Author's Note: This is a Hunger Games story inspired by the film Practical Magic (which differs wildly from the novel by Alice Hoffman). The fic won't match either story exactly and some major character alterations have been made. For example, Hazelle is Katniss and Prim's aunt, not Gale's mother
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games or Practical Magic.
Chapter 1
It all started on a Sunday when a broom fell over in the kitchen of the Everdeen home. Any witch worth her salt knew when a broom fell it meant company was coming. Katniss Everdeen just didn't know it would change her life forever.
The Everdeen women were a legend in the small village of Panem, a town tucked away on the far reaches of the eastern seaboard. For more than 200 hundred years rumors of the Everdeen women had swirled about the town, rumors of spells cast in the dark of night using squirrel eyes and mockingjay hearts.
It wasn't quite the truth, most of the women's work involved making poultices from their magnificent herb garden. But the legacy was strong and it kept people away from the family of witches — for the most part. Every generation there were a few who caused trouble, always from the same families, the Snows and the Cranes. Hundreds of years ago, Coriolanus Snow and Seneca Crane were both rumored to be in love with Maria Everdeen but she chose neither suitor and ran off with a coal miner from the South. When she returned with her husband years later the scorned suitors, who had long since married and started families of their own, were still set on vengeance. So they killed her husband and accused Maria of murdering him by witchcraft. Her heart was so heavy with grief that she didn't argue when they took her to the town square to be hung. Standing under the hanging tree, she sang a sad mournful tune for the loss of her lover before casting a spell on herself that she would never again feel the agony of love. But as her body hung from the tree, swinging in the breeze her spell turned to a curse: A curse on any man who dared love an Everdeen woman.
But before Snow and Crane and the other cowardly villagers killed Maria Everdeen and her husband, they had two daughters: one with coal black hair, olive skin and silver eyes; the other with blonde hair, fair skin and sky blue eyes. And so it went for hundreds of years, every generation of Everdeen women yielded two girls: one dark and one fair. The most recent in the long line were Katniss and Primrose Everdeen.
Katniss and Primrose Everdeen were not born in the small town of Panem. Like their great ancestor, Maria, their mother too fell in love with a coal miner. The girls were raised in a small district in a West Virginia mining town until the death of their father.
No one in their small town knew of the Everdeen curse, not even the girls themselves, not until the day their father died in a mine accident. He left for work that morning same as any other day but as their mother kissed their father goodbye a pall cast over her delicate features. Her sky blue eyes, just like Prim's, took on the look of a summer storm. Their mother called after their father, to beg him to stay home from the mines, but he was already off. The girls watched their mother storm back into their small house with a determined look on her face. She roamed the house searching frantically for what, Katniss and Primrose did not know.
Their mother seemed consumed by a fit of madness as she tore at the floorboards with a hammer, shouting "No!" and "Where are you?" at some invisible specter.
Katniss hugged Prim to her as the younger girl cried, watching their mother's frantic search. She looked for hours destroying their whole house. She didn't stop her search until the alarm rang through town, signifying trouble at the mine. Their mother froze; her search suddenly over. She rose and grabbed each of her daughter's hands. They walked slowly to the mine, tears steadily streaming down their mother's cheeks.
When they arrived at the mine the foreman came up to them, placed his hand on their mother's shoulder and shook his head sadly. Mrs. Everdeen kneeled down in front of her daughters and simply said, "My darling girls, I hope you never know the agony of love."
Mrs. Everdeen took her own life in grief that night.
The day of their parents' funeral two aunts arrived to collect 11-year-old Katniss and 7-year-old Primrose.
The aunts were eccentric and charming in their own way. Aunt Effie was fair and sweet like Prim and she wore high heels and makeup ever day of her life. Just in case a suitor ever came calling, she said. Aunt Hazelle was dark, quiet and perceptive like Katniss.
After the funeral, the aunts took the girls back to their childhood home so they could pack their bags. Aunt Effie was helping young Primrose with her things while Aunt Hazelle sat on Katniss' bed watching the girl intently while she packed.
"Go ahead and ask what's on your mind, girl."
Katniss scowled at the older woman before asking, "How did Mama know Daddy was gonna die?"
"How do you know she did?" Aunt Hazelle asked coolly, unsure how much the girls knew about their lineage.
"Mama knew. She sensed it somehow. I don't know how but she was looking for something, that's why she tore up the floorboards all morning, wasn't it? To stop whatever it was from killing Daddy?"
"You're a very smart girl, Katniss. You know a lot of things without being told don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Prim's bear, the one she thought she lost. You knew it exactly where it was without even looking for it. How?"
"I don't…I don't know."
"Do you know where things are a lot? When you lose something do you just have to picture it in your mind and you instantly know where to find it?" Hazelle asked.
"Yes," Katniss replied quietly.
"Well, your Mama knew things too and you're right, on the day your daddy died your mama knew what was coming."
"But how?"
"The death watch beetle."
"Hazelle!" Effie chastised. "They're too young for this!" She said, pulling Prim onto her lap.
"It's never too soon to know who you are," Hazelle countered strongly.
"What's the death watch beetle?" Prim asked from her perch on Effie's lap.
"It's nothing, child…" Effie started to say when Hazelle interrupted her.
"It sounds on the day a man who loves an Everdeen woman is going to die. If a man truly loves her and she truly loves him in return, he's doomed to die an untimely death. And she'll hear the death watch beetle tick away his final hours. It's our curse." She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, "Everdeens have a gift, but it comes with a price my darlings. The curse is that price."
The aunts took the girls back to Panem and raised them in the Everdeen home — a white Victorian house that sat on a rocky bluff overlooking the ocean. The girls were raised affectionately though unorthodoxly. Aunt Effie was a stickler for manners and so the girls always ate with their napkins placed primly in their laps, though Aunt Hazelle would often serve chocolate cake for dinner. There were little to none of the normal rules children grew up with. They slept when they wanted and ate what they liked; they played in the garden until dirt caked under their nails and homework was secondary to spells. As long they arrived at the dinner table on time, clean and unharmed the aunts were content to let them be.
The aunts were open about their craft to the girls. They explained that it was their heritage, after all. Katniss was better at casting, her clever and efficient spells always worked. Prim was better with herbs and potions and though she envied Katniss' skill, the older girl was always quick to compliment her dear younger sister.
Katniss had never been afraid of conjuring until one night a woman arrived at their backdoor pleading for the aunts to cast a love spell. Delia Smith, or Delly, as she was known to most of the town, was madly in love with the cobbler, Mr. John Cartwright. The problem was that Mr. Cartwright was a married man 15 years her senior. But the pasty blonde who had always been more chubby than curvy was smitten and determined. She thrust a large handful of bills into Aunt Hazelle's hand and demanded their help.
Katniss and Prim watched from the stairway as the aunts prepared the spell. Aunt Effie asked Delly several questions about the man: What was his favorite color? His favorite scent? His favorite flavor? And blended them all into a potion. Aunt Hazelle came in from the conservatory carrying one of the several mockingjays they raised there. She held the bird up to Delly and instructed the girl to pierce it through the heart.
After, Effie held the potion out to the lovesick young girl, "If you're certain he's the one you want drink this and only this for the next three days. At that time, you'll get what you're asking for."
Horrified at Delly's desperation, Katniss vowed never to fall in love.
Prim woke in the middle of the night to find her sister's bed empty. She stumbled on Katniss crafting a spell in the conservatory. "What are you doing?"
"Summoning up a true love spell called 'Amas Veritas,'" the older girl said as she plucked petals from orchids, lilacs and several other flowers.
"How can you craft a love spell without roses?" Prim asked.
Katniss wrinkled her nose, "I don't like roses."
"I thought you never wanted to fall in love," Prim said rubbing her sleepy eyes in confusion.
"I don't, Little Duck. That's the point. The guy I dreamed up doesn't exist and if he doesn't exist I'll never die of a broken heart like…" she halted.
"Like mom?"
The older girl nodded, unable to speak.
The blonde followed her sister around the room like a shadow entranced by the older girl's surety and skill.
Katniss continued through the conservatory, plucking petals here and there and began to murmur the words of her spell. "He'll be marvelously kind. He'll double knot his shoelaces. He won't take sugar in his tea. He'll sleep with the windows open. His favorite color will be sunset and his eyes… His eyes will be bluer than the ocean."
"Bluer than my eyes?"
"Bluer than even your eyes, Little Duck," Katniss said as she tapped a finger to her sister's nose.
Katniss walked out onto the deck and held her arms out, repeating the words "Amas Veritas" over and over until the wind came and swept her spell away.
The sisters returned to their room and Katniss tucked Prim into bed. Her sister spoke quietly, but Katniss heard her dear little sister's whispered confession, "I can't wait to fall in love."
Katniss and Prim always knew they were different. It wasn't until they were walking home from school one day and the large, brutish boy Cato Snow threw a rock and started chanting "Witch, witch you're a bitch!" at them did Katniss realized they were also hated. A group of children from their school gathered to join in the taunting. She used her body to shield Prim from the stones thrown by Clove, Glimmer and Marvel. The stones pelted her back for several long moments until suddenly it stopped.
She turned around to see Cato lying on the ground with a bloody nose and a boy with wavy blonde hair standing above him. He shoved Marvel Crane away too, he then looked to Clove Coin and said, "She's not the bitch, you are."
Katniss saw a group of adults coming their way, probably wondering what the fray was all about. She recognized Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Crane and immediately and knew they would blame her and Prim and probably say things just as hurtful as their sons had, the boys had learned their prejudice from somewhere after all.
The boy turned to Katniss and urgently shouted "Run!" begging her to flee. She startled at the sight of his impossibly blue eyes. She wanted to thank him so badly for standing up for her, for saving her and Prim but the words stuck in her throat and so she grabbed Prim's hand and ran. She rounded the corner and turned just in time to see an angry, red-faced woman step out from the bakery and slap him hard across the face with one hand while hefting a rolling pin in the other.
She wouldn't know until later, when she recounted the story to Aunt Hazelle, that the boy was Peeta Mellark, the baker's youngest son, and the woman who struck him was his own mother.
She never saw him again, the Mellarks moved away several weeks later and Katniss forgot the boy with the impossibly blue eyes. She forgot him for many reasons but mostly because she willed herself to. Because more than anything, Katniss Everdeen never wanted to fall in love.
A/N: If you enjoyed this story you may like my other fic, A Marriage Between Victors, an AU story that poses the question: What if the Victory Tour ended with a wedding rather than an engagement? The story explores what would have happened if Peeta and Katniss had been forced to marry and how the change would affect their relationship, District 12 and the rebellion.
Please read and review :)