Harry sighed as he sat on the edge of his youngest son's bed in the darkened room. "You said that half an hour ago Eli." Eli was turning eleven in a few weeks and had been groping for any details he could get of Hogwarts from any source he could. Unfortunately he was just beginning to learn manipulation as well, unlike Sam, who'd picked it up at a rather early age.

"But I'll vouch for him this time dad. Just one more?" Samuel had a sly but hopeful look on his face.

"Don't you hear enough stories while you're at Hogwarts?"

"Grandpa doesn't tell us anything about when you were at Hogwarts except that you were in trouble a lot. He said you broke the record for detentions before Christmas one year."

"That was my third year, and your grandpa gave most of them to me. Now close your eyes and go to bed."

"We haven't said good night to mum yet," Elias protested, and as Harry kissed him gently on the forehead, he said, "I'll make sure she comes in before you fall asleep." He kissed Sam on the forehead as well, ignoring the fake look of disgust his thirteen year old was giving him, and made his way tiredly out of the room. It had been a long day in the Auror's office and he was exhausted. He didn't care if he was 33 or 50, chasing Mundungus Fletcher down the street in the middle of downtown Edinburg was no run in the park. Especially when he was throwing Tri-W stink bombs over his shoulder at you.

He heard light whispering break out between the two boys as he made his way down the hall to his waiting wife in their own room.

"Asleep yet?" Ginny asked.

Standing with his hands on his hips with a smile, Harry said, "They're demanding five kisses each from their mother."

"I doubt that she said with a smile as she wrapped her husband up in her arms.

"Well, they want a goodnight anyhow. And they're going to try to finagle you into giving them a story."

"Will I give them one?"

He gazed into her beautiful blue eyes and nodded. "Maybe just one," he said gently, running his fingers through her orange hair. "But don't be too long. I'm tired."

"Well, that's incentive to come back," she joked.

Harry spread his arms out and flopped backward onto the gloriously soft bed, eyes closed. Ginny watched him for a moment, knowing he'd be asleep in a few minutes, and then went down the hall to her two sons, both with their father's unruly black hair, and noted that they were wide awake.

"Mum! So good to see you! Come in and sit down!"

She crossed her arms and said, "Sam, if your uncles aren't going to teach you something productive then you won't get to spend time in their shop anymore."

"We just want one story mum, just one."

She looked to Eli who nodded enthusiastically and she climbed over Eli to lay in bed with him on top of the covers. Using her wand to wave the light down even further she said, "Close your eyes and I'll tell you a story."

"One about Hogwarts?"

"One about Grandpa Sev. There's a lot of things you don't know about him you know."

"Like what? Did he pull a funny prank on Headmistress McGonagall or something?" asked Sam.

"Yes, but that's not the story I'll tell tonight."

There was a collective, "Oh," from the boys, but Ginny hushed them.

"Just listen. Now, you know your dad is adopted by Grandpa Severus, but you've never heard how that happened. Your dad used to live with other relatives, and they weren't nice at all. They made him live in a tiny room and they didn't like him very much."

"They didn't like daddy?" Eli asked, confused. Ginny shushed him again, and he lay his head back on the pillow again.

"No, they didn't like him because they were Muggle and they didn't like magic. So when your dad went to Hogwarts he was very pleased to meet Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, and they became best friends. They became his family. That was the year before I went to Hogwarts, but I do know a few stories from daddy's first year there. I'll tell you one, just to start, and then maybe we'll have another tomorrow night."

Both boys were silent as Ginny launched into one of the scenes she'd been allowed to see from Harry's pensive years ago. It was old history and he wasn't as touchy about it as he used to be, and knew he would not mind the boys hearing this one in particular.

"It starts with a big test daddy flunked right before Easter Break in grandpa's class..."

Harry fidgeted as he waited for his test to be handed back. He'd studied hard but just didn't feel like he'd been grasping the material all that well, even with Hermione's help. At this point his brain just felt like mush from the hard studying they'd been doing, and he just wanted to go to sleep. Ron and Hermione weren't going home for the Easter holiday, for which he was thankful, because he wouldn't dare return to the Dursley's earlier than he had to. He wasn't even sure what awaited him upon his return after Hagrid had threatened Uncle Vernon last summer and given Dudley's rear an attractive curly tail.

Breaking Harry's train of thought was a long, dark shadow that fell over his desk, looming there, just daring him to look up.

"Deplorable as usual Potter," Professor Snape said in a tone that said he wasn't surprised. Harry shuddered. He'd already gotten on the wrong side of this one Professor more times than he could count this year, and as of now felt as if it was actually uncle Vernon looming over him.

Snape dropped Harry's test on the desk and moved on to the next unlucky student as Harry unrolled the parchment and closed his eyes. He hadn't even managed a D for dreadful, but instead there was a big red T marked on the top and Harry couldn't help but feel that the T looked a little nicer than Snape's usual scribbles, as if he had actually enjoyed marking Harry's paper as a complete and epic fail.

A bell rang somewhere in the distance to signal the end of class, and everyone began packing up their supplies. Harry didn't manage to get out the door quick enough however before a silky voice bade, "Potter, you will be serving Easter detention with me the day after tomorrow, in remedial potions."

"Yes sir," Harry said, and ducked his head on his way out.

"That's bogus," Ron griped at lunch. "Fred told me they do a big prize hunt at lunch on Easter day. They hide fake wands all over the castle and grounds, and when you find one you wave it and a prize like candy or toys pop out. George said they got their first rubber chicken that way."

"Well, maybe you can save me one," Harry said, feeling down. He didn't really think he'd like a rubber chicken, but at Easter Dudley always ended up with a grocery bag full of candy at least, and he was never allowed any of it. He'd never even really had more than a few pieces of candy in his life until he met Ron on the Hogwarts Express.

As Easter loomed closer, Harry dreaded the detention in the two days between failing his big test and being forced to skip a day of prizes to meet Professor Snape in the Dungeons.

The dreaded day came however, and as Ron and Hermione began their search for fake wands around the castle, Harry made his way down to the Dungeons, hoping upon hopes to find just one fake wand on the way down the stairs. He went slowly and kept his eyes peeled, wondering if there were any place to hide a wand in a barren dungeon corridor, and he discovered that the answer was a disappointing no.

"You're late Potter," Snape commented dryly as Harry walked in with his hands in his pocket. "The point of this detention was for you to be punished, not to dawdle on your way down looking for wands."

"Yes sir," Harry said quietly.

Snape pointed to a cauldron and said, "You will brew the Draught Of Good Sleep again, without your book notes. You will stay here until you produce a passable potion. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir," Harry said again, waving the fire up on his cauldron and then setting his wand on his desk as he went to gather supplies. The potion took two hours at a minimum to brew properly, and Harry was sure the hunt would be over by then.

Harry was nearly two hours into his potion, and was just coming to an end as he added his last ingredient in and stirred seven times counter clockwise. The potion turned a satisfying purple, meaning he had probably brewed it correctly, and he sat on the stool next to him to take a break. Two hours was a long time to stand.

As he sat down though, he found he'd sat a little too far to the left, and to keep himself from falling, he grabbed the lip of the work bench to steady himself, his hand gripping something that felt smooth. Smooth like a wand hiding just under the lip of the table.

Harry kept his hand there on it now that he'd knocked it loose. He'd found a wand! He'd found just the one! Excitement filled him as he wondered what would shoot out of it, but dread also. Didn't Ron say they shot stuff out the end when you waved it? That wouldn't do well at all to have it exploding in a classroom with Snape, who appeared to think this kind of thing was a waste of time in the first place.

Ever so slowly Harry withdrew his hand, trying to hold the fake black wand steady and set it on the desk. At the last second he couldn't help but rub his thumb over the smooth finish of his prize however and without warning the tip of it exploded, sending colorful streamers everywhere with a loud bang.

"Potter!" The small explosion was followed by another, this time from Snape as the man shot up out of his seat, startled just as much as Harry had been.

"Did I not specify that this is detention! Not an Easter wand hunt!"

"Yes, yes sir," he said, stammering for a proper response.

Despite the ranting the professor engaged in over the next few moments, Harry couldn't help but look down in the midst of the fallen streamers to his small prize. There on the table sat his very own set of Quidditch figurines. His very first toy in his remembrance.

"Oh for the love of- Potter! Wake up!"

Harry's head snapped up at his Professor's irritated tone.

"Your potion is passable, just get out of my classroom. And take those ridiculous things with you!" he shouted, pointing at the Quidditch figures, clad in gold and red.

Harry gathered his things and fled the room, ending the memory that Ginny had seen.

She finished her story and observed that both of her children were asleep.

As she climbed over Eli and went down the hall to find Harry sleeping, still sprawled out on their bed on his back, she mused about something she had suspected since she'd first seen the memory.

She could never know for sure unless she asked her father-in-law, but she was fairly positive that upon spying the enamored look on Harry's face at the small toys, the man simply didn't have the heart to take them away, and so let Harry escape with them. He must have known they were important, because Harry still kept the figurines in a box under the bed with a few other trinkets and prized possessions.

The first gift of many, she mused, as she lay on top of the covers and put her head on Harry's chest, falling asleep herself.