Three hours later found Lance sitting in a restaurant on Diagon Alley flipping through the pages of a large book. On the pages were illustrations and short descriptions of magical creatures found across the world. Lance had purchased this book along with several others from Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore most Hogwarts students go to for their textbooks. The teen let out a sigh and shut the book on an illustration of a strange monkey-like creature.
Lance was honestly a little disappointed with his trip to this movie world. Dumbledore had been kind enough to bring Lance and Eve to Diagon Alley and gave them directions to the bank where they successfully exchanged their gold for wizard currency. After that unfortunately things took a dive. Due to the summer holiday just starting many of the stores had closed for a short vacation. Leaving Lance and Eve with very few stores to shop from. Thankfully the bookstore had still been open, where Lance had purchased several books. He had focused less on books that taught magic and more on books that covered how to identify and deal with magic from around the world. He wasn't sure if God would use magic from this movie in another but it was better to be safe than sorry.
A bell ringing brought Lance out of his thoughts, Eve had just entered through the front door. She carried several sacks, fewer than Lance would have liked, and made her way to Lance without hesitation. She wordlessly took a seat across from the teen and began to pull items out of one of the sacks, this one dingier than the others.
“Like you expected, Knockturn Alley proved to have more stores open” she said as she placed items on the table “Unfortunately they didn't have much we could use. Most of the stores open sold mainly cursed items, weak ones that would just be a waste of money”
“As expected” Lance said dismissively “So what do we have here?”
On the table Eve had placed a small cloth bag with a black cloud stitched on the front, a key which appeared to be made of bone, and the oddest was a severed hand.
“This is called instant darkness powder” Eve began with the cloth bag “throwing a handful in a room will create a magical darkness for a few minutes”
“How strong is the darkness?” Lance asked, eyeing the bag.
“Depending on how much is used” Eve answered “Using the whole bag would leave you blind in an average size room. I bought three bags for the next movie”
“Excellent” Lance gave his usual smirk “What else do we have?”
“This is a skeleton key” Eve pointed to the bone key on the table
“Should've guessed that” Lance muttered
“It will unlock any non magical lock” Eve continued “The key changes shape each time it enters a lock. Due to this the key will break after a few uses. They are relatively cheap though so it won’t be hard to replace. I could only get two of them”
“How many uses till they break?” Lance questioned
“The shop owner didn’t say” Eve explained “Based on the other customers in the shop I believe these keys are used once and then discarded”
“No evidence” Lance nodded “Magical or otherwise”
“That brings us to the last item” Eve motioned to the severed hand “ This is called the hand of glory. Placing a candle in the center of the hand will cause its light to be unseen by anyone but the holder”
“Interesting” Lance picked up the hand and saw where the candle could be attached on palm of the hand
“I could only get one of these unfortunately” Eve continued “The shop owner said he can only get two every few years”
“I wonder why” Lance said sarcastically “Regardless these are good finds”
Lance smiled at the new items. They weren't the game changing finds he was hoping for but they definitely would come in handy for future movies. They would also serve to show any items can come back from a movie world.
“What's in the other bags?” Lance asked after a moment, Eve had two more bags with her.
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“One is filled with cloaks from Madam Malkin’s shop” Eve pointed to one of the bags “I could only get ten of the self repairing ones. She said to come back closer to the start of the school year, that's when she has the most stock”
“Excellent,” Lance said. The robes were more items of luxury than necessity. Never knew when some new clothes could be needed.
“This one holds the miscellaneous items” Eve concluded with the final bag “Alchemy ingredients, odd items from Knockturn Alley, as well as equipment for potion making”
“Did you go by the broom shop?” Lance asked, not feeling the need to go through the final bag. He and Eve had made the list of what to get, he trusted if she didn't have anything to report then everything important was found.
“I did but the owners are on vacation” Eve answered “the worker i spoke to had no idea if a custom order was even possible. The initial testing proved useless”
Lance nodded but didn't say anything. He had had a faint hope that they could use the brooms with the energies they gained from God but that proved incorrect. There was still hope a custom broom could be made but that would have to wait. Transportation for the team was high on Lance’s list, a few members who could ride brooms would be progress but not enough to spend more time in this movie. Maybe the movie after Scream would be a scifi movie and they could steal a spaceship.
Though that would have its own problems. The storage wand Dumbledore had gifted them would go a long way for storing and accessing items. Unfortunately he doubted it would be able to store an entire spaceship. There were some items in the exchange system that could probably hold a ship but they were heavily priced. Was that the best investment? Should they be worrying about transportation at this point?
“Are you nervous about Scream?” Eve asked after the silence lasted a moment
“Mildly” Lance answered honestly “Scream is a classic slasher film. There’s no supernatural or fantasy elements to this movie. The main threat in the movie is a couple knife wielding high school students. The only people I don’t think could handle that is Elijah and maybe Crystal if she can’t get her summon out. God is going to have to change things if they want this movie to be a challenge. Which I’m sure they will”
“You’re confident the team will be alright?” Eve question
“As confident as I can be” Lance explained “it’s still small but our team is starting to fill itself out. We have two frontline fighters with Josh and Logan, Matt can handle healing and defenses. You and I work as mid range support, and now we have a psyche force user as well as a summoner. Plus whatever type of bodyguard Elijah decides to make”
“Hopefully he won’t make one with his personality” Eve muttered “one of him is bad enough”
“I doubt he would do that,” Lance said with a wave of his hand “he’ll want someone to protect him. I’m betting it’ll be his interpretation of an ex soldier turned mercenary”
“Should I be watching him in the next movie?” Eve asked
“No more than you watch any of the others” Lance answered stoically “Elijah may be a large annoyance but he is not a threat. He’s smart enough to know his survival chances are much better with us than against us. Everything else he says are just pointless attempts at trying to maintain what he considers normalcy in his world”
“Understood” Eve nodded though the tension didn’t leave her face
“After a few more movies we can start to worry about him” Lance continued “then he’ll be a real threat. When we encountered team East Africa the power of a psyche force user was shown. Abuya couldn’t handle Stone one on one but her betrayal nonetheless sealed the teams fate”
“Should we continue the list then?” Eve asked
“Definitely” Lance confirmed “Logan agreed, having a work around for needing a psyche force user should be available”
“Understood. What else do you want to accomplish while here?” Eve began returning the items back to the bag.
“No more direct goals” Lance pushed his chair back and stood “I’ll spend the rest of our time here in our room at the inn. You continue browsing the stores and chatting with the wizards”
As Lance said for the rest of their time in the Harry Potter world he stayed in the room reading the various books he had purchased. Eve spent her time leisurely wandering around Diagon Alley. She purchased a few odd alchemy ingredients before her time in the movie was over. In a flash Eve and Lance found themselves back standing under God. Josh and Logan stood behind them, exactly as they had when the duo left.
“Did it work?” Josh asked doubtfully
“Oh it worked” Lance said, lifting and showing off the various bags the teen was holding.
“That's incredible” Josh’s eyes widened in surprise “You guys seemed to just vanish for a second and then you were back”
“A whole day in just a second” Lance said happily “This could be very helpful in the coming days”
Lance and Eve stepped forward and began to show off what goods they had found. Logan was very impressed with the returns from the trip, he was most interested in the skeleton key. Josh preferred the darkness powder, thinking it would be more useful. Both were blown away when the storage wand was revealed.
“This proves Harry Potter is filled with treasures for us” Logan said after everything was shown off “We may actually be prepared for the next movie”
“This is the best we can prepare for the team as a whole” Lance said, turning to the other members “Anyone who has points should spend them on what they feel will best strengthen them for the next movie. Telling your purchases to Eve or I is encouraged but not required”
“Spend these last few points well” Logan said “In eight days we enter Scream”