Home Escape Room Tools: Locks, Boxes, & Bags

 Home escape room parties are different than the professional game rooms that you pay to play. Unless you are willing to spend significant sums of money to develop or purchase custom locks, boxes, and ciphers for your game, it is much more cost effective to utilize commercially available products as your game elements. You are also able to reuse them for future games that are not in the same theme. After several years of hosting escape room parties for our friends, we have found some supplies that we found to be useful.

Locks are readily available from simple keyed and 3 digit locks (most common) to more specialty locks, such as 4 & 5 digit locks, letter locks, and even specialized locks (ex. RFID).

I have included a few recommendations on locks below that we have used with success for our games.

*I do not receive compensation for these reviews. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own.

Locks

For our escape room parties (and kits), we utilized a variety of keyed, digit, and letter lock solutions. This gave a more varied solution from lock to lock to keep the game more dynamic.

We also developed a conversion card to convert the longer (4 & 5 digit & letter) solutions into a 3 digit lock solution, as the 3 digit locks are more readily available and often less expensive.

I have included a few recommendations on locks below that we have used with success for our games.

3 Digit Lock

4 Digit Lock

4 Letter Lock

4 Digit Color Lock

Lockable Bags & Hasps

In order for something to be locked away, it needs to be enclosed in a lockable container. This can be as small as a bag or as large as a room.
For the purpose of home escape room games, you can get creative with things you already own. Look for a container that has two holes that the shank of the lock can loop through, such as a toolbox, pencil/ tool pouches, etc.
If you are looking to purchase lockable items for your game, I have included a few recommendations below!

Lockable Bags

When looking for lockable bags, you need a zipper with a hole on the end of the zipper pull that is large enough for the lock to slip through and a fabric loop on the end of the bag.

Pencil pouches and tool bags are commonly designed with these features.

The down side to lockable bags is that players can ‘cheat’ and bend the bag to get the zipper open. However, as long as you are moderating the game, you can prevent these cheats. It is, by far, the most affordable way to lock up the clues and they store easier than boxes after the game.

Lockable Bag

Lockable Hasps

If you have a toolbox, most often they are already set up to be lockable. Money boxes are also lockable, but these may have a key rather than a combination lock. Many craft stores carry affordable unfinished wood boxes for crafts. These are great to decorate for your theme (wizard supplies, etc.) However, most don’t have a lockable hasp. You may purchase a lockable hasp and retrofit them onto these boxes to be usable for your escape room.

I have included links to options for both lockable bags and hasps below. One thing to note: the lock needs to have a small shank for many hasps. The three and four digit locks noted above were chosen for this reason – they have smaller shanks that more readily fit into common hasps.

Lockable Hasp

Lockable Boxes

If you are looking for a box with a built-in lock, there are many lock boxes available online. This allows you to not purchase a separate box and lock, however you will be ‘locked in’ (pun intended) to using the type of lock the box utilizes. For example, if you purchase a 3 digit number lock box, you will not be able use it for a puzzle that solves for a 5 letter code.

With our escape room games, we designed a ‘conversion card’ that allows you to translate any 4 or 5 digit or letter solution into a 3 number solution. As the vast majority of combination lock boxes available are 3 number locks, this allowed the use of lock boxes we already owned to be used for a variety of puzzle solves that weren’t just 3 digit solves.

Lockable book boxes appear to be a book, but are actually a lockable box once opened. They can come as a keyed lock or a tumbler lock. While there are many ‘cover’ options available for purchase, you can also design your own dust cover or find book cover designs online as a themed option to cover the standard options available.

For our wizard escape room parties, we found magical book covers online and designed our own covers to create a magical book collection. While the majority of books were thrifted titles up-cycled into magical books, the book lockbox was hidden within the collection.

I have included links to a recommended lockable box and a book box below.

Combination Lock Box

Lockable Book Box

Wizard Challenge Game

This year’s Halloween escape room party was inspired by the Triwizard Tournament. As our guest list has grown over the years, we have found that splitting up the gameplay into shorter challenges is more fun for everyone – the groups don’t have to wait as long to get into the game, and it breeds a healthy competition to see which team achieves an overall ‘best time.’ The team that wins ‘best time’ in round 1, may not do as well in round 2, and by round 3 the competition is palpable!

Dragonade Challenge

Dragonade is the new witchy brew that is sweeping the nation! Dragonade is the key to unlock this challenge!

Mermaid Challenge

There is an underwater treasure locked away. The teams must follow the mermaid’s clues and solve her puzzle, before it is too late!

Maze Challenge

This deceptively difficult final challenge begins easily – find the 13 tiles that form the maze. However there is only ONE way the maze fits together to unlock the final lock’s 5 letter combination.

Challenge 1: The Dragonade Formula

The Dragonade Challenge began with the tag on the locked box that read, “The sum of it’s parts PRICES, in the correct quantities, is the key to unlock the Dragonade box.”

This was a multi- step puzzle to solve. There was a mat in the room with a 9 square grid. To solve this puzzle, the teams needed to find 9 coins in the room. Each coin had a different value from 1-9. When they solved the puzzle, it assigned a value to 3 runes.

The mat that solved the coin puzzle had a logo for ‘Abeque’s Apothecary Supplies’ on the top of the page. Upon searching the room, the team found a pricing card for Abeque’s Apothecary Supplies. There were three ingredients on the pricing sheet that did not have a cost, but showed a single rune in place of a price. These runes matched up with the coin puzzle. With these two pieces of information, they were able to assign a price to the correct ingredients. There was also an advertisement for Dragonade within the room that listed the ingredients in Dragonade… many players missed this hint!

The final part of this first challenge was to find the correct QUANTITIES of each ingredient in Dragonade. This was a tricky clue to find!

The players knew the ingredients in the formula. There was a potions area in our room that was full of bottles and jars of ingredients. The inside of one of the Dragonade ingredient bottle labels hid the solution (which you could see through the clear bottle), but it was illegible! However… if they put the other ingredients of Dragonade into the bottle… EUREKA! The text could now be read! Ooohs and aahs ensued.

With this final piece to the puzzle, each ingredient’s PRICE ($) x QUANTITY added together was the 3 digit lock combination to complete the first challenge.

Inside the box was a golden egg, which ties in with the Dragonade logo. Inside the egg was a piece of parchment that read, “AHAHAHAHAHA!!”  This will come into play later!

Challenge 2: The Mermaid's Puzzle

Lights Off!

After the first challenge was completed, we hung up the mermaid tapestry and turned the lights off. It was time for black lights!

Knowing that we would bathe the room in black light for an underwater challenge, we intentionally used silver accents in the wizard shop decorations this year. The blacklight and silver combination gave the room an underwater feel for this challenge. The revealed text read, ” Find the five hidden clues to crack the 3 digit code & solve the underwater challenge.”

The Mermaid Challenge began with the parchment that was awarded in the first challenge. The slip of paper that read, “AHAHAHAHAHAH!!” had text between the lines in black light ink. It could not be read until ‘underwater.’ This was a nod to HP- when the egg was opened underwater, it could be understood. The revealed text read, “Find the five hidden clues to crack the 3 digit code and solve the underwater challenge.”

With the initial parchment and an empty jigsaw puzzle tray, the challenge began!

The teams needed to find 24 missing jigsaw puzzle pieces to assemble the mermaid’s puzzle, and 5 clues to begin the solve.

The jigsaw puzzle pieces were hidden throughout the room, in relatively easy-to-find locations. As the room was dark, we did not want to make it too difficult to search.

The players were also given a flashlight for their search. This helped them find both the jigsaw pieces and the black light reflective clues. Since the room was fully lit in black light, the flashlight made the black light reflective clues disappear, which helped them find which important information was initially hidden, and now visible and important clues.

These clues were props that were in the game from the very beginning of the first challenge, so they had been innocently sitting in plain sight for the entire party.

For previous year’s parties, I had hand-drawn all of the black light reflective clues with a black light pen. This was both time constraining and limiting in capabilities. However, after some research and trial & error, I had figured out how to PRINT black light reflective content. This allowed us to have a lot more fun with the imagery and complexity of graphics that were reflective in black light! 

Once all of the clues were found and the jigsaw puzzle was assembled, they could begin to solve for the combination lock.

This was a 2 part solve:

The jigsaw puzzle had 5 sets of runes that needed to be converted into numbers. The 5 clues allowed the players to solve for numbers. Each of the 5 clues also included information that set up a logic puzzle. With the now-translated 5 sets of numbers, the players were able to solve for a 3 digit combination to unlock the mermaid’s treasure box!

Inside the box was a hexagon tile that read, “Thirteen hexagon tiles are missing. Find the tiles to complete the maze.”  This sets us up for the final challenge…

Challenge 3: The Maze

The final challenge was a maze.

To kick off this challenge, the players started with the hexagon tile they achieved in the locked box of round 2 that read, “Thirteen hexagon tiles are missing. Find the tiles to complete the maze.”

At this point, the time scores for each team was neck-and-neck. The race to find the 13 missing tiles was frantic! Once they found the 13 tiles, they brought them all together to a mat in the room.

The mat showed an incomplete maze. It was missing 13 hexagons. When the 13 missing tiles were placed on the mat in the correct positions, the maze’s path lead through only the five letters, in the correct order, that unlocked the final combination lock.

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 9 END GAME!

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

During this second round of rooms, we played off of the idea of the time-turner. The players would be revisiting their past events, looking at them from another angle, and solving what they couldn't before. This could be achieved because they found a time-turner... and a blacklight flashlight. 😉

The previous room held the final two clues needed to reach the end game:

One clue card, a RAT.
An eighth and final key that matched the first seven.

Now... as this game progressed, the groups were collecting small keys. Once they received the blacklight, they also noticed that each of these keys had a number on them (1-8).

In the wizard shops, there was a bag with a time-turner on it. This bag was locked with a hasp that had 8 matching locks AND a letter lock. This was the final locked item they had not yet broken. With mere minutes (or less!) left, they rushed back to this bag and began to solve for the end game.

If you don't remember (I know, it was 8 posts ago now!), the end game was to find the RAT that framed you. As the final clue card was a rat, it was reasonable to deduce that this bag would contain the rat.

The 8 small keys, numbered 1-8 in blacklight, matched up with the 8 locks on the hasp. As they were not keyed alike, the blacklight helped match the lock to key quickly, rather than trial and error with the keys.

This left one final lock, the letter lock.

As this was a 'time-turner round,' the steps they had taken previously were to be looked at through another light... the blacklight.

Each CLUE CARD they had collected throughout the game lit up under the black light. Each piece was a part of a bigger puzzle...

The image made up a time-turner.

The cards were designed in such a way that ALL cards had to be found to break the letter lock on the end game bag. The image was laid out to ensure that every single card had text that was needed to solve the four letter code.

The central band of the time-turner revealed a four digit number, but the lock was LETTERED.

The outer band of the time-turner read:

The four letter code translated to "VICI."

*Fun fact: I'm a nerd. I did not want the final lock to be a 'guess-able' word, but didn't want it to be gibberish either... so I chose VICI, the Latin word for "I conquered." Apt choice, don't you think?

Once this bag was opened, the game was over! The bag contained a toy rat.

The timer was set for 45 minutes at the beginning of the game. Only one of the three groups completed the game in this allotted time, but all groups were finished in under 52 minutes.

And that concludes the Escape from Wizard Prison Escape Room!

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 8 Divination Classroom Time-Turner Round!

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

During this second round of rooms, we played off of the idea of the time-turner. The players would be revisiting their past events, looking at them from another angle, and solving what they couldn't before. This could be achieved because they found a time-turner... and a blacklight flashlight. 😉

They eye clue card the groups received in the dark arts alley led back to the divination classroom...

At this point, the time is running out, they are nearing the finish line...

There was one locked item (with a matching eye on it!) left in the divination classroom, and it had a four letter lock.

The eye on their clue card also matched the eye on the parchment with holes. The eye had significance.

The groups looked for something with relevance to an eye. This was a relatively simple task for this final hurdle, the logic puzzle that they used on the first visit to the classroom had an eye that matched the clue card AND the parchment.

The parchment matched this paper size exactly. When it was laid on top of this puzzle, the three words that were revealed were, "Solve for SITS."

The four letter lock was opened with the word SITS.

See, this one was quite simple!

This bag held only two items:

One clue card, a RAT.
An eighth and final key that matched the first seven.

Now... as this game progressed, the groups were collecting these small keys. Each conquered step included a key. Once they received the blacklight, they also noticed that each of these keys had a number on them (1-8).

In the first room, the wizard shops, there was a bag with a time-turner on it. This bag was locked with a hasp that had 8 matching locks AND a letter lock. This was the final locked item they have not yet broken. With mere minutes (or less!) left... back to the wizard shops!

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 7 Dark Arts Time-Turner Round!

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

During this second round of rooms, we played off of the idea of the time-turner. The players would be revisiting their past events, looking at them from another angle, and solving what they couldn't before. This could be achieved because they found a time-turner... and a blacklight flashlight. 😉

The shrunken head clue card in the Common Room led to the dark arts alley.

The group immediately went to the shrunken head they found in the first round for more clues. That shrunken head did not hold any additional information.

Upon closer examination of the room with the blacklight, they found another shrunken head. The second shop window in the alley had a plexiglass panel over the window to prevent the groups from touching anything in this display. Inside this window display, there were several potion bottles. One of the bottles is in the shape of a shrunken head.

The blacklight illuminated a rune on this bottle...

Using the rune clues that they found in the first round, this rune solved for a three digit number.

The Ancient Rune book lock box that they were unable to open in the first round of the dark arts alley had a three digit lock... so they used this new 3 digit code to unlock the Ancient Rune book box.

The Ancient Rune lock box contained:

ONE new clue card, an eye.

A seventh small key that matched the first six.

A piece of parchment with three holes cut out. The parchment contained an eye that matched the clue card on a long side of the page (eye not shown, as it was on the opposite side of the paper that is not pictured). 

They eye led back to the divination classroom!

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 6 Divination Classroom & Wizard Shops Time-Turner Round!

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The clue card in the Common Room led back to the divination classroom.

During this second round of rooms, we played off of the idea of the time-turner. The players would be revisiting their past events, looking at them from another angle, and solving what they couldn't before. This could be achieved because they found a time-turner... and a blacklight flashlight. 😉

The "Unfogging the Future" book in the divination room has an eye in the center. This book was a book lockbox with a keyed lock that was opened with the silver key they obtained with the clue card.

Inside this box was a locked bag that had a bus on it. The lock was a five lettered lock.

During the last round of the divination room, they had completed a logic puzzle that provided a key to associate the divination balls with both letters AND numbers. They had used the numbers, but did not yet have a use for letters. The five numbers of the Knight Bus ticket, when translated into the associated letters of the logic puzzle, unlocked this lock. They just had to figure that out!

This second time in the divination classroom, the groups had a tool they did not have previously - a blacklight flashlight. When they saw the Knight Bus image, they immediately tried the flashlight on the bus ticket, but it did not yield any results.

We provided two separate hints to lead them to how to unlock the letter lock. While they could feasibly guess how to open it by finding only one of these hints, finding BOTH gave a clear picture of how to open the lock.

Hint #1: The Knight Bus jigsaw puzzle they assembled at the beginning of the game

The ticket was not blacklight reactive, but they did have the bus image in another location - the jigsaw puzzle they completed at the beginning of the game. Where the puzzle originally stated to 'Check Your Ticket,' the blacklight revealed a "#" after the text, changing it to read, "Check your Ticket #."

The ticket number (16195), was five digits, but they were looking for a five LETTER code.

Hint #2: The clue card they were provided was also a clear ball with an eye in the middle. 

There were six divination balls in the room. The logic puzzle only solved for the five COLORED balls. The sixth ball in the room was 'white'. It had not yet been used.

As they shined the blacklight onto the divination balls, the non-colored ball was illuminated with a clue, a bus with the words, "Do I need to SPELL it out for you?"

They now knew to SPELL out their ticket number. A third more subtle hint was that the logic puzzle had an eye (that matched the divination ball clue card eye) at the top of the page. They key to changing the numbers to letters was the logic puzzle.

Inside the locked bag, they found:
A clue card of a shrunken head.
A sixth small key that matched the first five.

The shrunken head lead back to the dark arts alley... !

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 5 Common Room Time-Turner Round!

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The puzzle box in the Common Room was the turning point of the escape room.

The puzzle box contained:

ONE new clue card, a watch.
A time turner.
A BLACKLIGHT FLASHLIGHT.

For those who are not very familiar with Harry Potter, the time turner was a necklace that Hermione Granger was given to turn back time for her classes. When Sirius Black needed to be saved, Harry and Hermione used the time turner to go back into time (three turns should do it!) and retrace their steps to change the past and save Sirius.

This time turner was a hint of what was to come... but first, the watch!

There was a second puzzle box in the room that had three dials on the lid. The dials each had a dot, and could be rotated around like a clock.

With the new blacklight in hand, the group could look at the room in a new light... literally.

The Common Room had a message board full of flyers. One of the flyers was for the quidditch team practice schedule. The practice schedule had a list of times. A LOT of times. Without the blacklight, we wouldn't know which ones would be relevant, but with the blacklight, three times were underlined.

When the three dials on the box were turned to 9:00, 6:00, & 3:00, the box was opened.

This puzzle box contained:
ONE new clue card, a divination ball with an eye.
A small silver key.
A fifth small key that matched the first four.

The new clue card led back to the divination classroom... retracing our steps.

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 4 Common Room

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The clues provided in the divination classroom led to the Common Room:

Inside the trunk, the group found four slips of paper. Each of them had a specific chess piece on the paper. They also found a locked bag with a four digit color-coded lock.

The chess card clue lead to the chess board. Only certain chess pieces were in play. Each chess square on the board had a number. When the chess pieces were more closely examined, they each had a colored dot on the underside of the pieces, in the colors blue, yellow, red, and green.

There were four digits to the lock and there were four cards that had chess pieces on them:
White King
Black Knight
White Rook
Black Pawn

There is only one white king on any chess board. However there were more than one of the other pieces on the game board in play.

This was a puzzle. The group needed to determine which pieces were the relevant pieces for the lock combination. The four digit color lock had only ONE of each color. The white king lead the way to solve the puzzle. As it was the only one on the board, that color on the lock had to be the the number of the square the king sat upon. Since that color was already taken, it could be ruled out for the other pieces... and so forth.

Once solved, this unlocked the bag in the trunk.

The bag contained:
ONE new clue card.
A fourth small key that matched the first three (not pictured).
A third piece of acetate with random letters on it, the exact same size of the first two.

The clue card was an octagon with a lion on it. There was a puzzle box in the room with three octagon dials on the top. The center dial of the puzzle box had a lion on it.

When overlapped, the three pieces of acetate combined gave the directions on how to open this puzzle box.

Once this puzzle box was opened, the game got really interesting...

... Wait for it...

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 3 Divination Classroom

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The clues provided in the dark arts alley led to the divination classroom:

In the divination classroom there was a mug with the grim inside sitting on top of a locked box with a five digit number lock. There was also a logic puzzle about the divination balls.

The logic puzzle noted:

Each of the class divination balls is a unique color that will provide you with a unique letter and number. Use the clues provided to solve the letter and number for each ball.

Once the logic puzzle was solved, five divination ball colors (blue, black, gold, red, & green) had a corresponding letter and number associated with them.

The divination ball card had five circles of different colors inside the ball. The color order of black, gold, red, green, and blue was the key to unlocking the 5 digit combination number lock.

The box contained:
Two new clue cards: A trunk and a knight chess piece.
A third small key to match the first two.
A second piece of acetate with random letters on it, the exact same size as the first.

The clues led to the Common Room where there was a trunk of school supplies and a Wizard Chess set on the game table.

*At this point, the group also noticed that the "Unfogging the Future" book in the room was a keyed locked box. The keys they had found thus far were not the right size to unlock it. There was also another locked box in the room, again keyed, and none of the keys collected so far opened this box either. Another room with additional tasks yet to solve!

Next up, the Common Room...

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 2 Dark Arts Alley

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The clues provided in the wizard shops led to the dark arts alley:

Inside the dark arts alley, the matching 'finger point' sign helped clue that they were in the correct room. The rune was a hint that runes were important... and the key to unlock the next box. The shrunken head audio, while it explicitly noted to go to the dark arts alley, was also a clue to look closer at the shrunken head in the shop window...

... and a clue was found hidden in his hair!

The rolled up paper in his hair had nine runes with the numbers 1,000-9,000 underneath each rune.

Next to the shrunken head, in the window was a box of 'spider legs...'

It was a Halloween party after all, and this is a spooky area... so this box is actually a prank box. When opened, a spider attacked your finger. Little things amuse me. 😜

However, it wasn't just a prop. On the back label of the box there was an additional rune clue:

Nine additional rune clues, this time 100-900.

By this time, the group had noticed that there was a locked box in the room with a 4 digit lock. They also deduced that the rune they were given in the wizard shops had some importance. None of the runes they found so far matched exactly... but PARTS of their rune matched the runes they were finding.

... Hmm...

The additional runes that were easily spotted were hidden in a poster in the room. These were numbers 1-9:

So... now they had found a thousands place, a hundreds place, and a ones place. They correctly deduced that they needed to build a 4 digit number, and they were now missing one piece, the TENS place.

This one was deceptively hard to find. See... there were several "Wanted" posters in the room. They were ALMOST all irrelevant. Except one of them. On ONE of the posters the runes on his mugshot placard were replaced with the 10-90 runes.

Once they had all 4 sets of runes, they were able to piece together that the rune they were given in Diagon Alley was equal to 6859. This number unlocked the 4 digit box in the room.

This box contained:

Two new clue cards: The Grim & a divination ball with an eye and five colored balls.

A second small key.

A piece of acetate with random letters on it.

The Grim and divination ball clues led them to the next room: the divination classroom. 

* At this point, the group did also find a book "Ancient Runes Made Easy" in the room, which was a locked book box. This was a 3 digit number lock. However, the clues they just found led them somewhere else... so they knew that something was left undone in this room...

Next up, the divination classroom!

Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 1 Wizard Shops

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

 The Escape from Wizard Prison party started with a video that Husband put together. As it contains movie clips, I will not post it here... but it was awesome. 😉

The video gave the objective of the Escape Room: You have escaped from a wizard prison, and must find the RAT that framed you. You have 45 minutes to reach the objective, or your time will run out. Then it transitioned to a faded countdown clock for 45 minutes in the foreground... Gameplay begins!

The players were given a clipboard with scratch paper and a bus ticket.

We told them to follow the clues they were given, each clue would lead to the next. If they kept to the clues, they would stand a much better chance of getting through in 45 minutes.

The bus ticket and the video were the first clues... There were two boxes with the bus logo on them in this room. One box was locked with a 3 digit number combination lock, the other could be opened.

Inside the non-locked box was a puzzle that needed to be put together. When assembled, the puzzle read "Check Your Ticket," with an image of the bus in the center of the puzzle, and three differently sized circles at the bottom of the puzzle.

The ticket has two numbers on it - the ticket number (16195) and the cost: 11.

... Neither is 3 digits.

However, there was also a coin area of the wizard shops. Perhaps the ticket cost meant something?

Inside the brass scale, there were several coins. Most of these coins were gold, but a few were silver. The silver coins were in three sizes with different values....

The puzzle had a single large, medium, and small circle that perfectly matched the coin sizes. Only one of each. The ticket cost was 11, so the coins need to total 11.

There was only one solution that was equal to 11, with one large, medium, and small coin. This combination opened the locked box.

Inside the locked box was two pieces of paper, one a rune and the other a finger pointing, and a small key. 

The finger point lead to the dark arts sign in the dark arts alley. The Rune will come into play in that room!

So... on that note... Next stop, the dark arts alley!