Early the next morning, Jack walked into the classroom with two heavy dark circles under his eyes.
His hair was even messier than usual, and he’d buttoned one of his school-uniform buttons wrong.
His schoolbag strap hung crookedly from his shoulder.
He looked as though he’d just crawled back from a battlefield.
The moment his deskmate Tom saw him, he froze.
“Jack, what did you do last night?
Did someone beat you up?”
“No.”
Jack tossed his schoolbag onto the desk.
“I stayed up reading until four in the morning.”
“What book?” Tom leaned over, his face full of curiosity.
“Homework?
No, wait—homework’s never that interesting.”
Jack pulled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: Part One straight out of his bag and slapped it onto the desk.
Tom lowered his head and read the title aloud.
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone?
What’s this?”
“An absolute masterpiece.”
Jack’s eyes lit up at once.
“Tom, I’m telling you, this book is just—I don’t even know how to describe it.”
“It’s just… unbelievably cool!”
Half-believing and half-doubtful, Tom picked up the book, looked over the cover, then read the blurb.
“An orphan goes to a magic school?
Sounds pretty old-fashioned.”
“I thought so at first too,” Jack said seriously, his tone unusually solemn.
“But it’s definitely not one of those ordinary stories.
Every detail inside feels real.”
“Diagon Alley, the wand shop, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters… when you’re reading it, you’ll feel like those places really exist.
You just didn’t know about them.”
Tom raised an eyebrow.
“Is it really that exaggerated?”
“Read it yourself.”
Jack pushed the book toward him.
“Just read the first chapter, The Boy Who Lived.
One chapter.”
“If you finish it and still think it’s boring, I’ll eat this book.”
Tom laughed at his tone, took the book, and opened to the first page.
“All right.
This had better be as good as you say.”
A little while later, the bell rang, and the teacher walked into the classroom to begin the lesson.
Tom pressed the book beneath his textbook and secretly lowered his head to read.
The movement of his page-turning grew slower and slower, and even his breathing became lighter, as if he were afraid of disturbing something inside the book.
A girl sitting in the back row, Emily, noticed Tom’s strange behavior and quietly poked him in the back.
“What are you reading?”
Without turning his head, Tom whispered, “Don’t bother me.
I’m reading an amazing book.”
“What book?”
Tom didn’t answer.
He simply lifted the book and showed her the cover.
Emily remembered the title.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
When the first lesson ended, Tom snapped the book shut and took a deep breath.
“Jack, you were right.
This book is incredible.”
“Right?” Jack grinned.
“Where did you get to?”
“The part where Harry finally gets the letter,” Tom said.
“I nearly burst out laughing when the Dursleys were doing everything they could to stop him from reading it.”
“It gets even better later,” Jack said.
“Keep reading.
When you get to the part where he goes to Diagon Alley to buy his wand, you’ll lose your mind.”
Tom nodded and carefully tucked the book into his schoolbag.
“Lend it to me again at lunch.”
“No problem.
I’ve already finished it anyway.”
Just then, Emily walked over.
“That book you two were talking about, can I borrow it too?”
Jack and Tom exchanged a glance.
“Get in line,” Jack said.
“Tom gets it first.
Then you.”
Emily pouted, but didn’t say anything.
In her heart, she silently memorized the title, planning to buy a copy herself after school.
…
At the same time, Miss Margaret walked into her classroom.
She was the Year Five form teacher and taught English and literature.
This morning, there was something extra in her bag—a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: Part One.
After returning home the night before, she had finished the rest of the book in one sitting, then spent two full hours unable to sleep.
Not because the book was bad.
Because it was too good.
So good that her mind was filled with images of Hogwarts, leaving her tossing and turning in bed.
When she walked into the classroom, the students were already seated.
Several sharp-eyed children noticed the unfamiliar book in her hand.
The boy on the cover wore round glasses, with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.
“Miss, what book are you holding?” asked a boy in the front row, raising his hand.
Margaret smiled and held the book up so everyone could see it clearly.
“This is a new book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“I bought it yesterday, and after reading it, I thought it was wonderful.
So I wanted to share it with all of you.”
A wave of whispers rose through the classroom.
“Philosopher’s Stone?
Is it about magic?”
“Harry Potter?
What a strange name.”
“Miss, can we read it?”
Margaret nodded and opened the book to the first page.
“For today’s lesson, we won’t be doing our usual classwork.
I’ll read this book to you.”
The students let out a burst of delighted gasps.
Margaret cleared her throat and began reading aloud.
“Mr.
and Mrs.
Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”
The classroom quieted down.
Every student’s gaze focused on Margaret—or rather, on the book in her hands.
She read about the Dursleys seeing people in cloaks celebrating in the streets, about them finding a baby wrapped in a blanket on their doorstep, and about the lightning-shaped scar on the baby’s forehead.
The children’s eyes grew wider and wider.
“Miss, is that baby Harry?”
“How did he get that scar?”
“What happened to him afterward?”
Margaret smiled and gently pressed her hand down.
“Don’t rush.
We’ll read it slowly.”
She turned the pages one by one, her voice steady and warm.
The children listened, utterly entranced.
No one whispered to their neighbor.
No one looked around.
Even the boys who usually loved causing trouble sat obediently in place, completely still.
When the bell rang for the end of class, the entire room protested in unison.
“Miss, read a little more!”
“Just five minutes!”
“Please!”
Margaret looked at her watch, then at all those expectant faces.
In the end, she compromised.
“All right.
Five more minutes.”
She read for another five minutes.
Five minutes later, unable to resist their pleading, she read for another five.
It wasn’t until the teacher for the next lesson stood at the door and coughed twice that she reluctantly closed the book.
“That’s all for today,” she said.
“If you’re interested, you can buy a copy from a bookshop and read it yourselves.”
The moment she finished speaking, several students raised their hands to ask for the book’s title and publisher.
Margaret wrote the title on the blackboard, then added,
“Only the first half of the book is available right now.
I hear the second half hasn’t been published yet, so you can start with this one.”
The children took out their notebooks one after another and carefully copied down the title.
A few days later…
Every bookshop in London was experiencing an unprecedented storm.
~
Push the book forward by Adding to library and sending powerstones~!