Seeing this, Morris asked somewhat curiously, "Perhaps I shouldn't pry into personal matters, but do you have some kind of conflict with those girls?"
Being able to make enemies with other students on literally the first full day of school was, in some sense, actually a talent worth noting.
Hermione let out a soft sigh, her shoulders were slumping slightly as the forced smile faded completely. Her tone showed helpless confusion rather than anger. "They're my roommates. We haven't quarreled or fought about anything specific."
In fact, she herself felt completely baffled by the situation.
Her three roommates seemed to have become close friends in just one night and one morning, with only her excluded.
She genuinely couldn't understand why.
In all fairness, she hadn't done anything unpleasant. She had only demonstrated the magic she'd learned during summer vacation in front of them.
Morris stroked his chin thoughtfully.
He had heard about the notoriously complex interpersonal relationships that often developed between girls.
But were children this young already engaging in such complicated social maneuvering and exclusionary behavior? It seemed exhausting.
When Morris had been eleven in his previous life, he'd been far more concerned with collecting a complete set of trading cards.
Although he genuinely wanted to demonstrate his helpful, friendly side, especially to someone who'd just given him useful advice about the staircases, he really couldn't offer assistance with this particular type of problem.
"What about your roommates?" Hermione suddenly asked, apparently wanting to shift the conversation.
"Unfortunately," Morris shook his head with a smile, "I'm living alone in my room."
Hermione immediately cast him a sympathetic look.
She had clearly misunderstood the circumstances, assuming he'd been assigned a single room because no one wanted to share with him or because of some problem.
Morris just smiled without bothering to explain the actual situation.
"Oh, look—the staircase is back in position," Morris noted, seeing the stairs settle into place at their landing. "I should head down to breakfast. Goodbye, Hermione."
"Goodbye, Morris," Hermione waved, already pulling out her textbook again, probably to review while waiting for the next usable staircase.
...
The first class of Morris's Hogwarts education was Transfiguration, scheduled for mid-morning.
After finishing a satisfying breakfast in the Great Hall, Morris set off to find the Transfiguration classroom with what he'd hoped was plenty of time to spare.
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts at navigation, he still managed to get thoroughly lost in the castle's bewildering maze of corridors, moving staircases, and identical-looking passages.
After wandering in circles for around twenty minutes, doubling back several times when he reached dead ends, he finally located the correct classroom.
However, he'd left early enough that despite the detour, it was still well before the scheduled class time. The classroom was completely empty when he arrived.
Not a single other student had made it there yet.
The only living thing visible in the classroom was a striking tabby cat sitting on the teacher's lectern at the front of the room.
Probably some student's lost pet, Morris assumed, or perhaps it lived in the castle as a mouser.
Morris didn't particularly dislike cats—quite the opposite, in fact. He found them interesting. Otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen to transform Tin-Tin into his first undead creation.
With nothing else to occupy his time, Morris approached the lectern where the cat sat watching him.
On a whim, feeling slightly playful, Morris drew his wand and performed a quick Transfiguration. The wooden wand elongated and sprouted a bright red feather tied to its end, becoming a simple cat teaser toy.
He waved it gently before the tabby cat, making the feather dance and flutter in what should be an irresistible manner.
The tabby cat's ears twitched slightly at the movement, tracking the feather with its eyes, but it made no other motion.
"Not interested in feathers?" Morris murmured softly to himself, slightly disappointed.
He modified the Transfiguration with another wand movement, changing the feather on the teaser into a small ball of yarn.
As far as Morris knew, no cat could truly resist the temptation of a ball of yarn. Even Tin-Tin, foolish as that undead cat could be, would lose all dignity when presented with yarn.
Sure enough, the tabby cat finally moved in response.
However, its movement wasn't the playful pouncing and batting that Morris had anticipated.
Instead, the cat simply stretched, arching its back in a long stretch. Then it nimbly leaped down from the tall lectern, landing on the stone floor.
The moment its paws touched the ground, the transformation began.
The cat shed its fur like someone removing a cloak—the striped pattern seemed to peel away, revealing human skin beneath. Its entire body suddenly elongated and expanded.
Within seconds, Professor McGonagall's stern, meticulous face appeared before him where the cat had been. She stood in her usual emerald robes, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.
She adjusted her square glasses and her sharp gaze fell on Morris's wand, which still maintained the form of a cat toy with an attached ball of yarn.
"Very exquisite transfiguration work, Mr. Black," Professor McGonagall said, and though the corners of her mouth remained perfectly straight in her usual stern expression, a faint gleam of appreciation flickered in her eyes.
"Uh... good morning, Professor McGonagall," Morris managed to say.
He silently returned his wand to its original state with a quick reversal of the spell, tucking it away at his waist.
He genuinely hadn't expected at all that the seemingly ordinary tabby cat before him would actually be a person in magical disguise. A professor, no less, whom he'd just tried to play with using cat toys.
This was mortifying.
Perhaps in the future, whenever he encountered animals wandering around Hogwarts, he'd have to first seriously consider whether they might actually be transformed witches or wizards before attempting to interact with them. The magical world had too many opportunities for embarrassment.
"If this were during class hours, I would definitely award you house points for that transfiguration," Professor McGonagall continued, waving her wand with a flick. A teacup filled with steaming tea flew smoothly over from a side table, landing gently in her hand.
"But unfortunately, there's still half an hour until class officially begins. Early demonstrations don't count."
She took a sip of her tea.
"Can Transfiguration turn people into animals?" Morris asked with curiosity.
From his perspective, the tabby cat Professor McGonagall had transformed into had possessed no detectable flaws at all. It had looked, moved, and presumably thought like a genuine cat—at least until she'd chosen to reveal herself.
It would be an exceptionally useful method for disguising oneself. When encountering danger, transforming into an unnoticeable animal might have miraculous effects in allowing someone to slip away undetected.
"It can indeed," Professor McGonagall replied with a smile, seeming pleased by his interest. "But what I just demonstrated wasn't ordinary transfiguration magic of the kind you'll be learning this year. It's a much more profound and difficult form of magic."
She paused to take another sip of tea. "Once you've fully mastered the fundamentals of standard transfiguration, you'll naturally have the opportunity to learn about more advanced applications. But that's a conversation for your future education, not your first day."
Morris nodded in understanding.
Professor McGonagall didn't provide further explanation, probably thinking he didn't need to know so much right now.
And he himself wasn't someone who aimed too high.
"Your transfiguration fundamentals are remarkably solid for a first-year," Professor McGonagall observed, setting down her teacup and looked at Morris with interest. "Did you teach yourself during summer vacation?"
"Yes, Professor," Morris responded matter-of-factly. "As you know, I'm not a student born into a wizarding family. I had no access to magical education before receiving my Hogwarts letter, so I studied intensively once I had the materials."
Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed slightly, and she revealed a genuine smile.
It seemed this year's intake of students would produce at least one exceptionally talented individual. What remarkable dedication and natural ability, to achieve so much through self-study alone.
What a pity he hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor, she thought with some regret.
"Alright, Mr. Black, please return to your seat," Professor McGonagall said. "There's still some time before class officially begins. You may review your textbook or simply rest."
Morris randomly found a seat by the window and sat down, quietly awaiting his first lesson at Hogwarts.
Gradually, over the next twenty minutes, other students began trickling into the classroom one after another. They entered in small groups, chatting nervously, comparing schedules, speculating about what the class would be like.
Most of Hogwarts' classes were arranged with students from two houses together, presumably to foster inter-house relationships and provide larger class sizes. This Transfiguration class combined first-year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students.
By the time the bell rang to signal the official start of class, the classroom was approximately half full. As for the missing students, Morris guessed they were probably still wandering lost somewhere in the castle's corridors, frantically trying to find the correct classroom.
Professor McGonagall seemed to have anticipated this situation. She didn't immediately begin her lesson or show any sign of impatience. She simply continued sitting at her desk, calmly drinking her tea, occasionally glancing at the door but making no comment about the absent students.
It wasn't until three minutes after the bell had rung the final stragglers came rushing through the door, red-faced and breathless with apologies tumbling from their lips.
Fortunately, Professor McGonagall didn't deduct house points for their tardiness, recognizing that on the first day, getting lost was inevitable.
She did, however, gave them a stern look. "In future, I expect all students to arrive before the bell rings. Getting lost is acceptable today. It will not be acceptable next week once you've had time to learn the castle layout."
Regarding house points, Morris had already gained a basic understanding of the system from conversations in the common room and at breakfast.
Professors would award or deduct points based on student performance—correct answers earned points, excellent work earned points, rule-breaking lost points, poor behavior lost points.
At the end of each school year, the house with the highest accumulated score would win the "House Cup."
It was basically a competitive mechanism within Hogwarts, designed to encourage both academic achievement and good behavior while fostering house loyalty and rivalry.
However, Morris wasn't particularly interested in or motivated by this system.
The reason was simple: he'd already learned from older students that even winning the House Cup brought no substantial rewards at all. The winning house got their colors displayed in the Great Hall for a year, their house ghost was especially cheerful, and there was general celebration and bragging rights.
In Morris's view, whether in the Muggle world or the magical world, educational institutions should understand one principle of human psychology—
Incentives without concrete rewards are ultimately just empty talk that loses effectiveness over time.
Praise and recognition were nice, certainly, but people responded most reliably to actual benefits.
But even without meaningful rewards, the students here seemed genuinely enthusiastic about competing for the House Cup championship. They cheered loudly when points were awarded to their house and groaned in dismay when points were deducted.
Morris found this enthusiasm somewhat incomprehensible. Perhaps he was simply too cynical after years in the orphanage system where rewards were always material or nonexistent.
Under normal circumstances, a class period at Hogwarts lasted one hour.
Transfiguration was no exception to this standard schedule.
Professor McGonagall began the lesson with a brief lecture about the nature of Transfiguration magic—how it worked on a fundamental level, the importance of concentration and precise visualization, the difference between transformation and conjuration.
Then she introduced their first practical exercise: transforming a match into a needle.
The task seemed simple enough in theory. Their basic shape was similar. It should just be a matter of changing the material from wood to metal and refining the proportions.
Morris felt this particular exercise was as simple as riding a bicycle once you understood the basic principle—straightforward, and almost intuitive.
But as he looked around the classroom at his struggling classmates, he realized his perspective was unusual.
Unfortunately for most of the students, apart from Kyle Chesterfield from Ravenclaw—the same boy who had competed with Morris for the single dormitory, literally no one else succeeded in the transformation on their first attempts.
Professor McGonagall seemed to have anticipated this level of difficulty and showed no surprise or disappointment at the class's general failure. She moved patiently between the desks, demonstrating the proper wand movement over and over, correcting students' gestures with gentle adjustments of their wrists, fixing their pronunciation of the incantation, explaining the mental focus required.
And Morris, predictably, received special attention from the professor.
After his match had transformed perfectly into a needle on his first attempt, Professor McGonagall had walked over with an approving nod.
"Excellent work, Mr. Black. Five points to Ravenclaw," she'd said. Then, with a slight smile, she added, "But since you've clearly mastered this exercise already, let's give you something more challenging."
She transfigured his needle back into a match with a casual flick of her wand, then continued: "I want you to transform this match into a silver letter opener with a decorative lion's head carved into the handle."
Morris had stared at the match in his hand, then at Professor McGonagall's expectant expression, and nodded slowly. "I'll try my best, Professor."
Honestly, this task was beyond his current comfortable capabilities. It required far more precision, far more detail work, far more sustained concentration than a simple needle.
The letter opener was larger, had a more complex shape with the decorative handle, required maintaining multiple textures simultaneously grip.
It took Morris a full half hour of intense concentration, with multiple partial failures and adjustments, to barely accomplish this ambitious goal. His final product wasn't perfect but it was recognizable and functional.
He'd also earned an additional five house points for Ravenclaw in the process.
When the dismissal bell finally rang, signaling the end of the period, Professor McGonagall called out to Morris just as he was gathering his books and preparing to leave.
"Mr. Black, if you could stay for a moment?" Her tone made it clear this wasn't really a request. "It's time we discussed that matter from yesterday. You don't have another class immediately after this, do you?"
"What matter, Professor?" Morris asked with confusion.
"About the Thestral," Professor McGonagall explained, her expression becoming more serious. "The one you rode to the castle yesterday evening. Normally, Thestrals don't approach students on their own initiative or allow anyone to ride them. But yesterday you somehow managed to fly one all the way up to the castle entrance."
Only then did Morris fully understand what she was referring to.
Honestly, he hadn't given that magical encounter any significant thought since it happened. It had been exciting in the moment, certainly, but afterward he'd been focused on the sorting, the feast, getting settled in his dormitory.
"Will I be punished for it?" Morris asked carefully, trying to gauge the seriousness of the situation. "Should I not have accepted when it offered?"
Professor McGonagall shook her head firmly. "You haven't done anything wrong that warrants punishment. However, we need to locate that particular Thestral and make it understand that rashly allowing inexperienced students to ride on its back is very dangerous behavior."
She softened her tone slightly. "Thestrals are powerful animals. A student could easily be injured by falling, and the Thestral could be hurt if something went wrong. It's for everyone's safety."
"What do you need me to do, Professor?" Morris asked, now genuinely interested rather than worried.
"We simply need to find the specific Thestral that carried you last night," Professor McGonagall explained gently. "You'll need to come with me to identify it. A professional will have a talk and remind it."
Upon hearing this explanation, Morris nodded with understanding and enthusiasm.
For the sake of student safety, this made sense.
Moreover, he realized with pleasure, he actually very much wanted to see that magnificent creature again anyway. And this gave him the perfect excuse.