Horcrux Hunt Escape Room Part 2: Diagon Alley, Hufflepuff Cup

As noted in the overview post, our horcrux hunt party had (3) locations with (2) horcruxes per location. This allowed for the large number of guests to be broken down into smaller groups and rotate between locations.

Each group was given a clipboard with blank paper to take notes, and a blacklight flashlight.

For the party overview, see THIS post.

The Diagon Alley portion of the party contained the Locket & the Hufflepuff Cup horcruxes.

Hufflepuff Cup: Gemino Challenge

In Harry Potter, the Hufflepuff Cup was found in a Gringotts vault. The vault had the Gemino Curse applied to it, causing its contents to be constantly replicated. With this in mind, we had our first step of the hunt for the Cup to be a 'Gemino Curse' applied to its locks. 

"The Gemino Curse has been applied to this lock...

keys have multiplied! 

Find the keys before they replicate again!"

A hasp with SIX locks blocked the path. Six keys needed to be found in Diagon Alley.

This was the one room where a 'search and find' was encouraged. Five of the keys were found in various areas of the room:

(1) Key was found in the Ollivander's wand shop, in the 'fist' cupholder.

(1) Key was found in the Mandrake seed packet

(1) Key was found in the brass scales on the herbology shelf

(1) Key was found under the quaffle in the mini quidditch kit

(1) Key was found in the Dark Arts cabinet, under a candle in a skull candle holder.

The sixth key was in a locked box in the Dark Arts cabinet... they needed to find a SEVENTH key in the Gringotts brass scales to unlock the box to access the last key to open the Ollivander's cabinet. 

Inside of the Ollivander's cabinet was 12 wand boxes and a locked bag...

Nine of the wand boxes were benign - they contained wands. Three boxes contained small blank Gringotts deposit slips and (3) number plates each. In each set of number plates, one number was highlighted in invisible ink, visible with their blacklights.

The Gringotts deposit slips were a clue to check out the Gringotts deposit slips on the Gringotts cabinet for more information. How are these numbers significant, and in what order are they used?

In the Gringotts area of the room there were several deposit slips, all filled out. (3) of the (9) slips had blacklight reactive numbers in the corner: 1, 2, 3. The account numbers of these slips related to the number plates. For example, on the image above you can see the 5 is highlighted of the numbers 63, 46, & 25. The account number in the image below was 634625. This was highlighted as #1, so the first number on the lock was #5. The #7 in account 578217 was the second number on the lock. And finally, the #4 in account 311415 was the third number on the lock. 

As an added geeky bonus, all of the account names associated with these three slips were known Hufflepuffs - Diggory, Scamander, and Smith (Hepzibah Smith).

The numbers unlocked the bag in Ollivanders, and inside the bag was a key that unlocked the Ollivander's box.

This box contained a list of school supplies:

The numbers referenced in the school supply list do not refer to a quantity of items, but rather refer to the letter placement in the associated item. The list is a code.

(6) brass scales, 6th letter = S

(8) telescopes, 8th letter = P

(4) robes - Hufflepuff, 4th letter = E

(2) glass phials, 2nd letter = L

(4) cauldrons, 4th letter = L

The list, decoded, equals: SPELL.

The Gringotts cabinet is locked with a 5 letter lock, and the key is SPELL.

And the Hufflepuff Cup horcrux is found inside the Gringotts vault, broken by a SPELL. 

One horcrux down!

... and this was the easy one... 😬