Chapter Text
PART 1 : The Spark
Chapter 1: The Third Quarter Quell
All is blurred. There is a crowd, a lot of colours, a lot of noises. People are applauding. There is also fire. A lot of fire. A songbird sings, but it is nowhere to be seen. The song stops, the applauds too. Everything turns red. There is blood everywhere. Only blood. It becomes harder to breath. Then, a cannon blast breaks the silence, and it is the end.
Dorcas Meadowes wakes up, all her body covered in cold sweat. She is used to nightmares. They are the same, horrible ones, all nights, for 18 years. Usually, she would just go back to sleep, maybe with a little help from the pills she hides under her bed. But today, she knows it’s pointless.
The watch on her bedside shows it is way too early to think about preparing herself for the day to come. However, she gets up. It’s not like it was better to stay frozen in her bed.
She makes her way to the kitchen. Her house in the middle of the Victor’s village is much too big for someone who’s alone in it. Sometimes, she says as a joke she could get lost between the walls of her own home, and the worst in it is that it’s almost true. When she thinks about that, it’s terrifying. Either way, she rarely spends time in rooms that are not the bedroom or the kitchen, or the living room when her parents visit. It is her home, sure, but she knows very well nothing about it really belongs to her.
She makes tea. Maybe it will stop the shaking of her hands and the spiralling of her mind. Today will be one the worst of her life and being conscious of that doesn’t make it better. Reaping’s day is never a fun one, neither for the children whose names are written on pieces of paper in the reaping’s balls, nor their parents. For Dorcas, it’s as terrifying as it is for all these people, if not more. The opportunity to meet the poor girl she will have to watch dying, knowing she can’t do anything to change that.
She was apprehending this year. The 75th Hunger Games. The third Quarter Quell. She knew it was going to be horrible, but she didn’t know how much. One month before, the news has fallen in a televised apparition of the president Riddle.
“On the 75th anniversary, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.”
District 7, Dorcas’ district, has four existing victors to choose from. Two female, two male. This means she has one chance out of two to go back in the arena she has nightmares about every night. If Sylvius, her brother, wasn’t in the room, she would have collapse when the words have reached her mind, but his “it’s going to be okay” on repeat forced her to react calmly to not worry him. After he was gone, she took time to panic alone. One month later, she is still panicking, to be honest.
The other female victor, Val, is younger than her. It’s one of the tributes she mentored, and the only one she succeeds to save. She won’t escape the arena a second time, not against a pool of victors, Dorcas knows that. It will be painful to watch, obviously. In the other hand, if Dorcas hears her own name called at the reaping… She prefers not to think about it.
***
Three cups of tea and a lot of rambling later, the sun has risen, and time has come to prepare. Dorcas carefully braids her hair. It won’t change anything, but looking good can’t hurt when it comes to the Capitol. She puts on a dress, too. An old one, not from the Capitol’s stylists. The same she puts on every reaping, like a way to tell them she doesn’t belong to them.
The mood in the great square of the district is different from other years. People are less concerned about the reaping this year since their kids are not going to get selected as tributes, but a slight anger is perceptible either way. Victory is rare in District 7, since it’s almost always someone from District 1 or 2 who wins. The perspective of losing half of the existing victors of the district doesn’t make people happy.
Dorcas stands in a roped-off area of the square with Val, who seems about to faint. To their right, the two male victors are also standing in a similar area. Hepzibah Smith, the escort of District 7’s tributes, loses no time to pick up the girl’s name from the reaping ball. Even her seems to find it hard to smile for the cameras.
“The name of the female tribute is… Dorcas Meadowes.”
***
The first time Dorcas heard her name called in the reaping, she couldn’t believe it. She was certain she would wake up from that nightmare, but when she didn’t, she felt her heart falls in her chest. It was real, and she was going to die.
The second time is different. She doesn’t feel her heart falling. In fact, she doesn’t feel anything at all. It’s like she was drowning. She hears the silence around her and the little shriek Val gives a few seconds after the calling. For the second time in her life, she’s reaped, and it feels as unreal as the first.
When the Peacekeepers move toward her, she has no choice but to head to the stage. Looks like this time again, it isn’t a dream. She climbs the stairs to join Hepzibah, and she is relieved when she notices no one in the crowd applauds. She keeps her face straight, because she knows very well the Games are starting right now. She can’t show how much she’s scared. Val is crying, but Dorcas hardly has the time to acknowledges it before Hepzibah picks up the second name, the name of the male tribute Dorcas will have to kill if she wants to come back from the arena.
“James Potter.”
Luck doesn’t seem to be on her side today. If she’s being honest, she was hoping it was the other male victor, an old man called Binns, who’s known for drinking a lot and being a little bit out of his mind. It would have been easier to kill him, if he didn’t die by himself the first day of the Games. James Potter… Let’s say it’s complicated.
James Potter is in his early thirties, he’s strong, he knows how to use weapons and he’s charming. Worst, he’s a favourite of the Capitol. He’s married to a victor from another district, and he has a kid, which attracts sympathy, obviously. He’s seen as a kind of lovable golden retriever, but one who can kill without blinking an eye. All the things the Capitol likes, no wonder he’s so popular there.
James Potter reaches the stage and stops to send an arrogant grin to the camera, before climbing the stairs. Dorcas shakes his hand. He looks calm, steady, unbothered, but she can see the panic in his eyes. It’s the same as hers.
***
Dorcas closes the door after her parents leave the room. She doesn’t even remember what she said to them, but it was probably a lot of promises they all know she can’t keep. She turns back to Sylvius. Now they are alone, he doesn’t lose more time.
“You can win. You already did that.”
Dorcas sighs.
“Everyone in this arena will have already done that, Sylvius.”
“Maybe, but you’re better than them. I’m serious, Dorcas. You can win, but you must believe in it. To believe in yourself.”
Dorcas could retort a lot of things, but she doesn’t want her last conversation with her brother to be a fight. Instead of answering with words, she just hugs him. They stay embraced until the Peacekeepers come back.
“Easy, Dorcas. Go. Win. Come back.”
“I’ll try.”
Dorcas feels like she's drowning again, and she can't stop talking after Sylvius is taken out of her sight.
“I love you! Tell them I love them too!”
She doesn’t remember if she said goodbye to her parents. All is blurred. She can’t stop thinking maybe it was the last time she saw her family.
***
The train is already running at full speed. The landscape is parading in front of her empty eyes, and Dorcas knows she probably should go join the other members of the district 7’s team, but she wants to be alone for a while. Unfortunately, it’s the time Val choose to enter her room. Her eyes are red, it’s obvious she cried a lot. Dorcas doesn’t remember how old she is. 22, 23? She looks like a child. Thinking she could have been sent back to the arena is horrible.
“I’m sorry.” the young girl says.
“What for? It’s not your fault.” Dorcas manages to answer.
“I should have volunteered.”
Dorcas shakes her head in disbelief.
“Obviously not! I didn’t manage to get you out from that arena for you to go back there.”
“Dorcas…”
“Is that all you came for?” Dorcas says.
She knows it sounds harsh, but she can’t handle Val’s tears now. Her parents’ ones were already too much.
“Actually, the recap of the reaping will start soon. Hepzibah wants us to watch it all together.”
Dorcas and Val enter the main room of the train at the time the seal of the Capitol appears on the screen. Dorcas shivers. How many people she knows will be part of that? A lot, probably. In 18 years, she met a lot of victors.
The female tribute of District 1 is Bellatrix Black, which makes everyone in the room (except Binns, who’s looking at the window) sighs. She seems happy to get picked up. It’s probably a façade for the Capitol, but who knows? Like James mutters under his breath, she’s a crazy bitch. The male tribute is none other than her cousin, Regulus Black. James’ breath hitch at that name, but his face stays straight enough to not raise questions. After all, James’ best friend is Regulus’ brother, he has the right to be upset.
The two tributes of District 2 are typical Careers. The boy of District 3 is one of James’ friends, and Dorcas notices a tear in the corner of the golden boy. The girl from 4 seems so young she could be a child. Dorcas remembers she won a few years before. The male tribute who join her is probably a Career, but he hugs the girl right on the stage. It's a funny duo, but Dorcas can hear the Capitol's citizens whimper in front of such a cute friendship.
Then, it’s District 5’s turn. The girl’s name is called: Lily Evans-Potter. Dorcas can feel James lose his mind by her side. There are two other female victors, but none of them volunteers. Lily becomes officially the female tribute for District 5.
Before the man can call the male one, James Potter stands up and leaves the room by slamming the door.