r/> I'd read the name somewhere before, I read it on the train coming

here -- listen to this: 'Dumbledore is particularly famous for his

defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery

of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with

his partner, Nicolas Flamel'!"

Hermione jumped to her feet. She hadn't looked so excited since

they'd gotten back the marks for their very first piece of homework.

"Stay there!" she said, and she sprinted up the stairs to

the girls' dormitories. Harry and Ron barely had time to exchange

mystified looks before she was dashing back, an enormous old book

in her arms.

"I never thought to look in here!" she whispered excitedly. "I

got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."

"Light?" said Ron, but Hermione told him to be quiet until she'd

looked something up, and started flicking frantically through the

pages, muttering to herself.

At last she found what she was looking for.

"I knew it! I knew it!"

"Are we allowed to speak yet?" said Ron grumpily. Hermione

ignored him.

"Nicolas Flamel," she whispered dramatically, "is the only

known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone!"

This didn't have quite the effect she'd expected.

"The what?" said Harry and Ron.

"Oh, honestly, don't you two read? Look -- read that, there."

She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The

ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's

Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will

transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of

Life, which will make the drinker immortal.

There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the

centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to

Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel,

who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year,

enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred

and fifty-eight).

"See?" said Hermione, when Harry and Ron had finished. "The dog

must be guarding Flamel's Sorcerer's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore

to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone

was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!"

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying!" said

Harry. "No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that Study of Recent

Developments in Wizardry," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if

he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?"

The next morning in Defense Against the Dark Arts, while copying

down different ways of treating werewolf bites, Harry and Ron were

still discussing what they'd do with a Sorcerer's Stone if they had

one. It wasn't until Ron said he'd buy his own Quidditch team that

Harry remembered about Snape and the coming match.

"I'm going to play," he told Ron and Hermione. "If I don't, all

the Slytherins will think I'm just too scared to face Snape. I'll

show them... it'll really wipe the smiles off their faces if we win."

"Just as long as we're not wiping you off the field," said

Hermione.

As the match drew nearer, however, Harry became more and more

nervous, whatever he told Ron and Hermione. The rest of the team

wasn't too calm, either. The idea of overtaking Slytherin in the

house championship was wonderful, no one had done it for seven years,

but would they be allowed to, with such a biased referee?

Harry didn't know whether he was imagining it or not, but

he seemed to keep running into Snape wherever he went. At times,

he even wondered whether Snape was following him, trying to catch

him on his own. Potions lessons were turning into a sort of weekly

torture, Snape was so horrible to Harry. Could Snape possibly know

they'd found out about the Sorcerer's Stone? Harry didn't see how

he could -- yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape

could read minds.

Harry knew, when they wished him good luck outside the locker

rooms the next afternoon, that Ron and Hermione were wondering

whether they