The note

The language of Endermen. A strange, constantly changing set of words and letters that sounded like a vinyl record being played backwards to the human ear. Complex sentence systems, where even one extra letter could change the whole meaning of the message. Verbs that read like nouns and nouns that meant nothing. There was a feeling that this language was specially made to be as confusing as possible.

It was impossible to be sure why it was made that way, because its creators had long been lost to the oblivion of time.

This did not stop Danil from cursing these bastards and their mothers.

"This shit is useless!" He yelled in frustration, holding himself back from making harsh decisions. "What does that even mean?! How am I supposed to choose something meaningful from this pile of meaningless verbal diarrhea?!"

Today was one of those days when Danil decided to start deciphering Arwen's message again. As everyone could hear-

"Suka, blyat'!"

He didn't succeed.

A scroll full of various interpretations of Arwen's will lay on the table in front of Danil. He had spent the last few hours writing down hundreds of different variations of the same sentence. His brain suggested a new version each time he looked at the piece of paper.

After the fiftieth line, he stopped perceiving space and time, his hands just continued to move automatically. For a moment, he ceased to be a man, he was only a machine.

"Forty-one lines. Only forty-one original lines, everything else is just a repetition of what I have already written." He muttered as he ran his claw over the parchment and cut off unnecessary parts, choosing only the original sentences.

[The path to hell is paved with good intentions] was written at the very top of the sheet. It was the very first inscription that Danil could see in Arwen's note. Every time his eyes found these words, this particular translation appeared in his mind.

The words themselves were written in such a way that they could only be translated in a certain order, line by line. Danil was sure of it, because the alternative was that he had lost his mind.

"Did that madman leave me instructions on how to get to his Nether portal?" Danil chuckled in shock. "Oh, if I could just figure out what that bastard was hiding here!"

The boy's monster fist landed hard on the table, blasting a hole in it with one clean blow. His heavy breathing rippled through the room, echoing loudly against the walls.

His gaze jumped from word to word, trying to catch some secret message among the scattered letters. His irritation slowly crept into his mind, causing him to skip more things and make more mistakes, closing him in an endless loop.

Taking a deep breath, Danil forcibly forced himself to look at the wall, doing everything in his power not to think about this damned message.

Tapping on the table with his claws, he just sat there for a few minutes, remembering the sounds of static he'd heard on the old TV. The gray noise had always had a strange calming effect on his emotions.

Raising his hands, Danil released a pair of purple sparks, infusing them with his magic and controlling their movement in the air. This distracted him even more from the riddle that had been pulling on his nerves of late.

The spark eventually landed on the parchment, soaking into the sheet and lifting it into the air, right in front of his eyes. Looking at the lines of words, Danil looked at the first letters in each sentence.

"No. No, it can't be that simple. I refuse to believe it."

The quill, which was also on the table, also rose into the air, scratching every first letter on the empty space of the parchment. And the further he went, the clearer the message became.

Quill and parchment began to fall to the ground, but Danil intercepted them out of thin air, staring at the message Arwen had hidden in his will.

[The veil is an unlit portal do with it what you must]

Daniel's eye began to twitch. His fist tightened around the parchment, claws tearing new paths through the paper.

"... What the fuck is the veil?"

Removing his claws from the holes he had made in the parchment, Danil slowly laid it on the table, freeing his hands. Rage and irritation bubbled through his body, mixing into a dangerous cocktail of negative emotions that began to resonate with his magic.

Bright, aggressive purple sparks bounced off his body, scorching any surface they landed on. If Danil could see himself in the mirror, he would have noticed that his eyes began to glow through the goggles, making a miniature beacon out of his head.

Jerking up from his chair, he walked towards the exit of the room. Sir Graham only silently opened the way for him, knowing that he was in no mood to say anything other than curses.

Stepping over the threshold, Danil reached the entrance to Luna's room with three long strides, barking "Moon frogs live on the moon," towards Lady Elizabeth. Something squeaked behind him and he immediately stopped, turning back. The corridor was empty. Not a single person or animal was visible.

Casting off these strange sounds as his imagination, Danil entered Luna's apartment, having already calmed down a little.

He needed some of her usual madness. Maybe then he could gain enlightenment and understand what was actually going on in Arwen's head when that old bastard wrote his will.

The door closed behind the monster boy, leaving the lifeless castle empty.

But not for long.

The space in the small alcove a little further down the corridor turned and folded in on itself as Harry Potter almost dropped his Invisibility Cloak. His eyes were wide with nervousness and his hands were shaking with fear. Cold sweat broke out on his back, causing his shirt to stick to his body.

"Merlin, he can talk…" The boy muttered, quickly walking as far away from the fourth floor as possible.

This meeting was a shock to his system. Now he understood perfectly why Hermione was so afraid of this monster. Seeing him with his own eyes, he couldn't deny that he was scared.

'He's dangerous,' flashed through his thoughts, 'I could feel his magic even from here. Why are the professors hiding his existence?' Harry knew there was no point in asking them anything. He didn't expect to get a straight answer from them.

'... Perhaps we can find out something if we search his room.' He grasped at straws in search of information. 'This is a bad and risky idea, but we have no other options.'

His footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, hitting his eardrums, mixing with his heartbeat. Strengthening his resolve, Harry decided to talk about it with his friends.

'Maybe it's time to talk to Bella before I start doing something crazy.'

Somehow, he felt that this was the first sensible thought he had had in his head in months.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Luna's apartment was as unusual as the girl herself. Despite the fact that she had only spent a few weeks in her new room, the creatures that Danil had seen in her house were already painted on the walls. Bright furniture - most likely enchanted by magic - was placed in random places.

The windows in the main room were covered with yellow curtains that were the same color as the carpet on the floor.

Two teenagers sat opposite each other in huge plush chairs. Well, for the girl they were huge, her legs hung a good meter from the ground when she was sitting down, but for Dan this chair was quite comfortable.

"Oh, he's talking about Veil in the Department of Mysteries." Luna said as Danil finished his explanation.

The boy stared at the silver-haired girl without moving a muscle. The bottle of mead in his hands cracked from the force with which he squeezed it. He was very lucky that this particular drink did not burn his skin.

"What."

Luna nodded, picking Billy up from the floor and stroking his head.

"Mhm, daddy told me that they have a physical veil between the world of the dead. A one-way path for any creature."

The way the girl described the arch sounded very similar to the portal in Nether. It was easy to see the connection between the two, especially considering that Arwen said it wasn't lit yet. It was quite possible that the magic of this world had mixed with the magic of Minecraft, creating unexpected consequences.

"...Oh." Danil let out a sigh. "Then I just need to sneak into the Department of Mysteries unnoticed. No big deal."

"Daddy also said that they have an aquarium with tentacle brains that suck all the intelligence out of their victims." Luna added.

"Now you're just fucking with me."

"Not yet."

"What?"

"What?"