Harry Potter 01 - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall and up the marble staircase. Harry’s legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much further they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.
    A bundle of walking sticks was floating in mid-air ahead of them and as Percy took a step towards them they started throwing themselves at him.
    ‘Peeves,’ Percy whispered to the first-years. ‘A poltergeist.’ He raised his voice, ‘Peeves – show yourself.’
    A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.
    ‘Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?’
    There was a pop and a little man with wicked dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.
    ‘Oooooooh!’ he said, with an evil cackle. ‘Ickle firsties! What fun!’
    He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.
    ‘Go away, Peeves, or the Baron’ll hear about this, I mean it!’ barked Percy.
    Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville’s head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armour as he passed.
    ‘You want to watch out for Peeves,’ said Percy, as they set off again. ‘The Bloody Baron’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to us Prefects. Here we are.’
    At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.
    ‘Password?’ she said.
    ‘Caput Draconis,’ said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it – Neville needed a leg up – and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cosy, round room full of squashy armchairs.
    Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase – they were obviously in one of the towers – they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep-red velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pyjamas and fell into bed.
    ‘Great food, isn’t it?’ Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. ‘Get off, Scabbers! He’s chewing my sheets.’
    Harry was going to ask Ron if he’d had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.
    Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the turban he didn’t want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully – and there was Malfoy, laughing at him as he struggled with it – then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold – there was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.
    He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.

 
     
— CHAPTER EIGHT —
     
The Potions Master
    ‘There, look.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Next to the tall kid with the red hair.’
    ‘Wearing the glasses?’
    ‘Did you see his face?’
    ‘Did you see his scar?’
    Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory next day. People queuing outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn’t, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.
    There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other and Harry was sure the coats of armour could walk.
    The ghosts