A/N: Not the most original fic idea, I know, but I've already written more than 50,000 words of it, so I'm going for it anyway. We'll see if it was worth it. ;)

Anybody want to beta read this for me? PM me if you're interested.

ln(^_^)

Chapter I: District 12

He nocks an arrow to the bowstring, lifting his left arm straight out in front of him as he draws his right hand back to his cheek. He sights along the shaft, both eyes open, breathing slowly. A small, black eye in a furry face stares back at him as he takes his aim. He inhales, and his world narrows to a single point: that eye that looks at him in uncomprehending curiosity. He exhales slowly, and when all the breath has left his lungs, he looses the arrow.

His prey falls from the tree, transfixed. He takes a breath and his world expands again, the sounds of the forest filling his ears, awareness of his surroundings returning. He strides to the place where the shaft found its mark and finds the squirrel right where it fell, his arrow through its eye. Lucky shot,something in him whispers, but he knows better.

Jon Snow is not a lucky boy.

Being born a bastard in the poorest district of Westeros isn't exactly a cakewalk, whatever that means, but Jon is even less fortunate than that. He never knew his mother, and his father died in a mining accident five years ago, leaving Jon and his four half-siblings and their pregnant mother with no recourse. Jon being the oldest, he took responsibility for the family as the de facto man of the house, but also being only eleven, it was a pretty sharp learning curve to get there. Jon doesn't really like to think of that time right after his father died, so let's just say he was hungry more often than not and leave it at that.

His arrow didn't hit the squirrel that Jon now stows in his game bag by chance. It comes from hard-won skill, from practice and patience and hour upon hour of trial and error. It comes from necessity, from knowing by painful experience that failure means hunger, not just for him but for his family. Luck's got nothing to do with this. He can't rely on something as fickle as luck when he has a family of seven to feed.

So no, Jon is not lucky. But he's never thought of himself as unlucky either.

Jon feels like he has a lot to be thankful for, actually. His father was a good man, who took him in and treated him no different from his trueborn children. He has a roof over his head and food most days. And most of all, he has five half-siblings that he absolutely adores.

Speaking of which, he finds Robb waiting for him at the border of District 12.

"I was just about to come in after you and drag you back myself," Robb grins at him as he takes the game bag Jon passes him through the electric fence. His arm brushes against one of the wires as he does, but Jon isn't worried. The fence is rarely on. It uses up too much power, and there's little enough reason to keep it hot anyway. The fence is ostensibly there to keep wolves and bears and other beasts of the forest out, but Jon privately thinks that its real purpose is to keep the people of the district in. There's no need to electrify the fence for that, though. Most people are afraid to venture out into the woods. Most people, but not Jon.

"You're late," Robb continues, giving him his hand. Jon takes it and allows Robb to pull him through the gap in the fence.

"I know," Jon grunts as he straightens. "I was tracking squirrels. Wanted some for the Old Bear. He likes them, and he did me a favor last week, pushing back our rent."

"Well you don't have time to go to both the Hob and Mayor Mormont's house," Robb says. He pulls the squirrel out before hoisting the bag over his shoulder. "You go give this to the Old Bear," he says, pushing the dead animal into Jon's hands, "and I'll take this to the Hob. That way we might be home in time and won't give Mother an excuse to scold us."

"Since when has she ever needed an excuse to scold me?" Jon grins, but Robb doesn't. Jon shrugs. "I can manage on my own. I might miss supper, but I'll be back in time for the broadcast. You should finish your schoolwork."

"It's done," Robb says, smile back in place as he winks at Jon. "Yours too."

"You don't have to do my homework," Jon says, frowning. If Robb is caught forging Jon's school papers, he'll be in hot water with more than just his mother.

"Well somebody has to," Robb says lightly and claps him on the shoulder. "Let's get moving. If we split up, then no one has to miss supper tonight."

That sounds good enough to Jon, so he follows his brother across the meadow, moving through the tumble-down houses of the Seam and making their way into town. Some of their neighbors acknowledge their passing with a wave or a greeting, and Robb answers every one.

Robb is sixteen, almost exactly the same age as Jon, only a few days younger. Most of the time though people forget this and think they're twins. Sometimes even Jon forgets. Not that they look much alike—Jon has the Northern look, dark hair and gray eyes like his father, and Robb takes after his mother, with auburn hair and blue eyes—but they're almost always together. He and Robb have always been best friends. Robb usually does a lot better in school than Jon, but that's as it should be. Jon is just a bastard and a poacher and in a couple of years he'll be a miner. Robb is the one with a future ahead of him. As much of a future as one can have in District 12, anyway.

Eventually Jon parts ways with Robb, who goes off to the old warehouse that's called the Hob while Jon continues on to the town square. The people he passes don't greet him as often as they do when he's with Robb. Robb is friendly and popular and decent at small-talk, and Jon is pretty much the opposite. Robb says that it's just because Jon's not used to talking to people. He insists that people would like Jon, but he's always off alone in the woods hunting and gathering instead of hanging out with Robb's friends. Jon thinks it's more likely that they tolerate him for Robb's sake, but he doesn't say this to his brother. The gods only know what mad plan Robb would enact to get people to like Jon as much as he does.

As Jon approaches the back door of the mayor's house, he finds that words are failing him yet again. He has no idea how to thank the mayor for his generosity. He suddenly feels like one puny squirrel is woefully inadequate to show the Old Bear how grateful Jon is for what he did. Letting Jon pay the last month's rent late was a life-saver—literally. They'd needed the money to buy actual medicine for his little brother Bran, who until recently was bedridden with pneumonia. Jon will never forget the feeling of shame and fear that curled in his gut when he asked the mayor for more time to pay; it somehow felt like the first time he'd had to ask, when he was only a boy and startled and starving and confused because he didn't know the rent had been raised, thought he'd managed to scrape together just enough funds to make sure they kept the house, and then that tentative hope and pride had crumbled to dust inside him when he realized it wasn't enough, he wasn't enough, hadn't done enough, hadn't saved enough, and his shame had almost choked him when he asked the mayor for this boon, but he couldn't not ask, couldn't fail his family like that. He knows the relief he felt back then when the Old Bear looked at him in pity and told him he could pay the rest next month was exactly the same as he feels now. Bran is healthy again. The rent is paid. Everybody gets to live another day, so it was worth it, then and now.

He really should have brought more squirrels, but he hadn't had time. One will have to do for now, Jon decides as he drags his feet up the steps, and maybe tomorrow he could bring another.

The mayor's steward Edd Tollett answers Jon's knock. He gives Jon a mournful look when he sees the squirrel. "If m'lord mayor eats any more squirrel, he's like to turn into one himself." Edd, called Dolorous Edd by most for reasons Jon feels are pretty obvious, sighs and shrugs. "Ah well. If the Old Bear wants to be called the Old Squirrel instead, who'm I to complain? Mayhaps he wouldn't growl at me so much then, though the chattering would be something awful."

He rummages around in his pocket for some coins to pay with, but Jon holds up his hand. "No need for that, Edd. It's just one squirrel. I just wanted to thank—"

"Oh no, I see what you're up to here," Edd says, eyeing Jon with suspicion. "You're trying to get me in trouble, you are. M'lord gave very strict instructions never to accept anything from you, boy, without full and proper payment. So you'll be taking the money, Jon Snow, or I shan't touch a hair on that squirrel's head." Edd practically shoves the coins into Jon's hand, so roughly that Jon almost drops the money and the carcass both. "Thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes," Edd mutters, snatching the squirrel from Jon. "Well not today, anyway. Eddison Tollett wasn't born yesterday, more's the pity."

Jon can't help but smile at the dour steward, though his failure to properly express his gratitude to the Old Bear for his help weighs heavy on his mind. "You'll pass along my thanks to him, won't you, Edd?"

"I suppose I will. Though what good it'll do me is in question. Not that passing along messages from other people ever does me much good. Gives me the short end of the stick most times, actually. There used to be this saying, 'Don't shoot the messenger.' Someone should tell the Old Bear that, but it won't be me, that's for sure."

"Thanks, Edd. Take care."

Dolorous Edd only shakes his head. "I'd wish you a good evening, Jon, but it hasn't been so far and it's not likely to get any better, not with the Quell announcement still to come. How likely do you think it is that they'll change the rules this year to put me back into the reaping? Thought I was done with all that and could move on to have other trials and tribulations after I turned nineteen, so long ago that was, but it would be just my luck if it weren't the case."

"May the odds be ever in your favor, Edd," Jon says, smiling. Edd glares at him, but without any heat, then turns to go back inside and shuts the door.

Task completed, though not quite in the way he would have wished, Jon makes his way back to the Hob, intent on finding Robb to help him sell what little he was able to forage today. As he looks around the old warehouse turned black market for his brother, he finds someone else instead.

He stalks quietly up behind her with a hunter's tread, but such care is not really needed here, as she's too busy arguing with a pot boy to notice Jon sneaking up on her. He slips his hands over her eyes and she lets out an indignant shriek.

"Hey! Robb, stop it!" the girl tries to tug Jon's hands away from her face, but Jon doesn't let her. "I know it's you, I saw you come in earlier. Cut it out!"

"Guess again, Arya," Jon tells his little sister, grinning.

"Jon!" Arya shouts in delight, and Jon finally lets her pull his hands away from her eyes so she can see him.

"Jon, Hot Pie doesn't believe that I can catch a rabbit in a snare all by myself," Arya complains. "I can so! I've done it before, just like you taught me!"

"You have not," the pot boy says. He's older than Arya by at least two years, and a head taller. Arya is only eleven and small for her age, but even so, probably the only thing that's kept the boy safe from her so far is the protection afforded from standing behind the counter Arya is leaning on.

"Tell him, Jon! Tell him that I can do it!" Arya demands, and Jon is hard-pressed not to smile. His wild little sister would probably kick him in the shin if she thought he wasn't taking her seriously.

"All right, I'll tell him," Jon grants her. "But what am I going to tell your mother when she asks me where you've been all afternoon?"

Arya glares at him, and Jon finally smiles. He messes up her dark hair and leans an arm on top of her head like she's an armrest. "Don't worry, little sister. Your secret is safe with me."

Arya splutters as she spits hair out of her mouth and tries in vain to push Jon's arm off her head until Jon finally relents and lets his arm slip around her shoulders. "Let's go find Robb and get out of here," he says, steering her away from the counter and the boy she's so irritated with. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Arya flashes a rude hand gesture at Hot Pie before allowing herself to be led away.

Jon smiles at her antics. He and Arya have always been close. Of all his siblings, Arya is the only other who shares their father's features—gray eyes, dark hair, long face. As a result, he feels a stronger kinship with her than with the rest of his half-siblings, even Robb. And it's pretty clear to anyone with eyes that Jon is Arya's favorite. If she could, she'd become Jon's shadow just so she could follow him around everywhere. She's been begging Jon for the last year to teach her to shoot, and she's very vocal about how she's going to be a hunter just like Jon when she grows up, much to her mother's consternation.

Robb finds them before they can find him. "Arya, what are you doing here?" he says with a displeased frown. "You know you're not supposed to be in here. Mother said—"

"I know what Mother said," Arya groans. "Give it a rest, Robb." Robb shakes his head, but doesn't say another word on the subject. He doesn't have to. His mother can do her own chastising well enough.

As they approach their one-room ramshackle house in the Seam, a dark blur speeds out of the yard and slams into Robb.

"Aaahh, help, I'm under attack!" Robb yells with a smile and allows himself to be knocked flat on his back by the nearly-five-year-old whirlwind that is his youngest brother. Rickon is covered in dirt from head to toe and laughing like a lunatic. Jon has noticed that Rickon is always happiest when he's filthy.

"I guess I'll save you," Jon sighs with feigned reluctance, then seizes Rickon by the ankles and drags him off of Robb, dangling him upside down above the ground. Rickon shrieks and laughs even harder. Jon has also noticed that the kid loves being upside down. The sensibilities of little boys amaze him.

Then Robb starts to avenge himself upon Rickon by tickling him, and it's all Jon can do to not drop the squirming boy on his head—not that that would probably hurt him, hard as his head is—as Rickon laughs so hard that snot flies out his nose. Arya enters the fray on Rickon's side by putting Robb in a headlock, and they're all well on their way to full-scale warfare when a high, sweet voice calls out to them.

"Boys, it's almost time for supper. Perhaps we can reach an armistice so we can all sit together peacefully around the dinner table?"

Jon grins at the auburn beauty standing in the yard and trying to hide her smile. "No need for that, Sansa," he says from his position flat on his back with Arya crouching on his chest. "I think Robb and I are defeated."

"Speak for yourself!" Robb declares, and scoops up Rickon, throwing the struggling boy over his shoulder as he marches off to the water pump to hose the kid down.

"I yield," Jon tells Arya, and she messes up his hair before rolling off him and dashing after Robb and Rickon.

Jon gets to his feet as Sansa picks up his discarded game bag. "It's empty," she says, surprised and a bit disappointed.

"Not quite," Jon answers. "Take a look in the side pocket."

Sansa pulls out a bunch of pretty blue flowers, the same color as her eyes. Her face lights up with a delighted smile. "Blue vervain!" she exclaims. "Thank you, Jon. We were almost out."

"Happy name day, Sansa," Jon says, and she gives him a shy smile. It's a poor gift for her thirteenth name day, but this year they can't afford much more than that. No one really feels like celebrating tonight anyway, not with the broadcast of the Quell announcement looming.

Sansa is thirteen now, and a perfect little lady, Jon reflects as he watches her arrange the flowers in her hand. She's beautiful, polite, and talented. She can sew a dress as easily as she can a button, and she's learning the healing arts from their neighbor Old Nan. She's sweet, gentle, and well-mannered, and there isn't a person in 12 that dislikes her. She always bestows Jon with a smile when he brings her flowers from the forest, even if they're ultimately for the practical purpose of healing.

"Sansa, come inside and help me get supper on the table." Mrs. Catelyn Stark, a woman who could be an older version of Sansa with her blue eyes and auburn braid streaked with hints of gray, stands in the doorway of the house. "Where are your brothers and sister?"

"They're washing up, Mother," Sansa responds as she walks back to the house.

Mrs. Stark turns her attention from Sansa to Jon. "You can go find Bran, then," she tells him, fixing him with the haughty look she reserves just for her late husband's bastard. "He went out an hour ago, and I want him inside before dark. It's still too cold for him to be outside."

Jon nods to her and heads off in search of his missing sibling, glad to have an excuse to spend as little time in the company of his father's widow as possible. He knows where Bran is likely to be, so he heads off to check there first.

Sure enough, Bran is just where Jon expected to find him—up as high as he can get in the oak that spreads across the corner of the fence at the edge of the meadow. Bran likes to be up high. He appears to be reading a book. When Jon calls up to him, he scurries down the tree like a little squirrel, dropping the last ten feet or so. Jon runs and catches him before he hits the ground.

"Thanks, Jon," Bran smiles up at him. "You can put me down now."

"I think not," Jon says, starting back across the meadow with Bran still in his arms. Bran is only nine and a skinny little kid to boot; it's not exactly a hardship to tote him around. "You shouldn't jump like that, you know. You could've hurt yourself."

"I knew you'd catch me," Bran says, completely confident in his apparent belief that Jon has the ability to read the minds of crazy squirrel-boys and keep them from dashing their brains out on the ground when they suddenly decide to jump to their deaths.

"I'll always try to catch you, Bran. But what if I'd missed?"

"You wouldn't miss," Bran replies, and Jon heaves a sigh.

"It's nice that you believe in me, Bran. But it would be even nicer if you gave me a little warning next time."

"Next time," Bran agrees with a smile, and seeing that Jon still has no intention of putting him down, he circles his arms around Jon's shoulders and clambers around onto Jon's back, where he clings like a baby possum to its mother. Jon hooks his arms under Bran's legs to support him and continues on toward home.

"What are you reading?" He asks his brother. He can feel the book digging into his back from where it rests stuffed down the front of Bran's shirt.

"Wasn't reading. I was writing."

"In your journal?" Jon asks, and he feels Bran nod where his chin rests on Jon's shoulder. The journal was a gift for Bran's last name day. They'd tried to save up to buy him a real storybook, but they didn't end up with enough, so they bought him a blank notebook instead so he could write his own stories. Bran loves stories. He'd begged his mother and Sansa and Old Nan for stories from the time he could talk. He even listens with rapt attention when Jon tells him about the things that he's seen in the woods. Jon wishes he'd been able to save enough money for a book for Bran, but Bran seems just as enthusiastic about the journal.

"Did you write anything about me?" Jon asks.

"Can't tell you. It's top secret," Bran says, but Jon can hear the smile in his voice.

"You can't even give me a hint?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," Bran intones in the deepest voice he can muster as he wraps his arms around Jon's neck and squeezes. Jon pretends to gag. Bran laughs, which turns into a cough that he tries to stifle on Jon's shoulder. Jon picks up his pace. He needs to get his little brother home, where it's warm. Mrs. Stark was right: it's too cold for Bran to be out and about yet.

Dinner is nice, though not as hearty as Jon could have wished for Sansa's name day. Mrs. Stark has made a soup with wild greens and the last of the potatoes they put by for winter, with the dark, coarse tesserae bread to soak up the rabbit bone broth. When Bran isn't looking, Jon sneaks a large piece of potato from his own bowl into the boy's. That kid is way too skinny; he needs to eat more.

When he looks up he catches Robb watching him. Robb grins at him and winks as he stealthily slides a portion of his bread onto Rickon's plate. It's a game the two of them play, to see how much food they can trick their little brothers into eating. Sansa and Arya have cottoned on to it now and won't let them do it to them anymore, but Bran and Rickon are still in the dark for now.

As they sing the name day song for Sansa, Jon looks around at the faces of his half-siblings. He loves all five of them, different as they are, and what's more is he knows that they all love him. He may have a different mother from them, but they have all accepted him as their brother unconditionally, and that is a kind of belonging that Jon treasures.

So yeah, Jon may be pretty unlucky in a lot of things, but as far as his siblings go, he thinks he's hit the jackpot, whatever that means. Which is why it's so devastating that tonight is the night when his luck finally runs out.

Jon watches the mandatory broadcast with the rest of his family as the Capitol announces the Quarter Quell for the 75th Hunger Games. Jon doesn't want to see it, but it's mandatory viewing and he supposes he should get an idea of what's going to happen since his name will be in the reaping forty times this year. Those are pretty poor odds, so he needs to be prepared. President Aerys Targaryen, or the "Mad King" as they call him at the Hob, looks almost gleeful as he pulls the dusty card from its box.

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their actions turned family members against one another, the male and female tributes will be brother and sister."

A shocked silence hangs over the house for a moment. Then Sansa gasps and covers her mouth with one hand, tears welling up in her eyes, and Arya throws her cap at the screen and says a word that rouses her mother from her shock enough to chide her for her language.

Rickon looks up at Bran in childish confusion and asks, "What's going on?"

It's Robb who answers the little boy. His eyes find Jon's as he says, "It's going to be the worst Hunger Games ever."