Title: Someday Someday

Team: Holyhead Harpies

Position: Chaser 2

Theme: Dear Theodosia - Write about making a promise to someone.

Prompts Used: (emotion) regret, (relationship) sisters, and (location) park

Word Count: 2,177 words

Lyrics Used: "We'll bleed and fight for you. We'll make it right for you." and "Someday, Someday… You're going to blow us all away."

Warning for mentions of character death, discrimination of wizards, and slight out of character. I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who beta read this for me. It truly means a lot that you would take the time to read through my work and help me like this. So thank you very much! I hope you all enjoy the story!

The cold wind blew through the silent Muggle park where Lily and Petunia Evans once played as children. Petunia only ever came to the park when she was trying to get either Harry or Dudley to go to sleep.

The dark-haired infant in the pram she was pushing squalled and cried his little eyes out. She couldn't understand how one child could have that much lung power. But something made her pull back. She couldn't be seen to care about her magical nephew or someone will think she's different.

Sighing, she sat down on one of the swings, thinking that at least one of them ought to be comfortable. She reached into the pram, pulled baby Harry out, and cradled him. If she closed her eyes she could pretend that he was her boy. Pretend that there was a possibility that he wasn't like his mother and father. That he wouldn't end up suffering the same fate as Lily and James.

The blinking, startled green eyes, that reminded her so much of his mother's, looked up at her in confusion. She supposed that it was justified confusion. She'd never once while in the company of others, her husband and own child included, shown that she cared for the young child in her arms.

"You do understand why I'm doing this, don't you?" she asked the child as though he would know and have the wherewithal to answer her. "You do understand that I have to treat you the way I do."

The baby cooed up at her, the green eyes continuing to blink as he watched her face. The eyes seemed to hold an intelligence she would have to ignore. She couldn't acknowledge that she was breaking her promise to her sister in order to keep it.

"I promised your mother," she said, allowing baby Harry to wrap his tiny finger around her own as she held him, "that I would take care of you if something ever happened to her."

Harry cocked his head.

"I know," Petunia sighed. "I haven't been doing the best job of doing that, have I?" After a beat, she said, "Don't answer that."

A little squeal left the baby's mouth as he looked up at his blue-eyed aunt in surprise. She didn't really tend to joke or do or say anything humorous. So it must have really surprised them both. She gently started to swing, her sister, Lily's, voice ringing in her head. "Promise me, promise me you'll protect him, Tuney," The words rang through her mind as though the conversation were taking place through time and space. Memories of the day the conversation happened crept up hard and fast, taking her over before she could do anything about it.

It was the summer that Lily had received her Hogwarts letter and her perfect redhead sister was excited about going to her new wizarding school. Petunia couldn't help but feel jealous of Lily. She'd written personally to this Professor Albus Dumbledore to garner a spot at the school for herself. After all, if Lily was a witch, Petunia, herself, could be one too.

"Tuney," Lily said, breaking the silence as they rode their bikes down the street to the little park that their mother used to take them when they were younger, "are you mad at me for something?"

Petunia shook her head. She wasn't mad. She was jealous. How could Lily think she'd be mad at her? She couldn't help that Professor Dumbledore had chosen her and not Petunia.

"I'm not mad," Petunia said, a grudging tone to her voice.

"You sound mad," Lily pointed out.

"I'm not," Petunia said, keeping the grudging tone out of her voice this time. "I'm just a little jealous is all."

"Jealous?"

"Yes. You get to be a witch and do all sorts of magic and go to a fancy witch school. What do I get? To be normal? To continue on without you like nothing's wrong?"

"But I won't be gone forever, Tuney."

"I know." She jumped off of her bike and allowed it to rest against the bike post. Turning to look at Lily, she smiled sadly. "It just won't be the same without you here."

"But I'll get to go on all sorts of adventures and I'll write to you about them and it'll be like you were right there with me," Lily said, excitement coloring her voice.

An excitement that Petunia wasn't exactly feeling at the moment but she nodded with a cheery smile on her face nonetheless. She could at least pretend to be happy for her best friend in the entire world, couldn't she?

"I'll race you to the swings," Lily called, taking off without waiting for an answer. Not wanting to let her sister down the way the Headmaster of Hogwarts seemed to be letting her down, Petunia raced after her sister. She could hear Lily giggling as she made it to the swings first and turned to look at Petunia.

"Go ahead," Petunia called to Lily. "I'll be there in a minute." She watched as Lily jumped into the swing and began to swing back and forth. She tried to temper the jealousy at her sister's Hogwarts letter back down to a normal level. Which it was by the time she arrived at the swings and hopped in the one next to Lily.

They'd been swinging for a few minutes before Lily spoke. Her voice had an emotion that Petunia had never heard in it before. Fear and anxiety mixed together.

"Do you think that you will always be jealous of me, Tuney?" Lily asked, looking towards Petunia. "I don't want you to be jealous and if you want me to, I'll tell Professor Dumbledore that I can't go to Hogwarts. I would give that up just to make you happy, Tuney."

Petunia shook her head, digging her feet into the mixture of mud and wood chips that were under the swingset. "I don't want you to give that up for me," she said, looking over at Lily in shock. "I would never ask you to do that."

"But you've started to distance yourself from me and I figured that was the reason," Lily said, stopping herself from swinging in a way that Petunia must have missed. "Are you sure you don't want me to give up my spot at Hogwarts?"

"I'm sure," Petunia said with a smile. "Who knows, maybe someday you'll do something that blows us all away?"

Lily giggled. "Maybe? Maybe you'll do something that will blow everyone away in the Muggle world and we can be the ravishing duo of Evans and Evans? Making the world a safe place for everyone."

Petunia nodded.

"Maybe we'll also get married around the same time and our children can grow up together as best friends too?" Lily suggested, going into the plans for her and Petunia's future children. She suggested everything from them both being witches or wizards and going to Hogwarts together to them both being Muggle and following in their mother's footsteps.

"Maybe," Petunia said with a smile, picturing their future children and their exploits. How both Lily and herself would bleed and fight for their future children. How they would try to make everything right for them.

"Promise me, no matter what happens, Tuney, we'll always be there to protect each other's family," Lily said, holding out her pinky finger.

"I promise," Petunia said, hooking her pinky through Lily's and shaking. "Race you to the slide!" She jumped off her swing and ran over to the long sleek metal slide as fast as she could. She could hear Lily giggling and another sound that seemed further away.

Sometime during her flood of emotional memory, she'd stopped swinging and baby Harry was protesting this. She looked down at the screaming infant in her arms. He was much like his mother. Lily used to scream whenever their mother or father would stop cradling her, too. Beginning to swing again gently with the baby, she sighed in relief when Harry stopped crying and settled back down again.

"You really are very much like your mother," Petunia told the child as he yawned and snuggled close to her. A flutter of fear and regret pierced her heart yet again. She should be treating this child better than she was. She had promised his mother, but that was exactly why she couldn't do what she'd promised as well as she wanted to. She didn't want to get too close to this child and lose him too. That would be as painful as losing Lily all over again.

Baby Harry gave another sleepy yawn. Petunia could tell that he was fighting sleep. She figured he knew that once this little walk was over, she'd have to return to the way she was when they were around their family. Their whole family, that is.

Then her vision blurred as she spotted the image of a woman standing near the entrance to the park. The memory of the last time she'd seen her little sister alive overtook her and stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Tuney," Lily said, walking over towards her sister who was sitting on the swingset of the old park they used to play at, "I've tried to get in contact with you for months now. Did you get any of my letters?"

"You're married and have a child," Petunia snapped. "I suppose you want some sort of congratulations for that?"

"Tuney," Lily chided, folding her arms over her chest. "What happened to us being best friends forever? What happened to us watching our children grow up together? The whole bleeding and fighting for our children together thing. Was that all just a lie?"

Petunia's face took a stricken look. She'd meant the promise when she'd made it. She truly had, but then she'd met Vernon. Vernon didn't want anything to do with magic and that sort of person so she'd changed everything about herself to make him happy. But she couldn't tell Lily that. Lily would only say that Vernon wasn't worth having if he didn't accept her and all that she came with.

"I suppose it was," she said sadly, looking at her shoes as she gently rocked the swing back and forth. Anyone who knew her well could tell that she was lying. She could definitely tell that Lily knew she was lying.

"Tell yourself whatever you have to justify what you are doing, Tuney," Lily said, a sad smile stretching her face. "I just thought that I would check in on you and see how you were doing. Seeing as you wouldn't answer any of my letters."

"I didn't get your letters," Petunia admitted quietly. "Vernon must have gotten to them before I could see them."

Lily's eyes widened. A mixture of fear, regret, and something else Petunia couldn't name crossed her younger sister's face. Something must be horribly wrong. She wondered if maybe Lily's husband James had been killed or something and Lily was looking for a place for her and Harry to stay. Maybe she could in some way keep her promise to Lily? She'd have to think of a way to get Vernon on board, but she could offer Lily a place to stay…

"Someone is trying to kill me and my family," Lily said, sounding like she was saying it as much for her own benefit as for Petunia's. "I need you to make me another promise, Tuney. I need you to make this promise and keep it this time. Alright?"

Petunia didn't know what to say. What did one say when one's younger sister tells them someone is trying to kill her and her family? What was one supposed to do in this situation? She settled for nodding.

Lily smiled sadly as she watched her sister try to process what was going on. "Promise me, promise me, you'll protect him, Tuney," she said, holding out a picture of a dark-haired, green-eyed baby. "Do you promise?"

Petunia stared at the picture of young Harry and then back up at her sister's tear-filled eyes. She nodded.

Lily smiled in relief. "We might not ever see each other again in this world, Tuney," Lily said. "I'm sorry." Before Petunia could say that Lily didn't need to be sorry, she was gone.

A few days later would see the day that Lily's request came due. The day that she'd woken up to find a screaming baby on the doorstep of her house, right next to the milk bottles. The promise she'd made Lily ringing in her ears.

"Promise me, promise me, you'll protect him, Tuney?"

Looking into baby Harry's eyes as they drifted closed and stopped fighting sleep, she promised both Lily and Harry that she would do a better job of taking care of him. Standing up and putting Harry back into the pram and beginning the trek home, she smiled down at the sleeping baby.

"Someday, someday, you're going to blow us all away," she told Harry gently. "Even me."

I hope you all enjoyed Someday Someday as much as I enjoyed writing it.