I'm fifteen! Wahoo! I was fifteen on the 24th of September, and have only just decided to update.

----

The Death Eaters go bowling

It was a wet autumn day when Lord Voldemort came down for breakfast.

His minions were already at the table, eating their various morning victuals.

"Toast, jam, now," he ordered.

"Yes, my Lord," Wormtail stammered, and thrust the plate of toast and strawberry jam in front of his master.

Voldemort gave a grunt of approval and pulled the teapot towards him.

"It's certainly raining out there," Dolohov said, glancing out of the kitchen window at the rain pouring against the window pane.

"Well observed," Bellatrix said.

There was silence. The small party ate their breakfast without saying a word. Rodolphus couldn't stand it any longer.

"Oh, I can't stand it!" He cried, making them all jump. He banged his fist on the table, causing Voldemort to drop his toast and jam, it fell sticky side down on the floor. Rodolphus recieved the darkest, most piercing glare in the universe. But he didn't seem to notice.

"It's so BORING!" He said. "Ever since Lucius, Snape and Barty left, it's been nothing but day after boring day. I can't TAKE IT ANY MORE!"

He picked up a plate, Bellatrix swiftly grabbed his wrist.

"Just put the plate down," Dolohov said. "And everything will be fine."

"Breathe," Bellatrix said. "Inhale,"

Rodolphus took a deep breath in.

"And exhale," she said. "I said exhale. EXHALE NOW!"

Rodolphus did, and sat down heavily, grabbed his fork and picked at his fried eggs and bacon.

"I suppose he has made a point," Dolohov said, after Rodolphus has calmed down. "Things have been a little quiet around here lately."

"You mean relatively normal?" Bellatrix said. "Surely you can't tell me that you miss Lucius's unatural ranting on hair care products, Snape's dark and dismal prescence, and Barty's catastrophic and generally chaotic antics?"

"Well..."

"I'm glad to see the back of them," she said. "And long may they stay away."

"I agree!" Wormtail piped up. He shut up after recieving a knife like look from Bellatrix.

"Well," Voldemort said. "I fail to believe that our big happy Death Eater family should have their personalities dictated by those three. True, they did have, erm, interesting habits, but look at us! I am your almighty leader. Dolohov, you're always wandering off into that cupoard, which has not gone unoticed, by the way. Bellatrix, you're always so sarcastic, Rodolphus, you run around like a slave doing practically everything she tells you to, and when not doing that, you're probably one of the only one of us, apart from me of course, who has a brain cell. Wormtail, you're the snivelling little punch bag that we push around. And Rabastan," he glanced at Rabastan, who seemed to be having problems using his cutlery and wasn't paying much attention. "You... erm, er... Well the point is: We all have unique personalities, and we will get through this year as we always have done, just a few minions short. And the first thing we shall do to make this year exciting is to go somewhere so exciting, and potentially dangerous, that it is guaranteed to start this new era off with a bang. We shall go to... the bowling alley."

There was silence.

"The, erm, bowling alley, my Lord?"

"Yes!" Voldemort cackled. "It's a bundle of laughs. And plus, I have free passes that I won in the paper."

"We'll get our raincoats, then, shall we?" Rodolphus asked.

Voldemort nodded.

"By the mini van in five minutes! And casual dress, those bowling shoes would look rather ridiculous with our normal attire."

They all left the table. Well, nearly all of them did.

"Come on, Rabastan," Rodolphus said, dragging his brother away from the unfathomable puzzle, that was working out how to co-ordinate his knife and fork so it would cut his bacon.

So, the Death Eaters arrived at the bowling alley, soaking wet, and wishing they had stayed at home. They all made an effort to stay away from Bellatrix who's umbrella had blown away, and who's hair looked as though it had just been dunked in a bucket of cold water.

"I can't stand this," she muttered, drawing out her wand.

"Come here, sweetheart," Rodolphus said swiftly, drawing her away from a group of muggles who looked as though they were wondering what that 'stick' was that she had taken out of her pocket.

"If you are going to do a drying charm, make sure to do it out of sight," he hissed, before shoving her behind one of the sweet dispensers.

"There," she said after a couple of seconds, reappearing with much drier hair. "Good as new!" She glanced at her reflection in the glass of the smarties dispenser and smiled, before stalking off to find the others.

Rodolphus gave a sigh of exhasperation and scurried after her.

"You better look after those shoes," Voldemort was saying, glaring at the spotty faced teenaged muggle at the shoe counter. "If I come back and find that my shoes have gone, there will be hell to pay."

"Yes, sir," the spotty shoe administrator replied, seemingly unfazed. "Of course, sir. May I take the oppurtunity to reccommend our 'Mr Icey' cold drinks at the food bar? One hundred per cent natural flavourings, only 75p."

Voldemort glanced at him in disdain, pulled on his bowling shoes and swept off.

"Lane five," he muttered. Spotting an aisle marked 'lane five', he headed towards it. "MINIONS! Lane five!" He called.

He spun around when he reached lane five, and waited for his minions to appear. Four of them were putting on bowling shoes, and one of them was working out how to tie the laces.

Voldemort took the oppurtunity to look around. In lane lane 6, there was a little group of children, probably there for a party. A rather agitated looking woman was sitting on the seat with a five year old girl on her knee. The little girl looked at Voldemort and gasped.

"Look Mummy!" She said. "That man has no nose!"

The woman turned around and saw Voldemort.

"No, dear, no," she said, in what she probably thought was a hushed voice. "You musn't stare. He's had what we call; plastic surgery."

"Platstick suggurry," the little girl repeated slowly.

Voldemort turned the other way with a snarl of annoyance to look at the group on the other side of them.

Lane four was in use by four rather loud young men, who, whenever one bowled a strike, cheered and jumped up.

All in all, Voldemort did not care much for either of their bowling neighbours.

He looked at the small keypad in front of him, just when his minions appeared, all in the same horrible red and white bowling shoes.

"How do you operate this thing?" Voldemort asked them. They shrugged.

"Let me look at it," Bellatrix said. She bent over the keyboard, and, within a matter of seconds, they looked up at the screen above their aisle and saw all of their names on a table.

"I did it alphabetically," she said. "Which means, Dolohov, you're first."

They all turned to Dolohov.

"Erm, forgive me for being ignorant," he said timidly. "But how exactly does one go about playing this game?"

"You throw the ball at those skittles down there," Rodolphus said, pointing down the long alley at the bowling pins at the bottom . "And try and knock them all over."

"OK," Dolohov said uncertainly, picking up one of the balls on the conveyor belt with three fingers. "But I don't know if I'll be able to throw that far."

"What?" Rodolphus asked. "No! Wait-"

But it was too late. Dolohov had brought the ball above his head and flung it as hard as he could at the skittles at the bottom. Needless to say that it did not go according to plan, and the ball collided most noisily on the polished wood with a crash about half way down, before lazily drifting off to the side and rolling down the gutter.

This seemed to have caught the attention of the young men in lane four, and they laughed at Dolohov as he sat bashfully on the end of the bench.

"I'm next," Bellatrix declared, and, having a little more sense than Dolohov, picked up a bowling ball from the conveyor belt, drew her arm neatly back and swept the ball out of her fingers. It glided down the alley and knocked the skittles cleanly over.

"Well done," Rodolphus said, impressed. "Have you never bowled before?"

"No," she replied, sitting daintily on the bench. "But, my dear, there is something which most of you lack," she shot a glare at Dolohov at the other end of the bench, "Called common sense, which I put into action."

"Hey, I'm Paul. You like bowling, then?" Asked one of the young men from lane four, leaning over to Bellatrix. She gracefully ignored him. Rodolphus shot the man a scowl and promptly sat down next to his wife, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"My name's not actually Wormtail, you know!" Wormtail squeaked, looking indignantly up at the names on the scoreboard.

"Really?" Asked Rabastan.

"Yes!" Wormtail replied. "It's Peter!"

"Well I never knew that!" Rabastan said, genuinely surprised. "You learn something new every day, eh?"

"Oh, just bowl!" Wormtail said crossly.

Rodolphus watched his brother carefully, looking for any signs of danger.

"Rabastan," he said warningly, as Rabastan picked out the smallest type of bowling ball. "I would recommend a bigger one..."

"I'll be fine," Rabastan said. "I watched Bellatrix. I know how to do it!"

He drew back his arm, and tried to sweep the ball gracefully out of his hands like Bellatrix did, but alas, Rodolphus had been right. Rabastan should have had the common sense to choose a larger ball as he did have such big fingers, and they were not accustomed to slip in and out of small spaces, like the holes in bowling balls, quickly. The result of this unfortunate fact, and Rabastan's rather dense head, meant that not only the ball went gliding along the shiny surface towards the pins, but so did he.

Rodolphus leapt up in dismay as his brother went soaring (very gracefully, nonetheless) across the wood and collided most painfully with the skittles at the other end.

This caused uproar. Most of the Death Eaters and all of the other visitors to the bowling alley burst into fits of laughter, while Rodolphus tried to hide behind Bellatrix, ashamed at the fact that this was his brother.

And all the while, a small beeping noise could be heard. Rodolphus glanced up at the scoreboard, where some writing was flashing: Line was crossed. Disqualified bowl.

Rabastan had not actually moved since the row of pins and the black backing had caused him to stop, and was lying motionless among the skittles, bowling ball still attatched to his hands.

Rodolphus scuttled down the lane towards him.

"Are you all right?" He asked his brother. "Speak to me!"

"Did I hit them?" Rabastan asked groggily.

"You could say that, yes," Rodolphus replied uncertainly and helped his brother up.

Rabastan limped back up the aisle, leaning on Rodolphus's shoulder, and blushed at the laughing crowds of people. Rodolphus glanced over at the shoe counter and noticed that even the spotty teenaged boy was snorting with laughter. Rodolphus could not take it any more. This was his brother! He stopped right there in the middle of the lane, let go of Rabastan and glared defiantly round at the crowd of onlookers from their various lanes. They fell silent as they regarded the furious expression on his face.

"I am shocked," he began. "Very shocked indeed. You have just witnessed the painful and completely unfunny accident of a poor unfortunate man. And what do you do? You stand there and laugh. Yes, laugh!" He paused for dramatic effect, the whole place was silent and listening to him. He continued. "When I arrived here earlier on, I did take a moment to look around and regard the different people, and I saw families, and friends, and groups of people having a good time and enjoying each other's company. I saw no dislike at all, I saw mothers and children, and sisters and brothers. And that is what this man is to me. No, he may not be able to work his knife and fork, or tie his laces, or choose the correct sized bowling ball, but he is still my brother, and he is taking all of this ridicule in silence! I think he deserves a round of applause!"

There was silence.

"Lighten up," came the grumbled reply of one of the young men in lane four, as the crowds subdued and everyone went back, muttering to their games. it was not quite the reaction Rodolphus had been expecting, but still, better than them laughing at him.

He helped his brother back to the bench and sat down next to Bellatrix.

"Quite a speech," she said, in what was almost an admiring tone. Almost.

"Really?" Rodolphus asked.

"Indeed," she sniffed. "Anyway, how are you going to get that ball off his fingers?"

"Like so," Rodolphus said, giving the ball a good hard tug, and, even before Rabastan had time to yelp in pain, the ball was off.

"I'll be back in a moment," Voldemort said, standing up, and headed towards the toilets.

"My turn," Rodolphus said, and stood up. He picked up a ball and turned to face the skittles. He blocked out all sounds and movements, and drew his arm backwards. Poor Rodolphus. How could he have predicted that Paul would 'accidently' have tripped whilst holding a Mr Icey, and how could anyone have forseen that the cold beverage would have gone flying through the air, and just 'happened' to land on Rodolphus's head, a split second before he released the ball. He spun around, glaring at the smirking young man, but alas, he had not let go of the ball, and it went soaring over the heads of the Death Eaters and cannoned into Paul's stomach, sending him crashing to the floor.

Voldemort walked out of the toilets, quite content. He was ready for more bowling, and couldn't wait to send Wormtail zooming up one of the lanes too.

Imagine his surprise as he stepped out of the door to the toilets and froze as his eyes met, not a happy bowling scene, but yelling, fighting and general commotion, mostly centred around lanes four and five, where two men were being restrained by their comrades from attacking each other, and had resorted to hurling abuse across the benches. One looked as though he had been winded, restrained by two other young men from lane four, and one was red in the face and being held back by Dolohov and Rabastan. The entire place was in catastrophe, apart from Bellatrix who was sitting on the bench between the two men, casually filing her nails.

"Please stop," drawled the spotty faced lad from the counter, who had an unconcerned look on his face of one who was seperating eggs instead of two full grown men. "You are disrupting the other customers."

"DO SOMETHING!" Voldemort snarled at him. The boy turned lazily towards him.

"May I recommend our 'Mr Icey' cold drinks at the food bar. One hundred per-"

"ARGH!" Cried Voldemort in frustration. "WHO STARTED THIS?"

Bellatrix glanced up at her master.

"What can I say?" She shrugged. "Men love me."

----

My internet works! Ta da!