Jily one shots

You still have to squeeze into your jeans

Disclaimer: written by @MyosotisAngel

Saying that Lily was a bit insecure about her figure was like saying the fire is only a bit hot.

It frustrated James, of course, to see her count calories or pick a salad over a Pumpkin Pasty (even though those were her absolute favorites), and it drove him mad to watch her expression fall when she went shopping for clothes with toothpick-thin Marlene McKinnon and Mary McDonald while she reached for the slightly larger sizes. Some mornings, he would roll over in bed and catch her examining herself in he mirror, critiquing every rounded part of her body, her nose scrunched up in dismay and her sighs heavy with disappointment.

He honestly didn't understand why.

He knew about the whole girls associating skinny with beautiful thing, he wasn't oblivious. But for the life of him, he couldn't understand why girls thought that. So, on a cold December Tuesday morning at breakfast, as he watched her put back the muffin she was going to eat with a sorrowful expression, he decided to tell her what he thought was beautiful.

Although, not in the most tactful way.

"Why do you want to be skinny?" he blurted out.

Lily looked up at him, startled. "What did you say?" she asked, incredulously.

"I said, why do you want to be skinny? You're wasting so much time and effort on it."

Lily flinched, and her eyes widened and filled with tears. Her little pink lips rounded into a perfect "o" before her hand reached up to cover it. She looked as though she had been slapped and was slowly realizing how severely it hurt. James couldn't imagine why.

Sirius and Peter were bot far too absorbed in eating everything in sight to notice James's predicament, but Remus let out a large groan across the table and buried his face in his hands.

"Well," stuttered Lily. "Well, if that's how you feel...If you think that I'm wasting my time, that's I'll never lose anyweight or look anybetter, thenmaybeyoushouldjust...!

"Woah!" James spluttered. "Wait, just a second! Wait!" For Lily had begun to stand, tears just seconds from falling, appearing to be ready to run from the Great Hall. "Lily, wait!" He grabbed her wrist, gently, but firmly, and pulled her towards him. "You misunderstand me..."

"I understood exactly what you meant!" she said shrilly.

But James was shaking his head, laughing. "No, you don't," he told her. "I'm trying to say that skinny doesn't equal pretty."

Lily, who had been trying to pull away from him, now ceased her struggles and gave him a curious look. "What do you mean?" she asked, hesitantly.

"I mean," James said, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her. She was still tense; he wished she would relax, "I mean, that I don't want to pull my girlfriend into my arms and be poked and prodded by all angles and bones. I wouldn't want to stare at sticks with a skirt on top or pancakes covered by a shirt. And of course..." He leaned in an whispered the next bit in her ear. "I like shagging someone who actually feels like agirl, rather than a nine-year-old boy."

She looked at him with those tears still on the verge of tumbling, like she didn't quite believe him, so he continued. "You squeeze into your jeans on Hogsmeade weekends," he told her, "and your skirt flounces up just a bit more at the back. These aren't things that I don't notice; these are things that I love. I'm a guy, Lily, and you're a girl. I like your soft bits. Actually, I loveyour soft bits. And your awkward laugh when something's genuinely funny, and the spot of drool on my pillow in the morning, and the way you panic that McGonagall's will find out you've been in my Head dorm instead of yours, and how off-key you are when you sing in the shower. I even love the way your face looks when you get spots from stressing out over tests. I love the things you consider imperfections. They make you...you. And I love you and every one of those little things."

Lily's face was pink and the tears had slipped from her eyes down her face, but she was smiling now and reached out a hand to stoke his face. "You say sorry," she hiccuped, "in the best ways." She giggled and gave him a gentle kiss, her lips barely brushing his. "And I love you and your little things too."

They stayed like that for a moment, his arms around hers, their foreheads touching. Then Lily pulled away, saying something about forgetting her schoolbooks. She left the Great Hall in a rush, though there was a bit more of a skip in her step.

"Nice save," Remus commented, smiling at James.

He shrugged. "Hey, it was all true."