The morning sunlight streamed through the glass window in golden bars and fell directly across Morris's face.
Morris rubbed his tired eyes and stretched his somewhat stiff body, his joints were popping. While intensely researching and practicing the Bone Summoning Spell through trial and error, dawn had arrived completely without him even noticing the passage of time.
He'd almost been awake all night.
This new spell was far more intricate and complex than he had initially imagined from the brief description. Its effect was to summon and materialize various bone-crafted objects like bone spikes for offense, bone spears for throwing, bone shields for defense, and theoretically even decorative bone vases if one wanted.
It seemed quite versatile and convenient.
Of course, the simplest and most practical forms for combat remained bone spikes and bone shields. They served as direct physical means of defense and offense, solid and reliable requiring no complex visualization.
If one had a strong enough stomach for it and was desperate enough in a survival situation with nothing else available, Morris thought darkly, these summoned bones could probably even be used to make emergency bone broth for food.
Though that seemed unnecessarily grim.
"Bone Summoning!" Morris chanted clearly sleep.
With his focused incantation and extended hand, three grayish-white sharp bone spikes instantly appeared in the air before him with a soft crackling sound.
Each spike was roughly half an arm's length, perhaps eight inches, tapering to wicked points. They hovered for just a moment, then shot forward with tremendous speed straight toward the opposite wall.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Three dull penetrating sounds rang out in quick series as the bone spikes embedded themselves deep into the solid wooden wall. The impacts sent small fragments flying.
Morris walked closer to observe the results, bending to examine the damage. He found the bone spikes had penetrated nearly halfway into the thick wooden wall and were lodged quite firmly in the wood.
It seemed their offensive power was definitely nothing to worry about. These could seriously injure or kill.
Next, he began carefully testing the bone shield's defensive strength and capabilities. Unfortunately, his current repertoire of offensive magic was still rather limited for a proper stress test. Apart from a few mischievous minor jinxes like Tripping Hex and Jelly-Legs Jinx, the only spell that truly counted as a genuine attack method with real damage potential seemed to be the Fire-Making Charm.
That would have to do.
"Bone Summoning!" Morris called out again, visualizing defense this time.
A bone shield large enough to completely cover Morris's entire body, roughly four feet tall and three feet wide materialized and floated steadily in the air before him.
Then came the test.
"Incendio!"
Morris raised his wand, and scorching orange flames burst violently from its tip, roaring toward the shield. The magical fire bombarded the bone shield's surface with considerable force. The flames turned the entire room's ambience a vivid, flickering red.
However, the violent collision and explosion he'd half-anticipated never occurred.
The moment the aggressive flames made contact with the bone shield's smooth surface, they flowed naturally to the sides like water striking a smooth round stone or a ship's bow. The fire simply parted and dissipated around the edges rather than impacting directly.
It was fascinating.
Around a minute later, Morris finally stopped channeling the fire spell, his wand arm was beginning to ache from the constant casting. As the generated heat wave gradually dissipated into the room's cooler air, Morris examined the bone shield carefully.
It showed almost no change at all and looked still perfectly intact, with just slight traces of scorching, and blackening, but almost no heat damage on its surface.
He cautiously reached out to touch the shield's surface with his fingertips, testing the temperature. While the bone was somewhat warm from the fire, it certainly wasn't near hot enough to burn skin.
Next, Morris carefully tried casting the few minor jinxes he knew at the hovering bone shield.
Without exception, all the jinxes were completely deflected harmlessly off the smooth surface. And the bone shield itself remained utterly undamaged through all the impacts.
This was genuinely excellent news for Morris's defensive capabilities. With enough dedicated practice and muscle memory, summoning a protective bone shield would become instantaneous. This already qualified as a proper, reliable defensive measure against most common attacks.
Perhaps even better than the Shield Charm eventually taught in later years.
After practicing the spell variations a while longer, Morris finally sat down heavily in his desk chair for a brief rest. His magic reserves felt somewhat depleted.
Come to think of it, he thought while catching his breath, new spells appeared in the mysterious Mage's Book without any clear warning or hints. through careful observation, Morris had gradually formed an initial hypothesis about the mechanism.
Whenever he thoroughly mastered the old content, new content would appear in the Mage's Book as if unlocked, like a game progression system.
Of course, this was merely speculation based on pattern recognition. The exact mechanism of how the Mage's Book actually operated still required considerably more observation and testing to confirm.
Knock knock!
Just then, someone knocked on the door to his dormitory.
Morris stood from his chair and walked over to answer it, pulling the door open. He found an unfamiliar upperclassman standing in the corridor outside, probably a third or fourth year. The student was staring at Morris with an extremely displeased and irritated expression.
Morris froze uncertainly. "May I ask who you are...?"
He was quite certain he'd never personally provoked or even met this person before. Could this be one of those classic boarding school tropes where an upperclassman comes looking for trouble with a younger student? Though it seemed oddly late for that traditional hazing, given it had already been two full weeks since term started.
"I'm Roger Davies," the person said coldly, as if barely suppressing the anger. His voice was clipped. "I live right next door to you. Also, you were far too noisy this morning. What exactly were you doing in there? It sounded like you were demolishing the place."
"Uh," Morris laughed awkwardly, immediately understanding the situation. "I'm very sorry, Davies."
His enthusiastic morning magical experiments had obviously made quite a racket and had seriously disturbed his neighbor's morning rest.
What else was there to say in this situation? Apologize sincerely, of course. Better to get his attitude right and show proper remorse first, since he was clearly and completely in the wrong here.
Perhaps seeing Morris's genuine and instant apology without excuses or defensiveness, Roger's hostile attitude softened.
The anger drained from his face, replaced by puzzlement. He wore a confused expression as he asked again,
"So what were you actually doing in your room? Logically speaking, all these dormitory walls have been properly enchanted with Silencing Charms during construction. No matter what you do inside we shouldn't be able to hear anything."
"Silencing Charms?" Morris repeated, his stomach sank.
He glanced back into his room over his shoulder. The several large holes his bone spikes had punched through the wall were particularly conspicuous and damning with splinters sticking out.
It appeared his bone spikes hadn't just penetrated the wooden wall, they'd probably destroyed or disrupted the Silencing Charm magically attached to it as well, breaking the enchantment. That would explain why the noise had carried outside.
No wonder Roger had been woken up.
"I was just practicing some new magic I learned," Morris admitted honestly, "but I seem to have accidentally damaged the wall rather badly in the process." He grimaced. "I'm very sorry about that."
Hearing this frank confession, Roger rubbed his forehead tiredly, his tone shifting to helpless resignation rather than anger.
"Fine, fine. These things happen with magic practice. Just be considerably more careful in the future, alright? Also, you need to remember to repair both your wall and restore the Silencing Charm properly."
Having delivered this reasonable instruction, he immediately turned to head back to his adjacent room.
Since the other party's attitude toward admitting fault had been appropriately good and remorseful, Roger didn't intend to be aggressive or punitive.
"Wait!" Morris called out to him urgently.
Roger turned around with an impatient expression, clearly wanting to return to bed. "What now?"
"I don't actually know how to fix it," Morris stated with complete honesty, spreading his hands. "Both the wall and the charm."
After all, he was only a first-year student who'd been at Hogwarts barely two weeks. He truly wasn't familiar with either the Repairing Charm or how to cast Silencing Charms. Or rather, he simply hadn't had sufficient time to learn them yet.
"That's your problem to figure out," Roger said flatly, his expression becoming cold and closed-off again. "I have absolutely no obligation to help you deal with trouble you caused yourself through carelessness."
"I'll treat you to candy!" Morris said hopefully. "Really good candy!"
"No need!" Roger said firmly.
In the end, despite his denial, Roger still helped Morris repair the damaged wall and restore the Silencing Charm.
Though he complained the entire time about being woken up, about first-years being reckless, about his lost sleep, seeing a younger student genuinely in difficulty over his head, Roger ultimately extended a helping hand.
Morris felt somewhat moved by the assistance. Indeed, there were still more good people in this world than bad. Most people at Hogwarts were quite friendly and helpful, at least everyone he'd encountered so far had proven to be decent.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, the Weasley twins with their humor, and several Ravenclaw upperclassmen like Robert and now Roger.
He dared say that he was gradually growing to genuinely love this magical school and its community. Hogwarts was becoming home.
In the days and weeks that followed, Morris's daily life revolved in a comfortable, regular pattern between three primary locations: classroom for learning, library for research, and dormitory for practice and experimentation. A cyclical routine that suited him perfectly.
There was one small but notable incident that broke the pattern—Morris heard through the castle's gossip network that the Weasley twins had been caught red-handed wandering around the forbidden corridor on the right side of the fourth floor. Professor McGonagall had caught them and given them a severe scolding that apparently echoed through half the castle.
Morris still remembered quite clearly what Headmaster Dumbledore had ominously said at the start-of-term feast: "Anyone who does not wish to suffer a most painful death should not enter the corridor on the right side of the fourth floor."
The very specific warning meant that place truly did hide some significant secret worth protecting. Something dangerous enough to potentially kill students.
When Morris eventually encountered the twins and asked them what they'd actually discovered in that forbidden corridor, they admitted somewhat sheepishly that they hadn't seen anything interesting at all before Professor McGonagall caught them red-handed.
George even complained bitterly that Fred hadn't properly observed "the map" they'd been using—whatever that meant.
Because of this incident and getting caught, the twins had been assigned "reflective labor" punishment again. They had to spend the upcoming weekend cleaning the second-floor bathroom that no one used.
Of course, the twins showed absolutely no genuine remorse at all for their rule-breaking. Instead, they were already enthusiastically trying to persuade Morris to join them for another nighttime expedition to properly investigate that corridor.
"Come on, Morris," Fred had urged him. "Third time's the charm. We'll plan better."
Morris naturally refused the invitation firmly. "No, thank you. I prefer not dying painfully."
While he was certainly somewhat curious about what secret was being protected and Dumbledore's warning had definitely piqued his interest, it hadn't reached the critical point where he absolutely had to know immediately regardless of danger.
If he were going to risk wandering around the castle at night and potentially getting caught, why not visit the Restricted Section of the library instead?
That held far more practical appeal and value than a potentially lethal corridor that might lead to a "most painful death."