Chapter Summaries

Tom confronted a group of Slytherins who tried to ambush him in an underground corridor, defeating them and discovering that he could command a snake through Parseltongue. After burning Derian’s hand, Tom turned to the terrified Lucius Malfoy and asked what Parseltongue was.

• Tom entered the underground corridor and found Draco Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson, and Adrian Pucey waiting to confront him.
• Tom bound Derian, disarmed Lucius Malfoy, and used spells to restrain Goyle, frighten Pansy, and knock Crabbe down.
• Derian summoned a huge snake, but Tom discovered that he could speak to it and ordered it to turn on Derian before stopping it from biting him.
• Tom freed his legs with Finite Incantatem, broke and burned Derian’s wand, and pressed its hot end against Derian’s hand.
• Tom approached the frightened Lucius Malfoy with the snake beside him and asked what Parseltongue was.

Tom received the Shield Charm and learned that his Parseltongue suggested he was descended from Salazar Slytherin, prompting him to ask Lucius Malfoy to investigate his ancestry and the name Tom Riddle. Murphy then prepared a lethal mathematical riddle to guard the corridor beneath the trapdoor, leaving McGonagall alarmed by its danger.

• Tom gained the Shield Charm and concluded that his ability to speak Parseltongue made him a likely descendant of Salazar Slytherin.
• Lucius Malfoy declared Tom more suited to lead the Slytherin Brotherhood, and Tom spared the group punishment after Derian claimed his burned hand was an accident.
• Tom asked Lucius Malfoy to investigate Slytherin's descendants and the name Tom Riddle, which Lucius agreed to do.
• McGonagall took Murphy beneath the trapdoor and allowed him to set a trap in the corridor guarding the Philosopher's Stone.
• Murphy created eight lightning-firing crows and a numbered keypad that required solving a mathematics problem to disable the trap, frightening McGonagall.

Murphy presented his theory that wands amplified magic through both a pointed tip and an antenna, then outlined plans to design more powerful wands. Tom and Hermione were assigned modeling work, while Ron was left to make tea.

• Harry received a Nimbus 2000 and became Gryffindor's youngest Seeker in a hundred years.
• Ron joined Murphy's research group as a tester, while Harry, Hermione, and Tom balanced their studies with other duties.
• Murphy explained how experiments had led the group to propose magical tip and magical antenna hypotheses for wand amplification.
• Murphy described how wand cores formed coils and antenna arrays, and proposed designing directional antennas and more orderly cores.
• Murphy assigned Tom and Hermione to model wand bodies and took responsibility for the fusion potion and wand-core design.
• Ron asked Murphy what work he could do, and Murphy told him to make tea.

Murphy connected Hogwarts to the Magic Research Institute with Goblin Coins and shared their manufacturing method with his practical class students. Their research questions inspired him to investigate whether magical signals could be used to create a way for wizards to see magic power.

• Murphy arranged for the Magic Research Institute to use distributed computing and genetic algorithms to optimize his wand-core antenna array model.
• Murphy relayed Goblin Coin signals through a raven, creating a long-distance communication link with the institute.
• Murphy learned from Locke the Goblin that Goblin Coins were made with the Whisper of Greed ritual and taught the method to his practical class students.
• Murphy rewarded the Hero Group, Cho Chang Group, and Dean Thomas Group with coins and gave ten Magic Power Testers to each group for their research.
• Murphy considered building a magical antenna array to detect magic signals and turn them into a visual spectrum for observing magic power.

Murphy completed a powerful new snakewood wand and gave it to Tom to test, while Tom investigated Myrtle Warren’s death. On Halloween Eve, Quirrell announced that a troll had entered the dungeons.

• The Magic Research Institute designed a wand based on its optimized model, and Murphy used laser engraving and an Engorgement Charm to shape a wand-core space in snakewood.
• Murphy finished the wand with an Occamy feather core, tested it, and gave it to Tom to use while it adjusted to its new master.
• Tom accepted the wand despite having been investigating the death of Myrtle Warren, a Muggle-born student linked to Tom Riddle’s past.
• On Halloween Eve, Tom left the Great Hall after hearing Cho Chang and Hermione discuss Moaning Myrtle.
• Quirrell rushed into the Great Hall and announced that a troll was in the dungeons.

Tom encountered a troll at Hogwarts and joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione in defeating it, but the chapter ended as the troll’s club struck him from behind. The three students cried out as Tom was knocked away.

• Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the feast to warn Tom about the troll, while Murphy noticed them sneaking off.
• Tom found a troll in the corridor and followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione when he saw them hurry upstairs.
• Tom reached the girls’ bathroom and tried to stop the troll with spells, but it broke free and attacked him.
• Harry distracted the troll, allowing Tom to use his snakewood wand to disarm it and knock it unconscious.
• As Tom began speaking to the others, the troll’s club struck him from behind and sent him flying.

Murphy learned that two trolls had been kept underground, while Tom was badly injured when the larger one attacked him. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Tom combined their magic to levitate the troll, and Ron called Tom a friend; the Book of Guidance then rewarded Tom for completing his quest.

• Professor McGonagall told Murphy that two chained trolls had been kept underground, and Murphy realized the larger one might be loose.
• The larger troll struck Tom and sent him flying, so Harry drew its attention while Hermione and Ron went to help Tom.
• Tom asked Hermione and Ron for their wands and urged Harry to lead the troll toward them.
• Tom, Hermione, and Ron used the Levitation Charm together to lift the troll and its club into the air.
• Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Tom celebrated their escape, and Ron told Tom he looked like a friend.
• The Book of Guidance marked Tom's friendship quest complete and awarded him the Amortentia formula and the Petrification Spell.

After the troll incident, Murphy clashed with Snape over his wandmaking methods while Tom and his friends left with a new sense of friendship. The four made Goblin Coins to stay in contact, sparking a Hogwarts-wide craze that Snape tried to curb.

• Murphy healed Tom's leg and explained that Lucas had acted rashly after receiving a wand he had made, while the young wizards concealed Moaning Myrtle's involvement.
• Snape dismissed Murphy's Muggle-based research, and Murphy challenged him before McGonagall sent the four young wizards away.
• Tom suggested making Goblin Coins so the friends could contact one another during future dangers, and the four agreed.
• The friends secretly gathered potion ingredients during class and brewed Thief's Blood to create four Goblin Coins with a two-hundred-meter range.
• Goblin Coins spread among Hogwarts students, and the Weasley twins earned more than ten Galleons making them before Snape threatened detention for anyone caught taking ingredients.

Harry won his first Quidditch match against Slytherin after Quirrell cursed his broom and Hermione accidentally stopped him. After the celebration at Hagrid's hut, Tom stayed behind to ask Hagrid about Tom Riddle and events from fifty years ago.

• Wood gave Harry a Goblin coin enchanted to transmit team commands during the match.
• Harry caught the Golden Snitch after Quirrell's curse on his broom was interrupted, securing Gryffindor's victory over Slytherin.
• At Hagrid's hut, Harry and Hermione accused Snape of trying to kill Harry, and Hagrid revealed that the three-headed dog guarded something connected to Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel.
• Tom declined to tell Ron, Hermione, and Harry about his private concerns, though Harry offered to help.
• After the others left, Tom returned to Hagrid's hut and asked whether Hagrid knew Tom Riddle.

Tom questioned Hagrid about Tom Riddle and learned they shared a Slytherin background and an orphanage upbringing, leaving Tom to wonder whether Riddle was his grandfather. The next day, Tom agreed to help Harry investigate Snape and proposed using his Goblin Coin to listen in on Snape’s plans.

• Tom told Hagrid that Moaning Myrtle had mentioned him, and Hagrid explained that Tom Riddle had blamed him for Myrtle’s death and for keeping Aragog.
• Tom asked Hagrid about Riddle, and Hagrid described him as a clever, popular Slytherin who had also grown up in an orphanage.
• Hagrid told Tom that Riddle might have been his grandfather, and Tom considered whether their similarities explained his familiar feeling about Riddle’s name.
• At lunch, Tom asked Hermione Granger whether she had identified Nicolas Flamel, but she had not found an answer.
• Harry insisted that he needed to stop Snape, and Tom proposed placing his Goblin Coin in Snape’s office to hear what he was planning.

Harry, Tom, Ron, and Hermione planted a goblin coin in Snape’s office to eavesdrop, but Peeves exposed them and Snape had them brought before the professors. As Snape threatened expulsion, Murphy arrived and stood up for them.

• Harry slipped the sticking-charmed goblin coin beneath Snape’s desk while retrieving his copy of Quidditch Through the Ages.
• Tom and the others used the coin from an empty classroom to listen to Snape and Filch discussing ingredients and Harry’s injury.
• Peeves caught the group eavesdropping, and Snape used the coin to locate them and had Filch bring them to Professor McGonagall’s office.
• Harry, Tom, Hermione, and Ron each tried to take responsibility, while Snape threatened to have them expelled.
• Murphy arrived, told the students they had done well, and said he would handle the matter.

Murphy defended Harry, Tom, Hermione, and Ron by reframing the listening-device accusation as a misunderstanding, but Snape later retaliated against Murphy’s Goblin Coin lessons and house-integration policy. After their argument escalated at dinner, Snape challenged Murphy to a potion-making wager, and Murphy accepted.

• Murphy persuaded McGonagall to hear the students’ explanation that Harry had lost his Goblin Coin and they had used it to search for it, though Snape remained convinced Harry had planted it in his office.
• Murphy hinted that Snape’s hostility toward Harry came from Snape’s history with Harry’s father, then told McGonagall the incident was a misunderstanding and secured the students’ release.
• Harry, Tom, Hermione, and Ron left McGonagall’s office relieved, and Harry wondered why Snape hated him and why Murphy thought Snape did not want him hurt.
• Snape began obstructing Murphy’s classes by confiscating Goblin Coins, assigning heavy homework, and banning Slytherins from using the coins and mixing with other houses.
• Murphy confronted Snape at dinner over the restrictions, and Snape insulted Murphy’s practical class before challenging him to compare their potions.
• Murphy accepted Snape’s wager and asked what the stakes would be.

Murphy and Severus Snape began a wagered potion duel whose outcome could determine whether Murphy’s practical class and education reforms continued. Snape opened with ingredients for a Draught of Living Death, while Murphy quickly prepared a strange potion and spat into the vial before handing it over.

• Murphy and Snape stated their stakes before a crowd of students and teachers, with Snape risking his position at Hogwarts.
• Murphy revised his terms so that, if he won, Snape would stop opposing the practical class and promise him one unspecified favor.
• Professor Pomona Sprout agreed to act as witness and explained that each professor would brew a potion for the other, who had ten minutes to make an antidote.
• Snape began brewing with ingredients Murphy recognized as those for a Draught of Living Death.
• Murphy ground and boiled assorted ingredients, spat into the resulting potion, and presented the vial to Snape.

Murphy and Snape continued their potion challenge, with Murphy using unconventional concoctions to pressure Snape while Snape worked out antidotes. Murphy neutralized Snape’s Draught of Living Death by transferring it to his symbiotic crows, then challenged Snape to face a third potion.

• Murphy explained that his saliva-based potion contained Petrifying Lizard venom, but Snape identified the petrifying effect, brewed an antidote, and recovered after drinking both potions.
• Murphy brewed a stain-removing polish mixed with stove cleaner and a digestive stimulant, forcing Snape to drink it and endure its effects before his antidote took hold.
• Snape completed an altered Draught of Living Death and set it before Murphy, confident Murphy could not counter it.
• Murphy drank the Draught of Living Death, then transferred it into several symbiotic crows, which fell asleep.
• Snape asked what Murphy had done, and Murphy called it an antidote while pointing out that his third potion was nearly ready.

Murphy replicated Snape’s Potion of Despair and drank it after adding a Memory Potion, then challenged Snape to face the same ordeal. As Snape recalled his fear and regret over Lily, he gripped the vial and prepared to drink.

• Snape brewed a Potion of Despair and placed it on Murphy’s table, expecting Murphy to fail to find an antidote.
• Murphy used Magic Power Testers and his recovered memory of Snape’s incantation to replicate the potion, then mixed it with a Memory Potion.
• Murphy drank his concoction and told Snape to taste despair, turning the wager into a contest of endurance.
• Sprout urged Snape to wait, but Murphy’s defiant stare made Snape confront his cowardice and memories of Lily.
• Snape reached for the potion, thinking that memories were the only way he could still see Lily.

Murphy Darkholme endured a series of visions in which others pressured him to accept an ordinary, defeated life, while he repeatedly refused to surrender. The chapter left him facing terminal illness and rejecting the advice to give up.

• Murphy woke in the Pest Office, struck his boss, and quit his job after imagining a life trapped by work and financial pressure.
• Murphy argued with his wife over quitting, then insisted he would find another job and face their troubles together.
• Living under a bridge, Murphy made a wand, killed the street punks who attacked him, and called the attack the Breath-Cutting Technique.
• In Azkaban, Murphy denied being either good or evil, killed a shadow claiming to be the real Murphy, and refused to plead guilty before Dumbledore.
• Doctors diagnosed Murphy with tumors and cancers throughout his body, but he rejected repeated pleas to stop treatment and give up hope.

After enduring the Potion of Despair, Murphy developed the Mind Pathway theory and considered how it could guide magical research. Before he finished writing a paper about it, Barty Crouch Jr. reported that an opportunity had arisen to begin the Body Double Plan.

• Murphy broke free of the Potion of Despair's illusion, while Severus Snape remained unconscious and was treated by Madam Pomfrey.
• Murphy concluded that the mind contained an absolute-will domain where thought could become reality, and he named its potential route to godhood the Mind Pathway.
• Murphy considered expanding the domain through physical or conceptual ranges and using the Mind Pathway to organize magical research.
• Murphy spent several days developing the theory and planned to publish it in Magic Weekly.
• Barty Crouch Jr. contacted Murphy through Raven Vision and reported that the Body Double Plan could begin.

Murphy planned a secret operation to replace Chobagov and Qin Yeli during their trip to Bryansk, seeing the Soviet Union as the best place to transform Umbrella into a political power. He left Barty Crouch Jr. ready to carry out the plan as ordered.

• Barty Crouch Jr. explained how Valery Lermontov’s allies had infiltrated the KGB and reported that Chobagov would meet Qin Yeli near Bryansk.
• Murphy ordered Barty Crouch Jr. to gather details on both leaders and said he would personally plan and join the operation.
• After receiving intelligence on Chobagov’s security, Murphy traveled to the Soviet Union and used Lightning Ravens to survey the routes.
• Murphy decided the teams would attack Chobagov and Qin Yeli separately before they reached the meeting, with Murphy taking part in the fighting.
• Murphy explained that Umbrella needed to become a political power and that the Soviet Union offered the best opportunity to expand his plans.
• Barty Crouch Jr. accepted Murphy’s decision and pledged to follow his commands.

Murphy’s group ambushed President Chobagov aboard his armored train and used Polyjuice Potion to replace him with Valery Lermontov, disguised as Gorbachev. Valery took the president’s place with plans to make the country’s sinners repent and start anew.

• Chobagov worried that his political plans had been twisted by opportunists as his train traveled through the forest.
• A crow flock vanished in a flash before the train entered a tunnel and Murphy’s group attacked the carriage with spells.
• Barty Crouch Jr. killed one of Chobagov’s guards with the Killing Curse, and Murphy rebuked him for ruining the plan to use Polyjuice Potion.
• Murphy stunned Chobagov while his followers gathered the materials needed to impersonate him.
• Valery Lermontov, transformed into Gorbachev, ate in Chobagov’s carriage and declared that more good things would come as the country’s sinners repented and started anew.

Murphy and Radwan ambushed Qin Yeli’s train in Bryansk Forest with magically concealed poison fog, intending to capture Qin Yeli and replace him. After Murphy subdued a surviving wizard and put Qin Yeli in an Extension Charm case, another assailant began chanting behind him.

• Murphy met Radwan in Bryansk Forest and ordered his team to stop Qin Yeli’s train, avoid killing if possible, and prevent anyone from escaping.
• As the train entered dense fog, a voice ordered the doors opened, and poison-filled mist incapacitated the guards and passengers.
• Murphy and his gas-masked team boarded the train, assigning Radwan to control the locomotive and the others to search for sleeping passengers and wizards.
• Murphy gave Felix Qin Yeli’s hairs and prepared to transfer his memories so Felix could impersonate him.
• A guard resisted the poison, stunned Felix, and attacked Murphy, who blocked the spell, knocked the guard down, and broke his wand.
• Murphy put Qin Yeli in the Extension Charm case and turned to revive Felix as someone behind him began chanting, “Great oak, Ancestral Spirit...”