Lily couldn't understand it at all. This boy, always seemingly upbeat, was breaking down. The Marauders. Always so cool, playing pranks, passing classes without a moment's thought, yet here were the two leaders, held in an emotional embrace. The intimacy of the moment made Lily sure that no one apart from the Marauders themselves had seen these displays, that it was something private, something secret. It made Lily uncomfortable, like she was spying in on an extremely private moment between brothers, in their own home, not a moment of friends in hers. Yet it begged her to think, 'this was a secret, no one knew'. It was an amazing idea to her, who had always been insistent on hating the Marauders (except from Remus), to believe that they would not be able to keep a secret for ten seconds, let alone any longer, yet what she was seeing here was most defiantly a secret, and one which they had seemed to have been keeping for a while. This, inevitably, begged the question, 'How many more?? How many more secrets are they holding? which everyone thought they knew?'

But there was no way to know. Not then. And she could not ask, it was too personal, and no one would be willing to disturb the scene before them. For it seemed it was needed by the boy desperately, as he clung to his friend, releasing all the pent up emotions, letting them spill over. And spill over they did, for more than five minutes the boys hugged, just aware of each other, and nothing else, until, at last, they broke free of each other's embrace.

Lily, tearing her eyes away from the scene in front of her, looked around the room at her family. All were looking slightly surprised, though less so than Lily, but then, she supposed, they did not know the boys, nor even know of them before that night.

But there was silence now. An awkward silence at that. James and Sirius both looked thoroughly embarrassed at what had happened, and the way that everyone was staring at them, though it was at this point that Lily realised the look on her father's face. Needing to talk to him, she pulled the only pretence she could think of.

"Anyone want something to drink?"

Only after she said it, did she realise how silly it sounded after the emotional display. However, this did seem to be greatly appreciated by both the boys, who started laughing almost immediately. Lily's father, sensing her meaning, quickly followed suit,

"Yes! A drink would be lovely! I'll have a tea, but what about you boys? Tea? Coffee? Water? Or maybe something stronger? I've got some cider in the fridge or even some"

He stopped talking there, noticing the looks on their faces, confused as to why, he turned to Lily, who was giggling to herself. Taking pity on her father, she began to explain,

"They don't know what cider is dad. We don't have it in Hogwarts, we have stuff like butterbeer and firewhiskey"

"OH" he suddenly understood, "well, we still have tea, you do drink tea right? And coffee?"

"Yeah, we do." James replied, smiling that at least one thing was the same in both worlds, they all had tea, "I think we will have a tea each if that's ok? I have mine with milk, one sugar, and Pads here has milk three sugars"

"great, we'll just get them" Lily said, dragging her dad into the kitchen,

"So what's their story?" Richard enquired,

"I'm not sure. They're best friends, do everything together, well, almost. Occasionally you see James without Sirius, but that's usually if Sirius is with Remus and they want to be alone..." Lily babbled on for a while before realising the lost look her father had donned, "What?"

"I'm lost, go back. Now who's Remus?"

"OH! Right, of course you don't know! Remus is Sirius' boyfriend" Lily replied, matter-of-factly.

"oh, ok. What about that wound though, on the boys, Sirius's, back? I'm a doctor, I could help, clear it up, stich it. If he wants to come to the hospital..."

"Thanks dad," Lily replied lovingly, "But you wouldn't be able to do anything, number one, Sirius doesn't want to go to our hospital, I don't know why, but he doesn't, and I don't think he will want to go to a muggle one either, and number two, nothing would work. That wound is from-" She could hardly speak for thinking about it. Loading the drinks onto a tray she tried again, "That wound is from a curse. A horrible one. It won't be able to heal without magic. But anyway, let's get these into the other room, come on"

Lily led the way back into the room of all the drama.