A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! You guys make me so happy :D Anyway, this chapter has some random conversations and some interesting developments in the Galeniss. And Harry's totally insane, but it's entertaining. As always, enjoy the random zombie adventures!

Rules of the Road Chap 5

I wake up a few hours later, and Hawthorne stops the car for me to take the wheel. We're all preparing to rotate seats when about six million zombies come charging out of the ditches on either side of the road and start sprinting towards us.

Hawthorne starts swearing his head off, but he's not fast enough to get us away. Before we can even get the car moving, the zombies have ripped two of our wheels off.

So we're all screaming and freaking about because the zombies start punching in the glass windows and trying to get in the car to eat us when an idea pops into my head.

I grab Three by the back of his shirt and throw him into the backity-back. "GRAB ONTO AS MUCH FOOD AS POSSIBLE!" I scream at him.

Compliantly, he bear-hugs about half the bags in the trunk.

"TWELVE, HAWTHORNE, GRAB ONTO MY ARM!" I scream as a zombie nearly rips my head off. "AND GRAB YOUR WEAPONS!"

Even though they're confused, they do as they're told. I grab onto Three's feet, snatch my wand from my pocket, and Apparate us out of the car.

Even though, I know almost nothing about this strange country, I manage to get us to a massive, well-kept house.

Since I'm the only person in our little group that has Apparated before, I'm the only person on my feet when we land. Three slams into the ground on top of all of the bags that he managed to hold on to and appears to be near unconsciousness. Hawthorne staggers back into a tree and drops to the ground, holding his head in his hands, and Twelve is frozen on her hands and knees.

"Sorry I didn't warn you guys," I say.

No one makes a comment. Three rolls off the bags and throws up on the ground.

Hawthorne catches his breath first. "Thanks for… getting us out of there."

"Yeah, sorry we lost the car," I say. "But it only had two wheels, so we wouldn't have gotten very far anyway."

Twelve and Hawthorne haul themselves off the ground, and I grab Three out of his puddle of vomit. We all grab some of the bags and drag ourselves up to the massive house. Hawthorne kicks in the door, and we ditch the bags of food and things by the door.

"We'll need to split up and search," Twelve says. She looks up at Hawthorne to see if he has any ideas about groups.

"How about you and London go together," he says, "and I'll go with Three."

Twelve nods, and we hear a faint shattering noise coming from where Three is standing. He has shattered the top off a snow globe and is now proceeding to drink the contents.

"Oh for the love of all that is good and holy," Hawthorne mutters under his breath. But he grabs Three by the head and leads him to the left even still.

Twelve and I head to the right, both drawing our weapons of choice.

"We'll meet back here," Hawthorne calls after us.

"Can do," Twelve shouts back.

Distantly, we hear Three ask, "You want some snow globe?"

"Why would I?" Hawthorne hisses back.

Twenty minutes later, we determine that the place is zombie free. We meet back at the front door (Three is still drinking the glittery water out of the snow globe) and carry the bags to the room on the main floor with the least amount of windows. That way, if zombies show up, we'll hopefully hear them shattering other windows before they reach us so that I can Apparate us away.

We poke through the bags that Three saved, and thankfully they're mostly full of food. Three empties his pockets, and we discover that he has all sorts of snow globes on his person. When exactly he got all these snow globes, we don't know.

Such is the mysterious way of our mentally retarded friend.

As night starts to fall, Hawthorne gets a fire going in the fireplace, and we settle in to eat whatever crap we rescued from the beat up general store. Three tells us that he and Jeffrey are thankful that they no longer have to eat dirt, and we fall into an awkward silence, unable to find adequate words to respond.

It's funny, how we end up sitting. Hawthorne and Twelve sit very close on one side of the fireplace. I sit on the opposite side, and Three is sprawled out by the pile of bags about three feet from me, drinking away at another snow globe (I'm too disturbed to tell him that's not smart).

Sitting here in silence makes me very lonely. I am harshly reminded of the Hogwarts common room, and it makes my heart very depressed. I miss Ron and Hermione so badly that it makes me sick to my stomach. I actually have to stop eating my can of tuna— that's how bad I miss them. I even miss Draco, for crying out loud. You know it's bad when you miss your worst enemy.

And you want to know what makes me more depressed?

If I'm forced to be in this strange country away from my friends with these three other people, I think I should at least know a little about them… Right?

It makes me depressed to know that I'm going to have to spend the rest of my time here (until I find a way back to Hogwarts) with people I hardly know anything about. In fact, the only thing I know about Hawthorne and Twelve is that they're from District Twelve and they are best friends. And I guess I know they're names sort of (something with a G that was rather feminine, and something that started with Cat). I barely know squat about Three except for choppy bits about his mother, his sister and her boyfriend, and his imaginary friend Jeffrey.

"You know what, guys," I say loudly. "I think we need to know more about each other."

Twelve immediately opens her mouth to retaliate, but I cut her off with one look.

"Don't you dare say you don't want to get attached," I say. "You cannot honestly say you aren't already attached to both me and Three."

She looks back down at her lap, giving me enough of an answer.

"So who wants to hear about me?" I ask harshly.

"Don't—" Hawthorne starts, but Three throws his arm in the air, saying that he wants to hear about my life, and I begin talking before anyone can put up more of a protest.

"My name is Harry Potter, I'm sixteen years old, I'm a wizard, and my parents were killed when I was a baby," I say loudly. "I live with my evil, wizard-hating aunt and uncle during the summers, and during the school year, I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where I almost get killed each year with my two best friends Hermione and Ron because I have a whacked up curse on me." I stop to take a breath, and then I push back the hair on my forehead to show them the lightning scar. "Now, if any of you would like to share something— even something small— I will tell you more about this whacked up curse and how I got this scar."

No one responds to that one. Not even Three, who is licking the rest of the glitter off the bottom of his snow globe.

"I don't even care what you tell me," I say. "Just tell me how old you are."

Still no response.

"I just shared all sorts of crap about my life! Don't you feel obligated to share something with me? You're now attached to me, so why can't I know about you?" I ask loudly.

"There are many reasons," Hawthorne says.

"Just tell something completely non-personal," I say desperately. "Tell me what your favorite color is."

Three rolls over onto his back and says, "Rainbow," in the weirdest voice I could have imagined coming out of his mouth.

"That's not a color, buddy," I say. "That's many colors."

But he goes back licking his snow globe, and I know he's not going to understand or respond anyway.

Twelve pulls her knees up to her chest and seems to lean a little closer to Hawthorne. And Hawthorne seems to enjoy her closeness, but other than that he seems pretty bored at my attempts at starting up a relationship.

"What are your favorite colors?" I ask harshly.

Hawthorne still doesn't give a response, but Twelve lets out a big sigh and says, "Green, okay?"

"Thank you," I say emphatically. "That wasn't hard was it? I want you to tell me more now. Tell me about yourself."

But she goes back to silence.

I'm getting really frustrated. "You can blatantly lie to me, and I wouldn't know!" I shout. "Tell me that you're thirty-one years old, and you're happily married, and you have three wonderful kids, and that Hawthorne is your sister's boyfriend, and that you enjoy knitting in your spare time! I wouldn't know that you were lying! I would be like, 'Cool. Good for you. You look young for your age.'"

Instead of making her more willing to share, I appear to have pushed her further into her shell. Or, at least, my words have wounded her in some way.

"Please, I just want to spend my indefinite time in this place with people I can say that I cared about," I say. "I just want to know that I knew the people that I travelled and fought with… Please?"

Silence.

But then Twelve says something quietly.

"What was that?" I ask tentatively.

"I'm not married," she says, looking at the opposite wall. Hawthorne goes rigid next to her, and I'm wondering if this is a touchy subject to be journeying into. She clears her throat. "I was engaged, actually. Well, sort of… Not really… It's a long story."

"Then tell me," I say. But then my eyes flit over to Hawthorne, and he actually looks like he's in a serious amount of pain.

She shakes her head bitterly. "London," she insists on still calling me that, "I can't. It's too hard."

I guess I understand. I wonder if her fiancé is dead- or worse, a zombie. That would be hard to get into. But I'm still curious. How could I not be? Honestly, when she first said she was engaged, I was expecting her fiancé to be Hawthorne. I mean, I've seen how much he cares for her and how he acts around her. But the fire that lit up in his eyes when she started talking directly contradicts that.

There is, obviously, a lot of backstory behind these two.

"Okay," I concede. "At least you told me something." I move my gaze the few inches to Hawthorne's face. He's staring with a clenched jaw at the opposite wall. "How about you, Hawthorne. Gonna share anything?"

"Why is it that you care so much?" he asks in a hard voice.

"Because I'm weak!" I blurt before my brain really processes what I'm saying. "I'm the weakest one here! You and Twelve have each other, and you're both obviously very strong, brave people, and Three over here is in his stress-proof bubble all the time, and I'm over here, being emotional and wanting to care! I'm weak!"

No one seems to have a response to that one. Nor do Hawthorne and Three feel more compelled to tell me about their lives.

Three flops back over onto his stomach and holds out his snow globe to me. "You want some?"

"Not in a million years, buddy."

We decide to sleep with Twelve sitting up as watch.

Funnily enough, being in this house makes me feel a lot safer than when we were driving about in the Hummer. I actually fall asleep with a peaceful feeling this time.

I don't know how long I was asleep, but I distantly hear whispering voices as my eyes flicker open. In the firelight, I see that Twelve and Hawthorne have traded watch positions. Hawthorne is sitting up against the wall with Twelve lying on her side, her back against his legs.

I wouldn't have though much of it until I saw tears streaming down Twelve's face.

Hawthorne is running his hand through her hair comfortingly, like he's trying to get her to calm down, but it's obviously not working. "Katniss, it's alright," he says quietly. "You'll be alright."

She lets out a pitiful sob and curls up a little. "But Gale…" she moans. "What about Prim, and Peeta, and my mother, and your family!" And then she starts crying too hard to speak, and Hawthorne scoops her up like she weighs nothing and pulls her into his lap.

"Catnip, it's okay," Hawthorne whispers into her hair. "It's okay…" He can't seem to find much else to say.

"But- but, Gale," she chokes out, "how can it be okay? We've lost everything!"

"We haven't lost everything," he whispers calmly, wrapping his arms tighter around her waist to pull her closer.

"We have!" she sobs. "Our fathers, then the rest of our families, and then our homes!"

"Yeah, but we have each other," he says. "We'll always have each other."

She continues to sob, having no response to that. But, somehow, she seems a little pacified by the fact. And that just confuses me further. Didn't she just tell me that she was engaged to someone else? Why would she be clinging to Hawthorne here? Why would she find so much solace in the fact that she has him when she's lost everything else?

There's much more to this story than I know.

Hawthorne holds Twelve in his arms until she's silent. Even then, he's reluctant when lowers her to the ground next to him. He presses one last kiss to her temple and then sits back up.

That's when I choose to make it known that I was watching. I sit up, startling him, and he silently raises an eyebrow to ask me why I'm up.

Somehow I summon the courage to do something stupid. My right hand goes to my left ring finger, touching an invisible ring. I raise an eyebrow back.

Instead of anger, I see a deep, sharp-edged pain on Hawthorne's face. He sets his jaw and looks away from me, staring once again at the opposite wall.

I quickly determine that my companions have been through something more complicated than I've been imagining.

When I next open my eyes, it's light outside and Hawthorne is still on watch. Twelve is currently nowhere to be seen, but Hawthorne doesn't seem at all bothered, so she must be safe wherever she is.

Before I can ask, Twelve slips back into the room, shutting the door silently behind her.

"Did you know there's a massive garage out back with all these cars in in?" she asks. "I passed a large window on my way to the bathroom, and I saw it. There must be at least five cars in there."

"Really?" Hawthorne asks disbelievingly.

She nods. "I bet we can find one that will fit all of us and our stuff."

"Wicked," I say loudly. Hawthorne and Twelve both give me a weird look, so obviously they don't use wicked that way around here. "It's slang. For awesome. Or good."

"Whatever," Hawthorne mutters.

I stand up and kick Three in the ribs because he's still sprawled out on the rug. At first he doesn't even stir, but, like a delayed reaction, he jerks like he's having a seizure and forces himself into a sitting position. There's a strange drool-track down the side of his face that's covered in glitter, which looks really odd, and I can't help but laugh.

"We're leaving," I tell him. He nods distantly.

Twelve and Hawthorne walk over to the bags of food that we've amassed. Hawthorne, I swear, picks up about half of them without even exerting himself. Dang, he must be strong. I can barely handle the five that Twelve ends up handing me.

"Keep your weapons close," Hawthorne says as he kicks the back door open.

But thankfully, the land is strangely silent around the massive house. No zombies try to attack as we stumble across the backyard to the car port. That's a good change of pace- we actually got somewhere without running and screaming.

As it turns out, the garage actually houses six cars. Some of them are the most ridiculous looking things I've ever laid eyes on in my life. Hawthorne and Twelve mutter something like, "Capitol idiots…"

But then, finally, we find a six-seater Cadillac.

"Perfect," Twelve says.

In less than a minute, we've all piled our meager lives back into a car, and Three has settled into another snow globe. Home sweet home.

A/N: As always, let us know what you think! Hopefully you enjoyed :D