This year, my son and his best friend, wanted to have a birthday party that was combined. They are both Harry Potter fans, so chose this theme.  We started with the  INVITATION. This was based on the Chamber of Secrets book in the series.  It read:  Dear Second Years, You are invited to join us on the task to discover the heir of Slytherin who has unlocked the Chamber of Secrets.  Please take the Floo network to the Weasley's Bungalow on Friday, September 00th. If you can't come that way, you may drive your flying car, but beware of the Whomping Willow when you arrive. The Weasley's address is Brushwood Way, Any Town.  Please be prepared for a wizard adventure full of action and danger and arrive promptly at 6 pm.  Our adventure should end by 8 pm, unless unseen horrors occur.  If you have the ability to talk to snakes that will be very helpful in ensuring your safe return home. You may come in your wizard attire, or dress in disguise as a Muggle.  Even though this is the celebration of birth for both boys, please bring a gift only for the one who personally invited you. We will have a feast at Hogwarts before the training and task begins. Please send an owl or call us on a Muggle phone at XXX-XXXX before September 18th to let us know you will be accompanying us. Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall & Pomona Sprout.  I printed these out on parchment paper with the Hogwarts seal at the top. After folding them, I used sealing wax and sealed the envelopes with a class ring that resembled the seal of Hogwarts.  For DECORATIONS, we set up several rooms as different parts of the wizard world. The boys arrived at our house and were greeted by both the dads dressed in black. They had grey pipe insulation tubes and proceeded to whomp each car as it drove up to the house being our own Whomping Willow. On the porch we had set up the Weasley's burrow.  I had a rocker with an afghan and knitting needles. I also found a hot pink broom which leaned against the wall.  We put up a brick facade that we found on Oriental Trading Company.  It blocked the door, except for the part that we cut out to look like a fireplace. There was a large sign with a picture of the actual burrow on it, hanging over the porch. I was dressed as Professor McGonagall and my friend was dressed like Professor Sprout in full witch costumes. The boys were then given floo powder which was comprised of green glitter, Pop It's (exploding tablets), and sand.  I had it mixed together in a small cauldron. They grabbed a handful of it, and then they threw it to the ground where it exploded green with a loud bang.  Then they spun around and entered into the front room.  I had the Harry Potter soundtrack playing in the background to enhance the mood. This room was decorated to look like Borgin and Burkes dark arts shop, complete with the sign that labeled the store. I covered all the furniture with black sheets. I had two candelabras burning with black candles.  All the windows had been covered with vinyl haunted house scenes to make it darker and give it that eerie feel.  There were skulls and skeletons, along with gelatin hands, ravens, rats and other creepy things.  I had the fireplace set on low as the only light besides the candles.  I had set up a long table covered in a black tablecloth,in the middle of the room with bowl sized cauldrons.  In each of the caldrons was a peeled apple that was coated in lemon juice. The boys were given plastic knives to carve out faces into the apples. We also gave them rice kernels for teeth which they pressed into the mouths.  The apples were then placed in the oven on the lowest setting to dry them and turn them into shrunken heads�.  We used this time to wait for all the guests to arrive before having the feast  Once all the boys arrived we went into the dining room.  We had a long wooden table with a wrought iron candle holder as well as gold dishes and chilled glass mugs.  Another sign labeled Hogwarts with a picture of the castle stood behind the table. We wired stuffed owls from the ceiling to make them look like they were flying.  The   FOOD  we served the boys was fit for a Hogwarts banquet.  We had glazed chicken, rosemary potatoes, green salad and rolls for dinner.  We made butter beer by combining cream soda with liquid butter flavoring. After they ate we took them into the back yard for the start of the ACTIVITIES.  We set up a Quidditch training session.  We built the hoop by taking PVC pipe and attaching a hula hoop to the top of it.  We took a saw horse and attached an inexpensive witch broom, which I found at the Dollar Tree, to the top of it. The boys had to sit on the broom and throw the quaffel through the hoop.  I took a small soccer ball and painted it to look like a quaffel. Then they had to catch the golden snitch while sitting on the broom. This was the plastic snitch found on Amazon.  After that they had to dodge a bludger�, which was a plastic bowling ball, painted to look like the bludger.  They used a very small wooden bat to hit the bludger away from them. Once they had completed their Quidditch practice they came back in and went to the family room. We set up an electric fireplace, candles, wizard books and another sign that read Gryffindor Common Room. We had my two year old dressed as Doby in a pillowcase dress that I stained with brown paint, and a head band with elf ears on it.  She brought each of the boys a small journal and Harry Potter wands that lit up at the tip that we found on OTC.  I had soaked the journals in brown tea, for a couple of minutes to look old, then used watered down brown paint for the covers.  I used lemon juice to paint a message in each book with invisible ink. We heated the page and the message appeared on the page.  While two of the boys heated the page and followed the directions which said to go to the bathroom on the first floor, the other boys made mandrake roots�.  We took nylon knee highs and stuffed them with batting. We bought small clay pots for them to put them in. We had them paint black eyes, noses and mouths with puffy paint and glue silk leaves on the top. Finally we glued the mandrakes into the pots. The boys, who were following their journal directions, went to our downstairs bathroom that had my older daughter dressed and sitting on the toilet, like Moaning Myrtle. She had a white button shirt, a tie and black skirt. She wore wire rim glasses and had her hair in pigtails.  We used black lipstick and other make up to make her look like a ghost.  Finally we lit up the room with a black light.  She sat on the toilet and told them to go through the door that led to our dirt cellar to enter the chamber.  You enter it by going down a trap door by a small wooden ladder, like the hole in the book. We set up our cellar in the form of a maze. We used black lights to light it a little and black plastic table cloths to make the walls.  We had glow in the dark skeletons lit up with LED lights.  We made a huge spider out of a milk carton, black tape, and pipe insulation tubes. I wrapped the cartoon with black tape and attached the grey tubes as legs. Then I wrapped it with gray fuzzy yarn to look like web. We hung the spider and lit it with another light.  My mom helped by painting a forest scene behind the spider on a large piece of cardboard.  The boys had to go past the spider through the maze to get to the chamber. Once they made it to the main chamber� we had a stuffed bird hanging from the rafters with a plastic Gryffindor sword hanging from it. We also found a huge stuffed snake that the dads had wires connected to it to control it. The chamber was lit up by black light, so that the boys couldn't see the dads.  The boys used the sword to fight the basilisk�. Once they defeated the snake, they used a ceramic dragon tooth to stab their journal and end the fight. After the boys had completed the task and defeated the snake they went back to Hogwarts for cake.  We had a  CAKE  made that looked like a Harry Potter book with a basilisk wrapped around it.  The boys opened presents and had their picture taken with the snake, which we printed up on photo paper and used as their thank you cards. Our boys wrote their THANKS on the back of the picture and sent it home with the boys. For their  FAVORS, each of the boys went home with a shrunken head, a Harry Potter wand, a magical journal, a mandrake root in a pot, and a cauldron. It was an incredible party that the boys all loved. There wasn't a down moment the entire party. The boys went home tired and happy.  A magical evening for both party goers and parents alike!