Surprise Attack

The Thestral carriage stopped at the end of the stone-paved road. The fully grown black stallion in front lowered its head and lightly pawed at the gravel with one forehoof.

Hagrid sat in the driver's seat, his old pink umbrella propped beside him, a small withered beech leaf from the Forbidden Forest still caught on its tip.

He tightened the reins and leaned out. "The young Thestrals we took in from the Forbidden Forest last night have all returned to the herd. Kingsley sent word that the Advance Observation Station on the outskirts of Aldeburgh has been set up, and monitoring equipment's been installed on top of the Old Sentry Tower in the Windbreak—hey, Harry, you all right?"

Harry gave Hagrid a broad smile, and Vivi nodded to Hagrid as well.

Then she stepped into the carriage, with Harry following behind her, and pulled the door shut.

Hagrid flicked the reins. The Thestral spread its wings and surged soundlessly into the morning sky.

The rooftops of Hogsmeade shrank rapidly below them as the carriage flew over central England, clouds sweeping past the window one after another.

Vivi opened her phone screen. Kingsley's encrypted transmission had arrived—the architectural blueprint of the Abandoned Radar Station in Aldeburgh, its margins marked with measurements and material analyses added by the Confederation's technical team.

The floor plan of the Underground Bunker marked three entrances. The main entrance was on the ground floor of the Abandoned Lighthouse, sealed shut with concrete by Muggles, but The Ashwinder Party had cut a door into the concrete plug and reinforced it with a Rune Array.

The secondary entrance was below the cliff face, the outlet of an abandoned Military Drainage Pipe, about eighty centimeters in diameter, which would be mostly submerged by seawater at high tide.

The third entrance