"Pretty one."
"Hmph."

The backs of Lydia's fingers stroked the wintry cheek of one of the girls. She thought her darling, even if her husband did not. The young ones were laid out, side by side, like corpses in the chill. Barely breathing, just enough, ashen lips. Thinking no more on the appearance of the girl snatched from Hogsmeade barely an hour earlier, Lydia's wand made quick work, stripping an equally pale arm back to the skin, slashing it just beneath the crook of the elbow. Crimson blood flooded warm, and drizzled from the lifeless arm to the waiting glass flask below.

On one after the other, the former unspeakable repeated the same process. The two black tiled rooms deep in the belly of the Ministry beyond the labyrinth of doors, once silent, were now speckled with the trickle and drip of young blood over the almost inaudible shuddered breaths of fourteen.




Lyra paused just inside the doorway between the two rooms to observe her husband. If one looked at the door, it appeared not to be there at all - only visible out of the corner of one's eye. When they were done, it would meld away with the others, and contain them. Plenty went missing in the Department of Mysteries. Some walked out with different faces, some were digested. It explained how the walls seemed to have eyes and ears for each Department Head.

"This one is in poor condition." Mortimer noted, critically examining one of the younger ones. His sleeves were rolled up, already splattered with blood. The unspeakable was displeased, and handled the body roughly. "No good for us."

Lydia crossed the floor silently to join him, reexamining with her eyes. The flicker of sympathy she felt for it barely warmed her heart.
"His blood still is, darling. Don't despair," she reasoned as if the whole process were no different to them considering what the house elf might buy for one of their dinner parties in Godric's Hollow. "We'll do what we can, and drain him dry if it comes to it."

She reached out to stroke the boy's soft auburn hair. Sickly thing indeed, rather cold to the touch. "Your dementor will be glad of his soul - keep him just alive and introduce them perhaps? A final treat for it."

Mortimer frowned, brow furrowed like a winter field, but nodded. It was a fair idea, though not one he was particularly concerned with. The purpose of these students was not just to potentially feed the creature Grimm tortured, but a greater research. The life's work of man and wife. Research curtailed by the fall of Voldemort and the resurrection of the Ministry under Shacklebolt. Lydia was always resourceful in seeing where the loss of one test subject could be used to bolster another opportunity, where Mortimer remained focused on the hypothesis tested.

Prolonged exposure to a dementor reduced magical potential. They had measured this in Azkaban prisoners and captives, and again in colleagues working with Grimm. Magical potential was what had brought Mortimer and Lyra together decades ago: examining the development of magic in young children - how it manifested, how it revealed itself. This had grown to the possibility of harvesting, transferring it and removing it altogether. It was notoriously difficult to gather test subjects for this - progress had been made in the war what with the Muggle-Born examinations providing subjects, but the whole work had been shelved at the close of the war. Hidden, burned. Deemed despicable, inhumane.

All they had needed was a suitable investor. An investor, test subjects and the guarantee that they could vanish should the research be interrupted prematurely. On the last, Mortimer was not entirely convinced on Ira Almasy. The thrill of the chance outweighed the danger. They would never receive such an opportunity again to complete their life's research.

Mortimer wiped his bloody hands on a handkerchief and consulted his pocketwatch critically.
"We best reap our first harvest my love." Lyra gave a nod, and leaned over the motionless body between them to kiss her husband.
"Just like old times, Mort." [1]





They each took a room, wands pressed to wounds. Warm blood slowed over motionless forearms, something else escaping the wounds, reflecting ice blue against the dark polished tiles, like patroni dancing without direction. The Gamps each bent carefully beside their test subjects, with complicated incantations and motions. From an onlooker it might appear they were pulling yarn from a knot with their wands through gently orchestrated gestures.

In their opposing hand, each clasped what resembled a crystal ball, only this was not scrying. Where once blood had come forth, now came magical energy, a natural barrier broken. It streamed like a prophecy into a small glass prison. Some greater and brighter than others. Then, with care, each wound was sealed, arms folded back beneath the white sheets.

The process was repeated like clockwork, giving just enough time for the young bodies to recover. The weakest identified faded fast, but were revived with blood replenishment potion - obliviated - but did not survive through the last. The dementor would go hungry for now, but some other awful creature on level nine enjoyed the severed limbs. Mortimer did not linger long to examine the results once delivered.





While the world above ate Sunday lunch, those still breathing in the two rooms deep in level nine were let for the last time that weekend. As dishes were washed, and aurors concluded their questions of Hogwarts students at staff hundreds of miles north of London, Mortimer and Lyra dragged bodies from examination tables to the bloodied floor of the two rooms. They took no great care with their test subjects now they had what they needed. The bodies of three who had not survived the last were thrown in - bled dry.

One last experiment, a consideration should they have the chance to return - the floors were flooded with excess blood collected, and some acquired from vampire pools. Their second eldest child would receive reports in due course that vampire reserves were unexpectedly diminished - tainted, according to falsified report. There was a possibility latent magic would be conducted by blood from the decaying bodies as the students, undiscovered, perished.

"Let them identify them in centuries future by their wands." Mortimer suggested to Lyra, though the pair honoured the tradition that when a wizard passed, their wand died with them. A small sign of respect for the unauthorised theft of magical energy, blood and for four unlucky souls - life.

Out of the corner of an eye, the doors faded away as if never there, and within, ten slept on.

1.	1966 Desperate Volunteers, 1953 Never Had it So Good