Chapter Text
Percy’s life is simple. Straightforward. Uncomplicated.
He has less than a year left of schooling after today. Then, after his final Reaping, he’ll be snatched up along with Penelope by the Software Design Corps—he has to be, he’s too good to be passed over—and get one step closer to his dream, his goal of being at the forefront of Panem’s tech advancement. Maybe he’ll even be transferred to the Capitol branch. (That’s where the SDC installs everything it designs, of course; there are no moving holographs or VR sets in District Three.)
The clear-cut outline of his future blurs a little just once a year, on July 4th. District Three isn’t small, and Percy’s chance of being Reaped is. But there’s still a chance, and each year as Ludo Bagman reaches into that swollen glass bowl, Percy feels that chance looming over him, threatening to shatter his dream, his goal, his future, his life into ugly, complicated pieces. Or maybe not so complicated. Death is fairly straightforward, after all.
He shudders to think of it.
Bill took tesserae for all of them the moment he was old enough to be entered, and even when Charlie and Percy hit twelve years of age and tried to take tesserae themselves, Bill put his foot down.
“I’m the oldest,” he said to each of them. Despite the trembling fear in his eyes, his voice was firm. “It’s my job to take care of you.”
After Bill turned nineteen, Charlie took up the mantle, resolutely forbidding fourteen-year-old Percy from taking a single tessera. Percy protested, but only briefly, and without conviction. He was relieved. Better him than me, he thought.
The shame burned.
Last year, Charlie was too old for the Reaping, and Percy took tesserae for the first time. Six for the family to supplement what food they could buy with Bill’s earnings, and two for little Luna Lovegood and her ailing father. Percy was always excellent at math, but that was one addition problem he had no desire to complete. Six plus two plus one is nine. He waited with bated breath for the entire ceremony, heart in his throat, watching, waiting, dreading, hoping, fearing… His name wasn’t called. Percy lived another year, and his family had bread to eat.
This Reaping, his name is in the bowl seventeen times.
Percy wakes up with that number curling around his ribs. Seventeen. Seventeen. He pushes aside his threadbare blanket and crawls out of his tiny cot, trying not to wake Charlie, who is curled up and snoring lightly on another cot in the hot, cramped room. The third cot sits empty, waiting for Bill to come back from his assignment in the Capitol.
Seventeen chances of death. Seventeen portents of doom. Seventeen folded slips of paper reading Percy Weasley. He moves into the narrow washroom and stands in front of the sink that usually doesn’t work. Percy glances at his reflection in the dusty mirror, his face sliced in two and misaligned by the jagged fissure in the glass. Red hair, limp with grease. Freckles dusted over his cheeks and down his pale neck. The glasses that Bill bought in the Capitol after Percy started squinting at signs, bright green and pink but painted black by his giggling mother. The paint is chipping, now; flecks of neon are visible against the faded black.
He twists the tap. Nothing comes out, not even the murky sputter of water that the faucet can occasionally be put upon to cough out. He’ll have to draw from the well, then.
It’s early, far earlier than Percy needs to wake up, the sun not yet peeking over the horizon. The Reapings trail the sun, and the ceremony in District Three, which lies on the west coast of Panem, is one of the last to take place, so theoretically they don’t need to wake up early at all. Despite the excusal from work, though, no one sleeps in on Reaping Day. Percy likely has less than an hour to himself before the rest of the house is up and worrying. In that less-than-an-hour, as he scrubs the grease from his hair and the tiredness from his eyes, Percy does plenty of worrying all on his own.
Seventeen slips of paper.
That’s not enough for him to be picked, surely? It’s nothing compared to Oliver’s fifty-some entries, and he thinks that some boys probably even have more. Right. Percy is seventeen out of thousands. He just has to make it through two more Reapings, then he’ll be free. He’ll finish schooling, join the SDC, and make a name for himself. He might even earn enough money that Ron and Ginny won’t take tesserae at all. Yes, Percy has nothing to worry about.
The other members of his family wake in ones and twos, all of them before the sun has fully risen. The house, usually loud when this many Weasleys are in it, is anything but. Fred and George are fiddling with something that clicks and sparks, their usual chatter strained and lacking energy. Percy reprimands them and receives dull glares in return.
When the sun has finally crept across the sky to the west, marking the late afternoon, Mom gathers them all by the front door and fusses over their appearances. Batting away her hand, Fred bites, “Why does it matter how we look? It’s not like people will care about that if we’re dead.”
“Fred!” Percy snaps—along with Dad and a few others—as Mom reels.
“Don’t say that,” Mom says firmly. She resumes straightening Fred’s clothes, tugging more harshly this time. “Never say anything like that ever again, do you hear me?”
“But it’s true…” Fred looks away, mullish. George hisses at him to stop talking, and Charlie gives Fred a warning stare.
“You’re not going to die.” Mom looks around, brown eyes hard. “None of you are, if I have anything to say about it.”
The problem with that, Percy reflects as they walk to the sprawling lot where the Reaping takes place, is that she doesn’t have any sort of say. Just as he thinks this, he feels a small hand slip into his own and looks down to see Ginny’s pale face glancing up at him. Her lip is bleeding; she chews it when she’s anxious.
“Hello there, Ginny,” Percy says softly, squeezing her hand. If Bill were here, she’d cling to his arm, maybe ride on his back, but Bill isn’t here. He’s off in the Capitol, working out glitches or adding new features to some gaudy citizen’s television set, so Ginny has to cling to Percy instead. Her second choice. Percy shakes off the resentment—there’s no place for it here, not when it’s Ginny’s first Reaping and her hand trembles in his grasp. “Feeling alright?”
“I’m scared,” Ginny whispers. It hurts to see Ginny like this, brave, brash Ginny who could probably will electrons to flow backwards through a circuit through sheer force of will.
“Listen,” Percy says, and addresses this in the best way he knows. “There are hundreds of twelve-year-olds with names in the bowl, and your name is only in there once. Statistically, you have less than a one percent chance of being Reaped.” Seeing that Ginny doesn’t look particularly relieved, he adds, “Not even half a percent.”
Ginny curls her fingers nervously. “That’s… not bad,” she says.
“Quite right, Ginny.” Percy awkwardly pats her shoulder with his free hand. “So you see, there’s not much you have to worry about.”
When they arrive just before the ceremony begins, Mom gives each of them a tight hug. She smoothes Percy’s hair. It’s more comforting than he’d like to admit. Percy gives Ginny one last smile that he hopes doesn’t look too forced.
“This is it, then,” Charlie says, grim. He claps Percy on the back. “Good luck. See you later.”
“Yes, later,” Percy responds, straightening his glasses and doing his best to appear calm.
There’s another round of hugs, this time with Dad, and then the children scatter into their respective queues, Ginny pulling her hand from Percy’s with heavy reluctance. They’re all in the section designated for Sector B, so despite being separated by age, Percy can spot each of his family members if he straightens and cranes his neck, even Ginny on the far left where the youngest children are.
The governor of District Three has no real power—his every action strictly regulated by Lieutenant General Malfoy—but he looks calm and self-assured as he takes the stage. The giant screen behind him projects his face out to the audience.
“Welcome, dear friends,” says Governor Dumbledore. His robes are a shade of blue so lurid that Percy thinks he could almost be mistaken for a Capitol citizen. It’s the brightest spot of color in the lot. The governor’s long white beard flutters in the slight breeze as he regales the audience with the story of origin of the Hunger Games. Percy has heard this speech many times before, but he still pays full attention.
“Excellent, excellent,” Ludo says, almost before Governor Dumbledore has finished speaking. He plucks the microphone from the governor’s hand. “A wonderful speech. Yes, the history of the Hunger Games is very illustrious, very illustrious indeed. Ahem. As many of you know, my name is Ludo Bagman, and I am District Three’s escort! I’ve seen many tributes come and go, some more successful than others, and I am delighted to see two more this year. Oh, but enough of my rambling, and on to the most exciting part—what you’ve all been waiting for—the Reaping for the 57th Hunger Games!” He spreads his arms and gazes expectantly down at the crowd.
The crowd reluctantly applauds, subdued air never lifting.
Ludo looks pleased. “Now, it’s always been ladies first, and who am I to break tradition?” He strides over to one of the enormous glass bowls on the stage and rubs his hands together before reaching in. “District Three’s first tribute is…”
Please let it be a name I don’t recognize, Percy thinks desperately as Ludo pauses for dramatic effect. Let it be Jane, Mary, Katrina, Lucille, Bella, let it be anything but—
“Ginevra Weasley!”
“NO!” someone shouts. Fred, or maybe George. Percy is too busy searching frantically for Ginny over in the cluster of twelve-year-old girls to figure out who. He finds her—a dot of vermillion in a sea of brown and blonde. Percy can’t see her expression, but she must be terrified.
“Ginevra Weasley?” Ludo repeats as no one immediately comes forward. His wide smile falters a bit. Then someone must have nudged Ginny up, for the vermillion dot lurches forward, then slowly moves towards the stage. As Ginny ascends the first step, Percy catches a glimpse of her ashy, wide-eyed face, frozen with fear. Ludo’s grin returns. “Ah, here she is! Ginevra, let’s hope you’re as fiery as your hair, eh?”
Ginny climbs the last of the steps to the stage and stands there, silent. Percy thinks he can see her legs shaking. Ludo chuckles awkwardly and pats her on the shoulder. “Overwhelmed with excitement, are you? No worries, no worries, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, after all. Shall we—?”
“You Capitol bastard!” bursts out from within the crowd of spectators, and there is a brief commotion as the Peacekeepers order Fred—or possibly George—to quiet down.
“I see we’re getting a bit impatient,” Ludo says with a laugh, adjusting one of the neon feathers on his hat.
Percy barely pays attention, his heart slamming against his ribs, his eyes frozen on Ginny’s frightened face. She is skinny and white-faced and very, very small. None of her brothers can save her. It looms over him then, dark and inexorable, the truth, the axe: Ginny will die.
Beaming, Ludo says, “Let’s move on, then. The male tribute…”
I need to do something! Percy thinks in a panic. But what? He’s male—he can’t volunteer to take her place, and neither can any of his brothers. There is no way to stop Ginny from being killed.
This is how things are.
“Evren Clearwater!”
But Penelope, Percy thinks. Then— Oh.
Percy looks at Ginny, stubborn little Ginny standing on the Reaping stage and trying to be brave. He looks behind him at Fred and George, the former glaring hatred at a Peacekeeper whose armored hand grips his shoulder, and at Ron and Charlie and Mom and Dad, at their horrified, waxy faces, and he looks at himself. He thinks of the Software Design Corps, of lines and lines of elegant code, of blue-light screens and tiny text, of recognition, of respect.
He wants it, craves it, dreams of it. It’s Percy’s utmost goal, has all but been his driving force in life since he was four feet tall, and even the thought of giving it up sends a jolt of Nonononever—! screaming through his head. It’s the only thing in the entire world that’s his. But…
None of it matters. Not as much as Ginny.
Given a choice between himself and her, Percy knows who his family would choose. It stings, but not too much—he’d make the exact same decision, after all. They won't miss him as much as they would anyone else, he thinks wildly, heart thundering. If anyone has to go, if anyone has to take this slim, horrible chance to save Ginny—it should be him.
The choice is simple. Straightforward. Uncomplicated.
He cries, “I volunteer!”