Old Pete didn't even have to think about it. The request from Sebastian Swann—the man who had pulled him out of the gutter and given him a future—was an immediate, irrevocable command.
"Enthusiastic?" Pete scoffed, a deep, resonant sound that was more gratitude than arrogance. "Boss, if you told me to walk through the Black Lake naked in January, I'd grab my swim trunks. You gave me back my life and my dignity. Whatever you need, consider it done."
He didn't just reply without hesitation; he responded with a fierce loyalty born of desperation and relief. To pause or deliberate over Mr. Swann's request for even a second would have been, in Old Pete's mind, a profound act of disrespect, an insult to the lifeline he had been thrown. "No problem at all, boss. I'll follow your lead entirely."
Sebastian, leaning back slightly on the edge of the worn desk, smiled gently, holding up a hand to slow the torrent of commitment. "Whoa, Pete, hold your hippogriffs. Don't rush the pledge. Hear the full details first, because this is going to be… less than pleasant."
"The plan involves a major press conference at the Ministry of Magic on the full moon night. For this to work—for the entire magical community to witness an undeniable, verifiable, and controlled transformation—the werewolf must drink the potion in front of everyone. But, and this is the crucial part, for the sake of public safety and to quell any possible panic, that werewolf will absolutely, unequivocally, be contained. They will be locked in a specially reinforced cage, treated like a highly volatile, captured beast."
Sebastian's expression turned serious, weighing his next words. "In that situation, there's not a sliver of honor or respect involved. It's humiliation for a greater good. I'm asking you to willingly be put on display, treated like a dog on a leash. Are you still willing to accept that role?"
Honor?
Hearing the word spoken aloud by Sebastian, a faint, deeply ingrained sadness crept over Old Pete's face, pulling down the corners of his mouth into a wry, self-deprecating smile. The sound of the word was almost foreign.
Since the agonizing day he was bitten and cursed with the transformation, the word 'honor' had ceased to have any practical meaning in his life. Honor was for the healthy, the employed, the housed. It was not for the cursed.
He remembered the constant, soul-crushing rejections whenever he looked for a job; the way shopkeepers would subtly edge away when they realized what he was; the bitter, numbing hunger that forced him to scavenge through trash cans behind bakeries for scraps.
There was no dignity in any of that existence. He had not felt the faintest brush with that abstract concept again until the day Sebastian had led him into the grounds of the Wolf Herb Garden and said, "This is yours to manage."
What did it truly matter if he was locked in a cage and temporarily treated like an animal? It was a spectacle, an inconvenience, but hardly a severe hardship compared to the years of grinding poverty and fear he'd endured. Besides, he knew the fundamental purpose.
This Wolfsbane Potion was not just important; it was a revolution for his kind. Its widespread adoption would immediately and drastically reduce the perceived threat level of every single werewolf. This single act could fundamentally shift the entrenched, poisonous prejudices of the magical community.
As the manager of the Wolf Herb Garden, he was responsible for more than just a few sickles and gallons; he was responsible for the welfare of every werewolf under his care, and by extension, the entire community struggling in the shadows. He felt a profound, almost spiritual, obligation to step up.
With that resolve cementing in his heart, Old Pete met Sebastian's gaze, his own eyes clear and firm. "Let me do it, boss. I insist."
He squared his massive shoulders. "I'm past sixty now. My personal reputation is already in the dirt. I couldn't care less about my pride being scuffed up on the night of the full moon. Using that press conference to showcase the safety and reliability of werewolves—that is meaningful."
He paused, a flicker of his natural managerial acumen returning. "Plus, I can spin this. It'll be the biggest piece of press the Wolf Herb Garden ever gets! It'll encourage every hesitant werewolf out there to join us, to contribute, to stop hiding and start living. Why wouldn't I want that?"
Sebastian's smile widened, a clear sign of his satisfaction with the old man's loyalty and shrewd thinking. "That's the exact response I hoped for, Pete. You've got the right perspective."
He straightened his collar slightly, a fleeting gesture of thought. "I was initially considering sending young Remus Lupin, seeing as he's already… exposed to the public. But his career is finally taking off, and throwing him into a Ministry cage feels counterproductive to his progress."
Pete let out a booming laugh that briefly chased the tension from the air. "Don't you dare! Leave him be! Lupin is the only lucky one in the whole pack, and he deserves to be a movie star."
He thought of the young man with a fond smile. Lupin had joined the Herb Garden around the same time as Pete and had been coincidentally plucked by Gilderoy Lockhart—of all people—to play a werewolf character in his dramatic, though often ridiculous, film series.
Against all odds, Lupin's existence had subtly softened the hard edges of public opinion toward werewolves, shifting the general attitude from outright disgust to a degree of pity and even, tentatively, sympathy.
"Let Lupin be the glamorous movie star," Old Pete concluded, settling back into his role as the hardened veteran. "This old wolf is perfectly fine dealing with the messy, undignified business. He's raising our reputation through fantasy, and I'll secure it in cold, hard reality. Every single employee in the Garden is thrilled for him and the change he represents."
"By the way, boss," Old Pete said, the conversation shifting back to the nuts and bolts of the operation, "speaking of the Herb Garden. I've been meaning to ask: are we thinking of expanding soon?"
Sebastian raised an eyebrow, a clear signal of encouragement. "Absolutely. Do you have specific concerns, or are you just eager to grow?"
"Well, let me lay out my thinking," Pete said, rubbing his rough hands together nervously. "We're hearing all the gossip about Hogwarts opening up the Forbidden Forest for resource development, right? A huge amount of that material is going to be medicinal plants, stuff we specialize in."
He leaned in, his worry genuine. "I'm just worried that with too much herbal product flooding the market from the Forbidden Forest, the prices will drop. Ultimately, we all need to earn our keep. Will the magical world's appetite be big enough to consume all these medicinal herbs without crushing our profits?"
Sebastian understood immediately. Old Pete's concerns were perfectly valid within the confined economy of the British Wizarding World. However, that confined market was not Sebastian's true target.
The concern was entirely unfounded, but the full reasons—the plans for breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, the vast, untapped, limitless Muggle market—were not things he could, or would, detail to Old Pete right now. That kind of information was reserved only for the very top tier of his command structure.
Too many plants? Such a thing simply does not exist in my future plans.
Sebastian smiled, a deep, meaningful assurance that calmed Pete's fears instantly. "Worry not, Pete. We will find a market for every single sprig, root, and leaf you can possibly grow. We will have as much need for medicinal herbs as you can supply. The ability to easily scale up is precisely why we chose this massive, isolated land parcel in the middle of the mountains for the Wolf Herb Garden."
As he spoke, Sebastian pulled out a piece of parchment and handed it across the desk. It was sealed with a simple wax emblem, signifying the importance of its contents.
"I won't reveal the full Wolfsbane formula just yet, as it's sensitive information until the patent is officially filed," Sebastian explained. "But I have listed every raw medicinal ingredient required for its production on this parchment. Study it. Since you are planning to expand, prepare your lands and facilities according to the materials listed here."
"However, don't blindly expand the number of employees just yet. Since our werewolf staff is deliberately limited for security and trust, we must avoid a chaotic situation where you become too busy to handle the management effectively. Measured growth, Pete. Always measured growth."
Old Pete became instantly ecstatic. His hands trembled with anticipation as he unfolded the parchment and began to pore over the list. His eyes widened slightly as he recognized the quality and, more importantly, the cost of the ingredients.
Merlin's beard! These materials are not cheap!
The Wolfsbane Potion was clearly an expensive undertaking. This reality struck Pete with a double realization: he could only afford this kind of medical treatment because he had a stable, legitimate job. If this potion was to become widely available, they had to ensure production costs were manageable.
Expand! We absolutely must expand!
He quickly realized the immense profitability and the incredible social benefit. They would focus on self-cultivation—growing the necessary plants in-house—to drastically reduce costs. For the sake of their own wallets, and the future of their children, he didn't believe any employee would complain about a little bit of fatigue or overwork. The biggest beneficiaries of the Wolfsbane Potion would be the werewolves themselves.
The wide grin on Old Pete's face slowly faded as his thoughts turned, as they often did, to the darker corners of the community. He frowned, looking up at Sebastian with a sudden seriousness.
"Boss, the problem is… we still haven't been able to find any trace of Fenrir Greyback."
The inability to track the notorious radical left Old Pete feeling uneasy. It was an unofficial task Sebastian had assigned them, a quiet background effort, but a task nonetheless. Greyback was the definition of a monster—paranoid, ruthless, and highly adept at vanishing at the slightest sign of pursuit. Even the fringe, radical werewolves who followed his philosophy had gone silent, hiding deep in the shadows, revealing nothing.
At the mention of the name, Sebastian's eyes slowly turned to ice, a cold, hard glint appearing in their depths. Fenrir Greyback was more than just a fugitive; he was an abomination. His atrocities were sickening. Unlike the vast majority of afflicted werewolves, Greyback didn't just lose control during the full moon; he actively hunted, bit, and transformed people even in his normal human form. He possessed a twisted, vile fetish for attacking young children just before the change, deliberately attempting to swell the ranks of his corrupted pack.
Remus Lupin himself was a victim of this man's calculated cruelty.
Sebastian's voice, though low, was laced with an unnerving, profound coldness. "Keep a close watch on every scrap of news, Pete. Every rumor. It is an offense to the natural order to let that scoundrel live even a second longer than necessary. If you get any reliable intelligence, any clue at all, you let me know immediately. The moment I catch him, he will not survive the day."
"Beyond that, you must also monitor the activities of any known radical werewolf group. If they show the slightest intention of attacking or harming people, you do not, under any circumstances, hesitate or be soft-hearted. The reputation of the general werewolf community has finally started to improve, slowly, painstakingly. We absolutely cannot let one bad apple spoil the entire basket and set back decades of progress."
Sebastian stood up, signaling the end of the meeting. "That's all for today, Pete. Get back to your people and start working on that supply list. Take good care of yourselves and get as much rest as you can over the next week."
His smile returned, the warmth a sharp contrast to the coldness of a moment ago. "I'll be here to pick you up personally on the evening of July 14th. You and your chosen representatives. We are going to the Ministry of Magic to change the world."