Shadows

Rating: PG-13

Summery: "He painted a pretty picture for you, didn't he Ron, what with all of his colorful lies and empty promises, how could I possibly compete with that?" A series of events leads Ron to the dark side, can anyone bring him back?

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize I don't own

Chapter Six

A Day of Doubts

I closed my eyes for a moment before opening them again, what had he just said? "Uh, excuse me Professor but I thought that you just said that you were recruiting me."

"I did."

"Oh."

And so we sat in silence, me wondering just what the hell was going on, Dumbledore with a bemused expression on his face. I opened my mouth and hoped that something intelligent would come out, "why?" Well, so much for that wish.

He folded his hands together and sat them down on the table, "why not?"

I flinched in irritation; I hated it when people answered questions with a question in return. "Have you all ready talked to Harry and Hermione? What did they say about working for you?"

"I have not spoken to Mr. Potter nor Miss Granger and I do not intend to, I only wanted you."

My eyes widened in surprise, "but, why? Surely Harry and Hermione are better suited for this type of thing."

He smiled, but did not look all that amused. "I fear that you underestimate yourself Mr. Weasley. While Mr. Potter has experience and bravery he too much thinks with his heart. He would gladly sacrifice himself, and could be easily tricked into trusting those who he shouldn't. As for Miss Granger, she lacks the warrior instinct that is needed for survival in this sort of position."

"You, you think that I have those things? I don't have 'warrior instinct' and I doubt that I would survive more than five seconds in the presence of V…Vol…you-know-who."

He bent down and reached into his sack from Honeydukes and pulled out a lemon drop, "would you care for one Mr. Weasley." I shook my head and wished that he would stop stalling. "I would, of course, not start you out with spying on Voldemort. You would do simpler tasks to begin with and it would be entirely up to you if you chose to continue with the missions as given."

I licked my suddenly dry lips, "would it be dangerous?"

"Isn't everything in life dangerous to some extent?"

"But," I said somewhat desperately running out of excuses, "this was Snape's job and look where it got him."

Dumbledore frowned and let out a sigh. "I cannot promise you that you will be safe, but Severus never regretted his job. No matter what has happened to him he always knew that it was for the greater good, and he was willing to go into every mission knowing that he may not come back out of it alive. So I suppose the question is, what are you willing to die for Ronald?"

What are you willing to die for? The words ringed in my ears and set something off inside of me. Was I the true Gryffindor that I was supposed to be? What was I willing to die for? "The innocent."

His smile returned as he stood and flipped a couple galleons on the table. "Don't make any decisions now, take some time to think about it. I'll be at Hogwarts whenever you wish to contact me and speak of this to no one, not even Mr. Potter and Miss Granger."

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I wondered around for a while attempting to sort out my thoughts. I kept mentally debating with myself, one minute I was all for the 'spy' thing, the next all I wanted was to go home and forget the entire day.

I did end up at home, but not with the intentions of forgetting the day. I went up to my room and gratefully found it empty. After taking the proper measures to ensure that it would stay that way I sat down on my unsteady mattress and lost myself in my thoughts once more.

With a sigh I leaned back against the wall and shut my eyes, only to rest for a few minutes. Satisfied with how calm I suddenly felt I opened them again, only to find that I was no longer in my room but instead in a lavishly decorated hall that was nowhere near the Burrow.

I looked around in confusion and decided that I most have fallen asleep, this was only a dream. Suddenly the door was thrown open and two men were dragging a third man between them with his knees scraping on the ground.

I walked towards them in interest but found my interest quickly turning to horror when I saw the person that they were dragging was me. I gasped and unconsciously recoiled from the shattered and beaten version of myself.

It's just a dream, it's just a dream, I told myself repeatedly. But it didn't feel like a dream, it felt…different.

"Bring him to me!" A loud voice broke my thoughts, I followed the guards that were dragging the dream me with my eyes and saw a dark figure sitting highly up on a throne that I hadn't noticed before.

He stepped down and walked towards the other me with a catlike gracefulness that I did not expect to see from him. He pulled down his hood and I jerked my eyes away as if I had been staring at the sun or something equally bright. He was hideous.

His pale skin was unlike any that I had ever seen before; it was so unnatural the tone of it alone was enough to make anyone retch. But that wasn't even the worst part of his only exposed body part. The worst part was the thing that would haunt me for the rest of my days, his blood red eyes.

"Ronald," he hissed, "I've known about you from day one."

I felt my breathing hasten as I recalled the few times that Harry had spoken of his experiences with you-know-who, he had always said that he had snakelike features with horrible red eyes. I attempted to control my breathing as I watched myself glare at him.

"Somehow I doubt that," the other me said with more viciousness than I had ever thought myself capable of.

He laughed hollowly and brought his spider like hands down to grasp the dream me's chin. "It amused me to toy with you just as it did with Severus. Do you know that your girlfriend is dead?"

The other me jerked his head away, "you're lying."

"But Ronald, why would I lie when the truth is so much fun?" He snapped his fingers and instantly someone came into the room holding a bloody piece of ribbon. Once the ribbon was in his hand he shoved it in front of the other Ron's face, "this is all that's left of her now. You were the one to put this in her hair this morning were you not?"

The other Ron's brave cold face now fell as he looked at the ribbon with a huge amount of compassion. "No, it's not true," he murmured to himself, "she can't be gone."

He-who-must-not-be-named only smiled, "she was quite the fighter you know, a feisty little thing if I ever did see one."

Dream Ron's head snapped up and an angry scowl came across his face, "I swear that I'll kill you for this."

"I was rather hoping that you would say that."

Then there was silence, and I was alone once more sitting on my bed in my room. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest and took several deep breaths knowing one thing, that was not a dream.

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I confined myself to my the solitude of my bedroom for several hours, not wanting to see anyone in fear that I would burst and tell them everything that had been happening to me in the past few days.

I wanted more than anything to confide in Harry and Hermione; they had always been there for me to give advice and help. Out of my respect for Dumbledore and confusion on the situation I said nothing and saw no one to take out the possibility of temptation.

However, by the time dinner was being served I was starving and the rest of the household was starting to grow suspicious about my strange behavior. I joined the rest of my family along with Harry and Hermione at the table and avoided eye contact with anyone. Eat and get out, that was my motto.

"Ron," Hermione said quietly as she was sitting beside me, "where have you been all day?"

I kept my eyes cast down on my food, "I had to go out."

"Well obviously," she said stiffly. "What took you all day to do though?"

"I was meeting someone."

I gathered up enough wits to look at her and saw that her face betrayed a hurt expression. "Oh, all right then. Was it Lavender?"

"Lavender?" I asked in an incredulous tone, "I haven't seen her since graduation and it's been months since we even talked."

She smiled and no longer looked indignant. "I just couldn't figure out where you were and you and her were always kind of dating the last few years of school, so I thought that perhaps you were with her. It was quite silly of me really, I know that you don't like her anymore."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, not understanding why she was rambling and acting nervous. "Yeah," I said slowly, "well now you know. If you'll excuse me I have to go write a letter to someone."

Her eyes followed me as I left the table and I felt my face grow hot at my lame excuse to leave. I didn't trust myself to not tell her exactly where I had been that day so I knew that it was for the best to just get out as soon as possible.

I needed to figure out what to do, and not just about Dumbledore's offer. What had happened to me when I was in my room? I thought briefly of the day that I had gotten into a fight with Malfoy and the strange dream that I had while I was unconscious.

Perhaps that wasn't a dream either, I couldn't remember exactly how it felt but they had to be the same type of thing.

True seers don't have souls.

That would easily explain my strange occurrences and the fact that I had no soul. But the logical part of my being reasoned that if I were a seer wouldn't I have known it before now?

Was I a true seer? It was beginning to look like a possibility.

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A/N Hmm, I feel like that chapter kind of dragged. It was kind of a transition chapter more than anything. And in case anyone cares that whole Ron and dream Ron thing was a pain in the ass to write, I tried really hard to make it so it wasn't confusing, so I hope that it worked out. Also, I know that it was short; I swear that I will make an effort to make future chapters longer. Lol, but notice that I said effort, that doesn't guarantee results.

Thank you to:

RonandHerm4eva (Ha, yes I thought that if I put the story in that direction that it would give me a lot of room and leverage on the plot. Sorry that you had to go to work, that sucks, lol.), charmedfan01 (I'm glad that you like how it's Ron's p.o.v., I've always enjoyed writing from the first person because I feel that it gives you the opportunity to really explore and get to know the character. And now I'm rambling so I'll just shut up, lol.), Ace of Spades (I got The Count of Monte Cristo from my library and I must say that I have loved what I've read so far. Now I kind of wish that I hadn't watched the movie first…oh well it was a good movie.), Me (Haha, glad that I surprised you with a twist! I always felt bad for Ron in the books because it seems like he gets Harry's leftovers. Well Harry isn't getting recruited, lol.), Clichet (Lol, well you're going to have to cope with the curiosity of knowing who the spy was for a while because it's going to be sometime before Ron finds out that. Glad that you think this is original!), Siora (Wow, thanks so much for the compliment! I'm trying to update as much as I can but school is starting and I have orientation all day for the next two days…not fun stuff, but required stuff, lol.), Slim Shady (Hmm, Voldemort tricking him with the soul? I never thought of that one before but now I kind of wish that I had, lol. I think that the silver misty thing will be returning next chapter and if it does then you'll definitely know what it is.), FantasyAngel Writer (I can't tell you if you're wrong or right on the misty thing, but I can say that look out for the next chapter because Ron should be discovering what it is then. And I like your ideas on how Ron goes dark!), BabyJJ (Hmm, well I think that they will have very interesting reactions to that, lol. Guess that you'll just have to stick around to find out!), Syvixxe(Thanks for the advice and don't worry, I'll be sure to go slow with Ron, the last thing that I want is for him to wake up one day and be like "hmm, I think that I want to be evil now." Lol.), Angl (Lol your review cracked me up. It kept me entertained for a good five minutes. I hope that Bob is okay, send my love if he's not!), Talia Moon (Thank you, I'm glad that you're enjoying the story!), Trempush (Glad that you think that Ron being a death eater is interesting, I thought so too.), Hplova4eva (Here's your update, sorry that it took me like a week to get it up!), cosmos(Good job on guessing what would happen in the story, I'm happy for you too!), tiffany-45 (Lol, you like angst don't you? Well hopefully you do because lord knows that this story is going to be full of drama. I'm glad that you're excited about the story, that's always nice to know!), Eveningstar5 (Thank you, I'm glad that you agree with me. It always pisses me off when authors put Ron on the dark side because he hated Harry. I think that he is very loyal and while he is sometimes jealous by nature, who wouldn't be if they were in his position? Okay I'm on a rant now so I just stop, lol.), Shakespeare's Muse (Thanks for pointing that out to me, I reread that part and I completely agree with you, he doesn't normally talk that way…it's more how I talk, lol. Btw in one part of the story he says I'll and I had it I will but I thought of you and changed it, lol, just in case you care to know that. Sorry that you have writer's block! If you have AOL instant messenger my screen name is cashew1986 if you want me to try and help you work out something.), KeeperOfTheMoon (Lol, sorry for the wait on the update but I'm really glad to know that you are loving the story!), koolcat (Thank you and I'm glad that you're liking the story. And you're right it is going to take some major stuff to get him on the dark side. But as a hint it will really be more of a lot of things put together than one huge thing.), Silent Bob 546 (Ha, my thoughts exactly! Poor Ron is always neglected it seems like. Glad that you're liking the story!)