Rebels are we, though heavy our hearts shall always be

No ball or chain, no prison shall keep

We're the rebels of the sacred heart

I said no ball or chain, no prison shall keep

We're the rebels of the sacred heart

~ Flogging Molly, "Rebels of the Sacred Heart"

We gave them more credit than they deserved.

When Wood told us that his parents were being held in a detention facility on the Isle of Wight, we had expected a fortress fortified with unimaginable Dark magic and guarded by the most vile creatures in Voldemort's ranks.

What we found was little more than a concentration camp.

Most of the inmates were Muggles with wizarding family, and anyone magically-endowed had been stripped of a wand. The cells were bewitched with Anti-Disapparition Jinxes, and the complex was blanketed with a Caterwauling Charm, but little else protected the prison. The place was staffed with Imperiused acolytes; six actual Death Eaters administered the operation.

We probably didn't have to go in with everything we had, but Verity's advice was best: go hard or go home.

So we deployed a dozen Decoy Detonators modified with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, and waited beyond the barbed-wire fence. Fred mouthed a countdown, twirling his wand; Wood pulled on the Conspecs that Krum had enchanted, and as Fred reached zero, Krum and Verity donned theirs as well. My own dangled around my neck, and a moment before I got them on, blackness swept over us.

Someone shouted. I got my goggles on; my vision came back with stark blue clarity. Krum, Fred, Wood, and Verity clustered around me, absurdly calm and silent. Then Fred turned to me and flashed a vicious grin.

The assault was on. Wood and Krum vanished with a crack like thunder. Fred Blasted a twenty foot breach in the fence and rushed in.

I Stunned the nearest guards, Apparated ten meters away, slung another volley of spells, Apparated again. Wood, Fred, and Krum worked their way across the facility, incapacitating sentries and making for the cells. Verity and I broke off in the chaos, headed toward a low brick building, popping ten meters at a time and hurling hexes through the darkness to clear a path.

We approached the nearest door as a witch spilled out of it, still barking orders to someone inside. I hit her with a Deadweight Spell, dashed over her body, whipped a Depulso jinx at the wizard in the hallway so hard it knocked him unconscious.

A blistering jet of light sizzled at me from my right, scorching my shoulder. I turned to see a hulking man brandishing his wand at the darkness. Before he could finish the word Avad—, Verity materialized next to him and hit him with a clean right hook that jarred his wand out of his hand.

Light crackled deeper down the hallway, and Wood's voice boomed. The first of the prisoners had been released, and were releasing more prisoners, who overtook the guards. We dashed into the adjacent hallway as two more Death Eaters fell, and when the last bolted into a room to the left, Verity barked evanesco virga and rendered him defenseless.

The skirmish was over in seven minutes.

Two days later, our D.A. coins went hot for the last time.