The Snake
The sky never changed colors… it would be eternal twilight then.
It made Harry feel disoriented, unsure what he was meant to do with no natural way to track the time of day. He had his watch though, which told him he had been in the arena for eight hours by the time he and Neville felt they had found a good enough place to set up camp… so to speak.
“I miss my tent,” Harry complained quietly, shocked himself that it was something he could be made to miss. It wouldn’t offer them much in the arena, since it was apparently being held indoors anyway, but it would be a small comfort to Harry.
He and Neville had explored as much of the castle - Neville called it a castle and Harry accepted that as fact - as they could in their mission to get very far away from the others. When they couldn’t go any deeper in the castle, they found an empty room that seemed harmless enough.
Nothing in the arena was ever harmless, there would be traps at every turn, created by the Gamemakers specifically for their game. The only upside of a rigged arena was that the traps were usually to drive tributes toward each other, since the Capitol citizens wanted to see the ‘barbaric district citizens’ kill each other.
It made Harry think of a circle…
The Capitol thought those who lived in the district were animalistic and so they created the games. The games made the kids of the districts act like animals in order to survive. The Capitol thought they were animals and made sure they had to act like them.
And over and over and over.
It actually gave Harry a headache to think about, honestly.
But Harry and Neville had set up a place for the… night? Next few hours? It really was disorienting with light filtering in that never changed.
It wasn’t much, just a corner of a room with their bodies slumped against each other. They were on the same wall as the door so if anyone entered they wouldn’t see the boys immediately. Harry was sure that someone would try and burst in eventually if they stayed in one place too long, careers never waited very long before they began hunting.
Harry didn’t like staying put, it made him uneasy, but they would be easier marks if they were roaming anyway.
“You have a tent?” Neville asked, toying with his token.
“I live in one,” Harry said simply. Not wanting to miss a chance to insult the Capitol or make the other tent kids cheer, he went on. “There’s usually about a dozen kids who live in tents in our district. You probably didn’t notice ‘em, we’re sneaky.”
Harry grinned to himself, thinking of some of the heists they had pulled off. The older boy who lived there had a stick he used as defense and just last winter he used it to spear half a dozen rabbits through the fence that surrounded their district. One of the girls took the rabbits to the butcher and traded something - probably herself - to have them checked for toxins and cooked.
Harry had been in charge of finding other foods, a tricky feat on a good day. Since Yaxley only ever let Harry eat at his house, Harry went in search of a different mark. The peacekeepers were usually at Knockturn Alley, drinking and gambling more than any district citizen.
It didn’t take too much, not really. Harry cozied up to the peacekeeper who looked to be winning the game they played. Sure, Harry had to play the coy whore, but it only took an hour to get invited back to the barracks where the majority of the peacekeepers lived.
When Harry slipped away in the middle of the night, he had a busted lip, bruises on his neck, and a burlap sack full of as many canned goods as he could steal from the barracks kitchen.
The tent kids had fried rabbit, bread crusts that the younger kids swiped from the mayor’s trash, and a variety of soups and canned vegetables that Harry contributed. Harry’s favorite had been the canned carrots that were mixed with something sweet. He wished he could remember what they were called…
Not that he expected to get to eat them again.
Neville didn’t seem to think it was a very good story, but Harry hoped they played it on the television.
Harry hoped every peacekeeper that had ever touched him knew then that it was Harry who chose for it to happened, Harry who won their war even if he didn’t win many battles.
“Why would you live like that?” Neville asked Harry quietly. At some point in Harry’s story about the best feast the tent kids had, Neville’s arm had slipped around Harry’s shoulders.
Neville’s arm didn’t bother Harry, not really. It was almost comforting, to have someone kind have their arm around Harry’s shoulders.
If Neville ended up being a rampaging psycho as the games went on, Harry might be disappointed.
“It wasn’t like I had a lot of options,” Harry scoffed quietly. What an arrogant thing to ask. “It was steal or die.”
“That wasn’t- nevermind,” Neville said. He cleared his throat and Harry was surprised when he looked over and saw that Neville seemed to be crying almost silently.
Embarrassing.
Harry didn’t want his story to be shared while his partner was crying.
“You want first watch?” Neville asked when he saw Harry staring at him. Neville didn’t even try to hide his tears, just as he didn’t when they boarded the train together.
Harry was about to agree when suddenly the room - the entire castle - echoed with the national anthem.
It would play at the end of every day just before it showed the faces of the tributes who had died that day. Someone, Yaxley, maybe, told Harry they didn’t used to show the dead tributes but then decided it would be a small assistance to the others to know who all they had left in the arena.
Harry had seen it on the playings of previous years… he knew what to expect and he had been ready.
When the anthem ended and the seal of Panem flashed, Harry watched and waited.
The first tribute to be shown was the boy with the dark-skin and black dreadlocks from District Six, meaning all the tributes in the first five districts were alive.
It didn’t show the boy’s name, only his district number, but Harry knew it. Harry memorized it the night before the games began when he couldn’t sleep. Harry replayed every tribute and memorized their names over and over.
Next came the red-headed boy from District Seven.
Both of the tributes from eight.
Both of the tributes from nine.
A flash of the seal and first day in the arena was technically over.
Harry sat up and was the one who cleared his throat then.
“Dean,” he started. “Seamus. Cho. Cedric. Sky. Greene.” Harry hoped the camera was on him and he put his middle finger to his forehead in a mocking salute. “The Capitol killed six kids today.”
Harry couldn’t do much in the games. The Capitol wanted him to die, Sirius wanted him to win. All Harry wanted to do was be memorable in some way, in a way he had never managed in life.
If Harry was the tribute who wouldn’t fall in line, so be it.
“You’re absolutely insane,” Neville breathed.
Harry shrugged and settled back against Neville. “What are they going to do about it? Kill me?”
Neville snorted, Harry grinned. When Neville chuckled, Harry did as well. Before they knew it, they were falling over each other laughing at the stupidest thing that anyone had ever said before.
“There’s no repercussions!” Neville squealed as he actually kicked his heels against the stone floor. “You’re allowed to just say anything!”
It went without saying that Neville couldn’t be on camera calling the Capitol out for their mistreatment of every citizen in the districts. Neville had people at home who could be punished, not Harry. And Harry had never actually not been allowed to say what he wanted, but Neville had parents who probably loved him enough to teach him what was forbidden.
It was a short list: don’t bite the hand that barely feeds you.
The boys laughed right up until a quiet beeping sound shut them up. Harry went tense at once and jumped to his feet, but Neville stayed put.
“Sirius sent us a gift,” Neville said, pointing at the window of the room they were in. What Harry assumed was solid glass must have been some sort of hologram or illusion because Harry watched it flicker in and out of existence to allow a small white drone to fly through.
The drone had claw hands and Harry knew the routine from previous years-
It would drop the gift on the lap of whoever it was meant for and then fly right back away.
The drone had a small paper sack attached to it and Harry was fully confident that it would be Neville’s until it landed at his very surprised feet.
Harry didn’t even reach for it yet, he only stared while he tried to understand why - and how - Sirius sent him a gift.
It wouldn’t be freely given to him, so there must be a cause.
The games had just begun… Harry wasn’t even properly hungry yet. He was thirsty, but they planned on finding a water source (because there would be one, the games would be boring if the tributes just died of dehydration) after resting for a few hours each.
While there were many things that Harry would like to have, he wasn’t exactly lacking just yet.
It didn’t make any sense to receive a gift yet which meant there had to be some message attached to it.
Neville politely stayed quiet when Harry sank down to his knees to investigate the paper sack, hoping there would be a clue inside of it.
Harry pulled out a bottle of water and tossed it absently to Neville. There were two nutrient bars, like the ones the orphanage used to give out at dinner since they were cheap and technically were full of enough nutrition to keep kids from falling over dead.
At the bottom of bag was a single can and Harry tilted his head curiously at it as he held it up.
‘Candied Carrots’.
That was the name of the vegetable Harry struggled to remember earlier.
“I don’t get it,” Harry said, his face scrunched up while he tried to. Sirius never did a damn thing for Harry in fourteen years… the gift wasn’t for no reason, not while the boys were technically fine for the time being.
So why send Harry a small bit of supplies and the carrots?
“Maybe you got some sponsors after that boy from three called you handsome,” Neville teased Harry.
Harry wasn’t laughing anymore.
Neville was thinking small, because Neville had a mom that made him lunches, a girl that he loved enough to volunteer for. Neville only saw a can of carrots because food was food to Neville.
Food had never been ‘just food’ to Harry because it had never been given freely. Even the few times that the old couple at Knockturn, Winky and Dobby, gave Harry broth for free, it wasn’t really free. It was pity broth, which had a slightly different flavor than different broths.
There must be a reason Sirius sent that can of those carrots to Harry, Harry just needed to be smart enough to figure out what it was.
Harry folded the paper bag up and slipped it in one jacket pocket with one of the nutrient bars. The other bar he gave to Neville after scooting back to resume his prior place against Neville’s side.
“Don’t eat it yet,” Harry warned Neville when he passed him one of the bars. Harry thought it was just an understanding that if they were allies, they would share their spoils. Neville really had no reason to look so touched by the nutrient bar.
“Thank you,” Neville said thickly.
Harry rolled his eyes, uncomfortable with Neville’s gratitude.
“Well, it’s for the sandwiches,” Harry said airily. He did snatch the bottle of water from Neville’s unresisting hands and smirked before taking a very small sip. Harry only wanted to avoid dehydration, not gulp down the only water they had.
Neville had an equally small drink before Harry insisted he pocket the water so Harry could put the carrots in his empty pocket.
Except Harry didn’t pocket them, not yet.
When Neville drifted off, his head heavy on Harry’s shoulder, Harry studied the can while he tried to think of what message Sirius had intended to send with it.
Was it a reward for avoiding the bloodbath?
Was it for sticking with Neville, just as Sirius had wanted him to do?
Those seemed like weak reasons to send Harry a gift he didn’t need just yet.
Was it so Sirius could tell him he was sober enough to watch and listen to what Harry was doing?
That was the most likely reason Harry could think of, but even that didn’t feel right. Harry knew Sirius was sober that morning, he had assumed - maybe childishly - that Sirius would stay sober just long enough to see Harry through to his death.
“Why the carrots, Sirius?” Harry murmured, staring hard at the innocent enough looking can. When he eventually popped the metal lid off, it could be fashioned as a weapon, but that was true for any canned good Harry received.
Harry eventually tipped his head back against the hard wall and let the mystery keep him from accidentally falling asleep.
Maybe the contents of the gift didn’t matter. The nutrient bars were practical, as was the bottle of water. Harry had just said those carrots were his favorite, maybe that was why Sirius sent them.
If the reason behind the gift wasn’t hidden in the contents, maybe it was the timing? Maybe Harry had done something that Sirius was silently rewarding him for? Encouraging him to keep up?
What had Harry been doing when the gift arrived? Laughing?
It would have taken a few minutes for Sirius to select the gift and for it to reach Harry in the arena, so he needed to think back further.
Neville said Harry could say what he wanted with no repercussions… but Neville didn’t get the gift. The only thing Harry had done around the time Sirius would have decided to send the gift was…
It was…
Harry said the names of the dead tributes and he called the Capitol out for killing them.
“Dean. Seamus. Cho. Cedric. Sky. Greene. The Capitol killed six kids today.”
Was that it? Was that something that pleased Sirius? Pleased sponsors? Sirius had been pissed when Harry called the Capitol out during his interview when he wouldn’t play nice. What changed?
And how did it change?
Harry once again raised his middle finger to the Capitol after saying the names of the dead district kids. Who would have been brave enough to sponsor Harry after all he had said and done? The Capitol citizens would be clutching their pearls; they were comfortable enough to not imagine why anyone would hate the Capitol…
It came to Harry all at once and left him a little bit breathless —
“I hope you’re not chosen, Pet.”
“If I am, you think you’ll send me a gift?”
Yaxley might not have sent Harry money for a gift, but someone did… multiply someones, maybe.
District citizens could sponsor tributes the same as Capitol citizens. It was another advantage that the kids in districts one, two, and three had. Their districts had more money than districts such as twelve. Those districts could send in money for their kids, as long as family members weren’t directly supporting their tribute.
It was why it made sense for those kids to pair up - a wealthy family could sneak through a loophole and sponsor their child by donating heavily to their partner.
Harry couldn’t help a tiny smirk that curled up on his face as he held the carrots up, certain that he cracked the code in the gift.
“You all want a show, don’t you?” Harry said quietly, speaking to the real citizens of Panem, the ones who lived in the districts that kept the country running. Harry hoped everyone else was bunkered down for the night so his message would be the only thing playing on the televisions across the country.
“I’ll give you a show,” he promised. “Let the fuckin’ games begin.”
Let the Capitol think Harry meant he was playing their game. Just like the peacekeepers who thought Harry worked for them, they would be wrong.
Harry’s agenda tweaked itself just a bit, but he would be, as always, playing his own game within the game.
As they agreed on, Harry let Neville sleep for three hours before he poked him awake so that Harry could sleep.
“You’re sort of adorable, you know that?” Neville asked. His voice was thick with sleep, but still amused as he watched Harry get comfortable.
Harry flipped up the hood of his jacket and curled up on his side with his head on Neville’s leg like a pillow.
“Shh, ‘m sleeping,” Harry mumbled, nestling his head on Neville’s thigh. “Wake me in three hours. Watch’s on my wrist.”
Harry was asleep before Neville could agree and then back awake before he reached the two hour mark.
A scream, sharp and loud, echoed in the room Harry and Neville were in. It was so pained that Harry felt it stitch at his chest and send his heart racing. He and Neville only exchanged one wide-eyed look of fear before they were on their feet, running.
Either there were tributes nearby on the hunt or there was a trap that someone had triggered. Either way, it was stupid to keep themselves nearby if there was something murderous close at hand.
They tore out of the room they were in and took a blind left, unsure which direction the screaming was coming from as it filled the hallway. The screaming itself might be a trap; it certainly was horrible enough to fill Harry was fear.
Another left, Neville seemed good about directions, Harry was hoping they were headed to the staircase to go up to a different floor. When they took a right midway through the hallway they were in, the screaming cut itself off.
Harry listened very hard for other sounds to tell him what was happening.
Aside from Neville’s heavy breathing and Harry’s pulse that hammered away in his ears, there was nothing. No victorious whoops from tributes, no cannon to signify a death.
It was silent once more.
Despite the many stupid things that Neville tended to say, he was smart enough to not speak then. He tapped Harry on the arm and tilted his head to the doorway that they had been about to run through.
Harry hesitated and then shook his head.
If a tribute triggered a trap in the very bottom level of the castle where they were, then it might be safest to stay there. Most traps didn’t reset - the gamemakers wanted to be original and interesting with each trap.
On the other hand, if there was a tribute hunting then they should be fleeing.
But Harry didn’t think it would be another tribute. Footsteps would echo on the stone floors… only one of the smaller tributes could tiptoe around silently, but a small tribute wouldn’t have made someone else scream so fearfully.
Since Neville seemed like he would follow Harry’s lead, Harry looked around until he spotted a closed door not far from them. It was close enough to the staircase for a quick escape and gave them enough privacy to catch their breath and decide their next move without being exposed.
They crept as quietly as possible down the hallway and Harry paused when he reached for the wooden doorknob.
It was difficult to see, but Harry thought that there was something seeping under the door… when he raised his foot to squint at it, he was sure of it. He didn’t know if it was blood, but he thought it was too thin to be blood.
Harry should probably stop calling Neville stupid, even if only in his head, because it wasn’t intelligence that led Harry to opening the door even while knowing there was something in the room.
Neville was right behind Harry, muscles tensed with uncertainty, as Harry opened the door and peered in the room.
While the hallway had been silent, the room wasn’t. Part of Harry’s mind catalogued that information, noting that the rooms were mostly soundproof if nobody was screaming their head off.
Then the words being whimpered came into focus for Harry’s fuzzy ears.
“Ma, I want my ma…”
Harry stepped in the room and looked around to find the owner of the voice.
Taking up the majority of the floor was a snake, though that might not be an accurate term. Harry guessed it was a mutation, something made in a lab specifically for the games.
Surely there were no normal snakes that were over three times as long as Harry was tall. Its head was slumped on the ground, giant fangs the size of Harry’s forearm glistening even in the dark.
When Harry cautiously stepped closer, he saw that most of what the liquid on the floor was had been leaking from a hole in the side of the snake’s body. There was a sword driven through it, creating the (hopefully) fatal injury, and where there was a sword, there had to be…
“Oh.” Neville stepped past Harry to reach the tribute crying beneath the body of the snake. It was a girl, but Harry couldn’t tell which one from all the blood on her face.
Her body looked tiny beneath the great black snake and her voice was strained when she continued to cry out for her mom.
Even when Neville reached for the snake’s body to lift it off her, Harry was frozen in place.
It wasn’t the first dead body he had seen… but this girl didn’t die from starvation or sickness, she had been murdered.
Murdered for a fucking game.
Was that going to be Harry soon? Just a kid crying on a floor, buried beneath the weight of the Capitol? Dying alone and uncared for?
Was that what fourteen years of his life had led to?
Was that the ending Harry worked himself sick to reach?
“Harry.” Neville was crouched by the snake, straining as he tried to lift it. “Come help me.”
“Ma?” the girl whispered.
Harry didn’t move, couldn’t.
“HARRY!” Neville yelled at where Harry was staring wide-eyed. “She doesn’t die like this!”
She would.
Harry was certain she was dying.
The Capitol killed her and they would kill Harry and kids just kept dying.
Over and over, like a circle.
Harry shook his head and took a few shaky steps forward so he could bend over and help Neville lift the snake’s body. It was heavy, slippery with the fluid that leaked from it and what Harry was sure was the girl’s blood, but they eventually managed to get it off her.
Once her entire body was visible, Harry knew for sure that she was dying. There was blood, dark and sticky, pooled on her stomach. Neville, rather fearlessly, unzipped her jacket and peeled it off her so he could inspect the wound.
“It’s okay,” Neville murmured to her in a soothing tone. He didn’t make a face at the fist-sized wound in her stomach, but it didn’t matter.
The girl’s breaths were getting shorter, shallower.
Harry dropped to his knees behind her head and reached out with a trembling hand to brush hair off her face.
“You killed it,” Harry told her. The girl’s eyes flickered, focusing and unfocusing on Harry. Harry couldn’t pull off a smile, but he did make an effort to stop frowning.
“P-poison,” she croaked out with obvious great effort. “Can - can you get Ma?”
She was delirious. Harry could feel the fever burning her up beneath his hand. If the snake was poisonous then at least it seemed to be fast-acting, she wouldn’t suffer long. Harry looked at Neville, Neville shook his head while a single fat tear leaked down his cheek.
The girl wasn’t going to survive the injury.
“Yeah,” Harry lied to her. He continued to stroke her hair, just the way he wished someone would do for him in his final moments, and managed to find a small smile. “What’s your name?”
“Susan,” the girl whispered. She closed her eyes and the rise and fall of her chest slowed even more. “I want… I want my ma.”
“Okay,” Harry told her softly. “She’s coming, Susan. Your ma’s on her way. I bet she’ll have a warm blanket for you, a hot meal too. She’ll be here soon, Susan. Just rest, you’re safe now.”
Susan’s face relaxed on an inhale and her chest rattled on the exhale.
She didn’t move again.
“You’re safe,” Harry repeated as her face blurred in his vision. “You’re safe now.”
When the cannon sounded, Harry had to clench his eyes shut to keep from being caught crying on camera.
It was unfair to the point of agonizing.
How old was Susan? Maybe fourteen? And what did Susan do to be taken from her mom, thrown in an arena, killed by a snake created by the coldest sort of people?
Not a damn thing.
It was pain, sharp and horrible, that chewed a hole in Harry’s stomach, precisely where Susan’s fatal injury was. The only difference was that Harry wasn’t dead yet.
“I met Susan at the parade.”
Harry kept his hands on Susan’s head, continuing to stroke her hair for her, and he looked up at Neville miserably.
Neville wasn’t hiding his tears, but he wasn’t sniffling either. Neville had his chin up and radiated a confidence that Harry could never even fake.
“Susan had on a golden dress and she said she liked the way it sparkled in the light, like a fire,” Neville said.
With the pointless death replaying over and over in Harry’s mind, it took him a moment to realize what Neville was doing.
“Save the eulogy for my funeral.”
Neville was eulogizing Susan and Harry felt something fill him that he had never felt before in his life…
Respect.
Neville didn’t know anything deep about Susan, just little things he learned during training. She couldn’t start a fire with matches, but she made a good hammock out of rope. She seemed spirited and independent as she huffed at Neville when he offered assistance.
While Neville talked, Harry sacrificed a bit of their water so he could dampen the cuff of his jacket. With gentle strokes, Harry wiped the blood from Susan’s face. The dead tributes were always shown when their bodies were removed from the arena…
Harry just didn’t want Susan’s ‘ma’ to see her looking so terrible when Harry remembered how pretty she had been on the night of the interviews.
It wouldn’t really ease her pain, but Harry hoped maybe it helped her to know someone had been there with Susan at the end.
She didn’t die alone.
Neville pulled the short sword from the snake’s body and Harry used it to pry the two giant fangs from its mouth.
They were covered in clear fluid, probably the poison like Susan said, so Harry carefully touched one to Susan’s wrist. He wouldn’t feel badly for testing it on her, not when she was already dead.
If it burned her skin, then Harry knew he couldn’t carry it around. It didn’t though, which was good, so he eased one in each of his jacket sleeves, lining them against his forearms, and he squinted hard when he returned the sword to Neville.
“If you stab me in the back, you better hope you lose,” Harry said, eyes hard as he let Neville take the sword. “Cause I swear I’ll use my last breath to tell the Tent Kids to kill you.”
Neville didn’t even blink at Harry’s threat, he only nodded and held the sword tightly in his hand.
“And if you stab me with a fang in my sleep, I’m going to ask my Luna to haunt you for an eternity,” Neville said with perfect calm. “She can be really creepy when she wants to be.”
An understanding reached, an alliance ranked to a new level with them both armed, Harry and Neville stood up as one to leave the room.
Neville hesitated and looked back at where Susan laid, so small in her death.
“Should we stay?” Neville asked.
Harry shook his head. “They can’t get her body while we’re in here. Let’s go.”
Susan didn’t need them to stand guard over her dead body, she was safe.
The only safe tribute was a dead tribute.