Choice
Cho Chang was pretty sure she was in love with Harry Potter.
Now, some of you might protest, Cho and Harry had broken up back in Harry’s fifth year! They had no chemistry! Cho spent the entire time she was dating Harry crying over her dead boyfriend Cedric! Harry had already started dating Ginny Weasley!
Cho knew what most people would say if she told them of her love. So she kept it to herself. But she was pretty sure that she really, actually, truly was in love with Harry Potter.
She had been so young and naive the first time she’d met Harry. As opposing Seekers they’d been natural rivals, though Harry obviously found her attractive. She was flattered, but would obviously never date a younger Gryffindor. Let other girls fawn over the “Boy Who Lived”; Cho had her eyes set on more earthly sights. Or should she say, more dreamy sights.
Cedric Diggory had started paying attention to her, and he finally asked her out to the Yule Ball. What followed was a whirlwind of dates, notes passed between classes, and kisses that delighted her soul.
Then Cedric died, and her world collapsed.
It was at this time that she finally, finally started noticing Harry Potter properly—Harry Potter the person, not the “Boy Who Lived” title that he wore like an ill-fitting glove.
Harry continued to like her. Anyone with eyes could see that he still had a crush on her, but rather than take advantage of Cedric’s death to “make a move,” he was a perfect gentleman. He gave her space when she needed space, mourned Cedric with her, taught her the Expelliarmus Charm with focused seriousness, and, finally, once her heart was mostly healed, invited her on a date to Hogsmeade.
She had fun on that date, even if it played out better in her imagination than in her reality.
And eventually, the DA ended in a fiasco from her friend Marietta’s mistake, Harry took Hermione’s side in the cruel punishment Hermione inflicted on Marietta, and their short-lived relationship ended in a flaming disaster.
But that was before the war.
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Cho was barely aware of Harry’s presence throughout her seventh year as she had bigger fish to fry. Marietta still hadn’t been able to get rid of the cursed pimples on her face, something that made her cry every month or so. Cho comforted her and wrote to this family friend or that expert trying to help Marietta find a cure. Cho’s parents were discussing moving abroad to escape the chaos of You-Know-Who’s return, which was a constant owl-related source of stress and anxiety. Finally, her job search ate up every spare minute she wasn’t devoting to her NEWT studies. In retrospect “Nastily Exhausting” was completely accurate to the reality, and she really should have paid more attention to her professors’ advice last year.
At some point a Ravenclaw friend informed her that Harry had broken up with that girl he’d been dating towards the end of the school year, and asked Cho if she was sure she didn’t want to give Harry another shot? She’d shrugged off that comment and gone back to poring over job descriptions from, where was her family thinking of moving now, Indonesia? Anyways, that. Maybe she’d be a passable Ancient Runes consultant for that one magical Indonesian enclave.
Then in August, the Ministry fell within a single day, and her parents finally decided to move to Indonesia after all.
“Pack your things, Cho. We leave within the hour.”
She’d stared at them, and remembered Harry’s bravery in starting Dumbledore’s Army during Dolores Umbridge’s reign. She remembered all her fellow Ravenclaws, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and, yes, even a select few Slytherins whom she’d be abandoning to—to—Lord Voldemort. Hadn’t both Professor Dumbledore and Harry always insisted upon calling him by his actual name? She wasn’t quite brave enough to do so out loud, but within her head, she could practice a small defiance.
“No.”
Her parents were baffled, but she was firm, and she saw them off to their international Portkey within the hour. Now, she was alone in the Chang house.
She got to work.
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In the year following her graduation, Cho sold all her family’s remaining assets and turned her home into a base for the Resistance against Lord Voldemort. Her parents’ escape made the perfect smokescreen for pretending she’d left the country as well. She secretly helped refugees escape and Muggles rebuild their homes. When Lee Jordan approached her with the idea for a radio show called Potterwatch, she volunteered her own home as the headquarters. Eventually, Neville Longbottom reached out to her via Aberforth Dumbledore’s secret portrait passage, and Cho began her Resistance activities within Hogwarts as well.
Throughout it all, she remembered Harry Potter, and whenever she felt alone, fearful, or indecisive, she asked herself, “What would Harry do?”
She hadn’t heard any news of him for nearly a year. But it felt like he was always by her side.
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On May 1st, Cho finally received news of Harry Potter. In fact, Cho helped Potterwatch put together the radio show detailing Harry’s super epic escape from Gringotts itself literally riding on the back of a dragon. Everyone else was shocked, but she smiled and said to herself, “That’s just like Harry.”
In that moment, she knew she’d fallen in love with Harry Potter. She decided she was going to tell him so the next time she was alone with him. It made her so happy she wanted to clap.