Chapter II

The next morning all of them packed their bags and began their search through Pittsburgh to find a pub called The Drunken Hag. When they finally found it they were amazed that no one had found it before, since it was located directly above Heinz Field's top row of bleachers. It looked like a small, old shack that had been there for many, many years. It steps leading straight to it from the topmost set of stairs with an old rusted guardrail. As they entered the pub they got a rough greeting from the bartender. "What d'you want?"

"Uh, we need to get into Town Square, sir." Answered Brad hesitantly.

"Well then, you must be the kids I've been lookin' for. It's ok Bernie they're with me." Said the tallest and meanest looking person in the room

"Just didn't want a bunch of trouble makers in here like last week, Hagrid." Replied Bernie.

"So, uh, Hagrid, why is it that you've been looking for us, 'cause if you intend to do us harm then we're going to have to fight back." Said Nikki with a strange sense of courage.

"Wha'? No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. I'm Rubeus Hagrid Keeper of the keys and grounds at Hogwarts. I'm here to help you get your school supplies." He said surprised at Nikki's bravery, since he was about three times her size.

"Oh, well then lead the way."

The group walked out the back door of the small pub and found, to their surprise, a brick wall. Hagrid took the umbrella he had at his side and tapped a few of the bricks and the wall began to fold away into a tunnel revealing a huge marketplace.

"Welcome to Town Square! Just abou' anything you could ever wish to buy can be found here, and o' course there's a new Gringotts, that's the wizard bank, located here. That'll be our first stop, to get you some money." Explained Hagrid

"But…" Chris began to say.

"But how are we supposed to get money out of the bank if we've never gotten any wizard money before?" Charles interrupted.

"Tha' won't be a problem, the school's got everything set up for ya."

After getting through the lobby, and getting a goblin guide, they traveled through a series of tunnels to a vault labeled 320. Upon arriving took a large brass key from his pocket and opened the large door revealing two large piles of gold, two of silver, and three of bronze.

"Now, the gold'ns are galleons, the silver are sickles, and the bronze are knuts. Take some o' each but don't be too greedy, this is the schools money after all." Explained Hagrid.

With their pockets full of gold and silver, the troupe headed straight for the wand shop. Each picked the perfect wand for them on their first try, willow 10" with unicorn hair for Brandi, oak 12" with hippogriff feather for Josh, ash 9" with basilisk scale for Nikki, cherry 11" with griffin feather for Chris, sumac 10.5" with chimera tail scale for Derek, oak 11" with sphinx hair for Katie, maple 9.5" with snidget wing for Sable,yew 9" with pixie wing for Charles, and ginkgo 12" with dragon scale and phoenix feather for Brad.

"My, oh my, I've only once sold a wand with a double core like yours. That was to a man the likes of which I hope never to see again," said the storekeeper.

"Well, tha's abou' what Mr.Olivander said to Harry when he got his first wand. Only, he knew who it was that he sold the wand to, and it turned out that he was… uh… well…" Hagrid mentioned.

"Maybe you could write it down? Or spell it?" Nikki said.

"Nah I couldn't spell it… his name was Voldemort. But I'm sure tha's not what he's talking about. You might have a real enemy to worry about sometime soon."

After hearing the unnerving news and paying for their wands, they headed to all the stores for their other school supplies, then each of them bought their very own broom that was built special for that person for Quidditch. After buying the brooms they decided that they all needed owls, so they went to the pet shop and all but three of them bought owls ranging from snowy white to tawny brown and from short to tall. The only ones that didn't buy owls were Brandi, Josh, and Brad. Instead, they bought small golf ball sized eggs that supposedly contained small relatives to dragons. After a long day of shopping, the gang headed back to the Drunken Hag to get a good nights rest before they went to catch the train to Hogwarts.