Draco gave me the stink eye as he emerged from the bathroom half an hour later.

I defiantly stared back at him as I finished the rest of my milk, wiping the residue off my upper lip with the back of my hand.

"Why is Draco Malfoy looking at you like that?" Luna asked, causing Nico to snicker quietly as he peeled his egg.

"He wants to team up but I turned him down," I muttered, picking at my own egg.

"Really?" Luna said, looking astonished. "But it might not be a bad idea to have someone like him on side. He appears to have a lot of influence-"

"If I'm going to side with anyone, then it's with you." I said fiercely, turning away from Draco to give her my full attention. "Although, seriously - what on earth possessed you to go for the most complicated wire maze? You knew exactly what it was we were going in for."

Luna gave a serene smile. "The others looked so boring. Where was the challenge in that?"

"Luna," I said, pressing my fingers against my temple in exasperation, "is trying not to die not challenging enough for you? You need to do everything you can to protect yourself in here."

"That's what you were doing last night, was it?" Nico smirked, giving me a knowing look. "Protecting yourself?"

"I was simply enjoying the generous spread which was offered." I answered lightly. "Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

Luna looked between the two of us, confused. "Well, I suppose it's not everyday you get tiny sausages on sticks."

Yeah. Except I had the jumbo variety.

All too soon it was time to go to the game hall. Everyone trudged silently through the corridors, sick to the stomach from wondering if any of us would actually make it out alive.

"Welcome to your third game," spoke the cheery woman's voice over the tannoy as we entered a large white room. "This game will be played as a team. All players, please divide into teams of ten. You have ten minutes, ten minutes."

"Men. I just want men on my team." Harry said, clinging his hands to his head as he span around on the spot in a panic, only stopping when his eyes landed on Nico. "You - you can join me!"

"You choose me, you choose Ali." Nico said, stony faced as he took a step closer to me.

Harry's mouth fell open as he looked at me, and then at Luna, whose trembling hand I was clasping tightly.

"No. Women are weak. I want to be in a men only team. This are our lives we are betting on!"

Behind him, Hermione gave a loud scoff as Ron curled an arm protectively around her shoulders.

"Then you count me out, too, mate," he muttered darkly. "You take me, you take my wife."

"We can team up," I suggested, smiling kindly at Ron and Hermione. "Padma and Parvati will also join. And with Luna and Nico, we will only need to find three others."

Ron visibly paled, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed.

"I- uh- I don't-"

"I'll have you, Patil."

Letting go of Luna's hand, I whipped around to see Draco approaching, an entourage of eight burly men following behind him.

"What the fuck dude?" Crabbe hissed. "She's a girl."

I made a show of looking down at my chest in mock surprise and letting out an exaggerated gasp. "Really? I wondered what these were about!"

Draco's lips twitched up in amusement. "It wouldn't hurt to have someone else with intelligence on our team. We have enough muscles. So, what do you say, Alia? Fancy being our tenth member?"

"Sorry," I said, motioning to my friends. "But I'm already in a team."

Draco drew to a halt, his face visibly flinching as his eyes slid over Luna, Nico and my sisters.

"You should go with them, Alia," Luna said, gently touching my arm. "It doesn't look as though anyone wants to join up with a team like ours."

"Woo hoo hoo!" Draco cruelly taunted as his burly teammates snickered behind him. "So Loony finally speaks sense."

I felt a flash of anger. Did the jumped up ferret seriously think that this was the way to recruit me?

"Just fuck off and find yourself another meathead." I snarled, stepping over to him to push my face right up in his.

I saw the flicker in his eyes, his nostrils flaring. Without warning, he shot a hand out and grabbed my arm, dragging me aside.

"Are you fucking nuts?" He hissed, lowering his voice. "You're going to get yourself killed. You know men are more likely to win these games, I'm not being sexist, just speaking facts. Come to my team and I promise you, you'll be safe."

"What makes you so sure this game requires strength?" I asked, yanking my arm free from his grip. "Honest to Merlin, Malfoy, if it's brains for this game needed, then I'm afraid I don't reckon your chances."

"Which is why you and I make sense on this team. We are the brains. Come on, Alia. Join me."

"Oh, please." I said, giving a scornful bark of laughter. "You only want me on your team in the hope that we can hook up again later."

"So? Is that a bad thing? I enjoyed last night, and don't pretend you didn't. Yes, I want to hook up with you again. Fuck, if we were in the outside world I'd be doing it properly and asking you out on a date. But seeing as this is all we've got in here, then I'll take it."

"In the outside world I live in the fucking sewers, Malfoy. So I doubt a pretentious little prince like yourself would look twice at me through fear of contamination."

His eyes flashed angrily. "Stop presuming you fucking know me. You have no idea what brought me to this place. You seriously think you're the only hard up one here? Use that Ravenclaw brain of yours. We've all got fucking disastrous lives, otherwise do you really think we'd be here in the first place?"

"Players, you have five minutes left to divide yourselves into teams of ten people. Five minutes."

Draco and I stared at one another, breathing heavily. I saw a look of desperation flicker in his eyes.

"I need to go and make my team," I said slowly.

"Alia... please-"

"Boss! We've got our tenth recruit," Goyle bellowed loudly from across the room. He pushed Cedric Diggory forward, the defeated Hufflepuff's eyes barely lifting from the ground. "Let the girl alone. There'll be plenty enough pussy when we leave with that prize money."

"Off you go, then," I drawled in Draco's ear. "You wouldn't want to keep your minions waiting."

He grabbed my arm before I could turn to walk off. An act that was becoming very familiar.

"Please, Alia," he growled, his jaw set firmly, "make sure you get men. You won't make this out alive, otherwise."

I narrowed my eyes up at him. He knew something. He knew something and he wasn't telling me what.

"Fine," I muttered, once again shrugging him off. "Whatever you say... boss."

In my brief absence, however, it seemed my sisters and Luna had already got a team together.

"We're just needing one more," Parvati said as I looked with unease at our lineup.

Luna stood beaming next to Padma and Parvati, and behind them were Harry (who had clearly come crawling back), Nico, Ron, Hermione and Katie Bell.

I looked around, trying to stem the panic that was beginning to tighten in my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Man, man... we needed a man.

"Well, isn't this a merry coincidence!" Dumbledore chortled cheerily as he slowly limped towards us, the effort making him cough and splutter. "I need a team, and you need one more."

Oh, for fuck's sake. If it was strength we were relying on, then we were screwed.

*****

We were screwed.

"Tug-of-War?!"

Oh no, oh no. Oh fuck no.

"It'll be fine!" Dumbledore hummed happily as we all gulped up at the two towering platforms standing hundreds of feet above the ground.

Draco's team went first, competing against a Hufflepuff only gang, led by Ernie McMillan. Their team had three girls.

I mean, I didn't have to be a betting expert to know who would be walking away from this.

It was disgusting. We all closed our eyes and flinched in horror as ten bodies went splat on the ground.

"So, Malfoy finally knows what it is to kill someone, huh?" Harry muttered in front of me.

I resisted the urge to make some comment about Voldemort, feeling the timing wasn't quite appropriate.

"In fairness, it's kill or be killed," I said stiffly, the words coming out of my mouth sounding colder than I'd intended.

We were up next, and to my horror (but mostly Ron's), the players on our opposing team consisted of Bill, Fred and George Weasley, Lee Jordan, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, two older Slytherin boys (whose names I did not know), Pete Parker - a buff Ravenclaw from the year below me, and a terrified looking Hufflepuff boy fresh out of Hogwarts who had peed the front of his joggers.

As we rode up in the elevator together, Bill, Fred and George smiled grimly at their little brother.

"It's fine, Ronnikins," Fred said, clearly trying to sound jovial but his voice coming out tight. "If you kill us, we'll make sure we won't haunt you in the shower."

"Yeah," George added, chuckling sadly. "On the condition you take over the shop for us. The world still needs laughter, right?"

"Don't-" Ron choked, holding back a sob. "Mum... it'll kill her."

I watched as Hermione instantly threw her arms around him, his entire body shaking violently against hers as he broke down in sobs.

"Hey, little bro," Bill said softly, kindly reaching out a trembling hand to touch his shoulder. "Promise me you'll see that Fleur and Victoire get looked after. Please."

Everyone in the elevator looked up sharply. It sounded as though they were going to throw the game. A fact which was clearly picked up on by Alicia and Angelina.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" Alicia screamed, her eyes wide with terror. "Surely you don't expect us to just let them win?! I have a six month old baby at home waiting for me!"

Harry turned to glare at her. "Then why the fuck did you come here? Is money really that important?! Kids need their mothers!"

"AND WHAT ABOUT THEIR FATHERS?!" Pete Parker bellowed, his face positively green. "MY LITTLE GIRL WILL HAVE NOBODY IF I DON'T RETURN TO HER. NOBODY!"

I swallowed, recalling he had had a child with a Hufflepuff called Mary-Jane. An unfortunate who was electrocuted in the last round.

When we got to the top and all arrived on the same platform, we realised we should have gone up in separate elevators.

"Well..." Fred coughed. "This is embarrassing."

We had to wait for them to go back down and catch the elevator on the other side. In the meantime, as we positioned ourselves on the platform, the guards handcuffing us to the large rope, Dumbledore was giving us some advice on Tug-of-War tactics which Harry kept tutting loudly over and dramatically rolling his eyes.

"I've done my share of Tug-of-War in my hometown when I was young," Dumbledore chortled in his gravelly voice, "and I rarely ever lost."

"You're barely standing, old man," Harry snarled. "Stop talking nonsense and save your strength."

"For the first ten seconds, lie back and push your lower abdomen to the sky," Dumbledore continued, ignoring his former favourite pupil, "and bend your head way back so that you almost see the groin of the person behind you."

"Ugh, pervert," Harry muttered in front of me, shaking his head as he lifted the rope.

"Shut up!" I hissed angrily. "He's trying to save our backsides here."

"More like trying to kill my remaining brothers!" Ron bellowed behind me, his voice choking on the last word.

"If you hold out for that long," Dumbledore continued gaily as though no one had said anything, "there will come a moment when the opponents' rhythm slips. And that's when you pull."

It was at this point when Bill and the rest of the team appeared on the opposing platform, the pink guards swiftly handcuffing them to the other end of the rope.

So, this was it. Either we die or we kill them.

All our eyes met. Our breaths were held.

"Three... two... one... and pull!"

Dumbledore's words must have had some effect because we all leaned back, doing exactly what he'd instructed. Including Ron, who did not want to kill his brothers, but even less wanted to kill his wife.

I could hear Hermione sobbing hysterically as the rope burned our hands, each one of us trying to pull it back for literal life.

"PULL HARDER!" Harry bellowed after ten seconds.

And we did. Bill and the others were taken by surprise, stumbling forwards so that they nearly teetered over the edge.

Managing to steady himself, Bill stared across at us, the entire arena seeming to still, his eyes focusing on Ron, his little brother who was weeping uncontrollably.

Behind Bill, Alicia and Angelina were screaming and crying, begging him to pull back.

In that split second of hesitation, I felt Harry yank the rope.

"PULL!" He yelled, his face looking thunderously back at us, red and sweaty with effort. "PULL!"

But none of us did, our hands slackening on the rope, frozen in the horror of what would happen if we did.

However, Dumbledore at the back had no qualms, and he gave a furious yank, making us all stumble backwards in surprise.

I watched in horror as one by one, Bill, Fred, George, Lee, Alicia, Angelina, Pete and the three others went toppling over the edge, all swinging like rag dolls against the rope which had let them down. Literally.

The force of their drop made our team lurch forwards, causing us to stumble dangerously close to the edge. Just as I was sure we were about to go over too, the sword situated above the centre of the rope went down, cutting them free. Cutting us free.

No. No, no, no, no.

I fell backwards, staring up towards the ceiling as the screams and splatter of bodies assaulted my ears, each thud feeling like a vicious and violent punch to the gut.

"NO!" Ron cried, sobbing hysterically, his cries somehow more disturbing than the sound of his brothers going splat violently into the ground. "PLEASE MERLIN, NO!"

I could scarcely breathe, scarcely able to take in the horror of what we'd just done.

I wished in that moment that I had too went splat. I envied the dead. I envied them so fucking much.

*****