Chapter 2a
Roughly ten minutes later of walking into the room, Deaq was holding the copy of the trem disk. Ron was still blinking at his former best-friend, and Draco was smiling. Hermione came out scowling. "You didn't have to shoot him." She complained.
"Sure, but what fun would that have been?" Dark blue eyes sparkled, edges of green slightly showing through.
Deaq shook his head. "I'm heading back over to CS." He turned to Van. "Remember what I said, complication is bad."
Draco raised an eyebrow at Van. "Anything you need to tell us?"
Van glared at Deaq for the hundredth time that week, then looked over to Draco. "Don't push it. Last time I saw you, you were following daddy's every command. So excuse me for being doubtful."
The blonde smirked. "That's fine, I'm just trying to process the fact that Golden Boy shot someone for the hell of it."
The sound of a phone ringing made Hermione frown, she hated cell phones. She reached into her jacket and pulled the purple cell phone out. "Hello?" The answer on the other line must not have been very good because a very deadly look came into her eyes. They always do say to watch out for the quiet ones. She shook her head while she listened to whoever was on the phone, while she walked out dragging Ron with her.
All in all this left Draco and Van in the same room together. Both stood quiet for a few moments. Draco broke the silence while addressing the dark haired man. "Hate to break it to you Potter, but you got blood on your shirt. You must have been standing to close."
Van looked to where Draco was looking. Sure enough specks of blood were strewn all over his white shirt. "Let's get this strait, if you're going to be calling me by my surname, its Ray. Not Potter, my name is Van Ray. Get it right, and I'm going back to my place to get changed. I'll catch you later."
Walking out to the parking lot, Van remembered Deaq had gone to see Billie. "Need a ride?" Draco stood behind him, the keys to his car dangling in his hands.
The raven haired man sighed, he didn't want to, but blood on a white colored shirt tends to stick out like a sore thumb. "Sure, but I'm driving." Draco shrugged his shoulders as he tossed the keys to Van. "Ok, let's go."
Pulling up to a complex Van stood out of the car. Draco did the following, and barely caught his keys as Van threw them to him.
"You can stay down here, or come on up. It makes no difference to me." Opening the door to the lobby of the building, Van headed toward the elevator, after a few seconds the blonde had followed. They were both silent on the way up to the 7th floor, where Van's apartment was.
The elevator ride up was a silent one. Neither of the men looked in the other's direction. Van stood there leaning on the side, with his hands in the side of his pockets. Every couple of seconds he'd look in every direction that Draco wasn't in. The blond just stood there, arms crossed over his chest, and eyes closed.
After a few dinging sounds the elevator stopped and opened. Van sighed stepping into the hallway where his apartment was located. He was tired of living in the hotel, and wanted a place of his own. A place where he didn't have to worry about the workers and maids finding out something they shouldn't. He sighed as he walked, Draco on his heels.
Pulling out a set of keys he placed the correct one in the handle and stepped in. Leaving the door open he walked right to his room. Not bothering to check if Draco closed the door after himself.
Draco watched the raven haired man walk back to his room, gently he closed to door. In some corners of the room cardboard boxes were grouped together. The apartment itself looked quite barren of life. A living room set presented him, but not many pictures or anything else graced the shelves.
One was on the side table next to a lazy-boy chair. It had Van, Deaq and some woman he didn't recognize, two others stood beside it. A silver frame held a picture of what looked like a family. Draco pointed one of them out to be Deaq, and what looked like to be his family. Van stood to the far left, with a teenager leaning on him and showing a peace sign. Then there was a red and silver frame, with two adults and a baby. Two other men were also in the picture. He remembered one to be Professor Lupin, and one looked to be Sirus Black. He worked with him in the ministry. The elder man resembled the Harry he remembered. So, assumed the man to be James Potter, and the woman to be Lily Potter.
He wasn't sure how long he was looking at the pictures but he heard footsteps from behind. Turning around Draco wasn't sure if he could close his mouth. Van, still choosing to ignore Draco, threw a shirt on the couch. He was still partially wet, a towel in his hand. He was drying his hair off, but there were still drops of water showing on his very well defined upper body. At his waist the skin stopped, he had a pair of very form fitting jeans on.
The blonde turned away. Before the object of his current ogling caught him doing just that. And no matter what bad blood was in his families, good or bad Malfoy's were all pride. Hearing the sound of cloth, he looked up again to see Van putting on the shirt. Not wanting to listen to the silence anymore, he broke it. "Where are we going after here?"
The raven haired man looked over in Draco's direction for the first time since entering the complex. "I called Hermione before I got into the shower. She and Ron are at a contacts place. She asked for me to wait for her here. Once she's done I guess we'll all head out based on what information she gets. We may have the trem disk, but . . ."
"More loose ties to string together?"
Van half shrugged. "Yeah, something like that." He then sat on the couch and folded up the towel. Placing it on the coffee table he leaned back onto the plush white couch. "We may not be friends Malfoy but you can sit."
Draco nodded and went to sit in the chair he was standing next to. After a few moments of looking at the floor he muttered out something so quiet that Van didn't catch it.
"Say that again?"
The man on the chair sighed. "I said call me Draco." At the confused look of the other man, he rolled his eyes. "Look, I don't like being called by my surname. Too many references to my father. It's not that grand having a Death Eater of a father when you're an Auror."
Not that got Van's attention. "Please, say that again? I think I took to many blows to head over my lifetime."
Draco almost laughed. Almost. So instead he just smirked. "I said I was an Auror. Try paying attention Potte . . .Ray."
"I was, just making sure I heard right. And if you want me to call you Draco so bad, try calling me Van."
"No."
Van raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"If I'm going to be calling your first name, I'll be calling you Harry."
The former wizard glared. "Look, I'm not him anymore. My name IS Van."
"I doubt you were named after one of those muggle vehicles."
"First of all, it's a nickname. Full name is Donavan. Repeat it, and die." Draco just smirked.
Getting bored out of his mind Van picked up the remote and turned on his television. Flipping through the channels he sighed. There was never anything good on in the middle of the day. And lately things have been getting weird. If only for the fact Deaq found out his and Billie secret.
That still took used to getting to. It was an odd relationship. When they were at work, she was the boss and he was the lesser of the two. And . . . well come to think of it she usually stayed the boss anyway. But when they were together they were on equal grounds. Most of the time anyway.
She could be a little less rough however; he has bruises in places he didn't even know about. That thought alone brought a blush to his face. And she loved to bust on him more then she could. Getting him where it hurt, as if that'll ever change.
He couldn't figure out what had caused them to get together. More or less on the level they were on at the moment. It was hard, without the fact she was his CO. Not to mention the members of the CS had a pencil-dick IA on their case every damn minute of the day.
He supposed it was just one of those things that happened. How odd or weird it may seem. And even after Deaq knew of this he still busted his chops about his previous ways. Billie only encouraged him.
He kept pondering to himself for a while before a ringing sound brought him out of his revere. With a frown on his face he picked up the phone. Draco looked up at the noise. An annoyed look on his face, Van guessed he didn't like phones all to well.
"What?" He droned into the telephone. He was too tired to greet anyone in his usual way.
"Is that how people are supposed to answer the phone?" A sarcastic voice replied from the other line. Van's eyes went slightly bigger and he sat up strait. A nervous laugh emitted from his mouth.
"Eep." Was the small muffled reply, a laugh resounded from the other end. "What's . . . what can I do for you?" Clearing his throat he walked up and into the small kitchen.
"Oh, that was such a manly little squeak coming from there you knows." The tone of voice Billie used showed she was amused. Then again she was usually always amused by something he did lately. She was getting a tad bit soft, but only when he was involved, of course she would never admit it.
"Why must you irritate me?"
"Oh, no particular reason, listen, your partner should be heading back over to where you are. We have Jason, the one who gave you information, in lock down. He's not going to be talking to any sort of lawyer for a while. So there's no complication in that department."
Van started to look serious for a moment. He sighed as he walked back into the living-room; Draco was reading one of the few books that were in his possession. He frowned as he sat down and scratched his head. "So what do we do now? We still need to get a hold of the dealer. Whatever they're cutting with the drugs, it's having some serious side effects."
He heard Billie sigh on the other line. "Yeah I know, Deaq said that he had found a source from one of the people in Eric's inside group. He'll give you the details when you get there. That's it for now. The little dick is messing around again. I still wonder how he got into being with Internal Affairs. He would have made a better lawyer."
Van gave a small laugh. She hated lawyers. "All right, guess I'll wait for Deaq to get here. Hopefully it's not a plan you came up with. Bye." He hung up before he could hear the wrath of his CO.
Draco looked up with an eyebrow raised. "I take it that 'Mione and the weasel came up with something?"
Van looked over to him. "Alright, you call Hermione by her nickname but you still call Ron weasel?"
The blonde frowned. "Well?"
"No, that would have been my boss. I have a pretty good idea that either she or Ron talked to my partner. There's some kind of plan in the making, and he should be on his way over in a couple of minutes."
"I guess so. I'm just glad that I don't have to think of everything this time around. Having her around helps a lot this time around, I'm usually the one stuck with the scheming."
"What do you mean?" Van leaned forward, resting his elbows right above his knees.
"I'm not with the two of them by chance, Potter. Weasel is my partner, and no it's just habit that I call him that. The two of us aren't on bad grounds. It's all those years of bickering kind of stuck. We needed help this time around. Professor Dumbledore thought of getting more then one teacher for each subject, it's less work for the professors there, and fewer students in a class to cause trouble. Hermione is now Professor Granger. She teaches the 1st years through the 4th years, while Professor Snape teachers 5th through 7th, along with the newt levels.
She's on top of her game, and we needed someone with a good background and someone we could trust to help."
"You mentioned a wizard giving potion ingredients, why would they?"
"We haven't figured it out. Money I suppose, you can always get muggle money converted into wizarding money. They're using some very illegal and very rare ingredients at that."
Van pinched his nose, so much for never getting into wizarding business again. "There's got to be something more to this, there has to be." He looked up to Draco, who had looked down back to the book. "What aren't you telling me?"