Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in. Thanks so much for reading, hope you enjoy this latest chapter.
Information Gathered
Louis was not used to men not backing down when he was pissed at them. Normally rational men knew better than to egg him on, either attempting to placate him or walking away because they weren't willing to pay the consequences of turning the fight physical. No that he was physically opposing or anything, but anyone with half a brain knew that if you messed with one member of his family you made an enemy of all of them. It was the only reason Scorpius Malfoy hadn't ever tried to blow him up.
But Rorake Goyle was not behaving appropriately and Louis started for the Slytherin with blood in his eyes. He'd show the prat what else, Louis thought with very dark intent.
"Don't you yell at Rory!" Joel ordered, foolishly putting himself between the Gryffindor and his prey. "I won't let you."
"You won't let me?" Louis repeated, looking at the Ravenclaw like he was an ugly stain on his clothes. "You and what army is going to stop me? I'll talk to him however I want and there's nothing you can do about it, you silly twit."
The Ravenclaw glared back. "I won't let you hurt my Rory."
"If he's your Rory then why am I the one that had breakfast with him this morning?" Louis shot back, his words a direct hit.
Bursting into tears Joel whirled around to stare at the Slytherin with shattered eyes. "You had breakfast with him this morning? He stayed over? YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH HIM?"
Rorake very briefly considered correcting the Ravenclaw, but he'd been trying to convince the other man for a very long time that he would never, even after massive head trauma, ever be interested in dating him. Not that this would keep Joel away for long, it was only a matter of time before the Ravenclaw figured out he and Weasley weren't seeing each other, but until then he could have a nice break from the drama queen.
"One doesn't sleep when one is in bed with Louis Weasley." Was Rorake's reply to the Raveclaw's screeched question. Because they were probably too busy wondering what the hell they'd gotten themselves into once the sexual haze dimmed, the Slytherin silently added with a small smile.
To everyone's entertainment the other man angrily stomped his foot, cursed Rorake out a little, and than apparated from sight without a single word of good bye.
"Hah. I win." Louis announced, looking quite pleased with himself.
"It was one for the books." Albus agreed, toasting his cousin with his empty bottle.
"It was." Louis agreed as he walked over to see about getting himself a few pretzels. "That will teach that stupid prat to think he can take me on or…OH SHIT! DAMMIT! Now I have to date the stupid SLTYTHERIN!"
Scorpius watched the blonde throw another tantrum with detached interest, not even bothering to try and figure out Weasley's messed up thought process. "Exactly which Slytherin are you referring to?" He asked when the Gryffindor stopped his cursing to catch his breath. "He'd have to be pretty inbred to want to date you, Weasley."
Ignoring Scorpius Louis headed straight for Rorake, crouching down so that he could point a threatening finger right between the Slytherin's eyes. "You and I are now dating. Then I am dumping you. Capice?"
"Nope. Not following you at all. I am not dating you."
"Yes. You. Are."
"This is not going to end well." Albus commented to his partner while they watched Louis try to fight with Rorake, which wasn't going so well since the Slytherin wasn't really participating, having already made his position clear and seeing no point in wasting his breath.
"You can say that again."
"This is not going to end well."
"Smartass."
)
Albus walked down the hallway, taking everything in casually but carefully just in case. He was on his way to see Santana after all. Unfortunately. Which especially peeved him off because he would have rather stayed at Rory's and watched his cousin try and talk Rory into pretending to date him for a while just so that the Slytherin's Ravenclaw stalker wouldn't think that Rory had dumped him. Louis's thought processes were always entertaining, and here he was stuck going on a date with the assehole Spaniard again.
Coming up to the right door Albus blinked in surprise when the door opened before he could reach out to knock, a woman in a maid uniform stepping out so that they almost collided. "Oh, excuse me."
"Sorry, Mr. Potter." The maid blushed at him, Albus's resemblance to his father identifying him for her.
"No problem. He's in?" Albus asked, nodding in the direction of the still open door. "He's expecting me."
The maid looked towards the room and then back at the Auror. "Oh, uhm…he was in the shower when I came to drop off his dry cleaning. I left it for him on his bed. I'm sure you could go in, Mr. Potter, since he's expecting you. That way you won't have to wait out here for him."
Albus was pretty sure that had to be against the hotel's policy, especially without the Spaniard's permission, but he wasn't going to argue with her. It would give him a chance to catch the other man off guard for once.
So he took her up on it and let himself into the hotel room, closing the door very quietly behind him. Wandering through the main room the Gryffindor knew better than to rifle around or start opening drawers, but it was tempting.
He'd only been in for a minute when he sensed the man coming. Turning his head Albus watched the Spaniard come into the room from the bathroom, wearing only a towel and with a wand pointed and ready.
"Hi. I let myself in when the maid passing by said you were in the shower. I hope that's okay, I didn't want to drag you out before you were done." Santana struck him as the type to get a person fired for what the maid had done. Better he take the rap since the foreign Auror needed him still for something and therefore wouldn't call him on his presumptuous behavior.
"No problem." The other man assured him as he walked over, his wand now pointing towards the ground as he came forward to brush his lips over Albus's in an intimate gesture the man stupidly thought made him appealing. "I'm pleased you were so eager to see me."
Albus had to tell himself five times that he couldn't punch the guy before he was fairly sure he wouldn't do precisely that. Better to change the subject. "Nice tattoo. What's it say?"
On the Spaniard's chest, where the man's heart would be, was a tattoo of an unfamiliar coat of arms, a sword and a wand crossed, with a set of scales behind it. Underneath were words he didn't recognized, but assumed were Spanish.
Santana looked down and something flashed in the man's dark eyes before his face went back to charming. "Thank you. It's just my family coat of arms. Anyway, I'll be right back after I get dressed. We don't want to miss our reservation."
Watching the man hightail it out of the room Albus kept his face just as faintly interested until the Spaniard left the room after grabbing his dry cleaning off the bed. Then his green eyes glimmered with the knowledge that he'd just found out something the other man hadn't wanted him to know. In fact, at that moment the Gryffindor would have been willing to bet that every time he'd met up with the Spaniard previously that tattoo had magically been hidden somehow.
Santana had not wanted him to see it.
The man had been trying to get into his trousers from the day they'd met, Albus thought as he walked over to casually take a seat. But despite that Santana had all but run away when he was wearing nothing but a towel. No attempt at seduction, no flirtation, no inviting him into the shower either.
Yup, definitely something was up.
And the only thing he could think of was the tattoo.
Which meant that after he was done playing nice with Santana he was going to have to go visit his cousins, Albus decided as he relaxed, waiting for the other man to come back. He'd remove the memory of the tattoo from his mind, give it to Hugo or Rosie, and ask them to look into it for him.
Just one more reason to look forward to the end of the evening.
)
The next morning Albus arrived at work early to look through his department's library for more information about the possible meaning of the tattoo. Hugo had translated the words on the tattoo as meaning 'honor', 'loyalty', and 'justice', but his brainiac cousin hadn't recognized the coat of arms, and was going to look into it for him.
After a useless hour of research Albus gave up and headed for his office, ready for some good or at least entertaining news.
When Scorpius came into their office right on time Albus informed the man up front that no, he hadn't had a good time with Santana the night before, and then brought up what he did want to talk to the Slytherin about. "So, did Louis finally realize that Rory wouldn't give in and try to kill him? I'm assuming nothing too bad happened since I wasn't called to post bail, though he did send me an owl saying that he hoped I wasn't fond of Rory."
"He lost his voice."
"What?"
"Seriously. Your cousin yelled at Rory so much that he went hoarse and lost his voice." Scorpius was willing to admit that he'd been smiling since he'd left Rory's house the night before over that fact. "It was great. He was so pissed. And he was cursing, but no words were coming out, and he drew his wand like he was going to curse me for laughing, but then he realized I'd curse him right back so he just stomped his foot a couple times in frustration and marched out after wordless chewing Rory out some more. Oh, and he wrote in the air with his wand that we were both going to be sorry before he left."
"Damn, and I missed it." Though it was probably for the best since he would have found it funny too, Albus silently acknowledged. Louis would not have taken kindly to him laughing at his situation.
"So where did you go with Santana last night?"
He should have seen that coming, Albus thought with a small sigh. "The Nightingale."
Overpriced and overrated, Scorpius thought with satisfaction, and it completely ignored the Gryffindor's tastes too. His partner wasn't into fancy food, preferring quantity when it came to meals. Restaurants with all you could eat buffets were Albus's favorite places to eat. His too, come to that.
A knock at the door had Albus walking over to open it, his father coming in with a look on his face that said the visit wasn't a personal one.
Quickly the older man summarized for them the fact that yet another politician had been found dead, again with every appearance of having died a natural death. But since the man had only been forty it was suspicious, especially in light of McEntyre's recent death. Minister Shacklebolt had asked that they be assigned to handle it for that reason, since they were in charge of the other case.
"Let's go check out the scene then." Scorpius said as soon as their boss had finished explaining things to them. "How contaminated is the scene?"
"Fairly. The man's secretary found him this morning and apparently they were…involved. She didn't take the sight of him very well and disturbed the body quite a bit. Then the man's wife was called in from the department she works in and she and the secretary got into it in the room when the barely over twenty secretary refused to leave her darling Rufus."
"Oh that will be fun to deal with." Albus drawled out, getting a headache just thinking about it. Scorpius always left the hysterical women for him to deal with. And since his partner wasn't known for his tact or empathy Albus couldn't in good conscience protest.
Eager to get to his crime scene Scorpius gave his boss a questioning look. "Anything else we need to know before we head out?"
Harry shook his head. "Not that I know of, but keep me informed. If someone's out there is hunting politicians I want to know about it. Your Uncle Ron will freak once he hears." The older man added as he looked in his son's direction.
"Extra incentive." Albus nodded his head, acknowledging that he would put all his effort into solving this particular mystery.
"Good. I'll let you guys head out then." Harry walked back towards the door, holding it open for the other two to pass through. "Happy hunting." He told them as he closed the door firmly behind them.
The two nodded and headed out.
)
"Oh my head." Albus groaned two hours later, clutching his head with his hands like it might crack open if he didn't hold it. His head hadn't hurt this badly in so long that Albus was pretty sure that his headache might almost be up to competing with the headache his partner had gotten as a result of the goblin's now infamous drink. "How could she scream and cry like that for over an hour? It's just not humanly possible. She can't be human. There's just no way. There has to be some harpy in her somewhere."
"There, there, you'll live."
Out of narrow eyes Albus glared at his partner. "I remember being a lot more sympathetic when you were the one whimpering like a little girl over YOUR headache."
Lips twitching Scorpius opted to let the whimpering girl comment go since the man had been stuck interviewing the wife for almost an hour and the politician's mistress for nearly two while he worked the scene. He'd definitely got the better deal.
Continuing down the hallway in silence while Albus massaged his aching temples Scorpius's eyes happened to spot the open door that led into one of the waiting rooms reserved for the VIP visitors to the floor. A thought occurring to him the Slytherin's lips curved into a small, slightly wicked smile. Even luckier for him the Gryffindor wasn't paying enough attention to notice his smile or thoughts, Scorpius thought after a quick glance in the other man's direction.
As soon as they reached the open doorway Scorpius placed a hand on the small of the other man's back and steered the Gryffindor into the room, giving Albus a light shove so that he could close and lock the door behind them before his partner had time to react.
The suddenness of the other man's strange behavior had Albus momentarily forgetting about his headache, eyes now narrowing in curiosity and alertness, braced to listen and learn. "You figured something out? The two cases really are connected?"
Rather then answer Scorpius walked over to take a seat on one of the plush couches, crooking a finger in his partner's direction. Keeping his face impassive so that the Gryffindor wouldn't see what was coming Scorpius waited until the other man was within reaching distance and then tugged his startled partner into his lap.
Wrapping his arms around the Gryffindor Scorpius rubbed his cheek against the other man's hair. "I believe this was your cure for my headache, how's it helping yours?"
Lips curving Albus considered giving the man heck, but decided to let it go and play it the other way. Lying his head down on the other man's shoulder Albus closed his eyes and enjoyed the closeness as he asked Scorpius to summarize what he'd learn from the scene. Content to listen and enjoy the sound of the other man's voice Albus stored away the information given, mainly that once again they had very little to go on. The only link there was between the two cases was that both victims were politicians who'd appeared to be in good health right up until they were found dead in their offices. Something else they had in common, Albus silently amended.
"Any sign that the man was crooked too?" Albus murmured when his Slytherin went quiet.
Scorpius shook his head, enjoying the feel of the man's hair against his cheek. "No obvious signs in his datebooks or papers, but it would be pretty arrogant of the wanker to leave that kind of proof just lying around for someone to find. His home office will give us a better idea, your aunt as well. She'd at least be able to give us an accurate take on the man."
"Want to go see her before we head to his residence?"
Scorpius considered to two options and then shook his head. "Residence first, just in case the new widow decides to leave her sympathizers and head home to beat us to it. She might know where his secrets are hidden, and she's suffering enough embarrassment over the secretary right now. She's not going to want to add to it."
"She knew he was cheating though. She said she didn't, but you could see it in her eyes. Not the first time either." Albus murmured as his eyes drifted open again. "Married almost twenty years. Bastard."
"Couldn't have been easy, being married to a woman that sounds like a foghorn when she's crying."
Lifting his head Albus shifted so that they were staring into each other's eyes. "There's no excuse for cheating."
Looking into those fierce green eyes Scorpius chuckled as he lifted a hand to brush down the hairs that always stuck up at the back of his Gryffindor's head. "No need to lecture, Potter. You'll always be the only partner for me."
