A History of the Veil

A History of the Veil

The Gateway of Death, the Veil, was the first official tool used in the execution of high criminals under the current organized Ministry of Magic.

Though the origins of the Veil are unknown, it was the French wizard Gustav Delacour who found and relayed its macabre nature to the wizarding world. Delacour had come across the room containing the Veil during an excavation of Maurealis Castle in 1751. The room, located in a seeming underground labyrinth, was described in relation to a Muggle amphitheatre. At its center, upon a gothic dais, stood a cryptic stone archway covered by a gossamer veil, black as pitch. As Delacour approached the Veil, he claimed to hear the faint whispers of relatives long dead. When his colleagues were asked to describe the properties of the Veil, most agreed that it seemed to harbor the presence of spirits from the Netherworld, although some claimed that the reports were ravings of madmen.

Upon a second excavation of Maurealis castle, Delacour sought the counsel of Artemesia Lufkin (Minister of Magic, 1754-1825), who at the time was said to be the most knowledgeable witch of the time. Delacour led Lufkin to the Veil, eager to learn of its mystery. Lufkin then recounted the tale of the Gateway of Death as she had heard it in her youth at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The tale told of Gorganak, a powerful Dark Lord from the Middle Ages who had opened a passage between Life and Death. He had declared that the passage would be both beautiful and terrible, and that those who crossed the archway would fall painlessly and gracefully into Death, never to return. To be sure that no other could be mistaken as the Gateway of Death, Gorganak placed an enchantment on the passage so that any light brought before it would extinguish at contact.

In an attempt to test the validity of Gorganak's claim, Lufkin conjured a simple light spell directed toward the Veil. Though the ray of light vanished instantly, suspicions of the Veil's validity could not be eased until Life itself was placed before it. Lufkin and Delacour later agreed that assumption would be necessary until "proper experiments" were carried out. Such experiments were performed in 1755 following Lufkin's appointment as Minister of Magic, with Delacour as the prime recorder of the findings. It seemed that the numerous owls received by the Ministry from Delacour exposed the nature of the Veil early on; he would often refer to the room containing it as "La Chambre de la Mort-" a Death Chamber. Once the Ministry completed the "experiments" in 1756, the Death Chamber, as it was now called, became the primary punishment chamber for high crimes such as murder and use of the Unforgivable Curses. Minister Lufkin would adopt the Veil's uses for execution in 1760, the same year that the decision to outlaw the Unforgivable Curses went into effect. When questioned as to her opinion of the Veil, Minister Lufkin stated that it is "an effective and civilized tool for executing justice in the wizarding world." The Veil was used until 1939, when it was decided that punishment by means of the passage though the Veil was something of the "old world," and was replaced by either a life sentence at Azkaban, or the Dementor's Kiss, a foul experience in which one's soul is completely devoured, leaving only the victim's bodily shell. This punishment has been said to be "worse than death."

The Death Chamber is located in the Department of Mysteries, which has since the late 1790s been the common name for the underground labyrinth of Maurealis Castle. Seldom have any wizards or witches entered the Department of Mysteries, yet those who have say that it is "a place of wonders and conundrums, in which the senses come alive and the mind is picked numb." The remainder of the castle has been thoroughly renovated and remodeled as the Ministry of Magic Headquarters located in London, England.