I don't think it was 'too trusting', really. He was next to someone who seemed reasonable, gave good advice, and was definitely NOT one of the obvious abusers. Why shouldn't he assume that someone who hadn't been there as of yet wasn't quite the hardened level of 'take over the school/world/' as, say, a senior at that school.

Personally, I would suspect that the ones that survive to graduation aren't the flashy ones that stick out. Those get targeted first. The survivors would be 1) those that are strong enough to survive, and clever (not smart) enough to obtain the protections necessary to defend them from what they can't fight off, 2) Those smart AND clever enough to protect themselves from #1 above and others, 3) Those essential to #1 and #2, and being protected by both or either, 4) Those vicious enough to kill threats immediately, but smart enough to know who aren't threats, and 5) Those who manage to avoid being noticed as anything other than as furniture by 1-4. I'm sure that if you think back to school, there was always _someone_ who was there, but unless you had your attention drawn to them, you never realized they were around. Those are different from the 'targets'. Targets are obvious by their attempt to hide. Survivors are non-obvious because they blend in.

Those flashy ones with the whips and chains? Thug material. Those with abilities such as magic and alchemy? Henchmen. Those who would be considered bullies? Minions. Ones like Peter? After a couple of weeks, he (or she) will mostly be just there. (Hm. With the magical switch, there's likely to be some behavioural and psychological alterations because of the physiological alterations. Also, if it's a _good_ switch, then any errors in encoding would be corrected along the way. Not necessarily smarter, but maybe better memory, better hearing, better vision, etc. In other words, everything you'd need to move to the middle of the pack, rather than being the lead, hind, or fringes.