Before Morris could react, the house-elf Bobo was already sobbing pathetically and pleading.
"Respected sir, please, I beg you with all my heart, don't tell anyone—anyone at all about Bobo slacking off and sleeping,"
The elf wailed, his voice was cracking with emotions. "Bobo will do anything you ask, anything at all, just please don't tell!"
His physical strength was absolutely astonishing for such a small creature. Morris felt his leg being clamped in Bobo's desperate grip as if it had been caught in a bear trap.
"Let go of me, Bobo," Morris said with weary helplessness. "I won't tell anyone anything about finding you asleep. I promise. Just let go of my leg."
"Really?" Bobo asked with hope, carefully lifting his tear-stained face to look up at Morris with those large eyes.
Seizing this momentary opportunity when the elf's grip loosened slightly in hope, Morris quickly pulled his leg free with a tug and simultaneously took a hasty step back to put distance between them.
Unfortunately, he was half a beat too slow in his escape.
His trouser leg was already thoroughly stained with a mixture of tears, snot, and what might have been drool.
After casting several different cleaning charms on himself waiting for each spell to take effect and remove the various fluids and stains, Morris finally felt clean enough to address the house-elf.
Bobo stood nervously beside him, absolutely not daring to move a single muscle, his large eyes were fixed on Morris with a mixture of fear, hope, and anxious anticipation.
"All right, this matter ends here and now," Morris said firmly. "I give you my word, and I won't tell anyone about finding you asleep."
Bobo nodded vigorously. "Sir, you are so kind! So merciful! So understanding!"
Morris really didn't want to hear the creature prattle on with praise and was already turning to leave this bizarre encounter behind him, but he suddenly remembered the actual real purpose that had brought him to this remote corridor in the first place.
"Wait, Bobo," Morris said, stopping mid-turn.
The house-elf jerked violently at being addressed again, his entire body was trembling as if electrocuted. His eyes immediately began filling with terror.
"Yes, sir? Do you have any other instructions for poor Bobo, respected sir?" he asked with anxiety.
"Don't be so nervous," Morris said, waving his hand in a calming gesture. "Relax. I just want to ask you a simple question."
"A question, sir?" Bobo repeated uncertainly.
"You're very familiar with this castle, right?" Morris asked, getting to the point. "I need to find a specific kind of place. A very secluded, spacious, and quiet location, preferably somewhere that even you house-elves rarely visit or can't normally disturb. Does such a place exist in Hogwarts?"
He figured that house-elves who had worked in this castle for decades or even centuries should be among those most closely familiar with every corner and secret of this castle.
Asking wouldn't waste much time anyway, and might save him hours or days of fruitless searching.
Bobo blinked his giant eyes several times, his expression was becoming thoughtful and contemplative as he reviewed his knowledge of the castle.
"Not to be disturbed..." he murmured to himself, clearly thinking hard. "somewhere very private and secret..."
Then his face suddenly brightened with realization and excitement.
"Oh! Oh, Bobo knows!" he exclaimed, his eyes were lighting up with enthusiasm. "Yes, yes! There is such a place! That room might meet your requirements perfectly, sir!"
Morris immediately became very interested, leaning forward with anticipation.
"Where is it?" he asked eagerly.
"It's located on the eighth floor of the main castle building, sir," Bobo explained carefully. "In the corridor opposite a very strange tapestry. We house-elves have a special name for this room—we call it the Come and Go Room, because it comes and goes as needed. Some also call it the Room of Requirement."
Morris's eyebrows rose with curiosity. A room that "comes and goes"?
About ten minutes later, after receiving thorough instructions from the grateful house-elf, Morris arrived at the specific corridor Bobo had mentioned on the eighth floor of Hogwarts' main castle building.
The eighth floor was quieter than the lower levels as there were fewer classrooms up here, mostly storage and abandoned areas.
Sure enough, on the wall to his left as he entered the corridor, Morris found a huge tapestry.
The tapestry's artistic content was quite abstract and bizarre, definitely not something you'd see in any normal decorative artwork.
It depicted six enormous trolls wearing odd ballet skirt in various colors. The trolls were arranged in a circle surrounding a single well-dressed wizard in fine robes who stood in the center.
The wizard looked terrified, his face was showing exaggerated fear and desperation as he waved his wand frantically, trying to fend off the heavy wooden clubs that the trolls were enthusiastically swinging in their hands.
Apparently, the trolls were trying to learn ballet, and the wizard was their unfortunate instructor now regretting his career choices.
Morris stared at this surreal scene for a moment and could almost smell the troll body odor wafting from the magical tapestry.
His nose actually wrinkled at the imagined stench.
He shifted his gaze away from this perplexing and somewhat disturbing scene to focus on the opposite wall where Bobo had told him the Room of Requirement would appear.
The wall across from the tapestry was completely bare and featureless. Very clean, very ordinary, showing no signs of doors, passages, or magical anything. Just smooth stone blocks like thousands of other walls throughout the castle.
Nothing special or remarkable was about it.
Following the house-elf's detailed instructions, Morris positioned himself directly in front of this blank wall and began pacing deliberately back and forth in front of it.
While walking, he concentrated his mind and silently chanted his specific need with focus and clarity: "I need a spacious empty room. A spacious empty room. A spacious empty room..."
He completed the back-and-forth pacing three times, maintaining his mental focus throughout the process.
After the third pass, something absolutely amazing and magical happened before his eyes.
A smooth door with a brass handle silently appeared on the previously featureless wall, appearing as naturally as if it had always been there.
Morris immediately grasped the brass door handle with eager hands. He turned it and pushed the door open with anticipation.
The space that opened up before him exceeded his expectations considerably.
This was an extremely spacious underground chamber or cellar-like room. The high ceiling and rough stone walls gave the impression of old age and firmness.
The walls were made of massive stone blocks fitted together without mortar, each one probably weighing several tons. The floor underfoot was hard-packed earth rather than stone, giving the feeling of an ancient cellar or storage vault that had been sealed away and forgotten.
Morris walked into the center of the room and turned in a slow circle, mentally measuring the available space.
He roughly estimated that this chamber was more than large enough to comfortably accommodate an undead creature advancement ritual magic circle.
Moreover, according to what the house-elf Bobo had explained, this room could only allow one person to enter at any given time.
Perfect! It was too perfect!
Morris nodded with deep satisfaction.
This was simply an excellent, purpose-built venue for experimenting with dark magic.
Oh wait—Morris caught himself with slight embarrassment at his own thoughts. His undead creature advancement ritual technically wasn't "dark magic".
Necromancy was more of a... morally ambiguous gray area. Totally different from actually dark magic.
In any case, Morris designated this Room of Requirement as the primary location for conducting his advancement ritual for both Tin-Tin and Sparkles.
He could hardly wait to actually perform the ceremony!
Unfortunately, Morris realized he still had to rush to his next scheduled class.
Morris pulled out the silver pocket watch he'd purchased from a shop in Diagon Alley during his Christmas holiday and checked the time with growing resignation.
Well, he thought, no real rush to hurry since he was already going to be late anyway. Might as well walk slowly and compose a good excuse rather than arriving breathless and flustered.
This next class was Professor Snape's Potions class, scheduled in the dungeons. The greasy-haired professor probably wouldn't give Morris too much trouble for tardiness or at least, not as much as he'd give a Gryffindor.
Morris would just claim he had been too absorbed in brewing a particularly complex potion in his dormitory and completely lost track of time. That was a reasonable excuse that Snape should appreciate.
He believed his dear Potions professor would surely understand and sympathize with that kind of academic dedication!
Thus, Morris's optimistic prediction was proven somewhat inaccurate, and by evening of that day, Ravenclaw's hourglass filled with blue sapphires had lost a small section of points.
The next day dawned bright and clear, it was a blessed rest day with no classes scheduled.
Early in the morning, shortly after sunrise, Morris slung his backpack over his shoulder after packing it with all his ritual materials, brought along Tin-Tin his cat, and instructed Sparkles his undead owl to hide in his shadow.
Then he strode with determination toward the castle's eighth floor, his mind was focused entirely on the advancement ritual he was about to perform.
He had been looking forward to this particular magical working for such a long time.
Even passing by the library entrance and catching sight through the open doors of two students apparently engaged in some kind of confrontation couldn't make him stop to investigate or slow his determined pace...
Actually, Morris reconsidered after taking three more steps, he should probably stop for this.
After all, watching drama unfold was fundamental human nature. And Morris was no exception to this basic rule of human psychology.
He stopped walking and turned back, watching with great interest from a safe distance, secretly observing while pretending to examine a nearby notice board.
Two students were standing in the corridor in front of the library's main entrance, facing off against each other in confrontation.
On one side was the immediately recognizable figure of Draco Malfoy with his platinum-blond hair slicked back, bordered by his two ever-present lackeys Crabbe and Goyle.
On the other side, standing alone and looking quite frightened and vulnerable, was a round-faced little boy that Morris recognized as Neville Longbottom, one of Harry Potter's Gryffindor roommates.
Their confrontation seemed to have already progressed beyond the initial verbal stage and concluded with decisive action. Neville's legs had clearly been hit with the Leg-Locker Curse as they were stuck together from thigh to ankle, forcing him to stand in an awkward, immobile position with no ability to walk or even move his lower body.
The poor boy looked on the verge of tears.
Draco stood triumphantly over his victim as he mocked the helpless Gryffindor with enjoyment.
"Come on then, coward! Take out your wand!" Draco taunted loudly, his voice was dripping with scorn and amusement. "Let's practice some spells together! Or are you too pathetic and incompetent to even try defending yourself? Let's see if you can cast anything more advanced than a basic Lumos!"
Crabbe and Goyle laughed their typical stupid, grating laughs at their master's wit.
Neville trembled, his voice was shaking with fear and misery.
"Let... let me go, Malfoy," he stammered out weakly. "This is the second time already. Just leave me alone."
This weak reply only earned a few more harsh mocking laughs from Draco and his cronies who clearly found Neville's helplessness deeply amusing.
Suddenly, while scanning his surroundings in desperate hope of rescue or assistance, Neville's gaze caught sight of Morris standing in the distance observing the scene.
His eyes locked onto Morris directly, staring straight over with an expression mixing desperate hope and pleading. His eyes were already full of unshed tears ready to spill down his round cheeks.
Morris's footsteps, which had been subtly shifting to quietly leave and continue on his way to avoid getting involved in someone else's conflict, paused at being directly noticed and implicitly appealed to.
Tsk, he thought with resignation. I have been spotted.
He had originally planned to simply pretend he hadn't seen anything at all and continue walking past. After all, Morris wasn't some justice-seeking do-gooder hero who went around rescuing people from bullies. He had his own priorities and more important things to do.
Getting involved in petty student conflicts wasn't his responsibility or his problem.
However, Morris had to admit, Neville's pleading gaze was really quite hard to ignore. The desperate hope in those eyes pulled at something in Morris's conscience despite his attempts to remain uninvolved.
And on the other side of this confrontation was Draco Malfoy with whom Morris himself had some recent conflict and no particular fondness.
'Might as well do a good deed while simultaneously annoying Malfoy,' Morris decided. 'Two birds with one stone.'
Morris took out his wand from his robe, making the action visible and slightly threatening, while simultaneously moving to position himself in front of the four people.
A pleasant, friendly looking smile appeared on his face.
"Malfoy! What a pleasant surprise!" Morris said with false cheerfulness. "It's been such a long time. How have you been lately? I heard that you were attacked by something yesterday around noon."
At these seemingly innocent words, a flash of wariness appeared across Malfoy's eyes, quickly followed by anger, and poorly concealed embarrassment.
Yesterday at noon, he had been walking perfectly fine through what he'd thought was an empty corridor when something had suddenly blasted him without warning, leaving him in complete disarray.
What made it infinitely worse, on his way back to the common room to clean himself up, he'd been spotted by a large group of Gryffindor students.
In just one night, this incident had spread throughout the entire school. And the story became more and more outrageous and embellished with each retelling.
By this morning the rumor had transformed into:
Draco Malfoy had confessed his feelings to some Slytherin girl and after being cruelly rejected in front of witnesses, he'd become so angry and humiliated that he'd tried to curse her with a sneak attack.
But because he was incompetent and his spell-work was sloppy, the curse had backfired and blasted him back ten feet, slamming him into a wall and leaving him stunned and scorched.
Draco had no idea which malicious bastard had invented that particular version of events or started that specific rumor.
It was simply a complete and utter humiliation.
What made it even more frustrating was that Draco had absolutely no idea who had actually attacked him or why.
But he was certain the false rumor about the romantic rejection and backfired curse had definitely originated from those insufferable Gryffindor people who'd seen him in the corridor.