A/N: Woot woot! Well, Lily has finally admitted her feelings to her diary, but she's not about to tell James about it any time soon. Like I said – Chapter 50 is the time when everything comes out. But in this chapter, we're going to sort out Lily's eating habits, mmkay? We will also have a couple of awkward moments, just because Lily's feeling pretty awkward at the moment. Haha. Enjoy!

Side note: Just the Girl, by Click 5, is, again, a good song to listen for while reading James's entry. As for Lily's, I'd recommend Miss Independent, by Kelly Clarkson – it works fairly well for Miss Evans. :P

Lily

March 3rd

Dear Diary,

Last time I wrote, I said that I loved James Potter, but I was only partially positive about it.

Well, now I really am positive – I love him more than I've ever been able to love anyone, as Leila had so kindly predicted earlier in the year.

It all started today at breakfast; see, I was sitting with Leila, and she was trying to force-feed me again. No amount of whining, complaining, fidgeting, or pleading would waver her single-minded determination to stuff food into my systems, which was quite troubling for me.

"Eat, Lily," she growled while poking my lips with a fork.

I shook my head, not daring to open my mouth in case she took the opportunity to put the fork in.

"Now," she ordered.

I shook my head again.

She poked me once more.

This continued for five full minutes with neither of us giving way…

…At which point, Leila forcibly opened my mouth and put whatever was on it inside me. I nearly choked, but I managed to swallow while giving her the filthiest possible look. That got her inspired; somehow she got my entire breakfast into my mouth, and without a single bit of cooperation on my part. I had to hand it to her – she was very good at what she did. Still, I was better when it came to meal evasion; I excused myself to the bathroom, where I took my spot at the toilet. Oh how I hated doing this; I had to though, so I'd better just get over with.

I put my fingers in my throat, but then I began to cough violently; my stomach was really hurting. Still, I kept my fingers in the right spot, and right on cue, I began to vomit. It was different from before though; it hurt to do it. I felt like I was going to fall over or something; it was so strange. But I had to do it; if I didn't, I was doomed to be fat, which was not good.

I heard a knock on the door, and a voice I couldn't recognize asked if I was okay. I didn't – couldn't – answer; I continued to throw up and cough violently. There was a click, and the door opened – I caught a quick whiff of that mouthwatering scent that had been on my coupons, and I heard someone scream. My brain was turning into mush, so I made it focus on what I was trying to do – throw up. I kept going, but I felt hands on my waist. They pulled me away from the toilet, and took me to the sink; there, they splashed water on my face while toweling me off. I heard the toilet flush, but my eyes were closed; I could feel myself losing consciousness, but I was clinging to it still, which was why I knew what was going on. Oh, that smell…I loved it. I inhaled it greedily, wishing I could keep some in a bottle and use it whenever I wanted.

"Lily, are you all right?" The voice seemed to come from a distance; I didn't even know who it was.

"Who are you?" I mumbled, my own voice faraway.

"It's James, Lil," the voice told me. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Put me down. I can stand."

I could almost hear his skepticism in the silence.

"Honest," I said more insistently. "Take your hands off of me."

James obliged, and I felt the weight behind me lift. My legs didn't want to hold me; they gave up on me and I fell right to the ground. I liked it there – solid, easy to lie on. I don't remember what happened after that; my brain gave out on me too.

The next time my eyes opened, I found myself on the sofa in the Gryffindor common room; a pillow was under my head and a blanket was over my body. Confused, I tried to sit up, but found that I couldn't – my body just didn't want to move.

After a couple of minutes of me being disoriented, I saw James come out of the dormitory with a glass of water and a bar of chocolate. "Good; you're awake," he said.

"What am I doing here?" I asked, my expression perplexed.

"You're here rather than in the Hospital Wing, where you should be, because I figured you wouldn't like it in there," James clarified.

"I'm fine," I said. "Can I go?" Quite honestly, I was just touched that he had brought me upstairs – most would have shaken me awake and dragged me to the hospital.

"No," he said. "I might possibly start to consider it if you tried telling me what the hell you were trying to accomplish in that bathroom though."

I bit my lip. "I had to do it."

"Why?"

"I'm fat," I informed him. "Leila made me eat something, and I knew I couldn't eat anything if I wanted to be skinny, so I threw up."

His eyes bugged open in horror. "Have you done this before?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Several times."

"Lily Evans, for someone so smart, you are so incredibly stupid sometimes," he said with the faintest trace of a smile as he stroked my cheek. "That is not the way to get skinny – it's only a way to destroy your body. As for being fat – you're stick-thin. If you lost more weight, you'd fade into nothing."

"My thighs are enormous," I told him.

"You have no thighs to speak of," he said back.

"I want to leave," I said.

"You're not," he said nonchalantly. "You're staying here with me for the rest of the evening."

"NO!" I hollered the word so loudly that I was afraid someone would come and ask me what I was shouting about. "I am NOT staying here for the day! I am leaving!"

"You can't," he said. "I let you stand and you passed out on me."

"I…I wasn't ready," I stuttered. "Just let me go!"

"Nope," he said. "You're staying here."

"I want to go back to class," I said. "I have work still to do and Leila will want an explanation."

"I'll get you excused from your work for today and I'll tell Leila that you're a little under the weather and you can come up with a better account while you're resting." James fixed my complaints with a single sentence, and gave me a highly amused grin afterwards.

"I don't want to be here," I complained. "I'm bored."

"That's what I'm here for," he said, beaming. "I'm here to entertain you. What do you want me to do?"

Though I could think of several things I wanted him to do, I didn't tell him any of it; instead, I just snapped, "I want you to get me to class so that I can prepare for my O. W. L.'s."

"Lily, you are skin and bone right now," he said gently. "You have to stay in bed and eat if you want to stay alive." He took my hand and squeezed it. "I'd like it if you were still alive." His eyes were so earnest; I was almost hypnotized. The scent of him was overwhelming as well – he smelled heavenly. I looked into his face, and I bit my lip once more.

"James, I don't want to be here," I repeated. "I don't care if I live or die – I want to be back in my own dormitory, and I want to go to class when it's time. I don't want to be some miserable, sick little girl who lies about all the time; I want to be kicking the arses of those who have undoubtedly heard about the incident in the bathroom and are making fun of me."

"I understand and admire that, but Lily, I want you to be okay," he said, still holding my hand. "If I hadn't found you today, what would have happened to you? Would you have stayed on the ground there until someone else came in and delivered you in here?"

"No," I said stoutly. "I was going to finish throwing up and then go to my dormitory to sleep. When I woke up, I'd either go to class or study in my room."

He smiled wryly. "You are far too dedicated to your work."

"If I want to do well, I have to be," I said. "Now can you please let me go?"

James considered this for a moment, but then said, "Lily, please – I'll carry you up to your bed in your dormitory, but I really need you to stay there for the night. I'm going to give you something to eat, and I want it finished when I check on you. Can you do that for me?"

I sighed, loving him yet hating him for caring so much about something so trivial. "I'm not a baby – I can take care of myself."

"Obviously not, seeing as I have to oversee your eating and pick you up from bathroom floors," he said with a grin. "Now come on, you – get out of the blankets, would you?"

"Thank you." I smiled at him, and tried to pull off my covers. Unfortunately, they would not let me out, and James laughed.

"See Lily? Your arms are little noodles; you can't even get your covers off," he teased as he pulled the blankets away and took me off the sofa.

"Shut up," I snapped, smiling nonetheless. "I don't have noodle arms; it's not my fault if you have freakishly huge ones that make mine looks small. Besides, you put six different layers on me – how was I supposed to get out of it?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said as he effortlessly slung me over his shoulder. "You are so light, Lily! I lift weights heavier than you."

"Nobody asked you to comment on my weight," I said. "Now can you please let me walk? I don't want to be carried." That was a lie – I loved every second of his carrying me. He was undoubtedly strong, and I just felt like I didn't have to try to hold myself up like I normally did – it was nice to have a break. It was even nicer when the person who gave it to you was James Potter.

"Stop complaining," he said playfully as he threw me onto my bed from halfway across the room. I shrieked as I landed on my mattress; I had never been manhandled that way!

"James! I am a person, not a rag doll!" I yelled at him, giggling.

"There's no difference, when it comes to you," he said, laughing as well. He began to walk over to my bed then, but he tripped over something, and he landed right on top of me. His face was, all of a sudden, right in mine, and his lips were millimeters away from mine. I could feel his breath on my face; normally, I would have screamed bloody murder and hexed him to absolutely nothing, but this time, I didn't breathe at all – I listened to him do it. My head went numb – he smelled so damn amazing, and I couldn't concentrate.

He didn't kiss me; he got off of me, blushed red, mumbled something about coming to bring me up a tray later, and left the room. I stared after him, trying to figure out what had happened. James had been closer to me than he had ever been before. He had carried me to my dormitory and threw me on my own bed. He had flirted, and inadvertently, I had flirted back. What did that mean? Did he know how I felt now? I hoped not; that would be terrible. I didn't want him to know about my latest, my most embarrassing revelation.

Right now, I'm lying in bed and I'm eating a breadstick – James had stolen some lunch for me from the kitchens. I've had a lovely day doing nothing so far, and I'm going to do it all afternoon as well – I should have tried this ages ago. James comes in to make sure I've eaten and am all right after every period, and I like that; he's been so sweet today. He was acting as though there was something seriously wrong with me, which there wasn't. Now that I'm taking the time to see it, James really is a lovely person. Maybe one day, I'll tell him that. All I know is that today is not that day, and neither is any day close to now. But never mind – I'm close, aren't I? That's an improvement.

So what now? Now I'm going to sleep until James comes in to check on me and lecture me for not finishing my breadstick; after that, I'm going to come up with a story for my absence that I can tell Leila, and I will catch up with my homework. Tomorrow, I'll be in class again, and I'm going to eat again – I've missed eating. I don't care if I'm fat anymore – it's not worth skipping my meals. Meals are yummy; I think I'd like more of them.

After all of that? Hmmm…maybe I'll write again to tell you how it all went.

James

March 3rd

Dear Diary,

Holy shit.

Today, I caught Lily Evans doing something that I never would have dreamed she was delusional enough to do – she was making herself throw up in the bathroom this morning.

Sounds weird? Well, it was weirder watching it.

Here's how it happened: I was in the middle of breakfast, with my Marauders, as usual. They were talking about something, but I wasn't listening – I was watching Lily. Leila was trying to make her eat – Leila scored a few points in my book – and Lily was trying to resist. It was kind of funny, in a very disturbing sort of way; she should not need prompting to eat her breakfast, but the way she crinkled her nose when something came near her made me melt like it almost always does. I just stared at her, lost in her movements and in her eyes, dreaming about her, aching for her, wanting to touch her…

"Oy, James!" I heard a voice shout at me out of the blue. "Wake up!"

I jumped and looked guiltily at my friends. "Yes?"

It had been Sirius who had lugged me out of my fantasies. "Prongs, we've been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes; stop drooling over Evans and talk to us!"

"I'm not drooling," I said defensively.

"Then what's this?" Peter took a napkin and dabbed at the corner of my mouth; he showed it to me, and sure enough, there was a bit of my spit on it. Sirius burst into snort-laughs while Remus tried to conceal his own amusement.

"I can't help it," I insisted, embarrassed. "I'm in love! Quit laughing, Sirius."

"This time, I can't help it," he said, giggling still. "James, you are hopeless."

"I am," I agreed, frustrated. "Remus, how did you get Lily to fall in love with you?" It was a mark of how desperate I was for her love that I was asking Remus – romantically challenged Remus – for information.

"I'd recommend that you let her come to you rather than aggravating her," Remus suggested. "Be nice to her, listen to her, and don't push her. Be her friend; help her when she needs it. She'll come around."

I nodded slowly. "So I shouldn't try to throw myself at her; I should let her come to me?"

"Yes," Remus confirmed.

"Okay," I said, still slightly frowning as I considered this theory.

"But for now – have a waffle." Peter speared one with his fork and handed it to me.

I chuckled. "Sure." I grabbed it from him, and took an enormous bite. Sirius winked and began to put porridge into his nose – Peter did it with him, while I wolfed down the waffle; Remus, of course, put his face in his hands and vaguely muttered something about wondering why he hung out with us. Typical.

Then, while I was eating, I realized that Lily had gone to the bathroom, looking rather worried. Was she all right? But that wasn't the only reason why I began to make my way to the lavatories; too much orange juice does bad things to your systems sometimes. So I ended up passing the girl's one to get the guy's one, but I stopped when I heard a dreadful noise. It sounded like someone vomiting. I was troubled; was Lily ill? I had to know.

The problem was, obviously, that it was a girl's bathroom I would have to infiltrate. And, of course, there was the girl herself – she would murder me if I went in there and found her. Still, I reasoned; I was trying to save her if something went wrong. It was for the greater good! She would thank me for it later.

I opened the door curiously, and I screamed the moment I saw what was going on; Lily's hand was in her mouth, and she was doubling over the toilet. At once, I knew it was because her fingers were in the back of her throat and she was making herself throw up; one of my cousins had been bulimic a couple of years back, and I was more knowledgeable about the disease than I had ever wanted to be. I watched in horror, then, as Lily continued to hurl; I couldn't let the girl I loved do that to herself. I rushed forward, took her away from the toilet and to the sink, where I washed her face off and toweled her off. She was close to passing out – it was very easy to move her around. She was more like a rag doll than ever.

"Lily, are you all right?" I asked desperately.

"Who are you?" She tried to open her eyes to look at me.

"It's James, Lil," I told her. "What the hell are you doing?" I felt it was necessary to ask that too.

"I don't know; just put me down. I can stand."

I gave her a look; there was no way I was going to let her stand up when she was so…messed up. She was almost drunk; I had always wanted to see a drunken Lily Evans, and now that I had, I wanted her to be normal and shout at me again.

"Honest," she pressed, correctly reading my silence. "Take your hands off of me."

I did, and she immediately fell to the floor, like I had known she would. With a sigh, I lifted her off the floor and threw her over my shoulder; she was so light it scared me. I took her out of the bathroom and when I began to go upstairs, people obviously began to see us. Sirius, Peter, and Remus were walking down the corridor and I ran up to join them; when they saw an unconscious Lily in my arms, Peter stared at me funny.

"Why are you holding Lily?" he inquired, looking at her unmoving form with mixed uncertainty and revulsion – it was a well-known fact that Peter wasn't an enormous fan of Lily after she turned his ears blue in third year.

"Because she fainted," I said matter-of-factly. "She's hardly a step up from weightless."

"Is she all right?" Remus asked anxiously, checking her wrist for a pulse. "What was she doing?"

"Throwing up," I said grimly. "Look, I trust you three, which is why I'll tell you something no one should know."

"Ooh, what?" Sirius asked interestedly. "Did you rape her or something?"

I made a face. "That would most likely be your job, Pads."

Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but then he shrugged unwillingly. "True, I guess. Now what was Evans doing?"

"She was making herself throw her breakfast up in the bathroom," I said. My dramatic statement had a mixture of effects though – Peter looked merely sickened, Remus was shocked, and Sirius was quite entertained.

"That one is a strange little bitch," Sirius said through his laughter. "Why would she do that? I dated a girl that turned bulimic once – she was torture to kiss."

"And I assume she went bulimic because you told her that she was too fat to go out with you?" Remus guessed, his eyebrow raised.

Sirius stared at him in disbelief. "Damn Moony; are you a Legilimens secretly or something?"

Remus rolled his eyes while Peter and I laughed. "Honestly Sirius; you are such a revolting creature sometimes," Remus accused.

"Well, we all have our special talents," Sirius said, grinning. "Anyway, James; what are you going to do with her?"

"I was going to take her up to the common room and check on her after every period," I said. "Do you guys have another suggestion?"

"Try the Hospital Wing," Remus said. "Have Madam Pomfrey check her over."

"Moony, she'd scream bloody murder if I tried that," I said. "She hates the Hospital Wing. Besides, in there, I won't be able to take care of her – I want to do that myself."

"It's not like she'll let you," Sirius pointed out.

"I have to try," I insisted. "Remus said to be there for her when she needed it, and I'm going to do that."

"Whatever," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "Go – we'll cover for you when you get back to class."

"Thanks," I called as I ran up the stairs with Lily. I took her up to the common room, and there, I lay her gently down on the sofa. I found blankets and a pillow in my dormitory, and I put them in their respective places; she had to be comfortable.

Then, for a few minutes, I simply watched her sleep. She was peaceful, but there was a faint frown on her face, as though she was trying to figure something out. I didn't know what she was thinking about, but whatever it was, it confused her. I held her wrist in my hand, and I couldn't believe how small it was; she had been taking her not-eating policy very seriously.

I left the common room to get to my dormitory; I knew that Lily couldn't resist chocolate, and water was always a good thing to have when you woke up, so I needed to get her both. When I came back, Lily was awake; she was looking around, obviously trying to figure out what was going on. Seeing her lovely eyes open, so raw and vulnerable when she was half-asleep, made me light up, and I sat on the sofa with her.

"Good, you're awake," I said.

"What am I doing here?" She really didn't remember; while I didn't agree with the main adjective, Sirius had been right – she truly was a bit strange. Still, she was different, and I loved her for everything that she was, being strange included.

"You're here rather than in the Hospital Wing, where you should be, because I figured that you wouldn't like it in there," I explained. It was true, but only partially – I didn't mention that she was in the common room because I wanted to be there when she woke up.

"I'm fine, so can I go?"

Typical; I had expected that. Lily loved working far too much for a teenage girl.

"No," I said. "I might possibly start to consider it if you tried telling me what the hell you were trying to accomplish in that bathroom though." I knew what had happened – I just needed to hear it from her.

After a bit of probing around that I'm not going to detail, I discovered that Lily thought of herself as fat – her thighs had, apparently, bothered her the most. She thought she was fat, and she had thrown up more than once – she spoke of it casually, so it was probably well over once. I tried to hide my shock the best I could, but it was hard – I had to keep reminding myself that I loved her, and she was too breakable to be yelled at during the time.

Then we hit the topic of letting her go back to class. I was dead set against it – there was nothing Lily could say that would make me allow her to leave the common room in her condition, but since she was fighting so hard, I decided to let her go to her dormitory. She would have to stay there all night, and I would check in on her after every class period, as well as give her something to eat when meal times came around. I would be her nurse, and though I didn't say it, I wouldn't do it for anyone but her. No, not even for Sirius – Sirius would be up on his feet before I could even figure out what was wrong with him.

Lily felt that I was babying her and she was capable of taking care of herself though, to which I said, "Obviously not, seeing as I have to oversee your eating and pick you up from bathroom floors." I had smiled at her and told her to get out of her blankets so that we could go up; I figured that I wouldn't carry her up the stairs, now that she was awake and wanting independence.

How wrong I was.

She couldn't even get the blankets off! I teased her about it by saying she had noodle arms (to which she said I had freakishly huge ones), but really, I was appalled. Lily couldn't get the bloody blankets away from her!!! That was bad – really bad.

"You are so light, Lily," I said as I threw her over my shoulder again. "I lift weights heavier than you."

"Nobody asked you to comment on my weight," she told me. "Now can you please let me walk? I don't want to be carried."

"Stop complaining," I said, grinning, as I cast her to her bed. I had been halfway across the dormitory from it when I tossed her, but she still landed in the right spot; she was way too light if I was able to do that. Or maybe I was, as she said, freakishly strong; it was probably a bit of both.

"James! I am a person, not a rag doll!" she shouted at me, giggling madly.

"There's no difference when it comes to you," I taunted her. I was going to walk to her and say something else, but on my way, I tripped over something on the floor; taken by surprise, I fell face first onto Lily's bed. Worse still, I fell right on Lily herself; I was in her face, millimeters from her lips. Her eyes were wide and frightened, which was weird, because I had expected them to be fiery – I had never been that close to her.

It was a mortifying moment, because we had been normal, platonic friendly a few seconds back, so I got up, mumbled something I can't even remember anymore, and let myself out. I didn't look back; I simply ran to my own dormitory, where I am now. I have a few more minutes before class starts, but I knew that I had to write this one down – it was fairly monumental, at least to me.

I do have to get going though, so I'll say this – I hope that Lily will be all right, and that she won't detest me for trying to be there for her; she has a bad habit of hating me for doing the very things that were right for her. I love her more than she could even begin to guess, and all I really want is for her to realize that.

No such luck yet, but I'm optimistic that it will happen some day. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday.

A/N: Jamesie is so cute! Haha, he just feels the need to baby Lily in every aspect of life that he can control just because he loves doing it. :P So review! I have finally solved a big problem – bulimia will never come up again – and I want to know your reactions.