"Morris, did you see your parents in the Mirror of Erised?" Harry's voice had a trace of concern.
Morris withdrew his gaze from the magnificent mirror and looked directly at Harry with calm, clear eyes. He shook his head slowly, his expression was blank and unbothered.
"I only saw that I had many Galleons," Morris said simply. "Enormous quantities of them, piled up like mountains of treasure. Gold everywhere I looked, more money than I could possibly spend in several lifetimes."
"Gal... Galleons?" Harry blinked rapidly, his face was transforming through surprise to complete astonishment, his mouth even dropped open a bit.
Even Dumbledore, who had been maintaining his gentle, knowing smile from his position near the doorway where he'd been observing the two boys, had the corner of his mouth twitch subtly at Morris's blunt words.
What a... remarkably practical desire indeed.
Harry took a moment to digest this unexpected information, then he couldn't help but press further with genuine curiosity and concern.
"But Morris," Harry said softly, his voice was gentle and careful, "don't you want to see your parents?"
Morris spread his hands and said lightly, "Harry, would you honestly hold hope for something that doesn't exist at all? For something you've never had and can never have?"
He paused, then continued with pragmatism.
"Even if I desperately wanted my parents to appear in the mirror, even if I tried with all my will to imagine them standing there—I can't even begin to picture what they should look like. How can you long for faces you've never seen?"
In fact, not just in this current life but in his previous life as well, he had lived without parents.
He hadn't even had any extended relatives.
The life of an orphan—he was already thoroughly accustomed to it.
Harry opened his mouth as if to argue or offer comfort, but no words came out. The sadness on his face was obvious.
Morris noticed this expression and chuckled warmly, reaching out to pat Harry's shoulder in a gesture of reassurance.
"Don't make that face, Harry," he said with amusement. "Seriously, you look like someone just told you your owl died. Do you really think I would still be sad or grieving about not having parents I never knew?"
Losing something is often harder to let go of than never having had it at all.
"All right, you two," Dumbledore's gentle voice suddenly rang out from his position near the door. "While this mirror is certainly one of the most magical and fascinating objects in existence, it's easy to become addicted to the illusions it shows—to the visions of your heart's deepest desire."
He stepped forward slightly.
"I can tell you this from personal experience, as someone who has stood before this very mirror and lost far too much time to its seductive visions," Dumbledore continued, his voice took on a more serious tone.
"Staring at this mirror too much, dwelling on what you see reflected there, does no good at all. It shows you things that cannot be, and longing for impossibilities is a path to despair."
He paused in, then said gently.
"After tomorrow, this mirror will be moved to another location. Harry, and Morris as well—I must ask that you do not come looking for it again."
Both boys nodded their understanding and agreement, though Harry's expression showed he was already mourning the loss of his ability to see his parents' faces.
After saying their farewells to Dumbledore who had escorted them partway back toward their respective dormitories before departing with a final knowing smile, Morris and Harry walked side by side through the castle's corridors.
"We were rather lucky tonight," Morris said lightly. "No punishment, no house points deducted, not even a lecture about breaking curfew. Dumbledore was remarkably understanding. Harry, why aren't you saying anything? You're not still thinking about the mirror, are you?"
Harry kept his head down as they walked, and sighed heavily.
"Yes,"
He was silent for a moment, clearly wrestling with something, then asked with hesitation, "Morris, what was your life like growing up in the orphanage?"
Morris's steady footsteps didn't falter or slow at this question. The inquiry didn't surprise him—it was natural curiosity between two people who shared the orphan experience, even if their circumstances were quite different.
"Not bad," Morris replied. "The orphanage director was actually a decent person. At the very least, she always made sure we had enough to eat and warm places to sleep."
He considered for a moment, then added, "The caretakers didn't manage us very closely or pay much attention to what we did, which some might consider neglect. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing either."
Harry nodded thoughtfully.
"Aha! Two little wizards out of bed! Fresh victims for Peeves!"
Just then, a shrill, piercing shriek suddenly shattered the corridor's silence.
A ghost wearing a garish, eye-wateringly bright orange bow tie and the most outlandish, mismatched clothing imaginable suddenly burst out from a tapestry on the wall to their left.
Its sudden appearance was accompanied by a sound like a small explosion and a blast of cold, musty air.
"Peeves!" Harry jumped in fright, his heart was racing, and instinctively stepped backward several paces.
"Look who this is! Look, look, look!" Peeves cackled with malicious glee. "The famous Harry Potter! The Boy Who Lived, wandering around at night like a common rule-breaker! Oh, this is delicious! This is wonderful!"
The poltergeist began circling around Harry in dizzying loops, swooping and diving like a deranged bird.
"Naughty little brats, what are you sneaky children doing here so late at night?" Peeves sing-songed, his grin was widening. "Up to no good? Breaking rules? Causing mischief? Oh, I do hope so!"
Morris stepped forward calmly, placing himself slightly between Peeves and Harry.
"Peeves," he said clearly, making direct eye contact with it, "if you want to go tell a professor about finding us out of bed, you're certainly welcome to try. But we should probably mention that we just parted ways with Headmaster Dumbledore five minutes ago."
Hearing this, Peeves didn't appear deterred or intimidated in the slightest. Instead, his eyes lit up with even greater mischievous delight, and he suddenly swooped directly up to Morris's face until they were nearly nose-to-nose.
"Lying! Filthy lying!" he shrieked with gleeful accusation. "Making up stories! Trying to fool poor Peeves! Haha! Nobody fools Peeves!"
Before either of them could respond, Peeves shot up abruptly toward the ceiling and began roaring at the top of his lungs.
"OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED! HARRY POTTER'S OUT OF BED! COME AND CATCH THEM! COME QUICKLY! RULE-BREAKERS! WANDERERS! MISCHIEF-MAKERS!"
Harry's face went pale with instant regret and rising panic.
'Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.'
Perhaps he should have put the Invisibility Cloak on before they'd left the mirror room. How could he have been so careless and stupid?
Although Dumbledore had been remarkably understanding and hadn't said anything about their nighttime wandering or even seemed particularly concerned, Filch certainly would not be so forgiving.
Watching Peeves performing gleeful somersaults and loop-de-loops in the air above them, clearly delighted with himself for causing trouble, Morris frowned with annoyance and resignation.
No choice then.
He pulled out his wand from his robe and pretended to wave it in the air twice.
"Weakening Curse! Wailing Curse!"
Two barely visible wisps of gray mist rapidly drifted up toward the cackling Peeves like smoke on a breeze.
Harry was just about to remind Morris helpfully that magic didn't work on ghosts or poltergeists when something completely unexpected happened.
Peeves suddenly went completely stiff in mid-somersault. His mouth was opened in a silent gasp of shock.
Then his semi-transparent legs kicked once, irregularly, and he fell stiffly from the air like a puppet with cut strings.
"Huh?" Harry made a confused sound, his mind struggling to process what he'd just witnessed.
That's right—Morris's spells drawn from the Mage's Book could indeed be used on ghosts.
And for some reason, the effect was considerably more potent when used on ghosts than when used on living people.
He had tested this phenomenon on Nearly Headless Nick before.
Just an extremely light Weakening Curse—one so mild it would have almost no noticeable effect on a living person, equivalent to making them slightly tired had made the Gryffindor house ghost feeling "completely drained," "utterly exhausted," and "barely able to float."
Now it seemed the effect was equally outstanding when used on Peeves, who was similar to a ghost though technically classified as a poltergeist.
Looking at Peeves lying motionless and stunned on the floor, Harry could hardly believe what he was seeing.
"Let's go quickly," Morris said urgently. "The commotion Peeves made just now might bring people here."
The two boys quickly left the scene at a rapid walk.
The corridor returned to silence, with only the occasional soft crackling and popping from the torches on the walls.
About ten minutes later—
A figure with a thick turban wrapped around his head appeared at the spot, stopping a few steps away from Peeves.
"How interesting."
Quirrell heard his master say this.
The Christmas holiday passed quickly, and after school resumed, Hogwarts became lively again.
However, despite the return to normalcy in terms of population, the weather remained absolutely terrible and showed no signs of improving. Continuous cold rain lasted nearly half a month without pause, turning the grounds into a muddy swamp and making outdoor activities miserable.
During this dreary, wet period of January, Morris devoted almost all his available energy and focus to two primary tasks: brewing the Draught of Living Death, and condensing gate energy crystals.
In the gate world, he made a discovery about the nature of the white mist that served as his raw material for energy crystal creation.
The white mist in any given area was apparently finite rather than infinite.
After Morris kept creating energy crystals day after day in the area immediately surrounding the castle's frozen reflection, the fog concentration near that place grew lower and thinner with each visit.
The gathering speed, the rate at which he could collect and condense the mist became increasingly slow and inefficient as well.
Eventually, there wasn't even a wisp of mist left in the castle vicinity.
Therefore, Morris had no choice but to travel to more distant locations in the gate world to gather energy.
Mid-January, a Saturday morning when classes were not in session.
In the privacy of his Ravenclaw dormitory, Morris performed his now-daily meditation routine with focus.
After sitting motionless on his bed for two hours, he exhaled a breath of stale air and opened his eyes.
His legs had fallen completely asleep.
Morris grimaced slightly at the uncomfortable feeling but didn't move immediately. Everyone had a meditation posture that suited them best.
Although he could meditate successfully in other positions sitting cross-legged most easily and reliably helped him achieve deep concentration and clear perception of magical energy.
Morris carefully shifted his body, slowly working the stiffness and numbness out of his legs with gentle stretches and movements.
Recently, he had gradually come to understand the true underlying purpose and mechanism of meditation.
Meditation was fundamentally about enhancing his conscious perception and awareness of "magic power" in its raw state.
This was why, Morris had discovered, after completing a meditation session his success rate in casting spells increased dramatically.
There was magic power residing within his body. There was magic power in his blood specifically. And there was ambient magic power simply wandering in the air around him as well.
Unfortunately, despite this increased awareness and perception, Morris still couldn't fully control raw magic power directly or manipulate it with pure will alone.
He could only channel and express magic power through the act of casting specific spells, whether they were conventional spells from the Hogwarts curriculum or the magic from the Mage's Book.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Just then, a sudden noise came from the tower window.
Morris got up from his bed and walked over to open the window latch. Cold air mixed with fine drizzle immediately rushed into the warm room, making him shiver.
Squeezing in through the now-open window along with the unpleasant weather was Sparkles, Morris's loyal owl, looking somewhat bedraggled and miserable.
"Thanks for your hard work," Morris said warmly as he stroked the owl's damp head affectionately.
He pulled out his wand and cast a quick Drying Charm directing the warm, gentle magic over Sparkles' soaked feathers.
Sparkles hooted softly in gratitude and extended one leg, where a small leather pouch was tied.
Morris untied the pouch and removed it from the owl's leg, weighing it experimentally in his palm. It was satisfyingly heavy, with a pleasant weight to it, and when he gave it a small shake, the reassuring sound of metal coins clinking against each other came from inside.
His face broke into a smile.
This was the share of profits that Frick had sent from selling the remaining skeleton dogs.
Morris hummed a tune as he took out the Galleons and stored them in his trunk.
Galleons—he would never dislike them.