HPTD : CH 89 - My Gorgeous Hair! (Patreon)

"Now, are you gonna help them or not?" she said, growing impatient at Ben's dumbstruck staring.

"Alright then, let's go," said Ben, opening a window.

"It's fine if you can't help them, no need to jump to your death," said Hermione, not at all impressed by the brilliant idea Ben had come up with.

"Just say you're scared, Granger. No need for sarcasm," said Ben with a smirk.

"Well, forgive me for not being brave enough to jump out of a moving, magical train. I just think it's stupidity."

"Well, so much for being a brave Gryffindor," said Ben, taunting her.

"Last I checked, being brave didn't also mean being dumb. And I already agreed to do all your assignments. Why do I have to partake in this stupidity?" she said, crossing her arms.

"Cause I don't feel like going alone," he said.

"Um-I'll come with you Ben," said Cho.

"You? Why?" blurted out Ben, a little shocked at her suggestion.

"That-I've never done something like this. Breaking the rules, that is - it might be exciting. I mean, you seem to enjoy it-so-" she said, a little embarrassed.

"So much for being a smart Ravenclaw," muttered Hermione, but Cho ignored her.

"-and I'm sure you have a plan, Ben," she said, shocking Ben with the confidence in her voice.

"hm, I sure do have a pla- of a plan," he said, pulling a hat out of his robes and then pulling his new Comet 260 broom out of the hat.

"Hop on newbie, I'll show you a whole new world," said Ben, mounting the broom and Cho quickly seated behind him.

"Watch your head," he warned as he tucked his head in and skilfully manoeuvred the broom through the small window.

"You sure about this? There'll be a lot of trouble if we get caught," he screamed over the whistling wind, turning his head to look at Cho as he flew along the Hogwarts Express at great speeds.

"Too late, it seems like we're already in trouble," she said, pointing towards the top of the train, at the trolly witch who was nonchalantly pushing her trolly towards them.

'Bloody hell, kinda hoped this abomination didn't exist.' Ben thought. Much like the rest of the world, he too had never taken the cursed escapades of Potter and Malfoy spawns to be canon.

"Anything from the trolley, dears? Pumpkin Pasty? Chocolate Frog? Cauldron Cake?" the witch said softly in her elderly voice, but Ben heard her loud and clear.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry. What about you Cho?" shouted Ben and Cho shook her head as well.

"That's fine, dears, but please retake your seats for the rest of the journey. You see, this train... it doesn't like people getting off it," she said with a smile.

"Oh, please don't mind us. We'll be right back once we take care of our affairs," said Ben, leaning backwards on his broom to quickly steer it towards the sky.

The sudden ascent caught Cho by surprise and she clutched onto his sides for support, startling Ben as he, much like everyone else, was quite ticklish around the sides.

Embarrassed by the sharp 'Ah' he had involuntarily let out, Ben was a little slow to react to when a pumpkin pasty came flying towards him and exploded in front of his face.

Ben quickly ducked under the explosion, but the slight smell of burning hair told him he hadn't escaped unscathed.

"My gorgeous hair!" he exclaimed, running his hand through his now coarse hair, and turned around to see if his passenger had suffered the same fate.

Cho's long black hair had kept its shine thanks to Ben taking the brunt of the explosion, literally head-on.

"Nobody pays attention to the poor old witch like me... they just buy my Cauldron Cakes and never really notice me, nor do they notice how easily my Pumpkin Pasties can be transfigured into something a lot more... explosive..." the trolly witch started her little monologue, but Ben's attention was somewhere else.

"Ben, your eyebrows," Cho said with a hand covering her mouth in shock and Ben touched the place where his brows used to be, only to find both of them missing.

"These hands have made over six million Pumpkin Pasties..." the witch was still going on about her pasties but the only thing Ben could hear was, 'Kill, kill, kill, death to the world, burn it to the ground.'

"That's it, lady, you've done it now." He screamed, pointing at her and the trolley witch smiled.

"Never-have I let anyone off this train before they reached their destination. You won't be the first either." She said, transfiguring her hands into two very sharp spikes.

"You know, I'm something of a transfiguration expert myself," he said scooping down towards the witch, gathering greenish grey-coloured magicka in his hand.

Flying over the witch, just out of the reach of her spikes, he shot the spell [Ash Shell] at her, covering her in a shell of hardened ash, immobilising her.

The witch tumbled over like a mannequin and Cho exclaimed in shock.

"Ben! Whit huv ye done?" she said, her Scottish accent coming through stronger in shock.

"Relax, she's just immobilised."

"But she's turned to stone," she said.

"Not really. She's just encased in a layer of hardened ash. In fact, she's pretty much invulnerable right now," he said, steering the broom towards the flying car he'd located using [Clairvoyance].

"Will she be alright?" she asked again, looking down at the petrified figure of the trolley witch that kept getting smaller as the broom kept flying higher.

"Probably. It's my first time using the spell as well," he said with a chuckle.

"What!" she exclaimed and lifted her head to look at Ben, only to find him missing. There was nobody in front of her. In fact, there was no broomstick underneath her, either. Not one she could see at least, as she was still sitting on something.

It gave her a massive fright as her hands wrapped tightly around the only support she could still feel.

"AhhhHahaha, sto-stop, that tickles," said Ben's voice from the seemingly empty space in front of her.

"Ben!" she exclaimed with relief.

"Relax, it's just a disillusionment charm," said the invisible Ben, lying through his invisible teeth. "You're invisible too, by the way."

And only then did she realise she couldn't see her hands, that she'd so tightly wrapped around Ben's stomach.

-End of Chapter-

A.N.- Alright guys, before you lot jump to conclusions and start calling our poor Ben names; he's not at all interested in Cho Chang, at all. None, nada, zero, nil. Not yet, at least. But Cho seems quite smitten with him; poor girl. Somebody should tell her that our Ben is into older girls.