Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

“HP1” redirects here. For protein molecule, see Heterochromatin Protein 1.
This article is about the book. You may be looking for the film or the video game.
Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Author J. K. Rowling
Illustrators Thomas Taylor,
Mary GrandPré
Genre Fantasy
Publishers Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Scholastic Press, Raincoast Books
Released June 30, 1997 (1997-06-30)
September 1, 1998 (1998-09-01)
Book no. One
Sales ~107 million (Worldwide)
Story timeline 1981
1991-1992
Chapters 17
Pages 223
309

Followed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring the fictional character Harry Potter, a young wizard. It was published 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London, and has also been made into a feature-length film of the same name. This is also the most popular of the books in terms of number sold — an estimated 107 million copies worldwide. As of August 2007, the book is number nine on the best selling book list of all time, and is the second best-selling non-religious, non-political work of fiction of all time, beaten only by Don Quixote by Cervantes.


Plot

Beginning
Lord Voldemort, an evil and powerful dark wizard, has just been defeated. When he tried to kill a one-year old child, Harry Potter, the killing curse rebounded upon him, destroying his body. Harry is left an orphan with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, Voldemort having killed his parents, Lily and James Potter. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall and Gamekeeper Hagrid leave him on the doorstep of his ultra-conventional, insensitive, negligent Muggle (non-magical) relatives, the Dursley family, who take him in. Harry's aunt, Petunia Dursley, was Harry's mother Lily's sister. Harry's relatives decide to conceal his magical heritage from him and make him live in a cupboard (closet) under the stairs for ten years.

Shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday, he receives a letter addressed specifically to him. His outraged uncle, however, reads and burns it before Harry has a chance to look at the contents. The sender does not give up, and the Dursleys receive successively larger numbers of the same correspondence. Soon, his uncle becomes so paranoid that the Dursleys, with Harry in tow, hide in a hut on a small island to escape. That night (which happens to be Harry's birthday), he is visited by an enormous man named Hagrid who bursts through the locked door of the hut. With Hagrid holding the Dursleys at bay, Harry finally reads his letter, in which he learns he has been invited to study magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The next day Harry and Hagrid leave the hut and head to Diagon Alley in London (the secret magical location hidden behind the famous wizarding pub The Leaky Cauldron). Harry enters the wizarding world for the first time, learns to his surprise that he is famous, and meets the new Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell. He takes the train to Hogwarts from Platform Nine and three-quarters, befriending Ron Weasley, and meeting Neville Longbottom, a frightfully forgetful boy, and Hermione Granger, a Muggle-born witch.

Admission to Hogwarts
Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville in Gryffindor House. Draco Malfoy, an arrogant and elitist student whom Harry had met at Diagon Alley, gets placed in Slytherin. At the end of his first week at Hogwarts, Harry and Ron discover that the wizarding bank Gringotts was robbed, and a vault that Harry and Hagrid visited had been the subject of the burglary. Later, Harry discovers he has a talent for riding broomsticks, and after a broom-mounted game of keep away with Malfoy over Neville's Remembrall, an orb that tells you when you've forgotten something, is recruited to join Gryffindor's Quidditch team as a Seeker. He is the youngest Quidditch player at the school in a century, much to Malfoy's displeasure.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville are out in Hogwarts' halls late at night waiting for Harry's duel challenger Malfoy to arrive. When the caretaker Filch startles them, they flee and accidentally stumble across the door to a corridor, finding themselves near a monstrous three-headed dog, christened Fluffy by Hagrid, that guards a trapdoor. On Halloween, Quirrell informs everyone that a troll has entered the castle and is in the dungeon; as the rest of the students hurry to their dorms, Ron and Harry remember hearing that Hermione is in the girls' bathroom crying because Ron insulted her, and realize that she does not know about the troll. The two of them go to the girls bathroom and see that the troll has broken into it. They fight the troll and save Hermione and the three become best friends.


SuspicionsAt Harry's first Quidditch match, Harry's broom becomes possessed, nearly knocking him off. Hermione sees Professor Severus Snape, the sinister Potions master, staring at Harry and mouthing words, making her believe that Snape has caused the broom to misbehave with a dark curse. Hoping to save Harry, Hermione sets Snape's robes on fire, distracting him and others and allowing Harry to survive and catch the Snitch.

At Christmas, Harry receives an Invisibility Cloak, once belonging to his father, which renders its wearer invisible. Harry uses it to explore the Restricted Section in the library to research information on Nicolas Flamel, a name Hagrid lets slip when confronted about his knowledge of Fluffy. On being discovered in the library by caretaker Argus Filch, Harry escapes to a disused classroom in which he finds the Mirror of Erised which shows Harry's family. After three nights of returning to the mirror, once accompanied by Ron, Harry is confronted by Dumbledore though he is not angry at Harry. Dumbledore explains that the mirror shows the deepest desires of our Hearts; Harry can see his family; Ron sees himself better than all his brothers. Dumbledore then tells Harry the mirror is to be moved and if he sees it again he will be prepared. Harry then asks Dumbledore what he saw when he looked in the mirror and he answers a pair of woollen socks, he says every Christmas holidays he is given books and for once he would like some nice woollen socks. However, Harry suspected that this was the only question that Dumbledore did not answer honestly in their friendship. Eventually, Harry learns (through Hermonie who found out from a library book) that "Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone, which produces the Elixir of Life which will make the drinker immortal."[1]

Harry sees Snape trying to get information from Quirrell about getting past Fluffy; Quirrell says he does not know what he's talking about. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sure that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power, but Hagrid denies it. While at Hagrid's hut, the trio discover a dragon egg Hagrid was nursing in a fire. Later the egg hatches a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, and Hagrid decides to call him "Norbert". The friends are nervous for Hagrid, since dragon breeding had long been outlawed in the wizarding world, and Hagrid had something of a reckless nature, who has long since nursed a strong desire for a dragon. Finally, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are able to convince Hagrid to let Norbert go live with other dragons of his kind in Romania, and arranged for the dragon, (now quite large in size), to be picked up by Ron's older dragon trainer brother, Charlie.

Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Draco are caught out late at night (Ron is meanwhile in the hospital wing, being treated for a bite from Norbert), and are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn, which makes Harry's forehead scar start burning. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that it is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn, let alone drink its blood. He also tells Harry that unicorn blood sustains life but gives the drinker a cursed life and that the hooded figure is in fact Voldemort.


The Philosopher's Stone
Harry, Hermione and Ron find out that Hagrid, while he was drunk in a pub, has told a hooded stranger how to get past Fluffy, and they believe the theft of the Stone is imminent. Rushing to finally confide in Professor Dumbledore their news, they meet Professor McGonagall, who is shocked to find out how much they knew about the Stone, but reassures them all the same that it is safe in the castle. She also tells them that Dumbledore has been sent away on an important mission by the Ministry of Magic. Positive that Dumbledore's summons was a red herring to take Professor Dumbledore away from Hogwarts, the trio make plans to thwart Snape's theft of the stone. They set out to reach the stone first, navigating the security system set up by the school's staff, which is a series of complex magical challenges. The three make it through together until finally, Harry must enter the inner chamber alone. There he finds that meek Professor Quirrell, not Snape, is attempting to steal the Stone who then uses magic to tie Harry up. Realising that Snape was trying to protect him from harm all along, Harry confronts Quirrell and survives a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who has possessed Quirrell and appears as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell's head. Quirrell gets blisters when he touches Harry's skin, and Harry suffers because of his close proximity to Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore arrives just in time to rescue Harry. Voldemort then pitilessly abandons Quirrell, who dies in the aftermath of his possession.

Aftermath
Dumbledore reveals to Harry that Harry's mother died to protect Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides Harry with an ancient magical protection from Voldemort's lethal spells and also prevents Voldemort from touching Harry without suffering terribly. Dumbledore also says that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed to prevent future attempts by Voldemort to steal it.

Whilst in the Hospital wing Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort attempted to kill him when he was a young child. Dumbledore tells Harry when he is old enough he will tell him why.

Finally, at the end-of-year feast, the House Points totals are given: Gryffindor is in last place. However, Dumbledore gives a few "last-minute additions", granting points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, so that Gryffindor wins the House Cup.


[edit] Missing text
As with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the American version of the book has retained text edited out of the British version. According to the author's website:[2]

“ Anybody who has read both the American and British versions of 'Philosopher's Stone' will notice that Dean Thomas' appearance is not mentioned in the British book, whereas in the American one there is a line describing him (in the chapter 'The Sorting Hat').
This was an editorial cut in the British version; my editor thought that chapter was too long and pruned everything that he thought was surplus to requirements.
”

The American version reads as follows. The text not in the British version is highlighted in bold:[3]

“ And now there were only three people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. ”

This edit also created a minor incongruency in the American edition. Since Dean Thomas' mention had been edited out of the British edition, it is mentioned that "there were only three people left to be sorted". However, in the American edition, Dean Thomas, Lisa Turpin, Ron Weasley and Blaise Zabini were all sorted after this statement was made.


Translations
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
American edition
Both the book and the motion picture were released in the United States with the revised title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The book's U.S. editor, Arthur Levine, who was also responsible for Americanizing words, spellings, and grammar characteristic of British English, felt that Philosopher's Stone conveyed an incorrect idea of the subject matter, and that a title change was necessary. Rowling and Levine had agreed to change words only when they felt that British usages would be unnecessarily confusing to American readers (e.g., replacing the phrase "Quidditch pitch" with "Quidditch field" in multiple instances). Several alternative titles were discussed, and Rowling chose Sorcerer's Stone in the end.[4] The "translations" in the American edition led to criticism by many readers. The New York Times ran an op-ed titled "Harry Potter, Minus a Certain Flavour" on July 10, 2000, which heavily criticised Scholastic's decision to Americanize the U.S. Harry Potter editions.[5] Many felt that the translations insulted the intelligence of the American public, and also deprived American readers of an opportunity to learn about other dialects of English. In their editions of the sequels, Scholastic continued to replace British orthography (such as "flavour") with the standard U.S. spellings, but otherwise left many of the British usages unaltered, and did not change the titles.