The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 362: The Noble Black Family (Please subscribe, please collect, please vote)
After cleaning the kitchen, Lupin moved a lot of food into the kitchen and prepared to prepare lunch after arranging the food and cooking utensils. Hermione volunteered to stay and help in the kitchen. Ryan, led by Sirius, cleaned up several guest rooms upstairs to prepare accommodation for themselves and the Weasley family who came in the evening.

After cleaning up several guest rooms, Ryan found that he had run out of materials for drawing runes. More importantly, he couldn't open the space door to get things from the grocery store at this time, so he had to stop working.

"It's okay. We've done more work today than we expected." Sirius didn't feel as frustrated as Ryan. He felt that today's workload had far exceeded the planned amount. "Don't be so busy this afternoon. You can have a good rest. I'll go to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning and buy everything you want."

"Ryan, Sirius, come down for dinner." When Ryan and Sirius were talking in the guest room upstairs, they heard Hermione standing at the stairs calling them to dinner.

"Ah, let's go downstairs and eat. Actually, Lupin and I bought a lot of vegetables and seasonings two days ago. Unfortunately, the kitchen was not cleaned up when we set out, so we can only eat the tasteless curry paste with bread. I think there must be something delicious for lunch today."

Walking into the kitchen, there were already five or six shiny silver plates filled with food on the long table. In addition, there were two gilded candlesticks placed at both ends of the table. The candles on the candlesticks provided enough light for the cave-like deep basement.

"Let's go, this stew is just cooked and it's quite hot." Lupin used his wand to direct a large stew pot to float over from one end of the table. "Unfortunately, Sirius and I are not good at household magic, so we can only cook mostly by hand. I think if someone like Mrs. Weasley who is good at household magic cooked it, this meal would probably be ready in ten minutes."

When the last of the stew was served, the four of them sat down at the table. Everyone was hungry after a busy morning, so the first few minutes were spent eating. No one spoke, only the clatter of plates and cutlery and the rubbing of chairs as everyone sat down to eat.

After eating a whole piece of roast lamb on the plate, Sirius raised his head and said, "It's been almost a week since I moved here, and I finally have a proper meal. Remus, your cooking skills are really good." Ryan and Hermione nodded after hearing this. Although Lupin's cooking skills are still a little bit behind those of professional chefs, this level is already very high for daily cooking. To be fair, Ryan and Hermione, as professional mothers, are not as good at cooking as Lupin.

"Ah, as you live alone for a long time, you will naturally improve your cooking skills." Lupin said with bitterness, "But today we were able to cook so quickly thanks to Miss Granger's help. She has some magic that can clean the blood and bones in the meat very cleanly, and can also soften the meat to make it taste better."

"I suddenly thought of this when I saw you improve the Death and Decay spell this morning and use it for housework." Hermione, who was sitting next to Ryan, leaned over and whispered after hearing Lupin's praise. "It turns out that the blood magic of blood absorption, bone extraction and tendon breaking is really effective in cooking meat. And when I cast without a wand, others can't tell that I used magic."

After dinner, Lupin took over the task of washing the dishes. According to him, "At least I know the magic of washing dishes." Sirius looked at the clean dishes on the table in surprise. "You two have such a good appetite. I thought there might be some leftovers from lunch. Looking at you, I realized that I am old and can't eat anymore."

"Maybe we have better physiques, so we eat more." Ryan said that since he improved his physique, his appetite has gradually increased, and now his appetite is almost the same as that of an adult man. So when he went home this time, in order to avoid worrying his parents, he only ate until he was 60% full, and then took time to go to other worlds to fill his stomach.

The same was true for Hermione, especially after gaining some of the dragon's traits, her appetite was almost the same as that of an adult male. Fortunately, Ryan gave her several nutritional supplements before she went home so that she would not starve at home.

"By the way, Sirius. Can you show us around this house? I've never seen such an ancient wizard house." Ryan said to Sirius when leaving the table.

"This house has nothing but black magic and the stench of pure-blood supremacy—" Having said that, Sirius still took Ryan and Hermione upstairs to visit the house. According to him, although there is nothing worth mentioning in this house, it is always a good thing for young people to see it and broaden their horizons.

There was nothing important on the first floor. Sirius only pointed out that there was a portrait of his mother under the curtain at the entrance. If you disturb her, she will scream wildly, so it is best to be quiet when passing by there. Then the three of them came to the living room on the second floor. It was a long, high-ceilinged room. The tapestries hanging on the olive green walls were still dirty because they had not been cleaned before. Every time someone stepped on the carpet, a small cloud of dust would be raised, and the long, yellow-green velvet curtains would buzz, as if there were many invisible bees flying inside.

"I think we need at least three times as much material to clean this house." Ryan said with a grim expression as he listened to the buzzing sounds in the curtains. "There must be a disaster of vixens here."

"No problem, I'll buy some special spray when I go to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning," Sirius replied.

"Sirius, your family has a long history." Hermione exclaimed as she looked at the tapestry that took up an entire wall at the other end of the room. The tapestry looked very old and the color had faded, as if it had been bitten by a fox in several places. However, the gold thread embroidered on it was still shining, and they could clearly see a family tree with branches and leaves that could be traced back to the Middle Ages. A few large words were embroidered on the top of the tapestry: The Noble Most Ancient Black Family, Forever Pure.

The reason why Hermione was amazed was that in Europe only aristocrats with a long history would record their history, and family trees like this one that could be traced back to the Middle Ages were extremely precious in the Muggle world.

"Yes, it's a pity that there are only dark wizards in our family. Occasionally, one or two decent people will appear, but they will be driven out by them. For example..." When Sirius said this, he pointed to a small charred round hole on the tapestry, which looked like a cigarette burn mark.

"I was here once, but my dear old mother destroyed me after I ran away from home - Kreacher loved to whisper this story."

"You ran away from home?"

"I was about sixteen," said Sirius. "I had enough, and luckily Harry's grandparents took me in. I lived with them during the school holidays. After I finished school, my uncle Alphard, who was also kicked out, left me a considerable amount of gold so I could find a place to live."

Ryan looked at the family tree carefully and found that in many places the gold threads representing marriage alliances had inexplicably disappeared.

"I always feel like there's something missing from this picture." Ryan said, pointing to the missing places.

"Indeed, those paranoid people in the family are in favor of maintaining the purity of wizarding blood. So they hide those marriages that they feel are not qualified. This is also a helpless measure. If you only want your children to marry pure-blooded people, then your choice is very limited. So when we have no choice, we can only marry with some families that we may look down on, such as the Weasleys. Molly is my cousin by marriage, and Arthur is probably the great-grandson of my great-uncle. But you will definitely not see them here. Here, only some bloodlines that make them feel honored are listed. For example, the Malfoy family."

"It seems that pure-blood families are all related to each other." Hermione said after careful study. "As far as I know, when Muggles marry close relatives, most of their offspring will show problems of one kind or another. Can wizards solve this problem?"

"No." Sirius shook his head. "So there are very few of us left. If you look closely, you will find that many descendants of families pursuing extreme pure blood have some problems. Unfortunately, they still want to maintain the so-called pure bloodline. I think even if there was no war, the so-called noble Black family might not have lasted too long." Sirius finally said with a sigh.

(End of this chapter)