Harry Potter Party!

Sarah turned 11 this summer, and as most of you know, she is a HUGE Harry Potter fan.  She has read the entire series four times total, in both English and German. So it seemed pretty natural to have her birthday party be Harry Potter themed, since that is the age he first entered Hogwarts.  We had so much fun looking up lots of different ideas on the internet and deciding which ones to use for the party.  And since I started really, really early, the prep work didn’t get too overwhelming until right at the end. 🙂

When the girls arrived at our apartment, they first had to go through the barrier. I had seen where people had painted a brick pattern onto the paper, and although that would have been neat, our walls were plain, so it would have looked weird.  At least that is what I told myself when I ran out of time to execute it.  Behind the barrier was the sign welcoming them to the correct platform to take them to Hogwarts School. As the girls arrived, they were sent to Diagon Alley to do their school shopping. There were wands, each one different, but all magical.  And there was enough of everything that Noah and Alexandra also got one.  They love Harry, too and didn’t want to get left out.  The wands were made from rolled up copy paper, and decorated with hot glue and paint.  So simple, but so cool looking!

They also needed a cauldron, although not to do potions in.  We used black bowls for that.  These were to hold all their goodies! The cauldrons used to be white yogurt buckets, that I washed out and spraypainted.  I also attached little round balls on the bottom to make the feet.

I must give a special thank you to Julie S., Megan and Kirstie for supplying black blankets and Dementor masks at the last minute.  Without these added touches, the party wouldn’t have been nearly as magical.  Thank you all!

The girls would be attending different classes and needed something to write answers on, so they each picked out a Monster Notebook of Monsters.  The fur was leftover from the puppy parties two years ago and we picked up the notebooks for super cheap last summer when we were in the States.

There were also witches hats for everyone that I had sewn from black felt.  I used Sarah’s head for the pattern and happily the hats all fit!

When most everyone had arrived, we sat down in the Great Hall and got everyone sorted.  We used a fancy witches hat that had a walkie talkie in the top for the Sorting Hat.  Nicholas was in my bedroom with a list of all the girls and which House they should be assigned.  When I would loudly call out each girl’s name, he would wait a second and then talk into the other walkie talkie with their House name.  I had House Crests that were laminated with string for them to wear around their necks.  Then we feasted, under an Enchanted Ceiling, naturally. I didn’t have quite enough black fabric to cover the whole ceiling, but the effect it gave was quite nice, nonetheless.

We had bought a Harry Potter cookbook while in the States that contained English recipes for a lot of the dishes named in all the books.  I chose some of the things that were served at the original Welcoming Feast in Book One for Sarah’s party.  Don’t the girls look so cute wearing their hats?  The best part was how often I caught Sarah smiling during this party.  She absolutely loved it and that made all the work worth it.I found the little goblets at our local Brockenhaus, like a Goodwill for 50 cents each.  Score!  There was even real pumpkin juice to drink.  It was really good, but the favorite all around were the pumpkin pasties.  So delicious and so fun to eat since I made them miniature sized.

After dinner we attended class.  I had two houses attend one class together and then they switched with the other two houses.  So first half of them went outside for Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid, aka Chris.  He took them on a short walk around the building and through the garden where they looked for all the pictures of strange creatures he had hidden.  They weren’t supposed to call out any names, just write them down in their notebooks.

Meanwhile, I was giving a Potions class. The girls had several different ingredients (mostly plants the kids had picked from the yard)  to choose from, all labeled, and they could mix them in the cauldron bowls to their hearts content.  The first group to discover something special, however, got extra points. The salamander blood was really cabbage juice and if you added ground up unicorn horn (baking soda with glitter) to it, it would bubble up.  If you added Dipsum, or white vinegar, it would change color.  Very fun. Then we switched groups.  The ones I had, went down to Chris, the others came up to me.

The third class was History of Magic, taught by Professor Nicholas. He decorated the classroom himself.  Looks great, I think.  He read questions from a quiz that I had downloaded from the internet.  It was full of trivia questions from all the books.  The girls wrote their answers down in their notebooks and then he corrected them.  Each correct answer was one House point, just by like Care of Magical Creatures.

Meanwhile, I was in the other room for Defense Against the Dark Arts. They had to practice the Expecto Patronum spell for a bit, and then tried it out on a real Dementor! They are all sitting pretty calm right now, but most of the time there was lots of screaming, laughing and running around.  We got a bit loud and Professor Nicholas told us to be quiet more than once. 🙂  Then we switched classes again and did it with the other group of girls.

While I cleaned up the Feast and got the cake ready, the girls watched part of the first Harry Potter movie.  Originally Sarah and I had chosen a really cool looking cake, decorated with fondant, that looked like Hogwarts Castle.  I even bought the stuff to make the fondant and the castle turrets.  But I just simply ran out of time to do it justice.  Oh, and the cake was totally crumbly for some reason.  Would not stay together at all!  So, I asked Sarah what she thought about me making her cake look like the one Hagrid makes for Harry. She loved the idea, lucky me, and so that is what we did.

The cake was simple enough that most kids ate it.  It was certainly less sugary than the pupcakes, and they inhaled those. Then the girls opened presents while I tallied up the points to see which House won the House Cup.

There ended up being a tie, so we had a second trivia quiz to determine the winner.  Sarah and Slytherin House won!  The prize was their choice of nail polish.

To end the party, the girls all got to go shopping at Honeydukes. Getting everything ready for this, was probably my favorite part of the whole party.  I did buy three new candy jars, but since I had been wanting some anyway, I didn’t consider it too much of an extravagance.

There were Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs (that were filled with peanut butter) ,Chocolate Creams and Bubble Balls.

In another area there were Sugar Wands and Acid Pops. It went over very well, indeed. Since the cauldrons were spray painted with just regular old paint, I gave the girls clear cellophane bags to put their candy in, and then that bag went into the cauldron along with their other treasures.  I put absolutely no limits on the stuff, they could take whatever and however much they wanted.  There was still plenty left over for my kids. 🙂

Then they munched on their treats and watched more of the movie until their parents came to pick them up.   It was such a fun party to prepare for and to throw.  All the girls were so appreciative and excited about everything, it was nothing but happiness all around.