[Part 2] "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" by Rowling J.K.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐘 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄-𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒

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Harry’s last month with the Dursleys wasn’t fun.

True, Dudley was now so scared of Harry he wouldn’t stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn’t shut Harry in his cupboard, force him to do anything, or shout at him — in fact, they didn’t speak to him at all.

Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry in it were empty.

Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.

Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company.

He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic.

His school books were very interesting.

He lay on his bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased.

It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn’t come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice.

Every night before he went to sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.

On the last day of August he thought he’d better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King’s Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television.

He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.

“Er — Uncle Vernon?”

Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.

“Er — I need to be at King’s Cross tomorrow to — to go to Hogwarts.”

Uncle Vernon grunted again.

“Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?”

Grunt.

Harry supposed that meant yes.

“Thank you.”

He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.

“Funny way to get to a wizards’ school, the train.

Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?”

Harry didn’t say anything.

“Where is this school, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Harry, realizing this for the first time.

He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket.

“I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o’clock,” he read.

His aunt and uncle stared.

“Platform what?”

“Nine and three-quarters.”

“Don’t talk rubbish,” said Uncle Vernon.

“There is no platform nine and three-quarters.”

“It’s on my ticket.”

“Barking,” said Uncle Vernon, “howling mad, the lot of them.

You’ll see.

You just wait.

All right, we’ll take you to King’s Cross.

We’re going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn’t bother.”

“Why are you going to London?” Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly.

“Taking Dudley to the hospital,” growled Uncle Vernon.

“Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings.”

Harry woke at five o’clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep.

He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn’t want to walk into the station in his wizard’s robes — he’d change on the train.

He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up.

Two hours later, Harry’s huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys’ car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off.

They reached King’s Cross at half past ten.

Uncle Vernon dumped Harry’s trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him.

Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

“Well, there you are, boy.

Platform nine — platform ten.

Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet, do they?”

He was quite right, of course.

There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

“Have a good term,” said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile.

He left without another word.

Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away.

All three of them were laughing.

Harry’s mouth went rather dry.

What on earth was he going to do?

He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig.

He’d have to ask someone.

He stopped a passing guard, but didn’t dare mention platform nine and three-quarters.

The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn’t even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Harry was being stupid on purpose.

Getting desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o’clock, but the guard said there wasn’t one.

In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters.

Harry was now trying hard not to panic.

According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.

Hagrid must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley.

He wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector’s stand between platforms nine and ten.

At that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“— packed with Muggles, of course —”

Harry swung round.

The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair.

Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry’s in front of him — and they had an owl.

Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them.

They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

“Now, what’s the platform number?” said the boys’ mother.

“Nine and three-quarters!” piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand.

“Mum, can’t I go . . .”

“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet.

All right, Percy, you go first.”

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten.

Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it — but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

“Fred, you next,” the plump woman said.

“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” said the boy.

“Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?

Can’t you tell I’m George?”

“Sorry, George, dear.”

“Only joking, I am Fred,” said the boy, and off he went.

His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone — but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier — he was almost there — and then, quite suddenly, he wasn’t anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

“Excuse me,” Harry said to the plump woman.

“Hello, dear,” she said.

“First time at Hogwarts?

Ron’s new, too.”

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons.

He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“The thing is — the thing is, I don’t know how to —”

“How to get onto the platform?” she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

“Not to worry,” she said.

“All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important.

Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous.

Go on, go now before Ron.”

“Er — okay,” said Harry.

He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier.

It looked very solid.

He started to walk toward it.

People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten.

Harry walked more quickly.

He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he’d be in trouble — leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run — the barrier was coming nearer and nearer — he wouldn’t be able to stop — the cart was out of control — he was a foot away — he closed his eyes ready for the crash —

It didn’t come . . . he kept on running . . . he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people.

A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock.

Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it.

He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs.

Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.

Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat.

He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, “Gran, I’ve lost my toad again.”

“Oh, Neville,” he heard the old woman sigh.

A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

“Give us a look, Lee, go on.”

The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train.

He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door.

He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.

“Want a hand?”

It was one of the red-haired twins he’d followed through the barrier.

“Yes, please,” Harry panted.

“Oy, Fred! C’mere and help!”

With the twins’ help, Harry’s trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

“Thanks,” said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

“What’s that?” said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry’s lightning scar.

“Blimey,” said the other twin.

“Are you — ?”

“He is,” said the first twin.

“Aren’t you?” he added to Harry.

“What?” said Harry.

“Harry Potter,” chorused the twins.

“Oh, him,” said Harry.

“I mean, yes, I am.”

The two boys gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red.

Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.

“Fred? George? Are you there?”

“Coming, Mum.”

With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.

Harry sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying.

Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.”

The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.

“Mum — geroff.”

He wriggled free.

“Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?” said one of the twins.

“Shut up,” said Ron.

“Where’s Percy?” said their mother.

“He’s coming now.”

The oldest boy came striding into sight.

He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny red-and-gold badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

“Can’t stay long, Mother,” he said.

“I’m up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves —”

“Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?” said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise.

“You should have said something, we had no idea.”

“Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said the other twin.

“Once —”

“Or twice —”

“A minute —”

“All summer —”

“Oh, shut up,” said Percy the Prefect.

“How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?” said one of the twins.

“Because he’s a prefect,” said their mother fondly.

“All right, dear, well, have a good term — send me an owl when you get there.”

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left.

Then she turned to the twins.

“Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves.

If I get one more owl telling me you’ve — you’ve blown up a toilet or —”

“Blown up a toilet?

We’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”

“It’s not funny.

And look after Ron.”

“Don’t worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us.”

“Shut up,” said Ron again.

He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

“Hey, Mum, guess what?

Guess who we just met on the train?”

Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn’t see him looking.

“You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station?

Know who he is?”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter!”

Harry heard the little girl’s voice.

“Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please. . . .”

“You’ve already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo.

Is he really, Fred?

How do you know?”

“Asked him.

Saw his scar.

It’s really there — like lightning.”

“Poor dear — no wonder he was alone, I wondered.

He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform.”

“Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?”

Their mother suddenly became very stern.

“I forbid you to ask him, Fred.

No, don’t you dare.

As though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school.”

“All right, keep your hair on.”

A whistle sounded.

“Hurry up!” their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train.

They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.

“Don’t, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls.”

“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.”

“George!”

“Only joking, Mum.”

The train began to move.

Harry saw the boys’ mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.

Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner.

Houses flashed past the window.

Harry felt a great leap of excitement.

He didn’t know what he was going to — but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.

“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry.

“Everywhere else is full.”

Harry shook his head and the boy sat down.

He glanced at Harry and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t looked.

Harry saw he still had a black mark on his nose.

“Hey, Ron.”

The twins were back.

“Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train — Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” mumbled Ron.

“Harry,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves?

Fred and George Weasley.

And this is Ron, our brother.

See you later, then.”

“Bye,” said Harry and Ron.

The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

“Are you really Harry Potter?” Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded.

“Oh — well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George’s jokes,” said Ron.

“And have you really got — you know . . .”

He pointed at Harry’s forehead.

Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar.

Ron stared.

“So that’s where You-Know-Who — ?”

“Yes,” said Harry, “but I can’t remember it.”

“Nothing?” said Ron eagerly.

“Well — I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”

“Wow,” said Ron.

He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

“Are all your family wizards?” asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.

“Er — yes, I think so,” said Ron.

“I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”

“So you must know loads of magic already.”

The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.

“I heard you went to live with Muggles,” said Ron.

“What are they like?”

“Horrible — well, not all of them.

My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though.

Wish I’d had three wizard brothers.”

“Five,” said Ron.

For some reason, he was looking gloomy.

“I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts.

You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to.

Bill and Charlie have already left — Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch.

Now Percy’s a prefect.

Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they’re really funny.

Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first.

You never get anything new, either, with five brothers.

I’ve got Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand, and Percy’s old rat.”

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.

“His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless, he hardly ever wakes up.

Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn’t aff — I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”

Ron’s ears went pink.

He seemed to think he’d said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

Harry didn’t think there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an owl.

After all, he’d never had any money in his life until a month ago, and he told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley’s old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents.

This seemed to cheer Ron up.

“. . . and until Hagrid told me, I didn’t know anything about being a wizard or about my parents or Voldemort —”

Ron gasped.

“What?” said Harry.

“You said You-Know-Who’s name!” said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed.

“I’d have thought you, of all people —”

“I’m not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name,” said Harry, “I just never knew you shouldn’t.

See what I mean?

I’ve got loads to learn. . . .

I bet,” he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, “I bet I’m the worst in the class.”

“You won’t be.

There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.”

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London.

Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep.

They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, “Anything off the cart, dears?”

Harry, who hadn’t had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron’s ears went pink again and he muttered that he’d brought sandwiches.

Harry went out into the corridor.

He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry — but the woman didn’t have Mars Bars.

What she did have were Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life.

Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.

“Hungry, are you?”

“Starving,” said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.

Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it.

There were four sandwiches inside.

He pulled one of them apart and said, “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef.”

“Swap you for one of these,” said Harry, holding up a pasty.

“Go on —”

“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” said Ron.

“She hasn’t got much time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us.”

“Go on, have a pasty,” said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with.

It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).

“What are these?” Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs.

“They’re not really frogs, are they?”

He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.

“No,” said Ron.

“But see what the card is.

I’m missing Agrippa.”

“What?”

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know — Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect — famous witches and wizards.

I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”

Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card.

It showed a man’s face.

He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache.

Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

“So this is Dumbledore!” said Harry.

“Don’t tell me you’d never heard of Dumbledore!” said Ron.

“Can I have a frog?

I might get Agrippa — thanks —”

Harry turned over his card and read:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.

Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore’s face had disappeared.

“He’s gone!”

“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” said Ron.

“He’ll be back.

No, I’ve got Morgana again and I’ve got about six of her . . . do you want it?

You can start collecting.”

Ron’s eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.

“Help yourself,” said Harry.

“But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos.”

“Do they?

What, they don’t move at all?” Ron sounded amazed.

“Weird!”

Harry stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile.

Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off them.

Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin.

He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

“You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned Harry.

“When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor — you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe.

George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once.”

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

“Bleaaargh — see? Sprouts.”

They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans.

Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn’t touch, which turned out to be pepper.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder.

The neat fields had gone.

Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on platform nine and three-quarters came in.

He looked tearful.

“Sorry,” he said, “but have you seen a toad at all?”

When they shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him!

He keeps getting away from me!”

“He’ll turn up,” said Harry.

“Yes,” said the boy miserably.

“Well, if you see him . . .”

He left.

“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” said Ron.

“If I’d brought a toad I’d lose it as quick as I could.

Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk.”

The rat was still snoozing on Ron’s lap.

“He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference,” said Ron in disgust.

“I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work.

I’ll show you, look . . .”

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand.

It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

“Unicorn hair’s nearly poking out.

Anyway —”

He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again.

The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him.

She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad?

Neville’s lost one,” she said.

She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” said Ron, but the girl wasn’t listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

“Oh, are you doing magic?

Let’s see it, then.”

She sat down.

Ron looked taken aback.

“Er — all right.”

He cleared his throat.

“Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”

He waved his wand, but nothing happened.

Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the girl.

“Well, it’s not very good, is it?

I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me.

Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard — I’ve learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough — I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?”

She said all this very fast.

Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn’t learned all the course books by heart either.

“I’m Ron Weasley,” Ron muttered.

“Harry Potter,” said Harry.

“Are you really?” said Hermione.

“I know all about you, of course — I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

“Am I?” said Harry, feeling dazed.

“Goodness, didn’t you know, I’d have found out everything I could if it was me,” said Hermione.

“Do either of you know what House you’ll be in?

I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad. . . .

Anyway, we’d better go and look for Neville’s toad.

You two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

“Whatever House I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” said Ron.

He threw his wand back into his trunk.

“Stupid spell — George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud.”

“What House are your brothers in?” asked Harry.

“Gryffindor,” said Ron.

Gloom seemed to be settling on him again.

“Mum and Dad were in it, too.

I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not.

I don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin.”

“That’s the House Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?”

“Yeah,” said Ron.

He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.

“You know, I think the ends of Scabbers’ whiskers are a bit lighter,” said Harry, trying to take Ron’s mind off Houses.

“So what do your oldest brothers do now that they’ve left, anyway?”

Harry was wondering what a wizard did once he’d finished school.

“Charlie’s in Romania studying dragons, and Bill’s in Africa doing something for Gringotts,” said Ron.

“Did you hear about Gringotts?

It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don’t suppose you get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security vault.”

Harry stared.

“Really?

What happened to them?”

“Nothing, that’s why it’s such big news.

They haven’t been caught.

My dad says it must’ve been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd.

’Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who’s behind it.”

Harry turned this news over in his mind.

He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who was mentioned.

He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying “Voldemort” without worrying.

“What’s your Quidditch team?” Ron asked.

“Er — I don’t know any,” Harry confessed.

“What!” Ron looked dumbfounded.

“Oh, you wait, it’s the best game in the world —”

And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he’d been to with his brothers and the broomstick he’d like to get if he had the money.

He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn’t Neville the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.

Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: It was the pale boy from Madam Malkin’s robe shop.

He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he’d shown back in Diagon Alley.

“Is it true?” he said.

“They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment.

So it’s you, is it?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

He was looking at the other boys.

Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean.

Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking.

“And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger.

Draco Malfoy looked at him.

“Think my name’s funny, do you?

No need to ask who you are.

My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

He turned back to Harry.

“You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter.

You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort.

I can help you there.”

He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it.

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” he said coolly.

Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter,” he said slowly.

“Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents.

They didn’t know what was good for them, either.

You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.”

Both Harry and Ron stood up.

“Say that again,” Ron said, his face as red as his hair.

“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Malfoy sneered.

“Unless you get out now,” said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him or Ron.

“But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys?

We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.”

Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron — Ron leapt forward, but before he’d so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell.

Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle’s knuckle — Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once.

Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they’d heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in.

“What has been going on?” she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.

“I think he’s been knocked out,” Ron said to Harry.

He looked closer at Scabbers.

“No — I don’t believe it — he’s gone back to sleep.”

And so he had.

“You’ve met Malfoy before?”

Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.

“I’ve heard of his family,” said Ron darkly.

“They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared.

Said they’d been bewitched.

My dad doesn’t believe it.

He says Malfoy’s father didn’t need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.”

He turned to Hermione.

“Can we help you with something?”

“You’d better hurry up and put your robes on, I’ve just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we’re nearly there.

You haven’t been fighting, have you?

You’ll be in trouble before we even get there!”

“Scabbers has been fighting, not us,” said Ron, scowling at her.

“Would you mind leaving while we change?”

“All right — I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors,” said Hermione in a sniffy voice.

“And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?”

Ron glared at her as she left.

Harry peered out of the window.

It was getting dark.

He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky.

The train did seem to be slowing down.

He and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes.

Ron’s were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them.

A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time.

Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Harry’s stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles.

They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped.

People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform.

Harry shivered in the cold night air.

Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Harry?”

Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.

“C’mon, follow me — any more firs’ years?

Mind yer step, now!

Firs’ years follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path.

It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there.

Nobody spoke much.

Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Oooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake.

Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore.

Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself.

“Right then — FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass.

Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead.

It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face.

They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

“Trevor!” cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands.

Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

“Everyone here?

You there, still got yer toad?”

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

----------------------------------------------------------

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐀𝐓

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The door swung open at once.

A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there.

She had a very stern face and Harry’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide.

The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house in it.

The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor.

Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right — the rest of the school must already be here — but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall.

They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall.

“The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses.

The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts.

You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.

“The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.

Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards.

While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points.

At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor.

I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school.

I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron’s smudged nose.

Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.

“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall.

“Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber.

Harry swallowed.

“How exactly do they sort us into Houses?” he asked Ron.

“Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

Harry’s heart gave a horrible jolt.

A test?

In front of the whole school?

But he didn’t know any magic yet — what on earth would he have to do?

He hadn’t expected something like this the moment they arrived.

He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too.

No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she’d learned and wondering which one she’d need.

Harry tried hard not to listen to her.

He’d never been more nervous, never, not even when he’d had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he’d somehow turned his teacher’s wig blue.

He kept his eyes fixed on the door.

Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air — several people behind him screamed.

“What the — ?”

He gasped.

So did the people around him.

About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall.

Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years.

They seemed to be arguing.

What looked like a fat little monk was saying: “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance —”

“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves?

He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost — I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them.

“About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few people nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” said the Friar.

“My old House, you know.”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice.

“The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned.

One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place.

It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting.

These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets.

At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting.

Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them.

The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight.

Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver.

Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars.

He heard Hermione whisper, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years.

On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard’s hat.

This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty.

Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing — noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too.

For a few seconds, there was complete silence.

Then the hat twitched.

A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth — and the hat began to sing:

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,

But don’t judge on what you see,

I’ll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There’s nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can’t see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you’ve a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You’ll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don’t be afraid!

And don’t get in a flap!

You’re in safe hands (though I have none)

For I’m a Thinking Cap!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song.

It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we’ve just got to try on the hat!” Ron whispered to Harry.

“I’ll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Harry smiled weakly.

Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching.

The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn’t feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment.

If only the hat had mentioned a House for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said.

“Abbott, Hannah!”

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down.

A moment’s pause —

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table.

Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

“Brocklehurst, Mandy” went to Ravenclaw too, but “Brown, Lavender” became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could see Ron’s twin brothers catcalling.

“Bulstrode, Millicent” then became a Slytherin.

Perhaps it was Harry’s imagination, after all he’d heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now.

He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school.

He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.

“Finch-Fletchley, Justin!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide.

“Finnigan, Seamus,” the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

“Granger, Hermione!”

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

“GRYFFINDOR!” shouted the hat.

Ron groaned.

A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you’re very nervous.

What if he wasn’t chosen at all?

What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he’d better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool.

The hat took a long time to decide with Neville.

When it finally shouted, “GRYFFINDOR,” Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “MacDougal, Morag.”

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, “SLYTHERIN!”

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren’t many people left now.

“Moon” . . . , “Nott” . . . , “Parkinson” . . . , then a pair of twin girls, “Patil” and “Patil” . . . , then “Perks, Sally-Anne” . . . , and then, at last —

“Potter, Harry!”

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

“Potter, did she say?”

“The Harry Potter?”

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him.

Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat.

He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear.

“Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?”

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.

“Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice.

“Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — no? Well, if you’re sure — better be GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall.

He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table.

He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet.

Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, “We got Potter! We got Potter!”

Harry sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he’d seen earlier.

The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now.

At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up.

Harry grinned back.

And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore.

Harry recognized him at once from the card he’d gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train.

Dumbledore’s silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts.

Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron.

He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only four people left to be sorted.

“Thomas, Dean,” a black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table.

“Turpin, Lisa,” became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron’s turn.

He was pale green by now.

Harry crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.

“Well done, Ron, excellent,” said Percy Weasley pompously across Harry as “Zabini, Blaise,” was made a Slytherin.

Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate.

He had only just realized how hungry he was.

The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.

He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said.

“Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! “Thank you!”

He sat back down.

Everybody clapped and cheered.

Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“Is he — a bit mad?” he asked Percy uncertainly.

“Mad?” said Percy airily.

“He’s a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?”

Harry’s mouth fell open.

The dishes in front of him were now piled with food.

He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he’d never been allowed to eat as much as he liked.

Dudley had always taken anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick.

Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat.

It was all delicious.

“That does look good,” said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry cut up his steak.

“Can’t you — ?”

“I haven’t eaten for nearly five hundred years,” said the ghost.

“I don’t need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower.”

“I know who you are!” said Ron suddenly.

“My brothers told me about you — you’re Nearly Headless Nick!”

“I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy —” the ghost began stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupted.

“Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?”

Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he wanted.

“Like this,” he said irritably.

He seized his left ear and pulled.

His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge.

Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly.

Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, “So — new Gryffindors! I hope you’re going to help us win the House Championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the Cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron’s becoming almost unbearable — he’s the Slytherin ghost.”

Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood.

He was right next to Malfoy who, Harry was pleased to see, didn’t look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

“How did he get covered in blood?” asked Seamus with great interest.

“I’ve never asked,” said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before.

A moment later the desserts appeared.

Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding . . .

As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.

“I’m half-and-half,” said Seamus.

“Me dad’s a Muggle. Mum didn’t tell him she was a witch ’til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him.”

The others laughed.

“What about you, Neville?” said Ron.

“Well, my gran brought me up and she’s a witch,” said Neville, “but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me — he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned — but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced — all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here — they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad.”

On Harry’s other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about lessons (“I do hope they start right away, there’s so much to learn, I’m particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it’s supposed to be very difficult —”; “You’ll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing —”).

Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again.

Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet.

Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore.

Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly.

The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.

“Ouch!” Harry clapped a hand to his head.

“What is it?” asked Percy.

“N-nothing.”

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come.

Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher’s look — a feeling that he didn’t like Harry at all.

“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?” he asked Percy.

“Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn’t want to — everyone knows he’s after Quirrell’s job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape.”

Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn’t look at him again.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again.

The hall fell silent.

“Ahem — just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.

“I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.

“He’s not serious?” he muttered to Percy.

“Must be,” said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore.

“It’s odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere — the forest’s full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least.”

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Dumbledore.

Harry noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Dumbledore, “and off we go!”

And the school bellowed:

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,

Whether we be old and bald

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling

With some interesting stuff,

For now they’re bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we’ve forgot,

Just do your best, we’ll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot.”

Everybody finished the song at different times.

At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march.

Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes.

“A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase.

Harry’s legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food.

He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries.

They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.

“Peeves,” Percy whispered to the first years.

“A poltergeist.”

He raised his voice, “Peeves — show yourself.”

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.

“Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?”

There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

“Oooooooh!” he said, with an evil cackle.

“Ickle Firsties! What fun!”

He swooped suddenly at them.

They all ducked.

“Go away, Peeves, or the Baron’ll hear about this, I mean it!” barked Percy.

Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville’s head.

They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

“You want to watch out for Peeves,” said Percy, as they set off again.

“The Bloody Baron’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to us prefects. Here we are.”

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

“Password?” she said.

“Caput Draconis,” said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall.

They all scrambled through it — Neville needed a leg up — and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another.

At the top of a spiral staircase — they were obviously in one of the towers — they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains.

Their trunks had already been brought up.

Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

“Great food, isn’t it?” Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings.

“Get off, Scabbers! He’s chewing my sheets.”

Harry was going to ask Ron if he’d had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream.

He was wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny.

Harry told the turban he didn’t want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully — and there was Malfoy, laughing at him as he struggled with it — then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold — there was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

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There, look.”

“Where?”

“Next to the tall kid with the red hair.”

“Wearing the glasses?”

“Did you see his face?”

“Did you see his scar?”

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day.

People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring.

Harry wished they wouldn’t, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump.

Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending.

It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot.

The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn’t help, either.

It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open.

Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class.

He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!”

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch.

Harry and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning.

Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor.

He wouldn’t believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamplike eyes just like Filch’s.

She patrolled the corridors alone.

Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she’d whisk off for Filch, who’d appear, wheezing, two seconds later.

Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts.

The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves.

There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets.

Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost.

Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him.

Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk.

At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry’s name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different.

Harry had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross.

Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,” she said.

“Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back.

You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again.

They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but soon realized they weren’t going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time.

After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle.

By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke.

His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days.

His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren’t sure they believed this story.

For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn’t miles behind everyone else.

Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn’t had any idea that they were witches and wizards.

There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn’t have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron.

They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

“What have we got today?” Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge.

“Double Potions with the Slytherins,” said Ron.

“Snape’s Head of Slytherin House.

They say he always favors them — we’ll be able to see if it’s true.”

“Wish McGonagall favored us,” said Harry.

Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn’t stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the mail arrived.

Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig hadn’t brought Harry anything so far.

She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls.

This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry’s plate.

Harry tore it open at once.

It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Harry,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?

I want to hear all about your first week.

Send us an answer back with Hedwig.

Hagrid

Harry borrowed Ron’s quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.

It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him.

By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he’d been wrong.

Snape didn’t dislike Harry — he hated him.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons.

It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter. Our new — celebrity.”

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class.

His eyes were black like Hagrid’s, but they had none of Hagrid’s warmth.

They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began.

He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word — like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.

“As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic.

I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . .

I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

More silence followed this little speech.

Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows.

Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn’t a dunderhead.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly.

“What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what?

Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione’s hand had shot into the air.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Harry.

Snape’s lips curled into a sneer.

“Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.”

He ignored Hermione’s hand.

“Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Harry didn’t have the faintest idea what a bezoar was.

He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”

Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes.

He had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Snape was still ignoring Hermione’s quivering hand.

“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

“I don’t know,” said Harry quietly.

“I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?”

A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus’s eye, and Seamus winked.

Snape, however, was not pleased.

“Sit down,” he snapped at Hermione.

“For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death.

A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons.

As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.

Well?

Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment.

Over the noise, Snape said, “And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter.”

Things didn’t improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued.

Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils.

He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like.

He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon.

Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus’s cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes.

Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

“Idiot boy!” snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand.

“I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“Take him up to the hospital wing,” Snape spat at Seamus.

Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.

“You — Potter — why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills?

Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you?

That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor.”

This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron kicked him behind their cauldron.

“Don’t push it,” he muttered, “I’ve heard Snape can turn very nasty.”

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry’s mind was racing and his spirits were low.

He’d lost two points for Gryffindor in his very first week — why did Snape hate him so much?

“Cheer up,” said Ron, “Snape’s always taking points off Fred and George.

Can I come and meet Hagrid with you?”

At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds.

Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest.

A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks.

Then Hagrid’s voice rang out, saying, “Back, Fang — back.”

Hagrid’s big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

“Hang on,” he said.

“Back, Fang.”

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside.

Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

“Make yerselves at home,” said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears.

Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

“This is Ron,” Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

“Another Weasley, eh?” said Hagrid, glancing at Ron’s freckles.

“I spent half me life chasin’ yer twin brothers away from the forest.”

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry and Ron pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons.

Fang rested his head on Harry’s knee and drooled all over his robes.

Harry and Ron were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch “that old git.”

“An’ as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I’d like ter introduce her to Fang sometime.

D’yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere?

Can’t get rid of her — Filch puts her up to it.”

Harry told Hagrid about Snape’s lesson.

Hagrid, like Ron, told Harry not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.

“But he seemed to really hate me.”

“Rubbish!” said Hagrid.

“Why should he?”

Yet Harry couldn’t help thinking that Hagrid didn’t quite meet his eyes when he said that.

“How’s yer brother Charlie?” Hagrid asked Ron.

“I liked him a lot — great with animals.”

Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose.

While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie’s work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy.

It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken.

The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

“But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn’t mentioned the date.

“Hagrid!” said Harry, “that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday!

It might’ve been happening while we were there!”

There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn’t meet Harry’s eyes this time.

He grunted and offered him another rock cake.

Harry read the story again.

The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day.

Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package.

Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry and Ron walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they’d been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he’d had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid.

Had Hagrid collected that package just in time?

Where was it now?

And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn’t want to tell Harry?

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐗. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐃𝐔𝐄𝐋

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Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but that was before he met Draco Malfoy.

Still, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn’t have to put up with Malfoy much.

Or at least, they didn’t until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan.

Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.

“Typical,” said Harry darkly.

“Just what I always wanted.

To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy.”

He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.

“You don’t know that you’ll make a fool of yourself,” said Ron reasonably.

“Anyway, I know Malfoy’s always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that’s all talk.”

Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot.

He complained loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.

He wasn’t the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he’d spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick.

Even Ron would tell anyone who’d listen about the time he’d almost hit a hang glider on Charlie’s old broom.

Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly.

Ron had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, about soccer.

Ron couldn’t see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly.

Harry had caught Ron prodding Dean’s poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the players move.

Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one.

Privately, Harry felt she’d had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was.

This was something you couldn’t learn by heart out of a book — not that she hadn’t tried.

At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she’d gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages.

Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

Harry hadn’t had a single letter since Hagrid’s note, something that Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course.

Malfoy’s eagle owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table.

A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother.

He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.

“It’s a Remembrall!” he explained.

“Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there’s something you’ve forgotten to do.

Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red — oh . . .”

His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, “. . . you’ve forgotten something . . .”

Neville was trying to remember what he’d forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.

Harry and Ron jumped to their feet.

They were half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

“What’s going on?”

“Malfoy’s got my Remembrall, Professor.”

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.

“Just looking,” he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson.

It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground.

Harry had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived.

She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked.

“Everyone stand by a broomstick.

Come on, hurry up.”

Harry glanced down at his broom.

It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say ‘Up!’”

“UP!” everyone shouted.

Harry’s broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did.

Hermione Granger’s had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville’s hadn’t moved at all.

Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville’s voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips.

Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he’d been doing it wrong for years.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch.

“Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly.

On my whistle — three — two —”

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch’s lips.

“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle — twelve feet — twenty feet.

Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and — WHAM — a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap.

His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

“Broken wrist,” Harry heard her mutter.

“Come on, boy — it’s all right, up you get.”

She turned to the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing!

You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch.’

Come on, dear.”

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

The other Slytherins joined in.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped Parvati Patil.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl.

“Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look!” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass.

“It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

“Give that here, Malfoy,” said Harry quietly.

Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily.

“I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about — up a tree?”

“Give it here!” Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off.

He hadn’t been lying, he could fly well.

Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it, Potter!”

Harry grabbed his broom.

“No!” shouted Hermione Granger.

“Madam Hooch told us not to move — you’ll get us all into trouble.”

Harry ignored her.

Blood was pounding in his ears.

He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him — and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he’d found something he could do without being taught — this was easy, this was wonderful.

He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Ron.

He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair.

Malfoy looked stunned.

“Give it here,” Harry called, “or I’ll knock you off that broom!”

“Oh, yeah?” said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do.

He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin.

Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady.

A few people below were clapping.

“No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy,” Harry called.

The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

“Catch it if you can, then!” he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall.

He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down — next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball — wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching — he stretched out his hand — a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

“HARRY POTTER!”

His heart sank faster than he’d just dived.

Professor McGonagall was running toward them.

He got to his feet, trembling.

“Never — in all my time at Hogwarts —”

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, “— how dare you — might have broken your neck —”

“It wasn’t his fault, Professor —”

“Be quiet, Miss Patil —”

“But Malfoy —”

“That’s enough, Mr. Weasley.

Potter, follow me, now.”

Harry caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s triumphant faces as he left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall’s wake as she strode toward the castle.

He was going to be expelled, he just knew it.

He wanted to say something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his voice.

Professor McGonagall was sweeping along without even looking at him; he had to jog to keep up.

Now he’d done it.

He hadn’t even lasted two weeks.

He’d be packing his bags in ten minutes.

What would the Dursleys say when he turned up on the doorstep?

Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor McGonagall didn’t say a word to him.

She wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind her.

Maybe she was taking him to Dumbledore.

He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as gamekeeper.

Perhaps he could be Hagrid’s assistant.

His stomach twisted as he imagined it, watching Ron and the others becoming wizards while he stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid’s bag.

Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom.

She opened the door and poked her head inside.

“Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?”

Wood? thought Harry, bewildered; was Wood a cane she was going to use on him?

But Wood turned out to be a person, a burly fifth-year boy who came out of Flitwick’s class looking confused.

“Follow me, you two,” said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on up the corridor, Wood looking curiously at Harry.

“In here.”

Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.

“Out, Peeves!” she barked.

Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing.

Professor McGonagall slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two boys.

“Potter, this is Oliver Wood.

Wood — I’ve found you a Seeker.”

Wood’s expression changed from puzzlement to delight.

“Are you serious, Professor?”

“Absolutely,” said Professor McGonagall crisply.

“The boy’s a natural.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?”

Harry nodded silently.

He didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he didn’t seem to be being expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to his legs.

“He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive,” Professor McGonagall told Wood.

“Didn’t even scratch himself.

Charlie Weasley couldn’t have done it.”

Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.

“Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?” he asked excitedly.

“Wood’s captain of the Gryffindor team,” Professor McGonagall explained.

“He’s just the build for a Seeker, too,” said Wood, now walking around Harry and staring at him.

“Light — speedy — we’ll have to get him a decent broom, Professor — a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I’d say.”

“I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can’t bend the first-year rule.

Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year.

Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn’t look Severus Snape in the face for weeks. . . .”

Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry.

“I want to hear you’re training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you.”

Then she suddenly smiled.

“Your father would have been proud,” she said.

“He was an excellent Quidditch player himself.”

“You’re joking.”

It was dinnertime.

Harry had just finished telling Ron what had happened when he’d left the grounds with Professor McGonagall.

Ron had a piece of steak and kidney pie halfway to his mouth, but he’d forgotten all about it.

“Seeker?” he said.

“But first years never — you must be the youngest House player in about —”

“— a century,” said Harry, shoveling pie into his mouth.

He felt particularly hungry after the excitement of the afternoon.

“Wood told me.”

Ron was so amazed, so impressed, he just sat and gaped at Harry.

“I start training next week,” said Harry.

“Only don’t tell anyone, Wood wants to keep it a secret.”

Fred and George Weasley now came into the hall, spotted Harry, and hurried over.

“Well done,” said George in a low voice.

“Wood told us.

We’re on the team too — Beaters.”

“I tell you, we’re going to win that Quidditch Cup for sure this year,” said Fred.

“We haven’t won since Charlie left, but this year’s team is going to be brilliant.

You must be good, Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us.”

“Anyway, we’ve got to go, Lee Jordan reckons he’s found a new secret passageway out of the school.”

“Bet it’s that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found in our first week.

See you.”

Fred and George had hardly disappeared when someone far less welcome turned up: Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.

“Having a last meal, Potter?

When are you getting the train back to the Muggles?”

“You’re a lot braver now that you’re back on the ground and you’ve got your little friends with you,” said Harry coolly.

There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

“I’d take you on anytime on my own,” said Malfoy.

“Tonight, if you want.

Wizard’s duel.

Wands only — no contact.

What’s the matter?

Never heard of a wizard’s duel before, I suppose?”

“Of course he has,” said Ron, wheeling around.

“I’m his second, who’s yours?”

Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

“Crabbe,” he said.

“Midnight all right?

We’ll meet you in the trophy room; that’s always unlocked.”

When Malfoy had gone, Ron and Harry looked at each other.

“What is a wizard’s duel?” said Harry.

“And what do you mean, you’re my second?”

“Well, a second’s there to take over if you die,” said Ron casually, getting started at last on his cold pie.

Catching the look on Harry’s face, he added quickly, “But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards.

The most you and Malfoy’ll be able to do is send sparks at each other.

Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage.

I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway.”

“And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?”

“Throw it away and punch him on the nose,” Ron suggested.

“Excuse me.”

They both looked up.

It was Hermione Granger.

“Can’t a person eat in peace in this place?” said Ron.

Hermione ignored him and spoke to Harry.

“I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying —”

“Bet you could,” Ron muttered.

“— and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you’ll lose Gryffindor if you’re caught, and you’re bound to be.

It’s really very selfish of you.”

“And it’s really none of your business,” said Harry.

“Good-bye,” said Ron.

All the same, it wasn’t what you’d call the perfect end to the day, Harry thought, as he lay awake much later listening to Dean and Seamus falling asleep (Neville wasn’t back from the hospital wing).

Ron had spent all evening giving him advice such as “If he tries to curse you, you’d better dodge it, because I can’t remember how to block them.”

There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today.

On the other hand, Malfoy’s sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness — this was his big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face.

He couldn’t miss it.

“Half-past eleven,” Ron muttered at last, “we’d better go.”

They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room.

A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows.

They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, “I can’t believe you’re going to do this, Harry.”

A lamp flickered on.

It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.

“You!” said Ron furiously.

“Go back to bed!”

“I almost told your brother,” Hermione snapped, “Percy — he’s a prefect, he’d put a stop to this.”

Harry couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering.

“Come on,” he said to Ron.

He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.

Hermione wasn’t going to give up that easily.

She followed Ron through the portrait hole, hissing at them like an angry goose.

“Don’t you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don’t want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you’ll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells.”

“Go away.”

“All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you’re on the train home tomorrow, you’re so —”

But what they were, they didn’t find out.

Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting.

The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.

“Now what am I going to do?” she asked shrilly.

“That’s your problem,” said Ron.

“We’ve got to go, we’re going to be late.”

They hadn’t even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“You are not.”

“D’you think I’m going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me?

If he finds all three of us I’ll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up.”

“You’ve got some nerve —” said Ron loudly.

“Shut up, both of you!” said Harry sharply.

“I heard something.”

It was a sort of snuffling.

“Mrs. Norris?” breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.

It wasn’t Mrs. Norris.

It was Neville.

He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.

“Thank goodness you found me!

I’ve been out here for hours, I couldn’t remember the new password to get in to bed.”

“Keep your voice down, Neville.

The password’s ‘Pig snout’ but it won’t help you now, the Fat Lady’s gone off somewhere.”

“How’s your arm?” said Harry.

“Fine,” said Neville, showing them.

“Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute.”

“Good — well, look, Neville, we’ve got to be somewhere, we’ll see you later —”

“Don’t leave me!” said Neville, scrambling to his feet, “I don’t want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron’s been past twice already.”

Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Hermione and Neville.

“If either of you get us caught, I’ll never rest until I’ve learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you.”

Hermione opened her mouth, perhaps to tell Ron exactly how to use the Curse of the Bogies, but Harry hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all forward.

They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows.

At every turn Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky.

They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren’t there yet.

The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them.

Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness.

They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room.

Harry took out his wand in case Malfoy leapt in and started at once.

The minutes crept by.

“He’s late, maybe he’s chickened out,” Ron whispered.

Then a noise in the next room made them jump.

Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak — and it wasn’t Malfoy.

“Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner.”

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris.

Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch’s voice.

Neville’s robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

“They’re in here somewhere,” they heard him mutter, “probably hiding.”

“This way!” Harry mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor.

They could hear Filch getting nearer.

Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run — he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor.

The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

“RUN!” Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following — they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going — they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

“I think we’ve lost him,” Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead.

Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.

“I — told — you,” Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, “I — told — you.”

“We’ve got to get back to Gryffindor Tower,” said Ron, “quickly as possible.”

“Malfoy tricked you,” Hermione said to Harry.

“You realize that, don’t you?

He was never going to meet you — Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off.”

Harry thought she was probably right, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Let’s go.”

It wasn’t going to be that simple.

They hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

It was Peeves.

He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.

“Shut up, Peeves — please — you’ll get us thrown out.”

Peeves cackled.

“Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties?

Tut, tut, tut.

Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty.”

“Not if you don’t give us away, Peeves, please.”

“Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly.

“It’s for your own good, you know.”

“Get out of the way,” snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves — this was a big mistake.

“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed, “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door — and it was locked.

“This is it!” Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, “We’re done for!

This is the end!”

They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves’s shouts.

“Oh, move over,” Hermione snarled.

She grabbed Harry’s wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, “Alohomora!”

The lock clicked and the door swung open — they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.

“Which way did they go, Peeves?” Filch was saying.

“Quick, tell me.”

“Say ‘please.’”

“Don’t mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?”

“Shan’t say nothing if you don’t say please,” said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.

“All right — please.”

“NOTHING!

Ha haaa!

Told you I wouldn’t say nothing if you didn’t say please!

Ha ha!

Haaaaaa!” And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

“He thinks this door is locked,” Harry whispered.

“I think we’ll be okay — get off, Neville!” For Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Harry’s bathrobe for the last minute.

“What?”

Harry turned around — and saw, quite clearly, what.

For a moment, he was sure he’d walked into a nightmare — this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.

They weren’t in a room, as he had supposed.

They were in a corridor.

The forbidden corridor on the third floor.

And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor.

It had three heads.

Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren’t already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

Harry groped for the doorknob — between Filch and death, he’d take Filch.

They fell backward — Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor.

Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn’t see him anywhere, but they hardly cared — all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster.

They didn’t stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.

“Where on earth have you all been?” she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.

“Never mind that — pig snout, pig snout,” panted Harry, and the portrait swung forward.

They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.

It was a while before any of them said anything.

Neville, indeed, looked as if he’d never speak again.

“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” said Ron finally.

“If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.

“You don’t use your eyes, any of you, do you?” she snapped.

“Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”

“The floor?” Harry suggested.

“I wasn’t looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads.”

“No, not the floor.

It was standing on a trapdoor.

It’s obviously guarding something.”

She stood up, glaring at them.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.

We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

“No, we don’t mind,” he said.

“You’d think we dragged her along, wouldn’t you?”

But Hermione had given Harry something else to think about as he climbed back into bed.

The dog was guarding something. . . .

What had Hagrid said?

Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide — except perhaps Hogwarts.

It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.