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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 the small, beaded bag into the inside pocket of another set of the old robes they had taken from Grimmauld Place. Though the others knew perfectly well that it was really Mia, he could not suppress a shiver of loathing. She was taller than Mia was, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful as they 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 breath as she transformed various aspects of Ron's appearance. He was to be given a completely fake identity, and they were trusting to the malevolent aura cast by Bellatrix to protect him. Meanwhile Harry 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 now long and wavy; he had a thick brown beard and moustache, no freckles, a short, broad nose, and heavy eyebrows.
"Well, he's not my type, but he'll do," said Mia. "Shall we go, 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 that was the entrance to Diagon Alley. Seconds later, Mia's feet found pavement and she opened her eyes on Charing Cross Road. Muggles bustled past wearing the hangdog expressions of early morning, quite unconscious of the little inn's existence. The bar of the Leaky Cauldron was nearly deserted. Tom, the stooped and toothless landlord, was polishing glasses behind the bar counter; a couple of warlocks having a muttered conversation in the far corner glanced at Mia and drew back into the shadows.
"Madam Lestrange," murmured Tom, and as Mia paused she inclined her 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 the nondescript wall in front of them.
At once the bricks began to whirl and spin: A hole appeared in the middle of them, which grew wider and wider, finally forming an archway onto the narrow cobbled street that was Diagon Alley. It was quiet, barely time for the shops to open, and there were hardly any shoppers abroad. The crooked, cobbled street was much altered now from the bustling place Mia had visited before her first year at Hogwarts so many years before.
