Slowly, Petunia became aware of her own existence. She didn't know where she was, or how she had come to be there; nothing around her looked familiar at all. She gazed wonderingly into the mist that seemed to be everywhere, and the first thing that came to her mind was a field that she remembered playing in as a child. As the thought came to her, tall grasses sprang up around her, and small blue starflowers began to burst into bloom along with a variety of other wild vegetation. She could hear a brook gurgling in the distance but she couldn't see it.

The sun, which she hadn't been aware of before, warmed her skin, and that was how she found that she could feel. As soon as she noticed this, a sweet breeze ruffled the gauzy material of the garment that covered her body, swishing it softly around her legs. She could smell honeysuckle and wild roses, and realized that she had a sense of smell also. At that moment, it dawned on her that the breeze carried the sound of birds chirping, bees droning as they pollinated the starflowers, and another thing she hadn't heard, or even thought of, in too many years to count. The innocent young voice, calling her name. "Tuney! Where are you? I know you're here – sit up so I can show you what I found!"

Her heart beat faster as she realized that the voice she heard belonged to her sister. Her sister who had been dead for years; and how was it that she could be here now, and how could it be that she sounded just as she had as a very young child? She couldn't be more than five or six years old. Eager to see the child her heart recognized immediately, she sat up (had she been lying down?) and looked around her.

There! Across the field near the brook that Petunia couldn't see before. And yes, it was indeed her beloved Lily Bud, running toward her, hand outstretched, with a pale blue butterfly resting on her pointer finger. But it was strange. The closer Lily came to Petunia's resting place, the older she seemed to become, right before Petunia's startled eyes. The child morphed into a girl, who morphed into a young lady, and by the time that Lily reached her, she was just as Petunia remembered her the last time she had seen her. Grown…confident…beautiful; a poised and happy young woman, still cradling the butterfly carefully so as not to disturb it. Gracefully, Lily lowered herself to the ground, so that she was sitting cross legged next to Petunia.

"It's about time you got here. I thought you'd never come." Lily looked at her with mock reproach.

Petunia was at a loss for words. Shouldn't Lily be cross? Angry with her? She was loathe to admit it, but if the tables were turned, Lily would be receiving a severe tongue lashing right about now. Instead, she seemed to be welcoming her to this very strange place that shouldn't exist at all.

"Am I dead?" She finally managed to ask.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so." Lily looked anything but sorry.

"You were…waiting for me?"

"Yes, and you certainly took your time about it." Lily leaned sideways and gently nudged Petunia's shoulder with her own.

Silence, while Petunia pondered this.

"Well, this doesn't seem to be a frightening place; no fire or brimstone. So is this Heaven, then?"

Lily chuckled. "No. It's a long, long way from Heaven. It's more of a…" She paused, looking for the right word. "It's a rest stop." She finally decided.

"A rest stop." Petunia repeated incredulously.

"Yes, exactly. A place to sort of catch your breath, metaphorically speaking, and to review the life you just left, to see if you're satisfied with the outcome."

"And if I'm not?"

Lily looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Then you have to decide how you're going to correct the balance."

Petunia was becoming more confused by the moment. Correct the balance? What, in the name of Creation, was that supposed to mean? You lived your life, raised your children, ate, drank, slept and moved through the days from one to the next until you died. Then you were buried, went to wherever dead people go (apparently the heaven/hell thing was just a myth), and that was that. You couldn't go back and change things. What was done was done.

"Lily," she said, with a touch of exasperation, "You've been here longer than I have, and I haven't received any kind of a rule book, so you're going to have to give me a bit more to go on than 'correct the balance.'"

"Fine." Lily finally became serious. "Come with me." She stood, and walked toward the brook, which was now sporting a magnificent Weeping Willow tree that hadn't been there before. Lily parted the swaying branches, holding them back like a curtain, and invited Petunia to precede her into the cool shelter. What she found there made her recoil in shock.

Lying among the gnarly old roots was what appeared to be a large child, curled up in a fetus position, whimpering and moaning as if it were in pain. It wasn't like any child she had ever seen in life, though. It was repulsive, almost indecent.

"Do you recognize him?" Asked her sister.

"No. Should I?" Petunia inched backward, wanting to keep as much distance between herself and this…thing…as possible.

"Yes, you should." Replied Lily solemnly. "You were ready to pledge your soul to him. He would have been your master had you survived this battle. You didn't, and it appears that there's a small possibility that he won't either, or this bit of him wouldn't be here. Do you think you would have enjoyed that? You could always have looked the other way while he tortured those who crossed him. Reaped the benefits of giving him his heart's desire, while those around you suffered. Just like you looked away from the small boy, entrusted to your care, while he cried in the night in his small, spider filled closet."

Petunia opened her mouth to speak, but found that in this place, she couldn't deceive herself, let alone the woman standing before her. She had been vindictive, and she could see that with eyes much clearer than those she had used in life.

"So here it is", she thought. "The accusations, the recriminations; the real reason she came to meet me here." She looked at Lily with what she hoped was defiance, but as it turned out, she couldn't blame her sister, as she certainly deserved whatever she was about to get, and she found she couldn't look Lily in the eye.

"You must hate me." She spoke softly.

"Hate you?" It was Lily's turn to look puzzled.

"For the way I treated your son."

To Petunia's astonishment, Lily just laughed. It was so out of character for Lily to show such callousness that Petunia almost became angry. She didn't like things acting in a way that they shouldn't, even if, as in this case, it was to her benefit.

As quickly as it had begun, Lily's laughter faded and she became serious once more. "Petunia", she said patiently as she would to a young child learning to write or ride a bike, "There are things you don't understand; not yet really. You're still thinking like a mortal."

"I have no son. I have no sister, no parents, no husband. Those things are just props, a role-playing game to teach you what you need to learn to move…on."

"So they're not - none of it was real?" Petunia asked.

"Of course it was real. While you were playing the game. But the game is over and this is your chance to look back, review, and decide whether you were happy with your role in it.

Silence fell between them again, as Petunia considered this. After a while, she said in a small voice, "I was kind of a tosser."

Lily nodded. "You were."

"But I can fix it?" There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

"No.", Lily answered. "But you can correct the balance."

Afraid to ask how, Petunia changed the subject. "If those people only exist on the mortal plane, how is it that you're here talking to me now, just as I remember you in life?" She asked instead.

In answer, Lily walked a few paces away from her, turned to face her sister, and proceeded to change. She became almost transparent at first, and then her physical body dissolved into a soft, misty light with no substance at all. The light moved toward Petunia, and merged with her, till she could feel her sister's presence inside her own body. It wasn't the heaviness of being possessed; more a merging of knowledge and emotions that left her feeling warm and tingly, until that too faded. Inside her head, she could hear Lily, not in words, but in a sharing of understanding, explain things that she hadn't known previously.

"You're not talking to me, Silly. The only place I exist is in your thoughts. All of the people you created, the things you touched, felt, heard, saw…they were only there to help you in your quest for understanding. They were all a part of you all along. You and I, we're the same being. And Harry, Vernon, Mum and Dad…they, too, were just parts of you that you gave substance to, made solid to inhabit your world; your classroom."

"Think. What have you learned? What did you do right? What did you do that you would change if you could? How can you correct the balance?"

Daisy woke suddenly. She had been having the strangest dream. In it, she was in some sort of mist filled field, talking to a beautiful auburn-haired woman, who was telling her the secrets of life. For a moment she just lay there, trying to recapture the feelings of safety and peace she had felt in the woman's presence.

Moments later, her alarm went off, and she heaved a sigh of regret that she couldn't just laze about all day. She had to get moving.

An hour after that, freshly showered, and sipping a cup of strong coffee, Daisy sat down at the desk in her home office, picked up a file she had left open the night before, and started reading:

*Male, 4 years old, withdrawn and uncommunicative.

*No physical signs of violence, however the neighbor who contacted us reported that the child is the recipient of frequent verbal abuse.

*The responding officers found the child locked in a dog kennel in the basement of the house. There was no sign of food or water anywhere in the room; the child is undernourished.

As she read the handwritten notes, Daisy could feel the cold rage rising in her breast and tamped it down. Anger and belligerence would be no help in this situation, and she had a lot to do if she was going to help this child.

Still later, Daisy met up with the social worker in the lobby of the hospital where the child had been taken for a check-up before being placed in a safer environment pending investigation. As they shook hands, the social worker smiled. "Thank you so much for agreeing to take on this case", she said as she held open the door for Daisy to lead the way down the hall toward the boy's room. "The little guy is tight lipped as a clam, and won't talk to anyone. That's why we called you. Everyone says you form an incredible connection with even the most traumatized kids. It's almost like magic, they say."