Part 9

Wormtail trudged down the road, casting one last annoyed look over his shoulder at the house he'd been unceremoniously kicked out of a few minutes before.

Werewolf Tamer?

Since when had that been his position in the Dark Lord's army? He'd never volunteered for the job, he was sure of that…wasn't he?

He went over all the meetings he'd attended, all the times he'd been in the Dark Lord's presence, and nothing sprang to mind until, with vivid, horrific clarity the night of the Malfoys' last Christmas party came to mind.

The evening was very much a blur with just snatches of memories coming to the forefront of his mind.

He recalled standing, hopefully, under the mistletoe, waiting patiently for Lucius's cousin…whatever her name was…to see him. At least until Draco had muscled him out of the way.

He remembered drifting to the buffet table and sampling the fruit punch. It had quite a kick to it.

He definitely remembered being kicked in the head by one of the wilder members of the Malfoy clan who had chosen to dance on the tables. He still maintained that he'd only leaned across the table to wipe up some of that delicious fruit punch that had spilt on the slippery surface.

Then there was that little episode on the dance floor. How was he to know they were jeering his dance moves? He'd thought they were cheering until they'd started throwing things at him.

And so he'd retired to the buffet table for some more of that lovely fruit punch.

He'd remained there for some time until The Roof Incident. An incident he had tried to push out of his mind forever, but was now starting to come back to him.

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"Don't touch anything," Severus ordered as he flicked on the electric light in his basement laboratory a short while later. Mr and Mrs Granger had departed and after a brief lecture to Hermione about the upcoming lessons he could no longer put off allowing her into his sanctuary.

He caught Hermione looking in surprise at the muggle light switch and resisted the temptation to flick it on and off again repeatedly to show her that he'd noticed her reaction. The house was in the middle of a muggle street for goodness sake; did she think they'd decided to pass over his property when they'd dragged the area into the twentieth century and installed electricity?

"Take a seat," he instructed, pointing to one of the stools near the table. Hermione perched herself on the stool and placed her books on the table in a neat little pile.

Severus pulled out his wand and neatly levitated them right back off the table and onto a shelf near the doorway.

Hermione watched in dismay but at the forbidding frown he threw at her she remained in her seat.

"I thought we'd start with something simple, something you have prepared before," Severus said as he moved about the room, opening cupboards to reveal ingredients and cauldrons, all stored in their rightful places. "The Draught of Peace."

"But I made that one nearly a year ago," Hermione blurted out. "There wasn't anything wrong with it."

Severus scowled at her impertinent tone and her continued complaints died on her lips.

"Nevertheless, this is the potion you are going to be required to make this morning. Please begin."

Hermione stepped down from the stool and walked straight to the shelf by the door.

"What do you think you're doing?" Severus asked as she reached to pull down one of her books.

"Getting last year's textbook for the instructions," replied Hermione with a bewildered expression.

Severus stalked across the room and took the book from her hands, replacing it back on the shelf.

"I thought for these tutoring sessions we would see how much you've actually learnt," Severus stated in as cold a tone as he could manage. "I am quite well aware of the fact that you can read instructions from a blackboard or a textbook, but how about when you have neither to assist you?"

Hermione looked crestfallen as she looked blankly around the room clearly at a loss for where to start.

"The cauldrons are over there." Severus pointed towards one of the cupboards with a barely suppressed sneer.

He had to admire how quickly she pulled herself together as she flew around the room pulling ingredients out of the cupboard and lining them up neatly on the table.

Maybe he'd been wrong and she would actually manage to produce the potion without the instructions. If she succeeded he'd certainly be able to put the potion to some good use. He'd been considering making some himself anyway to help get through the holidays with his sanity still intact.

He watched as she pulled out a jar of porcupine quills and looked at them in doubt.

Then again, maybe he'd better make the potion himself after all.

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Wormtail arrived at the address Bellatrix had given him and wearily pushed open the door. The bar was almost deserted; Wormtail climbed up onto one of the high stools and waved over the lone barman who was patiently cleaning glasses.

The Christmas party was still on his mind when he tried to order a glass of fruit punch.

"What you think this is? A ruddy cocktail bar?" the man asked with a contemptuous laugh. "Beer or whiskey?"

"A butterbeer," Wormtail said with a sigh.

"A what?" the man asked. Wormtail looked about the room before realising that he was in a muggle bar and that butterbeer was out of the question too.

"Beer," he amended.

The barman pulled a pint and pushed the glass towards Wormtail. "That'll be one fifty."

Wormtail rummaged in his pocket and dropped a couple of galleons onto the bar.

"We don't accept no funny foreign money in 'ere," the barman said as he looked curiously at one of the coins.

Wormtail reached across to snatch it back with one hand whilst the other scrambled to find the muggle money.

The barman gave him a strange look as he walked away to serve an elderly man who was waving to get his attention from the other end of the bar.

"It was that Christmas party," Wormtail muttered to himself as he glared around the room.

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The Previous Christmas Eve

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Wormtail stood lurking near the buffet table, a glass of punch in one hand and a mince pie in the other.

He'd just taken a rather large bite out of the mince pie when he spotted Lucius gesturing discreetly at him from the doorway. He took another bite of his pie before sauntering over to the increasingly desperate looking Death Eater.

"We have a problem," Lucius said as he dragged Wormtail into the study across the hallway. "One only you can help with."

Wormtail felt himself flush with pride at the thought of a task that Lucius, Top Dog Death Eater, thought only he could accomplish.

"The Dark Lord is on his way to the party," Lucius whispered. "His owl arrived a short while ago with his RSVP, it seems the bird got lost because of the way the reply was addressed."

Wormtail gave a look that he hoped conveyed his surprise, unable to speak with his mouth still crammed with mince pie.

Lucius sighed, pulled out the missive and Wormtail leaned across to look at address.

Christmas Party Capital of Europe

"Looking at it the bird has been everywhere from London to Reykjavik." Lucius scowled at Snowflake, lying in front of the fire like a pampered cat. "You know what this means of course?"

"We need to get the party games out of the way now, before he gets here and demands to win them all?" Wormtail asked.

Lucius sneered and rolled his eyes. "Read it!"

Wormtail reached for the returned invitation. He read the words twice to make sure that he'd got them correct.

"If he wants to meet Father Christmas why come here? Why can't he hike himself off to the North Pole?"

"I imagine that Draco has something to do with that," Lucius muttered. "Stupid kid told the Dark Lord that he'd been a good boy this year and so he thinks he's got the best chance of meeting him here…tonight."

"But Father Christmas doesn't exist," Wormtail pointed out.

"No? Really?" Lucius's voice was laced with sarcasm. "Well Draco has apparently told him that Father Christmas is a reclusive wizard, who uses the floo network and time turners to get the job done, and in his rather unstable state the Dark Lord wants to meet him."

"Why?" Wormtail asked.

"So he can ask why he never got any presents as a child," Lucius muttered.

"I can take a wild guess on that one," Wormtail replied.

"Can't we all?" Lucius hissed. "Do you volunteer to tell him?"

Wormtail shook his head quickly and started backing towards the door.

"I'm not telling him Santa doesn't exist," Wormtail insisted as he stumbled over the coffee table.

"You don't have to," said Lucius with a smile that Wormtail found extremely worrying.

Ten minutes later and Wormtail was dressed in the Santa suit that Lucius had conjured.

"I can't do this," Wormtail whined as he looked in the mirror.

"You're the only one that can," Lucius said. "No one else here has your…er…unique physique."

"You could do a spell on someone-"

"Out of the question." Lucius waved his hand as he conjured up a sack of parcels. "No one else is will-, er…able to help."

Wormtail ran through all the excuses he could think of before he finally realised that he had no choice.

"I'll just sit here and wait for him then, shall I?"

"Of course not," Lucius sneered. "You have to come down the chimney whilst he's in here."

"Okay." Wormtail nodded. "Where's the floo powder?"

"You can't floo out of here and back in again," advised Lucius. "You won't know when it's the right time and you're not wasting all our stock of floo powder getting it wrong. And you can't apparate here either, the estate is magically protected."

"Then how do you suggest I get in here?" Wormtail asked, a worrying thought coming into his mind.

"You'll have to come down the chimney," Lucius said with a thoughtful nod. "As long as Santa is here the Dark Lord probably won't notice that he didn't actually floo in."

"You mean go up on the roof?" Wormtail squeaked and felt his stomach flip flop over. He hoped he wouldn't be getting reacquainted with the half dozen mince pies he'd scoffed a short while ago.

"Exactly," Lucius stood up, and leading the way out into the hallway and up the stairs, they soon arrived in one of the guestrooms of the upper floor.

Wormtail felt more and more sick as Lucius described how he should go out onto the balcony, climb his way up the precarious looking vines, before hoisting himself onto the roof and making his way to the fourth chimney to the left.

"I can't do all that," said Wormtail, shaking his head and backing away again.

"Then you'll tell the Dark Lord that Santa doesn't exist?" Lucius asked.

"I thought not," he continued when Wormtail remained silent.

And so it came about that on the arrival of Lord Voldemort at the Christmas party Wormtail was not enjoying the festivities like everyone else. Instead he was hanging from a now damaged drainpipe, much to the hilarity of the guests who had come out onto the lawn at the sound of screams.

Even worse, the Dark Lord had arrived at the party with the full use of his faculties and had heard Wormtail screaming and ranting about the lack of a proper job.

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Present Day

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"That must be it," Wormtail muttered as he finished his pint. "This is his idea of a proper job and it's all Lucius's fault. Lucky for him, he's in Azkaban."

He was still plotting what he would do to Lucius, if he weren't safely out of his reach, when the first of the werewolves arrived in the pub.

And he'd thought the day couldn't get any worse?