Warnings: I STILL HAVE ANGST. Or…something. And, you know, other warning stuff. Oh, and the ending kinda sucks. Sorry.

Disclaimer: I pwn you, but that has nothing to do with owning anything Harry Potter related. Which I don't own.

Chapter Nineteen: An Unspeakable Secret

If there's one thing Draco hated to admit to, it was that he ever felt nervous. But the truth was that he was nervous—extremely so. Some might say he was scared. He was having a very difficult time convincing himself not to turn tail and run back to the security of his own bedroom. He had to talk to Denice, there was no denying it. But he really didn't want to.

He took a deep breath and knocked quickly on the door, wincing. He'd forgotten about the cuts on his hand. He had sloppily bandaged it once he'd woken up, but he'd been in such a hurry to talk to Denice that he hadn't really washed his hand all that well, and it had started to bleed again. He found that he really didn't care.

The door opened quite suddenly, showing Denice in her normal weekend clothes—Muggle jeans and a t-shirt. A small smirk quirked at his lips as he read what the shirt had emblazoned on it: 'I am not insane. Genius is always misunderstood.' That, he thought, summed up Denice quite nicely. His eyes flew up, knowing that she would be annoyed if he was looking at anything below her face for long, and he noted with relief that her eyes were no longer red and puffy. He didn't think he could stand to see the effects of the night before, not on her.

"Um. Hiya, Dray," Denice said uncertainly, very unlike her usual self. Draco thought absently that he really needed to teach her more about appearing confident even when she wasn't. "'Sup?"

Draco blinked at the last word. "May I come in?" he asked, carefully avoiding the question of where she had come up with it. He knew better than to ask by then.

"Sure," Denice replied and stepped aside to let him in. Draco sauntered in as casually as he could, glancing around. Unsurprisingly, the bed was unmade and robes had been thrown down in a pile at the foot of it. He nearly jumped when he heard the door close with a soft thud behind him—it was ridiculous, he knew, but he felt trapped now. There was no backing out of this.

"I'm…sorry about last night," he began slowly, turning to face Denice again. "My parents…well, you know how they are. But me…I really shouldn't have lost—"

"No, it's okay," Denice replied, shrugging uncomfortably. "I just let my emotions get the better of me. I'm still getting used to this blind-but-able-to-see thing, and your parents have just gotten me really nervous, and I'm…just plain having a hard time dealing with all of this at once." She sighed and looked him in the eyes for the first time that morning. "…I didn't mean what I said last night, about wanting to go home. You know that, right?"

"You meant it," Draco returned calmly. "But I understand why, so it doesn't matter. Just…forget about what happened for now, okay?"

Denice didn't reply and a long, almost tangible silence filled the room. It was awkward, especially since it was Denice's silence; Draco hated when she had nothing to say.

"What's wrong with your hand?" Denice asked suddenly. Draco looked down at it, startled, before slowly answering.

"It's bleeding. Still," he returned, confused. "How can you tell there's anything wrong with it?"

"Your aura. It's sort of reddish on parts of your hand—I figured something had to be wrong with it for it to be a different color than the rest. What'd you do to it anyway?"

"Broke something."

Another silence. Draco stayed for only a few more moments before he couldn't take it anymore. He hastily excused himself and left the room.

-t-

"Why did we have to meet with those two again?" Ron asked grumpily, trudging along behind his three friends. "I could be doing something important, you know. Like sleeping."

"Oh shut up," Ashley snarled back. "Nobody made you come. Go back if you want, we'll just tell you later."

"I'm not letting you guys meet up with them alone!"

"I really do wish you'd get over that, Ron," Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. "Denice isn't anything like most of the other Slytherins, and you've seen how much Malfoy has been changing! There's no point in keeping your illogical bias!"

"They're probably just acting! Those slimy little snakes can pretend to be good as much as they want, but I know what they really are!"

"Thousands of years of pureblood prejudice doesn't automatically make something the truth, Weasley," a voice said from the shadows as Denice stepped into the middle of the hallway. "Honestly, isn't it about time you figured that one out? Draco has already, but I suppose we can't all be intelligent."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ron snarled, taking a threatening step toward her. The girl rolled her eyes and turned away, waving her hand to indicate that she wanted them to follow her.

"Draco and I found Dobby in the kitchens," she said absently, making the Trio raise their eyebrows. "His old house elf, you know? And after painstakingly explaining to the poor thing that Draco had changed and was in fact very sorry about how he and his family treated him and he cried a lot—Dobby, not Draco—we got to talking about how nice it would be if we had somewhere we could hang out together where nobody would eavesdrop on us, what with all those silly little secrets we all hide. He told us about this place called the Room of Requirement, and…well. Let's just say we found something interesting there, regarding someone I saw at the trial."

"Who is it that's got you so agitated?" Ashley returned curiously, moving away from Harry to walk beside her cousin. "It's not like you to get nervous about one person."

"…His name is Morpheus. Morpheus Ramaed."

"The Seer at the Ministry of Magic?" Ron interjected, surprised. "What was he doing at your trial? He hates Fudge!"

"Yeah, I got that impression. But that's not important. I'll explain things when we get there."

They walked the rest of the way in a nervous silence that was broken only by the voices of the gossiping portraits. After stopping at a tapestry that depicted trolls dancing in tutus and informing everyone to stand still, she began pacing the hallway with her eyes tightly shut. When she was done, a rather nondescript door had appeared on the wall.

"The first time I did that," Denice said with a bit of a grin as she reached for the doorknob, "the light from the magic burned my eyes like hell. This single room has a disgusting amount of magic put into it. You can get practically anything you need here, it's pretty cool. But Draco's inside waiting for us, I'll tell you more later. Come on." She walked inside.

The room was fairly simple. There were a few couches and chairs set in a half-circle around a fairly large table facing the door, and a small bookshelf behind them. There was a table full of snacks and drinks to the side that had hardly been touched. On the other side was a small fireplace with a cheerful fire burning in it, and a rather worn rug in front of that. There was a single picture above it, and Draco Malfoy stood talking intently to the two men in it.

One of the subjects gave a start when he saw them. He had a plain face that was topped off with a vibrant shock of red-toned brown hair, and his slight form was covered in the plain clothes of a man unused to riches though he was surrounded with an elegance that was only strengthened by the jewel-encrusted sword he kept at his side.. He grinned once he got over his surprise, and nudged his companion in the side.

"Oi, new friends!" he said cheerfully, threw an arm over the other's shoulder, and waved. "I'm pleased to see more people. It's been a while since we've had company."

"Indeed," the other man stated simply, staring coolly down at them. He seemed to be the very opposite of his friend, with the air of ancient royalty. He was fairly handsome, his long black hair pulled into a simple ponytail, and he looked built for strength. He was dressed like a scholar, but had a large sword strapped to his back. He smiled like he had never learned how, a slight upturn to one side of his lips, but there was a warmth in his eyes that made the smile genuine. "It is quite a pleasure to you all, and I look forward to conversing with you later. For now, I believe there is something that this young man needs to speak to you about. We will try to be unobtrusive."

"Thanks," Draco said to the picture and moved toward the chairs. "Denice, I think I found something you'll want to look at later. Morpheus may have been around before my father was. Oh, and I found a documentation of how this room was created. I know you'll be all over that. Oh, and hey, Gryffindors."

"What's going on?" Harry asked, flopping down into a chair and looking between Denice and Draco curiously. "He's just some guy, isn't he?"

"That's what you'd think," Draco muttered grumpily. "But the thing is, there's no sign of his existence anywhere until he gets his job at the ministry. We've literally looked everywhere, and he isn't really mentioned at all until he gets his job at the ministry. He wasn't a student at Hogwarts, there's nothing about his past in anything that mentions him, nobody knows anything about him whatsoever except that every time he's said something will happen, something i has /i happened. He just appeared one day and everybody acts like he'd been here all along!"

"In case you can't tell, Draco's a little frustrated with this," Denice said dryly, patting him on the arm gently. "But everything he said is true. Morpheus Ramaed doesn't exist until late in 1969, right before Voldemort's first rise to power. He's been an Unspeakable ever since, so of course nobody has any idea of what he actually does. He's just one big bundle of mystery. But that's not what really bothers me."

"What could be worse than a person that practically sprouted fully formed from thin air?" Hermione asked curiously.

Denice stared at her for a moment, before sighing heavily. "One thing I've discovered due to Dumbledore's spell is that every living being has magic in them. Even Muggles. Their auras are barely there, and it can be difficult to spot them when wizards are around. Strong wizards and witches have brighter auras, of course, and I reckon Seers' auras would be generally weak with strong spikes of light."

"You reckon?" Ashley asked, eyes widening. "But Morpheus—"

"Is a Seer, yes, and apparently a powerful one at that. But the thing is…I couldn't see him. At all. He didn't have any sort of aura, and you can't hide your magic from this spell. I didn't know he was there until he spoke, and even then I thought it was someone else. Until Fudge pointed him out, and I saw that there was nothing speaking.

"Whatever Morpheus is…he isn't human."

The plot deepens! Mysteries abound! Who are the men in the picture, and what is Morpheus's secret? I would tell you, but that would probably ruin everything! Also, I haven't decided who the men are yet. I don't know where they came from, really. I just wanted to add something else to the watered-down Room of Requirement.

Anyway. There's no preview of the next chapter here, because I haven't written the next chapter yet. I haven't decided what the next chapter will consist of. I had a plan at some point, but that's pretty much been shot to hell. Hopefully some of my plans will still fit in, as I have a pretty kickass scene involving Voldemort already written up. Oh, and a sappy scene of DOOM. That comes before Voldemort. Hm. There is much to be done, and currently three mysteries to be solved. I think there's three. Maybe I can't count. Anyway.

Many, many thanks to everyone who commented on chapter seventeen, and even more thanks to the people who came back despite the fact that I haven't updated in like. Three years. Has it really been that long? My god. I hope you enjoyed these last two chapters, even if I'm extraordinarily disappointed with them—I tried so hard, but it's difficult to get back into writing properly! I was so better at this three years ago. Sigh. But! But I will keep writing, because this story has been waiting years to be completed and I'm not going to stop now due to sheer suckery. Yay! (I guess it's yay. Unless I keep sucking, but I swear I'll get better again.)

'Til next time!