I'm no shining knight and you're no damsel, baby [Sarah]

Fuck, he was fucking lost.

His feet slowed to a gradual halt and he squinted up through the fog at the nearest boarded-up shop, trying to get a fix on his bearings. His head felt like treacle. He'd been drinking... but not that much. Just a couple of pints. After all, he had to keep himself in shape for practice and the games... even if he'd yet to get off the bench. His moment would come, he knew it, and he had to be at the top of his game so they'd never want to bench him again. So they'd realise what a star their baby falcon was. There was no practice tomorrow - a rare day off - so he'd allowed himself a couple of lagers. But he'd been strict. He was sticking to the plan.

So why was his head swimming? He reached a hand out to catch himself on the wall as he staggered a little to the right. The ground seemed to shift away from him as he stepped, and with a grunt he leaned his full weight against the damp brick. Fog. Fog everywhere. He blinked out into the deserted street, his vision dropping off around two meters in front of him, the murk of the mist fading into the dark of the night. Unnaturally dark. Like a blanket. Like the streetlights were all out... and now he was wondering whether the fog was actually there, or whether this was something else.

He was starting to feel like he'd been drugged. Or poisoned. Or something. His hand moved to the pocket where his wand was, fingers clenching around the handle for a moment, but then the ground gave another lurch and he grunted. Really shouldn't apparate like this. He might end up scattering the bits of his body across London. With another grunt, he took a few steps forwards towards what appeared to be a street sign, hoping to get a clue as to where he was...

And then he lurched again. But this time it wasn't dizziness, it was a clamp-like grip on his shoulder and neck, pulling him back off the street and onto a back alley. His back hit a wall. Hard. He tried pulling out his wand, only to have it kicked aside. Through the fog he could hear it clattering on the concrete floor. "What the fu-?" he began, but the words failed as he finally managed to focus on the figure in front of him. The figure now crowding him back against the wall.

"Alvin Hadditch... well well well... I see you found a Quidditch team desperate enough for mindless muscle."

Vin frowned. The face was familiar although he was having trouble placing a name. Carl? Kane? Kevin? It didn't really matter. He was cornered and he wasn't wasting time on talking. Instinct kicking in, he threw a punch. Sloppy. There was a flash of light and suddenly rope was tightly twisting around his wrists, pinning his arms to his sides, curling around his ankles, locking his legs together. Fuck.

"Tch tch. Always did prefer your fists to hexes, didn't you Alvin? Shame the real world doesn't work that way. I, on the other hand have gotten rather good with hexes. And you're still throwing punches like an animal. No, worse than that... like a muggle."

Vin growled, baring his teeth like a cornered wolf. He was fucking helpless. The dizziness was starting to slowly wear off, but he was bound in place and it was slowly dawning on him who this guy was. Hogwarts, a couple of years above him, but weaker and smaller. Ravenclaw. Vin had always liked picking on older kids. It made him feel powerful. But in the grand scheme of things this guy had barely registered. He'd pushed him around a few times, sure, but it wasn't like he'd been a long-term victim. At least not to Vin's memory. Fuck, he couldn't even remember the guy's name, for fuck's sake.

But it seemed like he certainly remembered Vin, and had one hell of a grudge he was looking to settle... and there was absolutely fuck-all that Alvin could do to stop him.

@Sarah Hirst

  What the fuck was she doing following Alvin Hadditch on a Wednesday afternoon?

  Sarah Hirst had never been the clingy type - it was worth getting that straight. She wasn't following him like some sort of obsessive ex girlfriend, pining over his absence. Sure, Sare asked after him whenever she spoke to Jane, and once he'd made the Falcons she'd kept an eye on their fixtures... But out of interest, y'know? The way somebody interested in a previous partner and how they're doing would do. They had a lot in common, and their paths ought to cross more than they did now that Alvin had graduated, but Sare made a point of tending to give him a wide berth physically. He had stuff to focus on - he didn't need her messing with his head. Likewise, Sare was in auror training now, and she had just about convinced herself that she needed to be focussing solely on that. It was an intensive process, but one that was rewarding, too. A couple of times in the past few months, Sare had realised she'd been in Vin's vicinity - at bars, usually. Each time, rather than face some awkward interaction with him, she'd slipped out quietly and gone on her way. Cowardly? Maybe.

  That was what had happened earlier - Sare had seen a gut-twistingly familiar face saunter in, and closed her eyes briefly as she let out a sigh. Not bothering to finish her drink, the blonde had promptly made herself scarce. She let the cool autumn air fill her lungs once outside, before sullenly kicking a stone across the cobbles in frustration. Vin felt like more of a phantom in her life than Kayla did, these days. Sure, there had been flings since they'd come to an end - but nothing seemed to stick. Nobody felt right. Before Vin had stumbled into her life, Sare had been utterly convinced that she would never and could never have a boyfriend. He was some freak anomaly, a bolt from the blue that brought with him a host of new and strange feelings. As she'd began to make her way down the street, she spotted a sweet shop and stalked in. Chocolate was the cure to all. Persuaded by a shop assistant with an annoyingly perky smile to try the in-house hot chocolate, Sare had just been finishing the dregs of a now cold but still bloody delicious cup of the viscious, sugary liquid when she spotted a frame she knew well stumble out of the bar from earlier. Huh. Vin looked smashed - he must have been hitting the booze hard to be that pissed in the time it took Sare to drink a sodding hot chocolate. She'd almost dismissed it when she spotted a figure walking after him. Could be a friend, she supposed. But something felt off. The words of a senior auror in a lecture she'd attended echoed in her head. Trust your instincts.

  That was how Sare had come to be following Vin, feeling more than a little stupid at the prospect of him seeing her acting like such a creep. She'd half-convinced herself to turn around and get her head checked when she saw the man ahead get the jump on Vin. Her stomach flipped, and she skidded to a halt out of shock for a second. The ruddy face of one of her instructors popped into her head, berating her for freezing. Shit. In a beat, her wand was in her hand, and she was sprinting after them. Vin could take care of himself, she wasn't stupid enough to deny that. But he looked worse for wear in a way that was unlike him. Just as she rounded the corner into the alley, she saw Vin's assailant disarm him, subduing him with summoned ropes. Sare didn't make the same mistake happen twice. Shoving emotion to the side and letting her training do the talking, she bit out a nasty hex that took the unknown man clean off of his feet. He crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Once he was on the ground, Sare hurtled over, snatching up his wand and pocketing it before seizing the front of his shirt to bring his face within inches of hers.

  "I could take you in to the ministry right now and ruin your life, you little scrote." She spat, drinking in the confusion turning to fear in his eyes. So what if it was a bit of a fib? Sare wasn't out of training and didn't technically have the legal power to arrest anyone, yet. But he didn't need to know that. She snapped her arm holding him out suddenly, letting his head slam painfully into the ground beneath him. "Get the fuck out of here. I see you again and I'll really hurt you." At that, she flung his wand next to him, stepping back as he scrabbled to his feet and disapparated with a loud crack. She curled her lip, before turning to Vin to assess the damage on that front. He didn't seem all that worse for wear, save for the ropes binding him. She muttered a spell to cut them, picking up his wand and offering it to him. "You alright?"

  He seemed out of it. Sare knew what a drunk Vin looked like, and this wasn't it. Forgetting her reluctance to be in a room with him before, she once again let her lessons do the talking as she got uncomfortably close and raised a hand to tug at the skin either side of his eyelids, wanting a closer look at his pupils. They seemed dilated, out of focus. It looked like he'd been drugged. He was in no state to get himself home without leaving parts of himself around London. Ugh, this was going to be awkward. "Hang on." She said as brusquely as possible, before putting her hand on his upper arm in what she hoped was an impersonal manner and turning to disapparate with him. Once the squeezing sensation subsided, they were in the kitchen of her flat. Letting go of Vin and crossing the room to open the medicine cupboard she shared with Reagan, she rummaged around until she found the small vial she was looking for. That should do the trick.

  "Here. Take this." She said, turning back to Vin and offering him the potion. Shit, things were going to be awkward once he was in his right mind again.

Everything was distant. Everything except her. An angel. A fucking angel. "mmmnot... dead?" he muttered, watching as his assailant was thrown to the ground and trying to make sense of the blur. Blonde hair. A scent that conjured up good memories and illusions of safety. She was grabbing at his face, and like an over-tired toddler he tried to turn his head away with a scowl. "Don'- I'm not... don't want..." he slurred, blinking as she tugged at his eyelids, his brows knitting slowly into a frown. Everything felt thick and soupy. Slow. Fog.

She touched his arm and he leaned fully into her, his nose grazing against the warmth of her shoulder. Pine. Cloves. Alcohol. A faint hint of smoke. Hairspray. Makeup. Oranges. Chocolate. It all blurred together into a story that made perfect clarity amongst the chaos of his addled brain. She was saving him. She was taking him home.

And before he knew it, he was in a kitchen of a place that he'd never been before, but instantly felt comfortable in. She'd always had that effect on him. She slumped against a kitchen counter, his balance betraying him and causing him to lilt to the side until he found himself wedged in the corner, propped with a cupboard on each side. His lips let out a soft, content sigh. He took the vial that she offered him, staring at it for a moment while his brain struggled to work out what to do with it, but after a pause, he lifted it to his lips. There was no hesitation or suspicion. Anyone else offering him a strange vial, he'd be paranoid... but she would never do anything to harm him.

Alvin looked down at his wrists. Hadn't he been tied up? She must have cut him free... he'd missed that. He raised a hand to massage his temple as if trying to forcibly push the fog out of his head. And when he looked up, things starting to get a little clearer, he saw only his guardian angel, her face twisted with concern... and a little embarrassment too. He raised his eyebrows.

"Were you followin' me Hirst?"

  "Piss off, no I wasn't."

  She barked out the words instinctively, embarrassment colouring her cheeks. How the hell was she supposed to explain her way out of this one? Awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot, she tried to think of a rational way to explain just what had happened. Sare wasn't a spectacular liar - she didn't have the patience or the subtlety - and there was the added issue that Vin definitely knew her well enough to catch her in a lie. She might as well lie to Reagan for all the good it'd do. There was only one option, and that was to tell the truth whilst trying not to sound like an absolute wet lettuce. Merlin, of all the sodding luck, she just had to have witnessed the prior events go down. Anything to tingle her stupid bloody Gryffindor senses and send her charging into battle like some utter desperado. But what else could she have done? Left the nutjob to do Vin in? Not bloody likely.

  "Ok, look-- I wasn't following. I was in that sweet shop over the road. You came out-- Well, I just happened to be looking out of the window, y'know, 'cause it was right in front of me - and you came out the pub." She raked a hand through her unkempt hair, feeling a sharp tug where her fingers caught in a knot. "Anyway, you seemed in a bad way. I know you can handle your booze or whatever, but you looked proper out of it. And then I saw some weirdo creeping after you." Here was the tricky part. In retrospect, she could have just left the shop and called out to Vin. The random that had spiked him would probably have spooked and aborted whatever plan he had, if she'd called him out in public like that. If she was being entirely truthful with herself, Sare had to admit that maybe her reluctance to bring Vin's attention to herself had interfered in what would otherwise have been a fairly standard protocol to have followed. With a twist of her mouth, she made a mental note not to mention this one to her superiors unless she wanted a lecture on separating emotion from work. Ugh.

  "Anyway, it all looked a bit sus, so I finished up and went to check it out. By then he had you up against a wall. And then... well, you saw that bit. Dunno how much you'll remember, like." Abruptly, she snapped her head up, narrowing her eyes at Vin in exasperation. She strode over to him and punched his arm, none too gently. "Fancy getting spiked, you knob. How'd you let that one happen?" Her concern had caused her to forget just how awkward this whole interaction was for a moment, and when a beat passed she took an uncertain step back. She wasn't entirely sure that they were in a position for her to be telling him off with such familiarity, but old habits died hard, and it was difficult not to let the tension she still felt from earlier override her impulse to not touch her ex-boyfriend.