Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 35 The Green Hat Man

Locke looked terrible.

His already ugly face was beaten into a pig's head, covered in bruises, and several of his sharp teeth were knocked out.

This guy has been tortured quite a bit.

No wonder we couldn't find him after the attack; it turns out Malfoy kidnapped him.

"Locke!" Lucius stared at the half-elf. "Did you secretly set up a vault for Murphy Darkholm?"

Locke lifted his swollen face and looked at Murphy with his bluish-purple eyes.

The two stared at each other for a moment.

Murphy suddenly said, "Locke, just tell the truth. All my assets are legally inherited. You haven't done anything wrong."

Locke's pointed ears twitched, and then he looked at Dumbledore. "Dumbledore, can you guarantee my safety?"

"You will not be harmed while you are a witness," Dumbledore said.

"No! I mean later. If I were to tell the truth, can you guarantee I wouldn't face retaliation?"

Dumbledore pondered for a moment before finally saying, "If speaking the truth leads to retribution, then the laws of wizarding will lose all credibility. Rest assured, the Aurors will ensure your safety."

"Okay!" Locke seemed to have made up his mind.

He glanced at Murphy, then at Lucius, and suddenly said, "I am innocent! Murphy Darkholm is innocent too! I have not done anything against Gringotts' rules! I did not set up a vault for him without his permission; all my actions were lawful and compliant! Mr. Murphy Darkholm's source of funds is crystal clear. It was all Lucius's conspiracy."

Lucius was stunned.

"You, you didn't say that before! You helped Murphy open a vault under the alias Stephen Cumberbatch, you laundered money for him! And that money all came from Muggles!"

Locke remained remarkably calm. "Those are the lines you taught me, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius was stunned.

He couldn't understand why this guy would suddenly turn against him.

"Impossible! That's not how it works! Borgerod, bring Borgerod here, he can prove it all!"

Scrimgeour nodded and was about to send an Auror to take the men away when an Auror leaned in and whispered a few words in his ear. The latter paused for a moment, then said, "Bogorod has been arrested on charges of attempting to embezzle wizarding property."

"Also, Gringotts just sent a notification saying they've confirmed that Mr. Murphy Darkholm's funding sources are entirely reliable and legal." Scrinker glanced at Lucius. "If your evidence is intended to accuse him of this, you can give up now."

"What?!"

Lucius found it unbelievable. He looked at Murphy, shocked and bewildered.

How did this guy manage to do that?

What kind of magic does he possess?

"Alright, Lucius, let's end this farce today." Scrimgeour said, and had the Aurors pull Lucius out of the iron cage, preparing to take him to Azkaban.

"No! I refuse to accept this! I have evidence!" Lucius struggled desperately. "Potions! I have samples of the potions he sold to Muggles! I have samples! And raw materials! I got them from a Muggle factory!"

He broke free from the two Aurors and pulled several items from his seamless stretch pouch. "These! These! Enough proof that he sold the potion to Muggles!"

Murphy frowned. This guy was really well-prepared.

If I hadn't suddenly started this trouble, things might have really gotten complicated.

But now, after all these actions, he has lost all his power, and no one will believe him anymore.

However, Murphy still walked up to the materials and samples.

Those were indeed the potion ingredients he had mixed, along with Cloud Potion bearing the Umbrella Corporation logo, and several bottles of semi-finished products.

"What is this?" Murphy asked.

"The potions you sold to Muggles! You didn't expect that, did you! You thought that by burning down my house and taking what I had stored in the cellar, you had completely destroyed everything, but you didn't expect that I had kept some for myself!"

Murphy pursed his lips. "Fine, then what kind of potion is it?"

"White umami flavoring!"

"Look!" he said, opening a bottle of Cloud Medicine and pouring it onto the wound on his arm where the iron thorns had cut him. The wound healed in no time.

"Look! This is succinate flavoring!"

The wizards on the bench also saw the effect and discussed it amongst themselves.

However, Murphy remained indifferent, saying, "But I see it says 'Cloud Medicine' on this."

"This is the name you came up with; 'Cloud Medicine' is actually 'White Fresh Essence'!"

"Leaving aside the question of how these things relate to me," Murphy said, "I'll just ask you one question: how can you prove that Cloud Medicine is actually White Dew Essence?"

"What?" Lucius was dumbfounded. "Their effects are exactly the same!"

"Ha," Murphy chuckled, "I've heard you own several apothecaries, Mr. Malfoy. But you seem to know absolutely nothing about potions."

"The same effect means they're the same thing? When Mr. Snape comes, he'll definitely call you an idiot! Phoenix tears and white cinnamon essence can both treat external injuries, are they the same thing? Dung stones and mandrake juice can both neutralize some poisons, but are they the same thing?"

"You might not know this, but in the Muggle world, there may be dozens or even hundreds of drugs to treat a single disease. Are they all the same thing?"

"You might know how to formulate the flavoring of White Pepper, but do you know how Muggles produce this Cloud Medicine?"

"If you don't know, how can you prove they are the same thing?"

"This... as long as there is a master potion maker who understands potions, they can definitely prove it..." Lucius still wanted to struggle.

Murphy looked at Dumbledore again. "Professor, you've discovered twelve uses for dragon's blood and have been very successful in alchemy; you're a Potions Master. So, can you prove that these two drugs are the same thing?"

Dumbledore met Murphy's gaze silently through his blue eyes behind his half-moon lenses. After a while, he avoided Murphy's gaze, picked up the bottle of Cloud Medicine, looked at it, and finally sighed, "Unfortunately, I don't know this kind of technology."

Murphy smiled.

This was something he had expected.

To prove that two things are the same substance, one must at least have a full and complete understanding of their properties; it is not enough to simply "look like" them.

Even if they "smell similar, use similar, and taste similar," it's not enough. Even if you can list a million similarities between the two, it still doesn't prove that they are the same thing.

Because that is merely an enumeration process, just like Goldbach's conjecture and many other conjectures about prime numbers. Even if you can provide a hundred billion examples that fit the conjecture, without a complete, rigorous and sufficient logical proof, they will always remain conjectures and will never become truths.

There is only one way to prove that they are the same substance: find the unique and irreplaceable property of this substance, and then prove that both things have this property.

Do wizards possess such abilities?

joke.

If wizards could understand their potions to this extent, what would Murphy need Muggles for? What would he need technology for? What would he need to earn pounds for? He could just stick to magic, wouldn't that solve everything?

It is precisely because wizards lack such abilities and their understanding of their own magic is not precise enough that Murphy seeks the power of Muggles.

Therefore, it can be said that the existence of Cloud Medicine is proof that wizards do not possess this ability.

It's like a woman who cheated on her husband because of his impotence and then had a child, but the husband wants to prove that the child is actually his.

Murphy glanced at Lucius.

You're not Lestrange, so why do you think so much like the Green Hat Man?

(End of this chapter)