Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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This article is about the book. For other uses, see information about the film and video game.

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 Harry Potter, a young wizard. It was published 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London, and has 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 120 million copies worldwide. As of January 2008, the book is number twelve on the best selling book list of all time, and is the third best-selling non-religious, non-political work of fiction of all time.

Development

In 1990, author J. K. Rowling wanted to move together with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester: "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write 'Philosopher's Stone' that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product." Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry. After giving birth to her first child Jessica, she sent around the first chapters of her initial drafts, found an agent on her second try, and, in 1996, got her story accepted by Bloomsbury, which published the book in 1997.

Plot

Beginning

The novel begins with the wizarding world's celebration of the downfall of Lord Voldemort, an evil, powerful and cruel Dark wizard. After he killed Lily and James Potter, Voldemort attempted to murder their one-year-old son, Harry. The magical curse rebounded and destroyed Lord Voldemort's body, leaving only a lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead. Harry is placed in the care of his muggle relatives, the Dursley family.

The book skips the next ten years and resumes shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday when he receives a letter from Hogwarts informing him that he is to start at the school that fall. The Dursleys, who have kept Harry's heritage from him, attempt to flee but to no avail — Harry's acceptance letter is successfully hand-delivered by the gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid. Harry and Hagrid purchase Harry's school supplies in Diagon Alley and a month later, Harry takes the train to Hogwarts from Platform Nine and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station.

On the train, Harry sits with Ron Weasley, whose family helped him find Platform Nine and Three Quarters. During the journey, a boy called Neville Longbottom comes into Harry and Ron's compartment to ask if they had seen his pet toad, Trevor. Later, Neville comes back with a girl called Hermione Granger. She introduces herself to Harry and Ron and leaves the compartment to help Neville find his toad. Later on in the journey, three boys come into Harry and Ron's compartment. Harry recognises one as Draco Malfoy, a boy whom he met in Madam Malkin's Robes for Every Occasion in Diagon Alley when Harry was getting his school robes fitted. Draco introduces the two boys with him as Crabbe and Goyle. After Ron laughs at Draco's name, Draco offers Harry to be friends with him, but Harry declines. The remainder of the train journey has no other interruptions and the pair change into their Hogwarts robes and get off the train with the other students, where Hagrid greets the first years and they get boats across the lake up to the school.

Arrival at Hogwarts

Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry and Ron in Gryffindor House, one of the four houses at Hogwarts. After a broom-mounted game of keep away with Malfoy over Neville Longbottom's Remembrall, Harry joins Gryffindor's Quidditch team as their youngest Seeker player in over a century.

Shortly after they start school, they discover that someone had broken into the wizarding bank . Gringotts. The mystery deepens when they discover a monstrous three-headed dog, christened Fluffy by Hagrid, that guards a trapdoor in the forbidden third floor passageway. On Halloween, a troll enters the castle and traps fellow Gryffindor Hermione Granger in one of the girls' bathrooms. Harry and Ron rescue her, but are caught by McGonagall. When Professor McGonagall asks why they did not go back to their dormitories when directed, Hermione defends the boys and takes the blame, which results in the three becoming best friends.

Suspicions

Harry's broom becomes jinxed during his first Quidditch match, nearly knocking him off. Hermione believes that Professor Severus Snape has cursed the broom, as he is staring at Harry and mouthing words, and so sets his robes on fire as a distraction. The broom behaves for the rest of the match, allowing Harry to catch the Snitch to win the game for Gryffindor.

At Christmas, Harry receives his father's Invisibility Cloak. Harry uses it to enter the Restricted Section in the library to learn about Nicolas Flamel, who is somehow connected to Albus Dumbledore. Harry hides in an unused classroom to escape from the caretaker Argus Filch, where he discovers the Mirror of Erised, a strange mirror which shows not just Harry, but Harry surrounded by his entire family. On the third night Harry secretly visits the Mirror of Erised, he finds that Dumbledore is already there, waiting for him; Dumbledore explains that the mirror shows nothing more or less than our deepest desires — Harry sees his family, while Ron sees himself achieving more than his older brothers — but cautions that the mirror gives neither knowledge nor truth and that men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they see. Shortly thereafter, Harry stumbles across who Nicholas Flamel is; Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card states 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."

Harry sees Snape interrogating Quirrell about getting past Fluffy; Quirrell claims ignorance, but Harry, Ron and Hermione are sure that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power. The trio discover that Hagrid is incubating a dragon egg, which shortly thereafter hatches a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, Norbert. The friends are nervous for Hagrid, since dragon breeding is illegal. Finally, the three are able to convince Hagrid to let Norbert go live with other dragons of his kind with Ron's older dragon trainer brother, Charlie, in Romania.

Harry and Hermione are caught returning to their dormitories after sending Norbert off and they are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest along with Draco, who had been spying on them. Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that it is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn, let alone drink its blood; unicorn blood sustains life but gives the drinker a cursed life in return, and that the hooded figure is in fact Voldemort.

Finding the Philosopher's Stone

Harry, Hermione, and Ron discover that an intoxicated Hagrid told a hooded stranger how to get past Fluffy in exchange for Norbert's egg, and they believe the theft of the Stone is imminent. Rushing to tell Professor Dumbledore what they know, they meet Professor McGonagall. McGonagall is shocked to find out how much they know about the Stone, but reassures them 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 him away from Hogwarts while the Philosopher's Stone is stolen, the trio set out to reach the Stone first. They must navigate a series of complex magical challenges set up by the school's faculty, which range from an enchanted chessboard to a logic puzzle involving potions which will help them and poisons them. Just before Harry goes into the final room, Hermione hugs him. 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. Harry successfully resists, and 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 Quirrel. Dumbledore arrives back in time to save Harry, Voldemort flees and Quirrell dies.

Aftermath

Dumbledore confirms to Harry that Lily died while protecting Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides Harry with an ancient magical protection against Voldemort's lethal spells and prevents Voldemort from touching Harry without suffering terrible pain. Dumbledore also says that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed to prevent future attempts by Voldemort to steal it. Harry asks how he managed to get the Stone from the mirror, and Dumbledore explains that only those who wanted the Stone to protect it but not use it, would be able to retrieve it. Asked by Harry 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, 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, ending Slytherin's six-year reign as house champion.

Characters

In the book, Rowling introduced an eclectic cast of characters. Most of the actions center around 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"," and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him. During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron, as the former is called, is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him". Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure" beneath her "swottiness".

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". His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, who is "under that gruff exterior... a bit of an old softy, really" according to the author, and Harry's saviour from the Dursley family, friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid. Also, odd teacher Professor Quirrell originally meets Harry in the Leaky Cauldron, prior to the school year beginning.

Main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, a racist, elitist classmate, drawn from Rowling's experience with real-life bullies,, cold-hearted professor Severus Snape, inspired from a disliked teacher from her own childhood, and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who for some reason has been disembodied when he tried to kill baby Harry: "According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, Voldemort was invented as a literary foil for Harry Potter, the main protagonist of the series, and that she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea … Harry … 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.… Harry has to find out, before we find out. 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."

In the Philosopher's Stone book, the non-existent "Platform 9¾ at King's Cross railway station in London" is introduced where students in the novels board the train to Hogwarts. As a hat-tip to J.K. Rowling, the real King's Cross station has erected a sign at a wall between tracks 9 and 10.

Publication impact

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of one thousand copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Philosopher's Stone was a great critical success.

Awards

Five months after publication the initial book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".

Rowling's book was also shortlisted many other awards including the 1997 Carnegie Award and the Guardian Children's Award. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher’s Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: a change Rowling claims she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time. The book became an unprecedented smash hit, selling over five million copies by 2001. In time, so-called Pottermania swept the globe, setting up a hitherto unknown hype for the following six Harry Potter books and making it one of the best-selling works of fiction of all time. As a homage to the books, the odd "Platform 9¾" from the book was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign between tracks 9 and 10.

Financial rewards

In 2001 a film based on the book was released and after becoming the highest grossing film ever in the UK it went on to earn $976.5 million at the worldwide box office making it the second highest grossing film in history at the time. As of 2008, it is the fourth highest-grossing film of all-time, behind Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Further films based on the subsequent books have made Harry Potter the highest grossing film series of all time, ahead of the James Bond and Star Wars franchises. The success of the series and its tie-in merchandise, have led the Harry Potter brand to be valued at $15 billion, and J.K. Rowling becoming the UK's richest woman, thought to be worth more than one billon US dollars.

External links

• Background information and storylines from the Harry Potter Lexicon
• Identify first edition copies of Philosopher's Stone

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