Department of Mysteries, March 11, 1974, 10.00am.
The five stared at the arched silver frame ahead of them. If not for the mysterious swirling substance in the middle, it would have been an empty door frame which stood in the middle of the room.
"Where and how did you find this, Caria?" The tall, dark man whose name was Charlus Sapientus asked the woman beside him, "And when, too?"
"Yesterday evening, at around seven o'clock," Caria, a nervous little witch, replied, "As I was working in the study, I suddenly heard some soft, soothing voices coming from the attic. I thought nothing of it at first, thinking that I was hearing voices in my head, which often happens when I overwork, until my husband and children reported hearing them too. We decided to search for the source of…it and realized that it came from the attic. And we found…this," she pointed a shaking finger at the archway.
"As we approached it, the voices got louder… but still as smooth. When I was just a metre from it, I recognised them as the voices of my deceased parents, grandparents…and everyone else I knew, who died while I lived," she gave an involuntary shudder before she continued, " I asked Minny, my house elf, to go through it, and return within an hour's time, to report to me what the doorway led to if it led somewhere else besides the room. She never…she never returned," her voice began to crack.
She sniffled a little, before taking a long, deep breath, "When she still hadn't returned after two hours, I, along with my husband, apparated with it here, taking care not to touch the thing in the middle." She blinked back tears, "Minny had always been a good house elf, doing everything we request her to do as perfect as possible, never disobeying us. And now she's gone…gone…for…forever…" She began to sob.
The only other witch in the room put her arms around Caria's shoulders as she whispered comforting words to her. The men gathered around them as they discussed what hid beyond the veil.
"It must be something dangerous, something way beyond our magic," Charlus Sapientus said, "House elf magic is much more advanced than ours, and can disapparate from places we cannot. Take Hogwarts, for example."
"There may be a monster immediately beyond it," Asmodeus Maeroris, a gangling, stony faced man with unnaturally white skin and hair said monotonously, "which pounces upon anything that passes through the veil quicker than one can ever imagine."
"Why not we test it out?" The young man with short silvery hair and an impish grin exclaimed excitedly. If not for their similar features, many would have thought that Zephyr Maeroris was the son of a playful pixie.
"ARE YOU JOKING?" Sapientus bellowed at the nineteen-year-old, and everyone, including the crying Caria, sobered up, "IF A HOUSE ELF IS UNABLE TO ESCAPE FROM THE CLUTCHES FROM WITHIN, HOW WILL WE WIZARDS BE ABLE TO?"
"Please listen to me as I explain, Mr Sapientus," Zephyr said in a calm, patient voice which was not different from that of a psychiatrist calming an angry, deranged patient, "The house elf was unable to escape when it went in wholly. But what if a living organism, even possibly a human, looks inside, with their body just partially beyond the veil? The person could then be pulled back and then report what they saw, could they not? And if a savage beast does lie behind it, people outside would know, would they not?"
"Intriguing idea, Zephyr," Sapientus nodded in a somewhat sarcastic approval, "But now, the question would be who the volunteer is."
Gazing into Sapientus' eyes with a steely gaze, Zephyr replied smoothly, "That would be me, of course."
As they approached the archway, each of them heard the voices of their loved ones whose lives were stolen by Death a year, or even decades, ago. Zephyr stepped towards the veil with the boldness of a soldier to war.
"Pull me out a minute after I look in," He instructed the still stunned group, which nodded. With that, he leaned forwards, his arms gripping the sides of the archway.
The group awaited silently in suspense as they stared at the seemingly motionless figure, attempting to decipher what he saw within from his still form. They pulled him a minute later, his eyes glazed over, unblinking, his impish grin widened.
"What did you see?" Asmodeus asked in his son in his whispery grave voice.
"Beauty," was all that Zephyr replied before he went out cold, his eerily happy smile still etched on his face.
The morning after the next found the corpses of Sapientus and the witches in the bathtubs of their homes, their bodies bathed with their own crimson blood. But that was not the worst of it; their tongues were sliced cleanly of and forced down their throats, their intestines were torn out of bodies by means of claws; their eyes were gouged out by fingers, and a strange sigil, the same for each of the corpse, scratched out by a knife on their chests.
But perhaps the most gruesome part of this whole affair was that all these were done slowly while they were alive, thrashing about naked in their cold bathtubs.
Neither Asmodeus nor Zephyr were ever seen, nor heard of again.