great-warnovel Chapter 185 The Tower of London Will Fall Down
Chapter 185 The Tower of London Will Fall Down
Chapter 185 The Tower of London Will Fall Down
He had seen the child before the war.
When Elizabeth was a young girl, after learning about the existence of the wizarding world, she wrote countless letters hoping to study at Hogwarts.
Unfortunately, the Windsor family did not have a magical bloodline, and young Elizabeth did not receive a letter delivered by an owl when she was 11 years old.
But because she was the daughter of the King of England, even as a Muggle, she always had access to a lot of information about the wizarding world. Undeterred, she wrote to Armando Dippetto, the headmaster of Hogwarts at the time. However, the old headmaster dismissed her wild fantasies, but he couldn't give her a clear rejection. So, he assigned Dumbledore to appease the princess.
It was at that time that Dumbledore met Elizabeth, a bright and determined young girl whom he adored. Unfortunately, her magical talent could not be taught to her, so he had to harden his heart and tell her the truth: she would never be able to enter the magical world.
He never saw the princess again after that. The wizarding world was too far removed from the Muggles, and he needed to worry more and more about Grindelwald's affairs.
Then came his defeat at the hands of Grindelwald, the goblins' betrayal, the war between Muggles and wizards, and the nuclear bomb that destroyed all of London. He thought that Elizabeth, like the other members of the royal family, had perished in the light and heat. No one expected that, fifty years later, they would meet again.
However, Dumbledore had become a white-bearded old man, no longer the elegant gentleman he once was, while Elizabeth had gone from a vibrant young girl to an old lady who looked even older and worse off than him.
"You've aged a lot, Professor," Elizabeth said tremulously. To live to nearly seventy in the wasteland was a miracle for a Muggle. Heaven knows how she survived in an era without medical care and plagued by hunger and cold.
"I thought you were long dead," Dumbledore said with a sigh.
"But have you been crowned king? In this era, on this land?"
Hermione crept closer to the old wizard and whispered, "Professor, something's not right with her scepter. It seems to be enchanted."
With a bracelet woven from Veela hair, her third eye becomes more sensitive when focused.
The scepter was not made of a single piece of metal or wood, but of thin wooden branches bound together and radiating outwards from the top, like a hedgehog perched on a branch.
These branches are not intact; many of them have broken or burned marks, and they look dilapidated.
Dumbledore also noticed the problem with the scepter, but he only glanced at it and didn't ask any further questions.
"Before London was bombed, I was part of a women's support group for the war effort as a lieutenant of the King of Windsor II, and I was lucky enough to survive because I was on the front lines," Elizabeth recalled.
"After that, many people gathered around me and suggested that I be crowned as the last Queen of England."
She said calmly.
"In the process of surviving in the wasteland, I unfortunately lost my fertility, so after my death, England will truly disappear. You wizards don't need to worry."
Dumbledore couldn't help but say, "Why not go to Malfoy Castle? They should welcome a true royal family member and even help you continue the lineage. The Malfoy lands were granted by William I."
Before the enactment of the Secret Service Act, Malfoy was a member of the upper echelons of British society and had close ties with the royal family.
Queen Elizabeth looked at Dumbledore with her cloudy eyes: "You told me that I would never be able to have magic."
These words made Dumbledore pause; it was probably this very statement that caused Elizabeth to harbor resentment towards magic from that moment on.
They also refused any form of help from wizards.
He could only point in the direction of London: "Have you always lived around here? The radiation here is too high, it's very bad for your health."
"The valiant Royal Legion fears no challenge! We all came from London alive!" the powerful man shouted proudly.
Perhaps this is their way of selecting warriors. No wonder these Muggles have varying degrees of aberrations. I'm afraid everyone's lifespan is very short. Even if they survive a trip through such a high-radiation zone, they will inevitably turn into a lump of rotten flesh in the future.
Dumbledore said softly, "Hogwarts is only staying here temporarily. We will remove the radiation from this place."
To make your lives safer, we will depart for Scotland in no more than three months.
The site of the castle.
But Elizabeth remained unmoved, sitting comfortably in her sedan chair as she watched the old wizard.
"It is said that wizards live for 200 years, and even Muggle nobles who lived comfortably before the war rarely lived to be 80," she suddenly said.
"You must be over a hundred years old, yet you still look quite young; perhaps even among wizards, you'd be considered middle-aged." Dumbledore's transformation was so subtle that no one could tell he was actually a ghost.
"And I am already very old. The newborns these days will fear me as a monster. They have never seen a creature that has lived this long."
Elizabeth, with her high level of education, is a living fossil among the Muggles of the wasteland. Her knowledge would earn her the respect of everyone even if she were not the queen. She even has a car repair technician certificate and is a truck mechanic.
"Muggles fear wizards as much as children fear me."
"We're practically two different species," she said, shaking her head.
"You're right, magic is not for us."
Her gaze shifted to the scepter in her hand, which she gently stroked as if it were a precious jewel.
Dumbledore wanted to say something more, but she interrupted him.
"After London was destroyed, your Diagon Alley also lost its magical cover, you brave children,"
Having memorized the map beforehand, they rushed into the radiation zone to search for supplies in the city.
"They discovered Ollivanders Wand Shop and dug out many damaged wands from the ruins."
Elizabeth chuckled: "I'm just too obsessed with magic. Even though the country has been destroyed, I still want to collect everything related to magic."
With a gentle lift of her right hand, the scepter hummed, and the palanquin flew off the shoulders of the servants and landed slowly in front of Dumbledore.
It was then that Hermione realized that the queen's lower body had completely disappeared, and she wondered what kind of ordeal she had suffered. "The Staff of the Skeletons—that is what I call this masterpiece." She looked at the staff in her hand.
"It was born from a haphazardly piled-up stack of broken wands, as if in response to my expectations of magic, that it could grant the wishes of Muggles."
But Dumbledore's expression was more serious as he gazed at the scepter: "This doesn't come without a price; it costs you your life!"
"Yes, I rarely use it," Elizabeth said, looking at the scepter.
"Because that would only remind me that I am still just a Muggle without any 'talent'."
Her gaze turned to Hogwarts, her eyes filled with longing and fascination, but even more so with unfamiliarity and cold hatred.
"Hogwarts, the legend of magic I've heard since I was a child—"
"But if I don't possess that talent, why let me know all this—"
Dumbledore couldn't answer her; too many stories of wizards and Muggles stemmed from differences in innate talent.
Lily and her sister, Filch...
Elizabeth just happened to be born into a royal family and learned about a world she shouldn't have known.
"If you wish, we can bring you up to the castle. We have the best healers and potion masters, which may be able to heal your body," he said softly.
But the old queen shook her head.
"Magic has already rejected me once."
She looked at Dumbledore with cold eyes: "And this time, London will also reject you."
The White Wizard saw the will to die in her eyes. This queen had long since lived enough. She knew that no matter what she did, she could not harm this great castle, but she still wanted to demonstrate her will as Queen of Great Britain through her actions.
She raised the Staff of Skeletons high, and a fierce howl erupted from the scepter.
A faint, dim yellow light emanated from her body, and it was visible to the naked eye that her body was gradually disappearing and disintegrating, starting from her lower body.
"In the name of the last Queen of England, London will refuse entry to wizards!"
She looked at the castle that wanted to pass through her country's capital, her eyes filled with hatred—hatred for everything that had been taken away.
"A city of humans! Free from monsters!"
She screamed in a frenzied manner, and even as the decomposition accelerated, in the blink of an eye, only her head and arms remained.
The Muggles around them knelt on the ground, bowing to their queen, while Dumbledore and Hermione stood silently to the side.
They watched as the Staff of Bones, powered by Queen Elizabeth, emitted ever-increasing light.
A phantom city rises from the ruins shrouded in mist.
The soft light formed the palace, the chimneys, and the statues; the city from Elizabeth's memory reappeared fifty years later.
Finally, she stopped, her head the only thing remaining. The crowned head and the staff fell to the ground, the staff being caught by Dumbledore and the head being quickly taken by the loyal guards.
With her last breath, the old queen glanced at the glowing city and the towering spire of the Tower of London.
"It won't fall down—"
With reluctance and longing, the old man slowly closed his eyes.