A hunched, reluctant figure made its way into the dim room, light flickering on the walls from the poorly put-together fire. Shadows aged his face even more so than the fear, and the bags under his eyes were akin to a man's in his dying days. His knees shook as he approached the worn armchair that sat in front of the fire, facing away from him (thankfully, his mind whispered, don't, we don't want to see him), and he tripped slightly on the edge of the rug, slopping some water over the edge of the silver goblet.
He set the still steaming plate of food and the dripping goblet onto the end table, and, straightening both his nerve and his back, he stepped forward to face the man (fetus) waiting for him in the chair.
He had seen this man (fetus) on an almost daily basis for the past two months, but he still was glad to have his eyes facing the floor rather than the grotesque figure he was forced to call his Master.
(can't even call him by his name in your own head, can you, can you? his mind taunted him, can't say it, we know that, we've seen what happens, but now you don't dare even to think it, can you, can you?)
"Wormtail..." the voice from the figure hissed, menacing despite its weakened body. "You're late."
"S-sorry, my Lord," the man called Wormtail stammered out, "the elves-"
"Cease with your pointless excuses. Your uselessness ends here, as I have come in contact with another of my followers."
Wormtail went still and stayed silent – he had only remained with his Master out of fear and knew he had failed his Master many times since he had begun nursing his Master back to health. This weakened figure could perhaps not kill him, but he soon would have the power, and would hunt down the disloyal. Wormtail himself had helped plan some of the deaths of his former colleagues (powerless, fearful, but full of ambition, his mind whispered bitterly, just like you) but he knew that if he wasn't needed it could lead to a quicker death than any of those who had betrayed his Master.
"Wormtail." He heard the sharper, colder tone in the voice and thought, perhaps, that this wasn't the first time his Master had called for him. He looked up with a start, flinching back instinctually at the sight of the man (fetus) in the chair. The deformed, pale figure motioned with his hand towards the corner of the darkened room, where Wormtail noticed for the first time that another figure was in the presence of his Master, kneeling and shivering.
"Fetch another plate for our dear friend Junior, Wormtail, he has been through much harder times than you," his Master ordered, a heinous smile crawling over his misshapen face.
Wormtail remembered the times before his Master's apparent demise at the hands of James' spawn (back in the good old days), remembered clearly Crouch's insanity and his intellect, and could see his own death looming ever closer.
"My Lord, Dumbledore will surely be hiring another Defense teacher this year – it happens inevitably, I'm not sure why – and I've heard rumors in the Auror Department at the Ministry that he might be calling old Mad-Eye out of his retirement. I do not know this for certain, my Lord, but if it be true, I could surely kill him and take his place." Crouch said all this rapidly, barely pausing for breath. He had started off speaking of the coming TriWizard Tournament and of Karkaroff, but his Master had waved him off impatiently, as they had learned that already.
"No, not kill him," his Master said, seemingly deep in thought, but appeared to agree with everything else. "Polyjuice Potion. He can have the honor of living merely to serve me." (we have so much in common) "You know I want Potter, Junior, for this ritual to take place, and Dumbledore is no fool."
'Junior' (so mocking, so affectionate, so not what I want, but still better than the name Wormtail, a nickname used by friends and enemies and it was always terrible either way) heard the unspoken command to explain his plan further. "A Portkey, my Lord. To bring him to you, then to send back his dead body to show the world what's coming. It has been tradition for the last task of the Tournament to have the participants to search for the trophy to win, and we know that Magical Britain has always been the kind to uphold tradition," he said with a secretive, somewhat insane smile.
His Master was nodding his (fetus) head in agreement, and Wormtail faded out slightly as they started in on the finer details. It would be foolish to consider his Master less than very intelligent, either as his enemy or as one of his Death Eaters (slaves), but he seemed less sane than Wormtail remembered. Crouch, he was certain, had been insane since the day he was born.
(we're not insane, not yet, not yet)
While the plan overall seemed decent enough, if Moody really was to be the next DADA teacher at Hogwarts. Well, needing Potter for the ritual was ridiculous itself, but he knew his Master wouldn't let that particular obsession go. But Wormtail was sure Dumbledore would see through the fake Mad-Eye straight away. Mad-Eye and the old Headmaster were friends, even if they perhaps didn't really keep in touch with each other in more recent (peaceful) times, and they would surely be in closer contact at Hogwarts.
His Master was evil, his Master put the fear in him, his Master made him kill the only friends he had ever had, but his Master also controlled whether he lived or died. It was the only reason he had ever served him, and he would continue to do so.
"My Lord," he spoke up suddenly, unaware that he had interrupted Crouch in the middle of a sentence. His Master waved a hand at him to speak, eyes flashing in annoyance, and Wormtail felt his fear creeping up again. He continued on hurriedly, "Like you said, my Lord, Dumbledore is no fool, and he knows Moody well. I think it might be better to take the place of a student."
"And what student would that be, Wormtail?" his Master asked lowly.
"A student with no friends, my Lord, a student that no one pays attention, that has no skills, that no one will notice acting oddly. A student that lives in close quarters to Harry Potter and could potentially also influence him." Wormtail paused to take a breath, and his Master waited. He could see he had sparked some interest. "The student Neville Longbottom."
There was a silence, wherein Wormtail dared not look at his Master, and alternated between staring at the floor and the slightly twitching Crouch, whose eyes were flickering back and forth at their Master and then at Wormtail.
Wormtail could feel eyes on him, and he looked up at his Master's perversion of a human face. Its thin lips opened and breathed out, "Good, Wormtail, good," and Peter Pettigrew could feel the hands of Death on his neck ease up a little.