The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

At the end of July, the sun on the French Riviera turned the seawater into a honey-gold color.

Julien floated on his back on the surface of Falling Star Bay, letting the warm seawater support his body.

The eagle-headed hound totem on the inside of his right wrist had been dormant for a whole month—ever since they embedded the star fragment into the groove on the stone gate, the eerie blue light had engulfed the entire underwater city, and Evanna Rozier's ghost had appeared for the last time, nodding to them.

Now, almost a month has passed.

"Julien! Catch!"

Rozier's voice came from the beach. Before Julien could turn around, a wet starfish hit him in the face.

"Elizabeth!" He wiped his face, the salty seawater stinging his eyes. "How childish are you?"

"Much more mature than you, Mr. Black." Rozier stood in the knee-deep water, her dark green tulle dress clinging to her legs, soaked by the seawater.

She was still clutching another starfish in her hand, a smug smile playing on her lips that both annoyed and exasperated Julien. "Who told you to steal my seashell with a levitation spell?"

"That's fair competition!"

"Two twelve-year-old children," Liria's voice came from the shore.

She sat cross-legged on a sun-baked rock, weaving a knot from seaweed—a style unique to the North. "The young wizards and girls of Hogwarts throw starfish at each other. If a reporter from the Daily Prophet were to capture that..."

"They won't come to film us," Rozier said nonchalantly, tossing his hair, water droplets tracing a brief rainbow in the sunlight. "We're already 'hidden in the shadows,' aren't we?"

She spoke those words in Chinese, her pronunciation strange but accurate. Julien had taught her and Liria that line of poetry last month, and Rozier had memorized it, occasionally using it to tease him.

"Your Chinese has improved; you have some talent for languages." Julien swam back to the shallows and walked towards the shore, stepping on the soft sand.

"My grandmother spoke seventeen languages," Rozier added, his voice suddenly dropping.

Julien noticed a subtle change in her tone. Over the past month, Rosier had occasionally mentioned her grandmother—Ophelia Rosier.

Ophelia Rozier is Elizabeth Rozier's grandfather's older sister. She never married and is currently the head of the Rozier family. Elizabeth is also instructed by her family to call her grandmother.

Ophelia Rozier followed Grindelwald in her youth and also helped him do many bad things.

But Elizabeth had always been very fond of her since they met last year. Therefore, whenever Elizabeth mentioned her, her expression would become complicated, a mixture of attachment, confusion, and a certain indescribable wariness.

"Your grandmother..." Julien began hesitantly.

"She wrote again today," Rozier said. "It wasn't sent to the Azure Coast, it was delivered directly to me. A family messenger, a variant of the raven, capable of penetrating any protective spell to find the bloodline heir."

Liria stopped knitting and looked over with her icy blue eyes: "What did she say?"

Rozier did not answer immediately; instead, she took a gleaming silver envelope from her small bag on the shore.

She opened the envelope, and the parchment unfolded in her hand. Julien noticed her fingertips trembling slightly.

“‘My dear Elizabeth,’” Rozier murmured, “the Black Forest of Bavaria is in full bloom. Your return has breathed new life into this ancient castle. But remember, one’s view is limited—invite that young man from the Black family. I have some… stories of his ancestors that I wish to tell him myself.”

She raised her head, her icy gray eyes meeting Julien's directly: "She invited you to Germany. Bavaria, to the Rozier family's castle."

"She invited me? Your grandmother knows we're here?" Julien was a little puzzled. Although Elizabeth had mentioned last summer that her grandmother had asked her to invite her classmates and friends over, he thought it was just a polite remark.

"She knows everything," Rozier said with a hint of bitterness. "At least, she thinks she knows everything."

---

Three days later, at Munich train station.

Liria's farewell was shorter than expected. Although she was now friends with Elizabeth, she still had no good feelings towards the Rozier family and would never go with Elizabeth.

The girl from the North hugged Rozier tightly, then said to Lian, "Beware of those 'unseen things'."

"Is this a Luna-style warning?" Luna's rambling was already quite well-known at Hogwarts, and Julien tried to lighten the mood.

"No," Liria said with an unusually serious expression, "it's a warning from the North."

"Excuse me, Elizabeth," Liria said, turning to Elizabeth Rozier, "I'm not targeting your family, but I did a divination for you using a method unique to the North, and I have a bad feeling about it. Although it's not my forte, you should still be careful."

Julien wanted to say something more, but Liria had already turned and walked toward the train, her long, silvery-white hair fluttering in the breeze through the platform like a flag about to disappear.

"She likes you," Rozier suddenly said.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb." Rozier stared into Julien's eyes. "The Northerners never give away 'Tears of Eternal Night' lightly. It's a part of their souls, the aurora's anchor in the material world. The fact that she gave it to you actually means..."

She didn't finish speaking, but Julien understood. He looked down at the faintly glowing crystal around his neck and felt a heavy weight on it.

---

The Rozier family castle is nestled deep in the Bavarian Black Forest. In the distance, the outline of the mountains undulates in the twilight, swallowing a sliver of the setting sun into the valley.

When the carriage finally stopped in front of the castle gates, Julien understood what Elizabeth had told him—this place could never be found on a Muggle map, just like Hogwarts.

The entire building is shrouded in some ancient confusion spell. From a distance, it looks like an ordinary cliff. Only when you stand in front of it will the stone walls, towers, and spires gradually appear like a faded oil painting.

As Julien stood at the entrance, the castle resembled a withered rose—the main building, constructed of black stone, exuded an almost morbid elegance, while the silhouettes of its spires and arcades appeared like thorny entanglements in the twilight.

The castle's outer walls were covered with some kind of deep purple vines, whose leaves rustled in the evening breeze like the whispers of countless ghosts.

The most striking feature is the family crest hanging above the main entrance: withered rose branches entwined with stars.

The rose petals have fallen, leaving only sharp thorns and withered vines, yet it still maintains an eerie, almost proud posture.

"Welcome to Rosenkreutzburg," Rozier said softly, with a solemnity Julien had never heard before. "We also call it Rosethorn Castle, the residence of the Rozier family since the Middle Ages."

The castle gates were two heavy black iron doors, their surfaces covered with intricate runes—Julian recognized several of them as symbols of "protection" and "exploration" from ancient magical script.

At this moment, the gate was wide open, as if waiting for their arrival.

There was a person standing at the door.

He was a typical old butler. He was thin, dressed in a well-tailored dark gray tailcoat, and his silver-white hair was neatly combed and tied into a tidy bun at the back of his head.

His face carried a gentle and kind air—the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seemed to be carefully calculated curves, and the smile at the corners of his mouth was just right, striking a balance between "friendliness" and "distance".

"Young lady," he bowed slightly to Rozier, his voice as gentle as a fine vintage sherry, "you're back. This must be Mr. Blake?"

"Yes, Sebastian," Rozier nodded, "Is Grandmother waiting for us?"

"The old lady is having tea in the planetarium," Sebastian said, turning his gaze to Julien, his grey-blue eyes gleaming with an unfathomable light behind his glasses. "She instructed me to make sure Mr. Black...accompanies her."