Harry Potter Fans! Check Out This Fun Party Theme – Food, Décor, Games and More!

Planning a Harry Potter themed party? Then, you are going to want to see these great Harry Potter party ideas – décor, food, drinks, games and activities!

 

Harry Potter Party Theme

I have wanted to plan a party with a Harry Potter theme for quite some time now. So when our family decided to have a Harry Potter movie marathon on Halloween instead of going trick-or-treating, I jumped at the opportunity to turn it into a full themed party complete with themed snacks, activities, and décor.

These themed snacks, activities and décor would be perfect for any Harry Potter party – whether it’s a birthday party, wedding shower, baby shower, family movie night or other celebration.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase through any Amazon links in this post, I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

Harry Potter Party Decorations

A few key decorations can really make your party special. We didn’t go too overboard with decorations but we did have simple few high-impact decoration elements. And, these easy Harry Potter decorations made the event extra special.

 

Platform 9 ¾ Wall

You can’t have a Harry Potter party and not have a Platform 9 ¾ Wall. A few years ago, I had seen a craft video online of someone making their own Platform 9 ¾ Wall. I was originally going to try to make my own as well. But then I found this affordable Platform 9 ¾ Wall with good ratings on Amazon and decided to save myself the trouble by using that instead.

Our wall was a huge hit with all of our guests. When you walked through this brick wall, you entered a darkened Great Hall filled with magic floating candles.

 

Great Hall of Floating Candles

Another fun Harry Potter decoration idea? Floating candles! These are super easy to make and will add a truly magical effect to your gathering.

To make our candles, I cut sheets of white cardstock paper into fourths, rolled them into tube shapes and secured the edges with clear tape. I used a glue gun to make it look as though melted wax had dripped down the sides of the candles. I threaded some string through each tube about ½-inch from the top. I taped it to the ceiling and plopped a battery-operated tealight candle inside.

I chose to hang our floating candles in the bedroom hallway because that space is fairly dark when the doors are shut no matter what time of day it is. Additionally, because it is a hallway, I could jokingly call it “The Great Hall.” I thought that was clever because the Harry Potter books and movies frequently mention the Great Hall in Hogwarts.

This DIY project took a little more time than I expected it to but it was completely worth the effort.

 

Hedwig Owl Balloons

While researching Harry Potter decoration ideas online, I saw that several people created Hedwig Owls using white balloons. My daughter used a picture we found online to draw our own Hedwigs on white balloons, and it was surprisingly easy to do.

If you are not feeling up to the task of drawing Hedwig yourself, you can also find templates online.

 

DIY Harry Potter Party Signs

We ended up making some fun (and often funny) DIY Harry Potter signs that you definitely won’t find on Pinterest but the kids had a blast making them. (Originally, I was going to print some professional looking Pinterest-Worthy signs I had found online.) Our signs may not be pretty or professional-looking but they were still a big hit. The kids enjoyed showing them off to each guest as they arrived. Inspiration for many of the signs were found from a quick image search on Google.

RELATED:  Hilarious Harry Potter Signs You Won’t Find on Pinterest

 

Hogwarts Express Train Tickets

I gave each guest their own Hogwarts Express Train Ticket as a souvenir to remember our fun movie marathon event. The kids loved it. Originally, I was going to use this printable Hogwarts Train Ticket from Hermione’s Secret Library. But then I found one I liked a little better with a Google image search so we ended up using that instead.

 

Magic Wands

A couple years ago, the kids and I had done this DIY magic wand craft, and we still had a ton of these Harry Potter-inspired magic wands left. So we used these wands as gift favors for each of our guests.

 

Harry Potter Baubles

We also have quite the collection of decorative Harry Potter baubles so I displayed several of those around the house. We have figurines, nightlights, and more. But my favorite one is a flying car handpainted for me by my niece a couple years ago.

 

Moaning Myrtle’s Toilet

A bathroom wouldn’t be complete without a Moaning Myrtle toilet, right? Not at a Harry Potter party anyways. Thus, I had printed off an image of Moaning Myrtle beforehand. While the family was watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (movie 2), I snuck into the bathroom and taped Myrtle on to the toilet seat cover. The kids laughed so hard when they discovered her a little while later!

Along the same lines, you could also tape a sign to the toilet seat cover that says “Ministry of Magic” with some arrows pointing downward.

 

 

Flying Keys

I ran out of time to create this Harry Party decoration but we had intended to make some flying keys to hang from the ceiling. The kids would have loved that!!! I had purchased this Flying Key Crafting Kit to make them.

Since we didn’t make them in time for our Harry Party party, the kids and I are going to make them into ornaments to send as Christmas gifts this year instead. (Shhh! Don’t tell our friends and family about this. We want it to be a surprise.)

And, of course, we will keep a handful for ourselves. We will use them as a decoration for our next Harry Potter themed party because, being huge Harry Potter nerds, you know that we will be having more of these parties in the future.

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Harry Potter Party Ideas: Games and Activities

Not surprisingly, I planned way more games and activities than we actually had time for (even though our movie marathon was a weekend-long event). Here is a list of the games and activities we did plus a few additional ones we planned.

 

Sorting Hat Activity

No Harry Potter themed party would be complete without properly sorting your guests into Hogwarts Houses. You can find a lot of elaborate sorting activities online but we decided to keep it simple. We had each guest put on a witch hat and open a small mystery envelope. I decorated each envelope with some leftover Halloween stickers to make it a little more festive. Every envelope was filled with presorted M&Ms, and the color of the M&Ms determined which house the guest had been sorted into – red for Gryffindor, green for Slytherin, blue for Ravenclaw, and yellow for Hufflepuff.

It was easy to prepare for this activity, and everyone really enjoyed it.

 

All the Harry Potter Movies

Like I said before, our event was a weekend-long Harry Potter movie marathon. So, of course, our main entertainment was watching the Harry Potter movies. We watched one Friday evening, and then two a day for Saturday and Sunday. We watched the remaining movies over the next few weeks.

 

Floating Charms Practice

This Harry Potter party idea was a big hit with our children! We used our Hedwig Owl balloons to practice our floating charm. Each kid used their magic wand gift favors to keep their balloon afloat while saying “Wingardium Leviosa” aloud. The kids had a lot of fun with this activity, and it kept them busy for a surprisingly long time. I got the idea for this floating charm activity from The Suburban Mom.

 

Make Your Own House Scarf

I let the kids create their own Hogwarts House scarves using scissors, fabric glue and felt fabric. It was a really easy craft that required very little preparation, and the kids were delighted with their new house scarves afterwards. I got the idea for this No-Sew Hogwarts House Scarf craft from Michelle’s Party Plan-It.

 

Slinging Insults Like a Slytherin

No one is as good at insults as a Slytherin! Thus, I picked up a copy of the humorous Unofficial Harry Potter Insults Handbook from the library before our party. The kids had a good time reading it and insulting each other in-between movie showings, and some of the insults were downright funny. (I think the adults may have enjoyed this book as much as the kids did.)

 

Spell Books

The kids had a great time using their wands to practice spells from this printable Harry Potter Book of Spells from Inspiration Laboratories.

 

Harry Potter Photo Booth Props

Photo booths are all the rage for parties these days. So, of course, I purchased some Harry Potter photo booth props for our party. The kids enjoyed playing with them. It was fun watching them use their imaginations to combine props to create their own funny characters. For instance, they combined Ron Weasley’s hair with a house elf mask, and then, they declared it to be Dobby’s girlfriend. Funny, right?

 

Dragon Egg Hunt

One of the activities that we ran out of time for was a Dragon Egg Hunt. I was going to have an Easter Egg hunt but call it a Dragon Egg hunt. If you did this activity, you could put fun-sized candies in the eggs. I knew that my kids did not need any more sugar in their systems so I had intended to print some Harry Potter jokes to put in the eggs instead. I was going to use these printable Harry Potter jokes from The Quiet Grove.

 

Wizard’s Chess

Wizard’s Chess is a favorite game played by Harry Potter and his Hogwarts classmates. Essentially, it is a typical chess game except that the pieces come to life and slay one another throughout the game.

This is another activity that we ran out of time for. My idea was to pull out our family chess board and a couple of foam swords and let the kids play against each other. Every time someone took the other player’s chess piece, he/she could pretend to stab their opponent with a foam sword. (A little violent but I suspect the kids would’ve really enjoyed it.)

I think it would’ve been extra fun to  play it with this Harry Potter Wizard Chess Set.

 

Escape the Devil’s Snare

We never got around to playing this Devil’s Snare game but it looked like a lot of fun. You get one minute to trap a party guest in Devil’s Snare. Set a timer for 60 seconds, wrap a guest up with green streamers, and then see if they are able to break free once the timer goes off. I’ve played versions of this with small children in the past, and it always devolves into happy giggles and big smiles. I got the idea for this Devil’s Snare Game from Jonesing2Create.

 

Harry Potter Activity Worksheets

A quick online search will turn up lots of fun activity worksheets with a Harry Potter theme. I ended up printing off and using some of the following:

• Harry Potter Maze
• Spells Matching Worksheet
• Guess the Patronuses

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Harry Potter Food and Drinks

For Harry Potter food and drinks, we didn’t go too overboard. We had some of our usual muggle favorites for the actual meals – things like pizza, burgers and the like.  But we did enjoy several Harry Potter-themed treats as desserts and snacks over the course of the weekend.

Check out this list of fun and yummy Harry Potter treats.

 

Butterbeer

Could you even call it a Harry Potter party if there was no Butterbeer? (Hint: The answer is NO.) I knew we had to serve Butterbeer but I also knew that I didn’t want too complicated of a recipe. Thankfully, I found this super easy Butterbeer recipe from Favorite Family Recipes.

Not only was it easy to whip together, it was really good. My kids swore that it tasted like the real deal (just like we had when we visited Universal Orlando). And, the adults must’ve agreed because every single one of our guests asked for seconds.

We served our homemade Butterbeer in clear glasses and topped it with a swirl of caramel topping. Seriously. So Good!

 

Pumpkin Juice

Pumpkin Juice is a favorite beverage at Hogwarts so I was delighted to find that Favorite Family Recipes also offered a simple Pumpkin Juice recipe. We weren’t sure how this would taste but it was actually really good. It tastes like apple cider with a hint of pumpkin pie.

We enjoyed the novelty of this fun Harry Potter-themed drink and its sweet sweet taste. So I’m glad we made one small batch of it for our party. The only thing I disliked about the Pumpkin Juice is that I had to stir it up before each serving.

 

Chocolate Broomsticks

We also enjoyed a snack of chocolate broomsticks. The idea for this super easy Harry Potter treat came from Ruffles and Rainboots.

 

Witch Hat Cupcakes

We enjoyed Witch Hat Cupcakes as well. I baked and frosted cupcakes. Then, I topped them with witch hats made from Oreo cookies and Hershey kisses. I got the idea from Homemade Hooplah.

PRO TIP:  Eat these cupcakes immediately after adding the witch hats. The Oreo hat bottoms were quite soggy by the second day.

 

Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans

You can purchase Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans for your Harry Potter party. Or, you could just buy plain old normal jelly beans like I did. Either way, the treat is bound to be popular with your party guests.

 

Happee Birthdae Harry Cake

If you remember from the first movie, Hagrid brings Harry a birthday cake. It was pink and had the misspelled words of “Happee Birthdae Harry” piped onto it. You could easily make one of these cakes for your own Harry Potter party. We already had witch hat cupcakes so I decided to not make one of these cakes for our movie marathon.

 

Golden Snitch Fine Chocolates

Ferrero Rocher Fine Chocolates look a lot like the Golden Snitch. Thus, every one of our guests left our party with a “Golden Snitch Fine Chocolate” treat. What a decadent Harry Potter food idea! If you feel so inclined, you can add wings to these golden ball-shaped chocolates to make it look even more like the Snitch.

 

Monster Pudding Cups

We served Monster Pudding Cups with lunch one day. I simply purchased some monster sprinkles and dropped some into each pudding cup before I served. It was a fun and easy way to carry the Harry Potter theme over to an otherwise typical lunch.

 

Popcorn

Of course, we served popcorn. Our event was a movie marathon afterall. During one of the movies, I gave everyone some caramel corn instead; I called it “Butterbeer Corn.”

 

Chocolate Frogs

Chocolate Frogs is a favorite treat amongst Harry Potter and his pals. It’s really easy to purchase Chocolate Frogs or even make your own (if you purchase frog candy molds anyways).

 

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What Harry Potter Celebration Are You Planning?

Whether you are planning a family movie night, a birthday party, a wedding/baby shower or some other Harry Potter themed celebration, I hope your event is magical and fun!

If you found inspiration from this post for your own upcoming Harry Potter celebration, please let me know in the comments section below.

 

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE OTHER HARRY POTTER POSTS:

• DIY Magic Wands Inspired by Harry Potter
• Reading Harry Potter as a Family
• Hilarious DIY Harry Potter Signs
• Discover all the Harry Potter Magic at Universal Orlando
• The Five Dare Challenge for Harry Potter Fans