Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, first published in 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by Scholastic Corporation in 1998. The plot follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage as he makes close friends and a few enemies in his first year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
The novel won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least seventy three other languages and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.
Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors, Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter, and the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by several religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft, but other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.

Plot

As the main title suggests, the plot centres on a legendary alchemical substance which is believed by some to give immortality

Eleven-year-old Harry Potter has been living an ordinary life, constantly abused by his surly and cold uncle and aunt, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and bullied by their spoiled son Dudley. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance into a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid after previous letters had been destroyed by Vernon and Petunia. Hagrid explains Harry's hidden past as the wizard son of James and Lily Potter, who are a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, Lord Voldemort, which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. The strangest bit of the murder was how Voldemort was unable to kill him, but instead had his powers removed and blasted away, sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community.
Hagrid introduces Harry to the wizarding world, bringing him to places filled with wonder and magic like Diagon Alley, a hidden London street where Harry purchases his pet owl Hedwig and his various school supplies, and Gringotts Wizarding Bank, where he uncovers a fortune left to him by his parents in his vault. There, he is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and wizards, who refer to him as "the boy who lived".
A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station's secret Hogwarts platform, Platform 9¾. On the train, he befriends fellow first-year Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, whose snobbiness and affinity for spells initially causes the two boys to dislike her. There, Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy, who prejudices against Hermione due to her being the daughter of Muggles, a term used by wizards and witches that describe ordinary humans with no magical ability.
Arriving at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to houses that best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor instead with Ron and Hermione while Draco is sorted into Slytherin, like his whole family before him.
As classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers his innate talent for flying on broomsticks despite no prior experience, and is recruited into his House's Quidditch (a competitive wizards' sport played in the air) team as a Seeker, which is said to be the most difficult role. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master, Severus Snape, who is also the Head of Slytherin House that acts biased to members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities to fail Harry and his friends. The peaceful school year is interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which causes school-wide panic and the discovery of a huge three-headed dog standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor.
Hermione forbids the boys from investigating for fear for expulsion, and instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape is jinxing Harry's broom due to his strange behaviour during the match. After the excitement of winning despite the odds has died down, Christmas approaches and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the cloak to explore the school at night to investigate the possibility of what is under the trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his or her deepest desires come true.
A visit to Hagrid's cottage at the foot of the school leads the trio to find a newspaper report stating the attempted robbery of a Gringotts vault—a vault that Hagrid had gone to take something while showing Harry around. A further indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as long as it is constantly used, as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze in the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves.
They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, and one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who had been the one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his broom and then letting a troll into the school. Snape had been trying to protect Harry instead, who had wronged him. Now, Quirrell is partly possessed by Voldemort, whose face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head that is constantly concealed by his oversized turban. Voldemort needs Harry's help to get past the final obstacle: the Mirror of Erised, forcing him to stand before the Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and surreptitiously deposits it in his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the boy's skin, and Quirrell burns alive.
Harry awakes in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore explains his survival against Voldemort to be owed to his mother's sacrifice for him to live, leaving a powerful protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, burning Quirrell, a being possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who sent Harry's his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been left to die by Voldemort and the Stone has now been destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive for the summer, neglecting to tell them that the use of spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays.