Douglas said softly.
"You haven't crushed anything, Lupin."
"You've only completed an exorcism that was decades overdue."
His voice was steady and warm, like a campfire.
"What you drove out wasn't Greyback himself, but the demon called a 'curse' that he planted in your soul."
"You've cut down a banner."
Lupin raised his head and looked at him in bewilderment.
"Fenrir Greyback was the banner around which all the werewolves in Britain filled with hatred and madness rallied. He gave their savagery a name, a justification."
Lupin froze.
"Now that banner has fallen."
There was a cold logic in Douglas's voice.
"His followers are leaderless. The werewolf tribes throughout the United Kingdom are now a vast power vacuum."
"There will be chaos, there will be infighting, and there will be a dozen weaker but equally cruel Greybacks trying to seize the throne he left behind."
"And those werewolves he oppressed and enslaved will raise their heads for the first time and consider a question: without Greyback, where should they go from here?"
He stopped walking and fixed Lupin with a burning gaze.
"This is your opportunity. No, our opportunity."
Lupin's heart gave a sudden leap.
He remembered the man deep in Knockturn Alley who kept a dilapidated refuge going with cheap stew and herbs.
"Marcus..." he murmured the name instinctively.
"Exactly, Marcus Belby." At last, a trace of genuine amusement appeared at the corner of Douglas's mouth. "A Hufflepuff. A true leader who understands unity and sharing, rather than ruling through fear and violence."
"Through slaughter, Greyback brought werewolves more hatred and discrimination."
"But you can bring them an entirely new future through order and dignity."
Douglas stood up and patted Lupin on the shoulder.
The touch was light, yet it seemed to lay an entirely new responsibility upon him.