"Dumbledore, are you insane?"
In an ordinary room, several elderly men with white hair and beards sat around a small round table. The one seated in the center was Dumbledore.
"This is an opportunity, isn't it?" Dumbledore said with a smile.
"This is too risky. The Ministry of Magic will never agree."
"I know, but don't you think the Muggle Studies course has been neglected for years? There hasn't been any real progress. Do you remember how many wizards died due to Muggle weapons during the war? You should know how many excellent wizards fell because they didn't understand Muggle weapons. Over the years, Muggle weapons have only become more powerful. If another conflict arises, how many more wizards will fall because they don't understand these weapons?"
Dumbledore's words left everyone in the room silent. The younger wizards might not understand, but those present had all participated in that war and had lost friends to Muggle weapons.
The mentality of the wizarding world is peculiar. Perhaps it's due to their long-standing sense of superiority. Even after witnessing the power of Muggle nuclear weapons, they chose to shut themselves away, enjoying their so-called superiority. It's essentially a closed-off society.
"In the past, we could easily hide within the Muggle world. Even the leaders of the Muggle world didn't know about us. But now?"
The room fell silent again. To better conceal the wizarding world, the leaders of Muggle nations, especially major ones, are now aware of the magical community's existence. This helps maintain secrecy.
Not every wizard adheres to the International Statute of Secrecy. Those who live hidden within the Muggle world and follow its laws are easier to handle, as they only use magic to make their lives more convenient and comfortable.
In fact, these wizards live the most comfortably. With magic, finding high-paying jobs in the Muggle world is incredibly easy.
However, not everyone earns money legally. Dark wizards, who the Muggle world cannot deal with, need to be handled by Aurors.
Strictly speaking, Aurors in this world are somewhat akin to SHIELD agents, maintaining the boundary between the Muggle and wizarding worlds.
"Take a look at this," Dumbledore said, waving a hand and sending a stack of documents floating to the elderly men before him.
"What is this?" they asked, opening the documents to find a comparison chart between the Muggle and wizarding worlds. They were all taken aback.
"This is the latest survey. You can see the monthly income of ordinary Muggles. I think most wizards don't earn this much," Dumbledore stated.
This chart was created by Red Queen using data Dumbledore and Grindelwald gathered about wizarding world prices. For the Muggle world, Daniel simply paid private investigators with a stack of pounds to get the necessary information.
Upon seeing the wizarding world's price chart, Daniel was shocked by how cheap things were. He realized he had misunderstood initially.
First, Gringotts offers currency exchange between wizarding and Muggle money, as the Muggle world has many things needed by wizards.
Additionally, wizard salaries are incredibly low. Despite the technological suppression in this world keeping wages generally low, wizard incomes were still far too low.
Look at the Weasley family; their income was less than that of Harry Potter's uncle's family.
Strictly speaking, if you exclude fixed income, even the Malfoys are worse off than Harry Potter's uncle's family.
The only reason wizards don't struggle more is because magic allows them to speed up food production and expand living spaces, eliminating issues with food and housing.
But in terms of clothing, the wizarding world lags far behind the Muggle world.
Look at the Weasley household and their spending habits. Ron often wore his brothers' old clothes, even inheriting their magical pets. And the Weasleys are a pure-blood family.
Even the Malfoys had to sell off their heirlooms to get by.
If the Malfoys were in the Muggle world, any one of their antiques could support them for years.
Wizards could easily make money in the Muggle world. For example, using the Reparo spell, any formally trained wizard could open a repair business and make a fortune.
And with Aguamenti, they could sell purified water.
Don't underestimate Aguamenti. Water produced by magic is truly natural and pollution-free. In this world, it might not stand out much, but in the Marvel universe, it would be top-tier spring water, surpassing any mountain-sourced water.
Cross-world enterprises are the most profitable.
What truly moves people is profit, not ideals or violence. To implement his plan, Daniel knew he needed to rely on profit.
Wizards are still people. Given the chance to live better, who wouldn't take it?
Hogwarts is the top magic school in the wizarding world, but it can't guarantee good jobs for all its graduates.
The wizarding world's narrow scope severely limits their options.
Once most people see the benefits of interacting with the Muggle world, the movement will snowball. Anyone who tries to stand in its way will be swept aside.
"Is this all true?" the elderly men asked, disbelief written on their faces.
"Of course. If you don't believe it, you can sell some of your less important heirlooms in the Muggle world," Dumbledore said with a smile.
These men were all from Dumbledore's faction, but even they couldn't ignore the gold Galleons before them. Unlike Dumbledore, they had families to support.
"This is dragon liver? It's so cheap," Daniel remarked with a smile after finishing a plate of dragon liver. It was real dragon liver, though different from the legendary dragons, it still had significant health benefits.
After learning the price of dragon liver, Daniel went straight to Gringotts, exchanged a large sum of pounds for wizard currency, and bought a lot of dragon liver.
"You could actually establish a SHIELD-like organization in this world."
"That's a joke. First, we need mobile phones. Once we have those, owls can retire. Imagine all Hogwarts students using smartphones and browsing the internet. It's quite a thought."
Landline phones exist in Harry's world, but mobile phones seem far off.
Thinking about the years after Harry's time, when his children are attending Hogwarts, and the train is still the same old train, Daniel knew the road ahead was long and arduous.
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King's Cross Station.
Daniel Davis watched as numerous young wizards pushed their trolleys straight into the wall between platforms nine and ten. Today marked the end of the summer holidays, and it was time for Hogwarts to reopen, so Daniel had come to witness the legendary Platform 9¾.
Despite many young wizards disappearing into the wall, the Muggles nearby paid no attention. This was primarily due to the use of Muggle-repelling and Confundus Charms, making the passersby oblivious to the unusual occurrences.
Only if the wall was sealed off, like when Dobby had closed it in Harry's second year, causing a major commotion, would the Muggles notice anything amiss.
"The Golden Trio," Daniel muttered as he easily spotted Harry, Hermione, and Ron on Platform 9¾. He also noticed Malfoy and his gang. These two trios were always at odds with each other from the moment they met.
Daniel had no intention of befriending these three. Perhaps if he were their age, he might have considered it, but not now
.
"Everything in the world seems to be more expensive on a train." Daniel casually bought some snacks on the train and had to admit that the taste of magical world treats was quite good, probably due to the high quality of the ingredients. With industrialization being underdeveloped, most of the food in this world was natural. The only drawback was the level of English cuisine, but luckily, Daniel himself was a decent cook.
"There's a seat here." As Daniel was eating his snacks and reading a book on spells, he heard a familiar voice. He then saw the Golden Trio entering his compartment.
"Is this fate?" Daniel murmured to himself but didn't pay them much attention, continuing to read his book on Transfiguration.
Hermione, Ron, and Harry had entered Daniel's compartment because they wanted to find a place where all three of them could sit together. After some encounters, including a run-in with Malfoy and his gang that wasted some time, they finally found three empty seats in Daniel's compartment.
"That's a Transfiguration spell." Hermione, true to her inquisitive nature, commented after glancing at the contents of Daniel's book.
"Yes, Miss Granger. Do you have any questions?" Daniel smiled, moving his gaze from the book to Hermione. While Hermione was indeed a pretty girl, she was only around eleven years old, and Daniel was no Lolicon.
"You know me?" Hermione asked, surprised.
"The famous Golden Trio, how could I not know? So, that makes you Ron, and you must be the one who defeated Voldemort, Harry." Daniel greeted Ron and Harry with a smile.
"You dare to say his name? Aren't you afraid?" Hermione asked, astonished. Though she had only been at Hogwarts for half a semester, being one of Harry's close friends, she knew a lot about Voldemort and was aware that most wizards, including Ron's parents, referred to him as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
"What's there to fear about Voldemort?" Daniel replied dismissively. Compared to Grindelwald, Voldemort was far inferior. A Voldemort with a whole soul might be terrifying, but the one who had split his soul into seven, or rather eight, pieces was no threat to Daniel, who knew the locations of all the Horcruxes.
"Interestingly, only Gryffindor's sword wasn't made into a Horcrux," Daniel thought. Of the four founders of Hogwarts, each had a relic, but only Gryffindor's sword remained untouched by Voldemort's dark magic.
"You should be careful about saying such things at school," Hermione warned in a low voice.
"Thanks for the advice," Daniel replied with a nod and a smile.
"Do you know about him? Can you tell me more?" Harry asked after a long silence.
"That's not something you need to worry about now. Focus on your studies," Daniel said, returning to his book on Transfiguration.
After a brief comforting chat with Harry, Hermione and the trio shifted their discussion to Quidditch.
"This is so slow, nowhere near as fast as a high-speed train." The Hogwarts Express was considered fast in this world, but compared to the high-speed trains of Daniel's past life, it was far too slow. Used to magical teleportation or flying, Daniel found this pace hard to adjust to.
After traveling all day, the train finally stopped in the evening. The students quickly moved to the waiting carriages to head to Hogwarts. Except for the first-year students, who had to cross the lake to Hogwarts as a rite of passage, the other students took the carriages directly to the castle.
"The marvelous Hogwarts, here I come."
Upon entering Hogwarts, Daniel was greeted by Dumbledore and then introduced to the other professors. The staff was quite surprised by his youth, but it seemed Dumbledore had already briefed them, so they welcomed Daniel warmly. Snape, as usual, wore his characteristic scowl.
"Slytherin's pride, our head of house, with hair flowing like a waterfall." Looking at Snape, Daniel nearly laughed as this random thought popped into his head.
Just like when he first entered the school, there was a banquet in the Great Hall that evening, attended by all the students.
"The number of students doesn't seem that large." Based on his prior research, Hogwarts had about four hundred students. The exact number was unclear due to the school's somewhat outdated record-keeping, particularly with sixth and seventh-year students who were often out on internships.
The Great Hall's ceiling was enchanted to look like the night sky, with thousands of floating candles illuminating the space. These magical candles never burned out due to their enchantment.
"If they installed the latest crystal chandeliers and wired them up, I bet it'd look just as beautiful." The wizarding world's biggest drawback compared to the Muggle world was the lack of electricity.
"Harry, Ron, look!" Hermione, seated at the Gryffindor table, immediately noticed Daniel among the professors and pointed him out to her friends.
"Welcome back to school, everyone. I have an announcement." Dumbledore wasted no time on unnecessary words and introduced Daniel to the students.
Daniel's arrival meant the departure of the previous Muggle Studies professor, Charity Burbage, which, in a way, saved her life since she was killed by Voldemort in the original timeline.
After announcing Daniel as the new Muggle Studies professor, Dumbledore also declared that from this term onward, Muggle Studies would be a mandatory subject for first-year students and would count towards their final grades. This caused quite a stir among the students, especially those in Slytherin. However, Dumbledore's authority and the Ministry of Magic's approval quelled the uproar, allowing the banquet to proceed smoothly.
The Ministry agreed to Dumbledore's request partly because many respected figures in the wizarding world believed young wizards should be knowledgeable about the Muggle world, and partly because Fudge, newly appointed as Minister of Magic, didn't dare oppose Dumbledore.
___________________
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