Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hp-1

by J. K. Rowling

  “But—”

  “Do you want to stop Snape or not?”

  “Ron—”

  “Look, if you don’t hurry up, he’ll already have the Stone!”

  There was no alternative.

  “Ready?” Ron called, his face pale but determined. “Here I go—now, don’t hang around once you’ve won.”

  He stepped forward, and the white queen pounced. She struck Ron hard across the head with her stone arm, and he crashed to the floor—Hermione screamed but stayed on her square—the white queen dragged Ron to one side. He looked as if he’d been knocked out.

  Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left.

  The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry’s feet. They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear. With one last desperate look back at Ron, Harry and Hermione charged through the door and up the next passageway.

  “What if he’s—?”

  “He’ll be all right,” said Harry, trying to convince himself. “What do you reckon’s next?”

  “We’ve had Sprout’s, that was the Devil’s Snare; Flitwick must’ve put charms on the keys; McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive; that leaves Quirrell’s spell, and Snape’s.”

  They had reached another door.

  “All right?” Harry whispered.

  “Go on.”

  Harry pushed it open.

  A disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making both of them pull their robes up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to fight that one,” Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. “Come on, I can’t breathe.”

  He pulled open the next door, both of them hardly daring to look at what came next—but there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

  “Snape’s,” said Harry. “What do we have to do?”

  They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn’t ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

  “Look!” Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over her shoulder to read it:

  Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,

  Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,

  One among us seven will let you move ahead,

  Another will transport the drinker back instead,

  Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

  Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line.

  Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,

  To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

  First, however slyly the poison tries to hide

  You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;

  Second, different are those who stand at either end,

  But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;

  Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

  Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

  Fourth, the second left and the second on the right

  Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

  Hermione let out a great sigh and Harry, amazed, saw that she was smiling, the very last thing he felt like doing.

  “Brilliant,” said Hermione. “This isn’t magic—it’s logic—a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.”

  “But so will we, won’t we?”

  “Of course not,” said Hermione. “Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison; two are wine; one will get us safely through the black fire, and one will get us back through the purple.”

  “But how do we know which to drink?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Hermione read the paper several times. Then she walked up and down the line of bottles, muttering to herself and pointing at them. At last, she clapped her hands.

  “Got it,” she said. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire—toward the Stone.”

  Harry looked at the tiny bottle.

  “There’s only enough there for one of us,” he said. “That’s hardly one swallow.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Which one will get you back through the purple flames?”

  Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

  “You drink that,” said Harry. “No, listen, get back and get Ron. Grab brooms from the flying-key room, they’ll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy—go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we need him. I might be able to hold Snape off for a while, but I’m no match for him, really.”

  “But Harry—what if You-Know-Who’s with him?”

  “Well—I was lucky once, wasn’t I?” said Harry, pointing at his scar. “I might get lucky again.”

  Hermione’s lip trembled, and she suddenly dashed at Harry and threw her arms around him.

  “Hermione!”

  “Harry—you’re a great wizard, you know.”

  “I’m not as good as you,” said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.

  “Me!” said Hermione. “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery and—oh Harry—be careful!”

  “You drink first,” said Harry. “You are sure which is which, aren’t you?”

  “Positive,” said Hermione. She took a long drink from the round bottle at the end, and shuddered.

  “It’s not poison?” said Harry anxiously.

  “No—but it’s like ice.”

  “Quick, go, before it wears off.”

  “Good luck—take care.”

  “GO!”

  Hermione turned and walked straight through the purple fire.

  Harry took a deep breath and picked up the smallest bottle. He turned to face the black flames.

  “Here I come,” he said, and he drained the little bottle in one gulp.

  It was indeed as though ice was flooding his body. He put the bottle down and walked forward; he braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body, but couldn’t feel them—for a moment he could see nothing but dark fire—then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

  There was already someone there—but it wasn’t Snape. It wasn’t even Voldemort.

  17. THE MAN WITH TWO FACES

  It was Quirrell.

  “You!” gasped Harry.

  Quirrell smiled. His face wasn’t twitching at all.

  “Me,” he said calmly. “I wondered whether I’d be meeting you here, Potter.”

  “But I thought—Snape—”

  “Severus?” Quirrell laughed, and it wasn’t his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. “Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn’t he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?”

  Harry couldn’t take it in. This couldn’t be true, it couldn’t.

  “But Snape tried to kill me!”

  “No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I’d have got you off that broom. I’d have managed it before then if Snape hadn’t been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you.”

  “Snape was trying to save me?”

  “Of course,” said Quirrell coolly. “Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn’t do it again. Funny, really . . . he needn’t have bothered. I couldn’t do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to
stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular . . . and what a waste of time, when after all that, I’m going to kill you tonight.”

  Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry.

  “You’re too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you’d seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone.”

  “You let the troll in?”

  “Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls—you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off—and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three headed dog didn’t even manage to bite Snape’s leg off properly.

  “Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror.”

  It was only then that Harry realized what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.

  “This mirror is the key to finding the Stone,” Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. “Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this . . . but he’s in London . . . I’ll be far away by the time he gets back. . . .”

  All Harry could think of doing was to keep Quirrell talking and stop him from concentrating on the mirror.

  “I saw you and Snape in the forest—” he blurted out.

  “Yes,” said Quirrell idly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. “He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I’d got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me—as though he could, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side. . . .”

  Quirrell came back out from behind the mirror and stared hungrily into it.

  “I see the Stone . . . I’m presenting it to my master . . . but where is it?”

  Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn’t give. He had to keep Quirrell from giving his whole attention to the mirror.

  “But Snape always seemed to hate me so much.”

  “Oh, he does,” said Quirrell casually, “heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn’t you know? They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead.”

  “But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing—I thought Snape was threatening you. . . .”

  For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell’s face.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I find it hard to follow my master’s instructions—he is a great wizard and I am weak—”

  “You mean he was there in the classroom with you?” Harry gasped.

  “He is with me wherever I go,” said Quirrell quietly. “I met him when I traveled around the world. A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it. . . . Since then, I have served him faithfully, although I have let him down many times. He has had to be very hard on me.” Quirrell shivered suddenly. “He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased. He punished me . . . decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me. . . .”

  Quirrell’s voice trailed away. Harry was remembering his trip to Diagon Alley. How could he have been so stupid? He’d seen Quirrell there that very day, shaken hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron.

  Quirrell cursed under his breath.

  “I don’t understand . . . is the Stone inside the mirror? Should I break it?”

  Harry’s mind was racing.

  What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment, he thought, is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So if I look in the mirror, I should see myseff finding it—which means I’ll see where it’s hidden! But how can I look without Quirrell realizing what I’m up to?

  He tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself.

  “What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!”

  And to Harry’s horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself.

  “Use the boy . . . Use the boy . . .”

  Quirrell rounded on Harry.

  “Yes—Potter—come here.”

  He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got slowly to his feet.

  “Come here,” Quirrell repeated. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

  Harry walked toward him.

  I must lie, he thought desperately. I must look and lie about what I see, that’s all.

  Quirrell moved close behind him. Harry breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell’s turban. He closed his eyes, stepped in front of the mirror, and opened them again.

  He saw his reflection, pale and scared looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket—and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow—incredibly—he’d gotten the Stone.

  “Well?” said Quirrell impatiently. “What do you see?”

  Harry screwed up his courage.

  “I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore,” he invented. “I—I’ve won the house cup for Gryffindor.”

  Quirrell cursed again.

  “Get out of the way,” he said. As Harry moved aside, he felt the Sorcerer’s Stone against his leg. Dare he make a break for it?

  But he hadn’t walked five paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn’t moving his lips.

  “He lies . . . He lies . . .”

  “Potter, come back here!” Quirrell shouted. “Tell me the truth! What did you just see?”

  The high voice spoke again.

  “Let me speak to him . . . face-to-face . . .”

  “Master, you are not strong enough!”

  “I have strength enough . . . for this. . . .”

  Harry felt as if Devil’s Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn’t move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell’s head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.

  Harry would have screamed, but he couldn’t make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.

  “Harry Potter . . .” it whispered.

  Harry tried to take a step backward but his legs wouldn’t move.

  “See what I have become?” the face said. “Mere shadow and vapor . . . I have form only when I can share another’s body . . . but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds. . . . Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks . . . you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest . . . and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own. . . . Now . . . why don’t you give me that Stone in your pocket?”

  So he knew. The feeling suddenly surged back into Harry’s legs. He stumbled backward.

  “Don’t be a fool,” snarled the face. “Better save your own life and join me . . . or you’ll meet the same end as your parents. . . . They died begging me for mercy . . .”

  “LIAR!” Harry shouted suddenly.

  Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.

  “How touching . . .” it hissed. “I always value bravery . . . Yes, boy, your parents were brave. . . . I killed your father first; and he put up a courageous fight . . . but your mother needn’t have died . . . she was trying to protect you. . . . Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain.”

  “NEVER!”

>   Harry sprang toward the flame door, but Voldemort screamed “SEIZE HIM!” and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell’s hand close on his wrist. At once, a needle sharp pain seared across Harry’s scar; his head felt as though it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggling with all his might, and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened—he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers—they were blistering before his eyes.

  “Seize him! SEIZE HIM!” shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet, landing on top of him, both hands around Harry’s neck—Harry’s scar was almost blinding him with pain, yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony.

  “Master, I cannot hold him—my hands—my hands!”

  And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms—Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny.

  “Then kill him, fool, and be done!” screeched Voldemort.

  Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face—

  “AAAARGH!”

  Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain—his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him from doing a curse.

  Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off—the pain in Harry’s head was building—he couldn’t see—he could only hear Quirrell’s terrible shrieks and Voldemort’s yells of, “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” and other voices, maybe in Harry’s own head, crying, “Harry! Harry!”

  He felt Quirrell’s arm wrenched from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down . . . down . . . down . . .

  Something gold was glinting just above him. The Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were too heavy.

  He blinked. It wasn’t the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange.