Chapter 71 - 72

"Wait a minute Minister!" said Harry hurriedly, "What about my punishment?"

"Punishment?!" Fudge winked, "As if we would do such a thing."

"I broke the law that decrees that minors may not use magic outside school!"

"Oh, dear child, we don't punish people for such a small trifle! It was an accident; we don't send people to Azkaban for inflating their aunts!"

These words confused Harry somewhat, it was completely different compared to his past dealings with the Ministry of Magic.

"Last year, a house elf gave my cousin Dudley a tail and I received a warning that said if I do any more magic Hogwarts will expel me!"

It was an excellent question; Evan was happy to see Fudge a little embarrassed.

"Things often change, Harry! With the present circumstance, we must consider your...Well, you don't want to be expelled, do you?"

"Of course not," answered Harry hastily.

When he heard Harry's word, Fudge laughed, he shouted and told the landlord to give Harry a room and repeatedly ordered Harry to stay in Diagon Ally for the next two weeks and not to go wandering about in Muggle London.

He then put his robe on and was ready to leave.

"Minister, have you caught Sirius Black yet?"

When he heard Harry's words, Fudge's fingers twitched.

"Oh, you heard about it! Well, it's only a matter of time before we catch him. The Dementors of Azkaban have never failed before and they are furious this time." said Fudge with a slightly trembling voice.

"Goodbye, Harry," said Fudge as he shook his hands.

Harry asked if he could sign his permission form. Fudge was slightly uncomfortable.

He rejected Harry, with a more unnatural expression on his face, Evan saw him quietly wiping away some cold sweat from his forehead as he turned and left.

When Evan and Harry finished their pastries, they followed Tom up a beautifully built wooden staircase and came to a door with a brass number plate indicating it was room eleven, Tom opened the door. There was a big comfortable bed in the room, a few shiny oak furniture, a crackling fire in the fireplace, and Hedwig standing on a wardrobe.

"Hedwig!" exclaimed Harry, "There you are, did you send that letter to Evan, what did he say?"

When he had left the Dursleys, he hastily wrote a letter to Evan, it was still with Hedwig though.

Harry was suddenly a little worried, Hedwig couldn't find Evan, did some kind of accident occur.

As he stood there a little puzzled, Hedwig flew to the black cat that had been following him.

Evan jumped onto the bed and saw Hedwig looking at him, those amber eyes where full of vigilance, Evan gestured to say hello and the owl dropped the parchment in front of him.

It's strange that a cat is reading a letter.

Harry sat down on the bed while looking at Evan absentmindedly.

He couldn't believe he had only been away from Privet Drive for only a few hours, he had so much to do, he hadn't been expelled and for two weeks he is free from the Dursleys.

But why didn't Evan write to him, or did he go abroad like Hermione and Ron. So, is that why Hedwig couldn't deliver the letter to him?

And the sudden appearance of the black cat with an appearance similar to Evan's.

Harry turned over and stretched out his hand to hold the cat but Evan dodged and looked at Harry with discontent. Harry never knew a cat could have such a human expression; it was really strange.

Then he suddenly thought he didn't have anything to call it if he intended to raise it then should he give the cat a name?!

Harry thought of a lot of names while looking out the window at the sunrise.

The next day when Harry woke up, he felt something on him, he opened his eyes and saw it was Evan.

It startled him, he immediately jumped up.

"Evan, Evan, wake up!" Harry shook the sleeping Evan, "When did you get here, did you see the letter I wrote you and how did you get into my room?"

"Good morning, Harry!"

Evan rubbed his eyes, he was now back to his original form, his mana has been fully restored, his mana was slightly larger now too.

Seeing Harry staring at him, he hurried to tell him what had happened, he was now an Animagus, how he was attacked by a black dog in the street. But he left out that the black dog was Sirius Black.

"You say that the black cat was your Animagus form? No Wonder I felt it was a little weird." said Harry, "A normal cat won't eat chocolate or pastries, right?"

"Yeah." nodded Evan as he turned into a black cat and back again.

"I should have known, you are just like Professor McGonagall, what was the spell called again?" said Harry as he looked at Evan with envy.

"Animagus and I hope you will help me keep it a secret," said Evan

"No problem but how did you do it, Professor McGonagall said it was a very complex and dangerous spell?"

"I got a little help from Tom and Salazar Slytherin," said Evan as he sat up, "And if you want to learn it I can teach you but the main problem is the accumulation of mana so if there are no accidents you'll probably be able to learn this spell in a few years."

Next, Evan and Harry talked a little more about Animagi.

Then the two people went downstairs to eat breakfast, he then called for the house elf Dobby.

After a whole night of looking for Evan, Dobby looked horrified, his fingers were covered with bandages from punishing himself, he wept for a while in front of the two people which made Evan feel terrible.

Evan consoled Dobby for a while and let him go back to pack Evan's bags.

He went out and made a phone call to his mother, telling her that he would live in Diagon Alley for the next two weeks until school began so she didn't have to worry. Mrs. Mason argued with him but she finally reluctantly agreed to his request.

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In this way, Evan and Harry lived in the Leaky Cauldron for the two remaining weeks of summer vacation.

Evan had more to do now since Harry was so excited.

In the next few days, he visited almost every magic shop in Diagon Alley. He persuaded the businesses to advertise the newspaper, thanks to the Hogwarts' Magic gradually increasing sales, many businesses were willing to do so, this gave Evan more advertisers.

Evan increased his savings a little now, he bought a lot of thing for himself such as potions materials that far exceed what a young wizard should have.

Last year when he was preparing the Polyjuice potion, the book that recorded the formula had many practical potions that improved your combat ability which is very helpful. If you wanted to buy the finished product it would cost a ton of galleons, it is more cost effective to make your own.

In addition, he bought a fascinating real-time constellation model.

With it, he didn't' have to go to astronomy class anymore, Evan was fed up of freezing every Wednesday night in the astronomy tower, it didn't help that he was afraid of heights.

He then went with Harry to buy some things on his school supply list.

They went to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions first to buy a new robe; the two people had just come out of the shop and they saw a crowd surrounding another shop.

They went up to see what all the commotion was about, Evan noticed it was Quality Quidditch Supplies, it had a beautifully crafted broomstick in the shop's window.

"The firebolt, it was the current best broom on the market! The broom is made from ebony wood, has birch or hazel twigs, and has golden numbers engraved on it."

Evan only glanced at it for a moment without showing a bit of interest but Harry almost got so close that his face was almost touching the glass.

"Come on Harry you already have a broom so you don't need to buy a new one," said Evan, he knew Sirius would give Harry one for a Christmas present this year since his current one will break.

"But this is the firebolt, it is the fastest broomstick in the world."

"But it is also the most expensive!"

Harry nodded in agreement, he looked at the label that says the price and it says it is not negotiable, he couldn't imagine how much it was, there is one thing to be sure of, he might not be able to afford it.

It took a lot of effort to pull Harry away if he would have left him, he would have stayed there all day staring at the broom.

After leaving Quality Quidditch Supplies, they went to Flourish & Blotts to buy new textbooks.

He needs a new defence against the dark arts book while Harry needs a book for the care of magical creatures and divination.

As soon as they entered Flourish & Blotts, the bookstore was a mess, the original bookshelves were replaced by a few large iron cages, which probably contain around two hundred Monster books of monsters.

These books were locked up together, they were fighting and biting each other, broken pages were flying everywhere.

"Are you Hogwarts students? Are you here to buy a new book?" the manager greeted them impatiently when he saw Evan, he squeezed out a smile, "Oh, it's you, Mr. Mason, what book do you need?"

In a single year, Evan bought over two hundred magical books from Flourish & Blotts which made him the most popular customer.

"Well what are these books about?" said Evan as he pointed at the iron cages.

"Forget about them, these monster books are horrible. I have never seen such a horrible book in my life they are worse than the invisible book of invisibility. I have been bitten five times this morning."

When his voice fell, two monster books ganged up on another, the resulting force tore it apart.

"No! Stop it, stop it!" the manager yelled, he stretched a stick through the iron bars and shouted, "I will never order these books again, never! It is a nightmare, I want to know which idiot choose this book for a textbook, if I could I would kill him."

When he heard his words, Harry acted like he didn't know anything.

Hagrid had given him a copy of the book the other day which gave him a sense of unease, he knew Hagrid must have assigned the book as a textbook. No other professor would do it except for Hagrid.

Evan seeing how the manager was struggling decided to tell him how to tame the book, he said, "It is actually pretty simple to deal with these books, just stroke the spine and they'll calm down!"

"What?!" exclaimed the manager.

Evan motioned the other to take out a book from the cage, the book tried to bite but Evan gently stroked the spine, the book shook and calmed down.

"God, Mr. Mason, that is unbelievable!" exclaimed the manager, "You saved me a ton of trouble!"

The manager then told several employees to take out the monster book of monsters, stroke there spins like Evan had shown him and tie them together with a rope.

The manager gave Evan and Harry the best discount possible.

Evan was blunt, he took a few books including a few for the third year.

The second-year curriculum is exactly the same as the first year, and most of the material has already been completed by Evan. Going to class would be a complete waste of time so he decided to attend third-year classes which Professor McGonagall agreed to at the end of last year.

Harry bought Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 by Miranda Goshawk, and Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky.

But he didn't read his new books, his gaze fell on another book, Death Omens: What to Do When You Know the Worst is Coming.

"Oh, if I were you, I would not read a book like that." said the manager of the bookstore when he saw Harry's gaze fall on the book, "When you read this book, you start to see signs of death everywhere, the book will scare you to death."

Despite the managers warning Harry still stared at the cover of the book: there was a dog on the cover, it was almost as big as a bear with two big eyes. The dog looked strangely familiar.

Harry pulled Evan and motioned him to look at the cover.

Evan glanced at the cover, the black dog did look like Sirius Black, he looked like the harbinger of death, it was no wonder Harry felt a little uneasy.

"Evan didn't you say that night you…"

"I think it was just a stray dog!" Evan thought about when he was chased by Sirius and ran through several streets, Evan added, "Yes, a very annoying stray dog."