Chapter 12: James Evans
"Are you guys sure about this place?" Harry wondered as he walked around and got a feel for the room. "If someone finds us, we're going to be pretty boxed in – there's only one exit." It was the same problem he'd found with the tower upstairs. There was nowhere to run.
"Don't worry, there's a secret passage in the fireplace," Sirius assured Harry.
"There's a –?" Harry muttered, confused.
Sirius walked over to the fireplace and picked up a trophy that was resting on the mantle. Immediately, the fire in the fireplace went out and the brick wall inside disappeared, revealing a staircase leading down.
"Where does it lead?" Harry wondered.
"Wherever the Gamemakers decide it leads," Sirius replied. "It's just like the others, they lead different places every time you go inside."
"And you think it's safe to let the Gamemakers decide where we're going?" Harry asked.
"Well regardless of whether we're in the tunnels or out here, the Gamemakers will do whatever they please," Sirius responded. "At least we know the exit's there if we need it."
Harry shrugged, conceding the point. Sirius' logic made sense.
"Well, it's getting late and we should try to get some sleep," James declared. To prove his point, Lily yawned loudly. "I'll take the first watch."
Harry hesitated, unsure how he felt about letting someone else keep watch while he slept. He had to really trust James to do that. When he found himself copying Lily and yawning too, he decided that regardless of whether he trusted James, he needed the sleep, and he would just have to hope that he wasn't killed in his sleep. If he was, he supposed he was never meant to win the Games in the first place.
The next morning, Harry awoke feeling very groggy. He'd been on middle watch, which meant that he'd gotten a couple hours of sleep, then been woken up to keep watch for a couple of hours, and then had been given a couple hours to attempt to fall back asleep while Sirius took watch. James refused to give Lily a watch, claiming that she needed her rest if the baby was going to be healthy. Harry chose not to mention that the odds of a pregnant woman making it out of the Hunger Games alive were so slim that it probably didn't matter how much sleep the baby got anymore.
The four of them shared a simple meal of crackers and cheese from the food pile – Harry chose not to mention that he had his own food in his pack. He might need it later in the Games and for now at least, his allies seemed keen on sharing their supplies. After breakfast, everyone gulped down some water and then Sirius announced that the water flasks were getting low and that they should go out on a mission to refill them.
"Where are we going to get the water?" Harry asked.
"There's always the lake," Lily suggested. "It's right outside the castle. I saw it right before the bloodbath started."
"But we can't go out there!" Harry exclaimed. "It's too exposed. Think of all the people that could be positioned at a window ready to shoot us with an arrow as soon as we walk out those doors."
"Guys, guys, don't worry, we don't need the lake," Sirius declared.
"Well then where are we going to get water?" Lily demanded.
"Think, Lils," Sirius said. "We're in a castle. People lived here. They must have drunk water at some point, right?" Lily nodded. "And there must have been bathrooms or some form of running water," Sirius continued. "So all we have to do is find running water, and there we go!"
"How do we know this castle wasn't inhabited back in the days when they used chamber pots and got their water from the well?" James asked.
"And even if there was running water at some point, how do you know the Gamemakers didn't shut it off prior to the Games, to force us out to the lake for water?" Harry added.
"I don't," Sirius said simply. "But it would be a shame not to at least look."
Everyone eventually agreed with Sirius and the new question became who would go out looking for water and who would stay back with the supplies. Though Lily tried to convince James that she should be part of the group that left, James ultimately overruled her, using the baby card. Sirius volunteered to remain behind with Lily, which left Harry and James to go looking for the water.
"Any idea where to start looking?" Harry asked as they ventured out.
"No clue," James said. "I suppose we should go up though," he added when they were faced with the decision to go up to the hall of staircases or down into the dungeons.
"I agree," Harry said.
They went up to the first floor and then went through the door, finding themselves in a long corridor.
"So you volunteered?" Harry asked, the only small talk he could think of.
"I had to," James replied.
"Well, I mean, you didn't have to," Harry muttered.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" James asked.
Harry thought of Ginny. "Yeah, I do," he replied.
"How long have you been together?" James asked.
Harry thought about it. "We would have celebrated our two-year anniversary next month," he confessed.
"I became best friends with Lily when we were six," James said. "We met the first day of first grade; our teacher sat us next to each other. We were absolutely inseparable. We went on our first date when we were thirteen and we've been together ever since. We were married last month."
"That's a beautiful story," Harry said.
"Imagine your girlfriend wasn't just your girlfriend. She's also your best friend, your only real friend actually. Imagine your entire life has revolved around her for the past twelve years. You grew up with her, celebrated birthdays and Christmases with her. You're the one who bought her very first set of paintbrushes because you're the only one she told about her secret love of painting. You're the one she turned to when her mother died and she needed a comforting shoulder to cry on.
"And imagine that you loved her so much that you proposed to her on her eighteenth birthday. And imagine you were married to her and were so absolutely blissfully happy, and then to find out that you were expecting a baby. Imagine how wonderful that would be; to know that your love was so powerful that you had created another living being. To know that you were a family now, not just the two of you, but the three of you. Imagine the love that you would feel towards that unborn child, growing in her belly. Imagine how happy the both of you would be to welcome that new life into the world.
"Now imagine that in a second, literally a second, everything came crashing down around you. In the amount of time it takes to read a name off a slip of paper, all the plans, the hopes and dreams you had for your family and for your wife and for your child are ripped away. Suddenly, your very existence means nothing, because without them there's nothing left, no reason to be.
"And imagine you were presented with a choice. The first option would be to do nothing. Your wife and child would die, and in the meantime you would standby and watch it happen on national television. The second option would be to die trying to save them. You couldn't guarantee anything, but you could do your absolute best to see to it that they were given their best chance of survival. And if it didn't work, you would at least know that you did everything in your power to protect them and you yourself would die with them and join them in whatever form of existence there is after death.
"Now tell me," James concluded. "Which option would you choose? Is there really even a choice at all?"
"No, I suppose not," Harry said. He didn't know what else to say. Sure, he loved Ginny. But the feelings that James was describing were so intense; way more intense than any feelings Harry had ever experienced. Harry couldn't even fathom what it would be like to have a baby on the way.
"Let's try the next floor up," James suggested when they found themselves faced with the option of going up or back down to the main floor. "This floor's been a bust."
Harry agreed and so up they went.
"So what's your story?" James asked as they poked their heads into various rooms on the second floor.
"My story?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I just bared my soul to you," James said. "The least you can do is tell me a little bit about your life."
"There's not much to tell, to be honest," Harry confessed.
"You have friends? A girlfriend?" James prompted.
"Yeah, Ginny," Harry confirmed. "She's my best friend's sister. I've known her practically my whole life, but we only started dating a couple years ago."
"How'd the best friend take that?" James asked.
"Not too well at first, but better now that he's gotten used to it," Harry replied. "He'd rather I dated her than some guy who'll treat her badly."
"Ah! Jackpot!" James cried as he poked his head into yet another room. "I found a bathroom!"
"Finally!" Harry exclaimed, following James inside.
"And now, the moment of truth," James said as he ever so slowly turned the faucet. At first, nothing happened, and the boys were about to turn around and leave in defeat. But then the faucet spluttered a bit and a small trickle of water began to dribble out.
"Yes!" Harry cried in excitement, opening a flask and holding it under the water to fill the container. James opened a second faucet and did the same. As they filled their flasks, they heard a canon shot in the distance. They exchanged a grim look, but didn't comment on it. They both knew what it meant; someone had died.
Once the flasks were all full and both Harry and James had drunk their fill of water for the time being, they closed the faucets and returned to the hallway, their new mission figuring out how to get back to the trophy room where Sirius and Lily were waiting.
"I think we should go that way," Harry declared, pointing to the right.
"No, we should go left, that's the way we came," James contradicted.
"But if we go left, we'll end up having to go down and then cross back underneath. If we go right, we should end up back in the hall of staircases, only a floor up from before, and then we can go straight back down," Harry pointed out.
"But what if going right doesn't lead us to the hall of staircases at all?" James asked. "What if we end up somewhere else completely and we get totally and utterly lost?"
"We won't get lost," Harry assured James. "Take a page out of Sirius' book and have some faith."
Without waiting for confirmation, Harry started walking down the corridor to the right, expecting that James was following him. After a few moments, he heard footsteps running to catch up with him, and James fell into step next to him. When they reached the end of the corridor, Harry opened the door and grinned, discovering that he'd been right after all, and they were in fact back in the hall of staircases.
They hurried back down to the main floor and raced through the entrance hall. They were almost at the doors to the great hall when they heard a noise from behind them. Harry and James both spun around, grabbing the knives they'd brought with them in case they ran into another tribute and holding them out in front of them defensively.
There was nobody in sight, but there was a panting noise coming from behind a big statue that stood in the entrance hall. Exchanging a nervous look, Harry and James wordlessly agreed to check it out. Harry crept forward, knife out in case whoever they found back there wasn't friendly, while James covered him from behind.
Carefully, Harry approached the statue and rounded it, expecting to find a tribute lying in wait and ready to pounce. What he found was the complete opposite.