Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone recap

Harry Potter, an orphan raised by cruel relatives, learns on his eleventh birthday that he is a wizard and the famous survivor of an attack by the dark wizard Voldemort, who killed his parents but vanished when his curse rebounded off baby Harry. Harry starts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is sorted into Gryffindor, and makes close friends of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. He becomes a star of the sport Quidditch and grows suspicious of the teacher Snape, whom he blames for strange dangers. The three friends uncover a plot to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, an object that grants eternal life, hidden in the school behind magical defences. Braving those traps together, Harry goes on alone to the final chamber and finds not Snape but the timid Professor Quirrell, who is sheltering the weakened Voldemort on the back of his own head. Harry keeps the Stone from them and survives; Quirrell is destroyed and Voldemort flees. The Stone is deliberately destroyed to keep it safe, and Gryffindor wins the house cup.

As a baby, Harry Potter survived an attack by the dark wizard Voldemort that killed his parents, an event that made him famous in the wizarding world and left a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He is left on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, ordinary and unkind people who raise him without love and never tell him the truth about himself, spoiling their own son Dudley while treating Harry as an unwanted burden. Ten years later, strange letters addressed to Harry begin arriving by the hundreds, and Uncle Vernon grows frantic trying to keep them from him, finally fleeing the family to a remote island to escape them. There, at midnight, the giant Hagrid arrives, delivers Harry's letter in person, and tells him the truth: his parents were murdered, he himself is a wizard, and he has a place waiting at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Hagrid takes Harry to the hidden wizarding shopping street, Diagon Alley, where Harry visits the wizard bank, buys his school supplies, and is fitted with a wand that shares a strange connection with the one Voldemort used. Boarding the Hogwarts Express from a secret platform, he meets Ron Weasley, a kind boy from a big wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, a clever girl who has already read all her books, and clashes with the haughty Draco Malfoy. At the school, a magical Sorting Hat places each new student into a house; Harry, Ron, and Hermione all join Gryffindor, while Malfoy goes to Slytherin. Harry begins learning magic, marvels at the castle, and takes an immediate dislike to Professor Snape, the Potions master, who seems to loathe him for no reason and singles him out cruelly in the very first lesson.

At his first flying lesson Harry proves a natural on a broomstick and is made the youngest player in a century for his house Quidditch team, the wizarding sport played in the air. When a mountain troll gets loose in the castle on Halloween, Harry and Ron rescue Hermione from it, and the shared danger turns the three of them into firm friends. During Harry's first Quidditch match his broom is bewitched to throw him off, and he becomes convinced Snape is behind it, though Hermione stops the jinx in time and Harry wins the game. At Christmas Harry receives an anonymous gift, an invisibility cloak that once belonged to his father, and using it he discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows the deepest desire of whoever looks into it; for Harry it shows his dead parents. Dumbledore quietly warns him not to dwell on the mirror's visions and has it moved away.

The friends discover that a fierce three-headed dog is guarding a trapdoor inside the school, and piece together that it protects the Sorcerer's Stone, an object that produces a life-extending elixir and turns metal to gold, made by the ancient alchemist Nicolas Flamel. They become certain someone is trying to steal it and suspect Snape. Meanwhile Hagrid illegally hatches a baby dragon and has to give it up, and the trio, caught out of bed, are sent into the Forbidden Forest for detention, where Harry glimpses a hooded figure drinking the blood of a slain unicorn and is saved by a centaur, who hints the figure is the weakened Voldemort seeking the Stone to restore himself. Believing the theft is imminent and that no teacher will listen, Harry, Ron, and Hermione go down through the trapdoor themselves. They pass a series of magical obstacles together, Ron sacrificing himself in a deadly game of wizard chess and Hermione solving a riddle of potions, until only Harry can go on to the final chamber alone.

In the last chamber Harry finds not Snape but Professor Quirrell, the nervous Defence teacher, who has been the one after the Stone. Quirrell is host to Voldemort himself, whose ruined face grows from the back of Quirrell's head beneath his turban, and Snape, it turns out, had been trying to protect Harry all along. Facing the Mirror of Erised, Harry finds the Stone appears in his pocket because he wants only to guard it, not to use it. When Voldemort orders Quirrell to kill him, Harry's touch burns Quirrell, who cannot hold on to him; Harry loses consciousness as Voldemort's spirit flees and Quirrell dies. Harry wakes in the hospital wing, where Dumbledore explains that his mother's love is the protection Voldemort could not overcome, that the Stone has been destroyed to keep it safe, and that Voldemort survives in weakened form and will return. Dumbledore's last-minute award of points wins Gryffindor the house cup, and the school year ends with Harry heading back to the Dursleys, no longer alone in the world.

The villain behind the plot to steal the Sorcerer's Stone turns out to be Professor Quirrell, not Snape as Harry had suspected. Quirrell is host to the greatly weakened Voldemort, whose face grows from the back of his head beneath the turban, and Snape had in fact been trying to protect Harry all along. Facing them at the Mirror of Erised, Harry finds the Stone appears in his pocket because he wants only to keep it safe, not to use it. Voldemort orders Quirrell to seize and kill Harry, but Quirrell is burned by Harry's touch and cannot hold him; Harry passes out and Voldemort's spirit flees, leaving Quirrell to die. Harry wakes days later in the hospital wing, where Dumbledore explains that his mother's loving sacrifice is why Voldemort could not touch him, that the Stone has been destroyed by its owner Nicolas Flamel to keep it from evil hands, and that Voldemort is not gone but weakened and will return. Dumbledore awards last-minute house points that let Gryffindor win the house cup. The school year ends and Harry returns, reluctantly, to the Dursleys for the summer, now with friends and a home in the wizarding world to look forward to.