Dawn had barely broken in the east.
A long, agonizing night had just passed. The pale golden sunlight, tinged with grayish green, was still too weak to disperse the thin mist hanging in the air.
Whooo! Whooo! Whooo!
A plume of thick white smoke drifted up into the sky, where a few scattered clouds floated. Three piercing train whistles tore through the silence shrouding Diagon Alley.
Clatter!
The deserted Diagon Alley suddenly awoke from its stillness.
Along the central cobblestone street, the tightly shut doors of shops on both sides abruptly swung open. From every store emerged an Enforcer dressed in a gray trench coat, their expressions solemn.
The well-trained Enforcers stood rigidly before the shops, wands in hand, their sharp eyes missing nothing that stirred on the street ahead.
Whoosh!
While the train whistles still echoed over Diagon Alley, more than thirty Enforcers on flying brooms suddenly rose into the air from Diagon Alley Station.
After climbing to roughly two hundred feet above the ground, they stopped ascending.
They swiftly adjusted their formation in midair, spreading out in a horizontal line with some two hundred feet between each of them.
Once the formation had stabilized, the Enforcers deployed in the sky began to advance slowly.
Using the main street as their central axis, they began a carpet-style aerial sweep of Diagon Alley.
The killing intent permeating the crisp morning air made even the neatly lined carriages on the street stir uneasily.
"Mr. Shacklebolt—"
An Auror hurried out of the temporarily requisitioned Leaky Cauldron. Under the watchful eyes of numerous colleagues, he rushed toward Gringotts' towering, magnificent white building and stopped beneath the Marble Staircase.
"How is it?"
Kingsley immediately turned his gaze toward the Auror.
"The Department of Magical Transportation has begun sealing every fireplace in Diagon Alley. From