Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak.

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Wormtail wants to be taller

Wormtail stood in front of his full length mirror to look at himself. He was just over half the size of it. He frowned and tried to stand on his toes. No good. He had been working for weeks, by putting all sorts of charms and spells on himself to get taller, but to no avail. He looked up at his aim, marked in blue crayon on his mirror. It was much too far away.

He sighed. All of the other Death Eaters were taller than him. Voldemort as well, of course. But he had always been taller than him. The tallest of the Death Eaters were probably Rodolphus and Barty.

Barty. He glared at the mirror as he thought of him. If only he was as tall as he was, nobody would kick him around or pick on him or order him to do anything. He simply had to find a way. But how?

He walked over to his 'Get tall quick' magazine and turned to the front page.

'Do you want to be taller?' It read. Wormtail nodded glumly and read on. 'Are your fellow employees bossing you around because you are short?'

Wormtail nodded again. 'Do you work day and night for your boss but all he does is order you around without a word of thanks?' Wormtailsighed. 'Then you need to take Terry's top two tips to tallness! Read on to find out how.

1. Try wearing taller shoes. These are a guaranteed height enhancer.

2. Wear stilts. These will also work, but are not reccommended for inside use.

After reading this, Wormtail leapt off the bed with a joyful squeak. He would become taller! Ha! His annoying comrades would have to respect him!

What was first on the list? Wear taller shoes. Wormtail rummaged in his cupboard. He didn't have any tall shoes. But who did? Well, Bellatrix, but she would probably murder him if she found him in her room. What about Lucius? He was at his Saturday baking classes. His room was empty!

Wormtail crept across the hallway to Lucius's bedroom. He opened the door and closed it carefully behind him. He turned around, and nearly had a heart attack.

Instead of the average black that most Death Eater's rooms were decorated with, Lucius Malfoy's room was pink. Frilly curtains bordered the windows, the walls were painted pink. The carpet and ceiling were pink, and the sheets on his bed were the most vibrant shade of pink Wormtail had ever seen.

A little unerved by this attack of colour, Wormtail walked across the room and opened the cupboard.

Lucius did not just have one or two pairs of shoes, he had thousands. The cupboard stretched back for miles it seemed. Luckily for Wormtail, he had spotted a pair of tall high heeled shoes, that Lucius always wore to reach to the highest kitchen cupboards. He took them down from their shelf, closed the door and tried them on. They were a bit big for him, but stuffed with tissue paper and they would be fine.

He clopped out of the room in them, closed the door behind him and crept across the landing again. Luckily for him, the others were downstairs playing cards and Barty was grounded.

"What are you doing?" Said a voice, Wormtail jumped and spun around. Barty was leaning against the wall, glaring at him.

"N-nothing," Wormtail said, cowering.

"Yeah right," Barty said. "You look different."

"Must be the new shampoo I've been using," Wormtail forced a grin. "Anyway, better be off."

"Oh no you don't," Barty said, stepping in front of him. "You've been in Lucius's room."

"Aren't you supposed to be grounded anyway?" Wormtail asked.

"So?" Barty shrugged. "You're wearing Lucius's shoes. Want to be taller do you?"

"Don't tell, please," Wormtail begged. Barty grinned evilly.

"Why not?" He asked. "You told Voldemort that Rose was coming for tea."

"Just a little joke," Wormtail gave a nervous chuckle.

"Well I didn't find it very funny."

"Sorry!" Wormtail cowered again.

"I won't tell on you if you swear you won't snitch on me ever again," Barty retorted.

"Fine, yes, fine," Wormtail said, and scurried off. Barty grinned evilly.

"Well that didn't work," Wormtail snarled, taking the shoes off as he got back into his room. "Barty's still picking on me. What was next?" He read the magazine. "Wear stilts. Oh please, that's crazy, that's stupid, that's genius! Now where do I get a pair of stilts?" He thought hard, none of the Death eaters were particularly likely to own a pair of stilts. So where could he get some? Yes! Voldemort had a pair from the early stages of his card castle attempt. He kept them in the cupboard downstairs. But he was in the living room with the others, and the cupboard was just outside the door! If Voldemort caught him with anything belonging to him, he would leap at the excuse to punish him.

He tiptoed downstairs and opened the door of the cupboard.

"Ha!" He heard Voldemort cry from the other room. "Snap!"

"Er, we're not playing Snap, m'lord," he heard Rodolphus say. "We're playing Go Fish."

"What."

"I mean, we're playing Snap, of course," Rodolphus said quickly at the dangerous glare his master was giving him. "My mistake."

Wormtail looked in the cupboard. No! The stilts were on the highest shelf, if only he was tall enough to reach them! But then, upon further consideration, he realised that if he was taller then he wouldn't need stilts, therefore defying any purpose he would have for sneaking into the downstairs cupboard to get them.

"Well well well," said a sneering voice from behind him. He turned around, Snape was standing there, giving Wormtail his trademark evil leer.

"It's not what it looks like!" Wormtail said, stumbling out of the cupboard.

"Trying to get the stilts are we Wormtail?" Snape said. "Now why would you be doing that? Oh! You want to be taller! How quaint, how sweet, how adorably naive."

"What's wrong with wanting to be taller?" Wormtail asked.

"You want to be a man don't you!" Snape smirked. "You want to be more manly!"

"Please Snape, please!" Wormtail begged. "I want to be taller so much! If I was taller, Barty wouldn't pick on me, Voldemort wouldn't boss me around, everyone would have so much more respect for me. All of my life I have faced torment, shame and ridicule, and why? Because I was short! So please, please Snape. Don't ruin this chance for me, this one chance that I might have of finally becoming respected."

"Well isn't that the heart melting speech of the year," Snape said nastily. "We'll just see what the dark lord has to say about that." He was just about to sweep menacingly into the living room, but Wormtail was too quick. He drew out his wand, yelled: "Obliviate!" And the spell hit Snape in the back of his head. He toppled to the ground with a thud and then stood up, looking dazed and confused.

"Oh, hello Peter," he said to Wormtail. "What am I doing here? Oh well, better go and make up reasons for Potter to get detention. Bye!"

And he walked off aimlessly in the direction of the basement.

Wormtail peered around the door, amazed that Voldemort hadn't heard any of that. But at closer observation, he realised that the dark lord was having a good time yelling at Dolohov for snapping one of his cards. He couldn't have heard anything over the racket he was making.

Wormtail turned back to the cupboard and raised his wand.

"Wingardium Leviosa." He said clearly, and the stilts came floating down to his side.

He strapped them onto his feet and stood up. He was a bit wobbly. Correction, very wobbly.

He walked into the living room, which was going fine, until he smashed his head into the lampshade and came crashing down, scattering cards everywhere.

"WORMTAIL!" Voldemort yelled, fuming. The other Death Eaters were watching in astonishment. "What WERE you thinking?"

"I just wanted to be taller my lord," Wormtail sighed. "Everyone always picks on me and I thought that if I was taller then you would all have a bit more respect for me."

"Oh Wormtail," Voldemort said, his face losing it's anger. "I never want you to feel that way again. We do respect you. And I want you to feel that if you ever have anything you want to share with anyone, just come to us."

"Really?" Wormtail sniffed. "You mean it."

"NO!" Voldemort yelled. "YOU, Wormtail, are on kitchen duty for the rest of the week with Lucius. NOW GO!"

Wormtail unstrapped the stilts from his feet and walked out of the room, rather depressed.

Lucius was in the kitchen baking cookies.

"Hello," he smiled. "Kitchen duty again, is it?"

Wormtail nodded glumly, and sat on a stool beside Lucius at the worksurface.

"What happened?" Lucius asked.

"I just wanted to be taller!" Wormtail burst out. "I just wanted to feel more respected and more appreciated. I though if I borrowed Voldemort's stilts, Barty wouldn't push me around but I was wrong!" He burst into tears.

"Oh come now," Lucius said. "Dear dear look at this." He handed Wormtail a handkerchief which Wormtail blew his nose into noisily.

"Barty may be tall," Lucius continued. "But frankly, he's a freak. Look at me! I'm tall, but people don't respect me."

"That's probably because you bake fairy cakes on a regular basis," Wormtail sniffed.

"But I love it!" Lucius smiled. "I can be me, regardless of what people think, and I don't intend on changing. Just be yourself, and stand up to Barty. People will respect you more. I promise."

"Yeah!" Wormtail said, cheering up. "I'll do that!"

At that moment, Barty sauntered into the kitchen, grabbed one of Lucius's cookies and munched on it, smirking at Wormtail."

"I see you didn't need me to get into trouble this time, well done!" He said.

Wormtail turned around, jumped off his stool and marched over to Barty.

"Leave me alone Crouch," he glared.

"Oooh, scary," Barty sneered. "What are you planning on doing eh? Biting my kneecaps?"

"You can't pick on me any more," Wormtail said. "It's finished!"

And he marched away, however stumbled to the ground and got a face full of jam tart which Barty had 'accidentally' left there.

"Oh, I think you'll find I can," Barty sniggered. "You are so pathetic. Trying to make yourself more of a man by wearing stilts and Lucius's best high heels. It won't work. You're still a weed."

"Lucius!" Wormtail whined.

"Lucius!" Barty mimicked. "I see you girls stick together."

Lucius, meanwhile, had turned around and was glaring, not at Barty, but at Wormtail.

"What?" Wormtail asked.

"You wore my shoes?" Lucius said furiously, threough gritted teeth.

"It was just for-" Wormtail began, but backed slowly away as Lucius grabbed a cream pie that he had made for tea.

Barty smirked as Wormtail got a face full of cream pie. Some things never changed.

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MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Next chappy: The Death Eaters do some babysitting.

Two words. Oh dear.