"There," Hermione said, pointing ahead.
No one needed her to point. From the clifftop, they could all see the long, pale building about a quarter mile below. It sat pressed against a broad canal in the grey morning light. The stone walls curved at the northern end. The place had once been an old mill, later converted into something else. The wheel housing was gone and the ground-floor windows were bricked up. At this distance it looked quiet.
Harry raised the Omnioculars and scanned the perimeter slowly.
"Three sentry pairs along the outer fence," he said quietly. "They're moving in staggered intervals." He adjusted the view. "I see at least four more at the entrance lane, and another patrol looping around the canal side. Seven visible right now, and that's only the ones out in the open."
"The fencing is not the main defense," Daphne said beside him. Her wand moved in small arcs as she cast detection spells. "There are wards layered out from the property line. At least three bands. The outermost is a perimeter alert. Anything not human or properly keyed will set it off. Inside that is a second layer of jinxes set into the ground. They trigger on unauthorized movement. You won't see them coming."
"And the third?" Tonks asked.
"I can't read it fully from here," Daphne said. She lowered her wand. "But with the first two in place, it is probably something stronger. Anti-Apparition for sure. Maybe a containment shield on top to stop Portkeys. Whoever set these up knew what they were doing."
Susan kept her Omnioculars on the canal side. "There is a snatcher pair walking the waterline. They keep a very specific distance from the wall, so they know where the traps are." She paused. "Four more are stationed at the dock, just holding position."
"That makes eleven visible from this angle," Fleur said. "The building will have more people inside. If this is the facility we think it is, they would not leave the interior lightly guarded."
Harry lowered the Omnioculars.
"No sign of Bellatrix," he said.
"No," Daphne agreed. "I would not expect her to be standing at a window."
"She might not even be inside," Tonks said. "Heavy security does not mean she is present."
"It does not rule it out either," Harry said.
No one disagreed.
Hermione had crouched behind the group, her wand tracing patterns as she ran her own detection spells. "The ward structure matches what Daphne described. The alert perimeter extends about forty feet beyond the fence. The jinx layer is inside that. And at the wall there is another barrier charm designed to stop external ward disruption." She stood up and pulled her coat tighter against the chill. "We cannot take it down from out here, Harry. It would need a full team with the kind of power Aurors get when they work together. At least a dozen people, and even then the assault would not stay quiet."
"Which means they would have time to react," Susan said.
"Exactly," Hermione said. "The ward stones are anchored inside somewhere. That is how it works. You put the anchors in a defensible spot. To reach them we have to get inside, and to get inside through wards this strong..." She pressed her lips together.
"We need to get through the wards to dismantle the wards," Tonks said. "Brilliant."
"That's about the size of it," Harry replied.
They stood without speaking for a moment. Harry looked down at the property again. One of the snatcher patrols had finished a circuit and now stood near the fence with hands in pockets, talking about something ordinary.
"They can walk right through it," he said.
"The snatchers and Death Eaters are keyed in," Daphne explained. "They were registered to the wards when this operation started. They pass without issue. Everything else triggers the alert."
"So the way through is to become them," Harry said.
"Or have them lead us in," Daphne added. She looked at him, clearly having reached the same idea.
"How many do you think are out here total?" Susan asked. "Based on what we can see."
Harry thought it over. "We see eleven. But the loops mean some patrols are out of sight when we focus on the other side. I estimate sixteen to twenty on the exterior. Inside the building is harder to guess. For a place this size and this protected, probably another fifteen at least. Maybe more."
"Thirty to thirty-five total," Fleur said.
"Could be more," Harry said. "Could be less. We would only know for sure once we were inside, and that is not a good way to find out."
Tonks let out a long breath. "So we cannot breach the wards, cannot take them down from outside, cannot Apparate in, and Portkeys will not work. We are outside a well-fortified building and we need to get inside."
"We need to thin out the numbers first," Harry said. "One patrol at a time."
Everyone looked at him.
"The patrols are staggered, but they are not unaccountable," he continued. "When one patrol does not return, someone will come looking. So we take a patrol. We wait. When the next group comes out to check, we take them too. We keep going until we have pulled enough people out that the ones left inside are not a serious problem."
"How long would that take?" Hermione asked.
"All day," Harry said. "Possibly longer."
Silence followed.
"Well," Susan said, "we have nowhere else to be."
Harry scanned the mill once more through the Omnioculars, noting the patrol patterns. The grey light covered everything. The air felt damp from the canal. Every movement below mattered. Each overlapping route and every pause by the guards could be used.
He lowered the lenses and looked at the others. Hermione's face showed determination and careful thought. Daphne looked calm and focused. Tonks kept her expression even. Susan and Fleur watched the scene closely, ready to act.
This would not be quick. They all knew that. Taking patrols one by one meant hours of waiting, careful strikes, and hiding any evidence. Each success raised the chance that someone inside would notice the pattern. But a direct attack was not possible with the wards in place. Stealth and steady pressure offered the only real option.
"Alright," Harry said quietly. "Let's find a better spot to watch the rotation closely. The first patrol we take should be far enough from the main building that any alarm takes time to spread. We will work from there."
xXx
The first patrol came around the canal side at half past eight in the morning, consisting of two snatchers who were deep in conversation and moving in a relaxed way as if they had not encountered anything interesting in weeks. They reached the northern end of their circuit and started heading back.
Harry and Daphne took them from opposite sides of the canal path in a silent and simultaneous move. The first man dropped without making any sound while the second managed only a single sharp inhale before Daphne's spell struck him cleanly in the throat, causing him to fall hard against the embankment where he lay motionless.
They dragged both bodies into the reeds along the canal bank right away, and Daphne transfigured the shapes into a pair of large rocks that sank slightly into the mud. From the far bank or from the facility itself or anywhere except directly on top of them, there was nothing unusual to see. After that they returned to the clifftop and waited for the next development.
It took forty minutes before anyone came to check on the missing patrol. This time it was a single snatcher who came ambling out from the gate with his hands in his pockets and an annoyed look on his face as if he did not like being sent out for this task. He walked along the canal path while calling out a name in a bored and irritated voice, scanning the area with only about half his attention. Tonks took him from behind a stand of dead rushes so that he fell against the embankment, and she added him to the collection of transfigured rocks without delay.
They went back to the clifftop and continued waiting. The next group that the facility sent out consisted of three men, and these snatchers were visibly less relaxed than the first two had been. They spread themselves across the width of the canal path and moved forward in a rough line. Harry had already positioned himself on the far bank across the narrow stretch of still water by that point. He waited until all three were right next to the bank and then cast a broad silencing field across the path itself while Fleur and Susan came in from either end of the canal path at the same time.
What happened next was quick and not particularly graceful. One of the snatchers managed to get a spell off but it struck the silencing shield and got absorbed without any sound. The other two did not succeed in casting anything before they were taken down, which brought the total to six snatchers who were now gone with no alarm raised at the facility. The mill below continued its normal quiet routine in the grey morning light and remained completely unaware of what was happening.
They waited for a longer period this time, which stretched to two hours before the next group came looking. This group was more organized and consisted of four men who moved with a version of tactical awareness that snatchers could manage. They had their wands out and they kept some spacing between them while one also watched backward periodically, which was more caution than most of the others had shown so far. Harry observed them from the clifftop while Daphne tracked their exact positions with care. She had an exceptional sense of spacing and timing, and she spent ten minutes calculating the best approach before she gave a soft nod to signal readiness.
"Same approach as before," she said. "They will pass that bend in ninety seconds and lose sightline to the gate for forty-five seconds. That is our window."
They moved into position and took the group down efficiently. The bend in the canal path provided coverage on three sides and the high embankment offered protection on the fourth. The four men came around the curve and Harry closed the silencing field behind them before they could register that anything was wrong. Susan hit the rearmost man right away which removed the one who had been watching backward as a factor. Fleur took the two on the right in quick succession with accurate spells. The fourth man got his wand up and attempted something that might have been a distress signal, but Harry deflected it back into the embankment where it caused no further issue. He was the last one to go down.
That brought the total to ten. They returned to the clifftop after the takedown and ate some food while taking turns watching the facility. The others sat back against the rocky ground and drank from their thermoses during their breaks. The day had become flat and overcast with uniform grey light all around. The mill sat impassive down below and the canal surface reflected nothing at all.
"They will start to get properly worried soon," Daphne said. She held a sandwich in one hand and her Omnioculars in the other while she kept watching the facility closely. "At some point the thinking will change from sending another group to check to realizing that something is actually happening. When that shift occurs, they will either lock down and stay inside or they will push out in force."
"Force," Harry said. He was watching the area too. "The Death Eater in charge will not want to look like he is hiding. He will push out."
"How do you know there is a Death Eater in charge?" Hermione asked.
"Because of the quality of the wards," Daphne explained. "Snatchers could not set up wards like that on their own. Someone who knew what they were doing installed them and they are maintaining them now. There is at least one competent Death Eater in there and maybe more. The rest of the staff could all be snatchers."
"If they push out in force and we get caught in the open with all of them at once that could get complicated," Susan said.
"They will not all push out," Harry replied. "Whoever is in charge is also responsible for whatever they have inside the building. They will keep a group stationed there for protection. What comes out will be a strike team rather than the entire force." He paused for a moment. "That means we want to provoke that response before we have been active down there long enough for them to catch us. We want a controlled push-out while we still hold the advantage in positioning."
The afternoon continued in that pattern. Every hour or so another group would come down the canal path or around the perimeter and each one was slightly more organized than the previous. Every time the group disappeared into the area near the bend in the canal or the reeds along the waterline, there was a brief and contained moment of action that produced no sound and left no evidence that could be seen from the facility. By late afternoon they had counted nineteen people who had come out of the building and been taken down on the exterior.
The push-out from the facility came just before dusk. The group that emerged consisted of eight men with six snatchers moving wide in front and two Death Eaters in masks walking behind them. The Death Eaters looked as if they believed their role was to direct the others rather than to engage directly. The group spread out along the canal approach to cover all the options and they cast detection spells ahead of them as they advanced.
Harry watched from the clifftop. "There they are," he said in a low voice.
"I count eight," Fleur said.
"Eight here," Harry agreed. "Which means the facility is now running on whoever is left inside. We need to take this group without letting any signal get back."
"Two Death Eaters in that group," Tonks said carefully.
"We go all at once," Harry said. "No staggering the attack. The moment the lead snatchers round the bend we hit them from every angle at the same time. Do not give the Death Eaters time to coordinate their response."
They moved down for what would be the final time. Harry and Daphne took the canal path directly. Susan and Hermione came in along the waterline from the south moving low and fast. Fleur and Tonks cut across the open ground to the north and approached from behind.
The engagement was not clean. The first snatcher rounded the bend and took Daphne's curse straight in the chest which caused him to go down before he could finish his step. The one directly behind him stopped suddenly, processed what he saw, and opened his mouth to shout. Harry hit him with a silencing hex followed immediately by a cutting curse and the man dropped sideways into the bank.
The Death Eaters reacted faster than the snatchers as they always did. The one on the left threw up a shield barrier right away and the snatchers to his right used that cover to scatter with two of them breaking toward the embankment. Susan cut one of them off at the waterline with a curse that caught him at the hip and caused him to go down rolling toward the canal edge. Hermione took the other one with a targeted spell on his wand arm that put him out of the fight.
Fleur and Tonks came in from behind the second Death Eater at the same time. He spun toward Tonks clearly expecting her to be the main threat and Fleur put a curse through his shoulder from three feet away which knocked him off his feet and into the embankment where he stayed down.
The first Death Eater's shield held firm. He backed toward the canal path while staying covered and fired spells through the edge of his own barrier. He caught Susan across the side of her face with a curse that left a bleeding line from her cheekbone to her jaw. She stopped for half a second, touched the wound with two fingers, and then kept moving forward as if it had not mattered much. Given everything else that had happened in her life it truly had not been significant.
Harry walked straight at the barrier. He was not using his wand which stayed at his side. He approached with his hand outstretched and where most spells would have bounced off his palm met the surface of the barrier and he pushed forward. It was not a standard spell but something that had grown stronger in him over recent months, a direct exertion of will against the magical structure. The shield cracked in the way thick ice does under pressure starting slowly at first and then giving way all at once.
The Death Eater stared at him as his barrier failed completely.
"No — wait I can give you— "
Harry's fist connected with the side of his head. The Death Eater dropped to the ground. Harry crouched beside him and placed his wand against the man's temple before he could try anything else then hit him with a heavy stunner at close range. He remained down after that.
The last two snatchers had been disarmed by Daphne and Fleur in those same moments. Both were now on the ground bound and with expressions that showed a mix of fury and terror. The Death Eater with the broken shoulder was bound as well with his wand taken and his mask knocked sideways to reveal a pale sweating face and eyes full of fear. The conscious Death Eater was starting to revive at Harry's feet.
"Well, that was something," Tonks said while pressing the back of her hand to her lip where something had caught her during the fight.
Harry surveyed the group. All eight were bound disarmed and incapacitated. The canal path was quiet now and the dusk had deepened enough that the facility would not be able to see them clearly from that distance. "Wands?" he asked.
"Collected," Daphne confirmed while patting her coat.
He looked at the snatchers. They were a typical grim group of men who had spent their time hunting others for profit and acting as if they would never become the hunted. That situation had changed now. You could see them recalculating their circumstances in real time. The one closest to Harry was heavyset with a shaved head and a broken nose that had healed poorly. He met Harry's eyes with an expression that tried to look defiant but did not quite succeed.
"I'm gonna be sick," said a shorter one at the back. It turned out he was not speaking metaphorically. He was sick right there on the ground and the others shifted away from him with looks of disgust which was notable given the overall situation they were in.
"Shut it," Daphne told the one who was still trying to act defiant.
"You think you are clever do you not," the heavyset one said anyway. "Coming out here and taking down patrols one at a time like you are something special. You are nothing. When the Dark Lord hears about this— "
Hermione hit him with a stinging hex that snapped his head back. He made a sound like an offended animal and then stayed quiet.
"Thank you," Harry said to her.
She nodded with her wand still raised.
He turned his attention to the conscious Death Eater at his feet. The man had opened his eyes and was looking up at Harry with clear contempt. Harry guessed he was in his mid-thirties. He crouched beside him and placed his wand against the man's temple.
The man's mind pushed back out of instinct rather than any trained Occlumency. It was simply the natural resistance of someone who did not want to be examined. Harry pushed through it without much effort. What he found inside stopped him cold. It was not the Death Eater's personal history or his choices or even his fear that affected Harry most. What stopped him was the memory of the facility itself. The memory surfaced easily because the man felt no particular shame about it. In fact, he treated it as something ordinary.
The interior of the mill was not what Harry had expected at all. He had thought it might be a base with storage areas planning rooms and living quarters for the staff in the usual cold style of a Death Eater safe house. Instead, the memory showed a prison that went far beyond simple cells and guards. The mill had been converted systematically into something with no ordinary name. The ground floor was divided into pens rather than rooms. These were cramped wooden enclosures stacked in two rows where people were held sometimes four or five together and sometimes in isolation. The conditions had been created deliberately to turn continued existence into sustained suffering.
The people in the pens were Muggleborns and blood traitors. They were individuals who had been flagged under the new registration rules and had not escaped in time or who had been reported by neighbors or who had simply been caught in the wrong place during a snatcher patrol. Some had been there for weeks, and you could tell from their condition.
The Death Eater's memory treated details as routine such as a woman in the third pen who had stopped responding to anything three days earlier with no one bothering to check on her or an elderly man whose legs had failed and who was now propped against the wall by others in his space because the floor was not a place anyone wanted to be if they could avoid it.
There was a room at the back. Harry looked at the memory of it looked away and then forced himself to look again because of the mental training he had built up over recent months. That training helped him stay in difficult memories long enough to gather useful information. The room was used for things that the Death Eater's memory was filled with because he had spent a lot of personal time there. It was clearly the part of the work that he found most rewarding.
Harry pulled out of the memory.
He stood up slowly and became aware of his hands resting at his sides and of how still he was holding himself. He noticed the evening air the flat canal and the distant grey wall of the mill. He also noticed Daphne taking a step towards him.
The women had sensed the change in him before they saw it on his face. Daphne had felt it first. She moved to his side and placed her hand on his arm. She was not pulling him or redirecting him but simply being there for support.
"Harry," she said.
He turned to look at her. He was not sure what expression his face held but her reaction told him it was significant.
"Tell us," she said quietly.
He told them everything. He kept the account factual and controlled. He described the pens the overall layout the estimated number of prisoners he had seen in the memory and what the room at the back was used for. He watched their faces while he spoke. Tonks had become very still. Fleur's expression turned cold. Susan stared at the mill with her jaw clenched tight. Hermione's hands had tightened into fists at her sides.
He finished speaking and silence followed for a time.
"Bellatrix," Tonks said at last.
"Not there," Harry said. "He does not know where she has gone. She visits this place and he has had contact with her network, but she is not at this facility and he has no location for her."
"We go in anyway," Daphne said.
"We go in anyway," Harry agreed with a nod.
No one else needed to add anything after that.
Harry looked at the snatchers again. The heavyset one was watching him now with an expression that had shifted to genuine fear in the last few minutes. The others showed similar reactions and none of them attempted any more defiance.
Harry gave a small nod toward the women.
Daphne moved first. She walked to the snatcher at the far left raised her wand and killed him. Fleur went next. Then Tonks. Then Susan.
That left two. Hermione stood beside the second-to-last snatcher and she remained very still. Harry could see the internal struggle happening in her the same one that always occurred at this step. It was the part of her that resisted this final action, and it had been a consistent challenge for her every time though she had worked to overcome it step by step.
She looked at the snatcher in front of her. He was not attempting defiance anymore. He had started crying which might have been more affecting under different circumstances, but Harry's mind was still occupied with the details from the Death Eater's memory.
Hermione raised her wand. A cutting curse shot out aimed exactly at the femoral artery. She had chosen it deliberately after thinking through what would be quick and efficient rather than drawn out. It worked as intended. The snatcher was conscious one moment and then folded sideways with a single awful breath and it ended in seconds.
She lowered her wand and turned away from the scene. Tonks moved to her side and placed a hand on her back. Hermione took a breath and nodded once to herself as if confirming her own resolve.
That left the last snatcher and the Death Eater. Harry walked over to the last snatcher who had watched everything with complete terror and was trying to press himself backward into the embankment using his bound hands and feet. Harry killed him without ceremony.
He turned back to the Death Eater, who had watched the entire exchange in silence. The man's jaw was clenched tight, and his eyes still flickered with defiance. He was making a creditable effort at resistance.
"Here's what's going to happen," Harry said. "You're going to help us."
The Death Eater narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but Susan hit him with a stinging hex before he could get a single syllable out. His mouth snapped shut with a sound like a trap closing.
Harry glanced at Susan. She gave him a small nod, and he returned it.
He crouched down in front of the Death Eater. "You're going to put a disillusionment charm and a silencing charm on yourself," Harry said, his voice calm and even. "Then you're going to walk to the wardroom. I know exactly where it is because I've just been inside your head. You're going to destroy the ward stones, every single one." He paused. "You don't have a choice in this."
The Death Eater muttered something that was probably meant to be withering.
Harry cast the Imperius.
The Unforgivable settled over the man like cool water. All the defiance drained out of him at once, as if a candle had been snuffed out. What remained was calm, blank, and utterly compliant. His eyes glazed over, his shoulders dropped, and the constant effort of resistance simply stopped.
Harry stood up and pulled the Death Eater to his feet by his collar. The man rose without protest, waiting obediently.
"Follow when I disapparate," Harry told the women.
He looked at them once. Fleur, Tonks, Susan, and Daphne were all alert and ready. Hermione stood beside them with her wand in hand and her chin held high. She was ready too, though in a quieter and more determined way than she had been at the start of the day.
He grabbed the Death Eater's arm and turned on the spot.
They landed in a shallow depression thirty feet from the mill's eastern wall. Harry had pulled the exact coordinate from the man's memory, a spot the Death Eater had used as a landmark. It was close enough to the property's edge that apparition felt like a quick hop rather than a full transit through the anti-apparition field. The others arrived around him in quick succession, with barely a second between each sharp crack.
The Death Eater was already casting. The disillusionment charm rippled over him and faded his outline into a vague shimmer against the grey stone. He added the silencing charm, then turned and walked straight toward the eastern side of the building, following the Imperius command to the letter.
"We're watching him go," Daphne said quietly as she tracked the faint shimmer across the ground.
"Wardroom's on the east side, ground floor," Harry replied, keeping his voice low. "Behind the second pen structure. He'll be through in two minutes if nothing stops him."
"What about the staff inside?" Fleur asked.
"They'll see nothing. He's keyed to the wards, he's invisible, and he's silent. As far as anyone in that building knows, nothing is happening."
The shimmer reached the wall and slipped through a plain service door. It opened and closed as if touched by an invisible hand. He was inside.
"The things you saw in his mind," Tonks said, her voice very low. "How long has a place like this been running?"
"Months," Harry answered. "Based on what I saw. Some of the prisoners have been here since autumn."
They stood in silence for a moment as the gathering dark settled over the mill.
"How many people are in there?" Susan asked.
"Thirty, maybe more. Half of them are already dead, from what I saw."
"Those are people who needed someone to come for them," Hermione said softly. She kept her gaze fixed on the mill. "And nobody knew."
"Nobody knew," Harry echoed.
Another beat passed.
"I want in," Tonks said.
"Wait for the wards," Harry replied.
They waited. In the distance, a waterbird called once and fell silent. The canal remained hidden in the darkness, marked only by the heavy smell of still water and reeds.
Then the wards shattered.
It was not a quiet collapse. The layered magical architecture tore apart at its foundation with a sound like ice breaking across a frozen lake, a deep crack that rolled outward, followed by another, and then a chaotic chorus of structures pulling free all at once. Harry felt it through the soles of his feet as the heavy pressure of the ward field simply vanished. The others flinched at the scale of it, but they were already moving.
The eastern door was unlocked. Harry quickly cast his own wards over the property. They were not as strong as the original wardstones, but they would keep anyone inside from escaping or calling for help.
The smell hit them the moment they stepped through the door. It was the thick, fetid stench of a place that had been sealed shut with too many people inside for far too long. Hermione pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and breathed through it. Harry kept moving because there was no time to dwell on it.
As their eyes adjusted, the ground floor came into focus. The pens were real, and they were occupied. Faces pressed against the gaps in the wooden slats, staring out with expressions that showed hope had been beaten out of them long ago.
The interior staff heard them enter.
Six of them converged from the far side of the building, wands drawn and shouting to one another. One spotted Harry and fired three spells in rapid succession, blasting the nearest pen wall into a shower of splinters.
Harry stepped forward and sent a blasting curse straight back along the same line with brutal force. It lifted the snatcher off his feet and hurled him through the doorframe behind him. The man slammed into the far corridor wall and slumped to the ground.
Daphne and Susan had already split to either side of Harry. Daphne dropped the next snatcher with a whip-fast curse to the throat. Susan caught the one beside him with a concentrated Incendio that left him screaming and clawing at flames that could not be put out.
Three snatchers broke toward the stairs. Fleur went after them without hesitation.
Tonks covered Harry's left flank while he faced two more competent Death Eaters who emerged from a back corridor. They moved with practiced coordination and shields already raised. One hurled a concussive blast at Harry, but he sidestepped it cleanly. His response was not a spell but a direct surge of power at range. The Death Eater's shield cracked, and Harry drove a precise and violent curse through the breach. The man dropped with every bone shattered.
The second Death Eater turned on Tonks. She baited him one way and struck from the other. Her curse hit him square in the chest, and he went down hard.
Above them, a short but fierce exchange of spells erupted on the upper floor, followed by crashes and then Fleur's voice calling that it was clear. Tonks shouted back in confirmation.
More Death Eaters poured in from the back corridor, three this time. Daphne was already advancing while Susan stayed at Harry's right shoulder. What followed was not elegant. It was three Death Eaters against six people who had been waiting all day for this fight, fueled by a focused and burning rage that left little room for hesitation or mercy.
One Death Eater took Hermione's hex in the side and crumpled. The next barely had time to react before Susan took him from behind. The third managed to raise his wand before Daphne's curse ended it.
The ground floor fell quiet.
Harry drew a steady breath. The others swept the space around him, checking doorways and confirming every room on the level. The people in the pens watched silently through the gaps, too exhausted to show much reaction.
A sound came from the back, and Harry turned.
The Death Eater from outside stepped through the service door. The last traces of his disillusionment charm were fading as he walked, his eyes still glazed. He crossed to the center of the room and knelt before Harry with his hands at his sides.
Harry looked down at him, at the slack mouth and empty eyes. He thought briefly of what he had seen in the man's memory, of the room at the back that the others had not yet entered. He had seen exactly what this man had considered the rewarding part of his work.
He pointed his wand at the Death Eater. He felt strangely little as he spoke the words. Not cold, not furious, not even particularly decisive. Just a conclusion.
The Death Eater fell sideways onto the stone floor.
Tonks, Fleur, and Susan moved toward the back of the building. The corridor they entered was darker than the main floor. Harry turned away to finish checking the perimeter rather than follow them.
The others returned roughly ten minutes later.
He knew before they said a word.
Susan stopped in the middle of the ground floor and remained silent.
Fleur stood behind her, looking as if she was barely holding herself together.
Tonks came last. She stopped beside Harry and did not look at him for a long moment. When she finally did, her eyes were red-rimmed but dry.
"They're all dead," she said quietly. "Every single one. Some of them have been dead for a while. The ones who were still alive when this place was running made sure before they left or before the wards came down. I don't know exactly when. But there's nobody left to bring out."
The ground floor stayed quiet around them.
Harry looked up at the ceiling, thinking of the second floor, the cleared spaces, and the emptied pens. He thought of the forty properties Hermione had narrowed down, the twelve they had considered, and the six or seven that had matched the pattern. He remembered Donaldson's memory from three weeks ago in that frozen camp, and the woman in the third pen who had stopped responding days earlier with no one bothering to check.
He closed his eyes, taking a very long and very careful breath, and let it out slowly.
Around him, the others stood in silence and looked at the floor.
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