Please review! What do you think of this character?
With rapid steps a small escort paced down the hallway. The company, consisting of Dolores Umbridge, Argus Filch and the entirety of the Inquisitorial Squad was led by a sixteen-year-old Slytherin, whose sadistic excitement shimmered through his lofty and collected mask.
And why wouldn't it? Draco Malfoy was delighted. He had them. He had seen it all. Harry Potter walking up and down until a secret door appeared, the whole bunch of clueless Muggle-lovers going in. A secret society. What better way to proof his loyalty to Umbridge and getting to see all his enemies punished at once than revealing it to the Head-Mistress? This situation was no less than perfect.
At that specific moment they all turned around the corner to enter the corridor where it all took place. A door. The door! The very visible door Potter several times had disappeared behind. Immediately Malfoy knew what this meant, they were coming! They were going to be caught in the act!
Now he was downright running, his heart pumping the adreline through his veins.
"Professor, quick! Someone is coming out!"
This was too good to be true. Better than perfect. They would catch them in the act. He could almost see their faces, Potter, Weasly, the Mudblood, all the others, Gryffindors, their friends. Seeing Umbridge standing right in front of their noses, seeing him, their disbelieve slowly turning in panic as they became aware of the trouble they were in. Priceless.
As they arranged themselves around the door, the knob went down, the door flew open…
An adult man ran in, dark green, narrow eyes widening at the sight of his reception party. Momentarily distracted, he nearly tripped over the threshold. He whipped around, his long coat whirling after him, and loudly closed the door.
As soon as it was firmly shut he turned back to squad, glaring hostilely from below his heavy eyebrows and thick, unkept hair, both in a dusty shade of brown.
One could call the man handsome: his face was thin and his jaw was sharp and unshaved, giving him that mysterious, edgy look of the charming bad boy. The only thing that kind of spoilt that image was his nose, not particularly noticeable from the front but prominently in view whenever he turned his head away.
In one glance Draco had decided that whoever this man was, he was far inferior to him and his family. Beneath his long, shaggy, light brown travel coat he wore an old-fashioned muggle waistcoat with a plain white shirt, which, in addition to his rather small, slender posture and jittery movements, condemned him to the poor and the odd. If there was anything that disgusted the Malfoys more than Muggles, it were the poor and the odd.
He seemed to ease a little when no fight broke loose, and took a straighter, more relaxed stance. His eyes, however, kept jumping jerkily from face to face, taking in his opponents.
A apologetic smile crossed his face. "Yn gouddag, myne dames en heere. Sod'ick de frankheid mogan taman, de te vragan wou ick me bevind?"
Everyone kept quiet. From odd to odder, Malfoy thought.
The man frowned. "Dy nin taelt Todds?" He waited for an answer once again. "Nin bit?" A wide, amused grin crept over his lips. "Jem sprocke et sanlyk nit… wem sod et bethekkan! T'is zuendig, wirklyk, hou kunde we os nu voors befroendan?"
Umbridge stepped forward. "Sir? I would like to make you aware of the unfortunate yet undeniable fact that you're standing on school ground at the moment, without the right to do so. As I am the current Head-Master of this place, would you please be so kind to illuminate me of the reason of your presence here?"
"Aha…" he said in a highly skeptical tone. "T'is yn spyt, bare dit goen't wirkan, madame. Ick tael dyn snogge dialectje nit."
"Professor," Warrington, a seventh year Slytherin, spoke, "Snape has a draught against language barriers. Shall I get him?"
"Wonderful idea, dear." She agreed. She then thoughtlessly raised her wand and stunned the startled man. "We will take him to my office in the meantime. There we can take look at this in quiet."
He was bound to a wooden chair at the other side of Umbrigde's desk. They hadn't found a wand on him, which had made them all the more suspicious, because how and most of all why would an unknown, foreign man appear out of the Room of Requirements without wand? He did have other belongings, as they discovered when they emptied his pockets: a bread, a notebook, a small flask with a viscous, clear liquid, papers, photos, a piece of charcoal, some golden coins, a precious pocket watch and some other jewellery. All this was put away into a chest in the office, he wouldn't need it anyway.
Umbridge was sitting in her own seat at her desk, smiling at her prey and nipping at her tea. Around them, scattered across the room, sat several members of the squad, silently waiting for Snape to arrive. Though having regained his consciousness, their victim was sitting motionlessly in the chair, his head bent casually backward to rest on the back, staring at the ceiling. He had made no attempt to escape so far, he hadn't even struggled or protested when he discovered the fist-thick rope. Perhaps he understood what they were waiting for.
The door swept open and Snape stepped in. He was holding a small crystal flacon in his hand in with a transparent light green liquid inside. He first addressed Umbridge:
"I heard you couldn't handle the issue on your one and needed my aid once again, Head-Mistress?"
"You've heard right, Serverus." she responded, "This man here appeared out of a magical door without even speaking the language! There's a leak in our security, it's unacceptable a complete stranger can enter this school this easily. He didn't even have a wand in him! I plead the person responsible for this should be called to justification immediately!"
"The person responsible? That would be you, Head-Mistress…?"
"Why would that be?"
"A Head-Master's position includes a great deal of responsibility, among which the security of the school…"
"Just give the man his poison so we can deal with the problem at hand, please, Severus."
He opened the flacon without wasting another word to the subject. The man glanced suspiciously at the bottle. "Wat is dat?"
Despite the language, it was pretty clear what he'd asked. Snape only couldn't phantom a way to respond to this man, so he handled swiftly and poured a quarter in his mouth before he could object.
He jerked his head away, sputtered, coughed, spit, coughed again and swallowed, trying to get the sour taste off his tongue.
"A Twisted-Tongue Potion, to stimulate our conversation."
He opened his mouth to retort, then realized he could retort and that the professor had spoken the truth, so he closed it again in a grimace, digesting his humiliation.
"Now could we know your name, sir?"
"Could you undo my robes, sir, so we can have this conversation as equals?" Although his English was flawless, he still had a light accent lingering between French and some obscure dialect.
"You must understand you are under arrest for burglary at the moment, you'll end up in Azkaban if you fail to give us some valid explanation. Where you belong anyway, I suppose…"
His eyebrows shot up at the word burglary, and he began chuckling.
"What's so funny?"
You really don't recognize me?
None of the Slytherins would have noticed, but Snape felt like his breath faltered for a moment as he grope for his wand. The man had answered his question, yes, he had, but he hadn't moved his lips. He spoken the words directly in Snape's head, were only Snape could hear them, his voice, including that distinctive accent. This man was a master in Legilimency. How could he have done it, how? He didn't even have a wand!
"What's your name?" Snape repeated, covering his fear with intimidation.
"Antoine Deyon." With this information came a kind of obnoxious, proud tone, like he expected them to fall on their knees apologizing for their rude welcome. Or at least be afraid. But they didn't.
"Well, Mister Deyon, I believe we are in our right to expect some clarification on how you came in here." Umbridge asked.
"Through the door. Doesn't my name say you anything at all?"
This man was starting to remind Snape of Potter.
"Actually, no, it doesn't." Umbridge continued, "And actually, I'm not under the impression we're missing all that much. How did you get into the Room of Requirements?"
"I honestly don't know what you're talking about. As you don't seem to know me, would you allow me to leave?"
"Sir, we're serious. Our defences are supposed to be impenetrable to outsiders!" Snape glanced at her.
"Then where am I!?"
Umbridge rose her eyebrows in disbelieve, yet Snape was the one to sneer an answer.
"You're at Hogwarts, British School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." A few of the Slytherins chuckled and whispered to each other, enjoying the scene. It took one look of Snape to get them silent.
"One of the Academies?"
"What do you mean, the academies?"
"The fifteen Academies of Magic and Magistership? No? No recognition? Then my presumption must be true…"
"What presumption, Mister Deyon?"
He caught him in a penetrating gaze. Then a wide grin split his face, sharp and emotionless as steel.
"I'm in another world."
The ropes slid from his body, cut in the middle, and he stood up, kicking away the last of his restrains. "Monsieur et Madame," he exclaimed, "please, before we proceed, could I know your names? You understand, I can't possibly call you my friends if we don't know that simple fact of each other, non?"
"How did you do that!?"
"The ropes? Please, monsieur, don't be distracted by such a… futility. I asked for your names." There was a clear threat in that last sentence. As he was speaking, Deyon couldn't stop swinging his arms back and forwards, clapping his hands, snapping his fingers, making gestures, replacing his weight, he couldn't stop moving. Snape had literally never met such a nerve-wracking person before. But that instant, he stood perfectly still.
"Serverus Snape."
"And you, Miss?"
"Dolores Umbridge, Minister of Education and Head-Master of Hogwarts. I advise you sit down now, Mister Deyon, or I'll have you removed from this terrain and transported to Azkaban!"
"Yes! Please, remove me, Miss Umbridge! This place is drab!"
"Mister Deyon, I warn you!"
"No, Miss Umbridge," He roughly shoved his chair backwards and stretched out his arms, fingertips of both hands touching each other. "I warn you!"
He opened his arms, a golden light sprouting out of his hands, connecting them like a blade until it flew through Umbridge's desk, cutting it in two equal halves that collapsed in the middle. It all had happened in a flash.
Deyon stepped on the ruined desk and approached a shocked Umbridge in a brisk, springy gait. "You people annoy me. I want my stuff back, where is it?"
"Mister Deyon, you can't –"
"I decide for myself what I can and cannot do. Where are my belongings?"
"One more step or gesture and I'll hex you senseless, so we can finally lock you up somewhere." He glanced over his shoulder to find Snape pointing his wand at him. "I can't understand why that woman didn't do that in the first place."