• Serena Black •

„Do I not destroy my enemies
when I make them my friends?"

On the first day of December, Serena couldn't wait to open her eyes for once. She could already see through her closed eyes that the sun was shining into the room and colouring it orange.

Tired, she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. As soon as she did, she was pulled into a hug and all she saw was a mass of bushy brown hair, "Happy birthday, Serena!"

"Thank you Hermione!" beamed Serena and her eyes fell to the foot of her bed where some presents were already lying. Curious, she pounced on them and began to open them one by one. Her favourite present was the one from Remus and her father; all the books on self-defence and other useful spells.

In the end, all that was left was a fancy little black box that Serena had no idea who would give her something like that. She carefully stroked the dark velvet and finally opened the silver clasp of the box. She paused for a moment, puzzled, and took a closer look at the clasp with the raven on it. "Isn't that...?"

Hermione had also leant over Serena's shoulder curiously. "Is that the coat of arms of the Halls?"

"Yes, but why would he give me something?" Serena said, opening the box suspiciously. Surprised to actually find something useful inside, she stared at the really beautiful silver chain with a purple stone in it. There was also a small note pinned to the top inside of the box:

Happy Birthday, Serena.

The most appropriate term to describe Serena's expression at that moment was probably surprised. "It's really nice of him, but I don't understand why?" she asked herself aloud, lowering her voice at the same time so that the other girls in the dormitory wouldn't notice. Serena gently stroked the setting containing the pea-sized gemstone and finally lifted the piece of jewellery out of the box. She drew in a sharp breath as it suddenly dawned on her. It was the necklace she had wanted to buy at the World Cup!

Hermione shrugged her shoulders and looked equally perplexed, "Just ask him."

"Yes, then I can give it right back to him," Serena said resolutely, closing the box with the necklace and putting it in her pocket. After all, she knew exactly how expensive it had been. Maybe it would just turn out to be a stupid prank and the necklace had a few side effects that she would rather not experience for herself. She wouldn't put it past him...

In the common room, Serena was already expected by two rather overzealous twins who handed her a box with a grin. "It's just a small prototype," George explained and grinned all the wider when a few of the surrounding students turned to them curiously.

Serena returned the smile and slowly lifted the lid. She flinched as something suddenly flew out of the box towards her. She quickly moved her head to the side and only felt a gentle breeze running through her curls.

Little paper birds buzzed around her head, chirping merrily. It took Serena a moment to realise that the tune was Happy Birthday. "Magic is so cool," she whispered, impressed, and held out her hand to one of the birds. It promptly sat on it and gently pecked her finger.

When the song was over, they finished by fluttering wildly in circles before exploding and showering the birthday girl with a glowing shower of glitter. "That was incredible!" Serena breathed and threw her arms around their necks, "Thank you so much!"

"Don't forget to do a bit of advertising for us," Fred winked, causing Serena to roll her eyes and walk past the two of them on her way to breakfast.

When they arrived at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, the three of them sat down opposite Ginny. In the meantime, Ginny had stepped in as Harry's new Seeker after he had been banned from Quidditch by Umbridge. The youngest Weasley couldn't quite hold a candle to Harry, but she was still incredibly good. It was pretty clear that Ginny would probably replace Angelina as chaser next year, provided that the curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching position was still intact, which Serena very much hoped was the case.

"Look!" suddenly shouted the bright voice of a younger student, whereupon most of those present turned to him to find out the reason for his euphoria. Serena couldn't help but look around for the source of the voice, who was looking up at the ceiling with enthusiasm.

It was hard to miss the reason, at least not when the ceiling gave her a view of the open sky like at Hogwarts. It had started to snow and the thick flakes were making their way down from the grey clouds. An excited buzz now went through the crowd and, as if they had all become little children again, most of them jumped up to make their way outside.

Serena, the twins, Ron, Harry, Hermione and Ginny also hurriedly grabbed their thick clothes from their dormitories and left the castle laughing, which seemed even more enchanted than usual at that lovely moment. Within that time, so much snow had already fallen that after Astoria and Hailey had joined the group, Fred and George called for a snowball fight.

"You're on our team, Novak!" announced Hailey, who had a huge Hufflepuff scarf wrapped around her neck and half her face, when Nate happened to walk past and finally decided to join in.

In the end, however, they unanimously agreed in favour of girls against boys. Just as they were about to start, Serena was unexpectedly embraced from behind. "All the best, Sirena," whispered an all too familiar voice with an unmistakable accent in her ear.

"Thank you," she breathed and turned round to look at her boyfriend. He smiled at her, the small dimples at the corners of his mouth becoming visible. "I actually had a surprise planned for tonight." His sea-blue eyes wandered disappointedly upwards towards the grey and snow-covered sky. Even though Serena thought he looked a little relieved. "The weather doesn't quite allow it, though. Let's postpone it, shall we?"

She nodded. "Sure, no problem. Are you playing?"

"Oi!" George yelled and threw a snowball at her back. "Let's get started!"

The five girls finally made their way to the other end of the meadow, where they built a wall of snow as quickly as they could, with the help of a little magic, so that they could hide behind it.

"Try a little harder!" Serena called out challengingly to the boys after she still hadn't been hit by a snowball after a few minutes. "You'd expect a bit more from the greatest beaters Hogwarts has ever seen!"

"Your wall is just too high!" Fred shouted back in mock offence, but began to grin again shortly afterwards.

Because what the girls didn't realise at that moment was that George and Ron had snuck up behind them with loads of snow in their arms.

Hailey was just about to reply when her boyfriend dumped a load of ice-cold snow on her neck from behind. The Hufflepuff immediately began to shriek and with her Astoria and Ginny, who had suffered the same fate, albeit at George's hands.

Ginny was the first to react and threw a pile of the white mass back in Ron's face, well positioned. He could only stare dumbfounded for a moment before he and his team set about forming solid snowballs.

When the rest of the boys joined them, the girls couldn't help but admit defeat, but that didn't mean they gave up. In the end, however, none of the teams knew who had really won and none of them really cared. They were all equally wet and exhausted anyway.

On the way back to the castle, Maxon took Serena's completely frozen hand in his and the two of them fell a little behind the rest of the group. "I feel so bad that I can't give you a present today," the Frenchman admitted, looking at her with his big blue eyes.

"That really doesn't matter! At least I'll still have something to look forward to," Serena affirmed and was about to add something else when she suddenly stepped on an icy patch and slipped her leg. Since her hand was still holding Maxon's and he wasn't prepared for it, she pulled him to the ground with her, where he landed right on top of her. "Sorry," she laughed.

Maxon merely stroked the wet strands of hair from her face and kissed her lovingly. Despite all the things that had dragged her down in the last few weeks and the cold of the snow on her back, Serena felt like the happiest girl in the whole world at that moment.

When Serena entered the packed library, Hall was already sitting in her favourite seat. As she hesitantly sat down next to him, he merely looked up once and gave a fleeting "Happy Birthday".

"Thank you," she mumbled and continued to stare at him in amazement. He acted as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't given her what was probably the most expensive birthday present she had received all year. Serena didn't want to put it off for long and slapped the velvet box in front of his nose. "It's really beautiful and it's amazing that you remembered or even realised that I wanted it, but you have to take it back," she stammered breathlessly.

Serena held her breath as she waited for a response from the Slytherin. Hall stared at the box until he turned his eyes back to her.  "Did Devillier complain?"

"No!" Serena interjected hastily. "I just don't understand why..."

Hall pushed the box back towards her. "Just think of it as a well-intentioned gift between friends."

Friends. Was that what they were? Serena had to admit that she'd spent more time with him than with Hailey or the others over the past few weeks, and he'd actually been quite tolerable lately. But would she really go that far out on a limb and call them friends?

Serena nodded briefly with a smile and hesitantly took the casket back. She was actually quite pleased with the gift, after all, she had been totally disappointed not to have bought the necklace herself at the World Cup - even if at first glance it seemed a little strange that Hall had given her jewellery. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied, staring at his book. Something had changed in his expression, the way he pressed his lips together and drew his eyebrows together, she could almost tell he looked a little angry. But at what? At her?

It had probably only been thirty minutes when Serena jumped up and declared that she had to go. She had barely been able to concentrate anyway and the book had been just as useless as the others before.

"Do you have anything else planned?" Hall asked, probably meant to sound casual, but his bright eyes seemed to practically pierce her. As if he knew for sure that she was hiding something from him. Serena packed up her things and asked hypocritically: "Why do you care?"

"I just do," he said dryly and raised an eyebrow impatiently.

"I'm meeting Maxon," Serena finally replied and tried to wrap up some of the truth in her lie: "He said he had a surprise for me."

"Fine." He sounded and looked at her with a look as if he didn't believe a word she said and had uncovered her lie. Serena quickly packed up her things and hurried out of the library. She was already late anyway and Harry hated someone being late for the DA meeting.

The Room of Requirement was already decorated for Christmas, so the attention of many was more on the pretty decorations and mistletoe that had been hung everywhere than on each other. After all, they were all more than ready for the festive season.

Serena tried her best not to stand directly under any of the mistletoe, as they were often so enchanted that they wouldn't let their victims leave until they had kissed. After a while, the rest of the members arrived, including Hailey, who had Astoria in tow.

"Hey," Serena greeted them both and added a little more quietly so that only Hailey could hear her, "You told her about this?" She nodded over to the Slytherin, who was already being eyed suspiciously by the others.

"Yeah, why not?" Hailey said innocently, shrugging her shoulders. "Do you have something against Tori?"

"Of course not," she hissed, "but the others might. Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"I've already spoken to Harry," Hailey replied, "He said it would be okay."

Serena nodded briefly and when Harry greeted everyone, they all turned their attention to him, quickly forgetting about the addition to their group and the decorations. "Okay," he began and silence fell. "I was thinking that tonight we should just repeat what we've done so far, because it's the last meeting before the holidays and there's no point in starting something new just before a three-week break... Besides, we have a new member." He pointed at Tori, who stepped rather uneasily from one foot to the other.

"A Slytherin?" Zacharias questioned aloud and snorted contemptuously, "Then we might as well hang arrows from Umbridge's office to here."

The other students began to whisper as well and, for once, seemed to agree with the cheeky Hufflepuff. They also seemed to categorise Astoria's presence as a risk.

"She won't tell," Hermione hissed loudly, causing silence to gradually return. "None of us will without facing the consequences that come with it."

"Consequences?" Tori whispered, turning pale. "What kind of consequences?"

"If you tell, everyone will know," Nate said dryly, whereupon Hailey and Serena gave him a warning look.

Once the DA members had calmed down, they all got into pairs and practised what they had learnt over the last few weeks. Hailey, meanwhile, tried to show Tori everything she had missed, while Serena practised a little with Nate.

As so often, it seemed as if all the stress fell away from many of the students at the meetings. There was a lot of laughter and joking, and it felt like they were cut off from the outside world for a while in the Room of Requirement. Even though it was rare for anyone to forget why they were actually doing all this. Nevertheless, everyone was cheerful and motivated to do their best and they felt invulnerable behind the walls that were hidden from the rest of the school.

All too soon the lesson ended and Harry wished them all a Merry Christmas, even if it would be a little while before presents were finally placed under the brightly decorated Christmas tree.

When Serena shouldered her bag to leave, she was almost the last one in the room. Harry was still putting some things away and Cho stood a little shyly by. Not wanting to disturb anyone, Serena quickly left, but not without grinning meaningfully at Harry.

Serena strolled along the corridor in a surprisingly good mood, which she hadn't had for a long time, and only realised when it was too late that someone was blocking her way. "A secret room?"

Serena stared at the Slytherin in front of her with her mouth open. Shock was written all over her face, but it quickly turned into raging anger. "Have you been spying on me?"

"You lied to me." Hall just shrugged his shoulders, as if this was the most normal thing in the world and an appropriate excuse for snooping on her.

"That doesn't give you the right to stalk me," Serena clarified sourly.

He crossed both arms defiantly in front of his chest and let the Slytherin hang out completely. "Aren't student societies like this banned recently?"

"You wouldn't dare, Hall!" hissed Serena. "Then you can stick your 'among friends' somewhere else."

"To be honest, I don't even know if I want to anymore," he replied quietly.

"What?"

"To be friends with you." With those words, he turned to leave.

"So you've never lied to me before?" Serena asked provocatively, her eyes still blazing with anger. Hall turned round again briefly before finally leaving her standing alone in the corridor.
She didn't know what to make of it. On the one hand, she actually felt a little bad, but on the other, she had had no other choice. Completely lost in thought, she made her way to the Gryffindor tower, hoping that the world would have turned around by the next morning.

But in these times, enemies masquerading as friends was something Serena would find out soon enough.