Peter dreaded the meetings. Both of them. The Order meetings were definitely more fun than the Death Eater meetings– purely because he knew the people. But it also made it harder. It was difficult to sit in the corner by himself and quietly listen, uncertain as to who in the room really cared about him anymore. It had been the same behavior for several meetings now, and Peter had started to get bored with the same routine every time. However– his eyes fell upon one Dorcas Meadowes as she made her way into a seat. Immediately, Peter was panicking. He thought she was a Death Eater, it made no sense for her to be at an Order meeting.
To say that Peter ran out of that meeting was just short of the truth. As soon as the official business was over, he dipped and immediately went to retreat to his flat. He didn’t want to talk to her, he didn’t want to know, and more importantly– he didn’t want her to know. If Dorcas was doing the same thing as he was, she could do better. She could get more information, she could be more useful.
They would kill Peter if they no longer had a use for him.
Peter stood outside of his flat, on the verge of a panic attack, and reached into his pocket to find a crumpled up note. “Fuck me,” he muttered. It wasn’t too long later that Peter found himself staring up at the neon sign of the diner, yet again dreading another meeting. He pushed open the door and glanced around, until his eye caught Dorcas Meadowes in the corner waiting. “Fuck, fuck, what the fuck am I doing, holy fuck.” Peter whispered to himself, almost as if begging himself to turn around, as he walked towards Dorcas and slid into the booth across from her.
“Hey Meadowes.” Peter crossed his arms and leaned against the table. “Fancy seeing you here, at this uh, weirdly named place. And um, fancy seeing you at lots of places.” Well, someone had to say it. “Places I’ve never really seen you at before.”
“It’s one of those hipster places. I found it on Instagram.” It was a slight lie, the people who ran the place constantly sent her messages on Atlas’ Instagram account asking to come for a bite. She’d gotten a few free meals before from them, which was worth it, but she’d never been there in the dark of the night. “They’ve got a ton of after midnight specials and nothing beats cheap good food. It’s like a pound for their ‘Leaning Tower of Toast’.”
Here, she hadn’t seen Peter so bold. He had beaten her to the punch, and once again, he had surprised her. It was unsettling, a feeling that threatened to make her even more paranoid than she had been before. He was obviously anxious, obviously scared, was he putting on an act? Was he scared because he was caught? Did he not realize that technically, she had been caught too? Hopefully not. She didn’t need to deal with another person KNOWING and having that power over her.
Inspecting him for a few moments, she noticed more than she had before -- a definite mistake on her part. Had she been doing her job well? Had she? It’d been impeccable, in her eyes, she’d gotten this far but had she paid attention to certain people more than others? It was apparent then that she had as she just stared him down, hoping that the more she did the more she’d understand ( osmosis, possibly? ) -- to no avail. “But I’ll hand it to you, you’ve got BALLS, Pettigrew,” Dorcas scoffed, laughing lightly, the steely expression now broken only because it came as such a surprise that he was so forward. She felt the tension palpable in the air, the fear, and knew that this situation could south at any moment -- she needed to find a way to diffuse it first.
“D’you like fish and chips?” Looking back down at the menu, Dorcas suddenly had the urge to buy everything on the menu. “I’ll buy whatever you want, just cool it with the cloak and dagger language nonsense ‘til I’ve eaten and I’m able to cast a silencing charm around us just in case your MESSY ARSE tracked in anyone.” Her eyes wandered to the entrances, exits, the windows, each booth, even the air vents. If someone was here, who was following him or her, hopefully they’d think it was either two Death Eaters for a late dinner, two Order members for a late dinner or just two friends possibly under the influence looking for a midnight snack. There was an urge then to think of a cover, to alert Peter to think to a cover, but he was so nervous already she didn’t need to freak him out more -- she needed to ease him into this.
“You did look to see if anyone was following you, right?”