Valerius's face instantly turned darker than the robes he wore.
Of course he knew.
That little bat was his younger cousin, who had defected from the family with him. After fleeing back, he had needed three full years of recuperation just to barely regain human form.
Through those contaminated blood memories, Valerius had witnessed Douglas's methods firsthand.
That had not been combat. It had been dissection.
With a Muggle scalpel, Douglas had peeled away his cousin's flesh bit by bit to study vampires' cellular regeneration.
He had inserted Eastern silver needles into his cousin's central nervous system to test how different acupuncture points responded to the blood curse.
He had even tried mixing holy water and garlic extract into an entirely new potion that could make a vampire's skin ulcerate as though it had been doused in concentrated acid.
Those memories had taught Valerius that the wizard before him was no madman. He was more frightening than one.
He was a dissection fanatic in a scholar's guise, possessed of an insatiable curiosity about everything unknown.
Valerius could not answer.
To admit it was to expose his own weakness.
To deny it was to tacitly admit he was inferior to that useless wretch who had fled back.
That intangible humiliation instantly ignited the tense atmosphere at the cave entrance.
"Roar!"
Unable to bear seeing his leader humiliated like this, the burly, pig-faced man let out a bestial roar and charged like an out-of-control truck.
But he had barely taken two steps when something seemed to trip his feet like an invisible rope.
Thud!
He fell flat on his face, his enormous body striking the ground with a dull thump.
It was Lupin.
He had not even raised his wand.
The instant the burly man charged, he had merely, unobtrusively, nudged a