Morrin lowered his book.
He had little interest in Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans or Chocolate Frogs, but he had no objection to the social ritual itself.
“I’ll have something as well.” Morrin handed the witch a Galleon.
“An iced pumpkin juice, please.
And if it isn’t too much trouble, I’ll take all the Cauldron Cakes you have.” The atmosphere in the compartment warmed considerably once the food came out.
Ron stuffed cake into his mouth while introducing his rat between bites.
“His name’s Scabbers.
He’s useless.” Ron pointed at the fat grey rat sleeping on his lap.
“All he does is sleep.
Then he wakes up and eats.” At the name Scabbers, the look in Morrin’s eyes abruptly sharpened.
He closed his book and leaned forwards slightly, fixing his gaze on the utterly unremarkable rat, right down to its missing toe.
Peter Pettigrew.
Wormtail.
The man who had betrayed Harry’s parents and set the entire chain of tragedy in motion.
And, more importantly, a crucial piece in Voldemort’s eventual return.
At that moment, the ‘rat’ seemed to sense something.
Its tiny eyes, previously shut tight, cracked open and fixed warily on Morrin.
Animal instinct, or perhaps Animagus instinct, was screaming at it that there was something terrifying about this black haired boy.
The aura of a predator.
Morrin silently activated Inspection.
━━━━━ 🔍 SCAN ━━━━━ Scanning target: Scabbers True Name: Peter Pettigrew Race: Human Wizard (Animagus Form) ━━━ [Traits detected] 🔴 Red | Dark Lord’s Mark (Dormant) A curse, and also a locator.
━━━ 🟣 Purple | Animagus (Rat) For the sake of survival, he has remained locked in this form for twelve years.
This is more than magic.
It is an almost pathological degree of endurance.
━━━ 🟣 Purple | Absolute Betrayal A born traitor.
To survive, he will sell out anyone.
In the field of betrayal, he is a master.
━━━ 🔵 Blue | Underhanded Survival Instinct Even in a situation where death seems certain, he can always find the one escape route that resembles a sewer drain.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Morrin’s fingers tapped lightly against his knee.
He was thinking.
Expose him now?
Or extract a Trait directly?
If I extracted [Animagus], would I be able to transform as well?
And if I extracted [Dark Lord’s Mark], would Voldemort notice?
“What is it, Morrin?” Harry had noticed Morrin staring at the rat for quite some time.
There was something rather…
frightening about his expression.
“Nothing.” Morrin withdrew his gaze, the corner of his mouth curling into an enigmatic, cold smile.
“I was merely thinking that this rat has a rather…
distinctive appearance.
He’s quite old, isn’t he?” “Yeah, we’ve had him for years,” Ron complained.
“He used to be Percy’s, then I got stuck with him.” “Ron.” Morrin suddenly spoke in a serious tone.
“If I were you, I’d keep a very close eye on him.
Some things look like pets on the surface, but in reality…
they may be ticking bombs.” Ron stared blankly at him.
“A bomb?
You mean he might explode?
Like one of Fred and George’s joke things?” “Considerably worse than that.” Morrin said nothing more.
He merely gave the trembling rat one last, meaningful look.
Keep him around.
Morrin began calculating silently.
There’s very little benefit in exposing him now.
A living Animagus right under my nose, and a Death Eater at that, is an excellent stockpile of raw material.
Once my alchemy and magic improve a little more, perhaps I can use him for some rather more interesting experiments.
At that moment, the compartment door slid open again.
A girl with an enormous mass of bushy brown hair appeared in the doorway, clutching a stack of books.
Her tone was distinctly bossy.
“Has anyone seen a toad?
Neville’s lost one.” Hermione Granger had arrived.
Her gaze landed on the compartment overflowing with sweets, then on Ron, who was holding his wand and preparing to try changing the colour of his rat.
“Oh, are you doing magic?
Well, let’s see it, then.” Without waiting for an invitation, Hermione sat down.
Her eyes swept across the three boys before finally settling on Morrin.
There was a simple reason.
Morrin looked nothing like a normal first-year.
He was slowly polishing his pitch black Black Ironwood Wand with a silk handkerchief, his expression so focused that he looked less like a schoolboy cleaning a wand and more like an assassin wiping down a knife after using it.
“Er…” Hermione suddenly found her throat a little dry.
She instinctively looked away and turned to Ron instead.
“Go on, then.” Ron cleared his throat, waved his wand and recited a spell.
Nothing happened.
Apart from the box giving a small pop.
“Are you sure that’s even a real spell?” Hermione immediately slipped into top of the class mode, launching into a rapid demonstration of everything she had memorised from her textbooks.
Along the way, she even fixed Harry’s glasses for him.
“I’m Hermione Granger.
Who are you?” “Ron Weasley.” “Harry Potter.” “You’re Harry Potter?!” That prompted another burst of astonishment from Hermione.
Finally, she looked towards Morrin, who had yet to say anything.
Morrin folded away the handkerchief, slipped the Wand back into the inside of his coat, and raised his head.
His deep black eyes met Hermione’s calmly.
“Morrin White.” That was all.
No further introduction.
Yet his quiet tone carried a confidence that was impossible to overlook.
The system interface flickered once more.
━━━━━ 🔍 SCAN ━━━━━ Scanning target: Hermione Granger [Traits detected] 🟣 Purple | Keeper of the Rules She believes deeply in order and rules.
Yet when necessary, she is equally capable of breaking every rule in existence to uphold what she believes is right.
━━━ 🔵 Blue | Academic Prodigy (Apex) She absorbs knowledge from books at ten times the speed of an ordinary person.
Examinations are her domain.
━━━ 🔵 Blue | Charms Prodigy Precise, standardised, textbook perfect spellcasting.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Excellent material for a future head of human resources.
Morrin mentally assigned Hermione her position.
“Nice to meet you all.” Hermione stood and gave Morrin one last, complicated look.
“You’d better change into your robes soon.
I just asked the driver, we’re nearly there.” With that, she turned and left.
Morrin looked through the window.
The sky outside was steadily darkening.
In the distance, mountains and a vast lake emerged faintly through the gathering dusk.
Hogwarts.
At last.
He brushed a hand over the wand inside his coat, then turned his attention to the nine extraction opportunities remaining in the system.
I hope the Sorting Hat puts me somewhere suitable.
Morrin murmured under his breath.
Somewhere without quite so many idiots, perhaps.
Somewhere I can conduct my research and make money in peace.
“What did you say?” Ron asked through a mouthful of cake.
“I said—” Morrin rose to his feet and looked towards the towering silhouette of the castle beyond the window.
“—it’s time to start doing business.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Hidden_Quill Thank you so much for reading!