"One

Two

Three

There." A voice counted and called to him as he opened his heavy eyes and adjusted to the darkness around him. The voice was from a girl with pink choppy hair down to her shoulders and brilliant purple eyes.

"Hello James Potter. Please tell me that is who you are, I don't want to lose my job again." The pink haired girl appeared to be a teenager by James and he looked around to see where he was. Nothing around him was like anything he had ever seen. Wherever he was there were no walls or floors. It was completely black and sparkles of light could be seen above them. James rubbed his head, which felt oddly pained and he looked at the girl in front of him.

"Where am I?' Images and green light flew in front of his eyes and he remembered where he had been just moments ago.

"Middle Ground." Purple fingernails were thrust towards James and the girl picked him up by the fabric over his shoulders and sat him down on an imaginary chair. James looked over to see that she was sitting with her legs crossed on a chair that didn't existed, just like him. The girl had a dark complexion and what looked like lightning flashed in her eyes.

"What's Middle Ground?" James questioned the girl as he frantically looked around for Lily, but couldn't find her. "And where's Lily?' With a swish of her hand the girl made a clipboard appear and flipped throw the clipboard looking for something as she muttered names under her breath.

"Middle Ground is when you die and because of the higher powers decree you can't go to heaven…"

James eyes went wide as he realized that he had died and assumed now that he was I hell. "And you can't go to hell either, so if you help me, Romie, I'll help you possibly come back to earth. Now, is this Lily Evans?"

"Yeah, she's my wife." James felt his eyes wet with tears on the brink of spilling out.

"Sorry, she's in heaven and apparently you aren't." Casually, Romie waved her hand and the clipboard disappeared. Her glance was casual too and James thought she didn't understand the situation.

"You do realize that she is dead and my wife. And on top of that I can't see her because I'm stuck in this dumb Middle Ground. What shit is this? Just put me in heaven!" James roared as he began to cry in desperation. Romie placed her high-heeled black boots on the sky as if it was a floor and walked over to James. Her black and ragged witch hat which reminded James of a hat that came with a Muggle Halloween costume fell down over her eyes and she tipped it back as she kneeled down in front of the sobbing man.

"James, m'dear, everything will be okay if you control that temper of yours." She purred as James looked up at her. Black bat wings sprouted from her slender back, which was covered by a red tank top and a black fish net top over it. Her thin legs were only partially covered by a short and tight black miniskirt and to cover her calves she was wearing a pair of stiletto heeled black boots, which were on either side of James' legs now.

"Fine! If I have to sit here without doing anything then I'd like to be sent to hell please." James put his hands out as if he was getting arrested and shoved them into Romie's face.

'Oh bloody hell! I know that you love your wife, but don't you want to go back to earth so that you can take care of your son? Or how about so that you can free your friend Sirius Black from Azkaban. Oh and just to tell you time doesn't work the same way here. Do you only care for one person, not the many that miss you right now?" Romie's expression changed to one that James had commonly seen on Severus Snape's face when he got angry. Feathers flew over the space around them as her wings fluttered madly. James watched in horror as she pulled out a scythe and brought it down over his head.

With his eyes closed tightly James heard not his skull getting smashed or cut into, but a rip as if Romie was ripping her dress. James turned his eyes up so that he could look at what the scythe was doing. It wasn't used as a weapon towards him, it was ripping a hole into the space around them and showing a narrow view of his house through it. Romie grabbed the collar of James' robes and pulled him into the hole along with her.

In front of them now was Hagrid and Sirius, who were speaking in low whispers as Hagrid held something bundled up against his chest. Instantly, James realized that it was his baby son, Harry. He looked frantically at Romie who was watching the pair seriously.

"Can't they see us?'

"No, you twit. Haven't you ever seen or read a story like this before. Don't you watch YuYu Hakusho? Ghosts in Middle Ground can not talk to those who are still alive. There is one exception to this rule though."

"Yes, what is it?" James asked frantically, so that he could talk to his best friend, Sirius Black.

"The person has to be near a Dementor, terribly sick, seen someone die, dying themselves or have a psychic link to the ghost."

"Shit. That doesn't help me." James hissed as he watched Sirius stalk from his spot and Hagrid get onto Sirius' flying motorcycle.

"Well, I didn't make the rules, so don't be mad at me. I think you should be able to talk to anyone, but whatever. You can technically possess someone, but I have to clear that first and we have no time for that process."

"Fine. Whatever you say. Where are we going now, everyone's gone from here."

"Don't you want to see your body?" Before James could answer 'of course not' she had pulled him to the living room where he lay. His eyes were blank and stared up at himself. James wanted to hurl as he looked over at a weeping Remus Lupin and a quiet Peter Pettigrew who looked like he was going to pee his pants, but hey what's new? His body was limp on the ground and sort of sprawled across the carpet with a single and tiny stream of blood flowing form his forehead.

"There is a way that we can get you to eventually speak to your son without being alive."

"Well, what is it?' James said as he turned his head from his dead body to Romie.

"We can put a scar on his forehead. Any shape you like and of course everyone will think it's from his attack, but it will enable you to read his mind and eventually when he figures out how, you can talk to him."

"Why don't we do that?" Another tug pulled James to a space in the sky where Hagrid was flying on Sirius' motorcycle. Romie let go of James and he followed behind her as she floated over to Hagrid. She sat down on the front of the motorcycle, Hagrid was completely oblivious to this, and she took the bundle into her arms. James watched as she uncovered the baby boy and pointed the tip of her scythe at a space on his forehead. She closed her eyes and began to hum quietly to what seemed to be an increasingly louder song. As she continued to sing the scythe's blade glowed green and red, the light began reaching down to the baby's forehead.

"What shape do you want?'

"Lightning bolt." James replied without thinking, only remembering her eyes when she was angry. A lighting bolt glowed red and green on his son's forehead as Romie covered the baby again with the blanket and deposited it back in Hagrid's arms, who hadn't known the baby was gone. Romie jumped from the motorcycle and it zoomed away and out of their field of vision. Two purple eyes were fixed on James' face as he considered the thought that he actually was dead. His body felt normal, but it was as if he weighed nothing. Normal people couldn't float in the air, let alone stand in front of someone and not be seen.

"Now, all we have to do is help those that you love." Romie winked and pulled James back with her into the dark night sky. England flashed before James' eyes as he was pulled to 12 Grimmauld Place. Much to James' surprise Romie went right through the door and so did he. The dark and dank house was quiet and spider webs swooped down in front of James' eyes. The brown focused on a creature bustling madly up and down the hallways. It was Kreature, one of the Black's houselves. Kreature was the only one that was still alive and had never come close to being killed or let go. Under the elves breath came words about Master being gone and leaving him alone. James walked through him and went up to Sirius' old room.

"Come on, I need you to help me find a snitch. The higher beings told me to look in either his house or yours."

"Here." James handed her a snitch that was trying to escape from his grasp, but he kept a firm hold on it. He had remembered that Sirius had hid it under the floorboards, along with a few other things. Romie cut another hole in the air and James saw a building that he had never seen. The purple fingernails grabbed him again and pulled him in behind her. This time they were in front of a huge palace that was decked out in gold with various turrets and billions of huge windows. There were waves of people outside, but with a flick of Romie's wrist they had moved over so that she could easily reach the front gate. She flashed a badge and the golden gate opened, admitting both and James. James looked around the building as he followed Romie to an office. There were long winding hallways with doors of bright colors and occasionally doors of black reading "Expelled" or "Exit" or "Don't Enter". Romie gave an involuntary shudder as she opened up a purple door with a blue eye painted on the front.

A high-backed chair was turned towards the window and James could see a tall man with sun like hair. It could be described as hair, but looked more like the flames from the sun were covering his head. Outside of the window were people of all ages playing, reading and typing on laptops. They were dressed in all white, no matter what their outfit consisted of. James watched as a small child ran by the window while playing with what looked like his mother. If James had been alive an actual tear would have rolled down his cheek, but this tear looked like a melted diamond. It was sparkly and when it caught the light just right it sparkled in a rainbow of colors. With his thumb, James cleared it from his cheek and looked as the man got up from the chair and came over to them. He was the same height as James and was dressed in a black suit with sandals and a headband. There was a silver rectangle on the black headband that bore a sort of leaf shape that sparkled under the sunshine hair.

"You're James Potter I assume?" James nodded at the man and for once in his life felt shy.

"He's given Harry the mark, sir. It's in the shape of a lightning bolt."

"I see. I see. Does he understand where he is?" The man was circling James now as if he was checking to make sure that James was suitable, which he was.

"Yeah, at least he seems to. He doesn't know who you are though." James was starting to boil beneath his skin. He didn't enjoy them talking about him as if he wasn't there.

"James, I am King Naruto, I rule the heavens and the Middle Ground. I redirect lost souls and make sure that the departed go were they need to."

"Yeah, okay." James said as he rocked back and forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets. He had a strange feeling that he was merely a pawn to this guy.

"Good, now Romie see that he does everything that I have laid out for you. We want this to work as quickly as possible with as few bumps as possible. If he is to come back we would like it to be when his son is still ready for it."

"Yes, Naruto, I understand fully. Luckily we don't age, so he can keep his youth." Romie smiled brightly and gave James' cheeks a little pinch as if he was a baby. James was ready to pounce on her, but thought better than to do in front of this Naruto guy.

"So, I can stay like this forever?"

"Essentially yes."

"So I have a chance of coming back soon?"

"Precisely, but sometimes things go wrong and you can't."

"Sounds good. I'd rather have a chance than none at all." James smirked and followed Romie out of the room after they had said good-bye to Naruto. Naruto watched as they walked out of the room, both with a spring in their step. He knew that James only had a marginal chance of coming back if Voldermort ever came back into power. The sooner this happened the better.