Chapter 73

Luckily, Hermione had already been partially trained to not be an idiot by Chad, even if he had yet to instil some manners or social class concepts into the naive girl.

Hermione had been quick to denounce the system as unfair until Chad pointed out that more than a third of British land was still in the hands of aristocrats and traditional landed gentry.

With Neville there as an example of the 'good' type of pure-bloods, it was easy enough to liken the present-day muggle nobility to their magical equivalent. And boy did that awaken Hermione to her new position in the magical world.

While they were subjected to basically the same laws as everyone else, money and status usually played a big part in seeing them get away with all but the most heinous of crimes. The Imperiused Death Eaters going free was an incident that epitomised the differences between classes.

While he and Neville did their best to educate the oblivious girl, Chad neglected to tell her about all the laws that didn't apply to pure-bloods or were explicitly designed for them to take advantage of. Things like only Lords can issue honour duels or sit on the Wizengamot.

Chad also used this opportunity to firmly tie Hermione to his side by explaining that muggle-borns very rarely got a position in the Ministry, and if they did, it was at the very bottom. He then introduced her to his plans to enter into politics and change it from the inside.

"So you see, I was hoping that both you and Neville would be interested in forming a political party with me to change the wizarding world for the better. To bring it out of the medieval era and into the future!" Chad grandly proclaimed.

"Of course we will, won't we Neville! I hadn't really thought about what I wanted to do when I finished school, but working in the Ministry and helping the magical world would be perfect!" She replied eagerly, not noticing Neville's eyes widen at being volunteered.

Since Hermione was Neville's only friend in Gryffindor, and they seemed to have exchanged letters if their coordinated arrival to Platform 9 3/4 was any indication, Chad only had to convince her to join for the shy boy to follow along.

The boy wouldn't refuse help to the only friends he had and joining the Ministry might make his Gran proud of him for once, though he had lost a lot of respect for her. Attempted murder and setting him up with an incompatible wand to further the rumours of him being a squib would do that to a young boy, especially with Chad pointing it out.

But even with Chad's influence since Halloween, it was not enough to suddenly negate years of SJW training from Hermione's parents or for Neville to gain his confidence back from years of childhood putdowns. This, however, worked to his advantage as Chad was there to firmly tie their new character improvements to his efforts.

From Hermione's earlier comments on how backwards the wizarding society was, it was clear she would be joining any type of organisation to promote communis... er, equality. She no doubt wanted all the old families to hand over their grimoires and share their secrets with every other wizard or witch who's ancestry didn't provide an inheritance.

The fact that she was denigrating a cultural society that was thousands of years old didn't even cross her mind. For someone taught tolerance, acceptance, and to respect others beliefs and cultures by her progressive parents, she was rather selective of who deserved it.

Sure, the pure-blood agenda had stunted progress in both magical and technological advancement, but the fact she could ignore the similarities in the muggle world spoke of her hypocrisy. Pick any problem with the magical society and its counterpart in the muggle world surely existed right now.

Hell, there was a recent case of a Christian missionary killed by an island native tribe off of India. Chad didn't see any people kicking up a fuss about that! If anything, people unanimously thought the guy was in the wrong for interfering in someone else's culture.

But hey, he chose to take Hermione under his wing for two reasons. She would work hard on any project he gave her, and she would be hot when she grew up. Her hypocrisy and SJW mindset could easily be trained out of her, and if that failed, her mind was still unprotected...

Although Chad was also a hypocrite (like most people), he wasn't shackled with the one-sided morality that do-gooders were. Just like Dumbledore, he was quite happy to use moral evils to achieve his goals.

The only difference between Chad and Dumbledore was their endgame. Dumbledore had started out being all about the 'greater good' and domination over the muggles, but that had changed when his lover Gellert Grindelwald started to overstep.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Albus had made the best of a bad situation by using Gellert as a scapegoat in the death of his sister to rebrand himself as a righteous 'Light' wizard. But he would always need a villain if he was to play the hero, and Tom Riddle would be perfect for when Gellert was defeated.

Albus certainly knew how to play the long game.

After he found fame and fortune in fighting Grindelwald and Voldemort, Dumbledore's priorities had changed. He had power, influence and was celebrated as the greatest wizard of the era, and his earlier dreams of domination didn't seem worth it after he saw how his lover had failed.

So Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had become a glorified clout chaser.

Chad, on the other hand, wanted world domination, but not for anything as asinine as he though one race was better than another. Since he had been inserted into a fictional world and had future knowledge, why would he settle for anything less?

The threat of a global war between muggles and magicals was a major motivating factor in his decision to rule the world, ego may have also played a part.

So while Dumbles was happy to send innocents to a prison to be tortured, trick a child into abuse and slavery to become a martyr, and kill off his own loyal minions for fame and fortune, Chad went in a different direction.

If he had influence over the superpowers of the world, he could make changes and policies that would see prosperity his old Earth could only dream of. Of course, he would massively benefit from the situation, he was not a hero after all.

The only thing that bothered him was that like Dumbles, there was collateral damage from his ambitions, and it was mainly innocents that suffered. But much like how Albus started out, the greater good played a large part in justification for his misdeeds.

Much like his old world's governments, starting a war to end a tyrannical dictator still saw innocents die during the fighting. That the side claiming moral superiority also took resources from the targeted country to 'fund' their liberation was just how the world worked.

And Chad planned to massively benefit. 'Kindness to the enemy is cruelty to your innocent' was how Chad managed to justify removing dangerous elements to his campaign. Permanently removing an enemy will stop him from later killing someone on his side.

'I just have to be careful not to initiate another blunder like what happened in Australia, stretching out my forces with multiple conflicts would see me losing on all...'

"...ry, Harry!"

Chad snapped out of his mental ranting to see Nevile and Hermione staring at him questioningly. He really needed to concentrate on one problem at a time, daydreaming while Hermione was nattering about injustices in the world would only see him have to hear it again.

"Sorry, was just thinking about all the things we can achieve to better relations between the different classes." Chad deflected.

"Neville will be the face of the pure-bloods, Harry will be the representative of half-bloods and I the muggle-borns. With the three of us working together, we will be unstoppable!" Hermione exclaimed, clapping her hands and bouncing up and down on her seat in her excitement.

"Remember, we have to keep our plans a secret for now. If we announce our goals to limit the pure-bloods influence, they will just kill our movement while it is still in its infancy." Chad said, trying to head off a reproduction of her S.P.E.W crusade from canon.

Chad was glad that he didn't have to dumb himself down for the twelve-year-old Hermione, and his choice of Ravenclaw explained away his intelligence and maturity. The magical world had a bad habit of readily jumping to conclusions to explain away inconsistencies.

Neville for his part just nodded and smiled. He was well trained in keeping quiet and doing what he was told. Chad wondered if this was something that Dumbledore had stimulated in his back-up martyr, or if Dowager Longbottom was just an overbearing b*tch.

Though after gaining a new wand and with Hermione and his tutoring, the boy was changing into a stalwart minion as he slowly gained confidence in his new abilities and friends.

Seeing the conflicting emotions in the boy's forced smile, Chad decided to try and put him at ease.

"You ok, Nev?"

"I'm just not sure if I will be able to help much." The boy said shyly, wringing his hands in an imitation of a house-elf disappointing his master.

"Is that all you are worried about? We have seven years before we finish school, that's plenty of time to learn all we need to about becoming members of the Ministry. It's not like we are becoming the Minister of Magic tomorrow!" Chad said with a smile to encourage Neville.

"Oh, Neville. We will be there to help you, and from what you and Harry have told me about the current Ministry, you are already far better than they are!" Hermione added.

Regaining a more natural smile, Nevile gave is friends a nod of thanks. The trio of prospective government officials spent the rest of the trip happily plotting their future, and even Chad found himself enjoying the childish dreams they came up with.

Draco had been slightly standoffish when they once again gathered around the boats to travel across the lake to Hogwarts. Chad had been surprised when he found out that the first years used the boats multiple times a year to get to and from Hogsmeade station every time there was a holiday.

But since canon Harry had never left Hogwarts except for the start and end of the school year, it had never been mentioned. Since the 'Horseless' carriages were reserved for only the second year through to seventh year students, Harry had only used them then.

Maybe it was a way of cementing the beauty and magic of Hogwarts into the first years to inspire loyalty to the magical world. The ambient magic reinforcing the feelings it provoked in their young minds.

A quick Legilimency scan of Draco revealed that he was embarrassed after his father was caught stealing from House Potter. Chad would need to sort that out before it festered into hate out of a childish need to explain his feelings.

His father's pure-blood dogma would supply the necessary excuses of superiority and justify his actions. It had happened in canon after all.