In the deep darkness of night, most students were safely tucked away in their respective common rooms, engaged in homework or idle gossip or early sleep.
"Knock knock knock!"
Morris knocked on the door of Snape's office.
"Come in," came an impatient response from behind the door almost immediately.
Morris immediately pushed the door open without hesitation or second thoughts about disturbing.
He saw Snape sitting behind his office desk. A cauldron was in front of him on a mat, bubbling with wisps of pale steam that rose in spirals toward the ceiling. The air was thick and filled with the complex scent of various herbs.
Snape looked up from his work and said coldly, "It's eight o'clock in the evening, Mr. Black. Give me one compelling reason why you're here disturbing me during curfew hours."
"Actually, curfew doesn't officially begin until nine o'clock," Morris said clearly and quickly. "Professor, I have a question. Is the Draught of Living Death an incomplete potion?"
Snape was stunned by this direct, unexpected question. Then he actually laughed in exasperation. "You ran all the way down here to the dungeons at this late hour just to ask me a question?"
"Yes, Professor," Morris confirmed simply.
He nodded with complete seriousness, his young face looked serious and earnest in the lamplight, not joking in the slightest.
But then he seemed to realize something and showed an apologetic, somewhat sheepish smile. "Ah, I suppose I was a bit too hasty. If it's inconvenient for you right now, I can come back tomorrow morning."
Indeed, he reminded himself with a mental note about proper behavior, professors also needed rest and personal time away from students.
It was rather impolite and presumptuous of him to disturb someone at this late hour for what wasn't technically an emergency situation.
"No need to leave now that you're already here," Snape said in resignation.
He sighed with noticeable helplessness and studied Morris like examining some rare, inexplicable magical creature.
"Whether the Draught of Living Death is incomplete or not shouldn't be a question that a first-year student concerns himself with at all. The formula has been tested and refined for hundreds of years by countless skilled potioneers, Mr. Black.
Its effects are demonstrably stable, reliable, and most importantly controllable—these qualities are more than sufficient for the vast majority of mediocre minds..."
"But I'm right, aren't I?" Morris interrupted him boldly, his tone was certain rather than questioning or seeking validation. His eyes were bright with conviction. "It is incomplete!"
The office fell into a brief silence.
"Yes," Snape finally answered after that long pause, his reply was short and direct.
"So, what exactly is it missing?" Morris asked urgently, leaning forward slightly in his eagerness. His hands gripped the edge of the desk. "What's the final ingredient that completes the transformation?"
As he'd suspected, his Potions professor shared the same thinking as him, perhaps had reached the same controversial conclusion years ago through his own research and experimentation.
Snape might have even conducted relevant research already, and knew what final ingredient was missing.
Snape didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he stood up slowly from his desk with a scrape of chair legs against the stone floor and walked with steps toward the tall row of specimen cabinets against the far wall. His robes swirled around his legs with each step.
The cabinets were filled with hundreds of bottles and jars, each containing different ingredients, each labeled in Snape's handwriting.
When he turned around again moments later, moving back toward the desk, he held a glass bottle in his pale fingers. The container was filled with fine gray-white powder.
He didn't hand the bottle directly to Morris but simply placed it on the desk between them.
Morris's gaze locked tightly onto the mysterious gray-white powder. "This is the missing ingredient? What exactly is it, Professor?"
"Ashes," Snape answered flatly, saying nothing more.
Morris was silent for a moment.
"Human?" he finally asked.
"Can't accept it?" Snape sneered with apparent mockery. His lip curled slightly. But then he explained, "The final ingredient for the Draught of Death— ashes of someone who died while still harboring hope for life."
"Oh, it's not that I can't accept it," Morris's expression was unexpectedly calm. "I just didn't expect it. So... what should I do with it? Add it during the brewing process of the Draught of Living Death?"
Truthfully, he was indeed initially shocked by this final ingredient.
But for wizards who routinely used bizarre and sometimes disturbing materials in their craft, using ashes as potion ingredients should be relatively normal... right?
Yes, very normal. (Attempting to convince himself.)
"You just need to add it to the already finished Draught of Living Death," Snape's voice still carried no major emotional fluctuation.
He paused, then continued with what sounded like a warning, "But after that addition, the Draught of Living Death is no longer merely a potion that lets people sleep peacefully and deeply in a death-like state."
"It transforms completely into what some call a 'Death Experience Draught.' The user will consciously, fully experience the complete process of consciousness separation from body, gradual perception fading into nothing, and self-existence being slowly eroded."
"Death Experience Draught..." Morris repeated the ominous name slowly, letting it roll around his mouth. His voice contained irrepressible excitement rather than fear. His eyes were actually lighting up with enthusiasm. "This is exactly what I want!"
Snape's expression froze completely at this enthusiastic response to what should be a terrifying prospect. His face went blank in a way that showed he was hiding strong emotion.
He slowly stood up from his somewhat relaxed position and said with a dark, warning tone, "Mr. Black, you seem to have completely failed to understand the gravity of my meaning. This isn't some interesting adventure you can boast about later to your friends, nor is it one of your childish magical experiments..."
"Ah, I know," Morris interrupted, looking up at Snape.
His young face was showing a kind of intense fanaticism that Snape had never seen before in any student during his teaching career.
"But don't you think, Professor... being able to consciously experience death, to study it while it happens, is an incredibly remarkable, unprecedented thing?
A person only has one single chance to die in their entire lifetime. Yet this potion somehow allows you to experience that ultimate transition multiple times."
Morris's voice rose with passion. "Incomparable... how beautifully romantic!"
Snape stood there momentarily speechless, genuinely at a complete loss for words in the face of such enthusiasm for something so dark.
How exactly was this student's brain wired?
What an absolute waste of such excellent natural talent in potions—the boy's brain clearly had some problems with normal risk assessment and basic self-preservation instincts that most people possessed.
But it didn't matter anymore, Snape decided with internal resignation and a mental shrug. Let the foolish boy do exactly as he pleased and deal with the consequences himself.
He himself had once personally tried this exact Death Experience Draught years ago during his own youth, driven by similar curiosity and the particular recklessness that came with being young and brilliant and convinced of one's own invulnerability.
The result wasn't anything particularly severe physiologically, there was no permanent physical damage to his body or mind. The only lingering side effect had been several consecutive days and nights of terrible insomnia and disturbing dreams.
That terrible, overwhelming experience of death gradually approaching... he really, truly didn't want to voluntarily go through it a second time for any reason.
But perhaps, Snape considered with dark amusement, letting an overconfident student personally experience the dangers of potions, thus developing proper reverence and healthy respect for this art, was also one of his duties as a responsible professor.
Sometimes the most valuable lessons had to be learned directly through experience rather than lecture.
Seeing that Snape had fallen into thoughtful silence and hadn't moved or spoken for a long time, clearly lost in his own memories and thoughts, Morris tentatively spoke up to break the silence. "Um... Professor, may I take these ashes with me?"
"You may," Snape said flatly, waving one hand in dismissal. "A standard dose of Draught of Living Death only requires precisely seven milligrams of ash. Remember to use properly calibrated scales to measure accurately, not your presumptuous eyes or casual guesswork."
"Thank you very much, Professor," Morris said with genuine gratitude.
He carefully tucked the small glass bottle into the innermost, most secure part of his robe pocket, keeping it close to his body where it couldn't possibly be lost or damaged.
Snape said nothing more, only waved his hand again in a gesture of dismissal, indicating Morris could finally leave his office and let him return to his interrupted work.
Morris bowed slightly again and turned toward the door with quick, eager steps.
As he walked back through the dark, cold dungeon corridors toward the upper levels, he reflected that Hogwarts professors seemed remarkably tolerant indeed, far more than he'd initially expected based on their reputations.
Thinking carefully and honestly about his behavior tonight, even he had to admit his own actions were somewhat inappropriate and presumptuous by normal standards.
Late at night, suddenly running to disturb a professor's personal time and rest because of nothing more than a hunch and intellectual curiosity that wasn't truly urgent.
He had even boldly walked away with the man's bottle of human ashes as if it were a normal, everyday transaction.
Back in the privacy of his personal dormitory, Morris carefully locked the door and took out the scales from a box in the corner.
The scales used in the magical world were quite amazing instruments, with astonishing precision that far exceeded anything Muggle technology could achieve through purely mechanical means.
Precisely separating out exactly seven milligrams of fine ash wasn't particularly difficult with such sophisticated equipment.
After he carefully added the measured ash to the crystal bottle containing the pale cyan Draught of Living Death, the previously clear potion slowly transformed before his eyes into a chaotic, swirling gray color.
The transformation was mesmerizing to watch, like storm clouds forming in miniature.
"Tin-Tin, don't disturb me for what comes next," Morris instructed his undead pet cat. It had appeared beside him at some point.
"Meow~" Tin-Tin responded nodding obediently.
Morris patted his foolish cat's head affectionately, and sat down with care in the center of the magic circle he'd drawn earlier.
The red pigment and blood mixture gleamed in the lamplight.
Then, without hesitation or fear or second thoughts, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank the entire contents of the enhanced Draught of Living Death in one continuous gulp, not stopping until the bottle was completely empty.
Almost instantly, he fell backward as his consciousness was dragged into boundless darkness like being pulled underwater by a powerful current.
Everything went completely black.
Then... came unexpected warmth.
As if he were being wrapped in a soft blanket.
He didn't know how long had passed when Morris finally opened his eyes.
White mist surrounded him completely, enveloping him tightly in thick clouds that obscured absolutely everything beyond arm's reach.
Where... was this place?
He propped himself up slowly on his elbows and looked around with growing confusion and disorientation, trying to pierce the obscuring mist.
The white fog gradually dispersed like curtains being drawn back by invisible hands, and the surroundings slowly resolved into the familiar sight of his dormitory. Everything appeared normal at first glance.
No obvious changes were appearing in the space or arrangement.
The only difference was that the magic circle he'd drawn on the floor with blood and pigment had completely disappeared.
Had this attempt failed as well?
"Tin-Tin?" Morris instinctively called out, his voice echoing strangely in the room.
No response came from the shadows.
Morris slowly stood up from the floor, his movements feeling oddly disconnected, and felt a slight but noticeable dizziness, somewhat like the disorienting aftereffects of Apparition.
After the dizzy, spinning feeling gradually dissipated and faded into the background, he looked toward the clock on the far wall, wanting to confirm how much time had actually passed during the attempt.
Strangely, the clock was completely still and silent.
The hands were frozen, stopped at precisely nine hours, forty minutes, and fifty-two seconds.
Morris's eyes narrowed with focus.
He didn't believe for even a moment that his clock would happen to break at precisely this moment, during this specific experiment.