The Reunion
The sky was no longer pouring down rain, it was no longer purple and approaching night. As if it were working in reverse, the sky had lightened.
It was a pink and orange color when Harry left the cornucopia, the color of sunset. Harry could see the edge of the sun at the bottom of the field that must surround them and he could feel some warmth seeping in his bared torso. It felt nice, better than the chill that twilight brought.
Harry would have liked it more if he didn’t think the sky changing indicated the end of the games approaching.
“We’re going to find Neville and Theo today?” Blaise asked in the strained voice he had since their fight with the boys from Two.
Harry glanced at him, looking away from the sky for a moment, and swallowed a scoff. Blaise was better, he was standing, but there was still a long cut from where Harry had to dig the bullet from his leg. It had started bleeding again and they tied Harry’s jacket around it, it didn’t take a doctor to know that blood was meant to stay inside the body.
“I’ll go find them and you can stay here,” Harry told Blaise. “You’d leave a fuckin’ trail of blood behind you.”
A trail that the other tributes would follow to finish them both off. Harry could fight off one or two, but he couldn’t do it while trying to protect Blaise. If he was smart, he wouldn’t bother trying to protect Blaise anyway.
Harry wasn’t smart though and… and Blaise said he loved him.
Who else in the entire world would say the same thing? Not Harry’s dad, who cared more about Sirius than his son. Not Harry’s mom, who might have loved him but died giving birth to him anyway. And not Sirius, Sirius who had years to connect with Harry and chose not to.
Maybe Harry loved him too. Maybe Harry was tired of being alone.
Did it matter? The sun was rising.
“You can’t go alone,” Blaise argued. “Who would protect you?”
Harry turned his head, prepared to explain to Blaise in very tiny and easy to understand words who would be protecting who, and saw that Blaise was smirking at him. So it was a joke, probably.
“Yeah, how will I survive without you?” Harry snarked with a roll of his eyes. Someone would probably see that on the screens and laugh - Harry didn’t care. Harry didn’t care about the cameras since they recorded Trent’s death.
Every person who watched the Games and did nothing was as guilty as the Capitol in Harry’s eyes.
They could starve him, watch him kill children, watch him die. Harry would never consider them again.
“Can you wait here?” Harry asked him. Harry had a few weapons; the fang, a short knife, the long blade that Blaise had been using as a makeshift cane. Harry could be in and out of the castle quickly, if he didn’t need to worry about Blaise.
Except then Blaise would be sitting alone in the cornucopia. There were still seven others, five that they weren’t allied with. Harry’s memory was fuzzy, it was getting harder to keep track of who was left with the numbers dwindling, but Harry didn’t love the idea of leaving Blaise behind in any case.
“I’ll be fine, bellissimo assassino,” Blaise said. He stepped closer to Harry, a heavy and pained step that proved why he couldn’t go find the others with Harry.
Blaise put his hand on Harry’s lower back and he didn’t ask Harry to stay, didn’t ask to go with him. Harry told him that he would choose him, Blaise believed him.
In the messiness of the arena, it was simple between them. They didn’t have years to build trust, they had moments. Moments that stacked up until Blaise gave Harry a light push and Harry didn’t look back toward him.
“One day,” Blaise called to Harry as he walked toward the tower entrance of the castle with no shirt and one knife in hand, “I’ll say I love you every time you walk away from me.”
“One day,” Harry grinned - a small grin that wasn’t for the cameras or the Games, it was for Harry alone, “I’ll say it back to you.”
It wasn’t that day, but Harry could sense that day was approaching just as the sky had began to move in reverse. When sunset turned back to daytime, the shadows covering the castle would have no where to hide and seven more kids would be dead.
Harry had lost his shoes at some point, he didn’t remember when, but it made it easier to walk down the stairs of the tower. His footsteps weren’t echoing and his breathing was quiet enough that Harry could trick himself into thinking he was already dead.
Maybe the cannon had blasted and Harry died on the roof. Maybe Harry didn’t have a Heaven or Hell, but an endless eternity of the Games to live through. Maybe Harry won in some of them, maybe he lost most of them.
In some Games, Harry could have been a trained career, ready to slaughter the others with a sword and return home a Victor. In some, he would have been killed at the opening bloodbath as he thought he could outrun the others and the offerings were too tempting.
Harry thought that in at least five of those Games - Blaise tricked him and played a mental game in pretending to fall for Harry just before he cut his throat open in his sleep. In another five, they won and went home together.
In one Game, Harry killed Blaise. It would have been a mercy killing, Blaise was injured and would die a slow and painful death while two other tributes waited him out. Harry couldn’t have stood by and watched him in agony every second of every day and Blaise would have begged him, with tears in his eyes, to take the pain away.
It wasn’t that Game though and Harry probably wasn’t dead. Harry turned the knife in his hand and lightly traced the blade across the side of his stomach, splitting the skin open and clearing the images of Games that never happened from his head.
Harry looked down when the faint pain dropped him in reality and saw that he was doing the very thing he warned Blaise of, leaving a trail of blood for another tribute to follow.
“Stupid,” Harry whispered to himself as he removed one of his socks. Harry used it to wipe up the blood that had trickled - Harry had walked down three flights of stairs, when? It was one minute ago, ten hours ago, that he left Blaise on the roof - behind him before pressing it firmly to his side.
It stung and that was good. Comfort would kill him, the pain created a Victor.
The castle looked different with the change of sunlight. It was no longer dim and difficult to see, instead there was a gruesome orange light that danced through the windows and highlighted the blood that had been spilled inside the arena.
Harry stopped at the lowest floor, the last place he remembered Neville and Theo being on. It was quiet, every floor was. Harry wondered if the tributes were sleeping? Hiding? Were the two from One out hunting for Harry as he was them?
It was tempting to go looking for them… Harry owed the bitch from One a lot of pain… but it could wait, Harry needed to find his allies. Someone needed to watch Blaise while Harry cleared the field.
Harry stood in the hallway of the first floor and looked around for a moment. Everything looked the same, it was hard to orient himself. Every hallway was the same copy of grey stone floors and walls. Every door was a dark brown wood with a tarnished golden knob.
Clenching the handle of his knife tightly, Harry decided to do something reckless.
“NEVILLE!” Harry yelled his name loudly, knowing it would echo down the halls. If someone wanted to attack Harry, they could. Harry wouldn’t mind taking a few more tributes out.
The closer Harry got to the ending, the closer he got to the people who had dropped them all in an arena.
Harry walked casually down the hall, strutting some in his cold confidence, as he continued calling for Neville.
There was an old rhyme, Harry barely remembered it. It was something he remembered from a patch of grass behind a small schoolhouse… it was a game Harry had played with a boy - short, rounded cheeks, flat blonde hair…
The rhyme made itself known in Harry’s head the same second as he placed the boy in his memory.
“NEVILLE!” Harry called again. “OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE!”
“Olly olly oxen free, Harry,” Neville laughed, peeking up in the tree where Harry had hidden himself. “Wow! Did you fly up there?!”
Harry dropped to the ground and laughed, happy to use his tree climbing skills to win the game of tag.
A door opened and Harry pulled his knife back only to see the precise person he was searching for staring at him. Neville wasn’t laughing, but there was a glimmer of joy in his eyes anyway.
“Olly olly oxen free,” Neville croaked. He held a hand out and it only took Harry three long strides to grasp it in a brief moment of relief at their reunification.
“What happened to you?” Harry asked, looking Neville over from his head to toes. There was a nasty bump swollen on the edge of his forehead, partially covered by his bloodied hair. There were also thick lines around his neck, rope burn, Harry thought.
“The twins from Five.” Neville’s voice was rough, every sound seemed to be causing him pain. “Theo’s in here.”
Harry dropped Neville’s hand and stepped inside the room that he had been inside. Theo nodded at Harry distractedly as he tended to a small pile of supplies. They had a spear, Neville’s sword, and two apples.
Not much of a stock, but Harry didn’t think the Games would last much longer.
“I thought I was done for,” Neville told Harry as he sagged against the wall. He turned his head and touched another spot on his scalp, just behind his ear, where another large bump had appeared.
“Theo saved my life,” Neville said, throwing a small smile toward Theo. “He’s been a bit of a jerk ever since though.”
“You try keeping you alive,” Theo snapped. He grabbed the spear from the floor and stood up in a single fluid motion. The spear was swung to be pointed at Harry, who merely raised an eyebrow at him.
“Where’s Blaise?” Theo demanded. He probably thought he looked tough, with his weapon and his anger. He didn’t, not to Harry.
Harry had died seventy-four different times since they last saw each other. It was Harry who was tough, Harry who would play the Games again and again and again.
“The roof,” Harry told him. He swatted the spear away from him and Theo let it drop. “One of you needs to stay with him, the other can go with me.”
“Go with you where?”
Harry opened his mouth to answer Neville, to explain that they needed to end the Games, free the tributes.
Then Head Gamemaker Tom Riddle’s voice filled the arena.
“Good day, Tributes!”
There was a pause and Harry’s eyes met Neville’s and he wondered if they were thinking the same thing. The last time Riddle made an announcement, it was for the new rule that allowed two tributes to become Victors.
Could Neville see Harry’s guilt? His resolve to take Blaise in the end? Harry didn’t think so, Neville looked happy, excited - as if there would be yet another tribute allowed to live.
“The nine of you left have fought hard to get where you are. You’ve spilled blood and seen your own blood spill out. And now, in a show of appreciation for your efforts to glorify Panem—”
Harry snarled and it was echoed by Neville. Theo tilted his face to the floor quickly, as if to hide his own negative reaction from the cameras.
“— I would like to invite you to a feast.”
A feast.
Feasts were a way for Gamemakers to drive tributes together, just as the offerings at the beginning of the Games were. Feasts always held something a tribute needed desperately - food, medicine, a weapon. It would be picked just for them.
Harry didn’t have anything he needed… but Blaise did.
“The feast will be held at the cornucopia on the roof when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky. Your gift from the Capitol might mean the difference between your life and death. Good-luck, Tributes.”
“Run,” Harry told the other two. Harry didn’t pause to explain - either they ran with him or they didn’t. But Harry had a plan and that plan meant that he needed to get on the roof before any other tributes tried to beat him there.
Blaise was on the roof. Alone. Where a feast would be held in only a few short hours.
If Harry were a tribute - if Harry didn’t know that Blaise was hidden inside the cornucopia - Harry would rush to hide inside the cornucopia. Then, when the table appeared with the offerings, they could grab theirs and run. There were four exits off the roof, they could get away if they only took their offering.
And Blaise was waiting on Harry, with a bad leg and trust that they would see the end together.
Neville didn’t question Harry, he began running just as Harry did. Out of the room, down the hallway… their rushed footsteps must have been a deterrent to other tributes, Harry would have stayed hidden as well.
Theo ran with them and they were the largest pack in the arena, as far as Harry knew. The boy from Ten had been alone the entire time, hiding in the same place where Harry took over for solace. The two from One would be together, hunting or hiding after the death of the boys from Two. One of the twins from Five was still alive, and… and there was someone else, someone Harry couldn’t remember.
“Careful.” Someone grabbed Harry’s shoulder and wrenched it hard when he began running up the staircase for the tower. Harry stumbled, his bare foot slid and he would have landed on his ass if someone didn’t catch him.
“The twins set up traps.” It was Neville who caught him and who carefully helped Harry steady himself on his feet.
“Got it,” Harry said, distracted by his… his worry? His fear? He was distracted by Blaise, Blaise was a distraction.
Harry took the lead up the staircase and let the orange light illuminate the steps he carefully took, checking each one to be sure there weren’t any traps waiting. There were droplets of blood, smeared in spots.
Whose blood was it? Neville’s? Harry’s? Was it Trent’s blood, dripping from the knife that took his life? The blood that must have been on Taylor after he shot the boys and let Harry live?
A scream echoed from above, sharp and fleeting, and Harry's breath hitched. The walls of the staircase seemed to close in around him, the shadows twisted and mocked his every step.
The smooth and cold voice of the Head Gamemaker seemed to echo in Harry’s ears - like footsteps, like screams, like whispered cries in the night:
“Do you think you can save him, Harry? Can you save anyone?”
Harry was shoved hard when another scream filled the staircase and he forgot about twins and traps and blood as he began running a full sprint to the roof.
Each step felt like a hundred, each breath might have been his last one. Harry glanced back at Neville and Theo, their faces were pale but set for whatever they were going to find up top.
Would it be Blaise, bloodied and dying? Blaise who might ask for one last kiss, one last kind word whispered between them?
The staircase seemed to spiral endlessly even as it became more well lit the higher they traveled. Harry's hand gripped the banister, slick with sweat and blood, grounding him in the nightmare as much as the cut on his side did. When he reached the last landing for the rooftop exit, he could hear the clashing of weapons, a scream from someone who wanted to live and was sentenced to die.
Harry used his knife to reopen the cut on his side, to push through the haze of images that might not have been real playing in his head. Blaise needed him. He couldn't afford to lose himself - not now, not yet. Not when they were so close.
Harry was the first one on the roof, Theo and Neville just half of a step behind him. The sun moved again, working in reverse, and gave a bright and fresh light to the fight happening, a morbid sort of unnaturalness that made it all feel that much less real.
Blaise was there, crouched and bleeding, his teeth bared with anger and determination. Across from him, the tribute Harry forgot - the beautiful girl from Ten - stood tall, her arrow lodged in her bow at the ready.
Harry felt a surge of adrenaline, a clearing of his mind and sharpening of his muscles. Blaise turned his head, as did the girl, and Harry couldn’t run across the roof before the girl let her arrow fly in Blaise’s skull.
“Fleur!” Harry remembered her name, he had remembered all of them - he forced himself to memorize them all. The girl didn’t relax her hold and Harry only had to buy a few seconds, a few seconds for Blaise to move so Harry could strike.
“You won’t leave the roof alive,” Harry warned her. He could sense more than see as Neville and Theo spread out, showing the girl that she was trapped.
The girl ran to the roof for a gift from the Capitol and she found it.
“If I take one of you with me, it will not be a waste,” Fleur said to him. “I am not afraid of death, Harry Potter.”
Neither was Harry and that was the issue.
“Death isn’t scary,” Harry agreed as he took a small step forward. Blaise slid back, closer to the golden cornucopia, away from the arrow that would kill him.
“Have you killed anyone yet?” Harry asked, anything to keep Fleur’s attention on him. “It’s hard, harder than I thought it would be. Can you sleep? Do they haunt you?”
Fleur’s bow quivered and Harry could see in her eyes - he could see that she was haunted. Harry didn’t know who she killed, he didn’t care.
Harry had a screen running in his mind of every tribute he killed, every life he ended. They would never leave him.
It was hard to take a life, but dying wasn’t an option anymore.
“I have a sister,” Fleur said. “She needs me.”
“Yeah,” Harry nodded and he kept track of the bow and the angle of the arrow while it slowly lowered. Blaise was nearly to the cornucopia.
“Trent Bailey had six brothers,” Harry told her - he needed one more second, one damned second. “They needed him.”
And he was dead.
It took one second for the image to change:
Fleur’s bow dropped one more degree, Blaise grabbed the lip of the golden cornucopia to drag his body inside, and Harry threw his knife.
It soared across the roof in slow motion, Harry watched it and wondered if it approached slowly to Fleur or if she watched the silver glinting in the sunlight too quickly for even a final thought.
Fleur screamed when the knife found its home, right where Harry aimed at her neck. She reached up in a panic and ripped it out, causing a spray of blood that reached where Harry was and splattered his face.
It was warm, Fleur’s blood. It sprayed across his face, got in his mouth. Harry could taste her blood - he tasted it as she fell. It was salty, thick…
“Harry?” A hand landed on Harry’s shoulder, big enough to cover almost his entire shoulder. It was Neville, Harry knew it without looking away from where Fleur choked on her own blood in her final moments.
“Are you going to say something?” Neville asked. “The cannon hasn’t blasted yet.”
It hadn’t, but it would. Fleur was scrambling, trying to sit up - trying to live.
Harry had nothing to say, not to Fleur, not to Neville. Harry turned to face the cornucopia and began walking to where Blaise laid on his side, half-propped by the golden cornucopia.
“Good timing,” Blaise panted. He still smiled up at Harry and there was a cut on his cheek, it looked like a scrape from the stones.
“Yeah, I try,” Harry said flatly. He held a hand down for Blaise and then pulled him with his full strength to his feet. “Wrap an arm around me, you’re going in the back,” Harry told him. “The others are going to come soon, there’s a feast.”
“I heard.” Blaise grunted with the effort of their small and careful steps toward the back of the cornucopia where he could be hidden. Their jackets were still spread out in the back, along with the food that they picked from the crates and the empty bottle of liquor that they drank rainwater out of.
Blaise’s head twisted with the sound of footsteps and he nodded at whoever had followed just before Harry semi-shoved him down on the nest of jackets.
“You found our friends,” Blaise said. “Theo, where you been?”
“Saving Longbottom’s skin.” Theo had been the one to follow - Harry knew it would be him. Neville would be on the roof, offering comfort until the cannon blasted.
“Yeah?” Blaise winced as he straightened out his bad leg. He gestured at it glibly. “Seems we’re even with Twelve then, I’d be dead without Harry.”
“Seems so.” Theo leaned against a crate and Harry figured he was good enough to watch Blaise while Harry began preparing for the other tributes that would eventually appear.
“I’ll be back,” Harry told them. He met Blaise’s eyes and there was a second where they both searched in each other, looking deep for any uncertainty in the pact they made. When Harry found none, he turned to head back out to the roof.
It was callous, cold. Neville had played games with Harry when they were boys - shared his food with the scrawny and starving kid from the orphanage. And if Harry had to choose, if the choice ended up in his hands, Harry would take his life.
Neville was exactly where Harry thought he would be, sitting on the ground with Fleur’s head on his lap. The girl’s chest fluttered weakly, she would be safe soon - away from the Capitol, out of the arena. Her sister would mourn her, Harry would burn the Capitol and write her name in the ashes.
It didn’t mean she would be gone, Harry would see her blue eyes and long blonde hair the moment he closed his eyes.
“Harry.” Neville looked up as Harry approached and there were tears in his eyes. “She’s dying,” he said.
“I know.” Harry was the one who killed her - he was a Capitol pet, a mutt created in an arena. Harry spotted his knife in a puddle of blood - it could be juice, Harry could pretend as he picked it up that it was juice, or the dark red wine that Yaxley would occasionally splurge on.
Harry bent down to reach for his knife and his fingers brushed the hilt while he focused only on his breathing.
Don’t feel, don’t think. Breathe. Breathe and accept it. Accept it, get through it, ease the hunger clawing inside of him.
Then the cannon fired.
It seemed to only get louder with each time it blasted. What had been easy to ignore instead reverberated inside of Harry’s body, shaking his bones and boiling his blood.
Harry’s heart skipped several beats as he straightened up, forcing himself to not look at Fleur. Not Fleur… the body. He forced himself to not look at the lifeless body or think of her plea - “I have a sister. She needs me.”
Something was cracking inside of him, a hairline fracture that grew and grew until the only thing Harry could see was the girl.
The girl had dreams, a family, probably friends. She had been a person, someone who wanted to leave the arena and live. She wanted to live and Harry refused her that.
For what? What was the point of it all? Harry had killed what felt like an endless line of children for the Capitol.
Harry felt like he was suffocating. The detachment that he relied on for so many things was slipping away through his fingers with every accusation playing in his memory.
Fleur. Viktor. Crabbe. Goyle. Hermione.
Trent.
Trent. Trent. Trent. Trenttrenttrent.
“Please,” Daphne cried, her blonde hair too dark to be Fleur. “Please.”
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could drive his knife through them. Would that end it? The replay of every dream crushed by Harry’s hands or his actions?
When Harry opened his eyes, he saw his reflection mixed with blood on the blade of his knife. Was that him? Was that really Harry?
It looked like him, but mutts were made to blend in with their surroundings.
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, not loud enough to be heard over the hammering of his heart. Harry was sorry for who he had become, for knowing it still wasn’t over.
Not enough, not over, just a little longer.
Harry slid his knife in the waistband of his pants and counted to ten to fix the mess in his head. It wasn’t time to lose himself anymore, there were still six tributes left and a life he could save.
Blaise would live - Harry would make sure he lived. Blaise was not a life that Harry would watch end in the arena.
Maybe it was because Harry could love him. Maybe it was so that Harry was never alone again.
It didn’t matter.
Harry walked over to where Neville had laid the body down. Neville was using the sleeve of his jacket to wipe their face, clear the blood away for her family. Harry should help, it was Harry who knew that families deserved to see their children clean and familiar. But if Harry touched the body… it would have a name again. And if it had a name…
Harry couldn’t save Blaise if they all kept having names.
“Neville.” Harry didn’t recognize his own voice, it came from far away. Neville did though, he turned to peer up at Harry with his teary eyes. “The bow,” Harry said, pointing at the weapon in the hands of the body. “I need it.”
Harry had never used a bow before, wasn’t sure he even could. Blaise probably could though, Blaise could hide behind crates on a nest made of jackets and pick tributes off one by one when they arrived for the gift from the Capitol.
It was a gift, in a way. Death was the only freedom that six of them would have. The sooner they were free, the sooner the hunger and pain and suffering would end.
“Yeah, alright.” Neville’s hand shook as he reached for the bow and Harry pinched himself to keep from drifting away in his mind while Neville slowly took the sleek black bow out of the grasp of the body one finger at a time.
“Did you - did you want to say anything?” Neville asked Harry, looking up at him with some desperate hope that was pinned on the wrong person.
Harry shook his head, even though words began spilling from his mouth without his permission.
“They knew,” Harry said in a rush. He waved his hand out, at the cameras that must have been watching. “They knew when they sent everyone here that they’ll be killed. They knew, Neville, okay? They fucking knew. They knew Blaise was here, they knew we were on our way. They promised everyone a gift and it’s death.
“And do you know why? Have you figured it out? Because that’s the only gift they can give us, death.” Harry laughed, joyless with an edge of hysteria. “THEY KNEW, NEVILLE! Okay? They knew.”
They knew - they knew everything.
They sent Harry in the arena with the boy who played olly olly oxen free and the boy with the golden eyes. They made Sirius mentor him. They made Harry a killer, a murderer.
They knew Harry would never stack up to James Potter. They knew that Harry would become a heartless mutt because his dad chose Sirius over him and nobody had cared about him except for a perverted old Peacekeeper and some kids in tents.
Everything that had happened and would happen was planned, they always knew and Harry did too. That was what they didn’t plan on.
With nothing left to say, Harry looked at the sky to note that it was approaching the time for the feast.
“Get inside so we can plan,” Harry told Neville flatly, his burst of anger gone. “Other tributes will be here soon.”
Neville didn’t have to follow Harry in the cornucopia where Blaise waited, but he would and he did.
What choices did he have? What choices did any of them have?
“Amore.” Blaise called out to Harry as soon as he joined him. Blaise held a hand out without criticism or judgement.
Harry took it with gratitude.
“How good are you with this?” Harry gave him the bow and all four boys pretended to not notice the blood on it. There was still an arrow notched on the string, the arrow meant to kill Blaise.
Blaise lifted it and pulled the string back, aiming it between Neville and Theo to the mouth of the cornucopia. He slowly let go of the string after a second, slow enough to not send the single sharpened arrow flying yet.
“I get by,” Blaise said, sounding humble enough that Harry assumed he was in a large amount of pain.
“Great.” Harry looked at his allies, his competition, two of the six people standing between himself and freedom. “Then let’s make a plan.”
The stronger and the most desperate tributes would be appearing shortly. There would be something on the feast table that Harry needed, something for Blaise too. What it would be? Harry couldn’t imagine.
One year, the Gamemakers offered a feast only to deliver one can of food for the five remaining tributes to fight to the death over. Another year, they delivered expensive weapons tailored to each tribute on their table.
Harry wanted something to help Blaise and the injured to his leg and something to take away his own memory of the Games so far. Blaise needed medicine, Harry needed to forget the green-eyed mutt who worked for the Capitol and slaughtered children sentenced to death.
If the Capitol didn’t have something like that for him, then it wasn’t going to be much of a feast, was it?
As usual, Harry expected the feast to leave him hungry and aching for more.