A/N: Standard written for The Houses Competition Year 10 round 1.

Summary: ONE-SHOT. Ron Weasley works at the Department of Mysteries under his not-so-talkative boss, the Department Head, Alfonso Smith. When his boss calls him to a specific case at the Sub Department of Magical Cloning, he cannot wait to get out of the room when he sees the newest chimaera! Hinted Romione.

House: Gryffindor

Class: Charms

Category: Standard

Word Count: 2143

Prompt(s):

[Title] Ron Weasley and the Spider of Desires

[Emotion] Anxious

Warnings: None

Disclaimers: I do not own the Harry Potter universe.

Ron Weasley and the Spider of Desires

After the war was over, the whole wizarding world looked at the Golden Trio to see what they were doing, or what they were going to do. Many speculated about this and the fun thing was that no one had guessed rightly what Ron would be doing. Many guessed correctly that Hermione would work for the Ministry in some type of way. How Harry Potter would use his time was more difficult to guess. Some thought he'd instantly become Minister for Magic or an Auror. Others thought he would play quidditch professionally. Others guessed he'd run Hogwarts or teach there. There were a small few that guessed that he was going backpacking and never show his face again. But Harry did go to study to become a professor and then had taken the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Many had guessed Ron would become an Auror or do quidditch work. Ron himself would've loved to play Quidditch professionally but was sure that he wasn't a good enough Quidditch player to do so. No one in the wizarding world had guessed that the head of the Department of Mysteries, Alfonso Smith, had offered all of the Golden Trio a job.

Harry and Hermione had politely refused, but Ron, unsure of what he really wanted, had asked the half-Italian, half-English Alfonso, why he thought Ron would be good enough without training. Alfonso replied, "Because you have been through a lot and all those experiences enabled you to learn how to think on your feet, improvise and be assertive and minimise the damage."

Ron started one month later after he'd taken Hermione to see the Northern lights in Norway because he'd promised her that on the Horcrux hunt.

It was another day at work when the short-legged Alfonso had rushed silently into Ron's office and gestured to him to follow quickly. "What is the situation?" Ron asked, getting up instantly.

"You'll have to see for yourself."

They headed towards a room at the farthest end of the department. This room was called the room of doors.

Alfonso opened the door to the room and indicated to Ron to step into the 14th. On top of the door stood a sign that read: The Mysteries' Sub Department for Magical Cloning.

Instead of a fireplace with floo powder where you have to say your desired location, or a vanishing cabinet that can be moved, this was a door in a wall created to go directly between two specific locations.

Alfonso followed Ron through the door and when they were in the entrance hall of the facility far away from London, Ron said, "Listen, you need to tell me something about it before sending me in there."

Alfonso shook his head and together they walked up to the visitor's desk. Alfonso motioned to the secretary to hurry up with the identification.

The woman did not seem at all impressed by him and calmly continued checking their wands.

"Mr Weasley, you are needed in 'chimaera room 7'. That is the hall just on your left and the room is at the far end."

She now turned to Alfonso and raised her eyebrows slightly. "Minister Smith, is there anything I can do for you?"

Alfonso shook his head, gave Ron a thumbs up and left to the departing doors. Ron headed towards the hallway on the left and straightened his robes. He had been in this department a few times before, the first time as part of a tour of the department, where he first saw the billywig/cat chimaera. This cat-like creature was sapphire blue and the scratches from the cat caused someone to levitate instantly without the giddiness that preceded it. The giddiness that normally preceded levitation in billywigs stings, occurred in this chimaera a few hours after the scratch. One of the staff members who had voluntarily been scratched did vomit, but that could have also been because the fish that they ate was bad.

The second time had been a lot less interesting, someone had cloned a flobberworm with a puffskein and nothing much had happened. The flobberworm was known for its excreted mucus that was used to jellify potions. And puffskeins had a large tongue and were used mostly to clean the house of spiders or other vermin and to cuddle with. Out of the 273 different chimaeras that had formed from their merged DNA, only 4 lived long enough to measure, observe and feed. None however lived past the 3-day window of magical ability experiments.

The previous times Ron had only been here because he was either shown this department as part of the welcome tour or because his colleague Mary had been a puffskein fan and had urged him to come with her to look at the new chimaeras.

This time, he'd been called in, which had never happened before. Still, Ron stepped into room 7 which was a completely white-walled room with a cupboard filled with different sizes of protective lab coats. Ron took a coat his size from the cupboard and put it on. Just then the only other door to the room opened, and an old woman stepped inside, clearly looking happy to see someone.

"You must be one of the Mysteries' agents?" she asked, pointing at his hat.

When she looked him in the eyes she seemed to realise who she was talking to. "Oh, wow. Ron Weasley in the flesh! Never thought I lived to see the day."

"Thanks." After the war, Ron had been nothing less than one of the most important celebrities of the century. The common wizards and witches now felt they had the right to address the Golden Trio as whatever they liked. Even though ninety-nine per cent of the things that were said to them were nice and grateful utterances, it still made him feel awkward to be on the receiving end of such praise. When he just started Hogwarts, Ron would have dreamed of becoming this famous, but now he seemed to understand Harry's struggle with it and thinking back, could not fathom why he'd been so daft when Harry said that he hated it.

Regardless, he often quickly asked the other people questions to avoid any further questions about the war and what he'd been through which is why he did just that again now.

"So, who are you exactly? And what seems to be the situation?" Ron asked seriously.

"I'm Agatha, one of the biologists that's hired to test new chimaeras. Do you know what a chimaera is?"

"Yes, it is placing cells from one creature into another one to create a new animal, right?"

"Exactly. And we also do hybridisation, which is the stimulation of interspecies mating to obtain the same purpose. There is also mosaicism, but that is more a difference of genetic code within one organism where for example 80% of the cells of one organism have the same genetic code and the other 20% had a different genetic code that functions differently, but that is not something we are testing here."

Ron nodded, understanding.

Agatha said, "We seem to have a problem with our boggart/house-elf chimaera."

Ron blinked.

Working for the Department of Mysteries had been a steep learning curve, even for Ron who was used to a lot of chaos (being Harry's best friend) and unsuspected events (growing up with the twins who pulled pranks every other day). Or growing up with Charlie, who was the light version of Hagrid, saying that some of the creatures were not that dangerous at all. The funny thing was that at least once a week, something occurred that completely knocked Ron's socks off. This was one of those moments.

Ron regained his speech and smiled friendly. "Why in Godric's name would you mix a boggart with a house-elf?"

His tone had been the friendliest, but the absurdity didn't seem entirely inaudible.

Agatha, who had immense crow's feet around her eyes, smiled back just as friendly. "Well, the biologist in question accidentally swapped the dog DNA with the boggart DNA."

Ron raised his eyebrows, feeling a little nervous about what he would see on the other side of that door. He asked, "So the mandatory list with possible hazards that are known to occur using the DNA profiles the biologist used, are…" Ron stopped.

Agatha replied, "Not there. An extensive report was written about the possible hazards and dangers of using dog DNA to create a chimaera. The same was done for possible hazards using house-elf DNA to create a chimaera. The combination of the two DNAs is also theorised and even possible genome clashes of the two species were calculated and preventive steps have been taken to protect the geneticists. And to prevent the chimaera from getting out of the facility of course. But none of the safety measures taken apply to a chimaera created with boggart DNA. Apparently, dogs and boggarts are nothing alike," she added humorously.

"I see. So what do you expect of me? Do you want me to kill it?"

Agatha raised her eyebrows. "We are quite capable of doing that ourselves."

"So…" Ron asked.

"We'd like you to talk to it."

"Talk to it?" Ron asked, surprised.

"Yes, we'd like to estimate its spatial awareness and its ability to summon things or to comply with our requests," Agatha explained.

"I see," Ron said again. "Any restrictions on what not to ask?"

"Not really, but we wouldn't like you to ask it to escape or something like that."

"Alright then, should I go in?"

"Please, just one warning: don't let it get your wand."

Ron suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Got it." And he felt his heart beat quicker.

In the room was one table with a suitcase on it. It was a plain, black leather suitcase with four locks on it. Ron opened it with his wand, took a deep shuddering breath in and stepped inside. The nervous feeling was getting stronger and more overwhelming and he felt his heart beat in his throat now.

When he descended the stairs, he came into a normal-looking open-plan living room kitchen. The fear of being instantly attacked by a humongous spider was rushing through his veins, but he kept his composure. He forced himself to act normal and look around the room. The interior was light-coloured with wooden accents. Inside it was a huge tarantula staring right at him with the blackest eyes he'd ever seen. Ron, however, outwardly remained calm and said, "Hello, I am Ron Weasley."

The clicking of the tarantula's pincers sounded odd, but it still reminded Ron of his second year at Hogwarts when he had to follow the butterflies. Ron tried to ignore the sweat that was slowly dripping down his forehead when the spider took a step forward with its eight legs.

"Hello, I am Five," it sounded in between the clicking noises.

"Do you know where you are?" Ron asked.

"I am inside your house?" Five guessed whilst fiercely clicking his pincers.

"Could you please stop that?" Ron said, agitated.

"What?"

"Your pincers. I hate the sound," Ron replied slowly.

"Your wish is my command. Would you also like to name me?" Five asked.

Ron thought about this for a second.

"Do you have a preference?" Ron asked Five.

"No."

"Do you like it here? And do you like your body?"

"To be honest, Master. I prefer to be in the back of a drawer, where I am out of the way. And no, this body is not mine. I prefer to have my old body back."

"Very well, you can do that. Just transform into your old body," Ron suggested.

"I want to listen to Master, but I am unable. I can only have my own body when no one is around. But is there something that Master desires?"

"Very well. Why don't you do that and I'll be back in a little while. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes, Master."

When Ron had tightly shut the suitcase again and the door was firmly closed, he fell against the door and padded his forehead dry with his handkerchief.

"And?" Agatha asked.

"Can I just catch my breath for a second? I know it is a boggart, but it still gives me the creeps. Even though it has been nothing but nice to me."

"I know. Has it actually performed magic already? Was it able to transform back into its own boggart body?"

"In a minute, Agatha. Just one minute."

Ron closed his eyes and thought back to the Defence Against the Dark Arts class in the third year where his boggart spider had worn roller skates. Slowly, but surely, the anxiousness ebbed away and Ron's heart calmed down. A spider of desires? If he could choose never again.