Around the House with the Dark Lord

Voldemort's second in command was busy.

"Yeah...oh yeah...that's it...deeper, deeper. Almost there...just a little more..."

"Wooooooormtail!" twittered the Dark Lord in a shrill voice. "I require your assistance at once!"

Suddenly, the sound of muffled weeping could be heard from behind Wormtail's door.

This is not happening, Wormtail thought with an air of frustration. "Bloody hell! Just when I was getting so close!" he swore as he threw down his latest copy of Figure Skating International and his tube of Jergens™ moisturizing lotion (the official lubricant of the Dark Side). Lord Voldemort had what had to be the worst possible timing. What part of 'I'm going to be busy in my room for awhile' did the man not understand?

The oft-maligned second-in-command to the darkest wizard of the age rolled out of bed and made his way to the bedroom door.

"Are you stuck in your zipper again?" he managed to squeak in a strained voice, obviously displeased at the intrusion of Voldemort on what was one of his favorite pastimes.

"No," Voldemort shouted back, his voiced sounding far away. "We're going to clean out the attic today!"

Wormtail shook his head in frustration as he looked at his one human hand. He had slathered said hand with a generous dollop of lotion, then placed it deep inside a baggie. A Cosmo article had said that doing this ensured soft, silky hands and guaranteed the process to get rid of unsightly calluses.

Not that Wormtail was into Cosmo...that was more Voldemort's bag, really.

Yeah...and he read Playwizard for the articles...

After all, Wormtail reasoned, who doesn't want silky hands? He had been moisturizing for two weeks and the results were impressive, to say the very least.

If he had had a real girlfriend, she would have been amply pleased.

He wondered briefly if Kristi Yamaguchi liked men with soft, supple hands. His mind began to wander:

"WORMTAIL! WHERE ARE YOU?"

"I'm coming, My Lord," Wormtail said resignedly, thoughts of a smiling figure skater escaping his brain faster than a fart in church.

He pulled his hand out of the plastic bag and wiped it on the front of his robes. He headed out of the bedroom. The door leading to the attic was ajar. He could hear his Master bumping around upstairs. He was singing something familiar...something Wormtail couldn't quite place. However, he distinctly heard the words "roses" and "kittens" and mentally prepared himself for a long afternoon. He climbed the ladder to the attic.

The sight that met his eyes was scary, to say the very least: Voldemort had stripped out of his robes and now donned a light blue leisure suit and an Afro wig. Upon his feet were white platform shoes with dead goldfish in the soles.

Upon seeing Wormtail's head at the top of the ladder, Voldemort struck the classic disco pose: one arm pointed at one o'clock and the other pointed at seven, pointer fingers on each hand extended. He threw out his hip in what he must have thought was a suggestive pose. Wormtail thought he looked like a scary gigolo.

"Look, Wormtail! It still fits," Voldemort said with giggly glee as he pointed to the leisure suit and fluffed the incredibly huge collar. He took a moment to admire himself from all angles in a dusty mirror. He smiled, showing way too many teeth.

"I still have it, Wormtail. Long, lanky body, sexy smile, ass that won't quit..." The man waggled his backside a la the "Hustle".

If he asks me to spank that, I am going to run and not stop until I'm at the Ministry of Magic, Wormtail thought.

Fortunately for both Wormtail and us as the readers, Voldemort did not ask to be spanked, fondled or touched in any way. Instead, he leaned over another box and began rifling through the contents. He proceeded to throw out several dime store romance novels (complete with busty women wearing dresses two sizes two small fawning over men with more chest hair than Robin Williams), a hand-painted ceramic ashtray, a pink tutu, and an autographed copy of My Little Pony Visits the Glue Factory.

"Honestly," he minced as he withdrew a pair of women's pantyhose, "do you throw anything away, Wormtail?"

"More or less," Wormtail answered. "You never know when you're going to need something, and--"

Voldemort held up a rhinestone gun, otherwise known to the masses of those who grew up during the seventies as a Bedazzler™ (the official rhinestone attaching device of the Dark Side). "Then what is this doing up here? Got some robes that need jewels on them any time soon?"

"That's your Bedazzler, My Lord," Wormtail pointed out. "See? You've Bedazzled your name across the bedazzling-looking handle." Wormtail pointed to the jeweled hilt, where the name "Tom Riddl" was etched in bedazzling colors: red, green and silver.

Voldemort was wholly impressed that Wormtail could use the word "bedazzle" as a noun, verb, and an adjective in one exchange and told him so. The short, pudgy man could not have beamed brighter if he tried.

"Oh yes," Voldemort said after a time, "I remember this now. I ran out of rhinestones for the "E" and gave up on the project altogether. Rather unfortunate, in retrospect." He threw the item into a box marked "TORCH" and rifled through the other box once more, singing "It's Raining Men" all the while. Wormtail began to shuffle through the dime novels in a corner. One of the amply-bosomed women reminded him of someone he used to know...Tessa something or rather...

Suddenly, Voldemort let out a girlish squeal of delight that set Wormtail's teeth on edge. He looked up to see Voldemort clutching some old photographs. "Come and look at the pictures, Wormie!" tee-heed a man who could Crucio a kitten without batting an eye. "I see that someone was a sweet widdle baby!"

Wormtail groaned. Not those pictures. Please, not those pictures. Reluctantly, he sat down next to his Master and prepared himself for the worst.

"Aw, who's this?" cooed Voldemort as he pointed to the picture of a blond toddler on the toilet. The little boy was grinning from ear to ear, a pair of underwear hanging from one ankle, a roll of toilet paper in his hands.

"I'm a big boy today!" sang the photograph. Wormtail blushed scarlet.

"Wormtail, you looked so cute and precious," Voldie said. "Such a shame that learning to use the toilet was your last great achievement." He continued to pore over the photographs. Wormtail endured a photo of himself winning a pie eating contest, his first day of wizarding school (the photo showed him poking himself in the eye accidentally with his wand) and a picture of his only Yule Ball date ever (the girl was blind and had one leg, but, as we all know, beggars can't be choosy).

Then, quite unexpectedly, the Dark Lord came across an incriminating photo of his own. He attempted to get rid of it, but the sausage-like fingers of his minion grasped onto the object tighter than a right-winged politician.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee..." Wormtail laughed, ad nauseum.

The picture was of a younger Tom Riddle. He was wearing high heels and a cocktail dress, all the while singing, Keep it Gay.

"I swear to Merlin if you so much as breathe a word about that picture I will Cruicio you into next month!" hissed the Dark Lord.

"Yeah, yeah," Wormtail muttered sarcastically. "Too bad you don't have your wand." If he looks in the garden, I'm done for, the little man thought fleetingly. He allowed Voldemort to have the photo back. Instead of ripping in two, though, the wizard placed it in his robes. Both men continued to clean the attic.

Suddenly, Wormtail found a baggie with some brownish, leafy substance inside of it. It looked familiar. It looked just like...

"My stash!" Voldemort cried. "I bought that stuff back in seventy-four and wondered what I had done with it!" He grabbed the bag from Wormtail and opened it up. Inhaling deeply, he sighed. "Ah, that's the stuff. Now this here brings back some great memories. At least, I think it would if I could remember what those memories were." The Dark Lord paused to think. It was painful to watch.

"If only I could roll this shit," Voldemort said. "I used to have my Death Eaters do it for me, and none of them are here."

Wormtail's face lit up. "I...I could do it, My Lord."

"You? You can't spell 'cat' without someone spotting you the 'C' and the 'A' . How could you roll a joint?"

"I can," Wormtail assured him with a measure of pride. "What do you think James, Remus and Sirius kept me around for, anyway?"

"It certainly wasn't for your dazzling intellect," Voldemort quipped.

"I could roll a reefer faster than anyone," Wormtail continued, obviously pleased that at last he had found something his Master could appreciate. He fished a cigarette paper out of the bag and drew his tongue down the long side of the paper.

The Dark Lord smiled. "Set you to your task, then."

"Duuuuuuude," acknowledged Wormtail as pressed his nose against the old mirror. "My pupils are like, totally wacked out. One's really HUGE and the other one looks like a pinhead." He attempted to stand up and failed miserably, landing rather gracelessly on his arse. He laughed boisterously.

"You are a pinhead," Voldemort pointed out, staring fixedly at the toke in his hand.

His servant pointed at his Master with the index finger of his metallic hand. "Don't put down the man who rolled the joint, Lord V." Suddenly feeling an intense attack of the munchies, he fumbled around in the pockets of his robes, hoping to find something to eat. The contents of his pockets revealed a ball of lint, a gum wrapper and a condom that expired in 1976. He wasn't sure how that had gotten there.

The Dark Lord shrugged and placed the joint between his thumb and forefinger and took a good hit. "What I wouldn't give for a roach clip right about now. I always knew you were good for something, Wormtail. It's taken me years to figure out what it was, but I think we both know you've hit on it."

"Hit! Hee hee, Good pun," Wormtail said as he looked into the mirror once more and scrutinized the wrinkles on his forehead. "I'm kinda hungry, though. I want something to eat. Do we have a big cake anyplace?"

"Do I look like a bloody bakery?" Voldemort snapped. He rifled through another box. "I thought I saw something in here earlier...nope, that isn't it," he commented as he tossed a pair of fuzzy dice over his shoulder.

Presently he came across what he was looking for.

"Aha! Pop Rocks!" he said with a grin.

"Pop Rocks, my Lord?"

"They are the official candy of the Dark Side, Wormtail. Surely you knew that?"

"I do now." Wormtail suddenly looked worried. "Do you suppose they're safe?"

"Sure they are! All those stories about people being blown apart due to pop rocks is just an urban legend. That stuff doesn't really happen," Voldemort said.

"Oh," sighed Wormtail in relief.

"But to be on the safe side, let's let you try them first," the Dark Lord said with a smile.

"No, My Lord...I'm full and--"

"Are you disobeying a direct order, Wormtail?" hissed Voldemort.

"I'm just--"

"EAT THE POP ROCKS!"

Trembling, Wormtail accepted the large package. "Do I have to eat them all?"

A glare from the Dark Lord was the only answer he got. With a feeling of unease, he ripped the top off the package with his teeth and proceeded to pour the entire contents of the bag into his mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened.

"Oh wait," Voldie said with intense amusement. "These are test-study pop rocks and not meant for human consump--"

Voldemort had seen a lot of scary things as the most feared wizard of all time, but nothing quite came close to what he witnessed that day in the attic. As his second in command began to fly across the room, shooting fire-like sparks from every orifice, he momentarily contemplated the thought that maybe, just maybe, he put the poor man through too much. After all, Wormtail had lopped off his own arm to give him a real body, nursed him when he was weak and sought him out when he was friendless. Maybe that deserved some special consideration.

Maybe I'm going to turn a new leaf, he thought. Maybe it's time to show the world just how nice I can be.

Woah...is that another joint I see on the floor? He picked up the item in question.

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

And as he puffed on his personal Magic Dragon, Voldemort's charitable thoughts dissipated rapidly. Paying no attention to the man still screaming in the attic, he wandered downstairs, went into the kitchen and proceeded to eat sixty-four slices of American cheese.