"See, me? I hear Mr. Potter, my first reaction is to wonder what James has gotten himself into now and how do I talk him out of trouble." Remus winked and offered the other man one of his soft half-smirks.
He fell silent, just listening, listening for what wasn't being said. After a moment, he sat up and looped his arms loosely around his bent knees. "You've said it yourself, though, Harry. You know our reputations. You don't really know much about our lives outside what two older men were willing to tell a young teenager. And, I'm not discounting what you went through. But having to deal with so much, so young, on your own was bound to skew your perspective of people in general, as well. You're talking about not wanting to be Minister, but also being the one in charge. You're taking charge, whether you or anyone else likes it or not, without really giving anyone else a chance to provide input because, in your mind, no one else is suited for it. But, if we're going to have any chance at building a society that doesn't repeat the mistakes of our past, we have to do it by working together, as a team, not by behaving, intentionally or not, as though only one person is capable of getting the job done and the rest should just fall in line with that."
His expression softened. "Something else I can understand perfectly." Truth be told, he wondered how desperate and alone he'd become to have let himself saddle someone else with the harsh realities of the curse. Then again, Harry's next words went a long way to explain it. "It would have been. It was difficult enough eighteen months ago. Even now, I've only just gotten him back, along with James. To lose them again..." Part of Remus would die with them. He knew that in his soul. "If he came from any time after school, I think we'd have an explanation. We knew someone was passing information to the other side for more than a year before your parents were killed. And, I don't think someone just wakes up one day and decides to turn on their friends. It's something that had been building between all four of us, something breaking."
Remus wasn't surprised by some of that information. "That was always Greyback's way. I never encountered him directly. But, the rumor was that he thought of it as creating his own children in the curse. He took in others, those whose families shut them out after they were turned." He could have been one of them, Remus thought, had his parents been other than they were and had left him to die. He huffed softly. "I can't imagine something like that in my time. I never registered. My parents hid me. But, the registry was used more to frame my kind for attacks than to do anything to help them. If someone was attacked, they just hauled in the nearest registered werewolf and charged them, whether they could have done it or not."