The Tributes
The moment the anthem ended, as if to add insult to injury, it had been Yaxley who grabbed Harry’s arm, gentle in a way he never was, and led him inside the community center.
Harry was in a daze as Yaxley led him in a room. Yaxley looked at Harry oddly for a moment, his pale eyes shining while Harry stared back, too stunned for words.
“You have that soup?” Yaxley asked in a grunt. When Harry didn’t say anything, Yaxley reached out and shook his shoulder roughly, clicking Harry’s teeth together in his mouth. “Do you have that soup?” he asked again.
Harry nodded then spoke automatically, “Yes.”
“Good.” Yaxley nodded and gave Harry another searching look. “I’ll miss you, Pet.”
Harry said nothing as he watched Yaxley walk out, he just stood there, processing his words.
‘I’ll miss you.’
It took Harry a moment, long enough for Yaxley’s loud footsteps to disappear, but when it clicked- he could only laugh.
Not ‘good luck’, ‘try and win’, ‘don’t die’.
Just, ‘I’ll miss you.’
Harry laughed until his mirth turned to grief and he sank to the sofa and sobbed. Harry ducked his head and pulled his hair hard enough to feel a few strands detach from his skull.
Lucky for them - when Harry was dead there would only ever be proof he lived by the strands of hair he left on the velvet couch.
He didn't believe in a god, never had, but in this moment he thought if there was one, he really was having the time of his life watching Harry struggle since birth with ever worse challenges. The Hunger Games were just the rotten cherry on top of the shit-cake his life had turned out to be.
Harry saw the Hunger Games, he’d seen them every September since he was old enough to be forced to sit in front of the screens and watch. Viewing was mandatory, noncompliance meant arrest, imprisonment, sometimes death in the harsher districts (according to Yaxley, anyway).
He knew what was going to happen.
Harry would be taken from District 12 to the Capitol where he’d be paraded around like a dog on a leash before being tossed in whatever sadistic arena they had planned.
And then he would die.
Murdered by another tribute or by a trap in the arena or by… by anything. There was no world in which Harry Potter came out as the victor in this. He couldn't win. Not with his thin as a sheet of paper frame, stomach so drawn in that you could count his ribs, and arms that would break under the slightest pressure.
Harry had a week until he’d face death.
Crying now wouldn’t help, but it wasn’t going to hurt him either. In the room next door, Harry knew that Neville Longbottom would be saying goodbye to his family, his friends, the people who cared about him.
Harry’s only goodbye came from a man who fucked him for food and didn’t even think Harry could win.
And that was the real issue that was driving Harry’s grief, wasn’t it?
Harry knew he couldn’t either.
It was like the Capitol decided to make Harry as miserable as they could before they killed him. First by having Yaxley be the one to lead him off the stage, then by making him wait in a room for an hour before he left.
It was meant to be an hour of terrified parents, heart-broken friends, grieving lovers, all coming to say goodbye and give words of advice or encouragement.
For Harry, it meant he had a little under an hour left to stop acting like a baby, get himself under control, and make the cameras waiting for him think that he didn’t care.
Harry didn’t give a damn about their games, he didn’t give a damn about their entertainment, he didn’t give a damn about his life or his death.
Throw him in their arena? Whatever.
Kill him for fun? Cool.
Let Harry become another tribute buried in a cemetery that no one ever visited? Okay.
They could have his death for their games, but they didn’t get to see him cry over it. The last person to see Harry cry had been Sirius Black, two years ago, and Harry planned on keeping it that way.
Tears wouldn't help him anyway. They wouldn't turn back time and make his name not be drawn, they wouldn't give Harry a family to see him off and cry for him and even possibly lend him their strength, and they certainly wouldn't protect Harry from the imminent death that was awaiting him. Tears were as useless as Harry himself was.
To trick himself, calm himself, Harry stood up and began pacing the room. He peeled his shoes off and trailed his toes in the dark and plush carpet. He'd never felt a texture like that before - the closest thing that had come even remotely close to this softness was one of Yaxley's better carpets, the one he only rolled out when he had important people coming over. The only reason Harry even saw it, let alone touched it the one time, was because the peacekeeper had been too hammered to roll it back up and put it away before he beckoned Harry over from his window as he was passing by.
He fingered the thick tapestries hanging on the wall. He ran his hands down the velvet couches, soaking in the experience while he still could, wondering how many tributes - most of them dead - had stood in this very same room, sat on these couches, and prepared themselves for a week of psychological torture while they waited to die.
He wondered who all came to tell Neville Longbottom goodbye.
He imagined what it would be like if he had parents.
‘Be careful, baby,’ his mom would cry.
‘Be strong, son,’ his dad would say.
They’d be terrified, but they’d beg him to try. Try and survive. Try and come home to them.
But Harry had no one to ask him to try, no one to ask him to survive.
And when the peacekeeper came to take Harry from the community center to the train station, Harry knew it would be the last time he saw District 12.
It was as much of a relief as it was shocking.
At the train station, Harry stepped from the car with his chin raised and his eyes hooded. Let the others see Harry not give a damn. Let the President see that his games meant nothing to Harry.
Neville Longbottom, Harry’s competitor (would he be his executioner?), stood beside Harry while they let the cameras get their fill of them. Neville’s face was red and swollen, obviously puffy from crying, and Harry decided then and there to make himself stand out.
Harry smirked in the camera closest to his face and raised his middle finger to his forehead in a mocking salute before he got on the train.
Fuck the Hunger Games. Fuck the President. Fuck every single citizen in the country who planned on watching Harry cower and snivel and die.
Harry hated all of them.
As soon as Neville got on the train, after yelling tearful goodbyes to the people who wanted him to return, the train doors closed behind them and immediately began moving. The scenery outside the window immediately began to rush past with a speed that made him dizzy, so he forced his eyes away and looked around.
Harry had never been on a train, he doubted anyone in District 12, aside from the miners who transported coal, ever did. The tribute train was fancier than the coal train, mercifully clean of the soot that decorated District 12 and painted Harry’s short life. That didn't say much, since the bar was on the ground and had been digging deeper and deeper into the earth with every year that passed and their district was still in abject poverty, but it was a decently pleasant train - for Harry's standards at least.
Rita Skeeter, whose nose seemed to be in a permanent displeased wrinkle since the cameras were removed from their faces, pointed Harry and Neville to their compartments, told them to be back in the main compartment for dinner, and then clicked off with a half-muttered comment about finding their mentor.
As Harry dug through the dressers in what was the nicest room he’d ever been in, he considered what a joke his mentor was.
Harry had liked Sirius Black well enough when he’d been a random pair of grey eyes shining with concern in what used to be the worst moment of Harry’s life. Harry even empathized with him, in a way. Two people struggling to survive their own horrors on their own. But now? Now that Sirius Black had an opportunity to keep Harry alive in small ways next week when he would be in the arena? Knowing Sirius Black would be too high, too haunted, to do it?
No.
Harry wanted nothing to do with Sirius Black.
Sirius Black was the only thing that could tip the scales from his death to his survival, as everyone knew that that was the whole point of a mentor. But Harry knew that hoping for Sirius Black to step up and do his job was as fruitless as wondering what his life would've been like had he been born in a different district. So yes, Harry wanted nothing to do with him.
And, after considering the clothing available and the bathroom with the large walk-in shower connected to his room, Harry wanted nothing to do with the clothes from the Capitol either.
They thought they could buy him off with pretty outfits and hot showers? They were wrong. Harry would keep the clothes he had on, save for the sneakers that he tossed in the bin and traded for a thick pair of wool socks.
At least when Harry bartered his body for the clothes he had, it had been his choice to do it.
When Harry’s time was up and a curt knock summoned him to dinner, he stumbled in the hallway a bit, unused to walking on a moving train. When he found his ‘train legs’, he made his way to the dining cart and spotted Neville, Rita Skeeter, and Sirius Black all already sitting at the table.
The table itself was set in a way that Harry knew would have his mouth drooling on any other occasion. All the platters, fancy white things that Harry thought would be so easily broken, were covered in huge piles of some of the richest foods Harry had ever seen.
He saw a bowl of mashed potatoes as big as his head, three more equally huge bowls filled with various cooked vegetables. There was a roast duck in the center of the table, already half-carved and ready to be eaten. A silver tray was buried in soft rolls that smelt so good Harry nearly cried. He even spotted a dish of butter, probably real butter, not the lard that Winky, the wrinkled old lady in Knockturn Alley who sold soup and never noticed Harry swiping food from her bar, used on her thin slices of grainy bread.
“Sit, eat,” Sirius Black said in a raspy voice, wrecked by the same substance that had his pupils swallowing all the grey in his eyes. He didn’t look at Harry, but as Harry was the only one standing, Harry assumed he was being ordered to do it.
Harry considered going back to his room, just to be a dick. Show Sirius Black that he wouldn’t be taking orders from anyone, but…
But Harry had never had real butter before and he only had a week to mark as many things off his ‘to do before I die’ list as he could. Might as well start with butter.
It was quiet while they all ate; Neville sniffled on and off, a sound that ground on Harry’s nerves. What did Neville have to be so sad about? Neville was tall, broad chested, handsome. Neville looked like one of the town kids - richer than the Seam kids who were richer than the tent kids who were safer than the orphanage kids - with his carefully combed hair and his face that had round cheeks.
In Harry’s very bitter opinion, round cheeks were just as arrogant as a crown on someone’s head. Round cheeks meant they didn’t go to bed hungry, they didn’t count their ribs when they changed their clothes, they didn’t know what it was like to spend days scrounging in trash for pieces of food that weren’t too slimy to eat.
Round cheeks meant they’d never accepted that slimy pieces of food were better than nothing.
Besides, it wasn't like Neville was here against his will. He volunteered. Harry didn't have that luxury - the idea of volunteering to die for someone else was foreign to him anyway - but he wasn't being a baby about it, now was he?
Rita Skeeter coughed midway through the silent meal and smiled brightly at them all.
“I must say, you two are quite well-mannered,” she said happily. “You wouldn’t believe the type of animals I’ve gotten from your district before.”
Harry felt Neville stiffen in his seat beside him, apparently just as offended as Harry had been by the cruel comment, but Neville said nothing, did nothing.
Apparently his quota for bravery had been used up when he volunteered for the pretty girl back in the square.
Harry however, well, he had nothing to lose. So he looked Rita Skeeter right in her icy blue eyes and picked up a handful of mashed potatoes and threw them directly at her face.
Neville chuckled quietly when Rita squealed and stormed from the room, cursing ‘hateful little brats’ all the way to her compartment to get washed up.
“Ballsy,” Neville told Harry, sitting back in his chair with a grin. He had the same green tinge to his face that Harry was sure he had as well. Even if Neville had round cheeks and a family that loved him, neither of them were used to the rich fare of the Capitol food.
“Stupid,” Sirius Black said quietly. Harry swung his eyes over to him accusingly. What right did Sirius have to call Harry stupid?
Sirius stared back blankly, like there was no life behind his eyes. And maybe there wasn’t, not while morphling was obviously flowing through his body.
Harry wondered if he would let Harry try it before he entered the arena. It hadn’t been on his ‘to do’ list, but neither had butter really. Harry figured he should snatch up experiences when he could, as limited as they would be for the last few days of his life.
“Rita knows a lot of the sponsors for the games.” Sirius wiped his mouth with a napkin and got to his feet, surprisingly steady. “Pissing her off is the quickest way to make sure she doesn’t try and get you any sponsors.”
Neville was nodding away, soaking in that very minor ‘advice’ like a sponge. Which was fine for Neville, he might be the next victor for District 12.
“So?” Harry asked, lifting his chin defiantly. “I don’t need sponsors.”
Sirius’ lips twisted in a mocking smile. “You do if you want any chance of winning.”
Harry mocked him right back with his wide eyes and a sarcastic tone.
“I’m emaciated—” a fancy word Harry heard Yaxley describe him with once, “—not stupid. I’m not here to win, I’m here to die for the glory of Panem.”
Despite Sirius never, ever, having had a tribute survive the games before, Harry still saw the full body shudder that wracked his thin frame when Harry’s words struck him.
Sirius slammed his hands on the table and leaned over until his face was right in Harry’s.
“You’re going to fucking win, kid, do you understand me?” he snarled. “You don’t get to be another ghost in my house. Not you, not now.”
Harry only glanced away from Sirius’ suddenly lively and furious face long enough to see that Neville looked both unsurprised and unworried about the way that Sirius was… was threatening Harry to live?
“With a mentor like you?” Harry smirked and patted Sirius’ cheek in the most condescending way he could. “How could I not win?”
Harry didn’t have a chance in hell and every person on that train knew it. Sirius pretending otherwise was further proof that he was high out of his mind.
Something flashed in Sirius’ eyes, something like approval? But it was gone in an instant and Sirius straightened himself up.
“Let’s go watch the reapings,” he said, flat and lifeless once more. “I’ll get Rita.”
Harry followed Neville to the room Sirius pointed out to them, more from curiosity than anything. The boys sat on the sofa on opposite ends and Harry subtly watched as Neville pulled a tiny silver pendant of some sort from his pocket.
“My token,” Neville said softly, showing that Harry hadn’t been nearly as subtle as he thought. His eyes looked teary again and Harry looked away quickly.
“That’s nice,” Harry said disinterestedly. He had forgotten that tributes got to take a token in the arena with them. He sort of doubted that the can of vegetable soup in his pocket would count, nor would the plastic wrapped crackers.
“Wanna see?” Neville held his hand out and Harry saw that the pendant was actually a small silver flower, each petal painstakingly detailed. It was beautiful, and useless.
“No,” Harry said, turning away from him. He didn’t want to touch the proof that Neville had a family that cared enough to give him a token. It was… it was as arrogant as Neville’s round cheeks.
“Do you really plan on just dying?” Neville asked Harry quietly after less than a minute of silence. “For the glory of a country that doesn’t care about us?”
Harry snorted and decided maybe Neville wasn’t as empty of bravery as he’d first thought. It took guts to criticize Panem aloud. Then again, maybe Neville doubted he had a future for their President to ruin, so maybe he just didn’t care anymore either.
“For Panem? No,” Harry scoffed. “I’ll die for me.”
Neville’s face scrunched up. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said slowly. “Why not live for you?”
Harry shrugged and picked at the fabric on the sofa. “Been there, done that,” he said, hiding his current lack of options behind an impenetrable mask of sarcasm. “If I can’t win, then I might as well die on my feet, on my terms.”
Neville’s previous look of confusion cleared away and he pocketed his token with a nod of understanding.
“Yeah, that sounds nice,” he said thoughtfully. “Die on our terms - their game, our rules.”
Harry looked derisively at Neville and raised a disbelieving brow.
“There’s no reason for you to not play their game,” he said with more bitterness leaking through than intended. “You still have a shot at winning.”
Neville suddenly laughed, loudly enough to almost mask the clicking sound of Rita’s heels returning from her tantrum over a bit of food in her hair.
“You’re joking,” Neville said, looking at Harry with a smile and glittering eyes. “Harry, there’s zero chance of me winning. Not against you, not with Sirius Black as our mentor.”
Harry cocked his head curiously at that odd phrasing, but Rita and Sirius entered the room and Neville turned away so Harry merely filed it under something to think about later.
Rita had her nose turned up in the air as she took the chair, leaving Sirius to sit in between Harry and Neville.
“Let’s see the other tributes, hm?” Rita suggested before flicking on the holographic screen that filled the wall across from where Harry sat.
District by district, Harry watched as other kids were chosen, and occasionally volunteered. Harry had never bothered to learn any of the tributes' names in the past, it had never been relevant to his life before, but it was then, so he paid attention.
In the first district, a boy with pale and pointed features volunteered just before a girl with short black hair and a sharp smile did. Draco and Pansy, both probably trained their whole life for the games as the tributes in Districts 1, 2, and 3 often did. And, just as often, the winner of their games would come from one of those districts where winning was an honor and not just a way to escape starving to death on the streets.
From District 2 came two boys who were more muscular than Harry thought fifteen year olds should really be.
In District 3, a pretty boy with dark skin, a white smile, and an air of absolute delight when his name had been drawn. The camera panned to the side and showed a tall woman with glossy black curls clapping and the announcer discussed how Juliana Zabini, the pretty dark skinned boy’s mom, was a victor from a prior year.
“Maybe it’ll run in the family,” the announcer said chipperly. “I guess only time will tell if Blaise will take after his mom or not!”
The other tribute for that district was a boy with a smirk and shaggy brown hair, Theo. He shook Blaise’s hand and they looked much too friendly for two boys who would be fighting each other to the death soon.
District 4 produced two female tributes, a girl with wild brown hair and a petite frame, Hermione, and a girl with slick blonde hair and a sharp smile, Daphne.
District 5 brought more volunteers. A young girl's name got called, Ginny, and a boy with matching red hair volunteered.
“Her brother, I’d bet,” the announcer mused just moments before the volunteer, Fred Weasley, confirmed it. Then, when the next name was called, another red-headed boy, identical to the first, volunteered immediately.
“Twins!” the announcer cried. “How wonderful!”
Harry didn’t think it was wonderful. He saw how Fred and George’s parents and siblings were shown on the screen, all sobbing and miserable. No matter how it played out, one of those boys would die. Fred and George kept up cheerful smiles for the cameras, but Harry saw their linked hands that were white from the force of how hard they were squeezing.
Districts 6, 7, 8, and 9 offered nothing memorable or exciting, much to the announcers dismay. A dark skinned boy named Dean, a girl with equally dark skin, Lavender, from 6. Two redheads from 7, Seamus and Susan. A pair that cried on stage together in 8, Cho and Cedric. An older boy named Greene and a blonde named Sky from 9, both looking stunned when their names were drawn, as if they weren’t quite sure how it had happened.
District 10 brought a girl so beautiful that Harry knew sponsors had to be drooling, Fleur, and a boy so brawny that Harry would bet on him if he could, Krum.
District 11 brought more drama - a kid’s name was called and the camera panned to a tiny little eleven year old boy with black hair and green eyes for only a moment before another boy shouted his offer to volunteer with the desperate tenor of someone who thought they wouldn’t be heard. The boy who volunteered, Trent Bailey, was also eleven it seemed like, but he was a little taller than the first boy who shared his looks and last name, so Harry assumed they were brothers but less than a year apart.
Trent earned a begrudging amount of respect from Harry when he stepped up to the stage with his chin lifted defiantly and his arms firmly crossed.
That boy would die within hours, but still he went.
Another boy was reaped, Taylor Anderson, and then it showed Harry and Neville’s reaping.
Neville cried anew on the sofa when Luna Lovegood’s name was called and Harry got to see Neville’s swift and firm offer to volunteer once more.
It was brave. It was stupid.
What was the point of volunteering for a loved one when it meant you lost them either way?
Harry couldn't imagine giving his life up for anyone - he'd spent too many years hanging on by the skin of his teeth for survival to be able to just throw his life away for someone else. Dying for himself? No problem. Having the option to live and throw it away? Idiotic.
When Harry’s name was drawn, the announcer perked up for no real reason that Harry understood. Harry thought he looked pathetic on screen - small and angry, like a stiff breeze would knock him down but his rage was the only thing holding him up. He did feel rather smug when he got to see himself flip off the country at the train station though.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I think these will be our most exciting Games yet,” the announcer said eagerly while flashes of each tribute were shown on screen. “We have two previous tributes’ children, one with a godparent for a mentor, six volunteers, and a brand new arena!”
Harry wondered which child also had a tribute for a parent, aside from the boy in 3. He assumed they came from District 1, but since the announcer said ‘tribute’, not ‘victor’, it was anyone’s guess. He was envious of anyone who had the luck to have their godfather be their mentor; how could a person die in the arena if their family member was the one fighting for their sponsors outside of it?
Sirius flicked the screen off quickly when they began discussing the tributes and the prior games in more detail. He stood up and looked at Neville rather than Harry, though his words had been aimed at them both.
“Be at breakfast at eight,” he told them before drifting out of the room on silent feet. Neville followed him after a moment with a quiet parting that Harry didn’t share.
Harry had forgotten that Rita was even in the room as he sat on the sofa and replayed the other tributes’ faces and names in his mind. Twenty-four of them would enter the arena in a week, one would leave it. Harry knew he would die there, but he wondered if he would kill there as well.
Would Harry kill the beautiful boy from 3 or one of the brothers from 5? Would he end Krum or Trent’s life?
Well… probably not those two, he admitted, if only to himself. He doubted if he could kill Krum, just based on their size differences, and he didn’t think he could ever kill Trent for similar reasons.
“You would have a better chance if you had sponsors.”
Harry jerked at Rita’s comment, unaware that she had remained behind when Sirius and Neville went to bed.
“And if your mentor would stop filling his veins with poison,” she went on, ignoring Harry’s passive expression in favor of examining her fingernails.
“Great thinking,” Harry said flatly. “Why don’t you tell him that?”
Rita looked from her nails to Harry and smiled nastily as she gracefully got to her feet - a move that defied logic with the heels she was wearing.
Harry probably should have known better than to fling food at someone from the Capitol. He should have expected retaliation, he shouldn’t have thought he couldn’t be shocked any more that day. If Neville Longbottom still had the capacity to be brave, then Harry still had the capacity for surprise.
“You tell him,” Rita said. She walked to the doorway and her smile was still on her red painted lips when she added, “He is your godfather, after all.”