REVIEW: Hogwarts Polyjuice Potion Mistake

Some scenes really beg to be turned into LEGO sets. Hermione’s accidental transformation into a cat following drinking polyjuice is in my opinion one of them, so it is therefore surprising that there should go 20 years before we got a set that represented that small mishap. LEGO has kindly sent me a copy of the set in advance to provide you with a review of this nice little set. Here’s what you get…

Set 76386 – Hogwarts Polyjuice Potion Mistake – 217 pieces

Price: US$19.99 / €19.99 / £17.99 / AU$32.99 / 179.95 DKK

As said, I am surprised that the second-floor girls’ lavatory, where the polyjuice mishap happened, hadn’t been turned into a set before. Especially as the lavatory, sometimes referred to as Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, also turned out to be where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was to be found. Luckily the mid 2021 series of LEGO Harry Potter sets corrects this, with a nice little set that covers both the polyjuice mistake and include the secret entrance, which Harry and his friends found in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

“It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom Harry had ever set foot in. Under a large, cracked, and spotted mirror were a row of chipped sinks. The floor was damp and reflected the dull light given off by the stubs of a few candles, burning low in their holders; the wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched and one of them was dangling off its hinges.“

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

It was one of the first rooms I added to my own Hogwarts Castle when I built it on 2018. The bathroom (shown at the top on the photo below) also included both the “cat scene” and the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

But let’s hurry on to take a look at the set (finally – after 20 years of waiting)…

Box and content

The front of the box shows the lavatory . At the bottom left is the 20th Anniversary of LEGO Harry Potter logo and the usual banner with the included minifigures listed. We get four of them including a golden anniversary edition of Harry Potter.

The side of the box shows the three non-anniversary figures, busy brewing polyjuice potion under Hermione’s guidance.

The back of the box shows the same brewing scene in front of the lavatory. To the left an insert photo shows how part of the sink can open up to reveal the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. To the right another insert shows how the three characters can transform following the drinking of the polyjuice.

In the lower left corner, it is listed that the set includes two random wizard card tiles, which is a new collectable item included in the 2021 anniversary themed sets.

Inside the box you find the instructions, a small sticker sheet (three stickers for the mirrors) and two numbered bags of LEGO parts.

Let us open the bags and see what is inside.

Minifigures

I will start with taking a look at the minifigures. The set includes three normal minifigures: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, as well as an exclusive golden anniversary Harry Potter minifigure.

The golden anniversary figure is similar to what we have previously seen within the Star Wars and Ninjago themes. I would have preferred the base to have a anniversary print, but instead the anniversary is printed on the back of the figures. Also included were two random wizard card tiles. More about them in this post.

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Getting back to the normal minifigures, Harry, Ron and Hermione are all in Slytherin uniforms, representing them after the attempted transformation into Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode. Hermione comes with a cat head piece as she mistook her cat’s hair for Millicent’s. We haven’t seen many torsos with Slytherin robes, so it is welcome to see three included in a low cost set for those who want to build more custrom Slytherin characters.

The figures all have alternative face prints and hair pieces (well, for Hermione, it is a full cat head piece) following their tranformation into Goyle (Harry), Crabbe (Ron) and Millicent’s cat (Hermione).

The back of the torsos are printed too, as we luckily see with most figures these days.

Next up is the building of the lavatory itself.

The build

The build is pretty quick, as you would expect from such a small set. Below I have included a few photos from the build process.

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In particular I liked building the sink feature, which captures well how it looked in the movies (within the limited space available in this set).

Here is the completed model shown from various angles. As show, it has pin holes that allow it to be connected up with other sets from the series. This fits with the 2018-2020 series of modular Hogwarts sets, but it differs with the tiled top, as this series also allow sets to be stacked in different ways.

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As shown on the last photo, the “portal” brick used for the doorway has an open back, which does detract from the look when viewed from the side. So this is a side you would like to be connected up with another section for sure.

Here is the completed model.

Here are the three students busy brewing the polyjuice potion.

Unfortunately, Hermione got the “hair” wrong, so she ended up as a cat.

Later in the movie, the trio found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets behind the sink feature.

This part connects up well with the much larger Chamber of Secrets set, which I’ll review in the coming days, and cover in more detail there.

Conclusion

I think this is an excellent small set. I think they have managed to pack a lot story telling features into a small space, which are all well executed. The minifigures are perfect for the polyjuice scene, though when they later entered the Chamber of Secret they wouldn’t of course be wearing Slytherin robes. Moaning Myrtle would have been a natural addition (she after all lived there most of the time), but given she was included in the Collectable Minifigure (CMF) Series 2 from last year, most should be able to find a copy of her (if they haven’t already).

More reviews of the new 2021 sets are coming, so check the Reviews page for any updates.

Till then, Build the Magic!

(Note that this set was kindly provided by LEGO for review. The views expressed here are my own however).