The first Saturday in mid-October brought unexpectedly rare and gloriously clear weather to the Scottish Highlands. The sky stretched overhead in bright blue, unblemished by even a single cloud.
Morris decided to take his undead pet cat Tin-Tin along for a leisurely walk around the Hogwarts campus, enjoying the precious sunshine.
This was honestly one of the things about British weather that wasn't particularly great: rainy days always predominated throughout the year, making such dazzling, unobstructed sunshine a genuine rarity worth savoring. Most days were overcast at best, drizzling at worst.
Strangely enough, while it was perfectly normal and expected for living beings to instinctively enjoy sunny days and seek out warmth, Tin-Tin, an undead creature with no functioning biology also seemed particularly fond of direct sunlight.
The cat would position itself in sunny patches and bask contentedly.
This behavior quirk was something Morris genuinely hadn't expected at all. He'd rather assumed that undead creatures would only like dark, damp, shadowy environments. Cold cellars and midnight graveyards seemed more appropriate.
Now it seemed that assumption had just been his own stereotypical impression based on horror stories.
A wizard and his undead cat strolled slowly together along the lakeside path, enjoying the leisurely late morning hours.
The Black Lake stretched out beside them, its surface rippling gently in the light breeze. Though Morris loved studying and spending time buried in books, he recognized that he occasionally needed some relaxation and fresh air to maintain balance.
Along the scenic way, quite a few students greeted Morris by name as they passed, and he responded politely to each one with a smile or nod.
Most were fellow Ravenclaw students from various years. The learning ability and academic skill he'd inadvertently revealed during classes seemed to have given him a certain positive reputation within his house as someone knowledgeable.
He didn't mind this recognition at all, finding it rather pleasant. Morris saw absolutely no need to deliberately hide his intellectual abilities or pretend to be less capable than he was. False modesty served no purpose.
Of course, being a necromancer was something that absolutely couldn't be revealed under any circumstances. That title sounded definitely unsavory and intimidating to outsiders who didn't understand the distinctions, and Morris was quite aware of that unfortunate fact. Better to keep that aspect private.
Around midday, as the sun reached its peak and warmed the stones, Morris reached the garden at the castle's center. It was a pleasant area with sculpted hedges and flower beds. In the adjacent corridor entrance, he unexpectedly ran into Harry Potter and Ron Weasley coming from the opposite direction.
Harry and Ron seemed to have become good friends over the past month. Most times Morris encountered them around the castle, the two were inseparable, talking and laughing together.
Incidentally, Morris also had developed a good relationship with both of them. Particularly Ron—after initially hearing with horror that Morris actually kept spiders as pets, he had been persistently wanting Morris to somehow help him overcome his severe fear of spiders through 'exposure therapy'.
Ron's arachnophobia was extraordinarily, almost pathologically severe. Even seeing a completely harmless spider the size of a fingernail would make him tremble with terror and break out in cold sweat.
Morris had no real solution for this deep-rooted phobia. He'd tried one afternoon using Transfiguration to create a relatively small, fist-sized spider from a leaf to test Ron's reactions in a controlled setting.
The result? Ron, who didn't yet know any proper defensive spells, had in his extreme terror and panic somehow managed to shoot an impressive beam of wild magical energy from his wand. The blast had instantly obliterated that transfigured spider into smoking fragments.
Worse still for everyone involved, they'd been attempting this experimental exposure therapy in the open garden area. That powerful beam had ricocheted unpredictably off and struck another unfortunate student directly on the behind, causing quite a spectacular scene of yelping and chaos.
By the way, that unlucky student's name was Neville, the same nervous boy who'd lost his toad on the Hogwarts Express.
"Hey! Morris, come over here!" Ron's sharp eyes spotted Morris from distance across the garden and waved energetically.
"Hello, you two," Morris called back, stopping on the path. Tin-Tin perched on his shoulder lazily raised its cold chin in a minimal greeting gesture. "Where are you headed on this fine day?"
"The library, unfortunately," Ron said with an exaggerated shrug and grimace. "Homework. The eternal curse of students."
Then, as if suddenly remembering something urgent, he quickly asked with hope, "By the way, Morris, what's your Potions homework assignment for this week? Is it the same as what Snape gave us, or does he assign different work to different houses?"
"Write out the detailed appearance and specific uses of some basic potion materials," Morris answered readily from memory. "Daisy roots, fig skin, porcupine quills, ginger root, sopophorous beans, asphodel, wormwood..."
"Alright, alright, you can stop now," Ron immediately cut him off, looking somewhat pained by the flood of technical terms.
"It's genuinely impressive that you remember so many material names perfectly. But fortunately for us, your homework content is exactly the same as ours, which means—"
He paused meaningfully. "I assume you've already finished it?"
"I have," Morris nodded simply. "Finished it two days ago."
Seeing the unmistakable mixture of hopeful anticipation and sheepish embarrassment on Ron's face, Morris immediately understood exactly what he was getting at with this line of questioning. Ron clearly had designs on his completed homework.
Sure enough, Ron's eyes lit up like lanterns at this confirmation. He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a whisper with a somewhat fawning, pleading smile. "Could you possibly let us reference it? You know, just to check our work? You'll help me and Harry, right? I think we're friends now, and friends help each other."
Harry's expression beside Ron was somewhat complicated but he didn't object to the request. Because honestly, he also desperately needed that "reference material" to complete his assignment properly.
Morris smiled warmly at both of them. "I'll let you copy it, don't worry about it."
He genuinely didn't mind this at all. Helping friends was natural.
Ron breathed an enormous sigh of relief; his shoulders were visibly relaxing. But he still stubbornly objected to the terminology, "How can this possibly be called copying? That sounds so dishonest! It's just borrowing ideas and checking our answers. Completely different thing."
Morris could only acquiesce to this transparent self-deception with an amused expression. "Whatever you say, Ron. Just don't let Snape catch you with identical essays."
"Don't worry, it absolutely won't happen!" Ron stated with complete and probably unjustified confidence.
But then he seemed to realize something and turned to Harry with concern.
"Harry, you might need to be considerably more careful though. You know, Snape clearly has something personal against you... Well, specifically against you in particular. He'll definitely nitpick your homework with extra scrutiny looking for any excuse to take points."
Harry's expression immediately became rather gloomy and deeply helpless at this reminder.
The fact that Snape excessively targeted him was now common knowledge throughout the entire school, everyone had noticed their Potions professor's hostility. To this day, after over a month of classes, Harry still didn't understand why he deserved such treatment.
"I don't understand it at all," his voice carried genuine frustration. "I've never done anything to him. From the very first lesson on our very first day, he seemed to particularly dislike me for no reason. But I'd never even met him before coming to Hogwarts! How could I have offended him?"
"Maybe it's because you're famous as the Boy Who Lived," Morris suggested with a casual shrug. "Some people resent celebrity or attention. Or perhaps some relative or elder of yours had a serious feud or conflict with him that you don't know anything about."
He wasn't familiar with the original story's details and relationships, so he could only offer reasonable speculation based on human nature.
"Hard to know," Harry sighed heavily. "This is honestly the first time I've ever... genuinely hated someone this much. And a professor at that."
"Me too," Ron nodded vigorously in harmony. "Snape's awful."
As Harry's good friend and constant companion, Ron had received plenty of collateral negative attention from Snape as well, guilt by association.
"I actually think Professor Snape is alright," Morris said honestly.
"What?" Harry said, stunned.
"What!?" Ron exclaimed even louder.
Both boys' heads snapped toward Morris in shock, their eyes went wide. They clearly hadn't expected Morris would actually speak well of Snape—their mutual enemy.
For just an instant, Harry almost felt a flash of dislike for this boy standing in front of him.
But then he quickly remembered that Morris was generously lending them his homework to copy. Well, in that case, Harry chose immediate forgiveness.
"Professor Snape's lectures are actually very well-organized and informative," Morris explained calmly, undeterred by their reactions. "Just looking at those complex potion ingredient processing steps, the underlying principles, and the key points to watch for—he explains them very clearly and precisely. His teaching is excellent."
Harry and Ron exchanged bewildered glances, clearly unable to understand this perspective.
"Moreover," Morris continued with enthusiasm, "I quite admire Professor Snape. I found several academic papers he published in the library archives, apparently from when he was still a student here. The content was about…..."
"Alright, alright, enough," Ron interrupted, waving his hand somewhat wearily.
Seeing Morris's clear-eyed sincerity and genuine respect, Ron couldn't even argue properly. "But that still doesn't change the fact that he's a detestable person who makes our lives miserable, right, Harry?"
Harry opened his mouth to agree, then paused. Looking at Morris's straightforward, honest expression like someone who clearly had no personal stake in defending Snape, he suddenly felt his anger and grievances had nowhere to properly go.
Of course, Harry knew that Snape was extremely capable and knowledgeable. One didn't become a Head of House and professor at Hogwarts through mediocrity or favoritism. But that competence wasn't a legitimate reason for Snape to treat Harry himself so differently and unfairly compared to other students!
Morris observed Harry's constantly shifting expression and made a practical suggestion. "Snape's hostile attitude toward you specifically is very unusual and unprofessional, that's indisputable. How about... you go ask him directly why he dislikes you so much? Face to face, privately."
Sometimes, complete sincerity was the greatest trump card in resolving conflicts. Perhaps a direct, honest face to face inquiry could clear up whatever misunderstanding exists. Who knows? It was worth trying.
After all, barring any unlikely accidents, Snape would be their Potions professor for all seven years at Hogwarts. Regardless of who you were, maintaining at least a decent relationship with professors was quite necessary.
Harry Potter was no exception to that.