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

37 - The Real Deal

It was just before one am when we reached the building to my ground floor apartment.

"This is me," I said unnecessarily, knowing that Draco must have had some idea given that my invite had been sent directly to this address.

A silence followed, as though Draco were waiting for me to say something further.

"Alia, you've just spent the last half an hour telling me about our little girl," Draco said, placing his hands on his hips as the tip of his tongue swept across his lips, subconsciously moistening them. "Aren't you at least going to invite me in to meet her?"

"The thing is, she's not inside," I confessed, "I had no idea how long I was going to be tonight so I dropped Lulu off at the nanny's house for the night. Besides, she should be fast asleep by now."

The flash of disappointment on his face was quickly replaced by a smile twitching at his lips. "Lulu? That's what you call our daughter?"

I found myself blushing, suddenly feeling ridiculously embarrassed. "The first time I used it I was just being silly, but it made her laugh so much that it just sort of stuck. Besides, it's easier in a way, than calling her Luna."

Straight away, I felt that awful familiar ache at the mere mention of my beautiful friend's name.

Clocking this, Draco's face immediately fell, the concern in his eyes evident. "I'm so sorry for everything you lost, Alia. Sorry that it was at the hands of my father."

"Don't-" I choked, not being able to bear his pity. "You don't need to apologise for him, not when he wasn't sorry himself."

He reached out a hand and delicately brushed his fingers against my knuckles. "I'm nothing like him, please know that."

"Of course I know."

The warm smile that had begun to twitch at Draco's lips faltered and fell. "But our daughter, she's going to wake up on Christmas morning without you."

"I had no choice if I wanted to attend your surprise. Besides," I added, beckoning across the street to the townhouse where Magda conveniently lived with her husband, Nick. "She's only across the road, I can be with her first thing."

Draco whirled around and looked up at it yearningly. I could see the bob of his throat as he swallowed. "She's in there? My little girl?"

"Yes," I smiled, my heart giving a flutter at the love Draco clearly already had for her.

"Can I- can I stay?" He asked tentatively, almost shyly. "I'd like to be here when she comes home."

Home. He hadn't even stepped inside and he was already calling it that. Not that I minded. I didn't mind at all, in fact.

"Of course."

Turning towards the front door, I retrieved my apartment keys out of my pocket, silently cursing as they jangled in my trembling fingers.

A hand closed firmly over them, stilling the tremble. "Let me," Draco murmured as he stood so close behind me, his breath tickling the top of my ear and sending shivers down my spine.

Instead of taking my keys, however, he removed his wand from inside his overcoat, pointing it directly at the Yale lock on my door so that it simply clicked open.