First verse same as the first! I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. I don't believe in witchcraft because God is cool. Wicca is bad for your health; don't become a witch after reading this. Enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think. Review! Review!

CHAPTER 2:

A rustling noise and a quiet murmur roused Hermione the next morning out of a groggy sleep. The voices in the room blended together, soothingly caressing over Hermione's worn body and slowly attempting to lift her heavy eyelids. The voices seemed to be coming out of the distance towards her, slowly becoming closer and closer to making actual words. Finally, the gruff voice of her friend lifted to her ears from amongst the sound of pained hissing breaths and she could understand what was going on.

"Are you sure Herm..." Ron suddenly stopped in mid sentence to stifle a curse under his breath. "Can you be more careful with that? It still hurts, ya' know?"

Hermione let her eyelids slit open, not wanting them to know she was awake. Through half closed eyes she saw Nurse Pomfrey nod her head and continue with Ron's dressings on his leg. Ron sighed through gritted teeth and began again.

"Are you sure Hermione can't get out today too? I don't feel right leaving her here."

Nurse Pomfrey did not reply directly. She simply shook her head, and continued the dressings, tightening the bandages a bit more than she should.

"Ahh!" yelped Ron in pain, letting another curse slip under his breath. Nurse Pomfrey glared at him in warning. They had obviously been going over this for a while, and she was losing her patience.

"The best thing that you can do for Hermione is to let her rest." retorted an agitated Pomfrey. "Your heart's in the right place boy, but she's just not well enough yet."

"And you're sure I can't…"

Pomfrey stepped in and finished Ron's sentence for him, "Stay here longer?" She paused. "No."

The subject was closed. Pomfrey made the final tug on his bandages to tie them. She stood up from his bed and walked away towards her office, her heals clicking across the marble floor.

Ron put out his good leg and pushed himself off of the hospital bed. He hobbled for a minute around the room, collecting his things. The room was bright with the morning sun coming through the single, gothic framed window. If she had to guess, Hermione would have said it was around nine-thirty in the morning, just after breakfast. If Hermione wanted to say something before Ron left, it would have to be now; his things were nearly all gathered and Ron seemed strangely anxious.

She turned in bed, gave a small sigh and opened her eyes wide. Ron took the note well; He wheeled around on his good leg, having heard Hermione, and turned his eyes intently on her. Hermione smiled back at him, as he continued picking up a pair of socks on the floor as nonchalantly as possible.

"So..." he croaked, bending back up from gathering his socks, still balancing on one leg. "How are you doing?"

Hermione replied without thought. "Fine."

"Is there anything I can do for you, anything that would help?"

Hermione's eyes glimmered. It was just the question she had been waiting for him to ask. She smiled, hiding away the thoughts from last night's dream. She knew what she was supposed to do.

"Yes, but." Hermione's eyes scanned the room wearily. "It might get you in trouble; I couldn't ask you to do that."

Ron's mouth slid slowly open and gaped for a moment before he caught himself. It was unlike Hermione to ask for help and terribly unlike her to encourage bad behavior. Ron replied a little stunned.

"Hermione, you would never get me into trouble."

She disregarded his remark and continued, "You see, I need this book."

Ron was relieved, of course, all she wanted was a book. He smiled in agreement and let her continue.

"It used to be in the library; I went to look for it earlier this year, but it wasn't in there. I went to see if it was in the restricted section, but Mrs. Norris was there. I had to rush out before I could finish looking." Hermione paused for a moment, and then continued very matter-of-factly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to say. "You, see, I borrowed Harry's cloak."

Ron's eyes grew large, the words "borrowed" dug into him, and wrapped around his mind until he understood what she was saying. She gave him a moment, smiled weakly and then continued on.

"Anyways." she said with a sigh. "I think Dumbledore's hiding it back there."

Ron stared at her for a moment, gulped down the lump in his throat and set his voice. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in stern devotion.

"I want you to borrow Harry's cloak and go down there." She stopped a moment, to regain her familiar voice of warning. "And, Ron, do be careful. Don't ask Harry to go.". She seemed overly anxious. "Don't even bother him with it. He has enough to worry about."

"Right." Ron responded hesitantly. "Harry's coming over here tonight, before dinner, to see you; I'll tell him that I'm too tired and that I need to stay in bed. I'll get the cloak then, and go later tonight."

Hermione nodded, slowly checking the plan over in her mind. "That should work. Bring the book here as soon as you get it; I don't want you caught with it."

Ron nodded in return, lifted himself up from his seat on the bed and stood on his good leg. He hopped over to his hospital bed, opened his suitcase and threw in the sock that he had been holding for the last few minutes. Ron closed the suitcase, fit it under his arm and headed out of the ward just as the morning bell was ringing.

The sound of Ron's snoring friends surrounded him. He turned his head towards Harry's bed, on his right. Harry was fast asleep but turning quickly in his bed. His eyes were squenched shut, his fingers dug into his pillow and the lose sheets around him. Ron had seen him like this before; Harry was having a nightmare. Ron sat there for a moment in fear, watching his friend in pain. He was ready to abandon Hermione's plan, wake up his friend and tell Hermione to forget about the book, but as quickly as the nightmare had started, it stopped. Harry rolled over to one side, laid there and released his grip from his pillow. His breathing steadied and his snoring picked up again.

Ron sat there for a moment, watching him. When he could see that Harry's nightmare wasn't going to pick up again, he crept out of bed, reached his trunk on the floor and opened up the lid with a short creak. Ron peered around, Neville stirred in his sleep but no one appeared to have heard it. He rummaged through the chest, pulling out books, pieces of parchment, ink wells, quills and a maroon jumper until he came to it, the invisibility cloak.

The material was soft and sleek. It nearly slipped right through his fingers as he picked it up and weighed it in his hand. The cloak was as light as a feather. Memories of the many trips he had taken with Harry and Hermione under the invisibility cloak flashed through his mind and finally rested on the conversation that he had with Harry that evening.

"She seemed so weird when I went to visit. You really should have been there Ron." Harry explained.

Ron could remember his reply vividly, he had been so obvious. Harry must have known that something was wrong. His voice would barely come out. He coughed. "Really?" he struggled to say in a short breath.

But Harry continued on without notice. "Yeah, usually you can't get her to stay quiet, but tonight…" Harry shook his head in confusion. "Well tonight, she barely said a word. Do you think something's up?" Harry waited a moment and then answered his own question. "Of course something's up." He gasped in aggravation. "I've landed her in the hospital!"

Ron disregarded the dry feeling overcoming his mouth and throat and spit out an answer. "No, it's not that!"

Ron felt overwhelmingly guilty; he couldn't let Harry beat himself up about this anymore. He had been doing it for the last week; it had been torture for the both of them to see Hermione before she had woken up. Hermione had no idea what she was doing to Harry, and it made him angry.

"She's just being a git, that's all." Ron grumbled.

Harry looked back at Ron, shocked and obviously upset.

Ron quickly apologized. "Sorry…erm…it's just that she acted the same way yesterday. It's not you. Just tired, I guess."

"I guess." Harry repeated in agreement as he stepped into bed, pulling the covers up to his neck. "You sure?" he asked while bending towards his bedside table to blow out the candle sitting there.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Ron answered. The flame went out and the room grew dark.

The room had grown darker still since the conversation with Harry. A patch of grey clouds was covering the night's crescent moon. The darkness would make it more difficult to read the Marauder's Map, which Ron had also remembered to swipe during Harry's visit with Hermione, but it could only make it easier to go around the castle undetected, so he didn't mind as much. Ron threw the cloak over his shoulders. He fastened the clasp tightly, grabbed a hold of the map, and headed towards the door. Ron tapped quickly down the stairs from the corridor in slippered feet and hurried into the corridor, where he was met, to his surprise, by the sound of giggling.

"A tea-spoon more of hog's slime, you think Fred?" choked out an over eager George.

"Might as well pour the whole thing in, we're not the one who's buying it." Cried back and equally excited Fred.

Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George were busying themselves with a giant mess on the corridor floor. The two equally disgusting cauldrons, laying about their feet, were filled to the brim and oozing with what looked like green pus onto the common-room rug. The brilliantly carpeted Gryffindor red and gold, now bubbled with Slytherin green and rolled and crawled with the other contents of their concoction. Two cockroaches were munching and burrowing into an embroidered lion near the rug's middle, and another was crawling up to the hem of George's crocodile skin jacket. Neither of the boys seemed to take notice. Sheep's eyeballs rolled out from a glass jar near the hearth, and towards the open fire. Fred scooped them up and placed them into the cauldrons with a pop, while George brushed away the cockroach that was now climbing towards his ear.

"This will be the best one yet, don't you think?" muttered a far away George, as Ron pushed the door open to the common room port hole, turned his attention towards the hall and walked out. As he left he could hear the sound of several Gryffindor boys and girls clomping down the dormitory steps.

Ron didn't have time to find out what his brothers were up to, and now that he was a prefect, it was best that he didn't know. He took a final look at the Marauder's Map before closing the portrait of the fat lady, there was no one around. Mrs. Norris was far on the other end of the castle, and it wouldn't take long to get to the library. Hermione's dot on the map was fidgeting back and forth in the nurse Pomfrey's corridor; she mustn't be able to sleep, thought Ron. He folded up the map, and tucked it into his side pocket in his pajama pants. This wasn't going to be so hard after all. Ron pushed back his shoulders, took a step forward and headed his way down the stone steps to the library. It was deafly quiet, the large domed ceilings failed to echo Ron's steps or any other sounds in the castle. Everyone seemed to be asleep; Ron picked up his pace. There was obviously no one there to hear him and he was anxious to get back into bed. His leg still hurt badly and he could feel it start to drag behind on the hard floors of Hogwarts' Castle.

Ron bit his lip hard; he was going to have to stop for a minute. The pain was traveling up his leg to his hip, it had become nearly impossible to walk at such a quick pace. Ron spotted a statue of a decapitated old wizard, holding his head proudly in the palm of his hand with a smile. The marble gleamed back at him from under some escaping moon-rays; the clouds were beginning to drift. Ron moved slowly to get to the statue, then stole behind it. If anyone did walk in his direction he didn't want to be in their way.

He pulled out the map for the second time. Ron first located himself, he was standing behind the first of a pair of statues guarding the opening to the Great Hall. Mrs. Norris was still far at the other end of the castle and Hermione still seemed to be awake. A sudden clang came from the direction of the great hall. A cold ringing laugh followed it. Ron barely even needed to check the map to know; it was Peeves. His dot on the map scurried back and forth, zigzagging right through the Great Hall and towards where Ron was standing. A silvery figure darted out of the wall, above Ron's head and shot towards Snape's office. If Peeves was able to see Ron through the cloak he didn't seem to care. As Peeves zoomed on his way Ron could make out the shape of a copper pot and ladle grasped tightly in his ghostly hands, he couldn't help but chuckle. Snape was going to have a rude awakening; Ron would have to hurry if he wanted to miss the professor. Snape was sure to be out there in another moment.

Ron pushed himself away from the wall, peaked out from behind the statue, and when he saw that no one was there, continued on his way. His leg still hurt but he had to hurry. He could hear Peeve's loud wake up call, going off now. He clanged and screamed, Snape screamed back in return. Ron wouldn't be surprised if half the castle woke up. Ron hobbled quickly towards the Library. It wasn't far and he hoped that he could make it before Snape and Peeves arrived.

No such luck. Snape appeared quickly on the heels of Peeves, swinging a giant cane in the air towards Peeve's transparent form and rolling out an entire arsenal of dirty words. Snape was quite the sight. His usually slicked back, greasy hair stood on end. Peeves pointed and laughed at the unruly mess, and shook tauntingly at him a green striped night cap. Snape jumped again, attempting to hurt Peeves with the blows from his cane, and inadvertently exposing bare splotches of pale skin on his very stick like legs. The long silver night-shirt cut right about the knees, flew back and forth against Snape's skinny frame as he jumped and shook with anger. Ron stopped dead in his tracks; the picture before Ron was half funny to him and half disturbing. Peeves ate it up. He was laughing hard with tears springing down his face, and then disappearing into thin air. Each time Snape tried to hit him with the cane, Peeves would just float higher and laugh louder. Ron was starting to burst. He finally let out a little chuckle, though he tried with all his might to hold it back.

Snape came down hard on the floor, from mid jump. He peered around confusedly and crossed his eyes in aggravation. "Who's there?" He spurted sternly, trying to regain his composure and pick himself up from the floor. "Potter?" Snape paused, and his face gave into a smile. "It's you, isn't it Potter?" Snape managed with a final heave to pull himself off the floor and stand. "You put Peeves up to this, and now you're caught!"

Ron inched his way towards the entrance of the library. Snape had obviously lost it. His eyes were scanning the hall frantically, Peeves picked up suit, he lowered himself into cane range and looked round with translucent eyes. Ron ducked into the entrance, panting. He doubted that Snape would look for him here but there was no way to know.

"Potter?" Snape called in desperation.

Soft laughter erupted in a hall of the castle that Ron was unable to see.

"You'll have to forgive me Severus, but I'm afraid that I'm the only one here. Mr. Potter is sound asleep in his dorm room at the moment, one of the few Gryffindors, I'm afraid." A kind voice said through quiet laughter.

"Albus." managed an embarrassed Snape, pulling down his nightshirt firmly with one hand, while reaching for the cap with his other. The glow from Professor Dumbledore's wand reached Snape's face and illuminated the blush on his sallow cheeks.

Dumbledore's steps grew louder until he came into view of Ron and stopped short of Snape. "I'm afraid that Mr. Potter isn't to blame for this." Dumbledore stopped for a moment, looked at Peeves hovering just above Snape's head and pointed his wand towards the floor. Peeves responded obediently, shrinking down towards the ground and handing Snape his hat. The headmaster waited a moment for Snape to cram the cap on his head and then continued. "Mr. Weasley is to blame from the problem, isn't he Peeves?"

Ron froze. He saw Peeves slowly shaking his head in agreement as he handed over the pot and spoon that had been used to wake Snape up. Ron could barely breathe. How could Dumbledore possibly know?

With a nod from Dumbledore, Peeves floated away sourly and disappeared through the ceiling.

"I'm afraid that Fred put Peeves up to it. He and George are selling some of their trinkets upstairs in the Gryffindor commonroom and they needed a good distraction. I haven't a clue how they managed to get back in the castle but I'm headed up their next." Dumbledore said with a sigh.

Ron breathed out. For once he was glad of his brothers' stupid tricks.

"You'll have to forgive me Severus." Dumbledore coughed as he held out the pot and ladle for Snape to take. "You will return these to the kitchen for me, won't you? I have to take care of some business upstairs." Dumbledore didn't wait for an answer; he simply turned on his heal and marched towards the staircase leading to Gryffindor tower.

Snape grumbled, heading through the great hall and towards the kitchen, pot and spoon in hand; Ron was free to get the book and bring it back to Hermione.

Ron slipped away from his hiding place in the archway of the library entrance, opened the great oak double doors and padded in quietly. The library was silent and smelled of old books. The scent was almost stagnant, with finals over a week ago, it was obvious that no one had spent much time in the room recently. Ron stopped a minute and let his eyes adjust to the room. There was only a little light coming through the three large paned windows on the library's side. Two large trees outside the windows, along with the moving gray clouds managed to block out most of the moon's light. Ron squinted for a moment and continued on his way to the gated area in the back of the room. The caste iron frame of the gate was bent and gilded into the shapes of the house animals. The figure of a snake weaved in and out between the metal bars of the hinged door and stared before Ron with large eyes and barred fangs.

He was finally here. Ron looked down at his watch. It was one-thirty, it had only taken him a half hour to get here, he thought to himself bitterly. He would have to hurry, Hermione was probably getting worried. Ron reached a trembling hand out from under the cloak, grasped the cold handle, turned it and stepped inside of the restricted section. He gaped at all of the filled shelves, it could be anywhere in the section and there were a lot of books. Ron held his palm up to the light and tried to read the title of the book that was written in blotchy ink on his hand. The letters had all started to run together with the sweat from his hands, the words looked like a giant ink blob and the poor lighting didn't help either. He could barely make anything out. The title was too blurred and the first name of the author had almost completely vanished, the only thing that remained of his note was the last name. Anuxlus. Ron squenched his eyes hard and tried to remember the title, but it wouldn't come. He would just have to try to remember the name as he looked through the books.

He looked through the rows of books carefully. Ron wouldn't want to pick up the wrong one; he remembered Harry's howling book and he didn't want to make the same mistake. He ran past the different bindings with his finger. Abnus, Abirt, Acaldine, Adrontony, Agathine, Agrunt, Akrumedie, Amontard, Anaflaid, Aparat. There was no Anuxlus. Ron checked again, he must have missed it. He scanned a greater area of space this time; maybe it had been misplaced somewhere on the shelf. But it simply wasn't there. He checked a third time and a fourth, but the book wasn't anywhere to be seen. Ron was beginning to get nervous; he pulled his palm back up to the light to double check the name, but the note looked no different.

Something from behind Ron took hold of his raised hand, and placed into it a heavy book. Ron's arm collapsed under the weight and brought it down from the moonlit air. The whoosh of the book in his hand pushed back a stagnant mold smell in his face and made him cough. The book landed on the floor with a loud thud, and more dust rose into the air around him. From behind Ron a long shadowy figure glided through the dust, crouched to the floor and handed him the book back gently. Ron took hold of it with both hands.

"I believe this is what you're looking for." said the old man, smiling with his eyes, through half-moon spectacles.

Ron nodded as he saw the towering figure of his headmaster rise to his feet and gingerly shake the dust from his robes. Dumbledore next removed his glasses from his crooked nose, wiped them with his sleeve and placed them back on his face before beginning again. The steady, slow voice of Ron's headmaster had never seemed more intimidating than it did now.

"It's quite a good book. Professor Erma E. Anuxlus, a very good woman and a personal friend of mine. She was killed shortly after Voldermort's fall by his remaining followers..." Dumbledore waited quietly for Ron's response.

"Erma?" Ron asked, dazed and trembling.

"Why? Did you expect it to be written by a man?" Dumbledore asked with a half laugh; Ron didn't answer. "That wouldn't be fitting at all would it?"

Ron stood there horrified. In all of his years at Hogwarts he had been confused by many books, but never so much as this one. Dumbledore stared at him a moment, he seemed to be sizing him up. Ron gulped.

"Miss Granger obviously hasn't told you why she wants this particular book, has she?" Dumbledore asked calmly and then bent down towards Ron and waited for an answer.

Ron couldn't speak. He was angry at Hermione; he was scared to death that he was going to lose his prefect badge, and he had never been this close to Dumbledore in his life. His headmaster was just inches from his face waiting for him to answer a question that he barely understood and he couldn't breathe.

Dumbledore shook his head and smiled in return to Ron's speechless response. "You're not in trouble Ron, but I can't have you delivering this without your knowledge of what it is." Dumbledore pulled himself up from his bow, straightened his back and put out a hand on Ron's shaking shoulder. "I'm afraid that if you delivered this tonight you'd end up regretting it. This is my job, and I should've taken care of it a long time ago, along with several other things." sighed Dumbledore with a frown on his face.

Ron squinted up at Dumbledore. He had never seen him upset before. Dumbledore appeared to be in a daze at the moment, staring fixedly at the window for what seemed like several minutes. He was obviously thinking very hard about something. The silence was overwhelming and becoming very awkward for Ron. He was beginning to get worried about his headmaster.

"Errm…Sir?" Ron asked politely.

Dumbledore shook back to the present, and smiled down at his pupil once again. "You'd better head back to Gryffindor tower. Several of the boys in your dormitory are about to get caught by Professor McGonagall, and you don't want to be one of them. I trust that you've heard my conversation with Professor Snape and are aware with what's going on?"

Ron nodded with a smile, thinking back to Snape in his nightshirt.

"He was quite the sight, wasn't he? I'll advise you not to tell Professor Snape that, though, he'll think that you're out to get him next."

Ron laughed; he didn't feel quite so nervous anymore. He waved a hand good night to Dumbledore and headed for the gate.

"Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore said, grabbing Ron's attention and forcing him to turn around. "I'll be needing that book back."

Ron held the book protectively to his side.

"Don't worry. I will deliver it to Miss Granger for you. You really must hurry if you want to beat Minerva, she'll be up there any moment now." instructed Dumbledore sternly, tapping the face of an odd looking watch on his wrist.

Ron reluctantly handed the book over and with a wave from Dumbledore's hand hurried out of the library and ran towards Gryffindor Tower's steps.

Thanks for reading and a special thank you to Gracefullee for getting me started in fan fiction, for proof-reading, and encouraging. I appreciate it. If you enjoyed my fic please go check some of her stories out. And please review! Reviews make the whole writing process worth while. The next chapter should be up within a week's time. Thanks again.