Prologue

Lily Evans Potter watched the 1 year old zipping around on that blasted toy Sirius had gifted him. However, it did seem to amuse both her son and her husband, and it took a lot for anybody to smile these days. The few stolen moments of joy and peace were just the calm before a storm, and nobody but she knew better than to be fooled into a false sense of security.

She wondered if she had known all that was to come on that fateful birthday ten years ago, if she had chosen the life that she had. She had sacrificed much along the way, and at redemption, had very little to be thankful for. A rueful smile tugged at her lips as she watched her son, hoping for the time when all was well again.

Did it seem too much to ask? Lily hoped not. She had made many unforgivable mistakes in her life, and caused more than one death to invade her conscience. Death of a friendship. Death of a friend. In the end, they were both the same. Promises broken, secrets betrayed, and an ache in her heart that longed for a time when things were simpler, when conflicts were resolved with an apology and a hug.

And when she and James had a long overdue visit with Death, as she threw herself over her son, to protect him from that monster who murdered her husband and ruined her best friend, she thought of a promise, forgotten, but never broken.

Always.