A Time-Turner
This is perhaps one that grown-ups will feel the need for more than the kids!
When there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day, wouldn’t it be great if we could turn back the clock and get just a few more?
Not necessarily to fit in more lessons as Hermione does, but to at least get all the chores done so that we have some time to ourselves?
Saying that, we think any child just discovering the joy of reading Harry Potter would definitely like to have an extra hour or two for their bedtime reading (just one more chapter…)
Apparition
Wouldn’t it be great if you could close your eyes and be transported anywhere you wanted to go? Perhaps some of the locations from your favourite books, for starters?
We’d whizz off to the island of Kefalonia from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, then to the Long Island mansion that inspired Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s home in The Great Gatsby, then to the Umbrian town of Narni in Italy, which leant its name to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia!
Or of course, you could just Apparate to the shops so you don’t have to take the car!
It doesn’t sound like a particularly enjoyable experience – Harry describes it as like being “forced through a very tight rubber tube” – but we’re willing to overlook that for the sheer usefulness and free travel opportunities.
Hermione’s Beaded Bag
Whether you’re a student with piles of books to take to classes, or just one of those people who seems to carry around more ‘essentials’ than everyone else, most of us could do with Hermione’s bottomless beaded bag – or at least, the Undetectable Extension Charm that she puts on it.
You may not need to take Gryffindor’s Sword about with you, but just think about how many other things you could keep close to hand!
Mini fridge, slippers, cosy duvet, coffee machine… and books. Oh so many books!
What would you keep in yours?
Hogwarts
This may be a slightly obvious one, but we know many a Potterhead who has secretly hoped that a Hogwarts acceptance letter would land on the doorstep on their 11th birthday!
From Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, boarding schools have provided authors with literary fodder for years; but few have captured the imagination of readers quite as much as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
From moving staircases to hidden turrets, mysterious corridors, cosy dormitories and a Forbidden Forest, we’d never get tired of exploring the castle and its grounds.
And that’s not including the huge dinners and feasts, which would be worth sitting through any potions lesson for!
For now, we’ll have to settle with this Hogwarts Library Boxed Set and read it in our bedroom, perhaps while donning a Gryffindor tie for good measure!
Moving Paintings
Perhaps we wouldn’t want our own Fat Lady hanging in the house, but moving portraits and pictures would be pretty cool, wouldn’t they?
Even though in the Muggle world we have the technology to shoot videos and make video calls, there’s something about these magical pictures’ ability to come and go as they please that we think we’d find endlessly amusing.
And it would certainly make a trip to the National Portrait Gallery extremely interesting!
Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck)
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry uses Felix Felicis to obtain valuable information about Horcruxes from Professor Slughorn.
That’s all very noble, but we can’t say whether we’d be so gracious if we got our hands on a bottle of Liquid Luck!
Besides the obvious (like buying a Lottery ticket!) we would probably try and meet J.K. Rowling herself – how could she refuse if luck was on our side?
Then there would be the simple task of asking her to write another few Harry Potter books…
An Invisibility Cloak
Ohhh the possibilities that would come with being invisible – imagine the fun you could have, the tricks you could play on your friends…!
Harry Potter uses his Invisibility Cloak in the Philosopher’s Stone to sneak into the Restricted Section of the library and read up about Nicholas Flamel.
Well, we’d put ours to much greater use and sneak into the homes of our favourite authors to have a peak at their latest manuscripts (watch out George R.R Martin, you’re top of our list!)
Honeydukes Sweet Shop
If we had to pick just one shop from Diagon Alley, it would have to be Honeydukes sweet shop; although, we would quite like to mess about in Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, or browse the shelves of Flourish and Blotts (in fact, could we just have the whole of Diagon Alley please?)
From Acid Pops to Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, not forgetting Chocolate Frogs and Liquorice Wands, we’d have no problem blowing a few Galleons in here!
The Marauder’s Map
Some die-hard Harry Potter fans argue that the Marauder’s Map wasn’t used to its full potential in the series.
For example, couldn’t Fred and George have used it to find out where Sirius Black was when he entered the castle?
Or wouldn’t Harry have seen Barty Crouch in Mad Eye Moody’s office in the Goblet of Fire?
And just why did nobody spot Peter Pettigrew in the Prisoner of Azkaban?!
Unfortunately we’ll never know the answers to these, but we can imagine how we might use such a map ourselves!
For a bit of fun and to help you relive the magic at home, why not try making a map of your house and include all the people in it?
Use tea to stain the paper and roll it up to look like a scroll, before adding the people that live in your house and little footsteps for where they usually spend their time.
Mischief managed!
Is there anything else from the world of Harry Potter that you wish you could use? How about your very own owl (and a spell to clear up its droppings)? Or the love potion laced chocolates that Romilda Vane gives to Harry (but were accidentally eaten by Ron)? We have no idea where we’d get enough rats to feed him, but we quite fancy having our very own Hippogriff…
Let us know what you’d wish for in the comments box below!
Obvs i’d wish for a house elf! A nice one like Dobby, who can magic me to work and mess with people who annoy me. And maybe do the ironing too? :p