Lily bites her lip and twirls a piece of crimson hair around her finger. She is utterly engrossed in the Transfiguration reading.
James is utterly engrossed too, but not quite exactly what he is supposed to be engrossed in. Watching Lily Evans read, his body seems to have split into two warring factions: his brain yelling "what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" and his eyes fixated on the small figure across from him murmuring dreamily "oh, nothing, nothing at all."
James is disconcerted. First and foremost Lily Evans is a girl. Lily Evans is most definitely a girl and girls have nothing but COOTIES.
"Cooties," James mutters firmly, making a final sort of pounding noise on his desk. Professor McGonagall gives him an odd look from behind her spectacles, and he gives her a weak grin, all he can manage at the moment. She turns back to her papers with a sort of 'harrumph'.
James looks over at Sirius, hoping for some sort of distraction. Sirius is engrossed, like Lily Evans (James has to stop for a moment and berate himself), although, like James, with something he is not exactly supposed to be engrossed in.
In Sirius' case it is something (James thinks) much more respectable: a grossly disproportioned drawing of Snape. Sirius looks over at James and James gives him a thumbs up.
Her hair is a really incredible color, James thinks. Sort of orangey crimson mahogany, he decides. Lily now has a fistful of it and is worrying it through her fingers. Without knowing what he is doing James lets out a sigh and leans forward.
A thought springs unbidden to his mind: what he would give to be Lily Evans' hair. "COOTIES" he mutters more firmly. Professor McGonagall gives him another odd look, this one more piercing, as if to say "Mr. Potter, are you quite alright?"
James realizes she has, in fact, said this out loud. And the whole class is staring at him. The whole class except for one small figure with orangey crimson mahogany hair who is still engrossed. Still.
"Erm…I…uh…well that is…"