Reading Time:
17 Minutes
The coroner came to clear the body they spent the next couple of hours documenting what they could. It was just as he'd expected, hardly any evidence of anything at all. The victim had arrived home, eaten dinner at some point, fed her cat, took a shower and gone to bed. Then she'd died from being bisected alive. All by herself. Alone in her apartment.
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The coroner came to clear the body they spent the next couple of hours documenting what they could. It was just as he’d expected, hardly any evidence of anything at all. The victim had arrived home, eaten dinner at some point, fed her cat, took a shower and gone to bed.
Then she’d died from being bisected alive.
All by herself. Alone in her apartment.
The small stack of polaroids were a weight in his coat pocket for the entire time, though he tried to ignore the way they knocked against his thigh. The crime scene wasn’t the place for such a discovery. The information was too hot for anyone but a few select people to know.
He’d already sent Milli a quick message and she’d agreed to meet for a working dinner, so he’d spent the afternoon back at the office finishing up his reports while Watts and the junior techs tackled what trace evidence they’d managed to collect.
He was out of the door by seven and by half past, he was walking into one of his favourite Indian restaurants. The hostess smiled in familiar greeting and showed him to the private room he’d asked Milli to book in advance.
“I ordered your favourites.” Millicent was already drinking some Haldi Doodh or Golden Milk–warm milk infused with turmeric, black pepper, and spices. The weather had turned miserable in the afternoon and the temperature had dropped abruptly.
“You’re a goddess.” He’d moaned at the wonderful smell wafting from the table. “I’m a man starved.”
They dug into the spread without talking. Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb Biryani, Palak Paneer with a stack of Naan to eat it all with. It was only when they’d sat back with desert of Gulab Jamun soaked in sweet syrup and a pot of Chai did Milli carefully broach the subject.
“I’ve been wondering all afternoon what you wanted to see me about so soon after brunch last Sunday. I know for a fact that Longbottom hasn’t proposed yet otherwise I’d have had Blaise screaming in my ear so…”
She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “… I doubt it’s good news then.”
“You know me too well, Mills.” he gave a dry chuckle and sipped his own chai. “Worked a scene today.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That bad, huh?”
He hummed and chewed his pastry carefully.
“It’s got the potential to be.”
He slid the polaroids across the table and watched her face carefully.
“Is this what I think it is?”
He nodded.
“How sure are you?”
“Sure enough to take it to Davies.”
Millicent exhaled sharply. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
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He let himself into his spacious studio apartment with a sigh, dropping his bag and shrugging off his coat before toeing off his shoes and kicking them into the corner. It had been such a long day and all he wanted to do was have a good soak and fall into bed.
Merlin, he was knackered.
The late night meeting with CS Davies had been as rough as he’d imagined it would be and he’d spent three full hours being grilled on every aspect of his suspicion and listening to Davies and Millicent hammer out exactly what that might mean for the case, the DMLE and the Metropolitan Police Service.
The crown had been keeping an extra close eye on the ongoing investigation since the decapitation at King’s College, which added another layer of potential clusterfuck on top of everything else and Davies had been apoplectic at the mere thought of having to surrender control to ‘those nitwit orhores’, still smarting from the ridiculous Black Hand Murders cockup.
He’d finally sent them off near midnight after running out of steam, snapping at them both to report the next morning for a secured meeting with a few higher ups in the know. Draco had been all too glad to escape, totally fine with leaving the politicking to the others.
Just let him stay in his lab with his machines and his science and he would be happy as a clam. Somewhere out there was a magical serial killer murdering muggles and Draco was going to do his best to help take the fucker off the streets.
Stripping as he walked, Draco absently checked his table of potions, happy to see that they were all stable and didn’t need his attention urgently. He’d check them in the morning before work. Tonight was for a hot bath and a hot bed.
Too bad he didn’t have a hot lover to make the trifecta.
Neville was once again ensconced at the Longbottom Estate with Official Ancient and Noble Family Business. Poor bloke, the old biddy had kept his lover hopping like a spider on a hot plate since their return to the UK and hadn’t let him out of her gimlet eyed sight since.
The few times Neville had been able to sneak away to meet, they could barely spend an hour together, kissing mostly, before the old crone would send her equally decrepit house elf behind them to summon the Longbottom scion back home.
It was frustrating and exhausting and he could see the strain that it was putting on his usually easy going lover. But Neville had just reassured him, with more kisses of course, that he had it handled and asked Draco to trust him. Though highly skeptical, Draco felt that he owed the other man that trust so he kept mum and left it alone. Neville deserved that much.
So he did what he could to show how much he loved the other man in the hurried moments they had with each other and bitched manfully to Blaise and Milli when he was feeling especially lonely and horny.
And on such a cold night as tonight, he was feeling especially lonely and horny.
He set his giant clawfoot bathtub to fill as he huffed, dropping a Vanilla Velvet bath bomb into the steaming water and inhaling the comforting scent with a pleased hum. The hot water was wonderful, the heat seeping into his muscles as he relaxed into the bath.
As tired as he was, his mind felt wired; thoughts still racing even as his body loosened and went lax. The investigation was gearing up to be a big one. There were only five murders known so far, spanning months. Almost a year from the first murder if it truly was the first. They were still going through the archives to see if any other cases met the strange criteria.
The fifth case, the delivery guy, had happened a couple of weeks before the whole Line Theft debacle and the epic clusterfuck with Unspeakable Crow had come right after that. Then came his trip to Europe, the tragedy of Elfriede Shwetz and the recovery of the Spartak Valentyn Ruby.
Another month of healing fully from M.E.S.S. and they’d finally been ready to return. Not exactly willing but sadly, real life had come knocking and both men had responsibilities to return to. Neville back to Longbottom Estate and his Lordship duties and Draco back to Scotland Yard and his Lab.
And he was glad to be back in London, all things considered. Back to work.
As much as he’d loved romping around Europe with Neville, eating drinking and fucking on every available private surface and even some semi-private ones, he felt a deep sense of satisfaction being back in the lab… his lab. Back to pure science and the clinical world of forensic analysis.
He may have been a pureblood Slytherin through and through like his father and father’s father before him but when it came to muggle sciences and the world that they’d opened up to him under his godfather’s mentorship, he all but channeled bone deep Ravenclaw.
His offices at New Scotland Yard had not changed much in his absence, still clean lines, glass partitions and well maintained equipment. Still focused and busy techs and admin buzzing around. Fortunately, the brass had seen to reward him for his valuable work in the Hibbert Line Theft Case he’d consulted on with Millicent and had even thrown in some compensation for his injury on duty in the aftermath.
His lab, one of the three at the Yard, now sported a brand new custom ventilation network, a project worth more than a half a million pounds for which he’d been lobbying over two years. Now he just had to keep hounding the higher ups for the rest of the arm length list of sweet technology he wanted to procure.
He was the youngest Chief Forensic Analyst and Department Head of the three Lab Leads, working his way up from Junior Lab Tech over the period of eight years through hard work and the constant pursuit of higher education.
Fresh out of muggle college through early graduation, he’d still been running on sheer spite and wrath from his magical exile from Wizarding Britain. Even with Uncles Severus’ magical inheritance of the Ancient and Noble Prince name and corresponding magical legacy – a total fuck you and middle finger to the ministry from his favourite person – he’d still been beyond driven to building a new, better life from the ruins of his old one.
Becoming Draco Prince, leaving the Malfoy name and everything that came with it behind, had been a real trial by fire. His journey had been filled with loss, pain and bitter regret. The final battle of Hogwarts, the fall of Voldemort, the loss of most of his old Slytherin friends, the deaths of his parents, the farce of his trial and his subsequent magical exile. Especially the public stripping of his magic in the Wizengamot and the final snapping of his wand.
They were all wounds that still that still cut deep.
Even inheriting the breadth and power of the Ancient and Noble House of Prince, putting him fully outside of the Ministry of Magic’s greedy jurisdiction, had not been enough the heal the jagged wounds to his magical core and psyche.
There were still parts of him that were slowly being healed, aided by the love and care of his friends and family. Blaise, the platonic love of his life and best friend, and her mother, Lady Viviana. Millicent, his other best friend; his favourite cousin Luna and his French mentor, Sylviane, the Lightning Magus. Terry Boot, the Cruz Twins and the rest of the old Hogwarts crowd at Club Rasputin.
They all had become his anchors when he’d felt most adrift… most alone. They’d pulled him out of the darkness and devastation, holding him steady when it seemed like everything he’d ever known had abandoned him and left him unsteady. His life, his family, his very magic, his roots in the ancient bedrock of magical Britain… he’d lost it all.
Everything that had made him a person… a wizard… a Malfoy. It had all been stripped from him in a public spectacle. Just for the shallow entertainment of stupid, weak people who’d done nothing during the war but hide away and wait for Potter to blunder his way into a victory.
The ‘bad guys’ were tried then thrown into Azkaban for the kiss while Potter and his coterie were lauded saviors then thrown right into the system that chewed up heroes like him and spat out their bones. And so, the same crucible that had shaped Tom Riddle would eventually create another dark lord or lady in a decade or two and they would find themselves right back at square one.
By the time he’d recovered from the Prince inheritance ritual and found his footing as Draconis Lucian Prince, he’d been beyond fed up with wizarding Britain as a whole. Funny how the flaws of a system aren’t that much of a bother until they start working against your favour.
He’d long been aware of the politics, the back biting, the ass kissing, the prejudice, et al, as a Pureblood Scion. All Pureblood scions worth their salt learned the rules and rituals and traditions from a young age in order to know just how to bend them to personal will and family fortune. They found every loophole and took every advantage to stay ahead of their half blood and muggle born counterparts and felt it their due… their birthright.
Having that view shattered so violently and ground to dust around had been as devastating as having his wand snapped and it had taken a long time for him to come to terms with the new reality he had to make a new life in. Thankfully, he wasn’t as ignorant to the muggle world as others had assumed.
Through Uncle Severus, he’d already been doing Uni level courses in Chemistry and Biology even while perusing his OWLS. That had made getting his masters in college easier than he’d feared. Even now he was still in pursuit of a doctorate that he hoped to defend before he turned thirty.
Draco Malfoy had always had big plans for his life and Draco Prince was no different in that regard. Only the goals had changed.
Relaxed and fresh from the bath, he slipped on a long fluffy robe and wrapped it snug around him, burying his nose in the soft collar. It smelled like Neville and pooled around Draco’s feet as he padded barefoot toward the king bed.
They’d gotten it in Milan and Draco had ordered a stylized lion monogram on the chest in gold thread which gleamed warm and golden against the plush cream. It was the same pattern that the other man had tattoos on his arm and it warmed under his fingertips as he brushed the pattern gently.
Merlin, he missed his lover. Too bad cell phones didn’t reach Longbottom manor proper. Even Neville’s cabin needed a land line and answering machine for calls. He couldn’t even hear his lover’s voice to carry him through the night.
Damn the old woman for keeping them apart. She should just do them all a favour and drop dead already. Then the wretched vulture could eat her face in revenge. It had certainly earned it. The gin soaked spineless uncle could follow and leave Neville in free to take over as Lord and live in peace.
Uncharitable, yes. But Draco never claimed to be a bleeding heart. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to confess his thoughts to his lover. Augusta may have been a bitter, cast iron hag with dust in her veins but she was still Nev’s family and all purebloods knew that Family meant something different than it did to everyone else.
Guess there was nothing too it. They’d just have to wait the old bitch out.
He grabbed for his own phone and thumbed through his messages, playing and replaying the few voicemails they’d exchanged recently, smiling as Neville’s warm voice chatted and laughed about whatever nonsense they’d been discussing that day. Eventually he fell asleep with his lover’s scent in his nose, feeling warm and comforted.
And awoke with a jerk. There were heavy arms pinning him down and came up, dagger in hand before his eyes were completely open.
“Whoa hey. It’s me.” a deep voice rasped, a firm hand gripping his wrist as he fought. “Dray…Draco. It’s me, it’s Neville.”
“Shit, Nev?” Draco blinked stupidly, his heart racing as woke fully. “What the fuck Longbottom! Are you insane? I could have killed you, you utter arsehole.”
The hand holding the dagger relaxed but Neville didn’t let go.
“Shit, sorry. You were sleeping so peacefully and I just missed you so much.”
Draco exhaled heavily, anger overtaking confusion rapidly. “Merlin’s wrinkled nut sack, you berk. You know to wake me first.”
Neville looked suitably chastised. He also looked beyond exhausted.
“Sorry, love. I was just so tired and I missed you so much and…”
The anger bled away just as fast. The dagger dropped to the bed and a hand came up to cup Neville’s face. “What’s that old bitch done to you?
“Don’t… ” Neville shook his head with a mirthless chuckle. “… just please don’t ask.”
Something in his voice made Draco go still. He nodded silently, carefully returned the dagger under his pillow and pulled his lover into his arms without another word. Neville was solid in his arms, going almost boneless as Draco dragged dull fingernails along his scalp.
“I gave them a sleep draught.” came a hoarse whisper in the quiet of the night. “Slipped into their after dinner drink. I needed to get away. I can’t believe I potioned…”
Draco shushed him softly, rubbing a steady hand down his broad back as he shook. Neville didn’t have to explain. Never to him. There were places that only family could push you too. Actions they could drive you too. The Malfoys had their own, unique set of issues. Things… secrets… traditions… habits… that only those bound by blood and magic and pureblood philosophy could even begin to understand.
Tattooed arms tightened around his waist almost painfully and Draco grunted but didn’t protest. He pressed a kiss against the crown of his lover’s head, running his pale fingers through the thick head of brunette hair. He didn’t speak. There were no words that Neville wanted to hear right now. No excuses or platitudes or even absolution. He just needed Draco in his arms, warm and firm and real against him.
They lay like that for a while, Draco watching the night sky through the high windows; the faint sounds of the city coming through over the midnight matinee playing in the old cinema downstairs.
They never bothered him anymore, being mostly black and white classics that the manager liked to show over and over. Sometimes he even mouthed the words along with them if he was up late working or brewing. It was background noise at this point, easy enough to ignore.
“I have to be back by sunrise. That’s when Bopsy wakes.”
“Ok. We’ll have you back by five.”
Neville hummed into Draco’s chest then rubbed his face against the fluffy robe. “I really like seeing you in my clothes. You should definitely do that more often.
“I will if you dress better.”
Neville huffed a laugh. “Fine. You can take me shopping. You’ve been dropping not so subtle hints long enough.”
Draco grinned. “You’re lucky, I was just about to sicc Blaise on you. She loves shopping more than me… if that’s at all possible. You’d look great in Armani, Dearest.”
“Goddess, maybe I’ll just ask Milli instead. She seems like a no-nonsense shopper.”
“You’d think…” Draco barked a laugh. “She’ll have you making five trips just to compare prices before you even buy a stitch.”
“Merlin.” his lover raised his head to meet his eyes.
The blond grinned at his expression. “Exactly.”
A slow smile eventually spread across the brunet’s face and something in Draco relaxed fully. That was a true smile. Good. Neville leaned in for a kiss that turned into two which turned into hands sneaking into Draco’s robe.
The blond moaned as calloused fingers pinched his pebbling nipple.
“Since you’re here… we can make a night of it.”
“Are you sure? I know you love your beauty sleep.”
“I’m pretty enough that one night won’t make a difference.”
“What about work. Don’t you have an early morning meeting?”
“That’s what pepper up is for.”
“If you really….”
“Oh, shut up and kiss me Longbottom.” He pulled at the robe tie, letting it fall open. “Besides, I’m already naked under here.”
Neville banished his own clothes so quickly that he ended up ripping them apart.
Draco stared at his naked lover, fisting his cock. “That’s so fucking hot.”
Neville prepped him with a spell then tossed his wand aside and pounced. It burned because it had been a while but Draco loved it and wanted more. He loved the stretch of his lover’s thick cock and the drag on his insides as they fucked hard and fast.
Neville fucked like the rent was due by midnight, hooking one of Draco’s legs over his arm and changing the angle of his thrusts. The blond could only cry out and hold tight to his lover’s sweaty, tattooed back and shoulders; nails scraping dully, leaving faint red welts across tanned skin.
Goddess. It was so fucking good.
They came soon after… it was just too hot, too fast, too intense for anything longer. His eyes rolled back in his head, breath gasping out as he shook. Neville lasted a few thrusts longer, burying his face into Draco’s shoulder as he spilled deep inside him
“Oh fuck…” Neville groaned. “Fucking marry me.”
Draco stilled for a few seconds as his brain finally registered the words he’d just heard. He barked a disbelieving laugh. “Are you… are you fucking joking? That’s how you fucking propose?”
“the brunet’s eyes went wide and terrified. “Shit. No wait. I didn’t mean..”
Draco kept laughing. “So you don’t want to marry me?”
“Of course I do.” the other man sputtered stupidly. ” I had it all planned out. I really did…”
The blond ran a shaky had down his damp face. “I am so telling Blaise that this is how you proposed to me. I would show her this exact moment with a pensieve but I swore never to share our sex life with her.”
Neville groaned and let his forehead fall to Draco’s shoulder. “Please don’t. of fuck. She’d kill me dead then have her mom bring me back to life with necromancy just to walk you down the aisle.”
Draco started laughing again, only to yelp when Neville kissed him quiet and began fucking him once more.
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Nice update!