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Created by: Linsey Jensen

With Covalent Moments


Contents
Introduction to At-Home Escape rooms…………………………………. 3
Introduction to the Quest for the Quidditch Gear Escape room…………... 5
Items Needed……………………………………………………………… 7
Story Map…………………………………………………………………. 9
Set-up Checklist…………………………………………………………… 10
Puzzle Details……………………………………………………………… 12
Hogwarts Reading List ……………………………………………… 12
Sorting Hat ……………….………………………………………… 12
Potions Riddle ..…………………………………………………….. 13
Follow the Spiders, House Point Gem Wall, Bertie Bott’s Beans….... 14
Anagram Puzzle………….………………………………………… 15
Marauder’s Map ……………………………………………..……… 15
Quibbler Magazine …………………………………………………... 16
Tri-Wizard Tournament …………………………………………….. 17
Dragon Challenge…………………………………………………….. 17
Egg Challenge…………………………………..…………………….. 18
Maze Challenge……………………………………………………….. 18
Tickle the Pear Puzzle ……………………………………………….. 18

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Doing an Escape Room at Home
Escape Rooms Overview:

Congratulations on hosting your own escape room! Escape rooms are engaging adventure puzzle
games where a group of people work together to solve clues in order to meet specific objectives.
Often-times the objectives are to escape a room, but we’ve found it works better at home when the
objective is to unlock something at the end. The series of puzzles are meant to be fun yet
challenging, and provide an intellectually and socially exciting experience.

This download provides you with a story-line, printable puzzles, as well as instructions for setting
up, hiding items, and using different locks. This document provides you with the tools you need so
you can create an unforgettable adventure at home.

General Tips for the Host:

Ambiance
A real escape room provides a completely immersive experience. While it’s hard to duplicate that at
home, the more effort you put into the ambiance and environment of your home, the more
engaging it will be for your participants. Each escape room comes with a theme, so any related
decorations or music you can add will enhance the experience.

Understanding the Puzzles

The two most useful sections are the “Story Map” and “Set-up Checklist”. They give you the basics
you need to understand how all the puzzles fit together. The “Puzzle Details” section will give you
more information about the individual puzzles (what they are, how to set them up, and how to solve
them). Before you host, make sure you have gone through the entire Story Map and each of the
puzzles so you know how they work. It may even be useful to have some of that information
printed out in an easily accessible space while you’re hosting for easy reference.

Giving Clues
As the host, you need to be able to provide direction or hints if your group asks for it, so make sure
you fully understand how the different clues and puzzles go together. BUT the puzzles are
designed to take some time to figure out, so don’t rush in to give them clues before they need it!

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It’s okay to let them struggle and even head in the wrong direction. That is part of the experience
and it makes the success of winning significantly more meaningful. Be prepared that it can
oftentimes be really hard for the host to watch the participants doing something completely wrong.
It might be helpful to establish a rule beforehand that you will only give out hints when they ask. Or
maybe a rule for yourself that you will always ask them if they want a hint or clue rather than just
telling them what to do.

Hiding Things
Most escape rooms will have you hide things. Finding hidden objects is an exciting part of escape
rooms. However, you don’t want your whole house to be torn up looking for things. Before you
begin the game, make sure everyone is aware of the boundaries of where everything is located (i.e.
stay in the living room, don’t need to open closets, etc.) That being said, many people are still
hesitant to search through someone else’s home, so after defining clear boundaries, tell them that it’s
okay and necessary to search through things within those boundaries. When you hide things, it
needs to be obvious which items are parts of the game and which are just household items. The
best way to do this is to somehow dress up all the items to match the theme. Oftentimes, this can
be as simple as putting a theme-related sticker on your objects.

At The End
After your participants have finished the escape room, take a picture as a memory. Included in the
“Supporting Documents Folder” is a poster you can print out to hold for your team picture.

GOOD LUCK!

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Quest for the Quidditch Gear
Setting:

The participants are members of their house Quidditch team at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry. The problem is that Peeve’s has stolen the Quidditch Snitch and locked it up, so Madam
Hooch has suspended all Quidditch practices and games until the gear is recovered. It is up to your
participants to solve all the puzzles in order to find and unlock the Snitch

The Game:

The game starts out with a letter from Madam Hooch explaining that the Snitch was stolen and
locked away. The letter also gives the group a little bit of direction on how to recover the Snitch:
find the Hogwarts Reading List then use it to find the associated spells to unlock the equipment in
the end. The Hogwarts Reading List requires the participants to read specific passages then solve
various puzzles related to each of the first four Harry Potter books (the books must be the
American Scholastic version!!!). The passages and the puzzles immerse the participants into the
world of Harry Potter as they mix potions, follow the spiders, read the marauder’s map, and
participate in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

As the participants go through experiences and solve the puzzles from each of the first 4 years of
Hogwarts, they will receive one or more spell(s) to use at the end of the game. The first letter of
each spell will be used to spell the word SCORE which will unlock the Quidditch Gear.

Quite a few Harry Potter props are needed for this game. See the Items Needed section for more
details. Some of the items can be out in the open, and others will need to be hidden throughout the
room. Some of the items you will probably already have around your house, but others you will
need to gather ahead of time. Some of the items you will need to make or at least alter to fit your
needs. Many of the clues will also need to be printed out. We have provided most of them with this
download, but there are a number of them that will turn out much better if you find and print the
items directly from Pinterest. Feel free to find and use your own, but if you would like a place to
start, we put together a board with some of our favorite and recommended ideas on it.
https://www.pinterest.com/covalentmoments/harry-potter-home-escape-room-props-and-
decoration/

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While it is not required for gameplay, providing Harry Potter background music can enhance the
players’ experience. There are multiple Harry Potter soundtracks on YouTube you can choose to
play in the background if you desire. Our favorite is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRAce8GTx_8

The Reward: Quidditch Snitch (Chocolate Truffles)

Solving the clues to unlock the Snitch is the main activity… So make sure you have some sort of
Snitch! We like to use Lindt Lindor Chocolate Truffles. Both the White Chocolate and the Fudge
Swirl variety have a gold-type wrapping and can be used to look like a Snitch.

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Items Needed
Note: There are a lot of items you will need for this game. Many of them you might have on hand
or will be able to make yourself or find at a thrift store. Some of them you will need to buy. It
would help us SO MUCH if you choose to buy these products through our amazon affiliate links.
This won’t change the cost for you (if you plan to buy from Amazon), but it will give us a small
percentage of the sale. You can find the links for the most common items you will need to buy at
the bottom of the page on the following link: https://covalentmoments.com/diy-harry-potter-
escape-room. (You only have to click on one of the links for everything in your cart to be attributed
to us).

Locks: (Scroll to the bottom of the page HERE to find links for the correct locks)
• 1 4-digit Lock (Combination: 8492)
• 1 Directional Lock (Combination: Up, Right, Down, Left, Down, Left)
• 1 Word Lock (Combination: SCORE)

Harry Potter Props:


• First Four Harry Potter Books
o Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Scholastic Inc.)
o Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Scholastic Inc.)
o Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Scholastic Inc.)
o Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Scholastic Inc.)
• Sorting Hat (or witch hat)
• Potion Bottles x6 (or glass bottles)
• Plastic Spiders
• House Points Gems
o 4 Glass Bottles
o Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow Jelly Beans
• Wand (or stick of some sort)
• Mini Broomstick
• Colored Harry Potter Glasses (or any old glasses without lenses; or just colored clear plastic)
• Goblet (or cup of some kind)
• Gold Dragon Egg (or yellow Easter egg)
• Quidditch Snitch (Lindt Chocolate Truffles)
• Optional: Book Safe
• Optional: Balloon Owl to deliver letter from Madam Hooch

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To Be Printed:
• Letter from Madam Hooch
• Hogwarts Reading List
• Potion Poem
• Colored Potion Spells
• Anagram Sentence Puzzle
• Red Riddikulus Spell
• Fruit Bowl Picture
• Tri-Wizard Tournament Papers
• Maze
• Spell Book Covers (Pinterest)
• Spell Booklet (Pinterest)
• Marauder’s Map (Pinterest)
• Quibbler or Daily Prophet (Pinterest)
• Dragon Picture (Pinterest)
• House Banners (Pinterest; to put underneath House Points Gems)
• We Recovered the Snitch Poster (To hold for a picture at the end of the game)

Other Items and Tools:


• UV Marker and Light
• Magnet
• Pear-Colored Paint (yellow)
• Food Coloring
• Red Cabbage Juice
• Lemon Juice

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Story Map

How to Read the Story Map

The story map above shows you how all the clues The green squares represent all the different
fit together to get the answers to unlock the challenges or puzzles the participants will need to
Quidditch Gear. It may seem a little solve. As the host, you need to make sure you
overwhelming at first, but setting it out like this understand how these puzzles work so you can
can give you a visual representation of how to set give hints when needed.
things up.
The blue squares are the rewards the participants
The yellow and red squares are items you need to receive when they correctly complete the various
gather and have set up somewhere in the room. challenges.
The red ones should be hidden. 9
Set-Up Checklist
To Print:
□ Letter from Madam Hooch (Either handed to the group at the beginning of the game, OR
delivered by owl made of a helium balloon)
□ Hogwarts Reading List (Hide in an easy spot to find… this should be one of the first things
they find)
□ Potion Puzzle Poem (Folded up and put into a hidden pocket in the sorting hat)
□ Colored Potion Spells (Placed next to the potions)
□ Anagram Sentence Puzzle (Placed in a container that can be locked with the bike lock)
□ Spell Book (Found on Pinterest; Placed with the Anagram Sentence Puzzle in the container
that can be locked with the 4-digit lock)
□ Marauder’s Map (Found on Pinterest; Hidden somewhere in the room)
□ Red Riddikulus Spell (Glued somewhere to your Quibbler magazine or Daily Prophet
newspaper)
□ Quibbler OR Daily Prophet (Found on Pinterest; Hidden anywhere in the room after the
Riddikulus spell is glued to it)
□ Fruit Bowl Picture (Modified as directed then hung up in a picture frame in the room)
□ Tri-Wizard Tournament Papers (The first paper goes in a goblet that is hidden in the room,
the second paper should be hidden with the dragon’s nest, and the third paper should be put
in the golden egg in the dragon’s nest)
□ Maze (Hidden in the room near the other Tri-Wizard Tournament stuff)
□ Spell Book Covers (Found on Pinterest; Cover up the Harry Potter books with the spell
book covers)
□ Dragon Picture (Found on Pinterest; Cut out, garnered with a paper clip, then hidden with
the dragon’s nest)
□ House Banners (Found on Pinterest; to put underneath House Points Gems)
□ Optional: Hogwarts Logo (Found on Pinterest; to put on any items that don’t necessarily
look like they’re Harry Potter related, but are needed for the game anyway)

To Make:
□ First Four Harry Potter Books (Cover with the Spell Book Covers you printed from
Pinterest)
□ Sorting Hat (Create a pocket that will hold a piece of paper on the inside of a witch’s hat)
□ Potions (5 different colored potions set out on a table with a potion bottle in front to mix
into)

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□ House Points Gems (4 glass bottles each filled to different heights with yellow having the
most, green the second most, red the third most and blue having the fewest jelly beans)
□ Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans (Put 8 yellow, 4 green, 9 red, and 2 blue jelly beans inside a
bag labeled “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans” and hide them in the room kind of near the
House Point Gems)
□ Spell Book (Found on Pinterest; Create according to the directions then put with the
Anagram Sentence Puzzle and locked up with the 4-digit lock)
□ Marauder’s Map (Found on Pinterest; Create according to the directions; Draw footprints of
Mrs. Norris in UV pen going Up, Right, Down, Left, Down, and Left)
□ Wand (Find or create a wand and attach a UV light to it)
□ Colored Harry Potter Glasses (Tape red-colored plastic onto some old eye-glasses; or buy
red-tinted sun glasses that look somewhat like Harry Potter glasses)
□ Quibbler or Daily Prophet (Found on Pinterest; Create according to the directions then glue
the red Riddikulus spell to it somewhere)
□ Dragon’s Nest (Attach a paperclip to a picture of a dragon; Create a dragon’s “nest” out of
rocks and old Easter eggs and prop the dragon picture up in it)
□ Broomstick (Create a miniature broomstick and have a small fridge magnet hang down from
the end of it)
□ Tickle the Pear Picture (Write the word “Expelliarmus” on the pear, cover it with tape, then
using yellow paint and dish soap make a scratch-off paint to cover your writing)
□ Optional: Book Safe (Found on Pinterest)
□ Optional: Balloon Owl to deliver letter from Madam Hooch (Found on Pinterest)

To Hide:
□ Harry Potter Books
□ Potion Puzzle inside the Sorting Hat
□ Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans
□ Container with Anagram Puzzle and Spell Book (Locked up by the bike lock)
□ UV Wand
□ Marauder’s Map
□ Container with Harry Potter Glasses (Locked up by the directional lock)
□ Quibbler or Daily Prophet (with red Riddikulus spell glued to it)
□ Tri-Wizard Goblet
□ Dragon’s Nest
□ Broomstick with the magnet
□ Maze

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Puzzle Details

Hogwarts Reading List:

The Hogwarts Reading List is the key to solving the rest of the puzzles. The first number
corresponds to the page number, and the second number corresponds to the paragraph. Each of the
passages gives a clue to the participants which lead to a series of puzzles and eventually give one or
two spells. The first letters of each of the spells give the word “SCORE” which will unlock the
Quidditch gear.

Sorting Hat:

The sorting hat is used to hide the potions puzzle. You may choose to use a witch hat leftover from
Halloween or you may choose to make a more authentic looking sorting hat if you have more time
and desire. You will need to add a pocket on the inside of the hat using the same material the hat is
made from to hide the potions riddle in. Print out the potions riddle and fold it to fit in the pocket
inside the sorting hat. Use the sorting hat as decoration
around the room.

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Potions Riddle:

Once the participants find the potion riddle in the sorting hat they are ready to start mixing potions.
To set up the potions riddle area, use a small table and set out 5 jars or glass bottles filled with your
different colored potions. Fill one bottle with lemon juice (represents yellow), another with your
blue cabbage juice (the cabbage juice may look a little bit purple, but just let your participants know
that it represents blue), and the rest with water and food coloring (you could use Worcestershire
sauce for black instead of food coloring). Put them in order by color, yellow, black, red, blue, and
green.

Next print off the different colored spells and place them around the area where you are doing your
potions puzzle. Put the colored dots in front of the potions, so the participants know the order of
the potions in case they move any of them. The participants must solve the riddle about which two
potions to mix and then mix the potions to get the answer to this puzzle. When lemon juice
(yellow) and cabbage juice (blue) are mixed you will get a pinkish colored potion (rather than the
expected green). The correct spell is found by matching the colored potion to the color of the
printed spell. The correct spell is “Silencio”.

Watch the participants carefully as they do this puzzle so they come up with the correct answer
before they actually mix the potions.

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Follow the Spider, House Points Gem Wall, and Bertie Botts Beans:

Following the spiders, the house points gem wall, and the Bertie Botts Beans (BB beans) are part of
the same puzzle. The beans are a number puzzle for the number lock. You can choose to make
your own combination or to save time you can just use ours.

Start by taking 4 glass bottles (we just used 4 dinner glasses). Sort 2 packages of jelly beans by
color. Fill each glass with a different colored jelly bean (yellow, green, red and blue). Stagger the
amount of jelly beans you use to show who has the most house points. In our example, Hufflepuff
(yellow) has the most, then Slytherin (green), Gryffindor (red) and last Ravenclaw (blue). It does not
matter how many jelly beans are in the glasses, only that you can tell which order they go in.

Next, take a small plastic bag and label it “Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. Put 8 yellow, 4 green, 9
red and 2 blue beans inside your bag. Hide the bag somewhere in your room.

Lastly, use your plastic spiders to make a spider trail from the house points jars to the the
approximate place where the beans are hidden. Book Clue #2 will instruct them to “follow the
spiders” This clue should help them realize the house points and the BB beans are related.

The number lock combination is found by sorting the BB beans by color, counting them and then
putting them in order of the house color standings. For example, using the numbers above and the
picture below, Hufflepuff (yellow) has the most points so it will be first 8. The house with the
second most points is Slytherin (green) so the next number is 4. The third is Gryffindor (red) 9 and
the last is Ravenclaw (blue) 2. So the combination to the number lock would be 8492.

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Anagram Puzzle:

The anagram Puzzle should be printed out and locked up with the 4 digit lock that is opened with
the number combination from the Bertie Bott’s Beans. (I hid mine in a backpack with a Hogwarts
label on it and locked it with the bike lock). Include the book of spells that you made with the
anagram. The anagram puzzle contains 2 spells that must be unscrambled from the words at the top
of the page. The letters in green are one
spell (Obliviate) and the letters in blue are
another (Confundo). The participants
can use the spell book to help them think
of possible spells that the letters may
create.

The reference in the top left corner is


from Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets pg
314, paragraphs 1-4 which gives them a
clue as to how to figure out the anagram
puzzle.

Marauder's Map :

From Pinterest, find a Marauder’s Map to print out. Create it according to the directions.

Once your map is made, you will need to use your UV ink pen to make the footprints for Mr.
Norris. The footprints give the clue for the directional lock. We made our footprints go Up, Right,
Down, Left, Down, Left. We used a few arrows to help give a clue to the participants that they are

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looking a directions. Once you turn off the UV light, you will no longer be able to see the
footprints

Harry Potter Glasses & Quibbler Magazine:

Find and print out a page of the Quibbler Magazine or Daily


Prophet on Pinterest. Print out the “Red Riddikulus” file and
cut out the clue covered in red. Glue this piece of paper
somewhere on one of the magazine pages. Make it look as
much as possible as part of the text of the magazine. Hide the
page or leave it out as decoration.

In order to read the clue, the HP red filter glasses must be


found. They are locked under the directional lock that is opened
by the sequence of directions found on the Marauder's
Map. When looking at the clue wearing the red filter glasses,
the writing underneath becomes visible revealing the spell
“Riddikulus”.

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To make the red filter glasses:
1. Create or reuse a pair of glasses frames
2. Cut out clear plastic to use as lenses
3. Color the lens red using a red permanent marker
4. When coloring the lens, color the same direction
back and forth, not up and down and back and
forth
5. Tape the lenses over the eye holes

Tri-Wizard Tournament:

The tri-wizard tournament is a series of three puzzles that the participants must figure out. The
rules for the tournament are hid in a goblet somewhere in your room. The rules explain what three
tasks they must accomplish to complete the tournament.
1. Retrieve the Golden Egg from Dragon
2. Solve the Puzzle in the Egg
3. Go through the Maze

Dragon Challege:

The task for this puzzle is to lure the


dragon away from its nest so they can
grab the golden egg. They must do this
without actually touching the
dragon. The participants must find the
small Quidditch broom with a magnet
attached in order to move the dragon off
its nest. (The dragon should have a
paperclip attached to it). You can use
the broom for decoration, or you can
hide it to make it more difficult. Hide
the dragon nest in a cupboard or drawer where it will not be noticed without some searching.

To make the dragon nest, use some plastic Easter eggs. One of the eggs must be yellow. Inside the
egg you will put the egg challenge rules and puzzle. Also, make sure to place near the nest a printed
set of the rules for dealing with a dragon. Put the picture of the dragon on top of the nest.

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Egg Challenge:

Once the egg is retrieved, the participants must figure out the puzzle within. The answer to this
puzzle gives you the numbers associated with each shape. The shapes will be used on the maze
challenge. The answer to the Egg Challenge is the following:
• Circle – 1
• Star – 2
• Triangle – 3
• Square – 4

Maze Challenge:

The maze puzzle is simply a maze that the participants must solve. Print out the maze page and
hide it somewhere in the room. The maze includes the same shapes that were used in the egg puzzle
and gives the participants the correct order in which to put the numbers associated with each
shape. When put in the correct order, the numbers will give you the page and paragraph number
you need for the last Harry Potter book (366,12). This clue tells the participants to “tickle the pear”.

Tickle the Pear Puzzle:

To create the “tickle the pear” puzzle, print out the picture
of a bowl of fruit. With a permanent marker, write the
spell EXPELLIARMUS onto the pear in the picture. Get a
piece of clear packing tape and cover the writing on the
pear. Trim the tape as needed. Create a scratch-off paint
mixture and paint over the entire pear in the picture. You
may need to do a couple of coats to hide the writing.

Finally, use an old 8X10 picture frame and take out the
glass. Insert the picture into the frame then place
strategically in your room as a “decoration”.

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