7 September 1895 - Salem Square, nighttime

He always hated assignments like this – long stretches of nothing, punctuated by bursts of chaos. He’d spent enough years as an Auror to know that danger didn’t always rear its ugly head when it came,but rather sometimes it slunk in quietly. Like this mist had done. But knowing that didn’t make the waiting any less unbearable.

The mist hadn’t shifted in hours, only rolling in slow, deliberate coils in Salem’s Square. Anyone who had been there was dead, unless of course the mist sent them somewhere. Harry didn't need any official reports to tell him that much. He stood with his arms folded, back against a wooden post as he just stared at it. His jaw ached from being clenched too long.

Movement then, caught his eye. Someone was striding straight toward the barrier. “Don’t touch it.” He called out, although if they did, it would make his night a hell of a lot more interesting.

With a short huff, Harry stooped, dug up a fist-sized stone from the dirt, and lobbed it into the grey. It vanished without a sound. No clatter, no ding, no sign it had ever been there. His jaw worked, unimpressed. Then he brushed the dirt from his hands.

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This whole thing was a little more tense than Mateo would have liked. The lack of information on the mist itself seemed to keep everyone on edge. Would it expand, what had actually happened to those that had vanished within it? The magic behind all of it was utterly fascinating, if a bit terrifying. Mateo was not always great with things like this; he had always dealt with people. People were predictable, he could pay close enough attention and normally figure them out. This felt like a giant wait-and-see moment and he didn't like it.

Still, they were charged with patrolling the edges, keeping people away and therefore an eye on the mist itself and Mateo would take that seriously. He was still curious though, just what was happening to the people and things that went into the veil. He reached out, just a fingertip, a momentary lack of impulse control when a voice rang out in the dim light.

"Wasn't planning on it." He totally had been, but that was beside the point.

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“Yeah, but your face says otherwise,” Harry said, although he couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at the corner of his lips. Even though he hated this assignment, at least the company could be worse. Mateo wasn’t completely useless when it came to his job. “I’m not dragging your half-dissolved body out of there if you touch that thing, just so we’re clear.”

He took another step forward toward the mist, although he didn’t dare move closer. Gaze flickered between Mateo’s hand and the rolling edge of the mist, which looked almost hypnotic as it moved. Harry wasn’t about to admit it held any power over him. “We don’t know anything about it. What if whenever it consumes something it becomes more powerful?”

He frowned then, as if realizing how ridiculous that sounded, and muttered, “Hell, for all we know it eats magic.” That would be terrible, but at least it started in Irvingly where there were muggles and magical folks, so it wasn’t like magic was everywhere. Harry glanced at him. “So maybe don’t feed it your fingers?”

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