[Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Albus Dumbledore (President of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chairman of the Wizards' Association, Order of Merlin, First Class)
Dear Mr. Black:
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Enclosed is a list of the books and equipment you will require.
The term begins on September 1st. We will await your reply by owl before July 31st.
Deputy Headmistress (female) Minerva McGonagall]
The next morning.
In the lower bunk, Scott was still sound asleep.
Morris lay in bed, using the light that slipped through the gap in the curtains to leaf through the letter from Hogwarts he had received the night before.
He did not think it was anyone's prank.
"Hogwarts..." he murmured.
That really was a word that could stir up distant memories.
So then, in this life he had been reborn into the world of Harry Potter.
Morris accepted this reality quickly.
Perhaps this was not so bad.
Magic...
This should be able to bring a bit of fun to his boring life.
But then again, he actually did not know much about Harry Potter.
He had never read the related books or watched the movies.
Or rather, his impression of this world consisted of nothing but the name "Harry Potter."
Mm, and that meme of Voldemort slurping noodles.
He did not know why, but that alone had been branded into his memory.
The human brain really was amazing.
Though he had no useful intelligence, Morris did not feel any regret.
It would be nice to know a bit more about Harry Potter... he did not have that kind of thought.
Compared to that, he preferred this feeling of exploring the unknown.
The urge to explore!
To Morris, this was the most primal force driving him forward, and a trait that had not changed before or after his transmigration.
A completely unknown magical world was far more interesting than a future that proceeded step by step, already spoiled in advance.
After putting the letter back and stuffing it under his pillow, Morris jumped out of bed and headed straight for the door.
There was still one thing he needed to verify.
The "children's home" where Morris lived was located in a rather old and desolate neighborhood-naturally, since land in prosperous areas was worth its weight in gold.
The morning mist had not yet fully dispersed, and the air was filled with the faint smell of damp brick and garbage.
A few early risers wrapped their coats tight and hurried along, and no one gave the boy emerging from the old doorway a second glance.
Morris walked with clear purpose toward the trash can at the corner of the street.
"It should be somewhere around here..."
Behind an overturned trash can, a black shadow was curled up.
This was Morris's target-
the corpse of an adult black cat.
It was probably a stray cat; Morris had found it the night before when he came back from school.
At the time it had been lying here, its body still warm, but it was no longer breathing.
Judging by how skin and bones the black cat was, it had probably starved to death.
After half a second of mental preparation, Morris picked up the corpse of the poor cat.
Unexpectedly, he did not feel any discomfort, only a cold chill in his arms.
Quite comfortable, actually.
The stiffness peculiar to corpses and the lightness of a body after life had left it actually gave him a feeling of serenity.
Was he a bit of a pervert... Morris could not help but begin to doubt himself.
Without lingering, Morris carried the black cat's corpse quietly to the storeroom in the orphanage's backyard.
He fumbled for nearly half a minute before he found the light switch.
He turned on the light.
It was a fairly spacious space.
Because it was a storeroom, the corners were naturally piled full of all sorts of junk.
Broken tables and chairs, foul-smelling blankets, a few deflated balls... and a dead rat.
Now, time to make preparations.
Morris set the black cat's corpse temporarily on a table missing a leg and propped up with old books, then walked over to the pile of junk and began tinkering.
About two hours later, Morris wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"That should about do it."
He looked at the result he had made in the open space in the middle of the room.
It was a pattern resembling the magic circles from certain films and shows.
Or rather, it was a magic circle.
The appearance of the magic circle hinted at something ominous: scarlet lines traced two perfect concentric rings on the floor. Between the rings were packed dense, twisted, coiling symbols of unknown meaning, looking like some kind of unknown script.
Extremely creepy.
Actually, Morris had not wanted to draw it so suggestively, but he had only found red paint in this storeroom.
The other paints were either dried up or used up.
Yes, paint.
The magic circle he had drawn used only ordinary paint.
Of course, he had not drawn it at random.
That was what the "book" said.
It was enough to draw the rough shape with anything colored.
Next, Morris picked up the black cat's corpse from the table and placed it in the center of the magic circle.
He stepped back and examined his work, and a look of fervor rose unbidden to his face.
Even he himself did not notice it.
An indescribable excitement seized him.
His heart pounded rapidly in his chest, and the sound of his blood rushing roared in his eardrums.
Fear? Or excitement?
The intense urge to explore the mysterious had already overwhelmed everything.
Now only one step remained.
That was-to activate the magic circle.
Morris performed a stretch of obscure chanting.
"The world of the living has not yet forgotten you; the sleep of death is not your final chapter."
He did not know what language it was, but he could fluently pronounce every syllable.
And strangely, he could actually understand the general content of what he was chanting.
When the last syllable fell, the air in the storeroom seemed to freeze.
Then the scarlet lines on the magic circle seemed to come alive, writhing and squirming across the floor, rapidly contracting, and finally, with the black cat at the center, they transformed into a vortex.
Almost instantly, they all burrowed into the black cat's corpse.
And then.
Under Morris's gaze.
That black cat-the originally cold, stiff corpse-lightly, steadily stood up.
It shook out its slightly ruffled fur, looked at Morris, tilted its head, and opened its mouth.
"Meow-?"
So said the black cat.
At the same time, Morris felt an unprecedented weakness, accompanied by a sharp headache.
Something within his body seemed to have been hollowed out.
No need to think to know that it was probably the so-called "magic power."
But he could just barely endure it.
"Good cat, come here." Morris called softly.
The black cat leaped lightly and landed precisely in Morris's arms.
It affectionately rubbed the top of its head against Morris's cheek, a satisfied purr rumbling in its throat, behaving no differently from an ordinary cat.
However, Morris could clearly sense that the fur and body he touched still carried an lingering chill.
After all, this was an undead cat, ultimately still a dead thing.
But Morris did not care about that.
He stroked the black cat's skin-and-bones body and said with some heartache, "Good cat, you should eat more."