Veal & Venison {Tomione || 1940s/1990s}

42|| Rook to C8

42|| Rook to C8

The suspicions of the two time travellers grow exponentially with each step being spent towards the house of Bathilda Bagshot. Given the Potters' Cottage is just down the street, it cannot be said that this house is the most disrepaired of the neighborhood, but it's certainly a close second. Both houses are seemingly uninhabitable, with the Potters' Cottage lacking a roof and Bathilda Bagshot's abode shaking from the foundations in measly winds. Ivy creeps up the walls of the old home, the only spots of wall revealing complete decay and an infestation of termites. The yard is an overgrown mess of weeds and craggly trees, all long dead despite the given tenaciousness of the plants themselves.

And it is found that the indoor of the house is no better--not that this fact surprises the temporary trio of young soldiers. Indeed, the house, door, and remaining windows creak and crack under the entrance of a key into the front door lock, the old woman's actions revealing wrinkly white skin, like that of a corpse presented in a funeral. And when she does finally open the passageway, the ground creaks under her miniscule weight, the pitch heightening with each additional person entering, and the door shutting behind them at Tom's hand.

As Bathilda hobbles thenceforth, the three look at the room with utter suspicion. The walls, cracked and split in some places, have tears in the old wallpaper like remnants of a fight long forgotten. Everything is coated in a thick layer of dust, from the old velvet curtains--also clawed--to the miniscule trinkets on the piano. Darkness lingers around them in the lack of light, and a smell of decay permeates their noses, despite the open airs of the broken windows. It is unnatural, but it is fitting of this suspicious figure.

The older woman hobbles out of the room, allowing Hermione to wrinkle her nose in disgust, no longer stepping on eggshells of propriety and appeasement. Tom vaguely catches this in his edged preparations for whatever is to come, completely missing Hermione's reflective eyes on Tom's previous words. Maybe they really should leave.

"Harry, I'm not sure about this," she says in a slow, soft, and unsteady voice, her eyes peeled for danger, and hand secretly clenching her wand, hidden by her coat. Stuck between her devotion to the Boy Who Lived and the reason of Tom Riddle, Hermione cannot be as tense as the latter, Tom obviously being prepared for a fight with the tightening of his jaw and clenched fingers around his wand.

"Hermione, she knew Dumbledore. She might have the sword," Harry makes a good point to both his listeners, though Tom suspicions the extent to which Bathilda was friends with Dumbledore, given her devotion to his enemy, Grindelwald. "Besides, she's barely knee-high to a house-elf. I think we can overpower her if it turns ugly."

Tom doubts the woman is all that she appears, but he has no way of proving it given the environment and situation of this encounter. For all they know, she is Voldemort under the Polyjuice, given her lack of speaking. However, Tom again doubts the Dark Lord would choose such a private spectacle to kill Harry Potter. He's always loved having an audience.

But Tom is not the first to speak up about this, Hermione remarking that "There's something odd about her. And what's that smell?"

"She's gaga, remember?" Harry questions offhandedly, and Tom is only left to assume that 'gaga' means insane. Obviously, he'll be having to catch up on the lingos of these 1990s.

"She may be insane, but I know a house of dark magic when I see one. This is perhaps the worst," Tom takes on that serious tone that Hermione is so very used to, but Harry is not. And yet, they share an expression at the words of Tom Riddle--spent towards one another--and reassured in the suspicions of Tom. If the previous Dark Lord thinks this house is dark, then surely this is dangerous.