Dark Lord Dumbledore - Volume 1 Chapter 60

For all the stink Harry had kicked up about his terrible childhood, it was incredible to see just how quickly everyone forgot about it. He was not even updated on the promised investigation into his living arrangements by the DMLE or the Minister.

There had been nothing about the last will and testament of Lily and James Potter or missing payments to Potter owned businesses. Then again, Harry had been expecting incompetence from the start, so he was not really surprised.

In canon, the Ministry had imprisoned innocent people to look busy, taken bribes, used corruption and nepotism in assigning high-ranking Ministry positions, and given into terrorist threats. They had even, much like Harry’s former world’s government, implemented stupid laws based on media hype.

This combined into an administration that was quick to anger and cast blame, yet equally swift to forget injustices and sweep them under the carpet. But that was only if you didn’t have the political power to rub their faces in it!

Whereas the half-breed Hagrid could only be happy at being released from Azkaban, Wizards with the right heritage could kick up a stink and force the Ministry of Magic to get their act together and ask for compensation! Much like what Harry had planned for Sirius Black.

The speed at which the magical people of Britain forgot injustices had no one questioning where Harry Potter was going to live over the Christmas break. They just assumed he was going back to the Dursleys even though they had been outraged by their treatment of him.

Much like canon, people either forgot about Harry’s hard-living conditions or thought someone else had done something about it. After all, the saviour of the wizarding world couldn’t be living in an abusive household!

As soon as the train stopped, numerous magical children disembarked to hug the parents that they had been separated from for months. Harry, much like the original, skulked off unseen by those with families that loved them, moving through the exit to the muggle side of Kings Cross Station.

Maybe it was the ambient mana of Hogwarts at work, or something more sinister from Dumbledore, that made them easily dismiss Harry after he assured people he was fine. Either way, after a quick farewell to his friends on the train and a promise to write, he was free to escape unnoticed.

Finding the closest toilet, he called for Kreacher and popped over to the House of Black to prepare for Sirius’ eventual arrival. Once finished there, Crystal’s office was next. Harry once again marvelled at the magic of house-elves that could magically tell where they wanted to teleport to, whether anyone was there to observe them, and remain invisible if they so desired.

When Harry suddenly appeared in front of Crystal’s desk, her surprise quickly turned into a squeal of happiness. “Chad, you’re back!” She quickly ran around the massive table filled with piles of paper to hug her child-sized boss.

“Hey, Crystal, miss me?” He said from within her crushing embrace.

Since he was unsure how closely Dumbledore would be watching him, he had held back on using Lilith to deliver letters and had only been in contact with Crystal via elf-mail for emergencies.

One such emergency was the absolutely ridiculous object, that was forced upon him by Hogwarts, known as the Quill. When he had first bought them with Hagrid in Diagon Alley, he had just assumed he would get used to them like all muggle-borns eventually did.

But having to regularly dip the feathered writing implement into a pot of ink quickly became tedious! Since Crystal had gone to university and must have been exposed to copious amounts of scribbling notes, he had sent Boppy to her for ideas to solve his predicament.

Boppy had returned with a pimped out fountain pen with ink cartridges and multiple nibs of all different sizes. It had been precisely what he had been looking for. With his newly learned calligraphy from Tom’s memories, the sweeping cursive text looked awesome without having to use a feather and inkpot.

The teachers had looked at him funny, but seeing as his writing was the same as a quill, had nothing to criticise him about. He was sure that if he had used a ballpoint pen, then they would have been all over him like a rash.

So with very little interaction other than a letter or two to decide a course of action, Crystal had missed Chad as he was the centre of her universe. She had dived into her work instead, using it as a distraction until her adopted child returned from a world she couldn’t really follow him too.

To head off any weird situations, Chad had ‘adjusted’ her mind so that Crystal wouldn’t develop their relationship into something more awkward until he was older. Much like he had to do with his female admirers in Hogwarts, Hermione being at the top of that list.

There were many other ways to satisfy his s.e.x.u.a.l urges instead of complicating everything by sh*tting where he ate. A simple illusion to appear as a grown man and then go on a pub crawl was way more fun that having to dance around a woman trying to justify her feelings for an eleven-year-old child.

Chad spent the next twenty minutes catching up with Crystal and was brought up to date on the major moves his worldwide corporation was making. He was once again thankful that he was cut off from most of it at Hogwarts, it was a well-deserved respite from work!

Promising Crystal that he would meet her tomorrow for breakfast, Chad teleported via elf over to his Security Firm HQ. He had decided to have a base set up in London so he could coordinate with his other base locations all over the world with ease. Having the security command centre next to his corporation headquarters just made sense.

“So the Australian Government are not doing anything about the protesters damaging the walls around our land and trespassing?” Chad asked the Director of his London branch of Eldar Private Security.

No Government wanted to get in the way of an angry mob, especially when they benefitted from it. Other than those that had been ‘recruited’ to pass his Kingdom’s separation from Australia, everyone else was furious about it!

“From sources in your media company, they even seem to be fanning the flames.” Reeves dutifully replied.

Chad thought the man had watched a few too many Bond films since he liked to only use his last name and code numbers for his agents, but the man seemed to know his spycraft.

Chad had severely underestimated just how much the public would react to him seceding from Australia. Though in hindsight, he really should have seen it coming.

There was an outcry from everyone from Aborigines claiming land rights, politicians making accusations of illegal occupations of government state forestry, and conspiracy theorists guessing about the forceful acquisition of land from so many local residents.

It was nothing he didn’t ultimately expect and was the driving factor for him creating his security firm, but he had thought the complaints would have died down by now. There was not much they could do about it after all.

The ten-metre wall that ran from just below Fremantle to Kalgoorlie (600km), then down to Esperance (400km), stopped a lot of the progress of the protesters. Since Australia was rather spread out, having a huge wall forcing you to walk put a damper on many demonstrator’s enthusiasm.

There was amazement at the fact the ‘King’ could build such a wall simultaneously and at incredible speeds over such a distance. It had even made headlines and covered widely throughout the media.

It took liberal use of magic to make sure onlookers only saw cement trucks and formwork, not house-elves raising a wall out of the earth and then shaping it into a sturdy border enforcing obstacle. Trump would have been extremely jealous of Chad’s ability to keep out unwanted illegal immigrants.

The main reason the media kept harping on about his mysterious, isolated Kingdom, even those owned by him, was because of the disappearances of those that illegally crossed the wall.

In some instances, they even destroyed parts of the wall to drive vehicles through in an effort to find and confront the man that had taken over part of their country! Though that was rare as it took a lot of work to breach the magically made wall.

Unfortunately for them, house-elves thought of Chadtopia (a name he said jokingly but was now accepted by all house-elves) as their paradise and dealt harshly with any invaders.

Taking a page out of Tooky the Mesopotamian Inc manager’s book, they started up a camp for all those captured crossing the border. The walls were repaired, the vehicles shrunken and then stored inland.

To any that investigated, it was as if they simply disappeared since the elves had even cleaned away any tracks or footprints. This was a throwback from what they were taught when mining, to leave the ground like they were never there in the first place.

When Reeves had told him about the situation, at first, he could only lament about the overeagerness of house-elves. But after thinking about it a little more, there was not much else they could really have done.

There had been a couple of thousand people that had been separated by gender and then sent to different work camps to raise crops. It would have taken too many teams of wizards to obliviate any trespassers and then just send them back to do it all over again.

Technically, Chadtopia was a separate country and was not subject to the authority of the Australian Government and could claim all sorts of reasons to imprison the offenders.

Trumped up charges of espionage, terrorism, and even drug trafficking since many had weed and alcohol on them, could be levied against them. In many Asian countries, Australia’s neighbour Indonesia for example, these warranted the death penalty.

In fact, this had been Reeves’ defence since the Australian house-elves reported to him when Chad was unavailable at Hogwarts or they just didn’t think it deserved his attention.

It had been fun seeing the man’s first reaction to the hyper little magical creatures, but Chad had made the retired MI6 agent loyal to his cause, so he was not afraid Reeves would run off and tell anyone.

So when Chad came to visit Reeves and see how he was doing, he was informed of the situation coming to a head as the Australian Government had been threatening military action if Chad did not meet for a parley and discuss the release of prisoners.

This tough-guy posturing from the weak as piss Australian Government provoked him into taking a more extreme view on the matter than he maybe would have. Especially when Chad saw how they caved to other countries with the same hard stances against unwanted journalism or drug trafficking.

He didn’t need ambient mana to make him overconfident and look down on their threats. Australia could barely scr.a.p.e together fifty thousand troops and had no definite target to strike! Not to mention that they were only just discussing satellite surveillance and whether or not it was feasible.

Their military was a joke compared to its Asian neighbours, and although the ANZACs were world-renowned for being tough as nails, over fifty years of peace had killed a lot of the enthusiasm to join the army. Not to mention they would be up against magical teleporting ninja elves.

If the Australian Government wanted to start a war, he was only too happy to oblige. Maybe he could use this opportunity to grab more land for his Kingdom!

“What about Africa? How has the infiltration been going?” Chad asked suddenly, changing the subject.

“Madagascar is ours and now being set up as a staging point into Mozambique. It was easy enough for our ninjas to scope out any native wizards and then pave the way for us to control the political leaders.”

“You made sure to not attract attention from the Uagadou School of Magic in Uganda?” Chad asked.

“Completely. From the few magical families living in Madagascar, we found that they are even more spread out than the Australian magical community.” Reeves reported.

All in all, things seemed to be going well. But complacency tended to lead to disasters, and Chad knew that being exposed this early in his plans for World Domination would lead to him ending up like Hitler.

Surrounded on all sides and eventually being worn down.