Peter Pettigrew is a pet rat (rattusinvidus) wrote in traintickets, @ 2011-06-18 08:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | candy reeser, peter pettigrew |
all I can say is it was enchanting to meet you
Who: Peter Pettigrew and Candy Reeser
What: Peter finally takes Candy out on that all important date.
When: Early afternoon, June 21st, 1980
Where: Central Park
It was funny, in a way, that things had kept coming up to make this the day Peter was finally able to take Candy out, but Peter was trying not to think about it. (It'd occurred to him that he had a curfew and he'd broken into nervous laughter that had gotten hysterical, but at least on a New York subway that didn't stand out too much.)
Instead, he just tried to think about this, because it was terrifying in its own way.
It wasn't that Peter had never been out with girls before. Even the most awkward friend of James and Sirius was still a friend of James and Sirius, and there had been girls in Hogwarts he'd taken out a few times. He'd even been on a date only a few months ago in England with a Muggle girl his mum introduced him to, and it had only been a little bit awful. He'd had plenty of lessons from his two most outgoing friends on the subject of girls and what to do with them (thinking about what Sirius had said about Candy made him flush hot and stung even now) and it wasn't that he was absolutely hopeless. Just mostly hopeless. And Candy wasn't like any of the other girls he'd been out with, she was--she was different, bouncy and sweet and pretty as her name was. So there was that to be nervous about, on top of everything else.
On the other hand, the thought of Candy looking at him didn't make his skin crawl, and there was something soothing about being in this park away from everything. No Sirius not speaking to him, no Remus looking worried, no Lily and James happy to be with each other again and all of them not knowing what he'd done. What he was going to do. (He'd thought of telling any of them a thousand times, but every time his tongue had tripped at each turn, and there'd never been a right moment and he didn't know what to say except that he'd been scared and he was still scared and when he first saw the damage after he thought Sirius was going to die. He'd thought they'd kill Lily. And all of this was real, not a game, and he wished for the first time that he was stupider because then maybe he wouldn't be so afraid. But he wasn't. And it didn't matter anyway.)
Peter wrenched his thoughts away from that almost forcibly and sternly reminded himself not to think of it anymore. He was going to make this the best date he could, for Candy's sake, and the thing was that thinking of Candy wasn't hard.
She really was sweet. And she'd been so friendly with him ever since he'd first talked to her, when most people seemed to lose interest in him right away. But it was more than just what he got from her--he liked her, and somehow, somewhere, he'd started to worry about her. Because people called her stupid and she got beaten up, and even though Peter knew that he was rubbish at helping anyone he wanted to help her, and he barely knew and she probably wouldn't want him around bothering her anyway, but--
He liked her. It was complicated and messy and he was probably going to make an idiot of himself, and he knew, he knew he should try to put out this little beginning flicker of caring, because soon enough they'd leave anyway and there were a million and one reasons he'd already thought of that meant this wouldn't work, but he liked her. He liked her smile and he liked her sense of fun and this light that seemed to come out of her (and already he thought that sounded awful, like something out of a movie, and Peter knew he wasn't exactly ready for the silver screen) and even if it was just for today he wanted to be around her.
So Peter stood and waited by the fountain she'd picked to meet at, having made an effort to look presentable. He'd long ago given up on looking neat or polished, since he didn't have the money or poise, but his jeans were clean and the best-fitting ones he had, his t-shirt was a crisp black that somehow contrived to actually look half-decent on him, and he'd raked his hair into what he hoped was more of a spiky disheveledness than a mess. To cap it all off he'd worn his favorite pair of heavy boots and a black belt he'd borrowed out of Sirius' clothes, and he'd stealthily pilfered a few drops of cologne to boot. He kept his hands tucked in his pockets as he stood there and trying to look nonchalant instead of petrified.