Remus Lupin had been patient, he had allowed Harry time and space. He knew he hadn't done well by the boy, but his wolf was starting to overwhelm his reason. It wanted his pack. Harry was pack. It was due to Harry that on full moons he had Padfoot again. With Sirius' permission his healer had talked to Remus.
Paige had told him Sirius was likely to be permanently damaged, but given the ten years in Azkaban high security it was a wonder he wasn't worse. Sirius had so many bad memories of his family that he had regressed mentally and emotionally to a maturity more like what he was at thirteen or fourteen. Sirius had finally been working with her and over the last two weeks he had made what she called significant progress, in terms of recognizing his failures as Harry's guardian that long ago October night. She had said it was progress but she warned Remus there was still a long way to go. Sirius needed to work through his issues about his family and he needed to grow up and make several realizations one of which was that a person's school house did not automatically determine if that person was good or evil, courageous or cowardly. It was that comment that gave Remus some insight into Harry's standoffish behavior. He really wondered what Padfoot had said to the somewhat prideful and studious boy.
Harry was unlike the other Slytherins, who travelled the school in self-defensive packs that constantly tried to position themselves as higher in the pecking order. He interacted without prejudice with all the houses and took instruction well. Singularly self-possessed, most other students even older ones skirted around him rather than interact with him. Some people took his attitude to be arrogance but Remus didn't think it was; he thought it more an independence of thought and self-reliance. The exception being his study group, they were in and of themselves remarkable in that they ignored everything but brainpower.
Harry was an amazing flier; James would have been proud. Remus hadn't seen him in a game yet, but he had watched the Slytherin team practice.
In class Harry was a bit of a defensive prodigy. In many ways Remus longed to work with the boy to see just how much he could learn and how quickly. But Harry didn't trust Remus, that was obvious in the way the boy avoided being alone in the same room with him. Remus really wondered how Petunia raised him because he had been such a trusting little chap as a baby. There was nothing of that child in the boy now. Remus wondered if Lily were here now who she would curse more: Petunia for raising Harry to be so untrusting, Dumbledore for having put him with Petunia, or himself for being so weak as to allow Dumbledore to dictate the terms of his interaction with Harry.
Remus was also certain that if there was one person in the school Harry hated it was Albus. He also didn't seem to like Minerva, and from what Remus could see that was mostly mutual. Harry was very careful though, if he did any rule breaking, he had definitely absorbed the Slytherin motto of thou shall not get caught. Remus sometimes wished the other Slytherins had learned that one as well. He finally resolved to talk to Severus perhaps he could give some insight to Harry's psyche. To that end, he went to Severus' quarters and asked the portrait to ask Severus to let him in.
Moments later Severus opened his door. "What do you want wolf?" he asked with a sneer.
"I'd like to talk with you, about Harry."
Snape frowned. "Why?"
"You're his Head of House and I'd like to understand him better."
"Did Albus put you up to this?"
"Not exactly."
"Humph. Albus underestimated Petunia and he's been trying to make up ground in his manipulations ever since. Not too successfully I might add."
"What do you mean? Albus put Harry with Petunia to protect him. He-"
"Wants you to believe that of course. Surely you are adult enough to realize anything the Headmaster does has at least two or three motives and a dozen plans behind it or are you too much a Gryffindor to see it. How that man was ever sorted into Gryffindor, I'll never know."
Remus was quiet. Part of him wanted to deny that the Headmaster would do any such thing. But the logical side of him demanded that he put his emotions to the side and examine this new thought. It was hard, he respected the Headmaster and he was grateful that the man had allowed him to attend Hogwarts. But there had been times when Albus had used that gratitude to get him to agree to things against his wishes, like remaining out of contact with Harry, and there was the matter of James' will…
"Come in. Have a seat. Yes, Harry is a conundrum. He is very like Lily. Very, very intelligent. I made mistakes with him last year, I mistook his physical likeness to James and his attitude as him being like James. My mistake… Don't mistake Harry's tolerance in interaction for forgiveness, from what I've seen he neither easily trusts nor forgives. He has not, and part of me suspects, he never will forgive me for last year."
"Why? What would make him that way?"
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