Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone

Plot

The novel begins with the wizarding world's celebration of the downfall of Lord Voldemort, an evil and powerful dark wizard. After killing James and Lily Potter, Voldemort attempts to murder their one-year-old son, Harry, but his magical curse rebounds and destroys his body, leaving only a lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead. Harry is placed in the care of his Muggle (non-wizard) relatives, the Dursley family.

The narrative skips the next ten years resuming shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday. The Dursleys have kept the truth about Harry's parents from him, but is revealed in the form of Rubeus Hagrid, who tells Harry that he is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts for the autumn term. Harry takes the train to Hogwarts from Platform Nine and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station. On the train, Harry sits with and quickly befriends Ron Weasley; the two are also briefly visited by Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger. Later on in the journey, Draco Malfoy comes into Harry and Ron's compartment with his friends Crabbe and Goyle and introduces himself. After Ron laughs at Draco's name, Draco offers to help Harry distinguish the wrong sort of wizards, but Harry declines.

Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron in Gryffindor House, one of the school's four houses, while Draco and his cronies are placed in Slytherin House. After a broom-mounted game to save Neville's Remembrall, Harry joins Gryffindor's Quidditch team as their youngest Seeker player in over a century.

Shortly after school begins, Harry and his friends discover that someone had broken into a previously emptied vault at the wizarding bank, Gringotts. The mystery deepens when they discover a monstrous three-headed dog, Fluffy, that guards a trapdoor in the forbidden third floor passageway. On Halloween, a troll enters the castle and traps Hermione in one of the girls' lavatories. Harry and Ron rescue her, but are caught by Professor McGonagall. Hermione defends the boys and takes the blame, which results in the three becoming close friends.

Harry's broom becomes jinxed during his first Quidditch match, nearly resulting in Harry falling from a great height. Hermione believes that Professor Snape has cursed the broom and distracts him by setting his robes on fire, allowing Harry to catch the Snitch and win the game for Gryffindor.

At Christmas, Harry receives his father's Invisibility Cloak from an unknown source. Later, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, a strange mirror which shows Harry surrounded by his parents and extended family he never knew. Later, Harry learns that Nicolas Flamel is the maker of Philosopher's Stone, a stone that gives the owner eternal life.

Harry sees Professor Snape interrogating Professor Quirrell about getting past Fluffy, seemingly confirming the suspicion that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power. The trio discover that Hagrid is hiding a dragon egg, which hatches; since dragon breeding is illegal, they convince Hagrid to send the dragon to live with others of its kind. Harry and Hermione are caught returning to their dormitories after sending Norbert off and are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. In the forest, Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that the hooded figure is in fact Voldemort.

Hagrid accidentally tells Harry, Ron and Hermione how to get past Fluffy and they rush to tell the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, what they know, only to find that he has been called away from the school. Positive that Dumbledore's summons was a red herring to take him away while the Philosopher's Stone is stolen, the trio set out to reach the Stone first. They navigate through a series of complex magical challenges set up by the school's faculty, and at the end of these challenges, Harry enters the inner chamber alone, only to find that it is the timid Professor Quirrell, not Snape, who is after the Stone. The final challenge protecting the Stone is the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell forces Harry to look in the mirror to discover where the Stone is, and Harry successfully resists, but the Stone drops into his own pocket. Lord Voldemort now reveals himself: he has possessed Quirrell and appears as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell's head. He tries to attack Harry, but merely touching Harry proves to be agony for Quirrell. Voldemort flees and Quirrell dies as Dumbledore arrives back in time to save Harry.

As Harry recovers, Dumbledore confirms to him that Lily died while protecting Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides her son with an ancient magical protection against Voldemort's lethal spells. Dumbledore also explains that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed to prevent Voldemort from ever using it. He then tells Harry that only those who wanted to find the Stone, but not use it, would be able to retrieve it from the mirror, which is why Harry was able to acquire it. When Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort attempted to kill him when he was an infant, Dumbledore promises to tell Harry when he is older.

At the end-of-year feast, where Harry is welcomed as a hero, Dumbledore gives a few "last-minute additions", granting enough points to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville for Gryffindor to win the House Cup, ending Slytherin's six-year reign as house champions.


Characters

In the book, Rowling introduced an eclectic cast of characters. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard",[3] and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him.[1] During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him".[4] Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character[5] with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".[5]

Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. Headmaster of Hogwarts is powerful but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant; Rowling described him as "epitome of goodness".[6] His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, who according to the author "under that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an old softy",[7] the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family and the sinister professor Severus Snape.[8] Teacher Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.

The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate[9] and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry, and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:

The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. [...] And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. [...] When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. [...] And—so—but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.