Harry Potter: Blood of the Dragon

Chapter 237 - 237. Strong Chin For A Strong Boy

"Look here, he had all this hidden inside his fur." Magnus showed everything to Grace.

Grace was speechless. How would a person even go around digesting the fact that so much stuff was hidden in a cat's fur? "Why is there an iron rod?" ??

"Beats me, ask him yourself." Magnus pushed Chad forward.

Chad started purring, making big eyes and rubbing himself on Grace's feet. But it would not work today, "Oh, this is my favourite pen that Adam gave me on our first relationship anniversary back in college."

Chad sweated a little. He understood all human words, even could make human thoughts, but he had not yet developed the means to speak words. He feared that now he had messed with such an important thing of Grace, he couldn't get away.

"And this rose... why is it rotten and even here? And a pebble, nail cutter. God, even cat drugs." She yelled when she noticed the catnip. Chad hid his gaze in utter shame.

"AND! The tie pin I gifted Adam. Poor Adam, I scolded him for losing my gift. Chad, you have caused too much damage this time. Your crimes are non-pardonable." She reprimanded the cat.

However, even though Chad had done something bad. Grace was far too kind to scold him too much or punish him heavily. Chad was her stress killer after all.

"So as a punishment, from today you are banned from going out for one week and your favourite fish is banned for a month." She announced the verdict.

Still, this was torture for Chad. As he had his crush living outside and his favourite food was his life. To him, this was the biggest punishment he feared.

"MEOWWW..." He kowtowed beside her feet and apologised, asking for mercy. But today he wouldn't be getting his way.

...

Magnus went to his room and found Merlin and Arthur bickering in a painting, while Summer calmly listened to them. It seems she was made the judge.

"What happened now?" Magnus asked.

"Preposterous, Magnus, Merlin here suggested that I am an inbred," Arthur said, looking offended.

Merlin was calm and replied, "I'm not wrong. This had been the tradition of many royal families, to keep the bloodline pure. And considering Arthur's family has been royal for generations, it's not too hard to assume that a few of his ancestor siblings smooched each other every now and then."

"GODS... this is so disgusting and unholy." Arthur acted of vomiting. He turned to Magnus, "You tell me, what do you think?"

Magnus relaxed in his seat, "Umm... you royalties in old times used to see the peasants and ordinary people as lowly beings, tainted blood. So where would you royals go to find a partner? Of course your family."

"ABSOLUTELY WRONG!" Arthur rejected it.

Magnus went to the bookshelf and took out a thick history book. "Umm... ah, here it is. Have you heard about the Habsburg family?"

"No, who are they?" Both of them asked.

Magnus put down the book so they could also see. "Well, Habsburg family was a very powerful and influential family. Many of the kings and queens of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty ruled across Europe from the 16th to the start of the 18th century.

"Habsburg ruler Philip I of Burgundy (including pieces of present-day Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands) married Joanna of Castile, the female heir to the throne of what's now much of Spain, in 1496. This way, after a few years of skirmishes, he eventually became the Emperor of the Spanish empire."

"GET TO THE POINT!" Arthur butted in.

"Hehe, calm down, you're going to love this. Well, just as these Spanish Habsburgs themselves had received the crown through marriage, they knew that it could easily pass out of their hands in the same way. In their determination to keep the Spanish monarchy within the family, they began to look for royal spouses only within their own family.

"Well, it would have been probably fine if it was like 4th or 5th cousin, but here they started to marry their immediate family members. For example, two of the kings married their own nieces while another married his first cousin. The last king of the Habsburg Spain dynasty was Charles II. His existence was an unholy one. His parents were so closely related that Charles II was his own mother's cousin and his father's great-nephew. His grandmother was also his aunt.

"So, he was the 5th generation inbred. Charles most likely suffered from two serious genetic disorders because of this inbreeding of generations. The first is Combined pituitary hormone deficiency. Guess what gifts it gave Charles II? Short stature, infertility and impotence. Also some weak muscles and a few digestive problems.

"The second one was something that makes it difficult for the kidney to get rid of acid through the urine. It would have led to bloody urine, weak muscles, and a larger head as compared to the body." Magnus read from the book. He paused and looked at Merlin and Arthur's faces. They looked horrified.

"This... inbreeding caused all this?" Merlin asked.

"Of course, and this is not it. Because of constant inbreeding, the Habsburg family had formed a hereditary elongated jaw, so elongated that it would cause them problems, sometimes not even be able to shut their mouth. The feature was named Habsburg Jaw, and it was a birth defect not a sign of pure bloodline.

"Haha, there is one funny incident about it, that when Charles V of Habsburg, arrived in Spain in 1516, he couldn't fully close his mouth due to his Habsburg jaw. This reportedly caused one bold peasant to shout at him, "Your majesty, shut your mouth! The flies of this country are very insolent."

"But, all in all, Charles II had it worse, as after 5 generations of filthy inbreeding, all the defects compiled into his body. He had a lower jaw so pronounced, so elongated that it made it nearly impossible for Charles to chew his own food, he swallowed all he ate, because his lower jaw stood out so much his two rows of teeth couldn't meet. He also had trouble speaking due to this and he started speaking only at the age of four.

"Besides this, he suffered from epileptic seizures that grew with age. He was constantly plagued by diseases such as measles, rubella, lots of dental problems, bronchial infections, frequent diarrhoea and vomiting.

"By his 30s, he was said to look like an old man and had swollen feet, legs, abdomen, face and sometimes tongue. He was so weak he could not get out of bed for more than 2 hours. Obviously, after having so many medical conditions, the people titled him "The Bewitched,"

"In the Habsburg family, in Charles II generation, 34 Habsburg children were born. Nearly 30% of them died before reaching the age of 1. And about 50% died before their 10th birthday. Surprisingly, they were one of the richest families yet their infant mortality rate was higher than peasants, which was at 20%."

"WAIT! What happened to that poor soul Charles?" Arthur inquired.

"Dead, of course. At the age of 38. In an autopsy, they found stones in his kidney, smaller heart, darkened lungs, darkened balls and water-filled head. Inbreeding was very common in European monarchies but these ones took it to the next level, hell even Egyptian Pharos committed inbreeding and paid the price, and they lived centuries before you two. Do you wanna see Charles II?" He asked. Not too surprising, they agreed.

Magnus turned the page and showed them. "Here,"

Merlin and Arthur both reacted at the same time. Merlin sounded fully disgusted, "Holy GOD, this is hideous... good gods... this was a demon spawn."

"MERLIN'S TITTS!" Arthur exclaimed.

"And I wouldn't mind having titties as long as I am not him. GODS, not even a mother can love such a boy." Merlin exclaimed.

"Not if the mother also looks the same," Arthur interjected.

"AH! I see you have found a loophole, my friend." Merlin nodded at the observation. Only such a demonic family could love a demon.

Magnus turned the page to show their family photos, "Actually, all these paintings are heavily altered by the painters of that era to depict their king as healthy as possible. So, if he still looks so hideous, you can imagine what he really looked like."

Magnus, though, felt pity looking at the image of Charles II. The boy didn't choose to be born in an incestual family. He won the lottery of a lifetime by being born to a king but the cost was too much to enjoy the lottery. "Imagine how painful just the mere task of existing was for this guy."

Arthur laughed, "God made him infertile, probably because even he was disgusted with this madness."

However, Merlin had another observation, "How is it that not a single king in the 200 years of their existence thought of why they were so much uglier than peasants?"

"They probably did, and must have concluded that because they were purer they have a truly human face, the rest have fake human faces." Magnus supposed.

"Magnus, what does all this have to do with my main question?" Arthur inquired.

Magnus closed the book, "Well, you look pretty handsome."

"Hehe, why you... I won't lie but all women of the kingdom lusted after me..." Arthur boasted.

Magnus continued, "And your stupidity cannot be seen as a genetic defect,"

"BWAHAHA..." Merlin laughed out loud and Arthur frowned.

"So, even if you had inbred blood, it must not be so closely tied that it would cause a problem. So I think you're somewhat clear." Magnus declared.

However, Merlin didn't forget to find the loophole to still make fun of Arthur, "That still means he probably has inbred blood. So I can still call him Inbred King, right?"

Magnus stepped back, "I'm not going to meddle anymore. I have work to do before heading back to school."

"You would have probably married your half-sister Morgana if she wasn't an evil bitc... Witch." This was the last insult Magnus heard Merlin throwing at Arthur.

[You can see Charles II and his family on my Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn OR see them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mister_immortal_novel]

GIMME THEM STONES!

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Special thanks to *Douglas Flower* *Umar Latif* *Julian Rocamora* *Darrien Steely* *Franklin Walley*