Chapter 2
“From today and three days going forward, you’re going to be training with the other tributes in the gymnasium,” Lupin begins. “Keep an eye and an ear open for possible threats, and locate the prospective candidates you might want to ally yourselves with. Don’t show off your strengths today. Either keep to the survival stations or practice with weapons you’re not familiar with. And remember- Always stick together.”
Cedric, for the most part, seems happy to do as Lupin advises. He does indeed allow Harry to follow him along wherever he goes, unbothered by her presence and even finding it cute, because he is that certain Harry won’t be a threat to anyone. Two hours in, and Harry is finding that she agrees. She sucks at everything she tries. She can’t climb a wall because her arms are too weak, she can’t wield a sword because of the same problem. Her wilderness skills are mediocre at best, and she can’t maneuver a crossbow to save her life- Which is literally what it will come down to. And when she tries out the knife throwing station, she lands a hit- On the target four rows down from her.
Cedric, meanwhile, has gotten too chummy with making allies to notice Harry’s failures for the most part. He’s currently talking to a female tribute the same age as him, a very attractive young woman who introduces herself as Cho Chang when Harry walks up to them. It seems she’s decided to follow Cedric’s lead in treating Harry’s like a helpless little baby, which Harry should find annoying but doesn’t actually mind that much. She’s never been coddled at all in her life before, much less so suffocatingly. It’s… Comforting, in a way.
“So, what do you think?” Cedric asks, once Cho walks away to try out the archery station. “Is she ally material?”
“Sure,” Harry chirps. “So long as you can stop eye-fucking her for long enough to actually throw a punch.”
Cedric laughs like Harry has said something very funny, ruffles up her already-too-wild hair, and walks away, chortling. Harry decides that she does like Cho. She makes Cedric even sweeter than he usually is, and that’s a fair price to pay for having to squash the small crush on him that Harry was starting to develop. There wouldn’t have been a chance with that, anyway. It’s clear that Cedric sees Harry as a little sister of some sort.
When Harry circles the whole gymnasium and finds herself back at the swords section, there is a tiny boy there trying to lift a blade taller than half his height. He struggles to lift it up, and when he does somehow manage it, the weight of it tips him forwards, and he goes toppling over with the momentum.
“Thanks!” the boy exclaims, when Harry hastily helps him out from under the sword. He seems rather delighted at almost having impaled himself and died before the games even began. “My name’s Colin! Colin Creevey! What’s yours?”
Colin, who is excited that he gets to talk to someone at last after having his offers of conversation rebuffed the entire day long, proudly declares that he is thirteen years old and is absolutely fascinated by the swords because they look exactly like the ones the characters in his books wield when they’re battling dragons and stuff. Harry’s heart aches for the small boy who has even less of a chance of surviving the games than she does. She hopes his blind optimism remains with him for as long as it can. Better to stay oblivious than be faced with the truth in some cases.
“No. Absolutely not,” Cedric says later, when they’re back in the suite for dinner. “We are not taking on a twelve year-old as an ally.”
“Thirteen, and why not?” Harry complains hotly.
“I have to agree with Cedric on this one, Harry,” Lupin says uncomfortably from where he sits beside them. “There’s just no way a thirteen year-old can contribute to a team.”
“What, and you think I can? You’ve been so insistent that Cedric and I team up together, but what contributions is it that you think I’ll be making, exactly?”
“What Remus means to say is that he’s a liability,” Cedric counters. “You can take care of yourself. He can’t. When things come down to it, when we either have to run or fight, we’ll be too occupied with keeping him safe that our own safety will get mucked up in the process.”
“There’s safety in numbers,” Harry points out. “Even if he’s just a little kid, the Careers will see a difference between attacking a group that has one more member in it. Besides, the Careers themselves have taken a fourteen year-old into their ranks.”
“A disturbingly vicious fourteen year-old whose aunt and uncle have both entered and won in the previous games,” Lupin sighs. “Hestia Carrow isn’t some clueless kid getting crushed under the weight of their own swords. Alecto and Amycus have likely been preparing her for years. She would have volunteered, just like they did, if her name hadn’t gotten reaped this early.”
“We’re making an alliance with Colin,” Harry insists. Then rather immaturely, she crosses her arms and makes a very risky gamble. “Either he’s a part of the group with us, or I’m not a part of it, either.”
Lupin sighs with exasperation, but there’s a spark of amusement in Cedric’s eyes. “Fine,” the Golden Boy says, “But we can’t prioritize his life over our own. If he can’t save himself, then that’s it. And he has to pull his own weight, too, in whatever way he can.”
“Fine,” Harry huffs.
“Fine,” Cedric grins.
By noon the next day, most of the alliances seem to have been cemented into place. There are the Careers, of course, a crushingly large group of seven, four of their members being Malfoy’s and Snape’s tributes, as expected, along with Dolohov’s male tribute and both of Amycus Carrow’s tributes.
Interestingly enough, it is Malfoy’s own son who is the male tribute for his district. According to the rumors, Lucius Malfoy, despite being one of the most infamous Victors in the games’ history, was adamantly against letting his son partake in the games. Considering the district in which the Malfoys come from, there should have been plenty of volunteers willing to take Draco Malfoy’s place, so Harry is confused as to what the twitchy blond is even doing here, until Cho pops by and tells her.
Apparently, Malfoy Jr was hell bent on proving his worth by way of the games. It would have been inevitable that Draco Malfoy saw the games as some sort of challenge to be won when he has reaped the benefits of its victory his whole life, not to mention years of likely having been exposed to the reverential way in which Lucius Malfoy talks about the games all the time. A mistake on Malfoy Sr’s part, to shield his son from the cruel truths. Coddled and pampered Draco is going to be in for the ride of his life when the games eventually begin.
Another alliance that has caught the eyes of their fellow tributes is the seemingly unstoppable duo of Maxime and Karkaroff’s female and male tributes, respectively. Delacour and Krum make for quite a sight, both of them as beautiful as they are deadly. According to Remus, the two of them are racking up quite the number of sponsors with their look alone.
Capitol citizens have always been superficial in letting outer appearances decide everything for them, but this just so happens to fall in Harry and Cedric’s favor as well. By Harry and Cedric, Harry means Cedric and Cho. Most of the attention that isn’t on the Careers or Delacour and Krum is on Golden Boy Diggory, and once the crowd sees the way Cedric and Cho are shameless in their flirting with each other, they will pay attention to her, too. Advantageous for Harry in the long run by way of association, so she tries not to be too pissed off when Lupin hesitantly informs her that Harry herself hasn’t gained any sponsors just yet.
So Cedric, Cho, Harry, and a newly elated Colin make up another alliance. Those that remain either prefer to work with solitude, like Cho’s district partner Anthony Goldstein, or are simply too young to be considered to be of use in an alliance. If Harry could have her way, she’d go around recruiting each of the leftover kids, but Cedric likely wouldn’t be as understanding as inviting a whole herd of pre-teens into their ranks as he was of Colin’s lone presence.
The last day at the Training Center is spent honing her own skills as well as observing that of everyone else’s. Colin isn’t entirely helpless, as it turns out, as he’s pretty nifty with starting fires, which is something neither Cedric nor Harry had managed to figure out yet. Cho is a natural with the bow and arrow, managing to hit her target dummy directly in the heart three out of four times, while the fourth one only went whizzing away because of some undoubtedly dirty thing that Cedric whispered into her ear. Those two have really got to fuck it out before they get to the arena, or they’re all going to have a problem on their hands. Though said problem will amuse the Capitol greatly, Harry’s sure.
Cedric has found himself a home with the swords, picking up the very one Colin nearly killed himself on the first day and swinging it about like it was made for him. There’s a moment where everyone pauses to watch him and Krum spar with each other, Cedric with his sword and Krum with a curved saber.
They put on an impressive fight. Cedric wields his weapon with a sense of surety, while Krum does so with rare grace and finesse that is a stark contrast to his usual awkward shuffling about. The sparring ends in a draw, and Cedric and Krum amicably shake hands before parting ways. Krum goes and joins Delacour in yet another practice fight, the latter wielding weighted batons that could look like they could knock hard enough to bruise bones.
Then there are the Careers. The least intimidating of them alone is a thing of nightmares. Every morning for the past three days, Hestia Carrow has marched over to the dagger section without hesitation and palmed two short blades in her hands. Harry has never seen her let them go, not once. She prefers to stick the blades in between her knuckles and fight short-range rather than throw them, but she has an excellent aim regardless.
Carrow’s district partner is an eighteen year-old named Cassius Warrington, who likely won’t even need the spear he wields expertly at all to kill, because his fists alone are deadly enough weapons. There is another eighteen year-old with them, Marcus Flint, Dolohov’s tribute. But while Cassius seems to be strategic as well as strong, Flint is all brawn and no brain, which makes for quite the dangerous combination. He found himself a metal bat the morning of the second day and has been whacking it around on things ever since. After witnessing him knocking the head off of a training dummy with it, Harry decided that she had seen enough.
Lucius Malfoy’s female tribute, Millicent Bulstrode, is another tribute with an advantage on the brunt force side, yet she chooses to spend most of her time learning how to identify edible and lethal plants, as well as tying knots, starting fires, and other seemingly harmless activities. Harry isn’t sure what to think about that.
As for Draco Malfoy, he is absolutely useless. He is smart, Harry will give him that, but academic smarts can only get you so far in a televised street fight to the death. He seems not to have caught onto this yet, however, for no one seems to want to risk the ire of his father by doing so. Not only is Lucius Malfoy a mentor of the games, but he is also a highly influential mentor with strong ties to the Capitol’s elite. Sponsors can and will be nudged in one direction or another at Malfoy’s whim, meaning that whoever so much as lands a scratch on precious Draco’s perfect skin will end up with no sponsors, no support, and all the malevolence of the gamemakers that want to get on Malfoy Sr’s good side. Everyone will be making sure Draco remains alive until he is the only other one left standing.
And finally, the remaining two Careers. Transported over from the very best of the twelve districts, the very districts George Weasley has gotten to design for. Sixteen year-old Tracey Davis wields arrows as well, but unlike Cho, she prefers the extra strength that a crossbow offers, allowing the shaft to burrow straight through the flesh.
Davis’s partner, Theodore Nott, is perhaps the strangest of them all. He is the one Harry crossed eyes with at the Parade, the one who watches her even now from the moment he feels her eyes on him. He has done next to nothing in the three days that they have been here, only messing around near the wilderness stations and kicking around a training dummy or two. Is he really that confident in his abilities that he wouldn’t spend every hour before the games training himself? Or has he just resolved to die?
The former, as it turns out. It is Colin who provides Harry with extra details this time, after having snuck his way into a perfect eavesdropping position by Malfoy and his fellow Careers. According to him, Nott’s father, despite not being a victor nor a citizen of the Capitol, has got some very high connections lying around. It’s not entirely unheard of, as Nott’s district is known to have closer ties to the Capitol than any other, but “From the way Malfoy was hissing about it not-so-subtly, you’d think Nott Sr had a direct connection to President Riddle himself!”
Harry gets to find out all about just how deadly Nott can be when she returns to the suite for the night. They had their private sessions with the gamemakers earlier today, and the training scores are currently being announced and televised to the world. Harry thinks she did alright. There was a room that shot out laser beams from various angles and corners, and thanks to this, her enhanced dodging skills- Courtesy of Darcy- Were able to be put into display.
“A seven! Excellent work,” Lupin claps her on the shoulder, and indeed, it is a much higher score than any of them were hoping for.
There’s more congratulations when Cedric’s score comes out. Bertha gives a hearty round of applause at the ten that flashes up on the screen- That’s higher than even the average score of the Careers. Krum and Warrington are the only ones who have managed to tie with Cedric’s score so far. No one in this past decade of the games has gotten better than a ten anyway, so it’s safe to say that Cedric’s just gotten himself the highest-
Twelve. The number appears next to Nott’s solemn face and there is silence.
Of all of them, Bertha is the one to break the silence with a nervous gulp. “Maybe you’ll be lucky enough that the other Careers finish him off before he does the same to you?”
“This isn’t right,” Lupin mutters. “They never give out twelves. Not once in the entire history of the games. They should have been content with giving him an eleven if they really impressed him that much. The gamemakers deliberately just made Nott the biggest threat in the arena, alienating him even from his own allies… Why?”
Harry likely won’t live long enough to find that out. Tomorrow is the night of the interviews, the chance for the tributes to earn their sponsors and one for the Capitol to be entertained with pleasantries before the real fun begins. A weight begins to crush upon her chest at the thought of how many tributes she’ll have to face, how many she’ll have to outlive,if she wants that freedom she’s been yearning so dearly for.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… The tributes of this year’s Hunger Games!”
Gilderoy Lockhart’s jubilant voice that rings throughout the stadium is met by a wild collection of cheers and hysterical screams. Behind the stage and closed curtains, Harry stands staring in a mirror, at last understanding what Fred Weasley’s cryptic messages were all about.
Unity. Unity in the face of what tries to divide them and tear them apart. The Capitol would see the children of the districts fight each other to the death. The districts feed into the fear for the sake of survival, and end up causing far more damage to each other than they ever should. By dressing Lupin’s two tributes from the worst of the districts and Snape’s tributes from the finest of them, the Weasley twins are reminding the districts that those they are being pitted against were once their brothers and sisters in-arms, working for the same cause, now suffering under the same rules.
It is a dangerous message to send, hinting of unity against a common enemy the very night before the games begin.
Harry stares at the ruby drops that have been glued onto her throat. The red jewelry from the Parade weren’t just decorative links, after all. They were chains. Symbolizing what the districts are to the Capitol. And tonight, Harry, Cedric, Nott, and Davis- They all bleed for it.
“Cedric Diggory.”
Cedric gives Harry and Lupin a small salute before heading out, his fake smile plastered on and his teeth showing from beaming. He does well, expertly navigating around Lockhart’s prying questions but giving the crowd what they want all the same. When asked what he will be fighting to return to, he gives a heartwarming answer of, “My family and friends, of course, along with the rest of my town. They’ve always been so supportive of me, so I hope I can make them proud.”
A bunch of awws sound from the audience, simpering game fanatics wiping away tears and saying something about family man this and soft boy that.
“And what about you, Harry?” Lockhart asks, once it is Harry’s turn and the pleasantries have been finished with. “Is there a family you’re looking forward to returning to as well?”
“Not really, no,” Harry replies, then putting on the saddest face she can muster, “I’m an orphan, you see.”
Because no, she is not above using the orphan card to her every advantage. The audience resonates with soft coos and exclamations of poor thing, because while threats of a deadly arena are forms of on-screen entertainment they will never have to learn of in real life, losing one’s parents is a very real experience they know to sympathize with.
“I’m hoping to carve out a new life for myself, here in the Capitol,” Harry continues truthfully. “You’ve all shown me so much love in these past few days- I can’t possibly imagine going back now that I know what I’ve been missing out on.” Now that is more than a bit of a stretch. Nearly everyone in the Capitol are either ignorant menaces or power-hungry megalomaniacs. But the audience eats that right up, because there is nothing more that a citizen of the Capitol loves more than being praised.
“Draco Malfoy.”
Backstage, Harry finds Cedric and Cho huddled over by Colin, because the kid has chosen now to lose his nerves at last. Harry settles down next to him, offers his vague words of comfort, as comforting as anything could be in their situations. “Just be yourself,” she tells him, empty words were they to anyone else, but she means this with Colin. A bright, bubbly, overeager personality is exactly the Capitol want and expect from a thirteen year-old who’s been made to compete in a death competition.
“Millicent Bulstrode.”
They’re all called out, one by one, the remaining numbers dwindling down. Cho does wonderfully, painting an image of cheeriness and confidence. Krum and Delacour have the audience swooning on their feet one after the other. False smiles from every last one of the tributes as they go up, even the Careers, holding back the fury that the Capitol doesn’t even know they feel. How would they? For fifty long years, tributes have shown up to their grand city wearing bright smiles and gushing about how privileged they feel to be here. The benevolent Capitol is offering the poor district beggars a chance at eternal glory. The tributes are glad to be here.
“Theodore Nott.”
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t wave. He doesn’t indulge the crowd in any way. Simply answers Lockhart’s questions in short, clipped answers.
And he is the only one who can get away with it. No one has received a twelve in the history of the games before, so the audience decides his broodiness fits right into the strong and silent persona they’ve come up for him.
“And that wraps up this year’s interviews!” Lockhart announces, ending the night with a farewell to Tracey Davis. “May the odds ever be in your favorite tribute’s favor!”
Tomorrow, Harry will be inside the arena. Tomorrow, Harry might die.
She feels oddly at peace as she falls asleep that night.