HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore(Order of Merlin, First Class, Chief. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Black,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
The next morning arrived with the pale, watery quality typical of British summer dawns.
Scott in the lower bunk was still deeply asleep, one arm dangling off the edge of the mattress. The boy could sleep through almost anything—a useful talent in a place where noise and disruption were constants.
Morris lay perfectly still in his upper bunk, propped up on one elbow, reading the letter from Hogwarts for what must have been the twentieth time. The early morning light shone through the gaps in their curtains, falling across the parchment in dusty golden bands that made the emerald ink seem to glow.
Each reading revealed nothing new, yet he couldn't stop himself from examining it again. The weight of the paper, the formal language, the impossible specificity of his address—all of it reinforced that this was real.
He didn't think this was anyone's prank. No one at the children's home had the resources, imagination, or motivation to orchestrate something so elaborate.
"Hogwarts..." Morris murmured, the word felt strange on his tongue.
The name stirred something in the depths of his memory—fragments of conversations overheard in his previous life, references that had floated past him without sticking. Cultural touchstones he'd been vaguely aware of but never engaged with.
So, it seemed he'd been reborn not just in a different time, but in a fantasy different world. The world of Harry Potter, apparently. A fictional universe that, in his previous reality, existed only in books and films.
Morris quickly accepted this reality with the same pragmatic adaptability that had allowed him to accept his reincarnation in the first place. When the impossible became undeniable, you adjusted your worldview and moved forward.
Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all, he thought, as a small smile appeared on his face.
Magic.
Real magic. Not metaphor, not parlor tricks, not advanced technology masquerading as something mystical—actual magic that defied the laws of physics as he understood them.
This should bring some much-needed excitement to his otherwise tediously boring life.
That said, he had to admit that he actually didn't know much about Harry Potter.
He'd never read the books. Never watched the movies. Work and other interests had always taken priority, and by the time he might have gotten around to it, the cultural momentum had passed.
His only real impression of this world was just the name "Harry Potter" itself—a vague awareness of wizards and a school and something about a orphan boy and that ridiculous Avada Kedavra meme that had circulated on social media.
The human brain truly was remarkable in its selectivity, Morris reflected with mild amusement. Of all the things to remember.
Though he lacked any useful intelligence about this world, Morris felt no regret at all.
He didn't find himself thinking, "If only I knew more about Harry Potter, I could use that knowledge to my advantage." The thought didn't even occur to him as something to lament.
Compared to being dead, he much preferred this feeling of exploring unknown magic.
The thirst for studying new subjects, researching unexplored phenomena, and mastering complex systems—that drive had always been his motivation. It was an aspect of his nature, unchanged from before and after his transmigration.
A completely unknown magical world, full of mysteries to unravel and principles to understand, was far more interesting than a predictable future where he already knew all the answers. Where was the fun in that?
No, actually it was better if he knew the plot and other major events but it is what it is, as Beggers can't be choosers. His situation was already good.
After tucking the letter back under his pillow, Morris swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and jumped down.
He dressed quickly in yesterday's clothes and headed straight for the door.
He still had one more thing to verify which now seems true after this letter.
The "Children's home" where Morris lived was located in a rather run-down, quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of proper London—naturally so, given that prime locations get premium prices, and institutions housing unwanted children weren't exactly prioritized for valuable real estate.
The streets here had a forgotten quality. Cracked pavements, overgrown hedges, houses with peeling paint and sagging gutters. The kind of place where people minded their own business because getting involved only brought trouble.
The morning mist had not yet fully dissipated, clinging to the ground in patches like tattered cotton. The air carried that particular combination of smells unique to urban poverty—damp brick, overflowing garbage bins, the faint chemical tang of industrial exhaust from the factories a few miles east.
A few early risers were already out, mostly heading to catch buses for early shifts at whatever jobs kept them just barely above water. They wrapped their coats tightly around themselves against the morning chill, heads down, hurrying past without sparing even a glance at the young boy emerging from the worn doorway of the "Children's home".
Morris walked with purpose toward the row of battered trash cans at the corner where their street intersected with Ashley Road. His breath misted in the air, and his shoes made soft scuffing sounds against the pavement.
"It should be around here..." he muttered, scanning the area.
Behind an overturned garbage can, partially hidden by a cardboard box that had dissolved into mush from rain, a black shadow lay curled in on itself.
Morris crouched down.
This was his target—the corpse of a black cat.
Almost certainly a stray, Morris observed, taking in its condition. He had discovered it last night on his way back from school.
It had been lying in this exact spot then, body still retaining some warmth but chest no longer rising and falling with breath. Life recently departed.
Judging by the cat's severely shrunken state, it had likely starved to death.
The city was full of such small tragedies. Most people walked right past them.
After half a second of mental preparation, Morris reached down and carefully picked up the poor creature's stiff corpse.
Surprisingly, he felt no discomfort, no disgust or nauseousness that might be expected from handling a dead animal. Only a cool, solid sensation against his arms, like picking up something made of firm rubber that had been left in a refrigerator.
It was rather pleasant, actually, in a weird sort of way.
The particular stiffness of rigor mortis and the strange weightlessness that came after life had departed gave him an oddly peaceful feeling.
'Am I developing some kind of twisted tendencies'? Morris couldn't help but wonder as he adjusted his grip.
Without lingering in the open where curious neighbors might spot him and ask uncomfortable questions, Morris quietly carried the black cat's corpse through the narrow alley that ran along the side of the "children's home", heading toward the storage shed in the overgrown backyard.
The shed was a ramshackle structure that looked like it might collapse in a strong wind.
Inside was pitch darkness. He fumbled along the wall for nearly half a minute, his fingers encountered splinters and what felt like old cobwebs, before finally locating the light switch.
The single bare bulb flickered to life with a buzzing sound.
It was a fairly spacious area—probably ten feet by fifteen, with a ceiling high enough that Morris couldn't touch it even if he jumped. Larger than their bedroom, actually, though considerably less pleasant.
Being a storage room for an eternally underfunded institution, the space was naturally crammed with various odds and ends that were too broken to use but somehow not quite broken enough to justify the expense of proper disposal.
Broken tables and chairs were stacked against one wall, their legs pointing at odd angles like the limbs of dead insects. Stinking blankets stained with substances Morris didn't want to identify lay in rotten heaps. Several deflated balls. Cardboard boxes that had split at the seams, spilling their contents of old files and broken toys across the floor.
And in one corner, partially hidden behind a tilted bookshelf, the dried corpse of a rat, probably months dead.
The whole place smelled of decay, mold, and abandonment. Most people would have found it unbearable to spend more than a few minutes here.
Morris barely noticed. He had work to do.
Now, time to make preparations.
He temporarily placed the cat's corpse on a three-legged table that had been propped up with a stack of damaged books.
Then Morris walked toward the pile of miscellaneous items and started rummaging with determination, his mind was focused entirely on his task.
About two hours later, Morris straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
"This should be about right," he murmured, examining his creation.
In the center of the storage room floor, he had created something that would have looked perfectly at home in a horror film.
It was a pattern that unmistakably resembled the magic circles from various occult-themed media.
The magic circle's appearance exuded an undeniably ominous aura that made the air in the room feel heavier, and oppressive.
Crimson lines still slightly wet and gleaming in the harsh light traced two concentric circles on the floor, each about four feet in diameter. The outer circle was perhaps six inches from the inner one, and that space between them was filled completely with densely packed symbols.
Twisted, coiling characters that hurt to look at for too long. Unknown script that seemed to wriggle at the edges of his vision, never quite staying still even though he knew that they were just paint on wood.
Extremely unsettling to look at.
Actually, Morris hadn't wanted to create something quite so evocative of dark rituals and forbidden practices, but he'd only managed to find red paint in this storage room after nearly an hour of searching. The other paint cans had either dried out completely into solid bricks of useless pigment, or been used up long ago and never replaced.
Yes, paint. Just ordinary house paint, probably left over from some renovation project decades ago. There was nothing mystical about the materials themselves.
He'd drawn this magic circle using only that—common, mundane paint that anyone could buy at a hardware store for a few pounds.
Of course, he wasn't drawing randomly or making it up as he went.
The "Book" described the process exactly this way.
According to those instructions, simply drawing the approximate shape with something colored would suffice.
Next, he picked up the black cat's corpse from the makeshift table and carried it to the exact center of the magic circle and placed it there gently.
He stepped back, surveying his complete work with the eye of an artist examining a finished canvas, and involuntarily, unconsciously, a trace of zeal appeared on his face.
He didn't even notice it himself.
An indescribable excitement seized him, flooding through his veins like electricity. His heart pounded rapidly in his chest. The sound of rushing blood roared in his eardrums, drowning out the ambient sounds of the morning.
Was it fear? Or excitement? He couldn't tell anymore. The two had blurred together into a single overwhelming sensation.
The intense, almost desperate impulse to use and verify the mysterious "book" had overwhelmed everything else.
Now only one step remained.
That was—activating the magic circle.
Morris took a deep breath, steadying himself, and began to speak. His voice came out steady despite his racing heart, pronouncing an obscure incantation in a language he had never studied.
"The world of the living has not yet forgotten you; death's slumber is not your final chapter."
The words rolled off his tongue with fluency. He didn't know what language it was but he could pronounce every syllable.
And strangely, he could actually understand the general meaning of what he was chanting.
As the last syllable fell from his lips, the air seemed to freeze.
Immediately after, the crimson lines of the magic circle seemed to come alive and not metaphorically. They literally began to move, writhing and wriggling across the wooden floor like living veins, pulsing with a light that came from within the paint.
The lines began rapidly contracting, spiraling with increasing speed until finally, centered precisely on the black cat's corpse, they transformed into a vortex of crimson light that spun faster and faster.
Almost instantaneously, with a sound like a sharp indrawn breath, they all burrowed into the black cat's body—simply sank into the fur and flesh and disappeared, leaving no trace on the floor.
Then.
Under Morris's gaze, that black cat—the originally cold, stiff corpse that had been dead for nearly twelve hours—moved.
Lightly, steadily that should have been impossible, it stood up on all four paws.
It shook its somewhat disheveled fur, sending dust flying. Then it turned its head toward Morris, fixing him with yellow eyes, and tilted its head in a gesture of curiosity.
It opened its mouth, and a sound emerged:
"Meow—?"
The black cat spoke thus.
At the same moment the cat spoke, Morris felt an unprecedented wave of weakness crash over him like ice water. His knees nearly collapsed. His vision swam at the edges, black spots were dancing across his field of view.
A sharp, stabbing headache came behind his eyes, intense enough that he had to brace one hand against the wall to keep from swaying.
Something inside him had been hollowed out, scooped away, leaving an aching emptiness where something vital had been just moments before.
Without needing to think about it, operating on pure instinct, he knew what that missing something was. That should be the so-called "magical power".
But it was still barely tolerable. He wouldn't pass out, at least. He just needed a moment to recover, to let the dizziness pass.
"Good cat," Morris called softly. "Come here."
The black cat responded immediately, as if they'd known each other for years. It leaped gracefully and landed accurately in Morris's outstretched arms.
It pressed its head against Morris's cheek affectionately, rubbing back and forth in the way cats do. A deep, rumbling purr started up in its throat.
The behavior was completely normal. Perfectly ordinary cat behavior, indistinguishable from any living cat seeking affection from its owner.
However, Morris could clearly sense that the fur and flesh he touched still carried an inescapable chill.
After all, this was an undead cat—ultimately still a corpse.
But Morris didn't care about that philosophical distinction.
He stroked the black cat's scrawny body, feeling the prominent spine and ribs beneath the matted fur, and felt an unexpected surge of emotion.
"Good cat," He murmured again, this time with genuine feeling. "You should eat more. You're much too thin."