A/N: Ooohh... This is the LAST chapter... well sort of. After this it's the ending. Just need to decide which one I'll upload. . . . . Who am I kidding really... I'll upload both of them. I just need to decide which one to do first.

Thanks to everyone who read this... and the few who reviewed. I love you all (all few of you...heh)

Chapter 10

Serena didn't show up for dinner, and in the morning Lily came down to the common room, worried that her bed hadn't been slept in at all.

"She's been out all night." Lily wrung her hands in worry. "With Filch and Mrs.Norris out there, she could seriously get into trouble. Not to mention it's just not good... to be gone this long."

"She'll probably be at class. She can't miss those..." James said, not entirely convinced. Sirius stayed quiet in the background, his mind going into overdrive worrying about Serena.

The first class of the day was Charms, which saw all the Marauders in their seats before class had even started, looking around for Serena, but once the class started she still hadn't shown.

"Where is Miss Strangeblood?" The Professor asked, looking at the Gryffindor contingent looking incredibly worried.

"She's sick sir..." Lily burst out, not wanting to get Serena into trouble by saying she was missing.

"Well she had better see the nurse. Make sure she gets the homework."

The rest of the day passed much the same, with Serena missing the classes and the Marauder's lying, saying she was ill. The excuse was only going to work for a day or two.

"We need to find her before she gets into serious trouble." Remus said, worry etched onto his face.

"Can't you find her with your rings Padfoot?" James said, eyeing the ring on Sirius' right hand.

"She's taken hers off..." He whispered, still angry with himself for having done the same, if even for a few hours.

"Boys... What about that precious map of yours?" Lily asked calmly, looking at them like they should have remembered that. They all looked at her suspiciosuly.

"How did you know...?" James asked tentatively.

"Like I wouldn't know about that... But who cares. It shows everyone right? So she should be on it... As long as she's still on school grounds." Lily looked slightly concerned at her own last statement.

Immediately Sirius ran and got the map, pulling it out and with a quick 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good', started to look it over.

"She's not on here!" He said, panic in his voice.

"She's not in the Slytherin area rooms then?" James said, his face firm. At their looks he just shook his head. "Well if she had been dating Malfoy she would have run away to there right?"

"She's not there." Peter said suddenly, drawing all their looks to him. He hadn't even been looking at the map and still he had answered. He winced. "I mean... I heard Malfoy talking to Snape in the hallway. He was complaining that his latest catch had run away from him... I assumed it was Serena."

"I don't know where she is then..." Sirius said, exhaustion in his voice. Now he was at a loss for what to do.

At that moment Serena was asleep on Professor Slughorn's couch. She didn't know how she had ended up there. When she had run out of the Gryffindor common room, she hadn't had a definite flight path. She had thought at first she should go to McGonagall, but she knew her head of house would have told her rather sensibly to go back to the dorm and deal with her friends, the same had gone for Dumbledore. Even worse there was that Dumbledore might have guessed what she was trying to do if he had heard the story. So instead, after wandering all night she had ended up at Professor Slughorn's. He was the only other professor she thought might help her out. After all she was Lily's friend, and exceptionally good at Potions. These were things that had endeared her to the Slytherin head of house. She had given him a shortened version of what had happened. And rather surprisingly immediately he had offered to let her stay on his couch. He had said that in situations like these some distance was usually best. Yet being at school didn't afford many chances to get away.

Slughorn was exactly as he had been in the future. He wanted the students to like him, even if it meant bending the rules for them. Or at least for the students that he WANTED to like him. In her old time he hadn't given two hoots for her, that was until she had started to be friends with Harry. Then of course she was worth his notice, that and her ability in most of her subjects.

She spent the entire day asleep on his couch, shrugging off his attempts to get her to eat. Her stomach didn't feel like food, it couldn't when it was turned upside down. She knew she had to get up and follow through with her plan, but it was taking a while to get her body moving. The only thing she had energy for was to set up a simple cloaking spell around herself for a short period of time. She didn't want anyone to find her... and with certain objects like the original version of the map she carried, she could be found too easily. Though it was certainly doubtful they would try.

"Professor. Thank you for letting me stay here for the day." Serena smiled as Slughorn came back at the end of the day. "I think I need to go though..." She wasn't going to go back to the Gryffindor area... She was going to finish her plan.

"Well you're welcome my dear. But I have to say, I think your friends are worried about you. When I asked where you were, Lily immediately lied and said you were sick. If she hated you like you said she would have said you were skipping."

This made Serena pause, but she shook it off. "Thank you again Professor. You're certainly my favourite teacher now." Flattery always got you everywhere with Slughorn..

"Oh, my... that's nice of you. You'll have to come to our Slug Club party..."

"I'd be delighted. Bye." She waved and exited the room, immediately holing herself up in the room of requirements. The room was empty except for a bed in the corner. Her only requirement was not being found, so what else was she supposed to need. She dropped onto the bed and pulled out the marauder's map, and found Peter on it quickly enough. He was in the common room, surrounded by all her other former friends. She needed to finish this soon. In her hand she clutched the ring Sirius had given her, having taken it off right after she had ran out the other night.

If things would just for once work for her instead of against, then she could be home soon. Though the question was if she even wanted to go home... but with things as they were now she had no choice. She couldn't live in the past forever.

Later, as if her wish had been granted by a higher being, Serena watched as the dot that was marked as Peter Pettigrew, left the Gryffindor area and headed down the hallways of the castle, until he was in the deep dungeon areas of the school. She saw quickly enough that Sirius, and the others were in their dorms, though Sirius' dot was still awake, pacing from the looks of it. She ignored that though, and grabbing her invisibility cloak, and the map, she ran out of the room to follow Peter.

She came upon him quickly enough in one of the hallways, looking around to make sure he wasn't being followed. He obviously didn't have the map, since he would have been able to tell easily enough that he was being followed. She waited a short while to see where he was going, and once she spotted the dots marked for Malfoy, Snape, and various other people she knew as future death eaters, Serena did something she had been avoiding all day.

She slipped on the ring, and tried to use it for it's original purpose. To make Sirius find her...

She was happy, and worried at the same time when she watched as Sirius' dot start to move at a phenomenal rate down the hallways and stairs of the castle. She wondered briefly if he was in his dog form, and she grimaced as she saw exactly that coming down the hallway. Luckily they were a ways away from the Slytherin group, otherwise everyone would have heard him.

She threw off the cloak and stood in front of him to make him stop. He came to a halt immediately, changing into his human form in an instant, and before she could say anything, she was in a tight hug.

"You... We've all been so damned worried about you. Where have you been?" His voice was thick with emotion and he placed her away from him to look at her angrily, though she saw enough tenderness in his eyes.

For a moment she forgot why he was there.

"You.. You all accused me of cheating with Malfoy. You have no right to have been worried about me!" She said angrily, shaking her head.

"So we're all stupid fools. Okay? You didn't exactly explain well, and we jumped to conclusions. But damn it Serena... I love you. You were letting Malfoy near you, to even touch you. Why?"

That brought Serena out of her daze, and she grabbed Sirius and pulled him along with her. "Quiet. I'll show you something. The thing I've been working on all those nights, why I was getting on Malfoy's good side. But you HAVE to be quiet." She held onto his hand and pulled the cloak over both of them, and brought the map out again.

"How..." Sirius, looked at her surprise in his eyes. "Is this James'..?"

"No it's my map and my cloak..." Serena shushed him then, and rather obediently he went quiet, the desire to know what she had been doing outweighing his curiosity over the map.

Quietly they crept into the room, where Serena knew Peter was selling out his supposed friends. Inside she found the group lazing about, as Peter talked to Malfoy, a rather rushed quality to his voice. Serena clamped her hand over Sirius' mouth when he saw Peter, immediately assuming that his friend was in trouble.

"She hasn't come back to our common room. None of us know where she is." Peter whined out, trying to be important for Malfoy who just stuck his nose up at him.

"Well I want to know where she is the minute you find her. She's of interest to me. And the Dark Lord would certainly be happy with having a good spy among the Gryffindors."

"What about me?" Peter asked concerned. "I'm a good spy! None of them even suspect me. The only one who's looked at me oddly has been that Strangeblood."

"That's because she smarter then you, you're just a rat." Malfoy sneered at Peter. "We use you because we can, but you're essentially useless. The only good you bring us is your ties to those other fools. Just keep on their good sides until we need you to be more then just a spy for us."

Serena felt Sirius' body tense when he heard Peter's confession, and then she felt the overwhelming amount of anger and fury radiating from him. It was all she could do to keep him under control. If she let him stay there for another second he would tear out from under the cloak and kill Peter, and then likely get himself killed. She pulled him back out of the room, though it was hard enough. Once she was sure they were far enough away, she let him go, and slid the cloak off, looking up at him expectantly.

"That RAT!" Sirius exploded, and Serena winced, hoping they were actually far enough away. "I am going to kill him... He was our friend." He stepped forward, to head back to where Malfoy and Peter were, but Serena in his path stopped him.

"You can't kill him." She shook her head, knowing that he could indeed do it. But she also knew he would seriously regret it afterwards. There would be no proof that Peter had done anything, it would have just been a death. And then Sirius would have gone to Azkaban... again. "If you kill him, you're a murderer. You go to Azkaban, and everything I tried to do is destroyed." She shook her head. "If you're gone then Peter will still be around to betray Lily and James, they'll be killed, Harry will grow up alone..." She realized she had let things slip, but it hadn't mattered since she would be going back home that night.

He had stopped raging to listen to her, his eyes wide and confused at her last statement. "How do you know they'll be killed? How DID you know Peter was up to all this...?"

She sighed, and taking his hand in hers, led him to the room of requirements. She opened it to her empty room from before, knowing that she didn't want anything more then that, that she didn't deserve anything more. Sirius dropped onto the bed, his whole body tense with exhaustion and sadness.

"Whether you'll believe this or not..." Serena took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm from the future." She pulled out the time turner from her back pocket. "This is a time turner. I used it to come back to the past and stop certain things from happening. Dumbledore is the only one who knew... except I lied to him and told him it was an accident. He never would have let me change things."

She smiled slightly at the shell shocked expression on Sirius' face. She continued on though. "I've told you about Harry haven't I? Well he's James and Lily's son... He's lived with his Aunt and Uncle since he was a year old." She held up a hand when Sirius' mouth opened, likely to ask the question, why? "Lily and James were killed by Lord Voldemort." At her casual use of the name, Sirius winced slightly, but he looked horrified at what she had just told him. "Harry lived because Lily sacrificed herself to save him, and in that act saved Harry and also destroyed Voldemort for the time being. I knew Harry later in his life, when he was 17. He was fighting against Voldemort who had come back. He succeeded... but so many people in his life were killed or lost. His friends, Dumbledore, Remus... You." Serena's voice dropped to a whisper at the last name, tears in her eyes. She had never cried for Sirius' death when she had known Harry. After all she had never known him then, but knowing him now, loving him now, caused pain at the thought of his death.

Sirius stood up from the bed, and drew her into a hug. He was showing amazing calm considering he had just been told all his friends were going to die, as well as himself.

"Harry's life was ruined... So I came back here to try and stop the key event that started it all. The death of his parents..." Her voice was muffled against Sirius' chest, but he still heard her.

"I'll assume Peter was involved."

"Yes..." Serena pulled away, and wiped her eyes. "They were on the run, and you convinced them to have Peter as their secret-keeper." At this Sirius growled softly, angry with his future self for being that stupid. "You had good enough reasons... You knew it would be assumed that you, as James' best friend would be the keeper, so you thought you could divert their attention, and for some reason you suspected Remus... Possibly since he was a werewolf. I don't know, but you never had reason to doubt Peter. That's why I stayed awake all nights and sidled up to Malfoy. I was trying to catch Peter in the act. I knew if you saw what he was really like, then obviously you wouldn't trust him anymore. You, or Dumbledore, could be the secret keeper, and Lily and James could stay alive."

Sirius surprised Serena then by picking her up and twirling her around the room, kissing her before he put her down, hugging her tightly then.

"You're very happy for hearing about that depressing future." Serena said blandly, though she was thrilled on the inside.

"You didn't cheat on me." He grinned brightly at her. "And now that future's changed. So everything will be okay. Thank you." He kissed her again. She laughed quietly at the fact that his first worry had been her cheating on him. But it seemed as though he wasn't getting one important fact... She was from the future. Did he think she was going to stay behind with him?

"Sirius..." She pulled away from him completely, so that they weren't even touching. "You're right. I hope I've changed things... But I have to go home now." She said that last bit quietly, her heart breaking over again at the confused look on Sirius' face. He had thought she was staying.

"But..." He couldn't continue though, there was really nothing to say.

"I can't stay here, can I? It's not my time. I have my family and friends in the future."

"What about your friends here?" He asked gruffly. "What about me?" His eyes shone, and Serena was shocked to see tears in his eyes. Sirius never cried. It was against his nature, he yelled, screamed, laughed, fought, but never cried.

"Sirius..." Serena sniffed, not surprised at all to find tears in her own eyes. After all she cried all the time lately. "I love you, but I have to go home. I wouldn't worry. With the way time is, it's likely you'll forget who I even was." She tried to smile, but it broke at the serious look on his face.

"That's stupid. Screw the way time is, if you go, I won't forget you."He said this rather petulantly, so that Serena laughed, even as she cried. She flew into his arms and hugged him tightly, finding herself being embraced just as tightly. Her face was covered in kisses, just as Sirius' was. Finally though she pulled away from him, and with a rather watery grin said goodbye. Before she could lose her nerve to leave, she ran out the door.