AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well ladies and gentleman it seems that, after over a year of not being able to write anything and having zero inspiration or passion for anything, the muses are back! I've finally gotten back on Cymbalta (the only thing that has helped me when this happened before) and after the obligatory 6-8 weeks it takes to kick in I suddenly had all these thoughts in my head! And they weren't going away, they were floating around my head saying 'write me, write me!' So, I am back at it again! I had to go back and re-read Whisper and the first bit of Stay so I could re-familiarize myself with everything and y'all might want to do that too since it's been so long. I promise I'll do my best not to drop off the face of the Earth again. I wrote over thirty pages of this before I decided to post a chapter, just to make sure the muse was really here to stay. Seems like it is! So, without further ado...

~RPP

"Well," Freddie said walking around the cauldron to check on her murtlap tentacles. "I should be able to get started on the Wolfsbane Potion tomorrow. It's only been a few days since the last full moon-"

"Three days," Lupin provided.

"Right. That should be enough time for me to have it ready for you before the next full moon. You have to take it every night for a week leading up to the next full moon-"

"I know," he said with a slight grimace. "Awful stuff – but life-changing, for sure. You have no idea how grateful I am that you're doing this for me, Freddie."

"Right," she said tightly. She wasn't doing this for him, she was doing this for Dumbledore. For the Order. "Well you'll have to come to me for your dosings. The potion is too unstable to Apparate with."

"Understood," he said with a nod. "Will I be coming here or will you be brewing it elsewhere? Is it safe to brew here?"

Both Freddie and Lupin looked to Dumbledore.

"Wherever it is most convenient for you, Miss Gray," the headmaster answered. "I will leave it to your discretion how much you want to share with Master Hawkins."

"I suppose I'll have to tell her, since I'll be using hospital ingredients to brew it and some of them are quite expensive."

"That won't be necessary," Dumbledore assured her. He reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a sizable coin pouch and handed it to her. It was full to the brim with gold Galleons. "You can use this to purchase whatever ingredients you require. Let me know when you need more."

"Thank you sir," she said, surprised. "This will be more than enough for a few months at least."

"Excellent," he said, clasping his hands together. "Well we shall let you get back to work, Miss Gray, unless you have any questions for me?"

"No, sir, none that I can think of."

"Very well. Take care."

"It was nice meeting you, Freddie," Lupin said politely.

"You too," she replied automatically, without thinking, then grimaced as the door shut behind them. She placed a stasis spell on her cauldron and went to sit at her desk a moment to think about what had just happened.

So that's the big bad werewolf, eh? She thought to herself, putting the sack of gold in her desk drawer. The one that almost killed Severus – twice. He doesn't seem so bad, really. He was nice enough. Polite.

Of course she knew that Lupin the man and Lupin the wolf would be two very different people. Without the Wolfsbane Potion the creature completely took over the host's mind, driving them with an insatiable lust for human blood. A werewolf could kill his own mother and not know it until the full moon was over.

It's not just the werewolf thing though, she pondered. Severus said he tormented him as a child. He was one of James Potter's little gang. Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew. They made his life a living hell. It's hard to reconcile that image with the polite, kind-faced man who was just in my office. I suppose he's grown up? Or he's just acting nice because he knows he needs me to brew the Wolfsbane Potion for him...

Freddie decided that Lupin's motivations didn't really matter. Dumbledore had tasked her with brewing the Wolfsbane potion for him and doing so would help the Order. It was her first official task for the Order of the Phoenix and she was eager to get started.

She'd always enjoyed brewing the Wolfsbane Potion. It was one of the most complicated brews in existence and it had to be done very precisely. It was a disastrous thing to get wrong. It was the first potion she and Snape ever brewed together, the main reason he had taken her on as his apprentice in the first place. It had just been released at the time and he'd needed an extra pair of hands to tend to the cauldron while he was teaching. And just last year when Lupin was teaching she'd been in Snape's office several times a day, working on the potion while he was busy with his classes. He'd had Dumbledore link the fireplace in Master Hawkins office to the one in his office via the Floo network. She'd have to remember to ask the headmaster to modify it – now that she had her own office there was no reason to go to Hawkins office to use the floo whenever she needed to visit Hogwarts.

Freddie checked her murtlap tentacles once more and determined they could be left to stew over a low heat for at least the next two hours. Plenty of time for her to visit the Apothecary and purchase the ingredients she'd need for the Wolfsbane Potion. She grabbed the traveling cloak she had draped over the back of her chair and fastened it around her neck. She slipped Dumbledore's bag of coins into her pocket and stepped out of her office. Heads turned in her direction as a number of interns looked up from their cauldrons curiously. The Headmaster's presence had certainly caused a stir in the hospital's dungeon.

"Everything alright, Freddie?" Bennett asked, trying to sound casual as she tended her own potion.

"Yes, of course. Professor Dumbledore asked me to help brew a healing potion for the man that was with him. He's familiar with my skills from my time at Hogwarts."

"Why not ask the Potions Master there?" the intern asked curiously.

"I suppose Professor Snape was busy at the moment," she answered with a shrug. "It's really not a big deal. Just going to check in with Master Hawkins before I pop into the Apothecary for some things... You might want to lower the heat under that Black Cat Flu Draught before you add the fur. It's likely to scorch."

"Of course. Thank you ma'am," Bennett said, hastening to follow her orders.

Freddie knocked on Hawkins door and was immediately told to enter. Hawkins was standing at her desk, scribbling notes in a journal. There were two cauldrons going in the middle of the room, one with purple smoke rising from it in spirals and the other with shimmering silver smoke.

"Good morning, Gray. Heading to lunch?" Hawkins asked distractedly, briefly glancing up from her notes.

"Actually, no," she said, closing the door behind her so they wouldn't be overheard. "Headmaster Dumbledore stopped by a while ago. He asked if I would be willing to brew the Wolfsbane Potion again."

"Oh? Is that Professor coming back to Hogwarts again, the one you helped Professor Snape with last year?"

"Not exactly," Freddie said hesitantly. She didn't want to reveal too much. No matter how much she trusted her Potions Master, she knew better than to run her mouth about the Order without permission. "But he's going to be around for a while and Dumbledore thought it's better safe than sorry. He gave me money for the ingredients and I know it'll take a lot of my attention, but I won't let it distract from my work here, I promise."

"Oh I'm not worried about that, Gray," Hawkins assured her. "Honestly, I was beyond impressed with how you managed to balance all your work last year, splitting your time between here and Hogwarts. But why didn't the headmaster ask Snape for help?"

"I suppose he's busy with end of the year exams and all," she said with a shrug. "But I don't mind helping. I mean, it's Dumbledore after all."

"Yeah he's a hard man to say no to," Hawkins chuckled. "So I guess you're heading to the Apothecary?"

"Yes ma'am, if that's alright. I thought I'd get a head start on gathering my ingredients."

"Fine by me. Could you pick me up some more crocodile hearts? Just have Gloria charge it to my account."

"No problem. What are you working on?" Freddie asked curiously. She didn't recognize the brew in either cauldron.

"Just a little experiment of my own. Nothing worth sharing at the moment – ah," Hawkins said, hastily approaching the cauldron on the left as the smoke turned from silver to black in an instant. "I was afraid that might happen. Bloody lionfish spines."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Not at the moment, no. Just be sure and bring back the crocodile hearts."

"I will," she promised. "Thank you Master Hawkins."