Food. (OPEN!!!)

Jeremy had been having a particularly difficult day so far. It was only fair that he should take a slightly longer lunch break. The office was irritating him, so he decided to go and eat in the Munchies Café. After quickly finishing up a boring, stupid piece of paperwork he'd been labouring over for much too long, he stepped outside the office and locked the door. It was just for security.

Rather than take the lift like a lazy man, he ran down the stairs like an excitable small child. In all fairness, he was just as excited as one, being out of the stuffy, book-filled, pressuring room that was his office. The two coffees he'd bought that morning were long gone, but he'd been too busy to get another. "Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh BATMAN!" he shouted as he ran, simply because the staircase was empty for the moment. And because he was the minister. Nobody could stop him.

The café was rather full. He noticed a small group of children together. Oh yes, he had heard about the intern thing. Jeremy was meant to be attending interviews this afternoon, but he wasn't sure if he'd have time. No, he'd go, to stay away from paperwork for as long as he could. He gave them a scary Mister Jeremy Rufford Minister for Magic look, holding back a laugh. They couldn't know he was the awesome man he was instead of a stern, evil old person.

An option of burgers caught his eye among all of the other spectacular, hard-to-choose-between food. They looked rather appetising, so he purchased one and found a little table in the centre of the café. Jeremy took a bite of his veggie burger and smiled happily at the taste. He didn't regret his opinion. He was a man who liked his food and this was pretty good.

Once again, Mordred found himself making his way to the awkwardly named cafe in the Ministry. He wondered what kind of a nonsensical idiot the person naming the cafe was. One thing was for certain; the person lacked originality. Munchies... But despite the pathetic name, he did love their coffee.

And as usual, Mordred wasn't going there to get food. He never ate while he worked. It made him work slower and get more tired. So he only ate at home during the evening. He took to the last steps and was certain he could hear something about a bat a bit further up. Probably a madman.

Mordred crossed the atrium to the cafe, surprised to see how full it was. This made him consider taking the coffee with him, when he saw the Minister himself strut past him and into the line, ordering some food and sitting down by a table.

This was an exquisite opportunity to talk to the highest standing man in wizarding britain. Mordred didn't have to order his coffee, it was placed right in front of him by one behind the desk who bore a secretive smile. As if remembering him was some sort of an accomplishment. The woman behind the desk seemed sort of robbed of glory as she didn't even receive a mere sign of gratitude from him, only the right amount of money, not even a knut more.

Mordred took the coffee and walked away from the line, and walked to the spot where the minister had sat down. "Minister," he said pleasantly, "May I join you?"

Wow, this was a good hamburger. If Jeremy hadn't been able to eat now, he would have passed out by the end of the day. He glanced down at his ever growing stomach. At least it wasn't growing as fast as before. The working out must be doing something, however small. The neon tracksuit always motivated him to go out for a nice run of an evening, or on a rare day off.

He glanced around to see Mordred Gaunt at the counter. The man intrigued him. He had been an Unspeakable at first, but worked his way up to Head of Mysteries. Impressive. That meant he was fairly mysterious but ambitious. He had nice hair, too. That might have meant he took pride in his appearance or that he was just lucky.

It was a bit of a surprise when Mr Gaunt approached his humble little table. For the sake of keeping up his good minister thing, Jeremy sat up a little straighter and grabbed a napkin to wipe his ketchup-smeared mouth. Napkins were old-style, since he had a wand, but he couldn't quite recall the spell for wiping his mouth. How he could never manage to keep the sauce from spreading all over his face, he didn't know.

"Hello Mr Gaunt," he smiled back, pretty pleased with his fake professional act. Perhaps if Minister for Magic didn't work out, he could become an actor. A muggle actor, though. Muggle movies were the best, especially Batman and James Bond. He also had a soft spot for Pretty Little Liars, that American TV show which he was certain must have been produced and directed by wizards. It was too good to not be.

Rather sure this wasn't a common trait of the man's, Jeremy decided to just take it as a compliment that he was here instead of doing all his mysterious work. "Yes, please do," he said. But that sounded a bit desperate. "If you'd like to, I mean." He smirked, amused at his own stupidity. "Horrible day, isn't it?" The rain pouring down outside the window said so.

Mordred did note the way the minister wiped his mouth and seemed to straighten up a bit. Maybe Mordred was unwelcome. The minister had to keep up appearance whenever he was working. Mordred would be more than grateful for a little alone time and not be bothered, having to resume the role. However, Mordred also had a strange sensation that the minister could be anyone he wanted to be behind closed doors. He might be much more unprofessional among friends and on his own.

Mordred made the conclusion that the minister was indeed portraying a professional person when he greeted him. There were the small things that gave him away. Things that no ordinary person would notice. But Mordred did notice. He did, however, find that the minister was a much better pretender than most of the world's population. Of course, he was the minister, so that should count for something. He had gotten the position for a reason.

Mordred sat down, ignoring Rufford's correction. He looked at the rain pouring down, and felt his mind reeling. He liked the rain. It always made his mind feel much sharper. There was no way he'd fall asleep while it was raining. While the sun gave important vitamins, it also drained the body of energy, and energy was, predictably, very important to a man like Mordred Gaunt.

He drank from his cup and then looked at the minister. "I don't find rain as being horrible, but I suppose that is how many people feel about it," he said calmly and gave a smile to the minister. Not a good, kind smile, but a smile he had mastered to give to people to make him seem pleasant and all right. Rufford wasn't the only one keeping up appearances.

"How has your day been, minister?" he asked in a pleasant tone, wondering how to divulge further into the subject that he wanted to talk to the minister about.

Gaunt had the unmistakeable and fairly unusual ability to make him feel stupid. There were few people who could do it, but the man was one of them. Although his conversation and attitude gave the impression he was nice enough, Jeremy felt there was probably much more to him than that. He was certainly clever. But that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Not necessarily.

“It’s not so much the rain itself, more when I go outside and get soaked,” he said, putting down the remnants of his burger. It was almost finished and he wasn’t too hungry anymore. Eating in front of people tended to be awkward and uncomfortable anyway. On reflection, he didn’t much like any weather. Sun was hot and made him thirsty, rain was wet, thunder was loud, snow was cold, hail was mean. There was no winning.

His day hadn’t been great, actually. But he wasn’t about to go complaining. It wasn’t that bad. “Busy, but otherwise fine,” he said, reluctant to elaborate. Gaunt wouldn’t care about the boring stuff he’d been doing and it was pointless to just talk about himself constantly. It wasn’t a nice impression to make.

“And yours?” He’d recently acquired the job of Head of Mysteries, which was a big step up from Unspeakable. It was a good job and they needed a good person for it. Mordred Gaunt, it had seemed, was the right person. They needed more people in Mysteries. And in the rest of the Ministry, in fact. Jeremy was tempted to turn up at Hogwarts one day and convince future graduates to join the thriving community that was the Ministry. That was a good selling point, wasn’t it?