The Man With Two Faces

   "Harry felt as if Devil's Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.
    Harry would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring  red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake."


Here is where Harry meets his rival of all time, Lord Voldemort. He stood while his rival, ghostly evil, seethed in front of the young boy. He didn't make a sound, or move a muscle. This part is emotionally moving, because it stops one from seeing this young boy, but instead, the reader sees someone of a much older age, fighting off this evil omen. He just stood there while that evil, man of hate, watched him slowly grow into a young man of strength. I wonder if he knew that one day it'd be just him and the boy. He stood there while his thoughts, all jumbled, swam around in his head.

The Sorcerer's Stone

    A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley. . . . He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter-the boy who lived!'



I really enjoy this ending to the first chapter, because it leaves a sense of mystery and curiosity. I used to read a series, a very boring collection, that never left mystery behind. J.K. Rowling, however, implanted that mystery into her books, by creating a very interesting, sad story. Who doesn't love to read those genres? I, who love to read mystery, was hooked instantly and turned the pages fast enough to get paper cuts. I couldn't put the books down, and due to that, I've read the series at least five times. One knows a good series, if one can't put it down.