Author's note: With exams going on, fanfic suddenly seemed to appeal me more strongly than ever :-P. So in between English, Math and Physics (well, it was practicing English, one might say ;-) ), I wrote the first part of this chapter. Chapter ten introduced a new mysterious person, and she turns out to be quite relevant to Harry, Ron and Hermione in this chapter. Quite a pain in the ass, too, they might call her :-). After the previous chapters filled with action and thoughts and descriptions, now there is room for dialogue. And Fred and George felt kinda left out in the last chapters, so they get to make an appearance as well :-). Hope you enjoy it! Don't hesitate to tell me what you think, any comment is very welcome!

- Chapter eleven -

The Sweetest and Stickiest Strawberry

"You are princes, right?" she said and she laughed, one of her slender hands covering her mouth. She planted her elbow on her knee and leaned forward in a confidential way, as if she knew them well.

"You're…", she stretched the vowel teasingly and fixed her eyes upon Ron. "Leofwine," she said excitedly. "Right?" she added eagerly and her eyes flashed from Ron to Harry and back, trying to see whether she had guessed right.

Ron looked rather overwhelmed for a moment and then realised he was being asked something. "Erm… yes," he said.

"I knew it!" the girl said triumphantly. "Crown princes are always the tallest." She giggled in a way which made Hermione tut and cross her arms over her chest irritably.

"Then you're Wigmær," the girl continued without taking any notice of Hermione, and she pointed a pink fingernail at Harry. She looked at him from head to foot with eyes that looked as though they were laughing. Then she sat up again and rolled her shoulders back, so that she sat extremely upright. She tilted her head forward slightly without taking her eyes of the boys and breathed in as if she was going to say something very exciting and important.

"I am Ærest," she said pompously with a lot of emphasis on the first word, and a proud smile bulged her porcelain cheeks. She seemed to be waiting for them to gasp in wonder, or at least say something, but all she got was silent stares. The smile faded and turned into a pout. She sighed very loudly. Her eyes turned from the boys onto Hermione.

"Who are you, anyway?" she asked in a bored tone, gazing at Hermione from under her eyelashes. Hermione looked almost incensed at the way this girl was treating her. She spoke in a vexed voice.

"I'm Lady Mildburh," she said. "Leofwine's fiancée," she added with emphasis. Ærest seemed utterly unimpressed and sighed again. She turned to straightening creases in her big pink skirt, as if that was by far more interesting.

"Honestly," Hermione muttered to herself. The girl didn't look up. Then Hermione thought of something.

"Wait a minute, how did you know who they were?" she said, inclining her head towards Ron and Harry. The girl stopped fuddling with her dress instantly and got that look in her eyes which she had had when she had been about to introduce herself. She giggled and seemed to be enjoying the fact that everyone was waiting for her to speak tremendously. Then her high voice sounded again.

"A few days ago, a girl with long red hair passed through here. The princess, Fultumiend told me."

"Fultumiend?" Hermione asked. Ærest cast an irritated look at the source of this interruption, but did answer.

"The ugly servant with the bent back," she said with some disdain. "Surely you saw him at your castle? He was there, wasn't he?" she asked eagerly. "They wouldn't tell me everything," Ærest said, and she looked as though someone had denied her a sweet.

"But they did tell me that you would be coming in a few days. And here you are." She laughed her sweetish laugh again.

"They told you we would be coming?" Harry said. He looked at Ron and Hermione in confusion and then with some angry despair. "They knew we would come! We've been set up, they'll be waiting for us!" He walked towards Ærest with menacing steps, stopping only a few foot before her, clenching his fists. He looked tempted to grab the girl at the shoulder, but it seemed wrong to threaten to do anything to something which looked so fragile.

"What are they planning to do to us?" Harry asked angrily. "Tell us, now!"

"Now, now," the girl shushed, as if she were talking to a three-year-old. "No need to get all worked up about it." She did not appear to feel threatened by Harry at all and had only lazily leaned her head against a yellow cushion on her left when he had approached her. Now her mouth smiled a smile which was more patronizing than the motherly she was probably aiming for.

"You go and sit down. We'll have some tea. Frick!" her high voice rang loudly over the clearing. Harry was breathing in and out indignantly and he could not even think of something to say. His mouth hung open. This girl didn't take him seriously, no, even ignored every word he was saying!

From Harry's left, a servant scuffled towards them. His pace was weird, for his left leg could only be half as long as the right which he limped after him. In fact, the whole four-foot body of this being seemed like the way in which a toddler unable to control his colouring pencil would draw the body of a gnome, crooked, with weird bulges and without an uninterrupted curve anywhere. If Harry had found the beasts of the night before disfigured, it was nothing compared to this crumpled image of something human. The servant wore a dusty jacket which was way too big for him and not fit for his not-straight body. The left leg of his trousers was turned up in big creases, and the right one showed a piece of the potato-like-brown skin of the right leg. On a coarse right hand, rested a turquoise serving tray with a very large steaming teapot and cups and saucers, and sugar bowl and milk jug and what more on it. It was a miracle he managed to keep the thing balanced with the way he walked.

When he the tray came into view of Ærest, she let her head fall to the left, the side where the servant wasn't standing, and she managed the loudest and most irritated sigh Harry, Ron and Hermione had heard of her since they had met her.

"No…" she said as if the servant had just presented her with a pink gerbil instead of tea. "The table Frick, we have visitors!" she said to grass on her left. Frick, as he was apparently called, hurried off again, almost tripping in his haste. A moment later he returned, dragging a curvy coffee table of shining wood after him. He scudded around the table, positioning it so that it stood exactly straight before Ærest. After that, he laid down three fluffy cushions for the guests to sit on in quick succession. He limped his fastest away from them and then returned with the turquoise tray and in a flash, four damping cups of hot water stood waiting for the four of them.

"Strawberry," Ærest commanded. Frick reappeared with a small pink box in his hands and conjured golden tea balls out of it, one for each cup. He gave Ærest four spoonfuls of sugar. The fluid inside the cups slowly turned into a brownish red. Frick gestured Harry, Ron and Hermione to sit down, his deformed arms waving in the direction of the cushions. A little overwhelmed, the three of them allowed themselves to be escorted to a cushion, and before they knew it, they were all sitting with a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in their hands, sweet fruity fumes steaming in their faces. Frick provided them all with an iced biscuit and then hurried out of view.

Ærest sipped her tea, her little finger proudly in the air as she held the cup. "Now, that's better," she said contently. "Come on, drink," she told her guests, who were sitting on their cushions rather dazed. Then Harry blinked his eyes as he had when he had been looking at that tunnel and realised the total ridiculousness of the situation. His eyes which had been wide as he was overwhelmed at first, now became smaller as an angry frown surrounded them and their green burned vividly. Harry put down his cup on his saucer with force and tea slopped over the edge of the porcelain rim.

"No, we won't drink your tea! For god's sake, why are you talking to us as if we're hardly five years old! If anyone here is to be told what to do, it's you!" Harry stood up (more tea splashed out of his cup as he collided with the table) and laid his hand on the sheath of his sword menacingly.

"What do you know?"

The girl tutted softly to herself and irritation carved a fine line across her smooth forehead.

"I told you, they wouldn't tell me everything. They were just taking this girl – your sister – to the castle and they told me it was the princess, which I could see, obviously, as if I can't recognize royal blood, and then they said I would have some more royal visitors in a few days. That's all," Ærest said irritably. "And there's no need to be so impolite!" she added. "This is my forest, not yours!"

"Your forest?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Yes, my forest," Ærest answered, all irritation suddenly gone, and once again she let the 'my' roll over her tongue as if it were a hundred times sweeter than the icing on the biscuit on her saucer. A boasting smile was on her lips. "Daddy gave it to me," she said proudly. She glanced over at Ron and Harry to see what kind of reaction this evoked.

"'Daddy'!" This time there was even more disbelieve in Hermione's voice. "You are not seriously saying that this Earpwald is your father?"

Her smile almost stretched out to her small ears, she nodded. "I take care of it for him. Everyone who comes to see him, comes past me first."

"Lovely, a secretary," Hermione muttered. "But then who's your mother?" she asked.

The smile faded from Ærest's face at once and she looked down. For the first time, someone seemed to have managed to affect her. The high voice did not sound quite as self-satisfied as it had before when she used it again.

"She – she's…" Ærest started feebly. "Daddy got rid of her," she said after a small pause. An uneasy silence hung above the wooden table. Ærest's little nose twitched slightly, as if she was going to cry, but no tears ran over the round cheeks. Then she looked up again and the corners of her mouth were forced upwards again. "Daddy's loves me most. He didn't need mommy," she said. The smile turned a little more vile. "She was only a girl from the village. Not a wizard like daddy. She couldn't do magic like us." Ærest huffed.

"Why would daddy need her when he's got me?" she said scornfully. Yet, Hermione thought there was a note of uncertainty in her voice, as if Ærest was convincing herself rather then her guests.

"Then why did he put you here?" Ron asked bluntly and Ærest looked as though he had slapped her in the face, but kept her neck and head straight this time, and only the painful way in which little muscles around her eyes squinted betrayed her. With her eyes cast down and her fingers strained around her cup she spoke again, sounding much older than she had at first.

"He… First it was just the two of us. And he made me pets," a little true smile briefly crossed her lips, "a lot of pets. Pets no one has. But… he started making them bigger. And scarier. I didn't like them anymore. They made me feel frightened." Ærest couldn't suppress a slight shudder before she continued.

"Then he put them away in the garden, far from the castle, near the gates. I thought everything would be all right again. I never came there anyway. I still don't. But then…" Ærest's face was slightly screwed up, an uncomfortable V in her forehead, as if she remembered the taste of something very bitter.

"He… he wanted to make me brothers. Not with mum, and not with another woman, but all by himself. He used me… did all kinds of magic… I didn't understand it…" Her eyes were filled with an empty stare, as if she was looking at something inside her head rather then outside of it. Whatever she saw, looked as if it were unpleasant and confusing. There was a silence. Then Ærest huffed.

"He didn't manage. He couldn't make them." Her voice was growing steady again, a vile touch to it. "They were no proper humans. They were stupid. And ugly." She laughed.

"Ugly! Like Frick! Ugly, stupid, stupid, ugly Frick!". Her unpleasant tone echoed all over the clearing. The scolding seemed to comfort her greatly. The weakness she had just shown, was concealed behind a nasty smirk again.

"Not like me. I'm pretty. And I'm not stupid. I'm pretty," Ærest said to herself once again, as if this feature shielded her from everything bad.

"So Earpwald made Frick?"

"Yes. And he made others. But he couldn't get them right. Not like me. He should just have kept me. Just the two of us. He always wants to have everything. He shouldn't." Ærest looked away to her side. Look who's talking, Ron thought.

"He was angry. Angry when it didn't work out. He didn't want to see them anymore, Frick and the others. He made them do jobs around the castle, so they weren't inside, and out of sight. But he didn't get better. Whenever he saw me… he – he remembered. He got angry with me, as if it was my fault. It wasn't my fault." The last sentence, she spoke to herself very silently. "He sent me to the forest…"

"So now I live here. With Frick. And my visitors." She chased the uncertainty away with a large smile, which revealed her little pearl like teeth. Her mood made a sudden swing to boisterous cheerfulness. "I don't have that many visitors, you know. We're going to have a lot of fun! We will have more strawberry tea… and blueberry, and raspberry! We will play games, and… and – we will dance! Yes, we will dance! Frick! Come! Play us some music!" Ærest shifted around eagerly in her seat.

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at this sudden almost maniacal behaviour with great distrust. Large frowns adorned their foreheads and Hermione and Ron exchanged a non-comprehending questioning look. There was something seriously wrong with this girl, apart from being ridiculously spoiled. An explosive mix of her father and something sickly sweet and wanting. And the idea of meeting that father soon had hardly become anymore tempting. He had created all those deformed beings? The beasts, the servant? What more would they encounter on their way to the castle? This man seemed to want to control more things than humans should want to control.

"Well… - I think we'd rather go. Yes, we must be going now," Harry said and he was starting to prepare leaving, shoving his cup away from him and about to get up from his cushion. It was best if they left this place soon. It only brought disturbing things.

"Oh no," Ærest interrupted him. "You're staying. We're going to dance." She looked at him in a very excited way. "And first you must finish your tea," she added.

"Some other time maybe," Harry heard himself lie. "We're leaving."

"No," Ærest said.

"Yes," Harry replied. "Come on guys," he muttered to Ron and Hermione.

"No," Ærest repeated sternly. "You will not," she said simply. "You can't!" And as she laughed, they heard the sound of breaking, creaking, growing branches, not unlike the sound of the tunnel, but a hundred times louder. Before their eyes, the forest surrounding them grew thick, so thick, that the clearing seemed to be bordered by brown-green concrete walls. There was no way of passing through those.

"I told you this was my forest. And I can do magic too, just like dad. So you will stay!" Her laughing seemed to bounce at them from all directions, and didn't seem to have anything to do with happiness anymore. It was threatening and enclosed them as smothering as the trees surrounding them.

"Frick will not roll out the carpet until I tell him to. And that's your only way out. The trees don't give way to anything else. Do they Frick?" she said teasingly and she looked over her right shoulder. Frick was standing with a wooden cither in his hands and an empty look in his eyes, as if direct orders were all he could process. Next to him lay a very large roll of decorated red carpet. Persian carpet. "They don't," Ærest whispered to them in an amused tone. "Unless it's under my influence of course. Obviously better than any carpet, however nice this one is."

"But that's what lay in the tunnel!" Ron said. He remembered the red flashes amongst all the green leaves. "Are you saying this Frickguy put it there? And that he just got it out of there again by making that large red roll, so we can't get out of this place!"

"Yes," said Ærest, sounding extremely pleased with herself. "It does make a lovely entrance, my carpet, don't you agree? Well, anyway, as long I will it, the forest won't let you out and you'll stay. Now, drink your tea."

"Wow, that little lady's got you under her thumb," George said to Ron and then he turned to his twin brother. "Why don't give our bro a little break in which he can drink his cup of Sensual Strawberry and help out in the shop, Fred? The Pursuing Parrots are going like mad! Ah, but of course, you three are of unfortunate ignorance, even you, dear Hermy, you don't even know what Pursuing Parrots are! Let us enlighten you and inform you of our newest product! Say, you want to know where your baby brother is wondering off to-"

"Not that we need worry about that now, as he's been safely on my lap ever since lunch," interjected Fred.

"And Ron has never been that cunning in hiding his tracks anyway," said George in support.

"as we have frequently used to our advantage."

"Remember that time we secretly followed him down to the village,"

"and saw him going to that girl, trying to-"

"and then we –"

"All right, all right! That's enough! Shut up!" Ron said, looking as hot and red as his cup of strawberry tea, and steaming even harder.

"How rude," George said. "I'm sure Harry and Hermione would have loved to hear about –"

"Let us stop here, George, or I'm afraid our brother might actually start to boil and evaporate," interrupted Fred, eyeing the illustration in the book. "And it would a tad sad if the story had to go without it's crown prince."

"Ah well, some other time," sighed George. "I'm sure we'll be able to de the tale more justice with its main subject and our listeners in real form anyway."

"So, to return to the more important things in life: the Parrots," said Fred.

"Yes, the Parrots," George resumed. "You throw them after the person you want to be able to track, which they will the follow. They go with a compass –"

"- made of very fine oak wood –"

"and they show the direction in which the parrot is, and the distance between the compass and the parrot. Of course accurate down to tenths of inches."

"It's very popular with boys from who that certain girl just keeps escaping,"

"Because there's no way she'll get away with one of our Parrots tailing her," sniggered George.

"That's rather vile, you know," said Hermione.

"But it does work, and our customers know that," said Fred.

"Which is why they are all swarming in front of me wishing nothing more than to put their gleaming Galleons in our till at this very moment. Why not help them achieve their goal in life and lay down the book for a sec and join me at the counter? Which will give Ron some time to figure out what to say to this girl in the book next – I thought I heard something rather beautiful evolve between those two…"

"George, I think the girl's twelve years old," Fred said.

George bit on his lip. "There you have a point, maybe she's too far beyond Ron on the intellectual level…"

In the middle of a mocking "Hm…" of both Fred and George, the book was closed once more, and Ærest's world froze.