Morning sunlight streamed through the grimy windows into the reopened Leaky Cauldron. There were probably few customers in the tavern, leaving Old Tom with nothing to do behind the bar. He casually flipped through the newspaper while muttering about how the Leaky Cauldron's business was getting harder and harder to run.
Ever since the last Wizarding War, the tavern had clearly had fewer customers. Old Tom had always suspected that more than half of them had died in that war.
That suspicion was not without reason.
Most of the people willing to stay in the tavern drinking late into the night were hardly respectable folk, and it was said that the bodies of the unlucky ones killed in the last Hogwarts battle had piled up like a small mountain.
If this kept up, the Leaky Cauldron, which had only just reopened with great difficulty, would soon have to close down again.
Just as Old Tom was worrying about how to increase the Leaky Cauldron's revenue, the few sounds in the tavern suddenly vanished, as though someone had cast a spell to seize everyone by the throat and leave them unable to make a sound.
When Old Tom looked up, he finally understood why.
Three beautiful young women who looked utterly out of place in the Leaky Cauldron seemed to have wandered in by accident, instantly drawing every customer's attention.
Everyone loved beautiful things, yet no one dared go up and strike up a conversation. Even Old Tom's usual greeting stuck in his throat as he watched them pass through the Leaky Cauldron toward the small courtyard leading to Diagon Alley.
"I'd bet everything I own that they're foreign witches," a wizard eating breakfast suddenly said.
His companion scoffed. "How much is everything you own even worth?"
"If they were British