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30 - Dark Corners

That night, Harry walked into the Great Hall and, in seeing who was there, nearly ran back out. The reporter that had written the article in Witch Weekly about him and harassed him in Hogsmeade was standing in the shadows near the Gryffindor table. Yet, when the reporter saw him, though she looked very excited, she made no move to come toward him.

Harry quickly looked at Cho, but the Ravenclaw didn't seem to have noticed the reporter and was chatting away with her friends in between sipping her drink. He cautiously took his seat at the Gryffindor table. He looked up to the headmaster questioningly, but Dumbledore gave him no indication of what was going on, aside from the amused twinkle in his eye.

He was about to ask if anyone knew why a teenage witch magazine reporter was at Hogwarts, just standing off in the shadows, but was interrupted by someone calling for attention at the Ravenclaw table.

Cho had climbed up onto the table and was clapping her hands at people, as if trying to catch a dog's attention.

"As you all obviously know, my name is Cho Chang. You may have seen my name in Witch Weekly a few weeks ago. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy getting there, but took a lot of smart thinking, with my gorgeous looks helping me a bit, to manage to get my name in print," she said proudly, ignoring the fact that everyone was staring at her as if she had grown two heads. "I figured that to become famous by myself would be a lot of work, so a brilliantly decided that it would be much easier to just date a celebrity. Lucky for me, we have one in our school, Harry Potter! I don't really like the bugger or anything, much too righteous and friends with absolute trash. But he's pretty good-looking and he had the hero and Quidditch star reputation, so I could deal with him. I am an excellent actress and figured I could just fool him into thinking I fancied him. Then we'd date and get me into the limelight."

Everybody's jaws, including Harry's, was hanging open at this point. Many people started whispering or giggling. Harry looked to the reporter. She looked as if she had just been announced as Minister of Magic as a magical quill jotted down everything Cho was saying.

"Unfortunately, Harry wasn't as eager to go along with my plan as I thought. I mean, he asked somebody else to the dance and wouldn't ditch her to go with me! And then at the dance, he got mad because I told them that the Weasley girl's family was poor. How was I supposed to know that he was that close with them? He was so snappy! I even tried kissing him out on the balcony, but he told me that he wouldn't go out with someone who was just trying to get into the Daily Prophet. He was supposed to fancy me! That was the last straw."

By now, the whole hall had figured out that Cho must be under the influence of some kind of potion or spell to be admitting to all this stuff. Students began looking around the hall trying to determine who had done it. Most gazes fell onto the twins, who looked as shocked at Cho's confession as everyone else.

"So I called up some reporters and told them I'd meet them in Hogsmeade. I told them I was Harry's girlfriend, saying he was too protective of me to announce our relationship himself. The press bought it. Then Harry showed up, which definitely wasn't part of the plan. He messed the whole thing up by denying it. Luckily I had spied on him in the Quidditch changing rooms one time and knew about this ugly scar on his stomach."

At this, everyone either gaped at Cho or began laughing. Many eyed Harry, whose eyes had gone wide. His face burned as people looked at him in shock. Cho had watched him change? He shuddered at the thought.

Cho's friends desperately tried to pull their friend down off the table, but she just kicked at them and told them to leave her alone. She shook her hair as she regained her composure and began again with her plastic smile on her face.

"Then, I thought of the brilliant idea of taking pictures of Harry and I snogging. The problem was that he had made it quite clear that he didn't want to. I followed him for a few days until I finally caught him alone. I caught him off guard and put the Confundus Curse on him and led him to the girl's lavatory. Maria took pictures while I snogged Harry. He wasn't being a good sport about it either and kept murmuring for me to get off of him. He didn't know what he was talking about anyway; he didn't even know where he was. Then, stupid Granger caught us and was so rude. She ruined all our film and put us in body binds and performed the counter curse on Harry. I'm still thinking of a way to get her back. I still think my last plan with the pictures was good for Harry, but next time I'll make sure to have someone keep guard and Obliviate his memory afterwards."