Owls were one thing Zoey was sure she would never get used to about the wizarding world. There was no excuse for an animal so smart that it knew where everyone lived and could take them their mail in a matter of… well actually, Zoey still wasn't really sure how the whole process worked. Like most things in the wizard world, she just assumed that it was much more efficient than the muggle postal service. Some things, though, really hadn't come as far. There was no way anyone would be able to convince her that a quill and inkwell was better than a ballpoint pen, but another thing about the wizard's world was that they were firmly rooted in tradition. That didn't sit too well with Zoey, who was busy talking about the relation between wand length and wang length on the Wizard Wireless, only just slightly under a cover of euphemisms and innuendo. A child of the revolution, or something silly like that. Bohemian culture was of interest to her, even if it had happened decades ago in France.

Anyway, whenever she got an owl post, she was always surprised at how resourceful the little buggers could be. She also wondered what they ate, always feeling the need to pay them for their services, which was funny since most postal workers in the muggle world didn't get paid by their customers. Well, some of them did. That was why there were movies like The Post Man Always Rings Twice, though any woman who would have a torrid affair with her post man needed to get rid of her husband. Zoey had been in the shower when she'd received the letter, stepping into her bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around her to find the big-eyed bird resting comfortably at the middle of her bed. The owl gave her a look, as if it had been the one who was just walked-in on. Pursing her lips, Zoey took the note from it and tilted her head, letting the towel drop to the floor as she read and rummaged around for clothes. A pause before she groaned, the actual content of the note finally connecting with the important part of her brain.

Your turn. 5pm, Leaky Cauldron. Wear that necklace with the bird charm.

A blind date? That's right, all part of that crazy idea she had agreed to with a small group of friends. They would send each other on blind dates once a month until one of them stuck. They'd made bets on who would be able to keep a partner the longest, and subsequently, who would lose them the quickest. There was even a tiny side bet on who would be stood up. That had been months ago, though, how did they expect her to remember? There was probably a post-it somewhere beneath scads of others that was meant to remind her to be on the look out for single men and women. Oh well. Good thing she had nothing better to do. She just hoped she could find that necklace.

A few hours of aimless wandering around London had found the quirky blonde at the Leaky Cauldron. Nursing a Killian's Irish Red and wishing there was someone to dance with, Zoey flirted with a bartender. Her date would find her in true form, leaned over the bar and grinning. "You didn't think Wireless personalities were so cute? Well… most of them aren't," she confided with a wry smile, already much closer to the man than she ought have been.

Patrick generally didn't go to bars alone. He made it a point to go either with a large group of friends or with at least one female on his arm. As a child he remembered his father setting out for the pub by himself, but when he came home he was always full of stories of who had been there and what they'd talked about. It seemed that in Ireland, there was always someone you knew at the pub at any given time. This was not the case in England. Patrick was more likely to find the people he knew in the Hog's Head, but more often than not he wouldn't be happy to see them.

That was why he'd begun the practice of bringing the party to the pub with him when he came, rather than going and hoping to find one. He was usually pretty successful; he always said that if he couldn't find anyone to go with him it wasn't worth the going anyhow. Patrick wasn't one to let such small upsets bring him down. There was always another night and another pub. "Pubs," he liked to say, "unlike friends, are never in short supply."

Tonight, however, he found himself alone in a pub. Why? Well, he needed an alibi and he hadn't had time to contact any of his mates. His future self was at this very moment fending off Aggie Jarvey as he tried to get to the Vanishing Cabinet in her attic, the counterpart of which was in a much older and wealthier estate in France. Patrick had fallen into stumbled across it when he tried to escape Aggie snuck into the mansion in search of the magic carpet that was supposedly hidden there. While that mission had been a failure, it had shown Patrick another target.

So, with the help of a stolen Time Turner, Patrick had returned several hours into the past and gone immediately to the Leaky Cauldron. The pub was the best place to be to alibi oneself, since there were always a lot of people there who couldn't quite remember what time you'd arrived. Now, he just needed to give his name to someone other than the bartender and be back to Jarvey Estate by two a.m. That gave him eight or nine hours to galavant around with someone--he just had to find that someone. It had to be someone innocent of all crimes, preferably someone who didn't know him--

Ah-ha.

He'd spotted her: a blonde, leaning drunkenly over the bar. She was perfect, clearly so tipsy that even if she bothered asking questions, she wouldn't remember the answers (not that he'd tell her the truth anyway). Besides that, she was pretty, and Patrick did enjoy the company of pretty girls. He'd always had a thing for blondes. As he approached, he noticed that she looked older than him--but then, he'd always had a thing for older women too.

"You didn't think Wireless personalities were so cute? Well… most of them aren't."

Wireless? Her voice did sound familiar. Patrick only listened to the radio occasionally, usually in the morning before he went to bed after being out all night. He vaguely recalled that the morning show he usually caught was hosted by a woman whose voice had the same timbre and lilt. What was her name?

"A beautiful face like yours shouldn't hide behind a radio broadcast," Patrick said, sliding smoothly onto the barstool next to her. "It should be smiling from the cover of every issue of Witch Weekly." He smiled dashingly at her and held out his hand. "Patrick Everard. You must be..." He paused. Please let this be right. "...Zoey?"

It wasn't that the bartender was cute. He wasn't that cute, anyway, nothing compared to what she'd had in the past. A few Quidditch players back in school, and at least one slightly well-known celebrity that she had had the pleasure of interviewing on her Wireless show. Zoey's body tingled just thinking about it, though her watery blue eyes were still trained on the bartender. Then again, maybe that was just the alcohol talking. She wasn't one to drink often; she was loopy enough without anything to help her along. Still, everybody could use a little pick-me-up now and then, especially when they were walking into a blind date. Not that Zoey was at all nervous. On the contrary, there was no reason not to be confident. A stranger who knew nothing about her would have less expectation than anyone who did, and that meant she could show any sort of face she pleased. Still holding the bartender's gaze, she almost didn't notice the young man sliding up beside her just as she was reaching out to run her fingers through the tender's shaggy hair. Merlin, she loved a man with hair.

"A beautiful face like yours shouldn't hide behind a radio broadcast. It should be smiling from the cover of every issue of Witch Weekly."

Now that was the kind of comment that warranted more than a moment's consideration, and her attention was automatically turned to her new companion. The bartender, who was probably used to the affections of tipsy patrons, seemed to go about his business, if not a little reluctantly. Being caught up in a whirlwind of Wyatt was something that most men didn't leave unscathed, though Zoey truly never meant any harm. Hopefully the barkeep wouldn't take it personally and in some still rational part of her mind Zoey reminded herself to leave him a good tip. Whether or not that rational part would remain rational after a few more drinks and some hopefully exciting conversation with the man beside her was an entirely different issue. Parting her lips in a coy smile, she leaned in conspiratorially to the man and spoke softly (or she thought she did, everything was a bit louder when she was drinking), "I would rather be hated for my words than loved for my face.

Was that true? Most of the time. It must have been a little, if she was saying it with beer-loosened lips. She may have spent a moment too long so close to him before she resumed her spot on the barstool. At least she was still maintaining some sort of balance, though she took her time glancing left and right, looking out for someone she hoped would be as entertaining for the entire night as this man in front of her had been in the past minute.

"Patrick Everard. You must be… Zoey?"

And her eyes brightened. This, my friends, is what Zoey Wyatt would call a 'jackpot.' Somewhere in her addled brain, she knew the etymology of the phrase and might have yelled it if it had occurred to her to do so. "Yes, that'll be me! Lucky me!" she exclaimed, putting down her bottle and grasping his hand with a gentle squeeze. The other fingers fiddled at the bird charm that hanged on her necklace. "Nice to meet you, Patrick. At first I thought I was going to win the bet of the one who'd been stood up. It's a bet I'm glad to lose, for such a worthy companion," was her grinning comment before she stopped for a minute, backtracking. "I mean… you are the date Charlotte sent, aren't you? If not, bollocks to that bloke. What'll you drink?"

The blonde, who appeared indeed to be Zoey Wyatt, turned to him with a tipsy smile and the far-off look typical of the slightly intoxicated in her blue eyes. Luckily for Patrick, she didn't appear at all put off by either his sudden appearance or his comparatively bad pick-up line. Anyway, she wasn't asking questions and he wasn't concerned with her motivations for not doing so as long as she didn't change her mind. She leaned towards him and he caught a whiff of the Killian's she'd been drinking, along with another scent not altogether unpleasant. It wasn't strong enough to suggest that she was wearing perfume, unless the smell of the beer was overshadowing it...but he figured it'd be rude to ask.

"I would rather be hated for my words than loved for my face."

It was strangely poignant for someone in her condition. Patrick regarded her with a wry smile as she hung seemingly suspended by unseen strings before him, dangerously shy of falling forward into his arms. After a moment that seemed longer than it should have been, she tipped back and settled again comfortably atop the barstool. She looked around her, squinty-eyed as though looking for something specific. Patrick glanced out over the full room, wondering what she was looking for. Her glancing unsettled him; he would prefer that her focus stay on him and no one or nothing else. It wasn't just vanity, either. The more she looked at him, spoke with him, the more she'd remember him and the better she'd serve as an alibi.

"Anyone who hates you for your words is only jealous of your cleverness," Patrick said, trying to remember the content of her radio show. It was mostly music, from what he recalled. He hadn't really been paying attention to what the voice had been saying in between the songs. He hoped it wouldn't come back to bite him in this scheme...but if it did, he was sure another drink was all it'd take to smooth it over. "Besides, why not be loved? Everyone deserves to be loved, nevermind the reasons," he added with a wink.

"I mean… you are the date Charlotte sent, aren't you? If not, bollocks to that bloke. What'll you drink?"

He said her name and her hand darted out, catching his before he knew what was happening and squeezing it earnestly, fiddling a little charm on her necklace as she did so. Eying the charm, he saw it was a small bird. He listened closely to her speech (rapid and slightly slurred) with mild confusion as he tried to piece together what she was saying. Date? Patrick smiled as he understood. She was here for a blind date, and she thought Patrick was her date. It was so convenient Patrick could hardly believe it. He was truly the luckiest of young Irishmen.

"Aye, Charlotte sent me, but I had no idea she was sending me to meet Zoey Wyatt," Patrick said, smiling down at her. "But I am mightily glad that's the case. I'll have whiskey." His intention was to drink much less than usual; however entertaining Zoey proved to be, he couldn't forget his deadline. She needs to be passed out before one. He signaled for the bartender to bring her another Killian's.

"So, Zoey," he said. "What sort of thing were you expecting tonight? I mean, don't get the wrong impression or anything, but I'm hard put to believe a gorgeous, accomplished woman like you needs her friends to find men for her."

Things seemed to grow much more complicated once Zoey had had a few drinks. While she could usually keep a reign on her body and her mind (in most cases), alcohol was a catalyst to an entirely different side of Zoey. Her very good friends did their best not to let Zoey near alcohol or caffeine for the same reasons. As unpredictable as the blonde was naturally, it was a dangerous thing for her to ingest any mood-altering substances. It hadn't necessarily been Zoey's intent to get sloshed. Not unless her date turned out to be a real dolt. She was too nice a girl to tell a complete stranger that she was bored of them (though she had no such issues when it came to people she'd known for months), so the next best thing, of course, would be to get completely wasted and scare them away. Given the irregularity with which Zoey imbibed, she was unsurprisingly something of a light weight.

Now she was almost embarrassed. Almost. Zoey was never really embarrassed, she always had reasons for the things that she did, even if she couldn't make anyone else understand them. Faced with this beautiful man who was everything anyone could have ever hoped for in a blind date, she was still more than a little flustered. The tiny piece of her mind that hadn't yet been affected by that ONE Killian's screamed at her to be aware of herself. She needed to slow down, to listen, and to answer in ways befitting the questions she was asked. She needed to lean back, because she was quite close to using Patrick's lap as a pillow. Patrick was a pretty name, it reminded her of the color green for some reason she couldn't quite piece together at the moment. "Patrick. Does that mean green?" she managed to ask as she forced herself back onto her seat. "Zoey means life." Yes, that was a solid contribution to conversation. More of that kind of thing, and you'll get through the night like a rockstar! was her personal congratulations.

Compliments were something of a fine art. As a radio personality that prided herself on somewhat controversial content when she chose someone worthy to interview, she knew the double-sidedness of compliments, the work they were meant to do. Even a genuine compliment had been so placed for a reason. Giving a compliment was like baking a cake. Patrick seemed to be laying on the icing a little too thick for Zoey's tastes, but her tastes shifted with a bit of alcohol. He was saying all the right things. She should have been suspicious of that. Was she the one being interviewed? And had her Killian's magically replenished itself before he even had a chance to order the whiskey he'd requested? This truly was the best blind date ever.

"What sort of thing were you expecting tonight? I mean, don't get the wrong impression or anything, but I'm hard put to believe a gorgeous, accomplished woman like you needs her friends to find men for her."

Indeed, the thickest, sweetest icing she had ever dipped a finger into. And she meant to take more than one taste, definitely. "It's nothing like that, though I guess that's what it must look like, yeah?" she laughed, perhaps at him and perhaps at herself. "A bet of sorts, in fact. We're all getting older, you know, most kids get married right out of Hogwarts nowadays. Must be something terribly wrong with us older folk… but isn't it awful to be calling someone still in their twenties 'old?'" Her head tilted and she watched him, admirably, for a second before placing a hand on his. "I mean, you can't have been legally allowed to drink five years, yet, but here you are, allowing yourself to be set up blind." And speaking of drinking, she nursed her bottle with care, hoping she wasn't dribbling as much as she would later.

"If nothing else, it's a good story to tell later. At worst, it's a lonely night. At best, well, who knows what can happen? My friend Leann has vowed only to give a bloke ten minutes to impress her and if he doesn't pass, she pays him to leave." Studying her bare wrist, which she had thought carried a watch, she looked back up to him, mischievousness in her eyes, "Has it been ten minutes?"