An apple

He remembered her as unreachable. Like an apple on one of the trees in the gardens of his childhood home. He remembered when he was little and had tried to jump to pick down one of the big, red, shiny fruits, dangling a couple of teasing inches above his stretched arms. Sometimes his mother had taken pity on him and had given him one, but usually she had just sat on the chair on the veranda, observing her only child. As he grew older, he learned how climb the tree, a good number of times he had fallen down and broken an ankle or a wrist, but he had persistently tried again and again until one day when he was seven years old, and he could finally climb up without getting a scratch and pick down one of the delicious fruits.

The moment he met Lily Evans he just knew he was going to marry her, that she was The One, and that it would never, ever going to be anyone else. Sure, he dated Josephine Howard in fourth year and Nelly Fawcett in fifth and had a very embarassing, very unhealthy crush on Narcissa Black in his third year, but none of them really mattered. Lily did, she was the real deal. So when she continued turning him down year after year he was baffled. In sixth year however, he started thinking that maybe, just maybe, Lily didn't like guys like him, maybe she really did prefer guys like Snape, or at least guys who didn't pick on others. So he cooled down, at least a bit, and even though Sirius thought he had caught some life threatening disease when he turned down an offer to pull a prank on two annoying Slytherins, he had started climbing.

He did fall down a couple of times, and his ego was a bit damaged at the end of seventh year, but he had reached the top of the tree, and most importantly, it had all been worth it.

This is my first story in english. It feels great to finally publish something, even though it's really short. I honestly never considered writing James/Lily since I'm not a huge fan of the pairing, but the idea just came to me one day, and I knew it had to be about James and Lily. I hope you enjoyed reading it, reviews are more than welcome.