"There you are, Harry," said a voice as the hood of his cloak fell down.

Before Harry could turn, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

At the same time, Stan shouted,
"Blimey! Ern, come 'ere! Come 'ere!"

Harry looked up at the owner of the hand on his shoulder and felt a bucketful of ice cascade into
his stomach — he had walked right into Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself.

Stan leapt onto the pavement beside them.
"What didja call Ail, Minister?" he said excitedly.

Fudge, a portly little man in a long, pinstriped cloak, looked cold and exhausted.

"Ail?" he repeated, frowning. "This is Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter! But why weren'tcha removing your cloak? We woulda given you slightly more comfy sheets!", Stan exclaimed.

He ignored Stan though, his eyes focused of Fudge.

"Ern! Ern! Guess 'oo Ail is, Ern! 'E's 'Arry Potter! I can see 'is scar!"

"Yes," said Fudge testily, "well, I'm very glad the Knight Bus picked Harry up, but he and I need
to step inside the Leaky Cauldron now…"

Fudge increased the pressure on Harry's shoulder, and Harry found himself being steered inside
the pub.

A stooping figure bearing a lantern appeared through the door behind the bar. It was
Tom, the wizened, toothless landlord.

"You've got him, Minister!" said Tom. "Will you be wanting anything? Beer? Brandy?"

"Perhaps a pot of tea," said Fudge, who still hadn't let go of Harry.

There was a loud scraping and puffing from behind them, and Stan and Ern appeared, carrying
Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage and looking around excitedly.

"Ow come you di'n't tell us 'oo you are, eh, Ail?" said Stan, beaming at Harry, while Ernie's owlish face peered interestedly over Stan's shoulder.

"And a private parlour, please, Tom," said Fudge pointedly.

"Bye," Harry said miserably to Stan and Ernie as Tom beckoned Fudge toward the passage that led
from the bar.

"Bye, Ail!" called Stan.

Fudge marched Harry along the narrow passage after Tom's lantern, and then into a small parlour.

Tom clicked his fingers, a fire burst into life in the grate, and he bowed himself out of the room.

"Sit down, Harry," said Fudge, indicating a chair by the fire.

Harry sat down, feeling goose bumps rising up his arms despite the glow of the fire.

Fudge took off his pinstriped cloak and tossed it aside, then hitched up the trousers of his bottle-green suit and sat down opposite Harry.

"I am Cornelius Fudge, Harry. The Minister of Magic."

Harry already knew this, of course; he had seen Fudge once before, but as he had been under a disillusionment charm at the time, Fudge wasn't to know that.

"Running away from your relatives, during these times especially, what it we hadn't found you..."

"What do you mean by these times", Harry interrupted Fudge's mumbling, causing him to blink at the thirteen year old.

"Oh, nothing, nothing you need to worry about", Fudge nervously covered up his little slip.

"Well, Tom here will show you your room. But Harry, you need to promise me that you won't stray away from the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley.

Well I better take my leave now", Fudge hurried out.

Harry frowned. Why did Fudge seem so, jumbled up and tired. Well, it was as though there were new mysteries for him to solve every year.

Tom guided him to his room, where, sitting on the window sill was,

"Hedwig!", Harry exclaimed.

"A smart owl you've got there. Arrived five minutes after you did", Tom said before striding out, leaving him to his lonesome.

Well, Hedwig was there so he wasn't exactly alone but anyway.