Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 outlines the personalities of the Dursleys and presents the reader with Harry Potter, "The Boy who Lived." The Dursleys are an uptight, closed-minded, middle-class family with one son named Dudley. They consider themselves to be beyond reproach and quite upstanding; however, they guard a secret that they believe would ruin their reputations if anyone were to find it out.

Odd occurrences begin happening one day that greatly upset Mr. Dursley to the point of distraction. On his way to work in the morning, he notices that Owls are flying overhead in broad daylight, a cat seems to be reading a newspaper and unusually dressed people are standing around in the streets in alarming numbers. He also overhears a conversation between a group of these oddly dressed people mentioning the name Potter, which sends him into a near panic. He decides that these...