The Painter
The mural covered the ceiling of the chapel. Painted in monochrome colors, it depicted the rise of the emperor. It started at his humble birth, at an orphanage, a pureblood lost to muggles. It then depicted the beginning of his rise in Hogwarts, shamed for his heritage, before the reveal of his ancestry tracing back to Salazar himself. It showed him as a thief, a scoundrel, a leader, and a tyrant. It showed his initial defeat, his trails as a wraith, and his rise again.
The last image was at the center, with the emperor standing in the middle, hands stretched like some holy figure. In his right hand was the death eater mask, and in his left hand lay the elder wand. To an outsider, they would think that they came to worship a type of god, not to listen to the speeches of the Emperor of Magical Britain. It was just as the artist intended.
The aforementioned painter crawled onto his hands and knees, adding some last strokes of paint to the bottom of the wooden boards that lay at the foot of the podium that the Emperor used to give speeches on. The artist was an older man, in his late fifties, with dried paint specks on his face, cracked circular glasses, and if one looked hard enough, they could see a small scar on his forehead, partially hidden by the wrinkles.
The artist continued to paint little strokes into the boards, before placing the brush back into one of his pockets, and slowly stood up and started hobbling over to another section of the mural that lacked the finer details, favoring his right leg as he walked. It was when he was next to the mural that he heard a voice behind him.
"Hello," Emperor Voldemort said.
The old man turned around quickly, gasping, grabbed his chest and leaned against the wall. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
"You will never get a heart attack. I made sure of it. How is your 89th birthday?"
"Depends. How's my wife?"
"Oh, the Weasley Girl? She's fine, and her children are fine too. Being the merciful person I am, I have decided to let you see her in a month."
The painter frowned. "You are not a merciful person. You don't even have as much as a merciful bone in your body."
"I would have you know, that if anyone of my government officials talked to me like that, they would be quivering on the floor from the after effects of the pain curse. But not you. Do you know why?" The Emperor lifted the painter by his neck, pressing his body against the wall.
"Because..." The artist wheased. "You... need... me..."
"You can't die because of me. You get to see your wife because of me. And you have the gall to talk to me that way." The Emperor dropped the old man, who fell to the ground. "You are just as annoyingly pathetic as you were when you were 17. You need to learn a lesson." The Emperor kicked the painter in the gut, causing the painter to cough horribly.
"I thought that putting you on this job would help your rebellion problem, but it hasn't." The Emperor continued. "Your friends, Weasley and his wife? They have some children. I wonder if watching them die will keep you from speaking out like this. And if you do, then perhaps your children would be next."
"Please," the artist moaned from the floor. "Please..."
"Please what? Kill your family? You're going to have to be more specific."
"Please... leave them... alone..."
"I could. But it would require perfect behavior on your end. Can you do that? Can you be good to me?"
The painter weakly nodded, before coughing again.
"Good. Clean yourself up and finish the mural. I want it ready by Saturday."
The painter, defeated, lowered his head, and watched as the Emperor walked out of the temple.
A/N: This is going to be a series of short ideas that I have concerning the idea of what if Voldemort won? They are all going to be very short, dark, and used as a footstool to get better at writing until my first long fanfic is written. See ya!
