the Gambler

As soon as Harry's toes touched the ground, he fell forward. Fortunately, Tom grabbed him and saved him from the tragic consequences of breaking his nose.He still can't believe what just happened.The Triwizard Cup is the port key, Cedric is dead, and Voldemort is resurrected.It was like his worst nightmare, and Harry wished he would wake up from the horror, maybe it was really a dream, and he couldn't have escaped the Killing Curse twice, let alone Tom—young Voldemort also saved himself, which is ridiculous.

Harry steadied himself as he studied Tom's face, which looked real.thought Harry.

Deafening cheers erupted from the entire Quidditch arena, and everyone crowded towards the two of them.Harry grabbed Tom's arm tightly, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the cheers and footsteps still did not disappear, he indeed returned to Hogwarts.

Harry opened his eyes and pushed Tom aside, stumbling onto Cedric's body, tears streaming down his face, and the boy's cries made everyone present realize that something bad had happened.With a cry of 'Diggory is dead', the scene became chaotic.Harry could feel a lot of people trying to pull him away from the corpse, but he didn't want to just let it go, Cedric died, it was all his own fault, if it wasn't for Harry's insistence on keeping the Hufflepuff boy and himself Lifting the trophy together, the port key will not be touched, they will not come to that terrible place, and Cedric will not be killed.

"Harry!"

Hearing a familiar voice, Harry looked up, and his friend's face appeared in his vision blurred by tears. Their expressions were as panicked as his own.Hermione hugged the boy from behind in Harry's prone position, while Ron patted his friend's shoulder and listened to him sobbing softly.Harry could feel someone pulling his fingers, trying to take Cedric's body away, but he couldn't let go until the crowd in front of him parted to reveal a figure Harry knew all too well.

"You need to let him go, Harry, he's dead, you can't bring him back." Dumbledore's voice came, and Harry shook his head.

Dumbledore pushed away the people surrounding Harry and hugged the trembling boy tightly.

"You have to let him go, Harry!" the old man said, looking at Cedric's parents who were stumbling over from a distance, with extremely painful expressions on their faces.Dumbledore can understand the mood of a white-haired man giving a black-haired man.

"Cedric is dead, Voldemort is back."

The Headmaster's eyes widened in shock at Harry's mumbling and repetition.Fudge's face was even paler, and he looked at Harry as if he wanted the other party to swallow his words back.Harry noticed that the sparkle in Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have disappeared, and the feeling of instant aging also surprised many people around him.

Dumbledore noticed that not many people heard Harry's words. He looked around, stopped Fudge from trying to speak, and fixed his eyes on the puzzled Tom.Hermione and Ron followed the headmaster's gaze and turned pale instantly.Dumbledore shook his head at them, and the two shut their mouths hesitantly.

"Harry needs to rest now, Fudge, I think tomorrow is the right time, no, I have the right to ensure the health of my students, you have to wait until tomorrow." Dumbledore said firmly, turning his gaze to the other two, " Miss Granger, please ask Bobby to bring the potion to the principal's office. Mr. Weasley, please bring your family members there as well, and remember not to tell others about the situation, the password is cockroach string." Guilty look, "Harry, we noticed that the trophies have been swapped. Professor Moody is Barty Crouch Jr. impersonating him, a loyal Death Eater. I'm sorry for not protecting you well, wait Bobby After you have checked your body, you need to tell me what happened."

Harry nodded.

Dumbledore turned his head to look at the young Voldemort, and raised his voice to the awkward Professor McGonagall: "Dear Minerva, please invite Tom to your office, and I will notify you two after I have talked with Harry come over."

Tom looked curiously at the tall and thin witch beside him, raising half of his eyebrows. The woman's expression was serious and her hair was carefully combed. She was obviously a middle-aged Gryffindor bookworm.

"Minerva? You look really old, don't you?"

The witch glared fiercely at the young Dark Lord, and turned haughtily to lead the way away from the noisy venue, her fluttering robes making Snape also look approvingly.Tom shrugged indifferently, took one last look at Harry, and disappeared at the end of the corridor through the crowd.

Madam Pomfrey was an experienced healer, and she had placed a few testing spells on Harry, making sure the boy was fine other than being overtired.Harry took the hemostatic potion handed by the witch and swallowed it in one gulp. The effect of the potion was quite obvious. In less than 3 minutes, the scar on his arm was completely healed and pink fresh flesh grew.Harry gave the witch a grateful smile.

"Everyone is here now, Harry, dear boy, please tell me what happened after I got the trophy, and why young Tom appeared by your side." Dumbledore smiled kindly at Harry , but the boy could see that the smile didn't reach his eyes, the old headmaster was very tired, and he was no longer the optimistic and cheerful old man, which made Harry very distressed. He always regarded Headmaster Dumbledore as his grandfather.

"As you know, the trophy is a port key, and Cedric and I were teleported to Riddle's Cemetery. Wormtail killed Cedric," Harry choked up at this point, "and he sent me Strapped to a statue, and in a ritual, I don't know what kind of ritual, of old Tom Riddle's bones, Wormtail's flesh, and my blood, Voldemort crawled out of the cauldron. He was back in the flesh."

There were terrified gasps throughout the principal's office.

"He's back?" Dumbledore frowned.

"Well. He also summoned a lot of Death Eaters, and I saw Lucius Malfoy. Voldemort was very excited, and he asked the two of us to duel alone," Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his emotions, "I originally Thought I couldn't escape the Killing Curse—”

Everyone gasped as if they were suffocating. Mrs. Weasley hugged Harry tightly into her arms, comforting the trembling boy constantly. Harry's suppressed crying could only be heard in the whole room.After an uncomfortable silence, Harry pushed the gentle witch away and continued: "Then Tom appeared, dragged me away from the direction of the green light, and brought me and Cedric's body back to Hogwarts. "

"Who is Tom? The owner of the bone you said was used in the ceremony?" Charlie frowned. "I thought he was dead."

Ginny's eyes widened in horror, and her sharp voice made everyone cringe: "He's Tom Riddle, the young Dark Lord? No, it's impossible, he's dead, Harry, you killed Did you kill him? I saw you destroy that diary with my own eyes!"

As Ginny revealed Tom's identity, the whole headmaster's office was in chaos, and the angry discussion was noisy. Harry turned his pleading eyes to Dumbledore, and the old man cleared his throat to attract everyone's attention.The headmaster held up a pair of half-moon glasses and held out his hand to Harry, motioning the boy to continue.

"He's Tom Riddle, 16, and he wears the badge of a Prefect instead of a Head Boy. I don't know how he got to this plane. He seems very close to me, and he doesn't know Voldemort."

Dumbledore nodded: "I noticed this too, he regards you as his own, oh, Harry, you are safe now, Tom is a very possessive person, he will protect what belongs to him or People," the principal smiled reassuringly, noticing the boy's disbelieving expression, "I assume he has some misunderstanding and thinks you are the reason he traveled through time and space."

"You're disturbing me, Headmaster," Harry muttered, and the light came back to the old man's eyes.

"I'm sorry to upset you, boy, I'm afraid you'll have to spend some time with young Tom, and you'll need to take on the task of supervising him until we find a way to send him back. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't trust Tom , he is a shrewd Slytherin, and even a genius. Even if we try to hide it, he will always find a way to figure out who he is in this time and space. I am worried that he will join forces with his future self when he finds out. I hope you can try your best Delaying this information into his brain, two Voldemorts is a little too much for us."

"You can kill him directly!" Ron and Ginny said at the same time, their faces were about to flush as red as their hair.

"I'm sorry to reject your proposal, young Weasley." Dumbledore's eyes seemed to be looking into the distance through the two of them, and Harry knew that the old man was lost in memory, and the other's sadness was obvious, "Tom is still Just a Hogwarts student, just like you. He is not the murderous Voldemort, he—I must admit that my prejudice is one of the reasons why he went astray." Dumbledore sighed, deeply The lake water blue stared at Harry's emerald closely, and the latter could see the old man's self-blame, "I always knew he was a descendant of Slytherin, and the madness in his blood would cause him to become a dark wizard, so I've been watching him closely since he came to school. But Tom was a bright boy, and his unfortunate childhood made him better at reading things, and he used everything at his disposal to get his way."

"You also said he was a dark wizard, and it's not your fault, Albus." Arthur interrupted Dumbledore's explanation.

"Then we must eliminate this threat as soon as possible!" George and Fred said at the same time.

"He's not a criminal yet." Hermione frowned, she understood what the headmaster meant, "You hope that we can give him a new living environment, you hope that we can change him, more precisely, you hope that Harry can change him."

"It's impossible, he's the future Dark Lord, for Merlin's sake, I'm not really a miracle boy!" Harry retorted, this is an impossible task, even harder than getting Snape to wear a skirt!

"It pains me to admit, my dear boy, that Tom's childhood was much like yours. He grew up without his parents, in an orphanage on the streets of London. The same experience would make him involuntarily Close to you. But unlike Tom, you became a brave Gryffindor, you learned to receive love from others and return their love, but he didn't. Tom has no friends, for him there is only the difference between obedience and disobedience. Love is a powerful magic."

"You want me to teach him to love? You must be joking." Harry frowned. The headmaster may be really old. This joke is not funny at all. It would be easier for Voldemort to love than to make Lockhart a real brave man. .

Dumbledore sighed, put his hands on Harry's shoulders, and met the boy's eyes firmly: "No, Harry, I hope you make him feel loved, he is not a soulless shell, at least Not now. He could be charming if he wanted to, and I'm sure Miss Weasley realized that—" Harry turned to see Ginny wriggling uneasily.

The boy turned his attention to the headmaster again, and Dumbledore said firmly: "If you can get into Tom's heart, I believe he will reveal a soft side that no one knows. Harry, you are a brave and loyal Gryffindor." , use your kindness as a weapon, you have the power to drag Tom out of the abyss."