The Ball
Sirius didn’t know who was using who for support. It didn’t matter, he supposed. They were only a group of mentors with pain between them all so tangible that Sirius could taste it.
It tasted like copper, like the dirt of a cemetery, like the salt from tears unshed.
Little Trent Bailey would never have won, Sirius would never have bet on him. That irrefutable truth didn’t make it any easier to see him tortured, destroyed.
Remus had cried, silent tears of misery, and Sirius had no words to say. ‘Better your kid than mine’ seemed cruel, as cruel as the needless death of the boy.
Nothing had prepared Sirius for the pain of watching Harry prepare Trent’s body for removal from the arena, lamenting to the country how needless his death had been.
The only emotion Harry showed then was anger, anger so fierce and heated that it would only be saturated with bliss and revenge. It was a safe enough emotion to have in the arena, it was better than the glaring emptiness that followed during the eulogy of Trent Bailey.
Harry had been hollow, haunted, harrowed. His grief had been pushed down deep and Sirius knew from experience that he would have to wait until the end of the games to begin to process it.
Or he could hide it behind the smokescreen of liquor or drugs, truly follow in his mentor’s path.
It was as if every moment in the arena was another lash against Sirius’s back, a glimpse of his past. Sirius could feel all the things he had buried bubbling to surface and he knew that Harry didn’t survive, if Harry was one of the next bodies to be removed, then Sirius would drown himself in the only pain reliever he had.
When Sirius was high, he would find Harry. That would be when they could talk without the weight of grief, remorse, agony clawing Sirius’s skin from the inside out. That could be when Harry’s eyes would be angry for Sirius’s failure, but no longer haunted from the arena.
Don’t let him die, James, Sirius begged when Harry finished with his fallen ally.
James wasn’t there; never when Sirius truly needed him. All Sirius had were the other mentors, all grieving the loss of the genuinely innocent child that Harry correctly informed the country had been murdered by the Capitol.
“Ready or not, here I come,” Harry whispered to the cameras before he went to extract vengeance for the dead boy.
Sirius had a hold of Remus’s left arm, Tonks had Remus’s right. Snape stood to Sirius’s left, Barty beside him. Bellatrix watched with cold eyes when Harry and Zabini went to exact immediate revenge. The six of them were silent as they watched to see what would happen when Harry stepped out on the roof.
There were three other tributes on the roof; Barty’s two boys and Remus’s older boy. Harry and Zabini would make five… Sirius wondered how many would walk away.
“Here we come,” Zabini corrected Harry, looking at Sirius’s godson with that same bemused light in his eyes that he had since they found Trent.
Harry had been a ploy for Zabini, a way to earn a spotlight wholly unique, Sirius knew that. Sirius also saw the shift that happened the instant Harry stopped being a ploy to him.
Zabini wanted tragedy, Sirius was sure he gave it to himself, even if on accident.
“Try to not die.”
Wasn’t that what Sirius’s oh so wise last words to Harry had been? Try and stay alive, just a little longer.
Just a little longer… then he would be safe.
Try and stay alive… don’t be another ghost in the shadows of Sirius’s broken mind.
Sirius should have told Harry to not get attached - not to other tributes, not to his life, not to the person he had been before he entered the arena.
The Capitol would take everything.
Again and again and again.
The mentors said nothing as they watched Harry steady himself with a few slow breaths. Remus was still steadily crying, devastation washing off him in crushing waves.
A camera zoomed in on Harry’s face, showing his hooded eyes, relaxed shoulders. Harry didn’t seem resigned or stubborn; he looked as if he were detaching himself from the arena entirely, if only in his mind.
It was a short route to pure insanity, that was. Sirius would know.
Speaking of pure insanity…
“It’s probably too late for me to have a friend bet my tributes die soon, huh?” Barty commented. He shook his head when Sirius sent him a sharp look.
And they called Sirius insane, mocked him in their news reports.
“You’ll never get the bet in time,” Bellatrix said, smug that her tributes were hunting and not to be involved in the blood bath about to begin.
“Damn,” Barty sighed.
“You’re talking about children, Barty,” Remus said, a raspy reprimand. Remus’s eyes were red-rimmed, full of heartache that Sirius couldn’t look at.
“No, you’re talking about children,” Snape argued coolly. “Humanizing them will only hurt you more.”
Sirius wondered how they were meant to not humanize humans.
“Thinking like that and they’ll promote you to gamemaker next year,” Sirius muttered, his eyes on the monitor. It was true enough, wasn’t it?
Someone had to see those kids for what they were. The rest of the country saw tributes, entertainment. Who more than the victors in the room should remember that they were kids, just kids?
Harry remembered. Harry was a child himself - a tribute - and he never forgot for a second.
Snape had no witty retort, or Sirius didn’t hear him. All of Sirius’s attention was on Harry as he crept around the golden cornucopia on the roof, weapons in hand. Harry had a light tread, good instincts as he clung to the shadows.
Zabini, on the opposite side, let the sharp side of his spear tap the cornucopia. It didn’t alert the two boys guarding the cornucopia, but it did wake the lightly resting tribute who hid in the very back of the cornucopia.
On a monitor near Tonks, the older boy from Eleven sat up in an instant, his gun in hand. The gun had been in a crate, requiring assembling to use. Remus said the boy had a deadly aim and a plan as he had spent three days languishing inside the cornucopia.
Whatever plan he had, it seemed to be tossed out the window as the boy creeped up to the mouth of the cornucopia in an eerie echo of Harry and Zabini.
Curiosity would kill the cat and Harry would kill the tribute.
Sirius squeezed Remus’s arm, needing something to ground him. If he could, Sirius would rather float away to a place where his brothers waited, a place where he didn’t even know Harry. He couldn’t though, not yet.
If Harry lived, maybe never again.
If Harry died, Sirius would never leave that place.
Harry had to live though… he had to.
The odds were against him, even more so since he directly threatened the President. A light tread and good physical instincts meant nothing when he was determined to die.
James Junior, that boy.
Harry and Zabini had managed to make their way to the front of the cornucopia in an eerie mirror of each other. When Harry risked a glance at the boys on guard, Zabini did the same thing on the other side.
The boy from Eleven waited just inside the mouth, half-hidden from the cameras by crates and entirely out of view of Harry and Zabini.
Sirius felt tense enough to snap as he watched Harry on the monitor. Harry breathed in, Sirius breathed out.
Don’t let him die.
Almost too quickly to see, Harry pulled his knife and threw it with damn good aim. It flew past Crabbe and struck Goyle in the side of the head, aiming Crabbe’s attention away from where Harry waited.
“YES!” Tonks laughed, a little hysterically, when Harry took his opening and began the fight.
Tonks, to Sirius’s knowledge, wasn’t entirely deranged. She leaned forward then though, her eyes glued to the screen; never blinking, never missing a thing.
Did it chip away at their sanity? The other mentors as they watched the games year after year?
It had aged Sirius a decade and it was the second time he bothered paying attention to it at all.
In the arena, Harry nearly had Crabbe with one of the venomous fangs from the mutt. At the last second, with his hand staunching the blood from his own injury, Goyle called a warning out to his district partner.
Crabbe dodged what would have been a fatal blow and the slaughter turned into a battle.
Harry was fast, cold, uncaring. The boys from Two were strong, trained, merciless.
The fang swiped in the air and Crabbe’s sword cut Harry across the stomach. The bleeding began immediately, not enough for Sirius to truly worry yet. Harry never flinched, so clearly detached from the fight - from his body.
That was a skill that couldn’t be taught, only learned in the kind of war that Harry had been involved in his entire life.
Zabini joined the fight with gusto, his body as trained for battle as the other boys. Zabini’s arms flexed and he smirked in a way that was practiced and charming as he drove his sword in Goyle’s left leg. Goyle screamed in pain, Crabbe turned to help him.
It was a good instinct to have; Sirius and James had been like that… they were each others biggest strength and most destabilizing weakness in the arena.
Harry saw the opportunity and he didn’t hesitate before swinging the fang in Crabbe’s side, lodging it deeply between the boy’s ribs and effectively signing off on his death.
“Good one, James,” Sirius breathed, the blood and the battles taking him back to when he had someone to face the world with.
Sirius whooped when their snare caught a rabbit for them to cook.
“Good one, James!” Sirius said, beaming at his best friend.
The snare had been James’s, the fire waiting to cook their meal was Sirius’s.
Sirius killed a girl, a small trembling thing that had hardly fought him more than the rabbit they had the day before did.
“You did good, Sirius,” James swore as he rubbed Sirius’s back, hiding his trembles from the cameras.
Everything had been easier with a partner… everything.
Harry’s eyes lit up with triumph and he pulled the fang out just as the boy from Eleven joined the fight.
“Fuck.” Remus seemed torn on who to support when his boy, Anderson, tackled Harry and bounced Harry’s head on the hard stone floor.
Sirius wasn’t torn. Sirius didn’t care that Zabini was fighting two boys on his own, he didn’t care that Anderson had as much of a right to life as Harry. Sirius cared that Harry’s eyes went dazed with the blow to his head and his muscles loosened in his daze.
“Concussed.” Snape touched the side of his head, his eyes flicking between Zabini and Harry.
Sirius didn’t like the odds of Harry surviving a fight with a boy armed with an automatic rifle while his eyes focused and unfocused of their own volition. Harry had to fight though, he had to try.
Just a little longer… just fight a little longer.
Every battle… just a little longer.
The barrel of the gun was slammed against the front of Harry’s forehead, cutting the skin and sending a trickle of blood trailing down the side of his face.
A click… someone whimpered, it might have been Sirius.
The boy from Eleven was going to shoot James, destroying his face, blowing his brain open, killing him on live television.
Not again…
Sirius couldn’t fight through the fog filling him and he had to - he had to. He couldn’t watch James die again, he had to save him - get him - stop him —
A small and hard hand slapped Sirius across the face, sending him reeling to the floor and for stars to explode in his eyes. Sirius didn’t even have time to get up, he only had to process the wild dark eyes that glowered at him as he was lifted by the front of his shirt to his feet.
“Be crazy on your own time, Black “ Bellatrix hissed in Sirius’s face, actual spittles of saliva flying out at him. “James is dead, show some fucking respect to his son.”
Sirius tried to process that - tried to understand what…
On the screen behind Bellatrix was Harry, staring balefully up at the boy from Eleven. There was a gun to Harry’s head, a finger tight on a trigger.
Sirius nodded toward Bellatrix and she released him.
It wasn’t James, James was gone. There was no saving him, there was only Harry.
“What’s your name?” the boy asked Harry.
It was Harry James Potter. Born the day Sirius was crowned the victor of the Hunger Games. Harry’s birthday was the same as the date of death in Lily’s tombstone, three days after James’s date of death, the day before Regulus’s.
“Why?” Harry’s voice was soft, unafraid. Gun to his head and the boy didn’t break, not like Sirius had.
Remus nudged Sirius with his elbow when Sirius stepped up beside him once again. The other mentors said nothing about Sirius’s brief fit, a fit that Bellatrix had quite literally slapped him out of.
If the woman wasn’t mental, Sirius might thank her.
Half the mentors watched as Zabini fought with Goyle; Crabbe had fallen on to the ground though he still breathed. The others were as locked on the showdown between Harry and Anderson as Sirius himself was.
“I need to know who to pray for tonight,” Anderson told Harry plainly. He wouldn’t spare Harry’s life, he didn’t care if Harry lived or died. The boy who was quite nearly a man only wanted to know what name he should ask for forgiveness for.
Forgiveness, like mercy, would never come for any of them.
“Harry,” Harry told him.
“Harry…” Sirius wanted to reach out, touch his cheek where a single tear trailed down the side of his face, mixing with the blood. When Sirius lifted his hand, Snape snatched it.
“Do not block the screen,” Snape said. An order that did nothing to explain why he allowed Sirius to clench his hand tightly, grounding himself with someone else’s grip.
Maybe it was empathy, maybe pity.
It didn’t matter, it would all be over soon.
Anderson nodded at Harry slowly, prepared himself to take his life.
“The kid from Eleven, Trent. Have you seen him?” Anderson asked.
“The plan was for Taylor to wait, find a chance to take out the entire pack of careers before pairing up with Trent,” Remus explained. “It - that was Taylor’s plan. He wanted to see Trent win,” Remus’s voice broke in tangent with Sirius’s heart.
It was a noble plan… noble men didn’t win the Hunger Games.
“Trent’s dead,” Harry said. He repeated it, ensuring the whole world knew his pain and his anger. “PRESIDENT DUMBLEDORE KILLED HIM!”
The camera panned away from the angry face of one tribute to the shocked face of another. It was a bad decision, Sirius knew it instantly.
Instead of showing how rebellion began with anger and pain, the camera showed how mercy would be granted in the arena it wasn’t made for.
Anderson stared down at Harry in shock, then glee. There was pure joy in his eyes, joy at the rebellious outcry.
Surely there was a gamemaker somewhere urging Anderson to pull the trigger, kill the rebel.
Sirius would have to watch Harry die in a second… one final second. Just a little longer…
In an act of his own rebellion: Anderson stood.
Anderson stood.
Sirius couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing for an instant. Was it to get a better angle? Keep from splattering Harry’s blood on himself?
Harry had already accepted his death. He had his eyes raised to the sky, probably never noticing the silent tears that fell. Sirius didn’t accept Harry’s death, but he had known it was coming.
Anderson looked at Harry for a second and when the glee turned to grief, he turned on his heel and began running.
“Are you kidding me?” Barty snarled when the gun was fired - once at Goyle, in the space between his shoulder blades. Goyle fell, so near the exit that he could have been safe.
Snape flinched as the second shot was fired, hitting Zabini in the leg. Zabini keened with pain when he fell, barely avoiding impaling himself on his own sword.
Anderson disappeared in a tower: armed, dangerous, unpredictable.
“He spared Harry,” Remus breathed. Remus repeated it a second later as Harry lifted his head in the arena. “He spared Harry.”
And it was very nearly for nothing.
Sirius stayed silent while the other mentors began speculating on why Harry had been spared. Sirius didn’t need to understand what Anderson saw in him - an ally, an old friend, himself - Sirius only needed to understand what it was that Harry did next.
Harry seemed half-dazed as he stood up. It was as if Harry didn’t understand that the gunshots hadn’t been for him, he had been spared. He looked around the tower at where Crabbe was dying beside Zabini, out to where Goyle nearly made it to the southeast tower.
The canon blasted - the stats for Crabbe went blank on another screen.
Harry’s death count raised by one, credited with his death for the venom coating the fang he carried.
Sirius tilted his head when Harry walked past his groaning ally, either not noticing or caring about his injury. Harry crossed the roof like a ghost, eerily gazing at Goyle without a single emotion on his face.
Harry’s hand raised, the fang flashed on the screen, then Harry drove it downward with all his strength.
Once, twice.
Sirius’s breathing felt ragged as the canon blasted and Harry was given credit for the death of Goyle. It would have been Anderson’s had he stayed to see it finished.
Harry looked down at himself and then his hand raised once more.
“No!” The word was punched out of Sirius, catching everyone’s attention.
It wasn’t real, it wasn’t.
There was a boy on a roof, covered in the blood of children. The boy looked at himself and Sirius knew what he thought, Sirius had once had the same thought:
When the canon blasted for his death, no one could claim credit.
The only time suicide was rebellious was when it happened in the arena… and who would they punish for Harry?
Harry’s parents were dead, his grandparents killed the same day as his god-uncle. Harry’s only friend in the world was in the arena with him, half a dozen homeless kids wouldn’t matter enough for retaliation.
When Harry died, only Sirius would be hurt.
Not by the Capitol, where was the point in that? Sirius had already been punished many times over by the Capitol.
It would be Sirius who would destroy himself when Harry was gone… gone to join his parents, gone to a place where he would be safe.
Sirius couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. There was a hazy film covering his eyes and every inhale caused ripples of pain through his body when Harry raised the fang to take his own life.
“Please no,” Sirius begged in a desperate whisper, cracked with agony. “Please, don’t do it, H—”
“Harry?”
Zabini had looked up to see Harry and he called out to him, called out just in time.
Sirius didn’t save Harry, couldn’t have even if he tried.
Zabini did.
Sirius let out a breath and watched Harry cross over to Zabini, whatever thoughts he had pushed away in favor of helping his ally.
Snape shook his arm and Sirius was bemused when he looked down and realized he was still holding the man’s hand like a child needing comfort.
“Pathetic,” Snape sneered, as if he hadn’t been the one to offer it to start with.
Sirius didn’t have time to think of a witty comeback, might not have even if he had thought of one. There were too many emotions ripping him apart, too much happening for him to properly begin untangling the last few minutes in his mind.
Harry was still alive, still breathing. Harry was kneeling beside Zabini, carefully looking over the wound in the boy’s knee.
Four feet beside them lay a body of someone’s son, someone’s friend.
“Ah, and we’ve hit final ten,” Barty announced, callous and cold to the death that was going to haunt Harry for the rest of his life.
Remus groaned quietly, Tonks closed her eyes. Karkaroff twisted his face unhappily for a second before clearing the unhappiness away for indifference. Only Snape and Bellatrix seemed relatively unaffected by Barty’s words. Sirius, for his part, was confused.
Interviews were when there were eight tributes left… a feast was typically held around six… Sirius couldn’t recall anything of importance happening at ten.
“What happens at ten?” Sirius asked Remus, trusting him to tell him the truth without any biting comments added to it.
It was Snape who answered, because he never could keep his oversized nose and barbed insults to himself.
“You would know if you had ever bothered to pay attention to your tributes before now,” he sneered. As if Sirius frequently had tributes reach the final ten in the games.
District Twelve kids were lucky to make it to day two, they rarely ever made it past the halfway point in the games.
“It’s a ball,” Tonks said, her face gone pale. She glanced toward Bellatrix and they shared a look of pure unhappiness.
“A ball thrown by the president, and our attendance will be mandatory,” Bellatrix added, the usual scorn gone from her tone.
Sirius thought that he would perhaps rather enter the arena himself than have to attend a ball thrown by the president to celebrate the games that were slowly killing his godson.
As usual, Sirius had no choice in the matter.
*****
Sirius was hot, itching, uncomfortable.
All he wanted to do was slip away from the revel - “Final Ten Ball” - happening and return to the mentor room.
The Capitol had spared no expense on the viewing party for those they considered to be ‘elite society’. There were politicians, game makers, mentors and tributes. The beautiful women flitted around, filling the spaces in between the songs with their laughter and flirting. The rich men stood around in groups, discussing whatever it was that men born with money discussed.
All around the ballroom of the President’s mansion were holographic monitors with a live feed of the games that were being celebrated and feasted over. Between the floor to ceiling monitors were images of each remaining tribute. Sirius had strategically chosen a place near where the lifelike image of Harry was placed. The image had Harry’s face twisted in anger, anger glittering in his eyes.
It was pretty damn accurate, Sirius thought.
There was a band playing, no lack of food set up at buffet tables around the edges of the room. Sirius could see liquor being offered by waiters in black suits, other delicacies being sold by a few attendants between whispered offers and coy smiles.
The abundance of everything in contrast to the monitors that showed tributes with nothing made Sirius feel—
“Sickening, isn’t it?”
Sirius made a sound of agreement when Remus slid up beside him, a glass of white wine in both of his hands.
“Go on then,” Remus held one glass out for Sirius and he freely gave him a small and sad smile. “One won’t hurt.”
Sirius took it, if only because he knew that shortly he would be expected to mingle and shmooze the rich citizens. Kissing the asses off Capitol pets, even for Harry’s benefit, was the type of job that would require at least one drink.
They stood like that for a fashion. Remus sipped his wine, the lines in his body drooping with unhappiness. Sirius drank his wine desperately, needing something to soothe the itch inside of him. When his drink was gone, he waved off the waiter who tried to bring him a new one, as much as it pained him.
Sirius couldn’t get drunk, not while James’s son still breathed in the arena. Harry could go entirely mad, Sirius could empathize, but Harry had to live though and Sirius had to see him through to the end.
“Sirius.” Remus’s voice was suddenly sharp, a hint of anger in the slight growl. Sirius looked over at him, a mild sense of curiosity at what had the passive man angered. Sirius followed Remus’s line of sight, thinking he would find something happening on a monitor across from them.
What he saw was the mentor from Five, Tonks. Tonks was dressed to emphasize her youth, a yellow ballgown matched with her pink hair giving her a morbid sense of freshness that ignored her honor of being a victor. Tonks had a smile on her face, it was strained though, Sirius could see that.
There was a man with Tonks, a short and portly man who had to be Capitol bred. He had a head of balding pale-blonde hair, a dark blue shimmering suit that looked ready to burst from the seams, and both of his hands on Tonks. One hand was on the curve of her neck, one wrapped behind her.
Sirius pulled a face of disgust, but he wasn’t truly angered yet. Sirius assumed that Tonks was using her assets to secure sponsors and Remus was jealous.
“You’re sweet on her?” Sirius murmured to Remus, watching as the man leaned upward to Tonks, putting his wet lips directly in front of her mouth.
“That man is Elphias Doge,” Remus sneered hard enough that Sirius nearly didn’t catch the name. Sirius raised a brow, not knowing or caring who the man was.
“Close friend of the president,” Remus added, his jaw clenched. He seemed furious then, deranged and livid in a way that even the arena hadn’t caused in him. Sirius still didn’t understand the fury that had Remus trembling, not until he added one more clipped sentence.
“I’m certain he paid a small fortune for the pleasure of her company tonight.”
That had Sirius turning back and zeroing in on the man, his disgust rising to the same level of Remus’s anger. Tonks wasn’t working to earn a sponsor for her tributes, she was being used in a game that preceded even the Hunger Games.
No one ever left the arena, not really. As Sirius watched Tonks be pawed at in public by a man who should be slime beneath Sirius’s shoes, it struck him… the need for change… the need for a rebellion.
Rebellions weren’t built in a day. It was all the small acts - “I volunteer.” “Are you entertained now?!” One finger raised and swung out in a salute to mock the system that controlled them. - that added up to something unstoppable.
Sirius wasn’t a rebel, not really. If it weren’t for Harry, Sirius would float through any rebellions with the ghosts of his brothers on his shoulders.
Sirius was a marauder though… way back when he’d been a person so convinced of his own self-worth. And if Harry’s small acts could save the life of a second tribute, Sirius could do something to help Tonks if he couldn’t save her.
“Here’s what we do…” Sirius leaned toward Remus and lowered his voice, speaking only from the corner of his lips. It was rebellion in its own way and it filled Sirius with a tiny thrill of vindictive glee.
What would the Capitol do to him for it?
Kill his brothers? Put his godson in the Hunger Games?
Sirius stumbled across the ballroom floor, staggering and mumbling to himself.
“Gotta get ‘em, gotta win…” he repeated. When he bumped into a woman in a sleek green gown, he growled and shoved her harshly. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” he yelled, catching the eyes of nearly everyone in the room.
The man accompanying the woman in the matching material pulled her away from Sirius and Sirius spun around madly.
“I WILL KILL THEM!” he yelled. He began pointing at attendants at random. “YOU AND YOU AND YOU! YOU’RE DEAD! YOU’RE ALL DEAD!”
Barty stood out in the crowd, his mouth stretched out in a delighted smile. Snape was near him, sneering as if he had never expected anything else.
Remus broke through the shocked and disgusted attendants, sighing wearily.
“Sirius, calm yourself,” Remus said, moving closer to Sirius so Sirius could slide to his left, nearly there.
“THEY KILLED JAMES!” Sirius shouted, pushing down the twinge of guilt he felt for saying James’s name in front of people who truly did have a hand in his death.
“AND HARRY!” Sirius added, snarling and spitting as he screamed. “THEY KILLED HIM!”
If Sirius was going to get removed from the property rather than advocate for Harry, the least he could do was bring him up once or twice.
Remus held his hands out and Sirius twitched away, closer to Doge.
“James died in the arena and Harry still lives,” Remus insisted. Sirius didn’t think he was imagining the real pity in Remus‘s eyes. “Why don’t you come with me and we can find a place where you sober—”
Remus reached out for Sirius and Sirius snarled as he took a calculated swing at Remus. It caught the edge of his chin, landing hard enough to cause him to stumble into Doge.
And then, as planned, Sirius lunged at Remus - missed to hit Doge - and began beating the life from the man.
Sirius didn’t hold back with his hits. Over and over Sirius struck any part of the man he could while Remus quickly whisked Tonks away.
Doge was Greyback and he was every peacekeeper in District Twelve. Doge was the image of what sort of sick pleasures could be bought if someone had enough money and status.
At least when Sirius indulged in his vices, it only hurt him.
And the godson he had neglected, abandoned, haunted.
Sirius beat Doge with his bare fists until blood was spraying every time a blow landed. There were people shrieking, crying - someone was cackling and Sirius thought it might be Barty - and Sirius didn’t stop until he was forcibly grabbed by his shoulders.
“GET OFF ME!” Sirius roared, not needing to feign his anger when a trio of peacekeepers began pulling him off Doge. To stay out of prison though, he added some more mad rants.
“HE TOOK JAMES!” Sirius bellowed as he was dragged out of the room. Doge was little more than a bloodied body on the floor and Sirius tried to spit on him once more. “JAMES!!”
“Outta quit drinking,” one of the peacekeepers grunted as they dragged Sirius toward the main door. “Filthy district lunatic.”
“Drinking?” Another scoffed and was quick to open the door for them. Sirius was only struggling as a show, even he wouldn’t hit one of the president’s personal peacekeepers.
“I’d bet he’s out of his mind with morphling.” The peacekeeper who held the door open had them pause so he could squint in Sirius’s eyes. Sirius bared his teeth and shook his head like a rabid dog, causing the other to nod.
“Morphling,” he said, as wrong as he was stupid. “Toss him out here, he’ll be sober by morning or he’ll freeze.”
Sirius huffed when he was literally thrown from the doorway down the set of stairs to hit the lawn. Sirius thought he might have bruised a rib, but it could have been worse.
It could have been a death sentence.
The instant the door was closed, Sirius lifted himself off the ground and brushed off the posh suit that Rita had forced on him. When Sirius thought of her order for the night, he chuckled.
“Do try to not cause a spectacle.”
Sirius was still chuckling over that when the door opened again and a man slipped out to join him. It took Sirius a second to recognize him, as dark as it had gotten since the party started, but he stopped laughing the instant he did.
“Evening.” Tom Riddle himself smiled at Sirius, his white teeth shining in the night. “That was quite a show you put on. And here I thought your godson was the only performer in the family.”
Sirius’s spine stiffened at the mention of Harry and he desisted playing the brain-addled due to the knowing gleam in Riddle’s eyes.
“You know, I think Harry’s father and I were related somewhere down the line,” Sirius said, dodging the implication.
Riddle laughed, cold and high-pitched. Riddle was an intimidating man, Sirius would admit that. He had been made Head Gamemaker at twenty-five, the same year that Remus himself won the games.
Head Gamemakers didn’t tend to last long, but Riddle had kept his position through endless creativity in arena design and ways to torture tributes.
“Delightful,” Riddle said. He slowly reached in his suit jacket to pull out a black metal square with a single silver button in the middle. Sirius didn’t flinch when he pressed the button, though he expected to erupt in screams of pain any moment.
The only thing Sirius felt was a tingle in the air, the soft buzz of electricity in his ears.
“An invention of my own,” Riddle said calmly as he pocketed the metal square. “It ensures privacy within a certain radius, you see? Now, why don’t we talk?”
Sirius was wary and tried to not show it. Riddle was a predator and he would pick up any scent of fear and finish Sirius off quicker than any mutt could.
“Alright,” Sirius said evenly, stuffing his bloodied hands in his trousers pockets. “Let’s talk.”
Riddle smirked, as if knowing how hard Sirius worked to sound casual. He probably did, smug bastard.
“Your godson is inciting riots in the streets,” Riddle told him, as easily as one would comment on the weather. If there was any emotion on Riddle’s face, it was only a hint of glee.
“Most unfortunately,” Riddle’s smirk grew and he was definitely pleased then, “his threat against Dumbledore was heard by every citizen in the country.”
Sirius’s blood ran cold and if he had never felt true fear before, he did then.
“He’s dead,” Sirius whispered, a prediction not delusion. Harry told the president that he would slit his throat, Sirius had been surprised that Harry hadn’t been blasted out of the arena then and there. The only way Sirius could comprehend he wasn’t would be —
“Not with my protection,” Riddle said, pulling the thought directly from Sirius’s mind. “The country may be Dumbledore’s arena, but that castle? That’s mine.”
Sirius stared at one of the most influential men in the country, one of the most high-ranking. Riddle stood tall, proud, confident, wrong.
There was something wrong with the man at a deep level that Sirius could never understand. Sirius didn’t want to understand, it seemed a true dive into insanity to even attempt to do so.
“You would keep Harry safe?” Sirius asked, the only thing he did need to understand. “You would help him get to the end?”
“As far as I can without bringing suspicion upon myself,” Riddle said. “It helps that the boy seems to have excellent instincts. The situation with Zabini’s son was unexpected, though it goes far with our cause for the higher districts to see one of their own so besotted with a rebel.”
Instinctively, Sirius looked around at the taboo word. Riddle curled his upper lip, probably insulted that Sirius had any doubts about the effectiveness of his tool.
“So that’s the plan then?” Sirius asked, the full picture beginning to come clear to him. If Sirius were in the districts, he could see how Harry and Zabini would look to him:
A boy from a lower district; small, angry, rebellious.
A victor’s son from a higher district; healthy, thriving.
When the boy from the higher district showed the country how easily the rebel would win him over… what was to stop the rest of them from wanting to follow suit?
Every romantic in the country would be thinking of the star-crossed lovers and wanting that for themselves.
“Then I suspect that Zabini will make a full recovery?” Sirius guessed, accepting that the arena had no interest in odds and opportunities, it was posed and Riddle would manipulate it to suit his grand plans.
Riddle’s lips curled up as he raised a shoulder in a show of graceful indifference.
“If your godson is able to get the medicine that will save him,” Riddle said. He leaned forward and Sirius leaned backward, a survival instinct.
“I believe it is almost time for a feast,” Riddle confided softly. “I may wait, see if I can save it once there are a few less tributes. But, yes, my ideal ending involves Potter and Zabini both surviving the arena.”
An ideal that did nothing to minimize the fear Sirius felt for Harry. If anything, that fear increased until Sirius was choking on it.
From one arena to another… both controlled by Riddle.
“Harry and Zabini live, they take the face of your rebellions,” Sirius said, nodding to himself as he took it as the truth. When Riddle didn’t dispute it, Sirius eyed him shrewdly. “What’s in it for you?” he asked.
Riddle wasn’t starving in the streets, dying from preventable illness or being forced to work menial jobs that never paid enough for comfort. Riddle could have children and they would never be subjected to the torture that he forced on the district children.
For men like Riddle, the only real motivator was —
“Power,” Riddle said simply, once again taking the thought from Sirius’s mind. Riddle smiled, the charming mask that played in stories about the games.
Maybe it was because Sirius had once been a child in an arena controlled by Riddle, but he only saw malice and violence in that smile.
Sirius found his way back to the mentor center much later that night. He had walked through the city, only half noticing the monitors on every sign and shop that had the Games playing on them.
The majority of Sirius’s thoughts were wrapped up with an image of Panem under the control of Tom Riddle.
President Dumbledore killed Regulus, Riddle killed James. It was one evil for another… there would be no freedom in rebellion, Sirius knew that then.
It was knowledge that brought pain. Ignorance would be more bliss.
Rebellion was the hope that the people in the districts would paint on their faces and wear on their backs. They would hope that if they fought hard enough, died if asked to, that they would win a better future.
Nobody escaped the arena.
Remus and Tonks were the only mentors present when Sirius did stumble in the mentor room. The two of them were seated together in a chair made for one, both still dressed in their finery from the ball.
“Sirius!” Tonks leapt to her feet and only tripped once as she rushed across the room to throw her thin arms around Sirius in a surprisingly fierce hug.
“You insane idiot!” Tonks laughed in Sirius’s face when she pulled away to insult him. She seemed happy, though Sirius could see the red-rims around her eyes.
“We thought you might have been arrested,” Remus said, grinning at the pair of them crookedly. “Where were you?”
“Here and there,” Sirius said absently. His eyes swept the room - the room that could never be safe for a real conversation - until that he saw Harry.
Harry had moved Zabini inside the cornucopia and had the boy’s head on his lap. Sirius couldn’t hear him, but he saw Harry’s lips moving as he stroked Zabini’s hair.
Remus had followed Sirius’s gaze and he gave a helpless shrug when he saw Sirius watching the boys.
“They’re sweet, in their own way,” Remus said. “If I wasn’t hoping Taylor lived, I might be cheering for the two of them.”
Sirius looked at the boys as he walked across the room, sinking down in a chair in front of where they playing on a monitor. Sirius loosened his tie, Remus sat on his left, Tonks curled up on Sirius’s right side with her legs tucked beneath her.
The boys didn’t look sweet to Sirius, they looked injured and hurt and possibly even scared. Harry’s eyes were shadowed, Zabini’s skin looked ashy.
“They’ll live,” Sirius said quietly, a fact it seemed.
Riddle said the country was Dumbledore’s arena… Riddle only had the castle. Unless Harry and Zabini lived and helped him incite the country to a new war, one that he didn’t promise they would survive.
It didn’t seem a question of if the boys would live to the end of the castle-arena or not… Sirius only wondered if they would enter the new arena and wish that they had died in the first one.
Just a little longer…