Harry Potter Theme It was my son's 7th birthday and we decided to celebrate it Hogwarts style.   First the Invites:  I downloaded the Lumos font from the web. This is the harry potter font and used it to create the invites that I printed in Word in a background of parchment( also downloaded from the web).  It had a burned edge and looked really cool.  I included the hogwarts school seal ( also downloaded) and created invites that asked the invitees to feel free to apparate or arrive by floo powder and in their usual garb as the house was concealed by memory charms.  But they could use muggle transportation also.  Asked them to respond by the muggle telephony system.  I then rolled up the invites and hand tied them with some ribbon and hand delivered it to the various mailboxes( luckily most of his friends were from school)I asked the moms to put it by their pillows and tell them an owl had delivered it.  (one kid actually believed it)  I converted my formal dining room into the great hall by cutting out yellow foam stars and moon for the ceiling and pasting them on black sheets and covering up the ceilings with it. We had silk cloth hung around in the house colors flowing across the french windows. the sunlight streamed through this and created a really nice effect. the hogwarts school song was written down on a poster and hung from one corner with pictures of harry potter decorating it.  In dripping red paint I had written "happy birthday" and hung that in the middle of the room.  we played the Harry potter theme music in the background and set up a cauldron with dry ice in it and poured warm water over it to create smoke at the entrance. there are double doors that lead to the great hall from the kitchen to the dining and I hung drapes over the doors and labelled it Platform 9 3/4. We hung about a hundred gold balloons all over. The buffet and drinks area in the informal dining had a sign that read " The Leaky Cauldron".   I made a castle cake by layering two square cakes and adding additional smaller pieces on top to create the height.  I then added the turrets by setting ice cream cones on all four sides and adding cupcakes on top.I then frosted the entire castle part of the cake in chocolate icing and added the flagstone details in yellow piping.  I made little flags from toothpicks and added them to all the turrets.  All around the cake I added coconut flkes that were dyed green to create the lawn and added a whomping willow to the grounds by cutting out some decorative wooden swirls that you can find in any art store. I then stuck a blue car in it to replicate ron's flying car.  We aslo added a small figurine of Harry Potter to it nearby.  On the day of the party we all dressed up as witches and we led the kids up to diagon alley first.( I had my sister in law and teenage niece helping me)  As about 22 kids showed up, it was quite a large party. We created an area for Ollivander's wand shop a robes for all occasions shop and various other shops.  I had made book covers that had titles of the classes that are taught in howarts and set up an area for that. ( That I had made from wooden skewers by wrapping tape around it till it was bumpy and paiting it brown).  Each kid was asked to swish the wand and we had hid and toy that made a magic sound and after enought tries my neice would press the button to activate the sound and the kid would have a wand. They then went to the robe and hat shop and got fitted for robes ( made from black fabric) and wizards hats (made from black felt and pasted yellow stars upon). They also picked up a small notebook and quills( fancy pens with a large feather taped to it. We then walked down to the kitchen and the kids got to crash through the double doors( platform 9 3/4)into the formal dining( great hall). We then had a sorting ceremony ( I had made a sorting hat with brown leather and added a wide brim and patches and eyes, nose and a mouth. It had an opening made from velcro that I snuck a baby moniter into.  I had written narratives for each child and which house they would be sorted into prior to the party and a friend read out the narrative as the hat was placed on every child's head. We set up a bar stool and the kid got to feel special. At this age they did not really care if they were in Slytherin.   After they were sorted, I got the whole gang to sing the hogwarts school song( in the book, everyone picks a tune to sing it in). This was especially fun as the kids bellowed the song to their own tunes!   It was potions class next. I had extracted the juice of red cabbage and labelled it dragon's blood.  We had a whole bunch of syringes( sponsored for free from my friendly Kroger Pharmacy)that the kids used measure out the ingrdiants and recorded their results with their fancy quills in their notebooks. when we added troll's sweat, it turned pink and then we added baking soda to get it to become blue and bubble over.  It stank to high heavens and added a very authentic effect to the experiment.  Next we had the spells class, where I taught the kids how to use their wands and a list of spells ( list from the web). They got to pick a partner and point theri wand at them and yell out the spell. The reciepient was to then act like it was a real spell. I made up some spells in addition to the Rowlings', but the most popular were ones that would turn the person into a lion and a snake, dance uncontrollably, fall on the floor in a bind and be ticklish. The kids had such a blast with this that we did not get to move to the next class ( Transfiguration). So we just played this till it was time to cut the cake.  After snacks and cake ( using gold plates with gold napkins stamped with the hogwats seal and punch drank out of plactic wine goblets), I had a bertie botts every flavor bean ( found in target) tasting contest as we waited to the parents to arrive. This was fun as the flavors were so authentic. (I had the misfortune of popping vomit into my mouth!!!) The party lasted more than 3 hours and the preparation took a whole month.  But it was one of the best parties ever and all the kids ( and a large number of adults who hung out also) had such a blast! I knew this to be true when the next week one of the girls( who is a fourth grader) apparantly actually wrote about it in her TAKS exam when asked to write an essay about an event where she had a great time!