Richard committed his thoughts to paper and sent the documents to Arthur Weasley. Things became hectic at Grosvenor's Workshop and Grosvenor Junior, with employees rushing about as though they'd been stung somewhere particularly tender. Some had to travel to Russia—a rather dangerous place these days—to find physicists and persuade them to move to Britain. Others had to prepare for the physicists' arrival while pretending to be ordinary people.
But Richard was confident of success.
He had even allocated one hundred and thirty million dollars to the project—almost everything he'd managed to earn from graphene sales and financial manoeuvring. A fortune by wizarding standards, but not much by Muggle ones. After all, the physicists would need demonstration equipment; they were hardly going to explain how a particle accelerator worked with nothing but their fingers.
***
Forty days flew by as though they were one. Richard devoted the entire time to his studies. He diligently learned new spells in his usual fashion—that is, practising them until he could perform them flawlessly by Madam Marchbanks's standards.
And then Thursday, the tenth of December, arrived.
Early that morning, Richard was fully dressed for an appearance in high society. He wore a tailcoat and bow tie, had styled his hair to perfection, and looked impeccable.
Sleepy Hufflepuff students began trickling into the common room. Each of them reacted in much the same way, staring wide-eyed at their classmate in full formal dress. Everyone seemed determined to ask Grosvenor why he was dressed like that, and Richard fobbed them off with jokes.
An entire procession of adult wizards entered the common room. Among them were Headmaster Dumbledore, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, Hufflepuff's Head of House, Professor Sprout, and three wizards who were not members of the teaching staff. Richard knew two of them very well—Tonks and Proudfoot. The third was a Ministry witch, a small woman with flyaway grey hair.
"Mr. Grosvenor," the unfamiliar woman immediately addressed Richie, "I'm Mafalda Hopkirk from the Ministry of Magic. The Minister has asked me to escort you to Sweden."
McGonagall looked exceedingly displeased. She gave Richard an exasperated look and said,
"Mr. Grosvenor, this is outrageous! How could you?"
"How could I what?" Richard raised his right eyebrow. "Professor McGonagall, you made your position perfectly clear: you despise Muggles and their awards, and under no circumstances would you allow me to leave Hogwarts to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony. Do you believe I was wrong to stand up for my rights?"
Dumbledore concealed his displeasure. The lenses of his half-moon spectacles catching the light, he said good-naturedly,
"Come now, Minerva. The boy is receiving a prestigious award. Mr. Grosvenor, you could simply have come to me."
"But Headmaster," McGonagall continued indignantly, "this is completely beyond the pale! An order from the Minister..."
"Exactly," Richard cut her off. "Outrageous! For the first time in the history of planet Earth, a twelve-year-old boy has been nominated for a Nobel Prize. The youngest nominee ever, and a British citizen at that. An event of worldwide significance. Yet his school's Deputy Headmistress refuses to let him attend, as though she doesn't want her own country to shine on the world stage. And to get there, he has to appeal to the Minister for Magic herself. Appalling!"
McGonagall choked with indignation. Red blotches appeared on her cheeks. She looked ready to sprout claws and shred the insolent boy into ribbons.
"Mr. Grosvenor," Dumbledore said, shaking his head disapprovingly, "show some respect for your professors. This could all have been resolved much more simply. Next time, just come to me."
"As you say, Headmaster," Grosvenor replied calmly.
"If you're quite finished, it's time we were going," said Madam Hopkirk.
***
The Nobel Prize ceremony was traditionally held at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The appearance of a twelve-year-old boy among the laureates caused quite a sensation. Nearly all the other recipients were elderly, grey-haired men.
The master of ceremonies announced each laureate's name in turn, and the recipient walked onto the stage to receive his diploma from the King of Sweden. One laureate followed another until at last it was the youngest recipient's turn.
The prize for discovering a method of producing graphene was awarded jointly to two people—Richard Grosvenor and Richard Roberts, the very professor who had first taken that piece of sticky tape from Richie's hands.
Elizabeth II and the Duke of Westminster, the boy's father, attended the ceremony as guests of honour.
Roberts was shining with happiness like a freshly polished Galleon. Standing beside the young Grosvenor, he felt like the happiest man in the world.
The King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, was a grey-haired man with a receding hairline and narrow spectacles, and had a distinctly scholarly air about him. He shook Richard's hand for a long moment.
"Young man, keep it up," Gustaf encouraged him in English. "An incredible achievement! I hear you're planning to conquer space?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Richard replied politely.
Unable to resist, and in spite of protocol, the King of Sweden asked in a joking tone,
"How intriguing. Would you care to tell me what other discoveries we can expect from you?"
"Your Majesty, at this very moment, work is well under way in my research laboratory to assemble a miniature particle accelerator." Richard adopted the same playful tone. "I can tell you the most important number in the universe... but only if I whisper it in your ear."
The corners of Gustaf's mouth twitched upwards. He kept an attentive expression and said,
"I'd be interested to hear it."
"One hundred and twenty-five," Grosvenor Junior replied, not in a whisper at all but, on the contrary, quite loudly.
(End of Chapter)
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