Lily can do this. She can. There's no way that Sirius has done any of this of his own accord. No possible way—she believes it because she loves him, because she's known him for so long, because she needs to. She just repeats it as a mantra in her head as she moves to the door. She appears to be alone. Appears being key. James hadn't been allowed to accompany at all. It's too much, too raw, for the both of them together.

When Sirius opens the door Lily is keen enough to capture a progression in Sirius' expression—if it can be called that—that's even more worrying than the general look of him. There's a deep-seated worry and hurt in her that she doesn't think will ever go away in the face of this pale ghost of one of the men she loves.

(She thinks of Peter, Peter who they'd loved as well, and something twists in her chest.)

"I came here to see you," she says softly, smiling in a way that looks very real to someone that doesn't know her very well. "I want to ask you to come home." She tilts her head aside, wants to touch his face but refrains from reaching out just in case. "We miss you, love. Can I come in? We should talk a bit." Whether he's really gone dark (which she doesn't believe) or he's being controlled (far more likely from the looks of him), she needs to drag him out of this hell and back where he belongs.

Her perfectly straight spine is certainly familiar.