Title: Old Scars and Future Hearts

Word Count: 2, 057

Chapter four: Hogwarts Express

When school started Harry didn't tell anyone about the many number of hours he had spent with Draco Malfoy looking through book after book to find something that would argue against Sirius being guilty. He wasn't exactly lying about it or keeping it a secret but since no one asked he saw no reason to tell them. He assumed that Draco was going to ignore him when school started and expected to see the blond sporting his usual straight hairdo when the time came to go back to school. Harry assumed that the few times Draco had gotten into trouble with his parent during the summer was forgotten and that they would be walking next to him onto the platform as they usually did with one hand on each shoulder looking as if they were guiding the next prince of England. He couldn't help but glance around when he appeared at the platform with Hermione, Ron and the rest of the Weasley family but Draco was nowhere to be seen.

Thoughts of the blond Slytherin fell into the back of his mind as he followed Ron and Hermione down the corridor of the train looking for someplace to sit. Harry could easily admit to not really looking much. Too many other thoughts occupied his already crowded mind and he allowed himself to push looking for places to sit low on his list of priorities.

Mr. Weasley had been one of the people to make him promise that he wasn't going to do something that it became increasingly obvious he had to. "Promise me that you won't go looking for Sirius Black."

Harry had frowned but for reasons Mr. Weasley didn't know and opted for lying directly into his face. "Why would I go looking for someone who's trying to kill me?"

In reality Harry doubted that Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban to kill him. He didn't want to believe that was true. Sentences upon sentences from the diary that he had written repeated themselves in Harry's mind every time someone started talking about Sirius Black.

Hogwarts is my home. I have a family here and I would do anything to protect them. In a world that is uncertain, unfair and unsafe that is the only thing I can promise and guarantee. Whatever life throws my way I will make sure that my brothers are safe. Because that is really all I need; for them to live and be happy.

It was hard if not even impossible to believe that the man who wrote that as a child were going after Harry – the child of his best friend – just to kill him. It deepened Harry's frown. It made absolutely no sense. And he needed it to not be true. He needed that more than he had ever needed anything before.

"Everything's taken." Hermione said as she glanced at Ron and Harry. "Let's just sit in there."

She glanced inside the windows where an older man sat. He thin, pale face was covered in scars of various sizes and age. His hair was dirty blond and he appeared to not have any kind of energy as he sat slumped to the side completely oblivious to the world on the outside.

"Who's that?" Ron asked as the trio sat down.

"Professor R.J Lupin."

"How did you know that?" Ron turned to Harry. "How come she knows everything?"

Hermione frowned. "It's written on his luggage, Ronald."

Harry's frown deepened as his two friends bickered sounding mostly playful but every now and again a comment that sounded harsher than the others would sneak itself into the conversation. R.J Lupin. It could be Remus Lupin, Harry thought to himself, but it didn't have to be. He remembered that the Remus Lupin mentioned in the books about Sirius did have a middle name but couldn't remember what it was. The more he thought about it the further away the name flew from his grasp and eventually Harry was almost entirely sure that the middle name didn't start with J. For a moment, he wished that he had listened to Draco and written things down or at least bought the book. At the time, it had seemed like a bad idea because if by any chance that Sirius was innocent and they somehow managed to prove that so that he could live a normal life then owning a book stating that he was a crazy murderer probably wouldn't look too good. He just had to ask Draco at some point.

"So, what did dad talk to you about?" Ron asked and pulled Harry out of his own mind.

"Sirius Black, escaped and supposedly very dangerous convict." Harry stated. "Apparently, he'd been mumbling that someone was at Hogwarts and that has led to people believe that's he's coming to kill me and that is the reason that he escaped from Azkaban. Your dad wanted me to promise him that I won't go look for Sirius."

Hermione frowned. "You won't do that right?"

Harry looked straight into her brown eyes. He wanted to tell her the truth and that was that if he could find some kind of evidence to prove that Sirius was innocent then yes, he would go looking for him. If there was even the glimmer of a chance that Sirius was a victim in this entire mess then yes, Harry would drop everything to go look for him. But after a few seconds of silence he shook his head. "No, this feels like the one year when Voldemort might leave me alone. I don't really fancy spending the year with running around after another possible psycho murderer that people claim is out to get me."

Ron nodded. "Exactly Hermione. I can't believe that you thought that Harry would be spending this year running around after another psycho. He is much smarter than that."

Hermione hummed. But the doubtful expression didn't leave her face and Harry's smile didn't seem to make any difference. Ron kept on talking next to them, not noticing that his friends were less than involved in his conversation, and Harry had never been more grateful.

He believed wholeheartedly, especially after this summer, that no one could blame him for being selfish or doing things for his own sake. Everything he had ever done was for someone else. Most of the time with the purpose of saving them. And for once he wanted to do something that was for him. If Sirius was innocent naturally Harry would want to help him because an innocent man should never be treated the way that he had. But Harry also wanted to do it because he needed to. Because if Harry Potter managed to save an innocent man from being further treated badly by society then that could maybe give him some hope that things would work out in the end.

In another compartment, Draco Malfoy carried almost the same doubtful expression as he listened to his so-called friends loudly talk about what they had done during the summer. Crabbe and Goyle had never been particularly good conversationalists but at that very moment Draco suspected that the little skill they possessed had somehow vanished over the course of approximately two months. Mostly groans, hums and other kinds of sounds mostly associated with hunger in animals came from their supposedly human bodies. It took everything in Draco not to sigh deeply and cover his eyes with his hand in order to not have to look at them.

Those two morons were just enough to give Draco a headache. And they did almost every year during the ride back and forth between Hogwarts and London. However, this year the piercing headache was not because of those two idiots. Being yelled at, Draco had learned, could also lead to headache and it felt as if his parents had done nothing but scream at him for various reasons during the summer.

Sirius wrote in his diary that not all battles were meant to be fought and that you had to pick the right ones. Draco had been doing that the entire summer; picking battles that he needed to fight because if he didn't, he was sure to go completely mad.

"Draco, your hair makes you look so common." Narcissa had told him one day with a snarl as scrunched her face together at the sight of his curls. "You father and I would feel so much better if you could just fix it before the party tonight. Oh, and make sure to talk to the Greengrass family. We want to make a good impression."

Draco allowed himself a one-sided smile as he heard those words. This was a battle he could take. It wasn't big enough to truly upset them. "I quite like my hair this way mother." He said in a bored voice and looked up from the table only to serve himself a second plate of eggs and toast. "And I doubt that we need to make a good impression at the Greengrass family. If anything, they need to make a good impression on us. Unless there is something you're not telling me."

He eyed his parents. Not carefully the way he was supposed to as their child. But as if he was their equal. Something that was unheard of unless they were found in the public in which case his parents gave the well-practiced impression that Draco's thoughts and ideas almost mattered. The keyword being almost. Draco dared them to say something, to provoke him, so that he could maybe, if it was worth it, take the battle further than just to this.

None of his parents spoke. But that didn't mean that Draco had won the battle.

It was the last day before school. The Malfoys always had their annual party, or ball as Narcissa Malfoy liked to call it, and that meant that every pureblood family that meant something was invited. The Greengrass family was one of them. It was important that Draco looked the part of the perfect son that he was supposed to be. No one suspected that he was going to behave in any other way than how his parents wanted him to. They assumed that he would play the part that was expected of him. The role of a Malfoy.

But when he showed up his hair was curly and gracefully messy. Just that was enough to make his mother internally gasp. But what made her eyes grow double in size and what made his father growl like some kind of animal rather than a human was the fact that he wore muggle clothing. He walked with his hands down his pockets, head held straight as if he didn't see what the big fuss was about. Internally his adrenaline was rushing through his body and Draco wondered who was going to act first.

"You look very nice." Astoria said as she approached the young man standing alone in front of the table filled with food. She glanced at his hair. "I really like your curls."

"Thank you." Draco smiled. Even when he tried keeping his eyes focused on her brown ones he saw the way people looked at him. His father looked as furious he could in public without making a fool out of himself. Lucius was by no means a master at hiding his emotions. "Are you sure that you should be talking to me? I'm causing quite the scandal you know."

Draco gestured for his outfit. Astoria looked at him and shrugged. "Oh well, I like a good scandal. And haven't you heard, scandals rarely come alone?"

Draco tilted his head and gave her an amused smile. "I thought that was accidents."

"That works too." She whispered before Lucius Malfoy broke them up and after stiffly announcing that his son wasn't feeling well practically tore Draco's arm out of its socket to get him up the stars which he came from.

The memory brought a smile on Draco's face. All his life he had acted the way people wanted him to, looked the way people wanted him to and spoke the way they wanted him to. For once, Draco was going to do something that he wanted to, he was going to do something good for others; he was going to prove that Sirius Black was innocent.