Cho took the potion vial with a shaking hand. As she drank, colour slowly returned to her cheeks.
Ben moved over to the unconscious Marianne. She was a lot more battered after being taken for a ride by Riddle. Ben used Healing Hands to heal her bruises and her banged-up head, then fed her a Health Potion. She remained unconscious, but her breathing steadied, and the paleness finally left her face.
"You like her, don't you?" Cho said. Her voice was quiet but steady now.
Ben blinked. "What?"
"I've seen how you are with her," she said, voice low. "She's funny. Beautiful. You always laugh around her. If I were you, I'd pick her too."
Ben shook his head. "It's not like that," he said firmly. "She's like a little sister to me."
"Yeah? She's older than you," Cho muttered.
"So are you."
She glanced at him, uncertain what he meant.
Ben took a breath, held it like he wasn't sure whether to speak. Then he did.
"I'm a Seer, Cho," he said. Another half-truth, but one that came easily.
"Right..." she said, frowning. "But I don't see what that has to do with this."
"Cho, I don't just see the future. Sometimes I see the past too. I've lived other lives—died other deaths. I might be twelve on the outside, but inside..." He trailed off. "I've felt too much."
"What are you getting at?"
"I know you feel something, but it's based on a version of me that isn't real. In truth, we're at completely different points in the story. And I… I can't step back into that chapter, even if I wanted to."
She was quiet for a long moment, then looked at him with a strange softness.
"I'd hoped maybe you felt something for me too."
"You're beautiful, Cho. But that's not what I feel when I look at you."
"Let me guess," she muttered. "Like a little sister."
Ben gave a quiet chuckle. "Exactly."
Her eyes dimmed. "That only makes me feel worse."
Ben gave a sad smile. The chamber fell silent again. Marianne remained still, and since there was no phoenix around to do the job, Ben got back to healing her.
"You know," Cho whispered, "when I saw the way you looked at Marianne, I hated it. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her gone."
Her voice trembled, but she didn't flinch.
"And the worst part? Some small, awful part of me still meant it."
Ben stayed still, gaze steady. "That wasn't you. That was the diary manipulating your feelings."
"But it fed off something already there," she said. "Jealousy. Anger. Even when the diary wasn't controlling me… even when Tom wasn't whispering in my head… deep down, a part of me still felt those things."
"Cho—"
"I don't want to live with that," she said. "I don't want to carry that around. Please. I want to forget that part of me—the version of me that heartlessly strangled chickens, attacked you and Marianne."
He looked into her eyes. Saw the pain there—the honesty.
She wasn't asking for escape. She was asking for mercy.
Ben hesitated. There were a hundred things he could say. That everyone has darkness. That guilt didn't make her evil. That being human meant wrestling with the messy bits of your heart.
But she already knew that. She just didn't want to feel it anymore.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand.
"You'll forget everything, Cho. Not just the bad. The diary, the Chamber, Tom Riddle—all of that would be gone. But so would the good things. Your friends. Quidditch. Every memory from this year."
Cho's gaze locked onto his.
Her lips parted. "Maybe that's alright."
"You'd forget how far you've come," he said softly. "What you survived. What you overcame. That's not nothing."
She stared at him, eyes wet but clear. "And if I said I still want it gone?"
"If that's what you want," he said quietly.
Cho nodded, voice barely holding. "I do."
She didn't blink. Didn't look away. But her breath hitched. And just as he raised his wand, her foot shifted back — like her body was trying to flee even as her mouth said yes.
Her arms were rigid at her sides, fists clenched. Her posture locked, like she was bracing for impact. And her eyes… her eyes said she really didn't want to forget.
Ben's wand tip dimmed before lighting up again.
"If you still want to forget in the morning… I will. I promise. Stupefy."
He caught her as she slumped, and lowered her gently next to Marianne.
"You'll be alright, Cho," he said softly, brushing away a tear stain from her cheek. "You're stronger than you think."
The Chamber was finally silent. Six unconscious people lay scattered on the stone floor, and next to them, a neat pile of gold septims. Ben sighed. Time to deal with the aftermath.
He swept the coins into his storage and pulled out two necklaces—simple-looking, with weak Fortify Health Regeneration enchantments. He'd made a few while practising; nothing impressive, just a 10% boost. But a boost was a boost.
He, personally, was wearing a silver ring and chain enchanted with Resist Magic. Combined with his Alteration perk, that gave him a solid 40% magic resistance. Honestly, he doubted the basilisk's gaze would've even worked on him—but he wasn't nearly arrogant enough to test that theory.
Jewellery enchantments didn't follow Skyrim rules here. Oh, there was still a limit—each piece ran on a soul battery, a little like a Horcrux in how it clung to you. The more you wore, the more you heard them. Whispers. Growls. Screeches. Ben already had two wolves howling in his ear on the regular. Ten? That was asking for a migraine... or madness.
He transfigured the necklaces into inconspicuous hairpins. The enchantment still held—made sense, really. In Skyrim, magic clung to the soul-bound material, not the shape or any etched runes. Cho's pin now bore the Tutshill Tornados emblem.
Just as he leaned over to clip it into her hair—
"COUGH COUGH"
"Before you go pinning things to her head, you should know she hit me. With Hogwarts: A History," said a now-awake, very hoarse Marianne.
Ben moved to help her sit up. "Yeah, you're gonna have to forgive her for that. She wasn't herself."
"Oh, you would say that, lover boy," she muttered.
"Not you too," Ben groaned, facepalming.
"What else am I supposed to say when you're giving her a Tutshill Tornados hairpin?" she asked, pouting as he handed her another potion.
"I got you one too," he said, making her drink it.
She pulled a face at the bitter taste. "Like I care about the Tornados."
"You don't," Ben said, pulling out the other pin. "But you do care about the Holyhead Harpies."
Her eyes lit up. "...Alright. I'll forgive your little girlfriend just this once."
She lifted her hair with exaggerated dignity.
"Very generous of you," he said, pinning the ugly Harpy into place. "Now, think you can help me get everyone out of here?"
"Nope," she said cheerfully, immediately rolling onto her side and pretending to snore.
"No need to fake those. You snore like a bear anyway," Ben said with a chuckle.
He got kicked in the shin for that.
-To be Continued...
Ben saves the day, hands out hairpins, and gets kicked in the shin. If that's not worth a few galleons tossed into the fountain (also known as my P!treon), I don't know what is.