Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 248 A Future Where Lily Exists

"What?"

Even though he already thought Murphy was a bit crazy, Snape was still quite startled by those words.

"What?" Murphy looked at him. "You really like Hogwarts?"

"Are you serious?" Snape was almost sobered up from the shock. Quirrell only wanted to steal the Philosopher's Stone, and this guy wanted to blow up the whole school?

Isn't this guy the most dangerous dark wizard?

"To be honest, is there any need for Hogwarts to continue existing?" Murphy asked.

"After being away for several years, I almost forgot what Hogwarts was like, but now I've remembered it all again."

"This school..." Murphy's voice lowered, "is a lifeless cage, an experimental field, a puppet show stage..."

"All the professors wore stern faces, hoping their students would become fools who could only recite a few spells. No questioning, no doubts, the spells had to be pronounced perfectly, and the potion-making steps had to be exactly the same."

"Curiosity? That's poison."

"Exploration? That's a path to death."

"Invention? That was a prank."

"Innovation? Oh, that's a fucking joke!"

"If you ask why, why this spell should be pronounced this way, why this potion requires these steps," Murphy sneered, "you'll only get one answer: because it's always been this way."

"But just because it's always been this way, does that make it right?"

"If it's right, why is it right?"

"Professors would say: This is magic."

"But what the hell is magic?"

"Someone told me that belief is the essence of magic."

"But what the hell is this called believing?"

"You can believe in a person, an emotion, a belief, but how the hell can you believe in an objective reality? Who do you think you are?"

"Belief should come after doubt."

"First, you must question—question magic, question science, question all truth, and even question questioning itself. Analyze, analyze again, refine, refine again, until you find that one true thing, only then can you completely believe in it."

"Wasn't all that belief before this just self-deception?"

"However... guess what? The person who says to believe is precisely the one who is most skeptical of humanity."

"You mean, Headmaster?" Snape still retained a sliver of his senses.

Murphy paused for a moment, then suddenly exhaled, "That's right, I'm talking about Dumbledore."

He was completely different from Dumbledore. Dumbledore believed in magic but doubted the human heart, while he questioned magic but believed more in the power of the human mind than Dumbledore.

Before entering Hogwarts, he felt that apart from the Philosopher's Stone, there might not be any inevitable conflict between him and Dumbledore, so he always had the idea of ​​coexistence and cooperation.

But now that I think about it, perhaps the idea of ​​coexisting with Dumbledore was never going to be possible in the first place.

As long as Dumbledore is around, Hogwarts can never become what he wants it to be.

He wanted a future for the wizarding world that was reformed, progressive, and developing, while Dumbledore just wanted to maintain the status quo and preserve tradition. Their philosophies were so different.

He was like a dark cloud, constantly weighing on Murphy's heart, making him feel suffocated and depressed.

"Snape, would you like to be the headmaster?" Murphy suddenly asked.

"What?"

"I'm a member of the school board, and I have some friends on the board. If you want to be the principal, I can help you," Murphy said.

"..." Snape exclaimed in surprise, "Why me?"

Murphy thought for a moment, then raised a finger and pointed to the empty wine bottle on the table. "Divine Sharpness Without a Trace!"

With a soft hiss, the neck of the bottle suddenly slid off.

"When I was in school, I was quite poor, so I often had to use old textbooks. Fortunately, I once received a few old books from a senior, from which I learned a lot of useful things," Murphy said. "I was once amazed by that senior's talent. To be honest, I was far from reaching his level when I was in school."

"If we were to say who among the students of Hogwarts has ever possessed both a brilliant mind and a spirit of exploration, I think that senior should be among the top."

The reason they wanted Snape to become headmaster wasn't just a lie to trick him into drinking.

Compared to Dumbledore, who was completely uncontrollable, Snape was much easier to manage, and he was indeed a talented individual.

"You…" Snape said, somewhat surprised, "You had my textbooks?"

He then shook his head, slightly drunk, and said, "No, I'm not the best. You haven't met her. Lily, she's the one with the most ideas."

"Lily Evans?" Murphy said. "I did background checks on all the professors before I came. I asked some of your acquaintances."

"I've heard a little about Lily Evans. But that was almost a decade or two ago. Lily was married and had children long ago, and she's been dead for over ten years..."

"You...you don't understand..." Snape said.

"OK." Murphy raised an eyebrow, said nothing more, picked up his glass, clinked it with Snape's, and then the two of them gulped down several more mouthfuls.

"Duang!" Snape was already in a daze when he slammed the blanket back onto the table.

Drinking like that would make even ordinary wine drunk, let alone Murphy's spiked version.

As for Murphy himself, since he dared to bring Snape along, he was naturally prepared. The moment his fingers touched the cup, he turned everything inside into water.

He wasn't as straightforward as Snape.

"So, you haven't forgotten, have you?" Murphy deliberately continued the previous topic, "You love her? You love Lily Evans?"

With a loud crash, something heavy seemed to have fallen outside the cubicle door. Murphy's keen hearing picked up the sound of several people whispering.

You guys should put a silencing spell on yourselves, Harry.

However, Snape was completely oblivious to the sounds outside.

His gaze was somewhat unfocused, and he remained silent for a long time after hearing Murphy's words, without denying them.

It was already beyond Murphy's expectations that he didn't burst into tears on the spot under the combined attack of alcohol and truth serum.

Even if she was already married? Even if she had children? Even if she was already dead?

"Death...no," Snape stammered, "cannot make people forget, but rather...makes them remember..."

"Death is... a pause," said the greatest romantic of Hogwarts, "an anchor, a standstill in time. After she... left, my time stopped moving..."

"My body wanders in this world..."

"But my heart, my soul, remains in that time..."

All I have left is the past...

As Snape spoke, he suddenly picked up his glass again and poured the rest of the wine down his throat.

From another perspective, Snape was an absolute simp, the hopeless kind.

But hearing such a heavy confession from a middle-aged man, Murphy found it hard to feel any sarcasm. Call it being love-struck or stupid, the depth of his feelings was truly moving.

However, clinging to the past is not a good thing, both for him and for himself.

What use is a walking corpse trapped in the past?

"But time keeps moving forward, Professor Snape. No one can truly stand still in the past."

"If you can't let go," Murphy looked at him, "have you ever thought about creating a future where Lily exists?"

(End of this chapter)