I'm telling you I caught the sun Who: Terrell O'Connors and Stephen Croaker What: An accidental meeting of the minds. When: May 3rd, 1982 Where: The Prince Albert in Dover Rating: T for potential language?
Why were the safest places to deal in the black market an average of fifteen million miles from where he lived? Annalise's hideout? All the way in Sunderland. The only pub in the area that was anywhere near smuggler-friendly? Dover, of all places. Out in the middle of the countryside, even, where he'd had to side-along Apparate with Drawlight at least once before so that he wouldn't end up hours away from the pub. Why couldn't they all be located in London? Or better yet, Bognor Regis? There were pubs there, and it wasn't a very wizard-heavy area. But no one thought of that, of course. The world never took his convenience into account.
And of all the times of day he could have been asked out to a random place in Dover, why noon? Stephen was currently running on about two hours of sleep, having fallen into a nocturnal pattern which wouldn't have been so bad if anyone he worked for kept hours like criminals in movies. But no, they had to do it like a regular nine-to-five, and this involved meeting up at country pubs in the most god-awful hours of the early afternoon. Why was broad daylight the best time to commit crimes?
But all in all, he shouldn't have complained. At least there was no one knocking on his door in the middle of the night to hex the shit out of him and send him off to Azkaban for crimes against the state. Not like Annalise, at least. That was what Drawlight had told him over the journals. At least seven people in that smuggling ring were off doing time with the Dementors, and most of the ones that had survived had their names down on some kind of list. Stephen counted himself lucky he hadn't had to move again. You never knew who was going to rat you out, even if you were just the guy who locked up the houses for the clients.
Tough times.
Stephen came to Dover with, essentially, a piece of paper and a packet of fags. He didn't want to bring food to a pub, but he also didn't have any money. He was also running low on food, as it happened, and was making up the difference for now by not eating breakfast. It wasn't like he was ever up in time for it, in any case.
It was a lovely day out, which made Stephen rather angry. Usually he was up for part of the time when it was light out, but he had the benefit of being inside and not having to bear the full brunt of it. He scratched his head and squinted, looking at the scenery for a moment before heading inside. As it happened, there were very few people in the pub and none of were Drawlight. Of course. Send an urgent message to a man and then fail to show up at the time you wanted to meet. Good business practice. The waitress was nearby, so Stephen asked, "Table for two or should I just sit myself?" Which provoked a bit of laughter which Stephen didn't notice because the waitress looked very, very familiar.