History Literature / HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone

* SnipeHunt: Malfoy challenges Harry to a midnight duel, telling him to come to an empty classroom. However, Malfoy does not appear, and only told Harry this to get him into trouble for being out of bed at night.

[[folder:A-B]]

* AgonyOfTheFeet: When Harry reaches the Hogwarts Express, he attempts to get his trunk on the train, but has no success, dropping it twice on his foot before Fred and George Weasley volunteer to help him.

* AllJustADream: Harry initially believes that Hagrid and his revelations about the wizarding world is simply a dream and things will return to mundane reality after said dream ends. When he wakes up the morning after, he sees that Hagrid is still present.

* AlreadyDoneForYou: The obstacle to the Stone [[spoiler:after the chess board is a troll. Harry and Hermione find it out cold with a bloody lump on its head]].

* AnimalEyes: Quidditch referee and flight instructor Madame Hooch, who is said to have hawk eyes.

* AppearanceIsInTheEyeOfTheBeholder: The Mirror of Erised shows each person their heart's desire. Two people looking into it at the same time would see different things.

* ArtisticLicenseChess: The chess scene makes it dubious if Creator/JKRowling had ever touched a chessboard in her life. For example, Ron at one point is said to take "one step forward", despite the fact that he is playing a knight (this error and some others were fixed in later reprintings).

* ArtisticLicenceHistory: The first chapter takes place on Tuesday November 1, 1981. November 1 of that year was on a Sunday. Similarly, Harry's [=11th=] birthday, July 31 1991, is on a Tuesday (it was on a Wednesday in real life).

* BathroomBrawl: A troll attacks Hermione in the girls' bathroom and both Harry and Ron have to come to her rescue.
* BecomingTheBoast: Before the first flying lesson, Draco touts his skill at flying ''ad nauseam'' to everyone, especially Harry. Ron thinks he's exaggerating. On the day of the lesson, he shows that he isn't (although Harry proves to be even better.)

* BewilderingPunishment: Harry was continually punished for the weird things that happened about him, without having been told his wizardry could cause them.

** Dumbledore's claim that he sees a pair of socks when he looks in the Mirror of Erised. It actually occurs to Harry not long afterwards that maybe Dumbledore wasn't telling the truth, but figures it was a personal question, after all, and doesn't think more about it. The final book hints, and [[invoked]]WordOfGod confirms, that [[spoiler:he's actually seeing his family alive and happy again, much like Harry does]].

[[folder:C-D]]

** Inverted by Professor Dumbledore who tells Harry that he wants socks for Christmas, but never gets any. "People will insist on giving me books."
* ClosetSublet: Harry lived in the closet under the staircase prior to the Dursleys seeing that his initial Hogwarts letters are addressed to his "Cupboard Under the Stairs" and moving him into Dudley's spare bedroom. He didn't like it much, as his cousin Dudley loved to stomp down the stairs just to annoy him. As punishment the Dursleys would sometimes lock him inside it.

* ConvenientCranny: After managing to subdue the massive three-headed dog, Fluffy, the trio drops down a hatch to escape the dog. Of course, this did not turn out to be as convenient as it may have at first seemed.

* CunningPeoplePlayPoker: [[GentleGiant Hagrid]] won a poker game against [[spoiler:Professor Quirrell]]. The prize is a Norwegian Ridgeback egg. [[spoiler:Professor Quirrell gave Hagrid the egg just to get him in trouble since breeding dragons is illegal. Also he was possessed by [[BigBad Lord Voldemort]], a dark wizard who is cunning in every way.]]

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: The person trying to get the Philospher's Stone turns out to be [[spoiler:a Voldemort-possessed Professor Quirrell]], who the book had established as being relatively harmless. When Harry confronts them at the end, they lampshade how they were BeneathSuspicion.

[[folder:E-F]]
* EarlyInstalmentWeirdness:

** The attempt to kill Harry by knocking him off his broom mid-Quidditch match is hard to take seriously after reading the following books, in which Harry gets successfully knocked out mid-flight several times and securing his landing is always rather trivial. For those keeping count, that means [[JerkJock Cormac McLaggen]] came closer to killing Harry than [[spoiler:Quirrell]] did.
** Some of [=McGonagall's=] early behaviour, such as reading a map in cat form openly long enough for Vernon to see her doing so, is very uncharacteristic for her in later books- and a little hypocritical, given she complains to Dumbledore only a few hours later that by flamboyantly celebrating Voldemort's demise, wizards are risking the exposure of their community.

** Draco Malfoy gets one when he and Harry meet in Madam Malkin's. He speaks in a drawl, [[SpoiledBrat suggests he'll "bully [his] father" into getting him a broomstick]], and, after learning [[MyParentsAreDead Harry's parents died]], says, "Oh, sorry. But they were ''our'' kind, [[FantasticRacism weren't they?]]"

** Ron Weasley is depicted in hand-me-down robes with a hand-me-down wand and a hand-me-down pet, and he starts off complaining that even if he does do something well, it won't matter because his older brothers have already done it first, but he also shows embarrassment at his curiosity over Harry's status as the Boy-Who-Lives and reassures Harry that he won't stand out at Hogwarts for his ignorance. Ron might be insecure and jealous, but he's a good kid with a good heart. He then explains wizarding sweets and Quidditch to Harry, setting up his role as the trio's insider to the wizarding world.

** At the start-of-term feast Dumbledore mentions that the third-floor corridor is out-of-bounds "for everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death". Turns out Fluffy is there, who will indeed kill anyone painfully ([[spoiler:unless it hears music]]).

* FailedAttemptAtDrama: When Hermione verifies Nicolas Flamel's work in alchemy, she dramatically whispers to Harry and Ron that Flamel made the Philospher's Stone. The two react with confusion, as neither of them have heard of the Stone before. The narration even notes that "this didn't have quite the effect she'd expected."

''{{beat}}''\\

[[folder:G-H]]

* GoneHorriblyWrong: It can be inferred that the villain gave Norbert's egg to Hagrid so that he'd be dismissed when he inevitably got caught with it, and thus would be discredited and unable to mention that he'd accidentally blabbed about Fluffy's weakness to a stranger. This leads to Harry and Hermione being caught out of bed on the Astronomy Tower due to Malfoy seeing the egg and trying to report it, meaning they had to get rid of Norbert(a) by contacting Ron's brother Charlie, who asked them to meet his friends up there. This in turn indirectly leads to Harry learning about the properties of unicorn blood, which lets him deduce the thief's goal. He takes matters into his own hands when [[YouHaveToBelieveMe McGonagall refuses to believe him]], resulting in [[spoiler:Voldemort leaving Quirrell to die, and the Stone is destroyed after Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel have a chat while Harry is unconscious. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Way to go, Voldy.]]]]

[[folder:I-L]]

** [=McGonagall=] summarily dismissing Harry's concerns about the Stone is uncharacteristically shortsighted. Even if his concerns were far-fetched, the fact that three first-years knew about a top-secret item should have alerted her to the presence of a major security leak, and the possibility that someone else could have learned about the item. At the very least, she should have demanded to find out everything they knew, and where they learned it.

* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: On first reading, about half the chapters appear to be self-contained bits of either character development (the troll attack, the Mirror of Erised) or just some fluffy fun (Hagrid and Norbert). All of them suddenly become important during the climax, and a few even show up again later in the series.

* KillItWithFire: The Devil's Snare plant is repelled by fire.

* LotusEaterMachine: The Mirror of Erised. Reading its name -- or better yet, the entire inscription -- backwards is a dead giveaway.

[[folder:M-N]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero
** [[spoiler:Quirrell]] easily figured out all the obstacles guarding the Stone, but he couldn't get past Fluffy. Enter Hagrid, who tells a complete stranger [[spoiler:(in fact a disguised Quirrell)]] that Fluffy can be put to sleep by playing music to him.
* NoImmortalInertia: [[spoiler:Even though Nicholas Flamel and his wife have enough of the Elixir of Life to "set their affairs in order", they apparently still die within a few months of the Stone being destroyed. Perhaps a ZigZaggingTrope: the Stone had been at Hogwarts under significant protection all school year, perhaps up to a month longer, so they may have had about a year's supply for the both of them.]]

** There's a passing reference to an incident that occurred back when Harry was still attending Muggle school, and he "had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue."

* NotAfraidToDie: [[spoiler:Nicolas Flamel and his wife -- when the Philosopher's Stone is destroyed, they can no longer keep making the Elixir of Life indefinitely and so their immortality will eventually end and both will pass away. However, this doesn't bother them at all (they are both over 600 years old), with Dumbledore stating that for them, it'll be "like going to bed after a very long day."]]

[[folder:O-P]]

* OnePersonBirthdayParty: Harry's eleventh birthday is forgotten by the Dursleys because of the flood of letters from Hogwarts. Harry sings the "Happy Birthday" song to himself.

* OutOfContextEavesdropping: Harry overhears what seems to be Snape forcing Quirrell to help him steal the Stone. It turns out [[spoiler:''Quirrell'' was after the Stone and Snape, suspecting as much, was trying to scare him into giving up on it.]]
* PageTurnSurprise: There is a page of stars in between every chapter, which means no matter what happens with fonts or translation you will always have to turn a page to get to the next chapter. This is sometimes used for dramatic pauses, such as when revealing who is in the room with the stone: [[spoiler:It wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort. (chapter break) It was Quirrell.]].

** Harry meets Professor Quirrell in the Leaky Cauldron.
* PromotionNotPunishment: Harry's 'punishment' for reckless flying during the broomstick lesson is to be given a position on Gryffindor's Quidditch team, pending another one-on-one training session -- though he does well there too.

* {{Pun}}: Diagon Alley (for "diagonally", reflecting its kinked medieval shape).

[[folder:R-S]]
* RedHerring: [[spoiler:Snape]] not only in this story, but he also turns out to be the ultimate one in the series.

* ReverseRelationshipReveal: At first it looks like Snape is evil, and that he is blackmailing the innocent Professor Quirrell. It turns out that Quirrell is actually a servant of Lord Voldemort and Snape is trying to stop him.
* {{Rewrite}}: A minor one, but a rewrite nonetheless. Earlier prints of this book have Nearly Headless Nick say offhandedly that he hasn't eaten in "nearly four hundred years". Later prints change this to "nearly five hundred years" to fit with him celebrating his five hundredth deathday in the next book.
* RightBehindMe: Happens to Ron when he's complaining about Hermione after the Charms lesson on Halloween.

* SanitySlippage: Vernon Dursley slowly starts to lose his grip on things as more and more Hogwarts acceptance letters arrive for Harry Potter, nailing up the mail lot, tossing letters in the fireplace and eventually taking the whole family to a deserted island in the middle of a terrible storm in the hopes of getting away.

-->'''Hermione''': You can't! You'll be expelled!

* SecretMessageWink: When Harry comes across a snake at a zoo, the snake signals to Harry that it can understand his speech by winking at him (somehow, despite snakes lacking eyelids.)
* SecretPetPlot: Hagrid gets hold of a dragon egg and intends to keep the baby dragon as a pet, despite it being illegal to do so. Eventually, the logistical challenges, such as that the dragon's rapid growth will make it impossible to keep hidden, and that, as Hermione points out, keeping a fire-breathing creature in a wooden house is not the brightest idea, lead him to send the dragon to Ron's brother, Charlie, who works with dragons already.

* ShamSupernatural: Harry at one point pretends to be the Bloody Baron, a fearsome ghost, in order to get Peeves to leave them alone. Somehow it works, despite Peeves being an actual ghost.

* SomethingWeForgot: Hooray, Harry and Hermione got [[FluffyTheTerrible Norbert]] out of Hogwarts! Wait, where's [[spoiler:[[OhCrap Harry's Invisibility Cloak?]]]] And OhCrap, Filch is here.

* StepfordSuburbia: Little Whinging with the Dursleys taking pride in their "normalcy", where apparently everybody turns a blind eye to their not even subtle abuse of Harry.

[[folder:T-Z]]
* TakingTheHeat: Hermione decides to take the blame for Ron and Harry's incident with the troll by insisting she was the one who went looking for the troll.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Hermione begins as a well-meaning but often painfully lawful student, always mindful of the rules (however ridiculous) and scornful of Harry and Ron for breaking them. Circumstances push her a bit in the direction of good as it becomes clear that quietly following the rules is not enough. [[spoiler:(The time Harry and Ron broke school rules in order to save her life from a troll probably helped lead her to that conclusion.)]]

* ToughActToFollow: In-universe, Ron sees his five older brothers -- former Head Boy Bill, former Gryffindor Quidditch captain Charlie, new prefect Percy, and popular {{Class Clown}}s Fred and George -- as this for him.

* UnreliableExpositor: During his {{Exposition}} about the Wizarding World to Harry, Hagrid says several things that are either exaggerated or completely false (or, more likely, {{retcon}}ned).
** He believes that Voldemort wanted to recruit James and Lily Potter to his side. Though Hagrid does not know why Voldemort killed them, he should know the Death Eaters would never have accepted a Muggle-born and a blood traitor into their ranks, especially not anyone who had thrice defied him.

** He implies that Quirrell was the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor prior to the coming school year. In fact, he was the Muggle Studies Professor, and, as Hagrid knows, nobody has held the DADA post for more than a year at a time in decades.

* WakingNonSequitur: When Harry and Hermione wake Ron up after returning from their detention, the latter wakes up shouting something about Quidditch fouls.

* WhatCliffHanger: As shown under WhamLine above, Chapter Sixteen ends with the reveal that the titular Stone's would-be thief isn't [[spoiler:Snape]] after all, but the much bigger reveal of who they ''actually'' are is saved for the start of the following chapter.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Vernon Dursley begins to question his senses when he thinks he sees a cat doing things that cats aren't normally able to do, such as reading a map and eyeing him sceptically. He, of course, couldn't have known that that cat was the [[{{Animorphism}} Animagus]] Hogwarts professor Minerva [=McGonagall=].

* WokenUpAtAnUngodlyHour: While on the run from the Hogwarts acceptance letters, [[AbusiveParents the Dursleys]] and Harry Potter were woken up by a knock at the hut door in the middle of the night. It was caused by [[GentleGiant Hagrid]] who was here to wish Harry a happy birthday and tell him that he's a wizard.

* YouExclamation: Harry gives one when he confronts the villain seeking the Stone, albeit not on his own behalf: [[spoiler:Quirrell]].

* ArtisticLicenceHistory: The first chapter takes place on Tuesday November 1, 1981. November 1 of that year was on a Saturday. Similarly, Harry's [=11th=] birthday, July 31 1991, is on a Tuesday (it was on a Wednesday in real life).

* TakingTheHeat: Hermione for Ron and Harry in the incident with the troll.

* DoorstopBaby: Harry is this to the Dursleys. Despite various fan theories, we're never actually told why Dumbledore didn't hand him over in person, nor do we get to read the letter that was left in his basket.

* AllJustADream: Harry initially believes this about Hagrid and his revelations when he wakes up the morning after meeting him. Then he sees that Hagrid is still present.

* FacePalmOfDoom: How Harry [[spoiler:defeats Quirrell]].

* FarSideIsland: The island with the shack that Vernon takes the family to.