won't let you down, Marietta; I promise."
xxx
to be continued in part 26, wherein Cho hears from Penelope Clearwater and tries a more roundabout way to talk to Harry...
By monkeymouse
NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms. And one of the great things about JKR telling the story from Harry's point of view is that stuff could be happening all over Hogwarts that Harry isn't aware of.
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Everything
xxx
25. Marietta's Story
Cho pushed open the door of the hospital wing. Toward the far end of the ward she saw Madam Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick struggling with a student who was trying to get out of the bed.
"We want to help you, honestly we do," Professor Flitwick was saying as he tried to grab hold of a flailing arm, "but you must co-operate!"
Cho rushed to look at the student in the bed. It was Marietta. She was in her usual school robes and Prefect badge. but someone had thrown a towel over her face. Cho reached to pull away the towel.
"What do you think you're doing..." Madam Pomfrey started indignantly.
Cho had pulled off the towel.
In any school full of children between the ages of eleven and eighteen, blemishes were likely to be a problem, even a source of amusement. Some of the Hogwarts students had escaped relatively unblemished (so to speak), and Cho was, so far, anyway, one of the lucky ones. She believed it was due partly to her mother drumming the idea of being careful about diet and cleanliness into her; Cho thought it was more a matter of being out playing Quidditch and getting enough sun on one's face.
Other cases were far more dreadful. Some students would have large red patches of skin, which looked worst on those with pale skin and fair hair. Others would sport large white pimples in conspicuous places. Then there was Eloise Midgen the year before, who proved that a cure could be worse than the disease by trying to hex the pimples off her face. The pimples vanished, but so did the nose they were attached to. It took Madam Pomfrey several days to sort that one out. Cho found it amusing, but Cedric didn't, since Eloise was in Hufflepuff.
But Marietta Edgecombe's acne seemed like an Old Testament curse. Much of the skin from her cheekbones to her jawline was inflamed, and not red but purple in colour. The mottled skin surrounded pimples that were open and weeping like infected sores. And, in what could only be called an act of vengeance, the pimples were arranged in lines like a connect-the-dots puzzle in the newspaper. Marietta's dots spelled out the word "SNEAK".
Cho's heart broke. She knew exactly what Marietta had done to deserve this.
"Cho!" Marietta shouted. "You have to help me! I don't understand any of this!"
"We can't even begin to cure you until you tell us what happened!" Madam Pomfrey shouted.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!" Marietta wailed.
Cho grabbed onto Madam Pomfrey's arm. "Let me try talking to her. Please."
Pomfrey eyed the girls suspiciously, then nodded. She motioned to Professor Flitwick, and they went to the other end of the ward.
"Cho," Marietta sniffled, staring down at her hands, "you've got to help me. You've got to think of something. I think I'm going mad. They keep asking me about meetings. Six months of meetings, and I can't remember a single thing! Why?!"
"Calm down," Cho said, taking hold of Marietta's hands. "Now," and she felt her stomach churn, "how did this happen?"
"I don't know!" Marietta wailed again.
Cho suddenly realized that she had completely reversed roles with Marietta: the Prefect who had comforted her through nightmare after nightmare was now trapped in one herself, and there was nobody but Cho to remain as her friend.
Cho's grip on Marietta's hands grew tighter. "Tell me what you do know, then. Start after dinner. You said you weren't feeling well."
"I said that? I guess I did; I sort of remember it, but I was making an excuse to you. I had to be somewhere else tonight."
Cho's mouth was so dry she could barely ask, "Instead of where?"
"Instead of... Instead of..." Marietta paused, with a queer look on her face; a moment later, she went on. "Well, in any case, I went to see Madam Umbridge. My mum said I had to talk to her about something; funny, I don't remember what now. Something she heard on the Floo Network. Anyway, I went there and..."
Now Cho saw it: the glazed eyes, the loose jaw, the slightly bemused expression. It was the same as the Muggle who rented the Chang family their campsite for the World Quidditch Cup.
Marietta had been given a Memory Modification.
Within herself, Cho gave a sigh of relief. Marietta could no longer tell secrets about Dumbledore's Army, but her face was evidence that she had tried.
"Marietta! What did Umbridge say?"
Marietta seemed to come back to consciousness. "Tonight, you mean? Umbridge stopped me from saying whatever it was I was saying, so she could give some orders to some Slytherins she had waiting in the next room. They all went rushing off, and she took me up to Dumbledore's office, only while I'm walking there I started getting hot and I felt like I was going to faint, until I caught a look at myself in a suit of armour and..." Marietta buried her face in her hands and started crying again.
"Please don't take on so," Cho said as soothingly as she could. "Do you remember seeing Peeves or anyone in the corridor?"
"No, but there were lot of people in Dumbledore's office. Minister Fudge was there, and so was Thing-a-ma-bob, the Weasley that Penelope Clearwater was seeing..."
"Percy Weasley?!"
"Percy; that's it. Yes, he was there, too, and a couple of other Ministry wizards. And then they drag in Harry Potter, but he doesn't say anything. That's when they..." Marietta's voice caught. "They started throwing questions at me, but I had no idea what they were on about. And they just got louder and angrier and worse and worse and suddenly there's a big explosion, and I reckon Dumbledore caused it because when the smoke cleared he was gone!"
Cho bowed her head. Her only friend had planned to betray Dumbledore's Army; that much was certain. Dumbledore himself had gotten wind of it, and took it upon himself to protect Harry and the others by shifting Marietta's memory. The marks on her face were clearly a warning: avoid this traitor.
But Cho couldn't.
Madam Pomfrey walked back to Cho. "Has she said anything helpful?"
Cho didn't have to think; she shook her head. "I'd like to stay with her tonight, if I may. She may think of something, and besides, I need to bring her today's assignments."
Marietta, who had thrown the towel back over her face when Pomfrey approached, clasped Cho's hand. "You don't have to do this..." she started.
"Yes, I do," Cho smiled, squeezing Marietta's hand in her own. "It's my turn."
xxx
At first, Madam Pomfrey had looked at Marietta's face and told Professor Flitwick, "This should take an hour to sort out; I've seen this sort of thing before." However, by midnight she had to admit that she was completely foxed by whatever hex had caused the pimples. As she wrote a longer letter of explanation to Professor Flitwick, in his capacity as head of Ravenclaw, Cho and Marietta tried to carry on with their homework as if nothing unusual was happening.
By one in the morning, both girls were asleep; Cho still fully clothed and asleep on top of the covers, her copy of "Hogwarts: A History" fallen to the floor. Marietta had also finally fallen asleep, but the foot of her bed was littered with half-written scrolls and library books.
"HEM! HEM!"
It was the torture machine dream; Cho recognized it, even though she was powerless to stop it. This time, she was stripped naked and tied spread-eagle--and face to the sky--to the machine. She couldn't see if any of the people, standing on the high cliffs above her, were ogling her nakedness; nor could she tell by listening. All she heard was the wind blowing over a desolate landscape; that, and the echoes of Umbridge's voice.
Madam Umbridge, who now wore shocking pink robes and the kind of official regalia Minister Fudge only wore on special occasions, was reading from a scroll:
"Because the prisoner has repeatedly offended against our society, she has demonstrated to the satisfaction of this Tribunal that she is incorrigible and must suffer the fate of all incorrigibles!"
The machinery creaked to life. Cho could only watch in horror as tiny drops of her own blood began to appear on her stomach. The pain grew worse and worse as more and more dots appeared. Cho could barely keep her eyes open for the pain, but she did, forcing herself to read the message being carved into her stomach:
BETRAYER OF CEDRIC BETRAYER OF THE D.A.
"NOOO!!"
Cho sat up in bed, clutching her stomach through her robes. She was breathing heavily and felt the all-too-familiar clamminess on her face and forehead.
She heard footsteps: Madam Pomfrey was walking quickly down from the other end of the wing. "What in the name of Avalon... Miss Chang, has this been going on all year?!"
Cho nodded, her face burning. "It's down to once a week or so; used to be more often."
"I've been giving her the Draught of Peace when she needs it." Marietta was awake as well.
"Do you need some now, child?"
Cho glanced at the windows, and realized that the sun was just coming up. "No, thanks. I need to run back to Ravenclaw for a wash-up and to change clothes, and get a few things for Marietta."
"She's able to do for herself, Miss Chang. There's nothing wrong with her legs."
"But you can see what's wrong with her face! You can't send her to classes like that, Madam Pomfrey; it's cruel!"
"Well, classes take precedence. I'd still like you to report here in the evenings, Miss Edgecombe. We can't just leave your face alone. But what do you propose to do in the meantime?"
Cho glanced at Marietta, who was wringing her hands. "Let me ask about something."
xxx
An hour later, Cho and Marietta were walking toward the Great Hall for breakfast. Halfway there, though, they saw Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. The Slytherins took one look at Marietta and burst out laughing. Malfoy then started singing very high, nasal and off-key; he was doing his imitation of a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. Cho had borrowed one of Raina al-Qaba's veils for Marietta.
They quickened their pace past the Slytherins, who Cho noticed now had little badges like the letter I on their robes. They were too busy laughing and singing to say anything to the girls.
"It'll never work," Marietta moaned when they were around a corner. "Nothing will ever work! If I cover it up, it just calls all the more attention to it!"
"Don't be upset," Cho said. "I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will sort this out in a day or two."
"Somebody has to; I can't go around... What in Merlin's name?!"
They had finally noticed one of the posters that sprang up overnight around Hogwarts, declaring Educational Decree number 28: Dolores Jane Umbridge was now Hogwart's Headmistress.
Marietta grasped Cho's hand. "You don't think I had anything to do with that, do you?"
"Somehow I think we may both have," Cho said, barely above a whisper. She suddenly let go of Marietta's hand. "We really should get on to breakfast, and just keep things as normal as possible for now."
They accomplished this by Marietta standing behind Cho (even though she was taller) as they entered the Great Hall, and sitting at the end of the table closest to the door. Marietta didn't eat much; she didn't want to have to keep shifting the veil, and didn't want to remove it altogether. They left the Great Hall long before breakfast was done and went to their first class long before it was scheduled to begin.
Muggle Studies and Arithmancy were uneventful, except for the other Ravenclaws asking Marietta about the veil. Diana Fairweather was teasing Marietta about converting to Raina's faith when Professor Idylwyld called a halt.
"This is a classroom, not a pub, as our recently self-appointed Headmistress will tell you, if that's what you want." The professor looked clearly disgusted that Umbridge had taken over for Dumbledore, but there wasn't anything to be done about that now. "I believe the overall topic this week is the Muggle use of electricity instead of magic. Miss Chang, please read your report to the class."
Cho stood and cleared her throat. "Ice Cubes versus Freezing Charms," she started.
xxx
Cho had just tucked into her lunch of lamb stew, with Marietta watching morosely with an empty plate from across the table, when all of Hogwarts shook as if it had been attacked by dragons.
Students were shouting and screaming all over the Great Hall, unsure what was happening.
McGonagall had amplified her voice with a Sonorus spell. "Everyone stay where you are! Remain seated!" A few of the Prefects rushed to the massive doors, trying to close them on the Great Hall.
Before they could finish, however, they were shoved to the floor by a pair of Catherine wheels which not only pushed the doors open but off of their hinges. They screamed up to the enchanted ceiling as if they meant to keep on flying; before they hit, however, they each broke apart into a dozen smaller Catherine wheels, which flew away like manic birds to other parts of the castle.
"D'you think that's Peeves?" Cho heard a frightened First Year ask.
Just then, a fireworks dragon sailed into the Great Hall, belching fire and smoke. It dodged the faculty's attempts to Stun it as it circled the room a few times and flew back out into the hall.
Terry Boot finally answered the question: "To do all that, it would take an army of Peeveses."
A bottle rocket flew in next, skywriting obscenities, and that's when Cho realized: not an army of poltergeists; just two Weasleys. She started laughing, and found it hard to stop.
"Cho?" Marietta looked worriedly at Cho. "What do we do now?"
Cho reached up and undid the veil.
"You may as well relax and have a good lunch," Cho said, still trying not to laugh. "Nobody will look at your face with THIS going on!"
xxx
She was right. The afternoon classes were basically a wash, with enchanted fireworks sailing in every five minutes or so. Usually they'd fly in, cause a disturbance, and fly right out again to another part of Hogwarts. Now and then, one seemed to get stranded in a classroom, and in Advanced Transfiguration Professor McGonagall, no less, took the unusual step of asking "Headmistress Umbridge" to remove it. By late afternoon Umbridge looked as if she'd been digging a garden with her bare hands in the middle of a minefield. And Cho felt no sympathy for her whatsoever.
As Cho and Marietta entered the Common Room after the last class, Pablo Molina and Michael Corner were trading fireworks stories by the bay window. "For the first time in my life," Pablo was saying, "I envy that lunatic Colin Creevey. At least, I envy him his camera. You should have seen some of those things!"
Cho and Marietta quickly went up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. Michael followed Cho with his eyes and half-nodded, but didn't say anything.
Cho thought she knew what that was all about. He was in Dumbledore's Army, too, and would probably mistrust Cho as long as she was friends with Marietta. And he'd mistrust Marietta as long as that "Sneak" hex was on her.
Cho didn't care what Michael thought of her, but it was a reminder that something had to be done about Marietta's face.
As they prepared for another night in the hospital wing, Marietta looked over at Cho. "You really don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do. I know what it's like to be alone, to want a friend but know you can't have one. Just because of what's written on your face."
"Oh?" Marietta asked skeptically. "What's written on yours, then?"
Cho turned to Marietta. "Chinese."
Marietta looked puzzled. "That makes a difference?"
"To some." Cho was about to say that it made a difference to Cedric's father, but Marietta interrupted.
"But... But you're so pretty."
Cho half-smiled. "I'm glad somebody thinks so." Then she turned to put more books in her bag; she also turned away because she didn't want Marietta to see her crying.
Why is it, she thought; Oh my ancestors, why is it that I'm always punished if I think I might be pretty? My mother never lets me forget what she thinks, Cedric thought it and now he's dead; Harry thought it--
That's what I have to do, then. I can't ask Granger directly to lift the hex; she'd refuse, of course. She's so proud of all these advanced tricks she can do. But she's friends with Harry, and if I ask him to ask Granger...
Marietta, who was ready and waiting for Cho, cleared her throat. Cho grabbed her books and a change of robes, and they went to drop their things off at the hospital wing on their way in to dinner.
The hospital wing was quiet that night, except for the occasional sputtering of the Weasleys' fireworks. Most had died away, and the few that had survived until after sunset were just a nuisance, a joke that had gone on far too long. Cho and Marietta went back to the hospital wing after dinner, and, with interruptions from Madam Pomfrey who tried countercurse after countercurse with no effect, they prepared for the next day's classes. The morning would be simple anyway: Binns for History and Flitwick for Charms. Wednesday afternoons, though, Marietta had Divination and both would have Advanced Potions; Snape was a professor for whom one had to prepare.
xxx
Cho was also preparing to meet with Harry, to ask him about Granger lifting the curse on Marietta. She tried to plan out everything that she would say: that Marietta had been her best friend during a very difficult year, that she certainly got the message behind the hex, and besides, someone had given her a Memory Modification, so now she couldn't betray Dumbledore's Army even if she wanted to, so, really, what was the harm...
But the more she tried to run over her lines, the more nervous she felt about the whole business. Still, Marietta was miserable, and would be until her complexion cleared up, and Cho owed it to her to try to bring her some relief...
She stayed by Marietta through most of the classes (except Divination, of course) and through dinner, walked her to the hospital wing, then raced back to the entrance to the Great Hall. There he was, just leaving the Great Hall. Cho raced up to him, breathless. Harry seemed glad enough to see her, so far so good, but said, "Over here," and led Cho to a corner of the entrance hall where there would be at least a little privacy.
When they were in the corner, Harry spoke first: "Are you okay? Umbridge hasn't been asking you about the D.A., has she?"
"Oh, no," Cho said quickly. "No, it was only... Well, I just wanted to say..." Cho realized that she had forgotten all of the speeches she had spent all day practicing. Still, she knew what she had to say: "Harry, I never dreamed Marietta would tell."
"Yeah, well." That was all he said. He seemed grumpy, but so far he hadn't said "no," anyway.
"She's a lovely person, really," Cho went on. "She just made a mistake--"
"A lovely person who made a mistake?!" With Harry shouting it at her like that, Cho realized how stupid she sounded; as if Marietta had added two plus two to get five. Before she could say anything else, he angrily pressed on: "She sold us all out, including you!"
"Well, we all got away, didn't we?" As far as Cho knew, nobody had been expelled or was even suspected, except perhaps Harry, and he was still walking about. "You know, her mum works for the Ministry, it's really difficult for her..."
Harry cut her off. "Ron's dad works for the Ministry, too," he snarled, "and in case you hadn't noticed, he hasn't got 'sneak' written across HIS face!"
Cho knew that he was right, but she also knew that he hadn't spent the last two nights in the hospital wing, watching Marietta suffer. "That was a really horrible trick of Hermione Granger's. She should have told us she'd jinxed that list."
"I think it was a brilliant idea."
Cho might even have accepted that, and gone on to ask again for Harry to say something to Hermione, but the cold way he said that--so smug, almost sneering, almost like Malfoy--was the last straw. Again, she became possessed by the spiteful, jealous Cho of Madam Puddifoot's: "Oh, yes, I forget. Of course, if it was darling Hermione's idea..."
"Don't start crying again."
"I wasn't going to!" she shouted. She couldn't even believe he'd just said that.
"Yeah, well, good. I've got enough to cope with at the moment."
"Go and COPE with it, then!" Cho stormed off toward the hospital wing.
How dare he... How dare he! What can he possibly have to cope with that's worse than what Granger's put Marietta through? That Boy Who Lived reputation has finally given him the biggest head in Hogwarts!
Cho got to the hospital wing and spent the next five minutes re-enacting her argument with Harry Potter.
Marietta just looked at her friend. "How'd you know it was Granger, and what did I ever do to her to deserve THIS?"
Cho was sitting on the next bed. "I... I can't tell you; not yet. Believe me, you're better off not knowing."
"So I still have my curse."
"Yes," nodded Cho, "and I have mine."
"What curse is that?"
"Well... it's... the fact is... I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH THAT STUPID STUPID PRAT!!" Cho threw herself on the bed, burying her face in the pillow.
Marietta was quiet for a minute, then spoke softly. "I guess this is what they call a conflict of interest."
Cho nodded, her face still against the pillow, and kept it there another minute before coming up for air.
"I've just made things worse, haven't I?" Cho sniffed. This time she really was on the edge of tears.
"Don't say that! If Pomfrey can't fix me up, surely Flitwick can. I mean, the only way things could be worse..."
Before Marietta could finish her sentence, things got worse:
Snape walked into the hospital wing. And Draco Malfoy was with him.
Between them they held up the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Ashpeth Montague. He looked weak and extremely disoriented, as if he'd collapse if either Snape or Malfoy let go. Pomfrey conducted them to a bed near the door, and farthest from Marietta's bed. Cho and Marietta had no idea what had happened to him, but his boots squished as he walked, and he smelled vaguely like a swamp.
After Madam Pomfrey had put screens up around Montague's bed, she walked over to the two girls. "Miss Chang, I can't indulge you any more. You have a dormitory room and a bed, and you'll have to sleep in it."
"Must she, Madam Pomfrey?" Marietta asked woefully.
"You're a patient and she's not; it's that simple. Still, I don't think this will last much longer."
"My life is ruined," Marietta moaned, burying her face in her hands.
"Don't say that!" Cho said. "We weren't Sorted into Ravenclaw for nothing. There's got to be an answer."
"Any suggestions?"
"Well, there's more than one way to skin a Kneazle. If I can't talk to Harry directly, I'll just have to find another route. I won't let you down, Marietta; I promise."
xxx
to be continued in part 26, wherein Cho hears from Penelope Clearwater and tries a more roundabout way to talk to Harry...