Although the origins of these werewolves were now generally clear, the escape of their leader remained a significant concern for Alan. He needed to pinpoint the man's identity, track him down, and eliminate the threat permanently. Furthermore, he was still uncertain if the pack maintained a permanent stronghold within the Forbidden Forest or if there were more stragglers beyond the ten he had already engaged.
Alan raised his hand and flicked a sharp arc of electricity at the unconscious captive, jolting him awake.
"Awooo!" The werewolf snapped into consciousness with an angry howl, but the Soul-Binding Serpent coiled around his muzzle tightened instantly, crushing the sound back into his throat.
The wolf struggled to rise, but Alan stepped forward and pinned him to the dirt with a heavy boot. Drained by the magic-suppressing handcuffs and the constant siphoning effect of the serpent, the creature had no strength left to resist. After a few futile throngs, he slumped back, panting heavily and glaring at Alan with eyes that still burned with a feral, mindless insanity.
"Do you understand human speech?" Alan asked from above, increasing the pressure of his boot while mentally commanding the serpent to loosen its grip slightly.
"Ugh! Human... die!" The werewolf's madness was absolute. He let out a rasping roar and lunged for Alan's ankle, but the silver scales of the serpent snapped shut again, anchoring him to the ground.
"It seems he lacks the capacity for dialogue," Alan noted, shaking his head. He retrieved a large storage case from his urim-steel spatial ring and turned to Kiki. "This contains a tent and supplies. We're camping here tonight. Set up the tent, start a fire, and prepare a meal."
His new ring possessed a vast internal volume. Beyond essential survival gear and daily necessities, he had transitioned his entire inventory from the basement of No. 277 Diagon Alley into its depths. The ring was essentially a mobile laboratory and warehouse, allowing him to convert his former storage space into a dedicated research facility.
"Yes, Master!" Kiki chirped. Finally given her first real task, she set to work with visible excitement. She moved with the practiced efficiency of her kind, her small hands performing a dual-layered operation—one hand smoothing the tent fabric while the other precisely snapped the support frames into place with bursts of household magic.
With Kiki occupied, Alan refocused on the werewolf. He conjured a giant hand of translucent force to lift the creature's head, forcing it to look directly into his eyes. He centered his mind and activated Legilimency.
The mental landscape of a werewolf was starkly different from that of a human. Their natural defenses against memory intrusion were surprisingly porous; where a human wizard possessed an instinctive, ego-driven wall against mental invasion, a werewolf's mind was like a shop with its doors left wide open. However, the interior was a chaotic mess of primal urges, disordered memories, and sensory static. Entry was easy, but finding specific data required surgical patience.
Fortunately, werewolves possessed long, spite-driven memories—perhaps the reason for their legendary vengefulness. Their history was written in fragments of scents, sounds, and old grudges. Alan spent nearly an hour sifted through the sludge of the wolf's subconscious. By the time he finished, Kiki had not only finished the camp but had a pot of rich, fragrant soup simmering over the crackling bonfire.
Alan dropped the werewolf's head and rubbed the back of his stiff neck. The ordeal had been draining, but the intelligence he had extracted was invaluable. From the creature's fractured recollections, a grim narrative had emerged.
The leader was Fenrir Greyback. In the werewolf's mind, Greyback was more than an alpha; he was a messianic figure, a werewolf extremist and terrorist. He was a man dedicated to a singular, horrific goal: infecting as many humans as possible to build a lupine army capable of overthrowing the Wizarding World. To ensure the loyalty of his troops, he specifically targeted children, infecting them and then "adopting" them to be raised as fanatical warriors.
Greyback thrived on the friction between werewolves and wizards, orchestrating attacks specifically to radicalize those afflicted with lycanthropy, teaching them that their true family was the pack and their true enemies were the humans who shunned them.
Alan also discovered a complicating factor: Greyback's reach was international. His primary base wasn't even in Britain. He had indeed been an ally of the Death Eaters, striking a bargain with the Dark Lord during the height of the war. At their suggestion, he had traveled across the continent to unite disparate packs and lone wolves—both the naturally born "feral" types and the turned "lycanthropy" victims.
When the Dark Lord fell, the Death Eaters had scattered, but Greyback—never a true believer in the pure-blood cause, only in his own—had continued his recruitment. The feral werewolves, like the one Alan had captured, were easy to control through raw power and a shared primitive tongue.
The victims of his bites, however, often resisted. Many were ordinary people who loathed their condition and the monster who had forced it upon them. In response, Greyback had launched a savage purge. Because these victims often lived in extreme isolation on the fringes of society, their disappearances and murders had gone largely unnoticed by the Ministry of Magic.
Fenrir had channeled the "submissive" infected wolves to contacts in inland Europe while he remained behind with his feral core pack, lurking in the Forbidden Forest. They funded their operations through the high-stakes smuggling of rare magical beasts—Thestrals, Mooncalves, and Occamies. Their current objective had been unicorns, but the encounter with the centaurs had been a target of opportunity they couldn't ignore.
Crucially, Alan saw the location of their secret stronghold: a hidden hollow deep within the forest where Greyback kept his stolen "merchandise" and captured prey.