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

36 - Every Last Breath

When Lucius drew his last breath, it felt as though Draco was breathing his first.

Okay, he knew that was perhaps a tad dramatic, but all the same, he'd been waiting for this moment for what seemed like an eternity.

He could have, of course, killed his father. Everyday Lucius was alive was another day he was robbed of being with Alia and their daughter. But the truth was, Draco was not a killer. And he knew he would not have it in him, knew he would never be able to be any kind of father if he was.

So, everyday he kept on silently praying that the tumour would take care of it.

And then finally, when it was clear only the machines were keeping him alive, Snape offered to get the legal documentation to turn off his life support.

Draco was not only finally getting his wish, but he could go on in life with his soul intact. Just like his mother would have wanted for him.

He had been terrified that Alia wasn't going to show, that in the eighteen months gone by, believing he was dead, she would have moved on.

But there she was, looking more beautiful and radiant than he had ever remembered. And her hair. So red and on fire. Despite everything, it had made him smile: subtly on the outside, but on the inside, he had beamed a smile so bright, it had warmed him right down to his soul.

Because it had told him that she had not completely given up, that there was still that fight in her which he had admired so much before the games destroyed her and everyone else in that fucking nightmare which his father had created.

Draco hadn't found out about the baby until the day she was born, when Snape had taken him aside to quietly inform him he was a father ("During the final game, the scanners detected that Alia Patil was in the very early stages of pregnancy. Thanks to your father's many, many monitors, and the fact that our scanners detected no pregnancy upon her entry, it didn't take an episode of Jerry Springer to work out who the father was.").

The news at first wrenched his heart out, and he experienced an immense feeling of guilt at the thought of Alia having to go through all of that without him. But then the more he thought about it, the more he decided it was a good thing, because it meant that Alia hadn't been left entirely alone.

And it gave him even more of a reason to free himself from his father's dangerous clutches.

So, from the day his daughter was born, Draco vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to protect them. And that meant not giving Lucius any reason to sink his vicious claws into them.

It intrigued Draco that his father never spoke of his granddaughter. Yet he had made sure Alia had walked away with plenty of riches. That would suggest that maybe he had a tiny amount of warmth somewhere in his cold heart.

Although Draco knew it was more to do with blood. Lucius had often gone on and on about the importance of Malfoy blood, and how it was deeply embedded in those who had it flowing through their veins to protect it.

Maybe that was different to love? Because Lucius certainly did not love him.

Malfoy blood or not, his father was nothing but a monster, and Draco would do anything in his power to ensure that his daughter and brother would never be touched by his evil heart. He would protect them with his every last breath.

And now here he was, at the very top of the highest tower in London, reunited with the woman he loved, and, at last, his father dead and gone.

Draco could have wept with relief. His patience had well and truly paid off.