The Payback
If the Hunger Games were teaching Harry any lesson in life, it was that people could be both very smart and also complete fucking idiots.
“I don’t think there’s any cameras up here,” Trent told Harry when they first entered the tunnel in the ceiling. It was a narrow space, even with their small sizes, and Trent crawled on his hands and knees in front of Harry.
“There are,” Harry assured him, making a point to whisper.
“How d’you know? You’ve never been up here,” Trent huffed, sounding like a very little kid.
“Because it’s the fuckin—” Harry cut himself off by clamping his mouth shut. Swearing at the Capitol might have gotten Harry some district sponsors, but he wouldn’t get the same by losing his patience with his young ally.
“If it’s part of the arena, it has cameras,” Harry said more patiently after taking a deep breath.
Trent stopped for a moment, maybe considering what Harry said, and then sighed loudly.
“That’s probably why I haven’t gotten any gifts then,” he said sadly after resuming his crawling.
Harry’s curiosity was heightened by what Trent had been doing in the tunnels to believe it cost him sponsors. Had he been ranting about the Capitol? Cursing at the President?
“I’ve been crying, a lot,” Trent said when Harry asked him just that. “I thought maybe there weren’t cameras so people would just think I was doing something super cool and send me food as a reward.”
“We’ll have food after this,” Harry promised him. Harry knew how hunger could gnaw at a person, make all their thoughts centered around it and lead them to desperate acts. Harry could recognize hunger as a feeling before any other; he imagined he wasn’t unique that way.
The promise of food could lead hungry kids to do almost anything.
No, not almost.
The promise of food could lead some kids to do anything, even murder, as it turned out.
While Harry was sure that the tunnels were setup as an intentional part of the arena, Harry agreed when Trent said that he didn’t think anyone else had found them. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t, but that they were safe enough to use for the time being.
The Gamemakers would get bored with them later and find a way to make them unusable so tributes couldn’t hide from each other. There were still enough tributes in the arena at the time that they wouldn’t need to yet.
Harry tried to think of a way to weaponize the tunnels before they were lost while Trent led him through a maze to get to the District Four girls. There had to be some sort of advantage that the tunnels could offer them, as some of the bigger tributes wouldn’t fit in them.
Maybe a trap of some sort? Against the larger tributes?
Harry would have to think on it later, after he got revenge on the crafty girls who stole his stuff, stabbed him, and beat up a little kid.
“We’re almost to where they’re holed up at,” Trent whispered after a few minutes of steep crawling. “Are we just gonna drop down from the ceiling and say something cool before we kill them?”
Harry scrunched his eyebrows together. “What do you mean? Say something cool?”
“You know, something that’ll make people laugh,” Trent said, sounding excited at the idea of providing entertainment to the people watching. “Like ‘Sorry to drop in on you’ after we drop from the ceiling. Get it?”
“Why…? You know what?” Harry had a headache and wasn’t going to argue with a kid. Trent was trying to get sponsors and food, if he thought he needed to be entertaining to do it, then Harry wasn’t going to mess with his plans as long as Trent didn’t mess with his own.
“You say whatever you want, but I need to know what we’re jumping in to first,” Harry said.
If there was an award for patience in the Hunger Games, Harry thought he had damn well earned it by then.
Trent did explain all that he knew of the girls though. They moved around a lot, cunningly always moving toward recent deaths or triggered traps. They worked together seamlessly - Trent said he heard them talking during training and they apparently grew up together - and were better with tools than weapons.
“Brains not brawn,” Harry said, thinking about all of that. While there was a small chance that the last cannon had been for one of the girls, Harry doubted it. They seemed quick, efficient, intelligent.
Harry had one poisoned fang and a Trent. His odds weren’t great, but Harry was clever too, in his own way.
“The traps they’re setting, are they like the one Neville set off?” Harry asked Trent
“Yup. They’ve got a wire thing and these tool things and I think they’ve done that to most of the bathroom doors.”
So the bathrooms must have water, or some other reason why the girls thought people would go inside them. Harry doubted if they thought kids fighting to the death would find a toilet to piss in, nobody was picky about things like that in the games.
“Is there a way to spy on them without being seen?” Harry asked. “Like moving that plate?”
“Some of the rooms have vents in them I can peek though,” Trent said. “It’s dark enough that nobody notices.”
If they did, Harry wondered if anyone would notice or if they would think a pair of big eyes staring at them from within the walls or from the ceiling were a part of the games to scare them. It didn’t matter, because Harry agreed that someone would have to be specifically looking to find Trent, but it was still funny to him anyway.
Trent started peeking in the vents as they moved, searching for the girls. He was sure they would be on the second floor somewhere far from the twins from Five. Harry had to pinch Trent a few times to get him to be quiet since Trent kept wanting to talk while they searched. The message had finally sunk in by the time they found the girls because Trent nudged Harry with his foot and then scooted over so Harry could peer in the same vent he had.
They were in the ceiling again, not the walls where they had climbed upward, so it was awkward for Harry to bend around to press an eye on the floor. When he managed it, he was instantly pissed at what he saw.
Those stupid girls were sitting on the floor of a room with a bunch of food spread out like a picnic. And what were they eating? Harry’s carrots. The ones that he said were his favorite and Sirius sent to him.
Harry could appreciate the skills of a fellow thief, not when he was the one being stolen from.
It also pissed Harry off to see them looking so relaxed and confident. Trent had it right before, they really thought one of them would win the games. Even while Harry watched them, spending a long time watching to try and come up with the best plan, the girls talked about what they would do when they won.
Even their post-victory plans were stupid. The girl with the brown hair, Hermione, planned on having a library in the new house she would be awarded. The blonde, Daphne, said she was going to fill a room with pretty dresses for her little sister.
As stupid as Harry thought they were, he also didn’t come up with any ridiculously brilliant ideas on how to best attack them. Just from what Harry knew they stole, they had a sword and a pocketknife. Trent didn’t know how sharp the tools they used to dry their traps were, but he had to assume they could be used as weapons as well.
Anything in the arena could be a weapon of it was used right.
When the girls began packing away their supplies, hiding them inside a suit of armor in the room, Harry waved for Trent to follow him so he could share his plan without risking them hearing.
It wasn’t a great plan, the odds of success weren’t perfect, but Harry had fought worse odds before.
“Don’t forget to say something cool,” Trent said in a whisper before they split up. Trent’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark of the tunnel as a reminder of how young he was, how childish.
Harry hated the Capitol.
“Yeah, okay,” Harry said. “You don’t forget that we’re in the Hunger Games.”
And Harry hoped that the people who had sponsored him so far remembered it too. Harry would hate to take down two tributes only to lose his sponsors.
As silently as possible, Harry dropped from the ceiling down the hallway from the room the girls were in. Harry kept the hood of his jacket pulled up and his back to the wall as he made his way toward the door.
Trent had been very sure about what he saw and Harry had no reason not to trust him so far and so Harry danced around the door without even letting his sleeve brush the electric knob. Those girls were clever, real clever.
After he killed them, Harry was going to take their wire and tools and try to mimic their trap…
… to honor their cleverness, and all.
After counting to thirty, giving Trent time to get in position, Harry used the nutrient bar that was meant to be Neville’s to push down on the doorknob. It fried the bar immediately, causing the hallway to smell like burned plastic and grain. Harry quickly flattened himself against the wall beside the door and waited.
It didn’t take long before the door was thrown open and the two girls charged out, weapons brandished. Hermione ran out with the sword slashing, Daphne followed with a smaller knife, the one Trent said they stole from him.
In the dark, with Harry using the shadows to his advantage, it took the girls a second too long to realize that they had been tricked. There was no intruder, only Harry looking for payback.
“I want my stuff back,” Harry snarled as he lunged forward, fang in hand, to jam it in the back of the girl closest to him. It was harder to do than Harry expected… physically, not emotionally.
Harry had never actually stabbed a person before. Sure, he’d cut a few kids, swiped a knife at anyone who got too close to him. But there was a difference in the force it took to cut someone and to stab them.
Daphne, the one Harry stabbed, spun around and gave him the momentum to yank the fang back out. When Harry went to stab her again, easily dodging her own attempt with the much shorter blade, her partner lunged at Harry.
Then fucking Trent dropped from the ceiling with precision and speed that Harry would have to compliment later. Trent landed on Hermione’s back, throwing her off balance, and Harry used a quick kick to sweep Daphne’s legs out from beneath her.
“Sorry to drop in like this!” Trent yelled before he used the top of the can the girls discarded in the room to slice across the front of Hermione’s throat.
It was a stupid thing to say and a shallow slice.
Harry was focused on finishing Daphne, who had already began to pale from the poison.
“Please, don’t,” Daphne whimpered, too weak from whatever Capitol engineered poison was on the fang to do more than swipe at Harry again with the knife. He kicked her hand and when she didn’t drop it, stronger than he thought, he stepped on her wrist to pin it to the floor.
“I have to,” Harry said, suddenly locked in her gaze with the fang pulled back, ready to plunge it again in her stomach with all his might.
If Harry did that… that girl would be the first person he ever killed…
The thought had struck him before, but it was nothing to how it hit him while he had to look in the eyes of a girl who did nothing except have the bad luck to have been reaped. She stole Harry’s stuff, but a can of food wasn’t worth her life.
Until the Capitol decided it was.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, meaning it. When Harry drove the fang down hard, he only wanted to end her suffering quickly.
Before Daphne could take her last breath, before Harry had to see the light in her eyes leave and her chest to still, the sound of an ongoing scuffle had him turning around with the fang ready to be used again.
Hermione had the sword to Trent’s side and her back to Harry. She was hesitating, there was other reason for why Trent wasn’t impaled.
Harry didn’t hesitate. In a choice of his ally or her, Harry didn’t hesitate. After killing one kid for the Capitol, what was another?
Harry screamed with frustration as he stabbed her in the back - why was he there? why was she? why were the districts forever being punished for a war none of them were old enough to have participated in? why was Harry being forced to kill some girl for entertainment?
Over and over and over.
It was a circle and it would never end.
“Harry!!”
Over and over and over.
“Harry! Stop! Stop! HARRY!”
Harry was tackled from the side and someone was making a horrible sound and they had to be quiet because someone would kill them and they were going to die anyway and—
“It’s okay, Harry, sh… we have to be quiet, remember? It’s okay…”
There was someone crying and someone holding Harry, covering his body, running a small hand over his hair. Harry was shaking and something bubbled from his throat and escaped in a pained sound when —
BOOM!
BOOM!
— the cannon went off twice.
Twice.
Two deaths.
Harry did that.
It took a long time for Harry to realize that he was lying on the cold floor, curled up on his side, with Trent trying to cover him like the world’s shortest blanket. When the muffled sobs finally ended, when Harry could think again, he heard singing.
Horrible, off-tune, singing.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… you make me happy when skies are grey…”
Harry let himself lay there for a few seconds longer. Not because the singing was great - it really wasn’t - but just to take in the small moment of comfort.
“Get off me,” Harry said when he could use his voice again. There was still something hard in his throat, like a rock he couldn’t move, but there were things that needed done.
Trent scrambled off Harry in a flurry of apologies and explanations —
“You were just bawling and I didn’t know what to do.”
“You kept stabbing her and saying you were sorry.”
“You were screaming about a circle?”
Harry mostly ignored him, only letting him keep ahold of Harry’s wrist because the feeling of someone else helped Harry get to his feet. Harry didn’t bother wiping away the tears on his face, they wouldn’t stop anyway, and the cameras weren’t even a worry he had as he stood over the bodies of the girls he killed.
Death had a neat trick to make people look younger when it took them. Maybe it was meant to heighten regret, maybe it was how everyone looked when they were finally safe.
Harry didn’t know how it worked and he didn’t care.
“Go get water,” Harry told Trent without looking from the face of Daphne. There wasn’t much blood on her face, but he would clean it anyway.
Harry just killed someone’s daughter, the least he could do was clean her up.
Trent didn’t understand what Harry was doing as he cleaned the faces of both girls and moved them to lay beside each other. They were friends, they were allies. They were human beings.
“They were clever,” Harry said when he finished. “Nobody else thought to make the arena itself a weapon, but they did.”
“And they were good kickers,” Trent added in a small voice. “Thank you for not killing me.”
Harry bent down to gently shut their eyelids and apologized to each girl again as he did.
“I’m sorry I let the Capitol make me their weapon,” Harry whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
It didn’t matter, being sorry. The girls were still dead and Harry figured he would join them soon enough.
Harry and Trent gathered up all the girls’s supplies and took them back to the room Trent was calling a ‘dining hall’. Trent chattered about dining halls in District Eleven, how families would gather there after long days in the fields and share what food they could. Harry wasn’t listening much, Trent didn’t seem to require any response anyway.
Were the families of those girls crying? Were their friends cursing Harry’s name? Swearing revenge if they ever saw him? When someone killed Harry, would there be crowds of people rejoicing his death in District Four?
It didn’t matter, Harry wouldn’t know if they did, but it left a hollow ache in his chest worst than hunger ever had.
Neville was alert and awake again when Harry and Trent returned. They scared the hell out of him by dropping from the ceiling, but at least Trent didn’t have anything stupid to say.
“You’re hurt!” Neville cried, lunging toward Harry with his hands out. That was when Harry looked down and saw that he was covered in blood - how many times did he stab Hermione?
“Not mine,” Harry said shortly. He tilted his head up and glared. “Water would be great, Sirius, if you’re sober.”
They had two bottles that Trent said he would fill up once they removed the traps on the bathroom doors. One still had some in it, but Harry used a lot to clean the girls up and he couldn’t use what might be their only drinking water to clean himself up.
It only took a minute, a minute Harry spent stripping off the blood soaked clothes until he was dressed only in his underpants and socks. Two drones arrived, flying through the window. One carried a gallon of water that was dropped at Harry’s feet, the other carried a brown sack that was dropped by Trent’s.
“I got gifts?” Trent cried. His head spun around with a wide smile, as if he wanted every camera on them to see how happy it made him. “Thank you!”
Harry ignored Neville - who got the details of what all he missed from Trent - and focused on using his shirt to wash himself with. The jacket kept most of the blood off his shirt and Harry just tossed it when he was finished before pulling the jacket on and zipping it back up.
The clothes would still be bloodied, dirty, stained… at least they were black.
Trent was happily sorting out the food he had gifted to him, three cans of soup and three rolls. Neville paused watching Trent to study Harry hard when Harry rejoined them, feeling moderately more himself. Harry felt good enough to challenge Neville with his tired eyes anyway, dare him to say a word about what Harry did.
“You’ve missed a spot,” Neville said quietly, his eyes too soft when he reached up to wipe at Harry’s cheek. “There you go.”
Harry nodded at him, understanding the gesture for what it was.
“Food!” Trent said. He sat cross-legged on the floor and pointed at where he laid a can of soup and roll out for each of them.
“You should save some of it, Trent,” Harry said as he sat down. “Maybe the rolls for now and the soup for after we sleep?”
“Um… no.” Trent didn’t even really think about it, he just grinned at Harry cheekily. “It’s my gift so I say we should eat it all now.”
Harry made an effort, he wasn’t going to argue about it.
None of the boys felt like talking while they ate, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. Harry didn’t know what the other two thought about, but Harry thought about Daphne.
“Please, don’t.”
Harry gagged on the chunks of soup he had been drinking from the can. He put his hand over his mouth to force himself to not get sick.
It was the arena, it was the Hunger Games.
Harry didn’t do anything those girls wouldn’t have done if they had to. If they knew that Harry was going to find them after their initial mix up, they would have finished him off.
“Here.” Harry pushed his half-empty can toward Trent, sure he would be sick if he tried to eat any more. Trent didn’t question it, but Neville frowned when Harry asked him to keep watch for three hours.
“You slept all day, I didn’t,” Harry told him, rolling his eyes for effect. “Don’t let Trent guard on his own, he’s noisy.”
“Hey!” Trent yelled noisily.
Harry wasn’t even really tired. Well, he was, but he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep. He just wanted to hide his face from the cameras for a while, go to a quiet place in his mind and stay there.
It had never failed him before. All Harry had to do was think about nothing, let his mind float away. Harry did it to avoid thinking about being tired, hungry, scared. It worked when he needed to earn some food and didn’t want to feel sweaty hands on his skin.
If Harry could just forget how those two girls looked in death then he would be fine when it was time to get bam to the games. A pause, that was all he wanted.
Harry curled up small in a corner of the room where he could see the door. He put his arm over his face and made his breathing slow down.
Slow.
Slower.
There it was.
In the blank place in Harry’s mind, it was warm, nothing hurt. Nothing could hurt him there.
Nothing.
Except for the anthem that began playing before Harry had fully detached his mind from his body. Harry opened his eyes just enough to see the seal appear on the ceiling and he watched with dull ache of knowing what would be coming.
District Four, Hermione.
District Four, Daphne.
District Seven, Lavender.
Harry didn’t cry, he couldn’t he felt so dry, useless, done. It would be a mercy to kill him then.
“Hermione. Daphne. Lavender.” Harry closed his eyes, covered his face. “The Capitol killed three kids today.”
And Harry did two of them for them.
What was Harry but another Capitol mut? Bred in a district instead of a lab?