A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter of Survival of the Fittest. I really hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to leave a review. Hearing your opinions and suggestions really matter to me!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the Hunger Games. Not even a little bit.
Creatively Yours,
~*Writergurl24*~
"Choices of right and wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white."
~ Bethany McLean
Ch. 11: Black, White, and Gray
Hermione stared at Draco, frozen in place as her brain tried to comprehend the situation. Anger rose up in a part of her that he would have the audacity to even show himself in front of her, but there was another part of her that was happy, even excited to see him. She watched as a million different emotions flashed across his face, from shock to guilt and then, almost as if he realized she was reading his emotions, his face was wiped clean of all feeling as if it were a slate and replaced with his traditional smug smirk.
A loud smash brought her back to the threat at hand. One of the gargoyles was advancing on her, each step it took creating a spiderweb of cracks on the floor. Out of instinct, Hermione conjured a fireball and flung it at the gargoyle. Nothing happened. Kicking herself, Hermione remembered that stone could only melt with extreme pressure and heat, two things she couldn't produce with her fireballs. She backed away from the creature, feeling incredibly helpless in a way she had never felt in this game before. Her back bumped the wall and she stumbled, falling down. There was nowhere else to go. She was trapped.
Before Hermione could so much as cringe, a column of water shot past her with such force that it pushed the gargoyle through the wall. The column disappeared, leaving much of what remained of the tower soaked. Draco Malfoy stood to her right, breathing heavily and looking very flustered, as if all the energy had been drained from him. His hair was sopping wet and very untidy, unlike its usual neatness. Nevertheless, he held his hand out to her. Hermione hesitated. She was angry for what he'd done to her, but at the same time she couldn't help but be curious. Here was this man in front of her that was a complete mystery. What drove him? Every time he messed up, he kept coming back again and again. Could she trust him? Why was he helping her now?
Against her better judgement, Hermione took his hand and stood to her feet, her skin tingling as his eyes met hers. His eyes stayed on hers for a moment, and then he very suddenly averted his gaze. The pulsing sound of electricity shook Hermione from her daze and she remembered that there was a battle going on around them. He seemed to remember too because he turned away from her, conjuring two spheres of water and flinging them at two of the gargoyles to distract them from their advance on Ginny, who was desperately lobbing pulses of electricity at them. Hermione turned to Harry, who was floating in the air and pushing the other gargoyle away every time it tried to charge him. Despite all of their efforts, Hermione noticed they weren't getting anywhere.
Hermione flexed her fingers, conjuring a fireball in the palm of her hand, and flinging it at the gargoyle that was harassing Harry in an attempt to distract it. It stopped, confused for a moment, and then turned its head towards Hermione. A feeling of terror rose up inside her because she hadn't thought of what she would do next. She watched nervously as the gargoyle turned and began slowly making its way over to her, its feet thudding every time it stepped. She desperately began to lob fireballs at the creature in hopes that would deter it from attacking her, but it all it seemed to do was infuriate it further.
"Harry, a little help, please?" Hermione squeaked.
"Already on it," Harry replied, summoning a gust of air and using it to push the gargoyle away from her and through the tower wall. It was silent for a moment before a low rumbling started and the whole tower began to shake.
"We need to get out of here!" Hermione yelled. Draco and Ginny were slowly being backed against the wall by the two gargoyles that were advancing on them. Draco kept chucking orbs of water at them, but it didn't seem to be deterring the gargoyles any as they kept advancing.
Dust and fragments of the ceiling began raining down all around them and Hermione threw her hands up, shielding herself from the debris. "If anyone has a way of escaping this, now would be the time to tell me," Hermione declared frantically, dodging a chunk of ceiling.
"Jump out of the tower," Harry replied, as if it were the most sensible thing to do.
"What?! If you wanted us all to die, we could just stay in the collapsing building instead of jumping to our deaths," she retorted sarcastically.
"No, I think I can use my powers to catch us before we hit the bottom," Harry reasoned.
"Oh, you think you can? I feel so much better now!" Hermione snapped, dodging a blow from one of the gargoyles' stone fist.
"You're mad, Potter," Draco hissed, shooting a column of water at one of the gargoyles, using the pressure to keep it at bay.
"Do any of you have any better ideas?" Harry asked in annoyance. They were all quiet as they dodged attacks from the stone creatures in front of them and did their best to keep them at bay. "That's what I thought," Harry muttered.
Hermione turned to face the gaping hole in the wall and looked down. Immediately, she wished she hadn't. The ground was so far below her that just looking at it made her dizzy. The huge jungle trees that enclosed them didn't even come close to where she stood at the top of the tower.
A large chunk of the ceiling broke off and landed just behind her and she tore her gaze away from the vast expanse before her. The low rumbling turned into a shrill cracking and the building began to violently shake. She knew that if they didn't escape now, they would all be dead.
"Please don't make me regret this, Harry," Hermione pleaded, closing her eyes and jumping out of the tower. The wind whistled past her, making her hair fly every which way as she fell towards the ground. She felt the branches of the jungle trees scrape against her skin, creating little nicks and cuts all along the areas of exposed skin on her body, and winced as leaves caught in her hair and tugged on it. Above her she heard a shrill scream, she assumed from Ginny. She braced herself for a rough landing, but it never came. Instead she gently touched onto the ground feet-first. Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw that the others were also landing beside her.
"Told you I could do it, didn't I?" Harry grumbled.
A loud rumbling echoed across the clearing and Hermione turned to see what remained of the tower collapse in a cloud of dust, leaving nothing but a heap of rubble. She knew that the gargoyles that had been inside the tower had most likely been crushed to small stone pieces.
"You've got a bit of leaf in your hair," Draco mumbled, picking out a scrap of leaf that had been tangled in her wild-looking hair.
"I know that," Hermione huffed, running her hands through her hair and picking out the stray leaf bits that had amassed there. She wasn't sure what to make of Draco Malfoy. Sure, he had betrayed her to Blaise the last time she saw him, but now he was saving her from gargoyles and pulling leaf bits from her hair, acting as civil as he had before. A feeling of annoyance rose up in her. What was he playing at? Didn't he remember what he had done to her? It was something that couldn't just be brushed under the rug.
It was a moment before she noticed the Hufflepuff that stood next to Draco.
"Justin? What're you doing with him?" she asked in confusion.
"Ah, well we worked together to find some water in the desert and we ended up forming a truce. It's a long story," Justin replied nonchalantly, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Hermione glanced at Draco and noticed that he seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her. "Well… all right, then." She said, rather awkwardly. Truth be told, she wasn't sure how to act around Draco now. She didn't know if she should be angry or friendly towards him, and it didn't seem to help that he wouldn't hardly even acknowledge her.
"We should find a place to set up camp. It'll be dark soon," Harry said, breaking the awkward silence and pointing to the setting sun that was casting a warm glow through the trees. Thankful for the change in the conversation, Hermione agreed.
"Ginny and I will go find some wood for a fire," Hermione declared, happy for a chance to be away from Draco.
"We will?" Ginny asked in surprise.
"Yes, we will," Hermione answered, grabbing Ginny's wrist and towing her towards the jungle. When they were out of range of the camp, Hermione let go of Ginny's hand and stopped, taking out her knife and beginning to hack some low-hanging branches from a jungle tree.
"'Mione, what is it? What's wrong?" Ginny asked in concern. Hermione sighed and stopped what she was doing.
"It's him. It's Draco. I don't know how to react to him being here. I mean, he's trying to be civil to me after he attempted to kill me, for Merlin's sake. We were getting along fine before and then that happened and it's like he's trying to pretend that nothing happened."
"Well, if you want my opinion, I think he's a right tosser. I can electrocute him for you if you want," Ginny said, grinning mischievously. Hermione laughed.
"No, no, don't do that. I'm just confused, I guess," Hermione sighed and began to hack the low-hanging branch in front of her again.
"Look, I don't know if I'm the best person to talk to about this. Maybe you should talk to Malfoy about it, 'Mione," the redhead suggested. The branch Hermione was cutting came loose. She tossed it on the ground by her feet and began hacking away at another branch, a slight frown on her face.
"I don't know, maybe I will. We'll see, I guess," Hermione murmured.
They gathered wood in silence for the next twenty minutes before deciding they had enough to keep a fire going all night. With that, they gathered up their heaping piles of wood into their arms as best they could and made their way back to the camp.
When they arrived, they found that the guys had constructed a crude lean-to from wood, vines, and leaves that was just barely big enough to provide shelter for all five of them. In the spaces between three huge jungle trees, they had stuck a row of sturdy branches into the ground and woven vines between each of them, creating a sort of rudimentary wall. Jutting out from the top of that was a lattice made of branches and vines and covered with huge leaves from the jungle trees that acted as a makeshift roof.
"Wow, not too bad," Ginny remarked, a look of impressed surprise on her face.
"It'll do for the night," Harry replied with a shrug.
Hermione dropped her pile of wood onto the ground and began assembling both the logs and the kindling, then summoned a fireball and set the wood on fire instantly. The five sat around the fire and, after much debate, they decided to eat one of the raw pheasants that Hermione had taken from the Tower. Once the meat was done cooking, they each took their share and watched the sky, waiting for the fairies to give the recap of the day's kills. It was silent for a moment, and then dozens of lights began to bob all around the sky, each their own color. They drifted here and there for a moment and then drew together and began to play the recaps.
The first recap opened to show Romilda Vane and Lavender Brown sprinting through the switch grass of the prairie climate. The sun looked as though it had just risen and was casting beams of colored light all along the prairie grass. Lavender kept glancing behind them as if someone or something was chasing them. It was a moment before the two stopped running to catch their breath, their chests heaving.
"I think we lost them," Lavender gasped, holding back her head as if that would help her catch her breath any better.
"I hope so," muttered Romilda, pulling a water bottle from her pack and taking a sip from it, then offering it to Lavender, who took it gladly. It was silent except for the wind swaying the switch grass this way and that. Romilda hacked a small clearing in the switch grass just big enough for the two of them and then sat, taking out her knife and beginning to sharpen it. Lavender took out a dried beef strip and began eating slowly, making it last for as long as she could. It seemed almost peaceful and Hermione was wondering what this scene was doing in the recap, when all of a sudden the sound of running footsteps and switch grass being trampled came from the right side of the girls. The two froze in trepidation, listening as the footsteps gre w nearer until Romilda jumped to her feet, brandishing her knife, Lavender doing the same.
The grass parted to reveal Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas.
"Thought you could get away, huh?" Seamus sneered. The two girls were silent, but fixed both boys with icy stares.
"We know you stole our weapons. I never thought I would have such distrustful allies. But that's neither here nor there. Give us back our weapons and we'll leave you two alone," Seamus growled.
"We don't have your weapons. Leave us be," Lavender replied in annoyance.
"Like hell you don't," snapped Dean. "We woke up and they were gone. Who else could have them? Give them back to us and there won't have to be a fight."
"We don't have your bloody weapons, you prat," Romilda replied angrily.
"Fine, then. Have it your way," Seamus spat, pointing his outstretched arm at Romilda. Out of nowhere, an explosion shook the ground next to her, sending bits of dirt and grass flying all over. Romilda screamed and shielded her head in her hands, her body becoming transparent. Hermione wondered if she had the power to become intangible at will. She shifted her attention to where Dean and Lavender were fighting.
Lavender slashed out with the blade of her knife towards Dean, but he darted away, his speed increasing until he was only a blur. Without a weapon, he was left with no means of defense besides his ability of speed. Lavender kept attacking him fervently, hacking and slashing, but it did no good. He darted away too fast for her to see each time. He threw a punch towards her stomach, catching her unawares. She crumpled in pain, gritting her teeth for a moment before straightening back up and continuing to attack him.
Dean threw a punch towards her face, but Lavender suddenly disappeared, leaving the spot where she had stood just moments before empty. He looked all around him warily, wondering in confusion what had happened to her. Seconds later, she reappeared behind him and stabbed him in the back, wincing as droplets of blood sprayed everywhere. Dean let out a cry of pain and crumpled to the grown in agony.
"Dean!" Seamus exclaimed, turning away from Romilda to face his ally that was sprawled on the ground, his labored breathing the only indication he was alive. Dean tried to say something in reply, but instead coughed up blood, spattering the blades of switch grass around him. Another wave of coughs and choking raked through his body before he became still.
A bang echoed across the arena.
Seamus turned to Lavender, his face a mixture of anger and horror.
"Seamus, I-I'm sorry—" Lavender began to plead, but he cut her off.
"Save your apologies," he snarled and outstretched his arm towards her. The area she was standing on exploded with such force that it sent bits of dirt, grass, and human remains in every direction.
Another bang echoed across the arena. Lavender Brown was dead.
He turned towards Romilda, who began to back away slowly, her knife gripped tightly in her hand. He threw a punch in her direction, but she dodged it and slashed her knife towards him, forcing him to jump back. Romilda rolled away just in time as the ground where she had just been standing shook with an explosion. They circled each other, both of them waiting for the other to attack. Romilda suddenly lashed out, feigning an attack towards his chest, then switched directions at the last moment and stabbed his lower leg. He tried to jump out of the way, but wasn't fast enough, and let out a pained yelp as her knife sliced his skin. Gritting his teeth, he straightened to face her and flung his arm out towards her. The explosion that followed was so forceful that it created a medium-sized crater in the ground. Nothing was left of Romilda Vane except for the blood that stained Seamus' entire body and the bits of human flesh plastered to his shirt.
A solitary bang echoed across the arena.
He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his eyes and limped over to Dean's abandoned backpack, pulling out some medical gauze and beginning to bind the wound on his lower leg.
The scene changed and suddenly Hermione was watching Colin and Dennis Creevey making their way through the swamp biome, stepping carefully so their feet didn't end up sinking into the mire under them. They both looked exhausted, as if they had traveled for quite a while on foot and wanted nothing more than to stop and take a break. But despite their exhaustion, they kept on walking.
"There's got to be food around here somewhere," Colin mumbled, sounding like he was assuring himself more than his brother.
"We've looked everywhere," Dennis groaned.
"Not everywhere. We'll find food, I promise. Maybe we can steal some from other players," suggested Colin. Dennis nodded in agreement.
They walked on for a little while, winding through dead trees and taking care of where they stepped, the sounds of crickets and frogs filling the long silence. After a while, the siblings stopped near a medium-sized pond and rested on a fallen dead tree, each taking small sips from their water bottle. The cattails all around the pond swayed in the wind, creating a rustling sound that filled the silence along with the frogs and the crickets. Everything seemed so still, peaceful even. Hermione almost forgot that she was watching a playback of a death scene inside of a virtual game.
Suddenly something near the middle of the pond moved, sending enormous ripples through the entire body of water. Several dark shapes seemed to writhe beneath the surface of the water. Dennis went still, his eyes glued warily to the water.
"Did you see that?" he whispered to his brother.
"Yeah. I'm sure it was just a fish or something," Colin said nonchalantly, taking another sip from his water bottle.
"That was not a fish," Dennis hissed, pulling his knife slowly out of his backpack.
The water rippled once more and a creature emerged from it. It was grotesque, resembling a primate, except for the scales that ran up and down its entire body and the fact that it had webbed hands and feet. Colin stood to his feet slowly, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife that was sheathed at his hip, his eyes wide with fear. More creatures emerged from the water until there were about six of them in front of the two siblings. Several of the creatures bared their razor-sharp fangs at the two, a guttural sort of noise coming from their mouths.
"Kappas," Colin stammered, backing away slowly.
"Great. How do you fight Kappas?" Dennis asked nervously.
"I don't remember. I think I fell asleep during that lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts," Colin answered.
"Of course you did!" Dennis exclaimed, rolling his eyes and brandishing his knife towards the Kappas as they began to advance towards the siblings.
With a shrill screech, what appeared to be the leader of the pack launched itself towards Dennis, who leapt into the air, using his power of flight to hover just out of the Kappa's reach. The creature bared its fangs and hissed in frustration, trying desperately to swipe at Dennis, who darted out of the way each time it attacked. Dennis darted around midair, slashing and slicing towards the Kappas as best he could, but his aim was obviously very poor. He managed to cut a nice slice off of one of the creature's nose, but that was the best he could do.
Hermione glanced over at Colin and saw that he wasn't doing any better. He didn't have the advantage that Dennis had because his power was only sound projection. Colin was clumsily slashing his knife towards the Kappas that were advancing on him, only injuring a few of the creatures, but the rest of them kept advancing on him. Suddenly, one of the creatures leapt onto his back and wrapped its skeletal fingers around his throat, squeezing. Colin tried to gasp for breath, but instead let out a choking noise.
"Dennis….," he choked out, his voice paper thin.
Dennis turned to face his brother, his eyes widening as he noticed that he was being strangled by a horde of Kappas. He took to the air, climbing in altitude before pulling into a nosedive straight toward the creatures that were swarming his brother, slowly picking up speed until everything around him was a blur. Bracing himself, he collided with the Kappas, knocking them back from Colin.
"We need to get out of here. Take my hand," Dennis offered, holding out his hand to his brother, who took it gladly. He rose into the air slowly, gritting his teeth as he pulled his brother into the air with him. They were fine for a moment, but then Dennis felt a slight tug and looked down to see that the kappas were grabbing onto Dennis' feet and pulling him down back to the ground. He propelled himself upward, trying to pull his brother up with him but there were now so many of the creatures latched onto his brother's legs that they were weighing him down slowly. Dennis gritted his teeth, trying with all his might to hang onto his brother, but as each second passed he got heavier and heavier. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull his brother up any further.
Suddenly, with a final tug, the Kappas pulled Colin out of Dennis' grasp, dragging him underwater.
"Colin!" he shouted, panicking. He flew down into the water and tried to find his brother to pull him out, but the horde of Kappas was so thick that he couldn't even see his brother. He desperately stabbed a few of the Kappas in front of him, hoping they would disperse, but they simply gave a hiss of pain and kept swarming around his brother. Tears ran down his face as he stabbed at the creatures, knowing there was nothing he could do.
A moment later, a bang echoed across the arena.
"No!" Dennis screamed, tears running down his face.
The Kappas dispersed, swimming back to their abode in the shallow waters of the marsh. Colin's lifeless corpse floated to the surface, his eyes staring blankly ahead, his throat was swollen with bruises where the Kappas had strangled him to death. Without warning, his body became transparent and began flickering, as if he were static on a TV, then disappeared altogether, leaving no trace that he had ever been there.
The scene ended and the fairies scattered, fluttering around for a moment, almost like fireflies, before disappearing altogether. Everyone was silent, each thinking about what they had just watched. Finally, Ginny broke the silence.
"I'm knackered. I think I'm going to go to bed," Ginny declared with a yawn.
"G'night, Gin. Sleep well," Hermione said.
"Night, 'Mione," Ginny answered, disappearing under the lean-to.
"I'll take watch," Draco offered, clearly noting how exhausted both Harry and Justin looked. Harry looked rather surprised at Draco's civility but nodded and followed Ginny.
Hermione ducked under the lean-to and settled down in the corner, pulling her jacket from her backpack and balling it up, using it as a makeshift pillow. She closed her eyes, trying to sleep, but sleep never came. She lay there for a half an hour, listening as everyone else's breathing slowed and let out the occasional snore. She watched as the fire cast flickering shadows on the ground and the trees around them, hoping that maybe she would get lulled to sleep eventually, but she couldn't stop thinking about him. She couldn't stop thinking about how he had betrayed her to Blaise and how he was avoiding her now, as if he were ashamed of what he had done. He had gone out of his way to help her during the fight with the gargoyles earlier, but that was the only interaction she had had with him since then. He was a complete mystery to her. One moment it seemed that he wanted to be civil with her, even friendly, and the next he was siding with Blaise and trying to kill her. She was angry about what he had done to her, but at the same time she wanted so badly to keep building a friendship with him. In the short time that they had gotten to know each other during the game of survival, she had discovered that he had so many good traits that she had been unaware of. In her mind, he was now no longer her childhood bully, but a tentative friend.
Remembering her conversation with Ginny earlier and how she had urged her to talk to Draco, Hermione sat up and rubbed her eyes, knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep until she got this over with. She made her way over to where Draco sat by the fire, his arms resting on his knees and his eyes staring off into the jungle thoughtfully, and sunk down to sit beside him. She gazed out at the shadowed expanse of jungle trees before them, not sure how to start the conversation.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Draco said, at last breaking the silence. He was tense and the awkwardness was almost so tangible that she could've cut it with her knife if she wanted to.
"No," she said, shaking her head. She paused for a moment to gather her words and then spoke again. "Look, Draco, I'm not saying I'm ready to forgive you or forget what you did, but I just want to know why you did it. Were you planning on betraying me all along?"
"You really think that I would—" he began angrily, but cut himself off, running his hands through his hair and taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. "The only reason I did what I did was because Blaise was blackmailing me. He threatened to kill me if I didn't kill you. I never wanted to do that, I'm sorry. I was worried that he'd hurt you anyway if I didn't do what he told me to. I'd understand if you never forgave me," he said quietly.
Hermione was stunned into silence. It was quiet between them for a moment before he spoke again.
"Do you remember that conversation we had at the beginning of the game after I took Blaise's knife for you?"
"Yes, of course," she murmured. How could she forget that conversation?
"I said that you Gryffindors always see the word in black and white, no gray," he said. Hermione nodded, remembering the conversation. "I still stand by that. Not everything is going to be black and white, Hermione. In fact, most things aren't. A lot of the times it's more complicated than that. The world isn't black and white. The world is black, white, and gray."
For the second time during this game, she was seeing Draco Malfoy in a different light. In her world of black and white, he was the gray.
"You're right, Draco," she said quietly. "I'd like to continue building our friendship, but don't know if I can forgive you just yet."
"Fair enough," he mumbled, nodding. "I'd have a hard time forgiving an arsehole like me if I were you as well. Thank you for giving me another chance, though."
"We'll see," she whispered, getting to feet and making her way over to her makeshift bed in the corner of the lean-to and lying down. It didn't take long before she was fast asleep.
Hermione awoke to someone shaking her shoulder. Her head still foggy with sleep, she blearily opened her eyes and found a pair of ice-gray eyes staring back at her.
"Malfoy? What is it?" she mumbled sleepily, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"It's the map, it's gone," he hissed.
"What?!" she exclaimed, standing to her feet. "What do you mean it's gone?"
"I mean that it wasn't in my backpack when I woke up," he snapped irritably.
Hermione glanced around, noticing that Harry and Ginny were also already awake and packing up camp. There was just one person missing.
"Wait a moment, where's Justin?"
A/N: Hey, thanks for reading this new chapter! I know it was a little short, but I plan on making up for that in the next chapter, I promise! As I said before, please feel free to leave a review with constructive criticism or a suggestion, or just let me know if you liked this chapter. I love hearing from you guys!
Creatively Yours,
~*Writergurl24*~
