Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

This article is about the book. See Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) or Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game) for other formats.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (as known/advertised in the U.S.) is the first volume in a series of seven books by British author J. K. Rowling and featuring the fictional character, Harry Potter, a young wizard. The first book 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 by far, selling an estimated 107 million copies worldwide.

Plot overview

Wizards Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall meet each other at Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, in suburban Surrey following recent events in the wizarding world. Lord Voldemort, possibly the most powerful and fearsome Dark wizard ever known, has been defeated. Unfortunately, Lily and James Potter were his two final victims. However, their infant son, Harry, somehow survived Voldemort's killing curse (later on to be found as the Avada Kedavra Killing Curse) and a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead is the only apparent side-effect. It is unknown why the curse mysteriously backfired on Voldemort and seemingly reduced him to nothing more than a mere phantom of his former self. Harry instantly becomes a legend in the magical world, known as "The Boy Who Lived", hence the name of the first chapter.

Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a half-giant (not known until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), meets Dumbledore at Privet Drive with baby Harry, who is then left in the reluctant care of his only living family, his mother's Muggle (non-magical) sister Petunia Dursley, her husband Vernon and their spoiled son Dudley. The Dursleys disdain the wizard world and conceal knowledge of Harry's magical abilities from him, claiming his parents were killed in a car crash. The Dursleys neglect and mistreat Harry, who is forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs.

However, there are things that happen mysteriously involving Harry that neither he nor the Dursleys can explain. For example, on Dudley's birthday, he and his best friend Piers are mysteriously sucked in a glass cage in the zoo. This is, in fact, a result of Harry's losing control of his mind.

Shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday, owls begin delivering letters to the Dursley house. Denying Harry access to them, but unable to stop the deliveries, Uncle Vernon hides the family on a small island. But at exactly 12 midnight on Harry's birthday, Hagrid finds them and (after confronting the Dursleys about not being honest with Harry) hand-delivers the letter to Harry, which invites him to study magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He tells Harry about his parents and introduces him to the magical world. When Uncle Vernon foolishly insults Dumbledore ("I am not paying for some crackpot old fool to teach him magic tricks"), Hagrid flies into a rage and does magic on Dudley, giving him a pig's tail (but he "meant ter turn him into a pig"). Harry finds out Hagrid is not allowed to use magic, as he once went to Hogwarts but was expelled in his third year (this is important in the next book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). Harry and Hagrid leave for London that morning.

At The Leaky Cauldron pub, where Harry is in fact very well-known ("Welcome back, Mr Potter, welcome back."), they meet the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (Professor Quirrell). From there, they enter Diagon Alley, the wizard business district in London where Harry purchases school supplies. Hagrid tells Harry that Lord Voldemort murdered his parents. Although Voldemort is gone, his lingering evil legacy continues to create such intense fear that few dare speak his name aloud (in fact, only Dumbledore will dare say it aloud as of this book, but he is persuading people to use the proper name, as fear of a name will increase the fear of a thing itself). When Harry buys a wand from Mr Ollivander, he tells Harry it is the "brother" to Voldemort's wand—their wood cores contain a tail feather from the same phoenix. Harry also meets Draco Malfoy, a young wizard from a wealthy family who is also starting Hogwarts. But Malfoy's elitist manner and insulting remarks about Hagrid offend Harry.

Still, Harry does not know Malfoy's name yet in Diagon Alley. He also visits the wizard bank where he finds that he has inherited immense wealth. The same vault, containing the huge pile of gold, also contains a small package.

Soon, Harry leaves for school from Platform 9¾ at King's Cross railway station, London. He realizes that he has not been told how to get to the platform, as this is a Muggle train station and would definitely not have a platform "9¾". Panicking, Harry tries to ask for directions, but the Muggles think he is wasting time. When he hears a witch mother talking, he asks her for directions. The mother tells him that he has to walk straight through the barrier that separates Platforms 9 and 10, without panicking. Eventually, when they get on the train, Harry befriends the sons of the woman (who is Molly Weasley), including his now-best friend Ron Weasley, the youngest son of this family, the Weasley family, who are very poor but very kind. Ron is impressed by Harry's scar but unintimidated by his reputation.

Harry also meets Hermione Granger, a muggle-born witch who is a bit of a bossy, insufferable know-it-all. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, all new students are sorted into one of the four school Houses by the Sorting Hat. Each House has specific characteristics: Slytherin is filled with ambitious, cunning people who may use any means to get what they want; Ravenclaw is home to those with sharp minds that value intelligence and wit; Gryffindor houses those who are daring and brave; and Hufflepuff is characterised by fairness, honesty and hard work. While Harry is being sorted, the sorting hat declares Harry difficult to place and considers placing him in Slytherin. Harry wishes hard to not be in Slytherin and, hearing his thoughts, the hat places him in Gryffindor, along with Ron and Hermione. The arrogant Draco Malfoy, who by now is openly contemptuous of Harry and his friends, is sorted into Slytherin even before the hat can touch his head.

Harry and Ron initially dislike the bossy Hermione. After a Halloween class involving Wingardium Leviosa, a hard-to-pronounce charm that makes objects fly, Ron insults her, and she retreats to the girl's bathroom crying after she overhears him. When a troll enters the castle during the Halloween banquet, Harry and Ron, the latter reluctantly, go to warn her. By locking the troll in the nearest room, they realize that they have accidentally locked him in the girl's bathroom. They reenter and fight it to save Hermione. Harry and Ron magically knock it out with its own club (with, ironically, the very same spell where they had difficulty with prior to the incident; in the movie, Hermione desperately and hurriedly teaches the spell to them before she can be attacked). When the professors arrive on the scene, Hermione claims it was her fault, preventing the boys from getting into trouble. The three then become best friends.

After performing extraordinarily well during his first broomstick flying lesson, which involves a mad chase by Draco Malfoy, Harry is drafted onto his House's Quidditch team, becoming the youngest Seeker in a hundred years. He is given a Nimbus Two Thousand by Professor McGonagall, then the best broom. At Christmas, Harry receives an Invisibility Cloak, which once belonged to his father. Using it to explore the castle at night, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows him surrounded by his long-gone parents and family. He takes Ron to it the following night but Ron sees himself as Head Boy and Quidditch Captain. Dumbledore later advises Harry, who returns once more, to no longer seek out the mirror, which will be moved, because it only shows what one desires, not what is real.

A three-headed dog, christened Fluffy by Hagrid, guards a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor of Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville accidentally stumble across it the night after the dramatic Flying class, as Malfoy has tricked them to a duel but in fact sent Argus Filch, the school janitor, to catch them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione speculate about what it is guarding, with Hermione finally deducing it must be the legendary Philosopher's Stone, which can produce an elixir of eternal life. The stone was created by Nicolas Flamel. They start researching him when Hagrid lets slip the name, which was why Harry used the Cloak at night, to research in the library, but came across the Mirror. Harry, Ron, and Hermione come to believe that Severus Snape, the sinister Potions master and Head of Slytherin House, is trying to steal it in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power, but Hagrid denies it.

Soon, Hagrid wins a dragon egg in card games with a hooded stranger in Hogsmeade. He is very happy, as what he wanted more than anything was a dragon; this one is a Norwegian Ridgeback. However, as dragon breeding is illegal, he has to get rid of the dragon, named Norbert, but Malfoy sees it before Norbert can be released. Harry, Ron, and Hermione write to Charlie Weasley, Ron's second-oldest brother, now a Hogwarts alumnus and a dragon researcher in Romania, that they will bring him Norbert. Charlie tells them that his friends will pick the dragon up on the Astronomy Tower at midnight. However, Ron is bitten by Norbert when he goes to Hagrid and cannot go with them. When Malfoy drops by the hospital wing to borrow one of Ron's books, he takes the one that unknowingly has the letter from Charlie. Immediately, Malfoy seeks Harry, Hermione, and Norbert (all of whom are under the Invisibility Cloak) out, but is caught by Professor McGonagall for being out of bed after hours, and is given detention. When Harry and Hermione, however, forget to put the Cloak back on after sending Norbert away, they are caught by Filch and are also given detention. Neville, who was trying to find Harry and Hermione, is also given detention. Gryffindor loses 150 points, and Harry, Hermione, and Neville are given the cold shoulder by their fellow Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws, who wanted to see the downfall of Slytherin as the House Points winner.

The four of them serve their detention the following evening with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid tells them they need to find a unicorn who has been fatally wounded, and they find it indeed, dead. However, a hooded figure comes and drinks its blood, which sets Harry's scar bursting with pain. The others flee, and Harry is rescued by a centaur, Firenze, who tells him it is an improper thing to slay a unicorn, let alone drink its blood. Harry realizes that unicorn blood is like Elixir of Life, and that Voldemort may have been under the hood.

Believing the theft of the Stone is imminent, Harry, Ron and Hermione go through the trapdoor to get to it first, but not without dueling Neville, who refuses to let them leave the dormitory. They negotiate the security system set up by the school's staff, and Harry makes it to a chamber. There Harry finds that Professor Quirrell, a stuttering and seemingly meek person, not Snape, is attempting to steal the Stone, and realises that Snape was trying to protect him from harm all along. Harry confronts Quirrell and survives a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who has been possessing Quirrell (notably appearing as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell's head). Quirrell is prevented from killing Harry or seizing the stone, his skin being painfully blistered when it touches Harry's bare skin; the struggle between Harry and Quirrell continues long enough for Harry to be rescued, although he faints when Quirrell is pulled away from him. Voldemort then pitilessly abandons Quirrell, who dies as a result of his possession. During Harry's recovery, Dumbledore - Harry's rescuer - reveals to him that Harry's mother died to protect Harry. Her sacrifice of pure love provided Harry an ancient magical protection from Voldemort's lethal spells. Dumbledore also reveals that the Stone had been destroyed to prevent future attempts by Voldemort to steal it. Dumbledore says that Flamel and his wife Perenelle Flamel (at least 665 and 658 years old respectively) have enough elixir to set their affairs in order, then they will die.

At the end-of-year feast, the House Points totals are given: Gryffindor with 312 points, Hufflepuff with 372 points, Ravenclaw with 412 points, and Slytherin with 472 points. However, Dumbledore gives a few "last-minute additions", with 50 points to Ron for being a good chess player (as it was him who negotiated the trio through Professor McGonagall's giant chess set), 50 points to Hermione for being a logic whiz (as it was she who negotiated the trio through Professor Snape's potions quiz), 60 points to Harry for being very brave (as he confronted Voldemort and Quirrell), and 10 points to Neville for standing up not just to his enemies but to friends as well. This gives Gryffindor 482 points and the title of House champion; Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville are instantly loved by the students once more.

At the end of the year, Harry leaves Hogwarts having made close friendships with Ron, Hermione and even Hagrid, as well as learning more about his own hidden talents and growing in self-esteem. He returns to the Dursleys knowing there are people who care for him, and promises to stay with the Weasleys for the summer.

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:^[1]

Anybody who has read both the American and British versions of 'Philosopher's Stone' will notice that Dean Thomas's 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 missing text follows, highlighted in bold:

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. (US Edition p. 122)

This edit also created a minor incongruency in the American edition. Since Dean Thomas's 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.

Editions

• UK Edition
  UK Edition
• UK Adult Edition
  UK Adult Edition
• Czech Edition
  Czech Edition
• Danish Edition
  Danish Edition
• Dutch Edition
  Dutch Edition
• French Edition
  French Edition
• German Edition
  German Edition
• Japanese Edition
  Japanese Edition
• Spanish Edition
  Spanish Edition
• Swedish Edition
  Swedish Edition
• Ukrainian Edition
  Ukrainian Edition
• US Edition
  US Edition

Translations

Main article: Harry Potter in translation

This book has been translated into many languages.

American English 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 American editor Arthur Levine, who was responsible for translating primarily British English words and spellings to American English, felt that Philosopher's Stone coveyed an incorrect idea of the subject matter, and that a title change was necessary. Rowling and Levine had agreed to change words only when it was felt that they would otherwise be incomprehensible to American readers. Several alternate titles were discussed, and Rowling chose Sorcerer's Stone in the end. The translations in the American Edition led to criticism by many readers. The New York Times ran an article titled "Harry Potter, Minus a Certain Flavour" on July 10, 2000, which heavily criticized Scholastic's decision to Americanize the US Harry Potter editions.

External links

• wiki summary of Editing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - chapter and character summaries.
• Mythological structure of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from MonoMyth.org
• Fans of Fantasy, One of the largest Fantasy sites on the web with Eragon, Potter, and much more.
• Background information and storylines from the Harry Potter Lexicon