A day at Hogwarts.

Chapter 667 Take it

"How will you be here?!"

In the Death Hall of the Department of Mysteries, Blake's voice suddenly rang out, breaking the deathly silence and creating a series of echoes.

He never imagined that the Ministry of Magic's security drill and project acceptance was about to begin, yet his boss was standing there in a daze.

Harry adjusted his glasses and exchanged a glance with Black; all four eyes reflected the same disbelief.

This weekend, Blake asked him to take the day off again so he could go out and have fun.

For some reason, Dumbledore agreed.

Charles slowly turned around, glanced at the two of them, and said calmly, "This is the question I should be asking you."

Blake straightened his back and said seriously, "We've come to check the security measures for the access control system."

He spoke as if it were the truth.

Charles simply smiled. In fact, this was the job he was originally in charge of, and he had come directly here after leaving Scrinker's office.

At that moment, when he saw Harry and Black together, he immediately understood why: Dumbledore had informed Charles.

Podmor was controlled by the Imperius Curse and forced his way into the area, where he was captured and imprisoned in Azkaban. The Death Eaters who participated in the incident were "dead," and it seemed that the matter had been resolved, but Voldemort's true intentions remained a mystery.

Today, Black and Harry wanted to take this opportunity to investigate thoroughly.

Harry was visiting this place for the first time and was curiously looking around at the chilling hall.

They stood on the highest circular stone platform, with bottomless darkness beneath their feet.

The entire Hall of Death is a huge rectangle with a sunken center, resembling a forgotten ancient amphitheater.

The air was stagnant and cold, yet it left a subtle, flowing sensation on the skin, as if an invisible life was breathing in the dark.

The most striking feature is the raised stone platform in the center of the depression.

An ancient, dilapidated stone archway stands on the platform, its surface covered with cracks, looking precarious and as if it might collapse at any moment.

Anyone who sees it for the first time will be amazed at how it can still stand upright.

There was nothing around the archway except for a tattered black curtain hanging there.

There was clearly no wind in the hall, yet the curtains swayed gently as if they had just been touched.

"What is this?" Harry couldn't help but step forward a few paces after getting off the building, approaching the archway to ask Charles.

“The Gate of Death.” Charles’s answer was devoid of any emotion, just like the surrounding environment.

A look of surprise flashed across Harry's face.

He turned his head, listened carefully, a look of confusion on his face, and frowned as he said, "I think... I heard a sound behind the door, someone talking."

Blake walked up behind him, listened intently for a moment, frowned, and said, "Strange... there was never any sound behind the door when I came here before."

"Charles, is this your doing?"

Charles turned to look at him, his tone suddenly becoming more serious than ever before: "Sirius Black III, I suggest you stay as far away from this door as possible, lest you trip and fall behind it."

Before he could finish speaking, a strange current ruffled Charles's hair. In the blink of an eye, Blake's expression changed, and he fled in a few steps into the dark hall outside the door.

Since the bombing at Snape's mansion that shocked the wizarding world, Charles's incredible prophetic abilities have been widely circulated in certain wizarding circles.

Blake knew better than anyone the horror of this "Gate of Death".

Historically, for a long time before their souls were sucked away by Dementors, the method of executing heinous wizards was to push them directly into this door.

No one knows where the other side of the door leads; legend has it that it is a land of death, a place of eternal silence.

Charles then specifically warned him to be careful not to fall through the door, and Black immediately decided that he would never set foot on that floor again. Harry was startled by Black's intense reaction and instinctively moved behind Charles, as if that were the safe zone.

"What...is it?" he asked in a low voice, his voice a mixture of fear and barely concealed curiosity.

Only then did he notice that the whispers behind the door, though continuous, remained indistinct, with no specific words or phrases discernible.

“A door to death,” Charles replied, “no one knows where it came from or who built it.”

"There are legends that it has existed for a much longer time than the Ministry of Magic."

"That's why the Ministry of Magic chose to be located here."

Harry gasped in surprise, mustered his courage, and walked around the ominous stone archway twice.

“Do you think it might be part of a larger building?” he guessed, then added, “...Hermione would be fascinated by it.”

Charles remained noncommittal, only giving Harry a meaningful look.

That gaze was cold and sharp, as if it could pierce through the soul, making Harry involuntarily shiver.

Charles has been pondering two purely academic questions.

First: If Voldemort were thrown in, and the Horcruxes were still there, what would happen? Could he come back?

Secondly: If only Harry's head is put in, will Voldemort's soul fragments be left on the other side of the door, or will both souls be left behind?
"You...you don't mean to let me go in and take a look, do you?" Harry felt uneasy under Charles's gaze, and his voice trembled slightly, fearing that Charles might actually pull out a rope and make him tie it up at any moment.

Charles said expressionlessly, "I haven't decided yet."

He pondered that perhaps he could first experiment with a Horcrux, tie a rope to it, throw it in, and then pull it back to observe any changes.

Harry quickly waved his hand, almost pleading, "You'd better not think about it for now."

He felt that Charles had already made up his mind, but was just too busy with work today to take action.

Despite his doubts, Harry soon got what he wanted, and Charles temporarily put aside his idea of ​​tying a Horcrux to a rope and throwing it over.

Charles stopped thinking about what was happening here and turned to say, "Come on, there's something you have to do."

Harry had heard that there were many terrible things here, and that Charles might even experiment on him, but his strong curiosity overcame his fear, and he followed him into another hall.

This was a much larger, colder space, with a ceiling as high as a cathedral dome. Countless rows of towering, gray-black shelves reminded Harry of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, stretching neatly to the horizon. The shelves were filled with countless small, dusty glass spheres, like a frozen starry sky.

At intervals, eerie blue flames flickered on the candlesticks, their cold glow barely dispelling a small patch of darkness, yet making the entire space seem even more mysterious.

Harry examined the glass spheres closely. Some of them emitted a dim, liquid-like white light from inside and had a faint warmth, while others were like broken light bulbs, completely dim.

Each glass ball has a yellowed and tattered label attached to its base. The writing has been eroded by time, but information such as the prophet, the person involved in the prophecy, and the date can still be seen.

The shelves were clearly marked with numbers, and when Harry's gaze fell on row 97, Charles patted him and pointed to the bottom of the shelf.

Harry was taken aback; his name was clearly written on the label.

Charles said to him seriously, "These prophetic orbs are protected by magic. Only the person in the prophecy can remove them from their stand. Anyone else who tries to touch the orbs will immediately go mad."

"I suspect that the infiltration that day was aimed at it."

"Take it, hide it well, and don't tell anyone."

Harry hesitated for a moment, reaching out to grab the prophecy orb, but stopped abruptly just before touching it, turning to ask, "What if Voldemort comes and finds the orb gone?"

Charles shrugged, looking nonchalant, and said, "Only the prophecy orb is protected by magic; the tag isn't."

Harry understood. He took the prophecy ball away and then changed the label.

(End of this chapter)