Cho Chang

History
Cho Chang (born c. 1979) is a student at Hogwarts, sorted into Ravenclaw House. She is a Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

Harry Potter first meets Cho in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, during his third year (her fourth year) during a Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match, in which Cho and Harry are playing Seeker against each other. He notices she is very pretty and she makes his stomach "feel funny". The only other notable interaction between them in this book is when Cho wishes Harry good luck before the Quidditch match against Slytherin and Harry goes bright red.

During Harry's fourth year, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, his crush on Cho develops further. They exchange greetings at the Quidditch World Cup, and he later works up his courage and asks her to be his date to the Yule Ball. However, Cedric Diggory, one of the other champions of the Triwizard Tournament, has already asked Cho out, and the two of them end up dating until Cedric is murdered by Peter Pettigrew (on Lord Voldemort's orders) at the end of the book. Nonetheless, Cho is still kind to Harry—for example, she refuses to wear one of Draco Malfoy's "Support Cedric Diggory/Potter Stinks" badges, a fact for which Harry is grateful.



In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at the beginning of Harry's fifth year, Cho surprises him by seeking him out several times and attempting to have a conversation. Unfortunately, for Harry, these encounters do not go well. The first time, she finds him covered with Stinksap that was accidentally let off by Neville Longbottom's mimbulus mimbletonia, and the second time she tries to talk with Harry, she ends up arguing with Ron Weasley about Quidditch teams. On the third try, when she happens to enter the Owlery while Harry is there, she defends Harry from a suspicious Argus Filch.

When invited by Hermione Granger to join Dumbledore's Army, Cho (who makes her fellow Ravenclaw friend, Marietta Edgecombe, go along) goes against the advice of her parents who wish her to remain on Dolores Umbridge's good side. Cho joins because she is determined to fight against Voldemort after what happened to Cedric in the previous year. As a D.A. student, however, she has her ups and downs. At first she gets nervous and performs her spells poorly whenever Harry is nearby; later though, she is able to conjure a corporeal Patronus in the shape of a swan.

Cho initiates a kiss with Harry under some mistletoe shortly before Christmas after a D.A. session, and on Valentine's Day they go on a date in the wizarding village of Hogsmeade, but Cho's grief over Cedric's death, her ill-founded jealousy over Harry's friendship with Hermione (who, ironically, tries to advise Harry on how to handle girls), and Harry's overall inexperience with girls sours the experience.

When Marietta betrays the D.A. to Umbridge, she is afflicted by the hex performed by Hermione on the piece of parchment, signed earlier by all members of the D.A. The hex makes purple pustules spell "SNEAK" across her face and they cannot be removed. When Harry scorns Marietta for the betrayal and Cho defends her, irate at what she considers Hermione's "dirty trick", Harry and Cho's relationship goes downhill. (Marietta's betrayal is instead committed by Cho in the fifth film, causing Harry to dump her, despite her multiple attempts to apologize, and dropping the whole hexed parchment storyline altogether. Cho is later revealed to have been under the influence of the truth potion, Veritaserum while interrogated by Umbridge.)

Cho makes only one very brief appearance in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Harry catches a glimpse of her during the ride to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express but she hides back in her compartment with Marietta. Harry later mentions in a conversation with Ron that the two of them just "fell apart". This was also Cho's last year of Hogwarts, which means she may or may not be back for the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.