Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office.
The place had been completely transformed.
All the exquisite little trinkets Dumbledore had collected were gone. The Pensieve, Fawkes, and nearly all of Dumbledore's personal belongings had vanished as well.
Clearly, before disappearing completely, the former headmaster had returned here and taken all his things with him.
After all, both the Pensieve and those personal letters contained a great deal of intelligence and secrets. The old man did not seem generous enough to leave them behind for Murphy.
What was more, because he had left so suddenly without handing things over to the current headmaster, Severus Snape had once been unable even to enter this room.
The moment Murphy heard about it, he sent a squad of Aurors over as a demolition crew. They first blew up the griffin spiral staircase, then blasted their way all the way to the Seventh Floor, hit the portrait blocking the door with a Diffindo, and forced open the Headmaster's Office through sheer violence.
The man was fucking gone, and he still locked up public facilities?
Spoiled brat.
This not only earned him quite a bit of Snape's goodwill, but also gave the other professors a profound Murphy-style shock. It showed them one fact: the master of this school was no longer that white-bearded old man who always left himself some room to maneuver, but a madman willing to do anything to achieve his goals—even tear the place apart just to get through a door.
At the moment, Snape was conducting some experiments in the half of the room that had been converted into a potion lab.
Murphy had copied the alchemy materials he had obtained from Nicolas Flamel and given a set to him. As part of the deal, Snape was to research the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of