Cho awoke to the warmth of the sunlight stretching across her face in a luxurious embrace. She laid in her bed, eyes half lidded, slowly letting the ceiling above her creep back into familiarity. She had woken in this same spot, cocooned by the same silken blankets, for the last month and a half. This brought no comfort. She got up, unwarded the doors to her chambers which led straight to the courtyard, and opened them. It was summer and the sub-tropical air was getting heavy with the promise of evening moisture.

Every summer and winter since she began school at Hogwarts, Cho had stayed at her ancestral home in Guilim learning Chinese magic techniques from her grandfather to compliment those taught to her in England. Chinese magics were not audio as with European magics, but visual and consisted of tracing out characters representing the spell. Therefore it was extremely difficult to master all spells and such a task was only accomplished by the extremely educated. Her grandfather was one of the few who could do it. Despite this, this did not cause him to become elitist about his knowledge but encouraged all to receive his instruction. One winter, she even bought Cedr-.


Cedric.


She had bought Cedric, bubbling full of youthful prompt and decorum, to met her grandfather, who had greeted them both warmly during a winter break a little over one year ago. Cedric had over packed sweaters and wizard robes and sweated abysmally until he relented to wearing a native linen shirt. How handsome he looked chasing after her on his broom above the courtyard, his carefree grin and wind unkempt hair topping a set of lean muscles shying from the contours of his shirt. And how happy her grandfather was, to know that this good natured lad of wizard standing was to be her honorable match…


The courtyard was empty. Before his death, her grandfather drew densely layered wards on to the whole property, making her once open ancestral home unplotable and apparition-proof. Cho was here alone performing funeral rites that she thought that will never be her responsibility.

Cho does not know why the home was handed down to her. Buddhist tradition from India had seeped heavily into China, turning what was a once matriarchic society into the infamously misogynistic present one. By all means, the home and all its magical and historical treasures should be handed down to her father or her uncles.

Cho’s family is an old family, both in terms of Muggle and wizarding history, though its name, Chang, is unfamiliar to many in the British society. Her written linage rivaled that of the Malfoys, trekking back thousands of years. However, Chinese society never stigmatized magic as the Christian based societies. They simply saw magic as an enhanced form of enlightenment, or even as advanced martial arts. Magical schooling was informal and a magical bureaucracy, such as the one in Britain was non-existent. As a result, many Chinese wizards mixed and married freely with Muggles and even used their abilities to manipulate Muggle events. Indeed, many of her ancestors gifted with the ability of divination and arithmancy were revered as war strategists, the most famous being Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms era.

But the most famous wizarding contribution from her family was that made by Quong Po, who, during his long ninety six years life, studied the uses of the powdered eggs of the Chinese fireball dragons that dotted her home land. Her grandfather, until his death, had been following his footstep and continuing his research. He had been uncharacteristically secretive about his progress, even to Cho, without a doubt his favourite as the only grandchild with wizarding abilities. An unfortunate side effect of having liberal relationships with the Muggle society is that magic ability within a line dwindles and that it is difficult to identify those with the gift. In fact, both of Cho’s parents were near-squibs and owned a Chinese herbal store that catered to both the Muggle and magical public.

Her grandfather, however, is one of the most powerful wizard she had ever encountered. Jun Chang was of Dumbledore’s era and fought the Grindelwald Wars in the mid twentieth century on the Pacific Rim side against Grindelwald compatriot Tomo Iishi, who like his non magical brethren, wished for a pogrom for non-Japanese Muggles. It was her grandfather that threw the last curse at Iishi, nine months after Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald and the war on the Western front was declared over.

After the war, Jun retreated to a quiet life in the ancestral home in Guilim, researching local magical materials and occasionally admitting a few magically gifted youngsters too impoverished to travel to Europe for formal magical instruction. When Cho began displaying the gift at the age of four, her grandfather requested and received guardianship of her. One of Cho’s earliest memories was of her grandfather patiently guiding her hand through the steps of a character representing “peace”, a calming charm, difficult for the hands of a four year old. When Cho became old enough for formal instruction, he personally met Dumbledore and the two became fast friends, meeting on occasion to discuss various research projects.

He had been happy when Cho was sorted into Ravenclaw, happy when she became a chaser in her house Quiditch tea, happy when she brought home Cedric…


Then Cedric died.

Then grandfather died.


The wounds were fresh and compounded by the presence of the other. They both died because of the same ene….


After Cedric was gone, her grief was soothed by the honest compassion of her grandfather. Cedric was so warm, so golden, his arms pure sunlight. She longed for the sugary safety he lent her, and despite her grandfather’s persistent counseling, she spent the year after his death jumping for boy to boy, friend to friend looking for that unbridled joy again.


Then that night.

Holding his hands before the bed that was to become his deathbed, though she refused to believe it at the time.


As wizards, both had so many more years to live.


Cho felt tears on her cheeks. She always had cried so easily. Her pillows had been crusted with salt for the last year. She made a fool of herself in front of Harr..


She willed herself to stop.


Though the courtyard, her courtyard, was now empty of visitors, there was a relatively nearby farming village from which she could receive reliable, though delayed, wizarding news. Occasionally, she ventures into this village for supplies. For the villager’s safety, she does not linger there too long. Just two weeks ago she heard about the death of Charlie Weasley. She had known a younger Weasley, Ronald, Harry’s friend, and as far as she knows, a dragon tamer. She had not known Charlie personally.


Young men die much too early these days.


Most of the company she had during this summer was from the local nymphs that resided in the forest that surrounded her home. They were fox changelings; clever, beautiful, poisonous tricksters that in many Chinese fables had pulled wayward men to their doom. They were born out of the angry spirits of young women discarded or killed by their lovers and, like Dementors, feasted on the souls of men. Despite the reputation of their race, these changelings were loyal; this particular group was bonded to her family as protectors through a closely guarded family secret that even Cho did not know. Her grandfather was on exceptionally good terms with one of the nymphs, Mei, whom she had known since she could remember.

Cho simply looked at Mei and the nymphs as beautiful exotic friends. They all had smooth, ageless porcelain skin which they showed off carelessly, long silky raven hair decorated with perfumed flowers and elegant sea pearls and a svelte shapely body. One would had never thought that their nails and lips were full of poison or that your soul will be sucked out by their kisses.


When she was younger, before she developed delicate features that cleverly mimicked her nymph friends, she was envious of their beauty. Cho knew that she was attractive, though it was a bit of a surprise as her mother was quite plain. She knew of her admirers in Hogwarts. Cedric could have no doubt gone out with any girl in Hogwarts and Michael Corner was darkly striking. Even the elusive Harry Potter was impressed by her appearance.


Cho headed to a shallow, lily gilded spring hugging the back of the courtyard for her morning bath carrying flasks of generic shampoo and soap that she created from a simple recipe in a hygiene book at Hogwarts. Before that she relegated to using Muggle shampoo. The nymphs were already there, their bejeweled hair glistening in the shy sunlight and waved enthusiastically when they saw her. Cho removed her clothes and slipped in. It seemed so natural to be naked around the nymphs who danced about without a single thread on their bodies. Her beautiful bodyguards pampered themselves around her, laughing and splashing.


Mei swam up to her, smiling.


“Lovely morning, is it not, Sweetness?”

Cho smiled. Mei seemed to have an infinite amount of pet names for her. It was quite quaint. Mei never talked about death, especially those that she had caused. Cho had long ago stopped asking about the wicked men that Mei tempted with her lashes and thighs to their spiritless dooms.


“Good morning, Mei.”

“What shall it be today, Sweetness? Pearls braided into your hair? You’ll look ravishing with lotuses tuck behind your ears?”

“Ravishing for who?” Cho laughed. “There’s no one here to impress!”

“Impress yourself.”

“Well first I have to get unstinky!”


Cho smiled mischievously and pushed off the bottom of the spring, floating away from Mei. After she had cleaned herself fully, she allowed Mei to hum about her, braiding, plucking, and roughing her features into perfection.


“You look like one of us.” Mei said when she finished.

Cho smiled. This irrelevant indulgence was an escape. Death and England seemed to be an impossible dream. She continued wading in the spring, playing a lazy game of tag with the other nymphs.


Suddenly Mei’s lovely features harden.

“I sense a man.”

Cho looked at the other nymphs and saw that they had also sense the stranger. Their eyes toughened to hungry fox eyes ready for a meal. They gazed towards the moon-shaped entrance of the courtyard expectantly. Cho looks in the same direction but sees nothing out of order.


“But it’s not possible! Grandfather had made this place unplottable.”

“Hush. Keep your head down. This man had killed many. Their spirits cling to him.”


Cho decided not to protest and waded away. Cursing the nymph’s insistence, she pulled herself out of the water.





It was this moment that she saw Professor Severus Snape walk in through the circular archway and step into her home.