Author's note: This is my entry for the Harry Potter Quidditch league - I had to write a story featuring the NOTP of my team mate - sadly James and Lily aren't my favourite couple either! Hopefully I can sneak some death eaters into the next round!

Round 1: Not My OTP

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 1

NOTP written for Chaser 2: James/Lily

Word Count: 2800 excluding Author's Note

Prompts: 6. (word) apple

9. (song) Dollhouse - Melanie Martinez
13. (word) liar

An extraordinary love

If anybody had told my eleven-year-old self that she would, one day, become engaged to James Potter, she would have called them a liar. My twelve and thirteen-year-old selves would have agreed. By fourteen, and certainly, fifteen I might have been a little less vociferous, but I would still have thought it unlikely ever to occur. I considered James a brash, boastful bully. At first I blamed these characteristics on his House. But as I grew to love being a Gryffindor, I began to realise that James' proclivity to be a bullying toerag was not, in fact, a prerequisite for wearing the red-and-gold striped tie.

By sixteen, though, things had changed. I no longer saw the Wizarding World in such absolutes. My friendship with Severus, who had been my mentor through my first years as a witch, had fallen apart. Voldemort's ascension had begun, and, for all my outward appearances of confidence and skill, I felt alone and adrift in the magical world. Of course, I had friends, but none were muggle-born. None knew what it was like to straddle two worlds. My relationship with my sister had all but broken down and my parents were in poor health and little able to understand my world.

James noticed me. He had been noticing me for some time. At first, I reviled him. I neither sought nor welcomed his attention and I considered his persistent efforts in asking me out to be nothing but a symptom of his arrogance. Then one day, a few weeks before my seventeenth birthday, everything changed, and a single act of clumsiness re-set the course of my entire existence.

I had come in late for dinner following an afternoon working on my potions project with Professor Slughorn. I loved the old man. Despite his flagrant nepotism and glory-hunting, there was something warm and avuncular about him. Of course, he only cared about me because of my talent for potions and, as he put it, 'potential for greatness,' but he did care. I admit that I soaked up his praise and affection like the Madeira cake soaks up sherry in the trifle of which he was always so fond. The only free spot at the Gryffindor table was next to Remus Lupin. I seriously considered going without my dinner. I didn't object to Remus in isolation, but I thought him too easily led by James and Sirius, and his inability to defy his friends aggravated me immensely. As I hesitated, James looked up at me, then across at the empty seat. He whispered something into Sirius' ear and they both laughed.

That was it.

I would not allow the Marauders to think me afraid, so I dropped into the empty chair and reached for the nearest platter of food without acknowledging any of them. They returned the compliment, and I thought to finish my meal in silence, when my sleeve snagged on a goblet of pumpkin juice and sent it crashing to the floor. Remus leaped out of the way as I leaned down to gather up the shards of glass. My cheeks burned as I imagined every eye in the Great Hall turned toward me. It was dark under the table and, in my haste, I sliced open the palm of my hand on a shard of glass. I recoiled in pain and took in great breaths of air as the room spun around me. Blood was trickling down my wrist and I could feel the colour draining from my face as if there were a direct conduit between the two. I swayed in my seat. Then, warm arms were around me. A gentle voice was asking, "what have you done to yourself, Evans?" James had elbowed Remus aside and taken control of the situation, a skill I would learn to admire as time went on.

The events that followed have become fractured in my memory. I remember his scent, of chalk, grass, and apple, as I leaned against the solid breadth of his shoulder. I remember being surprised that he possessed such a thing as a clean handkerchief when he pressed the fabric against my bleeding hand. I remember the sincerity in his hazel eyes as he asked if I was alright, and his concern when I was unable to answer, merely leaning weakly against him like some sort of pathetic damsel in distress. He half carried me to the hospital wing and sat with me during the interminable wait as Madame Pomfrey dealt with a student who had accidentally transfigured her foot into a music box. He held my uninjured hand in his as she brusquely healed my injury, and then he walked me back to Gryffindor Tower in silence. We stood beside the Fat Lady, still not speaking. I had been looking at his messy black hair and wide hazel eyes daily for the last six years, and still, I felt that, until that moment, I had never seen him before. I don't know which of us was more surprised when I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

Of course, that wasn't the end. It wasn't even really the beginning. But that isolated event was enough to change how I saw him and how I spoke to him, and from then on he redoubled his efforts in pursuing me. It was only a matter of time before I gave in.

When we graduated, I still wasn't sure about him. Even on the last day of school, after we had been a couple for over six months, and James knew enough of his feelings to take me to the top of the astronomy tower and offer me an engagement ring; even then, I was not sure. I cared for him, of course, and I knew that he adored me. James' regard was, in itself, seductive. It seems strange to compare my feelings for him to those for Professor Slughorn (and indeed I had no amorous feelings towards my Potions professor) but both of them admired me in a manner that somehow validated me as both a person and a witch. It would be so easy, I thought, as the wind whipped my hair across my face and uncertainty replaced the arrogance in those hazel eyes, so easy to take his ring, to secure my tenuous position, for once and for all, in this society I so longed to make my own.

But I wasn't sure. So much of my life, right from the moment that my magic had manifested, had been so extraordinary. It may sound arrogant, but I truly believed that I deserved an extraordinary love too. I wanted the sort of devotion about which songs are written. I wanted virgins to cry themselves to sleep each night in envy of my epic love story, and right then, eighteen years old and believing I had my whole life ahead of me, I wasn't sure that James Potter was the one. So I looked away, and I asked for time to think things through. James took it well, after all, I'd been running away from him for seven years, what were a few more weeks? He shook his hair out of his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and hid the ring away in his pocket.

"You are still coming home with me right?" Only these words betrayed his uncertainty.

The truth was I didn't really have anywhere else to go. My parents had died within a few months of each other toward the end of my sixth year. A reluctant Petunia had been my only family for the last eighteen months and, thanks in no small part to James' behaviour, my relationship with her was at an all-time low. I, along with Sirius and Remus, would spend the summer with the Potter family. I tried hard to think of myself as different from the other two lost souls who were so drawn to James' light, but as Mrs. Potter embraced me on the platform at Kings Cross, I felt like just another of his projects.

The Potter home was large, messy, and draughty. It was overrun with cats and dogs and brooms and magical artifacts of dubious provenience. It was everything my own, well-ordered Muggle home was not, and for that, I loved it. In that house, James was easy to love, too. Away from Hogwarts, bathed in the absolute devotion of his ageing parents, he was calmer, kinder and steadier. I could see the man I loved eclipsing the boy I had hated.

I could sense that his proposal still weighed heavy on James' mind. He was not quite as cocky as he had been before. He was more affectionate but less certain of my responses. I found it strangely endearing, and, I admit, somehow empowering. But still, I wondered if I would ever be able to give him the answer he longed for.

A week into that summer I was awoken from my sleep by silvery light flooding my room. It intruded beneath my eyelids, rousing me rapidly and I sat up in fright, reaching beneath my pillow for my wand. A silver stag stood before me, its head bowed low. I had never seen James' Patronus before, but I had seen his animagus form only the previous day. He had transformed in order to impress me, and had been successful in the act. Now I slipped from my bed and pulled on a dressing gown as the stag turned towards the doorway, glancing over its shoulder to see if I followed. It led me through the darkened house, and I wondered if this was James' way of securing a nocturnal assignation. He need not have been so circumspect. I had no doubts regarding the physical aspect of our relationship; my body seemed drawn to his as if we were two parts of those tacky best friend heart necklaces Muggle children purchase for their friends.

The stag led me not to my boyfriend's room, but to a part of the house which I had not previously entered, only to disappear through a closed door. A strange feeling of anticipation washed over me as I turned the handle. It was a nursery, or more accurately, a children's playroom. Toys littered the floor and were stacked on shelves around the periphery of the room, as if the last child to play there had simply dropped their toys and left only minutes before my arrival. Amidst the chaos stood James, his hair more adorably messy than ever, his pyjamas rumpled.

"You came." He picked his way through the toys and took my hand, his hazel eyes uncertain once more.

"Of course I came." I wondered what it was that was making him so nervous, and hoped he wasn't about to produce the ring again; my answer had not changed.

"I have something to show you."

"I thought you showed me that last night." My feeble attempt at humour caused little more than a raise of his eyebrow and I shivered a little. Whatever this was he was taking it very seriously.

I can't begin to describe my surprise when he positioned me in front of a dollhouse. Admittedly it was the most beautiful dollhouse I had ever seen. It was almost a metre tall, mock Tudor with white walls, dark wood beams and a large oak doorway which swung open as we approached. I had never possessed such a toy. When one has newly acquired magic at one's fingertips the urge to open the walls and create your own magic is less strong. Petunia used to spend hours locked in a make-believe world, whilst I explored the glorious reality of mine. Her dollhouse was as perfectly kept as any suburban home, but underneath that façade, her dolls lead tempestuous lives of adultery and addiction. I often wondered if this was her only way of deviating from the staid persona she had inflicted on herself from early childhood. Even had I not had my magical ability to occupy me I don't know if I would have dared to look through the window of her house, lest the powerful magic she had created subsume me.

This house was different. As my hungry eyes took in every detail, the strangest of feelings washed over me. Magic trickled over my skin as if I had walked through a powerful ward, and in doing so, glimpsed the future. I sensed something eternal, something inevitable, and then it was gone and it was just James and me standing in the cold nursery.

"Was this yours?" I asked, hoping to lighten the mood a little.

James gave a half smile. "I never played with it, but it's been in my family for hundreds of years." He paused and fondly patted the roof. "It's the exact replica of a house my family owns in Godric's Hollow." He looked away then, running his hand through his messy hair. "It's where we would live... if you say yes." He looked back at me, hope shining in his eyes. "The real house I mean, not the dollhouse. Don't say anything..." He cut off my unspoken response.

"Come inside before you make up your mind."

"I don't..." He cut me off again with the soft press of his warm lips on mine. I clung to him for a moment, my hand at the nape of his neck, when we were this close there was no need to think.

"Trust me." He pulled away but kept my hand held in his as he stepped right up to the house.

I had attended a magical school for seven years. I had been exploring my own magical potential individually, and with Severus, for years before that. I thought I had experienced every odd and unpleasant sensation that existed in the magical world.

I was wrong.

As James and I shrunk to the size of Barbie dolls, I felt as if I were being squeezed in a vice. Every single cell in my body was brutally crushed against another and I gasped for air as the oxygen was forcibly expelled from my lungs. Then it was over, and I was standing on the carpet of the nursery, staring up at what now seemed to be a life-size house. All around me the boxes and shelves loomed over us. A row of baby dolls reminded me of Mount Rushmore; a discarded shoe could indeed have housed a whole orphanage of children. I couldn't help myself. I laughed in sheer delight and James, caught up in my enthusiasm, swept me into his arms and carried me across the threshold of the house. The symbolism was not lost on me, and yet, in those golden moments, I didn't care.

We rushed from room to room. We disturbed clouds of dust and chased spiders as large as Yorkshire Terriers. We tripped over the spindly legs of abandoned, upset furniture and primly pretended to take tea at a long forgotten party presided over by a naked, one-armed doll.

Finally, James dragged me upstairs and we tumbled onto the only bed. We giggled at the absurdity of the situation as the dust billowed around us like fireworks… or confetti.

Later, we lay exhausted beneath a blanket neither of us could even have used as a handkerchief, had we been our usual size. I looked up at James' face, the firm curve of his jaw, the slight kink in his nose where it had been hit by an unruly bludger, his mass of never tidy black hair, and I knew. I knew that here, in this toy house, in a single bed less than six inches long, I had found what I was looking for. I had found that extraordinary love. This was the man for whom I had been searching.

Hogwarts had provided such an immersive environment that it had not really been possible for me to imagine a world beyond. This, coupled with the seismic rise to power of Voldemort and his Death Eaters made it hard to imagine myself living in the Wizarding World at all. Until this moment I simply could not picture myself and James together in the future. But suddenly, with absolute clarity, I saw it all: myself cooking in the kitchen, the two of us reading by the fire, James wrestling gnomes in the garden, and a small dark haired baby asleep in the corner of the room we currently occupied. It was more than a dream, more than imagination; in those moments I knew my future and I wanted it, I wanted it all.

James looked down at me, with that question once more in his eyes, but this time I was not afraid. This time I knew my heart, and my answer.

"Yes."