Let the Games Begin!
Harry
The hovercraft ride was uncomfortable. Harry hasn’t seen Katniss since they woke up, it was just a technician and Madam Malkin on the flight. Now they’re in his Launch Room at the Stockyard. He wonders if animals get nauseated waiting for slaughter too.
Malkin tries to give him insight into what weather he can expect based on the garments provided. Average daytimes, not too sunny or wet. Cool nights. The comfortable boots indicate the terrain could be rough, but he’ll be able to run. Malkin actually takes the time to sew a zipper onto his pants pocket to secure his fleur-de-lis token. He gives in to the urge to hug her.
He paces in a circle, running through Lupin’s advice again. Scope the Cornucopia: weapons, food, shelter, water. Get in, get it, get out. Duck, weave, avoid both ranged weapons and melee. Find running water, small sips. The final item on the list is his own. Find Katniss. He hopes it’ll be easy if they’re both following Lupin’s recommendations.
There’s food on the table. He takes a few small bites. Sips water. Paces. Fidgets. Maybe Malkin tries to talk to him, but he can’t hear her. Scope the Cornucopia: weapons, food, shelter, water. Get in, get it, get out. Duck, weave, avoid both ranged weapons and melee. Find running water, small sips. Find Katniss.
Finally, a voice instructs him to “prepare for launch.” He shakes his hands out, rolls his neck, squares his shoulders, and steps onto the metal plate.
Madam Malkin eyes him with no pity, only determination that mirrors his own. She extends a hand to him. “It’s been an absolute honor styling you, Harry Potter.” He swallows, nods, and shakes her hand. A glass cylinder lowers around him just as he drops his hand.
The platform rises and he’s in total darkness for about fifteen seconds, then he’s in the open. His eyes take one, two, three seconds to adjust.
Cornelius Fudge’s voice booms in surround-sound: “Ladies and gentlemen, let the 74th Hunger Games begin!” The real countdown starts.
Sixty…
Between him and the golden Cornucopia are forty yards of flat, hard-packed earth.
Fifty-eight…
Twenty yards from him, slightly to the right of his straight-line path, is a knife with a thigh strap.
Fifty-four…
Another ten yards ahead of that, further to the left, there’s a slingshot and a shoulder bag of golden ammo spheres.
Forty-nine…
Dead-center ahead of him, just at the mouth of the Cornucopia, lies a baggy tent pack. Up and to the right, a cuboid bag labeled “MREs”. Further up, further right, a hydration pack.
Forty-three…
To the left, above the level of the tent pack, a silver bow, already strung, and a sheath of arrows. His eyes flick around the circle of tributes, finding Katniss five tributes to his left. Her back is still to the Cornucopia. If she hasn’t spotted the bow yet, she will when she turns around.
Thirty-one…
He retraces the items he’s identified, composing a mental checklist and adding a couple of backups in case someone else gets to something first. He doesn’t think they will. Everyone has lots of tempting things between them and the Cornucopia, and there are much more interesting weapons at the heart than a knife and a slingshot.
Sixteen…
Draco from 2 is to his left, focusing on a sword right at the top of the pile. Luna from 10 is on his right, smiling serenely and waving at him.
10, he looks at Katniss, 9, she’s looking at – 8, 7 – the bow, 6, she looks up, 5, at him, 4, meets his eyes.
3.
He shakes his head.
2.
She blinks.
1.
The gong rings.
He’s off, Katniss completely out of sight and out of mind, racing forward. Knife. It’s hooked around his wrist. He twists left, ducks, sprints. Slingshot. Over his shoulder, weave right, curve left. Tent pack. Other shoulder, then up, careful, MREs, left hand. Up again, twist a bit to settle his shoulder-bags and avoid any unseen blows. Steady his feet, lunge, hydration pack, right hand.
He rolls left and sees Draco pulling the sword. He ducks a slash and somersaults directly past him, brushing along his side. Harry slips a bit on the way to his feet, but manages to snag the bow and arrows, flipping the straps in his hands onto his wrists to do so. He probably looks ridiculous, sprinting away with at least half a dozen items hanging off him, but he gives zero fucks because he has them all.
Adrenaline sings in his veins. The tent pack catches a knife, courtesy of Pansy, and he fucking smiles. He zig-zags around the other tributes, ducking and bobbing and spinning like he was born for this.
Finally, he’s able to really let his legs fly when he sees the treeline only twenty yards ahead. Once he’s under cover, he darts from tree to tree, gradually slowing to a light jog. He starts counting seconds again, giving himself five full minutes to put as much distance between himself and the Bloodbath as possible. All his prizes are awkward to carry as he has them, but he can’t stop yet.
When his count is up, he stops and rapidly slides each item off, lining them up in a row. The knife goes around his thigh, slingshot on the opposite hip, ammo across his chest. He smiles again as he tucks the bonus throwing knife into his belt. The tent pack has enough extra room for the MREs. He’s disappointed to find the hydration pack flat, empty, and stuffs it to the bottom. He unstrings the bow and slides it and the arrows down the side of the pack.
His adrenaline high is starting to crash. Pack on his shoulders, he decides to walk downhill, figuring it’s his best chance of finding water and maintaining a brisk pace. Looking over his shoulder exactly every five seconds, he adopts a light and measured tread, keeping noise to a minimum.
Life with the Dursleys may not have prepared him for the woods directly, but it has prepared him. Avoiding creaks in floorboards is just like avoiding twigs and dry leaves. Wandering the streets counting seconds into the thousands might as well be wandering the forest. Darting from building to building is the same as darting from tree to tree.
They also prepared him to be hungry. He put on a few pounds during his week in the Capitol, but he knows he’ll shed them soon. Even the MREs won’t be enough to offset the physical exertion he’ll be under. Irritatingly, his stomach rumbles. His time in the Capitol has gotten him too used to regular, unlimited meals.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a knot in a tree that ripples slightly. Like an eye under a closed lid. He stops dead in his tracks and grins directly at it. “Staying alive!” he chirps, giving the camera a thumbs-up. Let Lupin sell that to the sponsors. He takes off at a jog to make up for the momentary pause and get away from where he made noise.
Several hours in, the sun has started to sink to the point that the leaves and branches almost block it when the canons start. 1, 2, 3, … 11. Eleven dead in the Bloodbath. Thirteen left in the Games. He very intentionally does not allow himself to wonder if Katniss is one of the 11 or the 13. She has to be alive.
He tries to keep his mouth closed, breathing steadily through his nose, conserving moisture, but his lips are cracking and his throat is dry. Thanks to his days in the cupboard, he knows he’s shedding water much faster than usual, to sweat and a full bladder. There’s no way he can keep this up for more than another day, maybe two, before he’s unable to stay conscious on his own.
He thinks about drinking his urine, he's had to do it before, but he hopes he’ll be able to find water within the time limit set by his body. That experience has quite literally fueled nightmares for him.
Sunset is painting the sky in a riot of oranges and reds. Harry does not think of fire.
He starts eyeing the trees more closely, looking for one that is sturdy, tall, with lots of handholds, and nice wide branches or maybe a fork to make camp. Most of the trees around him look like pines, with lots of thin branches. It’s getting dark fast enough that he’s about to settle for one of those, when he spots the perfect tree.
He’s pretty sure it’s an oak, since acorns were covered in “edible plants” with Trainer Sprout. There’s a smallish fork that has drooped right to the ground like a ramp, letting him literally walk up to where the forks really start to go wild. He climbs easily, leaping and pulling himself onto branches thicker than his thighs, panting a little with the effort.
Fully forty feet up, he finds the final crown of branches forking out and further up from the end of the main trunk. There are quite a few spiderwebs around. He uses the last of the dwindling light to make absolutely certain that none of the species there will do more than make him itch or sting a bit. He has enough space to lay out his supplies, and maybe even set up the tent if it’s small.
The contents of the tent pack are a pleasant surprise. The actual tent is tiny, a “Capitol special” pop-up that packs down to the size of a frisbee but expands to about 3’x4’x7’. Built-in straps with grommets for a little sack of pegs dangle off all eight corners, plus a ring of four around the middle. It’s made of textured, camouflage-patterned fabric that will be hard to spot through tree branches.
Also in the pack are a thin, camouflage-toned, heat-reflective sleeping bag with padded pillow sewn-in; an extra tarp made of the same material as the tent, about 9’x9’ square; a tent repair kit; a pair of sunglasses, a set of binoculars, and a headlamp/night-vision goggle combo; a compact cookset, complete with burner, fuel, and arc lighter, plus a place setting for one; a coil of rope, a spool of snare wire, and a multi-tool; and a 2-liter collapsible water vessel with a bottle of iodine.
It’s like someone in the Capitol has a list of “what to bring when camping in the woods” and the Gamemakers put everything in here except the actual food and water. No wonder this thing was at the mouth of the Cornucopia.
He takes the time to strap the tent into the fork of the tree, wedging it in at an angle, before moving everything inside it and donning the headlamp/goggle thing. Before he zips the tent shut, he double-checks that the lamp can’t be seen from the outside, being extremely careful not to let the light shine out from 40’ up like a damn lighthouse.
MREs next. There are an even dozen; three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners, and three snacks. Each meal has 600 calories, each snack has 200. 2,000 calories a day. He usually gets by on half that, but he’s not usually in a literal fight to the death. He tears open the first dinner and cracks the heat pack to get it going.
The anthem starts playing, and he quickly shuts the headlamp off and unzips the tent enough to stick his head out. There’s enough of a gap above him to see the Capitol seal – he knows it’s a screen carried by an invisible ‘craft, but it looks like wizardry.
The girl from 3, boy from 4, boy from 5, boy and girl from 6 and 7, boy from 8, both from 9, and boy from 10 all flash across the screen as he counts to 11. He takes what feels like the first deep breath he’s had all day, and smiles for any cameras that are watching.
Katniss is still in the Games.