Harry Potter, Pensieve Memory, 1989 Spring
Name: Harry Potter
Format: Pensieve Memory
Date: 1989 Spring
Relevance: Most of Harry's worst memories are a matter of public record, and they are plentiful. It has not been a happy life, for the most part, and this is really just a slice of life at the Dursley household. This is a story that wasn't recorded for the war, or likely to be, even if it does show Harry's staying power in the face of blind cruelty. Though he's loath to give Walburga Black anything, he figures she can keep this.
He's tall and huge, black robes flowing and red eyes piercing the darkness.
His mother screams, at least, Harry thinks that's his mother screaming, he has the sense it is, but it doesn't make sense because this is not a car crash at all, but a tall, thin figure looming in the darkness.
His head is but a skeleton, deformed, melted skin and he's waving a wand, laughing and sneering at her, gesturing her to stand aside. Harry feels a threat, but he doesn't know what it means. He's too small, he can't move, can't go, can't help the woman.
She shrieks after a flood of green light and everything goes black.
Harry awakens in a cold sweat under the stairs. He is trembling all over and he just wants to hear a voice, a familiar sound. Anything. Even Dudley would be a warm welcome right now.
He has no idea what time it is, but there seems to be the faint peeking of dawn that he can see through the slats of the cupboard when he peers out between them. It'll be morning soon. True morning and there will be light and he'll make a fry-up and be told he's worthless. It's a cold comfort, but he's too shaken to really care how brutal it is. He'll scrap for any comfort at all right now-- just to hear voices, to smell food, to feel anything but fright and that high-cold voice ringing in his ears.
He pulls on clothes and is tying on his trainers and tries the door uselessly. It's locked as if the family believes he'll go on a midnight rampage and take them all out. He jumps at movement from the corner of his eye. There's just enough light now that he can see a spider and he sighs and stares at it.
"Good morning," he says to it, feeling a bit calmer at even the sound of his own voice.
The spider halts and sits there. Sometimes he has the feeling that animals can hear him when he speaks, but he knows that's a common fantasy. Right now he's so distressed he's willing to indulge it, imagining the spider greeting him back. He smiles.
"How do you do?" he asks it.
"I am well," Harry provides the answer for the spider, giving it a deeper voice for no real reason other than it washes away the echoes of that cruel voice before. "I have millions and millions of baby spiders. You saw them yesterday crawling on the walls. I have to go to work to provide them with a happy home."
Harry nodded and smiled, imagining the papa spider reading little stories to each of his baby spiders, each one having a turn on papa spider's lap and warm, safe and happy. It's a million miles away from all of this-- the room is made of silk and the fire does not burn, but simply warms and the spiders crawl on the walls, taking peeks at the picture book, all curious and excited. Mama and papa spider are terribly happy, in love, and they don't care one bit what the neighbors think of their brood, because they all love each other.
Everyone takes their turn at doing chores and mama spider packs their lunches dutifully before they go to school.
We know this, because Harry is telling the spider this story out loud and is so distracted that he fails to hear Petunia coming down the stairs and doesn't know she's there until she yanks open the door.
"You weird child! Who are you talking to?" Her eyes narrow on the spider and she shrieks in horror before removing a slipper and crushing it before Harry can react.
Harry is crying, sobbing for all of the baby spiders missing their papas, because that spider was his friend where he didn't have any friends, his comfort when he woke up scared and alone. He wipes his tears away quickly when she calls for Vernon and doesn't argue when he's told to take a bath before tending to his chores.
The memory fades with Petunia's whisper, "Such a strange boy. Mentally disturbed. He was talking to an insect, Vernon! My sister's child..."
Format: Pensieve Memory
Date: 1989 Spring
Relevance: Most of Harry's worst memories are a matter of public record, and they are plentiful. It has not been a happy life, for the most part, and this is really just a slice of life at the Dursley household. This is a story that wasn't recorded for the war, or likely to be, even if it does show Harry's staying power in the face of blind cruelty. Though he's loath to give Walburga Black anything, he figures she can keep this.
He's tall and huge, black robes flowing and red eyes piercing the darkness.
His mother screams, at least, Harry thinks that's his mother screaming, he has the sense it is, but it doesn't make sense because this is not a car crash at all, but a tall, thin figure looming in the darkness.
His head is but a skeleton, deformed, melted skin and he's waving a wand, laughing and sneering at her, gesturing her to stand aside. Harry feels a threat, but he doesn't know what it means. He's too small, he can't move, can't go, can't help the woman.
She shrieks after a flood of green light and everything goes black.
Harry awakens in a cold sweat under the stairs. He is trembling all over and he just wants to hear a voice, a familiar sound. Anything. Even Dudley would be a warm welcome right now.
He has no idea what time it is, but there seems to be the faint peeking of dawn that he can see through the slats of the cupboard when he peers out between them. It'll be morning soon. True morning and there will be light and he'll make a fry-up and be told he's worthless. It's a cold comfort, but he's too shaken to really care how brutal it is. He'll scrap for any comfort at all right now-- just to hear voices, to smell food, to feel anything but fright and that high-cold voice ringing in his ears.
He pulls on clothes and is tying on his trainers and tries the door uselessly. It's locked as if the family believes he'll go on a midnight rampage and take them all out. He jumps at movement from the corner of his eye. There's just enough light now that he can see a spider and he sighs and stares at it.
"Good morning," he says to it, feeling a bit calmer at even the sound of his own voice.
The spider halts and sits there. Sometimes he has the feeling that animals can hear him when he speaks, but he knows that's a common fantasy. Right now he's so distressed he's willing to indulge it, imagining the spider greeting him back. He smiles.
"How do you do?" he asks it.
"I am well," Harry provides the answer for the spider, giving it a deeper voice for no real reason other than it washes away the echoes of that cruel voice before. "I have millions and millions of baby spiders. You saw them yesterday crawling on the walls. I have to go to work to provide them with a happy home."
Harry nodded and smiled, imagining the papa spider reading little stories to each of his baby spiders, each one having a turn on papa spider's lap and warm, safe and happy. It's a million miles away from all of this-- the room is made of silk and the fire does not burn, but simply warms and the spiders crawl on the walls, taking peeks at the picture book, all curious and excited. Mama and papa spider are terribly happy, in love, and they don't care one bit what the neighbors think of their brood, because they all love each other.
Everyone takes their turn at doing chores and mama spider packs their lunches dutifully before they go to school.
We know this, because Harry is telling the spider this story out loud and is so distracted that he fails to hear Petunia coming down the stairs and doesn't know she's there until she yanks open the door.
"You weird child! Who are you talking to?" Her eyes narrow on the spider and she shrieks in horror before removing a slipper and crushing it before Harry can react.
Harry is crying, sobbing for all of the baby spiders missing their papas, because that spider was his friend where he didn't have any friends, his comfort when he woke up scared and alone. He wipes his tears away quickly when she calls for Vernon and doesn't argue when he's told to take a bath before tending to his chores.
The memory fades with Petunia's whisper, "Such a strange boy. Mentally disturbed. He was talking to an insect, Vernon! My sister's child..."