All Harry wanted to do was to spend the holidays with Fleur. He certainly did not expect to end up in the middle of a mystery. It started innocently enough. Harry went to the village to buy a few groceries when the locals were unruly. With his limited French, he understood that a hiker was missing. A few days later, a pair of teenage girls disappeared from the next village. The police got involved, companies searched the countryside, but to no avail. Then another disappearance occurred more police got involved, but Harry didn't particularly care. It's not like he could interrogate random muggle to find a serial killer. Another missing person, but this time a body was found. Or what was left of it. The corpse was badly mauled, its head torn off. The locals start whispering, this is not the first time this had happened. Centuries ago hundreds had perished under similar circumstances. A patrol fails to report in, a search team finds them dead not far from their jeep in the woods. Both officers had their weapons out, their magazines empty, little good it did them.
That makes the news and even Fleur's grandmother remarks that she had been raised with similar stories. Of a monster roaming the woods and slaughtering by the score. Of a monster, half lion, half wolf, half hyena or werewolf. How it evaded the army and humiliated the king while killing with impunity.
Perhaps coming to Gévaudan had not been a good idea...