The Queen's Handbag

The Queen's Handbag is the title given to a 3-minute filmed Harry Potter skit produced for Children's Party at the Palace, a production mounted in 2006 to celebrate the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.

The skit starred Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis in their familiar Harry Potter roles, and was filmed during production of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Plot
Throughout Children's Party at the Palace, an ongoing storyline involved various characters trying to find the Queen's missing purse.

The Harry Potter segment begins with an owl delivering a letter to the Gryffindor Common Room at Hogwarts. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley enter in the midst of Hermione complaining about an (unheard) joke not making sense. Spying the owl and its letter, they open the correspondence.

Although Ron thinks the letter comes from the Minister for Magic, Hermione realizes it actually comes from the Muggle Prime Minister. Addressed to "whomever it may concern - as long as they can use magic", the letter reports on the Queen's handbag being stolen. Ron jokes that "Voldemort must be getting really desperate."

The letter stresses the urgency of retrieving the handbag as it contains Her Majesty's reading glasses, which she needs in order to read her speech at her 80th birthday celebration. Harry remarks that Peeves was using the birthday as an excuse to drop coloured eggs on people at breakfast.

Harry suggests veritaserum could be used to make the thieves confess, but Hermione points out they don't know who the thief is yet. Harry unsuccessfully tries the Summoning Charm to conjure up the lost handbag. Unable to do it himself, Ron joins him and together they do the charm again -- only to have a pile of different lost handbags appear on the table. Thinking one of them must be the Queen's the trio begins searching through the bags.

Neville Longbottom arrives and spots his grandmother's handbag among the litter (Ron asks him if his gran happens to be the Queen). Hermione says none of the bags is the Queen's, because they're too far away from Buckingham Palace for the accio charm to work. Ron sticks his hand in Neville's Gran's bag and gets a mousetrap on his fingers as a result.

Hermione gets an idea and grabs a quill and parchment. She writes a letter which provides the Palace with a temporary transference of magical power (presumably so they can use the Accio charm themselves).

They send the owl back to Buckingham Palace with Hermione's letter. (The Queen subsequently receives her handbag back.)

Cast

 * Harry Potter - Daniel Radcliffe
 * Hermione Granger - Emma Watson
 * Ron Weasley - Rupert Grint
 * Neville Longbottom - Matthew Lewis

Story notes

 * Although the owl that arrives looks like Hedwig, Harry does not recognize it, so it must be a different owl.
 * Peeves is mentioned. This is (to date) the only reference to the character on film as he has been omitted from all the movies so far.
 * The accio charm causes the handbags to materialize out of thin air. Hermione says they're too far from Buckingham Palace for the charm to work (suggesting it has a range limit).
 * Neville says his grandmother once found a fanged gerbil in her handbag in 1947 as a result of a practical joke by his grandfather.
 * The ability to assign temporary magic power to Buckingham Palace via a letter is where this skit diverges the most from continuity, as it is an ability not referenced in any book or film, and in either continuity would violate Ministry of Magic rules.
 * Assuming this mini-adventure is in any way canonical, it's difficult to place it in the current timeline. For one thing, the 80th birthday celebrations occurred in 2006, more than a decade after the events featured in the then-current Potter films (unless in the Harry Potter universe, the Queen turned 80 in the 1990s).

Errors

 * When Ron and Harry unsuccessfully try to summon the handbag using the Summoning Charm, Hermione remarks that they're too far from Buckingham Palace, even though there's no way for her to know that the handbag is actually at the palace (especially since the letter states that it has been stolen).

DVD and other releases
The Queen's Handbag is widely available online, but to date has never been released to DVD.

External link

 * The Queen's Handbag archived at Emma Watson Online.