A/N To the reviewer who informed me I should credit The Time Traveler's Wife...I already did, before I even wrote the title in fact, and I name-checked the author. Please tell me if you feel I should do something more and I will gladly do it for you.

Chapter Two - Undercover Operations

May 18th 1998 (Ron is 18)

"Weasley please," the round man peered around the door with his beady eyes and slicked back oily black hair and called out to the waiting room.

I got to my feet and walked over to him. He looked me up and down in a very disapproving way and I tried not to stare at the large potbelly he possessed as he turned sideways on to show me into his office. Close up I could see where the teeth of his comb had sliced through the grease that plastered his hair flat to his shiny head.

"Hello Mr Weasley, I am Frank Langley and I will be witling down the applicants for this particular position within the ministry today."

I cleared my throat as I followed the spherical wizard as he waddled over to his desk and nodded for me to sit down in the vacant chair while he eased himself between the wall and the corner of the filling cabinet in order to sit down himself.

"See the thing is Mr Langley, I'm not exactly clear what this position is," I tried to explain before he noticed how incredibly unprepared I was for this interview.

"Well of course you don't, it is a top secret vacancy within a top secret department and we select the applicants we think might suit the position and invite them in for interviews."

I blinked, this told me nothing about the job I was up for, and I wondered if I had any say in whether I took it or not if offered.

"You see we only take the best, the most ambitious and unique of individuals and if people knew that this small department even existed then we'd be inundated with any old body who wanted a glamorous job full of daring deeds and near limitless power and authority."

It was at that point I sat back in my chair and relaxed; there was no way I was getting this job.

"It's like the Auror programme itself, isn't it?" Langley said, more to himself than to me, "everybody wants to do it, they all apply and most of them are useless. Then they go into training and most of those ones drop out until finally we get a dozen or so new Aurors released into the department and, if we're lucky, one of them is sometimes halfway decent."

I fidgeted in my seat uncomfortably, Harry was in the Auror programme right now and I wondered if he was going to survive it to become the one halfway decent Auror in his class. There was also that other reason for my discomfort too though, the thing I suspected Langley was reading in my file just before he pursed his lips and looked back up at me with no sense of embarrassment whatsoever.

"I see here that you were rejected from the Auror programme in the early stages of the selection process."

"Yeah well, the thing about that was..." I began as I sat forward in my seat.

"Don't care," Langley said as he waved his hand and looked back at my file and narrowed his eyes, "if I wanted a gung-ho egomaniac with a death wish I would advertise within the Auror department myself, being rejected only makes you more promising in my opinion."

I sat back in my seat again and wondered what I was supposed to say to that.

"Oh," was all I could come up with.

"I also notice that you have been arrested no less than five times in the last month alone," the man said, looking disgusted but sounding strangely impressed.

Again I sat forward to explain myself.

"Yeah well there's a funny story about that actually," I began.

"Don't care," Langley sniffed as he examined that particular page of my file even closer, "indecent exposure eh?"

"It's not what it sounds like," I said anxiously as Langley turned to the next page of my file as if I wasn't even there.

"Don't care about explanations Weasley, I just care that you've been released without charge every time and on one occasion you escaped the custody of three Aurors and nine ministry police officers and your holding cell and your handcuffs and your restraining charms..."

He was going to go on forever, I had to stop him.

"What you've got to understand is that I didn't escape exactly..."

"I hadn't finished Mr Weasley," Langley said pointedly as he drummed his chubby fingers on his desk and read on, "Now where was I? Oh yes, and the items of clothing that were provided for you at the time of your arrest."

I waited for him to give me the nod to speak. He never did.

"I like a man who can get out of sticky situations, even if he does create them himself."

Langley turned over a few more pages of my file in complete silence and I just sat back in my chair and folded my arms in a huff. I wondered how I would explain this to Hermione. She had told me that the charges being dropped every time meant that my time-epilepsy couldn't be held against me. She told me that if ever anybody tried to discriminate against me because of it I was to get on my high horse and start quoting all the magical laws and precedents she had made me memorise. She had been livid when the Aurors had told me to sod-off after I disappeared in the middle of my evaluation for three and a half minutes. I couldn't be bothered putting up a fight for this job though, I didn't even know if I wanted it, and I didn't even know what it was.

"Very good," Langley said as he closed my file and stacked it on top of a pile of others that wobbled precariously on the side of his desk, "so I am about to give you a set of circumstances and I want you to tell me your reaction to them do you understand?"

I opened my mouth to speak.

"Good. Now here is the situation Weasley, there never was a job here and this isn't even a building within the ministry. When you flooed in with the others we intercepted the network and redirected you to this location in order to pick your brains on what you know about the new Auror programme and it's new applicants, namely one Mr Harry Potter."

I rose from my chair and reached for my wand but Langley was ready for me and performed some non-verbal spells that caused my wand to fly into his hand and the chair to slam into the back of my legs, knocking me back into the sitting position. Several bindings curled around the arms of the chair and fixed my own arms securely to them and Langley smiled and heaved himself up from his groaning chair.

"You tell us what we want to know and all I'll do is obliviate you. If you don't tell us anything I will cut you into ten pieces and send a segment to each of your bothers, your sister, your mother and father, Miss Hermione Granger, Mr Potter and I think it would be quite funny to see what that abomination Hagrid up at Hogwarts makes of a portion. He'd feed it to his dog I presume, always thought more of beasts then men that one as far as I can remember."

This couldn't be a trap, Hermione checked it out, I had asked my dad to verify the authenticity of the letter. This must be his test; this must be part of the interview I told myself.

"Don't bother sending a piece to Percy, he wouldn't recognise his own flesh and blood if I came running down the street naked and punched him!"

Langley raised both of his eyebrows and picked up my closed file.

"Something I see from you file you have in fact already done."

I smiled at him; this had to be a test. He crossed the room and pulled out his wand, pointing it at himself, before a flash illuminated his face and I watched as his round body deflated into a lithe frame with pale skin and long blonde hair. Langley was transforming into Lucius Malfoy. I jerked at the bindings and really hoped that this was another part of the test.

"I've concocted this new way of changing one's physical appearance Weasley, I never could stand the after taste of Pollyjuice potion, and I just wanted to time the moment when you realised you were finished to perfection."

He sat on the corner of the desk and casually flicked his wand at my chest.

"Oppugno!"

I was blasted backwards, my chair flying over with me still bound to it, and slammed down on my back. I tried to break the arms of the chair but more bindings were strapping my legs and torso to it as I did. Malfoy sighed lazily and stood up again, taking a couple of steps to stand over me, and aimed a kick into the side of my rib cage. The kick landed so hard that the chair rolled over to the side with me still strapped into it.

"You're just going to sit there and let me chop you up aren't you Weasley?" Malfoy sneered as he summoned a sword from where it hung on the wall.

I could feel the familiar nausea coming over me, well it did tend to happen when I was stressed and this was definitely a stressful time no doubt about that, I tried to distract him so I had enough time to let it take me.

"Azkaban wasn't kind to your hair Malfoy, you're looking a little thin up top there mate," I managed just before my vision blurred.

I melted away from that room, that chair; those bindings and that time in my life and found myself curled up on the floor with nothing on outside my own flat. I lost my willpower and was sick on my own doorstep. As I retched I pounded on the front door and hoped somebody was home. I heard footsteps running and then the door was flung open just as I spat the last of the bile from my lips to look up into my own face.

"Oh shit have we just had another kicking?" the older-looking me asked as he hauled me inside and slammed the door closed.

I nodded and pointed to my rib cage, which was bruising quite nicely. My other self winced and pointed his wand over his shoulder and summoned a bottle of water from the kitchen. It flew into his hand and he unscrewed the lid and poured it into my mouth.

"You don't even look twenty yet," he said as he squinted into my face, letting me take the bottle myself to drink from while he flicked his wand at my ribs, "Sano!"

I felt the bruise swell rapidly and then change about four different colours before fading into nothing and rubbed my rib cage to discover that it was completely healed now.

"Remember that one, you'll need it," he said to me while still trying to figure something out for himself, "how old are you?"

"Eighteen," I said as I reached for one of the robes on the cloak stand to cover myself up with.

"You've only just started doing this?" he asked as he helped me up.

I nodded and took another swig from the water bottle. It always amazes me how thirsty time travelling makes me, I get hungry too but as Hermione is always reminding me, there's never a time when I'm not hungry. I'm hungry while I'm paying the bill at a restaurant.

"The first kicking I got when all this started was..." he looked up at me and broke into a huge grin,"...you're at the job interview!"

"Well I thought it was a job interview," I snorted as I pulled the robe around myself a little tighter.

My other self was bouncing on the balls of his feet enthusiastically.

"No it is, it is a real job interview, for a real job; our job. Langley just wanted to see you disappear. He knew you could do it but he couldn't work out how and why so he had to make you think your were in mortal peril in order to make you do it in front of him."

I blinked and shook my head in disbelief.

"When you get back he's gonna be his old fat self again and he'll offer you the job."

"What? What is this job anyway?"

"That doesn't matter," my older self waved his hand dismissively, "you've got to remember this. He will offer you the job, you will shake his hand and you will walk to the door. You open the door and turn back to him and tell him that his wife will burn his steak tonight and at eight o'clock exactly the portrait of his grandparents will fall off the wall and the corner will get burnt in the fire. Tell him that."

I felt myself getting dizzy again and reached out to grab my older self's arm, I paused momentarily to acknowledge that I've become quite a bit bigger than I am now, before looking up and trying to make sense of this odd message.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I told myself when I was you."

I fell to my knees and shook my head. He crouched with me.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I don't know how I knew the first time round but I did and I told you and now we're in this circle thing, you'll tell another you when you're me."

"Stop talking please!" I begged him as the nausea hit me again and my vision blurred.

"Just tell him, the next time you see him he'll be amazed!"

With the sound of my own voice ringing in my ears I felt the pressure of scratchy carpet against my skin and opened my eyes to see that I was back in the interview room again. My clothes were neatly folded on the chair I had been bound to earlier and the orb-like version of Langley was sitting behind his desk writing something down on my file. He peered over the top of the paper and gestured for me to sit down again.

I picked myself up off the floor and tried to conceal my modesty behind the chair while I pulled my clothes back on.

"Very impressive, anxiety induced is it?" he asked as he put down his quill and closed my file.

As I hoped up and down on one leg to put my trousers on I nodded.

"Yeah, it can be when I'm tired as well and flickering lights don't help much either."

"Hmmm, symptoms similar to epilepsy. The authorities know of course, they wouldn't have released you and they certainly wouldn't have been so understanding about your escape from their cell otherwise. I don't doubt that this condition limits your opportunities to get work."

I pulled on my shirt and looked away from him as I answered.

"Pretty much."

"No wonder the Aurors didn't want you."

I sat down to put my shoes back on and Langley stroked his wobbly dimpled chin.

"You seem to be healed, I'm sorry about that, had to convince after all, how long were you away?"

"Five minutes?" I shrugged, "How long was I gone this end?"

"Three and a half hours," Langley said as if it was nothing.

"What?" I said, freezing in the middle of tying my shoelaces.

It had never been like that before; usually I was only gone for minutes in the present but hours in the future.

"Yes, quite impressive like I said."

As I tucked my shirt in and reached out for my jacket Langley leaned over the desk and extended his hand.

"Welcome to undercover operations Agent Weasley, you're going to be in charge of digging out the dead wood and the moles in the Auror department."

I gaped at him as I shook his hand and pulled my jacket on and watched him sit down behind his desk and put my file away in one of his side drawers.

"Show yourself out Weasley, and remember this is hush hush, tell your family you work for the Auror department in personnel recruitment."

I nodded and backed out of the room, I was almost at the door when I decided to give my own advice a try.

"Um Mr Langley?"

"Yes Agent Weasley?"

"I'd pick something up to eat on the way home tonight, your wife's going to burn your steak. Oh and at eight o'clock sharp that portrait of your grandparents will fall into the fire and the corner's gonna get singed, sorry."

With that I shrugged and walked out of the room, closing the door on the startled expression on Langley's face as I went and turned around to see the receptionist looking at me a little oddly.

"Rough interview," I said as I tucked in the last of my overhanging shirttail and set off home to tell Hermione the good, and partially censored, news.