Battle For Hogwart's -10yr- Hogwarts Castel kit

My son wanted a Harry Potter party for his 10th birthday. I read almost every idea from this website before deciding that we needed to base our party on the most recent books/movies.  I chose to use the Order of the Phoenix and the battle for Hogwart’s.  

INVITATION: I used parchment paper for the invitations and green ink to print them.  The title said Dumbledore’s Army still recruiting!  They went on to describe training for the Battle of Hogwart’s.  It stated that the portal to the Room of Requirement shall open on the date of the party.  And that the portal is currently located at a Muggle Home listing our address.  The magical door is visible only to the underground resistance.  The password is flibbertigibblet.  The perimeter is secured by Memory Charms ensuring safe use of magic indoors and outdoors weather permitting. I asked them to respond by OWL to my email or Muggle telephone. 

DECORATIONS: I transformed my house for the party by covering all framed portraits with images printed from the internet like the Dumbledore’s picture RIP, the deathly hallows symbol, a poster that said Dumbledore Wants You! I also dimmed all our lights, and partitioned off my dining room from the rest of the house.  I used a Harry Potter sheet (that I found at a thrift store) attached from ceiling to floor and then rolls of black table covering to separate the dining room from the front room.  The doorway of the dining room to our kitchen had another table cover draped over it only slit into streamers.  I blocked off our staircase with more black table cover and wrote Dwarves Only to keep the big kids downstairs.  I have 2 younger children who my parents took upstairs to play during the party. I made a sign for the bathroom door Bewar of Moaning Myrtle.  I wanted to put a fog maker in the shower with a recording of maoning voice, but couldn't get it in my budget.  I did hang a spider web decoration on the bathroom mirror.  I put a black streamer across the garage door that said Restricted Section-No students allowed, just to keep anyone from going in there. 

ACTIVITIES: When the kids arrived I allowed them to go down to our family room the Gryffindor Common Room to wait for all the guests to arrive.  Once everyone was there I gathered them in the front room.  I told them that before we could begin training I needed to know that everyone was part of the cause.  I had them sign a piece of parchment that read Dumbledore’s Army like in the movie.  Then we began with Transfiguration.  I told them I was going to turn them into members of the Order of the Phoenix (since most of the kids would recognize those characters).  I had printed each member of the order on name badge labels along with picture of them.  I put one label on each kid’s back and gave them a list of the Order of the Phoenix.  There are about 23 members but we only had 15 kids show up so I told them to cross off #16 and down.  Then they had to run around the room and see who all the others were and cross that name of their list in order to figure out which character was on their own back.  The kids loved this and most of them kept the badges on all night.  After that I asked who brought their wands.  A few kids had shown up in Harry Potter attire and had wands (though I did not request that they do so).  I told them Ollivander’s had kindly donated some wands.  The wands were twigs we collected at the park and I later peeled most of the bark off of them and whittled the ends to make them appear more like wands.  I let each kid reach into a sack to get a wand. 

Then we headed into the kitchen for Potions.  My kitchen table was covered with black table cover.  I had little pumpkin treat containers (from the dollar store) lined around the table for mixing potions.  In the center of the table were glass jars of different sizes with the potion ingredients in them.  I told the kids we needed to be certain that none of them were working for the dark lord so we were going to make the Truth Potion.  If their potion turned black they could be trusted.  If it did not then they were harboring a secret.  To make the potion I used mothballs (titled frog eyeballs), a mix of baking soda and fine glitter (powdered unicorn horn), a bottle of vinegar (dragon spit), a jar of whole cloves (bat claws) and a pitcher of pickled red cabbage juice (troll blood).  I recommend testing your potion before the party.  The first potion I intended to make was a dud so I used this recipe.  Ladle the cabbage juice into the pumpkin cauldrons, then make a big production of adding some bat claws (cloves) and a frog eyeball (mothball).  On the wall I had a long white banner (torn off my son’s art easel) with Veritaserum written on it and a phonetic spelling (vay-REE-te-sir-UM) in smaller print below it.  That is the charm you must say when you flick your wand and add the last ingredient- the baking soda mixture.  When you sprinkle the baking soda mixture in, it will bubble up and turn black.  You can really get the kids if you have flour and glitter to substitute for the baking soda in just a few of the cauldrons.  That way not all of the potions will turn black.  The kids had a great time mixing their potions and all were found to be trusted.  Then I let them keep adding the ingredients and bubbling it up. 

Next we headed outside to learn some defense against the dark arts spells.  I used the chalkboard side of my son’s art easel to write 3 spells: Expecto Patronum (to fight dementors), Expelliarmus (to disarm your opponent) and Petrificus Mobilus (to freeze opponent).  We practiced the spells and flicking the wands, then we used the freeze spell, Petrificus Mobilus, to play freeze tag.  However I recommend only teaching them that spell first then commencing freeze tag because the kids were all running around using all the spells on each other instead of only having one person be ‘IT’ at a time.    Once they ran off some energy, I asked who were Harry Potter, Ron, and Hermoine from the Transfiguration class.  I told them each of them was in charge of a group to search for horcruxes.  All the kids were divided into the 3 groups and given colored index cards with a list of horcruxes on them.  I had hidden items along with a few chocolate coins in the wooded area of the yard earlier in the day, but my exterior light wouldn’t work. 

So I gave Harry, Ron and Hermoine a flash light each and the groups had to stick together (since it was nightfall) to find the horcruxes.  I didn’t stick exactly to the horcruxes in the book.  My horcruxes were Tom Riddle’s Diary (a small black notebook from the dollar store that I had Tom Marvolo Riddle’s name written in), Slitherin’s locket (a cheap necklace ordered on the internet), Gryffindor’s sword (a glowstick type sword from dollar store), Gaunt’s Ring (found at a thrift store and placed in a wood box), Hufflepuff’s cup (plastic Halloween cup), Nagini (a stuffed snake we had), Sorcerer’s Stone (a piece of crystal from my son’s rock collection), basilisk fang (a bull horn), Crookshanks (a stuffed orange cat), Phoenix feather (a feather from the craft store), and Ravenclaw’s diadem (a costume tiara).  Use your imagination with the horcruxes.  I had fun thrift shopping and trying to come up with possible items for as cheap as possible.  When the kids were on the horcrux search I had another mom dress in a Scream costume waiting behind a big tree.  She came out of hiding and ‘attacked’ the kids until they used their patronus charm on her. 

That gave the kids some excitement.  The chocolate coins helped the kids find some of the smaller items in the dark.  After all items were found, I used the items I bought special for the party as prizes.  The first person who had figured themselves out on Transfiguration got a prize, the first person to successfully use the patronus charm got a prize, etc I would recommend having extras of some of this (I had cups and feathers) to give some of the kids who didn’t win by other means.    Next we went inside to celebrate our victory over the dark lord by a feast in the Great Hall at Hogwart’s.  My dining room was decked out (which is why I had it partitioned off).  The table had a black table cover with silver platters (found at thrift stores), Hogwart’s crests hung on the walls.  I used a Harry Potter party banner that said A Magical Day hanging in the room.

FOOD:  The kids were served chicken skewers, corndogs, grapes (with a bloody hand hidden in them), a veggie tray< summer sausage and cheese.  I relabeled the 2 liter bottles of soda: rootbeer=Butter Beer, orange soda=Pumpkin Juice, and Dr. Pepper=Pepper Ale.  After the kids ate we did cake and presents.

CAKE:  I bought a Hogwarts castle cake kit complete with Harry, Ron and Hermoine figurines.  It turned into a 3 layer cake which awed all the kids.    After cake and presents the kids were invited to shop at Honeyduke’s Sweet Shoppe while waiting for their parents.  I transformed my bar area into a candy store.  Replacing the liquor bottles with assorted sized jars of candy.  I had a large Honeyduke’s sign outside the bar with a list of the candies.  Candies were Pixy Stix (powdered Cornish Pixies), Nerds (goblin boogers), chocolate balls wrapped like eyeballs (eyeballs), Licorice wands, Raisinettes (unicorn droppings), jelly beans (Bertie Bott’s every flavour bean), and gummy worms (jelly slugs).  Each kid stood in line as I filled their brown paper bags with goodies.    It’s been two weeks since our party and my son’s friends are still talking about the party.  I left most of the decorations up until Halloween just for fun.