Magical Studies at Hogwarts...

Chapter 210 Mysterious Affairs Department

As night fell, the Ministry of Magic was deserted; almost no one remained. They had all gone home to rest, and even the portraits on the walls had fallen asleep.

But don't assume that the absence of guards means the Ministry of Magic's defenses are lax; it simply means that the guards have changed from human guards to magically restricted guards, which gives some people an opportunity.

For example, Lukwood and Ike.

Lucius had a basic understanding of the Ministry of Magic's security situation long ago, which is why he was able to devise a way to bring Nagini and later Lukewood into the Ministry. Now, with just one more person, Ike, it's not a difficult task.

Easily, Ike arrived at the ninth floor of the Ministry of Magic. After passing through a simple corridor, he opened a plain black door and finally arrived at his destination—the Department of Mysteries.

Before them lay a circular hall, its ceiling, floor, walls, and twelve identical doors, all devoid of any markings or handles. A few candles, glowing with a faint blue light, hung on the walls, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

"So, you haven't made any progress at all," Ike sighed softly after listening to Lukwood's account. "Don't you even know what's behind those doors?"

"I'm sorry, young master." Lukwood lowered his head in shame. "We couldn't get here without the guards' knowledge. Getting Nagini here was already the limit."

Ike remained silent, waved his hand, and Lukewood, seeing this, withdrew and quietly stood outside as a human eye.

It's frustrating, but that's the reality. Old Voldemort's servants are all rather unbalanced. They excel at killing, spreading fear, and torturing people, but to say they're particularly skilled in magic is a complete joke. In fact, even Old Voldemort himself is somewhat unbalanced.

In this situation, Ike's "all-rounder" status becomes all the more valuable, which is also the main reason why Voldemort sent him over. After all, the path of using the Soul-Stealing Curse to control a Silenced to obtain the prophecy has already failed.

"The one with the power to conquer the Dark Lord has approached... born into a family that has defeated the Dark Lord three times... born in July."

Over a decade ago, when Trelawney made this prophecy that changed the entire wizarding world, only these three sentences were overheard by Snape and relayed to Voldemort. This led to his defeat in his attempt to kill Harry by some kind of magic he did not understand, resulting in the failure of the First Wizarding War.

Therefore, after his successful resurrection, what Comrade Old Fu wanted most was to obtain the full content of the prophecy so that he could adjust his plans according to the prophecy and avoid failing again.

It can be said that everything he has done and planned over the past six months has been for the purpose of obtaining that prophecy.

Ike stood quietly in the center of the hall, looking at the twelve black doors around him. Without any hesitation, he randomly chose one. After placing a gold coin at the door, he pushed it open.

The room was very small, with only a desk and a cabinet, and it was messy with lots of parchment lying around.

Ike picked up a piece of parchment from the table. The writing on it was fragmented, a jumble of sentences from different places. He flipped through it again, and it was all the same. After searching carefully, he found only parchment, not even a single book.

He left sheepishly; the things there were of no value to him, even though he had searched so carefully.

The first thing he did upon stepping outside was look at the ground, only to find the gold coin in front of the third black door from the left. Upon seeing this, Ike frowned.

This is troublesome; he never expected the door here to move.

After placing another gold coin at his feet, Ike walked directly to the black door where the previous coin had been, and gave it a hard push, but the door didn't budge. He tried twice more, with the same result. Without hesitation, he gave up, took a step back, and pushed open the door.

As he stepped inside, the door closed automatically behind him, and he was surrounded by a dazzling array of stars. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn—all the stars he had learned about in astronomy class could be found here, along with many others he had never seen before.

With a tentative wave of his hand, the stars began to move rapidly along their predetermined trajectories, and the chaotic scene made Ike feel somewhat dizzy.

"Bang!"

A distant star suddenly exploded, triggering a chain reaction, like fireworks, with numerous other stars exploding in succession.

This scene was very shocking, because every time a star exploded, it was right in front of him, as if a force was pulling him and dragging him to that apocalyptic scene.

Without the slightest hesitation, Eklar opened the door behind him and ran out.

That was terrifying; it took a while for my heart to finally settle back into my chest.

He glanced at the gold coins on the ground again, and as expected, their position had changed. Ike understood immediately, raised his hand to recall the coins, and then casually pushed open the door beside him.

There's absolutely no pattern to it, and no marks can be left on the door; it's purely a matter of luck.

The next room was a large pit, with stone steps winding around it, descending steeply step by step. Ike understood immediately and jumped down, landing directly beside a stone platform in the center. There, an archway stood, draped with a tattered black curtain that was gently swaying.

"Death..." Ike murmured, his eyes fixed on the slowly swaying curtains. The same thing appeared from both the front and back of the archway.

To be honest, he really wanted to know what was behind the curtain, but in the end he didn't have the courage to reach out.

Another room, with rows of shelves reaching to the ceiling, filled with dusty, gray crystal balls. Some twinkled with a soft green light, while others were blurry and dark, as if they had lost their power.

Ike strolled leisurely in the center of the crystal ball, casually glancing at the yellowed labels on it. This place held almost all the prophecies in the history of magic, the earliest dating back to the prehistoric era. Unsurprisingly, it had completely darkened, devoid of any light.

After circling around a few times, Ike left. Searching for the prophecy that Old Voldemort needed in such a room was like looking for a needle in a haystack; he simply didn't have that much time to do it.

Pushing open another door, and seeing what was in the room, a smile suddenly appeared on Ike's face.

The shelves were also filled with various clocks. Large ones like wall clocks, small ones like pocket watches and hourglasses, all gleaming and accompanied by a constant, busy ticking sound.

At the far end of the room was a tall crystal dome, inside which a small, jewel-like egg was gently propelled up and down by a soft current. At the bottom, it was an egg; as it rose, it cracked open, revealing a hummingbird; at the top, it became filthy; and as it fell, it changed continuously, eventually transforming back into the jewel-like egg.

After standing quietly in front of the crystal dome for a while, Ike reluctantly left. He searched the surrounding shelves and, after casually putting away an exquisite pocket watch, finally found the familiar golden necklace with a small hourglass hanging on it that shimmered with golden light.

(End of this chapter)