Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or its characters. I am merely using them to entertain myself because I am bored and don't feel like doing my massive amounts of compiling homework.
Warnings: Mild slash (Salazar Slytherin/Harry Potter), OOCness (it's fanfiction, if you want In Character stuff, read the books), spoilers through OotP, etc.
A/n: Sorry this took so long to get up. I was hit pretty bad by Hurricane Wilma—no power at all for the entire week and no water for four days. It was pretty bad, but right now I am at a place that has power, so I decided to post this chapter since it's all typed up already. Please enjoy!
"…five signs by which to identify a werewolf?" Harry caught as his mind returned to the realm of consciousness. He slowly registered the question being directed at him and blinked several times as the question triggered a memory he'd seen in Snape's Pensieve in his fifth year, which began with the Marauders' answers to the same problem on their exams.
"' …Three, his name is Remus Lupin…'" he mumbled to himself, his voice strained with emotion. He really missed Remus and the others right now. Just thinking of them made tears well up in his eyes. Would he ever—
"Harry Potter!" Godric shouted in irritation. "Please pay attention and answer the question!"
Harry bowed his head in apology, even though he wasn't really sorry. "Sorry, professor."
"Well?" Godric waved off the apology. "What are the five signs by which to identify a werewolf?"
Harry paled as an imaged flashed in his mind of Remus' body mangled and bloody on the ground at the feet of none other than Wormtail, who was shrieking with insane laughter. "I-I do not want to answer that, Sir. May I leave?"
Godric frowned at Harry's response. "Not until you can give me the identifying characteristics of a werewolf, Harry."
Harry glared. "No. I can't. I refuse to answer that question. Better yet, I don't know. Just drop it already, I'm paying attention, okay?"
"Well, look in your text on page eighty-three for your answer and pay better attention next time," Godric rebuked. When Harry just sat there, not bothering to look up the answer, the Founder added, "As much as this pains me to do, I shall take ten points from Gryffindor House, Harry, for your lack of attentiveness and for your disrespect." Godric returned to his lecture, which had just finished up werewolves and were just moving on to Dementors. Harry wasn't listening to the words. Memories of Sirius and the Patronus charm passed before his vision. The events of his third year hit him hard, and he had to bite back a sob at the family he'd gained that year only to lose it in the ones following. First, he lost Sirius to the Veil, and then Remus in some gruesome battle against Voldemort, although the memories surrounding Remus' demise were still fuzzy. Perhaps they were from the same battle that had somehow landed him a thousand years in the past.
"Can anyone tell me the best way to combat a Dementor?" Godric said, breaking into Harry's thoughts once more.
"Expecto Patronum," Harry murmured. All eyes turned to watch him carefully. "The best way to ward off a Dementor is to summon a Patronus."
Godric nodded. "Very good, Harry, and pray tell, where did you learn this? It is not very well-known."
"From my Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in my Third Year," Harry replied casually. "There were Dementors at the school and they affected me worse than the others, so I asked…I asked my professor for extra help."
"He must have been some professor, to teach a Patronus Charm to a boy of only thirteen years."
Harry offered a pained smile. "Yes, he was a great teacher, and a great friend, too." Godric let the matter drop for the moment, for which the younger wizard was grateful. However, when class ended for lunch, he kept a reluctant Harry back so he could speak with the boy more privately.
"Are you alright, Harry? You have been very distracted today in all of the lessons," Godric observed. "Would you like to talk about it?"
Harry shook his head. "I'm fine, but thank you anyways." He paused and shifted his wait uncomfortably. "Well, if that's all, Professor, I would like to go eat—"
"Tell me a little bit more about your Third Year DADA professor."
Harry sighed deeply. "His name's Remus Lupin. He went to Hogwarts with my parents and godfather—they were all close friends—and he returned to teach my generation for a year before resigning."
"Why did he resign?" Harry shifted uneasily. "Harry?"
"He attacked Hermione and me because he forgot to take his potion before going after the Azkaban fugitive—my godfather—Sirius Black and myself. I'd originally gone to get revenge on him for allegedly betraying and murdering my parents, but it turned out he was innocent." Harry shrugged. "I didn't blame him at all—I wanted him to stay because he and Sirius were the only family I'd ever had—but he did not wish to risk infecting any of the students with lycanthropy."
"If you are acquainted with a werewolf, why could you not answer my question earlier?"
"Because he's dead, okay! I don't want to think about Remus and Sirius, or my parents or Cedric Diggory, all of who died because of me, because I came into existence and knew them! It hurts too much to think of them! I don't want to remember what they went through for my sake! Please don't ask me to remember! It's too painful, Godric!" Harry cried. Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks and his green eyes were filled with pain. "I've always worked so hard to be the perfect little Gryffindor Golden Boy that everyone loves so much! And look where it got me!
"I've lost everyone I loved, and I never even told him! I never told Sirius that he was a good godfather, or that I loved him, or that I couldn't wait for him to be acquitted so that we could live together like a family! I never told Remus, either, I never forgave him for not saving Sirius—he blames himself for it almost as much as me! I never told him that it didn't matter to me that he was a werewolf, and that I accepted him for who he was and not what he was! I never spoke up because I was afraid of being hated by the world that had made me their savior! I was too afraid to tell Dumbledore that I wanted to be in Slytherin, and it's killing me! I hate this House! I hate it so much! I wish I had let the Hat put me in Salazar's House! At least he understands me!"
Godric looked horrified by Harry's state of hysteria. "Harry, calm down, it'll be all right," he tried to console the frantic boy.
"How can it be all right!" Harry sobbed. "It can never be all right again! I can never tell them the truth, and now I have to keep that knowledge with me along with the memories of their demises. I've been hiding my pain deep inside for too long. I can't keep pretending that it never happened, no matter how much I want to."
"Harry—"
"I want to go home," Harry said. "I want a home to go to. I've never had a home. Hogwarts, perhaps, but there was always something not quite right about my time there. Perhaps I could have found a home in Salazar's House. He seems to understand me much better than anyone else."
"But you can't go home. We don't have a clue how to send you back to your own time," Godric objected. "And why not stay here a while longer? Think of it as a vacation from being a savior. Live a little. Free time, vacation, a special trip to the past, meeting the Founders of Hogwarts—it's not like one of mine to turn down an opportunity like that," he pointed out. Harry smiled meekly.
"And that's my point—maybe I'm not one of yours." With that, he bowed, a custom that had disappeared by his own era—and what a shame that was, because Harry found the gesture very gallant and noble—and he took his leave.