𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 84

CHAPTER EIGHTY FOUR
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH SPELLS 
BOUNCE OFF THE WALLS

. . .

In that same breath, Aviana turned to the bewildered Neville. "Excuse me," she began, her focus still entirely on the conversation a little across the room, "but I think it'll be easier to understand from someone whose actually been in some kind of battle."

And she stalked her way to where Harry and Cho were stood, Marietta brushing ash from her singed sleeve.

"It was lousy." Cho was saying. "But I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over here." She laughed, and that laughter seemed to diminish into silence when her eyes landed upon the girl who appeared besides Harry.

The Potter hardly even looked surprised as Aviana rested her hands upon his shoulder, chin on her hands. He smiled, despite himself, and Cho glanced nervously over at Marietta, who continued to watch on sourly.

"Your apparent expertise is required." Aviana told him. 

"Neville isn't hopeless, if that's what you're implying." 

"Absolutely not." She replied, somehow almost offended, as though the idea of it was completely against her prior nature. "He's not hopeless at all... except he doesn't seem to understand how to hold a wand... nevertheless, I've never fought the Dark Lord, and you have, Potter."

Cho cleared her throat. "Shouldn't you call... him by his name?" She asked, the implications clear. 

"If you can't call him by his actual name, then I don't see why old habits cannot die hard." Aviana replied, rolling her eyes.  "My point stands, Harry, Neville needs to learn from someone who has been in the presence of Death-"

"Your father is a Death Eater." Cho said, voice hard. 

Aviana let out a sigh. "If you let me finish my sentence, Chang, then you'll find that my inability to help Neville at this moment is purely based upon the fact that I have never stood before a Death Eater who is fighting to kill me." She said plainly. "You'd do well to wait your turn. If it ever comes."

Harry was staring at her again, as though something was clicking in his brain. Somewhere behind them, where the Gryffindors were practising, Ron let out a noise something akin to disbelief, that quickly turned to shock as Hermione delivered a well-crafted spell. "Alright... I..." His mouth seemed dry all of a sudden, "I'll finish my rounds and I'll come over." He bit back a smile.

"Don't mind Marietta." Cho said, before Aviana had even had a chance to turn away. The Slytherin remained firmly in place. She doesn't really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge, you see - her mum works for the Ministry." 

Aviana scoffed. Harry nudged her. "What about your parents?" He inquired, all-too politely. There was a noticeable lack of true interests.

"Well, they've forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge too," said Cho, drawing herself up proudly. "But if they think I'm not going to fight You-Know-Who after what happened to Cedric-" She broke off all of a sudden, as if realising herself, and her eyes flickered over to Aviana, whose eyebrows jolted upwards for a fraction of a second, before her expression returned to that somewhat sereneness that was often employed to deal with Umbridge. 

An awkward silence hung, interrupted quickly as Terry Boot's wand went whizzing through the thin gap between where Aviana and Harry's heads were, hitting Alicia Spinnet hard on the nose.  

"Well, my father is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!" said Luna Lovegood proudly from just behind Harry; evidently she had been eavesdropping on his conversation while Justin Finch-Fletchley attempted to disentangle himself from the robes that had flown up over his head. The blonde was looking at Aviana with a particularly apt interest, and the girl shifted uncomfortable under the gaze of those pale eyes, almost as though she was being read like a book.

"Yes, he's been denying the claims in the Daily Prophet all year." Aviana cleared her throat, regaining that ease. "In his newspaper. The Quibbler." 

"How do you..." Harry looked slightly dumbstruck for a moment.

"Never mind." Aviana wove him away.  "Go on, Lovegood." There was a tiny smirk growing on her lips, unable to wait to see what would come up next.

"He's always saying he'd believe anything of Fudge, I mean, the number of goblins Fudge has had assassinated! And of course he uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons, which he feeds secretly to anybody who disagrees with him. And then there's his Umgubular Slashkilter-"

"That's not what the Department of Mysteries is for." Aviana replied. "And I will not elaborate." She hastened to add, at the sudden interest Harry showed.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione called from the other end of the room, interrupting as though she was somewhat aware of what the conversation was verging into. Of course, she had no idea; if she had, the Umgubular Slashkilter would have already been rendered an imaginary creature. "Have you checked the time?" 

He looked down at his watch and received a shock - it was already ten past nine, which meant they needed to get back to their common rooms immediately or risk being caught and punished by Filch for being out-of-bounds. He blew his whistle; everybody stopped shouting, spells at one another, and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor. 

"Well, that was pretty good," Harry said, as Aviana's touch slowly slipped from his shoulder, all too aware of the interested gazes appearing upon them, "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?" 

"Sooner!" Dean called out and many people nodded in agreement. 

Angelina, however, said quickly, "The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!" "Let's say next Wednesday night, then," said Harry, "and we can decide on additional meetings then.... Come on, we'd better get going..."

People began to make their way out of the room, Ron and Hermione following behind them, turning back to look at Harry expectantly. 

"I'll be back soon." He said, and turned to where Aviana was picking up her bag. "A word?" He asked, and she nodded absentmindedly her agreement.

✧

a/n
i want to emphasise that i am making cho's character particularly one dimensional here, she is simply a plot tool despite the fact that i can sit here and rant about how she's a completely misunderstood character who was clearly channelling her emotions in a misguided place. i absolutely love cho as a character and in a lot of my books (particularly my cedric ones) she is unfortunately just an easy character to use as an opponent to the main character