Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries

130) Harry Murders His Love Life, and Draco Nearly Murders A Person

I really shouldn't have been surprised to see Cho and Harry walk in — Cho adored this little place (probably for the same reason as Draco — concerning amounts of sweets). I didn't find too much appeal in the pink decorations, and I was more of a salty guy, but I had to admit they had some pretty great stuff.

Cedric had been the first to introduce me to this place — he'd bought me a box of cookies that had been special made blue. He'd also brought Cho here before, and the sight of her here made me wonder if she brought Harry because she liked the place or because she missed Cedric.

"Oh, Harry, isn't this place just darling?" Draco said in a bad imitation of Cho's voice, waving his hand dramatically.

"It looks like Umbridge was in charge of decor," I said with an awkward smile — I caught on pretty quickly. We'd be mimicking them, reading lips and motions and being doofuses.

"Oh, Harry, isn't that the best part?," Draco clapped his hands against his cheeks, and I couldn't help but smile at his dramatics.

We waited for them to say something, but neither opened their mouths. It made our little joke a lot less fun.

"I thought you said they had chemistry," Draco said.

"Emphasis on the had," I watched them carefully.

We watched them for a moment longer, then started watching Roger Davies and the back of some blonde girl's head. I couldn't make much out other than that they were making out.

"I thought," Cho said loudly, and we turned to see that she was near tears. "I thought you'd u-u-understand! I need to talk about it! Surely you n-need to talk about it t-too! I mean, you saw it happen, d-didn't you?"

Draco grabbed my hand from across the table, squeezing it lightly.

Harry whispered something, looking quite pale.

"Oh, you'll talk to Hermione Granger!" Cho's voice was high, tears now streaming down her cheeks. "But you won't talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just... just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to!"

"Ohhhh," I whispered, then turned to Draco. "Hermione asked me to meet her later, and I suppose she asked Harry, as well. She said you could come but, you're, you know, the enemy. She probably said Cho could come, too. I don't know. It's weird.

"Cho?" Harry said weakly, watching her dab at her face with a frilly pink napkin.

"Go on, leave!" She started crying into the napkin. "I don't know why you asked me out in the first place if you're going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me.... How many are you meeting after Hermione?"

"It's not like that!" Harry said, and immediately proceeded to do the wrong thing by laughing. I guess he must have been relieved, but really, who does that?

Cho leapt to her feet, "I'll see you around, Harry." She dramatically left, hiccuping as she dashed to the door and ran into the rain.

"Cho!" Harry called after her, but the door had already shut with a twinkle sound.

"That's a dam shame," I said, watching Harry frustratedly leave after placing a Galleon on the table.

"Eh, I don't think they were gonna turn out," Draco shrugged. "She's too... I don't mean to sound rude, but she's too high maintenance for Harry."

"You do sound rude, but I know what you mean," I nodded. "She's very, very into this specific idea of how a relationship should be and how things should work. She's like Harry in that regard. They both can't understand that maybe other people want different things."