"I don't think I've ever heard "Oh no" the morning after." Charlie's voice was sleepy as he wrapped an arm around my bare stomach, tugging me slightly to lay back down. That sure as shite wasn't happening and where in the fuck were my clothes? My gaze darted around the room, noting the empty bottle of whiskey on it's side and the clothes in individual piles around the bed.

"Well..." I was nearly hissing, trying not to disrupt the headache that left me with little to go on in terms of thought. I shivered slightly, feeling just how cold it actually was in here and slid down under the sheets slowly like I hadn't just refused to do so.

"Piper? Are you okay?" He sat up now, looking worried and mildly upset.

"Do I look okay to you? What happened?" I glared at him, ignoring the fact that my stupid mind found the frizzed red curls adorable with how sleepy he looked still.

"What do you mean 'do you look okay'-" I didn't know why he was upset, he'd gotten laid and now he could go brag about it to everyone he knew-since apparently the tamers 'round here did that.

Though, I was impressed he could match my level of angry hissing but he'd stopped, suddenly looking horrified. "You don't remember." His face turned a touch ashen after he'd whispered, and ran his fingers through his hair in some sort of nervous tick.

I almost smacked him with the wand in my hand but settled for actually hissing, "Obvious-" I paused, blinking a bit as a snippet of a memory ran through my head.

He frowned, looking at me with bright blue eyes that were glazed over. I glanced at his arms as he sat up, admiring the sheen of the burn he'd gotten earlier and maybe I stared at his biceps for a bit but its not my fault! He was propping himself up with his arms and he just looked sort of deli-

"Fine. Then you can't gro alone." Heh. His face was so red now and he couldn't even talk right. Look who can't hold his liquour now, Weasley.

He appeared to be out of sorts as he brought a hand up to clumsily run it through his frizzy hair. I giggled to myself as I considered that his face was officially as red as his hair, I wished I had a camera. Plenty of books and scrolls but no bloody camera, damn it, Piper.

"Whale, why not?" My head doesn't appear to want to stay up right anymore, it kept rolling back onto his stomach as he laid down fully with me. "Thats a stupid rule." Who knew the floor could be comfortable if you had a Weasley to lay on?

"Vampires are dangerous. What am I supposed to do if one decides to stick to you?" I frowned at the worry in his voice and looked up at him from my spot on his lap as he ran his fingers through the top of his hair. I'd pulled it loose from the little bun he'd had after the first hour out of mild fascination with how soft it looked...mildly disappointing. It was rough just like his hands.

"Why would you care?" I raised a brow, reaching blindly for the bottle of whiskey I'd left off to the side of us somewhere. I sat up after a few seconds of reaching around with nothing to show for it and spotted it next to Charlie.

"Because I think you're grand!" He snorted, apparently noticing my decision to crawl over to the whiskey and snatched the bottle away. "And how am I supposed to get a chance if you've got the prince of Darkness breathing over your shoulder or sinkin' his teeth into your neck?"

"How am I grand?" I huffed at him, only paying him half a mind. Damn it, I forgot he had way longer arms than me. Now, Piper, you need to plan your next move very carefully. I slid forwards slowly, hoping he didn't notice me until I felt like I could snatch it and catapulted myself forwards with a grin.

"Because," he gave me a toothy grin, holding it just out of my reach when I tried to grab it, "you don't all weird around me or try to measure out the dragon's arseholes like Pruwitt."

"Uh huh." I nodded at him, considering my next plan for a moment. Alright, so, it was harder than I thought it'd be to actually think right now. Well standing up could probably work, right? Yeah, I was way more sober than him right now, he'd be too slow. I attempted to force myself to stand but tipped over slightly to find myself falling with the amusing Muggle idiom I'd heard as a child, 'Houston we have a problem.'

"Merlin..." I blinked when the floor didn't smack my face. It took me a second to realise that not only had I been caught, but that Charlie was close enough for me to see each freckle on his tanned face all the way down to his lips. My fingers were suddenly tracing his jaw of their own accord, feeling the rough hairs prickling them.

"Whose Houston?" He raised a brow, watching me as I admired just how fucking attractive he was in the dim lighting of my bedroom.

"Piper?" I leaned in a little, noticing how still he'd become and that he smelled a little like I hadn't met a guy that I'd actually spoken too for more than an hour and actually liked in ages.

"Piper..." He said my name with a gravelly voice that enticed me when I leaned in a little to inhale his smell. "Whose Houston?" His head tilted with his eyes on mine when I glanced back up to peer at him. Was he doing it on purpose? Maybe he was actually married and unhappy which would explain why he'd bother coming here.

All the guys on these reserves were usually married and soon-to-be divorced, or just plain weird. The last one-wuzzis name, Oliver? No, that was the researcher guy, right? I shouldn't kiss him, it'd be a nightmare to deal with the possible backlash...but I wanted to so bad and he was right here. One couldn't hurt right?

"Piper..." He worriedly licked the cracks in his dry lips as I continued to stupidly blink at him, "I swear. I-I didn't know you were that battered." I found myself attempting to recall what it'd felt like to kiss them, but finally forced a shrug out as my response to his apologies.

"Rhys." I breathed the name to myself, the sudden realization smacked me in the face and left me utterly confused.

The bloke from the Welsh reservation, his name was Rhys and I had no idea how I'd forgotten that given our short weird little romantic tryst. Well the confusion was mainly from the realization that I might have actually slept with Charlie and that I didn't feel as bad about it as I should have. I felt almost...excited?

"What?" He furrowed his brow when I glanced back at him, allowing my gaze to travel down what I could see of his chest.

I appreciated the few bits of red hair that stuck out from the paleness of his scarred chest. In fact, I liked the small number of them more than I would have thought considering Rhys had been rather hairy.

Once I'd gotten over the bewilderment that I had actually taken a second to enjoy gawking at his chest, I was more focused on the stark contrast of the paleness of his pecs with the tan on his arms. It was sort of funny, really.

It was funny that I thought knowing the fact that his chest was pasty compared to his arms was something important about him in my current state of mind. Well...he didn't take his shirt off often then, at least not outdoors.

"Nothing." I shook my head once, "its..." I pursed my lips, "fine." I was attempting to process the emotional whiplash I was feeling right now...and that the room was slightly whirly. I checked my watch out of habit to find it was 9 am, I needed to go submit paperwork and start talking to locals for any 'sightings' or legends but Merlin, I didn't want to right now.

"No, Piper its not." He shook his head not accepting my attempt to quiet him. "I'm so sorry," he apologised with sincere despair in his eyes.

I stared at him with some annoyance building to find that his face was still looking a little pallid under the splattering of freckles and tanned skin. Funnily enough, I didn't get that familiar sense of regret that I usually did when I slept with someone with alcohol included. What was really terrifying for me to know was that I think I'd be fine with waking up to him even if there hadn't been some Whiskey. O' how the mighty hath fallen.

"Seriously." I sighed, deciding I could stay in bed for a few more hours as I flicked off my wand, leaving us in darkness once again. "It's really okay." I pulled the sheets up to my shoulders, attempting to save the warmth that they'd held a few minutes ago and slid my wand back under my pillow. "I don't mind waking up to you." I mumbled drowsily, feeling my eyes slowly shut.

"Um." Charlie sounded absolutely confused in the darkness, not moving a single centimeter after I'd covered myself again. "Are you sure?" Normally, I would have found it hilarious that the bloke, who was normally so confident, didn't know what to do for once. But, right I just wanted to sleep a little more. I was exhausted.

"For Merlin's sake, Charlie." I sighed, letting my hand above the sheets to search around until I felt what I figured was his shoulder. "Lay down." I pushed down on the bit of skin and muscle I had under my hand and felt it slowly sink until I felt the bed dip.

I could feel sleep sneaking up on me and was excited for it to finally arrive. My breathing slowed with the faint scent of skrewt oil drifting over me and I felt myself relax, allowing my hand to slip down his shoulder until I retracted it back to my side out of the drowsy fear that I'd scratch the burn on his arm.

"You sure it's fine? You're like 100...and 10 percen-" He started again, forcing my eyelids to pop open.

"Aruggh," I groaned loudly enough to drone out the rest of his questions after he'd scared the sleepiness right out of my eyelids.

"Charlie, I said it was fine," I sat up a little in the dark, as though this would communicate my seriousness better as I dug my nails into his shoulder. "If you don't shut up and go back to sleep, right this instant..." I breathed in slowly, considering my threat as carefully as my hazy mind allowed.

"So help me, I will find your mother and tell her you jumped into that Opal's pen myself," I threatened with an absurdly calm voice. I was proud of myself, actually. I mean, despite the fact that I have no idea as to where his mum was, or who she was, or if she was even alive but I knew that he'd passed by that threat yesterday. Or was it the day before yesterday?

"Alright!" He almost squeaked, his voice so high-pitched, but his hand came around and pulled mine off of him easily. "No need to go around threatening my life, Piper. Thats called murder y'know."

I was surprised that he was chuckling, but I was even more surprised when I felt him press his lips against my knuckles. I blinked into the darkness, unsure as to whether or not I was being made fun of or if I was still drunk and that threat sounded more intimidating in my head than outloud.

"Just go back to sleep." I mumbled, laying flat against the bed again and got comfortable. Unfortunately, I found myself less sleepy when he didn't let go of my hand and I swore that I could feel his chest moving as he breathed.

The mental image had me staring at the outline of his body in the darkness for what I thought might have been 15 minutes before his hand relaxed and he began to snore lightly. When I started to pull my hand out of his grasp, I felt like an absolute idiot. I'd spent precious time to just stare into the dark at a blob under the sheets when I could have been napping.

Being by myself and doing the simple necessities of research like wandering in the woods gave me some of the happiest times in my life, this was where I felt entirely at peace with my place in the world. In the back of my head, I knew I should feel a little lonely and maybe even consider how odd of a person I actually am but instead I just sucked in a nice deep breath of pine-filled air.

A local girl, Sofia I think, pointed me in the direction of the woods but to look for the 'most densely packed area that smells of death'. Not incredibly helpful considering that I wasn't sure if the smell of death could overpower the smells of pine and plant decay around me right now but, I did notice places in which the trees were closer together.

Their branches and leaves blocked out a lot of the sunlight and I'd begun to notice incredibly odd shapes in the trees. They sort of...curved to one side. As in their base was firmly in the ground but a few centimeters above the brush, the trunks formed a sideways U before they went straight up again. Spooky.

I followed the brush that looked the least well-grown, hoping it'd been slower than its fellow plants because it'd been walked on occasionally. Of course, it could be that it hadn't gotten enough light or water or the trees were sucking the nutrients-okay so there were a lot of possibilities. My point was that it'd been flattened, weaker, and I hoped it was due to feet.

To be fair, little was known about vampires in the Wizarding world so who was to say that vampires even walked? We knew they were pale, often gaunt looking and tall. We knew that their diet was blood, which explained their elongated upper canines, and some may be able to turn into bats. Basically, they might as well have been as well studied as the Pygmy Pu-

I took a step forwards, crunching a particularly dry limb onto some red toadstools and felt myself violently shudder all of a sudden. I stopped and looked up from the ground out of confusion, what was I thinking about again?

"What..." I furrowed my brow, unsure of how I'd gotten here and where here was? Why was I here? I stared at the greenery around me, there was moss on the trees and it was dark here but where was I? Okay, don't panic. Let's consider this Piper...you're in the woods. What are you doing in the woods? Are you drunk?

Glancing down, I pulled a bit of my knit sweaters collar up to my and sniffed it. It smelled lightly of the berry scent that typically occurred when I used magic to clean my clothes.

"Not drunk." I muttered to myself, slightly dazed as I let go of the fabric and pulled out my wand from it's holster on my hip. I flicked it lightly, only wanting a little light right now as I attempted to find my bearings and not disturb the animals around me. I typically relied on my intuition when my mind couldn't process something in my surroundings and right now, my intuition felt that something was amiss but not necessarily dangerous.

I spun to the side as a branch cracked somewhere near me, "who's there?" I was whispering while trying to force out the fear I felt sneaking it's way into my chest and gripped my wand a little tighter. I kept telling myself that everything was fine and that I was smart enough to deal with whatever came at me, despite my anxiety as I had no idea where I was or why I'd been determined to come here.

Generally, I believed in blind gut-feeling more than my logical side, that much was easy for me unless it was a morally grey social situation like someone had lied with good intentions. This morning I'd woken up in a panic that lasted up until my gut insisted that I was actually quite alright with Charlie and I was good with all that, but right now I was seriously questioning it's ability to sniff out danger.

Another branch snapped and I still saw nothing when I spun back around to stare at the emptiness as the silence resumed. There appeared to be nothing here except a loony witch and the tall old trees, yet my gut told me that was odd.

There should have been some sort of wildlife around here, it was far enough away from the reservation and any other sorts of human life. I should have heard birds twittering or animals scurrying, right?

I'm being...misled? No, that wasn't the right term. My logic kept telling me that I'd just gotten confused and lost my way back to the reservation but my gut kept fighting with it, determining that I've been tricked somehow.

I whispered to myself, "thats simple," deciding that I could actually check for magic. As in, I am a witch so I could do that easily and if there wasn't any, then I had just gotten lost in the woods.

"Revelio" I waved my wand in the R shape that I'd recalled this spell needing and watched as the pale silver tendrils stretched out of it's tip.

A low buzzing noise greeted my ears that confirmed I could now see anything magic related, and I pondered that maybe I actually had just gotten confused when nothing lit up blue as I turned to glance at everything.

All of my doubts in my instincts were quickly extinguished when I spotted a man that hadn't been there before to the side of me. He towered over me with lithe limbs and had an uncomfortably pale look about him, like he was an inch from death's reach despite how young he looked.

I blinked as he frowned at me, both of us appeared to be incredibly confused but I wasn't sure if it was about the same thing right now. My head tilted, not entirely sure if I should be worried or interested in his existence, I wondered if he knew why I was here and where here was exactly. He leaned in a little towards me, eyeing my raised hand with great interest and I wasn't entirely sure if he understood that he was no longer invisible.

I took one step to the side for some distance between us and watched with interest as he moved around me with silent steps through the brush. He was obviously magical in some aspect but it was odd that he hadn't seen a wand before gauging by his speculative glances between me and the piece of wood.

His hand raised towards mine, "do you know what this is?" I spoke softly, not moving my hand or my wand when he jerked back from me like I'd burned him.

"How do you see me?" He was rather heavy sounding on the e's, though not to the point that his words were marred. His eyes were wide and I noticed that they were dark, but not like a dark brown or something-no. They reminded me somewhat of a drawing's eyes with black circles instead of an iris and pupil, giving me the urge to shudder.

"Um." I swallowed, "magic?" I shrugged, not entirely sure how to answer that question without sounding like a prat.

I'd come to the conclusion that either this was a Muggle on some sort of drug or the more likely answer; this was a magical being and given our surroundings my common sense was vouching for a Vampire. The possibility excited my curiosity and by effect, excited me even more so.