the Gambler

After chatting with Tom about Voldemort for nearly half an hour, the other party's expression was very strange. Harry didn't have the time to guess what was going on in Tom's head. He was extremely sleepy, and the emotional outburst just now consumed too much energy.Harry leaned on the armrest and closed his eyes. He didn't even think about seeing his friends off at the gate of the castle, he just wanted to sleep like this.

——He came to that cold and dark room again, and the crystal balls neatly arranged on the shelf filled his vision. He walked quickly to the 97th shelf, and then turned left to get the dream prophecy. He could feel it. I felt how my heart was jumping out of my chest for joy.In the open space in the middle of the room, a ragged figure curled up on the ground and gasped heavily. An inexplicable sense of excitement rushed over him. Harry heard a sharp, disgusting voice coming out of his mouth. He watched himself lift up. The wand cast the Cruciatus Curse on the man again, who let out a horrific scream.

"You have to help me get the prophecy ball, Black." Voldemort said indifferently.

Sirius lifted his head, his black hair was disheveled across his forehead, his face was covered in blood, and Harry watched the godfather shake his head with difficulty.

"I hoped you were at least a little bit useful," Voldemort sneered, "maybe next time we should look for the werewolf, you won't be in so much pain, Blake, no one knows you're suffering, and Dumbledore can't save you .”

"Cruciate!"—

Harry's body convulsed suddenly, and his hoarse cry startled Tom who was reading a book. The latter quickly took the boy into his arms. He kept stroking Harry's back, but the boy in pain didn't respond at all.Tom waved his wand, and the cold water poured on Harry's face, stimulating the boy to wake up.

It's a bad situation, Tom can tell by the emotion that's popping into the link.Voldemort must have known too.

Tom wiped away the water stains on Harry's face with his sleeve. The latter seemed to have suffered a lot. His face was pale and his lips were trembling.

"Tell me what happened, Harry!" Although Tom wanted to use Legilimency directly on Harry, the boy's fragile mental state made him give up this plan.

"Voldemort captured Sirius, in the room full of crystal balls in the Department of Mysteries," Harry gasped, feeling like he was suffocating like a dehydrated fish.The image of Sirius trembling under the Cruciatus Curse played repeatedly in his mind.

"I need to tell McGonagall." Harry staggered and pushed Tom away, but was stopped by the strength of the other's arm.

"You have the Marauder's map, first you need to make sure whether the two of them are in the castle." Tom's icy voice seemed to pour Harry a bucket of ice water, Gryffindor calmed down quickly, he pulled out the map from the box, In the blink of an eye, the entire castle appeared on the parchment.

No McGonagall, no Sirius, not even Snape.

Panic spread through Harry's chest like a devil's web, and his limbs seemed leaden.

"We need to do something." There was a tremor in Harry's voice. "Go to the Department of Mysteries and take Ron and Hermione. Sirius is suffering, Voldemort could kill him at any moment, Merlin, waste here He's more dangerous every second. I need to go right away, can't wait any longer - the fireplace! Damn the fireplace in our room is not connected to the Ministry of Magic - do something, no port key, no way to get into the headmaster's office, There must be a way—Hermione! Hermione must be able to find a way—”

"Don't be stupid, two students who don't even have practical experience are useless." Tom interrupted Harry's chatter, "Our fireplace is connected to the old Black house, no time to tell Granger and Weasley." He said He threw Harry into the burning fireplace, and the two quickly disappeared into the green flames.

When the spinning stopped, Harry fell to his knees with a plop on the cold drawing room floor in Grimmauld Place.He struggled to drag his heavy feet and called out Sirius' name, but there was no response.Harry's heart tugged uncomfortably, Sirius wasn't here, Sirius was missing.

"Kritchie," Tom called suddenly.

With the crackling sound, the elf with bloodshot eyes and wrinkled skin all over his body appeared in front of the two of them. He saluted Tom respectfully, his fleshy nose almost pressed to the floor.He said in that weird voice with a little excitement: "What does Mr. Riddle want to tell Kricht? Krich will definitely take care of everything for Mr." He then shifted his eyes to Harry , "Oh, and the Potter boys."

"Klitsch, tell me where Sirius is?" Harry asked eagerly.

The elf showed a strange expression, and he kept rubbing his hands: "Dumbledore called the master out, and Krichtzer doesn't know where he went."

"Sirius was caught while carrying out the mission of the Order of the Phoenix!" Harry said in panic, he pulled Tom's hand vigorously, and led him outside the house. melon house.Harry stomped his feet anxiously, and soon, a maroon three-decker bus roared to a stop in front of the two of them. Harry didn't care to say hello to Stanley, who sold the tickets, he casually touched a few gold Galleons and stuffed them into the wizard's hands , pulling Tom to sit down at the back.

"Ministry of Magic. We're going to the Ministry of Magic," Harry repeated, fearing that Stanley hadn't heard.

The young lad let out a cheer, and as Ern yanked down the control lever, the bus rushed forward at a frantic speed, and Harry leaned on Tom to support his body that was swaying with the car. The curse pinned itself to the floor.Normally, Harry would have been jealous that Tom was an adult and free to use magic outside of school, but now he just felt like someone was grabbing his heart, and as time went by, the hands grew stronger.

The knight bus twisted and passed the surrounding vehicles, and soon it slammed to a stop in front of the telephone booth Harry had seen during the last trial, and the two almost threw themselves out of the car door, Harry's expression was a little bit Green, and Tom wasn't much better off.

Harry and Tom squeezed into the dilapidated telephone box, and this time the cramped space seemed spacious considering their size.Harry was spinning the dial, and in a moment, a woman's indifferent voice came into the booth.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic, please tell us your name and what you are going to do."

"Harry Potter and Tom Riddle, help," Harry yelled.

Two badges bearing their names slid out of the metal chute.The next moment, the bottom of the elevator wobbled, and the metal box faded into the streets of Muggle London.Harry dragged Tom out the moment the phone booth stopped falling. There was no one in the hall. This was completely opposite to the noisy situation in the past, which added to the boy's uneasiness. He rushed to the mysterious place as fast as he could. In the room full of prophecy balls in the Department of Affairs, his actions were quite rude, but no one jumped out to stop him due to such obvious movements.

"Something's wrong, why is there no one here?" Tom asked in a low voice.

"It must have been Voldemort." Harry muttered, now that he and Tom were hiding in the dark corridor, and they could only see their surroundings clearly by the faint green light from the tip of the opponent's wand.He knew the importance of being quiet, but he couldn't really walk slowly.Merlin knew where Sirius was tormented!

"Here." Tom suddenly pointed to an arched door and Harry raised his eyebrows suspiciously, in fact he couldn't even tell which door it was.

"I can feel the soul echoing with me. Voldemort is in it."

Harry's heart was beating violently, and the palms of the hands holding the wand were covered with sweat. He wiped his palms on his clothes and listened intently to the movement inside, but there was nothing, and the silence made Harry even more flustered.Tom had said that Voldemort was inside, and that he had been torturing Sirius before, and now there was not even a sound.Perhaps Sirius had passed out?Or maybe, Sirius is dead?This thought made Harry tremble uncontrollably, Sirius would not die, he said he would always grow up with him, didn't he?

Tom couldn't help but pinch the boy who was overwhelmed by fear. He didn't need a mind reading skill to guess Harry's thoughts.

"Stop unnecessary thoughts," Tom said softly, "You go in first."

"What about you?" Harry asked softly.

Tom twirled the ring on his fingertips, the silver-white metal showed a particularly mysterious color in the fluorescent light on the tip of the wand.Harry swallowed the foreign object blocking his throat and nodded, holding his wand and slowly moving forward.He stretched out his hand and pushed, and the door opened to reveal the scene inside.

The room was tall, lined with towering shelves topped with dusty crystal balls.After actually entering the room, Harry noticed that it looked far more spectacular than in the dream, and it was also darker. Only the faint firelight could barely illuminate the outline of everything.It was so quiet, Harry thought, and as he tiptoed forward, he would have thought it was empty if Tom hadn't warned him.His eyes scanned the number on the shelf - 85.Harry memorized the number silently, and he turned sideways until the number marked 97 popped into view.

Harry's heart rose to his throat, and now he stood where he had dreamed, facing a certain crystal ball.Even though all the glass balls here are exactly the same, he just knew that the one in front of him was the one he was looking for.Harry took a deep breath, pointed the tip of his wand at the dirty ball, and the fluorescent light illuminated the writing on the base below.

— Voldemort and Harry Potter —

Harry's breathing stopped, he didn't know what it had to do with him, even though his nerves were screaming not to reach out, he still held the glass ball, the warm light enveloped his body.

prophecy.Prophecies belonging to Harry Potter and Voldemort.

Harry wiped away the dust covering it, revealing the transparent part underneath.Harry had known for a long time that the prophecy existed, that he was the 'chosen one', but he couldn't understand why Voldemort wanted it.If I remember correctly, he attacked himself precisely because he knew the prophecy, didn't he?Something was wrong, he should know, but his mind seemed to be leaking, and he couldn't catch the thoughts that flashed by quickly.Harry stared intently at the Prophecy Ball. If only Tom was there, he must know how to hear what was stored inside.

"Give it to me, Potter." The nasty, aristocratically drawn voice sounded slowly behind him, and Harry could feel the wand tip pressing hard against the skin of his neck.He raised his hand slowly, barely seeing a dozen wands pointing at him from the reflection of the glass ball, and the wizard closest to him had long golden hair.

Lucius Malfoy.