Harry tried to think of a time when he'd been anticipating getting into trouble as much as he was now, and couldn't. Snape had simply led them in silence to Dumbledore's study, without having said a word, and now he, Ron and Hermione stood outside the door too apprehensive to say anything.
Finally it swung open to reveal a solemn looking Dumbledore, and a rather angrier looking Sirius and Snape. Harry, Hermione and Ron immediately launched into an account of the journey, relating every detail in case Dumbledore felt it necessary to ask Snape to concoct them a truth potion as he had done for Barty Couch (they didn't want to trust Snape to make them any kind of potion given the look on his face at the moment) – missing out only Percy's confidential aliases.
"It was my fault," added Ron tonelessly, when they'd finished. "I made them come with me. It was stupid. I don't even know why I wanted to go so much… It just seemed like something really important. Like something depended on it… and… I…" He floundered helplessly, and shrugged at Dumbledore. "I dunno," he finished, quite unhelpfully. Dumbledore looked at him gravely.
"You were correct, Ron: it was stupid," he said. "But," he added, as Snape nodded sanctimoniously in the corner, "I'm not sure it was entirely your fault. There have been cases of people being lured into situations like you describe, and you say yourself you don't have any clear idea of why you wanted to go there… Tell me more about this figure you saw."
Harry repeated what he had told them earlier.
"And he tried to cast a spell on you?" enquired Dumbledore.
Harry, who had already told him that he had three times now, just nodded.
"Well what was it?" demanded Sirius. "What did he say?"
"He said – what was it… Illuviate, I think. I might be – " Harry stopped talking as Dumbledore, Snape and Sirius all exchanged a rather startled look with each other.
"He said what?" demanded Sirius.
"Illuviate…" repeated Harry, wondering why they looked so worried all of a sudden. "Why? What's it mean?"
"Nothing," said Sirius shortly. "I think the Headmaster was right. I think Voldemort may have tried to lure you down there… Maybe you all ought to go up to the hospital wing, Harry. Yes; I think you should."
Dumbledore nodded. "An extremely good idea," he said. "Well, Harry, Ron, Hermione: I think we'll just leave it there… We'll put this down to a mixture of curiosity and being led astray, but – no more wandering off, is that clear? I had asked you to find some less dangerous way to occupy yourselves before. We cannot constantly be looking out for you: we have dangerous enough work of our own to do. You were lucky Professor Snape found you when you did – although I guess from the looks on your faces you'd disagree with me there… well, well. Bed, I think. And hot chocolate. Go and ask Madam Pomfrey to make you some, and we will see you in the morning. Now," he said, turning to Sirius and Severus, obviously drawing Harry and the others' audience to a close, "I trust you'll join me for a drink? Let me see…" He conjured three steaming cups of hot chocolate out of the air and took one with relish. "Ah," he said, taking a deep sip. "Marvellous. Do help yourselves."
Sirius, after one final and doubtful look at Harry, took one of the remaining cups and thanked Dumbledore. Snape, however, seemed to decline.
"I'm going to bed," he announced haughtily. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Severus," answered Dumbledore, dipping a pink-iced biscuit that hadn't been there a minute ago into his cocoa. "If you're going back to your rooms, I wonder if you'd be good enough to see that our accident-prone trio here find their way to the hospital without disappearing off down any more mysterious holes?"
"Certainly," replied Snape grimly. He stalked through the door, and Harry, Ron and Hermione trailed after him miserably. As soon as he had closed it tight behind him, Snape whirled round to them furiously.
"It's obvious that Dumbledore has allowed his misplaced favouritism to get the better of him," he snarled. "And his sense of judgement is therefore somewhat marred by it. But," he leant his face down very close to Harry's, "If I ever, ever catch you somewhere you shouldn't be again, or doing something you shouldn't do, or saying something you shouldn't be saying, then I'll have you out of this school as quick as THAT!" He snapped his long fingers so suddenly that Harry nearly stumbled back in shock.
"OK," he said, feeling that it was too late at night to be picking a fight with Snape when all he really wanted to be doing was sleeping. Snape straightened up, apparently satisfied.
"You can find your own way to the hospital wing," he snapped. "But I'll be expecting you back in your dormitories by two o'clock."
He marched off, back straight as a poker, and Harry and the others stared after him in a mixture of shock and apprehension before Hermione had the sense to look at her watch.
"Harry!" she screamed. "It's ten to two! We've only got ten minutes before we get expelled!" and she took off in a whirl of black robes, leaving the other two to follow her as best they could.
The next day, after breakfast, they returned to their common room and talked about the previous night. It had started to rain: the weather deepened the depression that had stared to form after the incident with Snape, and all three were in a rather dejected mood as they sat curled up on the comfy Gryffindor sofas.
"What I want to know is," said Hermione, frowning, "What does Illuviate mean? Why did Dumbledore and Sirius and Snape go all funny when we told them about it?"
Ron shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Never heard of it before. Let's go and – oof!"
The 'oof' was caused by something small and feathery cannoning into his stomach with such a force that he was almost knocked onto the floor by it.
"What…?" he began, taken by surprise. An affectionate chirruping from somewhere around his midriff made him look down; still bewildered, he made a grab at whatever it was making a noise and held his hand up to the light.
"Pig!" he exclaimed. Pigwidgeon nestled a fluffy head against his palm and Ron dropped him as it tickled. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, grabbing the owl back again before he tried to attach himself to Harry or Hermione, and examining him carefully. He took a small note from the little bird's leg.
"What is it?" enquired Harry curiously.
Ron's face had turned slightly pink at the edges. "Nothing," he said quickly, and stuffed it into his pocket. "Just a note from mum, that's all. Dumbledore or… er… I think it might have been Snape sent her an owl about… about the other night and she was a bit – er – worried about us. Let's go and look in the library, shall we?" he added brightly, changing the subject and causing Harry and Hermione to stare at him in astonishment. "To see if we can find out what Illuviate means," he explained.
"You?" exclaimed Hermione, still staring at him. "You? Want to go to the library?"
"Well, yeah – it won't get us expelled," replied Ron, deliberately misunderstanding her. Standing up, he tucked Pigwidgeon into his shirt pocket and set off, leaving Harry to shake his head with a shared puzzlement at Hermione. Whatever had been in Ron's mum's letter, he thought that it must have been extremely embarrassing if Ron wanted to go to the library instead of sharing it with them. But Hermione was looking after Ron with a glint in her eye: it suddenly occurred to Harry that she might think she'd managed to convert him into a book-lover and, giggling at the idea, he followed his best friend. Perhaps the library could be quite interesting after all.
They caught up with Ron just before the library doors, and he was looking like he regretted his suggestion. As they made their way to the chairs by the restricted books section, he kept darting his eyes left and right as though looking for and escape route: but there was none, and he sunk down into a chair and played with Pig instead.
"Are you going to help?" enquired Hermione, arms already laden with a great stack of books. "Or are you going to show us your letter? Is it really from your mother… or is it from pink-fluffy-Percy? Or a purple-fluffy-someone else?"
"No," said Ron shortly. "To both questions."
Hermione put the books down and produced a folded piece of paper from her pocket. She seemed to skim through the words: his face suddenly alarmed, Ron made a snatch for it – but Hermione was too quick for him.
"Hermione!" exclaimed Ron. "How did you get that?"
"Harry wasn't the only one Fred and George taught how to pickpocket," she replied coyly. "Let's see now… Ooh, dear, Ron – you were right – your mother was a bit – er – worried about you, wasn't she? Tut tut…"
Ron let out a resigned sigh. "OK then," he said, holding out his hand. "Stop reading it… give me the letter and I'll read some books."
Hermione handed it over, and smirked. She dumped the books she had been carrying into Ron's hand – Harry was sure she'd chosen the heaviest she could find.
"Have fun," she said.
Eight and a half hours later and not one reference to 'Illuviate' had been found. Hermione was still ploughing through the rapidly diminishing pile of books on their table, but Ron and Harry had long since given up trying and were attempting to train Pigwidgeon to understand the word 'shhh' – without, it must be said, much success.
"Ooh," said Hermione suddenly, making Harry look up at her quickly and Ron let go of Pigwidgeon in surprise.
"What is it?" he asked worriedly, staring at the expression on her face. Hermione had turned almost pink with excitement.
"I've just remembered… Illuviate… where we might find out what it means."
"Where?" said both Harry and Ron, at once.
"It's this book – " began Hermione.
"Impossible. We must've looked at every single book in the library," grouched Ron. "I haven't worked that hard since we tried to get Buckbeak off. And it's meant to be a holiday," he added.
"Well, I was doing some homework last year – " carried on Hermione, ignoring him.
"Well, that makes a pleasant change," said Ron.
" – And I thought I'd do a bit of extra research – "
"Even more unusual."
" – and I spent all my lunch break in the restricted books section of the library – "
"Oh, really? Now, why doesn't that surp– "
"And I couldn't find what I wanted." Hermione flung an evil glare at Ron, evidently tired of his interruptions. "So I asked Professor McGonagall if she knew where I could find another version of some spell or other – I can't remember what it was now – and she told me that Professor Trelawny had something that might be what I needed. So I borrowed this book called 'Alternative Spells' – it's like a big dictionary, full of all these old spells and curses that people don't use very often any more. I bet Illuviate would be in there."
So they set off up the huge staircase that led to Professor Trelawny's quaint little study. Harry had the sinking feeling that they were only going to get into more trouble: but Hermione was oddly confident – even cheerful – at the prospect.
"Oh, no, we'll be fine," she said breezily when he voiced his concern. Hermione had always shown an uncharacteristic lack of regard for Professor Trelawny, considering she was a teacher, and Harry hoped it hadn't developed into a foolhardiness that was going to lead them even further astray. Maybe, he thought in a sudden panic, maybe she had been 'lured' towards Trelawny's room as Ron had been to the dungeons: maybe she was leading them into a trap. Maybe she was…
"Here we are," said Hermione. She pushed open the trap door and disappeared: Harry and Ron followed doubtfully. Reaching carefully on tiptoe to the top of one of the narrow shelves, Hermione selected a monstrous looking volume that was at least the size of Dobby and Harry looked at it with dislike. But Hermione did not seem to notice. She busied herself with the book, and Harry and Ron flopped down into the pastel-shaded beanbags that Professor Trelawny had spread around the small room, preparing themselves for a long wait. The combination of Hermione and a book usually required a lot of patience from anyone who happened to be with her at the time, and they occupied themselves by making little paper aeroplanes out of spare scraps of paper on Professor Trelawny's desk and flinging them at each other. Hermione spared them one superior look before settling down and ignoring them.
"This is interesting," said Hermione in an odd voice, finally looking up from the pages of the huge book.
"Bound to be," mumbled Ron. "What is?"
"Well," continued Hermione, ignoring Ron's cynical mutter, "You'll never guess what Illuviate is another version of!"
As she didn't seem inclined to tell them immediately, Ron snatched the book from her hands. "Let's see," he said. Harry peered over his shoulder, and read.
Below "Illuminatus – (obsolete) a strong spelle to make ye darke ways light – see also 'Lumos,'" at the top of the page there was a very brief line that contained three words.
"Illuviate," it read. "See 'Fragmento'."
Hermione was looking at them triumphantly, obviously expecting them to share her excitement. Harry had the feeling that he and Ron were missing out on something.
"Er – what?" he asked. Hermione gave an impatient sigh, and retrieved the book from Ron. She stabbed at the entry with her finger.
"This!" she exclaimed. "See Fragmento. Well?" She looked at the other two expectantly, and they both shook their heads, still as mystified as they had been before.
"It means to shatter!" screeched Hermione. "Don't you ever pay attention in any of your lessons? Don't you ever read any of the text books?"
Ron, commendably, held his tongue. Harry wondered why: and then noticed that his friend was eyeing up various objects in the room with a rather vicious expression, as though contemplating their suitability for something.
"Try it out now," said Ron. "Try it on… Look, try it on one of her teacups. The pink one that she made Neville super-glue back together last year, see?"
"Oh, I couldn't!" said Hermione, looking at Ron in surprise. "It's still the holidays. We aren't allowed to use magic. And it's a curse! What would Dumbledore say?"
"Oh, he won't mind," snapped Ron, waving an impatient hand at her. "Come on! I want to see if it works."
Hermione snapped the book shut with a loud clang, and clouds of dust billowed out, enveloping Harry and Ron and making them cough.
"No," she said. "You've got me into enough trouble as it is. We shouldn't be up here in Professor Trelawny's study, and we didn't find anything useful. I'm going to go and see Crookshanks. I can't believe you aren't taking this seriously – don't you see – whoever was down there was trying to kill us!" She deposited the large volume on Ron's lap, making him sink even further into his beanbag, and strode off. Ron looked after her in astonishment.
"Well," he said, struggling out from underneath the book and lifting a few pages experimentally. "It's not as if it was all my fault. She suggested coming here in the first place!" He shook his head. "Girls," he muttered.