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"How do I look?"
A few days later found Harry, Ron, Hermione and Griphook on the sandy hills of Shell cottage, ready to go into Gringotts.
Bellatrix Lestrange was striding across the lawn toward them. As she walked, she was tucking thesmall, beaded bag into the inside pocket of another set of the oldrobes they had taken from Grimmauld Place. Though the others knewperfectly well that it was really Mia, he could not suppressa shiver of loathing. She was taller than he was, her long blackhair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful asthey rested upon him.
"Hideous," Harry said to his sister as she nodded.
"Good," she said. "Mione, sort Ron out please."
Hermione nodded and set to work, muttering under her breathas she transformed various aspects of Ron's appearance. He wasto be given a completely fake identity, and they were trusting tothe malevolent aura cast by Bellatrix to protect him. MeanwhileHarry and Griphook were to be concealed under the InvisibilityCloak.
"There," said Hermione, "how does he look?"
It was just possible to discern Ron under his disguise, but only,Harry thought, because he knew him so well. Ron's hair was nowlong and wavy; he had a thick brown beard and mustache, nofreckles, a short, broad nose, and heavy eyebrows.
"Well, he's not my type, but he'll do," said Mia. "Shall wego, then?"
"We're relying on you, Griphook," Harry said as Mia looked at him. "If you get us past the guards into the vault, the sword's yours."
Mia turned on the spot, concentrating with all her might on the Leaky Cauldron, the inn thatwas the entrance to Diagon Alley. Seconds laterMia's feet found pavement and she opened her eyes on CharingCross Road. Muggles bustled past wearing the hangdog expressionsof early morning, quite unconscious of the little inn's existence.The bar of the Leaky Cauldron was nearly deserted. Tom, thestooped and toothless landlord, was polishing glasses behind thebar counter; a couple of warlocks having a muttered conversation inthe far corner glanced at Mia and drew back into the shadows.
"Madam Lestrange," murmured Tom, and as Mia pausedhe inclined his head subserviently.
"Tom," she said back in the same bone-chilling tone Bellatrix used. She turned to Ron. "Come." They walked through the bar and towards the back of the inn.
Ron drew out Draco's wand and rapped a brick in thenondescript wall in front of them.
At once the bricks began towhirl and spin: A hole appeared in the middle of them, whichgrew wider and wider, finally forming an archway onto the narrowcobbled street that was Diagon Alley.It was quiet, barely time for the shops to open, and there werehardly any shoppers abroad. The crooked, cobbled street was muchaltered now from the bustling place Mia had visited before her first year at Hogwarts so many years before.
