-o-o-o-

While most of the women and the other girls toasted the bushy-haired girl sitting at the head of the table, one amongst them remained seated, her wine glass remaining on the table.

Elisabeth Nott was looking down at the napkin she was twisting in anger in her lap. Her fingers seemed intent on destroying the very fibres it was made from. Her face purpled in rage at the celebration around her.

The one man she had felt was an unstoppable power in the quest to bring the magical world back on track was dead. And these haughty little tramps were celebrating her lord's murderer's mudblood slut!

Elisabeth slammed her hands flat against the table with all of her might, causing the charger, plate, and silverware in front of her to loudly rattle.

Silence fell across the room.

"Elisabeth! What has come over you?! What is the meaning of this outburst?!" Narcissa Black asked in surprise from across the table.

"All of you are clucking like common chickens come home to roost when you should be respectfully mourning!" Elisabeth shouted in retort.

"Mourning?! Are you mad?" Maureen Bulstrode shouted, sitting down the table from the two women, "We're celebrating our new Lady! For what reason should we mourn?"

"You useless, vapid, fat cow! You have no understanding of what has happened!" Elisabeth screamed back in rage.

All of the older women gathered around the table began screeching at one another.

A crystalline voice lightly filled the room, somehow drowning out the shrill cacophony. All fell silent as they heard the near-whisper.

The diminutive blonde looked at each of the ladies sitting around the table. "Lady Nott obviously has something on her mind. We should remain respectful and approachable and invite her to speak freely amongst us," Luna said demurely, her eyes, as well as the eyes of the other eight young women at the head of the table, who had also looked around the table, finally rested on Lady Nott.

"Lady Nott, you do not find this evening's celebration appropriate?" Luna asked speculatively.

Elisabeth took her twisted, mangled napkin, wiped her hands, and set it on the table as she surveyed the room.

"You all know of the events which have shaped our lives. Our very world. We've lived with the bleating sheep of the magical world complaining about the world at large," Elisabeth said quietly.

"Our late lord was taken from us only this morning and you sit around this table, like frightened lambs, toasting to the long life of a half-blood thieving son of a mudblood whore, and his mudblood slut!" Elisabeth screamed at the end, spittle flying from her lips.

Quicker than any of the women could react, Luna effortlessly leapt onto the table, strode purposefully to in front of where Lady Nott sat at the table. Elisabeth looked up in contempt at the girl, until the girl moved again a moment later.

Luna raised her hand into the air and her whisper rattled the stone walls. "Concede potestatem gladii," she whispered. A goblin-crafted sword appeared in the diminutive blonde's hand, which was in motion the moment her fingers tightened their grip, neatly slicing the woman's head from her shoulders.

The head struck the table and bounced. Moments later, a fountain of arterial blood exploded from the torso as it slid sideways from the chair, painting several of the women with rich, red, blood as it fell to the floor.

Luna bent down and picked the head up by the hair with her free hand and stood upright once more. In a smooth motion, she flicked the sword free of blood. She looked up from the head to gaze out over the terrified women sitting around the table and smiled slightly.

"As your lord's consorts and members of his primary council, we encourage you from time to time, and always in a respectful manner, to question our logic," Luna said, her voice sounding friendly and warm.

"If you're unconvinced that a particular plan of action we've decided is the wisest, tell us so," she said with a slight smile, "but allow us to convince you, and we promise you right here and now, no subject will ever be forbidden."

She paused for a moment, looking about the table to see the looks of horror and fear on the faces of the pureblood women at the table as they watched the blood continue to pour from the headless body.

"Except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion. The price you pay for bringing up either our Lady's or our Lord's late mother's Muggle birth or Muggle heritage as a negative is," she paused to gesture to the eight other women sitting at the head of the table and herself, "we collect your fucking head."

She held up the decapitated head in her raised arm. "Just like this bitch here," she growled loudly.

She looked around the women at the table again, "Now, if any of you bitches have got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!"

The room was so quiet, Luna could only hear the sound of blood dripping from the head in her hand. She waited a full minute for anyone else who was foolish enough to try her patience a second time.

"I didn't think so," she said, tossing the head onto the table, shattering a plate and causing the silver set to scatter as it stopped rolling and stared upwards with glazed eyes in front of a quaking, sobbing Narcissa Black.

Luna stepped off the table and landed on the floor without a sound. Had any of the women been capable of noticing, her clothing and her skin were completely spotless. The girls, especially Hermione and Daphne, smiled brightly at Luna, as she turned and released her grip on the sword. Instead of it clattering to the ground, it seemed to evaporate. She looked up to see none of the women present had been spared the mist and spurts of blood that had settled over the room.

Luna daintily lifted her goblet in toast. "As I was saying, to Lady Hermione Jane Potter, Empress. Long may she reign!"

Even though their wine glasses were unrecoverably tainted, the women all took sips from their glasses; if for no other reason than fear. As each one consumed the droplets of blood from their wine, they felt them interact with their magic.

Suddenly, a field of energy surrounded the bodiless head on the table and the headless body on the floor and each of the droplets of blood painting the furnishings, walls and women, bathed everything in white, sparkling, pulsing power.

There was a bright, blinding flash followed by a shrill scream which cut off quickly. The women around the table looked to the source of the scream and saw Lady Nott sitting once more at the table, her eyes filled with a horrific madness, biting the back of her hand bloody to stifle the scream desperately trying to escape from her throat, successful in muting it to a soft moan.

As Luna drained her glass, along with the other girls, she set it down, and focused on the mewling woman. "So nice of you to join us, once again, Lady Nott. I do hope your short respite has improved your attitude," Luna said softly.