Finally introduced to the main cast of the series! In my first journal, I predicted that the snobby kid Harry met when he was trying on his clothes would be Ron, but that was in fact Malfoy. I've heard all these names before, so it feels good to understand who they finally are. Ron seems like a shy innocent kid, who's just trying to live up to his older brothers. Hermione seems like the most interesting character to me so far. J.K. Rowling is obviously portraying her as the teacher's pet type attention-seeker, who is full of hope and determination. At the same time, she seems like a really friendly and talkative person. I'm interested to see how Hermione's character will develop, and what her history is. I've heard from others that Hermione eventually ends up dating Ron or something of the sort, guess I'll have to wait to find out if that's true or not. Another thing I'm wondering is, why is Hermione spelled the way it is when its pronunciation is so far off. And is it even a real name or is it something that Rowling just decided to make up? All in all it's a pretty weird name and I can't help pronouncing it like it's spelled while reading the book.

Some new plot developments are (finally) taking place. There seems to be a robbery that occurred at Gringotts the same day that Hagrid and Harry were there. Mysteriously, Hagrid had gotten a package from one of the rooms and when Harry questioned Hagrid about it he just changed the subject. I'm not even really interested in this though, doesn't seem like that big of a deal at this point. I think Rowling just added this little conflict in the first book just for the sake of adding it, while her main goal is just to establish the plot and characters. One of my friends told me that the story doesn't really pick up much until The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Another thing that's happening is that Snape seems to dislike Harry. Considering Snape is from Slytherin, and the impression I'm getting is that people from Slytherin sort of looked up to Voldemort, it only makes sense that Snape hates Harry right? I don't know, but I've heard the name Snape before and I always thought he was a villain. Although that just may be because the word sounds like snake.