Recaps

Marco explained why he could not leave the Apennine Mountains and how Isabella had tried to contact Douglas, but Douglas revealed that her efforts had exposed the tribe to surveillance. He argued that the Order of Saint Benedict’s raid was a diversion, leaving Marco to wonder who had orchestrated it and what they wanted.

• Marco told Douglas that the Church’s surveillance kept him from leaving the Apennine Mountains, so Isabella had arranged an official invitation through Deputy Director Lorenzo.
• Douglas suggested that Isabella’s Ministry work and attempts to contact him had made her easier to track, and Marco angrily insisted that his sister would never betray him.
• Douglas explained that interested parties could monitor Isabella’s movements and follow the traces she left while trying to reach him.
• Douglas questioned why the tribe had suffered no deaths in the latest raid despite the attackers’ apparent strength, prompting Marco to recall how their tactics differed from the previous assault.
• Douglas concluded that the attackers had used the Ashen Claw tribe as underbrush to startle their real prey, and Marco demanded to know who was behind the attack and what they wanted.

Douglas revealed that Lorenzo had drawn him into Italy to stir up trouble between the Ministry and the Church, but said he would not help for free. After Marco offered the Ashen Claw Tribe’s Heart of Moonstone, Douglas declined it and explained that he and Lupin wanted the tribe’s help to trap and eliminate Fenrir Greyback.

• Douglas told Marco that someone had arranged his arrival in Italy to create leverage through a clash with the Church, and said Lorenzo had his own political motives.
• Douglas declared that his help came at a price, prompting Marco to offer the Ashen Claw Tribe’s Heart of Moonstone in advance.
• Douglas refused the Moonstone and said he would still do his best to improve the Wolfsbane Potion.
• Lupin told Marco that their main objective was to lure Fenrir Greyback into a trap and eliminate him.
• Douglas explained that helping the Ashen Claw Tribe survive and protecting its wounded would be payment in exchange for the tribe’s help dealing with Greyback.

Douglas agreed to help Marco’s tribe in exchange for information and support against Greyback and the Red Moon Brotherhood, and offered to treat the wounded Ashen Claw werewolves. The chapter ended as Douglas entered the tribe’s hospital wing and surveyed the injured.

• Marco questioned whether Lupin could help defeat Greyback, and Lupin showed him the childhood bite mark Greyback had inflicted on him.
• Marco explained that Greyback might have ties to the Red Moon Brotherhood, whose members sought power through bloodline supremacy.
• Lupin insisted that Greyback had to be eliminated, and Marco agreed to share what he knew and assist Douglas if they helped his people.
• Douglas said they needed to wound or kill Greyback before the next full moon, then asked how much fighting strength Marco’s tribe could spare.
• Douglas offered to heal the injured werewolves, and Marco and Lupin led him to the tribe’s hospital wing, where Elena struggled to treat their wounds.

Douglas assessed the injured werewolves’ wounds and prescribed a stew made from foraged and traded ingredients, explaining how its food properties could counter their sacred and dark-magic injuries. He began cooking in the cave, leaving the werewolves watching as he prepared the supposed treatment.

• Douglas recognized Elena’s medicinal ingredients and explained that her paste could not remove the injuries’ magical effects.
• Douglas gave Marco a shopping list that mixed mountain herbs and game with ordinary cooking ingredients, and Marco ordered his people to gather them.
• After half a day, Douglas set up a huge pot and began preparing the stew by hand, explaining the healing properties he attributed to each ingredient.
• Douglas told Elena that his food-and-potions theory guided the recipe and recalled how Snape had once punished him for it.

Douglas made Sicilian-style chicken stew that eased Leo’s pain and helped the Ashen Claw Tribe’s wounded eat. He invited the entire tribe to share the meal, leaving Marco and his people with a growing sense of trust in him and hope for a normal life.

• Douglas finished the stew with dandelion leaves, bread, and Parmesan, then told the tribe that healing could begin in the kitchen.
• Marco fed the stew to Leo, whose burning pain eased enough for him to say that it tasted good.
• Douglas urged the wounded to eat and had uninjured young werewolves distribute bowls.
• When a hungry child asked whether the healthy could have some, Douglas invited everyone to eat and promised that no one in the Ashen Claw Tribe would go hungry that night.
• The whole tribe shared the stew, and Marco saw Douglas’s generosity build trust among his people.

Lupin told the Ashen Claw Tribe how Douglas’s potion had eased the pain and confusion of being a werewolf, and described Douglas’s plan for work and mutual support. Marco pledged the tribe’s help to Douglas, who revealed that he had already invited Greyback to the cave.

• Lupin fed the tribe’s children and explained how Douglas’s potion had changed his experience of lycanthropy.
• Lupin described Douglas’s plan for a werewolf mutual aid organization offering jobs, training, and potions in exchange for work.
• Marco and the tribe’s leaders agreed to ally with Douglas, and Marco pledged the Ashen Claw Tribe’s local knowledge and support.
• Douglas said he wanted the tribe’s help finding Greyback and revealed that he had already invited him to the cave.

Douglas planned to lure Fenrir Greyback to the Ashen Claw by publicizing Remus Lupin’s cure, and Marco put the tribe on a war footing. At dawn, Lupin began training the recovering werewolves to control their anger and master their beastly strength by learning to breathe.

• Douglas showed Marco a Daily Prophet article about Lupin’s cure and proposed using the news to lure Greyback to the Ashen Claw.
• Lupin agreed to serve as bait, saying the fight belonged to everyone who wanted to live freely beneath the moonlight.
• Marco declared the Ashen Claw on a war footing and announced that training would begin the next day.
• Lupin challenged Bach to attack him, then demonstrated how calm breathing could leave the angry werewolf unable to find an opening.
• Lupin instructed the recovering werewolves to focus on their heartbeat and blood flow, and to slow their breathing when anger or fear arose.

Lupin taught the Ashen Claw werewolves to control their wolfish instincts while Marco organized the tribe and sent scouts to spread news of their hope. Douglas armed the message with Lupin’s blood to provoke Fenrir Greyback, then began preparing the tribe’s crude weapons as the scouts headed into the mountains.

• Lupin demonstrated how to feel and guide the werewolf’s power, calming an agitated member of the Ashen Claw.
• Marco organized the tribe into scouts, communicators, defenders, and core fighters, then ordered the scouts to spread news that Lupin’s curse was being cured.
• Douglas gave the scout captain a vial of Lupin’s blood and instructed the scouts to mark locations with its scent to provoke Greyback.
• The scouts departed, and Douglas set up a workshop in the cave to sharpen the tribe’s weapons and teach the elders with magical experience.

Douglas prepared weapons for the Ashen Claw Tribe with careful enchantments and practical improvements, then explained to Aldo why he had changed tactics. After Marco swore the tribe’s allegiance, Douglas said they were no longer clients but his own people.

• Douglas sharpened an axe and enhanced it with silver paste, runes, and copper wire, then demonstrated its power by cutting cleanly through rock.
• Douglas equipped the tribe with practical weapon improvements while Lupin guided werewolves through breathing exercises.
• Aldo questioned why Douglas had sent scouts to spread news that could draw Greyback and other enemies to them.
• Douglas explained that his priorities had changed after Marco swore the Ashen Claw Tribe’s allegiance to him.
• Douglas told the werewolves they were his subordinates and his own people.

Douglas strengthened the Ashen Claw Tribe’s resolve and gave Marco a magical disc to detect betrayal, while setting a trap for their enemy. Lorenzo noticed Douglas’s position on the magical map, and a scarred werewolf on Mount Etna heard that Lupin’s lycanthropy had been cured.

• Douglas declared that he would take responsibility for the werewolves’ future and make the rules against the Church and the Ministry of Magic.
• Douglas gave Marco the brass disc Pull Together, which would warn of betrayal among tribe members who signed his pledge of allegiance.
• As dawn approached, the Ashen Claw Tribe trained with renewed determination, and a scout carried a magically enhanced drop of blood into the night.
• Lorenzo Dino saw Douglas’s position begin moving on the magical map and wondered why he had exposed himself.
• A scout told the tattooed werewolf in a cavern on Mount Etna that Lupin had been cured and was with the Ashen Claw Tribe.

The totem Werewolf Leader sent the Red Moon Brotherhood after Douglas’s group, while Douglas prepared the Throat of Echoes as a final stronghold. He enchanted the cavern with a conceptual barrier that would turn an intruder’s aggression and malice against them.

• The totem Werewolf Leader ordered the Red Moon Brotherhood to pursue the visitors and test whether the legendary cure was real.
• Douglas asked Marco to lead him to the tribe’s most defensible location for a last stand.
• Marco showed Douglas and Lupin the Throat of Echoes, a vast cavern accessible through a single narrow passage.
• Douglas inscribed runes throughout the cavern and named his enchantment “Draw a Prison on the Ground.”
• Douglas explained that the barrier would distort the perceptions of hostile creatures and make their own aggression consume them.

Douglas, Marco, and Lupin confronted Valerius, leader of the Red Moon Brotherhood, after Mirage talismans kept the Mine’s guards safe from the intruders. Valerius recognized Douglas as a threat, and Douglas hinted that he had once trained a vampire connected to Valerius.

• Douglas, Marco, and Lupin responded to an alarm and found three intruders facing two motionless Werewolf guards protected by Mirage talismans.
• Marco confronted the visitors, and Valerius introduced himself as the pure-blood vampire leader of the Red Moon Brotherhood and demanded to be treated as an ally.
• Valerius mocked Lupin, then recognized Douglas and warned him to stay out of a dispute among magical creatures.
• Douglas told Valerius he had once trained a disobedient vampire in Bucharest and suggested that Valerius knew him well.

Valerius tried to bargain with Marco and Douglas for Lupin, offering the Red Moon Brotherhood’s protection and threatening war if they refused. Douglas rejected Valerius’s offer and turned his curious attention toward the vampire himself.

• Valerius’s followers attacked Douglas and Lupin, but Lupin tripped the burly man with a pebble and Douglas blocked the witch’s curse with Protego.
• Valerius stopped his followers and proposed that Marco hand over Lupin so the Red Moon Brotherhood could recruit Greyback and protect the Ashen Tribe.
• Marco refused Valerius’s offer, declaring that the Ashen Tribe would rather face the Church’s holy flames than submit to a collar.
• Valerius praised Douglas’s power and suggested that Greyback would be a useful weapon in his hands, unlike as a research subject for Douglas.
• Douglas said Greyback was not yet worthy of his research table and examined Valerius with evident curiosity.

Douglas transformed into a white crane and pursued Valerius, who had escaped as a swarm of bats, across the Apennine Mountains. As Valerius fled in panic, Douglas began steering him toward a prepared trap.

• Valerius split into hundreds of bats and fled into the forest, while Douglas bound the Pig-Faced Strongman and the witch with golden cords.
• Douglas transformed into a huge white crane and took to the sky after Valerius.
• Valerius spotted the crane above the treetops and realized Douglas was an unregistered Animagus, then scattered the bats in an attempt to escape.
• Andrei and Mario saw the crane pursuing the bats and mistook it for an angel sent by God.
• Douglas tracked Valerius by his scent and calmly drove the fleeing bats toward the breeding pen.

Douglas forced Valerius out of his swarm of bats and revealed himself as the vampire hunters’ feared Skynet. He left Valerius terrified and helpless, claiming he had turned over a new leaf and was now an ordinary Hogwarts professor.

• Douglas steered Valerius’s bats into a valley, then dove toward them in crane form.
• Douglas used Heaven’s Net and Contract to gather the bats and forcibly restore Valerius to human form.
• Valerius recognized Douglas as Skynet, the figure blamed for purging vampires who preyed on Muggles.
• Douglas approached Valerius and said he had turned over a new leaf and was now an ordinary professor teaching Defense Against Dark Magic at Hogwarts.

Douglas cornered Earl Valerius and offered him a choice between signing a teaching agreement and becoming a research specimen. Valerius tried to appeal to his family, but Douglas exposed him as an expelled traitor and suggested he ask the Cappadocian Family to seek his release from Albus Dumbledore.

• Valerius pleaded with Douglas, claiming he had honored the ancient covenant and had no interest in conflict.
• Douglas told Valerius he could become a living teaching specimen or sign a Teaching Mutual Assistance Agreement as his teaching assistant.
• Douglas presented Valerius with a soul-binding contract and threatened to use his body as research material if he refused.
• Valerius invoked the Cappadocian Family, but Douglas pointed out that Valerius had been expelled from it.
• Douglas sarcastically suggested Valerius write to his family and ask them to have Albus Dumbledore hand him over.

Valerius signed Douglas Holmes’s Contract and became a teaching assistant on Douglas’s research team. As they walked through the forest, Douglas questioned him about his cousin and the Red Moon Brotherhood, leaving Valerius bound to answer while Douglas began probing the organization’s loyalties.

• Valerius gave up resisting and signed the Contract with his blood, binding himself to obey Douglas Holmes and never harm him or his designated allies.
• Douglas welcomed Valerius to his research team as a teaching assistant and led him through the forest.
• Douglas asked about Valerius’s cousin in Bucharest, and Valerius admitted that his cousin was still alive but had not regained human form.
• Douglas asked whose orders Valerius followed in the Red Moon Brotherhood, which included both vampires and a Totem Werewolf.

Valerius told Douglas about the Red Moon Brotherhood’s divided factions and realized Douglas had destroyed its Dark Wizard faction years earlier. Douglas learned that Butcher Ulric was bringing the Brotherhood’s werewolves to attack them, and continued toward the mine as Valerius foresaw the organization’s destruction.

• Valerius explained that the Brotherhood was split between his Vampire Clan, the Totem Werewolves, and a vanished Dark Wizard faction.
• Valerius connected the Dark Wizard faction’s destruction to Douglas and suspected he was the United Kingdom Wizard who had led the raid.
• Douglas confirmed that he had wiped out the Dark Wizard organization and inferred that a Church Cardinal had led its faction.
• Douglas asked who was coming to attack them, and Valerius identified Butcher Ulric as a brutal werewolf chief seeking control of the Brotherhood.
• Valerius withheld thoughts of his secret weapon until the brand in his soul warned him against concealing information from Skynet.
• Douglas headed for the mine, while Valerius anticipated that the coming clash would bring the Red Moon Brotherhood to its end.

Douglas returned to the Mine with Valerius and found the Red Moon Brotherhood's werewolves trapped in his magical barrier, attacking one another in illusions. He killed them with a chain lightning spell and ordered Valerius to gather oak trees while Marco kept watch.

• Douglas and Valerius found blood and signs of battle at the Mine entrance and followed the trail into the cavern.
• Douglas saw the Red Moon werewolves trapped in illusions created by his runes, while Lupin and the Ashen Claw Tribe sheltered behind a barricade.
• Valerius identified the werewolf leader called Totem, and Douglas struck him with Lightning Runs Through Dragons and Snakes.
• The lightning jumped between the hostile werewolves and killed them all as Valerius, Lupin, Marco, and the tribe watched.
• Douglas told Valerius to bring back a dozen sturdy oak trees and instructed Marco to keep an eye on him.

Douglas sent Marco and Valerius to gather oak logs, then transformed one into an ornate coffin with his wand. Valerius was captivated by its Eastern design and hoped it was a gift marking his loyalty to Douglas.

• Douglas told Marco and Valerius to gather trees, and both obeyed.
• Valerius used vampire magic to uproot more than a dozen oaks while Marco watched warily.
• Douglas transformed one log into a polished black coffin decorated with silver stellar paths and auspicious clouds.
• The Ashen Claw werewolves and Lupin stared in amazement at Douglas's craftsmanship.
• Valerius remembered a similar Eastern coffin in his family's crypt and became enthralled by Douglas's creation.
• Valerius asked Douglas whether the coffin was for him as a reflection of his loyalty.

Douglas had Valerius carve thirteen coffins while the Ashen Claw waited in the cavern. When Douglas dispelled the illusion barrier, the werewolves saw the dead Red Moon Brotherhood members and accused them of destroying their lives.

• Douglas rejected Valerius's plea to preserve the charred bodies as works of art, then ordered him to make thirteen coffins before dawn.
• Valerius eagerly accepted the task and carved thirteen sturdy oak coffins with ancient runes while Lupin and Marco watched.
• At dawn, Douglas dispelled the illusion barrier, revealing that the Totem Werewolves had died with burned holes over their hearts.
• A werewolf boy accused one corpse of killing his Muggle parents and turning him into a werewolf three years earlier.
• Other Ashen Claw members accused the dead Red Moon Brotherhood werewolves of attacking villages, abusing their families, and enslaving newly transformed werewolves.

Douglas Holmes executed the Red Moon Brotherhood’s leaders, absorbed the Ashen Claw Tribe, and turned the execution site into an advertisement for his werewolf cure. His actions drew attention from Italian authorities, the Church, werewolf tribes, and Lorenzo, who decided to use the resulting turmoil to stir Italy’s magical world.

• Douglas ordered Marco to bury the Red Moon Brotherhood’s dead beneath a gravestone advertising his improved suppressant and cure, directing hopeful werewolves to Marco of Ashen Claw.
• An Italian Auror reported Douglas’s execution of thirteen werewolves and recommended reassessing his danger and unpredictability.
• A cardinal in Vatican City ordered the awakening of the Church’s most devout hound to confront Douglas.
• Red Moon Brotherhood survivors celebrated Totem’s death, while ordinary werewolves took hope and major tribes warned their members not to provoke Douglas or Ashen Claw.
• Lorenzo reconsidered Douglas’s unexpected actions, decided they could help disrupt Italy’s magical world, and sent an owl carrying a report emphasizing Douglas’s growing multi-species force.

Piero planned to exploit Douglas Holmes’s growing influence among magical creatures to provoke conflict between the Church and the Ministry of Magic. At the Ashen Claw, werewolves cautiously considered joining Douglas’s cause while Remus Lupin taught the children defensive magic.

• Lorenzo ordered news of the Apennine Mountains incident sent to the Daily Prophet and French Charms in Rome, hoping to turn public opinion against Britain’s Ministry of Magic.
• Piero decided to let Douglas Holmes’s movement provoke a clash between magical creatures, Church fanatics, and Ministry factions so Italy’s pure-blood wizards could benefit.
• The minister sent Piero an angry message demanding that he control Douglas, and Piero promised to handle the situation.
• Marco offered a werewolf from Tuscany a potion modified by Douglas in exchange for loyalty, but the werewolf hesitated and left to think.
• Remus Lupin taught werewolf children to cast Protego, and the boy whose father had been killed managed to conjure a faint magical barrier.

Lupin reflected on how little he understood Douglas, while Valerius became obsessively devoted to copying Douglas’s miniature coffin. Meanwhile, Fenrir Greyback detected Lupin’s magically amplified scent and led his followers into the Apennines, triggering the Italian Ministry of Magic’s highest border alarm.

• Lupin felt glad that the children could learn magic but remained unsettled by Douglas’s ruthless methods.
• Valerius knelt before Douglas’s miniature Eastern coffin and obsessively tried to reproduce its craftsmanship.
• Douglas waited by the cavern’s exit and anticipated the schemes unfolding in Rome and Vatican City.
• Fenrir Greyback crossed the Alps with his remaining followers, evading abandoned magical detection posts.
• Greyback smelled Lupin’s altered blood, decided he was gravely wounded, and led his pack toward the Apennine Mountains.
• Greyback’s approach triggered the highest-level alarm in the Italian Ministry of Magic’s Tacitus Line.

Lupin confronted Fenrir Greyback at the burial site of the Red Moon Brotherhood, where Greyback taunted him for losing his werewolf nature. Remembering Sirius’s words about Douglas’s training, Lupin cast aside his wand and prepared to face Greyback without magic.

• Lorenzo watched Greyback’s marker move toward Douglas Holmes’s location on the Ministry’s map and chose not to intervene.
• A hooded old man in the Vatican ordered someone to guide Greyback toward the “hypocritical shepherd” and test whether a miracle or destruction would follow.
• Greyback reached the freshly dug graves of thirteen Totem Werewolves and challenged Lupin to come out and die.
• Lupin emerged from the mine, and Greyback mocked him as a castrated pet who had abandoned his wolf nature.
• Lupin remembered Sirius’s confidence in Douglas’s ability to handle people like them, then threw down his wand and removed his robe.
• Lupin told Greyback he did not need magic to deal with him and revealed the stronger body Douglas had trained and reshaped.