Disclaimer: Anything relating to the Harry Potter stories belongs to J. K. Rowling. She can have my characters and ideas as well.

CHAPTER 9

"I feel stupid." Sara said sullenly the next morning while the girls were changing into their school robes.

"About what?" Nina asked her.

"About Remus." she answered, "I've been avoiding him like the plague."

"Er…not really, Sara." Lily said while applying some lip-gloss and examining her face in the mirror. "You just didn't sit near him at dinner last night, and you haven't bumped into him since then."

"Yeah but still." Sara said looking gloomy. "I don't like it. I don't feel like myself."

"So, just be yourself then." Nina said to her as they started to make their journey towards the Great Hall.

"Fine." she said in agreement, "I'll just pretend nothing happened." They walked into the hall and spotted Remus, Sirius and Peter sitting at the end of a table.

"Move your ass over Lupin, I want to sit here." Sara said abruptly with her hands over her hips. Remus, looking completely stunned, turned his head to the left and stared at Sara like she was mad, and then turned his head back in front and looked at Sirius, apparently waiting for some divine revelation to tell him what to do. Sirius, using his hands, motioned Remus to move over. Remus, still looking dumb, moved over and Sara plopped herself down next to him and started helping herself to some breakfast. Lily sat near Sirius, and Nina sat down next to her. About halfway through breakfast, James walked into the hall looking very sleepy. He meandered his way to the table and sat on the other side of Sirius.

"Late night, Potter?" Lily asked as James was pouring himself some orange juice. James gave a big yawn, ruffled his hair, and turned his head towards Lily.

"Hmm?" he said.

"Never mind." Lily said with a frown and continued eating. James shrugged his shoulders and drank his juice.

"Oh, Lily," James said when he was done, "did you want to get together tonight to work on those reports for Professor Dumbledore?"

"I can't." Lily replied sternly, "I'm meeting with Amos and Anthony tonight to work on the outline due next week for the Muggle Studies project."

"Oh." James said a little sullenly. "Okay, maybe tomorrow then." Nina looked across at Sara with a slightly perplexed face and saw Sara looking at her the same way.

"What outline?" Sara exclaimed. "We have something due? Oi, Black! You didn't tell us anything!"

Sirius's head shot up, "Oh damn!" he said looking guilty and slightly frightened by Sara's fierce glare, "I completely forgot to tell you lot about it."

"No shit, Sherlock." Sara said angrily. "We don't even know what the bloody hell we're doing!" Nina looked at Sirius and was slightly amused at how scared of Sara he looked.

"It's not my fault that you two decided to walk out of class!" he said defensively.

"Well, you can thank this guy for that!" she said jabbing a finger at Remus. Remus moved over a little putting one hand over his face, looking even more scared than Sirius had.

"Okay, okay." Nina said finding the nerve to speak loudly over their voices, thinking that they would never find out what they had to do if they kept arguing like this. "Sirius," she said and he turned his head to her, "did you pick a topic for us?"

He stared at her for a second and she raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. "Oh," he said very slowly, "yeah, I did."

"And it is…?" she asked him expectantly. He was still staring at her as if trying to remember what it was she was talking about.

"Black!" Sara suddenly yelled, "We all know Nina's beautiful, but stare at her on your own time. What the heck are we doing the project on?" Sirius turned his head to Sara, looking taken aback and a little embarrassed at the same time. Nina had the sudden urge to dump a pitcher of pumpkin juice on Sara's head.

Still looking at Sara he said uneasily, "Er, I didn't really know what to pick or what you lot wanted to do, so I just uh—randomly picked one of the first ones. It's some comparative analysis of doctors versus healers or something."

"Oh…Okay, that sounds cool." Sara said sounding satisfied. "Alright, Nina?" she asked Nina. Sirius didn't turn to look at Nina this time, keeping his eyes on the table or Sara.

"Yeah, it's fine." Nina answered her. "Let's work on it tomorrow afternoon if you guys have time."

Sara nodded at her, "Right, let's just get it over with. That good with you, Sirius?"

"Sure, whatever you two want." he replied quietly and went on with finishing his breakfast.

Nina was just about to get up from the table when the sight of an owl flying above her head stopped her. She recognized it as her own as it dropped a letter onto her lap. She opened the letter and saw the familiar handwriting of her mother. She read the letter quickly, frowning as she went through it. Great, she thought. She's giving me an ultimatum now. As if I don't have enough stress to deal with this year. I have until December to make a decision that's going to affect the rest of my bloody life.

Lily noticed that Nina looked somewhat vexed and asked, "Everything alright, Nina?"

Nina sighed and folded the letter back up. "Yeah, fine. It's just my mother. Asking about school and stuff. The usual." She faked a smile at Lily and got up. "I'll meet you guys in class."


Throughout the day, Nina kept thinking about what her mother had written to her. She hardly paid attention in any of her classes, and didn't recall half of the conversations that took place around her during dinner or in the common room with her friends afterwards. Her mind was so preoccupied that she walked right into Sirius while heading up to the dorm. Had it been any other day, she would've died of embarrassment, but she just mumbled an apology indifferently and kept walking up. Even when she lay down that night in her bed, her mind was distracted. Deciding that she was too stressed to sleep, she grabbed a book and went out of the dormitory, heading down to the common room.

When she was coming down the stairs to the common room, she thought she heard the portrait hole open. But, when she reached the bottom, she saw that nobody was there. The common room was completely empty; everyone had already gone to bed. Nina sat down on the couch next to the fireplace comfortably with her legs crossed and started reading her book.

After reading only a couple of pages, her eyes started to feel strained. She put her book down and stretched her arms up and then ran her hands through her hair and sighed.

"Man, I've got to stop stressing out over this. I'll go crazy," she said to herself. She picked up her book and got up. She started walking towards the stairs when she thought she heard a swishing noise behind her. She quickly turned around to see where it came from, but no one was there. Hmm, must be my imagination, she thought to herself and continued walking up the stairs and into her dorm.


Up in the boys' dormitory, James, Remus and Peter were sitting around waiting for something impatiently. When James saw the door to the dorm open and close by itself he said with a sense of relief, "Finally. What took you so long?"

Appearing from under a cloak, Sirius said, "Sorry, I got stalled."

"We were afraid you got caught or something. What happened?" James asked him with concern.

"Well as soon as I entered the common room, I saw someone walking down the stairs, so I had to wait for them to come down so I could pass." Sirius explained.

"Was it Lily?" James asked with curious enthusiasm.

"Er—no, it wasn't Lily." Sirius answered.

"Was it Sara?" Remus asked looking a little afraid.

"No, it wasn't Sara either."

"So who was it then?" Peter joined in the conversation.

"Oh, uh, I dunno. I didn't really get a good look. It was er, kinda dark." Sirius answered guardedly. Why did I just lie about that? He thought to himself, I think I'm going mad. The truth was that Sirius did get a good look at whom it was. When he entered the portrait hole, he saw Nina coming down the stairs, so he froze as to not make any noise. She was holding a book, and headed to the couches near the fireplace.

Sirius still didn't move after she sat down and started reading. He stood there watching her curiously; she looked a little sad about something. He saw her put the book down and stretch her arms. He could feel his heart beat a little faster. Why am I still standing here? Move, you idiot! She ran her hands through her long dark hair and sighed. Sirius still couldn't move; his eyes were glued to her. It wasn't until he heard her mutter something to herself about going crazy that he broke his deep penetrating stare. She got up and walked towards the stairs and he followed her, taking steps when she did so she wouldn't hear him. She must have heard something though, because she turned around all of a sudden. He froze again, holding his breath. Her light brown eyes stared right into his grey ones and he thought for a second that she could see him, but then she turned back around and went up quickly. Sirius waited until she was gone before heading back up the stairs.

"So, did you get it?" James asked him excitedly. Sirius, his thoughts being broken, looked up at James and remembered why he went out in the first place.

"Of course I did!" he said cockily. "It was a piece of cake. Ol' Sluggy is getting a little sloppy with his security system." Sirius passed James a small phial of a bright blue liquid.

"Ah, wicked." James said while examining the phial.

"Why are we getting all this stuff now? We have until Halloween; that's more than a month away." Remus said to James.

"Because." James said firmly. "I want this to be foolproof. It's our last Halloween here. It has to be perfect."

"You know Lily is going to kill, don't you?" Remus asked him with a wry smile.

"Well, that's a risk I'm willing to take." He said solemnly, like a general ready to sacrifice his life for his country. He took the phial and hid it safely in his trunk.


When Nina woke up the next morning, she somehow felt better about what her mother had written her. If it's gonna happen, its gonna happen. She reasoned with herself. There's no point moping about it. Screw it. I might as well make the best of the time I have here and enjoy myself. When Nina entered the library in the afternoon, she spotted Remus sitting alone at a table. She plopped her books on the table and Remus looked up.

"Hey." she said, "Where is everyone"

"I don't know about everyone, but Sirius is on his way." Remus replied.

"Oh okay. Sara is on her way, too." She looked at Remus with a half smile.

"I see." he said with a hint of nervousness in his voice. Nina sat down across Remus and opened her book.

"Hey," she said remembering something, "were one of you guys down in the common room last night around midnight?"

Remus answered her uneasily, "I don't know." And then added curiously, "Why?"

"Oh nothing really." Nina said nonchalantly. "I was downstairs reading and I thought I heard someone down there. I figured later it might have been one of you guys under that invisibility cloak."

"How do you know about the cloak?" he asked surprised.

"Oh," she said with a mock serious expression, "I have my connections."

"No, seriously. Tell me." Remus said pressingly.

Nina was evidently enjoying her new attitude and secret intelligence, "Don't worry about it." she said with a cheeky grin, "Anyways, I know much more than you all think." She was still smirking when she looked up and saw Sirius walk up behind Remus.

Nina cleared her throat and looked back down at her book.

"Hey, what's up?" Sirius said taking a seat next to Remus. Nina looked up and gave him a quick smile.

"Well," Remus said to Sirius, "Nina was just saying that she was in the common room last night."

"Oh." Sirius said with an interested look, "Was she?"

"Yeah." Remus continued, "She thinks that maybe one of us was down there with an invisibility cloak."

"Really." Sirius said looking at Nina with a piercing look. "How would Nina know about that?"

"Nina knows lots of things." Remus said to Nina with a smile.

Nina smiled back at Remus and nodded saying, "Yes she does." She looked at both of them now and asked, "So? Who was it? I bet it was one of you two."

Remus was about to say something when Sirius interjected. "Nobody." he said. "We were all up in the dorm last night." Remus gave Sirius a confused look.

"Oh come on, you can tell me. I don't care if someone was down there. I just wanna know." she persisted.

"I'm telling you, no one was down there with you." Sirius said firmly. Nina looked at Remus hoping to get some information out of him, but he just shrugged and started reading his book again.

"Fine." Nina said disappointingly, "Don't tell me then." She looked at Sirius with a frown and went back to her book. Git. Does he think I'm going to tell on them or something? Gees. She read a couple of lines from her book and then looked up again and saw he that was watching her with an almost amused expression. What is this idiot smiling at? Damn, he has a nice smile. She scowled at him again and looked back down. She could still feel his gaze on her. Oh my goodness, what is his problem? What is he staring at me for? Nina put her hand on her forehead to cover her face. She moved her hand up a little so she could look at Remus hoping for some intervention, but he was glued to his book.

When she couldn't take it anymore, she said to Sirius in an annoyed tone, "Can you please stop staring at me like that."

Sirius reclined back in his chair. "Why?" he asked her keenly. "Does it bother you?"

"Yes, it does." She answered seriously. She looked away from him and saw Sara coming to the table.

"Hey guys!" The sound of Sara's voice made Remus jump up and out of his seat with a start.

"I, er, have to go." Remus started to say in a quivering voice, "I've got a—uh, meeting…somewhere."

"You're not leaving because of me, are you?" Sara asked ardently.

"No." Remus answered, sitting back down quickly.

"Why did you sit back down, then?" Sara asked, still standing close to him.

"Oh." Remus said getting up again, clearly not knowing what he was doing.

Sara bent down and picked up Remus's books off the table and dropped them into his hands. "Here you go." she said cheerfully. "Have fun at your meeting." She sat down in his seat and started taking out her own books.

Remus muttered something unintelligible and left the library. As soon as Remus was gone, Sara turned to Sirius, "Did he really have a meeting?"

"Um..." Sirius said, thinking to himself, "Yeah, actually, he did. I hope he knows that."

"Oh well." Sara said, "So did you guys do anything about the project yet?"

"No," Nina said, "we were waiting for you."

"Yeah." Sirius added, "Plus, Nina was too busy trying to flirt with me to do any work." Nina looked at him indignantly and he gave her a playful sneer.

"Ha!" Sara laughed dryly. "Nina? Flirt? Now that would be the day." Nina smiled triumphantly at Sirius and they started working on their outline. Damn, she has a nice smile, Sirius thought to himself, I have to be careful. This girl is going to give me some trouble; I can feel it.


A/N: Okay I decided to post this chapter up early because I'm in a good mood. Next chapter should come tomorow night, but if I don't get any reviews, I'll think about waiting a liiiittle longer... or, if I get lots of reviews, I'll post it earlier! Haha!