The Token
Every wrong decision that Harry could make, he did.
Every chance Harry had to work anything in his favor, he spurned it.
Sirius couldn’t see any way that Harry survived the arena… he had no allies outside of Longbottom, he had no marketable qualities. People liked a rebel, but not one that screamed fuck the Capitol on stage.
It was impressive; James would have whistled at Harry’s balls.
It was suicidal levels of reckless; Sirius would have done that at his interview if he hadn’t started out allied with James.
Sirius had to be smart, be roguish and charming and in control, because Sirius knew James was tied to Sirius’s fate. If the gamemakers tried to take Sirius out through a bombing or mutt attack because Sirius was too rebellious, James would have died.
If Sirius knew how James’s story ended, Sirius would have done it anyway.
President Dumbledore would be telling the Gamemakers to take Harry out first, Sirius was sure of it. And, if James’s uncharacteristic silence was any indicator of his opinion, he agreed.
It meant that Sirius had one night - one chance - to talk to Harry, to James and Lily’s boy.
Sirius faced the arena.
It shouldn’t have been more terrifying to face his godson.
Sirius stood outside the room that had been assigned to Harry and had never craved morphling more than he did then. It was late, too late, but even the lack of light beneath the polished golden door couldn’t dissuade Sirius.
There was no chance that Harry was asleep… Nobody slept the night before the Games. When it had been Sirius, he spent the night in James’s bed and they didn’t say a word the whole night.
That wasn’t entirely true, Sirius supposed to himself. James had asked Sirius a single question and Sirius lied through his teeth when he responded.
They just laid there and knew it was the last sleepover; the last night they had of just Sirius and James. The next morning they were the Tributes. A week later and James was the Runner-Up to Sirius’s Victor.
Harry wouldn’t have anyone inside with him though, just like he didn’t have anyone to tell him goodbye after his reaping. Sirius had been a coward then, too strung out to speak to him, but he was sober.
Not brave, but sober.
Sirius knocked once and then opened the door enough to poke his head in. The room was half-lit with what was meant to be a breathtaking view of the city in the electronic glass wall. To anyone else, it might have been.
Someone else would see the twinkling lights, the color, the air of comfort, and be drawn in. What Sirius saw was opulence in one place while mothers had to decide which child would get dinner in other places. It wasn’t beautiful but a slap in the face.
Harry laid in the grand bed, looking so damned small it made Sirius’s stomach bubble with shame. Harry was small for a teenager, pitiful for fourteen. With his thin limbs hidden beneath what Sirius knew was a thick comforter and only his pale face, cheeks gaunt, staring at Sirius, he made a sad image.
“Save the eulogy for the funeral,” Harry told him flatly, startling Sirius. Sirius had seen his eyes open, but had been picturing James at the end… black hair messy, glasses crooked, eyes open, chest still.
“If I die first, you can eulogize me,” Sirius said in a croaking voice. It had been a stupid thing to say, but it softened the cold look on Harry’s young face to something mildly amused.
“I hope you do it quick, you’ve only got eight hours.” Harry sat up in the bed and Sirius didn’t remark on his shirtless state or the way Sirius could see him shifting so his back rubbed on the silk pillowcase.
Sirius didn’t notice it when he’d been the tribute, but as a mentor he saw it every year. The kids that came from District 12 had never experienced nice things, things like silk sheets or cold milk, and they wanted to soak it in before they died.
Unconsciously or consciously, it didn’t matter. If Harry wanted to sleep shirtless, that was more than his right.
“I’d jump from the rooftop, except there’s wards in place,” Sirius said, continuing the morbid word game as he shuffled fully in the room.
“Are there?” Harry subtly scooted away, toward the far side of the bed, and Sirius locked himself in place a good five feet from the bed.
“Yeah.” Sirius had his hands stuffed in the pockets of whatever trousers that Rita forced on him that morning and he shrugged tired shoulders up. “You get the penthouse every year and you pick some things up.”
Like how when Sirius jumped from the roof his second year as a mentor, he’d been shot right back to the rooftop and spent the first three days of the Games in a hospital for his injuries. It happened again, Sirius couldn’t remember the year, but one of his tributes had started the games with a leg in a cast and an eyepatch from where a shard of glass punctured his retina.
That kid had been killed within four minutes of the games starting. It hadn’t been pretty.
Harry made a quiet sound, his eyes sharp while he waited to find out what Sirius wanted. Sirius wasn’t in any rush for ending their chat, if it could be called that, because it would be their last.
Sirius stalled by forcing himself to gaze at the city, wishing he could trade places with a single one of those pets that wandered the Capitol and felt so superior. They didn’t enter the games. They didn’t suffer from starvation or abuse by peacekeepers. Their beds were always warm, pillows always cool. There were no dead brothers whispering in their heads, no godsons preparing to kill and be killed.
“Your mom always wanted to see the Capitol,” Sirius whispered, the words sending dull pain through his entire body as he shared them. “They televised her death, you know. I watched her die two days after - after your dad.”
The first silver lining that Sirius had ever known was that James had been spared the pain Sirius experienced during his victory interview. While Sirius had been on stage, they began playing a tape that Capitol cameras had captured during the time Sirius had been with his makeover team.
Lily crying, clutching her stomach. Lily bleeding, hurting. Lily’s hand flexing over and over, reaching for a love she would never touch again. Lily screaming for James, screaming at the world, screaming at Sirius.
Sirius had a crown placed on his head two hours after Harry James Potter was born, two hours after Lily died.
They asked him about it during his interview - “You’re a godfather now! How do you feel?”
Sirius couldn’t remember his response, he didn’t want to.
“I miss them so much,” Sirius said. He swallowed the lump in his throat and dropped his head. “They were the best people.”
Harry processed that for a minute then made the first intelligent comment Sirius heard from him all week.
“Nothing like you then,” Harry commented.
Sirius twisted his lips in a bitter smile. “No, nothing at all like me.”
Lily was beauty personified, charming beyond reason. James was…
Sirius couldn’t think about all the things James Potter had been… James was everything. Sirius made himself think of the boy on the bed, the child who would be sent in the arena the next morning.
“You’re allowed a token,” Sirius said, shifting the conversation to his original purpose in finding Harry. Sirius’s hand clenched and unclenched a few times in his pocket, feeling the cold metal that hadn’t warmed at all while pressed to Sirius’s thigh.
“Lily gave me back her ring,” James said, not hiding his tears as he spun a diamond ring on the table between them. Diamonds were a joke in their district, as rare and precious as genuine smiles.
Sirius never questioned that the Potter family had both.
James had given Lily his grandmother’s ring six months ago, a week after Lily realized she was pregnant. Sirius and Regulus had squealed like girls when they watched James propose to Lily.
With Reggie in his arms, a godchild on the way, and the promise of a wedding to be held between the only proof of soulmates that Sirius had needed… Sirius never thought he could be happier.
Such hubris had to be punished, Sirius knew that then.
“Your token?” Sirius guessed wryly, sipping the scotch he stole from the pocket of a peacekeeper.
“Yeah.” James couldn’t fit the ring on any finger except his pinky and his voice was wrecked. “You gotta give it back to her, Sirius.” James held up his hand, flashing the ring at Sirius. It was easier to look at the diamond than in James’s eyes, not when Sirius knew they were working at odds for the first time in their lives.
“When I’m dead, take the ring off my finger and give it back to Lily,” James said. “I want her to have it even - even if…” James’s voice hitched on a sob and his face crumpled, the last of his sentence barely legible, “Even if I’m not there to give it back to her.”
The liquor couldn’t dull the pain Sirius felt when he watched James cry, the pain Sirius felt when he moved immediately to James’s side so he could pull him in his arms and hold him.
It didn’t matter if Sirius knew James would live, James didn’t know that.
Before they made it to the Capitol, James slid his silver watch off his wrist. It had once been Fleamont’s, James’s grandfather’s before him. James gave it to Sirius for his token to carry, another token he wanted Sirius to bring back with him in the end.
James said that nothing would hurt Sirius while he wore it, as if the act of wearing it didn’t cause Sirius excruciating pain.
Sirius planned on James one day passing the watch to his child, but it was Sirius who held the watch out to Harry. The pain that the watch carried was why Sirius still had it. It trembled in Sirius’s unstable hand and Harry’s arm shook when he reached for it.
“This was your dads,” Sirius said when Harry took the watch and inspected it. On the inside of the watch was a carving, antlers. James said that ‘legend had it’ the first Potter to own the watch had carved that the day they took down a buck with enough meat to feed all the children in the district.
It sounded like a cruel anecdote to tell Harry so Sirius didn’t.
“It’s a good thing you waited this long to give it to me,” Harry said mockingly even when Sirius could see the vulnerable look in his eyes that were glued to the engraving. “I definitely would have traded this for food back home.”
And Sirius would have traded anything to have James back.
Everyone was slowly starving to death for something they didn’t have.
Sirius sat on the edge of the bed and racked his brain for something to say. If it would be his last conversation with Harry, if it would be the last time Sirius got to say something to the child that James loved so fiercely, he wanted it to count.
Everything sounded so selfish, so much like who Sirius was at his core.
‘I wish things were different’, well so did Harry.
‘I’d go in for you if I could’, but he couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry’, it didn’t matter.
“It looks easy,” Sirius said softly, “dying. I think it’s like falling asleep… quick and painless.”
Sirius wouldn’t know how it felt to fall asleep quickly or painlessly, he hadn’t in years… fourteen of them, to be exact. But he just wanted to say something so badly, offer a single small comfort.
It had been the wrong thing to say.
“Yeah?” Harry’s voice gained an edge, his district accent making a spectacular display. “You really think I’m gonna fuckin’ die, don’t you? You can’t even pretend? Not for one second that you think I could win?”
Sirius turned his body so he had his back to the headboard. It was familiar, sitting in bed with Harry. Not because Sirius had any memories with Harry, but he could see James in his face, Regulus in the emotions that bled from him.
Truthfully, Harry was right. Sirius didn’t think he would win, not for one second. Harry made no friends with those who ran the games, he pushed his rebel image too far even for those that would have supported him. Worst of all, Harry had just Sirius for a mentor.
The second silver lining of Sirius’s life was that James was spared the pain that Sirius experienced as Harry’s mentor. It would have been a big thing in the Capitol, a parent mentoring their child. James would have done his best to market Harry, but it would have killed him to send his son in the arena.
“Are you trying to win?” Sirius turned the question around on Harry, as much of an admittance as he wanted to taint the night with.
“I’m trying…” Harry’s fist closed and opened on the watch, offering Sirius peeks of silver over and over while Harry searched for the words he wanted.
“I’m trying to be something they never expected.”
Sirius couldn’t help his smile then. It was Sirius’s words coming from James’s mouth with Lily’s conviction. If Harry could trade around the qualities of the people who created him and failed him, he might have a shot.
“You want to go down swinging,” Sirius said.
“No.” Harry shook his head, his dark hair flying about. “I mean, yeah, I’m not going out without a fuckin’ fight, but I know who the enemy is and it ain’t a bunch of kids.”
Sirius looked at the camera in the corner of the room, one of many.
Harry had no shot at winning. None.
Sirius didn’t say that, he only tilted his head back on the plush headboard and let the silence between them grow. If Harry wanted to be alone, Sirius knew he’d have no problem saying so. Since he didn’t, Sirius thought he might be wanting to have one night of his life where he wasn’t alone.
For the first and last time, Sirius imagined.
“Was he scared?” Harry asked him quietly when an hour had passed and nothing else had been said.
Harry’s fist was clenched around James’s watch and he stared over at the city lights. Sirius didn’t think Harry seemed any more impressed than Sirius was with them because Harry averted his eyes soon enough with the weight of Sirius’s on him. When he looked over at Sirius, Sirius saw his eyes were dry and there was no fear in them.
It wasn’t bravery, it was resignation.
Those eyes were resigned to the fate they were stuck with.
“My dad? Was he scared?” Harry asked again when Sirius didn’t answer immediately.
Sirius looked at Lily’s eyes set on James’s face and he slowly reached out to place his hand on top of Harry’s head. It was just the moment - Sirius couldn’t help himself and Harry didn’t stop him. Harry stiffened, but continued to gaze at Sirius with the most patience he had shown thus far. Sirius curled his fingers in the dark hair that James passed on to his son and he put on his best performance to date.
“No,” Sirius lied, his voice thick. “James wasn’t scared.”
Sirius laid in James’s bed and thought of Regulus. Regulus, who was reaped thirty seconds after Sirius, Regulus who was saved by James.
James was probably thinking of Lily and the baby that was due any time. James’s baby, James’s girlfriend, both left behind as he followed Sirius to the arena.
They were side-by-side, hands clasped together, sides smushed beneath the thick comforter. Even cuddled up, Sirius was freezing inside.
It was there very last night together, outside of the arena. They knew they would be a team, they might even make it to the end. But only one of them would go home.
Sirius knew without asking that neither of them planned to be the winner.
James would have to take care of Regulus, Sirius knew he would. James would win the Games, marry Lily. They would have the baby, maybe even name it after Sirius. When they moved in the fancy house in Victor’s Village, James would move his parents, kind Effie and brilliant Fleamont, and Regulus in.
That was the future Sirius envisioned that night. He would be gone, but James would live. All the people Sirius loved the most would live.
That made it all worth it. Sirius told himself it again: his death meaning everyone he loved would live made his death worth it.
Was there a better, more honorable, death than to do so for the lives of the people who would remember you? There was something in that, some significance in picturing James in ten years, telling his child about his brother who died so that James could have a chance to tuck his child in bed and marry his girl.
Sirius couldn’t protect Regulus from their mother or the pains of hunger that plagued their district. Sirius couldn’t protect either of his brothers from the game that punished the districts again and again and again for a war they had never fought in. What Sirius could do was protect James’s future, protect Regulus’s safety.
“Sirius?” James squeezed Sirius’s hand and turned on his side. Sirius could feel his eyes burning in the side of his head until Sirius shifted to look back at him.
James was crying, but he did it silently. His eyes were swollen and there were still tears falling down his face, going as quickly as the rain back home. When James reached out and rubbed Sirius’s cheekbone with his thumb, smearing wetness on Sirius’s sharp cheekbone, Sirius realized he must have been crying as well.
“Are you scared?” James asked. James’s voice shook in a way it never did, betraying his own deep fear. Sirius hated the Capitol with everything he had inside him in that moment because James Potter was not someone who feared anything.
James was fearless, the bravest person Sirius knew. James stared down peacekeepers when they leered at Lily and he yelled at Walburga when he saw her slap Sirius.
Sirius looked at his best friend, his brother. In less than twelve hours, they would enter some sick arena together and know that only one of them would leave it. Sirius would fight with everything he had in him to get to the final two with James and when they were at the end - when James’s path home was cleared - Sirius would die.
“Yeah,” Sirius lied, blinking to see James’s face through his tears. “I’m scared.”
It hadn’t been fear that made Sirius weep that night, fourteen years ago, but an early grief for the future he would sacrifice for the family that loved him.
The night before Harry entered the arena, it was fear for the family he had never loved enough.