Disclaimer: Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic belong to the estimable J.K. Rowling. Margaret Thatcher belongs to her equally estimable self.

Author's Note: I have never been to No. 10 Downing Street (or to England, for that matter), so I have no idea if the study in that eminent residence is anywhere near where I have, for dramatic purposes, put it. If not, I apologize. Also, I am aware that Fudge identifies the Prime Minister who pushed him out the window as a "he", but since that conflicts with the dating of the books (which in all other places fits perfectly into Muggle history), I must act on the assumption that this is a misprint that will be corrected in future editions.

"...I must say, you're taking it a lot better than your predecessor. She tried to throw me out the window, thought I was a hoax planted by the opposition." -Cornelius Fudge to John Major, 1991

Newly appointed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher felt a deep sense of satisfaction as she stepped into the study of No. 10 Downing Street. Finally, after all those years playing Gadfly-on-the-Body-Politic, the Conservative Party had come back into its own. It was a thing to make the heart glad – though, of course, it didn't mean a great deal unless the party could pull Britain out of the mire the Labourites had gotten it into. Still, she would start worrying about that tomorrow.

"Tonight," she whispered to herself, "we sleep the sleep of the just." She sank down into the chair behind the Prime Minister's desk – her desk, she reminded herself – and shut her eyes in serene contentment.

She remained in this position for all of three seconds. Then her reverie was disturbed by what sounded like a dry little cough.

"To the Prime Minister of Muggles," said an unpleasant, croaking sort of voice. "Urgent we meet. Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge."

Thatcher opened her eyes and glanced about the room, puzzled. There was no one there, yet the voice had seemed to be coming from inside the room; in fact, from…

She glanced at the far corner of the room, and was startled to find that a portrait of a squat, fat, rather ugly little man was apparently leaning forward and staring at her.

"To the Prime Minister of Muggles," it repeated. "Urgent we meet. Kindly respond immediately. Sincerely, Fudge."

Intrigued, Thatcher got up and walked over to the painting. She had been warned, of course, that outgoing Prime Ministers occasionally left little pranks to be discovered by incoming Prime Ministers of the opposite political persuasion, but she had never suspected that Callaghan had set up anything so elaborate as this.

She scrutinised the picture closely. Yes, it was certainly a first-class piece of work – cinematography of some sort, she supposed, but on a level she had never imagined possible. The thing was indistinguishable from a real painting in all respects – if she looked closely, she believed she could even make out individual brush-strokes – and yet there it was, moving under her gaze. Squirming under her gaze, as a matter of fact.

"To – the – Prime Minister – of – Muggles," the picture said yet again, spacing out its words as though it were rapidly losing its temper. "Urgent – we – meet. Kindly…"

"Yes, yes, all right," said Thatcher, barely suppressing a laugh. "Go ahead, James. Do whatever it was you were going to do."

The picture nodded curtly, and appeared to walk out of its frame. Thatcher wondered idly whether the effect had been achieved by animation, or whether an actual person had been somehow projected into the picture frame, but she had not come to any definite conclusions when she was distracted by a blaze of green flames appearing in the fireplace.

As she watched, a rather portly man – not quite as fat as the man in the picture, but still decidedly corpulent – seemed to materialise in the midst of the flames. He spun like a centrifuge for a few moments; then, apparently recovering his bearings, he leaped nimbly over the grate and stood in front of the Prime Minister.

Thatcher involuntarily took a step back, half expecting the man to say, "Who killed my sister? Who killed the Witch of the East?" In actuality, however, the first words out of the man's mouth were a good deal more tactful.

"Well, good evening, Prime Minister," he said with a thin smile, like one trying to be courteous despite being under a great deal of stress. "Or should it be 'Ministress', actually?"

Thatcher rolled her eyes. If she had had any doubts that this man came from Callaghan, that comment dispelled them; no fewer than four Labour MPs had made the same joke at her swearing-in. "'Minister' is fine, thank you, sir," she said.

"Well, I just thought I'd check," said the man. "We've had a few female Ministers ourselves, of course, but then we don't have the same difficulties on the subject as Muggles do. The wand is a great equaliser, you know. Upper-body strength doesn't mean so much when the only weapon you need is a stick of wood about yea long."

This meant absolutely nothing to Thatcher. She suspected that was Callaghan's plan, and she was dashed if she was going to let him fluster her. "Pardon me, sir," she said, "but you have the advantage of me. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."

"Oh, of course," said the man. "My apologies. Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic." And he extended his right hand.

This time Thatcher failed entirely to suppress her laughter, which Fudge seemed to find rather disconcerting. "What is it?" he asked.

"Cornelius Fudge?" Thatcher repeated. "This is supposed to be a name?"

Fudge frowned, and drew himself up to his full height (which, since he wasn't much taller than Thatcher herself, wasn't as effective a gesture as it might have been). "Certainly it is a name, Prime Minister," he said coolly. "And quite a respectable name, too. The Fudge family has been a significant force in the wizarding world since 1622."

"Is that a fact?" said Thatcher, still smiling broadly. "And what does the scion of this illustrious house want with a lowly shopkeeper's daughter?"

Fudge sighed, and began pacing abstractedly about the room. "Well, it's rather difficult to know where to begin," he said. "As I said, I am the Minister of Magic…"

"Really?" said Thatcher. "I didn't know we had one of those."

"Very few Muggles do," said Fudge. "The Ministry of Magic has always been a bit removed from the other branches of your government; I believe it was originally developed by one of the Scottish kings as a sort of liaison between himself and the wizarding world, but in the intervening centuries it's changed quite a bit, and now it's almost an independent governing body inside Britain. Even this business of my revealing myself to the Prime Minister is largely a meaningless formality."

"Thank you."

"Please don't misunderstand me," said Fudge hastily. "I have tremendous respect for the job your Parliament does, but… well, I mean to say, if a question arose about whether dragon-hunting ought to be made illegal in Wales, would your Department of Environment be competent to decide that?"

"Probably not," said Thatcher, who seriously doubted whether the Department of the Environment was competent to decide what it should have for breakfast in the morning.

"Well, there you are," said Fudge. "There must be a second government for all those sorts of matters that the Muggle government isn't equipped to handle – and the Ministry of Magic provides that government."

He had by this point wandered over to the window on the eastern side of the room, and, as he completed this sentence, he opened the window (letting in a chill blast of May-in-London air), leaned out of it, and sighed. "Unfortunately," he said, "there are some things even the Ministry of Magic isn't equipped to handle. This He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named business…" He shook his head, pulled a small, wooden stick out of his pocket, and began tapping it moodily against the side of the house.

And at the sight of his invitingly broad posterior, an idea exploded in Thatcher's mind. For some minutes now, she had been growing tired with this man's game – all his talk about wizards, and dragons, and the inadequacy of Muggle government. (She wasn't sure about that word "Muggle", but she suspected it was some sort of wordplay for Conservatives, possibly derived from "Mugwump".) At the same time, she hadn't been sure how to get him to leave without conceding that Callaghan had One-Upped her, which was scarcely an auspicious way to begin one's Prime Ministerial career.

Now, however, she suddenly saw the way clear. Fudge might end up a trifle bruised, but she doubted there would be any permanent injuries; they were only two stories up, after all.

Cautiously, so as not to give Fudge any reason to stir from his position at the window, she walked over to the eastern side of the room and stood behind him.

She cleared her throat, and Fudge turned his head. "Yes, Prime Minister?" he said.

"Mr Fudge, or whatever your real name is," said Thatcher, who had been working on this remark for the last five minutes, "when you get back to Callaghan, you may tell him that his fantasy Ministry proved quite effective – which is more than I can say for his real one."

"What?" Fudge frowned, and began to rise. Quickly, Thatcher grabbed him by the legs, shoved him head over heels, and sent him tumbling out the window.

And if she had then walked away from the window and gone to bed, as was her first impulse, she might have spent the rest of her life quite comfortably believing that there were no wizards living in Great Britain, that the Ministry of Magic had been a figment of James Callaghan's overactive imagination, and that no government office anywhere was seriously concerned with the question of dragon-hunting in Wales. Instead, however, she leaned out the window to make sure that Fudge was not seriously wounded – and what she saw in the next two seconds made all those beliefs quite impossible to sustain.

For in those two seconds, she saw Cornelius Fudge point his stick at the onrushing pavement and shout, "Denverianum!" – and then she saw an enormous feather-bed materialise on the ground just in time for Fudge to tumble into it.

She stared, wide-eyed. She could imagine Callaghan setting up a talking portrait, and she could imagine him somehow rigging a way for a man to appear in a fireplace to the accompaniment of green flames – but was it possible that he could arrange for a feather-bed to appear out of nowhere, when he hadn't even known that it would be necessary for one to do so?

No. It was not possible.

But that meant…

"Good Lord," she whispered.

"Yes, stimulating, isn't it?" said Fudge, with (oddly) the first approach to real cheerfulness he had made since Thatcher had met him.

"I'm terribly sorry," said Thatcher. "You see, I thought you were…"

"Yes, I can imagine," said Fudge. "I trust you have no objection to my coming back up to finish our little conversation?"

"Oh, no, of course not," said Thatcher. "If you wait, I can tie some bed-sheets together…"

"Oh, that won't be necessary," said Fudge. He pointed his stick (his wand, Thatcher realised, that's what it is, his wand) at the window and said, "Incarcerous!" A tangle of ropes emerged from the end of the wand and tied themselves to the window-sill, and Fudge began to slowly shinny up them.

He had gotten about halfway up when two grey-haired Civil Servants, out for their evening constitutional, happened to pass by – or, rather, not strictly pass by, but stop in their tracks and turn to stare at the remarkable spectacle presenting itself outside No. 10. Fudge gave them a rather weak smile and a wave, and turned back to the task at hand.

For about two minutes after he had clambered through, and Thatcher had shut, the window, the two Civil Servants remained standing motionless in front of the Prime Minister's residence. Then, with an air of vindication, the taller of the two turned to the other.

"There, you see?" he said. "I told you things would start going wonky once the Tories got in power."