For Cornelius Fudge, today was undoubtedly a terrible day.
Not only did he have to present Wizet Lovegood with the Order of Merlin, First Class, he also had to personally announce him as the Wizengamot's England Youth Representative.
Or rather, ever since returning from the island of Azkaban, every single day had been terrible.
It could be traced back even further. Things had started going wrong after the Most Promising Newcomer Award ceremony for Transfiguration Today.
First, Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban had left him utterly overwhelmed.
It would have been bad enough if the Dementors he sent out to hunt him had made no progress, but Sirius Black had actually attacked them, causing their numbers to dwindle.
To maintain the size of the search party, he had painstakingly used the Daily Prophet to make his "breeding" of Dementors seem justified—only for another unexpected incident to occur.
Sirius Black had actually been framed!
Then something even more unfortunate happened: Peter Pettigrew, who was supposed to have "died gloriously," appeared before him and a group of professors.
And those professors were not all from Hogwarts. A large number of them came from distant Uagadou in Africa.
Even if the Hogwarts professors could keep their mouths shut, those professors from Africa would not indulge England's Minister for Magic.
Once the truth had come to light, he had given Peter Pettigrew a chance to escape. As long as Pettigrew disappeared, without any crucial evidence, there would be plenty of room to maneuver.
Unfortunately, even when given the opportunity, Peter Pettigrew had proved useless. With Wizet Lovegood's help, he had been captured again.
From then on, every day became even worse. He received letters of complaint and petitions of protest almost daily.
The All-England Wizarding Duelling Tournament had also failed to proceed smoothly, suffering