Harry Potter Murder Mystery Party

Last Friday I hosted a murder mystery party that was Harry Potter themed. Everyone agreed that it was fantastic!

A few months ago I had run across a murder mystery game at a local thrift store. M and I invited a few friends over and had a blast solving the murder. I became hooked on the idea of hosting themed parties, mainly murder mystery parties. I immediately began searching for other themes and mysteries that I could host.

That is when I came across the Harry Potter Mystery by justsweetandsimple.blogspot.com. It was written by the blog's owner, so it had a few flaws, but it was fun and family friendly. I went crazy with decorations and planning.

The first thing I did was choose my guest list. This game had 12 suspects and well as a host (who already knew the results) and a helper. I made sure everyone I invited was able to attend before I made character assignments (randomly assigned). Even with the precautions, two guests couldn't come because of illness.

The script is written so the guest move from one place to another. I thought it made the experience more fun, although it also required more decorations. I had the guests start in the backyard in Diagon Alley. I set up a few "stores" where they could choose a wand, a quill, and receive their first character information as an interdepartmental memo.

From there we traveled through Platform 9 3/4 into the house. In the dinning room I had a table set up for the dinner, as well as house banners on the ceiling and windows and a "potion's cupboard" in my china cabinet. In the living room M helped me created 35 floating candles. On the walls were school proclamations and Wanted Wizard posters with funny pictures of my guests on them.

I made a generic colored banner so I could use it again.

Living Room Decorations.

Wanted posters framing a "Free the House Elves" donation center.

I printed so many different things I ended up having to replace the printer ink, twice. It was worth it though. 

For the dinner portion, I found so many fun things to do there was no way I could do it by myself. I am lucky enough that my guests always offer to help, so I decided what would be fun to have and assigned a dish to each guest. We had plenty to go around, an oddly, no leftovers!

I assigned myself the Chocolate Frogs. I bought a mold online and used 64 oz. of chocolate in order to make enough for everyone. I got creative with my candy making and placed different candies inside each of the frogs. I used Jelly Belly beans, Smarties (which people didn't like), Lemon sandwich cookies, massacred Peeps, and M&Ms.

Don't they look so Yummy!

I won't spoil the mystery for you, but we all had a great time.