Department of Mysteries

The Department of Mysteries is a section of the Ministry of Magic that carries out confidential research. Most of its operations are carried out in secrecy. Few wizards within the Ministry know exactly what takes place in its depths...

Various forces are studied by the department: love, space, thought, time, death, and others.

The current Head of Department is Yavin Morgenthau. Unspeakables may find his office by touching their badges and mentally asking for it: a door will appear wherever they are. It is also accessible via the Brain Room.

This article was originally edited from the Department of Mysteries article.

Location

The entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

The Department of Mysteries lies deep in the lowest level of the Ministry of Magic Headquarters, on the ninth level. It is accessible via the lifts from the Ministry Atrium.

From the lift, a plain corridor leads to a black door, behind which is the Entrance Chamber, which is designed to disorient any unauthorized personnel who enter it. It is a circular room with a highly polished floor that looks almost like standing water and twelve handleless doors. Whenever a door closes, the walls rotate, making it impossible to determine which door is which. This chamber will respond to a verbal request for an exit by the opening of the correct door.

It can be difficult to get around on level nine, as its corridors and stairwells shift on a day-to-day basis. For example, certain steps might be false on Tuesdays while certain doors are only visible at the weekend. This is a security measure against intruders. It also makes it difficult for creatures or prisoners to escape.

Unspeakables

Those wizards who work in the Department of Mysteries are known as Unspeakables. They function under an oath not to reveal department goings-on to anybody outside of level nine. Under certain circumstances, if employees from other levels are initiated into particular experiments, an Unspeakable may discuss the subject in question.

Many Unspeakables have a set of enchanted spectacles that allows them to read documents that would otherwise look like gibberish. The spectacles are double-proofed: they reveal a cypher that only an Unspeakable is trained to decode.

Oath of Secrecy

All Unspeakables take an oath of secrecy. The extent to which they can share certain information with outsiders is altered by the current Department Head on a case-by-case basis.

Should an Unspeakable break their oath, it will be immediately known to the Department Head, Deputy, and various senior Unspeakables.

Breaking the oath will also cause a person to lose their tongue, eyes and ears (which will then become property of the Department). Further action may be taken by the Department to erase their memories and prevent them from becoming a security risk.

Unspeakables-in-Training

Unspeakables initially train for a year. Trainees are given daily tasks in different divisions or with different projects so that they are able to acquire a sense of future inclinations. At the end of the first year they are asked to specialise (although they may always choose to change specialities at any point).

Some rooms or chambers will require further training. For example: trainees who select the Space Chamber may wish to study muggle astrophysics part-time, while those who select the Brain Room will be asked to learn Occlumency. Either way, their trainee title is dropped after the first year.

Papersleeves

Papersleeve is the job title of wixes who do most of the grunt and paperwork on Mysteries, but who are themselves not Unspeakables. However, like Unspeakables, Papersleeves are subject to the oath of secrecy.

Divisions

The Department works to uncover the secrets of death, time, space, thought, and love, among other things, and records prophecies whenever they are made. It includes the following chambers, though there are others:

Morgenthau's Office

Yavin Morgenthau's office was a large room that stood in contrast to the rest of level nine, with its white marbled floors and rattan furniture. Towering bookshelves dominated one wall and, across from it, a pristine sink next to a laboratory work table peopled by parchment and crystal jars containing brains. A scalpel gleamed in the golden light, which emanated from nowhere in particular.

Three of four skeletons were sat on several stools here and there, in various poses of relaxation. They wore hats or cravats or featured smoking pips between their grinning teeth.

The entrance was a set of black double doors, on the opposite far end from Yavin's desk. This was where the man himself sat now...with fingers steepled over the african blackwood. Behind him, three separate Victorian windows overlooked surreal sights: a lighthouse on the very edge of a dark cliff thrust into evening fog, the vista of a stark rust coloured desert, a narrow alleyway lit under starlight.

The brains in the Brain Room.

Brain Room

(see also Memory Repository)

Also known as the Thought Chamber, this room is long and rectangular, lit by low-hanging lamps. It contains tanks of encephala, or brains, that swim in a green solution. These particular brains are highly aggressive and will attack and constrict anything that tries to touch them or pick them up. The tendrils that the brains possess are physical manifestations of thoughts.

The concept of thought and all related subjects are studied in this chamber. Unspeakables who work here will benefit from having acquired Legilimency and Occlumency.

Unspeakable Ophelia Hassan works in this chamber.

Passing through this room will eventually lead you, by a side door, to the office of its current Department Head.

Death Chamber

The Veil in the Death Chamber.

This large, square room somewhat resembles Courtroom Ten of the Wizengamot. It is dimly lit, with stone tiers leading down to a pit in the center. In this pit is a dais, upon which stands a very old stone archway with a tattered black curtain hanging from it. This arch separates the worlds of the living and the dead.

The chamber is dedicated to the study of Death. Unspeakable Daphne Tan works here.

Hall of Prophecy

The Hall can be accessed through the Time Chamber. As of August 2012 a separate entrance has been installed for visitors in order to avoid disrupting Unspeakables working in the Time Chamber. The new entrance can be accessed directly through a passage from the entrance chamber; it is a dark, crystal door.

Records of Prophecies are stored in a long, cold chamber with high ceilings and towering shelves lit by blue-flame candles. The high ceilings are home to glowing sea creatures, the deeper you traverse into the hall.

Prophecies are contained in glass orbs whilst visions are contained in glass marbles. The only people who can pick up these orbs/marbles are:

• Unspeakables assigned to the hall
• Seers of a respective prophecy/vision
• The subject(s) of a prophecy/vision.

Anyone else who attempts to inspect these will be afflicted with instant madness.

In addition to storing records, this room is also dedicated to the study of prophecies and Divination.

The entrance to the Vision Chamber can be found Within the Hall of Prophecy. Here, prophecies and visions can be observed by individuals who do not have the Sight (non-Seers).

Carmen de Rothschild is the Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy; Elijah Grimlish is her Apprentice.

Love Chamber a.k.a. Ever-Locked Room

This room is dedicated to the study of Love. The Love chamber is located behind a door that remains locked at all times and which cannot be unlocked by an unlocking charm or tool. Here lies the most mysterious subject of study, and the most powerful force ever to exist in the universe — which is known as "Love". It may also be used in attempts to understand and duplicate the magical protection self-sacrificing love creates (the only magic strong enough to repel the Killing Curse).

A square room of entirely white, glossy marble. At its centre there is a great fountain that contains large deposits of Amortentia. Tall shelves line one of the walls - containing various other potions and antidotes. Workshop tables line the opposing wall. The door may be opened with a key and a particular enchantment known only to certain Unspeakables.

Unspeakable Pentameter Puddifoot works in this room.

Space Chamber

This is a dark room full of planets floating in mid-air. Visitors may find themselves floating as well, as it is a scaled projection of outer space. Gravity has no effect here. Only a handful of Unspeakables may enter at any given time.

This room is dedicated to the study of space. Unspeakables who work here are knowledgable in Alchemy, Astronomy, and the muggle subjects of Astrophysics, among other things. Unspeakables Kaia Arahanga, Sasha Snow and Carmichael Rosier work in this chamber.

Time Room

(see also Time Chamber)

This long, rectangular room is filled with a beautiful, dancing light that sparkles like gems. All kinds of time-related devices completely fill the chamber, such as clocks of every description, and Time-Turners. It also contains a large crystal bell jar at its far end, from which the sparking light comes. Inside it, anything will grow increasingly younger, to its pre-life state, be re-born to grow older, and cycle through endlessly. The Time-Turner Workshop is located here, where you will also find Unspeakable Francis Pepper and Unspeakable Trainee Theta Pepper.

At the end of the room there is a door that leads into the Hall of Prophecies. There are also small offices just off the main chamber.

Labyrinth

A vast labyrinth that contains many rooms. Much like the rest of the Department of Mysteries, it is all black tiles and blue fire torches. The labyrinth has many purposes and is often used by the Committee on Experimental Charms. Only Unspeakables know their way around this labyrinth - and even then, some may get lost for hours or days at a time.

Here, you may find the Spell Experimentation & Research Office and the Potion & Herbological Research Office, where Unspeakable Hyperion Gamp works.

During the Mischief Unmanaged plot, the young victims were held in two rooms of the labyrinth by former Department Head Mortimer Gamp. There is presently a Dementor being held one of the larger rooms of the Labyrinth.

Department Head Yavin Morgenthau uses magical shortcuts in the Labyrinth to discreetly reach other places such as the Minister of Magic's office or even the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Rooms in the Labyrinth are also used as prison cells for persons interrogated. Presently, Nicholas Atkinson is imprisoned here.