Queen of Hogwarts (GL)

~ One of few surprises ~

Days later, in a town called Hakora.

Everybody, to the common folk, hidden criminals, women, children, men, even the scarce nobility, all of them share one common feature at this very moment. All of their eyes are gazing at the magnificence that is the Queen.

While they wait for the Queen's speech to start, the eye-holes of the adults stay on the Queen, children ones, however, stir away to the armored line of soldiers behind the Queen.

And a few, who are into that sort of thing, be it secretly or not, are leering instead at the Queen's maids, there may be one or two that look at them because they dream to be a maid someday, one to the Queen no less... But we don't talk about those.

Murmurs, whispers, and some louder noise jump all over the place as the townspeople talk between themselves. Most of it is 'What is the Queen doing here', 'What's the speech about' and other things on similar topics.

All noise thins out to a screeching halt, when the Queen moves forward on the podium, citizens know that it's her time to speak, so they show their respect by shutting up.

"Good evening, people of Hakora, I won't hold you for long and will get straight to the point. I and my generals are here for a simple reason, we are going to take sixty people to join my, the Queen's army" The Queen finishes calmly and steps back to sit down.

The townsfolk stand perplexed at the quick speech, really surprised at how short it was, it's the Queen for goodness sake, she always talks too long and makes the most out of the least.

However, those thoughts quickly took a turn for the worse, as the information settled in.

Silence, that's all that's unheard at this very moment.

And it continues, for a full minute, before it finally cracks, as somebody from the crowd angrily shouts "Are you out of your mind!?"

A lot of people look towards the voice, the Queen's generals and even herself do too, except for her maids, Ton and Pon haven't moved their gaze from their initial one all this time.

"All this time, we send away our sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends, loved ones to this 'army', just to never see them again" The same voice shouts again.

"Exactly! It's the Queen's death trap, not an army" Screams a second voice, from the other side of the crowd.

"But it's not enough, every time we have to send away more and more" One more voice joins the fray.

Spurred on by their fellow frantic citizen, with the bonus of pent-up emotions over the long years, more and more voices join.

"And we do sometimes see them return. In a form of a limb, a head, or just ashes from who knows what part of the body, it's madness"

"Our loved ones perish, but, wait, what do we get? Oh, right, compensation, in terms of gold. What a joke"

"Yeah, yeah, a meager amount of gold, and we are miraculously supposed to be okay with the death of everybody"

"And all of our pleads just go unanswered, ignored, thrown out, all because our beloved Queen can't get enough of war"

"It's just not fair!" One young voice cuts through, other citizens liking the phrase, adopt it almost immediately and one after another join in into repeating it.

"It's not fair!" They shout together multiple times.

"Give us back our friends" Another line cuts through during the shouts of unity.

"It's not fair!"

"Our voices have gone unheard for too long!" Yet again something else.

It's as if the townsfolk have forgotten who's in front of them, who they are shouting at, who they demand things from, all due to their anguish accumulated over the years.

And this is not the only city, other cities also have been hit by the Queen's demands on soldiers. They must feel the same, if not stronger, about it.

The citizens continue shouting, but the more they do, the more they see that it's not working, as they see the Queen's eyes closed, while sitting seemingly relaxed.

"It's not fair!"

"The old king was better!"

When the Queen hears that, her eyes finally open, but the citizens don't really notice, except for one or two, and those few have stopped chanting together with the crowd almost immediately.

For various reasons, but the two most dominant ones at the moment being that the old king was definitely not better for their Queendom as a whole and, the one that matters the most at the moment, the Queen paid attention and opened her eyes to that statement, it wasn't the right move to do so.

But do the 'rebelling' citziens care? They don't, as more and more of them having been spurred by the 'old king was better' line, jump into the wagon.

"That's right, with the old king, there weren't so many wars"

"It's not fair!"

"We were peaceful when the old king ruled us!"

"It's not fair!"

"Our lives were better with the old king!"

"It's not fair!"

"It's not fair!"

"It's not fair!"

As the citizens scream out their lungs, mad in their pursuit of some closure for their deceased ones, the generals in turn look at the Queen, nine of them are calm, one of them, Palion, being a fanatic of the Queen, is openly pissed off at the audacity of the people that should be happy to even breathe the same air as her. he would do something about it, but for some reason, the creepy maids have stopped him.

It got so bad, that somebody from the crowd actually threw something at the podium, it landing it near the Queen's legs. The object in question was a simple loaf of bread, with a clear bite mark on it, from it being previously eaten.

And yet again, sheep follow a sheeple, one by one, they start throwing objects, mostly food, as there are most normal village people, few nobles throw gold coins and so on.

But like all things that can get out of hand, this does too, as somebody finally throws something that can hurt a person and even kill one with not that much effort.

A rock, a big one at that, gets thrown right at the Queen, to be precise, her royal face, she blinks, but not because of the thrown object, but because that's a normal human function.

No, the rock never reached the Queen, as Pon, just appeared in front of it, catching it and then crumbling it to dust.

This event from the maid, silenced the raging crowd for a moment, but just as they were about to challenge her with more rocks and continue their strike.

The Queen finally makes a move, because the people have got most of it off their chests and now have started to repeat themselves and turned to violence, she was just allowing them to lay out all of their grievances, so they could feel fresher than before.

She simply extends her arm, her palm pointed down, with only the index finger being extended, the others rolled into a fist.

And as if magic happened, every single citizen shut their mouth, woke up from their stupor, and instinctively kneeled themselves with their head touching the ground.

No matter what or how they got to the point of stupidly shouting at their Queen, which they seemed to have forgotten, the bigger problem would be if they didn't kneel, when one of the three bows was requested from them, especially the main one.

And now they feel the pressure and anxiety from their actions, most having already started shivering from fear of what fate could befall them.

Because all of their heads are kissing the ground, they can't see what is going on at the moment, they can only hear a few feet moving and walking.

Eventually, though, some of the people see exactly three pairs of feet walk by them and they know who it is, as only one person in this town would be followed by two people wearing maid outfits.

The Queen is waling in front towards a specific kneeling old couple with a lady right next to them, while Ton and Pon are carrying something.

Everybody who can hear, the Queen has stopped moving, meaning she reached her destination, all they can think that it's about to begin is their retribution.

"Lady Dara and her parents, you are allowed to raise your heads" The citizens hear the Queen's voice.

The now dubbed, Lady Dara, does as allowed, even if she's confused why she's the one being talked to at this moment, seeing as she was one of the few to stop after the citizens talked about the old king.

But as she raised her head, her eyes went directly to the oddly body-shaped hidden object carried by the Queen's maids. And those eyes just stay on that object, feeling weird about it for some reason.

Her parents also saw the same, but unlike their daughter, their eyes didn't stay that long on the hidden object, instead, they went to the Queen.

"And now, Lady Dara, you may stand and you alone"

Lady Dara, again, does as she was allowed to, her confusion only rising.

The Queen shows one of her silent command signs to her maids and they put down what they carried on the ground, right in front of Lady Dara's feet.

She looks at the object, now feeling even weirder, to the point of it being bad.

Her eyes go up, to meet the Queen's. The Queen nods at her, then at the hidden object.

Lady Dara getting the silent order, kneels on her knees, so she could reach it and she starts uncovering it, the more she uncovers, the less good about it she feels.

And the moment she opened up some of it, she was downright nauseous about it, in front of her was a dead body.

Is this her punishment for screaming at the Queen? Seeing a dead soldier as an example?

But something feels wrong, the more she opens up the covers... She knows this person... but how?

She looks at the now fully uncovered face for a while, before it all clicks. Because of the badly shaved face, the grown hair, and not the cleanest of looks, she didn't immediately recognize who it was.

It was her adorable mouthed husband Gradu, the one she hasn't seen for years.

She screams, this time not at the Queen, but out of grief, her second scream gets muffled as she hugs the dead body and hides her face in the chest of the once alive man she loved.

Everybody around them heard the woman's scream, they all knew of Lady Dara, the low noblewoman that respected everybody, be it a peasant, or the Queen itself, equally. They really liked her, but something has happened and they don't know what, even if they want to raise their head in secret to look at what's going on, they know better than to do that.

Lady Dara's parents at first look at their daughter in confusion, but that quickly morphs into empathy as they realize what happened, their new son, has finally returned.

The parents want to go, hug their daughter and comfort her so much, but they weren't permitted to move.

But to their ears, something akin to music has sounded, just as they wanted to hear it.

"Everybody can raise their heads and stand up" The Queen says and almost immediately everybody gets up, to see what has happened.

The parents of Lady Dara practically jump at their daughter, to comfort her, the old lady herself, the mother, starts crying alongside her, already sobbing, daughter.

The Citizens silently look at the scene, first having expected something bad to have happened because of their collective outburst, but seeing what they see in front of them, hit them differently.

They all look at the crying woman, hugged by her parents, with sympathy in their eyes.

"Listen, people of Hakora" The Queen's voice cuts it all off, now all of the eyes are on her, except for Lady Dara's as she only uses her ears to try and listen, but her eyes are closed and still on the chest of her deceased husband.

After the Queen has gotten all of their attention, she starts walking back to the podium, so all could see her.

So there's a brief moment of silence as everybody waits.

The Queen starts speaking once she's standing on the podium "I am looking for sixty new soldiers, for slightly different reasons than the previous times I did. Yes, there are still some similarities, but that's all. You see, in our last battle, some unfortunate events transpired, but some of what happened, made me rethink some of my own actions. Thus, out of those sixty recruits, only twenty-two of them will be for the deaths of my soldiers. Thirty-eight of those? Will be in turn of thirty-eight already existing soldiers being retired and allowed to return. And that will be the new system from now on, every time I come to ask for new soldiers, the numbers will be higher, but most of those will be because of returning soldiers"

Everybody looks in silent, surprised shock at the Queen's announcement.

"T-then... Doesn't that m-mean..." One person in front of the crowd, close enough for the Queen to hear, tries to speak, but can't fully finish what they wanted to say.

"That's right, it means that you will get to see your... How did you say it? Ah, right. Sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends, loved ones come back from this 'army', from the Queen's death trap"

Everybody looks ashamed at being called out for what they said in the moment of spurred on anger.

"However, not everybody will return, some will still die and come back just like Lady Dara's husband, that's just the nature of war and battle, it is impossible for everybody to survive, for that, I do have to give my apologies"

Now everybody, yet again looks at the Queen with shocked expressions, she just apologized to them. Not a single townsperson knows how to react to this or what to say to it.

And the Queen herself doesn't wait for anybody to do anything as she continues "Also, the time that a soldier will be able to return is only after they finished serving the Queen's army for three whole years, not a day shorter than that and with that, I will be going and leaving my generals to select some members from the already gathered crowd here, I hope you cooperate" With that, the Queen is about to turn around to leave the podium.

But she gets stopped by a voice, a feminine and hoarse voice.

"My Queen, could I ask you a question?"

The Queen looks towards who it was that spoke to her and she saw Lady Dara looking straight at her with red from tears eyes and her hands now on the throat part of Gradu's body.

"Go ahead, Lady Dara" The Queen allows it.

"Did the one that did this" She massages the wound slowly, to emphasize that this is what she's referring to "Had its dues?"

"No" The Queen simply answers.

Lady Daras' frown turns even more down.

"Do you at least know who did it?"

The Queen's eyes squint at the second question of the woman.

Lady Dara thinking that she overstepped by asking a second question, opens her mouth to retract it, but she gets an answer in form of a question instead.

"And if I knew who did it, what would you do with that information?"

"I..." Lady Dara pauses, she sniffles, then right after with her hand brushes her eyes, clearing most of the wetness from them, and with a newly determined look in her gaze, she answers "I Would try and avenge him"

"That so? Well, in that case, I do know who did it"

"You do?" Lady Dara's eyes widen, a very small smile finally showed on her pretty face.

"Yes, it was me" The Queen simply and calmly answers.

And just like that, the smile changed into an open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and shocked look. Most of the citizen's faces resemble the woman's after hearing it.

"H-how? W-w-why...?" The Lady stutters.

"Tell me, do you know what the challenge of blood is?"

"I do, Gradu's and his adorable mouth would never shut up about it, he always wanted to be a general in the Queen's army, at first I was annoyed by it, but eventually, he turned myself against me and I started wanting to hear more and more of it and then? I started to believe in him being able to do it. So when he got selected for the army, I knew he will someday take on the challenge and become a general" Lady Dara, reminisces and rants with a happy expression, forgetting that she's talking to the Queen, but she snaps out of it after she realized that.

"I-I apologize fo-"

"It's fine, it doesn't matter" The Queen interrupts the unnecessary apology "And just like you expected, he indeed took on the challenge, but, as you see" The Queen points at the dead body for emphasis and says nothing else.

"H-he failed?"

"Yes"

"Could I hear how he did?"

"He did good, it's the way he failed that was the only reason he didn't succeed in the challenge, he lost too much with one wrong decision"

After the Queen explained that her Gradu did good at the challenge, Lady Dara smiled, but she frowned immediately after "So, my love and his dream are now dead..." She speaks out loud for all to hear, but she doesn't register that, as she's already lost in her head, as she had nothing left to say.

The Queen seeing that, is about to go on and leave, but she gets an idea.

"Lady Dara"

"H-huh?" The woman jumps in place, startled by the sudden call out from the Queen.

"So you wanted to avenge your husband?"

"I did... But... Not anymore" Is all that Lady Dara says, there's no way she could try and kill the Queen, after all.

"Well, why not?"

"Huh?" Dara lets out a confused noise.

"It's simple, join my army, train yourself up, challenge the challenge of blood, get a position as a general, and then I will give you a chance at taking revenge for your husband with a duel. This way not only will you keep a chance at your husband's dream, achieving it for him in his memory, but you will also have the chance of revenge"

Lady Dara looks surprised at the Queen, she just got the approval of the Queen herself, to kill the Queen?

"But..."

"It will be hard, yes, but if you believed in your husband being able to do it, then you can believe in your want for revenge and his dream to do it for him. Besides, don't worry about it all that much, because you're not the only one in the army that wants a piece of me, as the brother of your husband, not only is in the army, he also witnessed the death"

Hearing that piece of information, Lady Dara, having been more or less seduced by the Queen's words into this ordeal "I agree, I will join the army and..." Lady Dara wanted to finish with 'I'm coming for you' but she didn't and left it ambiguous.

Lady Dara's parents weren't even fast enough to speak to their daughter about it all, she accepted it so fast.

"Good, then that's twenty-one left, go do your jobs, generals" With that the Queen leaves, followed by the maids. Generals left to search for as many soldier material in this town as they can.

While Lady Dara is determined with a new goal that she just received. Become a general and avenge her husband.

Some hours later, after the Queen left with her maids following, in her tent.

"Ton, Pon, so I've heard something very interesting" The Queen says darkly, dropping a paper document, both of the maids subconsciously start feeling fear.

"W-what is it, my Queen?" Pon dares to ask.

"It seems one dear old Varkon, overheard a conversation between me and one of you"

Both maids startle at what they heard.

"You see, Bariq told me that the old soldier seemed to know why I punish those that fail as Gradu did, that it's an apology for the lost lives, so, Ton, is that true? Do you know the answer to that?" The Queen asks with fake playfulness.

Ton gulps "Y-yes, my Queen, it's true" She answers.

"Ah, is it now? Then, Pon, do tell me, why does old soldier Varkon know this?" She asks the other maid with the same cold gaze.

"I-I..." Pon gulps the moment the Queen's gaze turned colder "I failed at my job"

"Ah, so that's what it is. A maid that I personally trained, cared for, gave everything, even a lover in Ton, she failed a simple job of watching for intruders, eavesdroppers, and in general, being a lookout. So that's how it is" The Queen repeats herself with her mood clearly sour.

The Queen only stands up, but both maids immediately want to buckle and kneel in front of her to apologize, they don't do so, as they know that it will be even worse if they do so without being told.

"When both of you are outside my tent, to look out for any kind of threats, one is stationed to the side of the soldiers so that they wouldn't get the bright idea of sneaking close to me for some gossip or stupid dare, or for the low-low chance of them being an assassin. While the other one is to the side where an enemy might show up, an actual assassin, that's how you protect my tent when I sleep and when I wake up, you get to rest, with me protecting you while you sleep in my tent. Then, do tell me, somebody, what do we do, what happens when one of you is inside the ten with me, discussing something and the other is outside left alone? What do we do, come on, answer, don't be shy" The Queen openly berates the two trained maids, as if they were newbies, they know these rules... All the rules by memory.

Both maids, however, stay silent, not wanting to answer and showing that they made such a mistake.

"Ah, silence, of course, of course, the best weapon of the failures, of the wronged, the mentally weak, the mute, and of course of the bad, bad girls everywhere. Well here's an answer, you are to expand your territory get a better vantage point, and oversee both sides until the other comes out of my tent... Yet, yet, somehow, a soldier, an old one, somehow got close enough to my tent, to overhear the conversation between us. How could such a thing happen? Huh?" The Queen throws a question again, torturing the two maids further, forcefully trying to make them say it.

Ton can't handle the mental pressure anymore and answers for both of them "We failed you, my Queen, we made a..." But she stops herself from saying the word 'mistake', as it's a word that the Queen really hates.

"Finish that" The Queen says with squinted eyes.

Ton gulps, having dug herself a bigger hole.

The Queen darkly chuckles "I order you, finish that sentence"

Pon comes to help as she says "I made an obvious overlook in my mission to be a lookout and let my guard down, thus the soldier was allowed to eavesdrop on the Queen, it's my fault"

Both of the maids stay silent, in hopes that the Queen will be a little bit lenient and let them off without continuing the order at Ton.

And they get their wish, as the Queen moves on as she starts walking towards the maids.

"So you've let your guard down, huh? It seems I've been too easy as of late, if that happened, it means it's the fault of the teacher then, is that what you're implying?"

"No, no, no. that's not true" Both of the maids instantly open their mouths to refute such a claim.

"No? But isn't that the truth? Because back in the day, you wouldn't even let a rat enter my tent, yet a full-grown human passed by unnoticed? And back then, I was, how is that the people call me? Ah, yes, a ruthless, merciless, sadistic Queen, who would drive everybody to death, by either training, battle or by her sheer presence and I know that you both felt the same at one point"

The maids gulp in tandem and stay silent with open mouths as they wanted to continue refuting the Queen's words, but they can't any words to say.

"I see, a persistent silence" Is all the Queen lets out.

The Queen walks close to the maids, who try to hide by bowing their heads, but they are not allowed to.

"Show your faces, to the side" The Queen plainly says.

The maids do as they were told and the moment that happens, they are both on the ground in stinging faces as the Queen slapped both of them full force. Both maids can feel their lips bleeding.

"Clean yourselves, use each other if you want, I don't care" The Queen states, going back to her seat.

The maid lovers each take out a handkerchief they've given to themselves on the day they became lovers and help each other.

The tent is an awkward silence, only the papers in the hands of the Queen can be heard.

It stays the same for a while.

The Queen's foot taps the ground repeatedly without stopping, she groans as she looks at the maids, on the floor in each other's embrace, cleaning the blood and applying for the medicine.

"I am sorry, you two" She finally says and the foot-tapping stops immediately.

"It's okay" Both of them say back immediately.

"You know why I am like this, ever since that day..." The Queen says it as she rubs the bridge of her nose.

"We do... We are the only ones in the whole world after all" Only Ton speaks this time.

"You're getting better" Pon adds.

"Mhm" Is all that the Queen lets out, a small sound of agreement.

And again, silence befalls the tent, but it's not as awkward.

"Ton, Pon" The Queen calls out to the maids, who have finally stood up, thus breaking said silence.

"Yes, my Queen" The two say in unison as they turn towards the Queen.

"I've been getting some complaints, about a certain nightly activity, which tends to be loud and makes some of the soldiers frustrated"

The two maids turn red from the words just spoken.

"If you can't keep it quiet, put something inside your mouths as a gag, so that you wouldn't make so much noise"

"...Yes, my Queen" Is all the two say, all that the two can say really.

Very far in the future.

"Lun" A dreamy voice calls out.

"Lun" A beautiful voice calls out.

"Lun?" A perfect voice calls out.

The third time has finally made the Queen snap out of her thoughts, she faces the one talking to her.

"Yes, my Moon?" She asks with a smile.

"What are you thinking about?" Luna asks.

Fleur being on the side also adds "It's unlike you to be daydreaming, zat's Luna's zing"

"Fleur is correct, that is what I do" Luna agrees, not finding any fault with what Fleur said.

"Hmm... I was thinking of my two maids"

"Oh? Where are zey now?" Fleur asks a question with quite an obvious answer.

"They are dead" The Queen answers blankly.

"... Right, sorry"

"It's fine"

"So what did you think about them?" Luna asks.

"That would be how badly I used to treat them" The Queen answers.

"'ow did you treat zem badly?"

The Queen chuckles at Fleur's question "I used to hit them, for every little... mistake they would do"

"It couldn't have been that bad" The Queen's Moon says "You were a small child back then, well you're still a child, we all are, but I am sure that they didn't hurt all that much"

"A child, huh?" The Queen speaks out loud "I suppose, I was a child, a huge one at that" She self-deprecates herself.

"A 'uge one? I feel like you were even smaller zan you are right now" Fleur states.

"Seriously?" The Queen says having moved on from the topic before, to a newly made one by Fleur.

"Am I not correct in thinking so?"

"No" The Queen answers without a pause and stands up from her bed.

"You answered zat too quickly, are you sure zats ze right answer?"

"Yes" The Queen answers fast again. They leave their dorm room while they talk amongst themselves.

Fleur drops it for now, but she will come back to it in the future.

"Lun, are you ready for your first class with Professor McGonagall?" Luna asks.

"Hmm... Indeed I am, I wonder if anything interesting will happen" The Queen answers, thinking back on their encounter.

"Well, zen I will go back to my fellow ladies for ze time matter, good luck on your lesson" Fleur says, to the two Ravenclaw.

"Thank you, Fleur" The two Lunas answer, and the royal three separate, for now.

And Luna Crimson and Luna Lovegood, now together move to Transfigurations class.

~ End of Special Chapter ~