Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

“How is the progress here?” Bellatrix asked arrogantly, walking towards the five Death Eaters.

“It went very well. You can enter the room where the prophecy orb is stored,” came a deep voice.

“This is really impressive. Just now, Rookwood told me that there were a few magical barriers stopping us, and you’ve already taken care of them!” said Bellatrix appreciatively. “Thorfinn, you’ve done quite well this time…”

“How did you do it?” Rookwood asked in surprise.

“It’s just a little trick, as long as…”

Harry wasn’t interested in what they were saying, nor did he care how they managed to break through the Ministry’s magic.

He now knew that the main reason he kept dreaming about this place was because Voldemort wanted him to come here to get the Prophecy Orb.

“Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me? And he’s made me come and get it for him? Why couldn’t he come and get it himself?” he continued to ask, gazing at Lucius Malfoy.

“Get it himself?” Hearing his words, Bellatrix shrieked on a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time looking for those vampires and Dumbledore?”

“That’s right, Potter, that’s right …” said Malfoy slowly. “We were going to take a softer approach and let you come here to get the prophecy and give it to us, but now there’s no time…”

“You just kidnapped me from the school, aren’t you afraid of being exposed?” Harry asked.

“If Dumbledore were still here, we would naturally not dare to do this,” said Malfoy smugly. “As for being exposed, do you think anyone in the Ministry would believe you? Just like when you kept saying the Dark Lord had returned.”

As long as he didn’t see Voldemort with his own eyes, Fudge probably wouldn’t believe it no matter what Harry said.

Even if a group of Death Eaters broke into the Ministry of Magic late at night and acted under his nose, he would pretend not to see it.

“Go in, if you cooperate, we might just let you return to Hogwarts alive.”

Several Death Eaters laughed rudely again, and they walked through the corridor and entered the plain black door.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Just like in his dream, they were standing in a large, circular room.

Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling.

Twelve identical, unmarked, handle-less black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue, their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor so that it looked as though there was dark water underfoot.

The last Death Eater shut the door. Without the long chink of light from the torch-lit corridor behind him, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things Harry could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor below.

With a great rumbling sound, the candles began to move sideways and the circular wall was rotating.

“Which door should we take?” Bellatrix asked impatiently.

“We can’t be sure. We have to try each one to know,” said Rookwood.

“Damn it, do these doors always keep rotating? Was it the same when you worked here?”

“It’s a security measure. Each room is protected by different spells, and the counter-spells are known only to different Unspeakables. If someone enters without knowing the correct way to deactivate them, an alarm will immediately go off,” said Rookwood. “These spells are very old; I know most of them, but a few have been changed. Thorfinn, are you sure you’ve broken the spells in that room?”

“Of course, we just went in to confirm it!” said the wizard named Thorfinn, walking to Harry’s side. “The shelves in that room are full of dusty little glass orbs, there are thousands of them.”

“Yes, that’s the room,” Rookwood nodded. “It’s behind the Time Room.”

“Right, according to the information we stole from inside the Ministry, where exactly is the prophecy orb kept?”

“Row ninety-seven, just need Potter to go and fetch it.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” said Bellatrix impatiently. “At worst, we have to try twelve times!”

“We won’t need that many tries. Three of the doors are permanently locked,” said Rookwood. “They correspond to rooms that store ancient magical artifacts, powerful magic books, and legendary magic items from history. They can only be opened by all the Unspeakables together.”

“If there are really powerful magic items inside, why don’t we just take them?”

“Because no one knows who all thirteen Unspeakables with the keys are. Even the Minister of Magic doesn’t know. To investigate them all, you’d need complete control of the Ministry,” said Rookwood. “And most of the items in those rooms are already damaged, having lost all their magical power. All that’s left is their names. Even if you got them, they wouldn’t be of much use.”

Rookwood chose a door, and Harry was pushed and walked in.

This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the center of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet below them.

They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheater, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot.

Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the center of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing was still standing.

Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.

“Not here!”

“What’s that archway down there?” Harry couldn’t help asking, staring at the gently swaying veil.

The archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was.

The gently rippling veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.

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