Hi, guys! I'll be honest, this is a straight-up bribe: I am excited to report that Faintest, Slimmest, Wildest Chance has been nominated in the HP Fanfic Fan Poll Awards in both the Best Drama/Angst and Best Romance categories! If you enjoyed that fic, I'd really appreciate it if you'd head over to hpfanficfanpoll dot livejournal dot com/ 27781 dot html and vote! Voting ends December 31st.

I am still writing (both for Harry Potter and Sherlock), and anyone interested in my latest NaNo project, the Romione version of FSWC, can check out the summary and excerpts at nanowrimo dot org/participants/keeptheotherone.

This is a silly little one-shot built around Lily's first line of dialogue. Poor Stan; still on the Knight Bus after all these years... Speaking of which, someone once asked me to tag the kids' ages rather than just giving a date, so here you go: Teddy 13; Victoire 11; Dominique 10; Molly 8; Louis 7; James, Rose, and Lucy 6; Albus and Fred 5; Hugo and Lily 3.

Merry Christmas!

December 2011

In the heart of London's West End, on a crowded street packed with shoppers, theatre-goers, and tourists, a small ginger girl stood alone and unnoticed on the edge of the curb and stuck out her right arm. Neither she nor the Muggles around her looked surprised when a garishly purple triple-decker bus arrived moments later, not even when a lamp post and an Underground sign bent nearly double to avoid being run over. The conductor did, however, stop and stare when it appeared no one waited to board—until he looked down, way down—as a little voice announced,

"My name is Lily Luna Potter, and I need to go to number 93 Diagon Alley, please."

()()()()

"Would you all just stand still for ten seconds!" Harry shouted.

Ron ignored his best friend's attempts to corral their mutual children, nieces, and nephews into some semblance of order and looked around with delight. Muggle London at Christmastime was something special, and the theatre district glowed with Christmas cheer. Billboards and shop signs flashed, fairy lights were strung across the streets, trees both real and fake sparkled on the pavement and in shop windows, and three doors down a plump, cheerful man with a white beard and a red kettle was ringing a bell and wishing everyone "Happy Christmas!" It was loud, bright, and garish, and Ron loved it.

"Stop that, Rosie." She had been tugging on Ron's sleeve for several minutes now, ever since they'd been in the theatre lobby.

"Ron! A little help, please!" Harry foiled James's attempt to insert a candy cane into Louis's ear and grabbed a wandering Molly by the end of her scarf, which only delayed, not prevented, her exploration of a nearby window display as the little girl twirled in a circle before pressing her nose to the glass, leaving her uncle holding a handmade scarf and very little patience.

"Teddy, Victoire, please," Harry begged, but the two oldest were too busy pretending to be uninterested in the spectacle around them to pay him any mind. "We could really—Fred Weasley, don't you dare!"

Finally taking pity on his brother-in-law, Ron turned away from the truly spectacular display that had caught Molly's and Dominique's attention and put two fingers in his mouth, producing an ear-splitting whistle that drew the attention of not only the children, but everyone in a twenty-foot radius. Speaking quickly into what he knew would be an all-too-brief silence, he shouted, "Roll call!"

"Teddy."

"Victoire."

"Never again," Harry muttered, stuffing both James's candy cane and Molly's scarf into a pocket.

"Dom!"

"Molly!"

"We're never doing this again," Harry repeated, as Louis, James, and Rose called out their names.

This whole trip had been Hermione's idea, a chance to expose the children to Muggle culture and give their parents (read: mothers) a chance to do some unobserved Christmas shopping. But even without baby Roxie, who Angelina had deemed too young for Muggle crowds at two years old, the twelve children outnumbered them six to one.

"Lucy."

"Al!"

Ron still wasn't exactly sure how he and Harry had got stuck on sprog duty unaccompanied; it had something to do with "it was your wife's idea" and "hey, Ginny is the youngest," but seeing as how his and Harry's children made up less than half the group, it hardly seemed a fair division of labor.

Ron pulled his arm away from his daughter yet again.

"Fred!"

"Hugo!"

Silence.

"And Lily," Harry said, looking over what was now a knot of children standing together around a post box. "Where's Lily?"

He and Ron both spun towards Teddy, to whom Lily was fiercely attached (both figuratively and often literally), but the boy's arms were empty and no bright, freckled face smiled above his head. Ron felt a pressure on his arm for the hundredth time.

"Not now, Rose!"

"But, Daddy, that's what I've been trying to tell you," Rosie said, her brown eyes wide. "Lily saw Father Christmas in the theatre, and I haven't seen her since."

Ron swore.

"Uncle Ron said—"

"Shut up, Louis," Teddy said sharply. "Harry, I'll take this lot back to the Leaky."

Harry glanced from the children to the crowd around them, and Ron knew what he was thinking: they would never find Lily while trying to keep tabs on eleven other children.

"You know the way?"

Teddy nodded.

Harry hesitated; it was a lot of responsibility to entrust to someone who was still a boy.

"It's not far," Teddy insisted. "Vic can help, won't you?"

"Of course, Uncle Harry."

"All right," Harry agreed reluctantly, then squatted down to address the children. "Everyone, Teddy is in charge and you are to do as he says … or else."

Harry didn't make empty threats, and all the children nodded solemnly at this pronouncement.

"Teddy, you lead, and everyone hold hands," Harry ordered. "Victoire, you bring up the rear and make sure no one lags behind. Wait for us in the Leaky, do you understand? Go straight there and nowhere else. You can ask Mrs. Longbottom to give you a butterbeer."

"Daddy?"

It was Al, his face a miniature of the pinched, worried look on Harry's.

"Daddy, where's Lils?"

Harry squatted down in front of him. "I don't know, mate, but Uncle Ron and I are going to find her. You go with Teddy and we'll see you in a bit, okay?"

Al did not look particularly reassured by this, but James grabbed his hand and Teddy led the string of children down the street.

()()()()

Meanwhile, in the heart of London's magical district, on a crooked street crammed with shoppers, diners, and tourists, a small freckled girl sat in an armchair at the front of a bus. Neither she nor the wizards and witches around her looked surprised when the violently purple Knight Bus banged into view in front of number 93 Diagon Alley, not even when the pavement and all its occupants jumped back two feet to accommodate the bus's opening doors. The passersby did, however, stop and stare when the little girl descended the stairs—one at a time, holding on to the handrail as Mummy had taught her—alone and unaccompanied.

"Pardon me, please," she said politely. "I need to see Uncle George. He owns Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes."

()()()()

"Did you put a tracking charm on her?" Ron asked urgently as soon as the kids were out of sight.

"I started to, I think I got James and Al, but then Bill's arrived and—" Harry ran his hands through his hair.

"All right," Ron said, using his extra height to scan the teeming pavement on both sides of the street. "I can see no less than three Father Christmases from here. We'll just ask around—"

"Ron, she could be anywhere—anywhere!" Harry said desperately. "If he pulled her into a car … took the Tube to the airport, or the train station … King's Cross isn't that far from here—they could be halfway to France! Or Belgium!"

"By that reasoning, she could be halfway to Hogwarts," Ron retorted. "We don't even know she's been kidnapped. She's probably just lost. Or hiding, poor kid."

Harry grabbed his arm. "Wait. There's a chance—" He ran to the edge of the street and held out his wand hand. "Ginny and I taught the kids—please, let this work—we taught them to hail the Knight Bus if they ever got lost."

Ron pulled Harry back as the purple monstrosity mounted the curb precisely where Harry had been standing. He didn't wait for the doors to open but Apparated inside, causing several muffled screams as he landed in the bus's wooden stairwell. Stan Shunpike turned to investigate the commotion, forcing Ron to utter a discrete alohomora and push the bus doors open.

"Mr. Potter!"

"It's Harry Potter!"

"We just saw your daughter—"

"It was Lily, sir, she asked to go to Diagon Alley—"

"I told them they shouldn't have let her off by herself, but does anyone ever listen—"

Harry clambered to his feet and held up a hand, and the passengers fell silent at once.

"Stan, have you seen my daughter today?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Potter. Just dropped her off in Diagon Alley. Whacha doing looking for 'er 'ere, eh?"

Harry closed his eyes and his posture sagged with relief.

"At The Leaky Cauldron?" Ron asked.

"No, sir, Mr. Weasley, sir. She asked to go to number 93 Diagon Alley, didn' she? So that's where we took her, right enough." Stan nodded in satisfaction of a job well done.

"Will you take us there, please?" Ron said, eyeing Harry's peaky complexion and death grip on a nearby armchair. He looked in no shape to Apparate, even by Side-Along. "Now?"

"I'm sorry," Harry said at once. "I wouldn't ask to jump the line, but she's only three—"

"Of course, Mr. Potter," said the witch nearest to him, who had two small boys with her. "Of course you should go to your daughter right away."

There were nods and murmurs of agreement, and the driver put the bus into gear.

()()()()

In the back of Diagon Alley's busiest shop, over a counter filled with products, gift wrap, and sundries, a small elfin girl floated cross-legged in the center and charmed every patron with her devoted attention to a peppermint Fizzing Whizbee. Neither she nor the wizard and witch behind her looked surprised when two frantic, disheveled men, leading a string of mostly red-headed children, rushed in, not even when they scooped the girl up in a mutual embrace and failed to complain about sticky fingers on clothes and in hair. The proprietor did, however, stop and stare when the little girl demanded,

"Daddy, where have you been? Mr. Stan told me you ran away."