A/N: Yes, I am still working on the next chapter of GYWM! But this is a little something to hold you over in the meantime. A fun idea formulated on discord. My friend and fellow writer Ajjaxx is responsible for helping me write this little story. Please check his profile on ffn! This is set 2 years in the future, but you can disregard any 'future' info. It doesn't necessarily align completely with canon. But it's fairly close. I hope you enjoy

The apple juice burnt a trail down her throat; the sweet tang tasting foul—much like life itself, at the moment.

Perhaps it had been made for a more sophisticated palate, refined for tastebuds beyond a little girl hailing from London. Whose only experience with fine cuisine was the fanciful chicken dinosaurs that usually adorned her plate, shepherded by disgusting vegetables that she refused to touch.

Daddy says broccoli makes me run faster, she thought, dropping her chin onto her folded arms as she peered into the amber juice before her. I say he's a big fat liar! Tastes like smelly feet.

Lily took a sip of her juice box once again. It was more of a distraction than anything, the drifting thoughts of a case gone wrong still buzzing around in her head.

No sense. It makes no sense, she thought, bringing the cheese stick up to her mouth and puffing on it like a pipe.

She'd seen the man on the telly do it during difficult cases, and she liked to think it helped her, as well. No matter what her daddy had to say about filthy smoking habits.

Besides! According to the label that Abby had read aloud, her cheesy pipe also gave her calcium-enriched bones and a decreased risk of osteo...ostopr...ostopra-osisis.

Yes, that's what it was called.

"So, tell it to me again," Lily said, adjusting the brim of her deerstalker cap as she looked up at Abby from across the kitchen table. "From the start, no lies!"

Not that she ever could, Lily thought with a smirk. After all, Al always said 'liar liar, pants on fire' was one of the strongest spells to ever exist.

And by Batman, she was going to use it.

A gusty sigh left Abby's mouth, "I've told you, Lily," she said, "Daddy's at work. He'll be back soon."

It was Sunday morning which was, by all accounts, Lily-time. She'd had a playdate with Daddy planned, and she'd been excited about it all week. He was supposed to play the Robin to her Batman!

But then he'd gone missing. And with magnifying glass and teddy in hand, Lily Potter would not rest until she solved the case.

"It's Sunday. He never works on Sundays," Lily argued, "Something's afeet, I know it!"

"Afoot, honey, something's afoot," Abby was quick to correct. "Now...are you done with your breakfast?"

Lily's eyes narrowed, "I'll be asking the questions here," she said, withdrawing a Crayola Sketchbook 9"X9", Coloring & Drawing Supplies, 40 Sheets from behind her.

"Name?"

"Abigail Waters."

"Birthday?"

"Twenty-six of June."

"Year?"

Strictly speaking, Lily wasn't actually writing the answers down. Writing was hard. She was, however, drawing the coolest dinosaur London had ever seen. But Abby didn't need to know that.

See, Lily's Phil-Sophie was...that it wasn't so much about knowing how to do detective work. But rather, acting like you knew how to do detective work. And as this was her first case, she needed to go all out.

"Sweetheart, it's a big number," Abby said, a kind smile painted across her face.

Lily tapped the crayon against her chin and frowned. "Is it above one hundred and six?"

She could, in fact, actually count to one hundred and forty-three, but it was never wise to let your foe know just how prepared you were. Lily smiled slyly to herself.

"It's in the nineteen hundreds, actually."

Hecking, heck.

With a sigh, Lily sagged against her chair. She had definitely been outmatched here. Stupid nineteen hundred. She bet nothing good even happened then.

Except maybe nineteen ninety-three. She didn't know why, it was just a lucky feeling.

Shaking off the small setback, Lily continued her interrogation. "Occu...p-a-t-i-o-n," she spelt aloud. Stupid words and their stupid sounds. She idly continued outlining her dinosaur.

"A waitress, sweetie, you know that," Abby said before mumbling to herself. "For now, anyway."

Lily raised an eyebrow at that. "Is that so?" she said, luring Abby into a false sense of security like the proper, ruthless, jaded-but-with-a-heart-of-gold, noir detective she was. "Do much… waiting?"

"That's the aim of the game, yes."

"Maybe while you were waiting you saw..." Lily clutched the Crayola Sketchbook 9"X9", Coloring & Drawing Supplies, 40 Sheets in her hand before flipping it abruptly, the sudden rush of artisan-crafted Crayola paper taking Abby by surprise, "THIS MAN?"

Abby raised her eyebrows for only the briefest of seconds, a tell that Lily, Detective Extraordinaire, didn't let go unnoticed. There was fear in those eyes; she just knew it.

Confusion marred her brow and made her words leave her lips in uncertainty, "Sweetie…I…" Abby stumbled, "That's a dinosaur."

Heck! Wrong page...

But a good detective never let anyone see them stumble. She took a swig of her apple juice to buy some time as she formulated a lie.

"It's a…." She grabbed a black crayon in the blink of an eye, and with a dramatic flourish, the dinosaur now had a pair of glasses and a scar, "A Dad dinosaur."

Abby couldn't help but let out a gasp, her hand flying to her mouth in a vain attempt to cover her shock.

She was good. Lily was better.

Lily leant forward, eager to pursue this line of questioning, "Maybe you've seen him order a… coffee?" The last word came out an excited whisper, "Possibly even…" she checked over both shoulders to make sure neither of the boys were listening, "Two?"

Abby looked pale, "No… no never two. Heavens no, never ever two!"

Standing to her full height with her partner Ted in her arms, the hard-hitting, stuffed dinosaur veteran, Lily puffed out her chest in an attempt to make herself seem far larger than she was.

Not that she needed help in the intimidation department.

"You're lying, Abby."

"No comment, ma'am."

"Hecking, heck," Lily swore under her breath.

She didn't like to swear, but Ted had given her some bad habits—the force was a rough place.

It seemed this particular lead had dried up, a bloody damn shame.

But the key to any puzzle was its pieces. She hadn't failed yet. Oh no, not at all. Lily had merely fit in a new piece—Abigail Waters was, without a shadow of a doubt, guilty of something.

Packing up her things, she donned her hat and bidded Abby farewell for now.

She'd been hoping for a graceful exit, but with her too-large hat falling into her eyes, she bumped into the chair on her way out.

Heck!

Readjusting it for the hundredth time that day, she left the kitchen with her trench coat trailing behind her like the train of a wedding dress.

There were informants to be contacted.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Under the cover of midnight darkness that looked conspicuously like three minutes later, Lily struck.

She bounded across the room, nearly tripping over her trench coat as she fought to keep her hat from shrouding her vision. With a running dive, she hid behind the lounge, holding her breath.

There was no one, but a detective could never be too vigilant.

Making her way carefully to the fireplace, she groped aimlessly on her tiptoes in search floo powder pot.

Bonk.

Lily scowled and blew out a breath of powder.

Yes, she'd knocked the pot onto her head.

Yes, it had hurt.

And yes, it was all over her face and her hair.

This didn't make for an amazing alibi, but no matter.

Lily pulled a clump of powder free from her hair, a generous amount for her smaller hand and tossed it into the fire.

"1991 Whale Street!" she coughed out, sticking her head into the fire after it turned green, just as she'd seen her daddy do countless times before.

Her informant would be on the other side, she just knew it.

Except he wasn't.

But she definitely still knew it. Being wrong didn't mean you didn't know stuff.

"Hi, Uncle Ron," Lily said lamely. "Er...fancy seeing you here."

"That's the thing about floo calling people at their home, hun," Uncle Ron said, "They tend to answer."

Well...when he puts it like that.

Uncle Ron knelt down in front of the fire. "Now, why don't you tell me why you're sticking your head out of my fireplace at…" He leant back to check the clock, "Just before nine in the morning?"

Now this part, she'd rehearsed.

"Official detective business," she declared proudly, "Reduckted and all!"

"You mean 'redacted', sweetheart?"

Lily furrowed her brow in anger. "I'll be asking the questions here," she said, her eyes narrowed as she levelled him with the fiercest glare she could manage. "Is Hugo awake?"

With an amused smile, Uncle Ron nodded. "He's eating breakfast. Would you like to talk to him?"

"Yes plea—I mean, yes. Yes, I would," she said, stumbling through her words.

There was no being nice, not when she was tracking down her dad.

"One second," Uncle Ron said before shouting back into the house.

After way more than one second (the filthy liar!), a ghastly, fire-edged mirage of a small boy eating cereal came into view.

"Hullo," Hugo said, munching on his corn flakes, "Wasup?"

Lily let out a relieved sigh. Now she could finally get somewhere. "I need your help," she said. "We've got an emergency!"

His loud munching continued, "Emergency?"

"Dad's gone missing. Has he been by today?" Lily asked, words spilling from her lips quicker than a cereal-munching, cartoon-watching, red-headed six-year-old could catch.

Lily crossed her fingers and one set of toes for good luck.

Hugo nodded quickly, spilling some milk onto himself in the process, "He was here," he said. "But then he talked to Dad and left."

If she had a seat, she'd definitely be on the edge of it. Instead she let out a loud squee! This detective business wasn't so hard. "What were they talking about?"

There was no man more dependable than Hugo Weasley. She knew she made the right choice contacting him. Al and James would've just laughed.

"Well, I didn't really listen…"

Could one retract statements?

Yes. She decided one could. Hugo Weasley smelt like off-milk, and he was dumb.

Finally swallowing the cereal he'd been audibly munching on for an age, Hugo added, "But he was carrying something!"

Lily's eyes shot wide. "What? Whatwhatwhatwhatwhat?"

He tapped his finger against his chin and her breath caught in her throat. She was so close to a Batman playdate, she could taste it. Crime in Gotham was about to drop by one-hundred percent per annum.

"A balloon," he said with a shrug.

Now it was Lily's turn to gasp. It couldn't be a hot air balloon, that'd be silly.

Which meant it was a...

"Party balloon…" Lily whispered aloud. "Of course…"

Could one re-retract a statement? If so, Hugo Weasley was the most dependable man in the world.

He also still smelt like off-milk.

She cut the connection with a flourish and righted her hat, brushing off the remnants of floo powder.

This puzzle was starting to look a whole lot clearer. Daddy was throwing a party!

But for who…?

Standing like a girl four feet taller than her actual height, she bounded towards the kitchen door where she'd last seen Abby and busted inside, wielding her finger like a wand.

But whatever she had expected to see wasn't what she found.

Harry Potter, dressed in a Robin costume, Abby blowing up balloons. Both sets of their features painted with an unbridled shock.

Abby's balloon paused mid-capacity as the air escaped into her face, causing it to fizzle pathetically to the floor.

The unflappable Harry Potter couldn't say anything except to utter a soft phrase under the barest of breaths.

"Happy Birthday, Lily Flower."

Oh.