Re: Padma and Harry
Padma couldn't help rolling her eyes in mild exasperation as he finished. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of. One more crazy thing. Magical society has been studying that gateway for centuries and the sum total of actual knowledge we have about it fits on four feet of parchment. The guesses with no evidence to prove or disprove them take up a dozen filing cabinets in the department records. I hope, in another twenty-four years, I'd have known enough to be reasonably well assured we weren't irreparably tearing the boundaries of magic apart in messing with it. But, it is one very large variable in this equation if we were that desperate."
Still, she nodded. "House elf magic might be enough to do it. It's as good a place to start as any. It would also have a subtle influence on the energies around it, not enough to interfere with casting, but enough to be detectable by a highly enough powered diagnostic spell. That was the more practical reason for it being so isolated from the rest of the Ministry building, I suspect. As for people recognizing it, they would still see the actual veil. So, it wouldn't look like just any arch. They just wouldn't be able to hear the whispers from the other side if they haven't been faced with the realities of mortality."
A lot of what he'd said she'd already thought of, but he didn't arrive at the point she had at whatever early morning hour she'd been up until sorting out ideas in her head. "There is one rather obvious location we could have put it, though, one I think we need to either confirm or rule out sooner rather than later. If we found a way to reverse it's power, pull people through to this side, it would make sense that those people would come through near it's location." She paused to see if he was following her line of thinking, then explained anyway. "If we didn't use the veil, then looking for the house elves that might have moved it might help us find the vault. And, honestly, I hope that's what happened. But, given what we know right now, I think we need to consider that if we did something to bring us all back and were desperate enough to try to use the veil, that the reason we've all come back to Hogwarts is because this is where the veil is. "