The regular office of the Department of Mysteries is behind a separate black door.
Besides that, in the Time Room, the compartment where the Death Eater held Madam Selwyn hostage last time is also a separate office.
Now, this office has been assigned to Sherlock.
Madam Selwyn was right; the staff of the Department of Mysteries is scarce, and they don't have much interaction with other departments. Even the Minister for Magic usually has no dealings with it. It is the department with the lowest presence and the most mysterious one in the entire Ministry of Magic.
Just in terms of the office, Sherlock's single office is very large, with various areas partitioned inside. Coupled with the Ministry of Magic providing three meals a day, there is absolutely no problem living in this place permanently.
After simply tidying up his things, Sherlock checked the clocks and watches displayed in the Time Room outside the office.
The entire Department of Mysteries is very large, and there are many places that even internal staff cannot enter.
Madam Selwyn did not specifically remind him which rooms he could not enter, only saying that the doors to confidential rooms were sealed by special magic, and any room that could not be opened at will should not be entered.
And right here in this Time Room, there are many doors leading to other rooms.
Sherlock stared at the most prominent hummingbird ornament for a long time.
That hummingbird hatched from an egg into a bird, and then regressed from a bird back into an egg, as if it were a biological hourglass, yet it concretely represented the two directions of time: forward and backward.
The advancement of time is easy to understand; every minute and every second that passes now represents the consumption and advancement of time, but regression does not belong to natural phenomena.
In a corner of the Time Room, many golden pocket watches were sealed in a glass cabinet.
These are the highest level of time research in the Wizarding World today — Time-Turners.
The existing Time-Turners are actually alchemical items passed down from ancient times. Their manufacturing methods have long been lost, and some important components no longer have the necessary materials.
Fortunately, these Time-Turners are not consumables; they can be reused.
But although the Time-Turner's effect seems incredible, its actual function is quite mediocre.
The time that can be regressed can only reach a maximum of five hours. Turning the pointer on it one circle backwards can regress one hour of time, and no matter who it is, they can only turn it back a maximum of five circles.
Moreover, there have been Wizards who conducted multiple experiments in the past.
Even if one can regress five hours, the history that has already occurred during those five hours will not change due to the appearance of a time traveller.
However, this theory was later challenged by a scholar studying time in the Department of Mysteries.
The conclusion that history cannot be changed was reached by those who returned to the past and did not change history. But those time travellers who truly changed history — would they still appear in this original, correct timeline?
Or, if they successfully changed history, in what form would the changed history be transmitted to the time point before the time travel? Is it a subtle change in the cognition of everyone who knows the history?
Or did it cause a chain reaction, creating another world with completely different results?
If another world appeared, could the saved people and things still be considered the same people and things as before?
Regardless of which of these two situations it was, if it happened and history had indeed changed, then who would know?
Therefore, although "history cannot be changed" remains the main theme among Wizards in the field of time research, there are also many other different voices.
Sherlock had no thoughts of delving too deeply into going back to the past. The Time-Turner created by the Goblin that brought him back to this time is far more ingenious than these in the Time Room.
To this day, Sherlock still has to set aside time every day to use the Advanced Unlocking Charm on it to suppress its self-repair.
In addition to these in the Time Room, there are other interesting things with unknown functions.
On the cabinet to the left of where the Time-Turners are placed, there are all kinds of hourglasses. Sand is constantly flowing from the top to the bottom of those hourglasses, but there is no sign of the sand decreasing above or increasing below.
It seems as if this sand is like passing time, which will never be used up and will never be filled.
In the very centre of these hourglasses, there is a huge hourglass with the most primitive design.
Besides being large, the "sand" inside this hourglass is also different from the others.
The top half is flowing down with some silver-white particles, and after passing through the narrow opening in the middle, the silver particles turn into gold. Gorgeous light filaments transform inside the glass hourglass, making people stare at it in a daze.
The time studied in the Time Room is time that has already passed. What Sherlock needs is to correct the timeline, and he did not find anything of value here.
Although he couldn't figure out the function of most of the things there either.
After walking around the Time Room, Sherlock began to try to open the doors in the room leading to other rooms.
There are a total of six doors here. Excluding the black door for entry and exit and the door to the office compartment, there are four doors leading to unknown rooms.
Sherlock tried to push one of them, but it didn't move. He then tried the other three doors.
In the end, two doors could be opened.
One of them appeared to be a storage room, filled with various dilapidated hourglasses and clocks. These things seemed to have lost their magic and were all thrown into this room.
Behind another door that could be opened was a room with a style completely different from the Time Room.
The room was huge and cold, as high as a church, filled with towering shelves, on which were placed dusty little glass orbs.
Small yellow labels were pasted on the shelves under each glass orb. Some small orbs emitted mysterious flowing light, while others were blurry and dark, like extinguished light bulbs. More candlesticks were embedded in the shelves at intervals, and the flames were blue, just like the black hall.
Sherlock shuttled between the shelves, looking at the text on the labels under the glass orbs.
[1432, Edward Charles]
[1, Feliches]
[1123, Unknown]
[Unknown, Unknown]
Some small glass orbs faintly emitted a halo from the inside, while others were cold and dim.
Staring at those glass orbs for a while, Sherlock knew what this room was.
The Hall of Prophecy.
These glass orbs placed on the shelves stored all the prophecies collected by the Ministry of Magic from ancient times to the present.
Some glass orbs had lost their effect, but most could still clearly display the content of the prophecies inside.
It was reasonable that the Hall of Prophecy belonged to a part of the Time Room.
The main hall outside represented the time that had already passed, while this Hall of Prophecy represented the future seen by Wizards.
Compared to the outside, Sherlock had higher expectations for the things and information in this Hall of Prophecy.
He walked around here for a whole day and finally left the Ministry of Magic near dark.
Before he determined his main direction, Madam Selwyn had not arranged any work for him, so Sherlock's first day in the Ministry of Magic was very leisurely.
However, such leisurely time could not last long. At most three days, even if he hadn't made a choice, Madam Selwyn would have to arrange work for him.
After all, he was receiving a salary from the Ministry of Magic, so he couldn't just freeload inside.
At dinner, Eddie also came to the Leaky Cauldron. His face was a bit solemn. While eating in Sherlock's room, he said,
"The people behind Algy have started to exert their influence. Someone from the Ministry of Magic found me today, trying to probe my stance and bribe me not to reveal evidence unfavourable to Algy in the upcoming trial."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows.
"Why didn't they come to me? I am the most crucial witness, right? After all, even the person was caught by me."
"They must know that neither you nor Madam Selwyn, as two crucial witnesses, can be bribed, so they didn't waste the effort."
Sherlock showed a look of pity; he was actually looking forward to someone bringing money to bribe him.
Eddie poured a glass of fruit juice for Amy.
"These people are very cautious. They don't expect to completely exonerate Algy, just to reduce his punishment and shorten his sentence to within three years."
"If he is really only locked up for three years, then the Ministry of Magic is completely hopeless."
"Sigh." Eddie sighed and said no more.
Sherlock only had this to say about it.
Even if Algy was finally acquitted, he wouldn't feel anything.
These were all internal affairs of the Ministry of Magic. Eddie told him this because he thought he was really going to stay in the Ministry of Magic and develop in the future.
But Sherlock himself knew best that his purpose for entering the Ministry of Magic had nothing to do with these power struggles.
"I will take Amy with me tomorrow. If you want to visit her, you can come directly to the ninth floor. My office is in the Time Room now."
Amy, who was cutting sausage with a knife and fork, looked up at Sherlock.
"Are there any interesting things in there?"
Sherlock patted her head and picked up the paper aeroplane she had folded a few days ago from the table.
"There are many, many paper aeroplanes like this there, and they can all fly in mid-air as you imagined."
Amy's eyes suddenly became brighter. She dangled her little legs, looking very expectant.
...
Carlisle, the northernmost city in England.
In the suburbs, in a manor living room located in the wilderness that no one could see, a young man was crawling on the ground.
It seemed that this place could not be illuminated by any light. The dim light made people feel no warmth at all, only endless coldness spreading throughout the space.
Countless Black-Robed Persons wearing hideous iron masks stood around.
There were also those without masks: Bellatrix Lestrange, Igor Karkaroff, Dolph Rowle, Rabastan Lestrange...
These villains who had appeared countless times in The Daily Prophet and had huge bounties on the Ministry of Magic's wanted list were respectfully lowering their unruly heads, not daring to look even once at the man sitting on the single sofa.
The man in the black robe gently tapped the sofa armrest with his pale, slender fingers.
"Algy and the others were all caught?"
The man's voice was neither hoarse nor deep; it sounded gentle and delicate instead.
But everyone in this room did not take his gentleness seriously. Everyone suppressed their breathing, not daring to make any sound to disturb the man's words.
The young man who was kneeling on the ground, lying flat with his forehead humbly touching the man's toes, had a voice full of fanaticism and respect that he didn't usually have.
"Gagson and the other four were directly locked into Azkaban, and Algy will be tried tomorrow. The families behind him have already started operating within the Ministry of Magic, wanting to cut ties with us!"
"Their behaviour is betrayal!" Bella screamed sharply.
Among them, only she dared to interrupt directly.
"Being alive is more useful than being dead," the man said softly. "He did not expose our companions. This level of loyalty, I can accept. But incompetence is the greatest sin."
His tone was not cold, but these words made everyone present feel a chill!
At this moment, Algy's fate was already doomed, and no one could change it!
The young man who knelt on the ground, treating the man as his true father, said excitedly,
"Let me go! Master! Let me go and deal with that waste!"
The man gently stroked his hair and said gently,
"You are much more important than him, so you cannot take such a risk. You have other, more important tasks."
The young man trembled, kissing the man's shoes.
"As you command, my Master!"
"That room exists, and only the Head of the Department of Mysteries knows of its existence. But such key information is usually not placed in the open."
"I will make her drink Veritaserum! Make her say everything she knows!" the young man promised.
The man smiled and shook his head.
"No, no, no. The human brain is the most obvious place. She wouldn't be so stupid as to put those things in her brain."
The young man looked up blankly; he didn't understand the man's words.
The man gently stroked the shaft of his wand, clearly smiling on his face, but his eyes were full of indifference and malice.
"Go find the memory she hid. The brain is an unsafe place. Only by extracting the memory from it can it be hidden in a more secret place!"
"Go find it, find that memory, and open that room! Bring me the thing inside!"
Countless masked and unmasked Wizards around them were all prostrate on the ground.
They swore loudly and fanatically,
"Willing to offer everything to you! Great Dark Lord!"