the Gambler

The pink toad//was creeping under Harry's skin, and he could barely resist the urge to hex her, thankfully the week-long confinement was finally over.Harry was excited for his upcoming Quidditch practice.Flying on a broom and feeling the thrill of the wind blowing against your face will always be Harry's favorite thing.His euphoria hit rock bottom after Angelina announced that Umbridge had ordered the cancellation of training.That bastard thinks it's a dangerous and inappropriate sport! 'Because it's the year of the OWLs. ' Hermione's interjection caused the witch to receive a sharp stare from the other three.However, that's not the worst.What angered Harry the most was that Umbridge only banned Gryffindor's Quidditch practice.

"She's avenging herself." Ron said angrily. He had prepared for training for a while, and now he felt confident that he would be able to handle the selection of the goalkeeper.

"She's not far from fully taking over Hogwarts." Tom suddenly interrupted their complaints, and from time to time there was the sound of particularly sharp breathing, and everyone looked at the speaker with disbelief.

"Don't you think you're overthinking it? I mean it's just banning Quidditch training," said Hermione. "Not to mention Headmaster Dumbledore is still here!"

The others angrily scolded Hermione for making it a trivial matter to ban Quidditch, for Merlin's sake!

"If you were as smart as you acted, you would have noticed that the headmaster was showing up less and less." Tom said dryly, he didn't like being questioned, especially by a self-righteous Mudblood.

"That doesn't mean anything, the principal has been very busy, maybe he has something to do?" Hermione retorted, Tom's conclusion was too scary.Others nodded one after another.

"You can ask Padfoot, he will know better." Tom suggested.

Harry suddenly realized that he hadn't written to Sirius for nearly a month, and guilt instantly filled his chest. He looked around uneasily, and after making sure that no one was paying attention to him, he took out a roll of parchment from his bag , wrote a lot in eloquence, and finally added that I hope to meet him at the Screaming Shack.Of course, he used the name Padfoot, and now all the letters are being monitored by Umbridge. Sirius has not been cleared of his crimes, and it would be bad to be caught.

Harry turned to look at Tom, who felt his gaze look up as well.

"Tomorrow is Hogsmeade weekend, do you want to go out with me?"

"Are you asking me out, darling?" Tom smiled charmingly, and Harry felt embarrassed for a moment when he realized that his invitation sounded like something else.

"Don't think too highly of yourself." Harry snorted coldly.

All had gone well that day to Hogsmeade, except that Sirius hadn't shown up, and the latter had sent a letter when they got back saying they wanted to talk face to face, which Harry knew meant to keep him waiting by the fire that night. .The fireplace in the suite was spelled by Dumbledore himself, but it cannot be connected to the Floo network.He seemed to assume that Umbridge would cross the line and made a point of keeping Harry and Tom's privacy private.Harry didn't know how the Headmaster had explained it to Umbridge, and hadn't brought up the matter after the woman's first request to enter the suite was denied.

The most exciting thing for Harry now is that Umbridge was appointed as a senior investigator. The old hag is very proud now. She appears in almost every professor's class in the name of investigating the teacher's background and teaching quality. In addition, a lot of messy laws and regulations were promulgated, and Harry felt that the time to ban the entire Quidditch team was not far away.

Harry remembered what happened in the afternoon, it was really ridiculous, when Hermione brought up the Defense Against the Dark Arts extracurricular group, he thought it was just a joke, after all, it was Harry and Ron's job to break the rules against the wind, but the other party seemed particularly determined , Harry agreed with the attitude that no one would want to participate anyway.He must admit that he was very surprised that 25 students would rush into the dirty Hog's Head pub, including Ernie MacMillan, who had openly believed in Harry and fully supported Dumbledore since the beginning of the term. Pureblood Hufflepuff.His actions made Harry feel better, and he still had a good feeling for the big boy now.

Now they are all standing in the Room of Requirement. Harry has never faced so many people teaching spells, especially when Tom leans his chest against the wall and looks at him with that interested expression. He feels goosebumps all over his body. Pimples are up.Harry cleared his throat to get everyone's attention, which wasn't necessary because they never took their eyes off Harry from the start.

"Well, we started this group because we wanted to really learn useful defensive magic, and like I said, the Dark Lord has returned—" Ignoring their terrified expressions, Harry continued, "Now the Ministry of Magic Sending a professor who forbids us from learning Charms is the stupidest decision ever made, and she seems to think that Headmaster Dumbledore is going to use the students to form a secret army against the Ministry of Magic," Harry shot Hermione a look , "This is Hermione's guess. I think it is necessary to learn self-defense no matter what—"

"What evidence do you have that the Dark Lord is back? Everyone is told that Cedric is dead, that you dueled with You-Know-Who, and you ended up taking that man—" Zacharias raised his hand in Tom's direction. Chin, "Nobody really knows what's going on."

"I'm not trying to convince you," Harry said disapprovingly.

"Harry as long as he is able to guide you, if any of you can protect the Philosopher's Stone in the first year, and kill in the second year--" Ron's words were interrupted by Hermione's suddenly raised voice, and he realized that he As if he had slipped his tongue, he glanced at Tom uneasily. The latter was frowning and looking at himself. Ron coughed a few times and continued, "The third grade drives away hundreds of dementors, and the fourth grade becomes the Triwizard Tournament." The words of the champion."

Everyone exclaimed, and even Tom looked at Harry with a hint of admiration, not that Harry wanted to be praised by the other party, but he couldn't deny that he had such an inexplicable sense of pride.

"I heard that you can conjure a physical Patronus. My aunt told you about your trial." Susan said in that adoring tone. Harry scratched the hair on the back of his head and waved his wand. His beautiful silver hair A stag emerged from the tip of the stick, and ran merrily round the room.Harry watched in considerable horror as the stag stopped in front of Tom, scrutinizing him.Slytherin's expression was hard to read, and he didn't seem to understand what was going on.

"This is really amazing!" Luna said in that dreamy voice, her eyes still not so focused.

"Then let's start learning spells, starting with the most basic disarming spell?" Harry suggested.

Zacharias muttered in dissatisfaction, and his attitude attracted many people's approval. They all thought that there was no need to learn such a basic spell.Harry frowned. He carefully considered how to convince them that the disarming spell was far more effective than they imagined. Hermione also seemed very dissatisfied with the other party's attitude. Just as he was about to open his mouth, Tom's voice suddenly intervened.

"If you want to know whether it is necessary, you can use a duel to explain the problem. Of course, stop here."

Harry nodded, and he scanned the crowd in front of him, except for a few girls, everyone looked eager to try.

"Who's dueling whom?" Dean asked.

Tom continued to speak for Harry: "Naturally, people who are dissatisfied with Harry's leadership compete with Harry."

"I'm not planning on being a leader," Harry retorted, "it's just a course group—"

"Marvolo is quite right," Hermione interrupted Harry's explanation, "it's not just for the upcoming exams, you should note that many people have already passed OWLs, our longer-term goal is self-defense. Who agreed with Harry to be our leader?"

Almost everyone passed unanimously, Zacharias hesitated and said: "Shouldn't it be decided after he wins the duel?"

Tom stood up straight and slowly walked to Harry and stopped. He squinted his eyes and looked at the brown-haired wizard, Hufflepuff. Tom snorted mentally. He was no different from Harry in any way. Far.Tom turned to look at Harry with the corners of his mouth raised confidently.

"A five-minute duel, Harry Potter vs. Zacharias Smith, until it's over."

When Harry and Zacharias stood facing each other at opposite ends of the room, his aura suddenly became sharp.Acted nothing like a 15-year-old boy.Tom was on the verge of sighing contentedly at Harry like this.Obvious warrior.Perhaps the stories he had heard about Harry were true, and the other party was indeed a step above ordinary wizards.

Harry turned around and took three steps, turned his head the moment Hermione's voice fell, and a white light shot out from the tip of the boy's staff. At the same time, he sideways avoided the petrification curse cast by Zacharias, and then The latter easily cast the shield to eject Harry's spell.Harry quickly threw a powerful 'shattered bones' at the magic barrier again, which naturally broke through the weak protection. Zacharias dodged in embarrassment with a shocked expression. It seemed that he hadn't expected Harry and the two of them at all. A spell can break your own barrier.Harry didn't give the opponent a chance to breathe. He trotted towards the wizard who was constantly casting spells, and dexterously jumped to avoid the attack. Several times when Tom thought the boy couldn't dodge, Harry would twist his body into incredible arcs , In just 2 minutes, he was less than three meters away from Zacharias.

Zacharias opened his mouth in disbelief, like a dehydrated fish.Harry suddenly changed direction, he waved his wand confidently, the mirrors mounted on the wall flew in the air, and launched like rockets, Zacharias hurriedly used 'armor protection' for himself, and piles of glass hit the barrier The sky shattered, and huge dust filled the entire sky.Harry didn't stop. To Tom's surprise, the boy closed his eyes and cast an enhanced fluorescent flash. The dazzling light temporarily blinded everyone present.With the sound of 'disarm you', Tom blinked hard to clear the white light from his vision.Harry was standing among the shards, his face serious, clutching two wands, one of which clearly belonged to Zacharias.

Tom first woke up from the shock and led the applause, and cheers echoed throughout the Response Room.Harry bent down and reached out to Zacharias, who was sitting stupidly on the ground, who was helped and pulled up.The duel was brilliant, and Harry didn't use any magic outside of his classroom, let alone the Black Charm.Unlike Tom's prudence and step-by-step, Harry is completely brave, and his lack of knowledge of spells is made up for by sensitive reactions.If Harry learns to use more offensive spells, the opponent will obviously have a power closer to him.

This was the first time Tom had seen Harry duel.The boy's magic was almost pouring out—potential power, Tom reminded himself.Harry's beautiful muscles clung to his outstretched limbs, breathing with each movement.His body is slightly arched, ferocious like a lion, but also like an elegant knight. The wand is his minion and also his sharp sword. Tom looked into Harry's eyes, oh, those eyes seemed to be constantly emitting power The source, such a bright Avada green, is so pure it takes your breath away.

Tom could feel his own heart beating so loudly that he doubted anyone else could hear it.He couldn't take his eyes off Harry for a moment.This is a wild cub, and he'll enjoy being tamed, the tastiest ones are always the hardest to handle, but he's Tom Riddle, and he loves a challenge.Tom couldn't help noticing the grim look on Harry's face even after the duel was over, and he couldn't help wondering who the boy imagined Zacharias was to attack.His behavior was noticeably different, as Granger and Weasley seemed equally shocked, which further confirmed Tom's guess that Harry's imaginary enemy was himself.

Salazar, everything made Tom tremble with excitement.