A/N: Happy Halloween:3 I got dressed up in my medieval gown and a black cloak. :3 I was pretty.

Chapter Thirty-Five

This settled slowly in Hogwarts. The disturbance had subsided and the teachers kept their newcomers separated from each other until they could determine the best course of action. Amber kept an eye on Arturia as Astra kept to the side of Cuchulainn. Arturia would stay in her new room, which they cleaned out an empty classroom for her to use. Meanwhile, Cuchulainn spent the majority of his time in the infirmary where Astra and Necia were continuously working with Winry's supervision.

When Cuchulainn wasn't inside the infirmary, he was outside looking around at the world he had found himself in. Everything was as green as his home, greener even! They had large old trees and strange animals running around including a bunch of strange horses that looked black and scaly with large black wings that were leathery. In a large hut, he found a dark skinned man with red eyes and white hair working in a garden with a very busty woman who looked almost exactly like Astra, only her eyes were almost as red as the man's though they looked like fire rather than blood.

The dark skinned fellow looked up at him and pushed his dark colored glasses up his nose. He had only ever seen blind men wear such things in the past, though they were difficult to make in Ireland or Briton. Often, as he recalled, they were made in America where such products could still be made relatively easily. The rumor was that America had managed to save most of the old technology of there country and kept it hidden away so no one could use it for harm. He recalled seeing strange instruments that fired metal balls at people in the hands of the MacLeod clan and the Sinclairs at the battle of the line. Did they do similar and keep such things for themselves so they knew that they would not be used for wrong purposes?

The white haired woman looked to him and retreated back slightly, hiding. The dark skinned fellow had stood up by now and showed himself to be very tall and well muscled, broad shoulders in plain view and a strange X like scar over part of his forehead and down over his eyes. His right arm was decorated with a strange tattoo that looked both pretty and menacing as well. It stopped at a scar around his arm at his shoulder as if it had belonged to someone else and he was simply using it.

"Who are you?" asked the dark man as he glared at Cuchulainn from behind his shaded glasses.

Cuchulainn didn't find him too unfriendly, though he was cautious. He smiled at him and offered his hand. He was using a sort of stick like leg on his missing leg and had a strange metal thing over his shoulder that Astra had called an "automail port" for when he would receive his new arm. He had the same on his leg, which itched slightly under the metal. He was currently leaning on a crutch and was juggling leaning on the crutch and offering his hand to the dark skinned fellow in a friendly greeting. "I'm Cuchulainn of Ulster. I seem to be far enough from home. Smells like Scotland."

"It is," said the dark skinned fellow. He looked to his hand and then shook it before crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I am Scar. My wife is over there, her name is Honor. What brings you here, Cuchulainn of Ulster?"

Cuchulainn smiled faintly at Scar. "Not a clue. I was being attacked and then found myself here being taken care of in your infirmary. Nice place this is. Never seen it before."

"It is a magical place. They keep wards up all the time to keep intruders out so the children will be safe. If those don't work, WE keep them safe," he said, relaxing slightly.

The woman, Honor, moved out from her hiding place when it seemed she found Cuchulainn safe enough. He noticed she wore glasses, which were perched on her nose like a stuffy librarian would wear them. She eyed Cuchulainn for a moment and nodded her head toward him quickly. He noticed that she wasn't simply busty, she was verybusty! The clothing she wore didn't help detract from this either. Her clothes were not simple, but not extravagant. Gold thread decorated a very tight foreign looking top that had sleeves that ended at her elbows and the bottom of the shirt ended above her navel. A long skirt covered her large hips and her legs that was also as decorated as her strange top and covered feet that were covered in foreign looking slippers of the same red color. Both of her wrists were covered in bangles and her ears decorated with gold earrings. It looked as though she were trying to look like she belonged in Scar's culture, though he doubted he was from anything in particular, for he had a very natural Briton feel to him. His accent, however, had a strangeness all its own, as if it weren't anything in particular. Perhaps he had been around the world several times and picked up dialects as he traveled?

In any case, the woman didn't look like she was trying to hide anything she had from the world, at least to Cuchulainn, though he had seen many women who wore such strangely cut clothing before. He bowed his head toward her and smiled his most charming smile to win her over. She only looked more skeptical and was it his imagination or did he see something that looked like bright fire flicker in her eyes?

"He won't hurt you, Honor," said Scar with a soft, gentle tone. His face had gone from the stern look he had given Cuchulainn to a very gentle one when directed toward his wife. He clearly loved this woman, for such a look could only come from caring deeply for another person.

Honor nodded slightly and smiled faintly at Cuchulainn, still clearly a bit defensive toward him. He wondered what sort of situation would have garnered such hostility toward a stranger in a woman so pretty. His own thoughts bit him in the ass as a revelation came at him. Such women were usually victims of some sort, usually of rape or beatings. She was a very lovely woman; he highly doubted her hostility came naturally and her husband didn't act like he would beat her.

"This place is amazing," he said in a softer tone, thinking to himself. He might like living here if he didn't have duties to attend to. He remembered Emer and his position as king and felt his heart clench.

"You look troubled," said Honor. "You should rest. My mother will attend to your arm and leg soon, I expect."

Cuchulainn eyed Honor a moment. So she was the daughter of that white haired elf? She certainly looked it! He smiled and nodded. "Aye, I should, but I wished to be in the open air. Please, tell me if you could of this place. I'm curious about it."

"What do you wish to know?" asked Honor. She pushed her glasses up her nose and straightened up, the broom in her hands looking like a staff rather than a broom now.

"About this place. Why is it so lovely here when there's a barren wasteland just south at the border. Why is this place here?" Cuchulainn had so many questions in his head, he wasn't sure he could ask them all.

Honor sat down on a bench and motioned for Cuchulainn to sit as well. Scar sat down on the ground next to Honor's legs and wrapped his arm around them, stroking them through her skirt gently. "This school has been around for far longer than you could possibly imagine. It was around a thousand years before my mother was born and has been rebuilt from the ground up by my mother and father, by my sisters and brothers, by my friends and the friends of my mother and father. We all rebuilt it after the first nuclear strike. However, I'm getting ahead of myself." She coughed and idly stroked Scar's hair as she thought.

"A thousand years ago, this school was created by the four founders. They created it because they wanted a place where they could teach young wizards and witches the craft that they would have otherwise only learned from other wizards and witches as apprentices and whatnot. The four founders are Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw. They each had their own idea of who should be let into their school, so Godric whipped off his hat and they each enchanted it so that it would decide who would join which founder's gathering to learn. Eventually, there was a falling out between the founders, however, the school remained and so the school continued to perform the task they had set it to. Teachers continued to teach and students grew up. Some witches and wizards are good, but sometimes, you get bad witches and wizards, just as you would normal humans."

"There was a great wizard who attempted to eradicate all of the non-magic people and the witches and wizards who were born from human families. Then, he suddenly disappeared one day, supposedly dead. The boy he had tried to kill was still alive and so the boy was forever famous. When the boy grew up, he defeated the wizard and the wizard was taken into a pair of doors where he was given the greatest of punishments… remorse. Years passed and my mother, who had been a friend of this boy as well as Amber, had become a dark wizard fighter. Because there are good witches and bad witches in the world, there was never an end to the dark wizards and witches that would routinely come to test their might against the likes of Hogwarts."

"My mother had joined Hogwarts' ranks after a while as the history teacher and started raising her children here after a while when she simply couldn't get any time to come to her home in Malfoy manor. When the boy had married and had children of his own, his children grew up and married as well and one of them, a girl named Lily, married a human and lived her life with that human until another dark wizard cropped up. He had pulled up the old lot of the former dark lord had given himself a new name. He used the crazy daughter of my mother from her marriage with her first husband and used her to kill any who decided to get in his way. When she killed Lily, he disappeared and her daughter Harriet was left with her father."

"One day, the doors that had swallowed up the dark wizard previously, opened up and a boy was let out. He fell in love with Harriet and protected her when things started getting really bad. When my mother killed my half sister, who was the crazy daughter, Harriet killed the dark wizard that had tried to kill the boy who was once the great Lord Voldemort in the past. They married and lived happily enough here in the school with everyone else. Eventually, another dark lord cropped up and my mother's first husband died. She remarried my father and the former dark lord Voldemort had lost his wife. He was then easily taken in by the new dark wizard and made his puppet. He used him ruthlessly against those he cared about. He was forced to kill Amber's first husband, Fred, and then forced to rape Amber. He was forced to put out one of his son James' eyes. He was forced to do many monstrosities that caused his mind to deteriorate. Amber had become pregnant and used the unborn child as a sacrifice to deal with a problem that saved the former dark lord."

"But the new dark wizard was a clever one, good with hallucinations and making people into his puppets not with spells, but with devices that could bend them to his will. He stole my mother and used her as a puppet before using her to bring back my half brother Edward to mate with her, to produce a child of great power that he could raise to become something far greater than anyone could have imagined. He forced a love potion on them and they did the deed and she became pregnant. Once more, the dark wizard was foiled in his plans and the pair escaped him, however, none could still catch him. By this point, Amber had given birth and raised a girl named Alana who was her child with Tom that she had sacrificed before. My aunt Avalon had given birth to boy and Tom had children left over from Harriet to raise. They all raised them up and found that Avalon's child was the embodiment of Death. When the new dark wizard came back, the angry part of Alana's soul manifested itself in the embodiment of Rage and so she left to join this new wizard, who was indeed very handsome, but cold hearted and uncaring. Death had always loved Rage, but was too afraid of what society would say about his loving his cousin to admit to her his feelings. So when Rage went off to the new wizard, his heart broke as he saw a glimpse of them having sex."

"When his father told him that it was all right to love her and that she really needed his love, Death manifested himself and went to Rage and calmed her and took her into his own bed for his own. The new dark wizard thwarted once more, he planned and schemed once again. However, his plan involved using another woman to make a child that he could use against everyone. His planned failed, however, for the woman he had chosen had the ability to use fire and bend it to her will and create it. She continuously incinerated the unborn child he would plant inside her before a man who had been given life once more had come to her aid and taken her away. This time, the dark wizard was unable to get away from his fate and was tormented before he was accosted by Honesty, Truth's replacement when he tried to come out of the gates of truth and cause the world to cease to exist. Honesty made the man into a child and let him grow up among us all in Hogwarts while the woman he had raped repeatedly took her rescuer as her lover and married him."

Scar blushed faintly and looked away as Cuchulainn smirked faintly. The woman could spin a good tale that was for certain! So she had been raped repeatedly by this dark wizard that she refused to name and married Scar after he had rescued her from this man's clutches.

"The child of my mother and my half brother was birthed and grew up. When Truth came out, he had caused a sort of scrambling of Death's order and all the dead came back to life as normal humans. When this occurred, many of the dead who had previously been in heaven, came back and found themselves uncertain as to where they should be. One was the first wife of my dad who was a gentle, kind woman. Another was the wife of Tom, Harriet, and the mother and father of my mother's first husband. My half sister Dierdre, as crazy as she is, came back and found happiness with another man who was dead. When Truth was destroyed and Honesty took over as the guardian of the gate and her husband, who was the embodiment of Famine, helped her, the scrambling of Death's order stopped and he took back those who were supposed to be dead. However, some asked if they could remain and so he allowed them to remain, but some never asked him and so he took them back anyway. One was my mother's first husband and the first wife of my father. My mother felt as though she were taking my father away from the woman he had loved so dearly in the past that she sacrificed her own life to allow the woman to live and remain with my father. So Death took her with her first husband and took her first husband's father and mother with him."

"At this point, the child of my half brother Edward and my mother had grown up considerably. He bargained with Death that he would give his arm to bring back mother and those who wished to come back. So, Death took his right arm and gave back life to my mother and several other people before sending my half nephew to the infirmary himself. We learned then that the boy was the embodiment of War and that Tom was the embodiment of Pestilence. The four horsemen of the apocalypse were manifested on the Earth finally."

She sighed and rubbed her head with a small movement and leaned back against the bench. "The humans found out about magicians and grew jealous and angry with magicians for hiding away their advances and their magic from the world, for taking away something that humans could use to simplify their world. So they made war on the magicians, but the magicians didn't want a war with humans, because a war with humans was a war with their fellows. The humans launched an attack on Hogwarts and destroyed her. The air burned and took many lives, but Death had the foresight to gather everyone into a bubble and heal their wounds and bring back those who had been separated from them. Honesty took care of the earth as Death took care of the people and then both dispelled the radiation from the air from the blast that had been delivered to us for no good reason. In a fit of rage, War went off and destroyed the bases of the humans so they could not launch another attack at them. Death, meanwhile, had asked of the creator to give him the ability to give life back into the land and so he was granted this ability and he gave it back to the land. Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were both destroyed. So, we began anew, bringing back Hogwarts ourselves as the four founders came to life and joined us in our efforts. Hogsmeade was built anew once more and those who had been saved helped bring back the town that was once the only wizarding town left in Britain."

Cuchulainn blinked at Honor. A great deal of what she told made little sense to him, but he took it at her word and nodded. "I see, so that is how you rebuilt this castle and how the war started?"

Honor nodded. "Yes. You could ask my mother about it as well, she's the historian here."

Cuchulainn nodded. "What of the wasteland? What is that?"

"Death could only give life to the land until the power granted to him ran out. This extended far south, but it did not extend all the way. The wasteland was what was left when nothing could grow in that land anymore. The humans that had lived there, the wizards that had lived there, they died from the explosion and those that lived did so at their own peril. The land is poisoned. That which grows from it now is poisoned to cause the people to become deformed and have several terrible and unusual medical problems. The water that can be found outside of the wasteland is also poisoned, but the years have made the radiation disperse and things grow naturally again. Tom made a force field that was very specific so that the inhabitants that refused to leave could come and go as they pleased, but no one else could come into it," she said.

Cuchulainn frowned faintly. So the monstrosities that Arturia rescued were people who had been protected to an extent by the head of these wizards. He had met Tom and talked with him briefly, but the man gave him a strange feeling. It was a similar feeling to Arturia when she spoke to him, as though he hid much underneath a great shell and was far more dangerous than he appeared to be.

His mind buzzed when he left Scar and Honor to whatever duties they had. The headmaster had been a former dark wizard, had killed many and hurt many more; he had died and come back to life, as had many. It was as though he were living in the middle of one of Amergin's stories. He recalled the songs Amergin would sing to him and the poems of warriors and tales of heroes. He recalled all this and more as he continued his way around the grounds and back into the castle. He remembered briefly the old song that Amergin had sung to him as a child about a great kingsword and the boy who could take it. It reminded him of something, but he wasn't certain what.

He spotted a dark haired man with pale skin and pointed ears not far off. His cloak was black and his hood was drawn up over his black hair. His black eyes were like holes in his head as he gazed at Cuchulainn.

"Who are you?" asked Cuchulainn.

"I am Death, but here I am born Donovan Elric. You may call me Donovan," he said, smiling faintly. "How do you like it here?"

"Well enough," said Cuchulainn, frowning faintly.

"I brought you here, Cuchulainn, because what was occurring would have likely killed you… and I know you can not die yet. You are far too important in this world to die yet," Donovan said softly. He pulled back his hood and nodded to Cuchulainn. "Both you and Arturia are too important to die yet."

Cuchulainn growled and jabbed his crutch at Donovan angrily. "Too important?! Then, what of my wife? Is she not important? Why would you bring me here, allow me to be like this when my wife could be living?! Why have you brought here the very creature that did this to me!?"

Donovan wasn't even fazed by the small assault. "I did so because you are both needed in this world. Emer was meant to die then and she willingly went up to the creator to watch over you in a place of peace and joy. Arturia, meanwhile, has many things that need to happen to her before she can be right again. You are one of those things that needs to right her."

Cuchulainn moved away from Donovan, grunting slightly. "I don't need to do anything for that woman! She's tried to kill me, she maimed me beyond recognition, and all because of what?!"

"You will need to ask that of her yourself, I will not give you the answer," said Donovan softly. "Arturia is a good woman at heart, just remember that."

Cuchulainn shoved past Donovan with a snarl. "I don't need to ask that woman anything. She's ruined me and I can not forgive her of it!"

Donovan watched silently as the crippled hero limped off to the infirmary. Soon the man would be learning how to use his new limbs and he would have to use them should he continue on the path he was on. Hogwarts had not seen the last of Arturia's wrath. She simply stayed silent and confined so that everyone could keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble. It was convenient to stay silent for the masses. Should Cuchulainn not forgive her, should he continue to hate her for this, not that he could blame him for hating her now, things would become far worse than anyone could ever imagine.

Emiya stopped when he found old blood in the snow. There was a lot of it. When he dug in the snow, he found an arm and a leg. He found a crushed eyeball as well. A bloodbath had occurred here and he needed to get the queen before something terrible happened to either her or Camelot. With her gone, it was the knights who watched over the land with Merlin's aid. However, none of them could keep all the people in line like the queen could.

He stood up and looked around some more. He found where the tracks ended and touched the air where they disappeared. He felt nothing before him and frowned. How was he going to find his queen?

He decided the best course of action was to go home and try to stall until Merlin could find Arturia or Cuchulainn. Where one was, likely the other would be there. With that, he mounted his horse and headed home.