Harry Potter Party

It all started a Thursday evening in July.....

Ellen came up to me while I was on the computer and asked if I knew where this mysterious Hogwarts letter (complete with instructions on when and where to meet the train) came from. I assumed it came from Claire for a B-Day joke and I denied knowing anything about it.

A few minutes later, Claire came into the room and Ellen proceeded to question her. It turned out neither of us knew where the letter had come from. At this point, we began to question Mom and Dad on where the letter had come from. They too denied knowing anything about the letter, but we were sure they did know something.

Several days later, Ellen discovered that a friend of hers had gotten a letter identical to hers. They decided that it was probably some sort of Harry Potter day-camp. As the weeks went on, Ellen learned that more friends had received letters, some of whom lived in different areas and didn't even know each other.

Several weeks later while Ellen was at her Karate class, mom finally told Claire and I the truth: Genelle and Carolyn had planned this Hogwarts party. Claire and I would be going as prefects for Griffendor and Ravenclaw! During the next few weeks, Mom collected Hogwarts uniforms so Claire, Ellen, and I would be "Hogwarts Ready" as the letter had directed. The moms of the other invitees had been doing the same.

Finally, the day had arrived. We were going to Hogwarts! Mom drove Claire, Ellen, and I to the train station and met Ellen's friends. Ellen kept hounding us on for details. All we would say is, "Of course we're going to Hogwarts, we're prefects this year and I have my O.W.L.'s." After a while, she and her friends gave up. We went to the 9 3/4 sign and waited. We got quite a few strange looks but we just waved and replied we're going to Hogwarts.

Us in front of the 9 3/4 sign

And finally the train arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We boarded and tried to go to thecar Carolyn had instructed us to use. [We didn't get to the right place, but the Trolley Lady found us anyway.] As the train left the station, a voice with a British accent came over the intercom announcing the "Hogwarts Express."

A few minutes later, guess who should arrive but the Trolley Lady! Claire and I bought chocolate frogs, licorice wands, and Burty Boughts Every Flavor Beans for all the girls and we sat down to eat them. We told the girls that the reason that the chocolate frogs were frozen was so that they escape and alert the Muggles.

Lady with the trolley!

When we arrived at the last train stop, Claire and I herded the girls off the train. Who should be waiting for us but Hagrid! (Or Carolyn in a vary deceiving custom). At first Ellen didn't recognize her until Carolyn spoke! As we walked out of the train station and to our van (Carolyn had borrowed it while Mom took us to the train station), Claire and I talked to "Hagrid" about what we had done over our summer break from Hogwarts.

Then we were off. I didn't know until later but Ellen didn't tell her friends she know these people, but preceded to play along!

When we got to Genelle and Carolyn's house, we were greeted by.... Professor Mcgonagall! Claire and I went into the house with "Hagrid" while Genelle (aka Professor Mcgonagall) gave the first year speech to the girls before taking them into the "great hall" to be sorted. I was prefect of Ravenclaw and Claire was prefect of Griffendor. (Those were the only houses we had). Ellen was sorted into Ravenclaw!

Ellen Sorted into Ravenclaw!!!!!!!!!!!!

The feast!

The teachers: Hagrid, Snape, Dumbledore, Trawlany, and Mcgonagall.

During the feast, Rita Skita came through taking pictures. She took pictures through out the rest of the party!

Rita Skita.

After the sorting, we had the feast and then the girls received their wands. Claire and I (of course) already had our wands for many years of Hogwarts learning! Once they received their wands, Claire and I escorted them to their potions lesson (the wood shop). While they had their lesson with Professor Snape, Claire and I helped change the "great hall" into the Defense Against the Dark Arts class room.

The Potions room was awesome!!!

Once the Potions lesson was finished, we took the girls to their Divination Lesson. The girl acting professor Trawlany did a amazing job! She had just the air of professor Trawlany. Ellen and her friends loved it!

Professor Trawlany had been given orders to stretch out the class as long as possible because the D.A.D.A. teacher, Mad Eye Moody, wasn't there yet. The Divination class was a big hit with the girls and it went wonderfully until Professor Moody (one of the Ellen's friend's Dad) got there.

Divination classroom!

Defense Against the Dark Arts Class

For Defense Against the Dark Arts, we had a test. Claire and I were included in this class. The last few questions were about dementors. We, of course, knew how to get rid of demontors with the spell of "Expecto Patrom." Professor Moody said, "Yes, Yes, very good, but what you may not know is...(while pulling a baseball bat out of nowhere)....that hitting them over the head with a baseball bat is also very affective!"
So we went to the back yard and the girls had a lot of fun with the dementor pinata!

Ellen breaking the pinata!

After the girls gathered up the candy that had spilled on the ground, they went to the front yard for the "Care of magical creatures" class, of course taught by Hagrid! The creature was a bearded dragon which is a type of lizard. We had a lot of fun taking turns holding the lizard named, Friend, and teasing 'Hargid' that he wanted a real dragon!

Ellen's friend Amy holding Friend, the lizard.

After Care of Magical Creatures it was too hot to have a quidditch lesson yet, so we played in the waterfall and after that watched part of a Harry Potter movie until it had cooled off a bit.

No pictures of the girls in the waterfall, but here's one of the waterfall where they played!

Once it was cooler, we went and saddled up the horses for quidditch practice! Since there were six girls and four horses.....whoops, I mean brooms..... they took turns.

Cleansweep (Julie), Comet (Jasper), Nimbus (Nicki), and the Firebolt (Dado) were the school "brooms"! It was really fun. The way we played quidditch was the girls would ride around and try to throw balls threw the hoops.

Ellen leading her friend on Firebolt! (or Dado)

Claire and I weren't on horses and ran around picking up the balls on the ground and giving them back to the girls on out team.

After practice we had two quidditch matches. Griffendor won the first game! Ravenclaw won the second game!

In both games, the score was tied until the snitch was caught. Two girls for each team were up on "brooms" scoring points, then the other girl for each team was a seeker and ran around the horse pasture looking for where the snitch had been hidden.

After the quidditch games, Aunt Nellie gave horse back rides to the siblings of Ellen's friends. (The families of the girls had shown up for the quidditch matches.) Carolyn thinks we must have given twenty rides!

The Harry Potter Party was awesome! We all loved it and Aunt Genelle and Carolyn put SO much effort into it!

Well, that's the end to my wordy and long winded post.

Love Madelyn