He picks up his tea again, taking the time of sipping it to think in, absently offers to pour Lucius a new cup.
"I'd probably start by revising the Hogwarts curriculum," he admits, refilling his own, "since anyone thinking strategically will understand that the formative years of each generation will be crucial in forming their opinions; the Dark Lord was bang on the mark in that respect, although he didn't delegate it well.."
He puts the teakettle down, looks up at Lucius. "If I were in such a position, knowing the cohesive value of having a common enemy, I'd make that enemy our insularity and our inability to properly integrate influences from outside without losing ourselves. Force us to find our center and move from it, so we can stop staring at our navels in blind terror that it's disappeared. Apart from sports and tournaments, we haven't even encouraged communication with other wizarding nations, except at the highest intellectual levels. And we've allowed a number of magical arts to fall off. For one thing, since the Muggles started to really depend on electricity and their devices began to short-circuit in magical fields, we've really neglected technomancy. When was the last really inventive magical device developed that was neither a broom nor a toy?
He drums his fingers on the table. "However you feel privately about muggles, I agree that an appearance of acceptance is necessary, and it could be made to be remarkably beneficial to us. If we ensure that our children can pass in the Muggle world without looking like village idiots, we improve our information access and lower the risk of failures of secrecy during times of forced interaction. If we ensure that Muggleborn children, hybrids, and persons infected with dark magic, such as vampires and werewolves, feel themselves able to earn a place as true citizens in the wizarding world, and put that emphasis on earning, we not only force them to reach their potential in attaining complete access to our world rather than thinking they can just mooch along, but we might, if it's handled carefully, foster a less envenomed competitive spirit in our own children and maneuver them into feeling that their earned positions in our world, as well as the world itself, is worth fighting for. Make the damned NEWTS mean something again. It should be entirely possible to revise the curriculum so that Muggle-raised children would learn what it means to be witches and wizards, and not bumble through life inflicting their uninformed prejudices on those around them, so that we would be enriched by their outlooks rather than embarrassed and weakened by their ignorance. More, and very importantly, the current resentment of these hybrid witches and wizards, along with those of other sentient magical creatures, is a poisoned knife lurking in wait at our backs, and I have for years longed to turn it outward to the world."
"Of course, you'll say that my parentage influences my views, and you'll be quite right to say it. His was influenced in the same way. Our current system fosters either an acceptance of second-class citizenry or a desire to not only succeed but transcend, in some cases to conquer. And the percentage of pureblood children in each new year is on a steady decline. If there is no change, we're on a collision course with really detrimental inbreeding and a surge in the birth of squibs such as hasn't been seen since the fourteenth century.
"I would, also," he adds, "if I could, reward good journalism and punish the yellow, but that's my own preference; you won't find it convenient, I think. Plugging up as much of the corruption in the Ministry that leaves it looking and acting like a sponge to influence would also be quite a good idea, once your rise was high enough, if you could do it without risking a label of, well, hypocrisy." He shrugs, a bit apologetically, and drinks some more tea. "My apologies, Lucius; I was recruited on the promise that we were striving for certain things, and, having been deeply disappointed on that count, I'm afraid I can go on rather, given the opportunity."
His hand is clenched under the table--not on his wand, because that would be stupid, but he knows full well that he's gambling for high stakes hear.