Harry Potter and the Serpent Items: Part 5

Harry attempted to lose Luna again when they reached the surface again but didn’t get very far. A commotion at the doors about some kind of huge black dog, apparently called a Grim, let the Lovegoods catch up to him.

“Anyone would think you didn’t like us.” Mr Lovegood joked. Harry would have apologised and given some false statement about him being tired and maybe they could go shopping another day when Luna said something that made him pause in his tracks.

“Harry’s preoccupied with the fact the Aurors went to his house this morning daddy.” Luna informed her father, making Harry wonder what she knew already. Then confusion set in.

If they had already been to his house why wasn’t he under arrest already?

“Ah.” Xenophillius nodded as he escorted the pair out of the doors and ushered them towards Flourish and Blotts, “Quite understandable really. It’s never fun to have people turn up uninvited.”

Harry stared at the man for a moment as they stepped into the huge bookstore, wondering if they’d heard why the Aurors had shown up at his house yet and if he’d have been as easy around him if he had.

“Come on Harry.” Luna took his hand and dragged him into the history section, where Harry spotted a copy of Hogwarts, A History, the book that Hermione had buried her nose into during their third year. Remembering how scary a peeved Hermione was and how ticked she’d been when all the copies of it had been booked out of the library last year he picked it up from the shelf before looking around for old books on magical artifacts, wondering if there was a book available that might tell him exactly what it was that he was wearing.

 There were hundreds of books on artefacts and none of the ones he had time to go through before Luna and her father came looking for him had anything useful in them. Of course, he mused, after purchasing his copy of Hermione’s most read book as he sat down at a table at Fortescues with the Lovegoods with a rather large ice cream, it would help if he had a name to go on. Somehow he didn’t think that it would be easy to find anything on his bracer if he didn’t know that.

Luna finished her ice cream long before the two guys with her did and while Harry was fighting with his ice cream, trying to avoid losing half of it which was trying to fall off of the cone on the opposite side to him, she pulled a small box out of her bag and pulled out some playing cards. Except they weren’t like any cards Harry had seen before.

“What’re those?” Harry asked as Luna examined the cards in her hand carefully, took two out of the pile, put two from a second box into the pile, examining each of the cards carefully before doing so. Once he’d finished his ice cream and had washed his fingers, she passed a packet across the table to him.

“Duel Monsters.” She explained as Harry examined the packaging, wondering what kind of creature the animal depicted on it was, “It’s a Muggle game.”

Harry blinked at her, wondering why a pure blood girl who seemed like she wouldn’t be very comfortable in Muggle society would carry around cards from a Muggle game that most people probably hadn’t heard of.

“Go on.” Luna gestured to him when he didn’t open the packet, “I have plenty.”

Harry frowned slightly and opened the pack, tipping out the eleven cards inside and examining each one carefully. Luna moved her chair over so she could get a better look at what he was holding and explain about the cards as he went through them.

“That’s a monster card.” Luna informed him as Harry examined the first card out of the packet, a Silver Fang, “It’s a normal monster, you can tell that because it’s yellow. Effect monsters have an orange background and more information about their abilities in the box, instead of just a blurb.”

Harry just nodded, not quite sure what she meant by that.

“You see those stars right there?” She asked, pointing to the three stars in the corner of the card just under the black symbol in the corner which had the word ‘Earth’ written on it, “Those are its level. I’m not quite sure why they’re important right now, other than the more stars a monster has the more powerful it is.”

Again Harry nodded, pretending that he understood, after all if Luna didn’t understand the reason for them and she played the game, there was no way he would.

“The things you really want to pay attention to are this bit of text here,” She pointed just under the picture, “Which tells you what type of monster it is and these scores down here.” She pointed at the bottom right hand of the card. “These are Silver Fang’s attack and defence scores. They’re what determines what he can fight and defend against without dying.”

Harry actually understood that part and took in his Beast monster’s twelve hundred attack points and eight hundred defence points along with the fact it was a three star monster. “Is Silver Fang powerful?”

“It’s alright, but there are things much more powerful than Silver Fang out there.” Luna replied, as Harry continued to look through his cards which consisted of several monsters, and a couple of spells, which apparently had green backgrounds and informed the player of what they did in the text box.

Luna hummed as she looked them over, tutting slightly as she searched through the smaller pile of the two on her side of the table and offered a card to Harry. “Trade you my Rising Air Current for your De-Spell.”

Harry wasn’t even sure what Rising Air Current or De-Spell did, though the latter was pretty self explanatory, but he nodded and took the card in her hand in exchange for the De-Spell card in his small pile of cards.

“They’re not that expensive,” Luna informed him as she reorganised his small pile before handing it back to him. “I’d suggest you look in newsagents or comic shops.”

Harry blinked at her, confused but before he could say anything a pair of Aurors had come over to their table.