This document is the first book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, originally titled ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. It follows the journey of a young boy, Harry Potter, as he discovers his magical heritage and attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book explores themes of friendship, bravery, and the battle between good and evil.
— CHAPTER ONE —
The Boy Who Lived
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to
say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They
were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything
strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such
nonsense.
Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which
made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck,
although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was
thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck,
which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning
over garden fences, spying on the neighbours. The Dursleys had a
small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer
boy anywhere.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a
secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover
it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about
the Potters. Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t
met for several years; in fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn’t
have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband
were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys
shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if the Potters
arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a
small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was
another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn’t
want Dudley mixing with a child like that.
When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday
our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to
suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be hap-
pening all over the country. Mr Dursley hummed as he picked out
his most boring tie for work and Mrs Dursley gossiped away
8 H a r r y P o t t e r
happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.
None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window.
At half past eight, Mr Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked
Mrs Dursley on the cheek and tried to kiss Dudley goodbye but
missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing
his cereal at the walls. ‘Little tyke,’ chortled Mr Dursley as he left
the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four’s
drive.
It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign
of something peculiar – a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr
Dursley didn’t realise what he had seen – then he jerked his head
around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner
of Privet Drive, but there wasn’t a map in sight. What could
he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light.
Mr Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr
Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the
cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive
– no, looking at the sign; cats couldn’t read maps or signs. Mr
Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his
mind. As he drove towards town he thought of nothing except a
large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.
But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by
something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he
couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely
dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr Dursley couldn’t bear
people who dressed in funny clothes – the get-ups you saw on
young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He
drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a
huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whis-
pering excitedly together. Mr Dursley was enraged to see that a
couple of them weren’t young at all; why, that man had to be older
than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of
him! But then it struck Mr Dursley that this was probably some
silly stunt – these people were obviously collecting for something
… yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on, and a few minutes
later, Mr Dursley arrived in the Grunnings car park, his mind
back on drills.
Mr Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office
on the ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to
concentrate on drills that morning. He didn’t see the owls
T h e Boy Who Lived 9
swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the
street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl
sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at night-
time. Mr Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morn-
ing. He yelled at five different people. He made several important
telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good
mood until lunch-time, when he thought he’d stretch his legs
and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the baker’s
opposite.
He’d forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a
group of them next to the baker’s. He eyed them angrily as he
passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him uneasy. This lot
were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn’t see a single
collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large
doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were
saying.
‘The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard –’
‘– yes, their son, Harry –’
Mr Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at
the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but
thought better of it.
He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office,
snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone
and had almost finished dialling his home number when he
changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his
moustache, thinking … no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn’t
such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people
called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he
wasn’t even sure his nephew was called Harry. He’d never even
seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no
point in worrying Mrs Dursley, she always got so upset at any
mention of her sister. He didn’t blame her – if he’d had a sister like
that … but all the same, those people in cloaks …
He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon,
and when he left the building at five o’clock, he was still so
worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.
‘Sorry,’ he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost
fell. It was a few seconds before Mr Dursley realised that the man
was wearing a violet cloak. He didn’t seem at all upset at being
almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into
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