Okay, how's this rewrite of the passage in question sound?
"V..." he stammered, apprehension crossing his features. He
looked around quickly, then leaned forward and almost whispered,
"Voldemort!"
I blinked. *Vol de mort?* I automatically thought in French.
"Deathflight"? Or maybe "Flight of Death", if you had a thing
for overblown drama. Either way, though, my immediate reaction
was, "really?" Admittedly, it might well have been his actual
birth name. Gods know that the English have more than their
share of strange names brought over from France as part of the
Norman Conquest, and just as many more mutated out of terms from
the original Celtic languages of the Isles. And, hell, my
Freshman year roommate at Princeton had had one of the German
words for "terror" as his last name. (He was overly fond of
explaining to anyone who would listen that *someone* far back in
his family tree had evidently not been A Nice Man.)
In this case, though, with what Charlie had already said, there
was only one conclusion I could draw.
I burst out laughing. "What is it with so-called dark lords and
their pretentious self-inflicted titles? I swear, they must all
come up with these things while they're whiny emo teenagers
planning how they're going to revenge themselves on the entire
world for how sucky their childhoods were. There's no other
explanation for it." I rolled my eyes. "'Flight of Death',
indeed. Give me a goddamned break."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
"V..." he stammered, apprehension crossing his features. He
looked around quickly, then leaned forward and almost whispered,
"Voldemort!"
I blinked. *Vol de mort?* I automatically thought in French.
"Deathflight"? Or maybe "Flight of Death", if you had a thing
for overblown drama. Either way, though, my immediate reaction
was, "really?" Admittedly, it might well have been his actual
birth name. Gods know that the English have more than their
share of strange names brought over from France as part of the
Norman Conquest, and just as many more mutated out of terms from
the original Celtic languages of the Isles. And, hell, my
Freshman year roommate at Princeton had had one of the German
words for "terror" as his last name. (He was overly fond of
explaining to anyone who would listen that *someone* far back in
his family tree had evidently not been A Nice Man.)
In this case, though, with what Charlie had already said, there
was only one conclusion I could draw.
I burst out laughing. "What is it with so-called dark lords and
their pretentious self-inflicted titles? I swear, they must all
come up with these things while they're whiny emo teenagers
planning how they're going to revenge themselves on the entire
world for how sucky their childhoods were. There's no other
explanation for it." I rolled my eyes. "'Flight of Death',
indeed. Give me a goddamned break."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.