Author's note: I was feeling like writing today, so here is another chapter. A chapter with a bit of romance... Of course confusing as romance always is.

- Chapter 5 -

"Now, that was a rather stereotypical dark wizard, don't you think?" Hermione said to Ron and Harry. They were sitting in front of the fireplace on a large red rug and the firelight caused flickering shadows across their faces. "Walking into the story in black robes covered in mysterious signs and kidnapping the first girl he comes across with purple flashes and a lot of smoke…"

"Well, it is a fairytale after all," Harry said. "It's just a pity that he has a wand and we don't. I mean, if smokescreens are the best he can do…"

"I don't think we would have been able to really change the storyline anyway. Whenever our characters do something crucial, it is beyond our control. Or do you think you can fight it, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"No, it was like you said." Harry tried to recall the strange feeling that had struck him when he had been running after the sister, the way his mouth moved as though it hadn't been his own. "It was like… like the connection between my will and part of my body was broken… I couldn't repair it till Fred's voice didn't command me anymore."

"We just need to go along with the story, the sooner it will all be over," Ron said. "Maybe it will even be a lot of fun, we could be like the medieval knights, saving the damsel in distress!"

When Harry said "Just like in the movies!" Ron didn't bother to ask what that was, perhaps that was what living with the Muggle-lover he had as a father for years had taught him.

"I'm just glad I'm not the damsel in distress," Hermione said. "I wouldn't like to be locked up in the castle of that creep for the rest of the story. Some medieval writers really had some pervy ideas, you know…" She shuddered. "Still, I suppose one of you has to go on the rescue mission and I will have to wait here. Embroidering, no doubt…"

"Well, you could always have some fun with the hunky guard over there," Harry teased her, pointing at the frozen guard in chain mail at the door opening. "Or start some interesting intrigue with your father-in-law." Harry laughed. "At least you won't have to marry Ron anymore in that case."

Ron did not seem quite as amused, in fact, his degree of redness seemed to indicate suppressed anger. Even Harry, though he was ignorant of emotions of others most of the time as all boys, seemed to notice this and quickly he spoke tactfully:

"Look, of course we'll bring Hermione, we'll say she can practice her needlework while the men," - disdainful snort of Hermione, which Harry ignored - "do the fighting."

"Yeah, sure…" Hermione said, "but we really should try to stick together. We'll see what we can do to persuade the characters in the story."

"Persuade the characters in the story to do what? Really, Hermione, you've only been inside the castle for one chapter and you're already hitting on the King? Never knew you did the whole seduce-rich-men-thing…" a voice from outside the book said.

"Ha, Fred and George, you are back," Hermione said stiffly.

"Yes, we are. Isn't it great?" George said. "And with coffee as well. Bet you can't find that at that feast." He took a large gulp of his coffee and spilled some of the hot fluid on the illustration of the book. "Oops…". The golden yellow of Hermione's dress absorbed the coffee and a brown stain appeared on the skirt.

"George! Or Fred! You're ruining my dress!" Hermione said angrily.

"Whoo, somebody's touchy here…" George said as he wiped the book with his robe. "Afraid you'll make a bad impression on the King? Or perhaps that your dear fiancée-"

"No!" Hermione said and her voice broke. She scraped her throat and tried to continue more calmly: "No. But just… just read on, will you. All your fooling around is taking ages," she said, letting her brown curls fall around her face so that the others couldn't see her expression.

"Fine, fine it is… Command your humble slaves," George said mockingly. "I will take up the story from here, so Fred can have a bit of a break..."

Hermione, Ron and Harry got up and walked towards their fictional family, which started moving again. The King looked beaten as he stared into dark forest. The lines on his face which had looked kind and warm at first, now clashed with the intensely morose look in his eyes. The Queen stood next to him and her eyes looked fearfully in the same direction. She was the first to speak after a while and turned to Ron.

"Leofwine, my eldest son, you will have to retrieve her," she said. At this, the King turned his head towards them abruptly.

"This man knows of witchcraft, you saw it. We have all seen it. What can our simple blades do against such sorcery?" he said desperately. "Will you have me lose my other child as well?" he snapped at his wife. The King still clearly felt betrayed by the fact that his wife had promised herself to another man in her younger years. The Queen was not silenced by this and spoke to her husband as long-winded as he had spoken to her.

"Will you give up our only daughter like that? There is no force of darkness which cannot be beaten by that of light. Our sons have been raised to be strong and just and pious. Right is at our side," she said. "God is at our side. And Earpwald is only human."

"Yes, you would know all about that, wouldn't you?" the King said, looking as painful as though his wife had thrust a knife in between his ribs. This time the Queen did dare to look in the King's eyes but her cheeks filled with colour as she did so. She attempted to take his hand but the King turned away. Ron almost felt embarrassed to intrude into a conversation so personal, even though it was only a story.

"Cynewold…" the Queen said with her eyes cast down, "I was young. We all make mistakes. And my final promise was to you," she reminded him. The King looked over his shoulder sternly. "I can help Leofwine beat Earpwald with my knowledge. I know his whereabouts!" she begged. The king's expression softened somewhat.

"He lives near the village in which I grew up, the village of my family. He lives in a castle in the East," she added quickly.

"All right," the King said finally, though he did not sounds thoroughly forgiving. "We will speak more of you later," he said with a rather menacing look in his eyes. "Now we must act quickly, if we indeed choose to act."

"I would be honoured to take this quest upon me," Ron said as Prince Leofwine, not trying to resist the enchantment anymore, but still looking rather ill at ease.

"So would I be to join him in battle," Harry said as Prince Wigmær. "Together we will be able to beat him." It was strange to hear their own mouths speak such words, words they would never have strung together themselves.

The Queen looked more at ease now that her sons were willing to do as she pleased.

"Fine," the King said. He look even more worried than he did before, but decisive too. "The two of you will rescue your sister. You will be equipped with the family weapons and armour and shall be given the two fastest horses, so that you may ride to Ethel with haste."

"Erm…" Harry interrupted him. The King looked in his direction, surprised that his son would interrupt him while he was speaking. "I… I just wanted to say, erm… can't we take Her-, I mean, Lady Mildburh with us?" he stuttered. The King and Queen looked at him with questioning frowns. Was Harry changing the storyline now? Or was it unimportant whether Hermione would join in?

"I mean, I just think," he cast an apologizing look at Ron and Hermione beside him, "it would be good for the fiancées to get to know each other a little better." Harry felt he sounded stupid next to the eloquently speaking King and Queen.

Both the King and Queen looked surprised, but Harry saw a little light kindled in the eyes of the Queen. She smiled.

"Yes, these two young people can get acquainted with each other by doing this together. They'll learn what it's like to depend on each other. Don't you think, Cynewold?" she said, as she turned to her husband for confirmation.

The King didn't quite seem to agree. "But she… she's a woman!" he said.

"She can lead our sons to the right place. She was born in the village from which I came, remember? She knows the area well," the Queen said.

"And I can take care of them during the travelling and… and when they get hurt," Hermione said, trying not to think about the last thing she had said. Surely they couldn't get hurt inside this book…? The King looked upon her, as if he were judging whether she was fit for the job. Hermione felt unsure. Had all he had said at her welcoming only been light-hearted? She couldn't bear to cast her eyes down modestly again, so she looked straight into the eyes of the king, with her wish to join in with the boys burning in her eyes. Then apparently the King decided to approve of her and stopped his taxing look.

"You may join them. I trust that you will take good care of my sons. This is your chance to prove you are worthy of being a part of the House of Woldshire," the King said. The Queen nodded approvingly. Hermione could tell the royal couple was glad that it had been decided how things would be done.

"Then now it is time to go to bed. It is not wise to ride off in the middle of the night. The servants will prepare all that you will need to take with you, so that tomorrow morning you can depart."

The King and Queen seemed to decided that the matter had been decided and they walked inside. Harry, Ron and Hermione followed at a small distance.

"Well, that went all right," Ron said, sounding relieved.

"Yeah, whatever's coming, at least we'll be together," Hermione said.

Behind them, the guard closed the large wooden door. Two ladies-of-the-bedchamber in plain blue dresses guided Hermione to her room. The room was upstairs, with walls, floor and ceiling of stone, just like the dining room, but with richly decorated rugs on the floor and mirrors with golden rims with female figures in elegant poses on them. The most beautiful was the four-poster in the middle of the room, with red fabric with biblical depictions on it, which draped down from a dark wooden frame. As Hermione was looking around the room, one of the girls started untying her dress.

"Whoaa!" Hermione yelled, "I'm quite capable of doing that myself," she said, grabbing the cords on the back of her dress and turning away from the girl. The girl looked at her very frightened and started making excuses.

"My Lady, I'm very sorry, I thought-"

"It's all right," Hermione interrupted her quickly, she didn't want to talk the poor thing into a guilt complex. "Please, just-… just leave and let me do it myself," she said. The girl hurried out of the room, followed by the other one.

"And that's the same for you, Fred en George!" she yelled at the giggling persons above the book. "The chapter is over! Close the book!" she said hotly. Fred and George's turned into a fit of laughter. Hermione pulled the cords of her dress tighter. "Close it! Now!"

"All right, all right," Fred said. "Just when the story was finally getting exciting…" – Hermione was throwing various not-so-nice terms at him – "All right!" he said quickly for the last time and closed the book.

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief and rummaged in one of the drawers of a wardrobe and picked out a plain dress of white fabric with little flowers on it, which kind of looked like a nightgown. She fumbled with the cords on the back of her dress and started to understand why rich ladies had servants to help them with that. Finally she managed to get the various layers of clothing she was wearing off and she was about to put the nightgown on when she heard something at the door. When she turned around, she saw Ron's pale face in the door opening.

"You pervert!" she screamed, frantically covering her body with the piece of clothing. "You're as bad as your brothers! Worse!" she yelled. Ron looked as frozen as a character out of the book without a voice directing it, and even more thoroughly frightened than the lady-of-the-chamber had just been. "Get out! GET OUT!" she screamed, her voice much higher than it usually was. Ron came back to his senses en looking totally bewildered he hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him with a bang. Hermione quickly pulled on the nightgown and then stood there in the middle of the room, breathing wildly. Then her intakes of breath turned into sobs and tears slid down her face. She sat down against her bed and let her brown curls fall into her face and stick to her wet cheeks. She had thought he was different. Different! How did she ever get that idea! He was as bad as any boy, as any Krum. Not of the talkative kind, Krum had called himself. Well, no boy was. They didn't care about talking. They didn't care about the fact that she actually had something intelligent to say. Unless they wanted her to do their homework, that was. Angrily Hermione brushed a brown curl out of her face. No, she had to turn up with her body nicely exposed in dress robes and her hair slacked back elegantly to finally be considered an interesting person. Or stand naked in a room with only a piece of clothing half covering her. She became red in the face by just thinking of it. To think that she would have to be with Ron for the rest of the story. The shame… They wouldn't be able to look at each other anymore. Not that Ron had properly dared to do that before. But now he really wouldn't do that anymore. The way she had screamed at him… But he had deserved it. The dirty –

Knocking on the door prevented Hermione from starting a long torrent of abuse. Hermione didn't react to the knocking and turned her head away from the door.

"Hermione?" she heard a voice say unsurely. Harry's voice. "Hermione?" he repeated.

"Come to have a peek as well, have you?" she snapped at him, drawing her knees up and hiding her head between them.

"No," Harry said indignantly, "Hermione, what do you mean? What's going on?"

Hermione felt tempted to say something like 'all men are pigs' but realised the cliché and instead remained silent. She heard the door creak as Harry opened it. When she looked at the door out of the corner of the eye she saw two green eyes stare at her intensely worried.

"Hey, what's going on?" Harry repeated. After hesitating a bit, he came in and closed the door behind him. He approached her until he was only a few feet away and then he kneeled. He looked at her through the mass of brown curls. "I heard some… raised voices," Harry said tactfully, instead of 'hysterical screaming', "coming from here so I just wanted to check whether you were all right,-"

"I'm fine," Hermione interrupted him brusquely, but Harry continued:

"And while I was on my way I ran into Ron who was looking really upset and ran down the hall without saying anything… What's happened?" he asked. He saw Hermione's wet cheeks glow red. And then he remembered what she had said when he had knocked on the door, about 'having a peek'. "Hermione, Ron was not, he was not… peeking or anything. We were trying to find our rooms, our servants just froze halfway up the stairs so we had to find them ourselves," Harry explained. "He was just checking whether the room was empty," he said. Hermione looked at him, stopping her sobbing.

"Really," Harry said. There was a moment of silence. "Were you-"

"I was getting into my nightgown," Hermione said, not facing Harry at this point. She felt kind of naked again, even though she was wearing the nightgown.

"Oh…" Harry said. "Oh, I see…" He felt rather akward.

Hermione wiped her cheeks and got all of her hair out of her face. "And the twins, they… they were being annoying about me putting on other clothes as well. But I was just… just being silly," she said, shaking her head. "Just a misunderstanding, all of it," she said quickly. "Will you tell Ron I'm sorry?" she asked Harry.

"Yeah, that's fine. I erm… he looked just as shocked as you, you know. I think he's sorry as well," Harry said.

"Okay," Hermione said and she managed a little smile. "I'm glad you came," she said, after a short pause.

"Well… I'm just glad we've got this out of the way. We've probably got a long way to go together in this story," Harry said.

"Yeah," Hermione said. "Well, thanks, Harry." And then, a little hesitatingly, she hugged Harry. Harry was taken by surprise and was a bit startled, but then he put his arms around her. Why did this feel so strange all of the sudden? Was it because she had just been crying? Or because of the reason she had been crying? To think of the reason made him feel uneasy, to think of Ron and the twins like that. Harry was very aware Hermione's warm body under the thin fabric of her gown. That felt thoroughly wrong. He recoiled and stood up.

"We'd better get a good night's sleep," Harry said quickly, "Goodnight." And he hurried out of the room.

"Goodnight…" said Hermione to the closing door.