Written for Round 8 of Season 2 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition as Beater 1 for the Falmouth Falcons

Disclaimer: I've made no money from this. All characters belong to their original creator.

Prompts: (2) beastly, (13) no j

Word Count: 3,300 (exactly according to MS Word 2007)

A/N: No j is a lot easier than no e, let me tell you. (Additional notes at the end.) (Also, Lily has decided that she belongs in Slytherin)

One more thing: I have no idea if basilisks are born tiny or if they spring forth as giants. The HP Wiki doesn't say. So I'm going to go ahead and assume they are born tiny.

.x.x.

.x.x. Operation GLAPB: Day 1 .x.x.

Lily rocked back and forth on her feet, giddy with excitement as Rosie finally, finally looked up from the parchment in her hands.

"All right, then. Do you all understand your mission? Is everyone ready for Operation G.L.A.P.B.?" she asked them.

"Yes!" Lily almost shouted. She's been ready ages ago, since that night Daddy had told them the story of how he had rescued Mum. It was such a romantic story with the right amount of adventure and mystery.

"Yes," Hugo said a beat after her.

"Why is Rose in charge?" Al said, pouting at them.

"Because she's the only one who could spell 'basilisk,'" Lily said.

Rosie smirked and gave Al a comforting pat on the back. "Next time, dear cousin. Next time."

"How was I to know there was only one 'l'?" Al huffed.

"And one 's' and a 'k' instead of a 't' and—" Hugo said, giggling.

"All right! All right! I get it," Al said, but he still pouted. Lily giggled, too, and then reached over and hugged him because Al was her favorite brother at the moment. He pushed her off with a whine but Lily knew he loved hugs. He was only pretending not to because Freddy had laughed at him that one time.

Rosie shook her head and bit her lips as if trying not to laugh. It almost worked. Almost. If maybe one or two giggles escaped, well, Lily heard nothing.

"When I call your name, state back to me your mission," Rosie said, arms behind her back, imitating one of those really mean, angry, yelly men that paced back and forth giving everyone orders on those shows Uncle Ron sometimes liked to watch on this thing called a telly. The one with all the explosions and fighting and mud. Lily liked the explosions and the mud…but not so much the fighting, mostly because the fighting was rather boring. There wasn't even any magic and what fun is that?

"Hugo!"

"I'm…er…I'm going to distract Granny?" He said it like a question, but Rosie let it slide. She wasn't as mean or yelly as the men on that telly thing were.

"Lily!"

"I'm to distract Mum, Sir!" Lily said, once again bouncing with excitement now that it seemed they were finally about to do something.

"Good. Al!"

"I steal the egg!" he said, finally looking a little more excited.

"And I'll keep a lookout for everyone else," Rosie finished. "Are we all set then, Team?"

"Yes!" the three of them responded.

"Then we march!"

.x.x.

"Mum, can you braid my hair like Rosie's?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes at her youngest child. She couldn't remember the last time her tomboyish daughter had asked her to fix her hair or wear a dress or anything remotely close to that despite her love of glitter. Lily blinked up innocently at her. Ginny could tell she was up to something—something devious, to be sure—but she couldn't tell what it was. Not yet, anyway.

"All right, Honey, sit here," Ginny said, patting the seat next to her on the couch. Lily smiled brilliantly at her, making Ginny even more suspicious of her behavior. She summoned a brush and turned to run it through her daughter's thin, soft hair.

"So where are your brother and cousins?" Ginny asked.

"Playing!" Lily said happily. She twisted in her seat and Ginny nearly lost the wisps of hair she'd been holding.

"Sit still, Honey, or I won't be able to braid it," Ginny said. She waited until Lily finally settled down before asking her, "Why aren't you playing with them?"

"I am! But I want hair like Rosie's first!"

Ginny sighed. Lily was too young to be already hiding secrets. She thought she had another five or so years before that happened. Lily wasn't even ten yet.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Al and Rose sneak out the front door. She couldn't see Hugo, but she could hear her mum talking in the kitchen, and by that tone, Ginny was sure that was where he was.

She didn't know what the four of them were up to, but she will find out. At the moment, she wasn't sure if she should be glad or not that her oldest was away at Hogwarts and thus had no part at all in this scheme of theirs.

.x.x.

"Egg?" Rosie asked, quill at the ready hovering above the piece of parchment in her hand.

"Check!" Al said, grinning impossibly wide, holding out the egg for them to look at.

"Toad?" Rosie asked as she made a mark next to the word "egg" on her list.

"Got it!" Lily said, holding out the squirming toad in her cupped hands. Lily was good with toads because Uncle Neville liked them and Lily liked playing with them. After Uncle Neville had taught her how to hold them without squishing them, she'd become an expert at toad holding.

Rosie glanced at the toad in her hands then took a step away from her. Lily grinned. Rosie never did like toads, even Uncle Neville's very well behaved ones, which was too bad for her, but great fun for Lily and her brothers because they could almost always get a squeal out of Rosie if they brought one close enough.

"Right," she said. Rosie made a little mark next to "toad" on the parchment. She placed the quill and parchment down on the floor between them.

Hugo started asking, "So how do we get the toad—"

But Lily interrupted him. "Purple," she said.

"You named the toad Purple?" Al asked, then laughed and shook his head. "Of course you named the toad Purple. You love purple."

"How do we get the toad to hatch the egg?" Hugo repeated. He glanced at the toad in her hands and the egg in Al's. "Do we make a nest?"

"Err…I'm not sure," Rose said. "Should we ask someone?" She looked around worriedly.

"No! We can't ask anyone. Maybe we can take turns holding the toad down?" Lily said.

"That wouldn't work, Lily. Neither you nor Al would be able to sit still long enough to do it. You'll be bored within five minutes." Rose said.

"We could sing it to sleep," Al suggested.

"No!" Lily and Hugo shouted at the same time.

"I didn't say I would sing it to sleep!" Al huffed, pouting again.

Rose laughed. "I'm sure it'll wake up at some point so that wouldn't work anyway," she said.

"We could Spellotape it to the egg!" Hugo said, bouncing up in his seat. "Then we wouldn't need to hold it down or sing it to sleep!"

Rose looked horrified for a second, "Hugh, we can't tape the poor thing to the egg! What would Mum think?"

Hugo deflated a little. No one said anything.

"So, what should we do then?" Lily finally asked.

After another long bout of silence, Rose finally said, "Why don't we build it the nest first and see what happens?"

They nodded in agreement because Rose was the most sensible one, and if there was anyone who knew anything about how toads hatched chicken eggs, it would be Rose.

.x.x.

"And you're all set," Harry said as he helped his daughter down from the dining table where they'd been working.

"Thank you, Daddy," Lily said, throwing her arms around him to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"You're welcome," he said, setting her down on the floor.

"I'm gonna go show Rosie and Hugo!" she said before taking off.

"Don't shake it too much, Sweetie!"

Ginny came up behind him, snaking an arm around his waist, and asked, "Any idea what it is they're up to?"

"None," he said. She laughed, gave him a kiss of her own, then went into the kitchen where Ron and Hermione were sharing a glass of wine.

"They better not make a mess with all that dirt," she said as she left.

Harry was glad he'd spelled everything to stay in place. He didn't trust his children to keep the dirt inside the little tank at all.

It was nearly time for them to go home, but he gave the kids a few more extra minutes.

.x.x.

"There! A home and a nest for Purple and the egg!" Lily said proudly presenting the little container her Dad had helped her make. There was dirt on the bottom, a miniature pond with water from the frog pond, and a large leafy pile where the egg and Purple were going to sit.

Rosie picked up the egg and gently placed it into the nest. Hugo placed Purple on top of where the egg was nestled, then piled a bit more leaves on top like a blanket so that Purple would be all snuggled and won't get cold.

"Got the food!" Al shouted as he came racing into the room, his hands cupped. Lily laughed as Rosie gave a little shriek when Al dumped all the bugs into the tank for their little toad friend.

"This is gonna be great!" Lily said. "We can go catch all the bugs we want now!"

Rosie gave a sniff. "Thank goodness I'm not the one taking care of it," she said.

Someone knocked on the door, and a second later, Daddy came in.

"It's time to go. You can play again on Wednesday when Rose and Hugo come over for dinner," Harry said.

Lily pouted up at her daddy but he gave a little shake of his head and Lily sighed.

"Come on, now," he said before leaving to go back downstairs.

Lily hugged Hugo and Rose goodbye before picking up Purple's tank and following Al out of the room.

Finally! She was going to get her very own basilisk! This was the pet that every young Slytherin needed, no matter what anyone said. Especially not gloating Gryffindor older brothers.

.x.x. Operation GLAPB: Day 13 .x.x.

"Rosie? Do you know how long it takes for basilisks to hatch?" Lily asked as she and Rosie stared into the tank. Purple had surprised them. They didn't need to hold or sing or tape her to the egg at all. She sat on it all the time, only going to sit in the little pond every once in a while and never for very long. She didn't even move to catch the food Al and Lily supplied her. A quick dart of her tongue and a slurp later, the beetle or the grasshopper or whatever other bug they found in their neighbors' gardens would be gone.

"I have no idea," Rose said, her eyes never leaving Purple.

"How many days have we had Purple?" she asked.

"Thirteen," Rose said, not even blinking.

"Rosie?"

"Yes, Lily?"

"Purple isn't going to move. She already sat in the pond earlier and she only does that once a day," Lily said.

Finally, Rosie looked up. "I can't believe it was that easy," she said. "I expected there to be more…more…trials before we got the toa—Purple—to sit on the egg."

Lily shrugged. "She knows I want a basilisk? And she likes me?" Lily suggested.

Rosie laughed. "Somehow, I doubt that, Lils, but I'm glad it worked out in the end."

"Wanna go play?"

"Sure. What do you want to play?"

"We could go the gardens and catch bugs with Al and Hugo," Lily said.

Rosie made a face and Lily grinned.

"Or we could put stuff in Al's and Hugo's lunch while they're still outside?"

"Much better idea. Let's go!"

.x.x. Operation GLAPB: Day 17 .x.x.

"Then what happened? Then what happened?"

"Well, after Fawkes scraped out its eyes, the basilisk started thrashing madly about, and in a great stroke of luck, knocked the Sorting Hat at me. So, in desperation, I shoved the raggedy thing on my head and prayed for a miracle and something must have been on my side because that's when the Hat gave me the Sword of Gryffindor." Harry looked at the enraptured faces of his two youngest children and Rose and Hugo. Honestly, he didn't think he told the story properly. There was no way for him to describe how terrified he'd been or the rush of adrenaline that only barely got him through the whole ordeal.

"Then you killed the basilisk right? And then destroyed the Diary?" Al shouted bouncing up and down in his seat.

"No! Al, let Daddy finish the story!" Lily said, but she was as excited as her brother.

Harry laughed. "Yes. I grabbed the sword, and when the beastly thing tried to attack me again, I plunged the sword into the roof of its mouth, killing it."

Rose and Hugo looked up at him, wide-eyed.

"Did you get hurt, Uncle Harry?" Hugo asked.

"Yes," he said honestly and Hugo's face paled. "But do you know what makes phoenixes so special?"

Hugo sat for a moment, pondering. He could tell when Hugo found the answer as his whole face lit up. "Healing tears!" he shouted.

"Right, you are," Harry said. "It's about the only known antidote to basilisk venom."

"Wow," Hugo whispered, intrigued.

"Right? Right? Then he grabbed Mum and got Uncle Ron and they escaped the dungeon together on the phoenix!" Al said.

"But Uncle Harry," Rose said, "how did the basilisk get into the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Err…well, I heard that it was born inside the Chamber," he said.

"You mean someone got a toad to hatch an egg inside the Chamber of—Ow!" Al rubbed the spot where Lily had elbowed him. "What did you do that for?"

Lily hissed—actually hissed—at her brother, but turned and smiled as innocently as she could at him. And Harry had a very, very bad feeling. His eyes locked on Purple, the toad, sitting unmoving in its tank, and there it was, that sinking feeling that usually meant Lily was up to nothing good.

"Lily," he said evenly, "what did you do?"

"I haven't done anything, Daddy." She blinked and Harry sighed. He'll have to go take a look at that tank and the toad later, for his own peace of mind if nothing else.

.x.x. Operation GLAPB: Day 20 .x.x.

"So I think our daughter is trying to hatch a basilisk," Harry said as he slid into bed next to Ginny. She looked up from the book she'd been reading and turned towards her husband.

"What makes you think that?" she asked him slowly. Because this was definitely something Lily would think up. She didn't question that at all. But hatching a basilisk was an oddly specific procedure, one she didn't think even her hyperactive, troublemaker daughter could unearth.

"She's got an egg under that toad of hers," Harry said, as if he were telling her he wanted waffles for breakfast.

"Should we do something about it?" Ginny placed her book on the bedside table and shifted so that she could tuck herself in next to Harry.

He wrapped an arm around her, his hand rubbing soothingly up and down her arm.

"We should probably talk to her about it," Ginny said.

"Hmmm…"

"Harry?"

"Yes?" His voice was nothing more than a sigh, already half asleep.

"Do you know how long it takes for a basilisk to hatch?" she asked him.

"No idea. Should ask Hermione; she'll know…or she'll find out…"

He was asleep, and really, Ginny was almost there too. She hoped for all their sakes that it took longer than it would for a chick. Because otherwise, they'll have run out of time. It was already week three and if she remembered correctly, that's the exact amount of time it took for chicks to hatch.

.x.x. Operation GLAPB: Day 21 .x.x.

Lily waited excitedly for the egg to hatch. Rosie said it took three weeks and today would be three weeks exactly since they first put Purple on Lily's beloved egg. Today, she gets her basilisk!

She clutched the blindfold she'd made last week with Rosie's help in her hands and bounced up and down waiting for something to happen.

Al was getting Purple's food by himself again because Lily couldn't bear missing the moment when Operation Get Lily a Pet Basilisk bore fruit. She wasn't going to let Purple out of her sights today, even if it meant sitting in one place all day. It will be worth it!

Lily had finally let herself sit when someone knocked on her bedroom door. It was probably Al.

The door opened, and Lily looked up.

It wasn't Al.

It was Mummy and Daddy.

.x.x.

"Honey? Can we talk for a moment?" Ginny said as Harry nodded his head behind her. He was much better at this parenting stuff when it didn't include possibly breaking a little girl's heart. For that, he left it to Ginny who instilled as much fear in her children as her own mother did in them.

Lily nodded, glancing at the tank once before turning her full attention to them.

"Honey, we want to know if you've put an egg under Purple," Ginny said, cutting straight to the point.

Lily didn't say anything, looking anywhere but at them. And they had their answer.

"Honey?" Ginny said again.

"Yes," she said finally.

"And how long, exactly, has Purple been sitting on that egg?" Ginny said slowly, carefully.

Lily bit her lip for a bit then said, "three weeks?"

"Lily!"

"But—"

"Ginny!" Harry shouted as he watched Purple leap off the egg and into the little pond, his heart pounding and hand on his wand though he knew the thing was nearly useless against a basilisk.

Ginny's reaction, he noticed, was much the same, except she'd grabbed a struggling Lily and had pushed her behind them.

They both waited apprehensively for something to happen, though it would probably be smarter to not look at the tank.

Purple croaked and then the unmistakable sound of eggshell breaking could be heard. Neither of them was paying any attention to Lily, so focused were they on the possible basilisk threat.

There was still a chance that it had all been a mistake and a chick would appear, but Harry wasn't going to take that chance, not when he had a family to protect.

When a little snake head poked its way out of leaf pile, Lily shrieked in happiness and pushed past them for the tank. And Harry nearly peed himself. Years of being a seeker seemed to all culminate in that moment as he reached out and snatched his daughter right back.

"What are you doing?" Harry said, frantic, trying to watch the basilisk without watching it.

"But I need to put the blindfold on him," she said waving a glittery monstrosity around flinging glitter this way and that.

"Blindfold?" he said shakily.

"Yes, so I can look at it," she said.

Harry looked at the thing more closely and it indeed looked like it could be used as a blindfold. Harry began feeling sorry for the basilisk. If the blindfold didn't blind it, the glitter would for sure.

Harry glanced at the basilisk and luckily it wasn't looking at them. He grabbed the blindfold and put Lily down.

"I'll put it on him," he said as he carefully walked over. He glanced at Ginny, nodded, and then quickly wrapped the blindfold around the head while it was still distracted. It was bit too large for the tiny thing but it would most definitely do for now.

When he turned around, he saw Ginny's hand covering Lily's eyes, her own screwed shut, and he smiled.

"Done," he said, relieved. For now, at least, they were safe.

"So can we keep him? Can we? I'll be good; I promise," Lily said. "I've already got a name! I'm going to name him after my big brother—"

A/N: I had to cut who Lily wants to name the basilisk after out of my fic due to word restrictions, but fyi, it's her oldest brother u.u