Chapter 25

~ Forbidden time with books ~

And so, the Queen is walking through the book aisle which she picked, looking around, to see if a book cover will catch her eye.

Before choosing which lines she'll go to, she designated them by number, through one to eight, the ones that were not designated, were instead 'disqualified' and not able to be chosen.

She took the number one because she's first and number six, because why not.

Luna had taken the number three and number five, Fleur chose numbers seven and eight, which means that the last place, Hermione was left with the second and fourth isles.

In two hours, the Queen should easily find a book with one of the words in the title, so might as well spend some time just checking things out.

And so, the Queen leisurely walks around the many books, only throwing a glance at most, sometimes meaning open some of them only to be put off by the boring title, one she did try to actually read, but the letters were missing, papers blank... And she couldn't bother to even waste a minute of her time to try and see if she can make the letters appear.

As the Queen walked around she saw a book out of place on one of the bookcases, most of the 'tomes' she has seen so far were in dark colors, brown, black, even gray, yet this one, a mix of both light and dark. the top is purple and the bottom is pink, and the colors are also cut right down the middle, perfectly.

So the Queen goes closer to the bookcase, she can't actually reach the book physically, but that's why she has magic, she floats the book down to her, as she goes to reach for it, she stops.

"Never hurts to be safe" She says to herself out loud.

"'Protego Du-' No, wait, the library woman said to not 'destroy' books in any way..."

'Protego Horribilis' The Queen casts around herself a stronger shield charm.

Now that she's ready, she finally picks up the book with her hands and turns it around to see if there's a title, only for her to smile and read it out loud "Death Awaits You! Safety Escapes You!" She has finally found something. she could potentially use for the game.

But as she finished reading the name of the book, it has started to slightly tremor in her hands and soon thereafter big circles appeared on the purple side of the book and in several seconds those circles were filled in with some sort of substance to make somewhat realistic looking eyes.

Those eyes roll uncontrollably for some time, only for them to stop dead on the Queen's face, or to be more precise, her eyes.

Both the strange book and the Queen blink at one another after each other.

"Oh my... You're one ugly being, though it's not your fault, that's on the creator's guilty conscience" The Queen pokes fun at the book.

The Book's eyes blink at the Queen again, she slides her head to the side in a thoughtful manner.

"What now? Hmm... I guess I will try opening you"

But the very next moment, the pink part of the book transforms into a sharp-toothed mouth, leaping out of her hands, it opens its jaws and bites down on the Queen's head, enveloping it whole.

The book lets out plenty of grunts and groans while chowing on the head of the girl.

The Queen, who has a book for head at the moment, snaps out of her surprised daze, grabs the book anew with her hands, and using some strength rips it away. She holds it slightly farther away from her head, due to the book trying to jump out of her hold to her head again.

"You're not only ugly but disgusting too, who just tries to swallow a Queen as amazing and beautiful as me?" The Queen unfazed asks rhetorically and somehow the book understanding what the girl has said, stopped trying, mainly due to confusion, for it couldn't do the one job it was made for.

"Oh? Gave up? Well, let's see what you have inside of you" The Queen opens up the book, seeing the two rows of teeth just split apart, she'd nod in approval to such a spectacle if the book wasn't "Blank" the Queen says to the void.

The Queen closes it "Bye, ugly, disgusting... And useless creature" With that, the Queen floats it back to its bookcase and continues on her way "And what a lie that title is" She adds insult to injury.

"Still an average contender for the game, if I can't find any better... Though... Showing the ladies, the book eating my head, would be an interesting situation, unfortunately, I couldn't exactly see their reactions"

The Queen shrugs at that idea and continues looking around. But while she was doing that, she seemed to have made it to the 'end' of the first isle... She should've paid a little bit more attention and checked more books, now she only has one option to choose for the game, but she hopes that the sixth line will be just what she needs. She could go back and re-check the first one, but that's not the Queen's style, the only way is forward, no retreat.

While going her way to the other line, she throws a look at the 'second' isle, where the Golden Girl should be, only to see the illuminating light from the 'Lumos' spell all the way at the beginning, the Queen shakes her head in amusement, it seems that Hermione is reading more than participating, which is quite an obvious outcome.

She has the same idea when coming up to the third line where her Moon is, to check at what point she has made her journey. So as the Queen comes close to the point where the 'lines' intersect, she cranes her head to the side, only to almost jump a little, but forcefully stopping herself, when her Moon basically shows up right in front of her face.

"...Hi Moon, don't scare me like that"

"I'm not scary" Luna says back smiling.

"Yeah, but your timing is downright startling"

Luna looks around for a bit, then zeroes in on the Queen, specifically her empty hands.

"You too?" She asks after a brief moment of silence.

"I could've put it inside my bag to hide it until I'd need to reveal it in front of you all"

"Oh. Did you do that?"

"No, I'm hoping that the next part will have something or I will have to go with that useless thing"

"What thing?"

"A creature all about loving human heads... Well it could be any kind of heads, but from personal experience, it might have the highest affection for human ones"

"That sounds delightful"

"It also feels.... something close to that" The Queen wanted to reciprocate her Moon's compliment, but she couldn't... At least it didn't have saliva or whatever substance it would be instead of it, so there's that.

"Well, let's continue, shall we?" The Queen throws a question to Luna.

"We shall" Moon answers her.

And so the two have resumed walking in pleasant silence, when walking past the fourth aisle, which is the second one for Hermione, Luna looks there, not seeing any sort of light, prompts her to break that silence.

"Hermione reading?"

"Most likely, or really focused on finding the 'best' book for the game... I doubt it though"

"Hmm, she might have already found one and now is just spending her time, frolicking with other books"

"Perhaps, we can just ask her after" The two have made it to the fourth line where Luna has to leave "Well, good luck, though now that I think about it, I should've chosen the first and the eight lines, that way I could have a chance to meet Fleur, not just you or Hermione, even if she was a small chance"

"Why choose six?"

"Pure random choice, a spur of a moment kind of thing"

"Well, the eighth might be the winner, the 'lucky' one, so maybe Fleur will win"

"That might happen, well, anyway, let's continue"

Luna nods and starts walking away, re-casting 'Lumos' since she didn't need to have it activated because of the Queen, which is also why the Queen didn't see Luna coming, for she had it deactivated once she saw another light coming from around the corner "Good luck to you too" Luna says and the Queen continues walking to her own isle, feeling awesome, as per natural.

Meanwhile with the Golden Girl.

"To do it perfectly and unnoticed, one needs to..." Hermione reads in a whisper tone, being used to being quiet in a library, while there are dozens of books of all kinds scattered around her. But it's quite redundant to read quietly when a small and loud explosion happened not too long ago from one of the books she read through the middle mark.

... Books.

Back with the Queen.

She has made it to her destination and this time, she will actually throw some effort into trying to find something, not just half-heartedly look around. If it were with anybody else, she'd try from the start, but with the girls, it doesn't matter if she'll lose. Just like with Etera, but for different reasons.

So far, the whole aisle is almost identical to the previous one, books and bookcases everywhere, doesn't seem like there are any other 'odd' colored ones this time, at least not so far.

The Queen stops for a moment, to think if she could somehow use magic to help her find books easier because going and checking through each one is just not what she wants to do right now.

Maybe she could somehow use 'Accio' to summon said books to her, she can clearly picture books with 'death', 'kill', 'murder' or 'blood' written somewhere on its cover, be it at the back, front, so magical pop-up or even invisible, she also can see and think of the 'general' location of them, as she's literally standing in a place surrounded with them and if some were to fly here from other isles and not this one, she just wouldn't 'use' them for the competition.

"Hmm... Couldn't hurt to try. Ahem... 'Accio: Books with the word 'Kill' in its title'" The Queen waits for a bit, nothing.

"Okay, how about 'Accio: Books with the word 'Death' on its cover'" Also nothing.

"Hmm... 'Accio: Tomes with the word 'Blood' on it'" Nothing, so it seems that changing the verb wasn't helpful.

"How about simplicity 'Accio: Death Books', 'Accio: Murder Tomes'" The Queen puts her head on her palm and tinks for a bit more, it seems that this is too 'vague' for the spell, for it to work. Maybe she should try another method.

"'Accio: Book, Blood Chronicles', 'Accio: Book, Murder Spell Notes', 'Accio: How to Magically Kill A... Werewolf' 'Accio: The Art of Death' 'Accio: The Art of The Death' Doesn't seem like this will work after all... 'Accio: Art of Death'"

The Queen sighs in exasperation, only to hear rumbling behind her and it's close... Also, it's getting closer, she turns around quickly, the fast turn, therefore, put her slightly to the side, she barely sees a book fly straight past her head, her crimson hair getting blown to the side.

"Phew..." The Queen sighs out of relief "Almost got hit in the head, what's with today and my Queenly head, first I get struck by Mr. Nobody, then some Book Creature tries to eat it and now another book flew at me... Granted that last one was on me... Were all of them because of me? No, definitely not, some just can't understand my greatness" The Queen rants to herself, if not for the turn, she'd be on the ground most likely, from the impact and she'd have to waste the minuscule energy to stand up.

She turns again, to see where the book has landed and it's on the ground, now maybe somebody more 'normal' would just bend over and pick it up, but not the Queen, she has magic, so why not utilize it. She floats it to herself. She doesn't need to read the title, for she already knows what it is. But she still checks the cover, maybe there will be an author.

She turns it around in every way, back, front, upside and down, flipped the first page and the end of the book, but there's no name of any kind, not even an alias, seems it was written anonymously.

"Well, let's check this one out, better not be a blank, or I will actually destroy one of the books, damn the promise to Irma Pince"

So the Queen opens the book down the middle and by some miracle, there are actual LETTERS in a book, as a BOOK should HAVE, unless it's pictures only, then it's fine, seems the Queen won't be putting some random book for an execution.

"So... Let's see what the contents are about" The Queen flips back to page one... Well, page eight actually, but it's dubbed as one since it starts there for some reason.

"The Eleven Deaths of Witches?" She reads out the first she sees and those words are plenty big, if the Queen knows her books as she thinks she does, this is an act title.

The Queen reads a few paragraphs to see what it is about, only to get a weird hunch, she stops reading this part and starts flipping pages one by one, only to be met by another larger sentence about twenty pages later.

"The Tragic End of Muggle Twins... This is..." The Queen doesn't read anything and continues to flip pages yet again, thirty-one pages later, she gets hit with another 'act'.

"The Gruesome Spell Death Duel" She flips again, this time only for thirteen extra pages, quite short this one.

"The Love of Death's Embrace" The Queen does the same, this time is taking quite longer, fifty-seven pages to be exact, but now she doesn't read any other titles and continues to flip pages as she comes to a realization on what type of book this is, she would've come to it sooner, but she didn't think that a so called'Forbbiden' place would have Anthologies.

"What is this even doing here, how do books even get selected to be here... Did this one get here because the Author is a 'Dark' Wizard or something..." The Queen's hands slide over her bag to pull out the magiphone and inquire to the Old man, but it stops midway.

"Nevermind, I am not nearly enough to be interested in knowing to pester him about it. Now I have to decide, is this option better than that trick a jester of an 'author' pulled... It is, that thing is only good for one time and it'd get boring, but I still wouldn't mind showing it to the other players of the game... Being in a role of a jester as a Queen is not a thing I'd like to do anyway, but if they asked me to entertain them, I'd for sure do it"

And with that decision made up, the Queen has taken this anthology book as her choice, at least for now, but she feels that it's as good as it gets because she doesn't have all that much time left, only about sixteen minutes...

"Eh, good enough, might as well get acquainted with the book instead of searching for a random possible outcome. So, which story shall I read... It'd be convenient if it had all of them listed somewhere, so I could go off of a name, but I have to flip to specific points, I suppose, the author meant it to be read from the 'start', but maybe they should've not done multiple stories in one book then"

And so the Queen has decided to just close and open the book on a random point by simply setting the book on a table of sorts that's just there for reasons unknown, it sure for students, that's for sure. And then just simply cast a simple 'Ventus' spell on it, generating enough wind force to blast open a book to some page.

The Queen picks the book back up and sees that she's on page hundred ninety-four, it seems to be in a middle of a story, so she flips back some pages to get to the beginning of the story, and ironically enough, she only had to do that three times.

"The Art of Death... Wait" The Queen half-closes the book with one hand to look at the cover, then she looks back at the story name.

"Well, would you look at that, I knew that I was incredible, even my luck is agreeing with me"

And so the Queen relaxed in a seat and started reading to pass the remaining fourteen minutes.

Meanwhile with the French.

Fleur, just like the Queen is now sitting at a table but for different reasons, she's looking at multiple books over and over again, wondering which one she should pick, for all of the books in front of her 'qualify' for the game.

But there's one of them that's farther away than all the rest, that one isn't even a choice, she as a proper lady shouldn't pick it, so she put it there, so it wouldn't tempt her into doing so.

But even so, the temptation is still there, which is also the reason why she's stuck thinking about what to pick, trying to somehow convince herself to go for anything else but that one.

The French Lady looks at all the books once more and with a nod, finally makes a decision.

"Zis one" She says to herself as her hand goes past all of the books in front of her and to the one she tried to stay away from, but it won her over.

"... Wiz zis, I am sure to win" Fleur announces herself the early victor.

Back with the Gryffindor Lady of Literature.

"And that is how you end up as a killer, the end" Hermione puts down the book and feeling her bones stiff, stretches out, and after that lets out a pleased sigh.

"Okay, I finished the first book, time to check out the other two" As Granger goes to pick up another one, she feels a small vibration near her waist, so her hand changes trajectory and goes over a pocket, she takes out the vibrating magiphone, having completely forgotten that it was there while she was reading.

She picks up the call "Hello?"

"Hi, Hermione, I hope you didn't forget anything" She hears the voice of the QUeen.

"I did actually"

"What might that be?"

"This magiphone being on me"

"Ah, well that is one thing, but that's not what I am referring to" Says the Queen "Look at the books" She also adds.

And so Hermione does, it takes her a moment, before her eyes slightly widen "It can't be, two hours already went by?"

"Indeed"

"But..."

"But?"

"Nothing... I'm coming, be there soon"

"Got you, bye!"

"Bye" Hermione says and puts down the magiphone.

"But... I've only finished reading one book from my choice of three" Hermione lets out to herself, then she looks at the other two and the one she has read "Can't believe that I spent almost two hours reading it" She says to herself and she starts getting up and putting everything in place quickly. And she does this as the 'now' chosen book by default is sitting there, waiting to be picked up and carried to Hermiones' new friends? Waiting with all of its thickness and four hundred thirty pages.

Hermione having put everything back as closely as she remembers, takes the book in her hands and starts run-walking, it's just walking, but faster, she doesn't run in libraries... Usually, sometimes there might be times where she needs to do that.

~ End of Chapter 25 ~