Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Lucifer. They belong to J.K. Rowling and Fox and now Netflix.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

Hearing his alarm, Draco slowly began to gain consciousness. A groan escaped his lips as he struggled to peel open his heavy eyelids. He blindly felt around his room, searching for the origin of the offending noise that was growing louder and more irritating by the second. After he had finally shut off his alarm and gotten himself out of bed, Draco stumbled into the washroom that was attached to the one bedroom in his apartment.

Given that he was a wizard. Draco's morning routine was not very long. He did some quick spells on his hair that his mother had taught him at quite an early age, brushed his teeth and washed his face. Getting dressed didn't take much time either, for he always wore a dark suit with a white shirt. It was what his parents had started making him wear at a certain age. The told him it was because he represented their family and that he must act accordingly, including when it came to choosing clothing. The long sleeves were also good for covering the mark that was very slow to fade.

The mark was supposed to fade like it had after the first wizarding war, but , it hadn't. It had remained, an ugly scar that sat on Draco's arm, reminding him every minute of every day of all of the pain that came from people deciding to take that mark.

He trudged into his kitchen and flicked his wand, setting water to boil for tea. Draco had always needed the caffeine to function in the mornings. Again, he flicked his wand, this time to prepare cereal.

Just as Draco was settling down to drink his tea, eat his cereal and read a daily prophet that had been delivered earlier that morning, there was a tapping noise at the window. Draco looked up and saw an owl sitting on the ledge outside of his apartment.

Recognizing the owl, Draco cursed under his breath. Shaking his head, he walked over to the window to let the owl in. "Seriously? All of this bluster about the statute of secrecy and they're sending out owls to Los Angeles in the middle of broad daylight. Hypocrites, the lot of 'em."

As soon as Draco opened the window, the bird hopped into the room. It stuck out its leg to Draco and looked at him expectantly. With the way the bird's face was shaped, Draco found himself being reminded of Professor Mcgonagall's stern expression. Draco sighed and reluctantly removed the parchment from the owl's leg. He unfurled the letter and sat down in the black arm chair to read.

Dr. Mr. Malfoy,

We regret to inform you that Ms. Granger will no longer be involved in your case as she is now pursuing more pressing matters. We have assigned another auror to your case, and they will be meeting with you this afternoon. He will meet you at the pre decided time.

If you have any problems with this assignment, you may contact-

Draco laughed and crumpled up the letter. "If I have any problems-" He scoffed. "As if they would actually listen if I did." He paused. "It is odd that they didn't tell me who would be replacing Granger. I guess they just thought I was on a need to know basis."

He threw the letter in the rubbish bin and checked his watch. "Damn, I need to get to get a move on." He scarfed down the rest of his breakfast, grumbling the whole time about how the ministry wouldn't even let him have a relaxing breakfast. When he finished eating his cereal, he quickly put on his shoes and coat. Taking one last longing look at his unread Daily Prophet, Draco hurried out the door to work.

—-

Chloe was standing at her desk looking at a file with a look of intense concentration. Her eyebrows were furrowed as she studied the crime scene photos from Henry Vernon's murder.

"Chloe, hey!" Dan said, running up to his ex wife. "I have those files on the preschool faculty you asked me for" He offered her a coffee. "They seem like a pretty clean bunch, but it doesn't hurt to be thorough. You never know who could be hiding something."

"Exactly, Espinoza!" Pierce commented gruffly as he walked by. He patted Dan on the shoulder, almost causing the coffee to spill, and kept walking to his office.

Once Pierce was gone, Chloe turned to Dan with a look of exasperation. "Why does he compliment every little thing you do?" She took the offered coffee and files from Dan and set them down on the one clear spot on her desk.

"I don't Chloe. Maybe he's just an upbeat guy. Or maybe he just likes me." Dan suggested.

Chloe frowned. "Maybe." She redirected her gaze towards the gory photos strewn about her cluttered desk. "Hey, Dan, would you mind taking a look at these photos for a second?"

"Yeah, sure." He moved closer to her and slowly looked at each one of the photos and then glanced at the file that they had come from. "These are all from the Henry Vernon homicide?" Chloe nodded and Dan turned back to the pictures on the desk and looked them over once again. He winced. "Wow, I do not envy this guy . . . What am I supposed to be looking for?"

Chloe took a sip of her coffee and winced slightly when the hot drink burned her tongue. "I want you to tell me what you would think the possible motive would be based on the crime scene."

Dan hummed, deep in thought. After a minute or two, he spoke. "Based off just the crime scene? I'd say, definitely premeditated, most likely the killer knew the victim. I guess, general motive would be revenge of some sort. Unless the person was trying to make an example of the victim, it's most likely a personal feud. I mean no one would that much effort in for something impersonal. I guess you could also have a potential serial killer and this is just his first kill, but I doubt it."

Chloe nodded. "That's what's bothering me about this case. So far it looks like the most likely motive would be jealous or greed, but they don't seem like the right kind of motives for this M.O. I'm still looking at his coworkers but I don't think I'm going to find anything because it just doesn't feel like there's anything to find."

"I think you're right to still check them out, but you should trust your instincts. Maybe this Henry Vernon guy wasn't as clean as everyone keeps saying he was; maybe he messed with the wrong person." Dan reached down and began to thumb through the rest of Henry Vernon's case file. "This guy doesn't seem to have any priors or anything unless you count speeding tickets, but not everything a person does gets reported so that doesn't really tell us anything." He put his hand on Chloe's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll figure it out Chloe, you always do. I've got to go, but let me know if you want me to look at anything else."

Chloe smiled. "Ok, thanks. See you later, Dan." She watched him walk away, and then suddenly remembered something. "Oh, wait, Dan! Can you pick up Trixie this afternoon?"

Dan nodded and gave a thumbs up, and walked back to his desk which like Chloe's was covered in files, paperwork and coffee mugs.

As Dan left, Draco walked up to Chloe. "Good morning." He looked down at her cluttered desk. "Wow, when did you get here this morning? It looks like you've been doing a lot of work."

Chloe laughed. "I've only been here an hour, but I was just thinking a lot about the case last night. I'm also just a mess right now."

Draco gave a small smile and looked back down at the desk. "Are these the files on the rest of the faculty at the preschool?" he said, looking down at the stack that Dan had just delivered. "They look awfully thin; I guess nursery school teachers don't make a habit of getting arrested."

"Yeah, I guess not." Chloe looked at her watch and then at the entrance of the precinct. "Hey, Draco, do you mind helping me begin to look these over? Lucifer will probably be here in a couple minutes, but he's not really a fan of looking at files unless they are very colourful. He claims it's 'boring'"

"Sure, yeah." Draco picked up a file and began looking it over while Chloe did the same.

It only took the pair of detectives ten minutes to look through all the files. There were a few disorderly conducts, one DUI and a lot of speeding tickets, but nothing that screamed violent criminal. There was one of them who had a restraining order filed against them but nothing ever came of it and so both detectives weren't sure if it actually meant that person were likely to commit murder, especially the one like the one that they were investigating.

Just as the two detectives finished looking through the files, Lucifer strode into the precinct. Upon seeing the files, he sighed loudly. "If the plan for today is just looking at files of mild mannered teachers, I think I'll be finding something more exciting to do with my time as not much consulting is needed to look at some old speeding tickets."

Chloe rolled her eyes and sighed at her civilian consultant. "Well, Lucifer, lucky for you we've already done the work that you hate so much. We actually need you today, so you're not going anywhere. I want to go talk to some other people who knew Henry Vernon today. If we're actually going get anywhere with people, we'll need your special . . . charisma."

—-

They went around to several people who had been found to have connections with Henry Vernon, but none of them had anything to say that was actually helpful, even with Lucifer's special talents. When Draco, Lucifer, and Chloe got back to the precinct at around eleven, Draco and Chloe were both fairly put out, but Lucifer was beaming as always.

Draco sighed. "Well that was a complete waste of time." He ran his fingers through his carefully styled hair, messing it up in his frustration.

Lucifer stroked his chin. "He definitely sounds much too boring and saintly to be murdered." His face suddenly lit up. "Maybe, maybe, someone took offense at the fact that Mr. Vernon was so boring that they murdered him to make him more interesting."

Chloe shot her partner a look. "Lucifer, we kind of are at a dead end in this case, so if you could only make serious suggestions that would be appreciated."

"I was making a serious suggestion. Some people who are interesting" he looked pointedly at the detective "value being interesting so much that they might murder to get rid of a source of boredom."

Chloe sighed and shook her head. "Lucifer, even for you, that idea is beyond ridiculous."

Just then Ella ran up to the group. "Hey guys, the results for that sedative in the Henry Vernon case came back if you want to see them. I found the ingredients for the sedative and got some information about how someone would go about making it."

Chloe smiled. "That's great to hear, Ella. We've kind of hit a wall with this case and this might be the break we need to get the case back on track. If we can figure out when someone would have bought all the ingredients and who would know how to make it, we can get a lead about who could have done this."

Ella winced. "Yeah . . . that might be a problem."

Draco looked at her sharply. "Why would that be a problem? Didn't the results come in? You said you knew the ingredients."

Ella nodded. "Yeah, but the problem is that this sedative takes a long time to make, the person would have had to make this a while in advance, so there's no way to track who would have bought it because they could have bought it anytime."

Draco frowned. "So it was either very premeditated or the person just happened to have a homegrown sedative, so either way we're looking for someone who would have thought to make their own sedative and would know how."

Lucifer scoffed. "That's basically all of Los Angeles. Knowing how to make a sedative comes in handy when your doctor cuts you off."

Draco looked at Lucifer with wide eyes, but Chloe just sighed once again. Suddenly, Chloe's face changed. "Hey, Ella. Can you check something for me? I think I have an idea about who we might be looking for."

AN: Hey, guys, I just wanted to say thanks for sticking with this story even when I haven't updated in a long time. I've been struggling a lot with my mental health and it has been hard to write. All of your feedback and support really means a lot to me and makes my day, so thank you so much to everyone who favorited, followed, and gave Kudos. I'm sorry it took so long to post and that the chapter is so short.