“Hahahahaha!”, came a loud cackle behind him. He buried his face in his hands, which turned out to be a big mistake, as he was holding a handful of the Dark Lords clothing when he did it. Spitting a sock out of his mouth, he tried to resume his task. Maybe if he ignored her again, she’d just go away. No such luck.
“Awwww, poor widdle Wormtail”, she mocked in a singsong, baby voice.
Wormtail groaned. The same thing had happened last time. It was as though Bellatrix had a sixth sense, whenever the Dark Lord ordered someone (usually Wormtail) to do menial, stupid tasks, such as coffee runs and laundry duty, Bellatrix was there in a flash, laughing and taunting them, and bragging about the benefits of being the Dark Lords favorite. Wormtail had specifically tried to get started when he was sure Bellatrix had already left headquarters for her favorite daily activity of muggle torture, but no such luck.
“I’m sure SOME day the Dark Lord will promote you,” continued Bellatrix, “to TOILET duty!, Hahahaha”, she started laughing again, and pointing.
Wormtail shuddered. The last person the Dark Lord had forced toilet duty on had been Lucius. The poor man hadn’t fully recovered for a week. Wormtail wasn’t sure if the trauma had been because of what went down Death Eater toilets, or how he’d been made to clean them, but frankly, he didn’t want to know.
“Maybe she’s acting like that because….because she likes me!”, Wormtail thought hopefully to himself. Not that he’d ever DARE tell anyone, but he had a little crush on Bellatrix. Okay, not a little one, a big one, a really big one. If anyone else had mocked him as he was stuffing the Dark Lords black robes into a washing machine, he probably would have practiced a crucio on them, but since it was Bellatrix, he just decided to grin and bear it. At least she was spending time with him, even if it was time full of jabs, mockery, and insults.
At least the Dark Lord hadn’t made him do Fenrir Greybacks laundry again. Fenrirs clothing had been covered in blood and gore, and had smelled worse than that horrible cologne Yaxley always wore. Wormtail had nearly fainted, and had spent the rest of the week picking little bits of intestine from under his fingernails.
Morale had been rather low at Death Eater headquarters lately. Ever since the last attempt by Voldemort on the Potter brats life had failed, the Dark Lord had been especially nasty and ruthless, torturing Death Eaters for various little things and being extra grumpy. Rodolphus had received a nasty stinging hex for accidentally smiling as he served the Dark Lord his dinner the previous night. Since then, the Death Eaters had been taking out their frustration on each other. Bellatrix was the worst. She would randomly curse people whenever they had the misfortune of crossing her path or annoying her. She’d crucio-ed Lucius that morning just because he’d accidentally bumped her with his walking stick.
“What we need”, thought Wormtail, “Is some sort of morale booster”. As he pondered, he suddenly remembered that it was December.
“That’s IT!”, he cried excitedly, accidentally dropping the Dark Lords fifth-best robe into a puddle of bleach. “It’s just what we need”
Bellatrix stopped cackling and making snide remarks.
“What do we need?”, she demanded, grabbing her wand threateningly. Suddenly she gasped in horror.
“You just dropped the Dark Lord’s fifth-best robe into a puddle of BLEACH!”, she screeched in horror, pointing, mouth wide open in shock.
As Wormtail squeezed his eyes shut in horror, Bellatrix went ballistic. “HOW DARE YOU!”, she shrieked, “YOU FILTHY PIECE OF-“. Wormtail tried to tune her out. He understood the concept of loyaly, but Bellatrix’s often bordered into insane obsession. He sighed.
“-YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?”, Bellatrix finished shrieking. “CRUCIO!”.
Wormtail heard Bellatrix’s laughter as he writhed on the floor, screaming in pain from her spell. “And this is exactly why we need a morale booster”, was his last conscious thought before he fainted.
