Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Ten years later, on Dudley’s birthday, Petunia raps on the door to Harry’s tiny room in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry has just woken up from a good dream: there had been a flying motorcycle in it. Petunia yells at him to get up and make bacon for Dudley.

The kitchen table is strewn with Dudley’s birthday presents: a computer, a second television, a racing bike (though why he wants a bike is a mystery to Harry, because Dudley is very fat). Harry, by contrast, has always been small and skinny—and he looks even smaller and skinnier because he wears Dudley’s old clothes.

Harry has black hair, bright green eyes, and round glasses feebly held together with tape because of all the times Dudley has punched him in the face. Harry also has a unique scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead, which, according to Petunia, is from the car crash in which Harry’s parents died.

Harry is frying eggs when Dudley comes into the kitchen and counts his presents. Dudley is disappointed to see that he has only thirty-seven—one less than last year. He is about to throw a tantrum when Petunia tells him that they’ll buy him two more presents when they go out later in the day.

As Dudley opens his presents, the phone rings in the house. Their neighbor, Mrs. Figg, is calling to say that she can’t take Harry for the day while the rest of the family celebrate Dudley’s birthday. Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley are all furious. Dudley starts to cry, saying that Harry spoils everything. But then his best friend, Piers Polkiss arrives, and Dudley stops pretending to cry at once. It is then decided that Harry will go with the Dursleys to the zoo, because they don’t want to leave him alone at home. Before they leave, Vernon warns Harry that there would be no “funny business” or Harry would stay in his cupboard from then until Christmas.

Harry promises not to do anything, though he understands why Vernon doesn’t believe him: strange things often happen around Harry. Once, Petunia had cut his hair to be almost bald, but his hair had miraculously grown back the next day. Another time, Petunia had tried to force him into a “revolting” sweater of Dudley’s, but it had shrunk until it could only fit a puppet. And another time, he had been inexplicably found on the school roof after Dudley had been chasing him. He had been punished severely each time.

In the car, Vernon starts to complain about everything around him: Harry, work, the bank, and motorcycles. Harry mentions his dream about a flying motorcycle, which prompts Vernon to shout, “MOTORCYCLES DON’T FLY” in a rage. Harry wishes he hadn’t said anything: he knows that the Dursleys don’t like him talking about anything acting in a way that it shouldn’t, as if he might get “dangerous ideas.”

At the zoo, Harry has the best morning he’s had in a long time. He walks around the zoo apart from the Dursleys, and is able to finish one of the desserts that Dudley doesn’t want when they eat in the restaurant. After lunch, they visit the reptile house. Vernon and Dudley try to get a python to move behind a glass tank, but it doesn’t budge. Dudley moves on, bored.

Harry looks at the snake, which suddenly opens its eyes and winks. Harry thinks that he sees the snake roll its eyes at Vernon and Dudley. Harry tells the snake that it must be annoying, and the snake agrees. Harry asks the snake where it comes from, and the snake jabs its tail towards a sign saying it’s from Brazil but has been bred in the zoo.

At the sight of the snake moving, Dudley punches Harry in the ribs, knocking him out of the way. When Harry looks up, Dudley and his friend Piers leap back with howls of horror: the glass has vanished. The snake slides onto the floor, and Harry is certain he hears the snake thanking him as it slithers out of the reptile house. The group returns to the car and drives home. Back at the house, Vernon spits out the words, “Go—cupboard—stay—no meals.”

In his dark cupboard, Harry wonders what time it is, hoping that he can steal food when the Dursleys go to sleep. He had lived with them for ten miserable years, as long as he could remember. He can’t remember his parents or the car crash that killed them—only a strange green light.

When he was younger, Harry dreamed that some unknown relation would come and take him away. Sometimes he thought that strangers in the street recognized him (waving, bowing, or shaking his hand), but they always seemed to vanish whenever Harry tried to get a closer look at them. At school, though, Harry “[has] no one.” Everyone knows that Dudley hates him, and no one dares to disagree with Dudley and his formidable gang.