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“Cho?” Susan says, poking her head into the break room and laughing when she sees Cho trying to pour an entire cup of coffee into her mouth at once. “That’s a bad idea.”
“And how would you know?” Cho says, pulling the cup away from her face in time to keep it from spilling everywhere. She makes a face. “I think I burned my mouth.”
“And that would be why,” Susan says. “Come on, you think I’ve never tried that before?”
“We’re witches,” Cho gripes. “Why haven’t we figured out how to magically transport it into our bloodstreams yet?”
“Because we’re too tired,” Susan says, laughing. “You’ve got a patient, by the way. Potions accident. Here’s her chart.”
“Fuck,” Cho says.
“By which you mean, ‘yay, thank you, Susan, I’m so glad I’m a doctor’?” Susan says, grinning as she forces the chart on Cho.
“That’s the one,” Cho says, taking it. “Thanks, Susan.”
Susan shrugs. “Hey, I was going to meet up with Hannah later and go out and have some fun. You want to come?”
Cho bites her lip. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, looking down. “I’m really tired.”
“Sure,” Susan says easily enough. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know, okay?”
“Yeah,” Cho says. “Okay.”
--
“So, I hear you’ve had a bit of a potions accident,” Cho says, walking into the room as she pages through her papers quickly, not really looking up.
“Cho?” the girl in the bed says, and Cho jerks her head up, stares at her, and mentally subtracts some of the discoloration.
“…Hermione Granger?” she says at last. “Wow, uh, hi.” That’ll teach her to skip the names and other bits of basic, non-medical information. “How have you been?” she tries.
Hermione makes a face. “Well,” she says, “I seem to be in the hospital, but, you know, other than that.”
“Oh, uh, right,” Cho says, laughing awkwardly. “How’s…everyone else?” My ex-boyfriend, how’s he, she thinks ruefully, though she isn’t sure that Harry really counts as an ex-boyfriend, considering they barely went out.
“Good, they’re good,” Hermione says. “Uh, Harry and Ron are Aurors now, so that’s…good.”
“Right, very cool,” Cho says. She’s pretty sure she read that in the paper, actually, but it would sound weird to say that, so she doesn’t.
“Yeah,” Hermione says. There’s a short, painfully awkward pause, and then she adds, “How’s, uh…”
She visibly struggles to think of someone that Cho had been friends with at school who didn’t turn them all in to Umbridge during sixth year or die during fifth. Cho can see the exact moment she comes up completely short and takes pity on her, saying, “My friends are all great, thanks.”
“Right,” Hermione says, looking incredibly uncomfortable and also desperately relieved. “That’s…that’s great, I’m so pleased to hear it.”
“It’s all right,” Cho says. “You don’t have to pretend you remember who I was friends with.”
Hermione, if anything, looks more miserable, and Cho feels a bit bad. “I’m sorry,” Hermione says. “I really am.”
Cho shakes her head and says, “No, honestly. You were a year below me and in a different house, and it’s not like my friends ever ended up in the papers. You don’t have to pretend we know each other that well just because I dated one of your friends for two seconds while we were under the reign of an evil tyrant.”
Hermione frowns. “Well, Voldemort hadn’t really—”
“I was talking about Umbridge,” Cho says.
“Right,” Hermione says, blinking. “Right,” she says again and laughs in a kind of surprised way, just before she winces. “Wait, no, that hurt.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cho says, looking down, because for a second there she’d actually forgotten why they were there. “So, potions accident?”
“Yeah,” Hermione says. “It’s a really funny story, and by ‘funny,’ I mean incredibly embarrassing.”
“My favorite kind,” Cho says, giving her a small smile. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
--
“How’s my favorite patient?” Cho says, walking into the room.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Hermione says, rolling her eyes, and yeah, okay, Cho kind of does. Not just the girls, of course. Everyone. It’s something she’s kind of picked up from Susan’s relentless, weaponized cheerfulness. Patients quail when she turns her smile on them. Cho can just about manage to pick a little goodwill.
It’s worrying her, though, that the ‘favorite patient’ thing is starting to be not so much of a joke. Hermione asks intelligent questions, doesn’t waste time, and is…surprisingly nice to talk to. Not that that matters much in a patient, of course. It’s just…nice, is all.
“That would make me a liar,” she says, instead of any of that. “Of course I only say it to you, favorite patient.” She tries to smile like Susan, but she doesn’t think it quite works out properly, since it never does in the mirror. She gives up after a second. “How are you feeling?”
“Bored,” Hermione says, sighing. She grimaces. “Sorry, you meant medically. Much better. I think the new detox stuff is working well.”
“Yeah, it’s better, I think,” Cho says, hedging. “I’m still not sure we’ve hit on exactly the right formula yet.”
Hermione groans and throws her head back against the pillows. “Okay,” she says after a second, closing her eyes and opening them again. “Thanks for working so hard, I know medical magic is really tough.”
“Why are you so nice about it?” Cho says, the words just slipping out of her mouth without permission from her brain. “Shit, sorry. It’s not like I mind, obviously. It’s just that most people are yelling and throwing things by now. Or if they’re not, their family is. It’s been a week.”
“Well, medical magic is really tough,” Hermione says after a second. “I’ve read a few books on it in my spare time, just for fun, you know, and it’s pretty intense. I don’t know that I could have gotten through the medical university.”
“Please,” Cho says, trying to keep from smiling, “you would have been the top of your class all over again if it killed you.”
Hermione opens her mouth, closes it again, and then says, “You know my old grades?”
Cho looks down at the chart in her hands. “Yeah, well, half the school started noticing when a Gryffindor ended up in the top spot.”
“Oh, come on,” Hermione says, scoffing. “It can’t always be a Ravenclaw.”
“It’s not,” Cho says, frowning at her. “It’s actually a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin a pretty reasonably amount of the time. It’s just never a Gryffindor. No offense, but they don’t usually have the, uh, the forward thinking to get the homework done on time and well.”
Hermione looks like she wants to say something, but then she sighs. “No, you know what, that’s basically true. Or it was for Harry and Ron, anyway.”
“Yeah, they’ve been weirdly polite too,” Cho says, frowning. They’re around often enough in the evenings—Ginny Weasley too, though that depends more on Quidditch schedules—but she’d kind of figured Ron Weasley would be the “why aren’t you doing more to help my girlfriend” kind of guy, but he…hasn’t been.
“I asked them not to give you any trouble,” Hermione says, shrugging a little. “Harry helped me out, of course. He’s spent enough time in hospitals to have developed a healthy respect for doctors. Besides, he’s…” She trails off, and then visibly changes direction. “He’s a nice guy,” she says firmly.
“I know,” Cho says, because whatever problems their…relationship had had, it hadn’t really ever been about Harry in the end, she thinks. She considers that pause for second, and then says, “Please tell me that you weren’t about to say that he still feels bad about our trainwreck relationship. That was, like, ten years ago.”
“Harry has this guilt thing,” Hermione says somewhat helplessly. “And besides, he just…” She stops herself and bites her lip.
“He just?” Cho prompts.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Hermione says in a rush, “but he and Ginny just got engaged.”
“It took them this long?” Cho says, blinking. “They’ve been together forever.” Then she backtracks and says, “Wait, he doesn’t think I’m still hung up on him, does he? It’s been ten years. Are you still hung up on your second boyfriend?”
Hermione’s face does something complicated. “I’m still…dating my second boyfriend, so, uh. I might not be the best person to ask.”
“Oh,” says Cho. “Right.” After a pause, she says again, “But does he really think I still have feelings for him? That’s…kind of self-absorbed, actually.”
“It’s kind of Witch Weekly’s fault,” Hermione says. She rolls her eyes. “When is it ever not, right? But a month ago they ran this article about the ‘Golden Trio’ and their exes and how they felt about ‘letting someone like that get away from them.’ And—besides the fact that they still think I dated Harry once and they added in a bunch of other fake exes, since none of us ever actually dated that much—it was shockingly well-researched. And they had this whole bit on you and how after your ‘streak of perfect boyfriends’—their words, not mine—you hadn’t actually, uh, dated anyone else. And Ron was being horrible and making fun of it and said Harry’d probably ruined you for other men, and then Harry started to worry about it being true, because he’s really dumb. I’m sorry.”
Cho tries to look at anything except Hermione, because she doesn’t blush easily, but she can feel her cheeks heating up, and she wants to die. “Who the hell is telling Witch Weekly about my dating life?” she finally manages to choke out.
“I don’t know,” Hermione says, sounding miserable. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not still hung up on Harry,” Cho says, because that seems important. “And he didn’t ruin me for anyone.”
“I know!” Hermione says quickly. “I never thought any of it was true. Witch Weekly is a horrid, slanderous rag. And so is Ron.”
“Right,” Cho says, nodding stupidly. Of course people think Harry is the reason she doesn’t date. She never should’ve tried to go out with him in the first place, but she’d thought— It had seemed like a good idea at the time. “So,” she says in an obvious attempt to change the subject, “you’ve been bored?”
“Yeah,” Hermione says, seizing on it. “So bored, incredibly bored, bored out of my skull, you have no idea. If I could get out of bed, I’d be bouncing off the walls. I’m so—” She sighs. “Sorry. You don’t want to listen to me whinge.”
“No,” Cho says with feeling. “I absolutely do. Please. Whinge.”
Hermione groans and says, “Well, you asked for it, then, because I really need to say this to someone,” and starts telling her about the myriad things she’s been trying to do to keep her mind occupied, bitching about how she understands that Harry and Ron have very important jobs, but she never has anyone to talk to, complaining about how her fine motor control isn’t good enough yet to turn book pages, and telling her a story she made up about the cracks in the ceiling. She rants until she’s gasping for breath, and then says, “And obviously, you know, I don’t actually mean most of that.”
“I know,” Cho says, because patients say a lot of stuff they don’t mean when they’re tired of languishing in a hospital room. “And, obviously, you know, the only reason I don’t date much is because I’m too busy. Long shifts, medical school was really time consuming. You know.” It’s the same thing she tells her parents and grandparents when they ask, and she deliberately doesn’t let herself think about Susan’s endless string of horrible boyfriends.
“Of course,” Hermione says. “I figured.”
--
The next day, Cho comes into Hermione’s room and says, “Okay, this is a CD player enchanted to work around magic—very black-market, don’t show it to your Auror boyfriend—and um, Rosetta Stone for Danish, which was all I had that wasn’t just music. And I thought maybe I could eat here during my lunch break, and we could just talk about—whatever.”
Hermione gapes at her. “Oh,” she says, like Cho’s just found a theory to connect electromagnetism and special relativity or something. “Oh my god.”
Cho fiddles with her ponytail, suddenly feeling like maybe it was too much. “You said you were bored?”
“I love you,” Hermione says, and Cho can feel herself start to blush again, which—this doesn’t happen so much normally.
“Okay, yes, well, I’m glad you like it,” she says and flees.
When she sheepishly comes back in during her lunch break, Hermione beams up at her and says, “Hej!” And then, painstakingly, “Jeg er glad for at se dig.”
Cho tries to bite back a smile that she thinks might end up too wide. “Yeah, you too,” she says.
“Why Danish, by the way?” Hemione asks.
Cho pauses in unwrapping her sandwich. “You know, I have no idea,” she says. “It was just kind of a whim. I like languages.”
“Well,” Hermione says. “I’m really, really glad you do.”
--
“So, I have a surprise for you,” Cho says, walking into Hermione’s room and trying not to smile too much.
“Hvad er det?” Hermione says, and then she lights up. “Bøger?” Ever since she’d started being able to use her fingers and hands properly again, she’s been begging Cho for books practically every time they see each other.
“No,” Cho says, giggling. “How would that be a surprise? I bring you new ones basically every day. No, Hermione, you’re all better! You can go home tomorrow!”
Hermione gapes at her and then smiles so wide Cho thinks she might injure herself all over again. “Oh, wow, I could kiss you,” she says.
Cho studiously ignores the symptoms that tell her she might be having a minor heart attack and says, “Yeah, it’s pretty great, huh?”
“I’m going to be out of here tomorrow!” Hermione says, and Cho suddenly remembers the reasons why it’s not such great news for everyone.
“Yeah,” she says, keeping her smile fixed. “You’ll be out of the hospital. It’ll be wonderful.” And we’ll probably never see each other again, she mentally fills in. It’s not like they ever did before Hermione’s accident, after all.
“Yeah,” Hermione says. “Hey, do you want to hang out with me the night after tomorrow? Go to a bar, maybe?”
Cho stares at her. “What?”
“Well, I figure Ron will either be hovering or making fun of me for what happened, since that’s what he’s been doing all month,” Hermione says. “So I could use an excuse to get out of the apartment for a little bit.”
“Oh,” Cho says breathily. And then she mentally slaps herself, because she sounds like a dork, and okay, so she’s made a new friend, it’s not like it’s a big deal. “Yeah, okay, that sounds like fun,” she says, glad when her voice sounds more normal.
“Great,” Hermione says, grinning. “After all, I can’t lose my Danish partner. I’d hate to get out of practice.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s not like anyone else I know is going to bother learning it.”
--
“We should do this more,” Hermione says muzzily two nights later, when they’re both several shots in and kind of leaning against each other at the bar. “Not, like, necessarily with the alcohol, just, you know, us. Hanging out. You know, us. You’re so awesome.”
“Not as awesome as you,” Cho says, turning her face into Hermione’s neck and breathing deep. Which isn’t weird at all, because they’re friends now. “I like you so much. This is going to be great.”
And it kind of is.
--
“You seem happier lately,” Susan says at the hospital.
“Huh?” Cho says and suddenly realizes she’s humming. “Yeah, uh, I guess I am.” She smiles and looks down. “You know. Just…having a good week.”
Susan laughs. “Must be. Hey, can I capitalize on that by convincing you to come out with me and Hannah tonight?” Cho hesitates, and Susan, clearly sensing weakness adds, “It’ll be so much fun. We’ll get a little tipsy, dance, sing along too loudly to ridiculous club remixes—the whole thing.”
Cho bites her lip. She should probably say no, but instead she says, “I don’t have to pick up guys with you, do I?” She laughs awkwardly, running a hand through her hair. “Because I just don’t have the time for your kind of crazy dating life, I don’t know how you manage it.”
Susan looks at her for a beat too long, and then she says, a little too seriously, “Cho, you don’t have to pick up anyone you don’t want to.”
--
Hermione hangs out at Cho’s apartment a lot, once Cho basically issues an open invitation to invade whenever.
(“Sometimes our place just gets too small for two people, you know?” Hermione says, sighing in irritation. “Anywhere we go we’re just stepping on each other’s toes.”
Cho doesn’t quite get it, really, because her apartment never feels small at all when Hermione’s there, but she nods and commiserates anyway.
“Besides,” Hermione says, “you live in Muggle London, which means you actually have things like working television and internet. I missed this stuff so much.”)
Cho’s phone rings half an hour into a “bitch about our jobs and drink cheap wine” session, and she grimaces after she checks the caller ID. “It’s my mom, sorry,” she says, and Hermione nods.
“Yeah, no problem,” she says.
“Annyeong-haseyo,” Cho says, answering.
“Cho,” her mother says, because unlike half her father’s family, her mother actually respects her decision to go by her middle name. “Have you heard from your brother recently?”
“No,” Cho says with a sigh and decides not to ask what he’s done now. “Eomma, this isn’t a great time. I have company.”
Her mother pauses. “A boy?” she says hopefully, and Cho sighs again.
“No, just a friend,” she says. “We went to school together,” she adds, which is technically true, even if it in no way really has anything to do with their relationship now.
“Well, all right,” her mother says. “I don’t want you to be rude. Call me later.”
“Yes, Eomma,” Cho says, sighing, and hangs up.
Hermione is looking at her and frowning. “That—what you said, at the beginning of the conversation—that wasn’t Chinese.”
It’s Cho’s turn to frown. “No, it was Korean. My mom likes it if I use a little, even if we mostly speak English to each other.”
“I… No, sorry, it’s just that I thought you were Chinese,” Hermione says sheepishly.
Cho makes a face. “I am. My dad’s Chinese, my mom’s Korean.” It’s not complicated, she wants to say, except she knows it kind of is, especially for a lot of members of her own family. “Where did you think I got ‘Cho’ from? You didn’t think that was, like, some kind of Chinese name, did you…? You totally did.” She bites her lip on the “God, white people,” that wants to slip out of her mouth and takes a deep breath.
“Um,” Hermione says, looking horribly awkward. “It’s…Korean?”
“It’s a Korean last name,” Cho says, trying not to snap. “It’s my mother’s maiden name and my middle name. It’s not any kind of first name.”
“Right,” says Hermione. “God, sorry, I feel like such a moron.” She bites her lip. “So, why do you use that instead of your first name?”
“Well,” Cho says, “my first name’s Ermintrude, so.”
“Right,” Hermione says again. “Well, that explains that, then.”
Cho laughs, looking down. “Yeah.”
There’s a brief pause, and then Hermione says, “I really am sorry. I was being a stupid white girl, wasn’t I?”
Cho looks up at her and can’t help smiling. “Yeah, kind of. But it’s okay, most people are.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Hermione says firmly. “But I will be. Better, that is. I’ll be better. About not being a stupid white girl.”
Cho… Cho wants to kiss her—no. No, she wants to hug her, so she does, hugs her hard and doesn’t think at all about her first instinct. “That’s really sweet,” she says.
“It’s just basic manners,” Hermione mutters, but she hugs back just as hard. When they pull apart, she says, “So, why Ermintrude?”
“My dad’s mom is a bitch,” Cho mutters, and Hermione laughs. “She was really pissed that her favorite son was marrying a Korean girl, so as a peace offering, my parents let her name their first kid. She picked Ermintrude. I’m still not sure why.”
“Why was she upset that her son was marrying a Korean?” Hermione says, and Cho tries not to hit something.
“Okay, so, shockingly, all the people from East Asia are not the same, and also, most of them hate all the other countries,” she says. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Hermione says quickly. “Yeah, absolutely. Is it okay if I ask why, or should I just google it?”
Cho sighs. “Bad history, racism, stupid shit—take your pick. Google it if you want more, okay?”
“Okay,” Hermione agrees.
There’s a horribly, awkward pause, and Cho looks away. “Sorry if I’m being a bitch.”
“What?” Hermione says, moving closer on the couch. “No. No. I’m being a stupid white girl, remember? You’re being… You’re being perfect.” She puts a hand on Cho’s leg and smiles weakly. “You’re being so much nicer than you have any reason to be.”
For some inexplicable reason, Cho feels like her brain is having a harder time making connections than it normally does and also like her leg might be on fire. “Okay,” she says, because that’s usually a good response. “So, uh, you were saying? About Ministry bureaucracy?”
“Right,” Hermione says. “So, yeah, you’re never going to guess the hoops I had to jump through today…”
Later, when she’s getting ready to go, she says absently, “God, I hope Ron’s already gone to bed, otherwise we’re probably just going to end up arguing again.”
Cho presses her lips together, considering keeping her mouth shut, but after a moment, she says carefully, “Are you two…okay? I mean, are you having problems?”
“We’ve been together since we were kids,” Hermione says instantly, but then she sighs. “I guess that doesn’t really mean much of anything, huh?”
“It definitely means something,” Cho says hesitantly, because she knows it probably isn’t her business. “To the two of you, at the very least. And that’s definitely…important.”
“Yeah,” Hermione says, looking at her. “I guess I just…” She trails off, staring at Cho like she might hold the answers somehow. “I should go,” she says after a long moment, and turns away again.
--
Two weeks later, Hermione knocks on Cho’s door at one in the morning, looks up at her with red eyes, says, “So Ron and I broke up,” and starts crying.
Cho hugs her wordlessly and pulls her inside.
--
Hermione won’t say much about why she and Ron finally broke things off, but Cho’s been through enough of Susan’s breakups—Susan seems to attract nothing but wankers—to know that the important part is just saying, “That’s such shit,” every time she does say something about their split. The other important part is making sure the couch is as comfortable as it possibly can be and that there’s plenty of unhealthy food groups around.
“Sorry to, you know, completely invade your apartment,” Hermione says the third day after she basically moves in. “I’d try to leave you alone more so you don’t get too sick of me, but I think you’re probably my only friend who isn’t also friends with Ron.”
“It’s fine,” Cho says, which she’d probably say either way, but it actually is. “I like having you around.”
Hermione smiles weakly. “Even though I cry a lot?”
“Sure,” Cho says and sits next to her on the couch. “Of course.”
“Okay,” Hermione mutters and leans over to put her head on Cho’s shoulder. Cho takes several deep breaths and then wraps her arms around Hermione, rubbing her arm awkwardly.
--
The thing is, Hermione kind of doesn’t move out. Cho doesn’t mention it, because she doesn’t actually want her to, but Hermione just goes on sleeping on the couch and making coffee in the morning and burning dinner. Neither of them says anything about it, they just go on sitting on the couch together, so close that their elbows brush when they’re eating and drinking and talking, and Cho can’t seem to stop thinking about kissing Hermione.
Not that that means anything.
--
(Here’s the thing: she’d never really wanted to kiss Cedric or Harry. The Triwizard Champion and the Chosen One, and she’d only ever felt bored when they’d touched her. She still feels horrible about that, rotten inside, whenever she remembers how much Cedric had loved her, the look on his face when he’d pulled her out of the water during the second task. Then she has to remember how he’d looked, lying dead in the middle of the arena, his father sobbing over him, and she remembers how gently he’d touched her while he was alive, how he’d clung to her the night before the third task, how he’d jokingly said, “You’ll still love me if I don’t win, right?”
She’d said yes, of course.
So she did love him, she must’ve loved him, it doesn’t matter that she hadn’t wanted to kiss him, hadn’t liked fucking him, doesn’t matter that she’d kissed Harry Potter the next year because she’d thought, him, then, it must be him, what kind of girl doesn’t want the Boy Who Lived, doesn’t matter that she’d liked spending time with him but felt disappointed every time he turned her face up to his, it doesn’t matter, because she’d loved Cedric. She must’ve.
What kind of girl is she if she couldn’t love Cedric Diggory, if she sent him to his death with a lie?)
--
She wants to kiss Hermione, though, in the way she’d never really wanted to kiss Cedric or
Harry, and she knows it, even if she doesn’t want to acknowledge it. There’ve been…girls, before, who she’d thought about sometimes, but it was never anything she couldn’t crush in her mind the moment it surfaced. Not like this. There’s never been anyone like this.
“Cho?” Susan says tentatively when they’re getting ready to go off shift. “Are you okay?”
Cho realizes abruptly that she’s been staring at the same section of counter in front of the coffee machine for—minutes, at least. She isn’t sure. “Yes, I,” she says, and then she makes a sobbing noise and slaps a hand over her mouth. “I’m gay,” she whispers through it. “Oh, god, I’m gay, I am, I’m so sorry.”
“Okay,” Susan says, sounding alarmed. “Okay, Cho, it’s okay, that’s okay,” she says, runs over and pulls Cho close when she starts to cry.
“I’m gay, and I never loved Cedric,” she whispers. “He thought I did, but I lied to him, and he died, and I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t love him, I should’ve, he deserved it, I wanted to, but I didn’t, I just didn’t.”
“That’s okay,” Susan says. “That’s okay, Cho, you were fifteen, no one’s going to blame you because you weren’t really in love with your boyfriend.”
“But he loved me,” Cho says desperately. “He loved me, but I didn’t love him back, and I was lying to him, and then he died.”
“Yeah, but,” Susan says, and then she stops and her arms briefly tighten around Cho. “But Cedric would’ve understood that. Come on, Cho, it was Cedric. Do you really think he’d hold that against you?”
Cho sniffs, rubbing at her eyes. “Well,” she says, “maybe not.”
“Definitely not,” Susan says firmly. “Cho, you’re not obligated to love anyone, not even if you like them as a person, not even if they love you, and not even if they die.”
Cho nods, not really listening, but—Cedric would have forgiven her, she thinks. Susan’s right. Cedric would have told her it was okay and they could still be friends. She was supposed to love Cedric, but she didn’t, and that’s—he would’ve been okay with it.
“I think I’m in love with Hermione,” she says at last.
Susan makes a face. “Well, yeah.” Then she looks horrified with herself. “Wait, that’s not—that’s not what I meant to say.”
“Is it obvious?” Cho asks.
Susan grins a little. “It’s so obvious.”
“Do you think she knows?” Cho says, horrified at the thought.
“I have no idea,” Susan admits. “But I think you should probably tell her.”
--
Cho doesn’t tell her.
Susan’s probably right that she should, but she can’t bring herself to, not when it could ruin everything and make Hermione go away. Hermione might hate her if she finds out, she might think Cho is disgusting, she might feel uncomfortable about still being friends.
(“Or,” Susan says, “she might say that she feels the same way and jump you.”
“She was with Ron Weasley for a long time,” Cho says. “You don’t stay with someone that long unless you actually like them.”
“You know there are people who like men and women, right?” Susan says.)
She likes being friends with Hermione, regardless of anything else, and she feels like it would be selfish to try and change a relationship that’s working the way it is.
--
“So I tried to make dinner again,” Hermione says when Cho walks into the apartment after work one day. “Which went about as well as it ever does.”
Cho waves a hand at her as she takes off her shoes, because when she gets off a shift at St. Mungo’s, the last thing she cares about is how things taste, and Hermione knows it. Just the fact that food is ready to eat in her apartment is practically a miracle. “I’ll eat it anyway, it’s okay.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Hermione says. “So I picked out most of the burned bits and added a lot of hot sauce, so now it mostly tastes like ‘bloody hell, my mouth is burning.’ Which could be an improvement, depending on how you look at it, but I know you like things stupidly spicy, so I thought you’d look at in in the improvement way.”
“You don’t like spicy food,” Cho says, going over to look at it. It looks completely horrible, like most of Hermione’s culinary efforts do, but when she tastes it quickly, she finds that it really does just taste like hot sauce at this point.
“So we’re looking at it in different ways, I guess,” Hermione says, laughing and going over to pull out some bowls, and there’s no reason that should break Cho, but apparently it does, because her mouth opens without any permission from her brain, and she just starts talking.
“I’m gay,” she says, and Hermione whirls around to look at her, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open in shock. “And also in love with you,” she adds, because apparently she can’t stop herself.
And there’s a long, sick, horrible silence, where Hermione gapes and Cho wants to die, and then Hermione says, “Oh, thank god,” and throws herself across the kitchen.