This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
More than 200 muggles gathered in The District in South Jordan on Thursday to find and destroy Voldemort's seven cursed horcruxes — just like Harry Potter and his friends.
The superfans, hosted by Megaplex theatres' "Horcrux Hunt," were all there to immerse themselves into the experience of the final movie in J.K. Rowling's series through a scavenger hunt of sorts. All of them were dressed for the occasion in Harry Potter shirts or ties; most wore full-costume wizarding robes and toted wands or brooms.
Hunters were initially handed a packet with riddles and clues that would lead to seven businesses with collectable pins that represented the items Harry had to collect and destroy in order to defeat Voldemort, the villain of the series. Clues in the packet were deciphered through completing Harry Potter-themed trivia, crosswords and anagrams.
A lot of the riddles weren't easy even for the serious fans: can you name Harry's "trademark" spell? Or a character identified by the clue "ignore her German"?
Groups teamed up to hurry around the shopping complex and grab the pins — they had to show they completed the hunt in an hour and a half to enter their name into a raffle for prizes.
The conversations of the participants often included wizarding jargon and magic spells from the series.
One family who sat together solving clues was among the ranks of the decked-out and well-versed.
"We've gotten more and more into the celebration every time," said Arina Ashby, on their involvement in the movies. "This is the last one, so we had to go all out."
Her group included her daughter, sister, brother-in-law and niece. All were in full costume; most impressively, Ashby was the blue-haired Nymphadora Tonks; her sister, Tiffani Zehedner, in full cat face-paint as Hermione Granger after a magic mishap; and Tiffani's daughter Satara, dressed in a Bellatrix Lestrange costume.
"It's fun — its our way of collecting memorabilia and building family memories, too," said Ashby. "It's another way to get involved in the series outside of just reading the books and watching the movies."
Besides saying the spell for light, "lumos," when flipping light switches, that is. The family also attended a "Goodbye Harry" party, the midnight premiere and an afterparty.
The adults had arranged to have Friday off weeks in advance.
Like Ashby's family, Elaine Neff and her family used the final movie festivities as an excuse to get together and "get crazy."
"It's like a girls night — we left the guys at home," she said, chasing after her three friends as they found the next Horcrux. "We've done all of the Harry Potter movies together."
And that's on top of being members and participants of more than one Harry Potter fan club. Neff owns tons of memorabilia, including a replica of the "Sorting Hat" from the movie.
"We love doing this together," she said. "It brings out the fun in everyone, and why not dress up and run around collecting magic?"