The Books: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (J.K. Rowling)

Next Daily Excerpt:

Children’s book shelf:

Next book on the shelf is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.

I need to post an excerpt from the first chapter. I’ll just explain why. This is a series, a burgeoning phenomenon, so it is interesting to look at the beginning. How she chose to start it.

Re-reading the first chapter now, it occurs to me that it doesn’t feel like a fluke at all that this series took off, and that Harry Potter became as huge as he did. It’s all there in the first chapter, and, more specifically, in the last paragraph of the first chapter.

I think JK Rowling knew exactly what she was doing, and while it may have been one of those lucky strikes of fortune that helped propel this book into mythic status (not to mention a good marketing and publicity team), I still imagine Rowling sitting in the coffee shop, scribbling the first chapter in a cheap looseleaf notebook, or on stray napkins, whatever piece of paper was handy. There was no guarantee for her. There are no guarantees, in general. The success of Harry Potter was not a foregone conclusion, even though the whole thing seems inevitable now. I think that if the first chapter were not so, well, perfect, the series might not have taken off as it did. How can you not keep reading after that last paragraph?

But also, there’s a little bit more to that chapter than just setting up a cool story. And whatever it is in that last paragraph.

The only word I can think of to use is an appropriate one: Magic.

Suddenly, in that last paragraph, there is magic. The microscope becomes a telescope, in one fell swoop. It starts in minute detail, and then pulls back, way way back. It’s cinematic, in the writing. From a close-up to a far panoramic shot.

Here’s the end of that first chapter:

Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hhid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

“Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?”

“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. “Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.”

“No problems, were there?”

“No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Bristol.”

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

“Is that where –” whispered Professor McGonagall.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “He’ll have the scar forever.”

“Couldn’t you do something about it, Dumbledore?”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in handy. I have one above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well – give him here, Hagrid – we’d better get this over with.”

Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys’ house.

“Could I — could I say good-bye to him, sir?” asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

“Shhh!” hissed Professor McGonagall, “you’ll wake the Muggles!”

“S – s – sorry,” sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. “But I c-c-can’t stand it – Lily and James dead – an’ poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles –”

“Yes, yes, it’s all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we’ll be found,” Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry’s blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid’s shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore’s eyes seemed to have gone out.

“Well,” said Dumbledore finally, “that’s that. We’ve no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations.”

“Yeah,” said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, “I’ll be takin’ Sirius his bike back. G’night, Professor McGonagall – Professor Dumbledore, sir.”

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

“I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall,” said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

“Good luck, Harry,” he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley … He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Harry Potter – the boy who lived!”