Hogwarts: My Grandmother is the Queen

Chapter 406 The Queen's Demand

Henry put down his teacup, took the silver badge and parchment from his inner pocket, and placed them on the coffee table.

"This was found in Sandringham's green box. A letter left by Queen Victoria. The letter says that the fourth arc comes from the royal bloodline, my mother's bloodline—the Spencer family produced a witch in the seventeenth century. Her name was erased from the family records, but her blood remained."

The Queen picked up the parchment, unfolded it, and slowly read it.

"What are you planning to do?" she asked.

"The seventh seal is beneath the stone platform in the Headmaster's office. The letter says it will open at the full moon," Henry said. "I need to get back to Hogwarts before then." Dumbledore said, "No." The Queen said.

Henry looked up.

The Queen placed the teacup on the coffee table, her gaze calm, but her tone carried a weight that Henry rarely heard, a weight that left no room for negotiation.

You can't go.

"Grandmother," the Queen said, looking at him, "you are second in line to the throne, you are the Duke of Cambridge, and you belong to the House of Windsor."

"I won't allow you to treat yourself like a key, shoving it into a door that leads to nowhere."

"The seventh seal is inside Hogwarts," Henry said. "Dumbledore will be there, Snape will be there, I'm not alone."

"I know Dumbledore is very strong," the Queen said, "but Dumbledore is not a member of the House of Windsor. He doesn't know what you mean to me, to the country, to your brothers. But I do know."

She paused for a moment.

“Your father spent a month searching through old archives and found a few yellowed papers. Your mother grew roses for twenty years and knew that the Spencer family had a witch in their ranks.” She looked at Henry. “I saw her name in the Windsor archives. Her name was Eleanor Spencer. Born in 1603, she was removed from the family records in 1621. She was removed not because she possessed magic, but because she refused to join an organization called the Entrance Weavers’ League.”

"Eleanor Spencer refused to join the Alliance," the Queen said. "She wrote in her diary that the Alliance wanted me to be the fourth arc, which represents those outside the Alliance, but she didn't want to stand outside. She painted the fourth arc green because green is the color of the Spencer family."

Henry turned the silver badge over. The fourth arc was indeed green.

"She later died in 1627," the Queen said. "The cause of death is unknown. Her name was erased from the family records. But her bloodline survived, passing through the Spencer family to your mother and to you."

"So the fourth arc comes from my mother's family bloodline?" Henry said.

"Yes," the Queen said. "Eleanor refused to return to her rightful place, so the Fourth Arc remained green, outside the Alliance. But she wrote in her diary that one day, her bloodline would return."

"You have her blood," she said, "but you are not her substitute. You are my grandson, and I will not let you open a door that even Dumbledore does not know where it leads."

"What about the seventh seal?" Henry asked.

"I'll handle it." The Queen turned around. "I'll have Oswald investigate the Ministry of Magic's internal system, Arnold will speak with Dumbledore, and I'll have Irene keep an eye on Hogwarts. These things will be done behind the scenes; you don't need to be in the spotlight."

“Grandmother, I’ve been investigating for almost a year,” Henry said. “I was the one who awakened the first seal, and I also completed the fourth arc.”

"I know." The Queen walked back to the armchair and sat down again. "So now you have to leave this matter to me. I will respect everything you find out, but I will not let you open the seventh door yourself."

She looked at Henry, her gaze softening slightly.

"You're only thirteen. You're in fourth grade. Your job is to go back to Hogwarts, play chess with your friends, join the dueling club, and occasionally write to your mother. The sealing—that's an adult matter—I'll handle that."

Henry put the silver badge back into his inner pocket.

He knew the Queen was right.

She is the queen, the head of the family, but she is also the only one who holds the entire scheme in her hands.

Bagman's debts, Oswald's access port, and Irene's century-old network of connections in the wizarding world—these were all things she had laid out.

Entrusting the sealing to her is actually safer than Henry plunging himself under the stone platform.

"Okay," Henry said.

The Queen raised an eyebrow slightly, as if she hadn't expected him to agree so quickly.

"But I have one condition," Henry said.

"What are the conditions?"

"I'll be at Hogwarts on the night of the full moon. I won't break the seal, but I'll be there. If anything goes wrong, I need to make sure Dumbledore and Snape know what to do."

The Queen looked at him for a moment and nodded.

"Yes, you can go back to Hogwarts for the summer. Stay in your dormitory on the night of the full moon. If Dumbledore needs you, he will come looking for you."

Henry stood up. "I'm going back to Sandringham tomorrow. My mother is still there."

"Go then," said the Queen. "The roses are in full bloom."

Henry stepped out of the study. The organ in St. George's Church was still playing, the melody a little lighter than before.

Eileen waited by the car outside the side gate of Windsor Castle.

"Back to Sandringham?" she asked.

"Hmm," Henry nodded.

When Diana returned to Sandringham, she was pruning the third rose bush in the rose garden.

A gardener pushed a wheelbarrow past, piled high with pruned branches and dead leaves.

Henry came out through the side door and walked along the stone path toward the rose garden.

Diana saw him from afar, straightened up, and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

A face, slightly flushed by the setting sun, peeked out from under the straw hat.

"You're back?" Diana asked. "How's your grandmother?"

"It's alright." Henry walked over to her, took the pruning she held, and said, "I'll do the rest; your hands are all red from being rubbed."

O

Diana looked down at her palm and smiled.

"Growing roses is never easy; what about your father?"

"They're still in the archives. He said he'd finish going through the rest of the boxes today."

Diana sighed and took off her straw hat to fan herself.

"He loses track of time once he's engrossed in the pile of old papers. Go call him for dinner; it's served at 6:30. The kitchen has made Yorkshire pudding."

Henry sat down on the stone steps next to Diana, picked up the pruning shears, and began to trim the crossing branches of the yellow rose bush.

The handles of the pruning shears were made of wood, polished smooth and shiny by Diana's hands.

"Mom," Henry said, pruning a dead branch, "how much do you know about the Spencer family?"

Diana glanced at him. "Why are you suddenly asking this?"

"My father found some old records in the archives. A branch of the Spencer family was erased in the seventeenth century. A woman named Eleanor Spencer."

Diana frowned slightly, sat down on the steps next to Henry, and placed her straw hat on her knees.

"Eleanor—I remember that name. I saw it in an old family genealogy book when I was a child. But that page was torn out, leaving only the name starting with 'Eleanor.' I asked my father, and he said it was a long time ago, no..."

Use a tube.

"Did your father say anything else?"

Diana shook her head. "My father rarely talks about the Spencer family history. He says it's all old news and has nothing to do with the present. But I know he goes to the Althorp Spencer family ancestral home every year. He goes alone, never with me."

Henry placed the cut branches into the wicker basket, and Diana looked at him with gentle eyes.

"Why are you looking this up?"

"My father is investigating the connections between the royal family and the wizarding world. Eleanor Spencer is part of it," Henry said. "I'm also investigating something at Hogwarts; Professor Dumbledore gave me some old files."

Diana remained silent for a moment. In the distance, an owl flew over from the direction of the oak grove, landed on the garden wall, preened its feathers, and flew away.

"You look a lot like your grandmother," she suddenly said.

"grandmother?"

"Your grandfather Philip said the same thing," Diana said, putting her straw hat back on. "You always do things this way: no rush to speak, no rush to act. First you observe, first you listen, first you investigate. By the time you open your mouth, everyone has already bypassed you."

Henry put the pruning shears back on his lap. "Mom."

"Um?"

"If one day I do something you don't quite understand—about the magical world, about our family—would you be worried?"

Diana looked at him, her eyes glowing a pale brown in the sunset, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes smoothing out.

"Of course I'm worried, I'm your mother. But I also know you won't do anything foolish, you've never done anything foolish since you were little."

She reached out and pressed on Henry's shoulder.

"Go and call your father for dinner; Yorkshire pudding won't taste good if it gets cold."

Henry stood up and placed the pruning shears and basket on the steps.

He walked back to the mansion along the stone path, and as he passed the kitchen window, he smelled the aroma of Yorkshire pudding, the mingled scents of roast meat sauce and flour, and the steam from the oven pouring out of the half-open window.

The door to the archives was ajar. When Henry pushed it open, Charles was standing by the window, holding a piece of parchment and looking at the setting sun.

There were seven or eight sheets of paper spread out on the windowsill, some yellowed and some with curled edges.

There were three open wooden crates on the ground, their contents spilled out and piled on chairs, the floor, and even the windowsill.

"Father," Henry said, "it's dinner time. Mother says the Yorkshire pudding won't taste good if it gets cold."

Charles turned around; his hair was even messier than it had been in the afternoon, and there was a little ink stain on the cuff of his sweater.

But his eyes were bright; Henry had seen that look before, when Dumbledore found a hard-to-find book, and when Snape prepared a complicated potion.

That was the look in his eyes, as if he had discovered something.

"Henry," Charles handed over the parchment, "look at this."

Henry took the parchment. It contained a family tree that was more detailed than the one from this morning.

The trunk branches off into seven main lines from the bottom, each of which branches into many smaller branches. At the very bottom of the trunk, there is a name circled in dark ink.

Eleanor Spencer.

Next to his name, in very small print, was written "Fourth Arc, removed from the list in 1621, died in 1627".

"I found it in the last box of documents," Charles said. "This box contains Spencer family documents from Queen Victoria's private collection. Most of them are land deeds and marriage records, but at the very bottom there is a handwritten genealogy. The scribe is unsigned, but the handwriting is very similar to Queen Victoria's."

Henry turned the parchment over. On the back was a line of writing, in the same handwriting as the letter in the green box.

"The fourth arc comes from the royal bloodline, but the royal bloodline is unaware of its origins. What lies beneath the seventh arc is not the origin of the alliance, but its prisoners."

"Father," Henry said, folding the parchment carefully, "may I take this family tree with me?"

Charles looked at him for a while.

"You're going back to Hogwarts?"

"Tomorrow, before the full moon."

Charles nodded, walked to the table, put the genealogy and several related documents into a brown paper envelope, and handed it to Henry.

"Take it, I have more copies here."

Henry took the envelope and put it in his inner pocket.

"Thanks."

Charles turned off the lights in the archives and walked out of the corridor with Henry. When they passed the rose garden, Diana was no longer there.

The pruning shears and basket were placed on the steps, with a kettle and several glasses next to them. She had probably gone back inside to prepare dinner.

Dinner was at a small restaurant in Sandringham, where only three people sat at the long table.

The Yorkshire pudding was baked to perfection, with a crispy exterior and a soft interior, and it smelled wonderful after being drizzled with meat gravy.

Diana poured herself a glass of red wine, and Charles asked for a glass of water.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?" Diana asked.

"Eileen sent a car to pick me up in the morning."

"Going back to Hogwarts for the summer?"

"Well, Professor Dumbledore said there are some things to take care of at the castle during the summer holidays."

Diana nodded and did not ask any further questions.

She cut a piece of pudding, put it in her mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and said, "Is what your father found today related to what you're investigating?"

Charles looked up, and Henry put down his fork.

“A little,” Henry said. “My father found an old family tree. The Spencer family had a woman named Eleanor in the seventeenth century. She had connections with the wizarding world.”

"Eleanor," Diana nodded, "is that the person you mentioned to me this afternoon?"

"She was a witch," Henry said. "The Spencer family removed her from the records."

Diana put down her wine glass and looked at Henry.

"So the Spencer family has magical blood," Diana said.

"Yes, it reached you through her, and then it reached me."

Diana remained silent for a moment, while Charles quietly ate his pudding beside her, his gaze occasionally shifting between Henry and Diana.

"Does your grandmother know about this?" Diana finally asked.

"I know," Henry said. "She saw Eleanor's diary in the Windsor archives."

Diana picked up her glass, took a sip, and put it down.

"Your grandmother knew far more than we could ever imagine."

Henry didn't respond, and Diana didn't press the matter further. She picked up her fork, cut a piece of pudding, put it in her mouth, and chewed it slowly.

The restaurant was quiet, with only the sounds of cutlery clinking against plates and the rustling of the night wind through the rose bushes outside the window.