Regulus Black was certain he was going mad.

He sat in the Slytherin common room, pouring over some of his textbooks by the ornate green fireplace, his feet up on the coffee table, parchments and books spread about him, his concentration deep on the topic of Transfiguration when he heard a distinct, yet strained hissing sound. He couldn't understand it, but it was as though it were a language of some sort, and he thought involuntarily of Voldemort's skill at parseltongue. He lowered the book he was reading to look about. 

No one else seemed to be hearing the strange words that seemed to permeate the air. There weren't many other Slytherins in the common room, but those that were there hadn't looked up or paused what they were doing. Not one of them. 

Regulus shook his head, the voice gone, and turned back to his textbook, telling himself it was nothing... until he heard it again. 

He looked around the room, shuffling his books into a pile, trying to ascertain which direction the voice was coming from, but it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once, as though being broadcast throughout the very ceiling of the room. He glanced up at the dark water that shone through the globular window high above him, the water of the lake as black as could be, only a faint silver quiver high, high above indicated the presence of the moon.

Regulus carried his things up to his dormitory, passing Severus Snape on the stairwell. He was tempted to pause, to ask Snape if he could hear the mysterious hissing sound, but Snape seemed utterly distracted and Regulus didn't want to get involved in whatever it was that was concerning him.

In the dormitory, Regulus was relieved to find he couldn't hear the hissing any longer and he sank with relief into the chair at his desk, arranging his books about the wooden top and opening his desk to get a fresh pot of ink for his quill. But even without being able to hear the sound, he couldn't stop his mind from ruminating on it, turning the question over and over and over again... What was it? And it wasn't long before Regulus found himself leaned back in the desk chair, straining his ears, as though he wanted to hear it again... to seek it out, and find whatever it was that was making the noise... as though it was calling him.

"I think we should have a date," James announced.

Lily was swinging his hand between them as they walked the corridors of Hogwarts, checking that all the common room doors were safely shut up for the evening and finding the stragglers of student rushing to get back to their dormitories for the evening. James had just sent a Hufflepuff boy off to the kitchens to get to bed after finding him attempting to break into the kitchens, having been given incorrect information about how to open the portrait that blocked the entrance - telling the banana "orange you glad?" jokes. 

Lily looked up at James in surprise. "A date?"

"Yes," James answered, "A proper one. Not just our Headboy and girl rounds, but an actual proper date."

Lily smiled, "And what do you propose we do?"

"I haven't thought it out yet, but I reckon I'll come up with something bloody romantic that will make you thank Merlin you've found me," he answered. "If you say you'll go on one with me, that is."

Lily replied, "Dunno, I'll have to check my schedule."

James grinned, "Yeah? Dunno if you're available for your boyfriend?"

Lily shrugged.

James's smirk only grew. "Well, let me know when you're available to be wooed."

"I'll have my people tell your people," Lily said, repeating a joke from long ago.

James nodded, "I'll await Sirius's notice."

They walked along, hands still clasped, in silence, as James thought about what sorts of things they could do around the grounds of Hogwarts for a date night. He was building the perfect evening, full of unexpected fun and mischief of the sort that only he could provide Lily Evans with. He imagined a great many escapades... and was only interrupted from his reverie when Lily stopped short and he collided into her.

"Shh," Lily hissed, covering his mouth with her finger before he could ask what she'd stopped for. They were in the hallway above the stairs to the Entrance Hall, just coming up to the balcony that overlooked the stone entry way, and Lily hastened to the ledge and looked over the railing, on her tip-toes to lean over and see.

James hurried up and put his hand on her back, steadying her, afraid she'd lean too far and lose her footing. His touch was gentle, more of a hover than a touch, and he felt his palms sweating as they did any time he laid his hands on her uninvited, as though his skin began the apologizing before his mouth could.

His eyes landed on what she was looking at, though, and he scowled instead. "What's he doing up?"

Severus Snape was slinking across the stones below, his greasy black hair reflecting the moonlight from the high windows as he seemed to slither to the door, silent as could be, and carefully wrenched it open.

"Idiot, you're doing it wrong," James whispered, "It's going to creak holding it that way." Lily elbowed James to shut him up, but sure enough the door creaked loudly, drowning out James's voice from carrying to Snape's ears anyway.

Lily grabbed James's hand from her back and tugged him along, hurrying him down the stairs as Severus Snape slipped through the crack in the door. James hastened ahead to catch the door before it closed - partly to stop it from clunking on the fame as it closed and partly to demonstrate that he  knew how to hold it so the creaking didn't happen. Lily didn't notice this acquired talent, though, and simply slipped out the narrow gap, urging James to follow along.

James did, of course, thinking to himself how foolish Severus was for thinking he could sneak out onto the grounds without getting caught. Filch will have heard that creak from a mile away - not to mention the grounds were very carefully monitored by the teachers from their windows... Thinking of this, James reached into his sack and produced the invisibility cloak, nudging Evans and quickly swinging it around their shoulders as he pulled her closer.

They hurried, now invisibly, after Severus Snape's shadowy figure as he moved, sticking close to the castle walls. He kept glancing up, checking the windows, and James realized that perhaps Severus had thought a bit ahead at least. They followed him halfway around the castle, past the green houses, and finally down the long path that passed by Hagrid's vegetable patches and even the gamekeeper's hut, a warm glow of a fire lighting up the curtains and the rumbling sounds of Hagrid's voice carrying on the night air. There were funny sounds, too, coming from the hut. Probably some new creature he'd acquired - Merlin knows where and how - but the sound of the creature certainly masked the gliding motions of Severus Snape, whose light footed slinking barely disturbed any of the stones of the pathway.

Lily grabbed James's hand at one point, halting him as Snape halted. She was very carefully staying far enough back that Severus, busy concentrating on sneaking away from the castle himself, wouldn't distinctly notice the 'sound' of their thoughts as they followed him. She shivered at the thought that he could be sifting through her mind, hearing the suspicions that were coursing through her. Right now, she felt partly ashamed and partly justified in wondering what Snape could be up to, feeling as though it were positively no good at all, and that it most definitely must have something to do with Voldemort and some horrible plan brewing in the ranks of the darkness.

Snape was indeed too preoccupied to notice the pair of them following him, his heart pounding with nervousness as he descended the grounds from the castle, certain that Dumbledore or someone else would see him, would try to stop him and foul up the plan at hand. The last thing he needed was another loss, another chance blown. Certainly, he would end up dead the next time that he was found out at failing the Dark Lord... and, above all else, Severus wanted to survive.

Why he wanted to survive, he didn't know - not anymore, at least. Once upon a time, he'd dreamed of escaping the darkness, of being able to have a normal life. He'd dreamed of marrying Lily, having children that they could love and raise together in the magical world, who would know their father and their mother, whose parents would be kind and gentle and understanding... They'd raise children who were strong and smart and who carried the best traits of them both... always with her green eyes, he imagined them... But he'd mussed that up nicely, hadn't he? And he scowled bitterly to himself, even as he followed the path into the forrest, worrying himself over the thoughts of all of the mistakes he'd made, all the wrong choices he'd taken to lead him to this point of where there was no returning into Lily Evans's good graces. Although he'd never think the words specifically, he knew James Potter had won - that Lily had chosen him, and he, Severus Snape, stood no chance against someone like Potter... And it angered him, embittered him even further against Potter, so that a bubbling, brewing hatred of him seemed to burn every follicle of his body, as though his skin were on fire from the hatred and desire both... a hatred for the man, and a desire for Lily...

"About damn time," came a quiet voice through the trees,  from out of the shadows. "Started to think you really had gone soft for the blood traitors."

Severus came-to as he reached a clearing, deep in the woods, having burned himself into a reverie of thought so deep he'd forgotten what he was doing now. He stopped in the pool of moonlight that filled the clearing, hugging himself defensively so that the long arms of his black robes seemed to wrap about his slender body in a bat-like fashion, his long, greasy hair falling over the sides of his pimply face like thick curtains, his wide brown eyes slowly searching the ring of trees around him for the figure...

Fenrir Greyback's chuckle rose from the brush and he came out from behind a thick tree, moving slowly, as though prowling, along the edge of the tree line, reluctant to come too close, unsure where the protective charms of the school ended, staying forward of Snape to be safe. He hunkered low, his back aching so soon after the full moon, clutching at a spot on his side where it seemed he might've been bitten...

Snape glowered at him.

"The Dark Lord said you might not come, that your loyalties were... to be doubted," Fenrir continued.

"You can tell the Dark Lord, then," Severus said, voice low and slow, "That there is no need to doubt my loyalties."

Fenrir snorted and spat a large wad of spit to the foot of a tree to his left and wiped his running nose with his fist.

"I'm surprised you have made it here," Severus murmured, "Given what damage a little moonlight has done to you." His voice was as condescending as he dared to make it. The result was a snarling glower from the werewolf, whose face looked more and more wolfish every time that Snape saw him, as though the man were disappearing into the vicious creature that overtook him each month.

"Never you mind that," snarled Greyback. He paused in his prowling pacing around the edge of the clearing to study  Snape a long moment. "Did you bring it?"

Severus stood, perfectly still for a long moment, then reached into his robes and produced a single vial of the Wolfsbane Potion that he'd been brewing with Horace Slughorn. He held it up, the moonlight catching the pale blue of the liquid inside the vial, making it shimmer a bright silver color. Severus stared at the glass vial, at the stopper waxed on with brightest red wax. He lowered his gaze from the beauty of the undulating potion to look upon the face of Fenrir Greyback, whose eyes were hungry. 

"Yes," he growled lowly, "Yes, that's it." He recognized it, the color and the way the potion seemed to move within the vial, as though alive. Druella had once brew that potion for him, Druella who had worked along side Democles Belby during the creation of the potion, who had used Fenrir Greyback as an early test subject herself, who had brewed near-to-exactly the same potion at Medusa's cottage, far away in the Great North Woods. He felt himself near to salivating looking at it. "Yes."

Severus Snape closed his fist around the vial and held it close even as Fenrir took a step out of the shadows, eager enough to step into the burning moonlight, his hands out, grabbing at the potion bottle. Snape studied his desperate face for a long moment, then said, coldly, "It's worth a good deal, you know. Horace Slughorn was going to sell it on the black market for a pretty penny and it wasn't easy for me to obtain this from his stores." Snape turned the vial over in his hand, watching its movement in the moonlight, considering. He looked up at Fenrir. "It's very valuable."

Fenrir hissed. "What do you want?"

Severus pursed his lips. "Only for your word that you will tell Voldemort that I have provided it to you freely... that I have acted as an inside agent for you, access to the secrets that Albus Dumbledore holds in the castle of Hogwarts. For you to recall that without me and my so-called softening for the blood traitors, you would not have this vial... this access to this potion."

Fenrir Greyback stared at Severus, considering him. "And you'll bring more?"

"Yes." Severus Snape held up the vial, the promise a contract to be taken.

Fenrir Greyback stepped forward and snatched the vial up from Severus Snape's fingers, clutching it in his claw-like grasp and cradling it, allowing the moon to turn it silver in his palms, his mouth wide in a grin of glee that was chilling to the very bone - after all, what brought Fenrir Greyback such joy must be entirely evil. He looked up at Severus, his eyes wolfishly yellow-gold, and his grin allowed the sharpened canine teeth to show.

Severus Snape resumed his bat-like position, holding close the long, black robes, staring down his long, jagged nose at Fenrir's hovering shape as he receded into the shadows, disappearing from view.