A little later, Pansy entered the house carrying large and small bags of things she had bought from a nearby convenience store.
Almost at once, the young witch realized something was wrong. The Muggles who had been strolling around the building were gone, and the guards at the stairwell and in the corridors had vanished too. When she noticed Long-Eye, one of the assistants, looking down from the third floor with several armed wizards in Umbrella uniforms, Pansy involuntarily tightened her grip on the things she was holding. Her heartbeat quickened, and in the next instant she understood—the Harrises had probably been worried that she would be subjected to Legilimency, so telling her they would act at midnight had been a feint. In reality, to avoid complications and out of confidence in their own strength, they had never intended to wait until night, when the guards might be a little more relaxed, before striking.
And Pansy was someone Penelope had specifically instructed before the operation was not to be harmed. The Umbrella personnel also knew that today's smooth operation was thanks to the information provided by the young witch before them, so they did not stop her in the slightest. Quite a few even nodded and greeted her, allowing the bewildered young witch to walk in and move about freely.
Pansy walked in slowly, her gaze sweeping over the bodies lying on the floor behind wide-open doors. They were faces she knew. Some had even greeted her kindly and joked with her that morning, yet now they had become cold corpses. Pansy's heartbeat drummed beside her eardrums—and she understood another misconception as well. The Umbrella people were not Aurors. They had absolutely no intention of making arrests.
But after only a few dazed pauses, Pansy moved her heavy legs and