"Fenrir Greyback?!"
Avada's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "The mastermind behind the werewolf attacks you've been suspecting all this time?"
"That's right."
Goshawk and Professor Baker nodded in unison.
"The one you've been hunting for months without finding a single lead on, to the point that you didn't even know who his subordinates were?"
"Exactly."
"And the Order of the Phoenix just found him like that??"
"Yes."
"And then just like—"
"Alright, I know it sounds a little awkward."
Professor Baker finally waved a hand and cut off Avada's astonished questioning.
"We're capable of infiltrating a highly secretive organization like the Order of the Phoenix, yet after half a year of effort, we still couldn't find a second-rate savage werewolf. To be honest, even I found it hard to believe when I first heard the news."
"But there's nothing we can do about it. Strictly speaking, our intelligence sources are less 'infiltration' and more 'friendly contributions.' Most of that information comes from former students who have already graduated and now work in all sorts of professions. They send us useful information in passing, and that naturally includes the Order of the Phoenix. They have more elites there than anywhere else, and any student capable of graduating smoothly from the university is considered at least somewhat of an elite once they step into broader wizarding society, where knowledge is so scarce."
"Of course,"
Seeing the strange look on Avada's face, Goshawk promptly added,
"we never force students to work for us. Once they leave the school, apart from obeying the confidentiality agreement, they are under no obligation to remain connected to this place in any way. This time, it just so happened that the Order of the Phoenix and we share the same goal, and that graduate who joined the Order believed that sharing this information would benefit wizarding society as a whole. That is why they generously passed it on to us."
"…Alright."
Avada continued, "So where is Fenrir Greyback? And who exactly is bankrolling him?"
"His precise location is constantly changing."
Goshawk shook her head. "All the Order of the Phoenix can do is keep track of his movements. As for the sponsor behind him… before, we knew absolutely nothing. But now we've at least confirmed one of them."
"Who is it?"
"The Black family."
"…?"
Avada blinked, unable to process what Professor Baker had just said.
"His sponsor is who?"
He couldn't help but ask again.
"You're that surprised? I would have thought there was nothing especially strange about that on its own."
Professor Baker studied Avada's reaction with some surprise.
"The Black family. You know—the one that's practically on the verge of extinction, whose legitimate line now has only a single heir left, the same one whose heir broke out of Azkaban half a year ago…"
"Sirius Black."
"A top-tier Death Eater escaped from Azkaban without warning and vanished without a trace. Then only a few months later, the secret werewolf attacks began appearing and rapidly expanded in scale. On top of that, Fenrir Greyback was Voldemort's subordinate to begin with, which made him Sirius Black's colleague, in a manner of speaking…"
"It's only natural to connect those two, isn't it?"
"Uh, I hadn't thought about it from that angle…"
Avada scratched his head awkwardly.
"However, there is one part of this whole affair that surprised us greatly. I guarantee you won't guess it."
After exchanging a glance with Goshawk and seeing her nod, Professor Baker shifted a little closer to Avada and lowered his voice mysteriously.
"That Sirius Black… is actually one of Dumbledore's people."
Avada did his best to look stunned. Fortunately, the acting skills he had honed around Voldemort hadn't deteriorated.
"Unexpected, isn't it? That's what we thought too. Dumbledore has already informed every member of the Order of the Phoenix that Sirius Black is innocent, that he bears absolutely no responsibility for the conviction the Wizengamot handed down to him twelve years ago."
"And the reason he chose to break out of Azkaban at this time was the result of an unavoidable accident… but that same accident also gave them a chance to learn the truth."
Dumbledore told the entire Order directly?
Avada immediately caught on.
"So the reason the Black family became Greyback's sponsor is because…"
"Because Sirius Black became a spy."
Miranda Goshawk let out a sigh, perhaps lamenting the strange twists of fate.
"At present, only Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix know that Black is innocent. To everyone else, he is still that overwhelmingly capable, sinister, ruthless, utterly Voldemort-loyal Death Eater, hiding somewhere after escaping Azkaban and secretly plotting something terrible…"
"And on top of that, he is the sole heir of the Black family, fully capable of wielding its astonishing fortune. So if he were to offer support for the werewolves' plans, Greyback would probably be groveling to usher him to the seat of honor, without the slightest suspicion…"
"And so he became Greyback's sponsor. Not only does he always know where Greyback is, he also has a clear grasp of most of Greyback's plans."
Professor Baker sighed in admiration.
"That said, another question remains: how exactly did Sirius Black get in touch with Greyback in the first place? Perhaps that suggests that Greyback's other sponsors are within the Black family's network—in other words, those pure-blood families. But if that were true, Dumbledore should have been able to confirm it."
Avada nodded along, though inwardly he already had a pretty good guess.
It was probably due to Sirius's Animagus talent, along with Lupin's connections in werewolf circles.
"But even that still isn't enough. He's holding the lives of dozens of families hostage, so for the time being, there's nothing we can do to him…"
Goshawk smiled warmly.
"That is, until you appeared, Professor Clarke."
"If it truly is as you say, and we can obtain a method to block the berserk-triggering technology within a few days, then we can resolve this entire crisis within the same month."
"Would you be willing to show your face to the public because of this?"
"…Better not."
After thinking it over, Avada shook his head.
"Both cracking the formula and finding a way to block it require extensive knowledge in heavily restricted fields, but on the surface I'm only supposed to be skilled in spatial magic… It would be better to leave this to Professor Baker and Professor Belby."
"When the university officially steps into the light, that honor will be returned to you."
Professor Baker rose to his feet.
"In that case, I will contact Dumbledore as a former Hogwarts professor, and together with Belby, deliver the blocking technology to him. Then he can distribute the shielding devices to every victim according to the intelligence provided by Sirius Black…"
"And after that, we can make the incident public and move to capture Greyback."
"And,"
Goshawk also stood and added,
"once this matter is exposed, hostility toward werewolves across wizarding society will surge dramatically, bringing more conflicts and more extreme incidents in its wake…"
"We need to accelerate our research into the werewolf curse, at the very least reducing the cost and difficulty of brewing Wolfsbane Potion."
"And the plan to infiltrate Azkaban must also be carried out as soon as possible."
Professor Baker nodded in agreement.
"For this line of research, almost nothing is more important than the memories inside Lockhart's head."
(End of Chapter)