The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|140| the Heist

Our plans were made, our preparations complete; in the smallest bedroom, a single long, coarse black hair (plucked from the sweater Hermione had been wearing at Malfoy Manor) lay curled in a small glass vial on the mantelpiece.

"And you'll be using her actual wand," I said, nodding toward the walnut wand, "so I reckon you'll be pretty convincing."

Hermione looked frightened that the wand might sting or bite her as she picked it up.

"I hate this thing," she said in a low voice. "I really hate it. It feels all wrong, it doesn't work properly for me... It's like a bit of her."

"It's just a matter of confidence, Hermione," I smirked, raising a brow at her.

Harry sniggered a bit at my comment knowing it was the same comment she made to him.

"It'll probably help you get in character, though," said Ron. "Think what that wand's done!"

"But that's my point!" said Hermione. "This is the wand that tortured Neville's mum and dad, and who knows how many other people? This is the wand that killed Sirius!"

I had not thought of that: I looked over at Harry with a sad look, he was looking down at the wand in Hermione's hand.

"I miss my wand," Hermione said miserably. "I wish Mr. Ollivander could have made me another one too."

Mr. Ollivander had sent Luna a new wand that morning. She was out on the back lawn at that moment, testing its capabilities in the late afternoon sun. Dean, who had lost his wand to the Snatchers, was watching rather gloomily.

Before I could respond, the door of the bedroom opened and Griphook entered. Seeking to gloss over the sticky moment we'd had, Harry said, "We've just been checking the last-minute stuff, Griphook. We've told Bill and Fleur we're leaving tomorrow, and we've told them not to get up to see us off."

Since Hermione would need to transform into Bellatrix before we left, Fleur and Bill wouldn't be able to say goodbye because they'd get suspicious as to what we were doing. We had also explained that we would not be returning. As we had lost Perkins's old tent on the night that the Snatchers caught us, Bill had lent us another one. It was now packed inside the beaded bag, which, I was impressed to learn, Hermione had protected from the Snatchers by the simple expedient of stuffing it down her sock.

It was a relief when six o'clock arrived and we could slip out of our sleeping bags, dress in the semidarkness, then creep out into the garden, where we were to meet Hermione and Griphook. The dawn was chilly, but there was little wind now that it was May. I looked up at the stars still glimmering palely in the dark sky and listened to the sea washing backward and forward against the cliff: I was going to miss the sound.

Walking through the field with Harry and Ron by my side, I heard the door of the shed open to see Bellatrix Lestrange look awkwardly around the yard. Coming out of the shed, she strode across the lawn towards us, accompanied by Griphook. As she walked, she was tucking the small, beaded bag into the inside pocket of another set of the old robes we had taken from Grimmauld Place. Though I knew perfectly well that it was really Hermione, I could not suppress a shiver of loathing. She was much taller than me, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful as they rested upon him; but then she spoke, and I heard Hermione through Bellatrix's low voice.

"She tasted disgusting, worse than Gurdyroots! Okay, Ron, come here so I can do you..."

"Right, but remember, I don't like the beard too long —"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, this isn't about looking handsome —"

"It's not that, it gets in the way! But I liked my nose a bit shorter, try and do it the way you did last time."