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

recorded the house points next day thought there’d been a mistake. How could they suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday? And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lost them all those points, him and a couple of other stupid first-years.
    From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the House Cup. Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn’t trouble to lower their voices as they insulted him. Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering, ‘Thanks Potter, we owe you one!’
    Only Ron stood by him.
    ‘They’ll all forget this in a few weeks. Fred and George have lost loads of points in all the time they’ve been here, and people still like them.’
    ‘They’ve never lost a hundred and fifty points in one go, though, have they?’ said Harry miserably.
    ‘Well – no,’ Ron admitted.
    It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren’t his business from now on. He’d had it with sneaking around and spying. He felt so ashamed of himself that he went to Wood and offered to resign from the Quidditch team.
    ‘Resign?’ Wood thundered. ‘What good’ll that do? How are we going to get any points back if we can’t win at Quidditch?’
    But even Quidditch had lost its fun. The rest of the team wouldn’t speak to Harry during practice, and if they had to speak about him, they called him ‘the Seeker’.
    Hermione and Neville were suffering, too. They didn’t have as bad a time as Harry, because they weren’t as well known, but nobody would speak to them either. Hermione had stopped drawing attention to herself in class, keeping her head down and working in silence.
    Harry was almost glad that the exams weren’t far away. All the revision he had to do kept his mind off his misery. He, Ron and Hermione kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells off by heart, memorise the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions …
    Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, Harry’s new resolution not to interfere in anything that didn’t concern him was put to an unexpected test. Walking back from the library on his own one afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As he drew closer, he heard Quirrell’s voice.
    ‘No – no – not again, please –’
    It sounded as though someone was threatening him. Harry moved closer.
    ‘All right – all right –’ he heard Quirrell sob.
    Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom, straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; Harry didn’t think Quirrell had even noticed him. He waited until Quirrell’s footsteps had disappeared, then peered into the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end. Harry was halfway towards it before he remembered what he’d promised himself about not meddling.
    All the same, he’d have gambled twelve Philosopher’s Stones that Snape had just left the room, and from what Harry had just heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step – Quirrell seemed to have given in at last.
    Harry went back to the library, where Hermione was testing Ron on Astronomy. Harry told them what he’d heard.
    ‘Snape’s done it, then!’ said Ron. ‘If Quirrell’s told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell –’
    ‘There’s still Fluffy, though,’ said Hermione.
    ‘Maybe Snape’s found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid,’ said Ron, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding them. ‘I bet there’s a book somewhere in here, telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?’
    The light of adventure was kindling again in Ron’s eyes, but Hermione answered before Harry could.
    ‘Go to Dumbledore. That’s what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we’ll be thrown out for sure.’
    ‘But we’ve got no proof! ’ said Harry. ‘Quirrell’s too scared to back us up. Snape’s only got to say he doesn’t know how the troll got in at Hallowe’en and that he was nowhere near the third