Hey y'all. This little idea of mine has gone through quite a few changes, but finally, it's here, and yes, it's a one-shot. Psh. As if I could ever come up with something multi-chaptered. Anywho, please review--they're very appreciated. )

Her Plastic Bracelet

He watches her, out of the corner of his eye, as his right hand doodles idly on the corner of his parchment. There she is, sitting up one row and a right from his, her long, tousled hair spilling onto her shoulder. He swallows in her every movement, his eyes running along the curve of her forearm, and the wrinkles in her uniform as she sits in her chair. Her cheek lies in her hand, and wrapped around her wrist is a fat, plastic bracelet, a lurid sparkly pink.

It is an ugly bracelet; he sees her friend give it a raised-eyebrow and a small, exasperated shake of the head. He wouldn't be surprised to learn if even she thinks it's ugly—he doubts anyone can see any sort of style or fashion in that fat pink bracelet.

It is one in the long series of fuzzy turtlenecks, purple silk pants and oversized hairclips. Lily Evans has a long record of wearing things that often elicited people to say things like, "Who on earth would wear something like that?"

It is an odd quirk of hers, one that at once both amused and puzzled him. A quirk he finds that makes no sense, and yet, when put in the context of her, he thinks, "Well, of course, Lily Evans is like that."

But he knows why she wore the ugly bracelets, the shiny pants, and the fuzzy turtlenecks. It is to satisfy her own restless mind, her own unquenchable exuberance, her own perplexing idiosyncrasy. He can tell it is, just by looking at the way she listlessly twirls her quill in her hand and her crumpled uniform and the lint that clings to her socks.

She is like a tangled ball of strings to him, self-assured, and neither desperate nor concerned with making sure she is approved. She flouts rules without a care or intention, simply by being Lily Evans

Perhaps, he muses, this quirk arose because—unlike a lot of girls—looking pretty and acceptable comes quite naturally to her, so becoming bored with that, she gaily wafts above the regulations of social norm, wearing challenging clothes to compel people to think twice of the pretty redhead.

Or maybe, it simply comes from her exuberance, to satisfy her own impatient eccentricity. To say, "Yes, I am wearing this very un-sexy turtleneck no one would dare touch. Isn't that funny?"

He imagines having her alone in his dorm, where he would touch the smooth plastic of her bracelet and chuckle softly. He would look in her eyes, and without speaking a word, he would tell her that he understood how very odd this little quirk of hers was. She would blush prettily, and he would step closer, the heat enveloping around them. He'd take her wrist and put it to his chest, where her pale fingers would gently rub his shirt. He'd pull her closer from the waist, and kiss her heatedly, until she was backed against a wall, where'd he say silently over and over and over again, I know exactly what you're like, Lily Evans.

And as he watches her, sitting there, a row up and a right from his, he amuses himself with the image of her when they were in second-year, a scrawny little redhead with robes hanging off her measly child body, tugging at her skirt, and clutching her books to cover how flat her chest really was. He can remember overhearing her friend tell her once that blue eye-shadow looked great with green eyes. And after that, little Lily had stumbled into the Great Hall one day, with blue eye-shadow dusting her eyelids, and he, James, wasn't quite sure what to make of it, so he had pored an entire pitcher of water over her head.

It had seemed to him that she had worn the eye-shadow mostly to get someone to give her a second glance, desperate to prove that Lily Evans did, in fact, have some zing.

Now, with her curved, pallid legs, and the freckles that were smattered across her face, it seems to him that she has gotten enough second glances, which even she herself has grown tired of. It seems to him she has found that zing, and right now, as she sits a row up and a right from his, the zing pretty much radiates off every inch of her skin.

(She doesn't wear the blue eye-shadow anymore and rightly so, because he can barely remember to breathe when he looks at her naked eyes alone).

Suddenly, he becomes aware of the chairs scraping the floor and a soft thud beside him as Sirius, who had been resting the chair on its hind legs, lands back down. The bell is due to ring in a moment, and he dimly hears the sound of parchment rustling, bags zipping and people talking. He packs up his bag automatically, watching her, feeling like a Flesh-Eating Slug has crawled its way to his insides.

The bell rings and he watches her hoist her bag over her shoulder, the bracelet sliding down her pale wrist. She begins to leave, and he feels every hope, every obsessive thought, and every extensive thing he knows about her fermenting inside of him, swelling up in his stomach, and rising forcefully to his throat, like a geyser. His heart clangs painfully as he sees the pink bracelet wound around her wrist, and he can't, he can't, he can't let her go like that—not when he understands every little thing about her, from her linty socks to her ugly bracelet to her laughing eyes. The geyser of thoughts and feelings rushes upwards, and he has to let her know that he understands.

"Hey Evans!" He finds himself calling after her. "That's the ugliest bracelet I've ever seen. Where'd you get it, the flea market?"

She gives him a derisive look and flicks her finger at him. She speeds up her pace to catch up with her friends, leaving him with Sirius, Remus and Peter.

His heart tears into shreds, as his eyes follow her leave, and all the while he tells her silently, "I know exactly who you are, Lily Evans."