Chapter 29

~ Playing with Fire (Of the Goblet) ~

The Queen and the new couple of Luna and Ginny sit in the great hall eating various different food items to quench their hunger.

The Hall is strangely almost empty, a fact which was only picked up by the Queen as the other two were preoccupied with each other.

There should be way more students inside eating at this period of time.

She sees the Weasley twins making their way towards Ginny whose back is turned towards them. The twin puts their index fingers below their noses indicating for the Queen to stay quiet.

And so "Ginny, your brothers are here to see you" The Queen naturally does the opposite of what the twins wanted.

Ginny who was in the middle of munching on something while listening to Luna speak to her, blinks in pause, and then turns around, after swallowing down the food.

The Weasley girl sees the Twins, who are looking back at the Queen seemingly disappointed because of their thwarted plans. But when she calls out to them, they go back to being cheery.

"Hi, you two. What are you planning now?"

The two, step up to their sister and get their arms around her shoulders from both sides.

"Well little sister, due to our ingenious planning" George starts, thus Fred finishes with "We have procured ourselves a potion of ageing"

"What do you need one for?" Ginny asks.

"We are glad you asked" "We are going to use it" The twins say after one another and then finish together "For the Goblet and enter the Tournament"

"You're... Doing what?"

"Triwizard Tournement" "We are entering it"

"That's stupid... Good luck" The sister says both disappointedly and encouragingly.

"Aaaw, thank you, little sister" "For the luck boost, not the stupid part"

"You're welcome" Ginny says and then turns around to continue eating.

"Good luck you two" Luna adds too, getting a lopsided smile and a nod from the twins.

And so the twins start leaving without talking to the one that challenged them to a prank battle. They have more important things to do at the moment.

But as a surprise, the Queen stops them by calling out to them.

"Have you two thought of doing anything in terms of our little game?"

The twins look at each other for a moment, then gaze at the Queen and together say "We haven't, we've plenty of time"

"Plenty of time trying to get into the tournament? What a waste of said time" The Queen says bored "Well, off you go, you're not needed here anymore"

"We are leaving, but" "Not because the 'Queen' told us to" The twins reply one after another to the Queen who's not looking at them anymore, she doesn't acknowledge their reply.

So, they simply scurry away and start walking towards the room where the Goblet resides because for the next four days the students are allowed to put in their names. Then on Friday, the champions will be picked to compete in the Triwizard cup.

The Queen, who looks at her Moon and Ginny sitting together in a peaceful aura surrounding them, eating and chatting together, knows that she won't be needed for a while. She also doesn't want to intrude on their private conversations.

And so, she casts a wordless 'Muffliato' around herself, and soundlessly claps thrice. And due to those claps, Etera appears even if there were no sounds to be actually heard.

"Miss?" Etera lets out apprehensive.

The Queen doesn't reply to the elf as she makes a quick note for her Moon, she leaves it on the table. Then she casts 'Invisibilicedo' and makes herself and the elf invisible.

"Aparate me near the door of the room where the Goblet is"

"Yes, Miss" Etera getting the simple request, relaxes, and a moment later both she and the Queen appear on the other side of the Hogwarts castle.

"Ok, you are dismissed" The Queen says to her elf.

With that Etera apparates back to the kitchen, where Winky and the other elves reside. She's also relieved because her 'master' didn't give her some ridiculous task again so soon.

The Queen looks around and sees several students going into the room where the Goblet is.

She waits for a bit until every student but two got inside the room. She did so, just to make a quick moment of entertainment for herself. She's invisible so nobody would see her just close the door, magically, on the two students who were about to get inside.

The two students instead of walking inside the room walk head first into the now closed door. One falls to the ground eliciting groans of pain and discomfort, while the other one does the same, except she manages to balance hermself and not fall.

The Queen nods to herself pleased. And with a shrug, she waits a little bit more to mess with them further.

The two students get their bearings and confusedly look around, seeing nothing and nobody, they think to themselves that somebody did this from the inside. So with those thoughts, they tried to open the door to try and catch whoever did so and take their 'revenge' on them.

The keyword 'tried'. The door simply stayed closed.

"What-uh?" One murmurs as he continues trying to open the door.

They then try to push the door open harder, but to no avail.

The two, step away and look at each other confused and annoyed.

Then they hear "What are you two doing?" from behind, so they turn around. They see three other students looking at them.

"Trying to enter the room" The braver of the two answered.

The new trio look at each other and then at the pair of two again, but with their expressions looking as if they were staring at the two like they were morons.

The braver of the two squints her eyes and then steps aside with a subtle smirk.

"Go ahead" The second half of the pair follows after his friend and steps aside also.

The trio, raise their eyebrows at the two for their act of 'kindness', but nevertheless, they pass the duo and go to open the door.

Much to the dismay of the brave one, the door opens which makes her smirk disappear. And it also doesn't close as the trio goes inside the blue-lit room.

The duo looks at each other confused for a moment, they stop thinking of what happened to them prior and start walking inside the room. Only for the door to close and smack them right into the head for a second time. And this time both of them fall to the ground, neither being able to keep their balance.

While the 'un-brave' student rubs his hurting forehead, the brave one grits her teeth while staring at the door.

She quickly stands up, not feeling any pain due to the adrenaline rush, she picks up hr friend.

She goes to open the door, but it doesn't budge again.

"Help me with the door" She states to her friend, who nods after snapping out of his daze.

Now the two combining their strength push the door with all of their might. It doesn't budge.

So they change their tactic and start doing it with their shoulders and for a moment nothing happens. However, just as they were going to stop pushing, the door suddenly blasts open, barely holding onto its hinges.

And the duo just shot inside the room due to their pushing momentum, falling straight into the room and on its floor.

They groan in pain and discomfort. The brave one gets her bearings first and raises her head to look around, only for her to see that every... Almost every pair of eyes, as there's one Gryffindor girl whose eyes are preoccupied with books, is on her and her friend. No matter how brave she is, she gets embarrassed by what just happened to her. So she quickly, quicker than last time, stands up and also gets her friend up.

She practically drags her friend to one of the corners of the room, away from prying eyes, while cursing the strange door and this stupid situation.

The Queen who has had enough fun, for now, stops both the spells. Now she stands near the door, waiting for two specific somebodies to show up.

And she doesn't have to wait for much longer, as the two twins come running into the scene. But before they could enter the room, they have to stop their movements as they see the Queen standing there.

The two look back and forth befuddled, between where the Queen is and behind them to the direction of where she should've been.

"You two are quite slow, I almost fell asleep waiting for you" the Queen pulls off a fake yawn "No wonder you haven't gotten to thinking about our game yet. It's not the issue of 'time', but mere thinking and acting speed that hinders you... But, what did I expect from somebody that's not as great and amazing as I, the Queen? This game will turn out to be even easier than I thought, I hope that you can still give me at least some sort of entertainment" Luna chuckles lazily, then turns around and finally enters the room.

Leaving the twins in shock, both from the Queen's clear mocking and whatever it is that she did to get here so fast.

Of course, they might not be the smartest, but they aren't stupid, they quickly understood one of the two things, while the second one eludes them.

The Queen likes to brag and to get a 'reaction' out of everybody she speaks to and then shut them down when they are at their high horse, thus leaving them at an even lower point than before. And this time it was to get a reaction out of them and make them 'angry' so they would over-focus on their prank game and screw up, thus falling for her trap.

But they have no idea how she got here before them, or without them noticing her if she followed them.

"We might need to get some..." Fred starts saying.

"Help with her, that's what you were going to finish with, right Fred?" George finishes cutting off his brother.

"Was going to say 'Assistance' actually, but that also works" Fred states.

"Of course it works, it's the same thing, you idiot"

"What did you just call me?"

"I didn't realize that idiots also can't hear correctly"

"Care to repeat it?" Fred says getting closer to his twin.

"I wouldn't mind doing so" George helps his twin in getting closer by doing the same.

The two stare at each other for several seconds, before they remember what they were supposed to do as they were still holding their potions.

"Let's go" The two say to each other at the same time and dash inside the room. The Queen left it open for them, what a gracious Queen she is.

The twins enter the Goblet room just as Cedric and his friend group have stepped away from the goblet after he put his name into it.

The twins come into the room and a lot of people start cheering for them extravagantly.

"Thank you thank you, well lads we've done it" George bellows out to his adoring audience.

"Cooked it up just this morning" Fred adds while showing off the potion for a moment.

But out of nowhere, they hear a certain Gryffindor girl speak out.

"It's not going to work" And for some reason, she finishes the word 'work' melodically.

The twins quickly make their way toward Hermione, surrounding her on each side.

"Oh yeah? And why's that Granger" Fred asks.

"You see this?" Granger points to a white ethereal line "This is an age line. Dumbledore drew it himself"

"So?" Lets out Fred.

"So a genius like Dumbledore couldn't possibly be fooled by something pathetically dimwitted such as an age potion" Hermione explains.

"That's why it's so brilliant" George says confident, and Fred finishes charmingly "Because it's so pathetically dimwitted"

"Ready Fred?" George calls out to his brother after the twins stepped away from Hermione.

"Ready George?" Fred asks back the same thing to his twin.

The two link their arms and gulp down the potions of ageing. They wait for a second and then jump inside the age line, and cheer when nothing happens. They put their names in the flame, wait for a moment and when nothing happens they cheer and do a high-five. Their crowd also adds to the cheering. But it all goes wrong when after a moment of premature celebration came a prize of defeat. The flame of the Goblet boisters itself and expands its fire by multiple times

The twins scream out of surprise when they get flung across the room onto the floor by the retaliation of the fire. The two get up and see each other with full heads of grey hair and beards

"You said..." George starts first "You said..." Fred says the same.

The Weasley duo start rolling on the floor all over the place as they fight with each other. Tackling one another, trying to get the upper ground. It devolves into one mess of a fight as one twin grabs the other's new beard, while the other one goes for the full head of hair instead. The audience of students cheers on their fight with encouraging 'fight' shouts, not one of them thinking of stopping it.

The room then suddenly becomes silent as they witness Viktor Krum, alongside Igor and his right-hand man, walk inside the Goblet room.

The trio walk towards the Goblet not looking anywhere but the Goblet, Krum raises his hand to try and put his name into the Goblet. But the paper suddenly disappears from his hand as he was about to do it.

Only then did he notice that his hand was above somebody's head. He has no clue how he missed somebody standing in front of him.

"You dare to be disrespectful towards me? Huh, big guy?" He then hears a slightly familiar sounding voice which he has heard somewhere before.

He pulls his hand back to him, he did that just as the Queen turns around to face him.

"So just because you were born with the genes to be 'tall', you think you can show it off by looking down on me? The Queen? The all-great Queen? That's one mistake, one big mistake"

Krum sees the paper with his name in the small girl's hand, but with a more precise look, the paper isn't touching her palm as it's just levitating above it.

"Get off your imaginary high-horse, no in your case I should say 'high-broom', you trashy fly imitation"

The Queen pauses for a few seconds, receiving no words back from the tall guy, who is still confused about how had he missed her just standing there.

"Nothing to say? Of course not, what did I expect from a nothing like you? Kne- You know what? No, I don't need to resort to spells and waste my limitless energy on the likes of you. The Queen's words will be enough. Listen here, you bug. You dare to even think that you're better than me just because you're somewhat 'known' around the wizarding world because of Quidditch? You're as much of a nothing as Quidditch itself. Both it and you are nothing. For your stupidity right now? You losing your arms wouldn't be a good enough punishment to atone for your mistake. You think you're so 'big'? Nothing you could ever do or accomplish in your puny life would even come close to me, The Queen. You have the entirety of Quidditch wrapped around your finger? Big deal, who cares? I have the whole wide world under my palm, I need only to make a decision to take it and nobody could do anything about it as it became mine"

The Queen steps up real close to Viktor, she quickly grabs his arm, the one that was above her head. She pulls it towards herself with a lot of strength, Krum is barely able to react and hold himself from falling down to his knees due to the sudden and shocking force.

She grips it hard and squeezes it enough to leave marks on it, but this doesn't draw a sound, flinch, or that much of a reaction from the professional Quidditch player who has trained a lot.

"You dare raise this worthless broom holder above the Queen's head? I should cripple your arms right now for your insolence but your stupid career as a flying maid isn't enough of an important aspect to even be considered as a worthy punishment" The Queen says harshly and with an expression bordering crazy and calm.

"No, no, no. You need something else, something that could really hurt you... Yes, I know. This punishment is perfect for somebody worthless like you" A creepy grin etches on her face as she gets an idea of what to do.

Everybody in the crowd, stays silent, not because they don't want to say anything or because they agree with the Queen's ridiculous statements. No, they simply don't understand what is going on in the first place. they can't comprehend how somebody could flip out because somebody who's taller than them accidentally put his hand above their head. Or how somebody could be this crazy and scary at the same time because of it.

They stay quiet as they are confused, scared, shocked, perplexed and because their minds simply won't allow their mouths to speak out due to this strange situation.

One, only one person gets the 'courage' to do so and calls out the Queen for her ridiculousness. And no it's not Hermione, Cedric, or even the golden boy of the trio, Harry Potter.

Strangely enough, it's Ron Weasley who does it.

"Shut up already!" Ron's shout reverberates as an echo over the spacious room, attracting everyone's attention. When the Queen's blank and dark red eyes meet with Ron's, to the surprise of his friends he doesn't back down as he even steps up out of the crowd and in front of both Luna and Viktor.

"Do you realize how crazy you sound? The great Viktor Krum is nothing? He is more than you a crazy person would ever turn out to be. You stand here and threaten him, punishment this, punishment that. I never heard anything more ridiculous than what you've said just now and all of it just because somebody is taller than you and just happened to put his hand above you. nonsense. So shut up already with your insane speech and be quiet because Viktor Krum is better than you in every way, especially as a person"

As Ron finally finishes getting out this pent-up frustration with what the Queen said about his 'idol', the room is left in a tense and long silence.

But after a while, it breaks. It breaks as the Queen starts cackling to herself, it getting louder and louder by the second. Then it breaks out into full-out laughter of the loud variety. The Queen's laugh sounded over and over again as an echo in the room. Her laughter continues, getting louder and messier and messier, turning menacing at some point. It doesn't even sound like laughter anymore, it just sounds insane to everybody's ears as they hear it go on and on for a few minutes.

But just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

The Queen, with closed eyes, slowly breathes in and breathes out.

She opens her eyes and her expression is the blankest anybody in Hogwarts has seen so far.

The paper with Viktor's name on it, which was still in Luna's hand, starts levitating higher and higher... And the body of the Queen itself starts levitating.

Now with the paper being over her head, it starts multiplying rapidly. One turns into two, two turns into four, four into eight, and on and on, until there are seemingly hundreds of them.

Such a spectacle is witnessed by everybody as they view it in awe.

But the show isn't over as some paper pieces start catching fire, some shrink as they get wet, and others just rip and shred into pieces. All of them also repair after one another, after one burns another one returns to normal then when another gets wet another gets fixed.

"Wandless, Nonverbal, different levels of magic. Possession of insane amounts of wizardry knowledge. Riches beyond anybody's wild imagination. Power, smarts, talent, experience, connections, looks beyond anybody else's genes or capabilities and many, many other things" The Queen's loud and sudden magically infused voice makes almost everybody startle as it resounds over the room.

"I have it all" She says as her eyes stare straight into Ron's soul.

"Everybody in this room... All of your lifetimes combined and multiplied five times. That's how long it would take for any of you to get even remotely close to me. Nobody and I mean nobody seems to realize or believe the Queen when she says that SHE LITERALLY EXISTS IN ANOTHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE compared to all of you, none are better than me, NONE! If you'd compare me to climbing the highest mountain in this world and trying to reach the top, all of you would be on another planet altogether, that's how far you are from the peak of the mountain, from the brilliance that is Luna Crimson. All! Except for my future wives" The Queen's voice breaks crazily at a few points during her speech, but no matter what she will never forget to exclude her future wives from these plebeians.

And after she finishes her words, all of the multiplied papers just disappear and her body stops floating, and only one paper is left which she holds right now.

"He?" The Queen points at Viktor while looking at Ron "He may be nothing to me, but at least he still has something he can call his own, his Quidditch ability and career... You?" The Queen's eyes and expression turn visibly bored when she looks back at the Weasley boy.

"Who even are you?"

Ron's mouth opens agape, but no words come out as it continues to stay open. He has no idea what to say to such a simple sentence. Not only did the Queen's show make his bravery dissipate, but these few words also made him speechless.

And even if he somehow got back into the 'groove', it wouldn't matter as the Queen stopped paying any attention to him and turned it back to Krum.

Before, Krum wasn't 'scared' or anything close to such an emotion. He was calm and patient with what he assumed to be a teenager's tantrum.

All of that changed however when he witnessed what the Queen was able to do, now he's apprehensive about what's to come and what he should do. No matter how much he tries, his mind still can't comprehend how he missed a person when stepping up to the Goblet. It just doesn't make sense to him, he didn't go around the goblet, he didn't dilly dally either and went straight to it, there was nobody in front of him when he and Igor walked up to it, yet... this happened.

"Now, it's about time to finish this. Viktor Krum, the Queen serves you a punishment of Apologizing to her for your insolent disrespect towards her" The Queen tells Viktor, who now turned from apprehensive to confused. The way this woman was talking, he imagined that he'd have to fight with her for the sake of trying to stay alive or rip his own arms off, or something long those lines... Yet he only has to apologize? How is that more of a punishment than getting his arms crippled and his Quidditch career ruined?

Many others in the room also think the same. But some, mainly Ron and Hermione understood immediately what the Queen insinuates as a 'worthy' punishment. Ron and Hermione understood it for different reasons but the outcome is the same.

Ron can't look at what's about to happen, his idol and a great man reduced to grovel and apologize for absolutely nothing.

The Queen went for his 'reputation' as a Quidditch player because, in her eyes, that's all that he is. If he's made to apologize to a younger student because he's scared to go against her, rumors could start and it would turn out to be very detrimental to him, especially if he gets chosen for the Triwizard tournament. Ron really doesn't want to see this happen, so he looks away... He would leave the room, but he feels that if he did so, something would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Hermione also understood this, but unlike Ron, she understands something else too, something simple... something which even Lun didn't seem to catch, which is strange to Hermione. Especially after the intense show of power where she cast the spells: Geminio, Aquamenti, Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa, Diffindo, Reparo, and some other spell that made her fly, of which she has no prior knowledge of, all at the same time, both wandless and non-verbally while keeping it all up with ridiculous control, no wonder that she goes against the teachers and only seems to respect Dumbledore.

But that simple thing which was understood by granger is the fact that Viktor doesn't seem to care about his so-called reputation, if Hermione's thoughts are correct, Lun misunderstood or even fabricated the false fact that he cared for it when he only cares for the actual game of Quidditch.

And that's indeed the case, but Viktor didn't come to that conclusion like Hermione did, the punishment is just nothing to him and he can do it easily. He would've apologized anyway, even if none of this happened as he knows that what he did is somewhat rude no matter the situation. It's just unfortunate that it happened with the wrong and probably the only person that would blow such a minuscule thing into huge proportions.

But just as he was about to open his mouth and apologize sincerely, he hears a voice behind him on his right. And the only people behind him are Igor and his right-hand man... and Igor is on his left.

"Mr. Krum won't be doing that" the right-hand man understood that this could be really bad for Viktor's career as a professional player if something like this gets out and it most likely will as children are one of the least trustworthy individuals.

"How about you back off?" He asks threateningly as he pulls out his wand and points it at the Queen.

He saw the spectacle of the Queen, so what? These parlor tricks and early-year spells and charms are nothing even if she has them mastered. He knows plenty of dangerous spells, so he isn't scared one bit. And so what if she can cast wandless spells proficiently? The more difficult spell, the more difficult it would be to cast without a wand and it would probably backfire on the girl if she tried to do it. For such a feat only the most exceptional wizards like Albus Dumbledore can accomplish, there's no way such a spoiled girl can do it and keep it up for long. This is what went through the man's mind before he pointed his wand at the Queen.

But his mind quickly changed as the moment his wand was pointed at the girl, the entire room's temperature seemingly changed, it became overbearingly cold.

And the man didn't even realize he was shaking, really really badly. And not only because it was cold, but also because of the intense murderous aura that seemingly now surrounded the Queen.

Her eyes, red... Dark and evil... And glowing? Look at the man's terror-filled eyes.

Everybody in the room starts shaking as well, they thought that before when the Queen showed off her powers and her previous speeches were the 'scary' part of her... But this is on a whole another level.

Harry, Igor, and Krum are the only ones that understand something. They understand and know this... Feeling of death.

Krum because of unknown past experiences, Igor is in a similar spot but aside from his past experiences he also has connections with Lord Voldermort and other Death eaters.

Harry because of various kill or be killed situations over the last few years, especially last year's dementor situation before he chased them away with the Patronus charm when using the time turner... He doesn't want to relive something like that ever again.

And this feeling inside this room is about a quarter of what he felt during and after that night, even the part of being cold is quite accurate to that night, but this specific moment is because the Queen has seemingly cast some sort of a freezing charm

The man, he's about to die. That's what goes through the mind of the three of them.

So before anything could escalate further, Krum wills himself to stretch his arm straight to the side, his hand appearing in the vision of the man's eyes. This is an indication for him to back off.

And it works, because the man's eyes aren't looking at the Queen's anymore due to the arm in front of his face. Without that, he wouldn't have been able to move and lower his arm and hide his wand.

And as he did so, the room's temperature returned to normal. Everybody was re-enabled to breathe properly again both from the lifting of the charm and the intense aura excluded by the Queen.

"The Apology?" The Queen says to Krum casually as if nothing just happened.

Krum breathes in and out once to re-adjust himself. He didn't expect Hogwarts to have somebody like this woman, especially so young and with a lot of time to continue growing.

He has heard of the brightest witch of her age during his stay here, he really wanted to meet this witch and talk to her, and he still does, but if he didn't already know who this brightest witch was already, he'd think she was standing in front of him right now, at least when it comes in terms of power.

"Hov should I apologize?" Krum asks the young and scary lady with a thick accent. This is also his first time saying anything during this interaction.

"Your head, not raised but looking down. Apologize properly while ending with 'Queen Luna'. And that would be it" The Queen answers the simple question.

Krum's head lowers, his eyes meeting with the ground floor of Hogwarts "I am sorry, Qveen Luna"

There's a moment of silence after Viktor's short, but sincere apology. The Queen turns around and faces the Goblet again, not paying any more attention to the Bulgarian Quidditch Sensation.

Her last action is levitating the paper with Viktor's name down to the ground before the man's eyes.

Krum taking this action as the Queen being done with him bends down and picks up the paper physically. He didn't even think of using magic to do it

He goes around the Queen and finally puts his name into the goblet, when the Goblet accepted it, he finally looked towards the witch he wants to talk to. Hermione meets eyes with Viktor, and gives him a sympathetic gaze, Lun went way too overboard with this.

After that, Viktor turned around and started leaving the room, his mind going back to thinking about how he had missed a person in front of him. The man beside Igor and him quickly followed after Krum as he was too scared to stay near the young woman any longer. Igor however, took a moment to look at the Queen's back in thought. But rather quickly he himself turned around and followed after Krum.

Hermione went back to reading, but only after sparing one last look at Lun. She shouldn't interact with her too much no matter how interesting she, her story, and her book and its secrets may be. Yes, if she herself will come to talk to her, she won't be rude and turn her away, but after what just happened there's no way she will go out of her own way to speak with her. who knows what will happen if she somehow jumps onto something that Lun deems worthy of a 'punishment'?

Her punishment could be blindness thus rendering her ability to read books, or something similar to that. And she'd rather die than something like that happening.

She will also have to drive this fact into Harry's, and especially, into Ron's heads. They need to stay away from the Queen as much as possible as she has noticed that Lun treats her a little bit differently than her two friends.

Harry however blatantly stared at the back of the Queen's head, while his thoughts ran wild. there are plenty of different thoughts. Some about her exceptional magic proficiency, others about her inhumane actions, others about the blatant uncare for anybody. But the biggest one is why is Dumbledore allowing so much of her antics and how do they know each other?

Ron is stuck in his noggin' as well, but unlike his friends, he isn't stuck on the Queen herself, but about what she said to him. Her sentence hit him hard. Who actually is he? What does he have? Maybe people thought about it, but nobody dared to actually tell it to his face. when Snape said things similar to it, he never paid much attention to it because that's how Snape is. Even before when the Queen made fun of him and said all of those things weeks ago, it didn't make him think because it seemed too over the top and it was coming from an insane person.

But... A sentence as short as that, as simple as that, and with a delivery like that... It just hit him differently and now it got stuck inside the Weasley's head. Compared to his friends, his family, his idol, and even other students... He doesn't have anything, the one closest to him is his little sister and even she is more favored in the family. Not to mention because of the same girl that is making him think right now, Ginny's also richer than he and his family put together because of the previous Queen's shop.

Nobody yet knows that Ginny is now also richer than most of the students of Hogwarts, some of its teachers and even more than Mr. Potter himself due to the challenge game she finished, where she also got herself a girl she can call her own.

And then there are the twins. Who had stopped fighting long ago, it happened when Krum just made his entry into the room.

"Fred. We might need assistance after all" George whispers to his brother.

"Don't you mean 'help' George?" Fred throws a quiet question back at his twin.

George looks blankly at his brother, who's grinning back at him.

"Yeah... We do" Fred says sombrely after a second of grinning.

"Who do we ask? Peeves?"

"Him. Some ghosts, paintings and even other students" Fred answers.

"I see... We need a lot of information about our target"

"A lot. But, it will be worth it" Fred says with a confident expression.

George chuckles "For sure, imagine how everybody will call us, how they will worship us when we beat the seemingly unbeatable Queen at her own game... I can't wait"

"Yeah? Well you will have to because we will be taking our time with this"

"I know, you idiot, that was just a figure of speech"

Fred normally would jump onto the 'idiot' hook and fight back. But instead of it, he gets serious and asks his brother "Did you see it too?"

George hears the question and gets serious too. It's unusual for the two to look serious like this, if anybody was paying attention to them they would be thrown off by it.

"... I did" He answers after a slight pause.

Several minutes ago. Before Viktor Krum came inside the Goblet room and when the twins were still fighting.

There stood the Queen, her red eyes reflecting the blue hue of the Goblet's flame as she stares into it.

She and her mind are lost in it. Her thoughts wandered back to her previous life and the day she burned the corpse of her father at the beginning of the Moonblaze festival.

The citizens watching it happen were all shocked beyond belief as they witnessed the sight, the only reason why most of them didn't faint from such a sight was that the King was dead and it was just his body...

But only the Queen knows that it's all false. Her father was alive, very much alive.

His most important muscle tendons were cut, his body nerves destroyed, all of it was done by her. She also sliced his tongue off while sewing his mouth shut... He was just like a corpse of a human to the eyes of everybody else but to her? He was a doll that simply withered away into ashes and dust as he was burned alive.

The Queen, while lost in her mind, slowly rolls a paper, with her name on it, inside her hand.

She came here to check out the show of the Twins and to put in her own name, just to see what would happen to her because of the Goblet's protective charms, would she get rejected, or maybe she'd die again? She was interested in knowing such a thing. But instead of that, the more she looked upon the Goblet, the further she went back to her old life. A life, which will never be known by another person again and... If she herself forgets it in the future, will it even count as her having lived before? If that were the case will her previous existence be as good as it meaning that it had never existed, to begin with?

So the Queen stands there, lost in her old life, reliving her memories as she subconsciously rolls the paper.

But all of it ends, as an arm appears in her vision, cutting off the flame she was lost. Immediately all of her thoughts change as she gets furious, both because her thoughts were interrupted and because somebody would dare to insult her height by doing something like this.

The problem however is, or rather was... The Queen during her daze was invisible as she cast the spell on herself subconsciously as a defense mechanism and it got disrupted when she was pulled out of her daze. And even she herself didn't notice that fact.

This is what the Twins had witnessed, The Queen losing her invisibility.

"But isn't it strange? It's like nobody else saw it happen" Fred speaks to his brother now having left the Goblet room, still with beards and tufts of hair, to search for alliances to deal with the Queen.

"Yeah... It's really strange, they were all looking at the same scene as us, maybe several people wouldn't see it because of a certain angle where Krum would block their vision" "But not everybody" Fred finishes George's words.

The two walk in silence, then stop together at the same time and look at each other. "Then why did we see it happen?" They say to each other.

The twins will never figure out why they were the only ones that saw how the altercation between the Queen and Krum began.

But it's due to how they were and looked at that certain moment.

The two twins didn't even see the beautiful french Veela and, just as beautiful group of females walk past them, which they would have before.

Fleur and several other students of Beauxbatons Academy entered the Goblet room.

They, collectively, make their way to the Goblet where only the Queen stands near. Fleur is quite surprised to see Lun there, especially alone as Lun doesn't seem to leave Luna alone.

Then the French Veela smiles a little when she understands something. So even a person like Lun is 'smart' enough in matters of 'love' and she is letting Luna and her girlfriend Ginny spend time alone.

"Hi, Lun"

The Queen hears a very familiar voice behind her, she doesn't have to turn around to know who it is. But she still does it.

"Hello, Fleur. How was your day?"

"It was good, zank you for asking"

"Are you here to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

"I am"

"Well, go ahead then" The Queen says, while stepping aside to let Fleur walk past her and also destroying the paper with her name, this tournament doesn't need her. Instead, she will harshly train Fleur and help her win it all, nobody else deserves the glory.

Fleur nods, steps closer to the goblet, and puts her name inside it. After a moment, it gets accepted making the French lady smile slightly.

She steps back and then speaks to the Queen "Let me introduce you to my friends"

"Of course, I would love to meet them" The Queen says calmly. She half means it and half doesn't.

If they are truly Fleur's friends, then she is happy to meet them as anybody important to her future wive is also important to her. But if they are just 'hiding' behind the facade of a friend, then she'd rather not speak to them... And maybe even get rid of them as they dared to fool her future wife.

Hours later. Night time.

The Queen resides in a huge, huge, huge hall with space enough to fill thousands of people, She sits on an extravagant throne.

Etera, her house elf is kneeling before her.

The Queen points her wand at the elf, specifically her head. She casts a false memory spell on the elf. implanting her with the memory of today's incident.

More precisely her memory of the man who was with Viktor Krum and Igor. the man raising a wand at the Queen, that's what Etera gets inside her mind.

"Go" The Queen commands simply, yet elegantly, calmly, yet powerfully and not explaining anything of what Eteara should do.

"Yes, Miss" The house elf lets out and The Queen didn't have to explain anything to her, she knows already what to do from just seeing the image inside her mind.

Etera apparates to Hogwarts grounds leaving the Queen alone in waiting.

Several minutes pass as she waits and eventually Etera comes back, but now she's not alone.

The sleepy Drumstrang man who was with Igor and Krum is the one that Etera brought back with herself.

He confusedly looks around the new place he has never been to. He doesn't understand what just happened. One moment, he's sleeping, the next moment he's woken up by an elf, and then the next, next moment he's here.

Eventually, his eyes go to the throne where his, now widened, eyes see the Queen looking at him "Wha-" But he doesn't get to even finish a short word.

"Silence!"

"Kneel!"

"Imperio!"

"Sonorus!"

Because the Queen used four spells in quick succession.

Two of her Family spells, to make the man silent as she doesn't need to hear anything from a 'nothing' and to make him stay in place by kneeling.

And then one of the unforgivable curses was used to make his body stretch out his head in front while looking at the ground.

The Queen then nodded to Etera, whose voice was amplified by the Amplifying charm.

"Ludmil Kirilov"

The man hearing his name spoken gets spooked. How do these two know his name?

"You are here for committing a crime towards the Queen, Luna Crimson of the Crimson Family"

Crime? What Crime? None of this is making any sense to him.

"I will now recite the full extent of your crime. You are here for drawing and pointing a weapon at the Queen. Your weapon of choice? A wand. Weapon of the Wizarding world"

The man starts sweating, something is extremely wrong here. Really, really wrong. He tries to fight against all of the spells put on him. tries to speak, to scream, to let out any kind of sound. Move any part of his body. Get rid of the Imperius curse. But nothing succeeds. In, fact why is he aware of the Imperious curse to begin with? If it was weak enough for his mind to be 'awake' as it lets him think of all of this, he should be able to fight it. But no matter what, nothing he tries to will into existence works.

"Punishment of your severe crime? Public... In this special case, private execution"

When the man hears that, everything he was trying to do stops... But only for a moment as he started trying again, but this time even harder.

This is neither a dream nor is it a sick joke. This insane girl scared him when he underestimated her. He's a part of Death Eaters and the only time he was scared like this is when he felt Lord Voldermort doing his evil deeds... No, she scared him even more. She scared him so much, that he understands if he doesn't get out of this now, he will die.

'I don't want to di-'

The man's final thought got reduced to nothing, as his head was detached from his body by a clean cut of a sharp blade.

The man died at the hand of the Queen and his own stupid choice of going against her.

The Queen looks at her previously clean dress, which is now stained with blood.

"Clean all of this up. I will go take a bath" Lun states calmly and casually removes her clothing, getting naked.

She's pretty numb to executions at this point. Even if it's been years since she has actually killed somebody, there's just no thrill or excitement in executions... They are just a bore.

If death is not involved in a battle of some sort. She feels absolutely nothing from it.

What a bore.

"Yes, Miss"

The Queen starts walking away, towards the spacious bath house. But she gets stopped by her house elf.

"Miss? Where should I take him?"

"Hmm..." This was a bore, but... Maybe she can still procure herself some excitement from it somehow "Take him back to his room and leave a note for his people to find"

"What should the note say?"

"His crime and nothing else"

"I understand, Miss" Etera grabs the head and puts it in a black bag she had ready. She walks to the body, touches it, and apparates away from the castle.

The nude Queen resumes walking towards her bath. Someday she will bring her Moon, Fleur, Ginny, and the other future wives to her castle. It's too spacious for only one person, maybe they will be able to bring some life into it.

And most importantly, maybe they will be able to bring some much-needed excitement into the Queen's dull and boring life.

~ End of Chapter 29 ~