Twenty-three

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Sirius and Remus anxiously awaited for the six to return, jumping up as they heard a popping noise in the hallway. They turned to find Hermione, Draco and Regulus coming into the room and Hermione triumphantly pulled out the cup from her bag. "Excellent!" Sirius cheered and Regulus summoned Kreacher to lock up the horcrux in the same manner he had done for the locket all those years ago. A few moments later, Tonks, Harry and Ron apparated into the house, covered in ash, the boys a bit dazed looking.

"What happened?" Draco questioned, raising a brow. "Run into the dragon?"

"Dragon?" Sirius questioned with wide eyes. "What dragon?"

Hermione's eyes lit up as she began to rapidly explain what had happened to them at the bank, with the polyjuice wearing off, the dragon, the duplicating spell and finally escaping from gringotts. "It was absolutely barbaric! She was all chained up, I couldn't just leave her there!" Hermione insisted, going on about how she was determined to change the legislatures and laws about magical creatures once the war was over. A small smile came across Remus' face- he knew there was a reason Hermione had always been his favorite student.

"You flew on the back of that bloody dragon?" Ron questioned incredulously. Draco smirked and Harry shook his head. "That dragon is exactly what gave us our distraction to grab the locket and get out of there," Harry informed Hermione.

"Well if Tonks had been a more convincing Malfoy..." Ron grumbled. Draco turned to look at Ron and then his cousin. "You changed yourself to look like me?"

"Actually... your dad."

Harry, Ron and Tonks stood in the alleyway as the boy's adjusted the clothes they had stolen from the two order members, Tonks keeping watch to make sure that nobody was coming. "Runcorn... that guy's a knob-glad you knocked him good in the head," Tonks snickered, looking at Harry as he tucked his glasses into his inner coat pocket, just in case he ended up needing them. "Don't recognize your fellow though..." Tonks looked Ron up and down and he simply shrugged.

"The less time we need to be in the Ministry, the better," Ron insisted and the three of them carefully began to head out of the alley and toward the telephone booth that would take them down into the main entrance of the Ministry building.

"Tonks... you can't just go in like that," Harry realized as the elevator began to sink under the pavement.

"Oh! Almost forgot!" she gave a sheepish grin, shaking out her hair. Harry and Ron watched with wide eyes as Tonk's short purple hair became long and platinum blonde. Her face became harder, she became taller, her shoulders broadening out and a sneer coming across her face as she changed her appearance to look just like Lucius Malfoy. "Bloody wicked... but creepy," Ron admitted.

"Make yourself look a bit more...tired- you did just get out of Azkaban," Harry informed her with a bit of a scoff. Tonks nodded as she made her skin a bit paler, giving her hair less sheen and some dark circles under her eyes.

"You should do this again in front of Malfoy-proper freak him out," Ron chuckled as the elevator went through the floor, landing in the Ministry.

"That's not funny," Hermione commented after the boys finished telling them the story. "I think it's bloody hysterical...sorry Draco," Sirius corrected himself as Remus nudged his shoulder, noticing Draco's obvious discomfort.

"So you got into the ministry, and then what... where was the necklace?" Regulus questioned as Harry fished it out from his pocket, handing it off to Kreacher to lock it up the same way he had just done with the cup.

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