Harry Potter Shot Glasses

This list begins with the end. Or, to put it another way, this collection of shot glasses opens at the close...

Harry Potter spent seven years fighting the return and rise of Lord Voldemort. In the end Harry was able to defeat Voldemort and in the process many people died, including several who were close to Harry.

The final chapter in the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, ends by showing us Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger about 15 or 20 years in the future. It shows that life has gone on for the trio, that they are all married and have children. Their lives in the present time are normal, that they the threat that they fought so hard to defeat is gone. The final words of this chapter are, "All was well."

Fans of the Harry Potter series who see the word "Always" will immediately be reminded of Severus Snape's deep and unending love of Harry's mother, Lily Potter. He loved Lily from the moment he met her.

Just before Snape died he was able to give his crucial memories to Harry to help Harry understand things that Harry had not yet been told. Among the memories was a moment during the final year of Albus Dumbledore's life when Dumbledore started to wonder if Snape had come to care for Harry, someone Snape had despised because of Harry's close resemblance to his father, James Potter.

Snape cleared up any misconceptions Dumbledore had about Snape's feelings for Harry by conjuring up his Patronus, which was a doe, the same Patronus as Lily Potter. Dumbledore then asked, "After all this time?"

Snape responded with a single word, "Always."

Every one of the seven Harry Potter books starts with, "Harry Potter and the...". What comes next is relevant to each book and was a wonderful teaser for fans every time a new book was published.

This particular shot glass has gathered seven of the words that came after the first four and the result is lovely.

If you look closely you will see that not all of the additional words are included (i.e. it has "stone" but not "philosopher's") but the glass wouldn't look as good as it does if all the words were there. The words that were chosen are the important words that describe each story.

There were several mysteries from the final story but the main mystery revolved around figuring out what the Deathly Hallows were and whether or not they actually existed.

In the end Harry, Ron, and Hermione realize that the Deathly Hallows are real, and are shocked to find out that they've had one of them (the Invisibility Cloak) all along. By the end of the final story Harry had to make a decision that would affect the outcome of his battle with Lord Voldemort. Should he look for the remaining two Hallows, or fight and try to defeat Voldemort? The decision that Harry made was one that his mentor, Dumbledore, wasn't able to make himself.

There are three Hallows: the Elder Wand, Invisibility Cloak, and Resurrection Stone. These three items are designated by a symbol of a triangle (the cloak) that has a circle in the middle (the stone) and a line (the wand) in the middle of the circle. That symbol is instantly recognizable to any fan of the series.

Harry learned many spells and charms during his time at Hogwarts. But there was one spell that he learned that wasn't on the school curriculum - "Expecto Patronum".

The "Expecto Patronum" spell was a very advanced piece of magic that Harry asked to be taught during his third year at Hogwarts. He saw his Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, use the spell to protect himself and the students from the horrendous affects of the Dementors. Dementors are nasty creatures that feed on the positive thoughts of humans and suck them all away until there is nothing left but despair.

Harry found that he was particularly affected by the Dementors because he witnessed the murder of his mother while a baby. Although he had no memory of his mother's death, the memory was there and the Dementors were able to bring it to his awareness.

Despite the advanced nature of the magic involved, Harry was able to perfect the "Expecto Patronum" spell. He became so proficient at it that he was even able to teach it to the members of Dumbledore's Army.

Felix Felicis is a potion that brings luck to the person who drinks it. Harry won a vial of this rare potion from his potion's master, Horace Slughorn, during his sixth year at Hogwarts.

It was also during this year that he began to develop feelings for Ginny Weasley and he imagined using the potion to win her heart. In the end, though, he used it for a much better purpose, and ended up winning her heart on his own (though the potion seemed to help make this happen).

This is one of the shot glasses that has a dual meaning. Alcoholic beverages have long been given the nickname of liquid courage so this is almost a play on that phrase.

Students are sorted into one of four school houses at Hogwarts. Harry was sorted into Gryffindor, which is the house that is known for bravery and chivalry.

The crest for Gryffindor is a lion, which is what you see on this shot glass, because the lion is a majestic and regal creature. This is the perfect glass for anyone who wishes he or she could be sorted into the house founded by Goodrich Gryffindor.

Gryffindor is just one of four houses at Hogwarts. The other three are Hufflepuff (for those who value hard work, patience, and loyalty), Ravenclaw (for those who value learning and wisdom), and Slytherin (for those who value ambition, resourcefulness, and doing whatever it takes to get ahead).

As of this writing there are two different sets of Hogwarts crest glasses being sold on Etsy. One has all four House crests. The Gryffindor glass has a lion on it, Hufflepuff has a badger, Ravenclaw has a raven, and Slytherin has a snake. The animals come from the crests for each house.

The second set has six glasses and has the four House crests, as well as the Hogwarts crest and the Deathly Hallows symbol. It doesn't matter which set you choose - both are beautifully crafted.

Harry learned the hard way that a person doesn't have to be a Death Eater to be bad. When Dolores Umbridge joined the staff at Hogwarts she brought a level of evil with her that Harry had not seen before.

Umbridge refused to acknowledge that Lord Voldemort had returned and did not want to hear Harry's insistence that he had. Umbridge forced Harry to magically write the words I must not tell lies into his hand until it scarred him as a punishment for his inability to keep quiet about what Voldemort's return.

Fred and George Weasley gave a magical map, called the Marauder's Map, to Harry during his third year at Hogwarts. They explained to Harry that the map showed every room and area of Hogwarts, as well as every person who was on the school's grounds and where they were. Each person was represented on the map by tiny footprints and a name.

As you can imagine, Harry eagerly accepted the gift and used it many times throughout the remaining stories. He even used it during the time in the final story when he was on the run with Ron and Hermione to keep watch over Ginny, who had won his heart by then.

The map looked like a blank piece of parchment unless it was magically activated. In order to activate it the user had to say, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

At some point just about every Harry Potter fan is told something along the lines of, "You do realize that Harry Potter is just a story, right?"

Well, yeah, we know that. However, that does not diminish our love for the world that J.K. Rowling created. I've read the books multiple times, and each time I open one of the books I feel like I am about to visit old friends I haven't seen in a while.

So, although we know they are "just stories" they are real for us. One of the things I love most about this particular shot glass is how the Deathly Hallows symbol was incorporated into it.

There is a seller on Etsy who is offering a set of three Harry Potter shot glasses. The set includes the following designs:

• A Dementor with Harry's stag Patronus chasing it away
• The crest for Ollivander's wand shop
• A crest for Hogwarts along with the name "Harry Potter"

My personal favorite of the three is the glass with the Dementor on it, but they are all very well done.

Above I wrote about the Marauder's Map and how it was given to Harry by Fred and George. I also said that it had to be magically activated with the words, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Well, the map can also be deactivated with another magical phrase, which is, "Mischief managed."

Harry understood the importance of deactivating the map when not using it. If the map fell into the wrong hands, such as a Death Eater or a teach like Umbridge, the map would reveal too many of the school's secrets. Hogwarts had many hidden entrances and Harry succeeded at keeping them a secret while he was in possession of the map.

"Obliviate" is a spell that was used to erase a person's memory. It was first seen in the second story, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Harry and Ron learned that Gilderoy Lockhart was very proficient in the use of this spell.

Lockhart had claimed to be man with great experience fighting off various dark creatures. In truth he had found people who had fought creatures, learned the stories of how they fought the creatures, then claimed the stories as his own. He was able to get away with this by using the "Obliviate" spell on them to remove all memories of their battles from their minds.

The end of the second story ends with a satisfying twist of irony. Lockhart attempted to use the spell on Ron using Ron's defective wand, but the wand backfired and the spell landed on Lockhart. The spell was so damaging that Lockhart's entire memory was erased and he never again remembered anything about himself other than the fact that he once had a group of admirers.

This is another shot glass that uses a fun twist when it comes to a shot glass that contains an alcoholic beverage.

Garrick Ollivander owned a wand store in Diagon Alley. Ollivanders wand shop was highly respected and all the students of Hogwarts bought their wands from him.

Mr. Ollivander was a gifted wand maker. He understood as well as anyone in his business the connection that a wand makes with its owner, and he could read a wand's temperament after being owned by someone.

During the final story Mr. Ollivander passed some of his knowledge of wand lore on to Harry, Ron, and Hermione after they rescued him from Malfoy Manor, a place he had been held and tortured for more than a year.

Every student who attends Hogwarts gets there by riding the Hogwarts Express, a train that takes the students from King's Cross in London to Hogsmeade, a village just for witches and wizards.

Harry first learned about Platform 9 3/4 from Rubeus Hagrid, but Hagrid failed to explain to Harry exactly what he needed to do to find and enter the platform. Luckily for Harry he overheard a woman talking about Muggles (the word for non-magical people) and Harry followed her and her family.

Harry timidly approached the woman about what to do and she kindly explained the process to him. Harry later learned that the woman was Mrs. Weasley, and he soon befriended Ron, her youngest son. Years later Mrs. Weasley became his mother-in-law when he married her daughter, Ginny. I suppose you could say that Harry owes Platform 9 3/4 for the most important people in his life.

Polyjuice Potion played an important role throughout the entire Harry Potter series. It is a potion that is very difficult to make, requiring a variety of challenging ingredients and a full month to complete. The potion temporarily transforms a person into the appearance of someone else.

This potion is challenging for adults to make correctly, but brilliant Hermione managed to make it during her second year at Hogwarts. Unfortunately for Hermione, she found out the hard way that it is for human transformations only when she accidentally used a cat hair instead of a human hair and was turned into partial cat. It took several weeks for Hermione to change back to her normal appearance.

This potion was a key part of the plot of the fourth story, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By the end of the story we found out that the man everyone believed was Mad Eye Moody was actually Barty Crouch Jr. Crouch had been impersonating Moody by constantly consuming Polyjuice Potion throughout the entire school year.

During the fourth story Harry learned about Portkeys. Portkeys are ordinary objects, most often items that would be easily overlooked by Muggles like an old boot, that when touched will transport people to another location. It is one of the many ways that witches and wizards can travel, but it isn't a desirable method because it induces unpleasant feelings during travel, including nausea.

Unlike the Floo Network, a Portkey can transport more than one person at a time, as long as each person is touching it before the designated time of travel. However, it is not a desirable form of transportation because Portkeys were often overlooked not just by Muggles but also the witches and wizards who were seeking them out. Also, a Portkey can be used just one time, in a single direction. After it has been used it the spell placed upon the item disappears and the items goes back to being nothing more than what it appears to be.

It didn't take long for Harry to learn that the most important sport in the magical world was Quidditch, a game that is played while flying on brooms. It also didn't take long for Harry to become the youngest player in a hundred years to be a part of one of the school teams as a Seeker.

To his amazement, Harry found out that he was a natural when it came to flying on a broom, and that he was an excellent Quidditch player. Early on in his time at Hogwarts he was shown an award in the school that had been given to his father, James, when James was a student. It turned out that James, like Harry, was a Seeker. Although it is never clearly stated, it seems that Harry inherited his father's natural ability for the game.

"Riddikulus" is one of the funnier spells. It is one that Harry and his classmates learned during their third year from Remus Lupin. Lupin discovered that there was a Boggart hiding in one of the school's wardrobes. He gladly took the opportunity of the hidden Boggart to teach his class about this shape-shifting creature and how to defeat it.

As Harry and his class learned, the secret to defeating a Boggart is to use the "Riddikulus" spell. As the name implies, it turns the Boggart into something ridiculous. The funnier the result, the worse it is for the Boggart until it retreats.

There are two things that Harry is known for: his scar and his round glasses. Granted, it is the scar that made him famous and even those who don't know Harry personally know that he has a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead.

The glasses are known by those who know Harry in person. Harry was almost never without his glasses because, as Hermione commented on when she transformed into Harry using Polyjuice Potion at the beginning of the final story, he had terrible eyesight. His father also had bad eyesight and wore glasses, so it seems that Quidditch skills were not the only thing Harry inherited from his father.

"Stupefy" is a stunning spell that renders those it hits immobile or unconscious. Harry was taught this spell as he prepared for the final test of the Triwizard Tournament. He found that he needed the spell and used it on Viktor Krum as Viktor attacked Cedric Diggory (in his defense, Viktor was under the effects of the Cruciatus Curse and didn't knowingly attack Cedric).

Later, Harry taught the "Stupefy" spell to all the members of Dumbledore's Army (aka DA). The members who went with Harry to the Department of Ministry in an effort to rescue Sirius Black used this spell a lot during the battle that took place between the DA members and the Death Eaters.

Every fan of the Harry Potter series knows that Harry is commonly known as The Boy Who Lived. There is one very good reason why Harry earned this nickname, and it is because he is the only person to ever survive the killing curse "Avada Kedavra."

The reason why Harry survived this curse was kept from him until the very end of the series, but Dumbledore figured it out early on. When Lord Voldemort attempted to kill Harry when Harry was just a baby the spell backfired because of his mother's loving sacrifice. When the spell backfired it should have killed Voldemort but it didn't because he had previously created a large quantity of Horcruxes by ripping apart pieces of his soul in his effort to become immortal.

Although Voldemort didn't die, he did disappear from his human form. At the same time that this happened another piece of his soul was ripped from him and attached to Harry. Instead of dying Harry was made into a Horcrux and thus became The Boy Who Lived.

"Until the very end" is a quote that is not as well known as some of the others, but it was from an important and emotional scene in the final story. After Harry watched Snape's memories he finally understood everything. He knew he was a Horcrux that had to be destroyed before Voldemort could be defeated. He knew that he would die in the process of destroying the Horcrux within him. He accepted that he would die.

Harry walked through the Forbidden Forest to meet with Voldemort one last time and allow himself to be killed so that someone else could kill Voldemort after his Horcrux was destroyed. He had the Resurrection Stone and used it so that his deceased family and loved ones would accompany him, unknown and unseen by anyone but himself, as he walked to his death.

Each of Harry's loved ones greeted him warmly and offered their support for his decision. Scared, Harry turned to them and asked if they would stay with him as he did what he needed to do. His father responded with, "Until the very end."

One of the more memorable moments in the first story was a scene between Ron and Hermione. At the time, they two were not friends and Ron thought Hermione was a bossy know-it-all. Filius Flitwick, the Charms teacher, taught his students the "Wingardium Leviosa" spell, a spell that levitates objects.

Ron struggled with the spell during class and Hermione, in her bossy way, told him that he had been saying it wrong by putting the emphasis on the wrong syllables. Later, after class, Ron spoke unkindly of Hermione to Harry, and Hermione overheard him. She ran off to a girl's bathroom and hid for the rest of the day.

That evening a troll was set loose in the school and headed straight for the bathroom where Hermione was hiding. Harry and Ron went to help her and found themselves cornered by the troll. At one point, Ron was the only one of the trio who was able to fight the troll and he managed to knock it out by successfully implementing the "Wingardium Leviosa" spell.