Misunderstood Maledictions | Tomione

Ravenclaw Eavesdropper

3:10 P.M.

"We're nearly halfway through the year, and we haven't got anything to work with yet?" Harry was asking impatiently, parked on his usual Slytherin sofa with a sleeping Ginny as Hermione briskly strolled into the Room of Requirements. The raven-haired eighteen-year-old smiled at the brunette, as she placed the retrieved Dark Arts book on the coffee table between the sofas.

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Hermione responded thoughtfully, immediately jumping into the conversation. She sat down on the edge of the Ravenclaw couch, unzipped her bulging book bag, and unloaded at least six more dusty, leather bound books. "I think we have a lot to work with, but we just haven't figured out how to work with it yet."

"Hey, Hermy, enjoying your time without Voldy?" Lavender greeted cheerfully. Hermione nearly winced at the harsh grate of the name. Oblivious, the blond-streaked brunette promptly picked up An Ancient Dark Arts Summary and began leafing through it. "Where'd you dig these oldies up from? Under the dungeons?"

"Erm, from the other half of the Dumbledore Ancestral Library bookcases, I finally got the chance to un-shrink them last night..."

Hermione passed Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Draco some rather dodgy books on the Dark Arts before scooching farther back on the couch and reclining against a large, fluffy blue and bronze pillow. "Anyway, a lot of things are happening that definitely weren't supposed to happen. I mean, I don't get it. I don't. Tom Riddle's 'curse'— which is in no way mentioned in any of Dumbledore's information, by the way — left him in the Hospital Wing for almost a week. That's seven days,"

she intoned forcefully to drive her point. "All the professors, including this Dumbledore, seem to know about the curse, but they're being very hush-hush about it, if you know what I mean. Everyone, this is a big deal. Even Madam L was concerned. Had this happened to Riddle the first time around, Dumbledore would have definitely told us," she finished, a note of certainly ringing in the termination of her speech.

"So Voldy had the curse in him the entire time he was Lord Voldemort, but, for some reason, it never took effect?" Ron asked. A second later, he frowned and shook his head, as if answering his own question, and muttered, "Bugger."

"Ron," Hermione said out of the blue, vaguely wondering how to phrase her next statement.

"Hmmmm?" the lanky redhead asked distantly, breaking out of his deep, meditative thoughts. He yawned, wrapped his arm amicably around Lavender, and glanced at Hermione.

"It seems to me that it'd be far less confusing if we all called the 1940s version of Lord Voldemort Tom Riddle," she said carefully, disinterestedly pretending to be completely engrossed with the random book page she had opened to.

"Yeah, that little inconsistency has left me scratching my head a few times," Ginny piped in, cracking her sleeping eyes open an inch from her perch on Harry's lap. "Let me tell you, it's shaken me up quite a bit too. There were times when you said it, and I thought old Snake Eyes himself had somehow followed us back. We need some kind of uniform name system, like we should stick to Tom Riddle for this 1944 version of Voldemort and Voldemort for our version of Voldemort."

"Errrm... All right." It was difficult to see the befuddlement in Ron's expression, but Hermione knew it was there, heard the confusion in his voice as if he couldn't imagine why the name would even matter when they were so obviously the same person.

So obviously, her mind echoed with the slightest tinge of doubt.

"That's not all," Harry broke in arbitrarily, his voice disturbingly sombre, an unusually wary gleam in his green eyes. She had learned to dread the words that always inevitably followed that tone of voice.