AN: Yeah, this is going to a collection of drabblish Death Eater oneshots, methinks. I really am just picking names and running with them.
"Mulciber - One of the earliest (c.1955) members of the Death Eaters (HBP20). Imperius Curse specialist, who had already been captured by the time Karkaroff came to trial"
– HP Lexicon (gotta love it).
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Imperio-
He was afraid (so afraid), his heart hammered in his throat as he forced his family through the fireplace. ("To your mother's!" he hissed at his wife.)
But she was crying. She was flinching away from the green dust, away from the flames, she was in his arms and his heart was breaking. ("Please," he whispered.) ("I love you," was all he got in response.)
His breathing was ragged, his fingers cold, She wouldn't leave him.
The light was blue.
Hands shaking he cast up barriers, but it was no good, they were already here. He stood at the window, trying to tune out his wife's quiet sobbing. Their boys were too young to understand; the youngest started crying. ("They're here for me.") ("We can't leave without you.")
There were footsteps outside. The fire went out. In the darkness he felt a warm hand on his back. ("When you fight, I fight.")
Blue and cold.
But then the door opened and she didn't. She didn't fight. She didn't get the chance. She fell like a stone. Like a rock through the air, plummeting with a crack. He'd wanted to cry, but he cursed instead, curses he'd promised he'd never let his sons hear. They were both crying. They thought their mother was dead. (He knew better though – the light hadn't been green. She was still breathing.)
He heard a laugh. It echoed through the room and silenced all spells. He looked into the shadows of his broken doorway and thought he saw a demon.
The world turned red with crucio. The pain was immense.
It tasted of rain and of the wind from the sea.
"I think you could be of great use to us, Mr Mulciber." It was a voice without humanity (without a soul).
He'd refused and the voice had made him scream. (He could hear it, the sound, not just through his ears, but through every nerve in his body.) (It was more than screaming, it was agony.) It began to chorus and he thought he heard the world join in. He thought choirs of angels felt his pain.
And then he opened his eyes.
His sons. His boys were screaming.
He saw the beam, heard the words, and the world stilled.
It was a sight that should have sent him reeling. It was a sight that should have propelled him to his feet and made him split the earth to its core with anger and burning pain. But it didn't. It just scared him. He fell to his knees and begged.
Then there was that laugh and their screams stopped. The demon's eyes were red as he looked into him. (Red like crucio.)
He would have flinched.
He imagined a pause, and then it was upon him.
"I know you back our cause, Mr Mulciber, and I believe that with persuasion you might back our methods too… What do you think?"
He hadn't spoken.
"Are you still unwilling, Mr Mulciber? You won't let me bribe you, persuade you or even threaten you… Perhaps you need to be forced?"
The demon was amused.
"I hear your father was well acquainted with this curse. You have his eyes. Blue. I think you would excel at it, also."
It forced his pupils closed before ripping them wide and gaping (he thought he saw the heart of the world).
He'd felt numb.
"There were once people who believed your eyes bared your soul, and that within your soul there was one curse that bowed to all others. Their oracles told me mine was torture. What is yours, Mulciber?"
He peered close, red eyes narrowing with studious interest.
And then he saw nothing. Nothing but that light, blue and cold and searing.
"Have you ever seen it's light, Mulciber? Have you ever seen the light of your soul?"
He couldn't have spoken if he'd wanted to, white fingers wrapped about his throat.
"Blue eyes, Mulciber," he smiled like the world was ending, "Royalty. Command, Power... Servitude."
The demon threw him back to the floor.
"Imperio."
His pupils flinched smaller in that split second before the light hit him and then suddenly they dilated, opening and opening and opening until he thought they might open forever and engulf his entire being, black holes in bloodshot pools. He saw blue masks and blue hats and blue eyes in blue shadows, there were blue trees and blue buildings and up up up there was a great blue moon, hanging cold in the light of imperio.
He saw only its light and he bowed. He didn't have the will to question.
And then there was silence. He was home, still on the floor. It was a silence that resonated; it lingered about his ears like a blue veil across the world before creaking like the thinnest layer of ice.
"Bow," it creaked. And he bowed.
"Curse," it creaked. And he cursed.
"Kill," it creaked. And kill he did, so many times it became less terrifying, the adrenaline less painful.
He became a follower. He became a weapon.
He was cursed and felt no pain. He was bankrupted and felt no loss. He was widowed and his heart didn't break.
He felt a blanket - cold and soft, like snow - engulf his soul. He felt it on his cheeks, under his hands, within his head. He felt it and it comforted him. He felt it and suddenly he could look into those eyes without fear, suddenly there were no demons.
He shared his light (his peace). He shared it with those he was told to share it with. He shared it and showed no mercy.
Faces were still faces but when he smiled it was automatic, when spoke it was scripted and when he hugged his children he began to think that maybe, maybe this time he'd like it to end.
But it didn't. The cold blue glow of the world became all he'd ever known, and the peace was immense. Maybe he'd found God, he wondered once, passing a small church en route to the meeting. But then he'd laughed, because he hadn't found God, god had found him. God had broken into his family home in the middle of the night, god had whipped his children with spells and thrown his wife to the floor, god had taught him to kill because if he didn't his children would scream forever, if he didn't he'd become the enemy. And you didn't make enemies with god. So he bowed and he cursed and he killed and he called his god Lord and his god would smile the smile of a sadist and every once in a while, when these thoughts were most prominent his god would turn the world blue again with the whisper of imperio ("wouldn't want to getting ideas, would we?" he'd say.)
And he learnt his curse; he learnt the magic his god tied to his soul. He learnt it and spread it and it was like his disease. He knew it so well.
They feared him.
He'd whisper the word, that simple command. He'd speak and they'd obey. He'd speak and he'd see himself in their bowed heads, he'd see himself reflected in their eyes.
"Imperio."
Whether it was he that spoke it or his Lord, he'd see the light; it would fill his world and send his thoughts to their knees. And he didn't kill anymore, he enslaved. He enslaved others and then bowed himself, at once both victim and victor.
He feared himself.
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AN: I'm revising, honest.
If you've read it, please review it!