Secret passageways and hidden rooms are generally considered features of haunted houses or grand mansions, but in 16th Century England, these mysterious rooms and passageways became commonplace thanks to the Protestant Reformation. Any witch or wizard versed in history should know that the Ministry of Magic was built on top of the Department of Mysteries, which dates back to at least 1672. So why wouldn’t this building also have a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at a moment’s notice?

This particular entrance was an unlit circular staircase that went down and down, stopping at a small corridor that diverged out. Soft chirping noises, guano on the floor, and the smells might remind a few employees of the year the Ministry had reverted to using owls instead of interdepartmental memos. One path to the left was flat for a meter or two and then started an upward climb. A path to the right curved and disappeared into darkness so black one might believe Lumos would not pierce it. The path most directly ahead? Well, it was marked with dark splotches as if something bloody had been carried or dragged through there.

To anyone brave enough to follow the gruesome path, at the end they would find a room that once was meant to function as a safe room, but now looked more like the lair of an animal. Bluebell flames trapped under a bell jar on a ledge high on the wall cast eerie shadows on the bed in the corner that looked more like a nest. The wooden table and chair in the middle of the room were littered with remnants of fur and feathers. Piles of bones lay in the corners, and from the looks of them, the bones had been there for a year or two.