Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter, I could use the cash.
AN: I really like how they handled the Invisibility Cloak in the movies, it gives a great effect, but there's one thing that, after good Sir Blackmoon mentioned it to me, has been on my mind. In an attempt to get it off my mind, I wrote this.
The common room of Gryffindor Tower, with its roaring fire, comfortable furniture, and (thanks to Fred and George) endless supply of sweets nicked directly from the kitchens, was an excellent place to think. Especially late into the evening as classmates began to turn in and the hubbub (games of Exploding Snap) died down. It was then, when the common room started to quiet, that a too-sugar-crazed-to-sleep child, wired from an entire case of chocolate frogs, could scrape together the strangest (and thus best) ideas.
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Ron sat comfortably sprawled across the lap of an overstuffed arm chair, one leg slung casually over the armrest, as he watched Hermione help with the last few feet of an essay Harry was frantically working on. For the past few minutes the stilling atmosphere in the common room had been warped by her various admonishments ("Harry, this was assigned a week ago. Why did you wait until the last minute?") but she fell silent when Ron opened his mouth and let fly the hyperactivity-induced idea that had been bouncing around in his brain.
"Hey Harry," Hyper though he was, Ron had the good sense to glance around and make sure they were alone before continuing, "Why do we call your Invisibility Cloak a cloak when it's not a cloak?"
"I don't get it, Ron. How's my cloak not a cloak? It looks like one to me." Harry was sorely confused. His father's heirloom was the Invisibility Cloak, not the Invisibility Cardigan. Even Dumbledore called it a cloak. What in the world was Ron talking about?
"No offense mate, but thanks to those muggles you live with you wouldn't know a proper cloak if it bit you in the arse." Ron quickly ducked the pillow aimed at his head, brushed aside Hermione's command to watch his language, and continued. "Take it from me Harry, that Invisibility What'sit you've got isn't a cloak. Yeah, it's got a hood and you can pull it around you, but it looks like something that got up and scarpered out of the shop before the tailor could finish it."
Harry was about to dismiss Ron's claims as simply sugar-mad ravings, but then he heard Hermione say something that broke the universe.
"Ron's right, you know." She casually picked up the essay Harry had abandoned and skimmed over it, as if she couldn't hear the laws of nature being ground to dust. "I bet the Invisibility Cloak is called a cloak because it's supposed to cloak you from danger. I read a book on wizarding fashion recently and the cloaks they showed looked nothing like yours Harry." She paused as she spotted a misspelling in Harry's essay, vanished it with her wand, and corrected it. "Since it's not really a cloak, I think we should start calling it the Invisibility Tarp."
Ron almost fell out of his chair laughing. Harry just shook his head. He didn't doubt that his friends would start calling the poor garment a tarp, he just hoped, really hoped, that they'd laugh and get it out of their systems in a few days. They'd go back to calling it a cloak again soon, right?
AN: It looks like a tarp. It really does, the way they just lay it over all three of them. Totally a tarp. And while we're on the subject of the Invisibility Cloak (Tarp), does it change size depending on who wears it? Snape used it once (In the third book to get into the Shrieking Shack, remember?) and it seemed to fit him well enough to hide him, even though he's much taller than Harry and company. Did it extend on its own to accommodate the taller wearer, or could Snape's shoes and the bottoms of his robes be seen wandering about? What would it be like if Hagrid tried it on?