Fear Makes Monsters
Hermione
Exhaustion crept through my body like a slow-moving poison. My thoughts, which had been racing, began to blur and fragment. The tension that had kept me rigid slowly dissolved, and despite everything, I felt myself sliding into sleep.
The dream was not violent. Not bloody. It was something far more terrifying.
I was alone. Completely, utterly alone. The arena around me was empty. It was a vast, consuming emptiness that seemed to stretch infinitely. No sounds. No movement. Just silence.
But then the image flickers and I saw the Seam crowded with everyone I had loved. I felt a brief moment of exhilaration. I had won.
But no one looked happy.
Everyone was looking at me with disgust. My father and his gentle hands, always covered in flour were shaking looking like I was a stranger. My mother's distant eyes were filled with revulsion.
I opened my mouth to scream at them that I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to survive. That I was the girl on fire and to keep my heart beating I needed to set fire to everything that made me who I was, but then I saw Collin.
He cowered back like he had seen a monster, his small trembling body nothing more than skin and bones.
The crowd slowly moved back as if edging back from a corned animal and I frantically reached out to stop them. But my hands only grasped at empty air, the people I was desperately trying to hold onto fading and blurring before my eyes.
“STOP!” I yelled.
Panic set in as I looked down at my hands, watching in horror as they turned translucent like ghostly apparitions. With each passing second, I could feel myself slipping away, losing all sense of who I was. And in that moment, I let out a gut-wrenching silent scream, knowing that soon there would be nothing left of me but a mere shadow of my former self.
I jolted awake with a strangled gasp, my heart thundering so hard I thought it might burst through my chest. Sweat plastered my nightgown to my skin, and the room - so pristine, so Capitol-perfect - felt like it was closing in on me.
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.
But the anxiety was a living thing now, crawling through my veins. The nightmare clung to me, its terror shapeless yet still managing to suffocate me.
The terror of becoming no one.
The walls seemed to close in, pressing against my lungs with an invisible weight. My fingers clutched at the rough fabric of my shirt, desperately trying to anchor myself to something—anything—as the wave of panic crashed over me.
My breath came in sharp, ragged gasps. Each intake felt like drawing razor blades into my chest. The room spun, a dizzying whirlpool of memories: the reaping, the cold eyes of the Capitol officials, the crushing reality of what awaited us in the arena.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The fear consumed me, a living thing that threatened to devour me whole.
I dashed to the door and slammed it open running down the hallway to the common room for Harry and I’s floor.
Distantly, I heard footsteps behind me and I froze. A soft voice whispered my name.
"Hermione?"
Harry's voice cut through the fog of my terror, gentle but present. His footsteps approached, measured and careful.
"Hey," he said, and suddenly he was there. Not touching me, but close enough that I could feel the warmth of his presence. "Breathe with me, okay?"
His voice was steady, a lifeline in the storm of my panic. Harry's hand hovered near mine, offering contact but waiting for my permission. I could see the careful way he held himself—supportive, but respectful of the hurricane of emotions tearing through me.
My breath caught, hitched. Harry was alive. I hadn’t killed him yet.
Our eyes met, and for a moment, something passed between us. A shared understanding of the nightmare we were facing.
Slowly, hesitantly, I let my hand brush against his. Harry's fingers intertwined with mine, solid and real.
My breathing began to slow.
But walls I had built long ago began to rise again. Trust was a luxury I couldn't afford. Not here. Not now.
With a sharp movement, I pulled my hand away. The connection broke.
Harry’s eyes filled with sadness for a moment, but then it shuttered behind a black mask.
Harry understood. He always understood.
Always saw more than he should.
As he stepped back, preparing to leave me to my solitude, my voice—barely a whisper—cut through the silence.
"Go back to Draco, I’m sure he wonders where you wandered off to,"
The words hung in the air, a shield and a wound simultaneously.
*****
Harry
My body convulses with a scream as I jolt awake. Hermione's limp, deathly pale face fills my vision, surrounded by a pool of her own blood. The sound of Draco's chilling laughter reverberates in my ears like a never-ending nightmare. My trembling hands shake uncontrollably as I muster the strength to open my eyes.
It was just a dream. But today, it could be real.
I stagger to the bathroom, my insides twisting and churning. The mirror reveals a ghostly figure—hollowed-out eyes, and ashen skin. I'm supposed to have the appearance of a hunter, but instead, I am a pitiful sight, resembling someone who has already been beaten.
My first attempt at breakfast was a disaster, ending with me hunched over the toilet, retching until only bitter bile remained in my stomach. The worried prep team exchanged glances as I struggled to catch my breath. Sirius, my stylist, crouched beside me, his hand steadying my shaking shoulder.
The cold porcelain of the toilet bit into my cheek, the only thing keeping me focused enough not to slump down onto the floor. My body trembled uncontrollably as I fought not to continue to heavy empty air. This was just the beginning of what would surely be a terrible day.
"You've got to get it together, kid," he says quietly. "The moment you show weakness is the moment you die."
Easy for him to say. He's not risking death today.
I catch glimpses of Hermione throughout the day. She moves like a ghost, deliberately avoiding my eyes. The connection we shared last night—that moment of vulnerability—feels like a lifetime ago. Now, she's all sharp edges and a cold silence. Her words still slice through my head, no matter how untrue they are.
Draco and his pack of Career tributes cornered me during prep.
"Nervous, Potter?" he simpers as his arm restrains me like a vice, “Did I not wring all of it out of you last night,”
People glance our way as his friends laugh—a harsh, cutting sound. I want to snap back at him. Fight fire with fire. But I knew I can’t ruin everything I have been building towards with this alliance.
“We both know perfectly well that you spent the night with Pansy,” I said instead in a light voice decorating my face with a teasing smile.
Draco scowled, but his eyes remained filled with mirth and a touch of stomach-churning desire. It was moments like these that made me think
He gave me a hard shove that left me stumbling.
“You are no fun, Potter,” Draco said, “I was just trying to give you a memorable last few moments for the Game Makers to write on the placate in their Hunger Games museum,”
I forced myself to snort at the morbid words as I walked away towards Sirius.
The preparation area is a strange mix of sterile white and muted grays. Sirius and the other stylists fussed over my outfit—a lightweight, camouflage-designed tribute uniform. They're painting narratives of survival on my skin with makeup and fabric.
Sirius tried to motivate me. "You're stronger than you know," he says. "You can do this."
But all I could think about is survival. Not victory. Just... surviving.
The countdown to the arena release begins.
60 seconds.
One minute to live. One minute to die.
My mind races. Strategies fragment and reform. Always come back to one truth: trust no one completely.
55 seconds.
Hermione will do what she must to survive. I'll do the same.
50 seconds.
Find water first. High ground. Avoid the Careers. Stay silent.
45 seconds.
Collin would want me to fight. To live.
40 seconds.
Draco will be hunting Hermione. He’ll want to make a statement.
35 seconds.
The Cornucopia will be a bloodbath.
Stay away.
Live another hour.
That's the first goal.
30 seconds.
Some will die within moments. Some will suffer longer deaths.
25 seconds.
I don't want to die. I don't want Hermione to die.
20 seconds.
Breathe. Just breathe.
15 seconds.
Survival. One moment at a time.
10 seconds.
This is it.
5 seconds.
Breathe—
The bomb explodes.