"Dinner's ready."
Accompanied by the caretaker's emotionless call, Morris, who had just returned from school, quietly entered the dining hall.
Calling it a dining hall was generous—it was merely a dilapidated room.
A large table, a few long benches—these were all the furniture it contained. The mottled mold spots on the walls and the half-peeling paint told the story of years of neglect.
When was this building even constructed? Morris wondered, not for the first time.
The Victorian era?
Or perhaps it dated even earlier, to Georgian times.
In any case, this was the place Morris had lived in for several years now.
The food on the table was the same as always: spaghetti with a hint of meat sauce, cheap bulk-purchased sausages, accompanied by copious amounts of mashed potatoes and onions.
The portion sizes were generous, at least. Whatever else could be said about the place, they didn't stint on quantity.
To be fair, the taste wasn't actually terrible. Morris had long ago learned that palatability was more about preparation than price. The sausages might be cheap, but they were cooked through.
The potatoes were adequately seasoned. The spaghetti was only slightly overcooked.
The price of food doesn't reflect the food itself—it reflects what society thinks you're worth.
Morris made his way unhurriedly to his usual spot in the far corner. The moment he settled in, chaotic footsteps approached from the distance.
A tall, thin boy with hair like withered yellow straw practically burst into the room. He habitually glanced at Morris, then plopped down on the bench diagonally across from him, his eyes were darting rapidly among the food.
'He's starving,' Morris thought.
Shortly after, the other children came in.
About ten children in total, ranging in age from six or seven to fourteen or fifteen.
One of the older children even had a vicious scar across his face.
Once everyone had settled into their usual spots, the caretaker's voice cut through the rising murmur:
"Eat."
The single word unleashed a meticulous chaos. The sounds of eating filled the space. Quiet conversations bubbled up between mouthfuls.
The atmosphere was lighter than usual, Morris noticed. Probably because summer vacation had officially begun. No more waking up at dawn, no more trudging through rain to catch the bus, no more sitting through interminable classes taught by teachers who either cared too much or not at all.
For the next several weeks, their time would be their own—or as much their own as children in an orphanage could claim.
Morris picked up his fork, and began stirring the sticky mound of mashed potatoes on his plate.
School, meals, sleep. School, meals, sleep.
An endless cycle, each day bleeding into the next with hardly any variation to mark the passage of time.
This was his daily routine—unchanging, predictable, and utterly, crushingly boring.
He hated being bored.
Why did he have to live this way?
The answer was simple enough: because this was a children's home located in the northern suburbs of London, tucked away where the city gave way to tired residential streets and light industrial zones.
Oh, they didn't call it an orphanage anymore—that term was considered outdated, too Dickensian, carrying too much stigma. The preferred terminology was "children's home," as if changing the name could somehow change the nature of the place.
In any case, whatever name they used, it remained what it was: a government-established institution specifically designed for housing homeless children. The unwanted, the abandoned, the removed by court order, the ones whose parents were dead or might as well be.
Morris was one of those children. One of the statistics in a social services report. One of the faces in a file folder somewhere in a bureaucrat's office.
He had no other choice but to be here. No relatives had come forward to claim him.
By his count, this was already his eleventh year in this world. Eleven years of breathing this strange air, of navigating this foreign time and place.
Yes, Morris wasn't a native of this world or at least, not originally.
He had time-traveled. Reincarnated. Transmigrated. Whatever term one wanted to use for the inexplicable phenomenon of finding oneself with full adult consciousness and memories in the body of a newborn child.
His previous life had been in Australia in the 21st century—Brisbane, to be specific.
And this year, if he remembered correctly and if the calendar he'd been tracking was accurate, should be 1991.
A strange place, a strange time. Too late to witness the great events of the twentieth century's first half, too early to benefit from the technological revolution he knew was coming.
It'll be a while yet... Morris thought, suppressing a sigh that would have drawn unwanted attention.
In this life, he had just turned eleven not long ago—a very awkward age, caught between childhood and adolescence, belonging fully to neither.
Though he possessed knowledge beyond his years, beyond this entire era—he was still ultimately trapped in a child's body.
Trapped in such a small body, there was almost no room to maneuver. Almost nothing he could do to change his circumstances in any meaningful way.
The only viable option was to grow peacefully into adulthood. To wait out these interminable years of childhood and adolescence until he finally had the physical presence and legal autonomy to act on his knowledge.
After that, he believed that with his knowledge of future events, and technological trends, if not great wealth and prosperity, at least a bright and comfortable future was almost guaranteed.
.....
After dinner concluded and the caretaker had perfunctorily checked that everyone had eaten enough, the children dispersed to their respective rooms.
The children's home, for all its faults, was at least spacious. The building's original purpose—perhaps a private residence for some Victorian family of means, or maybe a small school had left it with more rooms than the current population required.
Thanks to this fortunate architectural legacy, the dormitories were two children to a room rather than the cramped barracks-style arrangements that characterized many established facilities.
"I really wish we could eat something different for once," Scott groaned the moment they crossed the threshold into their shared room. "Why can't they make cake or something? Or pie? Or literally anything that isn't potatoes and sausages?"
Morris had just entered when his roommate immediately launched into his familiar complaints. They'd been roommates for years now, long enough that Morris had Scott's patterns memorized.
"Be grateful there's food at all, Scott." Morris replied casually, already moving toward the bunk beds.
Without bothering to change out of his school clothes, Morris climbed the small ladder and threw himself onto the upper bunk. He lay back, staring up at the ceiling barely two feet above his face.
Scott's complaint wasn't wrong, exactly. The dinner routine at this "children's home" had indeed become mind-numbingly repetitive.
Cheap and filling seemed to be the only criteria. Nutrition seemed technically covered—they got their vegetables, their protein, their carbohydrates. But variety, pleasure, the simple joy of eating something unexpected? Those were luxuries that didn't factor into the budget.
Half a year ago, Morris remembered, there had been at least some variety. The previous caretaker, Mrs. Henderson, had actually tried. She'd made shepherd's pie on Mondays, fish and chips on Fridays, and occasionally even attempted a roast on Sundays.
But after they'd cycled through several caretakers in quick series—burnout being an occupational hazard in such work, the meals had devolved to their current utilitarian state.
Not that Morris particularly cared about the food. He'd lived on instant ramen and microwave dinners in his previous life during busy periods. He understood that taste was a luxury, and that a full stomach was what really mattered now.
You couldn't expect staffs at a children's home—especially one filled with difficult, damaged children, many with behavioral problems and trauma histories to be especially conscientious and responsible.
The pay was terrible, the hours were long, and the emotional toll was immense.
Maybe they'd quit after just two weeks, who knew.
Besides, Morris consoled himself, at least the food at school was guaranteed to be adequate. The UK's school meal programs, for all their faults, did ensure a certain baseline standard.
At times like these, he genuinely was grateful for society's safety nets and the government's welfare programs. Whatever one might say about the inefficiencies of the system, at least children didn't starve in the streets. At least there was a roof over his head and food in his belly.
It could be worse.
It could always be worse.
"Oh, by the way," Scott said, his voice drifting up from the lower bunk as he idly kicked at the bed frame, making the whole bunk-bed shudder. "Which secondary school are you planning to go?"
"Northwood Comprehensive." Morris replied, resting his hands behind his head and staring at a particularly large crack in the ceiling that seemed to grow a bit wider each month.
He yawned, suddenly feeling the weight of the day settling into his bones.
"Ah, I knew it." Scott exclaimed with a tone that mixed admiration with resignation. "That's the best school in the area. Of course you'd get in there. Your grades are more than good enough."
There was no jealousy in his voice, no resentment. This was simply an acknowledged reality. Scott had long ago accepted that he and Morris operated on different academic levels.
In this "children's home", Morris had always been different from the others, an outlier. While the other children struggled with basic homework or skipped it, he consistently received top marks.
He could always quietly finish those headache-inducing thick books, and his homework always had more "A"s than anyone else's.
The other children found it weird but had grown used to it. That's just Morris, they'd say with a shrug. He's the smart one.
"Mm." Morris made a vague sound of acknowledgment, halfheartedly humoring his roommate while his thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Studying was perhaps the only thing he could do right now that felt productive.
Not just for the brighter future it promised though that was certainly important but more immediately, good grades meant scholarships. Additional financial support. Money that was his, that he could save and eventually control.
Though a single scholarship couldn't accomplish much alone, if he accumulated them over time through academic achievement awards, essay competitions, science fairs, anything that offered prize money—the amount would become quite considerable.
When the time came, whether invested wisely or used for university expenses, it would provide crucial startup capital for whatever ventures he decided to pursue.
Morris genuinely didn't dislike studying. In both his lives, reading had been one of his greatest pleasures.
Incidentally, he felt quite confident that with his current learning progress and his adult-level knowledge, he could skip the rest of secondary school and attend university directly without any problem.
BANG!
The violent noise shattered the evening's quiet.
While Scott was still muttering about desserts and complaining about the unfairness of their limited menu, a crash came from the window's direction.
The already loose window was blown violently open by a sudden gust of wind. It slammed hard against the interior wall with enough force to rattle the glass panes in their frames, producing a teeth-grinding vibration that set Morris's nerves on edge.
He sat up instinctively, his heart was suddenly hammering.
That had been too loud, too sudden.
Obviously, Scott, who occupied the lower bunk and was much closer to the window, was better suited to handle this unexpected situation than Morris. The window was practically beside his bed, after all.
"Bloody hell," Scott grumbled, his earlier good mood vanishing into irritation.
He scratched vigorously at his unruly yellow hair, making it stand up even more wildly, and swung his legs off the bed. His bare feet hit the cold floor, and he padded over to the window, moving with the long-suffering air of someone dealing with a recurring problem.
"This damn window has broken three times this week already!" He complained loudly. "Fixed and broken, broken and fixed again, and nobody actually cares enough to do a proper repair job. They just—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
"Uh, wait... what's this..."
Morris heard the sudden change in Scott's tone.
Then came a sound that didn't belong in their room: the flutter of wings beating against air.
A moment of silence followed.
Then:
"Morris, Morris, there's a letter here. It's... it's for you."
Morris immediately leaned out from the upper bunk.
He saw Scott standing there dumbly, holding what looked like a very substantial envelope in his hand, with an expression that said "what da fuq just happened."
"You might not believe this, Morris," Scott said slowly, his voice carrying the dazed tone of someone still processing what they'd just witnessed. "But I swear—and I mean I swear—a cat with wings just flew in through this window and threw this letter at me."
'A cat with wings?'
Morris's heart skipped a beat. He immediately jumped down from the bed and quickly took the envelope from Scott's hand.
The paper itself was slightly yellowed, aged-looking, with a texture that was almost luxurious under his fingers. Clearly very high-quality material—the kind of thing that probably cost more per sheet than their weekly food budget.
Morris examined it briefly.
On the front of the envelope, written in emerald green ink that seemed to shimmer slightly in the lamplight, was an address:
Mr. Morris Black 34 Ashley Street Ashley Children's Home Second Floor East Wing Dormitory Upper Bunk by the Window
The specificity was almost absurd. Not just the building, not just the room, but the exact bunk.
Morris turned the envelope over.
Sure enough, on the back was a large blob of thick crimson wax, still slightly soft to the touch, as if it had been sealed only hours ago. Pressed into the wax was an intricate seal: a shield-shaped coat of arms in exquisite detail.
In the center of the shield were four animals, each occupying one quadrant: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.
They jointly surrounded an ornate letter "H" in an intricate Gothic script.
Morris opened the envelope without a word.
His eyes scanned the first few lines:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chief. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Black,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
"..."
Morris stood perfectly still, the letter was hanging from his fingers, his face carefully blank as his mind worked frantically to process this development.
Seeing Morris remain silent for so long, staring at the letter as if it contained news of a death in the family, Scott's curiosity finally overcame his shock. He leaned over, trying to peek at what could possibly get such a reaction.
"What is it? Who sent you a letter?" His voice carried genuine concern now. "That symbol looks really weird, and I swear I saw a flying cat, and—Morris, you're scaring me a bit. What's going on?"
Morris was silent for a moment longer, his thoughts racing through implications and possibilities, recalculating everything he thought he knew about this world.
Then, slowly, he looked up at his roommate and finally spoke.
"Scott, I might... not be able to attend Northwood Comprehensive after all."
Scott: "?"