Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling. The plot and all OC's came from my own head and all similarities to other works and characters are completely coincidental and unintentional (unless specifically noted otherwise).

A/N: I just wanted to start off by saying that I never planned on keeping Harry and Cho together. I'm not all that good at writing deep, complicated relationships (Hence my lack of updates of "Hokage Love, and Lifelong Friends" and "gossip") so I decided to cut that out after a while. They're still going to be friends, but for now Harry is going solo. If everyone HAS to have a pairing in order to continue reading, then I'll consider hooking Harry back up with Cho. If no one wants Harry with the pretty Ravenclaw because of how badly I've written her, then I'll hook him up with someone else. But, don't expect that much fluff since that's why I got rid of the pairing in the first place. Please let me know what you all think.

Harry Potter and the Grim Decision
Chapter 21: Repercussions
By: Nanio-713

"Merlin's uncle violating a four-year-old Manticore!"

"Watch your mouth, Potter." Moody growled as he examined the burns on Harry's thigh. "Such creative swears should be saved for a real wound. This is nothing."

"What, are you not paying attention? Those are third degree burns! I'm amazed Voldemort's spell didn't reduce my leg to a hunk of charcoal." Harry leaned back so that his back was resting against the train. Moody cast a few spells to reduce the burns on Harry's leg while the young boy watched the Aurors repair the train and add defense posts in case the Death Eaters returned. As Dumbledore finished repairing a large gash on the side of one Auror and turned toward Harry, the Young man resumed talking. "So how did the battle go on your end? Any memorable downfalls? What happened to the Vampires, anyway?" Harry was particularly curious about the answer to the last question. 'I was looking forward to harvesting a few souls for Death.'

"They were distracted by your friend until he was overwhelmed by a surprise attack," Moody said. "As for the Death eaters… we were steadily losing ground, but no one was killed and no enemies reached the train. It was a close call, too; the Vampires mostly gathered around the southern end of the train, and two nearly managed to break through our defenses before your swordsman friend slashed off their hands. Other than that, there were a few cases where we had to stop quite a few students from fleeing the train."

Harry chuckled. "You should have let them go. If they were stupid enough to try and run away when Vampires are loose, than they deserve whatever the dark munchers were planning to do with them."

"Wouldn't that have defeated the purpose of what we were doing?" Moody asked.

"I prefer to think of it as Darwin's law in action." Harry retorted as Moody used a spell to wrap what was left of Harry's injuries. "Were any of them DA members?"

Moody shook his head and stood. "No, they fired spells from the windows to help us, but they stayed in the train."

Dumbledore arrived as Moody brushed himself off, his eyes twinkling brightly. "Well Moody, it seems you did a superb job of holding off the Death Eaters long enough for reinforcements to arrive. I'm most impressed at how effective your, and Harry's, tactics proved to be."

Moody scoffed. "There's no surprise, Dumbledore. We've got better men and more determination than that of our enemy. The fact that we had two powerful combat mages also helped."

Harry rolled his eyes at Moody's compulsive need to be technical about everything. "We've had a lot of practice. Where is Saladin, anyway? I haven't seen him."

"He suddenly vanished when the Death Eaters and Vampires overwhelmed him. He took a few bloodsuckers with him, though, so I don't know if he's alright."

Harry frowned and Dumbledore sighed. "I hope he wasn't seriously wounded. This entire procedure went so well that I'd hate to see everything spoiled with a casualty. But now is not the time to worry about something we cannot answer at the moment. How are you feeling, Harry? Do you need a trip to Madame Pomfrey?"

"No," Harry grumbled as he tested out his healed leg. "I should be fine until I get home. All I need is a couple of salves and some bed rest. Then I'll check to see if my fellow 'combat mage' is alright."

"Well then, you should be getting back on the train. It should be getting ready to take off once more shortly." The train whistled loudly, as if to prove Dumbledore's point.

Harry, not quite ready to see Cho and the others again quite so soon, asked, "Wouldn't it be alright if I just apparated home?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry as if he were being particularly dense. "Harry, if you suddenly disappeared than the student morale would plummet because they would think you were too injured to complete the train ride. You must get back on, for the students state of mind if nothing else."

Harry grumbled and nodded as he began moving back toward the train, absently trying to think of the possible scenarios he was returning to. Suddenly remembering the other scenario he had to deal with, Harry turned around quickly and called out. "Headmaster, I just remembered that I need to meet with you and Madame Bones as soon as possible."

Dumbledore, who was walking away to speak with the Aurors, stopped walking and turned back to Harry. "May I ask why?"

"It has to do with what occurred today, sir." Harry replied, not quite looking Dumbledore in the eye. "It is very important."

Dumbledore nodded. "I need to meet with her tomorrow evening to discuss tonight as well. Why don't you stop by my office tomorrow around seven? I'll send Fawkes to retrieve you."

Harry nodded, grateful that Dumbledore was willing to see him so easily. As the young man walked back onto the train and back to his compartment, he absently waved and conversed briefly with several students from Gryffindor and the DA. Harry knew he was stalling, but he seriously did not want to talk to his friends at the moment. He was tired, angry, slightly depressed, and because of his powers he was also jealous of Saladin for fighting the Vampires without him. These did not help when Harry knew there was going to be more than one person ready to chew his head off when he reached his destination.

When he finally did make it to his compartment, he was not surprised to see Cho crying into Susan's shoulder, with Su Li rubbing her back. Hermione and Ron were sitting on the other side of the compartment, looking as if they had just run a marathon. Cho's friends looked up and glared at him for a moment before returning their attention to Cho, who seemed oblivious to Harry's arrival. Ron merely groaned when he saw his friend. "Geez, mate. Those Vampires can take a spell. Hermione and I merely collapsed casting those sunlight charms. They nearly drained all of our energy."

Harry smiled weakly at his best mate before turning back to Cho, who raised her head in curiosity and was now wiping her face free of tears. Before Harry could say anything Cho stood, rushed over to Harry, and smacked him hard enough to nearly send the boy tumbling back into the hall. "What the bloody hell, Cho?"

"How DARE you do that to me?" Cho spat. "I was worried about your safety and you literally kicked me away! How could you be so cruel?"

"Cruel?" Harry snarled. "I was going to protect he lives of everyone on this train and you were stopping me!"

"You could have found a better way to do it!"

"You wouldn't let go even when I asked you to trust me!"

"Is your need to fight Death Eaters so strong that you had to physically knock me away?"

"Are you so blinded by your emotions that you can no longer see why I have to fight?"

"That is enough, both of you!" Hermione snapped at the two as she moved to push Harry and Cho away from each other. "Cho, calm down and speak to Harry like a rational adult. Harry, curb your anger and think before you speak. I'm going to check on Ginny, and when I come back you two better have had a rational conversation. Come on, Ron."

The redhead groaned as he pulled himself upright and followed Hermione to seek out Ginny. Su Li sighed as well before excusing herself and Susan. "We're going to check up on Marietta and the other Ravenclaws. We'll be back when you're done talking."

Once Cho's friends made their way out of the compartment, the two eyed each other warily before sitting down across from each other. The couple didn't speak for a few minutes before Harry finally found the courage to stop. "Why wouldn't you let me go? All I was asking for was you to trust me to survive, which I did. Why didn't you trust me?"

Cho sighed and shook her head, fighting to hold back more tears. "It's not that I didn't trust you. I did, and I-I still do. I was just… scared. The Death Eaters were out there attacking, and I was scared of what might h-happen to all of us. I just wanted to be n-near you; to be sure that you and I… that we would get through this together."

"What could I have done from here? Most of the guards on the train have no strategic training, so the plan revolved around me and Moody leading everyone."

"I didn't know that!" Cho exclaimed. "You didn't want to talk about what you were planning! The only thing I saw w-was you exerting yo-your hero complex by rushing off to fight. How was I supposed to guess your motivations when you never tell us anything about them? The only things your friends and I learn of your conversations with Dumbledore beyond whether you think he is being helpful or not. I was worried that you could get yourself killed!"

Harry scowled. "I've been training during nearly all of my free time, minus Quidditch practice and our dates, in order to become strong enough to fight the Death Eaters. How could you expect me to hang back during a fight?"

"How could you expect me to sit back and smile while you fought?"

"I didn't expect you to sit back and smile. I expected you to trust me and keep yourself alive. Cho…" Harry absently rubbed his temples with one hand and took a deep breath, but was interrupted before he could continue.

"I can't just watch you run off into battle. You know that I have problems controlling my emotions, yet you completely disregarded that when you shoved me off. How do you expect something so large without giving back any sort of consideration on my part?"

"Because," Harry replied. "This is one thing that cannot be changed. I didn't ask to fight Voldemort; I was thrown into this time and again. I have to ask you to let me do this because there is no option for either one of us. I have accepted that. Can you?"

Cho paused for a moment and looked out the window, watching as the train finally began to move and slowly pick up speed. "No, I can't."

A long pause followed by this statement, broken slightly by Cho's occasional sobs. Harry shook his head and held back for as long as possible, but he knew that he had to say it. "Then we both know what that means now, don't we?"

The tension that filled the compartment after Harry's statement was so thick that Harry could barely breathe. "You- you're breaking up with me?"

Harry sighed and wished that he wasn't the cause of the tears streaming down Cho's face. "We… we can't work right now. I've been spending all of my time training and you just admitted that you can't handle the pressure of being with me right now. This war with Voldemort is too big. E-Even my… our… own happiness has to wait until after this is all done." Harry took a step back and turned away from Cho. "I'm sorry, Cho. It's just that… We need time to think about what we both need, and what we can actually offer."

Harry turned to walk out of the compartment when Cho screamed, "But you said you loved me! What happened to that, huh? Were your words really that shallow?!"

Harry left the compartment without another word. Shortly after all of their friends returned, Harry finally moved away from the compartment to make a round about the train to raise morale before anyone had a chance to ask about what happened. He walked through the train corridors mindlessly, indulging in the occasional greeting and a bit of idle chit-chat, but for the most part he kept to himself. It wasn't until he reached the final compartment that he broke from his mindless stupor and realized that he had nowhere else to go. He sighed and prepared to go back to his compartment and deal with the awkwardness awaiting him when the compartment door next to him snapped open and Blaise Zabini ran into Harry.

The duo collapsed to the floor and stumbled around for a bit before Blaise was able to raise herself onto her hands and knees in order to see who he hit. "What the Bloody hell?! Who the – oh, it's you."

As Harry reoriented himself, he realized that Blaise was looking down at him with her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. She doesn't look happy. "Hey Blaise, are you looking for something?"

"No," Blaise replied. "But I thought I heard someone out here, and now I'm wondering why you're directly outside of our compartment."

The raven-haired Gryffindor pondered the query for a moment before deciding that there was no harm in telling her. "I had to get away from the others. Cho and I… yeah, we just broke up."

Blaise lifted herself from the floor and reluctantly helped Harry to his feet. Harry looked inside the compartment expecting to find Malcolm and Daphne, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Blaise appeared to sense his question, though. "Daphne and Malcolm are being debriefed or something after catching a few Slytherin's trying to get outside and help their parents. Apparently Pansy and Crabbe decided that the Dark lord was more important than finishing their education."

Harry chuckled a bit, but when he noticed that Blaise wasn't smiling he cut it short. "Were there any injuries, or did something go wrong."

"No," she replied curtly. "I'm just thinking about… nevermind. Daphne's just angry right now, which means you should probably make yourself scarce."

"Yeah, yeah I should."

Harry sat there for a moment, contemplating whether or not it was worth leaving considering he had nowhere else to go. When Blaise realized that Harry had no intention of moving along anytime soon she sighed dramatically. "So what happened between you and Cho?"

Harry was surprised at how quickly and easily his account of what happened on the train with Cho came out, but he would later admit to himself that it felt good to have someone to relay it to without worrying about them judging him. Blaise listened silently to his explanation about the train ride, Cho's unwillingness to let Harry run off and fight, and Harry's not so gentle response. He even gave her a full account of his fight with Voldemort and a word-for-word account of his final conversation with Cho. After he finished Blaise stayed silent, and after a couple of minutes he added, "I know it wasn't the best idea – kicking her off like that – but I knew that if I tried to magically extract myself she would've found a way to come along, which would have been worse for both of us since I don't know what would've happened."

"It certainly wasn't a shining moment for you, I'll admit. But really, there was nothing else you could've done. You had places to go. Dark lords to fight. You couldn't hold her hand and feed her a bottle, too."

"Hey!"

"Look," Blaise held her hands forward in a comforting gesture. "All I'm saying is that Cho wants more than you can give her right now. You're fighting a war right now. You don't have time to play the loving boyfriend, and it is about time you realized that."

Harry frowned. "I don't want this war to take over my life."

"But it already has! Think about it! From what I know of you two – and the rumor mill is very meticulous regarding your actions – you only ever spent an hour or two alone with Cho a week, at most. You are always studying, or training, or dealing with Dumbledore or the DA. Hell, you probably spent more time chatting with that Slughorn fellow about your parents than you did with her."

Harry opened his mouth to deny her claims, but suddenly stopped. Blaise… was right. It was always time to train, or study, or network with the DA and professors to keep him from becoming some sort of hermit. He actually spent very little time with Cho, and the time they did spend alone was usually filled with snogging. He couldn't remember the last time the two of them had a real, deep, and meaningful conversation. "Damn it, no wonder she was always so scared of losing me. We never really did anything with each other to begin with. She wasn't smothering me; she was always just trying to work in some time for herself."

Blaise nodded. "Time that you don't have. You honestly shouldn't be 'dating' anyone, considering your schedule."

"I could've used this time over winter break to spend time with her."

"Could you?" Daphne leaned forward and the two stared each other in the eyes. "Be honest with me. Would you be able to devote these next two weeks to furthering your relationship after that fight you described with the Dark Lord, or would you be spending every moment gaining more experience so that the next time you see him you can finally end this whole ordeal?"

Harry looked away. "I just… This is the closest I've ever come to feeling loved, and I'm supposed to just toss it away because I can't find the time?"

"Yes," Blaise replied. "You can't stretch yourself too thin. There's nothing in this life that's free, and if you want to win this war you'll have to pay with your time. Time that you'd rather spend living like a normal Hogwarts student, but can't because you are not normal."

Harry looked away and sighed mournfully, lost in thought. Blaise gave Harry a few moments to mull things over before continuing. "It's not the end of the world, Harry. There will always be other women, and other chances to make up for lost time. It's not like Cho is your one and only chance for love… if you can even call it that."

Harry looked at Blaise from his peripheral and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean," Blaise elaborated, "that you and Cho have a rather naïve point-of-view on love."

"And it would be better if we looked at things like you?" Harry inquired. "All marriage contracts and family politics? Sorry, I'm just not that cynical."

"You should be, even if just a little. Love isn't some fairy tale, Potter. It's not about how well you know someone. It's not all birthdays, anniversaries, and their favorite color. Real love," Blaise turned to look out the window with Harry. She took a moment to admire the countryside for a moment, allowing herself to feel the briefest sense of nostalgia. "The kind of love you can only hope for, isn't about knowing everything about someone. It's about understanding them."

Harry, despite his misgivings, was instantly curious; he turned forward and gave all of his attention to the woman in front of him. "I… don't understand."

"That's the point I'm getting at," Blaise quipped. "Love's not about remembering a girl's birthday or favorite color; it's about knowing why it matters. Some people hate their birthdays. It brings back bad memories. If you love someone you'll know whether they want to celebrate theirs or not, and plan accordingly. You don't need to know the 'why' of their life to love someone, but you do have to care about the results."

Seeing that Harry was still confused, she elucidated. "Look, you and Cho were very big about learning the nit-picky details about each other's past in a misguided attempt to prove you 'love' each other. It was like schoolwork; the more facts and figures you knew, the better you thought your test score would be. It's not about that. It's not about understanding why you wore baggy clothing before this year, or let your hair flop around like a wet rag. It's not about figuring out why you have to meet individuals alone for information sharing, or just what you were doing with 'that Slytherin girl' for an hour after a DA session. It's about figuring out whether or not you liked the feel of those baggy clothes and buying your next outfit based on that, and playing with your hair until you tell her whether you want to cut it or not. It's about trusting you well enough that Cho should be sure you won't shag that other girl while she's gone, because that's not the kind of person you are. These kinds of things don't need knowledge of your past, but of your present. You shouldn't worry about what someone was, but what they are."

Blaise turned to lock eyes with Harry, and for a moment he gained a brief understanding of what she was saying. "So your saying… that what I had with Cho wasn't love?"

Blaise scoffed. "Don't get me wrong; you two really cared about each other, and that could have become love. But, as you were…"

"That wasn't love." Harry and Blaise both jumped as the door opened to reveal Malcolm and Daphne, who immediately sat next to Blaise.

"When did you two get here?"

Malcolm scoffed. "Around the time the Boy Wonder called you cynical." He turned to stare at Harry, who was slowly moving toward the door. "I don't think he gets it, Blaise. He's still looking at the world with rose-tinted glasses."

After Harry left the room, Blaise sighed. "No, he doesn't get it. It's not his fault, though. There's never been anyone to show him what its really like."