The wizarding world as a whole disliked killing people. This was originally because they could feel the magic disappearing as the person died, that horrible emptiness where there used to be something so bright. Better lifelong torment, such as in Azkaban, than having an executioner deal with having caused that.Of course, as fewer and fewer sensors were born, they forgot exactly why they had an aversion to death, they just kept up with an irrational fear of killing. Not that there's anything wrong with that...except when you outnumber the bad guys three to one but still can't catch them because when you went through Auror training the most lethal spell you were taught was one that caused seizures. (Then they would stop running and drop their wand!)

But back to the not-killing.

Since they refused to kill, the wizards needed a way to get rid of their worst criminals: the rapists (which they took more seriously than muggles, because if the victim had a breakdown because of it, well, just ask Dumbledore about his sister) the murderers, and the child abusers. Just putting them someplace was out, since they needed the space and didn't really have many people willing to do guard duty. (I joined to catch Dark Lords, not watch some ninny count ceiling tiles 8 hours a day!)

In the end, they came up with the veil of death. A person would go in, and come out at some time (they weren't exactly sure when, but it couldn't be before the veil was built) and they would be...different. Small, ugly, and with the insatiable need to serve, to right their wrongs. They wouldn't remember who they were, or what they did, but they would feel the need to make up for it. Community Service to the extreme.

Thus, one hundred wizards and witches were thrust through the arch, and shortly after the first house elf was bonded to the Malfoy line, who claimed that they were due, as they were rather pretty but weak, making good targets for miscreants of all types, proved by the fact that they were down to seven, three of which had been raped or molested at least once in their lives. Most families treated their elves badly, remembering their origins, but did not inform the creatures why they did so. Some, of course, treated them worse than others, and the arch would scan the criminals at their entry and send them to an appropriate group. The slightly mad witch who murdered her husband because he wouldn't stop snoring was sent to the Longbottom's, while the wizard who like to slit babies throats and leave them in their bassinets for their mothers to find, he went to the Potter's who treated their elves even worse than the Malfoy's.

These facts were related to Hermione Granger by a sneering twenty-four year old Draco Malfoy when she worked up the courage to ask him to join SPEW.

One night in the Department of Mysteries, an innocent man was pushed through the veil. Normally, such a situation would have the person coming out the other side unharmed, but just as Sirius Black hit the curtain, a combination of a high powered stunner, malnourishment, stress, and shock at the situation culminated in giving him a heart attack.

The veil could let him fall through, but he would die, he was in no condition to last the twenty or so minutes it would take the children to get him help. Or it could condemn him to a life as a servant. Seeing as it had been created specifically in order to avoid killing people...

It sent him to the Malfoy's because it had heard that being near family was good for people.

One day, the slightly mad elf (due to the guilt spell not having enough darkness in the soul to anchor to) overheard his master plotting something and hoping that Harry Potter would get caught up in it. The poor elf was terrified.

Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts! Unfortunately, his logic skills were no better as a house elf than a human. Really? A mad bludger?