Harry Potter 1 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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

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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 feet 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

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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?”

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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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