—”Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (September 1998) This is our introduction to the young Harry Potter. He’s an orphan who looks just like his father except he has his mother’s bright green eyes. He also has an odd scar on his forehead shaped like a lightning bolt.
Harry became an orphan at 1, when the evil Lord Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter and gave Harry his scar while trying to kill him, too. He was raised by the nonmagical Dursleys — his aunt Petunia, her horrible husband Vernon and their rotten son Dudley. They treat Harry in the most wicked ways.
Our young English friend learns the truth about his background on his 11th birthday, when Hagrid, groundskeeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pays him a visit and tells him who he really is.
Hogwarts becomes Harry’s new school, where he meets friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and gets a mentor in headmaster Albus Dumbledore. He makes some enemies, too: Draco Malfoy and Professor Severus Snape.
He discovers some talents, like flying. He also learns that Voldemort is still around in spirit and trying to get back his physical form. Voldemort is after the Sorcerer’s Stone, for its life-enhancing properties, but Harry thwarts him.
—”Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (June 1999) The second book starts with 12-year-old Harry wondering why none of his friends have been in touch during the summer. He finds out when he gets a visit from Dobby, a magical house elf owned by the Malfoy family.
At risk to himself, Dobby has sneaked out to warn Harry he is in danger and can’t go back to Hogwarts. Harry, of course, doesn’t listen, and finds a way to get back to school that involves Ron and the magical Weasley car.
But his return to Hogwarts doesn’t go smoothly. And weird things are going on — voices that only Harry can hear, people turning up petrified! The Chamber of Secrets, thought a myth, has been opened, and a monster is attacking students who come from nonmagical families.
Ginny Weasley, Ron’s younger sister, disappears, and Harry finds the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and goes to look for her. He comes across the spirit of Tom Riddle, a former Hogwarts student who turns out to be behind all the trouble. It’s Riddle who later becomes Lord Voldemort.
Harry defeats Riddle. And before returning home, he gets Dobby free of the evil Malfoys.
—”Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (September 1999) Now a teen, Harry wants desperately for the Dursleys to sign a permission slip that would let him go on field trips to a magical village. But he’s thwarted when Uncle Vernon’s horrible sister is too much to bear, and decides to flee after performing some magic he shouldn’t have.
Thinking he’ll be punished by the magical powers that be, Harry is shocked when instead he’s treated like nothing happened and is sent to a magic inn to wait out the rest of his vacation. The night before he returns to Hogwarts, he finds out why: Sirius Black, a feared Voldemort supporter, has escaped from Azkaban, a prison for wizards and witches. Could he be looking for Harry at Hogwarts?
At school, a tense year is capped when Black shows up. But he isn’t looking for Harry, after all. He wants Scabbers, Ron’s pet rat, and it turns out that the animal is a transfigured Peter Pettigrew, a Voldemort follower who committed the crime for which Black was wrongly imprisoned and betrayed Harry’s parents.
Black hopes he will finally be exonerated, and as Harry’s godfather, offers him a home. But Pettigrew escapes, and it’s back to life on the lam for Black.
—”Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (July 2000) In a change from the first three books, this one doesn’t open with Harry. It starts with the story of how the horrible Riddle family died.
It then shifts to the present, where we discover that Pettigrew...
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