The Unofficial Harry Potter Party Book: From Monster Books to Potions Class! Crafts, Games, and Treats (7 page)

You’ll need 1 bottle of glue per student, some green food coloring, water, and some borax (it’s non-toxic and can be found in the laundry section of your local grocery store).
Pour all the bottles of glue into a large bowl, add a few drops of green food coloring, and label it “Troll Snot”.
In another bowl, add 3 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of borax. Label it “Fluffy’s Drool”. Instruct your students to add 1 cup of Troll Snot to their cauldron (pick these up at a party or craft store) and a tablespoon of Fluffy’s Drool. Instruct them to mix it together and if the consistency is too runny, add a bit more of Fluffy’s Drool until it has a stretchy, slimy texture.
When students have finished creating their slime, you can give them extras to add to it like sticky eyeballs and sticky rats.
Give students labeled plastic baggies so they can take their slimy creations home.
If there’s one thing that would be fun to beat senseless, wouldn’t it be the dark mark?
Unfortunately, you can’t just run to the party store and buy a dark mark piñata. But you can easily make one.
Just pick up a skull piñata from your local party store along with three identical rubber snakes while you’re there.
Cut the heads off two of the snakes and hot glue all the snakes together so that you have one very long snake.
Cut a hole in the mouth of the skull to wind the rubber snake through, then wrap the snake around itself in the shape of an 8, just like the dark mark. Now it’s ready for a beating.
Don’t forget to put the candy inside or you’ll be next!
If you’re looking for a quieter game that can be played anywhere, this is it.
Starting from the youngest, each player thinks of what type of animagus they would most like to be.
Then that player gives hints about what their animagus is, and all the other players try to guess what animal it could be.
For example, if you chose a llama as your animagus, you could start with more difficult clues like, “I’m a mammal” and “I eat grass” and move on to easier clues like, “I will spit right in your eye if you even consider putting those stinky food pellets in my face.”
If you have some leftover plastic Easter eggs, a glue gun, and some black and gold paint, you’ve already got all the supplies you need to make the dragon eggs for this game.
Paint the eggs inside and out with the black paint and let them dry. Use your hot glue gun to glue lines and grooves over the egg to give it some cool texture like you did with the wands in the Crafts chapter. Let the glue harden, then paint over the glue with gold paint.
You can fill the eggs with whatever treats you like – plastic dragon toys, candy rocks, gold coins, money, etc. To make it more exciting, put different items in each different egg, so the player who wins the egg will be totally surprised.
Paint enough eggs so that each of the players can have one.
To play, you’ll need a CD of some magical music and a CD player.
Gather all the players into a circle, start the music, and start passing one of the eggs around.
Let the music play for 20-30 seconds, then stop the music.
Whoever is holding the egg when the music stops is out, but they get to keep their new dragon egg, open it up and take out their prize. Keep playing until you run out of eggs!
In this game, all the players must work together as house elves to finish all their chores before the other team does.
This game works best outside so that your little house elves have plenty of room to play in.
For the first leg of the relay, the house elves must find 6 bouncy balls hidden around the yard and throw them into their waste bin. Each team should have their own bin. If a ball bounces out of the bin, they must put it back in.
For the second leg of the relay, the house elf who cleaned up the bouncy balls races them over to the next house elf. This house elf must take out one of the balls, put it on a large wooden spoon, and race it over to the next house elf without letting the ball fall off.
For the third leg of the relay, the next house elf will take the spoon from the previous house elf and dig in a bucket full of dirt or sand for a sock inside a sandwich bag.
The longer and more colorful the sock, the more fun. They must use the spoon to dig and pull out the bag. No hands! Once they retrieve the bag, they must take their shoe off and put the sock on over their own sock and stand up.
The first team with a sock-wearing house elf is the winner!
You’ll need at least 6 people for this game, but the more the better.
Have all the players spread out in an open area, like a large room or a yard.
Now, all the players should silently choose one person to be their Patronus and one person to be their Dementor. They should keep this information to themselves.
Instruct the players to try to stay away from their Dementor, and at the same time, try to get behind their Patronus to protect themselves from their Dementor.
Let the players run for 3-5 minutes. Once they’re thoroughly exhausted, stop everyone and have them guess who picked them as a Dementor and who picked them as a Patronus.
This game results in a lot of laughs and confusion when one player’s Patronus is running in terror from them and one player can’t move because three players have picked him as their Patronus.
1. You'll need to make two Quidditch hoops. To do this, you'll need two hula hoops and two long stakes that are 2-3 feet long. Take one hula hoop and, using packing tape or duct tape, tape it on top of one stake, so it looks like a giant lollipop. You're going to need a lot of tape to make it stable, so just keep taping!
When you're done, spray paint it entirely brown. You now have a Quidditch hoop! Create the other Quidditch hoop, and then stake them into the ground on opposite ends of your yard.
2. Next, buy some hacky sacks or bean bags. These will be the bludgers. Make sure that whatever you buy or make is about the size of a tennis ball and is very soft. The Quidditch players will be throwing these at each other, and we don't want anyone to have to go see Madam Pomfrey.
3. You'll need a snitch. You can either buy a licensed plastic snitch or make one from a gold ball and a couple of feathers.
4. Lastly, you'll need a quaffle. You can take any kind of ball -- soccer ball, volleyball, kickball -- and spray paint it brown. Voila! A quaffle.
The object of the game is to get the quaffle through the opposing team's Quidditch hoop as many times as possible. The teams score 1 point per goal.
Here's the catch -- there will be bludgers lying all around the Quidditch field. At any time, any player can pick up a bludger and throw it at the player holding the ball. If the player holding the ball is hit, he must throw or drop the ball immediately.
• One player on each team will be a seeker. That means they'll spend the game looking for the snitch.
• The game ends when one of the seekers finds the snitch. The team whose seeker finds the snitch wins an extra 3 points.
• Hide the snitch well, making it difficult to find. When the game starts, the seekers must go look for the snitch.
• There should be an equal number of players on each team.
Tip:
If you have a large yard, don't put out too many bludgers or players will never get a quaffle through the hoop. If you have a small yard, use more bludgers or players will be making it through the hoop every few seconds.
This is a silly game that is geared toward younger kids, though a lot of older kids will get a kick out of it, too.
Make a dementor costume or buy one online or from a Halloween shop (try to get one on sale after Halloween ends), stuff it, and tie a string from the top of its head.
Next, put strips of black velcro all over the dementor -- the face, the legs, the arms, the stomach, the back... everywhere!
Now get out some accessories like feather boas, old coin purses, old costume jewelry, and put strips of velcro on the back side of them. If you don’t have any feather boas and costume jewelry lying around, check your local thrift store. They’re loaded with old lady supplies.
Hang your dementor from a tree and put all your accessories in a box near the dementor.
Instruct players to try to stick the accessories to the dementor after you shout “Riddikulus!” and begin swinging the dementor from the tree like a pinata.
When you shout “Riddikulus!” the second time, they must stop.
Players earn 1 point for each item they were able to stick to the dementor.
This is a simple game for younger kids.
Buy several Styrofoam balls and paint gnome faces on them. Beards are not optional. Paint blue hats on half of the gnomes and green hats on the other half.
Take several bins or buckets, tie a rope on them, and hang them from a tree. If you don’t have a tree or don’t like the idea of putting a bunch of buckets in it, you can just place them around your yard.
Throw the gnomes (balls) all over the yard and tell the players that you need their help removing the gnomes by throwing them into the buckets.
Split players into teams and have them only remove the gnomes of their team’s colors.
Start some music or set a timer, and when the time is up, count the number of gnomes each team was able to remove.
Alternative Version:
Have each player throw a gnome as far as he can. Mark the spot where the gnome fell when he threw it.
The player who throws the gnome the farthest wins!
For this game, you’re going to need lots and lots of large boxes. Some good options for finding these for free are: appliance stores, furniture stores, and Craigslist.
Create a maze with your boxes by using them as walls and using duct tape to keep them together.
Keep the tops of your boxes intact so that the maze is dark inside.
Cut small holes in the boxes or string twinkle lights through it so that players can see where they’re going when they’re inside.
Up the scary factor by hanging rubber snakes and spiders from the tops of the boxes and putting gummy worms and bubble wrap on the floor.
Time each player with a stopwatch from the time they enter to the time they exit.
The fastest player to get out of the maze is the champion!
Everybody knows that if you get bit by a werewolf you’ll either become a werewolf yourself or get a nasty infection.
In this game, one player will start as the werewolf. The rest of the players hide from the werewolf. The werewolf will go stalking for the other players and if he finds one and tags him, that player becomes a werewolf, too. They then go stalking together.
The game ends when all the players have been turned into werewolves. At that point, you better get them into the Shrieking Shack before the neighbors see them.
No party is complete without treats, especially a Harry Potter party!
Go all out with the following recipes to let your guests celebrate Hogwarts style. From Acid Pops to Pygmy Puff Pastries, your guests will think they just stepped off the Hogwart's Express with their bellies filled with sweets.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had their first great adventure during a troll attack in
Sorcerer's Stone
, so a platter full of Troll Eyes is fitting for this feast. Before returning to class, students might want to package up an Owl Snack to take to the Owlery. Hedwig and Pigwidgeon will be most appreciative.
Don't forget to use the great Potion recipes in this chapter to make all your other adventures turn out perfectly...or, should we say, "Prefectly"?
Saving the Wizarding world is hard work. Young witches and wizards are sure to love all the tasty treats and refreshing drinks featured in this chapter.