Chapter 2
Day 1, 7:59 AM
Hermione walked quickly from the room, glancing around as she went to get her bearings. She had not recognized the classroom – it must have been an abandoned one. Merlin knew, there were more rooms in this castle than were strictly necessary. That would be to her advantage, she realized. Her years with the Marauder's Map had left her with a better sense of the castle than most. She caught sight of the painting of Archibald the Bold brandishing his spear at a pack of redcaps, recognizing instantly that she was on the fifth floor. She bolted for the staircase. She was not naïve enough to think that the others could not possibly play. It was their lives at stake. She had lived long enough, seen enough, to know that people would do drastic things – things they would otherwise never dream of doing – when faced with a gruesome death.
As though illustrating her thoughts, she rounded a corner and was presented with the sight of a body face down in the corridor. She came to an abrupt halt, her stomach turning violently at the sight of long blonde hair streaked with blood and spatters of brain matter. Half the girl's head had been blasted away. Presumably from behind. Blood splattered the walls like a twisted showcase of modern art. Clearly, at least some of the players were already committed to the game. Pushing down her nausea, Hermione stepped around the girl's body. Allison Barnes. She hated leaving the body here, but adrenaline was coursing through her system, screaming at her to run. Any minute, someone might leave the room and come up on her dawdling. Who was to say they wouldn't do the same to her?
Her feet took over and she practically flew to the stairs. Paintings yelled after her, scolding her for running in the halls. She paused at the staircase, unsure which direction to head. There was no guarantee that she wouldn't run into whoever had done that to poor Allison. She took a deep breath and headed upwards.
oOo
Marcus Belby wandered down the corridor in a state of shock. His wand hung limply in his hand. He had killed someone. Someone he had grown up with. Someone who hadn't even seen him coming. He tried to tell himself that he had done it for her. He had been thinking of her when he had blasted her brains apart. She died instantly. It wasn't painful. He had spared her a potentially horrible death from someone who wouldn't have cared.
But it wasn't true. He had been scared. He had barely registered who he was pointing at before he had fired off a blasting hex. It was one designed for mining – blasting holes in solid rock back home. He'd seen his father use it as a child when he brought him lunch. He hadn't been in the same house as Allison, but they'd had a few classes together. She'd smiled at him across the greenhouse once and he'd dreamed about her for weeks afterward.
He heard footfalls pounding on the stone behind him and whirled around, wand raised in alarm. The sound got louder and Marcus's hand shook harder before Roger Davies appeared from around a corner.
"Roger!" the boy cried out in relief. Roger had been his Quidditch team captain for a year before the older boy had graduated. He would know what to do.
"Belby?"
"Roger, we have to get out of here!"
The older boy nodded. "Did you see what happened to Allison, mate?"
Marcus burst into tears, nodding miserably. "We have to get out of here," he repeated.
"Where do we go? We can't leave the castle or we'll end up like Entwhistle back there."
Kevin. What a horrible way to die. Marcus would rather have his brain blown out. At least he wouldn't know what was coming. "Somewhere defensible?"
"Yeah, we'll pick a classroom or something. Safety in numbers," Davies agreed. He didn't mention that there would only be one winner. If it came down to the two of them, he would think about it then. He just wanted to survive.
oOo
When she reached the ninth floor without seeing another player, Hermione pulled open a door at random and peered inside, wand in front of her. "Lumos," she whispered. The dim light from her wand illuminated the dark, windowless room. Seeing no one hiding in any corners, she slipped inside and shut the door. She quickly slid the lock into place and pressed her back against the door, listening for noises in the hallway. Everything stayed quiet.
Slowly she moved away from the door and collapsed on the floor. Her reserves of adrenaline had run out and her legs trembled from the effort of running up four flights of stairs. She pulled the pack from her shoulders and unzipped the main compartment. Rifling through the contents, she found a map of the castle – how helpful, she thought – a list of the players, a quill and ink pot, and the promised rations. They were sealed packages, similar in design to a muggle MRE. There were only three of them. Malfoy's words flashed through her mind and she snorted. Right, they encouraged sharing. They encouraged killing each other and stealing the rations, he meant.
She turned her attention to the list of players. There were thirty in total.
Applebee, Angelina
Applebee, Tamsin
Baddock, Malcolm
Barnes, Allison
Belby, Marcus
Bell, Katie
Boot, Terry
Cherks, Liza
Davies, Roger
Entwhistle, Kevin
Fawley, Sullivan
Granger, Hermione
Kettletoft, Matthew
Kubo, Hirohisa
McDonald, Natalie
Nordon, Mallory
Parkinson, Pansy
Patil, Parvati
Pritchard, Graham
Rickett, Anthony
Robins, Demelza
Roper, Sophie
Samuels, Jason
Shardlow, Olivia
Steele, Justin
Turpin, Lisa
Vane, Romilda
Whitby, Kevin
Wilkins, Ella
Zabini, Blaise
Two were dead. She took the quill and ink and scratched out Allison Barnes's name. She did not know the name of the boy who had died in the classroom.
Hermione had no desire to participate in the sick game. She thought of raising her wand to Parvati Patil, with whom she had shared a dormitory for six years, and blanched. Would she be able to defend herself if another player attacked? Probably. But striking an opponent from behind… She shook her head in the dark classroom.
oOo
Blaise Zabini, last on the list to be called, stepped from the doorway into the hall. The girl before him was huddled on the floor in the middle of the corridor. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head in her hands while she cried. Wilkins. He snorted. Pathetic.
"B-Blaise," she blubbered, looking up at the sound. "Blaise, you have t-to help me. I c-can't-"
"Expulso." With a flick of his wrist, the girl was thrown against the wall in a wave of blue light. She shrieked on impact and fell to the stone floor with a thud. She lay on the floor whimpering as he took the few steps to stand over her prone form. He drew his wand in a cutting motion. "Diffindo." Her throat slit, the lips of the wound gaping apart from the force of the blood spewing from the major arteries. The girl gurgled wetly for only a moment before lying still.