Morris left his dormitory and entered the Ravenclaw common room, expecting to find the familiar early morning atmosphere.
Day had already broken, and white light streamed through the glass windows illuminating the entire circular room with an almost harsh brightness.
'It's too quiet,' Morris thought immediately and frowned
Normally, the Ravenclaw common room, even in the early morning hours when most students were still asleep, would always have at least a few early-rising, dedicated students sitting at the tables here. They'd be reading quietly from textbooks, comparing notes from yesterday's lectures, or conversing in low voices that wouldn't disturb others.
But at this moment, the common room was completely empty. Not a single soul occupied the chairs or wooden benches.
What struck Morris as even stranger, even more unsettling, was that the familiar owl calls that usually came from outside the tower had also completely disappeared.
Had all the owls gone on strike today?
He walked with urgency to the nearest window and pushed it open with some force.
The scene that greeted him outside made his breath catch in his throat, his eyes widened with shock.
There was no familiar Hogwarts courtyard with its lawns and stone pathways. No shimmering Black Lake with its dark waters. No dense Forbidden Forest with its ancient trees marking the boundary.
Instead, in front of him stretched an endless desert.
Pale sand or something like sand, flat and featureless, empty of all life.
The most bizarre thing was the light itself. There was no visible sun in the sky providing lighting. The sky itself was just an infinitely extending grayish-white canvas, covered with a thin layer of obscuring mist that seemed to go on forever.
Yet despite the absence of any light source, everything was brightly, evenly lit.
At this moment, with this evidence before him, Morris could finally confirm with certainty that he was no longer in the original world.
He was in the gateway between life and death.
The Gate Between Two Realms had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.
"Excellent," Morris suddenly said smiling aloud.
His heartbeat accelerated sharply, pounding against his ribs in a way that was particularly noticeable in the utterly quiet environment.
It wasn't fear causing this reaction, though perhaps it should have been.
It was something more burning, more surging, more intense.
Excitement, pure and unrestrained excitement. Elation at achieving the impossible. A trembling anticipation of discovery.
He couldn't wait any longer to explore. He turned around quickly and left the common room.
Through the corridor windows as he walked, he discovered that beyond the familiar stone walls of this castle, that same pale, endless desert stretched in all directions without exception.
The sky met the sand at a perfectly level horizon line.
The interior of the castle itself hadn't changed much in structure. Stone walls stood solid and unchanged. Sculptures occupied their familiar positions. Tapestries hung where they always had. The positions of various furnishings were all the same as in Morris's memory of the living castle.
There were no living humans walking the corridors, no ghosts floating through walls. The portraits on the walls were all completely blank. Even the suits of armor that usually shifted and clanked as students passed no longer moved.
In the courtyard, when he looked out, the original vegetation had completely disappeared, leaving only the same pale-colored gravel as outside the castle walls.
The stone beast statue was still there, though, standing quietly in its familiar place near the entrance.
At least something remained unchanged.
Morris didn't linger to examine details. He went straight to the main entrance of Hogwarts, those massive doors that normally required considerable strength to open. He grasped the iron handle, pulled, and stepped outside into the desert.
He walked step by step away from the castle. He left a clear string of footprints behind him on the pale ground.
After walking about a few hundred steps, he stopped and turned around to look back.
Looking into the distance across the flat area, Hogwarts castle stood quietly in the desert like a monument.
Massive, architecturally complete in every detail, yet utterly empty of life.
Truly magnificent in its isolation.
Morris felt overwhelmed by the sight. He couldn't fully understand this place at all right now,.
Although he knew that this was the world between life and death.
But the questions multiplied in his mind: Why would there be a Hogwarts here in this land? Why would it be perfectly preserved? And why would the surroundings be an endless desert rather than void or darkness? What purpose did this place serve?
Questions surged like an overwhelming tide, but there were no answers available.
Yet despite his confusion, Morris felt exhilarated.
Interesting, so wonderfully interesting.
'I might as well explore around for now and gather data,' Morris thought to himself while beginning to wander about the area.
He also tried casting a few simple spells with his wand as an experiment.
The magical abilities hadn't failed. The spells worked exactly as they should.
This discovery put him slightly more at ease. At least here in this strange realm he wasn't completely defenseless or powerless.
After proceeding randomly in one direction for what felt like twenty minutes, maintaining a steady pace, Morris finally saw a different structure breaking the monotony.
About a few hundred meters away in the distance, there was a dark point against the pale landscape.
When he got closer with quickening steps, eager to investigate, he discovered it was a small wooden cabin, standing completely alone in the desert without any other structures nearby.
But just as Morris was about to approach closer and investigate more thoroughly, a sudden wave of intense dizziness hit him without warning.
It appeared the Draught of Living Death's time limit had finally run out.
The effect was ending.
His vision went abruptly dark, tunneling to a point. His body suddenly twisted in an indescribable way. And when he came back to his senses, gasping and disoriented, he was back in his dormitory in the living world.
Looking around rapidly, confirming his location, he saw the magic circle was still drawn on the floor beneath him, just slightly lighter in color than before.
The clock on the wall showed it was already two in the morning.
He had returned to the original world.
"Meow—"
Tin-Tin's cry came from somewhere beside him.
The next second, Morris felt something in his embrace as his foolish cat launched itself into his arms.
Tin-Tin meowed urgently several times rapidly.
As its owner and creator, Morris could roughly understand what the cat meant.
"You're saying... I suddenly disappeared just now?" Morris asked, stroking the cat.
Tin-Tin nodded vigorously.
Morris sat very still, his expression was thoughtful as he processed this information.
This meant that what had just happened wasn't merely a vivid dream or hallucination induced by the potion.
He had indeed physically entered the gap between life and death, body and soul together. And moreover, crucially, he had entered in the flesh, not just in spirit.
That was a real, objectively existing space occupying genuine territory!
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Morris said gently after comforting Tin-Tin with continued petting.
He carefully set the cat down and lay back on his bed as sudden wave of exhaustion came over him.
Perhaps because of the recent experience, the strain of crossing between worlds, he was exhausted beyond measure in a way he'd never felt before.
Almost instantly after his head touched the pillow, despite his racing thoughts, he fell into deep sleep.
His body simply shut down, demanding rest.
...
The next day, when Morris finally woke naturally from sleep, it was almost noon.
Fortunately, today was Saturday, so there were no classes to miss or professors to explain his absence to.
His head was still a bit foggy and thick, thoughts were moving slowly like honey, but he couldn't wait to enter that magical world again.
The questions pressing on his mind... were simply too many!
But before attempting another crossing, Morris checked the Mage's Book as had become his usual routine.
On the last page of the book, he noticed with surprise that new content was slowly appearing.
"Energy Convergence?" he read aloud, looking puzzled.
A spell whose specific purpose was unclear from the name alone.
So, for the time being, Morris postponed the tempting idea of entering the Gateway Between Realms a second time immediately, deciding instead to focus his attention on this new spell first.
New magic always took priority as it might be important and helpful.
According to the detailed description that appeared beneath the title, this spell could somehow gather various forms of energy floating freely in the air, such as ambient magical power that all wizards unconsciously released.
The first time constructing a spell model for any new magic was always difficult and frustrating, requiring quite a bit of focused time and considerable mental effort.
But constructing it again afterward, once the pattern was established in his mind, would become progressively much easier with each casting.
Morris understood this principle well from experience.
If he were to cast the Weakening Curse now, for example, he wouldn't even need to consciously think about the construction, he could subconsciously build the spell model completely in an instant, almost reflexively.
The same was true for the Shadow Concealment Spell. At the beginning it had been awkward and inexperienced, requiring careful concentration, but now he could do it effortlessly, almost by pure instinct alone.
Like riding a bicycle—once you truly learn, you never forget the pattern.
After two solid hours of concentrated effort, with several false starts and dead ends, Morris finally succeeded in constructing the complete spell model for Energy Convergence in his mind.
Different spell models had vastly different levels of complexity and sophistication, he'd learned. Energy Convergence was among the considerably more complex ones, with multiple interlocking components.
"Energy Convergence!" Morris commanded clearly, activating the spell with intention.
Accompanying the incantation, the spell activated smoothly, the model in his mind was glowing.
Morris extended his right hand before him, palm facing up in a receptive gesture.
For a moment, something seemed to gather in his open palm, accumulating slowly. It carried a faint, almost invisible glow like captured starlight, continuously churning and swirling in small swirls.
Was this the so-called "magical power" in its raw state?
It had no distinct color and no solid form at all that he could clearly perceive.
The gathered light rotated and twisted unstably, pulsing gently, lasting for nearly a full minute.
Finally, with a soft "poof" sound like a candle being extinguished, it completely dissipated back into the air, leaving absolutely no trace behind.
Seeing this disappointing result, Morris frowned deeply and withdrew his hand, letting it fall to his side.
The convergence had clearly failed to produce anything lasting or useful.
So, what was the reason for this failure?
Was the ambient magical power concentration here in his dormitory insufficient for the spell to work? Or was his technique somehow lacking in execution?
He tried several more times over the next twenty minutes with similar frustrating results.
Each time, the energy would gather briefly, glow faintly, then dissipate without achieving stability or useful form.
In the end, he could only temporarily set this particular magic aside as a mystery to solve later.
Some spells required practice and experimentation to understand fully.
It was already well past noon. Morris left his tower and went down to the dining hall, where he ate a few pieces of surprisingly good lemon cake and some cold chicken, then returned directly to his dormitory.
He was preparing mentally and physically to enter the Gate Between Realms again.
Although the magic circle's color had faded somewhat from its original vibrancy, becoming paler and less distinct, it should theoretically still be usable at least once more.
After simply instructing both Tin-Tin and the recently returned Sparkles to watch the house and not let anyone enter, Morris walked to the center of the magic circle.
He uncorked a fresh vial of the Death Experience Draught and drank it without hesitation.