Harry Potter and the Philoshoper's Stone

Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone
Author J. K. Rowling
Illustrators
Thomas Taylor
(UK)
Mary GrandPré
(US)
Genre Fantasy
Publishers
Bloomsbury (UK)
Arthur A. Levine/
Scholastic (US)
Raincoast
(Canada)
Released 30 June 1997 (UK)
1 September 1998
(US)
Book no. One
Sales unknown
Chapters 17
Pages 223 (UK)
309 (US)
ISBN 0747532699
Followed by Harry Potter and
the Chamber of
Secrets
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone is the first
novel in the Harry Potter series
written by J. K. Rowling and
featuring Harry Potter, a young
wizard. It describes how Harry
discovers he is a wizard, makes
close friends and a few enemies
at the Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry, and
with the help of his friends
thwarts an attempted comeback
by the evil wizard Lord
Voldemort, who killed Harry's
parents when Harry was one
year old.
The book was published on
30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in
London, while in 1998 Scholastic
Corporation published an edition
for the United States market
under the title Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone. The novel
won most of the UK book awards
that were judged by children, and
other awards in the USA. The
book reached the top of the New
York Times list of best-selling
fiction in August 1999, and
stayed near the top of that list
for much of 1999 and 2000. It
has been translated into several
other languages and has been
made into a feature-length film
of the same name.
Most reviews were very
favourable, commenting on
Rowling's imagination, humour,
simple, direct style and clever plot
construction, although a few
complained that the final
chapters looked rushed. The
writing has been compared to
that of Jane Austen, one of
Rowling's favourite authors, of
Roald Dahl, whose works
dominated children's stories
before the appearance of Harry
Potter, and of the Ancient Greek
story-teller Homer. While some
commentators thought the book
looked backwards to Victorian
and Edwardian boarding school
stories, others thought it placed
the genre firmly in the modern
world by featuring contemporary
ethical and social issues.
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone, along with
the rest of the Harry Potter
series, has been attacked by
several religious groups and
banned in some countries
because of accusations that the
novels promote witchcraft.
However, some Christian
commentators have written that
the book exemplifies important
Christian viewpoints, including
the power of self-sacrifice and
the ways in which people's
decisions shape their
personalities. Educators regard
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone and its
sequels as an important aid in
improving literacy because of the
books' popularity. The series has
also been used as a source of
object lessons in educational
techniques, sociological analysis
and marketing.
Synopsis
Plot
Before the start of the novel,
Voldemort, the most powerful
Dark wizard in history, killed
Harry's parents but mysteriously
vanished after trying to kill Harry.
While the wizarding world was
celebrating Voldemort's downfall,
Professor Dumbledore, Professor
McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid
placed the one year-old orphan in
the care of his Muggle (non-
wizard) uncle, aunt, and cousin:
Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley
Dursley .
For ten years, they and their son
Dudley neglected and bullied
Harry. Shortly before Harry's
eleventh birthday, a series of
letters addressed to Harry arrive,
but Vernon destroys them before
Harry can read them. To get away
from the letters, Vernon takes the
family to a lonely island. As they
are settling in, Hagrid bursts
through the door to tell Harry
what the Dursleys have kept him
from finding out: Harry is a
wizard and has been accepted at
Hogwarts.
Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon
Alley, a magically-concealed
shopping precinct in London,
where Harry is bewildered to
discover how famous he is
among wizards as "the boy who
lived." He also finds that he is
quite wealthy, since a bequest
from his parents has remained on
deposit at Gringotts Wizarding
Bank. Guided by Hagrid, he buys
the books and equipment he
needs for Hogwarts. At the wand
shop, he finds that the only wand
that works well for him is the
twin of Voldemort's. Both wands
contain feathers from the same
phoenix.[1]
A month later Harry leaves the
Dursleys' home to catch the
Hogwarts Express from King's
Cross railway station. There he
meets the Weasley family, who
show him how to pass through
the magical wall to Platform 9¾,
where the train is waiting. While
on the train Harry makes friends
with Ron Weasley, who tells him
that someone tried to rob a vault
at Gringotts. Another new pupil,
Draco Malfoy, accompanied by his
sidekicks Vincent Crabbe and
Gregory Goyle, offers to advise
Harry, but Harry dislikes Draco's
arrogance and prejudice.
Before the term's first dinner in
the school's Great Hall, the new
pupils are allocated to houses by
the magical Sorting Hat. When it is
Harry's turn to be sorted, the Hat
wonders whether he should be in
Slytherin, but when Harry objects,
the Hat sends him to join the
Weasleys in Gryffindor. While
Harry is eating, Professor Snape
catches his eye and Harry feels a
sudden stab of pain in the scar
Voldemort left on his forehead.
After a horrible first Potions
lesson with Snape, Harry and Ron
visit Hagrid, who lives in a rustic
house on the edge of the
Forbidden Forest. There they
learn that the attempted robbery
at Gringotts happened the day
Harry withdrew money. Harry
remembers that Hagrid had
removed a small package from
the vault that was broken into
and searched.
During the new pupils' first
broom-flying lesson, Neville
Longbottom breaks his wrist, and
Draco takes advantage to throw
the forgetful Neville's fragile
Remembrall high in the air. Harry
gives chase on his broomstick,
catching the Remembrall inches
from the ground. Professor
McGonagall dashes out and
appoints him as the new Seeker
for the Gryffindor Quidditch
team.[2]
When Draco tricks Ron and Harry,
accompanied by Neville and the
bossy Hermione Granger, into a
midnight excursion, they
accidentally enter a forbidden
corridor and find a huge three-
headed dog. The group hastily
retreats, and Hermione notices
that the dog is standing over a
trap-door. Harry concludes that
the monster is guarding the
package Hagrid retrieved from
Gringotts.
After Ron criticises Hermione's
ostentatious proficiency in
Charms, she hides in tears in the
girls' toilet. Professor Quirrell
reports that a troll has entered
the dungeons. While everyone
else returns to their dormitories,
Harry and Ron rush to warn
Hermione. The troll corners
Hermione in the toilet but when
Harry sticks his wand up one of
its nostrils, Ron uses the
levitation spell to knock out the
troll with its own club.
Afterwards, several professors
arrive and Hermione takes the
blame for the battle and becomes
a firm friend of the two boys.
The evening before Harry's first
Quidditch match, he sees Snape
receiving medical attention from
Filch for a bite on his leg by the
three-headed dog. During the
game, Harry's broomstick goes
out of control, endangering his
life, and Hermione notices that
Snape is staring at Harry and
muttering. She dashes over to the
Professors' stand, knocking over
Professor Quirrell in her haste,
and sets fire to Snape's robe.
Harry regains control of his
broomstick and catches the
Golden Snitch, winning the game
for Gryffindor. Hagrid refuses to
believe that Snape was
responsible for Harry's danger,
but lets slip that he bought the
three-headed dog, and that the
monster is guarding a secret that
belongs to Professor Dumbledore
and someone called Nicolas Flamel.
Harry and the Weasleys stay at
Hogwarts for Christmas, and one
of Harry's presents, from an
anonymous donor, is an
Invisibility Cloak owned by his
father. Harry uses the Cloak to
search the library's Restricted
Section for information about the
mysterious Flamel, has to evade
Snape and Filch after an
enchanted book shrieks an alarm,
and slips into a room containing
the Mirror of Erised, which shows
his parents and several of their
ancestors. Harry becomes
addicted to the Mirror's visions
and is rescued by Professor
Dumbledore, who explains that it
shows what the viewer most
desperately longs for.
When the rest of the pupils
return for the next term, Draco
plays a prank on Neville, and
Harry consoles Neville with a
sweet. The collectible card
wrapped with the sweet
identifies Flamel as an alchemist.
Hermione soon finds that he is a
665-year-old man who possesses
the only known Philosopher's
stone, from which can be
extracted an elixir of life. A few
days later Harry notices Snape
sneaking towards the outskirts
of the Forbidden Forest. There he
half-hears a furtive conversation
about the Philosopher's Stone, in
which Snape asks Professor
Quirrell if he has found a way
past the three-headed dog and
menacingly tells Quirrell to decide
whose side he is on. Harry
concludes that Snape is trying to
steal the Stone and Quirrell has
prepared a series of defences for
it, which was an almost fatal
mistake.
The three friends discover that
Hagrid is raising a baby dragon,
which is against wizard law, and
arrange to smuggle it out of the
country around midnight. Draco
arrives, hoping to raise the alarm
and get them into trouble, and
goes to tell Professor McGonagall.
Although Ron is bitten by the
dragon and is sent to the
infirmary, Harry and Hermione
spirit the dragon safely away.
However, they are caught, and
Harry loses the Invisibility Cloak.
As part of their punishment,
Harry, Hermione, Draco, and
Neville (who, trying to stop Harry
and Hermione after hearing what
Draco had been saying, had been
caught by McGonagall as well) are
compelled to help Hagrid to
rescue a badly-injured unicorn in
the Forbidden Forest. They split
into two parties, and Harry and
Draco find the unicorn dead,
surrounded by its blood. A
hooded figure crawls to the
corpse and drinks the blood,
while Draco screams and flees.
The hooded figure moves
towards Harry, who is knocked
out by an agonising pain
spreading from his scar. When
Harry regains consciousness, the
hooded figure has gone and a
centaur, Firenze, offers to give
him a ride back to the school. The
centaur tells Harry that drinking a
unicorn's blood will save the life
of a mortally injured person, but
leaves them only barely alive.
Firenze suggests Voldemort drank
the unicorn's blood to gain
enough strength to make the
elixir of life from the
Philosopher's Stone, and regain
full health by drinking that. On his
return, Harry finds that someone
has slipped the Invisibility Cloak
under his sheets.
A few weeks later, while relaxing
after the end-of-session
examinations, Harry suddenly
wonders how something as
illegal as a dragon's egg came into
Hagrid's possession. The
gamekeeper says he was given it
by a hooded stranger who
bought him several drinks and
asked him how to get past the
three-headed dog, which Hagrid
admits is easy – music sends it to
sleep. Realising that one of the
Philosopher's Stone's defences is
no longer secure, Harry goes to
inform Professor Dumbledore,
only to find that the headmaster
has just left for an important
meeting. Harry concludes that
Snape faked the message that
called Dumbledore away and will
try to steal the Stone that night.
Covered by the Invisibility Cloak,
Harry and his two friends go to
the three-headed dog's chamber,
where Harry sends the beast to
sleep by playing a flute given to
him by Hagrid for Christmas.
After lifting the trap-door, they
encounter a series of obstacles,
each of which requires special
skills possessed by one of the
three, and one of which requires
Ron to sacrifice himself in a game
of wizard's chess. In the final
room Harry, now alone, finds
Quirrell rather than Snape. Quirrell
admits that he let in the troll that
tried to kill Hermione on
Halloween, and that he tried to kill
Harry during the first Quidditch
match but was knocked over by
Hermione. Snape had been trying
to protect Harry and suspected
Quirrell. Quirrell serves Voldemort
and, after failing to steal the
Philosopher's Stone from
Gringotts, allowed his master to
possess him in order to improve
their chances of success.
However the only other object in
the room is the Mirror of Erised,
and Quirrell can see no sign of the
Stone. At Voldemort's bidding,
Quirrell forces Harry to stand in
front of the Mirror. Harry feels
the Stone drop into his pocket
and tries to stall. Quirrell removes
his turban, revealing the face of
Voldemort on the back of his
head. Voldemort/Quirrell tries to
grab the Stone from Harry, but
simply touching Harry causes
Quirrell's flesh to burn. After
further struggles Harry passes
out.
He awakes in the school hospital,
where Professor Dumbledore tells
him that he survived because his
mother sacrificed her life to
protect him, and Voldemort could
not understand the power of
such love. Voldemort left Quirrell
to die, and is likely to return by
some other means. Dumbledore
had foreseen that the Mirror
would show Voldemort/Quirrell
only themselves making the elixir
of life, as they wanted to use the
Philosopher's Stone; Harry was
able to see the Stone in the Mirror
because he wanted to find it but
not to use it. The Stone has now
been destroyed.
Harry returns to the Dursleys for
the summer holiday, but does not
tell them that under-age wizards
are forbidden to use magic
outside Hogwarts.
Main characters
Harry Potter is an orphan whom
Rowling imagined as a "scrawny,
black-haired, bespectacled boy
who didn't know he was a
wizard."[3] She developed the
series' story and characters to
explain how Harry came to be in
this situation and how his life
unfolded from there.[4] Apart
from the first chapter, the events
of this book take place just
before and in the year following
Harry's eleventh birthday.
Voldemort's attack left a
lightning bolt-shaped scar on
Harry's forehead,[4] which
produces stabbing pains when
Voldemort or a close associate of
the dark wizard feels any strong
emotion. Harry has prodigious
natural talent for Quidditch and
the ability to persuade friends by
passionate speeches.
Petunia Dursley, the sister of
Harry's mother Lily, is a thin
woman with a long neck that she
uses for spying on the
neighbours. She regards her
magical sister as a freak and tries
to pretend that she never
existed. Her husband Vernon is a
heavily-built man whose irascible
bluster covers a narrow mind and
a fear of anything unusual. Their
son Dudley is an overweight,
spoiled bully.
Despite being the school's jokers,
identical twins Fred and George
Weasley get good marks in
examinations and are excellent
Quidditch players. Their younger
brother Ron is Harry's age and
Rowling describes him as the
ultimate best friend, "always
there when you need him."[5]
Ron lacks confidence in his
prospects of matching his three
oldest brothers' achievements or
the popularity of Fred and
George, but his skill and bravery
in a magical chess game where
lives are at stake help Harry past
one of the obstacles on the path
to the Philosopher's Stone.
Hermione Granger, the daughter
of an all-Muggle family, is a bossy
girl who has apparently
memorised most of the
textbooks before the start of
term. Rowling described
Hermione as a "very logical,
upright and good" character[6]
with "a lot of insecurity and a
great fear of failure beneath her
swottiness".[6] Despite her
nagging efforts to keep Harry
and Ron out of trouble, she
becomes a close friend of the
two boys after they save her
from a troll, and her magical and
analytical skills play a vital part in
finding the Philosopher's Stone.
Draco Malfoy is a slim, pale boy
who speaks in a bored drawl. He
is arrogant about his skill in
Quidditch, and despises anyone
who is not a pure blood wizard –
and wizards who do not share
his views. His parents had
supported Voldemort, but
changed sides after the dark
wizard's disappearance. Draco
avoids direct confrontations, and
tries to get Harry and his friends
into trouble.
Neville Longbottom is a plump,
diffident boy, so forgetful that
his grandmother gives him a
Remembrall. Neville's magical
abilities are weak and appeared
just in time to save his life when
he was eight. Despite his timidity,
Neville will fight anyone after
some encouragement or if he
thinks it is right and important.
Professor Dumbledore, a tall, thin
man who wears half-moon
spectacles and has silver hair and
a beard that tucks into his belt, is
the headmaster of Hogwarts, and
thought to be the only wizard
Voldemort fears. Dumbledore,
while renowned for his
achievements in magic, finds it
difficult to resist sweets and has
a whimsical sense of humour.
Although he shrugs off praise, he
is aware of his own brilliance.
Rowling described him as the
"epitome of goodness".[7]
Professor McGonagall, a tall,
severe-looking woman with black
hair tied in a tight bun, teaches
Transfiguration, and sometimes
transforms herself into a cat. She
is in charge of Gryffindor House
and, unlike Professor Snape,
shows no favouritism towards
pupils in her House, but seizes
any opportunity to help
Gryffindor by fair means.
According to the author, "under
that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an
old softy".[8]
Twitching, stammering Professor
Quirrell teaches Defence Against
the Dark Arts. Reputedly he was a
brilliant scholar, but his nerve
was shattered by an encounter
with vampires. Quirrell wears a
turban to conceal the fact that he
is voluntarily possessed by
Voldemort, whose face appears
on the back of Quirrel's head.
Professor Snape, who has a
hooked nose, sallow complexion
and greasy black hair, teaches
Potions, but is eager to teach
Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Snape praises pupils in Slytherin,
his own House, but seizes every
opportunity to humiliate others,
especially Harry. Several incidents,
beginning with the shooting pain
in Harry's scar near the end of
the first dinner, lead Harry and
his friends to think Snape is a
follower of Voldemort.
Hagrid, a half-giant nearly 12 feet
(3.7 m) tall, with tangled black
hair and beard, was expelled
from Hogwarts and his wand
was broken, but Professor
Dumbledore let him stay on as the
school's gamekeeper, a job which
enables him to lavish affection
and pet names on even the most
dangerous of magical creatures.
Hagrid is fiercely loyal to
Dumbledore and quickly becomes
a close friend of Harry, Ron and
later Hermione, but his
carelessness makes him
unreliable.
The school's caretaker, Filch,
knows the school's secret
passages better than anyone else
except possibly the Weasley
twins. His cat, Mrs. Norris, aids his
hunts for misbehaving pupils.
Other members of Hogwarts
staff include: the dumpy
Herbology teacher Professor
Sprout; Professor Flitwick, the
tiny and excitable Charms
teacher, who is discreetly friendly
towards Harry; the soporific
History of Magic teacher,
Professor Binns, a ghost who
does not seem to have noticed
his own death; and Madam
Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who
is strict but a considerate,
methodical teacher. The
poltergeist Peeves wanders
around the buildings causing
trouble for whomever he can.