The Rise of the God-Emperor

CH 50: The Return to Hogwarts

As the dark sky began to lighten with the first hints of dawn, Harry and his team returned to the safety of Hogwarts, their mission at HMP Shepton Mallet now complete. The atmosphere on the grounds was charged with a mixture of relief and exhaustion. The 2,000 parents and children—those rescued from the prison—were led to the mansion adjacent to the castle, where the mediwizards and house-elves were already prepared to tend to their every need.

The group had barely caught their breath, but there was no time to rest yet. With the captives safe, the focus now shifted to the notes and documents they had seized from the prison, which could hold the key to understanding the full extent of the Muggles' experiments. Harry's leadership was needed once again, and everyone knew there was still much work to be done.

The Mansion: A Safe Haven

Inside the mansion, the newly rescued prisoners were given clean clothes, food, and beds—many of them for the first time in months, if not years. The children, wide-eyed and overwhelmed, clung to their parents, still processing the reality of their freedom.

Seamus, whose parents had been freed two months earlier, now wandered through the mansion, offering reassurances to the frightened families. He'd been where they were, after all, and knew all too well the shock that came with sudden liberation.

Harry walked through the mansion with Luna and Neville by his side, checking in on the families, ensuring everything was running smoothly.

"We'll need to keep them here for a while," Luna observed softly, watching a mother comfort her child. "They'll need time to recover."

Neville nodded, glancing at Harry. "What's next? We got them out, but... there's still more, isn't there?"

Harry looked around at the faces of the survivors and felt the weight of what they had accomplished. But the victory was only part of the battle. "There's always more," he replied quietly. "But first, we need to look at what we brought back from the prison. We might find something in those notes that tells us where the Muggles are operating next."

Luna's soft gaze lingered on Harry for a moment. "They're looking to you for answers, you know. Not just the ones you rescued... but everyone."

Harry sighed. "I know. Let's make sure we don't let them down."

Back in the War Room

A few hours later, Harry, Draco, Luna, Neville, and a few others gathered in the War Room. Stacks of documents taken from the warden's office at the prison sat in the middle of the table, along with a map of the prison, diagrams of the collars, and records of communications between the scientists and their superiors.

Harry sat at the head of the table, spreading the papers out in front of him. "We need to go through everything. There might be something here that tells us what the Muggles were planning next—or how far they've spread their operations."

Draco, newly returned from securing the prison with his team, sat to Harry's right. His eyes scanned the notes with practiced focus. "I've already looked at some of these files while we were there. It seems like they weren't just experimenting on the prisoners for magic control. They were... refining it."

"Refining it?" Neville asked, frowning. "What does that mean?"

Draco picked up a diagram of one of the collars. "This isn't just about control. They were trying to find a way to siphon magic out of wizards and store it. That contraption we found—it's part of a larger system. The collars were meant to drain magic over time, and the machine was designed to harness it."