Chapter 106: Cho Chang
Evan hurriedly pulled out his wand and looked around vigilantly.
The room was full of chairs and boxes that surrounded him, and not far away from where he was, there was a wooden staircase leading upstairs. He could hear the voices of several people above him, a bell ringing, and the creaking of the opening and closing of doors.
In the cellar, the sweet smell of candies mixed with the pungent odour of blood made Evan feel nauseous. He cautiously approached a wooden box beside him.
The closer he was, the stronger the odour was!
He was about to open the wooden box when he heard footsteps going downstairs and a woman shouting.
"Honey, take another bucket of Jelly Slugs. We're about to be out of stock!"
"I know." A man came downstairs.
Evan hurriedly turned around and he saw a bald middle-aged man walking down.
It was Mr. Ambrosius Flume, the owner of the Honeydukes Sweetshop. He walked into the cellar and suddenly froze. He was surprised to see Evan standing in front of him.
"Hello, Mr. Flume," said Evan softly."Oh, it's you, Evan, you scared me. I thought it was someone else in our warehouse." Flume sighed and patted his chest. "What are you doing with your wand?"
"I smelled an odour of blood…" The wand in Evan's hand did not drop.
"Oh, you have already smelled it!" Flume said hastily. "I was intending to talk to you about it. I want you to publish an ad for our newly developed candy."
"An ad?!" Evan looked at him strangely.
Flume walked over and opened the wooden box next to Evan and it was full of Blood-Flavoured Lollipops.
Evan was a bit embarrassed. The odour of blood he had smelled was that of this candy. He went too quickly for his wand. Fortunately, no acquaintances were there.
"We don't think it's too much for our new product bloody lollipops." Flume frowned and said, "I sometimes don't understand your taste, young wizards. It was the most requested flavour in our last poll."
"Are you sure this is not for vampires?"
"Of course not! I thought this candy would be cool!" Flume continued. "But virtually nobody bought it. The stock of these bloody lollipops is almost backlogging the entire warehouse. I need your help, Evan. The last time, the propaganda on the Cockroach Clusters was very effective."
Evan remembered his first advertisement for Honeydukes in the last semester. The Cockroach Clusters were piled up in the warehouse and never bought. But after the ad, even now there are still some people in school who say they kept eating that stuff until today.
"I'll help you, Mr. Flume!"
Evan could not understand the fact that even though the Honeydukes traditional sweets were clearly popular and well received, they have kept developing these unorthodox new products.
Anyway, when he heard Evan words, Flume was so happy that he packed a lot of Blood-Flavoured Lollipops and gave them to him.
When Evan climbed out of the cellar with those almost un-edible candies, he saw the Honeydukes store full of Hogwarts students.
There were so many people around that he couldn't see where Hermione was.
Evan walked between them, trying to find Hermione from one shelf to another. Suddenly, at the corner of a chocolate-covered shelf, he accidentally bumped into a girl and knocked her candies into the ground.
"Excuse me!" Evan lowered his head and picked up her sweets. He looked up just to see a beautiful girl standing in front of him.
The girl had long, shiny, dark hair. She was wearing a Wizard's robe from the Ravenclaw House with a smile on her face that gives off a feeling of kindness and comfort.
"I was too absorbed in choosing chocolate. Are you okay?" The girl smiled at Evan. "Hello, I'm Cho Chang from Ravenclaw."
Evan was shocked. It turned to be Cho Chang, and she was indeed very beautiful. No wonder that Harry, the guy who so hard to move, was so attracted to her.
"Oh, hello, I'm Evan Mason, from…"
"I know you!" she blushed saying that and she hurried to explain. "I've heard from Luna that you have a newspaper and I've got a subscription for each issue. I think it's very helpful, and… In short, all Ravenclaw girls are talking about you."
The atmosphere was a bit embarrassing. Evan didn't know that he was so popular with girls.
"I've heard of you, too. You're Ravenclaw's Seeker!" Evan had no words to say. In addition to this information, he only remembered that Cho Chang was the girlfriend of Cedric Diggory. After the guy died, she and Harry had a fruitless short relationship.
Although her emotional experience was relatively rich, he had to admit that Cho Chang was really beautiful.
"Do you like Quidditch too?!" Cho seemed to be happy to find a common topic with Evan. "I have watched the game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Your team is very strong, especially the Seeker Harry Potter; he is very fast."
"But we still lost to Hufflepuff," Said Evan. "I heard that in the last few days, you beat them!"
"It was just a fluke. Their Seeker Cedric is also very good." Cho paused. "However, the rest of the Hufflepuff team is not on his level. The score would have been in Gryffindor's favour if you didn't meet the Dementors…"
"Yeah!" Evan nodded, even though he didn't really know what she was talking about.
This is a rare opportunity to get in touch with such a beautiful girl. He was there, endlessly talking about Quidditch even though he had no interest at all in such things.
"I was almost desperate when we faced so many Dementors. Fortunately, your Patronus brought hope back to all of us!"
In Cho Chang's mind, came out the picture of the thin boy facing over a hundred Dementors on his own. That feeling… she would never forget it.
"Evan, are you free?!" She hesitated for a moment then she said, "We can go to the tea shop outside and sit for a while. I want to ask you about the use of the Patronus Charm. Is there any trick to learn it? No matter how hard I tried, all I manage to do is just making my wand shine a little bit."
There was indeed a trick to casting the Patronus Spell, and Evan was also willing to have an in-depth conversation about it with her.
After, Cho Chang invited him herself, he would be too stupid if he didn't understand what was going on.
But he saw Hermione just entering Honeydukes and looking for him with a smile. When she saw Cho with him, she looked very alert.
Choosing between these two beauties is really hard.
Deep down in his heart, Evan still preferred Hermione. With Cho, it was just her beauty that stunned him.
There was nothing else he could think of! Or maybe…
Evan looked again at the girl in front of him. Is that really the case?