The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

Julien swayed for the seventeenth time in the armchair in the Hogwarts kitchen, nearly dropping the "Advanced Theory of Alchemy" he was holding into the fire pit.

The kitchen is located on the ground floor of Hogwarts Castle. It's hidden directly beneath the Great Hall. You can find it by following the corridor leading to the Hufflepuff Common Room; Cho Chang brought them here once.

"Could you stop wriggling around like a catfish that's just come ashore?" Elizabeth Rozier poked her head out from behind the Daily Prophet. "You've been like this since dinner. Are you the one who's been cursed with some kind of 'bad omen'?"

"No, it's worse than 'ominous'."

Julien laid the book out on his lap and lowered his voice, "I need to practice the 'elemental distillation' that Mr. Grindelwald taught me last week again, otherwise the theoretical knowledge will slip away from my brain like teardrops in the sand."

(Time-Tear Sand Crystal is a translucent amber-colored crystal, a magical mineral that seems to seal within eternally flowing grains of sand. It is said to record the regretful moment of the last person who touched it. However, the sand crystal is very fragile; if it falls to the ground and shatters, it will instantly turn into ordinary quicksand, scattering everywhere.)

Liria, who was sitting by the fireplace weaving amulets, looked up at the words and blinked her icy blue eyes: "Mrs. Pins of the library won't let you set up your toolbox. The potion leak last time has already put you on her 'watch list'."

"Professor Snape's Potions classroom is locked at night," Elizabeth added, her fingers tapping unconsciously on the armrest. "Filch's been on edge lately because of the Dementors; he'll scold me for half an hour if I walk too loudly in my armor. I doubt we'll find any other empty classrooms at night."

"Should we go find Myrtle?" Julien whispered.

"You didn't know?" Liria laughed. "The women's restroom on the second floor has been sealed off."

After pondering for a moment, Julien suddenly grinned, closed the book, and said, "Oh right, how could I have forgotten that place?"

"Where?" Both women leaned closer.

He lowered his voice and said the name that had been circulating in Hogwarts for a long time but was rarely actually found: "The Room of Requirement."

---

Ten minutes later, in the eighth-floor corridor.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Elizabeth crossed her arms and looked suspiciously at the tapestry on the opposite wall, "The Troll Beats Barnabas with a Club"—the troll was raising his club and smashing it on Barnabas's head for the umpteenth time, making a dull "bang" sound.

"The troll fighting Barnabas, this tapestry is definitely it," Julien muttered as he walked. "I need a room to conduct alchemical experiments... I need a room to conduct alchemical experiments... I need a..."

As he walked past that wall for the third time, a smooth wooden door suddenly appeared on the stone wall opposite the tapestry, with a brass handle shaped like a curled-up raven.

"Merlin's stockings," Liria exclaimed softly, "it really appeared."

Julien pushed open the door, and a scent mixed with sulfur, lavender, and aged moonstone wafted out. The sight inside made all three of them gasp in surprise.

The room was circular, with a dome resembling a grand hall, made of transparent magical glass that allowed them to see a sky full of stars—even though they knew that what was outside was actually the ceiling of a castle.

In the very center stood a huge oak workbench, its surface covered with automatically changing alchemical runes. Each time Julien took a step closer, the runes would light up with a soft silver-blue light, as if confirming the identity of the newcomer.

"Look at that!" Liria pointed to the corner of the wall, where a brass still stood, a full three feet tall, shaped like a peacock with its head held high, with seven glass tubes extending from its tail feathers, each connected to a crystal bottle of a different color.

The distiller was running automatically, making a soft "purring" sound, like a contented cat.

Elizabeth's gaze was drawn to an entire wall of "material cabinets." These were no ordinary cabinets, but rather countless glass bubbles suspended in mid-air.

Each bubble contains different materials: some contain glowing fireflies—no, upon closer inspection, they are solidified moonlight; some contain a slowly rotating maple leaf, forever frozen in autumn; the topmost bubble even contains a small cloud of mist, which occasionally thunders.

There are countless other common materials as well.

"This is outrageous!" Elizabeth reached out to touch the glass bubble containing the thundercloud, but the bubble playfully floated up half a foot. "It doesn't even have a Rozier family storeroom... Wow!"

Her words were interrupted by a series of clanging sounds.

Julien was fiddling with an "automatic grinder" on the worktable—it was a bronze elf-shaped object, frantically pounding a piece of moonstone in a mortar while humming an off-key opera tune.

"I think it's singing 'The Magic Flute,'" Julien said, suppressing a laugh, "except the lyrics are 'Grind, grind, grind into powder, grind into dregs, grind into ashes'..."

"What are you singing?" Liria asked.

"The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart".

"That werewolf?"

"Alright, enough with the lame jokes, Mr. Black, focus!" Elizabeth tried to keep a straight face, but her lips twitched. "Aren't you supposed to be doing elemental distillation?"

Julien took the "shadow" given to him by Grindelwald—the gold-plated device the size of a pocket watch—from his pocket and placed it in the center of the worktable.

Wow!

The workbench seemed to sense it immediately, and the runes on its surface quickly rearranged to form a complex concentric circle array.

“We need to channel the energy from the sundial fragments into this formation,” Julien explained, “but first we need to prepare the ‘harmonizing agent’—three drops of bitter herb diluted solution, three ounces of moonlight extract, and…”

"And this," Liria said, pulling a small crystal bottle from her bosom, "the 'Eternal Night Spring' from the North. I collected it as soon as you mentioned it during summer vacation."

"Perfect." Julien began operating the robotic arms that automatically delivered tools—they hung from the ceiling, their ends ending in various shapes of pliers and spoons, operating them like conducting a bizarre symphony.

An interesting thing happened when the diluent was added.

Just as Julien dropped the diluent into the beaker, the liquid inside suddenly turned a bright pink, and then with a "pop," a small bubble appeared, in which Grindelwald's phantom image emerged. The old man frowned and said, "The temperature is too high, you idiot."

"Built-in teaching function?" Elizabeth was dumbfounded.

"It seems so," Julien quickly adjusted the flames. "Mr. Grindelwald probably set a 'memory imprint' on this knowledge point..."

Liria, on the other hand, took a keen interest in the "failure disposal barrel" in the corner. It was a three-legged, self-moving copper barrel that would burp contentedly and then perform a clumsy tap dance whenever someone threw scrap materials in.

"It seems to really enjoy eating burnt moonstone," Liria said, throwing in quite a few things. When she finally threw in a moonstone, the copper bucket spun around happily, and a smiley face appeared on its surface. "So cute, even more obedient than my sled dog."

As the experiment progressed, the liquid in the still separated into three layers: the top layer was golden, the middle layer was silver, and the bottom layer was a starry sky—a miniature starry sky where tiny stars could be seen rotating in the liquid.

"It's absolutely perfect," Julien said, staring at the liquid starry sky. "Could I be a genius in alchemy too?"

"Mainly because the tools in this room are convenient. Look over there, maybe the room thinks you need more inspiration," Elizabeth pointed to the corner of the workbench, where a plate of cookies shaped like various alchemical symbols had appeared out of nowhere. "Even tea and snacks are ready."

Liria came over, picked up a cookie, and took a bite: "It's ginger flavored, and it tastes a bit like... mistletoe?"

"That's the taste of my wisdom," Julien joked, then suddenly froze—he heard footsteps outside the door.