Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1st US hardcover

### setting

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey;Diagon Alley (London);Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

### characters

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Rubeus Hagrid, Draco Malfoy*
*Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,* originally published in the UK as *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, is the first book in the Harry Potter series, in which eleven-year-old Harry Potter finds out that he is a wizard and begins his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is J. K. Rowling's first novel and has been translated into roughly 70 different languages.

## Jacket Copy

"Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy. He lives with his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley, who are mean to him and make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. (Dudley, however, has two bedrooms, one to sleep in and one for all his toys and games.) Then Harry starts receiving mysterious letters and his life is changed forever. He is whisked away by a beetle-eyed giant of a man and enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard! The first book in the "Harry Potter" series makes the perfect introduction to the world of Hogwarts." (source: Goodreads)

## Plot

This section contains spoilers about the content and ending of the novel.

As an infant, Harry Potter is deposited on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle's home. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon raise him alongside their own son, Dudley, although Dudley is spoiled and Harry is forced to live in a closet. Strange things begin to happen around Harry, culminating in the mysterious disappearance of the glass of a snake cage at the zoo on Dudley's eleventh birthday.

Shortly thereafter, Harry begins to receive mysterious letters, although his uncle confiscates them immediately and Harry is never able to read the contents. When a barrage of letters floods the family home via the chimney, the family flees to a hut on a rock in the middle of the ocean. While they are in the hut, the clock strikes midnight on Harry's eleventh birthday, at which point a giant man named Rubeus Hagrid knocks the door down, hands Harry a copy of the letter, and informs Harry that he is a wizard.

Hagrid takes Harry shopping for school supplies, including an awkward visit with wandmaker Ollivander, who reveals that Harry's wand shares a core with the wand of the dark wizard who killed Harry's parents. Shortly thereafter, Harry travels to Kings Cross Station to catch the train to his new school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the station, he struggles to find Platform 9 3/4 and is helped by a kindly woman who turns out to be Molly Weasley. Her twin sons Fred and George Weasley help Harry with his trunk and correctly identify him as Harry Potter. Their younger brother, Ron Weasley, shares a compartment with Harry. Although initially awed by Harry's fame -- which Harry himself knows nothing about -- Ron quickly befriends Harry. On the train, they also encounter a bossy girl named Hermione Granger, a boy with a missing pet toad called Neville Longbottom, and a bully named Draco Malfoy who is flanked by two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. Initially, Malfoy attempts to befriend Harry, but when he insults Ron, Harry declines the offer of friendship.

Once they reach the school, each new student briefly puts on the Sorting Hat and is assigned to a school House. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all placed in Gryffindor; Malfoy is placed in Slytherin. Over the next few days, Harry and Ron explore the castle and their baffling new classes. Their least favorite class is Potions, where Professor Severus Snape takes an immediate, bully-like dislike to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They also have flying lessons. At the first lesson, Malfoy steals a trinket from Neville Longbottom and Harry takes to the sky on his broom to retrieve the stolen object, despite explicit instructions to remain grounded. Professor Minerva McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House, catches him in the act. Harry fears expulsion, but McGonagall instead introduces him to Oliver Wood and assigns him a position on the House Quidditch team.

Bitter about his defeat, Malfoy challenges Harry to a duel after curfew but never shows up, instead sending grouchy caretaker Argus Filch after Harry and Ron. In hiding from Filch, they accidentally end up in a forbidden corridor, which is inhabited by a three-headed dog.

On Halloween, Professor Quirrell interrupts the school feast to announce that a troll has been spotted in the dungeons. Students are told to return to their dorms, but Harry and Ron remember that Hermione is in the bathroom and doesn't know. They go to warn her, but accidentally lock the troll into the bathroom with her. Together, the three students outwit and knock out the troll, after which Hermione becomes their friend.

During Harry's first Quidditch match, his broomstick begins jerking uncontrollably. Hermione notices Snape staring at Harry and concludes that the Professor is cursing Harry; she sets his cloak on fire, Snape's eye contact is broken, and Harry regains control and goes on to win the match.

For Christmas, Harry receives an Invisibility Cloak that belonged to his father, although the sender is unknown. He uses the cloak to wander the school at night. He encounters the Mirror of Erised, in which he sees himself with his parents still alive.

After Christmas, the trio begins to investigate a mysterious break-in at Gringotts, which they believe is tied to the three-headed dog in the corridor; they discover that the dog is guarding the Sorcerer's Stone (Philospher's Stone in the original UK editions). Eventually they discover that the Stone was created by a man called Nicolas Flamel who used to work with Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

Shortly thereafter, Hagrid wins a dragon egg in a card game. It is illegal to own dragons, so they concoct a plan to send the dragon, Norbert, to Ron's brother Charlie Weasley, who works with dragons in Romania. Ron has been bitten by the dragon and is in the hospital wing, so Hermione and Harry take the egg to the rendezvous point. Neville finds out that Malfoy has discovered the plan and tries to warn Harry; all four students are caught out of bed after hours and assigned detention.

For their detention, the students are instructed to look for an injured unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. In the Forest, Harry discovers a cloaked figure drinking unicorn blood. The person tries to attack him, but Harry is rescued by a centaur named Firenze, who informs him that the cloaked man was Voldemort, who is seeking the Sorcerer's Stone. Determined to get the Stone before Voldemort does, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sneak out that night to get past the three-headed dog.

Beyond the trapdoor the dog is guarding are a series of challenges; the trio escapes from a killer plant called Devil's Snare, catch a winged key on broomsticks, participate in a game of wizard's chess during which Ron is knocked unconscious, and solve a logic puzzle to get to the next room. Only one person can proceed, so Harry enters the final chamber alone, sending Hermione back for help. Harry expects to find the mean Professor Snape but instead finds Professor Quirrell. Quirrell removes his turban to reveal that he is possessed by Voldemort, whose face is visible in the back of Quirrell's head.

The Mirror of Erised is also in the chamber, and when Harry looks at it, he sees himself with the Stone; as he sees this, the real Stone materializes in his pocket. He lies about what he sees to Quirrell/Voldemort, but Voldemort detects the lie. A struggle ensues; Harry blacks out. He wakes up later in the hospital wing, where Professor Dumbledore explains that Ron and Hermione reached him and he rescued Harry just in time. Harry leaves the hospital just in time for the end-of-year feast, during which he is awarded a number of House points for saving the Stone, allowing Gryffindor to win the House Cup for the first time in years. The year ends and he returns home to spend the summer with the Dursleys.
## Characters

* Harry Potter, eleven-year-old wizard
* Ron Weasley, Harry's best friend
* Hermione Granger, Harry's other best friend
* Draco Malfoy, Harry's enemy at school
* Severus Snape, the bullying Potions teacher
* Minerva McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House
* Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts
* Professor Quirrell, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher
* Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team
* Fred Weasley, Ron's brother and member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team
* George Weasley, Ron's brother and member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team
* Neville Longbottom, one of Harry's Gryffindor classmates
* Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts groundskeeper
* Petunia Dursley, Harry's aunt
* Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle
* Dudley Dursley, Harry's spoiled cousin

## Adaptations

A film adaptation was released in 2011, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron, and Emma Watson as Hermione. Other notable cast members include Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), Richard Harris (Albus Dumbledore), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), and Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom).