Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

by J.K. Rowling

Harry could hear running water; there must be a stream somewhere close by.

The three of them listened. Something was slithering over dead leaves nearby: it sounded like a cloak trailing along the ground.

“Always the innocent are the first victims,” he said. “So it has been for ages past, so it is now.”

“Mars is bright tonight,” Ronan repeated, while Hagrid watched him impatiently. “Unusually bright.”

“The forest hides many secrets.”

only a second centaur, black-haired and -bodied and wilder-looking than Ronan.

Bane walked over to stand next to Ronan. He looked skyward. “Mars is bright tonight,” he said simply.

“Never,” said Hagrid irritably, “try an’ get a straight answer out of a centaur. Ruddy stargazers. Not interested in anythin’ closer’n the moon.”

Neville, you stay with me an’ Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an’ this idiot.

So Harry set off into the heart of the forest with Malfoy and Fang. They walked for nearly half an hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick.

It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad.

Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood.

a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast.

The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal’s side, a...

“Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?”

Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our forest!”

“Do you not see that unicorn?” Firenze bellowed at Bane. “Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must.”

“Why’s Bane so angry?” he asked. “What was that thing you saved me from, anyway?”

“No,” said Harry, startled by the odd question. “We’ve only used the horn and tail hair in Potions.”

“That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn,”

The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.”

“It is,” Firenze agreed, “unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else — something that will bring you back to full strength and power

do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?”

he seemed to hear once more what Hagrid had told him on the night they had met: “Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.”

Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment.

They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell.

Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox — points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers.

remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

Harry kept being woken by his old nightmare, except that it was now worse than ever because there was a hooded figure dripping blood in it.

they hadn’t seen what Harry had seen in the forest, or because they didn’t have scars burning on their foreheads, but Ron and Hermione didn’t seem as worried about the Stone as Harry.

they were so busy with their studying they didn’t have much time to fret about what Snape or anyone else might be up to.

One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who’d invented self-stirring cauldrons

When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry could...

“I needn’t have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager.”

so they wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

Neville was clearly steeling himself to do something desperate. “I won’t let you do it,” he said, hurrying to stand in front of the portrait hole. “I’ll — I’ll fight you!”

Harry turned to Hermione. “Do something,” he said desperately.

“Neville,” she said, “I’m really, really sorry about this.” She raised her wand. “Petrificus Totalus!” she cried, pointing it at Neville.

“What’ve you done to him?” Harry whispered. “It’s the full Body-Bind,”

“You’ll understand later, Neville,” said Ron as they stepped over him and pulled on the Invisibility Cloak.

“Oh, let’s kick her, just this once,” Ron whispered in Harry’s ear, but Harry shook his head.

Peeves was bobbing halfway up, loosening the carpet so that people would trip.

“Know you’re there, even if I can’t see you. Are you ghoulie or ghostie or wee student beastie?”

“Peeves,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “the Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible.”

Peeves almost fell out of the air in shock.

“So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr. Baron, sir,” he said greasily. “My mistake, my mistake — I didn’t see you — of course I didn’t, you’re invisible — f...

“It’s okay!” he called up to the light the size of a postage stamp, which was the open trapdoor, “it’s a soft landing, you can jump!”

“Dunno, some sort of plant thing. I suppose it’s here to break the fall. Come on, Hermione!”

“We must be miles under the school,” she said.