Author's Note:

I'm hoping that I start to take up writing as a hobby again. It's been a couple months since I was able to sit down and write something decent. This is a story that I started during my Freshman year of High School. It's Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy. I hope you guys enjoy and don't think too badly of me! :3

Chapter 1: Alone I Break

Theodore Nott hated the silence. Silence was like a poison in his veins. An infection slowly creeping towards his still-beating heart so the coldness could squeeze the life within.

Ever since he was a little kid, the empty sound never sat with him. It was plain torture to the brunette. He remembered times when he would eat dinner alone in the castle-like structure the Nott's called home because his father was too busy with some Deatheater business. He had sat in terror the whole night, his only company being the few house elves that were enslaved to their family, along with the few dead spiders that resided in the corners of the room. That wasn't the only time he was left at home during the course of his childhood.

Growing up without a mother had been, the least he could say, difficult. Meredith Nott had died five years after he was born. His family and friends had told him that she had died of a rare disease. The last years of the young woman's life, some said, were the worst for her. She was banned from setting eyes on the son she had given birth to from her unforgiving husband, Nott. He had many times stated that the decision was only to protect his son from the disease that was eating away at his wife's life.

Theodore never believed a word of it. The brunette's father was an old, coldhearted man who had died a long time ago He was living on the blood of the lives he took under his wand.

He also came to know that his mother hadn't died of an incurable disease like so many people had told him, but of his father, who had no other need for her, had poisoned her after he had no longer needed her existence.

Theodore clenched his fists together as images that were repressed in a back drawer of his mind came into focus. Images of a much younger Nott Sr. slipping the contents of a small red vial into the pale creased mouth of a living Meredith. He was only a small child when his father had murdered his mother, but he remembered everything that happened that night in startling, vivid detail. He never completely understood the reason his father had done away with his mother. His father never told him,

Maybe the man had thought the Healers wouldn't question the unusual sick woman with the rare disease they had no cure for or maybe they wouldn't think anything of the situation. Whatever the excuse, Thomas Nott had killed his wife without a remorseful bone in his body.

He had tried to tell people about it. Nobody, of course, believed him. So, he quit telling anybody his accusations and fell silent. He didn't like the silence, but it sure beat being mocked and chided. He only spoke when spoken to, and while he attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, never raised his hands to answer a question. He knew the answers, he always knew the answers, he just never thought it necessary to voice the fact.

He made next to prefect grades in school; better than Hermione Granger's, and all knew about how clean and spotless the bushy hair witch's record was. Unlike Granger, Theodore never flaunted or bragged to anybody about anything. He learned at an early age that nobody really cared.

He was a great listener though. Being quiet had it quirks. People thinking they were alone, cried their hearts out to their best friends, never knowing that a silent Theodore lay listening to every heartfelt or serious word they spilled. He was a sucker for sob stories. He loved having the upper hand in any situation. It made him feel strong, instead of weak. His father had taught him one thing growing up - always listen to every detail and never come to any quick conclusions.

And that brought him here: the girl's bathroom on the seventh floor. Somebody was in there, and by the sound of it, he or she were crying. The loud guttural sobs as they escaped the teenager's throat and the gasps as they tried desperately to get air into needful lungs. Theodore knew what those noises meant: utter defeation.

The tall brunette continued to lean on the outer wooding outside the bathroom door's frame, just listening to the pitiful sounds. After about five or ten minutes of waiting, Theodore was getting bored. He was about to leave and pinpoint this as nothing but a brokenhearted girl crying her eyes out after a bad break up. But then a voice from the other side of the wood door spoke. The unearthly sound was broken and cracked. The crying, Theodore assessed, was not a girl's but a guy's. A teenage boy most students in the school knew by his infamous smirk. Draco Malfoy's voice ranged out from the small bathroom.

Theodore was more than surprised, he was shocked. He was awestruck that a once prime and proper Malfoy was resorted to the sobbing mess that hid himself in a deserted bathroom.

'That was his own job,' Theodore thought as he tuned in to what the once annoying high pitched, now somewhat sweet, whisper from the other side of the door.

"Why me?" he asked to what seemed no one in particular, but when the question was answered, Theodore knew that Draco wasn't alone in the first place.

Moaning Myrtle was there as well, probably comforting the Slytherin.

"That's a question no one has ever been to answer," the knowledgeable ghost said to Malfoy, who was still sniffling somewhat. " Merlin knows, I've asked the same question a hundred times. Sometimes I still do."

Theodore found himself imagining Moaning Myrtle with her pig tails, floating a few feet from the ground, trying to run her fingers through the platinum blonde hair, but quickly diminished that idea. Ghosts couldn't interact with humans that way.

"I don't know what to do. I am honestly stuck. What does he want of me?" the same small broken strangled out.

Malfoy had somehow gotten himself tangled up into the same jam his father had managed years ago - becoming a Deatheater. But, unlike his father, Malfoy felt remorse at the horrible decision he had made. Becoming involved with Lord Voldemort was a mistake. A mistake one to many souls took. His father, though, hadn't thought it was a mistake; he thought that giving his undivided attention and life to a monster was an accomplishment. A goal in which he defeated greatly and came out on top of the world. His father was a sick, twisted man, and Theodore despised him for it. Malfoy, on the other hand, he had mixed emotions about. He didn't know whether to be sad and sympathetic that he was actually a Deatheater, or disappointed that he'd gotten himself into the mess.

Theodore's mouth hardened in one thin fine line on his face. He felt sorry for the pompous prat. The pompous prat that walked with a head held high and an air of greatness. The Head Slytherin who ran around firing snide insults at innocent bystanders. He was the exact picture of an ideal bully. And even though he knew he shouldn't, Theodore Ryan Nott felt completely and wholly sorry for the bloke. And even though he knew that he should just quietly step away from the bathroom and leave, he didn't. He stayed and he listened.

"Who is he, Draco?" Moaning Myrtle asked, bringing the brunette back from his thoughts. Merlin, he thought too much.

The sniffling had stopped, leaving only small little insignificant hiccups behind; they were so pitiful Theodore's heart constricted from the pain that shot through his heart.

"I can't say," the blonde spoke; the words, they seemed, barely passed his lips. Theodore had to move his ear to rest on the door to hear them. They were so distinguishable; so different from the hateful comments that usually passed the thin lips. " He'll kill me if I tell anyone."

"Oh."

And that's all Theodore wanted - could - hear. Anything else and he may have thrown open the door and rushed to the blonde boy that was undoubtedly on the floor of the cold tiled bathroom with soft little tears cascading down his face. Theodore couldn't handle it anymore, so he left.
Walking to his Common Room in the basements of the school, his mind began replaying the jagged way Malfoy's voice had spoke words that were equally ice cold and unfeeling.

The portrait he came upon was a man who looked old and gray; tired and dressed in emerald green robes. He had his eyes closed, snoring away. Theodore had to raise his voice to wake him from his slumber. He was extremely grumpy and continued to rant about the mistreatment of his kind. Theodore just said the password, and passed through the entrance into the common room.

As he walked through the emerald green and gold claded room, a new thought occurred to him. Whatever Lord Voldemort was doing to Malfoy, was slowly "killing" the boy's personality and soul from the inside. 'It's only going to get worse for him,' Theodore thought. He passed a few couches and chairs that were occupied by people who really didn't notice the brunette. To civilization, he was mostly ignored, but he's gotten used to it by now. It was no problem. But what did bother the brunette was the pained tone of Malfoy's voice. It just wasn't natural. It pained him to believe he actually cared for the other boy's well being, but he did. He really did.

Theodore went to bed in the 6th year dormitory that night still thinking, and maybe waiting as well. Waiting for when Malfoy would climb the stairs to their dorm, open the door, and crawl into his own fourposter, but he never did. That bothered Theodore even more than when he had found out his father's secret. It bothered him that much.

* * * *

The next morning, Theodore woke with an annoying pounding reverberating inside his skull like a thousand bees trapped inside trying to escape. The pain in his head was killing him, but he ignored it the best he could as he sat up in bed. Stretching his back, he surveyed the room. Crabbe and Goyle were snoring from their four-posters. They both resembled large lumps underneath the green comforters. He smirked at the sight. Blaise Zabini was reading a book on the bed opposite his, still clad in his pajamas - a pair of black bottoms and no shirt. His face was blank as his brown eyes swept back and forth between the right and left sides of the pages, tracing the words that were printed there. When Blaise noticed he was staring, he looked up from his book and gave the brunette a wide smile that showed all the sharp white teeth. Theodore sort of blushed at being caught and turned his head towards the only other bed in the room - Malfoy's. It was deserted, as Theodore expected it to be. The green comforter was still in the exact place it had been last night when he had fallen asleep. Either Malfoy had come in late last night and had gotten up early, or he just didn't come in at all.

Blaise caught his staring at Malfoy's empty bed, and said very casually, as if Malfoy's continued absence meant nothing to him, " He never sleeps in his bed anymore," and went back to his book.

'Never?'

He kind of shrugged his shoulders as if he to could care less and got up out of bed, slipping his feet into his slippers that laid at the foot of his bed; they were soft and fuzzy, molding his feet perfectly in furriness. He walked into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

The dorm's bath is a simple room filled with a loo, a shower, and a sink with a silver mirror hanging above it. There was a green throw rug the size of a welcome mat at the foot of the marble sink, which had a counter top with an assortment of tans, blacks, silvers, and greens flecked in between each other. Theodore absolutely loved the bathroom. It was the only kind of privacy he ever got while living in the same dormitory with four other people.

He turned on the shower head which sprayed warm water from its sprout. Theodore sighed when he slipped his hand under the waterfall, feeling the warmth run through his fingers. He undressed and quickly stepped under the water and pulled the curtain closed; his body was immersed in the cool warmth. It was very relaxing, and Theodore loved it. The brunette stayed under the water for a few minutes before he washed his hair with a very girly shampoo that smelled like lavender and vanilla, and lathered his somewhat too skinny body with a poof. The foamy stuff that fell to the shower's floor gathered at his feet in a pool before it would follow the direction of the current down the drain. After making sure all the soap was off his body, Theodore turned the knobs and cut the water off. He reached out of the shower curtain and grabbed a towel off a rack that provided the fluffy material. He wrapped the fabric around his middle and got out, closing the green curtain behind him.

The brunette dropped his dirty clothes into the basket by the door for the house elves before he walked out the bathroom into the now empty dorm. Everybody else was probably already eating in the Great Hall. He got dressed quickly, shook out the wetness from his somewhat shaggy hair, grabbed his backpack from the edge of his bed, and left, leaving the white towel on the floor. 'The house elves will get it later,' he assured himself with a smile on his face. Today might actually be a good one. Even if they had potions with the Gryffindors.

He sat by himself at breakfast. It was a regular occurrence for the lonely Slytherin so he never paid much attention to the two or three seats beside the one he occupied. Grabbing some eggs and bacon, he put the food on the silver plate in front of him. Ignoring his food completely, he trained his eyes on Malfoy at the other end of the table, surrounded by his cronies, and of course Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, sitting beside him. No one noticed, except himself, that there was something off about the blonde's behavior. He kept to himself mostly, only speaking occasionally to comment on something that his friends were talking about or just to ask somebody to pass an object. Whatever it was, it didn't take long to say, so as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the blonde's lips would become silent once more and he would go back to eating, which was very little, because out of the food that was on his plate, most of it was still there. 'So he's quit eating as well?' a voice that Theodore carried everywhere spoke up.
Parkinson and his other friends, if you could call them that, just went on as if nothing was wrong. The pug-faced girl was sitting right beside Malfoy with one arm wrapped around Malfoy's right arm, constricting the way the blonde ate. It didn't look like the most comfortable position to be in, but he just went right on nibbling at his tiny bites.

Crabbe and Goyle were scrounging down the meal as if would be their last. Their faces were smashed into the plates that they barely had room to breath, let alone talk, but they managed to send their little snippets into the conversation. Blaise Zabini was sitting on the other side of Malfoy. He ate small gentlemanly bites off his plate and wiped his mouth off on a napkin a few times.

Theodore felt like such a stalker. His head fell into the palm of his hand. "Merlin," he breathed.

He needed a life instead of watching other people's as they went by. But where would he find one? He had no REAL friends. With that thought lingering, Theodore realized that the good day he'd planned on having just went down the drain, following the trail the bubbles had made that morning in the shower. They had followed the current of the water; the good feelings got sucked into the depressing orbit of all the other horrible days gone wrong that had previously dampened his spirits. Theodore knew he had problems.

'But not as much as Malfoy apparently has,' His brain told him.

Yeah, that much was given. He looked across the table to where Malfoy was standing up. He doesn't have a dark wizard down his throat, threatening to kill his family and him, but he sure did have plenty of other problems.

He stuffed down his now cold eggs and bacon, looking a lot like Crabbe and Goyle, and drugged the pumpkin juice that had sat in the glass beside his plate in one big drink.

Theodore Nott rushed out of the nearly deserted Great Hall towards his first class of the day. Any chance of the good day, practically ruined.