Peter Pettigrew

James: You feeling confident?

Peter: … Not really.

James: Good, ‘cause overconfidence will get you caught faster than anything else. Fear is good.

Peter: Oh, I have fear, and doubt, and really serious regrets. I should be fine.

@daisyhtechgirl

Not many people used the school’s messaging feature. Peter doubted many people even knew it existed, actually, but he thought Daisy might since she worked for the school. It was late, but he typed her name into the search bar and noticed she was online. He let out a quiet breath and clicked to open a new chat window.

‘Hey. Don’t know if you remember me. Peter Pettigrew. Just wanted to let you know the computer works great again.’

Of course the only person working at the tech desk when Peter needed help with his computer was a girl. Why hadn’t he smoked before coming in here? Something about lung capacity or not needing it or something stupid like that. He regretted everything now.

“Uh, hi,” he managed as he walked up to Daisy and set his laptop bag on the counter. “My laptop blue-screened and I don’t know what to do.”

Daisy glanced up when she heard footsteps coming into the room, smiling politely as she did. The guy approaching the desk seemed nervous, apprehensive for some reason.

She listened carefully, before opening up the laptop and pressing the on button.

“Ok, that’s fine, it happens to all of us, even my laptop does this sometimes.” She replied calmly, waiting for it to load, “what were you doing with it before it blue screened?”

Yeah, this was why Pete hadn’t wanted a girl at the desk when he walked in. He grimaced and looked away as she asked what he’d been doing.

“Uh, I was just...looking--browsing, really--online. Not at anything in particular or anyone or any gender,” he added quickly, but it only made him wince all the more. Smooth, Pete. Real smooth.

Daisy almost laughed, but she didn’t, he looked a tad skittish.

“You want to avoid the Vixen videos, they’re all corrupted and’ll do this to your laptop,” she replied, tapping lightly on a couple of keys, “also the filming is actual crap on those.”

“Turn that kettle on, can you?” She asked, gesturing towards the kettle on the side, “help yourself to a coffee or tea if you want one.”

He was shocked by how easily she talked about it when he didn’t dare to do the same. Then again, she had to be used to it by now. After all, the male population wasn’t small here. There had to be a decent number of computer fixes that stemmed from the same issue.

“Good to know,” he nodded slowly and glanced over to the kettle when she pointed. “Oh, sure,” he said before turning it on and fixing himself a strong cup of coffee. “Thanks. So...this won’t destroy the hard drive or anything?”

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” she smiled reassuringly, “honestly, I’ve seen far worse than this. Including my cousin’s computer, now that’s something you never want to see on someone you’re related to’s computer!”

“I’m Daisy by the way,” she said, “I should probably have introduced myself since I’m mucking about with your computer.” Daisy added, taking a sip from the steaming mug that was on her desk, “Newbie and computer mucker-around-with-er.”

He snorted at that. “Yeah, I bet,” he answered, finding it easier to speak to her while his attentions were on fixing his own cup of coffee.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he was quick to shoot a smile back at her. “I’ve had weirder people doing weirder things before and not known their names.” He paused to think over how that had come out. “Okay, that sounded sketchy. I didn’t mean it like that--anyway, I’m Peter. I’m bad at speaking, apparently.”

“Yeah, he owes me a huge favour, I now know more than I ever wanted to know about his ‘preferences’.” Daisy laughed, wrinkling her nose, “so honestly, this is nothing. Oh don’t worry about that, my nickname at school was 'foot-in-mouth’ because I’d say things before thinking them through.”

She tapped away at a few keys, pulling up a new screen. She supposed her first day up in the office wasn’t going so badly, She mused, so she’d blithely said she was aware a certain type of porn was full of computer viruses, but she’d at least fixed a couple of computers so far.

“So what year are you?” She asked conversationally.

Peter snorted at that, fixing his coffee before taking a seat on the other side of her desk. “Well, we all have them,” he pointed out, though he wasn’t sure why he’d felt that needed to be said. Ugh. He was on fire today.

“Seems like we have something in common,” he added once she mentioned her old nickname. “I’m great at rambling.” And none of it ever made sense, really. “I’m a junior.” Then, taking a cautious approach to keeping the conversation going: “How about you?”

“That’s true, luckily the incident scared off my brothers from watching that on their computers so hopefully I’ll never have to live THAT horror,” she said with a shudder, “I’m a freshman, Computer Science.” She replied, cheerily, “I was going to go back to England for university, but I liked here better when I went and visited it.”

“Do you like it here?” Daisy asked, “like, how long does it actually take to stop getting completely lost all the time?”

He raised his eyebrows as she spoke. “You could have gone to school in England and you came here?” Peter didn’t think he’d ever get the chance to travel, but if he did, that was going to be one of his first stops. “I guess this is supposed to be one of the best schools or something.

“It’s not a bad place,” he added, a little more at ease with the conversation now that he wasn’t distracted by the embarrassment of what was on his computer. “The work’s kind of heavy, though. And you’ll find your way around eventually. Give it a couple weeks,” he shrugged. “And don’t use campus maps. Those things are the worst.”

“Well, yeah.” Daisy replied, “I was looking at Cambridge and a couple of others, and I was definitely considering it, because I’d have got to see my Dad a lot more, but I liked this place more when I came to visit it.” She explained.

“Oh, maybe that’s why I keep getting lost, I’m using one of the maps.” She added, consideringly, “it’s good to hear from someone who’s already been here a while that it’s nice here, it seems pretty open and airy.”

She glanced down at the screen, running the diagnostics scan once more,

“Right, this’ll be another couple of minutes and then it’s all sorted.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, I might have liked to stay closer to home if it wasn’t such a boring place,” he chuckled. “I really only go back to see mom.” And he did that as often as he could.

“Yeah, get rid of those. They suck. You have any place in particular you can’t find?” He couldn’t guarantee he would know where it was, but campus was pretty easy to navigate once he had the basics down.

“Thanks again,” he nodded, though he couldn’t recall if he’d thanked her before or not. He needed a smoke. “Do I owe you anything?”

“Nah, I’ll work it all out I’m sure!” Daisy told him, cheerily, “I know what you mean, I’m back in Cambridge every chance I get, it’s gorgeous there.” She smiled.

“Nah, you don’t, it’s fine.” She said, glancing over the screen to make sure the problem was all resolved. She grabbed a bit of paper from the pile on the table, scribbling briefly on it.

“Any other problems, feel free to text me or call me.” She said, passing him both the piece of paper and the laptop.

Peter nodded although he had no idea what Cambridge was like. Maybe he’d find out someday. “Sounds like a nice place to visit,” he finally said.

He took the laptop back and looked at the number she’d handed him with it, his eyebrows raising. Was this actually happening? It had to be her work phone, right? But she’d said he could text her and landlines didn’t work like that.

“Oh, thanks,” he said and gave her a quick smile. “I, uh, I’ll let you know,” he nodded before heading out, bumping into the door frame on his way.

“That’s just horrendous, honestly. A morning class that doesn’t allow for coffee is basically my own personal level of hell.” Maybe she had a problem (she definitely had a problem) but there wasn’t really much she felt like doing about it. Work needed to get done after all.