Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Summary

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Summary

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone By J.K Rowling

Setting

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury.

Main Characters

Harry Potter – is the son of James and Lily Potter and Vernon and Petunia Dursley’s nephew. He has a lightning-shaped scar marked on his forehead. Harry is also marked by the confrontation between good and bad magic that caused that scar, the standoff between the evil Voldemort and his parents who died to save their son. Eventually, the story becomes a tale of Harry’s vengeance for their wrongful deaths. As he matures, he shows himself to be caring and shrewd, a loyal friend, and an excellent Quidditch player.

Hermione Granger - Initially an annoying goody-two-shoes who studies too much and obeys the school rules too zealously. Eventually, he becomes friendly with Harry after she learns to value friendship over perfectionism and obedience. She comes from a purely Muggle family, and her character illustrates the social adjustment problems often faced by new students at Hogwarts.

Ron Weasley – is a shy, modest boy who comes from an impoverished wizard family. Ron is Harry’s first friend at Hogwarts, and they become close. He lacks Harry’s gusto and charisma, but his loyalty and help are useful to Harry throughout their adventures. Ron’s mediocrity despite his wizard background reminds us that success at Hogwarts is based solely on talent and hard work, not on family connections. Ron’s willingness to be beaten up by the monstrous chess queen shows how selfless and generous he is.

Hagrid – is an oafish giant who works as a groundskeeper at Hogwarts. Rubeus Hagrid is a well-meaning creature with more kindness than brains. He cares deeply for Harry, as evidenced by the tears he sheds upon having to leave the infant Harry with the Dursleys. His fondness for animals is endearing, even if it gets him into trouble (as when he tries raising a dragon at home). Hagrid symbolizes the importance of generosity and human warmth in a world menaced by conniving villains.

Albus Dumbledore - the kind, wise head of Hogwarts. Dumbledore is as humble and adorable as his name suggests even though he is a famous wizard. While other school officials, such as Professor McGonagall, are obsessed with the rules, Dumbledore respects them (as his warnings against entering the Forbidden Forest remind us) but does not exaggerate their importance. He appears to have an almost superhuman level of wisdom, knowledge, and personal understanding, and it seems that he may have set up the whole quest for the Sorcerer’s Stone so that Harry could prove himself.

Voldemort – is a great wizard gone rogue. When he killed Harry’s parents, Voldemort gave Harry a lightning-shaped scar. Voldemort has thus shaped Harry’s life so that Harry’s ultimate destruction of him appears as a kind of vengeance. Voldemort, whose name in French means either "flight of death” or "theft of death,” is associated both with high-flying magic and with deceit throughout the story. He is determined to escape death by finding the Sorcerer’s Stone. Voldemort’s weak point is that he cannot understand love, and thus cannot touch Harry’s body, which still bears the traces of Harry’s mother’s love for her son.

Draco Malfoy – is an arrogant student and Harry’s nemesis. Malfoy, whose name translates roughly to "dragon of bad faith,” is a rich snob from a long line of wizards who feels entitled to the Hogwarts experience. He makes fun of the poorer Ron Weasley and advises Harry to choose his friends more carefully. As the story progresses, Malfoy becomes more and more inimical to Harry and his friends, and there is a hint that he may grow up to become another Voldemort.

Neville Longbottom – is a timid Hogwarts classmate of Harry’s. Neville is friendly and loyal, but like Ron, he lacks Harry’s charisma. Like Hermione, he is initially too obedient, and when the time comes to go after the Sorcerer’s Stone, he fears punishment and threatens to report his friends to the teachers.

Professor McGonagall – She is the head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts and a high-ranking woman in the wizarding world. Minerva McGonagall is fair but extremely stern and severe in her punishments. Her devotion to the letter of the law is impressive but a bit cold, and we constantly feel that she could never become a warm and wise figure like Dumbledore. Rowling named her after a notoriously bad nineteenth-century Scottish poet named William McGonagall who was nevertheless highly confident of his own talents.

Professor Snape – He is a professor of Potions at Hogwarts. Severus Snape dislikes Harry and appears to be an evil man for most of the story. His name associates him not only with unfair snap judgments of others but also with his violent intentions to snap the bones of his enemies. Snape’s grudge against Harry, which is nevertheless far from a murderous ill will, helps us remember the difference between forgivable vices and unforgivable evil intentions.

Professor Quirrell – He is a professor of Defense against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts and a stuttering and seemingly harmless man. Quirrell appears as nervous and squirrelly as his name suggests for most of the story. It is he, for example, who nearly faints when announcing the news that a troll is loose in the school. It turns out later, however, that Quirrell has faked his withdrawing meekness and is actually a cold-blooded conniver.

Vernon Dursley – is Harry’s rich uncle. Harry lives with him for ten miserable years. Dursley symbolizes the Muggle world at its most silly and mediocre. It is through Mr. Dursley’s jaded Muggle eyes that we first glimpse wizards, and his closed-mindedness toward the colorful cloaks and literate cats that he meets emphasizes how different the human and wizard worlds are.

Petunia Dursley – is Mr. Dursley’s wife. Petunia is an overly doting mother to her spoiled son, Dudley, and a prison-keeper to Harry. She is haughty and excessively concerned with what the neighbors think of her family. She is somewhat humanized for us when we discover that she was always jealous of the magical gifts of her sister, Lily, Harry’s witch mother. Perhaps her malevolence toward Harry springs from an earlier resentment of her sister.

Dudley Dursley – is Harry’s cousin. He is spoilt, fat, annoying, loud, and a bully. Dudley manipulates parental love to get what he wants. His outrageous desires for multiple television sets foreshadow the important scenes involving the Mirror of Erised and the wrongful desire for eternal life that motivates Voldemort. Dudley’s tormenting of Harry foreshadows Malfoy’s later bullying tendencies at Hogwarts, though he is less gifted than Malfoy.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with a description of the Dursley family, a middle-class family that lives in Little Whinging, Surrey. 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 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 and later Harry is punished for this incident.

Mysterious letters begin arriving for Harry. The letters worry Mr. Dursley, and he tries to keep them from Harry, but the letters keep arriving through every crack in the house. Finally, he decides to flee 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 visit the wizard bank, Gringotts. 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 which is 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 to put 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.

Harry discovers that his Potions professor, Snape, does not like him as the school year gets underway. 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.

A troll is found in the building during Halloween. 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 and concludes that he is jinxing Harry’s broom. She sets Snape’s clothes on fire. Harry regains control of the broom and makes a spectacular play to win the Quidditch match.

Harry receives his father’s invisibility cloak for Christmas. 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. However, it is illegal to own dragons, and 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 loses 150 points. In addition, 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 tells him that he saved him 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.

Themes

Love

Love plays a crucial role in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," as well as all of the remaining books in the series. Rowling demonstrates the power of love from the very beginning of the narrative by explaining that Harry's ability to survive Voldemort's killing curse is a direct result of his mother's love. By sacrificing her own life to save that of her son, Lily Potter gave Harry a magical form of protection that shielded him from Voldemort's curse and nearly destroyed the dark wizard. As Professor Dumbledore asserts, Voldemort is incapable of understanding love, particularly in comparison to the strength of his own dark power, and so he was taken entirely by surprise when it came to Lily's sacrifice.

Harry's own ability to love and be loved is the key trait that distinguishes him from Voldemort and ensures that Harry will never be seduced by the Dark Arts. Harry's love for his parents instills him with an earnest determination to defeat Voldemort and rebel against anything associated with the Dark Arts (thus, Harry's refusal to be sorted into Slytherin House). Harry's ability to love also provides him with a support system of friends that Voldemort can never hope to match.

Choice

One of the most important themes that Rowling discusses in the book is the concept of choice and free will. From the start of the book, Rowling describes many uncanny similarities between Harry and Voldemort: their twin wands, their connection to snakes, even some aspects of their appearance. In some respects, Harry seems fated to follow in the footsteps of Voldemort, a destiny which is demonstrated in the Sorting Hat's initial intention to sort Harry into Slytherin House.

Yet, Harry refuses to take a passive role when it comes to his own future, particularly when it means following the path marked by the dark wizard who killed his parents. Thus, instead of accepting the Sorting Hat's decision, Harry refuses to be placed in Slytherin House and is placed in Gryffindor House instead.

As Professor Dumbledore later explains to Harry, it is the choices made by an individual that determine what kind of person they are and what kind of person they will become. Nothing is cut in stone when it comes to an individual's future, but, as Harry demonstrates, each individual has the opportunity to change the direction of their lives through significant, as well as insignificant, choices.

The Importance of Rebellion

Over the course of the novel, Harry, Ron, and Hermione break many school rules in pursuing their adventures. Harry, in particular, is always willing to break a Hogwarts rule if it means taking action or doing something that he believes is right. Although Rowling does admit that the rules imposed at Hogwarts are meant to keep the students safe, she also presents Harry's disregard for these rules as a heroic quality of his character. He is able to think for himself and, depending on the situation, making judgment calls that have the potential to save lives. Moreover, Harry is perfectly willing to accept the consequences of his rebellion, just as long as he is able to take action when he can.

However, it is important to note that Harry never breaks the rules simply for the sake of breaking them: he breaks rules only when he truly believes that his actions are necessary. His selfless and compassionate nature (contrasting sharply with that of Lord Voldemort) is also highlighted in his reasons for breaking the rules. For example, one of the first rules that Harry breaks are during the flying lesson with Madam Hooch when Harry flies after Malfoy in order to retrieve Neville's Remembrall. Harry does not disobey Madam Hooch's direct orders in order to show off; he breaks the rules in order to retrieve the gift that Neville received from his grandmother.

Humility

One of the primary traits that differentiate Harry from the more malevolent characters in the book, such as Voldemort and Draco Malfoy, is his humility. Despite his reputation as the boy-who-lives and his skills in Quidditch, Harry maintains a modest persona throughout the novel. If anything, the extra attention that he receives because of his background makes him uncomfortable and insecure; he feels that he can never be extraordinary enough to be worthy of such an esteemed reputation. Harry's humility is, in part, a direct result of his neglected childhood with the Dursleys. Because he was never treated as someone who was special, Harry grew up with the understanding that respect is not readily given and must be achieved. When Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursleys, he knew that Harry would be mistreated. Yet, he also realized that, by growing up away from the wizarding world that would put him on a pedestal, he ensured that Harry would grow up without being spoiled by pride and arrogance.

Harry's humility becomes particularly significant as a theme of the book when he faces Voldemort in the dungeons of Hogwarts. Neither Voldemort nor Professor Quirrell is able to retrieve the Sorcerer's Stone from the Mirror of Erised because they are both thinking of ways that the Stone will benefit them. Harry, on the other hand, thinks only of retrieving the Stone in order to save other people from Voldemort's tyranny: with his humble nature, it would never occur to him to use the Sorcerer's Stone for his own selfish purposes.

Friendship

Throughout the book, Rowling expresses the importance of friendship, particularly when it comes to overcoming challenges and difficult tasks. Harry is completely isolated before coming to Hogwarts. Not only does he not have a loving family environment, but he does not have any friends to serve as a support system. After becoming a student at Hogwarts, however, Harry quickly creates a large group of friends but, more importantly, a close relationship with Ron and Hermione. For most of the students at Hogwarts, a strong group of friends helps with homesickness and difficult classes.

In Harry's case, Rowling draws a more obvious parallel between friendship and difficult life challenges: the only way that Harry is able to reach the Mirror of Erised in the dungeons of Hogwarts is with Ron and Hermione's help. Hermione and Ron both tackle specific challenges that Harry would have been unable to face on his own, specifically Professor McGonagall's challenge of the giant wizarding chess and Professor Snape's challenge of the potions. In this case, Harry's friendship with Ron and Hermione saves his life and allows him to keep Voldemort from finding the Sorcerer's Stone.

Death

Near the end of the book, Professor Dumbledore tells Harry, "Death is but the next great adventure." Rowling does not describe death as something to be feared or dreaded, but rather a part of the natural cycle of life that should be embraced as part of an individual's humanity. Death can also be viewed as something beautiful. For example, by sacrificing her own life for Harry, Lily Potter gave him the wondrous protection of her love and a chance at a life free from Voldemort's tyranny. Her death also provided Harry with purpose in his life and the determination to stop Voldemort from harming other innocent people.

Power

The theme of power serves as another distinguishing trait between Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort's primary goal during his reign of terror over Britain was to achieve absolute power in both the wizarding and Muggle community. Even after he is nearly destroyed by his backfiring killing curse, Voldemort's objective is still to achieve absolute power, first by stealing the Sorcerer's Stone and using the elixir of life to construct another body and second, to reach the same height of tyranny that he had enjoyed before his downfall.

Harry, on the other hand, has no interest in achieving absolute power. His modest and pure nature leads him to desire nothing more than the company of his lost parents, as well as a little less attention from those around him. In fact, it is because Harry does not desire power that he is able to retrieve the Sorcerer's Stone from within the Mirror of Erised: Professor Quirrell and Voldemort both want to use the Stone to gain power.

In this theme, Rowling notably provides Professor Dumbledore as a foil to Voldemort. Professor Dumbledore is a highly skilled wizard and, Rowling points out, is the only wizard that Voldemort is truly afraid of. Yet, instead of using his vast magical knowledge to seize power and dominate those around him, Dumbledore is incapable of being corrupted by power. The only power that he desires is the power to shape young witches and wizards to use their magic safely and for the benefit of society.