Well, it seems I can't stay away from the younger stories. Inspiratation (and some stealing) came at midnight in the form of The dog food caper, by Lexau, Joan M. Will there be more stories? I don't know, am keeping my options open. Have fun!
"Well now," Molly Weasley said, settling on the edge of her young daughter's bed. A clean-scrubbed and pyjama-clad Ginny burrowed deeper under the quilt, her little face shining in the dim reading globe that hovered above their heads. "What shall we read tonight?"
The answer was quite expected.
"Harry!"
Molly smiled indulgently and continued their little game. "Hmm," she tapped her lips thoughtfully with a forefinger. "Are you sure you wouldn't like… The Elephant and the Silly Witch better?"
"Harry and the feet!"
"Harry Potter and the Mysterious Footprints it is," Molly said and waved her wand at the bookcase. A slim volume shuffled out of the neatly lined books and fluttered over while Molly made herself comfortable next to Ginny, tucking her daughter to her side.
On the front of the book, a young boy of around five, a year older than Ginny, peeked out of the window of a quaint Muggle house and waved cheekily at them. He sported a messy mop of hair that flopped every which way and a pair of glasses too large for his face. Ginny waved back.
Molly opened the book, and the boy scurried over the sleeve and hurried to his place on the first colourful page. Ginny giggled, and Molly waited for the little boy to throw a thumbs up before she started to read.
"Young Harry Potter was a friendly boy," Molly said, lowering her voice. "He lived in a little Muggle street with his doting aunt and uncle." In the book, young Harry ran silently to a motherly-looking woman and hugged her around the middle. His uncle scrubbed his messy hair in a loving manner, and they waved him off to work.
Molly turned the page and Harry scurried over.
"Harry was friends with all the neighbours," Molly read. On the opposite page was a little street filled with identical houses. One by one, the neighbours popped out to wave at Harry before they popped back in. Ginny giggled, and Molly gave her time to knock on a few doors to make the Muggles pop out and wave at her also before turning the page.
"Harry's best friend lived in the house opposite him. Her name was—"
"Alice!" Ginny supplied.
"Exactly. Harry and Alice played together every day after breakfast and again after lunch. Sometimes Harry would go on adventures to far-off countries where he met exotic people, and he would come and tell her all about it, but today he had the adventure in Alice's house."
They watched Harry cross the street, stopping to look both ways first and letting a Muggle car pass. He was going to fetch Alice, a little girl still smaller than him, from a house identical to his own. She had a bright smile, her hair was buttercup yellow tied back with a blue headband, and she preferred to run around in adorable blue smocks.
Molly didn't have to wonder too hard when Ginny had spread butter on her head a week ago as to why her daughter had that bright idea. And remembering her own fascination with some of Beedle's stories when she was younger, Molly easily indulged Ginny in her request to charm her play-dress cornflower blue.
"Much to Harry's surprise, Alice wasn't allowed to play outside," Molly read.
"Trouble." Ginny nodded sadly.
She knew the book by heart and still looked sad each time Alice explained to Harry that she was grounded for putting her Kellog's Corn Flakes all over the house. Cornflakes in her Mum's shoes, cornflakes in her handbag, cornflakes in the drawer in the bathroom cabinet, andcornflakes in her father's jacket pocket. This had been happening for the last three days. Her parents insisted that it couldn't have been anyone else for they were the only other people in the house and did not play children's games anymore. She was grounded until she fessed up and admitted her wrongdoing.
"I know you didn't do it," Harry said. "But if it was not you that put the cereal everywhere, then it must have been someone else. It's quite logical. Therefore we must catch the criminal to prove your innocence, and for that, we need a potion."
It was a secret that Harry was a wizard and could do magic. His aunt and uncle knew, and so did Alice, but no one else, not even her parents. Harry had a tutor that came thrice a week and never on Sundays to teach him the art of magic. Last week he had started learning about potions, and he thought this was an excellent time to try them out.
"We need your kitchen," Harry said, and he and Alice crossed the page to go there.
She showed him the half-empty box of cornflakes. "It was a new box too and full yesterday. Mummy is quite upset."
They agreed that wasting food was not a good thing.
"Do you have well water?" Harry asked, getting down to business.
Alice said they didn't. "We get it from the tap, just like you."
Harry went to the tap and opened it. "Does this water look sick to you?"
"It does not!" Alice declared after giving it a long look.
"Then it's well water," Harry said. He filled a glass and started making his potion from bits and bobs he gathered all over the kitchen, stirring it all in a bowl, mixing it to a paste, and then pouring it back into the glass when done.
Molly stopped reading, and they watched with Alice as Harry made his potion. It sparkled and turned orange and fizzed in the glass. When Alice's mum came into the kitchen, Harry passed it to her to have a look, but she misunderstood and drank it. Purple and orange sparks shot from her hair, and she yawned and told them she was going to take a nap. She left them to go lie down on the sofa. Molly read on:
"Excellent," Harry said. "I have to remember this recipe for Uncle's insomnia."
"But Mum didn't put the cornflakes everywhere," Alice said. "She said so."
"That's why we need some magic powder," Harry said, not making any sense."
Ginny protested under a big yawn of her own that Harry always made sense. He was the best. She snuggled tight against Molly, and they watched Harry go through Alice's kitchen taking out pots and pans, and cups and plates, and returning it all again until he found a bag of flour. "Aha!"
"That looks like flour," Alice said. "It's just normal, not magical."
"For you maybe, but I'm a wizard. Wait and see, we'll catch the criminal soon!"
He put the Kellog's Corn Flakes box on the floor and sprinkled his magical powder all around it. Some cornflakes fell out of the box, and Harry and Alice saw it was full of holes.
"I think I know who the criminal is," he told Alice. "We'll need a cage, and luckily we have one at home. I'll be right back."
Harry ran across the street, stopping to look both ways first, and soon returned with a small wire cage. He set it under the kitchen table.
"You think it's a rat?" Alice asked when they put cornflakes and a little bowl of water inside.
"I think it's a garden gnome," Harry said. "We were infested last week, and my tutor showed me how to get rid of them. You swing them over your head until they get dizzy, and then you throw them far so they wander off and find another home."
They had nothing left to do but wait, and they did that in Alice's room, playing with her toys. Alice's bedroom was pink and frilly and filled with toys that moved when you pressed on them, and drawers that opened and closed. Tonight, Ginny was too sleepy to play with the room, she yawned again, and Molly quietly read on:
At lunchtime, Alice's mum woke up and called them to the kitchen asking why they had made such a mess with the flour. It's magical powder, Alice explained and told her mum they were trying to catch the garden gnome that messed with her Kellog's Corn Flakes.
"Gnomes do not exist, dear," her mum said.
"Look!" Harry called. "Footprints!"
They turned to see, and indeed there were footprints through the flour.
"That's just mine," Alice's mum said. And that was true. They were large footprints, much too large for a gnome.
"There are others!" Harry said. But those were his and Alice's.
"There are more!" he called, pointing, and this time they all agreed the footprints were small enough for a gnome if they existed.
Something squeaked from under the table, and Harry and Alice went to see.
"We caught the gnome!" Harry called, holding the cage up.
And indeed they had. Inside the cage was a little man no larger than a human finger, wearing a pointy red hat. He swore and showed his fists to Harry, jumping up and down, upset at being caught.
"It's not a gnome," Alice said disappointed. "It's a mouse."
"What?"
"Yes, dear," her mum said, also looking at the little mouse in the cage. "I believe I owe you an apology. I had forgotten mice like to steal food and save them everywhere for winter."
"But it's a gnome!" Harry insisted. "Can't you see?"
It turned out they couldn't. When Muggles looked at a garden gnome they saw a mouse. That was how magic protected gnomes from being found out. No matter how hard they looked or from which angle, they only ever saw a small brown mouse.
"I believe you, Harry," Alice said after they had cleaned the kitchen up and had some lunch. Her mum had put the cage away, saying her dad would take the mouse to the park when he came. "I'm sorry I cannot see it."
"I'll draw you a picture," Harry decided.
"And that was exactly what he did," Molly read.
On the last page the two children settled down with papers and crayons on Alice's bedroom floor, and Harry drew an excellent picture of a gnome with a large, pointy, red hat. Next to Molly, Ginny was sleeping.
Molly closed the book gently and sent it back to Ginny's bookcase.
"The end."