Harry Potter Escape Room Puzzles

Puzzles and Experience

You enter the stalls separately with a minimum number of 2 and a maximum number of 5 people. You are shown a small clip of the golden egg scene from Harry Potter, a valuable clue for later. In order to get out, you have to work with your team to find the key to your own stall. The puzzle is based on grids and matching images. Every stall has a unique pattern on its grid and the solution to yours is in your friend’s bathroom stall. Once you solve all the puzzles, the reservoir of the toilet will pop open to reveal the flying key from the first book of the Harry Potter series which you can use to leave your stall. Meanwhile, one of your friends will have found Tom Riddle’s Diary with a lock on it aside from their own key.

Once you exit the stalls, Myrtle welcomes you and her voice from this point onwards will be a way to signal the remaining time, and sometimes giving away small clues as guidance. Let’s not forget, she will also taunt you…

‘Oh, I recognize you, here to find your wands?’ The guests are startled by Myrtle. She continues ‘Feel free to search but I have a feeling you’ll be going back empty-handed.’ Well, that comment is neither helpful nor a tip it is purely to annoy you, but let’s refocus. Remember your friends who came across Tom Riddle’s Diary in the stall? Now it’s time to crack that code! You will find Hagrid’s lantern in front of the bathroom stalls. Flick it on and you’ll find that it’s a UV light. Time to look around the room!

The UV light reveals numbers 1 to 4, book names, author names and page numbers written on the bathroom stalls. The only area with books seems to be Hermione’s Desk. If you turn to the right page in the right book and shine the UV light on the pages, you notice some letters have been covered with UV-sensitive paint. The highlighted letters read from top to bottom, spelling out a number. If you put the numbers in order (In the order of the books 1 to 4), you obtain the code for Tom Riddle’s Diary.

In unlocking Tom Riddle’s Diary, you come across a riddle, ironic, written on a burnt piece of paper, similar to the ones of the Goblet of Fire. There also seems to be a small scroll of paper that looks as if it’s been ripped off from the Marauder’s Map. The words to the sentence ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good’ are scrambled. Each word has a color attached to it and once you put the words in order, you get a color sequence. This sequence will need to be followed in order to reveal a secret!

The same color patterns seem to be laid out on the taps of the Chamber of Secrets sink. If you turn the colour sequence in the right direction then you’re one step closer to the grand reveal. You notice there is also a code entry space in the middle of one of the taps. The riddle from the box might be the second clue to help get the taps working. The riddle reads:

I look to see me,

Breath will find thee,

The magic you seek,

Dizzy from this lead.

This clue hints at blowing on the mirror of the sink to reveal a code. Finding the code triggers small steps to emerge from the bottom of the Chamber of Secrets sink to indicate that you need to take action there.

Moaning Myrtle: ‘The Chamber has been locked and sealed ever since Harry saved Ginny so if you were looking to go down there, don’t count on it. Actually, it could’ve been the time Hermione and Ron were lurking there with a basilisk tooth… Beats me… Harry is the best one of that lot. Oh Harry, beautiful, brave and bold. If only I had a love potion to give to him, he’d be hiding your wands alongside me. I long to see our cherished memories but you surely wouldn’t know how to prepare the Pensieve water to dip into that memory given the lack of talent to even spot your wands.’ This alludes to the Pensieve water preparation but where to start?

Myrtle’s rather annoying monologue triggers the Chamber of Secrets sink to slide open to reveal the Golden Egg (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) sitting on a small podium which is the Pensieve. Time to think back on the initial clue on what needs to be done with the egg. It has to go underwater! The only place where this could happen is the tub which means somehow you need to get the infamous colorful taps running. You need to solve a total of 3 clues to get all 3 taps running. The first clue is underneath the Golden Egg (Riddle A), the second is in the piping of the sink with the snake symbol on the tap (Riddle B), the third one is in a potion bottle locked in Hermione’s desk (Riddle C).

Riddle A

A metal snake,

Over the running lake,

Twist of fake,

For the next step you take.

This suggests that the piping underneath the sink with the metal snake holds the next clue and once you open it, you obtain a small key. (TAP 1 RUNS) There are many locked cupboards around the room and the key seems to open a few of them but you have to solve the next riddle to make sure you’re moving towards the right clue. The right cupboard will also require a code which will be hinted at in Riddle B.

Riddle B

Smoothed out the pages

Interesting sages

Zest of peppermint

Overzealous for this hint

The riddle indicates that the next clue is around Hermione’s desk and the number to the lock is actually the acrostic letters. S=5, I=1, Z=2, O=0. This number only opens one lock around that area where the peppermint smell is the strongest. (TAP 2 RUNS)

Riddle C

Riddle C seems to be an old potion recipe with the location of the ingredients explained in a cryptic way, Solve the encrypted explanations and gather the ingredients for the Pensieve water potion. Once you have all of the ingredients place them carefully on the Pensieve and the weight of these items will trigger a compartment of the Pensieve to open. (TAP 3 RUNS)

The bubbles are rising and the tub is full. The room smells of Treacle Tart scented soap. Following the initial clue of dipping the Golden Egg in the tub, you place the egg in the bath. All of the lights go out and the panels in front of the mermaid stained glass and the curved ramp go down. There’s an elegant light coming through the glass and you notice the mermaids move. The one mermaid is consoling the other one which seems to be crying. You notice the broken glass pieces on the mermaid on the left and you know what you’re after, the broken glass.

The mermaid show triggers the fountain to open up a small door on its side. In this compartment are many small tubes that contain memories like in Dumbledore’s office. The walls consist of these delicate glasses but which one to take? You flick through the memory documents which are all filed properly on one of the shelves and you come across Harry and Myrtle. You decipher the code on that page to find the right memory. The code will consist of a letter and number and you will take the small bottle in the coinciding point.

Myrtle: ‘Go on then, the pensive is waiting for the memory.’  You stand in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets. Myrtle: ‘Stay within the lines of the Chamber, this is going to be fun and DO NOT MOVE!’ and the walls slowly close in on you. Immersed in the darkness you look up to see the memory projected on the ceiling. Around you is the blue and dark navy water and ink dancing like in the movie where they show the magical machinations of the Pensieve water. However, love fool Myrtle has confused the memories of what she did to the mermaids and the memory of her and Harry. Instead of seeing the Harry memory now you hold a very important clue in your hand.

The Chamber opens again and you are left to explore the room. One glass shard is hidden in the fountain, One is hidden in Hermione’s desk and the last one is hidden in the wall of the sink. The memory leads you to Hermione’s study and you find one glass piece and another clue for the glass shard in the wall of the sink. You find another glass shard in there and the last clue leads you inside the fountain. The riddle alludes to the flooring of the fountain being faulty. You lift the small carpet up to see that there is a small compartment that can be opened. The carpet is actually a guide as to how you open this compartment. Once opened, you have the last glass piece.

You place all three glass shards on the sad mermaid’s stained glass and the mermaids thank you for your generosity and persuade Moaning Myrtle gently to tell you where the wands are hidden.

Myrtle: ‘I think it’s time I moved on from old memories, I’m so glad to have made some new ones with you all. Your wands are here, in front of the bath (you hear panels drop), now run, Professor McGonagall awaits.’ The mermaid stained glass opens up like a door. You can go down the ramp and collect the wands from the panels that opened in front of the bath and exit from through the mermaid stained glass. Hope you had an enchanting time.

P.S.: You can keep the chocolate wands you found through the escape room and enjoy it at your own risk, I can’t guarantee whether Myrtle has trickled in a love potion or not!