Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Harry spends a final month with Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley. They no longer torment Harry, but they have also stopped acknowledging his existence altogether. Thus, Harry keeps primarily to his room, with his new owl keeping him company. He calls her Hedwig—a name he finds in one of his new books, A History of Magic. Harry’s schoolbooks are very interesting, and he reads late into the night.

The day that Harry leaves for school, the Dursleys drive him to King’s Cross station, where he is meant to take an eleven o’clock train from platform nine and three-quarters. Vernon dumps Harry’s trunk on a cart and helps him roll it to the platforms. Vernon snickers, noting that there’s no platform nine and three-quarters, and leaves laughing. Harry gets nervous; he stops a passing guard and tries to ask about the train to Hogwarts, but the guard doesn’t know anything about it. Harry tries not to panic, but the train is leaving in ten minutes.

Just then Harry hears a woman talking about Muggles. He turns to find a plump, red-haired woman (Molly Weasley) talking to four boys and a small girl, all with equally red hair. He watches as the oldest boy in the group, Percy, marches towards the dividing barrier between platforms nine and ten and disappears. The next two boys, twins named Fred and George, follow the same path.

Harry approaches Molly, and she assumes that he must be a first year, like her youngest son Ron. She kindly teaches Harry how to get to the platform: walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten (and not to be afraid while doing so). He starts to run towards the barrier, closing his eyes as he nears it, awaiting a crash. But when he opens his eyes, a scarlet steam engine waits in front of him, packed with people: he has found the Hogwarts Express.

Harry pushes his cart past the first few train cars, already packed with students. He presses on until he finds an empty compartment near the end. He tries to push his cart onto the train, and Ron appears, offering to help him lift it onto the train (with some aid from Fred and George). When they get a closer look at Harry, they notice his scar, and realize who he is. Harry gets embarrassed and hastily boards the train.

Harry watches Fred, George, Ron, and Percy say goodbye to their mother, Molly. Percy says he can’t stay long, as he’s a prefect; Molly kisses him on the cheek goodbye. She warns Fred and George to behave themselves and to look after Ron. They then tell her with excitement that the boy they met on the platform is Harry Potter. The young girl, Ginny, asks to see him, but Molly says that he’s not something to “goggle at in a zoo,” and tells the boys not to ask any invasive questions. They all say a final goodbye and board the train.

The train pulls out of the station and Harry feels a “leap of excitement” about the future. Then, the youngest red-headed boy, Ron, enters the compartment, asking to sit with Harry because all of the other cars are full. Ron asks if he’s really Harry Potter, and if he has the scar. When Harry shows him, Ron stares. Harry confesses that he can’t remember anything about what happened, though.

Harry, in turn, asks Ron if all his family are wizards. When Ron says yes, Harry says he must know loads of magic. Harry wishes that he had three wizard brothers. Ron explains that he actually has five brothers, and they’re a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie, the two oldest boys, were head boy and captain of the Quidditch team, respectively. Percy’s a prefect, and everyone likes Fred and George because they’re funny.

Ron goes on to say that any of his accomplishments at school would be “no big deal” because his brothers did them first. Additionally, most of his things are hand-me-downs: he has Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand, and Percy’s old rat, Scabbers. Ron says that Percy got an owl for being made a prefect, and Ron starts to say that they couldn’t afford one for him but stops himself.

Harry comforts Ron, saying that he had never had any money or gifts or clothes of his own until about a month ago. And he hadn’t known anything about being a wizard or his parents or Voldemort. Ron gasps when he hears Harry use Voldemort’s name. Harry simply says he didn’t grow up knowing he shouldn’t use it—he doesn’t really know anything about wizard culture. Ron comforts Harry in turn, saying that there are lots of people from Muggle families and they learn quickly.

A woman passes by with a cart, offering candy. The candies are all new to Harry, and so he buys a bit of everything. Ron declines, saying he has sandwiches. Harry offers to share his candy, happy to have something to share and someone to share it with. They start to open the Chocolate Frogs, which have collectible cards inside. Harry gets a card with Albus Dumbledore on it. The card says that Dumbledore is the Hogwarts headmaster, most notable for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald and his work on alchemy with Nicolas Flamel, among other things.

As Harry and Ron eat more candy, a boy named Neville asks if they’ve seen a toad he’s lost. When they say no, he leaves miserably. Ron turns back to look at Scabbers, confessing that having a rat isn’t much better than having a toad. He raises his wand to show Harry a spell he learned to turn Scabbers yellow, when a girl with “a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth” (Hermione) knocks and asks if they’ve seen a lost toad.

When Hermione sees Ron about to do magic, she grows excited and asks to see it. Ron recites a quick rhyme and waves his wand, but nothing happens. Hermione wonders if it’s a real spell, rattling on quickly that it’s not a very good spell, that she’s tried a few spells and they’ve all worked, that her whole family are Muggles, that she was very surprised to get her letter, and that she’s memorized all of the course books. Ron and Harry are both stunned.

Ron and Harry introduce themselves, and Hermione is amazed to meet Harry (she’s learned about him from a few books on modern magical history and the dark arts). She asks about what Houses they think they’ll be in, saying she hopes she’s in Gryffindor. She then leaves, saying she ought to go look for Neville’s toad, and that they ought to change into their school robes because they’ve almost arrived at Hogwarts.

After Hermione leaves, Ron comments that he hopes he’s not in whatever house she’s in. Ron’s whole family is in Gryffindor, and he is nervous that he might be put in another house. Harry, seeing how concerned Ron is, asks what his older brothers do. Ron replies that Charlie studies dragons, and Bill works in some capacity for Gringotts.

This sparks Ron’s memory: someone just tried to rob a high security vault at Gringotts and didn’t get caught. His dad says that it must have been a very powerful dark wizard. They don’t think the person took anything, but everyone worries when things like this happen because they think You-Know-Who might be behind it.

A little while later, three boys enter Harry and Ron’s compartment: Draco Malfoy, the boy from Madame Malkin’s shop, and two mean-looking, “thickset” boys Draco introduces as Crabbe and Goyle, Draco asks if Harry is in fact the Harry Potter, before turning to Ron and saying there’s no need to ask Ron’s name—“all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.” Draco turns his attention to Harry and says that there are some wizarding families that are “better than others,” and he can help Harry make the right friends, holding out his hand.

Harry refuses to shake Draco’s hand, and Draco warns him to be more polite, or else he will “go the same way as [his] parents.” Harry and Ron stand up, ready to fight. But before they can start to fight, Scabbers bites Goyle’s finger. Goyle howls, throwing Scabbers off, and the three boys immediately disappear into the corridor. Hermione returns, wondering what’s going on and saying that they are going to get in trouble before they even get there.

A short time later, the train arrives. Harry and Ron join the crowd on the platform, where Hagrid is calling for first years to follow him. He leads them down a “steep, narrow path” in the darkness of night. The narrow path leads to “the edge of a great black lake,” and “perched atop a high mountain on the other side” is a “vast castle with many turrets and towers": Hogwarts. The students are in awe. They take boats to the other side, arriving at the front door of the castle. Once there, Hagrid finds Neville’s toad in one of the boats, and Neville is overjoyed. Hagrid then knocks on the enormous oak door.