For his very first attempt at an Undead Evolution Ritual, Maurise had no intention of risking his prized companions, Tin or Cinder. This ritual was experimental, dangerous, and carried a success rate that was nowhere near a guaranteed hundred percent.
Instead, he had lugged the generic skeletal dog from his dormitory out to this secluded spot. To Maurise, this particular bag of bones was little more than a mindless puppet. He felt no emotional attachment to it. If the ritual failed and turned the creature into a pile of calcium dust, his heart would not break.
Well, maybe a little. The thing had cost him thirty Galleons. Considering his current net worth would not even total ten gold coins if he emptied his pockets and shook his robes, losing thirty was still a painful prospect.
After double-checking his preparations, Maurise hauled the skeletal dog into the center of the intricate magic circle. The creature remained perfectly still. It only moved when given a direct command from its master.
Maurise clapped his hands sharply. The previously inanimate skull of the dog jerked upward, and two flickers of eerie blue soul-fire ignited within its hollow eye sockets.
"Stay. Don't move an inch," Maurise commanded.
He backed away several paces, making sure he was well outside the perimeter of the runes. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, slowing his heartbeat and centering his mind. Three seconds later, his eyes snapped open, and he began to chant in a low, rhythmic drone.
One by one, the symbols etched into the floor began to glow. A deep, unsettling crimson light bled into the grooves of the magic circle. For a moment, it felt as though the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist. The rustle of the wind and the distant sounds of Hogwarts faded away, leaving only the steady, haunting pulse of Maurise's voice.
The skeletal dog stood at the epicenter, its skull tilting uneasily. Primal instinct told the creature to flee, but Maurise's command was absolute, binding it to the spot like invisible chains.
As the final syllable of the incantation left his lips, the magic circle flared with a steady light, entering a humming state of readiness. Maurise wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and reached for the heavy rucksack at his feet. Inside, the Gap Energy Crystals were already vibrating in sympathy with the ritual.
He plucked a single crystal from the bag and tossed it into the glow.
The circle flashed a violent red. The crystal did not just break; it dissolved instantly into a thick, swirling mist that began to coil around the skeletal dog like a hungry serpent.
"I see," Maurise muttered to himself.
He began to grasp the mechanics of the array. It functioned as a massive refinery, condensing raw energy into a potent catalyst designed to force an undead entity past its natural limits.
With the theory confirmed, Maurise did not hesitate. He reached into his bag and began throwing handfuls of the crystals into the circle. One after another, they vanished into the red light, feeding the swirling vortex. The mist grew denser, shifting from a pale grey to a heavy, obsidian black.
When the bag was nearly empty, a muffled boom echoed through the clearing, as if a localized pressure cooker had finally reached its limit.
The shockwave hit Maurise like a physical wall. His wizard robes were plastered against his body, and his hood was ripped back by the sudden gale. He squinted through the chaos, shielding his eyes with his forearm. The black fog was spinning in a violent cyclone, obscuring everything within the circle.
"This is definitely a safety hazard," Maurise thought, his internal alarm bells ringing loudly.
However, his curiosity was far stronger than his sense of self-preservation. He had to see the results. Gritting his teeth, he leaned into the wind and forced himself forward, inching toward the heart of the storm.
Sharp pebbles caught in the draft grazed his cheeks, leaving thin red lines in their wake, but he hardly noticed. Finally, he reached the edge of the inner circle where the air was strangely calm.
The skeletal dog was sprawled on the ground, motionless. The black mist was no longer swirling; instead, it was being vacuumed into the dog's bones, disappearing into the white marrow as if the creature were a sponge.
Maurise sank onto the ground, exhausted. He watched in silence as the last of the shadows vanished and the runes on the floor faded into nothingness.
Silence returned to the woods.
"Awoo-hoo!" a voice barked directly into Maurise's mind.
It was the dog.
The creature scrambled to its feet, looking somewhat wobbly. Physically, it looked identical to before, but the soul-fire in its eyes was burning with a new, fierce intensity.
"How do you feel?" Maurise asked, dusting off his robes.
"Awoo-hoo!" the dog projected again. The mental bark was bright, filled with a newfound sense of affection and excitement that had not been there before.
Maurise let out a long breath of relief. It worked.
"Did you gain any new tricks?"
The dog tilted its skull in a surprisingly human gesture of understanding.
"Show me."
The ritual had clearly boosted the creature's intelligence. It no longer required simple, robotic commands. It could interpret intent.
The skeletal dog turned its head toward a nearby oak tree. The blue fire in its eyes flared.
With a sharp crack, two jagged bone spikes, each as thick as a man's forearm, manifested out of thin air. They streaked across the clearing, slamming into the trunk with enough force to bury themselves deep in the wood. A split second later, they detonated.
The explosion sprayed splinters and bone shards in every direction, leaving two gaping, blackened craters in the tree.
Maurise let out a low whistle of appreciation. "Impressive."
After a few more tests, he realized the dog could control the size of the spikes and the timing of the blast. By making the bone brittle upon detonation, the dog could create a shrapnel effect, effectively turning its own magic into a fragmentation grenade.
"Wahoo!" the dog shouted in his head, clearly caught up in the thrill of its own power.
Maurise blinked. "Dogs don't make that sound."
"Wahoo?" the dog questioned.
"Skeletal dogs included. Try a bark or a growl."
"Wahoo! Wahoo! Wahoo!"
Maurise rubbed his temples. "Fine. Have it your way."
The success was undeniable. He decided to categorize this new form as a Grade Two Undead, while Tin and Cinder remained at Grade One. It was only a matter of time before he could upgrade the rest of his little army.
But then his eyes fell on his empty rucksack. Most of his crystals were gone. Even worse, his supply of the Draught of Living Death was dangerously low.
"This is going to be a problem," he sighed.
He could not exactly waltz into the Hogwarts apothecary stores and borrow more high-end ingredients without raising eyebrows. He needed to buy them from the outside market. And to do that, he needed gold.
Maurise leaned back against a rock, staring up at the canopy. "It always comes back to the Galleons, doesn't it?"