Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

So
?” snapped Mrs. Dursley. 
“Well, I just thought . . . maybe . . . it was something to do 
with . . . you know . . . 
her
crowd.” 
Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley 
wondered whether he dared tell her he’d heard the name “Potter.” 
He decided he didn’t dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, 
“Their son — he’d be about Dudley’s age now, wouldn’t he?” 
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Dursley stiffly. 
“What’s his name again? Howard, isn’t it?” 
“Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me.” 
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. “Yes, I 
quite agree.” 
He didn’t say another word on the subject as they went upstairs 
to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley 
crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front gar-
den. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as 
though it were waiting for something. 
Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do

---

CHAPTER ONE 
‘
8 
‘
with the Potters? If it did . . . if it got out that they were related to 
a pair of — well, he didn’t think he could bear it. 
The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but 
Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, 
comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters 
were 
involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and 
Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia 
thought about them and their kind. . . . He couldn’t see how he 
and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going 
on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn’t affect 
them.
. . . 
How very wrong he was. 
Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but 
the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was 
sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far cor-
ner of Privet Drive. It didn’t so much as quiver when a car door 
slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. 
In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all. 
A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, ap-
peared so suddenly and silently you’d have thought he’d just 
popped out of the ground. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes nar-
rowed. 
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He 
was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and 
beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was 
wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and 
high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and 
sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long 
and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This 
man’s name was Albus Dumbledore. 

---

THE BOY WHO LIVED 
‘
9 
‘
Albus Dumbledore didn’t seem to realize that he had just arrived 
in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwel-
come. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for some-
thing. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he 
looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from 
the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat 
seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, “I should have 
known.” 
He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It 
seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up 
in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a 
little pop. He clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into dark-
ness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights 
left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, 
which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out 
of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn’t 
be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. 
Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set 
off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the 
wall next to the cat. He didn’t look at it, but after a moment he 
spoke to it. 
“Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.” 
He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was 
smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square 
glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its 
eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair 
was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled. 
“How did you know it was me?” she asked. 
“My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly.” 

---

CHAPTER ONE 
‘
10 
‘
“You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day,” said 
Professor McGonagall. 
“All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have 
passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.” 
Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily. 
“Oh yes, everyone’s celebrating, all right,” she said impatiently. 
“You’d think they’d be a bit more careful, but no — even the Mug-
gles have noticed something’s going on. It was on their news.” She 
jerked her head back at the Dursleys’ dark living-room window. “I 
heard it. Flocks of owls . . . shooting stars. . . . Well, they’re not 
completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shoot-
ing stars down in Kent — I’ll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He 
never had much sense.” 
“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had 
precious little to celebrate for eleven years.” 
“I know that,” said Professor McGonagall irritably. “But that’s 
no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, 
out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle 
clothes, swapping rumors.” 
She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as 
though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn’t, so 
she went on. “A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-
Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found 
out about us all. I suppose he really 
has
gone, Dumbledore?” 
“It certainly seems so,” said Dumbledore. “We have much to be 
thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?” 
“A 
what
?” 
“A lemon drop. They’re a kind of Muggle sweet I’m rather 
fond of.” 

---

THE BOY WHO LIVED 
‘
11 
‘
“No, thank you,” said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though 
she didn’t think this was the moment for lemon drops. “As I say, 
even if You-Know-Who 
has
gone —” 
“My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call 
him by his name? All this ‘You-Know-Who’ nonsense — for eleven 
years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his 
proper name: