Expressing Yourself

Pairings: Remus/Sirius, James/Lily

Warnings: Slash! It rules all!

A/N: Aloha! This is me now…not Frizz. Lucky, lucky you! (Frizz – But I helped write it! Woot!)

Disclaimer: None of these characters etc. are mine.

The next morning, conversation was unusually strained as the Marauders made their way down to breakfast.

Sirius and James maintained the barest of civilities, and Remus wasn't talking to either of them at all. It fell to Peter, confused as ever, to keep the conversation light. Not knowing what was the matter was a problem, however.

"OOOOOmigod, how GAY does Snivellus look this morning?" Normally, this would have made at least one other boy in the party look over and snigger. This morning, all he got for his efforts was "Shut it, Pete. Not in the mood." from Sirius.

Peter was shocked. Sirius, passing up a chance to laugh at Snape? Something was wrong. He sat and watched the three for a minute. Remus kept his eyes firmly on his food. James was looking everywhere except Sirius. Sirius himself was alternating between glaring at James and glancing at Remus from under his lashes.

He was about to say something, when, to everyone's astonishment, Evans came over to them and sat down between James and Sirius.

This shocked Peter into silence once more, especially when Lily actually said hello back to James, without hexing him at all. The girl looked round at all the glaring and avoiding eye contact that was going on and said,

"Guys, wouldn't it be easier if you talked about it?" Everyone froze. Finally Remus spoke up,

"Talked about what? There's nothing to talk about."

Lily shot him a look that said, "If you don't start the conversation, I will." Remus shot her back another look, mimicked by Sirius across the table from him that said, just as plainly, "If you talk, I will hex."

"Fine. Suit yourselves. James, I'll talk to you about the issue, seeing as these," she glared at Sirius and Remus "Boys, refuse to. What happened last night-?"

"OI!" yelled James, jumping up and leaning in front of Lily as a hex flew past her ear.

Both other boys had their wands out and were glaring at Lily as though they could burn her with their eye power. Lily looked stunned as James yelled,

"There was no need for that!"

Remus snapped, "There is nothing to talk about!" before grabbing his bag and stalking off...only to be stopped by a furious Professor McGonagall.

"This is outrageous! An unprovoked attack on another student not to mention another member of your house! Detention, both of you! I expected better of you, Mr. Lupin." Remus' fists clenched but he muttered,

"Sorry, Professor." and dodged round her

The rest of the day was, if possible, worse that breakfast. No-one was talking to anyone except Peter, who was reluctant to be a part of something obviously huge, yet curious as to what the matter was.

"Sirius?"

"WHAT?" yelled his friend, turning to stare at Peter as if he were an annoying bug in need of squashing.

"Um...Moony says, can you pass the watering can?" and so it went on.

Lily couldn't go near Sirius or Remus without being death glared and, when she walked into the library, only to see Remus sitting there, she decided that it was not worth the risk to go on in without James to jump in front of any hexes that might fly. Remus was good at hexes.

But Lily was good at solving problems, that's why she was Head girl. She decided to go and talk to James in private, knowing that he would take her seriously. She forgot, somehow, just how much he loved her...

"LILY!"

"Hi, James." He practically swooned on the spot when she sat on the couch next to him, crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and settled for pulling her own legs up. So there she sat, cross-legged on the sofa next to James. He couldn't think about her enough.

"James, we need to talk."

"..."

"James. We need to talk meaning you need to talk back and not stare at me like a loon."

"Eheh...right..."

"First, what happened when I went upstairs last night?"

"Well...Sirius got mad at me."

"Why?"

"Um..."

"James..." Lily said dangerously, "What did you do?"

"Uh...it's complicated?" Lily looked at him scathingly. "Nah. Didn't think that would work." She gave him a half smile, so he continued. "Um...well I basically implied that he was...busy."

"Busy? Meaning...gay?" James flinched, her words struck home on a topic he'd been suspecting for some time regarding his friends.

"Um...maybe?" Lily nodded.

"And...?" James started twisting his hands together nervously.

"He...took offense. And...pushed me against the wall and yelled at me. Then stormed upstairs." Lily frowned thoughtfully. James couldn't stop thinking about how cute her nose looked when she did that.

"So me doing that at breakfast probably wasn't the best idea then. Hmm..." James hesitated.

"Lily...do you think they are gay?" Lily looked at him like he was crazy.

"Well, duh! How long did that take you to figure out?"

"I've been thinking for a while...but they don't exactly walk around in spandex, do they? Well, Sirius doesn't do it that oft- wait..." Lily laughed to see James' mind so conflicted. Then she realised how handsome he was, deep in thought, his hair pushed back and glasses sliding down his nose. On impulse, she pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, and he looked up.

"Uh...what?" Lily shrugged and decided to ignore the fact that she was blushing.

"So. You've figured out that they're gay at least six months after the rest of the world worked it out. But now they're far too embarrassed to look at each other, let alone get together. So, what do we do?"

"Um...lock them in a broom cupboard until they either kill each other or..." Lily grinned.

"Snog each other senseless." James went slightly pink and muttered something about scarring mental images, much to Lily's amusement.

"Despite the fact that the broom cupboard idea would be funny, I don't think it's appropriate."

"So…what do we do then?" Lily thought, while James stared adoringly at her, looking for all the world like a groupie at a concert, with Lily the lead singer of the band.

"Basically…they need some time to talk out what happened…alone…where they won't get interrupted…"

"They have detention tonight." Lily blinked at James before she broke out in a huge grin.

"That's perfect!" James felt his chest swell with pride, before Lily's grin started to look decidedly evil.

"Uh…Lily? You okay?"

"I think I have an idea…"

Thanks for reading! Hope you like Love xxx