The Manipulation
Igor Karkaroff was a fucking moron and he had one more word to speak before Sirius bashed his yellow teeth in.
Nobody had been especially pleased by watching the boy from Ten as he was killed by what Sirius could only describe as ghosts. They weren’t ghosts like how James was a ghost and Regulus was a ghost and Sirius was eternally haunted by ghosts though.
They had been creeping things made of black mist that froze the bathroom until the mirrors cracked and the cold woke the kid that Harry didn’t kill. When they formed around the boy in the tub, Igor had screamed for him to run.
The boy tried, he did. He woke up and didn’t hesitate before screaming out of the tub and skidding across the bathroom floor to the door. The ghosts had followed him, raising thin and transparent hands from beneath the mist that made up their cloaks. The boy grabbed at the doorknob, but Neville Longbottom had finally decided to play.
Sirius thought it was Harry that had been blocking the door, but some Gamemaker gave the mentors and all of Panem a better view. A camera zoomed in on the hand holding the doorknob in place, trapping the boy, and then it slowly zoomed out to show Longbottom.
It was passive, the way Longbottom killed that boy. When he stood in place and listened to the boy’s screams as the ghosts tormented him through some chemical attack that made the boy look insane, Longbottom was every person in Panem.
Watching. Doing nothing to help.
Standing in place and becoming an accomplice to murder through inaction.
It wasn’t Sirius’s style, nor Harry’s, but the cannon sounded, the ghosts disappeared, and Harry was one body closer to returning to Twelve.
Igor screamed for Longbottom’s blood, had the audacity to call Longbottom a coward, while Harry tended to the dead boy. Sirius had ignored Igor, and Barty who was taking a great amount of pleasure in taunting Igor, until Harry’s name was brought up.
“The Potter boy didn’t have the courage to fight him like a man!” Igor howled. “Kill him in his sleep or let a mutt do it? Some Victor he would make!”
Sirius turned very slowly to glare at the man with ice in his eyes and fire burning through him.
Harry? A coward?
“One more word,” Sirius warned him in a soft tone that was as serious as anything. “You say one more word about my godson and I’ll remind you about our very different experiences in the arena.”
Because Sirius had killed a dozen kids single-handedly. Sirius never attacked from behind, he fought every tribute he killed. They all had a chance to survive, they were outweighed by the weight of James on Sirius’s shoulders.
Igor had been a wiry and cunning tribute in the Forty-Sixth Hunger Games. He had joined the careers early, then set them up to fight against a cluster of other tributes when the numbers began to dwindle.
When they were injured, weakened, Igor finished them off in one of the most anticlimactic endings to ever be witnessed in the Games.
Sirius had watched the footage the summer before he had been reaped and hated Igor then. It wasn’t a feeling that had gone away any.
Igor had been a mentor when Sirius was a tribute and when their eyes met, Igor was the one to blanch and look away. Barty, who seemed to thrive on chaos, was giddy when Igor walked away, mumbling about ‘checking on the girl’.
“You’re much more fun sober,” Barty said as bounced over to stand beside Sirius. “Harry’s going to be even better next year.”
Sirius clenched his fists in an effort to not hit Barty and get himself ejected from the mentor rooms. Barty was off, off in a way that was obvious by his twitches and his excitement for chaos. He was also a mouthy mother fucker though and Sirius only had so much patience.
Harry winning was ideal. It was almost even possible with the new twist to the games, the whispers Rita had shared. If the Head Gamemaker was set on a rebellion with Harry as some sort of leader, then Harry could win.
The Gamemakers were meant to level playing fields in the arena, not direct help or hindrance to any one tribute. Everyone knew it was bullshit though. The Games required one mentor per district and, without fail, when a mentor would die and leave no one in their place - a child from that district would win the following game.
If Sirius knew Harry was going to be reaped, he would have killed himself. Sirius could left District Twelve without a mentor with a morphling overdose and it would have left Harry with a 50/50 shot at winning the games. It was too late to do it then, but Sirius would have.
A part of him would have preferred it. It would have been a noble death in his mind, with only the selfish tint of he wouldn’t have to watch to twist the idea.
“Do you have nothing better to do?” Sirius asked Barty even while his attention was already back on Harry.
Harry looked tired, Sirius had watched him fight paranoia for sleep most of the night, and it was affecting him. His movements were slower, jerky. It would almost be for the best of the kid from Eleven died soon so that Harry could sleep without worrying about his allies betraying him.
The kid was endearing, entertaining. He was also a liability in a fight and hurting Harry’s game though. If Sirius had to choose - he would kill little Trent Bailey with his bare hands if it gave Harry an edge in the arena.
“My kid’s are boring,” Barty said factually while they watched Harry fold the boy’s hands over his chest. “I was hoping your kids or Lupin’s would kill them soon to put me out of my misery.”
Sirius glanced over at where Remus and Tonks were watching Tonks‘s tributes build something out of planks of wood they ripped from the floors. Remus’s tributes were still divided, neither had made an effort to find the other yet, but Sirius figured they would soon enough.
Harry was planning on going directly to the roof where Barty’s tributes and Remus’s older boy were. It would drive Anderson from his hiding place, probably dividing Harry’s group as the boys from Eleven joined up.
There were thirteen tributes left… Sirius estimated the Games would last three more days. Within three days, eleven more deaths would have to happen so that Harry could win.
It seemed like a fantasy, all the more so when Snape began slowly circling the room, following his boys as they ran through the castle. When Snape stopped on Sirius’s left, Sirius sighed.
The boys from Three were strong, trained, deadly. Juliana Zabini’s boy was consistently warring with Harry in the ratings for the favored tribute and his credits were reflecting the power that preference bought.
“They’re coming to offer your boys an alliance,” Snape said, apparently speaking to Sirius.
Sirius raised an eyebrow and watched as Harry chose the ally he would protect - he shoved Trent away and told him to go.
“Are they?” Sirius asked evenly. The boys from Three had tried before, Harry all but told the one that he would kill him before teaming up with him.
“Mm,” Snape hummed, sounding as impressed by the possible shift in dynamics as Sirius was. “I would prefer they kill them and be done with it, but Zabini is determined to make an impression.”
On the games? On the country? On Harry?
Sirius couldn’t begin to fathom what went through that boy’s mind when he entered the hallway and immediately had to dodge Harry’s knife.
“Atta boy,” Sirius murmured when the knife instead struck the brunette in the shoulder. It wasn’t fatal by any means, but Harry wasn’t finished either.
The four boys began fighting while Trent continued to try and jump in only to be shoved and kicked away. Harry did alright against the brunette until his weapon was knocked from his hand and his head yanked back in a harsh grip. Longbottom had no skill with the sword and his movements were awkward, clumsy, hesitant.
The Zabini boy could have killed him in seven ways that Sirius spotted - but he toyed with him.
“Final words?” Zabini asked Longbottom, smirking at Harry in a way that bitterly reminded Sirius of James.
James used to always do that - glance toward Lily when he thought he was being especially impressive. When he and Sirius found an old bicycle that had no seat or handlebars, James had worked at it until he could ride standing up, steering with tilts of his hips. Always, always, he would make sure Lily watched him.
Lily rolled her eyes, called James a show-off. It never stopped James and Sirius would often catch him in the arena glancing to the side after he caught a fish, started a fire, looking for Lily’s standard eye roll.
It gave Sirius a pang to see that look being aimed at Harry, but Harry’s responding eye roll was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes.
So like Lily… so like James… he needed to be Sirius though - the final survivor of his arena.
Longbottom said some shit that Sirius didn’t understand, probably a code for his girl or his family, and Sirius held his breath when the sword shifted.
As soon as Longbottom was dead, they would kill Harry. Screw Snivellus and his ‘alliance’ lie. He would be the first one Sirius struck when Harry was gone. There had been no reason to lie to Sirius about the boys’s intentions, it had been cruel, hateful…
Accurate?
Zabini dropped the sword, sparing Longbottom’s life, only a second before Trent jumped him. Sirius watched, just as dumbstruck as Harry, while the other boy from Three easily yanked Trent off Zabini.
“They want an alliance?” Sirius asked, needing to hear it again. It made no sense, the boys were careers and they had Harry, if not trapped, then at least at a severe disadvantage.
“Zabini wants an angle and Nott was getting precariously close to ending the life of the boy in One,” Snape said with nasally distaste. “They could win on their own, but as Zabini cannot best his mother’s time.”
Who could best the time of Juliana Zabini? Her game had been a record, a thing of legends. Seventeen children died in the blood bath and the other six were dead within the next twenty-four hours. If Juliana hadn’t drawn the deaths out, tortured the children to keep the audience enraptured, the game might have been considered a waste in the eyes of the Capitol.
Juliana had won and kept the love of the Capitol when she married her mentor the next summer. Allegedly, that was Zabini’s father. There were questions though, considering the speed of which she went through husbands, each as well-known as the last.
And so Juliana’s son wanted to be unforgettable, unique in his own right. He wanted to be more than just a tribute, Sirius could respect that in a way. Wasn’t that what Harry had wanted as well?
Not necessarily to win, but to make himself the tribute the Capitol regret reaping.
It was working already, on a scale so grand that Harry couldn’t imagine inside the arena.
Sirius was half lost to thoughts of the terrifying future, half stuck in the horrible present, when Zabini winked at his godson.
“I don’t like to use words like blackmail, but as I didn’t kill your friends, you should go out with me,” Zabini said, bold as brass.
Sirius absently grinned, thinking of another boy with more confidence than common sense.
“Hey, Lily! I’ll trade you a cookie for your eternal love!”
“Oh my God, no!”
“Evans, hi! Here’s what I was thinking… You come to dinner at my house and I’ll return your chicken.”
“I’d rather starve, thanks.”
“It’s a pretty day out, Lily… Would you like to go for a walk with me?”
“Oh. I - alright.”
James had always been so confident that Lily Evans would be his wife. It used to keep Sirius up at night, picturing how lovely Lily would have looked that day, how proud James‘s parents would have been.
That was before the lull of morphling and liquor burned away those thoughts. It wasn’t sound sleep, it never was, but it was something mildly preferable to dreams of things that could never happen.
It would have warmed Sirius’s heart to see someone flirting so shamelessly with James’s son if the situation weren’t so morbid. Harry had Longbottom, Zabini had the brunette.
The two boys might be striving to be unique, but district loyalties ran deep.
And Harry groaned at Zabini anyway, earning a chuckle from Barty and a sneer from Snape.
“Idiot boy, they would do best in a group,” Snape said.
“Because I’m sure they’ll all really trust each other,” Barty said brightly. “Really, I think they’re well on their way to an altar.”
A sacrificial altar, possibly.
Harry certainly looked ready to kill Zabini.
“It wasn’t funny at the interviews, it’s not funny now,” Harry snapped, subtly turning his body, tightening his muscles. Harry’s eyes flicked to the sword so quickly that Sirius nearly missed it.
The kid was vigilant, paranoid, deadly when he wasn’t outnumbered by bigger opponents.
“Who’s joking?” Zabini asked innocently, certainly starring across national television as he courted five feet from the dead body of a sixteen-year-old. The boy knew it too, he was showboating in every visible way. “Certainly not me. I’d be honored if you would go out with me.”
The cuff on Snape’s wrist dinged, indicating how well Zabini’s act was going over in the Capitol.
“Oh, fine.” Harry smiled; sharp, cruel. “Let’s schedule it for two days after the next set of interviews.”
Sirius’s cuff dinged and he imagined someone was chuckling at Harry’s cheek, shaking their head as if it were a sitcom rather than live footage of the Hunger Games.
“In case we don’t both make it to the end, I was thinking we could go tonight,” Zabini offered smoothly, adding a white smile to the overall effect.
“It’s eight am,” Harry countered, flashing James’s watch for a moment.
“In eternal evening, does time truly matter?”
“When I’m counting down how much longer you’re wasting air? Yeah, It fuckin’ does.”
“You wound me, bellissimo assassino.”
Sirius paused and tried to piece the unfamiliar language together.
“Beautiful killer,” Barty said helpfully. He wiped away a fake tear from beneath his eyes. “It’s touching.”
It was also working to Blaise’s advantage as he drew the contrasts between him and Harry for the audience.
Blaise was tall, dark skinned, toned, confident. There was a smoothness to his tone, his education was clear to anyone to hear. Harry was short, scrawny, pale and twitchy. Harry spoke impulsively, no filter between his brain and mouth.
They were both children in an arena who sought out a way to be remembered beyond their kill count and death… that was where their similarities ended and Blaise was making it very clear to the country.
“Are you going to kill us if he says no?” Longbottom asked, glaring at the boy who teased Harry.
“Us? Kill our new allies?” The brunette smirked at Longbottom while Harry and Zabini continued to stare each other down. “That’s not very final of us.”
That comment got a rapid response from both of Sirius’s tributes.
“You expect us to believe you’ve left the other careers?” Harry scoffed.
“Final five or no deal,” Longbottom said firmly, reminding the others of Trent’s presence.
“I’d leave the world to burn for one kiss from your lips,” Zabini sighed at Harry.
The other boy glanced dismissively at Trent at Sirius could read his thoughts easily off the screen -
He would accept Trent so that his ally could play out his act. Trent was small, cowering in himself with his fang raised. The boy probably thought he would die soon, he was probably right.
“Fine.”
“Great.”
“Not great!” Harry yelled. He glared at Longbottom while jabbing a finger at the other boys. “This is a fucking trap. You can’t be this thick!”
Harry would need new allies at the rate he kept insulting his. Harry had been doing an admirable job at holding his tongue, but the lack of sleep and constant adrenaline was getting to him.
There were cracks in his act; Panem was pushing him to his breaking point. They would sit back and nod to themselves when Harry broke, calling it proof they district citizens were unstable, not able to be trusted.
They forced them to become animals and then cried that they needed muzzled for protection.
“How many tributes have you killed?” The brunette, Sirius had to check for his name – Theo Nott, looked at Harry with a deadpan expression. “Four?” he asked, his eyes flicking to the dead body in the doorway of the bathroom.
Harry gnashed his teeth together and Sirius knew he wouldn’t answer. Longbottom wouldn’t answer for him either, it was best they left that information to the others’ imaginations.
Sirius looked to the wall that kept up the overall statistics of each tribute. There were thirteen photos ranked by order of fan preference. Zabini was at the top:
Blaise Zabini: 3/1/3/9
Beneath Zabini was Harry:
Harry Potter: 12/2/2/10
The rankings told them, in order of what the Capitol believed was most important, the district the child was from, their ranking in overall favorite, how many tributes they had killed, and what score they received in training.
Sirius looked until he found Longbottom down in eleventh place, just above the two boys from Eleven, and noted that his zero had changed to a one after the boy from Ten died. That would make him sick, if he knew he had been credited with the death, but he would have much worse problems than seeing a score that meant nothing. In fifth place was Nott, credited with one death so far.
It was Harry who made the choice to play the games, the rebels who supported him. Another contrast between Harry and the boy he screamed at on the screens- Harry was being supported by criminals, Zabini by wealthy citizens. One boy a beloved player of the Games, another the symbol of rebellion.
They were as similar as they weren’t.
It made Sirius’s chest ache with what he could only describe as a feeling of foreboding when the boys began to reach an uneasy truce on the screens.
“I don’t trust you,” Harry told them bluntly, aiming his words directly at Zabini.
“Me either,” Trent added, quickly and carefully making his way around the boys from Three so that he could stand with his allies. He offered Harry the fang and knife that he had cleverly retrieved while the others were distracted with arguing and seemed to light up at Harry’s brief nod of gratitude.
“I wish that boy would die soon,” Snape murmured.
Sirius looked to him to scowl, snap, maybe even finally throw fists with the man. Snape didn’t look antagonistic though, he looked… with the lines in his face, the downtick of his lips, the droop in his shoulders… he looked sad.
Trent Bailey was like one of the stray dogs that would wander in District Twelve. The dogs were always cute enough, if dirty and starved, but it was their eyes that made them seem sweet, loveable, desperate for someone to pet them and offer some scraps with a kind word. In Twelve, most folks couldn’t spare any scraps; in the arena, a nod was the most that Trent would receive.
It was cruel, but when the dogs died then they no longer starved or froze, they were peaceful. The only safe tribute was a dead tribute. Trent would find peace, Sirius only wished that he didn’t go through prolonged torture beforehand.
“I do too,” Sirius admitted, hating himself – hating the Capitol – for the admission.
There was a moment of silence between them, the small agreement perhaps paving the way for them to work together if their tributes aligned, but then –
“Not me. I hope he wins,” Barty announced loudly, catching the attention of the other mentors who had been busy with their own tributes. “I like an underdog.” Barty smiled and the lights of the monitors flashed across his face, highlighting the spark in his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. “There’s something fascinating about the one’s who defy the odds.”
Sirius stared at Barty for a brief moment, thinking exactly what was said by Snape half a second later.
“You grew up in constant training to become a peacekeeper,” Snape sneered at Barty with blatant dislike. “The odds were always in your favor.”
“Right.” Barty turned his head and stared at Snape unblinkingly. “I know what I said.”
When Barty walked away a second later, moving to go join Bellatrix, Sirius repressed a shiver. It was easier to deal with the damage done to every victor in the room if he were high. James would be there, Regulus might show up…
Sirius would take the ghosts of his brothers over the ghosts of the tributes who didn’t die any day.
Harry was the only thing that kept Sirius from leaving the room. It was one boy holding the weight of Sirius’s temporary sobriety on his shoulders. If he lived? If he lived? Sirius didn’t know what he would do.
Sirius liked to think he would be a better person, be there to help Harry with the fallout of survival, the weight of a possible war. What was being a godfather to the tribute being used as the face of a rebellion than being a mentor to the very end?
How long would Sirius have to continue to be a mentor rather than a godfather?
“I hate this,” Sirius said to himself as he sank down directly on the floor, his head turned up so that he could watch as the five boys began making their way down a hallway, finally clearing away from the body so that it could be retrieved.
Harry had himself between Trent and the others, Neville had been able to retrieve his sword and he held it in a fist as he shot distrustful looks at Zabini and Nott. Nott was unaffected, his face a blank and passive mask. Zabini continued to flirt shamelessly with Harry, only becoming more seemingly delighted when Harry refuted his every advance.
“We could go to one of the towers, have a picnic,” Zabini offered, arching his eyebrows in a way that probably had citizens of all ages and genders envying Harry.
“So you can shove me down the stairs? Snap my neck? Fuck off,” Harry muttered, his face red and his expression surly.
It was the first time that Harry really looked his age in the arena. Even when he had been sobbing, inconsolable, out of his mind, after killing the girls in Four, Harry had been an aged tribute there. When a boy was hitting on him? Harry was blushing.
It was agonizing.
It was worse when Snape sat beside Sirius, close enough that his body heat was making Sirius itch. When Snape leaned his head ever closer, Sirius thought he might vomit.
“It would behoove them to ally themselves,” Snape whispered, his breath not helping Sirius’s upset stomach. “Convince your godson.”
“I can’t convince him of anyth–” Sirius’s snarled response faltered when Snape touched him. It was jarring at first, Sirius nearly snapped, but it was a brief contact.
Snape drew a line on the side of Sirius’s knee, jagged to the side, then drew the rest of the line.
Lightning.
If Sirius could sleep, dream, he was sure that he would see lightning in every scene. It would be the weather that played behind all of Sirius’s worst memories, both real and imagined.
“How would I convince Harry to do anything?” Sirius asked quietly, carefully. Why would he do that and why did Snape believe he should?
The game the other mentors played was a dangerous one. It was a difficult game to even know who was involved in the rebellion, another game to discover their motives.
Tributes could become Victors, but the games never ended.
Snape was a mentor from District Three – he wasn’t handsome, never sold to bidders in the Capitol. Snape had no family that Sirius ever knew, no lives that hung in his ability to navigate the new arena that was being a victor. Snape had a comfortable life in Three, Sirius couldn’t begin to guess at what would motivate him to join a rebellion.
Not knowing someone’s motivation was deadly. Did they want to win or just survive as long as they could? Would they begin spilling blood the second they were handed an opportunity or would they remain passive and defensive instead?
Motivations, strategies, were everything. Sirius made it clear to the final two with James because his motivation was to see James live and his strategy was to kill everyone who stood between him and his goal.
Snape had been strategic in his games, motivated to survive. Sirius imagined that his sneaky and calculated methods in the game translated well to whatever arena he was navigating then that involved lightning bolts and pushing Districts Three and Twelve into an alliance.
Sirius had been brash, bold, powerful. Sirius wasn’t made for a game of subtlety; Sirius wasn’t made for whatever arena the rebels were trying to build. He would have to be though, he would have to find out the rules and the motivations for everyone involved if he wanted to mentor Harry through it.
Another game, a new arena. New opponents, new allies.
Sirius only hoped that there would be more than one victor.
“He deciphered your meaning behind a gift before, did he not?” Snape asked Sirius, as if Sirius were incredibly dim-witted. “Find something to send him to push him toward Zabini.”
Sirius had tried to be subtle with asking how he would get a message to Harry, but Snape wasn’t giving him any information that was useful. Sirius could send a gift to Harry, something to make him reconsider the tragic-romance angle that Zabini wanted to exploit, Sirius had no reason to do so though.
“Why would I do that?” Sirius asked baldly, giving up on the crafty wordplay the others were apparently so well-adept at utilizing as weapons. “How does that help Harry?”
Snape stared hard in Sirius’s eyes, his dark eyes conveying a heat that his mild words lacked.
“Why would it help the District Twelve Tributes to be publicly allied with the District Three Tributes?” Snape repeated, stressing the districts. “Surely even you can see the benefit in such a thing.”
Sirius folded his legs up and leaned back against the chair he sat before so he could watch Harry and consider what Snape said and, almost more importantly, what he didn’t say.
Snape wasn’t talking about what would help Harry or Zabini, Snape was talking about how an alliance between the two districts could ‘behoove’ them both. In the Hunger Games, it might help Harry. If they were attacked by the other careers – Districts One and Two that were still a tight and strong group – then there was a strength in numbers.
Outside of the Hunger Games? In the arena that Panem was shaping up to be? Sirius struggled to see what a citizen, what a rebel, might see.
A tragic love affair? Two tributes who got together in the games, odds against them both becoming victors while their district partner still lived? The Capitol Pets would eat up the drama it would bring, they would coo at their friends over how sad, how tragic, then cheer when blood was spilled.
The average citizen in the district might be confused? Sirius certainly would be. Harry had killed two opponents already, he had two allies. Harry was building plans to eliminate the other players, his odds on survival were shrinking in his favor. Why would Harry want or need an alliance? Where would it put his loyalty to Longbottom and Trent? A citizen in the lower districts might be disgusted with Harry, seeing Zabini as a product of the Capitol with his polished demeanor while Harry was all district.
The Capitol citizens believed them too good to ever lower themselves to be with those in the districts. The district citizens believed that their dignity was worth more than any encounter with a Capitol citizen.
If Sirius were a rebel though… if Sirius ever acted on all the thoughts he had his entire life about the government and the President… what would Sirius see with the alliance built around romance?
Harry was meant to encompass every thought of every rebel. Harry screamed their words from a stage, he eulogized their children in the arena. Harry called the President a monster and called every death he saw in the arena a murder. Harry talked of hardship.
Harry didn’t belong to the rebels, they belonged to him. And Zabini? Zabini was Capitol, Capitol and (faking?) an interest in the most rebellious tribute to ever enter the arena.
Zabini was from District Three, even. The district that made the most peacekeepers, trained them in their schools. That district was so tightly allied with the Capitol that even the weaponry that once belonged to District Thirteen had been moved to Three at the end of the first war.
Three had… Three…
Sirius blinked as his eyes that had gone unfocused managed to refocus on the screen. The five boys had found a room on the first floor and Zabini was drawing something in the dust of a small table that Harry squinted at. Zabini glanced up from what he drew and winked at Harry before going back to what rudimentary map he drew with his fingertip.
Would rebels see Zabini’s interest in Harry as some sort of sign? Some sort of idea that if a District Three boy could become interested in the rebel that District Three could be pulled in a rebellion?
That was a reach, even to Sirius who consistently stuck a needle full of drugs in his arm just to imagine himself having a conversation with his dead brothers.
Sirius wanted to ask Snape, to be told that of course the rebels weren’t that deluded and desperate, but every word was monitored… every whisper could be captured and used in what would be a brief trial.
Sirius felt entirely alone as he raised his wrist to look at the cuff he wore. There was no James guiding him in his thoughts, no single person that he could speak with within the room. Sirius didn’t know if he was making the right decisions or leading Harry down a path more dangerous than being reaped had been.
Harry made his choices, but Sirius still felt nauseous as he tried to decide what gift in the arena might manipulate Harry best. Was Sirius any better than a gamemaker? Scrolling through a screen to find something that would nudge Harry in a certain direction?
“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispered as he found a basket that could be filled with food. The gift was pricey, twenty-credits, but it was the price of the action that weighed Sirius down the most as he hesitated with his finger over the button to send it.
Sirius didn’t know who he apologized to while he hesitated. Harry? James? Lily?
Sirius didn’t know who he was letting down the most in that moment, he only hoped it wasn’t Harry again.
It only took less than a minute for the gift to reach the arena and the boys all fell silent as they watched the silver drone fly through the wall, honed to reach Harry. When the basket was dropped in front of Harry, the camera zoomed in on his face.
Harry looked as if he were staring directly at Sirius then, the quirk of his head asking the silent question:
Why?
Sirius shook his head, unable to answer the question even knowing Harry couldn’t hear him.
It might be that the rebels would see a relationship between Three and Twelve and have it inspire them to work toward gaining their own allies in the district with the strongest military and weapon connections. It might be a trap, Snape encouraging it so that Zabini could gain his edge before finishing Harry off.
Sirius only knew that it was a decision he made, one that he made, and he would have to live with the repercussions if it hurt Harry in any way.
Harry carried the weight of Sirius’s sobriety; Sirius carried the weight of Harry’s entire future.