The Hunger Games: Heirs

Chapter Seven

Maya hangs up the phone quickly, she needs to hold Logan since Gale is failing to comfort her. It's hard to remain composure when a man you've never seen before, even if it's your father, is holding you so that you can see your own mother so vulnerable without you.

"Annie a traitor?" Katniss asks Peeta, alarmed by the sudden disconnection, "Not a chance. She's the sweetest human being I've ever met, except for you or Prim." Somehow Peeta knows that she isn't talking about Prim Mellark. While the little girl is sweet, she can in no way replace Primrose Everdeen's integral abilities.

"Whatever, we're supposed to go to her holiday party in a few days, so we can just ask her about Maya then." replies Peeta. Somehow, it doesn't seem fair to indulge Annie in such an interrogatory manner, not during the holidays or when she is so vulnerable on her own, which is constant. But Katniss keeps her thoughts to herself, and eats her waffles in silence. Finnick and Primrose have gone back to Hogwarts, so they have a lot of time to kill.

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"Who can tell me about the 74th Hunger Games?" screeches Professor McGonagall, her voice shrill as ever, "Mr. Mellark! Please educate us. I'm sure you have knowledge of such events." Professor McGonagall has little knowledge of the Hunger Games herself and has been looking forward to this day in, well, a moderate measure. Everyone knows how Finnick tends to stretch things a little.

"My parents were in it! And they won!"

"Yes, Mr. Mellark, but do you know how they won?" Professor McGonagall is genuinely interested and it seems wrong to press him, but the whole story is so riveting that she just can't help herself. Finnick goes quiet, his usual bubbly nature deflated.

"They had to- they had to kill people."

"Details, Mr. Mellark. I'm getting impatient."

Finnick sighs and continues, "My mommy had to kill District 1, and Cato from 2, and the girl from District 4. My daddy killed the girls from Districts 8 and 5. That's all. Cato and the girls from Districts 1 and 4 weren't nice. There were swarming bees and angry dogs." The class laughs, because swarming bees and angry dogs don't sound fatal, but they don't know the nature of mutts. Professor McGonagall gasps, and says in a hushed voice, addressing Finnick by his name this time, definitely a sign of her current lack of professionalism based on shock and also, fear, "Finnick- Finnick, dear, please follow me." He obliges, and is taken into a room where Professor Charlie Weasley eats his lunch quietly. Professor McGonagall sits down, her face pale. "Finnick, please tell Professor Weasley exactly what you told me." He gulps and tells him about how his parents survived the Games, and when he is finished, Charlie's face is as white as McGonagall's.

"Did they- did they call the girl from District Five..." He barely manages to choke out the word, "Foxface?" Finnick nods, terrified at the sight of both teachers' tortured faces. "Finnick," he continues, "I'm so happy for your parents. I really am. You are excused. Please go back to History of Magic. Professor McGonagall will follow you." Charlie is distraught. He is a young man, maybe thirty or so, but there are already gray streaks forming in his red hair, which happens to be the same exact shade of red as Foxface. The original Professor McGonagall is long since passed away, replaced by this wisp of a teacher, a young, fragile thing with a passion for history. Rosalite McGonagall. She asks Charlie if he knew "Foxface", whereupon he informs her that her real name was Finch Crossly. He says that she was his cousin on his mother's side. Rosalite gasps at everything he says, including that from the moment she was killed with nightlock, he wanted Peeta Mellark dead.

Professor McGonagall suggests something. "Perhaps so you don't-er, feel inclined to inflict unjust punishment on the Mellark children, we could have them, so to speak, politely and indefinitely suspended from Hogwarts education, for, ahem, personal reasons." Charlie nods.

"Please write the Mellark family letters, and drop them by my desk for review before you owl them. And his sister, too."