"Is anybody already sitting there?" The boy African-heritage asked, pointing across the table from Albert.

"No, have a seat." Albert smiled, "My name is Albert Anderson."

"Lee Jordan." The black youngster revealed a mouthful of white teeth, and after looking at the books on the table in surprise, he said seriously, "It feels like you're going to be sorted into Ravenclaw, and I've heard that most of the people who like to read will be sorted into Ravenclaw."

"As long as I don't sorted into Slytherin, I'm fine with the rest." Albert asked as he pulled a few chocolate flavoured sweets out of his pocket, "Would you like some candy?"

"Thanks, they taste good." Lee Jordan took one, plucking off the wrapper and throwing it into his mouth, "I like the chocolate flavoured ones."

"That's good, grab yourself some if you want." Albert placed various flavours of candy on the table, sharing food was an effective way to bring people closer together.

It was a trick he used time and time again in school.

"I think we should go to Gryffindor, I heard it's the best, Headmaster Dumbledore is from Gryffindor you know and he's the greatest wizard ever." Lee Jordan was very talkative, and kept on talking even though he had candy in his mouth.

However, his chatter was soon interrupted.

A pair of redheaded twins were knocked on the door.

"Would you guys mind squeezing in one more person?" One of the twins said coyly, "We're late, the other compartments are packed and the girls aren't welcoming us."

Without waiting for Albert to reply, the other twin spoke up, "I'm George, George Weasley."

"If I were you, I'd try to dry off." Lee Jordan kindly reminded, "I'm Lee Jordan."

"Albert Anderson." Albert closed the book and put it back in the trunk and pointed to the spot next to Lee Jordan.

"See you later George." The other of the twins turned and left.

In fact, the other of the twins returned soon after, bringing his own suitcase in tow.

There was naturally room for four people in the train's compartment, after all it was meant to be a six-person seat.

It was just that some students would be in the same compartment as their friends, and even if there was a spare seat, no one else would be welcomed in. This was what led to the delayed Weasley Twins not being able to find a seat.

"This is Fred, my twin brother." George introduced

"We could tell even if you hadn't said so." Lee Jordan said. "I can hardly tell which one of you is which, maybe you should mark yourselves so you can be told apart."

"Do you want some sweets?" Albert offered.

"Oh thanks, mum always hates it when we eat too much of this stuff." The twins took one each, opened the wrapper and popped it into their mouths.

"They tastes really good."

"This is your owl isn't it? It's so pretty." One of the twins tried to reach out and pet it, but gave up when Sheila gave him a hard stare, he didn't want to get pecked.

"It doesn't like strangers much." Albert explained casually, "But you could try feeding it some nuts and maybe it'll be willing to let you a pet it."

Lee Jordan tried, but it didn't work, Sheila simply ignored him and continued to rest with her eyes closed.

The train started up and began to slowly accelerate forward, pulling away from the station.

"How's the magic world?" Albert made a casual conversation, "You're all from the magic world, aren't you?"

"How did you know?" Lee Jordan was surprised.

"The clothes you are wearing, you are obviously not up to par." Albert said after pointing at the costumes on the three of them, "Ordinary people don't dress like this, only Wizards are ignorant of this, just like we don't understand Wizards."

''Impressive." Lee Jordan said with a thumbs up, "By the way, there seems to be something at the window."

Albert turned his head sideways and saw an owl by the window and hastily pulled it open to let the owl in.

It was a grey owl that came in and shook its body, splashing rainwater around.

Sheila gave a disgruntled hoot and jumped onto Albert's shoulder, glaring hard at the fellow who had taken her nuts uninvitedly.

"No need to be angry, it's just a bit of nuts, I'll have more for you when you're out." Albert looked at the owl that flew away and stroked Sheila's head soothingly.

"It strickes me that you don't seem like a muggleborn wizard at all." Lee Jordan muttered in a small voice, "Muggleborn wizards don't know nothing about this, can I see it?"

"Be my guest." Albert took Sheila off his shoulders, he didn't like an owl standing on his shoulders, the little guy still weighed a bit.

"What's the news?"

"Minister for Magic Millicent Bagnold has announced he's retiring after 1990." Lee Jordan said as he spread the paper out on the table, "Rumour has it that Headmaster Dumbledore will probably be the next Minister."

"My dad said that Headmaster Dumbledore would have been Minister for Magic a long time ago if he wanted to be." Fred clearly didn't believe that.

"Who do you think has a better chance?" George asked rhetorically, "Oh, the Daily Prophet is actually hosting a competition."

"I don't know, but I'm kind of interested in the competition." Albert, of course, knew who was going to be the next Minister, "If I want to enter the competition, how do I do it?"

Someone was giving away galleons, why not?

"Gambling is not a good idea, Albert." Lee Jordan said seriously.

"A small gamble won't hurt." Albert took out his wand and positioned it upright on the table, letting it fall to one side freely, explaining casually, "Ollivander said that my wand brings me luck, so I'm going to go with... well, Cornelius Fudge, and I'm picking that he's going to be the next Minister for Magic, a plausible early bet."

The other three people in the cubicle were dumbfounded, what kind of sloppy wager was this?

"You really want to place a bet like that?" Fred gulped, he thought this was ridiculous.

"I haven't decided yet, after all, I don't know much about the magical world." Albert would hate to lose his pocket money.

"No, a competition run by the Daily Prophet is quite reliable and there have been quite a few winners in the past. However, there are a full fifteen wizards favoured, so you really have to..." George pointed out, "Fudge has four times the odds, and isn't one of the most favoured."

"Of course, the favourite one usually doesn't make it, they usually are unfortunate ones who goes after, erm, attracts attention to themselves." Albert took the paper and studied the way to participate in the competition. Then took the quill pen from his own leather case and wrote his name on a piece of parchment, picking the contestants for the race along with the amount of money to be wagered, before pulling out his galleons and counting out 25.

Seeing Albert count out 25 galleons, the three of them couldn't help but gulp, this was a large amount of money.

This guy is really rich, it really made the three of them incomparably envious, when have they ever touched so many galleons. If their own pockets were even a galleon, it would make them smile for days.

Until Sheila grabbed the pouch and the envelope and disappeared into the rain, the three of them did not return to their senses.