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

35 - The Orchestrator

Machines began to beep and flash as Lucius spluttered and choked. Without hesitation, Draco swept across the room towards us, and I quickly hopped aside as he leant over his father and replaced the oxygen mask over his face. Within seconds, Lucius's breathing normalised, with Draco checking the machines' readings, satisfied that all was well.

I was speechless. All I could do was stand there and gape, a million more questions invading my mind all at once.

"Draco?" I eventually spoke, my voice an incredulous whisper. "What the actual fuck is going on here?"

He glanced up, his eyebrows lifting ever so slightly as he stared at me: silver eyes burning intensely into mine and making me quite forget how to breathe.

"I invited you here tonight, Alia," he eventually spoke in a soft drawl, "because I wanted to give you a gift. A gift much better than my father's."

"What-" I whispered, pausing to sweep my tongue across my suddenly dry lips, "-what gift?"

Draco did not answer at first, and instead lifted up Lucius's wrist to seemingly check his pulse. Placing it back down, he slowly turned to face me, giving me his full attention.

He looked good, I couldn't help but notice, a lot healthier than he had done in that warehouse. He had colour in his cheeks and a sharper, more defined jaw line.

Yet his eyes... they still seemed devoid of something: lost, even.

"It is the gift," he murmured, lowering his voice as he took a step closer to me, close enough for me to catch the faint scent of expensive cologne, "of watching the monster who stole everything from you take his final breath."

A beat as I took in his words.

Okay, so he invited me here to watch yet another person die? This dude seriously needed to work on his gift giving skills.

"But I don't understand," I said, still trying to get my head around this new turn of events. "You- you died. You were killed."

Amused, Draco threw back his head and gave a throaty chuckle. "My father may be a monster, but he still considers himself to be a family man. He had me pulled out at the last minute before I could make the ultimate sacrifice."

My mind was going crazy, filling with all sorts of conflicting emotions, unable to get my thought process straight.

"But why- why save me too?" I spluttered, my shock rendering me stupid. "I surrendered."

"Come on, Alia." Draco drawled, the ghost of a smile twitching at his lips as his gaze remained fixed on mine. "I think you know the answer to that."

I did. And, as a knowing glint flickered in Draco's eyes, I could feel the uneasy race of my heart and the growing ache in my throat.

"If you've been alive all this time, then why didn't you- why haven't I..." I tailed off as my voice began to shake. Rather than feel relieved that he had clearly not died, I was starting to feel angry: humiliated, even. "How come you did not at least say fucking hi?!"

For the first time since he'd revealed himself, I saw a look of regret flit across the Slytherin's face. "To protect you, of course. My father, as you may have gathered, was the orchestrator behind this entire sick circus. It was his fatherly way of turning me into a man... or more like punishing me for begging for my mother's life."

It was at this point when Lucius began to attempt to feebly reach up and pull his oxygen mask off his face, groaning beneath it as he struggled to let himself be heard. Clearly intrigued, Draco deftly reached out and pulled it away from his face, the elastic fastenings straining as he waited for his father to speak.