To the Death
Sorry the last one was so short! This one's going to be a lot longer though. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Hermione's POV:
HERMIONE'S POV:
I had fallen asleep about 10 minutes in. I don't know how I managed to sleep, though. The train was so bumpy and loud, it felt as if it was about to fall off the tracks. I slept through literally the entire time we were on the train. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but when I sleep in, I tend to sleep for about 20 hours. I've asked a doctor about it, but they didn't diagnose anything, they just gave me some thyroid medicine and sent me out the door.
There was something about the bumpiness of the train that brought a bit of comfort. I don't know what it was, but it put me to sleep immediately. It's funny how I could sleep, given the circumstances.
I was awoken by someone gently shaking my shoulders. I was immediately reminded of this morning when Ron had done the exact same thing. I opened my eyes slowly, expecting to see Ron hovering above me, that lopsided grin on his face.
My heart gave a drop of disappointment as reality hit me in the face- or chest to be exact. Dean hovered above me, a small smile on his face. Ignoring the pain in my heart, I smiled back. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, looking out the window.
I didn't see the beautiful Scottish countryside that I had fallen asleep to. I saw several tall, white buildings all surrounding a giant arena in the middle of the city. No, giant is an understatement. I can't even describe how big it was. It was like if you took the Empire State Building and the Eifle Tower and laid them down, one in front of the other.
I immediately assumed that this was the Arena. This was where I was going to die.
"I'm sorry." I heard Dean say from behind me. I turned to him, my brow furrowed in confusion. "I'm sorry for whatever's going to happen. I'm sorry that I have to kill you."
He spoke as if we were talking about the weather. I'm sorry that I have to kill you? What? What made him think that he was going to win this? I stared at him with confusion and slight anger.
"Well, what makes you think you're going to kill me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows, daring him to answer. He laughed.
He counted off on his fingers. "I'm stronger than you, I have a higher tolerance level for pain, and I don't think you'll actually fight me." Whoa. Where did this come from? This was Dean Thomas. Someone I had grown up with. Someone who had very sweetly woken me up not two minutes before.
I laughed and stood up, stepping closer to him. "Okay, no." I began to count off on my fingers. "One, I have more muscle than you, everyone here does." He laughed and looked around. I stepped closer to him, causing him to step back. "Two, have you ever been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange without passing out? I think that tells you how high my tolerance level for pain is." I continued to step, causing him to walk backwards. "Three, I'm intimidating you right now just by stepping in your direction, and you're the one not fighting."
Before he could say anything, we were pushed out of the train by the guards. The minute I stepped out of the train, I was greeted by a giant crowd of people screaming at me. The guard that had me was shoving me roughly through the crowd of people. Several of them were spitting at me, others were trying to hit me. All of them were screaming highly offensive things at me.
Things like: "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, MUDBLOOD!" and "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" Some of them even screamed at me by name. I walked through the crowd with my head held high, my eyes closed, ignoring all of their comments. When I did open my eyes, I saw something that absolutely killed me. There was a crowd of children about twelve years old. They were all holding signs with a moving picture of me. The picture was me being stabbed through the throat repeatedly and my body being thrown into fire.
I burst into tears immediately. I've never seen anything so horrible in my life. It absolutely killed me that CHILDREN were holding these signs, several of them yelling things that I didn't even know the meaning of when I was twelve. The children were grabbing at my ankles and screaming. One man threw a glass beer bottle at me, hitting me in the eye and shattering. Pain erupted in the side of my head. I could feel blood begin to seep out of the area I was hit at.
"YOU'RE TRASH!" He screamed as it hit me in the eye.
Tears streaming down my face, I focused on the building in front of me. I suddenly noticed a bewitched camera swing around in front of me, filming the crowd, filming the tributes, filming me. No! Ron couldn't see any of this! This would kill him! It went away from me immediately, as if it heard my thoughts.
We finally left the crowd of violent citizens and walked into the building. My eye was swelling shut as the doors closed, the screams of the horrible citizens silenced. I looked ahead to see a woman about 40 walking toward us, a small smile on her face.
"Hello, mudbloods." She said in a condescending voice that made me want to choke her. "My name is Elise. Welcome to training." She began to pace in front of us, much like an army general. She shook my hand, immediately drawing it back with a look of disgust. She pulled out her white handkerchief and wiped her hand off.
I scoffed. "Classy." She ignored me and continued talking.
"You will be here for the next twelve hours to be trained to fight to the death." She turned and looked at us head on. "You will have a trainer that will teach you how to kill, how to make your victim suffer, and most importantly how to survive. We have one trainer for each of you. They have already picked who they wish to work with."
She motioned for us to follow her. We followed her into the next room. I was immediately overwhelmed by everything in there.
The room was filled with targets shaped like people. There were four men throwing knives and five men shooting a bow and arrow. Me being me, I immediately thought How sexist. It's silly that I was immediately pissed off that there were no female trainers, but I was genuinely pissed.
Elise introduced us to each of the men. A very handsome blonde man walked over to us. "This is Branislav. He specializes in bow and arrow shooting." He nodded and smiled. "He has chosen to work with Penelope Clearwater." Penelope stepped forward and Branislav took her to his station.
We moved on. A man no older than 23 walked over to us and shook each of our hands without acting disgusted with us. "This is Kaleb. He also specializes in bow and arrow shooting. He has chosen to work with Dean Thomas." Dean stepped forward.
I was the last one to be introduced to a trainer. Elise led me to a very tall and muscular man with a buzz cut. He turned to face me and his eyes immediately lit up with happiness. He took my hand and kissed it. He seemed to recognize me… I felt like I knew him before. Elise began to speak to me.
"This is Viktor Krum."