Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

just reach out and grab it. Amazing, how much more difficult it was to extend his arm twelve inches and touch her hand than it was to snatch a speeding Snitch from midair …
    But just as he moved his hand forwards, Cho took hers off the table. She was now watching Roger Davies kissing his girlfriend with a mildly interested expression.
    ‘He asked me out, you know,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though.’
    Harry, who had grabbed the sugar bowl to excuse his sudden lunging movement across the table, could not think why she was telling him this. If she wished she were sitting at the next table being heartily kissed by Roger Davies, why had she agreed to come out with him?
    He said nothing. Their cherub threw another handful of confetti over them; some of it landed in the last cold dregs of coffee Harry had been about to drink.
    ‘I came in here with Cedric last year,’ said Cho.
    In the second or so it took for him to take in what she had said, Harry’s insides had become glacial. He could not believe she wanted to talk about Cedric now, while kissing couples surrounded them and a cherub floated over their heads.
    Cho’s voice was rather higher when she spoke again.
    ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages … did Cedric – did he – m – m – mention me at all before he died?’ This was the very last subject on earth Harry wanted to discuss, and least of all with Cho.
    ‘Well – no –’ he said quietly. ‘There – there wasn’t time for him to say anything. Erm … so … d’you … d’you get to see a lot of Quidditch in the holidays? You support the Tornados, right?’
    His voice sounded falsely bright and cheery. To his horror, he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears again, just as they had been after the last DA meeting before Christmas.
    ‘Look,’ he said desperately, leaning in so that nobody else could overhear, ‘let’s not talk about Cedric right now … let’s talk about something else …’
    But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.
    ‘I thought,’ she said, tears spattering down on to the table, ‘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?’
    Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Roger Davies’s girlfriend had even unglued herself to look round at Cho crying.
    ‘Well – I have talked about it,’ Harry said in a whisper, ‘to Ron and Hermione, but –’
    ‘Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger!’ she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears. Several more kissing couples broke apart to stare. ‘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!’
    Harry stared at her, utterly bewildered, as she seized a frilly napkin and dabbed at her shining face with it.
    ‘Cho?’ he said weakly, wishing Roger would seize his girlfriend and start kissing her again to stop her goggling at him and Cho.
    ‘Go on, leave!’ she said, now 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!’ said Harry, and he was so relieved at finally understanding what she was annoyed about that he laughed, which he realised a split second too late was also a mistake.
    Cho sprang to her feet. The whole tearoom was quiet and everybody was watching them now.
    ‘I’ll see you around, Harry,’ she said dramatically, and hiccoughing slightly she dashed to the door, wrenched it open and hurried off into the pouring rain.
    ‘Cho!’ Harry called after her, but the door had already swung shut behind her with a tuneful tinkle.
    There was total silence within the teashop. Every eye was on Harry. He threw a Galleon down on to the table, shook pink confetti out of his hair, and followed Cho out of the door.
    It was raining hard now and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine.
    ‘Women!’ he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his pockets. ‘What did she want to talk about Cedric for, anyway? Why does she always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?’
    He