"…The pure beast will shed tears of blood, dying from unforgivable desecration."
Sybill's body trembled slightly, her eyes rolling upward behind her glasses, revealing large patches of white.
"The shedding snake… will spew venom that nourishes evil…"
"…Within the decaying chrysalis, that shattered soul… will feed upon this sinful sweetness… breaking free… reborn…"
Her voice cut off abruptly.
Professor Trelawney suddenly convulsed, gasping for breath as if she had just been dragged from deep water.
She adjusted her glasses vaguely and looked around, her eyes once again clouded and unfocused.
"Oh, my dear child…"
She spoke weakly, as though nothing had happened. "Did you see… hmm… hidden treasure? Well, that is a charming thought, but I'm afraid you are talking nonsense…"
But Harry could no longer hear her. He sat frozen, his heart pounding uncontrollably.
The pure beast… silver blood… a unicorn! The shedding snake… venom… what was that?
Breaking free, reborn… Voldemort!
Had Professor Trelawney just made a real prophecy? Or did she think this was simply an impressive way to conclude the exam?
He did not even wait for a score. Perhaps she had already forgotten it was an exam.
He suddenly stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor.
"Professor! I must… I must go find Professor Dumbledore immediately!"
Harry's voice was hoarse with shock.
Without waiting for Trelawney's confused reply, he turned and rushed out of the curtained classroom, almost running down the spiral staircase.
Only one thought filled his mind. He had to find Dumbledore, or Sagres, or Sirius at once. That prophecy… tonight! Everything would happen tonight!
Harry sped down the spiral staircase of the North Tower like a gust of wind, his heart pounding violently in his chest, Professor Trelawney's hollow prophecy striking his thoughts again and again like an ice pick.
As he stumbled into the brighter corridor, he suddenly collided with a solid chest.
"Hey! Watch it, Harry!"
Sirius caught him, a relaxed smile still on his face from waiting for his godson's exam to end. But the moment he saw Harry's pale, terrified expression, the smile vanished.
"What's wrong? Did the exam go badly? Did Trelawney scare you again?"
"No… it's not…"
Harry panted, gripping Sirius's arm tightly as if it were his only lifeline. "A prophecy… she made a real prophecy! Sirius, it's tonight!"
He spoke rapidly and incoherently, recounting Trelawney's words. "The pure beast sheds tears of blood… dies from desecration… the shedding snake spews venom… the shattered soul feeds on evil… breaking free, reborn! It's Voldemort! He's going to do something tonight. Very likely… very likely to resurrect!"
Sirius's expression turned grave at once, all traces of ease gone.
He had lived through war and understood the weight of a true prophecy. Trelawney might usually be unreliable, but in that state, she could not be ignored.
"Find Dumbledore. Now."
Sirius made the decision instantly, pulling Harry along as they hurried toward the Headmaster's office.
They almost burst through the entrance guarded by the stone gargoyle and rushed up the spiral staircase, breathless.
Fawkes lifted his head and gave a soft cry.
Dumbledore stood by the window. Hearing the commotion, he turned, his blue eyes sharpening the moment he saw their expressions.
"Albus!"
Sirius spoke first. "Harry was just in his Divination exam, and Trelawney went into that state again. She made a prophecy—"
Harry took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and repeated the ominous words as clearly as he could.
Dumbledore listened in silence, his expression grave.
When Harry reached the words "breaking free, reborn," the look behind his half-moon spectacles deepened.
"Unicorn blood… the shedding snake's venom…"
Dumbledore murmured, his fingers tapping lightly against the desk. "This sounds like a form of ritual magic…"
At that moment, the office door opened silently.
Sagres and Professor McGonagall stood at the doorway, seemingly having come to discuss something with Dumbledore, only to hear the final part of the conversation.
Sagres's gaze passed over the shaken Harry and the grim-faced Sirius before settling on Dumbledore.
"What happened?"
His voice remained as calm as ever, though a flicker of alertness crossed his grey eyes.
"Sybill made a prophecy," Dumbledore said gravely. "About tonight. About Tom. He may be attempting some form of resurrection ritual."
Sagres listened in silence, his expression unchanged, yet the air around him seemed to drop several degrees.
He did not ask for details or question its validity. The few key elements were already enough.
Without hesitation, without a single unnecessary word, he turned at once.
Before Harry and Sirius could fully react, a sharp crack split the air.
His black robes flared, his figure twisting and compressing as if drawn into an invisible vortex, vanishing from the spot.
He had Apparated directly from the Headmaster's office, his destination unmistakable.
Albania.
…
Deep within the forest, ancient trees twisted together, their gnarled branches reaching upward like countless desperate arms.
A sharp crack broke the silence.
Sagres appeared suddenly in a clearing, the soft forest floor barely shifting beneath his feet.
Without pause, thick, tangible shadows surged from beneath his robes.
His form twisted and expanded within the darkness, and in the next moment, a vast, colossal raven-shaped shadow shot upward into the canopy.
The forest beneath him seemed to transform into a vast, shifting sea of black.
Sagres scanned the surrounding area at astonishing speed, the enormous raven shadow sweeping back and forth above the forest, searching for valleys, streams, and dense woodland.
Time passed minute by minute in the tedious search.
Sagres checked several caves and valleys and even followed a few faint traces of Dark Arts, but all of them proved to be the work of insignificant dark creatures such as Grindylows or Red Caps.
The scene from the prophecy did not appear to be unfolding anywhere in this region.
Just as he reappeared beside a murky stream, considering his next direction...
Whoosh!
A jagged boulder, half the height of a man, hurtled out of the dense woods at his side, carrying a foul wind and moving with astonishing speed and force.
The attack came without warning, relying purely on brute strength and bypassing most conventional magical detection.
Sagres's figure blurred at the last moment. The boulder grazed the edge of his robes before crashing into the spot where he had just stood, sinking deep into the mud and sending up a spray of decaying leaves and filth.
Sagres's cold gaze locked instantly onto the source of the attack.
A tall, muscular elderly giant charged out from behind the trees with a roar.
His face was savage, his skin rough like tree bark, smeared with foul paint, reeking of stench and radiating a wild, violent presence.
Seeing his first strike fail, the giant roared in fury, bending down to grab another stone.
But Sagres did not give him a second chance.
He did not bother with complex magic. He simply raised his wand and pointed it at the giant's chest.
"Confringo!"
A blazing red burst of light shot out, striking the giant squarely.
Boom!
The massive body exploded apart with a thunderous roar, torn into fragments and scattering in all directions.
The giant's extraordinary magical resistance meant nothing in the face of absolute power.
Sagres did not spare the remains a second glance. Instead, his gaze shifted toward the direction the giant had come from.
A cave entrance lay there, reeking with a foul stench. Around it, piles of white bones from various creatures were scattered, heaped like small hills. Among them were several smaller skeletons, still wrapped in torn clothing, clearly human.
Farther away lay two or three female corpses, already beginning to decompose, discarded carelessly. The scene was horrifying.
His gaze finally settled on an enormous rock at the cave entrance, as if it had been deliberately placed there to block it.
From behind the rock came a faint, barely audible sound of sobbing.
Sagres raised his wand, and the boulder moved aside silently, as if weightless, revealing a narrow, dark cave behind it.
Curled up deep within was a young woman, almost naked.
Her body was covered in dirt, her eyes hollow and unfocused. Years of inhuman torment had left deep marks upon her.
Hearing footsteps approach, she only shrank back in terror, broken whimpers escaping her throat, her entire being on the verge of collapse.
Sagres looked at her without expression, neither pity nor disgust in his eyes.
He walked forward, ignoring her fear, and immediately cast Legilimency. What he found were only blurred fragments of chaos and fear, intertwined beyond recognition.
Seeing this, he did not hesitate. He gently touched the tip of his wand to her temple once more.
"Memory Recall."
He carefully sifted through the fragmented memories, like piecing together torn pages of a diary, and finally extracted her name and the location of her hometown.
Then, without hesitation, he raised his wand again.
"Obliviate."
The fear and panic in the woman's eyes vanished at once, replaced by a blank stare.
Then Sagres began to reshape her memories.
Silver threads of light flowed from the tip of his wand, slowly seeping into her mind.
He constructed a simple but coherent story for her: getting lost, collapsing from exhaustion, and finally being rescued by a kind forest ranger who took her home.
After finishing, he glanced at her tattered clothing, touched it lightly with his wand, and transformed it into a set of coarse, worn garments.
Then he Apparated with her. Their figures twisted briefly before vanishing from the filthy, horrifying cave, reappearing in the direction of the "home" he had placed within her memory.
A few seconds later, Sagres returned to the same spot.
He glanced once at the giant's remains and the lair, did not linger, and turned into a shadow, soaring back into the sky.
This had been nothing more than an insignificant interruption.
The giant was likely a former chieftain expelled from his tribe, and his abduction of those Muggle women had probably been for breeding purposes.
As for communication, Sagres knew only a few words of the giant language, and in any case, there was no need.
Most giants were inherently brutal. Although they primarily hunted large wild animals such as elk, humans had never been absent from their diet over the centuries.
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