Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

honestly.
” 
“This way,” said Harry, pointing down a stone passageway, which 
was the only way forward. 
All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip 
of water trickling down the walls. The passageway sloped down-
ward, and Harry was reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant 
jolt of the heart, he remembered the dragons said to be guarding 
vaults in the wizards’ bank. If they met a dragon, a fully-grown 
dragon — Norbert had been bad enough . . . 

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“Can you hear something?” Ron whispered. 
Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be com-
ing from up ahead. 
“Do you think it’s a ghost?” 
“I don’t know . . . sounds like wings to me.” 
“There’s light ahead — I can see something moving.” 
They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a 
brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was 
full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around 
the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy 
wooden door. 
“Do you think they’ll attack us if we cross the room?” said Ron. 
“Probably,” said Harry. “They don’t look very vicious, but I sup-
pose if they all swooped down at once . . . well, there’s no other 
choice . . . I’ll run.” 
He took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms, and 
sprinted across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws 
tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the 
door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked. 
The other two followed him. They tugged and heaved at the 
door, but it wouldn’t budge, not even when Hermione tried her 
Alohomora Charm. 
“Now what?” said Ron. 
“These birds . . . they can’t be here just for decoration,” said 
Hermione. 
They watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering — 
glitter-
ing
? 
“They’re not birds!” Harry said suddenly. “They’re 
keys
! Winged 
keys — look carefully. So that must mean . . .” he looked around 

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 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
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the chamber while the other two squinted up at the flock of keys. 
“. . . yes — look! Broomsticks! We’ve got to catch the key to the 
door!” 
“But there are 
hundreds
of them!” 
Ron examined the lock on the door. 
“We’re looking for a big, old-fashioned one — probably silver, 
like the handle.” 
They each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soar-
ing into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, 
but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost 
impossible to catch one. 
Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a 
century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn’t. Af-
ter a minute’s weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, 
he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it had al-
ready been caught and stuffed roughly into the keyhole. 
“That one!” he called to the others. “That big one — there — 
no, there — with bright blue wings — the feathers are all crum-
pled on one side.” 
Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, 
crashed into the ceiling, and nearly fell off his broom. 
“We’ve got to close in on it!” Harry called, not taking his eyes off 
the key with the damaged wing. “Ron, you come at it from 
above — Hermione, stay below and stop it from going down — 
and I’ll try and catch it. Right, NOW!” 
Ron dived, Hermione rocketed upward, the key dodged them 
both, and Harry streaked after it; it sped toward the wall, Harry 
leaned forward and with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against

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the stone with one hand. Ron and Hermione’s cheers echoed 
around the high chamber. 
They landed quickly, and Harry ran to the door, the key strug-
gling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned — it 
worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took 
flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught 
twice. 
“Ready?” Harry asked the other two, his hand on the door han-
dle. They nodded. He pulled the door open. 
The next chamber was so dark they couldn’t see anything at all. 
But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to re-
veal an astonishing sight. 
They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind 
the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved 
from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the 
chamber, were the white pieces. Harry, Ron and Hermione shiv-
ered slightly — the towering white chessmen had no faces. 
“Now what do we do?” Harry whispered. 
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said Ron. “We’ve got to play our way 
across the room.” 
Behind the white pieces they could see another door. 
“How?” said Hermione nervously. 
“I think,” said Ron, “we’re going to have to be chessmen.” 
He walked up to a black knight and put his hand out to touch 
the knights horse. At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed 
the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down 
at Ron. 
“Do we — er — have to join you to get across?” 

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The black knight nodded. Ron turned to the other two. 
“This needs thinking about. . . .” he said. “I suppose we’ve got 
to take the place of three of the black pieces. . . .” 
Harry and Hermione stayed quiet, watching Ron think. Finally 
he said, “Now, don’t be offended or anything, but neither of you are 
that good at chess —” 
“We’re not offended,” said Harry quickly. “Just tell us what 
to do.” 
“Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, 
you go there instead of that castle.” 
“What about you?” 
“I’m going to be a knight,” said Ron. 
The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these 
words a knight, a bishop, and a castle turned their backs on the 
white pieces and walked off the board, leaving three empty squares 
that Harry, Ron, and Hermione took. 
“White always plays first in chess,” said Ron, peering across the 
board. “Yes . . . look . . .” 
A white pawn had moved forward two squares. 
Ron started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently 
wherever he sent them. Harry’s knees were trembling. What if they 
lost? 
“Harry — move diagonally four squares to the right.” 
Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken. 
The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the 
board, where he lay quite still, facedown. 
“Had to let that happen,” said Ron, looking shaken. “Leaves you 
free to take that bishop, Hermione, go on.” 

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Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed 
no mercy. Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped 
along the wall. Twice, Ron only just noticed in time that Harry 
and Hermione were in danger. He himself darted around the 
board, taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black 
ones. 
“We’re nearly there,” he muttered suddenly. “Let me think — 
let me think . . .” 
The white queen turned her blank face toward him. 
“Yes . . .” said Ron softly, “it’s the only way . . . I’ve got to be 
taken.” 
“NO!” Harry and Hermione shouted. 
“That’s chess!” snapped Ron. “You’ve got to make some sacri-
fices! I make my move and she’ll take me — that leaves you free 
to checkmate the king, Harry!” 
“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. 

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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 Devils 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

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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: