Karen comes in at 6 and sees Petunia sat in the armchair with the TV and Video unplugged. She must be feeling stressed if she's taking that precaution. She sees her look up at her and a look of relief, hope, and something else cross her face. The teapot floated out of the kitchen with two cups and the kettle pouring cold water into it while steam came out of the pot. A steam of tea leaves followed it.

"Stressful day?"

"God, I wish. It wasn't too bad until an hour ago. Arthur's daughter Ginny is staying with us for a week as a last minute thing. Anyway, it was all going great, they watched TV together, then I sent them up to Dudley's room to set-up his console and play games. It sounded like they were both getting along fine. Then I hear Dudley start to have an epic tantrum and loudly accuse Ginny of cheating, she denies it. Then he accuses her of doing 'freaky' stuff because there's no way a girl who's never played a game before could do that. So then she punches him on the nose. By the time I get up there Ceeley is going spare and they're both a bit bloody and bruised. Which is when my magic started acting up again and they ended up hanging in the air as I verbally tore a strip out of both of them. I didn't know what else to do, so they're currently sitting on the bed in my display bedroom with Ceeley supervising, and I'm trying to regain control over my magic."

Karen did the only thing that she could think of and squeezed into the armchair with Petunia and gave her a hug. Petunia fair melted into her and started to cry the stress of her day out. She then told her how the rest of the day went while Karen stroked her hair while telling that she'd done really well, and she'd done her best. It didn't take long for her to cry out and get her emotions under control. They then enjoyed their cups of tea, which Petunia had to actually magic up to them to her relief.

"Shall we go up and check on the little terrors?"

Upstairs, Ginny and Dudley were sitting on opposite sides of the bed facing away from each other. Ginny observes, "At least your mum didn't use a sticking charm."

"What's that?"

"It's a charm that sticks two things together until it's cancelled or dispelled. Mum uses it to ensure that we don't leave as soon as she turns her back."

"That sounds rough, I think this is actually the first time Mum has done this to me."

"You must have been an absolute angel."

Dudley laughs, "Na, they just wouldn't punish me."

"That doesn't sound right."

"It was easy to deflect the blame onto Harry, as dad hated him for some reason."

"Where is your dad?"

"I found out just after Halloween that he'd been abusing Mum, and run away. Mum said that he was bullying her on the way home, so maybe it's a bit like that."

Ginny turned onto her knees and hugged him, "That's rough, even if we fight all the time we know that we're still there for each other."

"Thing is, I don't think I know how to not be like that."

"Tell you what, if you're doing something bad I'll hit you."

"Yeah, OK you've got a good punch there."

"Six brothers, it was either learn to fight back or lose out."

Ginny sat down next to Dudley and they started just chatting. Unseen Karen and Petunia turned away and went back downstairs.

After a dinner of home made fishfingers and chips, that Dudley claimed were better than Little Chef, they showed Ginny how to access the bedroom that she'd be sleeping in, Dudley trailing along. After a Dudley tantrum was pre-empted by Ginny, wonder of wonders. Petunia explained that he couldn't have one as they lived in a non-magical area and as he couldn't open the doors himself, he would need a different mechanism which they weren't allowed to use. Again Ginny stopped the argument before it got going by walking out, closing the door behind her, then opening it after a couple of minutes looking visibly strained and walking in. She then challenged Dudley to do the same, 15 minutes later they opened the door for him.

"Why can't I be magical?" Dudley pouts

"You have to be born magical." Ginny responds as if it's the most obvious thing ever.

"Mum wasn't, it's one of the things she used to complain about."

Ginny spins to Petunia, "You weren't?"

"I was about as magical as Dudley is."

"But, how?"

"A dangerous accident in the night that almost cost Harry and I our lives."

"Does that mean I could become magical?" Dudley pleaded.

Petunia looked at Karen for help, "Maybe, I want to become magical myself," Petunia looks surprised and pleased at that.

"but I've seen how hard it is for your mother to just stay here, I can't imagine how hard it would be to reproduce what she went through. Also I could never ask her to risk herself just so that I could have magic. Could you honestly say that you want magic badly enough to ask your mother to play chicken with a lorry?"

"But, if I get magic I don't have to go back to school."

"Harry is still going to school, and Ginny will be going next year. So even if you had magic you'd still need to go to school."

"But that's not back to school."

"Why don't we go to your room and you can tell me about it." Karen leads Dudley out to his room.

"Ginny, while you're staying here we'll be going into the muggle world a lot, so I asked Ceeley to get you some new clothes, they're not the best clothes, but they should be in your size, and help you not feel out of place." She showed them the clothes laid out of the bed.

"If you don't like them we can try to pick up some you do like on Monday, as we won't have time tomorrow, and the shops are closed on Sunday."

Ginny was half listening as she picked up the clothes and held them over her. She spun around and hugged Petunia.

"Thank you Mrs Dursley, thank you."

"Call me Auntie, Aunt Petunia, or some variation on that, Mrs Dursley sounds like I should be a teacher. Now listen class, I am about to give you a lesson on how to screw up your life."

Ginny giggles at the impression, "Ok Auntie."

"Well, it's late so you should be off to bed, we'll work something out with Harry tomorrow."

An hour later Karen came down looking exhausted.

"You look like you could do with a glass of wine. I know we don't normally, but would you like a glass to relax and chat before we practice meditation?"

"Sure, do you have any white?"

"I'll check."

"Found one. Ceeley, could you chill this as I've not got the hang of that yet? Thanks, grab a glass and come and join us."

Petunia brought the bottle back with a couple of glasses. Then inspected the seal, "It's a screw cap, are you ok with those?"

"Sure."

Petunia poured them wine and then held out the bottle so that Ceeley could take it and pour herself some.

"What happened that's got you in a mess?"

"Do you want me to be honest or circumspect?"

"I need honest if I'm going to be able to help."

"OK, you screwed up badly, he's a year or so behind in social development and feels entitled to things because he wants them. I wouldn't be surprised if he used to steal from you when you wouldn't immediately buy him stuff he wanted. He has almost no concept of personal boundaries, and won't hesitate to take things from other children if he thinks he can get away with it.

He never learned the skills he needed to apply in school because you always got Harry to help him if he got stuck, and he never learnt to come to you for help for the same reason.

On the plus side, you haven't started screaming an shouting at me, even though you twitched to defend yourself. He's still only 11, so it's something that we can correct. And the main enabler and role model is no longer in the picture.

I'd need to talk to him more, but at the moment I think that you would be making the biggest mistake in his life if you sent him back to Smeltings, even if you paid the extra money. Now if he was magical, or you knew he was going to be magical, given that he said that Ginny was home schooled at the moment, I'd say pay Mrs Weasley the money you were going to budget for his schooling and ask her to teach him at the same time she does Ginny, and the same things, if she teaches Ginny to cook he learns to cook, same with cleaning, sewing, and the rest. While it might seem like things he doesn't need to know, it will teach him two things, one just how much work goes into keeping a home. And two, that some things need to be done and you're the only one left to do it – or the value of hard work.

"We can also set up a system of rewards that he can earn, such as an expanded room if Mrs Weasley thinks he's done a good job at the end of the year, or a new game, meal out, etc. There will be lots of resistance a month or so in once the novelty wears off, but it's the long game that we're looking for and is also why you can't be the one to teach him, as your history will work against you.

"If you send him back to the school, they will stick him in the special needs class for an hour or two a week, then he will be stuck with the same classes and people without the individual attention he needs to bring him up to speed."

Petunia slumps, "Thank you for laying it out for me, I feel like I failed as a mother."

"Nonsense, you did the best that you could with the tools you had available. They are safe, physically healthy, and have the opportunity to grow. You've taken on work so that you can still afford to help them, how much have you don't with Harry's estate again? And you're learning yourself, you're not allowing yourself to fall back into bad habits.

"You'd be surprised at just how many people would shrug their shoulders and say 'I can't fix this', and then go back to how they were because it's easier.

"Anyway we should go up and meditate so that I can stare at your pretty face while you're not going to object."

Petunia blushes slightly at the complement. Would you mind spotting me later, I'm going to try to let my magic go a little as I was able to talk to you last night quite easily."

"Sure" Karen smiles.

They both practice meditation, and then take a break until the hour arrives. Petunia knows exactly when it arrives because she feels a tug on her magic, like she's curled up into a little ball, and it's trying to get her to uncurl a little. After she's comfortable and sure that her magic isn't going to go away from her, she opens her eyes. I'm going to start now, be back shortly, do wait up for me. Karen sticks her tongue out and Petunia closes her eyes, and very slightly uncurls. The warmth of the magic is intoxicating as it caresses her soul and begs her to open herself up fully so that she can bask in the light. Remembering watching her hand start to evaporate she resists the siren call and opens her eyes. She can see the sand blasted landscape and lizards running around, as she turns her head she sees a gobbling standing a couple of feet behind her.

"Greetings Revered One, he bows towards her without moving from his position."

"Why are you standing there?"

"I'm acting as the anchor, distances don't quite match up here compared to our world, so we always leave someone where we arrive because we know then that we will be in the right place when we return. Our writings say that the discrepancy gets worse the deeper you go."

"How are you all getting on? As I don't see much of you."

"We've had limited successes, too many succumbed to the lure of the magic, I'm surprised that you managed to stop here on your first delve."

"Ah, well this is only my first solo delve, we went far enough that we were evaporating on the first one, and I didn't want a repeat performance."

"Such a layer exists? We only have legends of places where magic is visible in the sky. The furthest our guides speak of is the fae realms, they're said to be beautiful as all magic is visible, and there's nothing there that isn't absolutely infused with magic."

"Thank you for the informative chat, may your endeavours bring you fortune."

"They already have Revered One."

"Why do you call me Revered One?"

"It is the title that my people give those like us who are able to walk and delve the dream, as the risk is so high, yet the reward even higher. We are also called upon to hold back those who would bring ruin on our peoples, though we have not heard rumours of their activity for a long time."

"Until we see each other again."

Petunia concentrated on folding her magic back, which was harder than unfolding it was. Then she was being hugged by Karen.

Tears were streaming down her face when Petunia reappeared, she'd been gone for nearly 20 minutes and she was worried that she'd be gone forever. So she did the only thing she could and hugged her.

"You were gone for so long, are you ok?"

"I was? It didn't feel that long, I had a short chat with one of the goblins, but that was it and then I came back."

"It's been twenty minutes, I thought I'd lost you."

Petunia did the only thing she could and hugged her back, "You're not getting rid of me that easily."