Shadows


Rating: PG-13

Summary: "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

A/N God it's been like two weeks since I have even worked on this story. I'm sorry about being relatively slow when it comes to updates but I just haven't had time to do anything besides school lately. Here's the next chapter though.

Oh and in like ten days I'm going on vacation for seven days (thank God!) so I'll be on a cruise deck getting a tan and no where near a computer. I'll try to update again before I leave but if not, then you'll know why.

Chapter Twelve

Pieces of My Past

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

My head hurt. Good lord, the words "throbbing pain" just took on a whole new meaning for me…

I bravely squinted one eye open, why was there so much light? Come to think of it, was there so much bloody pink? My eye shut once more of it's own violation as I attempted to put the pieces of yesterday together while dealing with the continuous thumping that was residing in my unsuspecting head.

"Morning!" A cheerful voice broke my spilt concentration.

Though my eyelid was content just where it was, shut, it opened anyway to see who was so damn cheerful at…one in the afternoon. The cheerful someone was a someone with blond hair and blue eyes. Melissa. Shit.

"Uh, hey."

She laughed in an uncharacteristic-like way for her, "don't worry I didn't rob you of your virginity or anything, you are still just as innocent as you were twenty-four hours ago."

"Unfortunately for you someone has already had the pleasure of 'robbing me' of my virginity." My comeback quickly one came to hurt me. Hermione. I wondered what she was doing now…probably reading.

She smiled again before shoving a mug in front of my face. "Here, drink this, but don't ask what's in it. It'll make your hangover go away, and judging by how hot you look right now, I'd say that you could use it."

I gave a half-hearted glare before suspiciously sniffing the contents in the glass, it smelled absolutely awful. I looked back towards Melissa and she gave me a friendly shrug before pointing at the mug as a silent way of telling me to drink it. I decided that it wasn't poison, if someone wanted to kill you, they wouldn't very well give you something that smelled like death and expect you to drink it without question.

I swished around the drink for a few seconds before sighing and knowing that it was going to taste beyond horrible. As my mother always used to say, if it looks like a fish, smells like a fish, then chances are it's a-yep, I decided after I had downed the liquid, it was most definitely the worst thing that I had ever had in my mouth, Pansy Parkinson included. Err, as for that story, let's just say I was drunk and it was very dark…did I mention that I was drunk?

Anyway, the drink may have been the equivalent of a vomit flavored every flavor bean, but it did the trick and Melissa's merry voice was much more welcomed just as that pounding noise coming from the ceiling…what a minute, I thought as my head tilted skywards, what was that?

I instinctively grabbed my wand and got up from my place on the couch. "Stay here," I warned Melissa, "you have an intruder upstairs."

She looked at me in pure confusion for a minute before her eyes widened in comprehension and she swatted my wand away, "you will not curse who is upstairs unless your intention is to be brutally slaughtered by me."

"Who's up there then?"

"No one, I'm sure, of importance to you." Her vague half-answer intrigued me; this was the kind of information that I was supposed to be retrieving on this mission and now was as good a time of any to start and finish this assignment.

"If you don't tell me," I said in what I hoped to be a persuasive sounding tone, "then I'm just going to have to take my wand and curses with me to find out."

"Unless you're in the habit of throwing curses at an innocent five-year-old," she spat viciously at my threat, "then I would stay down here and leave it alone."

"A five-year-old?!" I couldn't keep my outburst or genuine surprise to myself, "what, are you baby-sitting or something?"

Melissa raised an amused eyebrow at me, but said nothing. I heard the sound of feet connecting with the stairs and momentarily after a small boy appeared with a solemn grown-up expression on his features.

"Melissa," he said in an amusing condescending manner, "my blue robe has been wrinkled, I am in dire need of a new one."

I stifled a laugh at his uncanny resemblance to Percy and turned to Melissa, "how old did you say he was?"

"Five going on fifty," she returned while giving the boy an openly affectionate look. "Perseus, I would like you to meet a friend of mine, Ron W-"

"Ron," I interrupted, "just call me Ron."

Melissa gave me a strange look but continued anyway, "Ron, I would like to introduce you to Perseus…my son."

My son. The words echoed through my mind and I suddenly wanted to heave. She had a bloody child and there was a chance that I would have to kill her. Well place your nominations for humanitarian of the year right now folks, I think I have this award in the bag if I leave this poor child motherless.

"Perseus," I said, forcing myself to regain the art of conversation, "that's an interesting name."

"It means hero," Melissa explained, "like the Greek mythology and constellation." Her hand reached down as she playfully ruffled Perseus's hair, "I always knew my baby would be star."

He recoiled from her attempted act of disheveling his appearances. "Honestly mother," he said with a sigh, "you know perfectly well that 'Perseus' is made up of a large number of stars so if you wanted to call me a star you should have picked just one. Besides, I hardly see where you saw it fit to name me after the bastard child of a Greek god."

She attempted to look angry, but failed. "Do watch your mouth Perse, cursing only makes you sound of a low intelligence."


"I wasn't cursing," he contradicted, "bastard means an illegitimate child which is exactly what he was."

Melissa smiled widely at me while dropping the 'argument' with her son, "I must have done something very wrong in a previous life to get stuck with this thing as my child," she said in a clearly evident joking tone.

Perseus gazed intently at his mother for a moment before moving his hard look towards me, as if contemplating something between us. His eyes darted between us for a little while before he shrugged and walked calmly into the kitchen, on the way announcing, "I'm going to fix myself breakfast."

Melissa smiled at the general area where her son was before turning to me, "he's really one in a million," she explained. "Literally I always say after that. He's extremely independent…but I suppose he gets that from his fa-"

Her sentence ended abruptly as she began to say the word father. My ears immediately perked up; just who was Perseus's father? I felt slightly daft for not thinking of that before catching her slip. "You were saying," I pressed gently.

She shook her head for a moment, "never mind. So Ron," she said changing the subject with attempted ease, "are you aware that people believe you to be either captured or already dead? And here I found you 'clubbing' of all things."

I turned a sharp look towards Melissa, just what did she know? "Captured or dead," I questioned carefully, "who told you a thing like that?"

"Oh it's all over the papers, 'Best friend to the boy-who-lived missing: Reward offered by Harry Potter for any information.' For all the money Potter's putting up for you, I could be a very rich woman if I turned you in right now."

"You wouldn't do that," I said with more conviction than I felt.

"And how would you know that?"

I smiled but chose to say nothing, best to keep that whole 'air of mystery' between us in my opinion. However, her words had indeed struck me more than I was letting her know. I had figured that everyone knew that I was gone, but this information suggested that they believed something horrible to have happened to me. It was just like Harry to be the first to offer to put up his own money for a reward. I felt myself growing desolate and put a halt to my thoughts, I would have to worry about this sometime when I wasn't alone with the woman whom I was supposed to be gathering intel from.

But, it was too late for that, as she had caught my slip just as quickly as I had caught hers. "Miss them, huh? Why did you leave if it wasn't against your will, you seemed to have that whole one big happy family vibe going on, decide your life was too perfect?"

"You know nothing about my life," I said harshly, "so just leave it alone."

"Fine," she said airily while tossing a hand through the empty space that surrounded us, "just so long as you remember that when you come sniffing around for information on my life." I looked at her, wondering just what she was up to and what she all ready knew. "By the way," she continued, "tell Mark that I said 'hello' the next time that you see him…which should be soon, am I correct?"

I stumbled off the couch, not knowing what to do. "I, uh, I have to go." With that I made my most clumsy, uncool, not spy-like exit ever.

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I opened the door to my temporary home slowly with the weight of my failure pressing down at an unbearable rate. She had known, so therefore I must have screwed up somewhere. She had known about…Mark?

Well, that didn't make any sense. I stood at the doorway between the front porch and the house for a moment, I knew that I had never mentioned anything about Mark, the only way she would know about him would be-

I finally looked into the house and saw the man in question sitting with calm and ease in an overstuffed chair facing the door, and consequently, facing me. "

"You son of a bitch," I spat with a newfound surge of anger, "you set me up!"

"'Set up' is such an unpleasant way to phrase things Ron," he replied with the amiability of someone who knew that there was no way I could kick his ass, no matter how much I wanted to. "I prefer to say that I kept control of the situation. Besides, don't get too upset, I knew that she would spot you and not harm you, but rest assured I have not seen Melissa in a great deal of time and she had no clue that you were coming."

"Why do you know her in the first place? She's a death eater, and you're what, friends with her?!"

"It's complicated. Never mind that, the point is that you're in with her so now we may proceed with the mission."

The look I directed towards him could only be interrupted as dumbfounded amazement and incredulity. "What is wrong with you? She knows exactly who I am, who you are, and probably knows exactly what we do! What good would it do to try and get anything out of her?"

Mark made a gesture for me to sit down, which I blatantly ignored. "Melissa is a clever girl, I knew that she would figure you out quick enough. That however, only supports the plans that I have for you Ron. What you don't know is that Melissa is one of the most independent people ever placed on this earth, she would never be happy nor content serving anybody. There lies our way in. No matter what her own views on the war at hand, she hates being a minion for the dark, she'll help you get in, just to spite them."

"She has a child," I said somewhat desperately, this was supposed to be an easy intelligence mission, not become a spy on the dark side!

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Mark said somewhat darkly, "the child has nothing to do with you nor this war though, so leave him out of it. Take today off Ron, you had a hard night, tomorrow though I want you to floo Melissa, set up a date and get back in."

"So," I said with evident confusion, "do you want me to go with her to a death eater gathering or something? I don't understand what you want me to do here."

"Exactly Ron," he said, clearly pleased, "get her to take you with her as a prospective member. Look around very closely while you are there, then come back and tell me what you see. It's as simple as that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have another meeting I need to get to." He rose but stopped for a minute before pulling a newspaper out of his robe and tossing it onto the table, "here," he said, "I thought that this might be of interest to you."

I waited until he had left before cautiously walking over and picking the paper up. To my own expectation and dismay I saw myself looking back at me from the front page.

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A/N So it begins. Lol, I'm weird today, just ignore me. Yeah, so now you know a little more about the characters that are going to be setting up for the major plot and I was mapping out this story in my mind a few days ago and I figured out that it won't be too long until Hermione makes an entrance back into the story! So if you're waiting for that, just be patient. Leave a review please!!!

Thanks to:

Megz2 (Glad that you're liking the story and I agree with you about there not being enough Ron goes to the dark stories…though while writing this I'm beginning to understand why as it's taking forever to get him over there, lol.), RonandHerm4eva (Haha, the 'nice' ones are always the most evil. Ahem, well perhaps not, I just really felt like saying that after reading that you said Melissa was nice. Anyway, Hermione should be making her appearance soon and I'll finally get to use that blasted line that's in my summary, lol.), Hplova4eva (Glad that you're still liking it!), tiffiany-45 (Hmm, yeah I see what you're saying about Ron replaying his night with Hermione over and over in his head. But, just remember this, just because I don't include it in the chapters it doesn't mean that he's not thinking about her. And, lol, that made no sense. I don't like to be really obvious about plot things so I'm trying to do the whole subconscious suppression type thing when it comes to his thinking about Hermione, like how he'll mention her at inopportune times…does that make any sense? Probably not, lol), Shakespeare's Muse (All right, I know that I can trust you to tell me the truth as I have a question regarding the story. Does Mark seem manipulating at all? Lol, just answer that honestly and I'll be happy. Loved the end to Things Change btw, even though I all ready told you that.), marzoog (Thank you so much for your compliments on the story! I appreciate your saying that Ron is in character because that's important to me to make it seem believable as he turns 'dark.' Hope that you continue to enjoy it!), Enchanted Spirit (*Applauds* Woohoo, you caught on to Melissa!!! You're guess about why she was in the bar with Mark is right on the money and it made me so happy to know that someone got where I was going with that!), LissaGranger( Thanks for taking the time to tell me that you think the story is good, it's much appreciated! And also thanks for your compliment on the line in the summary, lol, that actually came to me before I even thought about the plot of the story.), Gen Eveningstar (Oh goodie, you made an accurate guess on Melissa! Lol, I get way too excited when people follow the story and plot lines the way that I want them too…anyway, yes she was a 'training' mission of sort, but you probably all ready knew that after reading this chapter, lol.), cosmoz( Sorry I kind of left you hanging last chapter, I didn't do it intentionally! This was a bit of a cliffhanger I suppose, but you can probably guess why he's in the newspaper. I'll try to get the next chapter out soon!), orli-enthusist (Lol, glad to ease your mind about Hermione, though when she does make her next appearance it will be kind of angst-ridden. Also, thanks so much for telling me that you enjoy the notes at the end of the chapter! I really appreciate that because I've had some people in the past actually stop reading my stories saying "it's good but I got sick of you taking up all that room at the bottom with notes to reviewers when you could have written more of the story." So it's nice to know that some people like them!), Arynnl (Lol, you want to see Ron in a earring, leather pants, and spiked hair huh? Well that would be some disguise…I'll see what I can do for you next chapter about your clothing requests.), swim fan (Thanks for reviewing and hope that you're a fan of evil Ron. Lol, I know I am!), Penny Wishes (Thanks so much for all your wonderful comments! And it's also nice to know that you haven't forgotten about Ginny and Draco, since you did remember and asked I'll tell you this, there is a lot more that is going to be there and there's more to the relationship than you think. Glad that you're enjoying the story!), Trempush (Lol, I wanted to have him try to seduce her in this chapter so much but I couldn't for future plot reasons. But I left out most of their club scene for a reason…Ron will remember it later and then you'll get your humor in his attempted seduction.), blue hoax (I'm glad that you love the plot concept as well as the story. And it's strange that you told me to eat cheese as I am actually eating some right now. Lol, Colby Jack rocks!), Stompy-Sanjii (I'm glad that you enjoyed Mark's story and I actually meant to add another chapter to it but life kind of got in the way…And you're right, the only thing that sucks about first person pov is that I can't get back to Hermione till Ron sees her again.), Me (Mend My Shattered Soul didn't exactly have a lot to do with last chapter actually, but it did have something to do with this one and a lot to do with the future. I really just wanted people to see that Melissa and Mark have a past together. So as long as you know that, then you're fine with understanding the plot.)