Vault 712:
A Harry Potter Treasury
PenPatronus
Chapter / List Two:
Childhood Memories

1) One afternoon while playing hide-and-seek with his cousins, 7-year-old Albus Severus Potter discovered the attic at the top of the Burrow. After tiptoeing around a sleeping ghoul (who was wearing scraps of old pajamas), he found an old Quiddich trophy, a picture of someone named Fred (who looked a lot like his Uncle George), and a weird bowl of glowing liquid…

It was an hour before his family figured out what happened to him.

It was Harry who dove into the Pensieve. It was his memories his son was stuck in. He found Al in the Chamber of Secrets. Albus was watching his 12-year-old father battle a giant snake while his mother lay dying. Harry scooped his son up into his arms, got him out of there, and didn't release him for hours.

For the rest of his life, Al Potter had nightmares about dark mazes and green spells, black dogs and animated corpses, sphinxes, dementors and dragons and giant spiders.

2) When Nymphadora Tonks was a kid, her favorite prank was pretending to suffocate. She used her Metamagus powers to turn her skin blue and bulge her eyes. She made quite a scene, especially in the Great Hall on the first day of her first year.

Unfortunately her father never told her the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," and her mother never told her the story of "The Girl Who Cried Lethifold."

Once, when she was devouring Halloween candy, she really did choke on a tar-flavored Bertie Botts Every Flavored Bean. All the miming in the world couldn't convince the other students that she was in trouble. Tonks was about to pass out when a spell cleared her throat.

After she caught her breath, she looked up for her rescuer. That was the first wink she received from Albus Dumbledore, and it wasn't the last. That was also the first time Albus Dumbledore saved her life. It wasn't the last.

3) The summer that Harry Potter turned nine, a boy named Danny visited the Evans Family. Danny was also nine, skinny, and wore glasses. He was the anti-Dudley: funny, charismatic, active, glad to share his cupcakes and videogames. Danny taught him how to climb trees and play football. They caught bugs in plastic cups, built forts out of tarps and lawn chairs, and played in the small amount of mud that Privet Drive afforded.

One day, when Harry was telling Danny about a particularly nasty incident where Dudley stuffed an entire week's worth of garbage into Harry's tiny cupboard, Danny offered to put Dudley "in his place." He described all of the nasty things they could do to Dudley, all the bugs they could sneak into his food, all the wires to his TVs that they could cut, all the objects they could hit him with. Danny planned to trip Dudley into falling into a well and drowning him.

Harry Potter, being Harry Potter, declined Danny's invitation. After that he never saw him again. Danny quickly found new friends, friends who helped him pick on Harry for the rest of the summer. Harry didn't give that incident a first, second or third thought after he entered the Wizarding World.

At least not until he read Rita Skeeter's "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore," and found out about Albus Dumbledore's childhood friendship with Gellert Grindelwald. Danny tempted Harry just like Gellert did with Dumbledore. But unlike the young Albus Dumbledore, Harry kept his integrity.

4) At a foggy midnight, five-year-old Ron Weasley barged into his parents' bedroom and insisted that the ghoul in the attic was going to eat him. "I'm so little he won't even have to chew!" Ron pouted as he wiped his soggy nose on a pajama sleeve.

Eyes half-open and glazed with sleep, Arthur and Molly shared a knowing look. They'd overheard Fred and George teasing Ron about his height earlier that day. (Little did they know he'd be taller than both of them later!) Molly rolled back the bedcovers and Ron climbed over Arthur to nestle between them.

"That ghoul wouldn't stand a chance against you, son," Arthur soothed as Ron buried his face into Molly's chest. "You're strong and brave, just like Harry Potter."

Molly raised an eyebrow and Ron raised his face. "Who's Harry Potter? A Quidditch player?"

"No. A boy. A five-year-old boy."

Ron's face scrunched towards its middle. "A kid? That ghoul would eat him too! He's probably as small as me…"

"That doesn't matter," said Molly, catching her husband's drift. "Harry Potter defeated the most powerful dark wizard in the world when he was just a baby!"

"A baby?" Ron's face re-expanded in surprise. "No. Way."

"It's true," said Arthur in a bedtime story voice. "He was so tiny he could barely hold his own head up, let alone raise a wand! Think about it—if a little baby could do that, Ron Weasley could take on a silly ghoul!"

Ron sat up to prove that he could in fact support his own head, and puffed his chest out. "That ghoul doesn't stand a chance!" He mimed a few punches, aiming at something invisible in the air, before settling back down between his mum and dad. "But maybe, just for tonight, I could sleep here? You're really big, Mum, he'd be even scared-er of you…"

Molly scowled at her husband, who chuckled back.