Harry suddenly sympathized with some of the broad questions he had asked Malfoy; the question just simply didn’t have a straight-forward answer. It made his expression close off, his brows first furrowing and then quirk a moment later, not even knowing where to begin. Most Death Eater houses had a similar palette of expected wards and curses, but Harry had yet to come across two that were identical. Harry didn’t even know if Malfoy had ever been at one, making it hard to judge the extent of his question.<br/>"Of note?" Harry repeated, needing to clarify what exactly Malfoy was looking to figure out. Malfoy was asking about something that happened a month and two hospitalization ago, and Harry believed the best source of trustworthy information to be the folder he had presented yesterday.<br/>Regardless, Harry’s eyes remained unfocused on Malfoy, trying to retrace his steps.<br/>After another moment, he uncrossed his arms, fingers pushing beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes in a thoughtless attempt to gather his thoughts. Not knowing what Malfoy was looking for, Harry just started talking, hoping to find it by chance.<br/>"The house must’ve been hidden by a glamour. It’s a turn of the century farmhouse, and most houses in its immediate vicinity were built in the late 90’s. That meant it took a while to connect its magic with the war, seeing as –" Harry dropped his hands from his eyes, blinking Malfoy back into focus. "- it didn’t immediately fit the bill for Death Eaters, hiding in plain sight in the middle of a developing Muggle neighbourhood."<br/>Instead, Harry’s right hand slipped to his jaw, absentmindedly scratching at his stubble.<br/>"The Department of Mysteries was able to match the signatures to some persons of interest, however, so I inherited the case. We spent the first while trying to figure out the purpose of the house, to that way figure out what magic we should expect upon entering."<br/>Harry paused. There really wasn’t much to tell, the bulk of their work going into the preparation before entering; Harry had only been in the house for a few minutes before something was triggered and they were all evacuated. Looking at Malfoy, he tried to remember why they had concluded it safe to enter.<br/>"I think we misjudged it," Harry eventually said, thought it was more of a fact than an inkling. Clearly, they had, having encountered adverse and unexpected wards. "But that’s under the assumption that there’s more to the house than what we were able to judge it on, and there’s really nothing that points to that being the case."<br/>They had deemed it safe to entre because it should have been. Nothing about the house was out of the ordinary except for its placement and timing; everything had come up clear. Though Harry didn’t want to say it, the assumed purpose of the house had been to kill Muggles from close vicinity.<br/>Harry had talked himself into a corner, having come to the exact same conclusions as he had when talking it over with his team.<br/>The silence between them became prolonged, aimless, and Harry was about to admit defeat. His eyes flickered between non-distinct points in Malfoy’s features, but Harry wasn’t really paying attention, too caught up in the challenge of rethinking the case.<br/>"The floor had a draft," Harry startled, his voice brighter. His gaze refocused on Malfoy’s eyes, the memory of the cool wind against his face when the curse had knocked him over suddenly vivid in his consciousness. Harry had given it no thought, the memory only reappearing in the attempt to justify the house having a greater expanse than what was noted.<br/>"A root cellar?" he offered, his brows quirking in the question. It was a shot in the dark, entirely ungrounded in anything stated in the rapport. Root cellars in heathland would hardly be foodstable, and they hadn't questioned it when no basement had come up during the initial mapping of the house.<br/>He searched Malfoy’s face for any indicator that that was something of value. "Would a subterranean ward last longer than the glamour on the house?"