A/N: Another day, another chapter. It's almost finished! Well... sort of... there are two endings after all. Please enjoy this update, and R+R. :)

Chapter 9

The next day the rest of the Marauder's could only watch as their friend's relationship cracked apart. Serena was stubbornly refusing to tell anyone what was going on, and Sirius was stubbornly refusing to accept that it wasn't something that he should know. Everyone else just stood on the sidelines, but even so, the group started to take sides.

"She should just tell him." James huffed, sick of watching his best friend mope around the common room.

"It's her own business." Lily sighed. "Just because they're dating doesn't mean he has every right to her life, not only after a little over a month of dating."

"She's still acting rather shifty." Peter said suspiciously, looking around for Serena in case she heard him. "She looks at me strangely too..."

"Everyone does that Wormtail." Remus sighed, shaking his head. "All in all, they're both being stubborn, and knowing them both... neither is going to give on this. Sirius won't give until she tells him, and she is not going to." He tapped his fingers on the table, getting rather exasperated with his two friends.

"There really is absolutely nothing we can do either." Lily shook her head.

All four of them sat, getting rather depressed about the entire situation.

Serena meanwhile sat in the library, feeling rather depressed about the situation as well. The only difference was that this just made her even more determined to catch Peter doing something. The problem was there was nothing to grasp at. Even staying up almost the entire night yielded no results. She was becoming desperate, and the only solution she could find for this situation was something she really wanted to avoid. She was going to have to someway find out from the lion's mouth. Peter wouldn't tell her anything since he knew she was friends with the group, but if she could get in good with Malfoy...

She dropped her head onto her book, disgusted at even the thought of pretending to be friends with any Slytherin, especially this one. Not to mention the backlash she would get from everyone when they found out. What Sirius would do...

"Pressure getting to you already Strangeblood?"

Serena straightened up and stared at the object of her thoughts (and disgust). Malfoy stood over her, for once he was even alone. He looked every inch the lord he was, and was looking at her in such a primitive way she shivered.

"Lucius... Just the Slytherin I wanted to talk to." Serena smiled, amazed that she did so without looking like she wanted to throw up. After all there had to be some sign of fate when he came near her just as she was thinking about him...

Malfoy though looked almost surprised at the smile, and polite statement. "You wanted to talk to me...?"

"Well... you're good at the dark arts... and I needed some help on it." Serena practically simpered at him, trying to put on the best show she could possibly do. He narrowed his eyes at her though.

"Why don't you ask one of the deformed four? Or your boyfriend Black...?" He spit out the word boyfriend, and immediately Serena killed the urge to jump up and beat Malfoy for insulting her friends, or Sirius.

"We broke up... and as a result the rest of the group aren't as fond of me..." Serena sighed, not having to fake that. After all it was almost the truth. Sirius and her had for all intensive purposes broken up. He hadn't really spoken to her, except in arguments for a week, and at least half of the Marauders were backing him up.

This seemed to throw Malfoy off, but quickly his usual smarmy smile was back in place and he sat down across from Serena.

"It was about time you realized he was a fundamental waste of time..." Malfoy laughed, and the sound was like nails on a chalkboard for Serena, but she just pretended to laugh with him.

"Yes well... I was hoping you could help me with this paper I have to write on banshees...?" She pointed at her book and smiled at him. He leaned in to look at the book.

"You know for a Gryffindor you're not that bad..." Malfoy smirked. "At least you're not a mugblood, and you learnt your mistake about those losers in your house. We can't fault you for where the hat sorted you..."

Inside all she wanted to do was reach across the table and strangle him, but instead she kept her smile firmly in place. "Yes..." She sighed dramatically. "It would have been nice to be in Slytherin instead. I always thought green was more my colour. And everyone in Gryffindor seems to be useless... Or at least they've all lost their uses to me. I mean Black was fun and all, but he got boring too quickly. The same with the rest of them..." Inside her nausea was rising, and tears were begging to be let out at what she was saying, but she continued on. "None of them have anything useful to give..."

"Well I don't know about that. One of them certainly has proven useful..." Malfoy mused out loud, before grinning rather slimely, reaching out to take a lock of Serena's hair, rubbing it between his fingers. She was going to have to shower when she got back to the dorm... That is if she was even allowed back in. Maybe Gryffindor would feel the betrayal and refuse her entrance.

"Useful really?" She laughed bitterly. "How could any of them be useful?"

"Spies are always useful my dear." Malfoy sneered at something behind her at that point, letting her hair slip through his fingers, she let out a sigh of relief, but the relief disappeared in an instant when she heard someone speak behind her.

"With Malfoy of all people..."

Serena whipped round to stare at Sirius who had the most disgusted expression on his face. Not that she could blame him... if she hadn't been as good an actress, she would have had the same look.

"Sirius..."

He sneered at her, and backed off, turning and walking quickly out of the library.

"The stupid fool..." Malfoy laughed. "Just because most of the girls in this school seem to fall for him he always thought he was so much better. I have to say my dear, you've done what I've always failed to do. Bring Black to his knees..."

Serena tried to force the fake laughter past the tears in her throat, but only half succeeded. "Thank you... I need to pass in an assignment to McGonagall." Quickly she gathered up her things and started to go, but Malfoy's voice stopped her.

"Come and see me at dinner. I'll tell you some things you won't believe." She nodded dumbly and left the library quickly, before her tears could ruin her plan.

She had to be proud of herself, she had to be. After all she had basically made Malfoy tell her that there was a spy in Gryffindor, and she knew it was Peter. None of the others could do it, and she KNEW he was the betrayer in the future. But her heart was a broken mess... But all there was now was to follow through.

When she came back to the common room later, she was practically frozen in spot from the disgusted, cold looks she got when she came in. Even Lily and Remus looked like she was a vampire...

"It's too bad you can't switch houses..." James sneered at her. "You would fit so nicely in with the Slytherins."

She looked around, wide eyed at all her old friends, and her heart broke all over again. But this was to save them all, as well as her future friends. She spotted Sirius in the corner, avoiding looking at her like his life depended on it.

"I can't believe I actually stood up for you." Lily spat out, looking furious. Never since she had been here had she seen her look this upset. "I said you weren't cheating... I swore you weren't. And to find out this. I don't want to even sleep in the same room as you."

Serena looked back and forth from James to Lily, tears welling up in her eyes, despite her resolve to keep them away.

"I feel guilty..." Remus said quietly, he sat near Sirius in an armchair. "I shouldn't have tried to get you two together. I should have realized from the beginning what you were like..." He kept his eyes down as he said this.

Only Peter and Sirius hadn't said anything yet. Peter didn't look like he was about to, practically looking frightened at his surrounding at the moment. Sirius though still wouldn't look at her, but she noticed that his right hand was bare, the ring gone from it. This broke her firm resolve and the tears spilt forth.

"You fools!" She tried to wipe the tears away. "You don't know what I have to do! You can't know... I can't tell any of you! But you're all so quick to think the worst of me! I wish I was back home with my friends! They would never..." Her voice broke and she shook her head, running out of the common room, back into the castle.

An air of guilt hung over the group left in the common room.

"Do you think maybe... we jumped to a conclusion?" Lily said softly, breaking the silence that had fallen over everyone.

"You didn't see her with Malfoy... smiling and letting him touch her hair..." Sirius said gruffly, his voice thick with emotion.

"But...:" Remus shook his head. "That reaction was real... You know it was. There's a part of this story that we're all missing. She made it sound like she had to do this... This connects back to her lack of sleep I think." He passed his hand over his face. "I feel like I just betrayed one of my friends."

"Maybe we should look for her then?" James surprised everyone suggesting this. After all he had been the quickest to turn against her. At their looks he shrugged. "I feel bad... I don't think she faked those tears. But I would like to know why she was even sitting near Malfoy." He turned to his best friend. "Well Padfoot?"

"Of course I want to find her..." He muttered. "You think I didn't know those were real tears. But I think it wouldn't be a good idea to see her right now...She ran out of here in tears... Do you think she wants to see any of us right now?"

The group all shook their heads, staying where they were despite their feelings against it. Sirius excused himself from the room and went up to his bed, grabbing his ring off his table and slipping it back on, feeling guiltier then before at having even taken it off. He tried to use it to find where she was in the castle, but he felt nothing.

"Damn... she took it off..." He buried his face in his pillow as the bitter voice in the back of his head. 'Why would she have kept it on? You took yours off...'

He stuck his head under the pillow, in hopes of closing out the voice, but it didn't work.