"Hey, it's just a Horcrux. We already knew about those." Ron looked unconcerned at her words.
But while Ron was carefree, Hermione was extraordinarily sensitive, keenly picking up on a tiny detail in Daphne's words. "You mean he made one?"
With Hermione stressing that point, Harry and the others, who had not paid it any attention before, immediately realized something was wrong.
If Daphne meant the Horcruxes they already knew about, it would have been more natural for her to say that Voldemort had a Horcrux, or that he had several Horcruxes.
Of course, saying he had made a Horcrux was not wrong either. Ron, for instance, had noticed nothing unusual at all, but Hermione had heard something amiss.
"Huh?" Daphne did not quite understand what Hermione meant, but she nodded anyway. "Yes, just before the Easter holidays ended, the Dark Lord made a Horcrux."
Just before the Easter holidays ended?
That timing stirred something in all of them.
"How would you know something like that?" Harry looked at Daphne with some suspicion. Had he not confirmed that there was nothing unusual about her emotional fluctuations, he would have suspected she was lying.
"I'm guessing it was because of the Imperius Curse the Dark Lord modified." Daphne seemed to have given this some thought already and spoke quite calmly.
"The Imperius Curse the Dark Lord used on me could not only pass through Hogwarts' wards against dark magic, but also control me to carry out things he arranged on the spot. But in return, if he did anything particularly significant, I could sense it too..."
That stirred something in Ron and the others, and they unconsciously looked toward Harry.
Daphne's situation was rather similar to Harry's former situation.
Harry, too, had previously been able to sense it when Voldemort did