The locket was stored away safely in a leather pouch (procured by Kreacher) and stuffed inside Hermione's beaded bag. For the first few days they had taken turns wearing it, but they had quickly discovered that it soured their moods. It had been worst when Draco had worn it; after only a few minutes he had found himself tracing his Dark Mark with his finger, and had felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to press the locket against it. Hermione had taken it from him immediately and hidden it away.
Their elation over finding the locket was short-lived. There were, after all, still two more Horcruxes to find, one of which was hidden deep in Gringotts bank. And the locket was a constant reminder that even when the Horcruxes were found, they had no way to destroy them. The weeks slipped away as they remained locked in debate about their next step.
"There's no other way!" Draco slammed his hand onto the long wooden table. "We have to get into Gringotts, and the only way to do that is to look like her!"
Harry sighed and rested his head in his hands. This debate had been raging for weeks now. "Draco, we can't let you go back to the Manor. What if You-Know-Who is there? What if you got caught?"
"You said it yourself," Draco answered. "He isn't there, he's flying around who knows where. I know my way around the Manor, I can get in, grab a hair and get out."
Harry looked up at Hermione in exasperation. "There has to be another way!"
Hermione chewed on her lip. "Harry, I've been thinking about it. He's right. It's not like we can just walk up to Gringotts and ask to be let into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. Polyjuice really is the only choice. And for that we need her hair."
"We can't just let him go into the Manor alone though!" Ron exclaimed. "I don't care how well you know it Draco, it's full of Death Eaters!"
Draco shook his head. "I'll take the Invisibility cloak. No one will even know that I'm there."
"What if You-Know-Who comes back?" Harry asked. "What then? Believe it or not we actually care about you, Draco! None of us wants you to get hurt!"
"If He comes back He'll call the Death Eaters, and I'll know." Draco held up his left arm. "But no one has used their Mark in weeks! Not since Halloween. This is the safest it's going to get!"
Harry sighed. "We can't let you do this, Draco," he said. "We're a team. We can't let you risk everything for the rest of us." There was silence around the table.
"I'll go with him." Three faces looked at Ron in surprise. "You're right Harry, we're a team. And we can't let Draco do this, not alone. I'll go with him and watch his back."
"Ron!"" Hermione let out a little squeak.
"No, Ron," Harry said thoughtfully. "I'll go. I'm better at dueling, it makes more sense."
"No it doesn't," Draco broke in. "If anyone is going with me it has to be Ron." He glanced at Harry and Hermione. "His family are blood traitors, but at least they're pure bloods. If either of you got caught you would be killed. Or worse. Ron and I can lie about changing our minds and wanting to join them. It wouldn't be good, but it would be better than anything they would do to either of you."
Hermione nodded slowly, her face scrunched in thought. ""I hate to say it, but it does make sense," she admitted.
"So when are we going?" Ron asked.
Draco glanced at the clock above them. "Right now." he stood up. "It's late enough now that everyone should be in their rooms, or at least they're not likely to be wandering around." He turned towards Harry. "Where's the Invisibility Cloak?"
Harry sighed and stood up. He grabbed the cloak from the chair next to him and passed it to Draco.
"Be careful, both of you," he said as they walked towards the door. "You're my best friends. I don't want either of you to get hurt."
Draco smiled tightly as Ron and Hermione broke off from them at the door. "We'll be back before you know it," he promised. "Besides, you should be proud. This is totally a Gryffindor plan. You lot are rubbing off on me."
Harry smirked. "I thought you said Gryffindor plans are stupid?"
"I did," Draco smirked back, "But I've made some Slytherin adjustments to this one. It's not so bad now." He reached around to Ron and peeled him away from Hermione. "We've got to go, Weasley."
Ron followed Draco to the door before turning back to Harry and Hermione. "Don't worry about us," he assured. "We'll be back before you know it." A serious expression crossed his face. "If anything goes wrong I'll send you one of those talking Patronuses."
Ron and Draco disappeared beneath the Invisibility cloak. The door swung open, then shut again. A faint crack could be heard through it, and they were gone.
Harry and Hermione paced the hall nervously. After a while Hermione disappeared, only to return a moment later with a book clutched tightly in her hands. Harry was surprised to see that it was Tales of Beedle the Bard, the children's book that Dumbledore had left to her in his paced back and forth, her nose buried in the pages.
Harry heard a sound outside. He ran towards the door just as it was thrown open from the outside. Laughter came floating into the house, pulling Hermione out of her book. The Invisibility cloak fell to the side, revealing Ron and Draco huddled together and laughing happily. Harry gave them a baffled look.
"Did you get the hair?" Hermione asked anxiously.
"Better, mate!" Ron answered, still chuckling. "We got two!"
Draco and Ron each held up a hand. There was a curly, brown hair clutched between Ron's fingers. Harry peered closely to see the long blond one in Draco's hand.
"She was talking to my father," Draco explained, gesturing towards the blond hair with his free hand. "This way it'll look even better, Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange."
Harry resisted the urge to jump into the air in elation. Instead he gave Ron a quizzical look. "Why are you laughing?"
"You should have seen the look on their faces!" Ron exclaimed. "Draco got his dad's hair first. He thought it was Bellatrix and started glaring at her!"
Draco imitated the look. "Bellatrix Lestrange, stop touching me!" he mocked. "They sounded like children bickering!"
Harry snickered.
Hermione conjured two small vials and handed them to Ron and Draco. "Did anyone see you?"
Draco shook his head. "We went in through a secret passage I found years ago. No one had any idea we were there."
Ron passed his vial back to Hermione. "You should see that place!" he exclaimed. "It's huge! You could probably hide in there for weeks and no one would even notice."
Draco chuckled. "It was weird to see it again. I think I actually forgot what it's like to live with civilized people." His smirk faded. "Though, my definition of civilized has changed." He looked at his friends as he handed back the vial.
"So," Ron started, "when do we go to Gringotts?"
The preparation for their robbery had to be immaculate. In the entire history of Gringotts only one attempt at breaking in had been successful, and that had been by Voldemort himself. Harry hoped desperately that their weeks of preparations would make their attempt the second to succeed.
Ron was laughing as Harry walked into the living room. Hermione was standing in the center of the room glaring at him as Draco stood stiffly next to her, his face an emotionless mask.
"How's it going?" Harry asked.
"You should've seen her!" Ron giggled. "She was flailing her arms everywhere and talking in this ridiculous voice!"
"That's because I'm supposed to, you prat! I'm imitating Bellatrix!"
"And doing a fine job," Draco said calmly, clearly imitating his father. "The woman is crazy, and I'm afraid that anyone who imitated her would appear to be equally so."
"How do you do that?" Hermione asked him. "It's so hard for me to act like Bellatrix, but you can just become anyone you want to."
Draco dropped his act and shrugged. "Years of practice. Just being yourself isn't an option in pureblood society. All of us get really good at turning ourselves off and pretending to be something different. After that it's easy to take on someone else."
Hermione frowned "That's sad. It must be really easy to lose yourself."
"You get used to it. It still feels weird to relax like this around all of you. Nice though."
Harry smiled as he poked Ron on the shoulder. "We have to go. Besides, I don't think Hermione likes being laughed at." Hermione scowled at them as Ron stood up and followed Harry out.
Harry threw the Invisibility cloak over them as they stepped through the door. After the school term started the Death Eaters had given up on watching the house constantly, but they continued to use the Invisibility cloak as a precaution. Draco was sure that he had seen people he recognized as Death Eaters walking by from the window, and Hermione knew that she had spotted several Ministry members on the street.
Ron apparated himself and Harry from the top step. With a crack they landed in the middle of a crowded storage room.
"Is it time?" Ron whispered.
Harry nodded. "They should be here any second." He turned as he heard a rustling behind a stack of boxes.
"Listen, George, I think we have a couple of rats in our storage room!" Harry smiled as the owner of the familiar voice came into view.
"I think you're right Fred! We'll have to exterminate them!" George's mouth was open in a wide smile. "Though we might have some trouble finding them. They seem to be invisible."
Harry pulled off the cloak. "Fred! George! It's so good to see you!"
"Good to see you too Harry!" Fred answered. "And you, I suppose." He smiled at Ron. "How's fighting good old No-Nose going?"
"A lot better once we get whatever you found for us," Ron answered.
George picked up a stack of books that was sitting on a nearby box. "You should've seen the looks people gave us when we got these. It's like they thought we've never read a book before."
"What exactly do you need books about Gringotts for anyways?" Fred asked suspiciously. "Planning something?"
Harry shook his head as he grabbed the books. "We can't tell you anything. Thanks so much for the help though. These will make things loads easier."
"Always happy to help," Fred replied. "This whole thing is making business slow anyways."
"That reminds me," George said. He picked up the box that the books had been sitting on. "We figured you could put some of our products to good use. Merry Christmas!"
Harry looked at Ron with wide eyes. He had forgotten that Christmas was coming. "Er, thanks," he stammered. "Sorry we don't have anything for you."
Fred waved his hand. "You're fighting for us. That's the best gift you could give."
Harry and Ron said goodbye to the twins before throwing the cloak over themselves and apparating back to Grimmauld Place.
