Homecoming
Harry
They’re keeping Harry from talking to Katniss. Oh, sure, they never let go of each other during the Victory Banquet, but as soon as he got to his room, the door locked behind him. Even the door to the roof is locked, as he discovered this morning. Katniss was already gone when he woke up, apparently with her prep team.
Something is very, very wrong.
She’s there on the couch when he arrives for their interview, at least. He wants to pull her aside, but there are too many people, too many cameras, too many ways to be overheard to have even a coded conversation. He just sits next to her on the couch, arm around her shoulders, she tucked into his side again at Rita Skeeter’s encouragement.
They’re both dressed like little kids again. Their stylists are trying to make them look innocent. That’s it, he realizes, we’re being treated like criminals.
Because of the berries. He could smack himself for taking so long to work it out. The Capitol hates looking foolish, and they made them look like morons by forcing their hand.
And President Riddle blames Katniss.
Someone counts backward and they’re live. Rita opens them up with a few jokes, drawing out Harry’s gallows humor, but he’s no longer ready to hang. He’s ready to destroy anyone who’s going to take this out on his– on Katniss.
“So, Harry,” says Rita, apparently ready to dive in on the harder questions. “We know from those days in the ‘cave’ that it was love at first sight for you from, what, age five?”
“From the moment I heard her sing,” he agrees. ‘Hopelessly in love’ is the card he needs to play, the only way to keep her safe. Defiance will make things worse. They have to make this look like an act of desperation, not a deliberate plot against the Gamemakers.
“But, Katniss, we all just adored watching you fall for him as well. When did you first realize you were in love with Harry?” asks Skeeter.
“Ooh, that’s a toughy,” Katniss laughs, breathy, looking down at her hands. Nervous.
“Well, for me it was that moment when you shouted his name from up in that tree,” offers Skeeter, and Katniss grabs it like a lifeline.
“Yes,” she says, “that was probably the moment. I mean, up until the rule change, I was just trying not to think about him, honestly, because the feelings were so confusing and caring about him would just make everything worse. But then, in the tree, it all changed.”
“Why do you think that was?” urges Skeeter.
“I think, because… for the first time… I thought, just maybe, I’d get to keep him,” says Katniss. Harry presses his lips into her hair, then his forehead to her temple.
“So now that you’ve got me,” he murmurs in her ear, still plenty loud enough for the mics, “what do you plan to do with me?”
She turns to him. “Put you somewhere you can’t get hurt.” He smiles and kisses her chastely. The room sighs.
Skeeter takes this as an invitation to discuss all the injuries in the Arena. When she asks about his “new leg”, Katniss, predictably, loses her shit. She immediately shoves his pant leg up to stare at his prosthetic with a whispered, “Oh, no.”
“You didn’t know?” Skeeter asks gently.
“I haven’t had a chance to tell her,” Harry says defensively.
“It’s my fault,” whispers Katniss. “Because of the tourniquet.”
Harry shakes his head. “If you hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have made it out of there.”
Skeeter confirms, “He’s right. I’ve been reliably informed that Harry would have bled out without it.” Katniss just buries her head in his shoulder. He can feel her tears soaking his shirt. He squeezes his arm around her.
Skeeter continues the interview, seemingly content to leave Katniss to her tears and focus on Harry, until they get to the berries.
“Katniss, I realize you’ve had quite a shock, but we must know,” says Skeeter, using that obnoxious ‘royal we’ she so loves. “That moment, where you took half those berries. What was going through your mind?”
This is the moment. The crucial moment where she either committed an act of defiance – or an act of desperation. He rubs her arm, praying to all the odds she gets it right.
Her voice is almost inaudible when she finally answers. “I– I don’t know, I just… couldn’t bear the thought of… going home without him.” It’s a good answer. It echoes what she said in the Arena.
“Harry? Anything to add?” asks Skeeter.
He shakes his head. “I think it’s pretty clear I wasn’t going home without her either.” Rita chuckles, even though it wasn’t really funny. She signs off and it’s over.
***
Katniss looks like herself again. No makeup, no fancy hair or costume, just her signature braid and simple clothes. Harry thinks she looks more beautiful than ever.
They’ve been on the train for a few hours, but it’s stopped for fuel. They’re allowed out for fresh air, no longer under guard. Harry takes the opportunity to walk them out into the field, away from the train, the station, and any microphones that might be listening. He faces them away from it all and puts his arm around her.
“President Riddle is not happy with you,” he says under his breath.
Her head whips around to look at him in surprise. “I know,” she breathes.
He nods. “It was love, not dissent. That’s what they need to see,” he says, innocently enough that if they are under surveillance, it won’t condemn them.
“That’s what Remus said,” she agrees. He wonders when he became ‘Remus’ instead of ‘Lupin’ for her.
Speaking of Lupin – he’s walking up behind them. “Excellent performance, you two. Just keep it up until all the cameras are gone, and… well, in your houses too, I reckon.” Ah. Their houses in Victors’ Village will be bugged. Obviously. Because it would be too much to expect privacy in their own homes.
The Games never end.
***
District 12 is boycotting the bakery. Shunning the Dursleys. All of them, the entire District, have collectively decided never again to give his relatives business nor friendship. Within the month, the bakery will be reassigned, and the Dursleys will have to move to the Seam. Vernon will have to take a job in the mines. Petunia might have to take up washing or housekeeping.
It’s beautiful.
Harry learns all this very soon after leaving the train, from a vindictively happy Molly Weasley, who gives him his first-ever motherly hug. He adores her immediately.
At their “Welcome Home” party, everyone is leaving a wide circle around his aunt and uncle, and Dudley is nowhere to be seen. Petunia and Vernon get a lot of glares for approaching him.
“So, bo– dear, when can we move in?” asks Petunia in a falsely saccharine voice, trying to smile endearingly at him. It looks more like a grimace. Katniss looks ready to kill her at his side, but he squeezes her hand to tell her to let him handle this.
“You’re joking, right?” he sneers at Petunia. “You’re not moving in with me.”
Vernon roars, “Of course we are! We’re family!” Katniss twitches.
Harry laughs in his face. “The Capitol had to repair some crooked bones that say otherwise.”
Vernon looks ready to punch him, Katniss is very much ready to commit her first – and second – non-Arena murder, but they’re saved by a literal wall of Weasleys who make it their mission to move the Dursleys out of his vicinity before things get ugly. Harry is filled with pride and appreciation for his District… though, he does wish they could’ve been this protective before the Games.
When he makes it to his house in Victors’ Village, next door to where Katniss is moving in with her family, there’s a letter waiting for him. From Dudley.
Dear Harry,
I’m sorry. I’msosorry foreverything. All the times I punched you, or chased you, or laughed at you, or kept you from making friends. You didn’t deserveanyof that. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.
We could have been like brothers. Even if my parents were beating and starving you, I could have helped you. Snuck you food or blankets oranything. If I could go back, there’s probably not asingle thingI would do the same.
Sincerely,
Dudley Dursley
Harry reads it once. Twice. Three times. Memorizes it. He thinks back to when Dudley gave him his token, his mother’s precious fleur-de-lis, stolen from Dudley’s own mother’s nightstand.
Maybe… maybe he has family in District 12, after all.