I am a huge Harry Potter fan and am sure that I went way overboard.  When my 2 year old started watching the movies with me she got hooked too. She has a white owl that she calls Hedwig and got a toy rat at Halloween store and named it Scabbers. We started planning her Harry Potter Party.  Since this will be her 3rd year birthday I knew that I had to keep it fast paced and fairly simple.  No Potions or complicated games would work for her age group.  I kept the invitations fairly simple. I designed it with Hogwarts Logos. The body of the invitation read: Welcome to your first year at Hogwarts. We do hope you will be able to join us for the celebration, since we expect great fun will be had by all in attendance. Since the surrounding area is well-protected by Memory Charms, it will be safe to wear normal wizard attire, but if you miss the Hogwarts Express or are unable to Apparate and must come incognito by way of Muggle transportation, feel free to arrive dressed in the Muggle manner. If you are unable to reply in the normal manner by owl, please reply to via the Muggle telephony system at ***-***-****. We are looking forward to your arrival at Hogwarts. You will receive your school supply list upon arriving. Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts Academy.  Upon arriving, the First Years were to gather up and get ready for their trip to Diagon Alley to fill their supply list.  We met at the Leaky Cauldron (sign downloaded online) and went through the brick wall into Diagon Alley.  We have a vault set up for Gringotts bank with bags of chocolate and plastic coins (handmade bank bags with Gringotts stamped on them).  After receiving their coins they used them to purchase their supplies.  I purchased Hogwarts plastic gift bags from the dollar section at Target to use as cauldrons.  Now that they had something to carry things in it was time to go shopping.  They first visited Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions to purchase their robes. The robes were made from Adult size black t-shirts split down the center to resemble a robe. I downloaded the Hogwarts crest and printed onto label paper and stuck one onto the left chest of the robe.  The next stop was at Ollivander's for their wands.  I used chop sticks sanded and stained with a jewel glued onto the end as a wand. Each wand was inside a red felt sleeve (to avoid injury on the little ones). They then went to Flourish & Blotts for their school books and supplies. I glued a white feather onto a wood colored pencil for their quill and downloaded spells and their meanings online and made a reference book of spells.  I also purchased Harry Potter Stationary and Hogwarts journals from my local Scholastic Warehouse sale. The last stop at Diagon Alley was at Magical Menagerie so that each student could purchase a pet. I had rubber frogs, lizards, and rats. I also took the idea of Pygmy Puffs from one of the later books and designed my idea of what it would look like.  I found some fuzzy scarves at the dollar store and cut out a pattern and sewed it together in the style of a blow up beach ball.  After it was stuffed I glued wiggly eyes to it and it turned out cute.  A little soft, squishy, and fuzzy pygmy puff. We had 4 different colors. When all the shopping was done we gathered in the great hall for a class photo. Then headed onto the transfiguration class. The first thing we did was to turn a sucker into a spider.  (Tootsie pop wrapped in tissue paper with pipe cleaner legs and glued on wiggly eyes.)  The second was to turn a clothes pin into a bat.  I had cut out shapes of a bat's body and wings. They glued them together and put eyes on them.  For cleanliness I used glue sticks instead of the white glue.    After Class it was time for refreshments.  We had a wonderful spread:  2 cakes a Golden Snitch (like Harry got on his 16th B-Day) a cake made from a ball pan frosted yellow with golden wings stuck into the sides.  The second was a sheet cake with Harry getting onto Hogwarts Express.  We also had Pumpkin Pasties and the usual, Fruit, chips & dip, cheese, pigs in the blanket and veggies.  For drinks we had two choices. Gilleyweed water (green Hawaiian punch) and Pumpkin Juice (orange Kool-Aid). I was lucky enough to have found all of my Harry Potter plates, napkins, and cups for only $ 0.50 each at Party City.  After snacks and presents all the kids got to visit Honeydukes Candy store for some treats to take home.  I found a frog mold online and made chocolate frogs (the ones in the store are just too expensive) I even put a Harry Potter trading card inside each Chocolate Frog pack.  I got a few bags of jelly belly beans and packaged them in clear bags and labeled them as Bertie Botts Beans.  I got individually wrapped gumballs and put them into a bin labeled Droobles Best Blowing Gum. We had gummy slugs and snake suckers too. Each child got to take home all of their treats:  Gringotts money, Cauldron, Robe, Wand, Books, Pet, Crafts and Candy from Honeydukes to top it all off. It was a party that was talked about for quite a while.  And I have to admit.  I had just as much fun planning and participating (I was dressed as a professor) as the kids had.