Disclaimer: I don't own anything HP.
WARNING: Centers on Lesbianism. Don't like? Then please don't read, then you won't get as far as to flame. Thank you for your consideration and maturity.
A/N: Hey everyone! I'm back with the last installment of the "Oxygen" and "If Only" series! For all those who asked me to PLEASE write Cho and Hermione getting together I wrote this little ficlet! Sorry it took so long! Hope you like it and leave a little review.
Even though she has been away for a long time now, I still miss her. It is funny how I fooled myself into believing that we would always be together, when I knew that it was only going to be for a little while. Yet we lived our time together to the fullest, and now it doesn't hurt as much when I pass her in the hall. I don't send her anymore of our secret smiles. Those knowing glances we hid from everyone had been intended for Pansy Parkinson, not Pansy Malfoy.
Ron is out of the closet, as I. It is amazing to see how little I knew of my best friend and he I. Harry wouldn't come out of the Room of Requirements for a week after Ron and I came out…which was the same week by the way. Now he pops out and we act normal around each other, I think he's more uncomfortable with Ron, yet now that Ron and Neville seem to be hitting it off Harry isn't as guarded with Ron as he usually is. Harry's back to his old self…then again, his old self wouldn't have tried hooking me up with a Hufflepuff girl, yet I enjoy his support concerning my sexual orientation.
Pansy, great. I can't forget the last time she tried talking to me. It was the day after she'd returned to school after the honeymoon. I couldn't talk to her, my heart had stopped for a second and I just left her standing there, calling after me. I hadn't allowed myself to fall in love with her because I knew that we would end, but I'd grown to care for her so much.
Now I didn't. I'd killed those feelings and had remembered that now I was only the mudblood.
"Hey."
Hearing the insecure voice behind me I turn and am surprised to see Cho there. She'd graduated last year and had disappeared from Hogwarts and the Wizarding World. Some people thought that she'd gone to Voldemort's side, and other's believe that she was dead, but here was she looking at me in silence. I realize that I haven't answered.
"Cho." Getting up from where I sat out by the lake, I wonder how she knew I was here. But then again, while I had been with Pansy, Cho would follow us, so she probably knew that this was where I went when I disappeared. "I haven't seen you in a long time."
"I've been in muggle France, on a sabbatical." Still slightly nervous, she manages a smile. "How have you been doing?"
"I'm fine I guess. Things have changed around here since you graduated, but noting of real interest." Sitting back down on the grass and patting the grass blades next to me, I smiled when she sat down as well. "I haven't been to France before, did you like it there?"
"Not really. My family spent time with Fleur's, and while Gabrielle is supportable I couldn't stand Fleur." With a sigh, her eyes g out to the lake and for a moment she seemed lost in her thoughts. "How have you been doing?"
"You don't want to know." I say with a sigh, looking up at the sky.
"No, I really do."
The quiet sincerity in that voice surprises me and I turn to look at her, really look at her. Can this quiet creature really be the beautiful tormentor who used to hate me because of Harry? In appearance she hasn't changed much. She's cut her silky long locks chin-length and she is thinner, taller even, or maybe its just seems that way. She sits so straight, stands that way too. She looks dignified, elegant, professional and beautiful, even more beautiful than the flirtish beauty that she'd had while in Hogwarts. I wondered what had changed.
"Pansy married Malfoy." Seeing her wince I wonder even more about her.
"I know, our family were invited to the wedding by Mr. Parkinson." Hugging her legs to her chest, black eyes look down at her shoes. "It was the event of the year. I was terribly bored."
A small smile appeared on my face as I shook my head. "I always wonder what it must be like, attending one of those fancy pureblood events."
"You haven't missed out on anything important in life." The way that she says that makes it sound as if she has. "So, does it hurt a lot, seeing her with Malfoy?"
"At first it stung like hell. Then, I started dating other women, I came out officially a while back, and dating some of the newer girls, people are taking it well."
"I'm sure Pansy isn't."
"Pansy is a married woman. She doesn't have to take it any way." I thought that I would say this harshly, yet I said it with slight indifference. I am proud of myself. I have finally been able to kill my heart-breaking feelings. I am finally free. "And anyway, there is no one serious in the picture. And I'm graduating in a month, as you probably already know. So my life won't be around Hogwarts."
"Oh really?" A slight smile appeared on her face as she turns to look at me. "And what do you plan on doing once you leave Hogwarts?"
"I'm going to work with a friend of mine, Luna Lovegood. Do you remember a slightly delusional Ravenclaw who was always with an edition of the Quibbler in her hand?" Seeing Cho nod, her smile growing, my smile does as well. "Well, we've become friends of some sort and I'm going to work at her father's newspaper…don't laugh!"
She managed to keep back the laughter, but her teasing smile was impossible to hide. "I thought you didn't believe in the Quibbler."
"How did you--?" Then again, Cho has always seemed to know little tidbits about me. "Well, last summer one of the famed animals I never believed in was discovered and I had to eat my own words. Ever since then I've subscribed to the Quibbler." Blushing slightly in shame, I shook my head. "Luna is actually quite interesting, once you get past her slight…err…airiness."
"She's told me about her relationship with Harry. Seems interesting in the least."
My eyes widen. "You keep in contact with Luna?" Seeing her break our eye contact, I was surprised at the rush of jealousy that runs up my veins. Were Luna and Cho a couple?
Refusing to meet my eyes, Cho looks at the water, seeming nervous. "Yes, well, we became friends before I graduated and we've owled each other ever since."
The uncomfortable feeling increases in my chest. "She knew you were coming?"
There was a moment's silence. "Yes."
"Oh." Biting my lip I look back at the forest. The silence between us has grown uncomfortable and I wonder why she has come here. Had she been looking for me or had she been wandering about her old school campus and stumbled upon me, only coming to talk to me out of politeness?
The last thought stings.
I'd always found Cho attractive, but I'd never really thought that she could feel something for me, and then Pansy had come into the picture and I'd gotten caught up in my first romance. I remember the day that Cho caught Pansy and I in one of our secret meetings. That was when I realized what she had felt for me at the time, and if I had been single I would have corresponded, if Cho had confessed her feelings before Pansy and I had gotten locked inside of Trelawney's closet I would have been with Cho and I wouldn't have had a history with Pansy. I would not have suffered a broken heart.
"I'm going to work in Wizard London as well." Cho announces as a way to break through the thick and uncomfortable silence that has settled among us. "And close to where you are going to work."
"Oh really?" Glad for the excuse to escape my troubling thoughts, I turn to look at her.
"I'm working at the publicity office. I'm not a journalist, I'm an editor. It's going to be very interesting indeed." Her eyes never leave the lake, yet she doesn't seem to be looking at it, her thoughts seem far away. "Maybe we can have lunch together some days, unless your girlfriend wouldn't like it."
"I'm not dating right now. How about you? Got any French vixen in your pocket?" Having heard that expression from Lavender I feel weird saying it.
"Na." She laughs without humor. "I haven't gone out with anyone since Cedric and Harry."
"Then we can definitely have lunch together then. I can't wait to start working. Luna and I have this article in our minds about the Farfe, and one we get there we're going to begin our investigation on its odd sleeping habits, and why it needs to eat a banana or it wont sleep at night." Running my hands up and down my thighs I begin to feel nervous. Why? We aren't planning on having a date, we're just planning on having lunch with each other. No strings attached. Just two new arrivals to London who need some company.
I wonder if she knows that I ramble when I'm nervous. She used to know a lot about me, but then again, that was when she used to have a crush on me. Now she didn't and she probably had forgotten all about me until she wandered upon me here. How had she even remembered my name…or how to pronounce it properly?
"Sounds interesting."
"The Farfe? Yeah. It's really interesting. I've never seen a weirder looking animal, when Luna showed me the picture I kept looking at it and wondering if it wasn't a joke. I mean, it looked like mixture of a monkey, an anteater, and a beaver. I---."
"Calm down Hermione," Cho whispered softly, soothingly, still not meeting my eyes, preferring to look down at her shoes once more. "You don't have to get nervous."
My heart flutters. She does realize that I am nervous! But how does she? Harry and Ron find it hard to know how I feel, yet she seems to know so much about me and how I behave.
"I know, it's silly of me, huh, being nervous with you."
"No its not, I'm nervous too." She looks me in the eyes. "But then again, I guess I have a better reason to be nervous than you do figuring that I came here, to Hogwarts, to look for you."
My heart skips a beat. "What?"
She looked away. "I haven't really been honest with you, Mione. I already knew all that you told me, that's why I accepted the job offer that would keep me closest to you. Luna's been my spy. I, I came here to ask you to give me a chance. I love you, I haven't been able to get over what I feel for you, and I know that if you give me a chance I--." She hung her head and let out a breath. "Who am I kidding?" Before I could react she'd pulled me to her and her lips descended on mine.
My body tensed in surprise, I didn't know what to do, this wasn't something that I had been expecting from passive Cho. Yet while I thought this I suddenly realized that my body, and my lips, were responding, as if on fire. I'd never felt these sensations before, this burning, these butterflies, this feeling of freedom. Those were all foreign feelings that only Cho Chang had been able to invoke in me.
When she pulled away I blushed in horror when I groaned in protest.
"I'm sick of being a coward and not taking what I want." Cho announced, fire in her eyes as she looked down at me. "If I hadn't been such a coward you would never have been with Pansy in the first place, and I don't plan on making the same mistake twice." Her fingers caressed my cheek, causing a dark blush to creep up my neck. "That's why, when you graduate from here and go to work with Luna, I want to be, and I will be, your official girlfriend."
I was dazed by this new Cho. "But what about your family—your friends---."
"They already know about me, and about what I feel for you Hermione." She whispered. "This time I don't want to take things slow and think things out. I just want to love you."
I didn't answer her. I just raised my lips to hers and silenced the conversation with a kiss that ended throughout eternity.
Cho and I did proclaim our relationship and eventually moved in together in a flat in London. I've never known that I could love and be loved by someone as much as Cho. She's the most beautiful person inside and out, and I thank Merlin every day with her, for giving us a second chance.
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