Hallows Game || HP X Squid Game (Draco Malfoy)

26 - A Boring, Uncomplicated Life

"Tell me about your dreams."

The white-blond haired Slytherin frowns at the question, the cigarette stilling at his lips. "What sort of question is that?"

"An important one. If you don't have dreams, then what is the point?"

He swallows, lowering the cigarette as his silver eyes search mine, carefully considering my question. I look away, disconcerted by the intensity of his gaze.

"I don't have dreams."

"Of course you do, everyone has them."

"Tell me yours first."

I fidget, the chill of the bathroom floor beneath my backside making me shiver. "Okay, then. I dream of being back home with my parents, sitting around the dinner table on a Sunday night and listening to my sisters argue about who gets the crispiest roast potato as my dad tells a bad joke about being a breast man when my mother offers him a chicken leg."

I fall silent, letting the memory hug me like a warm blanket.

"That's it?"

I shrug, trying to ignore the all consuming sadness that has suddenly overcome me. "It's boring, I know. But to me, times like that were the happiest of my life... I just didn't know it until now."

He's silent, and I'm too afraid to look up at him, embarrassed by the simplicity of my dreams.

"It's not boring," he eventually whispers, reaching out to entwine his fingers with mine. "In fact, I'd go as far to say that it all sounds rather perfect."

Shocked, I dare myself to look up at him, half expecting to see eyes dancing mockingly into mine and a derisive curl of a lip.

To my surprise though, there is none of that - just raw, intense compassion which quite literally takes my breath away.

And I realise, in that moment, that we have more in common then I'd ever dared imagine.

Because we are just two lonely souls, dreaming the same dream.

A boring, uncomplicated life.

*****

"Alia! Come on, please, we need to keep playing!"

I blinked, unable to tear my eyes away from the smashed body of my sister below. Without me realising, Draco had landed behind me on the glass pane and was trying to pull me back up to my feet, his hands grappling under my arms.

"I killed her." I sobbed, my voice unrecognisable as it broke.

"You did not kill her," he said sharply, pulling me tightly into his arms and holding me fiercely against him, the steady thud of his heart against my back bringing me back to my senses, "she was trying to kill you. You acted in self defence."

"He's right," Nico piped up somewhere behind us. "That bitch deserved nothing better. Now let's get on before our time runs out."

I looked up ahead, only two others were in front: Blaise, followed closely by Harry. The large timer against the far end of the arena blinked sinisterly, showing just over three minutes remaining.

"You want me to go first?" Draco murmured softly in my ear, which I immediately shook my head to.

"They'll shoot us if we don't go in order. That much is clear."

He immediately turned me around, clutching the back of my head as he pressed cool lips against my brow. "I'll be right behind you, okay?"

I nodded, the lump in my throat making me unable to speak.

So, pulling myself together, I untangled myself from Draco's arms and hopped across the remaining glass panels, thankful that most of the non-tempered ones had already broken, trying not to think too much about the poor sods who had made that happen.

Draco followed behind, the sound of his feet thudding on the panels behind me making me feel at least reassured.

But it seemed, as I finally caught up with Harry, that Blaise had come to a stand still, crouching down to look carefully at the two glass panels before him.

"C'mon, Blaise," Harry growled impatiently. "What the fuck are you doing? We've got just over two minutes left. Quit staring at the glass like you want to make love to it."

But Blaise did not move, instead remaining in his crouched position as he continued to intently study the glass. "You don't understand. I reckon I know which is the tempered glass and which isn't."

"Oh? How so?"

"I've been working for this factory who get me to temper glass for them, so I'm pretty familiar with this shit."

"And you're telling us this now?!" Harry spluttered, his glasses almost falling off his face in disbelief. "Jeez, Blaise, where's the loyalty? You literally just watched your best mates plummet to their deaths!"

"Mates?" Blaise scoffed, glancing back to look disdainfully at Harry. "Are you having a laugh? Like they wouldn't have hesitated to kill me to save their own pathetic backsides."

"Get the fuck on with it, then," Nico bellowed. "Let's argue about this later, preferably when we're not up against a literal ticking time bomb."

Turning his attention back on the two unbroken panels in front of him, Blaise appeared to make his decision, and jumped to the left.

The three of us let go of our collective held breaths when the glass did not shatter. Relief fluttered in my stomach and, for the first time since this task began, I could see myself actually surviving.

"How the fuck did you do it?" Harry asked as Blaise chose correctly once again.

"It's the way the light refracts off the surface," Blaise boasted, "it's really quite obvious when you know how-"

He was silenced by the lights suddenly going out.

Oh... fuck.

"Idiot." Draco muttered under his breath.

"Look, just guess will you?" Harry said impatiently as the clock dropped to thirty seconds and Blaise refused to budge. "It's just one panel left. You have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving."

"I can't! It's too risky!"

Twenty-five seconds.

"Fucking move, you idiot or we're all going to be killed!" Nico yelled, the panic in his voice now evident.

Twenty seconds.

Yet Blaise did not budge, and all of us continued to yell, driven by pure and utter panic.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Harry muttered before jumping onto Blaise's panel and callously pushed him off the edge.

The echo of Blaise's cry as he went shattering through the glass pane in front of him made my head swim in cold horror.

"Player 407, eliminated."

Ten seconds.

Quick as anything, Harry hopped onto the final tempered glass and made it to the platform. Without another thought other than survival, I hastily followed, gasping in relief as I reached safety, pressing my forehead down against the solid platform.

I barely rolled out of the way in time as Draco fell beside me, collapsing in a heap as he too gasped for breath. Jumping to my feet, I reached down and helped him up, both of us quickly moving out of the way for Nico, who had only just landed on the final stepping stone.

Our eyes locked as I gave him an encouraging nod. He responded with a wink, a small smile twitching at his lips as he crouched, ready to jump towards me...towards safety.

And that was when the explosion happened.

******