Coup d'Etat

I: Tangled

Something wicked this way comes
("Double Trouble" by John Williams; HP&PoA film)

He came to his senses with a start, taking a deep loud breath, and tried to sit up only to find out with dismay, that he had been tied to the huge four-poster by his hands and feet, spread on it like the four-winged eagle of sorts. He took in the room he was in. It seemed unfamiliar with all this old furniture made of dark and expensive-looking, though a bit worn-out wood, curtains on window and around the bed made from heavy and luxurious, though somewhat dusty velvet of deep-green color. A very Slytherin room, he thought. Though it did look abandoned and worn-out, not only in terms of materials, from which everything was made, but in respect to the air itself, too, as if the dust dancing in the stray sun ray peeking through half-closed window-curtains, somehow made it even more old and positively rusty with time, which has surely passed from the moment anyone at all had been here.

He vaguely remembered being in the Potions lab, working at some project of his own invention and, at the same time, he remembered sitting in class at Hogwarts and working on the Potion they were assigned to brew that day. Both halves of his strangely divided memory provided him with the loud boom of explosion. Shaking his head in the attempt to clear the fog out of his thoughts he tried to wrest free at least one hand, but it was in vain. The ropes, it seemed, were charmed, as his attempt just made them close even tighter around his wrist, almost cutting off the blood flow in his palm. Hissing at discomfort he tugged at the offending thing once more before dropping his hand back on the mattress beside his head.

He couldn't even begin to comprehend what happened and why, in Salazar's name, he was at this place instead of being treated at the school's Hospital Wing. The blurring memory of being in his own lab was dissolving into nothingness already, so he assumed that was either his wild imagination or had something to do with magic – probably, Memory Charm, or he was simply channelling some long-dead Potion Master's ghost. Not very likely, but still it was the possibility. One could never tell in the Wizarding World, and even Muggles claimed there were mediums speaking for ghosts out there.

Still, he could not understand what happened for him to end up who knows where in such humiliating and uncomfortable position. He didn't like being treated like a dangerous prisoner by someone he hadn't even seen yet.

He didn't have his wand on him, sure, but he still was able to perform some spells wandlessly. Knowing that what he intended to do was not harmless and pleasant, he closed his eyes and took several calming breaths, before lashing with his magic towards the ropes on his wrists. Small petals of fire blossomed at his palms, successfully eating away the knots of the ropes. Before the fire could spread further and burn him even more, he put out the flames shuddering at the stinging sensation in the mild burns on his hands. Then he tried untying the ropes on his feet manually, but reverted back to wandlessly igniting them, when the rope only contracted more under the touch of his fingers. Putting out these flames as well, he slid from the bed and rolled under it just in time before the door opened.

Someone walked in briskly only to cry out in alarm and to rush from the room, not even bothering to check if he was still inside.

Snorting at the stupidity of his guard, he quickly dashed out of the door before it could close.

He was lucky, it seemed, as the corridor outside was poorly lit and he ran unnoticed in the opposite direction of the man, who still was loudly shouting about the missing prisoner.

Three turns of the dark corridor later he heard someone coming towards him. Making a hasty dash for the nearest door he tried to open it, but the door was locked. This left him with the only option – to attack the approaching person in hopes that they will be slower than him and less vocal than the man who came to that room earlier.