Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone book Summary. Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J.K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The main story arc concerns Harry's conflict with Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).
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| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Summary |
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Summary
Mr. Dursley, a well-off Englishman, notices strange happenings on his way to work one day. That night, Albus Dumbledore, the head of a wizardry academy called Hogwarts, meets Professor McGonagall, who also teaches at Hogwarts, and a giant named Hagrid outside the Dursley home.
Dumbledore tells McGonagall that someone named Voldemort has killed a Mr. and Mrs. Potter and tried unsuccessfully to kill their baby son, Harry. Dumbledore leaves Harry with an explanatory note in a basket in front of the Dursley home.
Ten years later, the Dursley household is dominated by the Dursleys’ son, Dudley, who torments and bullies Harry. Dudley is spoiled, while Harry is forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. At the zoo on Dudley’s birthday, the glass in front of a boa constrictor exhibit disappears, frightening everyone. Harry is later punished for this incident.
Mysterious letters begin arriving for Harry. They worry Mr. Dursley, who tries to keep them from Harry, but the letters keep arriving through every crack in the house. Finally, he flees with his family to a secluded island shack on the eve of Harry’s eleventh birthday.
At midnight, they hear a large bang on the door and Hagrid enters. Hagrid hands Harry an admissions letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that the Dursleys have tried to deny Harry’s wizardry all these years.
The next day, Hagrid takes Harry to London to shop for school supplies. First they go to the wizard bank, Gringotts, where Harry learns that his parents have left him a hefty supply of money.
They shop on the wizards’ commercial street known as Diagon Alley, where Harry is fitted for his school uniform. Harry buys books, ingredients for potions, and, finally, a magic wand—the companion wand to the evil Voldemort’s.
A month later, Harry goes to the train station and catches his train to Hogwarts on track nine and three quarters. On the train, Harry befriends other first-year students like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, a Muggle girl chosen to attend Hogwarts.
At school, the first-years take turns putting on the “Sorting Hat” to find out in which residential house they will live. Harry fears being assigned to the sinister Slytherin house, but he, Ron, and Hermione end up in the noble Gryffindor house.
As the school year gets underway, Harry discovers that his Potions professor, Snape, does not like him. Hagrid reassures Harry that Snape has no reason to dislike him. During their first flying lesson on broomsticks, the students are told to stay grounded while the teacher takes an injured boy named Neville to the hospital.
Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin bully, snatches Neville’s prized toy and flies off with it to the top of a tree. Harry flies after him. Malfoy throws the ball in the air, and Harry speeds downward, making a spectacular catch. Professor McGonagall witnesses this incident.
Instead of punishing Harry, she recommends that he play Quidditch, a much-loved game that resembles soccer played on broomsticks, for Gryffindor. Later that day, Malfoy challenges Harry to a wizard’s duel at midnight.
Malfoy doesn’t show up at the appointed place, and Harry almost gets in trouble. While trying to hide, he accidentally discovers a fierce three-headed dog guarding a trapdoor in the forbidden third-floor corridor.
On Halloween, a troll is found in the building. The students are all escorted back to their dormitories, but Harry and Ron sneak off to find Hermione, who is alone and unaware of the troll. Unwittingly, they lock the troll in the girls’ bathroom along with Hermione. Together, they defeat the troll.
Hermione tells a lie to protect Harry and Ron from being punished. During Harry’s first Quidditch match, his broom jerks out of control. Hermione notices Snape staring at Harry and muttering a curse. She concludes that he is jinxing Harry’s broom, and she sets Snape’s clothes on fire. Harry regains control of the broom and makes a spectacular play to win the Quidditch match.
For Christmas, Harry receives his father’s invisibility cloak, and he explores the school, unseen, late at night. He discovers the Mirror of Erised, which displays the deepest desire of whoever looks in it. Harry looks in it and sees his parents alive.
After Christmas, Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to unravel the mysterious connection between a break-in at Gringotts and the three-headed guard dog. They learn that the dog is guarding the Sorcerer’s Stone, which is capable of providing eternal life and unlimited wealth to its owner and belongs to Nicolas Flamel, Dumbledore’s old partner.
A few weeks later, Hagrid wins a dragon egg in a poker game. Because it is illegal to own dragons, Harry, Ron, and Hermione contact Ron’s older brother, who studies dragons. They arrange to get rid of the dragon but get caught.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are severely punished, and Gryffindor is docked 150 points. Furthermore, part of their punishment is to go into the enchanted forest with Hagrid to find out who has been killing unicorns recently. In the forest, Harry comes upon a hooded man drinking unicorn blood. The man tries to attack Harry, but Harry is rescued by a friendly centaur who tells him that his assailant was Voldemort. Harry also learns that it is Voldemort who has been trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Harry decides that he must find the stone before Voldemort does. He, Ron, and Hermione sneak off that night to the forbidden third-floor corridor. They get past the guard dog and perform many impressive feats as they get closer and closer to the stone.
Harry ultimately finds himself face to face with Quirrell, who announces that Harry must die. Knowing that Harry desires to find the stone, Quirrell puts Harry in front of the Mirror of Erised and makes him state what he sees. Harry sees himself with the stone in his pocket, and at that same moment he actually feels it in his pocket.
But he tells Quirrell that he sees something else. A voice tells Quirrell that the boy is lying and requests to speak to Harry face to face. Quirrell removes his turban and reveals Voldemort’s face on the back of his head. Voldemort, who is inhabiting Quirrell’s body, instructs Quirrell to kill Harry, but Quirrell is burned by contact with the boy. A struggle ensues and Harry passes out.
When Harry regains consciousness, he is in the hospital with Dumbledore. Dumbledore explains that he saved Harry from Quirrell just in time. He adds that he and Flamel have decided to destroy the stone.
Harry heads down to the end-of-year banquet, where Slytherin is celebrating its seventh consecutive win of the house championship cup. Dumbledore gets up and awards many last-minute points to Gryffindor for the feats of Harry and his friends, winning the house cup for Gryffindor. Harry returns to London to spend the summer with the Dursleys.
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Themes
Magic, Difference, and Belonging: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first novel in a seven-part series centering on protagonist Harry Potter, who discovers that he is a wizard when he is eleven years old. The series tracks an epic battle between good and evil in the wizarding world, but the first book is, in its essence, a coming-of-age story. Harry spends his early life feeling different from the non-magical people (“Muggles”) around him, though.
Love, Family, and Friendship: At the center of The Sorcerer’s Stone is the importance of love from both family and friends. Though Harry’s parents, Lily and James, love him a great deal, they die when he is very young, and he is placed in the care of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, Muggle relatives who treat him terribly. When he goes to school at Hogwarts, Harry gains a group of friends—primarily Ron and Hermione.
Power, Greed, and Desire: For Harry and his friends starting school at Hogwarts, magic comes with a certain degree of power: the ability to make a feather levitate, to turn a match into a needle, to fly on a broomstick. But Rowling also hints at what happens when adult wizards grow greedy for power and the dangerous ramifications of that desire. Thus, not only does Rowling associate greed and the desire for power with evil, but she also argues.
Humility and Self-Sacrifice: In contrast to the ideas of power, greed, and desire held up as forces for evil, humility and self-sacrifice become the cornerstones of good character in The Sorcerer’s Stone. While antagonistic characters like Voldemort, Quirrell, and Dudley tend to focus on their own desires and needs, characters like Harry, Ron, and Hermione often think about others before themselves. In associating her protagonists—and Harry in particular—with these virtues.
Rules and Rebellion: Although the wizarding world provides Harry with freedom that he did not receive at his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s house, there are still strict rules that he must follow in both the wizarding world in general and particularly at Hogwarts. Harry does not set out to be a troublemaker, but over the course of the novel, he ends up breaking rule after rule. Harry believes that when the rules are in conflict with doing.
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Questions and Answers about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Plot
Is Harry Potter Sorcerer's Stone and philosopher's Stone the same? Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, also called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first novel in the immensely popular Harry Potter series by British writer J.K. Rowling.
Why is Sorcerer's Stone changed to philosopher's Stone? It was changed by the American publisher, Scholastic, because it thought American children wouldn't want to read a book with "philosopher" in the title.
Why is there 2 versions on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? The title of the source novel in the UK was "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and the movie bears the same title in non-US releases. All scenes where the stone is mentioned by name have been be filmed/looped accordingly to produce two different versions of the film to adapt to the title.
Is the first Harry Potter movie the philosopher's Stone or Sorcerer's Stone? On November 16, 2001, the British author J.K. Rowling's star creation—bespectacled boy wizard Harry Potter—makes his big-screen debut in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which opens in movie theaters across the United States.
Why was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone banned? There were concerns over the violence and increasingly dark tone of the later books but most of the censorship attempts were for religious reasons. It was also banned in some Christian schools in the UK.
Why is the Sorcerer's Stone so important to Voldemort? The Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone of the Harry Potter story is similar to the one of legend. Both can change metal into gold, both produce the Elixir of Life (which makes you immortal) and both were said to be created by Flamel. It was the Elixir of Life that drove Voldemort's desire for the Stone.
Why is the Sorcerer's Stone so important? The Philosopher's Stone (known in the United States editions of the books as the Sorcerer's Stone) is an artifact that can turn inexpensive metals into gold or create an elixir that would make humans younger, thus delaying death.
Was the Sorcerer's Stone destroyed? The Sorcerer's Stone was eradicated but there was no indication how Dumbledore and Flamel destroyed the object. The Sorcerer's Stone, or Philosopher's Stone, is a legendary substance historically referred to by alchemists. The stone shares similar properties portrayed in the Harry Potter series.