At the very center of the stone pit, there was no lectern like one would find in a stepped classroom.
Instead, a raised stone platform stood there.
Upon the platform rose an ancient stone archway, radiating an archaic, solemn aura.
One corner of the arch's top was visibly broken, and there were no visible supports around it—yet even so, it stood firmly in place, unmoving.
A semi-transparent gray-black veil, like a curtain or shroud, hung within the arch.
Though there was no wind, it swayed gently on its own.
"What is this place…? It feels so creepy," Hermione asked softly, looking at Arthur.
She knew that whenever something was unclear, asking her omniscient cousin was always the right choice.
"The Altar of Death," Arthur replied.
"The veil behind that arch should lead to the realm of death."
He deliberately used the word should.
After all, he had no concrete proof that the space beyond truly was the world of the dead—this was merely a conclusion drawn from everything he knew so far.
In the original story, Harry, Neville, and Luna had all been here.
They shared one crucial trait: each of them had personally witnessed the death of someone close to them.
When they entered this chamber, all three heard voices coming from beyond the veil—voices belonging to their deceased loved ones.
Those voices tempted them, calling to them, trying to lure them into stepping beyond the curtain and into the unknown.
A phenomenon with a very similar effect existed elsewhere: the Resurrection Stone, one of the Deathly Hallows said to have been obtained from Death itself by the three brothers.
The Resurrection Stone did not truly resurrect the dead.
Instead, it summoned the souls of the deceased back into the living world—but those souls did not belong there.
As a result, they became sorrowful, cold, and tormented.
The living person who used the stone would, under the weight of that hopeless longing, slowly descend into madness—until they ultimately chose death themselves.
In that sense, the Resurrection Stone's true function was not to bring the dead back to life, but to drag the living into death.
The veil before them served a remarkably similar purpose.
Arthur could clearly sense deathly power emanating from it.
And from the memories he had taken from the traitor Lucius's inner contact—Rookwood, Arthur also knew that this archway had existed long before the Ministry of Magic building was constructed.
In other words, the Ministry had chosen this location because of the archway.
To the Unspeakables, this arch symbolized death and the unknown world beyond, an ancient mystery they had been studying ever since the Department of Mysteries was founded.
Thus, Arthur boldly inferred that even if the veil did not directly lead to the realm of the dead, it was undoubtedly inseparably connected to death.
The moment Hermione heard that the veil might lead to death, she instinctively tugged Arthur, trying to pull him away from the arch.
If time and fate were merely special forces in human understanding, then death was an outright taboo.
No normal person would willingly approach it.
Arthur—someone capable of wielding death itself—was, of course, an exception.
Hermione shrank deeper into his arms and whispered,
"Arthur… let's leave quickly."
The atmosphere here was oppressive, and the veil kept moving on its own.
Who knew what might suddenly crawl out from behind it?
The young witch had absolutely no desire to linger in this room.
Arthur nodded.
"Alright, we'll leave immediately. But before that… I need to do one thing."
"What thing?" Hermione asked.
"Take it with us."
As soon as he spoke, Arthur activated the deathly power within his body.
Gold-and-black energy surged outward, flooding the entire stone pit.
Under Hermione's shocked gaze, the massive pit ripped itself free from the ground, rising upward as a whole.
With a wave of his hand, Arthur stored the entire altar inside his system space, planning to study it properly later.
As for why he didn't put it into the Zen Garden?
He shared Hermione's concern.
Who knew whether something might crawl out from behind that veil?
After finishing all this, Arthur erased every trace that he and Hermione had left behind in the Ministry, then took her and departed.
By the time Arthur left, the sky was already turning gray with dawn.
Soon after, it was time for Ministry employees to start work.
And then—
The Ministry of Magic discovered that it had been robbed.
Especially the Unspeakables—they practically lost their minds.
Most of them were scholars who stayed removed from worldly affairs, devoting themselves entirely to magical research.
To them, the Department of Mysteries was sacred ground—their sanctuary for studying ancient, profound, and even lost magics.
And now?
Their sanctuary had been plundered.
The room sealing the power of love had been opened.
The Time Chamber had been completely emptied.
And the Death Chamber had been ripped out wholesale.
This was equivalent to losing half of their foundation—more brutal than severing their lifeline.
The Unspeakables were furious, storming into Fudge's office, demanding that he capture the culprit at all costs.
Some even openly accused Fudge of gross incompetence, furious that a thief could infiltrate the Ministry itself.
These scholars were the type with intelligence maxed out and emotional intelligence… not so much.
They had no concept of politeness.
They berated Fudge relentlessly, scolding him until his face turned red with anger.
Fudge hastily placated them, then immediately mobilized personnel to handle the situation.
The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement launched a full sweep of the Ministry—cataloguing losses while searching for any trace left by the intruder.
But how could Arthur possibly leave evidence behind?
Any trace erased by a demigod's power was beyond restoration—even Dumbledore himself wouldn't be able to reconstruct it.
Arthur hadn't even left behind a single cat hair from Hermione.
Naturally, the Ministry's investigation came up completely empty.
When Fudge learned that only the Department of Mysteries had been robbed, his mood actually improved quite a bit.
In his eyes, the Unspeakables were nothing more than money pits—consuming massive amounts of Galleons every year while producing nothing tangible.
Now that half their research subjects were gone, it was practically a blessing in disguise—an opportunity to cut funding.
Still, regardless of his personal feelings, this incident was a severe blow to the Ministry's authority.
Someone had to be held responsible.
And so, the scapegoats were chosen.
The unlucky pair were Rookwood, who had been on night duty, and another nameless poor soul not even worthy of a proper introduction.
The Aurors attempted Legilimency on both of them—but each had lost all memory of the previous night, completely unable to recall what had happened.
In the end, the Ministry dismissed them for dereliction of duty and issued a bounty through the Daily Prophet for the thief who infiltrated the Ministry.
The reward was a staggering 100,000 Galleons.
Even providing confirmed information would earn 1,000 Galleons.
For comparison, when Sirius Black was mistakenly believed to have murdered over a dozen Muggles and escaped Azkaban, his bounty had been only 10,000 Galleons.
This time, there were no casualties—yet the bounty was ten times higher.
That alone showed how seriously the Ministry regarded this incident.
The Daily Prophet rushed out a special edition at noon the same day.
When Arthur and Hermione read it, they exchanged a smile and promptly ignored the matter.
After lunch, Hermione went back to her room to catch up on sleep.
Arthur, energetic as ever and requiring very little rest, decided to head out again.
...
This time, Arthur's destination was an old, dilapidated manor in Little Hangleton.
This place had once belonged to the Gaunt family.
That's right—
It was Voldemort's father's family home.
The walls were covered in moss, many roof tiles had fallen away, exposing the rafters beneath.
Dense nettles grew wildly around the house, so thick that they nearly swallowed the windows—though that was partly because the windows themselves were extremely small.
Through gaps in the nettles, one could barely make out the grimy outlines of the windows, each coated in decades of filth.
The most distinctive feature was the front door.
A stuffed dead snake was nailed directly onto it.
Arthur had come here for one reason only—
To retrieve the Resurrection Stone.
He had no one he particularly wished to revive.
Even if he did, his own human transmutation techniques would be far more reliable than the Resurrection Stone's illusory method.
This trip was purely the result of inspiration.
After seeing the Altar of Death the previous night, Arthur had been reminded of this so-called Deathly Hallow and decided to add it to his collection.
In Arthur's opinion, however, the Resurrection Stone barely deserved the title of "Deathly Hallow."
In the tale of the three brothers:
The Elder Wand was made by Death from an elder tree by the river.The Resurrection Stone was just a stone Death picked up from the riverbank.Only the Invisibility Cloak was Death's own possession.
In other words, among the three Deathly Hallows, the first two were half-baked trinkets casually made by Death.
Only the Invisibility Cloak truly lived up to the name.
Arthur was here simply to collect the Resurrection Stone—not because he expected it to do anything meaningful.
When Voldemort was sixteen, he came to the Gaunt house, stunned his uncle Morfin Gaunt, and framed him for murder.
In matters of scapegoating, Voldemort was undeniably skilled.
More importantly—
After doing all this, he stole Marvolo Gaunt's ring.
Naturally, Voldemort had no idea that the ring contained the Resurrection Stone.
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