Twenty-three elves were quite a bit more than he thought Boppy would find, Chad thought he would return with only three or four. Still, the more, the merrier as they say. The only problem would be if he could bond them all.
"Umm, Boppy? Can I sustain bonds with all of them? Will I have enough magic?"
Boppy looked at his Master as if he had been dropped on his head, maybe that curse scar was affecting him more than he thought. Then again, his Master was still very young, he could not be expected to be smart all the time! Boppy would have to be the best head elf to help his Master be the greatest wizard ever!
"Master, there is no measurable amount of your magic. You don't start with ten magic and then use three magic to cast a spell. House-elves bond with a wizard so they can unlock their magic, and live. Free house-elves can only use basic elf magic to survive until they find a new master, if they don't, they slowly die. We don't take your magic, but you might feel tired afterwards because you are young, and multiple bonds will tax your mind."
Was Boppy perhaps a genius elf? Not only was his English pretty fluent, but he could articulate his thoughts quite well. Was Dobby just a moron? Or did the many blows to the head he received in punishments do lasting damage? Either way, smart minions were welcomed as far as Chad was concerned.
"I see, thanks for letting me know Boppy, you are a good head elf!" Praised Chad.
Twenty minutes later and he was surrounded by tearful, yet thrilled Potter house-elves. They were bouncing around excitedly, worshipping their new Master with a zealousness seen only in religious fanatics. Imagine the damage Muslim extremists could do with elf suicide bombers!
No, Chad would not be squandering such devoted servants with suicide attacks, even the foolish death eaters weren't that retarded. You would have to be insane to waste the devotion of your minions in such an absurd way. Surely they could just drop the bomb and walk away? Why have someone, that is so devoted to you that they are willing to die for you, kill themselves with your enemies?
Chad was pretty tired. The bonding process had been easy, but after a while, he felt like he needed to lay down for a sleep. Since he had nothing but time, he thought he might as well, nothing urgent needed his attention. But while he was napping, he would have the new elves catalogue everything in his vaults, better to be safe than sorry.
"Potter house-elves! My head elf Boppy has already explained that I have many enemies, so you will have to keep who you work for a secret. Tomorrow I will be revealing my future goals and how you, my house-elves, will help me achieve them. But for today, I need you to make a list of everything my three vaults contain. We won't know what is missing if we don't know what is there originally."
With a few more words of encouragement, Chad went to sleep.
The next morning, Boppy popped in to give him a report. It was surprisingly comprehensive and readable, who knew house-elves had such neat handwriting! Chad had to suffer through constant fussing over from Petunia after the elves left yesterday, he should have had them take him with them! Although he had to admit, she was a rather caring mother if she didn't think you were a magical freak.
The list was a pleasant reminder of how things had already detoured from cannon. In the original Harry Potter, Dumbles had all three keys and access to two of them to fund his operations. The main Potter vault required a key and blood identification to open, so unless he brought Harry along, that had always been denied to him.
Still, Lily's and his trust vault would have supplied all the funds he needed as they were quite wealthy.
- Trust vault (10,000 Galleons a year on his birthday.)
Current amount - 10,000
-Lily Evans Vault
Current amount - 82,700
It was a shame that there was nothing else other than money in her vault, but beggars can't be choosers. The storage room that Boppy made under Godric's Hollow should contain her valuable possessions and books. He was curious about how she amassed over 400,000 pounds, but it's not hard to make money with magic and half a brain.
The Potter vault was a bit more interesting. When Potter Manor was destroyed, everything undamaged was stored there for safekeeping until it could be rebuilt. Unfortunately, every Potter except for Harry was killed.
- Potter Vault
Current amount - 9,870,462
319 Books
102 weapons and armour (mostly decoration)
Furniture
Paintings
Chad wondered why all the money was in Galleons until he realised that they would have had smaller currency exchanged before depositing it. Why would you store Knuts when you could change them into shiny gold coins? Well, unless you were the Weasleys.
When Molly went to withdraw money for school supplies, there was a total of 1 Galleon and 58 Sickles. Now that is poor, the bank fees would be costing her more than she was ever going to put in there. Hell, she couldn't even buy Ron a new wand for 7 Galleons!
Anyway, Chad would have to make a trip to the Gringotts when everything quieted down. There was no rush as fees for vaults were issued on the 1st of January, so he had a few months before he was charged. Even though he was a millionaire now, he was still not going to pay for three vaults. Chad was a tight-arse unless it involved alcohol.
Now with a detailed list of his vaults, that only left Godric's Hollow. He sent Boppy off with the same task, but this time to bring back all books on mind magic, wizard law and pureblood ancestry. The pureblood ancestry books were simply to satisfy his curiosity and plan out his list of enemies. If they couldn't find any there, then pick them up from the Bank, there were several items on the list that looked like they fit the bill.
He would also need to pay attention to the Wizengamot and see who walked free with bullshit reasons. Chad had a few plans brewing, but a lot of them relied on exploiting wizarding law. From what was portrayed in the books, the Ministry and Wizengamot was a joke and shouldn't take too much effort to abuse for his benefit.
Tom Riddle really went about taking over the wrong way. Unfortunately, he never stood a chance, as he realised too late that he had been dancing to the real Dark Lords tune. He was only a puppet playing at being a Dark Lord, prepared for the job since he started Hogwarts. As smart as he was, he still missed that he was groomed to be sacrificed to solidify Dumbledore's image as the leader of the light.
It was nearly even the same regimen that was used to groom Harry Potter. Stuck in an abusive situation that Dumbledore wanted to help fix but was unable. Withhold important information, guided to the restricted section of the library to seek answers and for power. The kindly advisor that helped smooth over any problems that arose.
It was really sickening to watch when you knew what was happening, it was eerily similar to paedophiles grooming children. The fact that Dumbledore was gay and knew how to wipe memories gave Chad goosebumps, he would definitely have to set up his house-elves guard plan sooner rather than later!
Boppy appeared holding Chad's solution to future power, books on mind magic. The other subjects could wait until he had the basics down. After all, Occlumency was the key to unlocking eidetic memory. This would make learning everything else much quicker and with better results.
Occlumency was always neglected by today's wizarding world, and if it was ever learnt, it was only to combat Legilimency. They somehow forgot that it was mastering your emotions and memories, not just putting up mental barriers. For a magic system that effectively operated from willpower and was strengthened by emotion, it seemed rather idiotic not to learn and master Occlumency.
The ability to organise memories so that they could be recalled immediately was the dream of every academic. Chad had been pretty lazy in school, much preferring to play instead of learning. But once you are older, you regret not learning more as a child.
Although it doesn't affect you much, another language, advanced mathematics, science or computer skills are always handy to have. Since Chad had already lived to regret not learning when he had the chance, now armed with a magical way to memorise everything, he was going to be king of the nerds! This wasn't even factoring in the things he could do if he also masted Legilimency!
By the time Chad reached Hogwarts, he would make Professor X look like a slack-jawed yokel that hadn't studied past kindergarten.