The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

One afternoon a week later, Julien was taking a walk alone in the rose garden of the castle.

The Rozier family's castle has twelve gardens, and roses are the most abundant planted in all of them. It is said that each rose is cultivated using the magic of a deceased member.

For the past week, Ophelia had been giving Julien a warm welcome. She not only showed him and Elizabeth around the various scenic spots surrounding the castle, but also opened the family library to Julien unconditionally.

Julien also copied a considerable number of books (Murphy's work), many of which would probably be in the restricted section at Hogwarts.

Just now, while he was reading in the library, the matriarch of the Ophelia family happened to be there as well. She smiled and suggested that a young wizard like Julien shouldn't be so hard on himself, and that this afternoon was a perfect time to go and see the last of the summer roses in the garden.

The garden is located on the edge of a cliff at the northernmost point of the castle, and its entrance is hidden by a withered rose archway.

At the entrance to the garden, there was only a gray-white stone ground, with a broken sundial standing in the center. The sundial was probably also an alchemical artifact, but it had lost all its magic.

"This is the first garden."

Sebastian's voice came from behind him. He wasn't wearing a tailcoat today, but a dark gray, old-fashioned wizard's robe.

"It's hot, so the lady asked me to bring you a bottle of spring water from here." As he reached out to hand over the water, Sebastian's right wrist revealed a symbol of thorns entwined around a crescent moon.

Julien instinctively slid his wand into his palm, a movement observed by the old butler.

"Who exactly are you?"

"No need to be nervous, Mr. Black," Sebastian smiled, a smile unlike his usual refined affability, but rather a more ancient, almost self-deprecating weariness.

"I was indeed a member of the Moonshadow Council. Many years ago, I was personally recruited by Lord Grindelwald."

He walked to the sundial, his withered fingers tracing the worn-out needles: "This garden was once a disgrace to the Rozier family. My predecessor, a true core member of the Moonshadow Council, attempted to force open a small passage here to enter the castle, but—"

He pointed to the grayish-white marks on the ground: "Miss Ophelia used the sundial to stop them. As a result, the sundial's magic was permanently depleted. Miss Ophelia personally executed my predecessor. And I, her apprentice, have been the steward ever since."

Julien put down his wand, but didn't put it away: "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked."

Sebastian turned around, his grey-blue eyes gleaming with an elusive light behind his glasses.

"Last Wednesday, you were browsing through 'The Historical Connections Between the Rozier Family and the Moonshadow Council' in the library. Last Thursday, you inquired about my background from Miss Elizabeth."

He bowed slightly: "The old lady taught me that the best defense against observers is to expose oneself. Now that you have seen the mark and have developed suspicions, it is better for me to state the facts than to leave you to guess."

"Are you now wholeheartedly dedicated to working for Ophelia?"

"I work for the Rozier family," Sebastian corrected, his tone carrying an almost reverent precision.

"The old lady knew everything, of course. She gave me a choice: return to the Moonshadow Council or stay in the castle. I chose the latter. The council believed I was dead, and the old lady made sure they continued to believe so."

"Alright, now that you know, I won't bother you any longer. By the way, if you look closely, you'll notice something peculiar about the roses in this garden." With that, Sebastian smiled, bowed, and withdrew.

Julien looked around and indeed found that the garden was full of black roses, which were very difficult to cultivate. In the Muggle world, they would probably be very expensive.

Suddenly he noticed an unusual black rose—its petals seemed to change with time. But instead of withering, they gradually became fuller from a drooping state, as if time were flowing backward.

"Don't touch it."

Elizabeth's voice came from behind, but it was too late.

Julien's fingers touched the petals, but he didn't feel the softness of the plant; instead, he felt the folds of some kind of space—the same feeling as the stone gate at the bottom of Falling Star Bay.

"This is--"

The black rose bloomed, as if releasing magic stored up for years. Julien felt himself being torn apart and then reformed; the Bavarian sunlight, the scent of roses, Elizabeth's panicked cries—all compressed into a single point, and then—

expansion.

He stood on the top floor of a stone tower. Outside the window, instead of the Black Forest, were fjords and glaciers. The eternal night of Northern Europe was fading, and the first rays of sunlight pierced the horizon, turning the snow a pale gold.

The interior of the stone tower is not small, but rather misplaced, not grand.

The stone bricks on the walls are joined at impossible angles, and the mortar at some of the joints is not gray, but a kind of dim silver-blue—the same kind of eerie light as the underwater city of Falling Star Bay.

Julien touched one of the seams and felt a faint pulse, like the building breathing.

"Welcome to Nurmengard." A voice rang out from the shadows. "I prefer to call it 'Watchtower,' of course. Dumbledore's word 'prison' is far too...dramatic."

Julien turned around and saw the figure he had seen in historical photographs—Grindelwald.

Grindelwald looks older in the portrait, and his blond hair in historical photos is now messy and gray, casually draped over his shoulders.

But those once sharp blue eyes, though not as bright as before, still hold something different, something that has not yet been extinguished.

"Ophelia's roses are always on time." Grindelwald smiled, a smile devoid of Lockhart's vanity, but rather almost benevolent.

"She told me that you would touch the flower on the seventh day. The Black family has an instinctive sensitivity to the number 'seven'."

Julien gripped the wand tightly, finding it still in his hand. The silver linden wood wand was warm and smooth as jade, yet now it emanated a strange tremor—not fear, but a resonance, the same resonance as that of Falling Star Bay and the Secret Chamber.

"Mr. Grindelwald? Is it you who wants to see me?" Julien thought of what Ophelia had said; perhaps this was her real purpose in inviting him.

The old man did not answer immediately. He walked slowly to the window, his posture still upright, as if it were not he who had been imprisoned for decades, but the tower itself.

"Dumbledore chose the wrong piece, and the wrong opponent," he said softly, as if talking to himself. "He groomed Harry Potter to fight Voldemort—a Horcrux fragment, a shadow. And I…"

He turned, his cloudy blue eyes staring directly at Julien: "I'm waiting for a real threat. Waiting for the day the walls of the world completely crumble. Waiting for someone to understand—the seal isn't eternal, dialogue is survival."

Julien felt the totem on his right wrist burning intensely. Within the stone walls of Nurmengard, some power was responding to his blood.

"You don't want me to open the stargate, do you?"

"Hmm..." Grindelwald considered his words.

"I just want you to understand the Stargate." With that, Grindelwald took out a stone tablet from his robes, which was about the same size as the package that Lyria had brought from the North to Hogwarts.

"Three stone tablets. This is one Ophelia gave me. The other two are at Hogwarts, you know. I intend to give them to you."

"Oh, no." Julien instinctively took a step back. However, the totem on his wrist burned more intensely than he had ever experienced before.

"Haha. Some people will stop at nothing to get it. Like the Moonshadow Council." Grindelwald laughed. "It seems the Mirror of Eris was right; only those who don't want to use it will truly obtain it."