Harry Potter is not a normal boy. Raised by his cruel Aunt and Uncle, and tormented by his bully of a cousin, Dudley, he has resigned to a life of neglect. On his eleventh birthday, however, a half-giant called Hagrid comes crashing-–quite literally-–into his life, and announces that Harry is a wizard. Together they journey to London to get school supplies for Harry’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. On 1st September Harry takes a train from King’s Cross station, Platform 9 ¾, to Hogwarts school, where he meets Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The three are sorted into the same House, Gryffindor, and although Harry and Ron find Hermione bossy and annoying at first, the three soon become best friends.
After accidentally stumbling into a forbidden corridor and finding a three-headed dog guarding a mysterious trapdoor, the trio attempt to find out what’s concealed within. Some useful slip-ups from Hagrid lead them to research a man called Nicholas Flamel. When Harry uses his father’s Invisibility Cloak to search at night, he happens upon a curious mirror which shows him his dead parents and family. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore reveals to him that this Mirror of Erised shows the beholder their deepest desires, and that what Harry wants most in the world is a family.
Later in the year, Hagrid obtains a dragon egg, and Harry, Ron and Hermione know that once it has hatched he can’t keep it, because it is illegal. Harry and Hermione arrange to give it away one night, but are caught, along with Harry’s enemy Draco Malfoy and their fellow Gryffindor, Neville Longbottom. The four are given detentions, which they carry out with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. Harry and Draco come across a slain Unicorn, and crouching over it is the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, the man who killed Harry’s parents and who Harry supposedly defeated as a baby.
Hermione realises that what is hidden behind the trapdoor is the Philosopher’s Stone, which makes the person who possesses it immortal. The three guess that Voldemort wants the Stone, and that the suspicious Professor Snape is helping him. They journey through the many obstacles that lie behind the trapdoor to get to the Stone, but Harry finds that it is Professor Quirrell who was helping Voldemort all along. He manages to defeat Voldemort and save the Stone, but not Quirrell’s life. After Dumbledore explains all to him, Harry leaves Hogwarts at the end of the year, returning to his Aunt and Uncle.
