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.

"Fucking- pussy-" Lucius wheezed, malice in his eyes as he glowered up at his son, "fucking-"

A loud, startled gasp of pain issued from the dying man as Draco let go of the mask and allowed it to snap sharply back down upon his face.

"I, for one, will not be sorry to see him go." Draco muttered, dusting off his hands as he glared down at the white haired monster. "This scum has been clinging onto the mortal coil for far too long now. A brain tumour, they said. Told him three years ago that he had only three months left to live. What a fucking joke. He should not be allowed to live when my mother is dead."

He glanced up at the portrait of Narcissa Malfoy, a wistful look flitting across his face. "I put it there to punish him. So he could be reminded of the woman he betrayed in his last moments of life. Serves the fucker right."

I swallowed, following his gaze. His mother was indeed a beautiful woman: too beautiful for a beast like Lucius. For a moment we were quiet: the three Malfoy's and myself in an empty office floor overlooking London, just the steady beeps and whirrs of the machines filling the silence.

"He's a parasite," Draco murmured, still staring at his mother who was smiling at him warmly through the portrait. "He destroys everything he touches. Including my mother... including me. I couldn't let him do that to you, too. So, I've been waiting."

"Draco," I whispered, finally finding my voice again, "why didn't you say anything? If you knew the whole time, then why didn't you-"

"Alia, you need to trust me," Draco said vehemently, tearing his eyes away from his mother to stare solemnly into my eyes. "Everything I have done in the last eighteen months, I have done for you."

The forcefulness of his speech stunned me. Once again, I swallowed, trying to ignore the race of my heart beneath my chest.

"How can I know?" I whispered, not sure if I was terrified or simply in shock, "how can I believe-?"

"Because, Alia, I would die for you then, and I would die for you now. That doesn't mean I expect you to owe me anything. But I am asking you to believe this one thing." He took a step closer to me, taking my trembling hands in his own, the feel of his fingers entwining against my own filling me with a warmth I hadn't felt in a long time. "I never stopped thinking about you, not once."

The ping of the elevator made me jump. Quickly - almost guiltily - I let my hands fall away from Draco's as I whirled around, my heart in my throat.

Out into the room, stepped a figure dressed all in black, his face hidden behind a very familiar mask. I felt my insides turn to liquid as I took a frightened step back.

It was the front man.

"Alia," Draco said, reaching out to touch a hand to my lower back. "It's okay. You have nothing to be afraid of anymore."

But how could he say that? I'd spent an entire eighteen months believing Draco to be dead, amongst everyone else I'd lost, trying to reach some sort of peace for the sake of her.

But if that was a lie, then what else was? And how much could I trust Draco? Because in all honesty, even though I fell in love with him, I did not really know him.

"Mission completed, sir," the front man stated, sweeping across the room and presenting Draco with a large, official looking envelope. "It's all here."

My eyes widened as I stared at Draco. Sir?

"Thank you," Draco nodded,

He expertly sliced it open with a single finger, pulling out a wad of paperwork which he unfolded and regarded with a quick sweep of his eyes, his face giving away nothing as he swiftly replaced the contents back inside the A4 envelope and stowed it away in the inside of his suit jacket.

"It's time," the front man said, pulling back the black sleeve of his cloak to check his watch.

Time for fucking what?!

I stared at Draco questioningly.

"Alia, my father is about to die. He is being kept alive solely by the machines, and it is now time to turn them off. The documentation in the envelope my good friend here just brought to me tonight is giving him the legal permission to do so. And, when it is over, he will help me locate my long lost brother and also your parents. I will completely understand if, after tonight, you don't want to have anything to do with me ever again. It's your choice. I'll still make sure you get news of your parents whereabouts. As I said, you owe me nothing."

"You're going to look for Nico's son?" I breathed, my heart fluttering in my chest with both pain and relief.

Draco looked to the front man and gave a curt nod of his head.

Slowly, the front man lifted his mask from his face, revealing a man with beady black eyes, a hooked nosed and greasy black hair.

My hand flew to my mouth. "Snape?!"

"Professor Snape," he drawled lazily as his lip gave a disdainful curl. "And there will be time to answer questions later. But for now, it is time to say goodbye. And, against all my advice, it has been Draco's wish to have you present for the event. You see, part of the deal of your continued survival was that it was imperative that you believed Draco to be dead."

I saw Draco flinch out of the corner of my eye. "I was desperate to let you know I was okay. But my father... he's a very dangerous man - not that you need me to tell you that. So, I stayed away, and instead nursed my father, wanting him to believe my loyalty remained with him so that he would have no reason to go after you."

I looked back at Draco, dumbfounded. It was all so much to take in.

Snape issued a loud cough, motioning me pointedly aside so he could get to Lucius. Still in shock, I just stared at him. Draco grabbed my arm and gently pulled me away, leading me a respectable distance from the hospital bed where Snape was beginning to roll up his sleeves.

In the background, I could hear the sound of Big Ben beginning to chime in Christmas Day.

"I'm sorry to spring all of this on you like this," Draco murmured in my ear as we watched Snape begin to switch off the machines keeping Lucius alive. "But you must know, I'm doing this for us and our family. It's always been about us."

I lifted my head, blinking up at him.

"Us?"

Draco stared down at me, his silver eyes more familiar to me than ever. Because they were the exact replica of the eyes of which had been looking adoringly into mine for the past nine months.

"Yes," he murmured, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. "You have both been worth the wait."

There was a deathly silence as Snape switched off the last machine. In the background, Big Ben rang its twelfth and final bell.

"Merry Christmas, my love," Draco whispered quietly as he slipped his hand around mine, gently squeezing my fingers.

Together, we watched as Snape lifted Lucius's wrist, checking for a pulse.

"Time of death, zero hundred hours, December, twenty-fifth, two thousand and three."

A strange sensation came over me as I squeezed Draco's hand back. And I looked back up into his eyes - her eyes.

She was the very reason I had been saved, of course. I realised this the moment Draco told me that Lucius valued his blood over everything else. That day, during the final game, as I was dragged away from Draco, he had somehow known.

Because it wasn't me Lucius had been saving at all.

It was the tiny person I had been carrying, unbeknownst to me at the time. His grandchild.

Luna Parvati Malfoy. My darling little girl.

******