Hidden Identity

Chapter 20: The cottage on the beach

Bpov

"So exactly what is this place again?" Harry asked Ron as me and him entered through the front door.

Luna, who was sitting in the room next door reading her Quibbler magazine, looked up at us and gave us a small smile.

"This is a cottage we owm, we've had it for years. Bill andz Fluer had been staying here."" Ron answered.

"Then where are they?" Hermione said as she examined the kitchen we were stood in.

"There with mum and dad. Mum insisted that they stayed there until everything was over. Charlie's there too." Ron explained to us.

There was silence.

"So.... What do we do now?" Ron said.

"Well we have to talk to Griphook and Olivander. Olivander so we can check that your wands are safe to use, and Griphook to find out why Bellatrix Lestrange was expecting the sword of Gryffindor to be in her volt at Gringotts." I told everyone as I stood up.

"Who should we go see first?" said Ron

"Olivander" I replied, " He'll be easier" I told everyone and they nodded in agreement.

"Okay so lets go....." I stopped in mid-sentence as I spotted something in the corner of the room that caught my eye.

"What, what is it?" My brother asked me as he let his eyes wander to where mine were looking.

"It's that sign again" Harry pointed out when he had found what I was staring at.

"What sign?" Ron asked as he hurried to see what we were looking at, "Oh you mean the deathly hallows."

"The what?" the three of us asked in simultaneously. Very confused.

"Wait a second, I remember now! I've seen that before, it was in my book" Hermione pipped in.

"What book?" Harry questioned.

"The one that Dumbledore left for me. Look!" she grabbed the book from out of her bag and quickly scurried through the pages until she found the right one.

"Listen" she instructed and began to read the story she held in her hands,

'There were once three brothers here were walking along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river, too treacherous to pass. But being learned in the magical arts, the three brothers simply waved their wands and made a bridge. But before they could cross they found their paths being blocked by a hooded figure, it was death and he felt cheated.

Cheated because travellers would normally drown in the river.

But death was cunning.

He pretended to congratulate the three brothers on their magic, and said that ach of them had earned a prize for being smart enough to evade him.

The oldest, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence. So death fashioned him one from a elder tree that stood near by.

The second brother decided to humiliate death even further, and asked for the power to recall loved ones from the grave. So death plucked a stone from the river and offered it to him.

Death turned to the third brother. A humble man, he asked for something that would allow him to go forth from that place without being followed by death. And so it was that death reluctantly handed over his own cloak of invisibility.

The first brother travelled to a distance village, where with the elder wand in hand he killed a wizard who he had once quarrelled. Drunk, with the power that the elder wand had given him, he bragged of his invincibility. But that night, another wizard stole the wand and slit the brothers throat for good measure.