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'' You're always safe with me.''

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Draco Malfoy.

His eyes prickled in tears as he looked down at the bounded piece of paper. He wasn't sure if he was ready for this, to violate Amelie's privacy, to read the thoughts she had of him as he kept her locked in this room.

He was remorseful. He regretted the truth of him treating her so badly — that he had made her scared of him.

The scenarios in his head flickered in all the different ways he could've handled it — how differently he could've handled her.

Still, she always came to his rescue. Even if she held a feeling of fright for him and everything he had done, she would still be here,

His eyes fell over the first page as he pushed himself off the bed, taking long strides up to the wall she used to slip down against,

He did the same thing. He slipped down the wall, next to the door, before dragging his knees up to his chest,

His arms were held tightly around his legs as he sucked in a harsh breath to see all the vicious things she thought about him.

Day 4.

I heard him again last night.

I heard him scream and shout in the middle of the night. It woke me up just like the last time.

I feel like it's nightmares, similar to the ones I have,

The kind that wakes you up with a gasp. The kind that makes your chest feel so heavy. The kind that makes you sweat out of fear. The worst kind.

He locked me in here.

He lied to me. He broke my trust, and still, all I want to do is help him, just like my mother helped me.

I want to pull him into my arms, have his head on my chest as I hum into his skin,

I think that would help him. I think he would feel better with himself if he let me do that, and I wanted to ask him too. I really did, but he doesn't speak to me.

I feel like I had done something wrong like he's mad at me for some reason when all I honestly wanted to do was to get to know him,

To help ease his pain in the same way he eased mine.

_____

Draco looked up from the pages, from the words she had written, and he felt his blood fume.

His insides wrenched as he sought to swallow the pain.

He felt guilty, at fault for all of this.

How could he be so heartless, so cruel to someone so pure?

Even when he hurt her, when she realized that he had lied to her, when he kept her locked up against her will — she still wanted to help him, to save him from himself.

Draco's head tilted back to the wall, and a loud noise came after it as he slammed the back of his head against it again.

He was mad — furious with himself as he groaned at the pain flashing within his mind.

But he needed to keep going. He needed to find Amelie and to fix all of the mistakes ha had brought upon her.

Flashback to a night in the Malfoy Manor.

Draco tossed and turned in his bed as he tried to comfort himself back to sleep. He had woken up by her screaming again.

She screamed a lot in her sleep, and every time she did — he wanted to relieve her. He needed to ease her pain,

But he couldn't.

He refused to touch her without her consent. He didn't want to do that to her. He didn't want her to feel another person's hands on her that she didn't wish for.

She had been through enough — she had felt unwanted touches on her, beasts praying on her pure skin, and he would never supply to that.

Draco shoved his hand underneath his pillow, pressing it hard against his ear as he pulled his cover over his head — all to not hear her whimper at the dreams flooding through her mind as she slept,

This night was different. She usually woke up or calmed herself after a few minutes — but not now.

Now she kept on screaming, almost as if she believed to be hurt in reality and not in the world of imagination.

He flinched. His face was twisted. His insides wrenched at the sound of her broken tones — her voice kept cracking in torture.

This was torture — to him, this was worse than anything he had ever gone through. To hear her hurt but not have the strength to help her.

Another heart-wrenching shout left her lips as he shot up from his bed, and in nothing more than his night-pants, he stormed out of his room in the direction of hers.

With his wand in his hand, he twitched his wrist, making the door click open — and he shoved it wide, carefully so she wouldn't wake up,

And there she was — shaking in her sleep, her whole body trembled as he silently stepped closer to the bed,

Amelie looked so at peace yet so haunted.

Her hair spilled graciously over her shoulder as her chest rose and fell violently beneath the white sheets — he couldn't drag his eyes off of her.

He watched her for minutes as drops of sweat rolled down her forehead, as her breaths lightly ragged in her throat, and her skin shivered.

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to calm her down — to ease her pain.

But he didn't dare to. The situation he found himself in scared him as much as her nightmares frightened her.

She whimpered yet again, and he couldn't do anything — he had to help her.

He gently lifted the end of her cover before slowly slipping under the sheets, but the instant his cold touch rubbed against her warm skin — he froze.

He didn't move a muscle. He simply laid there, next to her, on complete edge to what he was supposed to do next.

Amelie shifted in her position, her head fell to the side as her body followed, and in her unconscious state, she buried her face into his chest,

Draco stared down at her through the moonlight in a fusion of fright and hush.

Her breaths fanned against his pale skin, her nose softly stroke against it, and he found himself not regretting this scenario.

He realized that by this effortless, chain-free touch he brought her — she had stopped crying, and it felt good.

It felt soothing as he pushed an arm underneath her neck, against the little area between her shoulders and the pillow she rested on, and he smoothly pulled her inches closer to him,

Draco dragged her in, right to where he needed her, closing the longing space of pain between them as his chin rested on her head,

" You're always safe with me, Amelie." He whispered into her hair.

His eyes sealed, his breaths steady. He knew that he had to sneak out of there before her mind clocked back to being — before she woke up,

But he felt as if he could do this again, as if he could get used to this, to feel her skin on his, her breaths against his chest as she rested heavily,

She was safe here, and even in her sleep — she knew that.

_____

Day 5.

He let me hold him yesterday, even if it only was for a short moment.

It felt good, doing something good for someone and not just sitting here doing nothing.

Even if he got mad at me again. It was worth it because somewhere deep down under all that hate and pain I recognize,

The kind, gentle boy, still lives, and I hope to see him again,

He didn't even come to give me my meals today. He stayed clear of me and let the house-elves take care of that,

I talked to this little house-elf, he was similar to the elf that lived with us at home, and the kind manners of him reminded me of my best friend,

Teddy.

I miss Theodore.

I miss my Teddy so much that I might break. I had never been apart from him more than a day or two before, but this.

This was torture.

Missing him was worse than being locked in here.

All I want to do is to bury my head in his warm chest and feel his arms around me.

I want him to tell me what to do because I don't know anything anymore.

I am supposed to be in school. I am supposed to be with Adrian and sneaking around with Teddy. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't want to be here.

_____

It was as if his heart had been torn in two.

She hated him, at least that's what he believed. That she hated him.

Draco pushed himself off the floor, looking over the mess of books and glass that shredded on the ground from when he had searched her room.

His hand flew to the collar of his shirt as the tips of his fingers tugged at his tie in attempts to loosen it — he sensed the panic growing within.

Draco had never hated himself more than he did now.

Never.

He had never been more disappointed. He remembered the night he was breaking down in front of her like it was yesterday and not many weeks ago,

He remembered how her arms clung around him to hold him closer than ever, to ease his pain in a way she believed he eased hers.

It hurt. Thinking about how much he must have troubled her as he stormed out, but what she didn't know was that it pained him too. It tortured him to leave her in the belief that she was in the wrong.

He never meant to do that, but she provoked something in him.

Something human, something sensitive, and Draco as the dark, haunted boy he believed himself to be — he wasn't ready to feel the gentleness she brought out of him,

His head shook as he leaned against the window, his shoulder felt heavy against the wood as his chest ached,

But once again, he needed to keep going.

Day 6.

I'm scared.

I'm scared for my safety here, and I'm scared for his.

I know that Adrian is looking for me because he would never let me go that easily.

I almost feel like this is a part of some big plan. That they all are working against me.

But that's probably my mind playing tricks on me. I read that it could be like that if you were to be kept in the same space for too long.

And another thing that has come to mind here is how much I miss the sun. I never thought it would be possible to miss the sun as much as I do today.

Theodore is like the sun. Happy, mellow, the strokes of him heats your heart, just like the scent of honey. God, I love how he scented like honey, but when it starts to get cold when you begin to freeze — you miss the warmth more than terribly.

And today, today, I do.

_____

Draco sucked in a harsh breath in between his teeth, his jaws gritted as he noticed that there wasn't a day 7 or 8.

The numbers were there — but the only thing covering the pages was dried stains of tears.

She had cried.

She cried instead of writing those days, and he never knew because she never cried in front of him.

Amelie always showed a brave face — a courageous smile as he came to bring her for her sessions. He didn't know she was hurting.

And now, it was too late for him to comfort her. He would've. He would always have comforted her — if he only knew how much she was breaking.

She broke entirely at the tips of his fingers but was still valiant enough to hold it inside, to not show how her life crumbled in the chains of his magic.

Day 9.

Draco has been searching my mind for days, and to be honest with myself,

I don't know for how long I will be able to stand this.

Every time the light of his mind reaches mine, it's like I can't breathe.

I am allowed a piece of Draco that I'm not even certain he knows I'm able to see.

He's hurting. His mind is more tortured than mine has ever been. I could see that.

I could see how he hated himself and not just parts of himself as a normal person would do.

He loathed everything, every single thing of himself, and that broke me.

It broke me more than he did, more than my father or Adrian ever did.

I feel for Draco, in a way I can't begin to understand.

Perhaps it's the way his mind works, how cruel and evil he makes himself look, but how kind and broken he truly is.

I don't know what, but something about that blonde boy made me feel warm, cared for, even if he did everything possible for me to hate him,

I did hate him, or at least I tried to.

But somewhere along the line, I couldn't keep it up because I knew he needed me almost as much as I seemed to need him.

_____

Draco threw the book across the room as his face twitched into a grimace. He did everything possible not to cry — to not let one single tear out,

But to no use.

A clear, biting tear rolled down his drained cheek. It stung. It hurt him as if it was crowded with emotion, and he didn't wipe it away.

The tones of his ashen skin faded even more as he let the drop of salty liquid fall, just like everything else around him did.

His life crumbled around her, at the edge of her mercy, but if anyone deserved his tears, if anyone deserved his vulnerable, unshielded self — it was her.

His hands flew to the window ledge, his fingers gripped around the marble as he leaned over it, staring out over the grey, cloudy world, cursing to himself beneath his breath,

'' Stupid, stupid, stupid—''

His knuckles collided roughly with the wall next to him, over and over and over again. Blood shredded all over his shirt, all over his arms, all over the dark mark still inked into his skin, his hair,

All over — but that was nothing in comparison to how his heart shattered.

How he shattered.

Draco had no chance of controlling himself anymore — he felt as his chest closed in on him, how his vessels tightened and the sweat flooded down his neck.

He panicked completely.

He didn't know what to do anymore because she saw everything.

She had watched his mind when he was supposed to search hers.

She saw it all — every mistake, every cruel act, every time he had brought harm upon another human.

Amelie knew him — he was exposed to her in a way he had never been to another soul.

She knew how much he loathed himself, how much he wanted this hell of a life to come to a miserable end.

How he tried to take his own life.

And it broke her, just like he did.

He let out a loud sigh, scratching his bleeding hand against the fabric of his shirt before he shoed over the messy floor, hunching down to pick the diary back up.

_____